Catholic Worker Martin Gugino, 75-year-old protester pushed in Buffalo, has brain injury and will start physical therapy

Sarah Taddeo, New York State Team,
USA TODAY•June 11, 2020


Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old man who fell to the ground after being pushed by Buffalo police officers last week, sustained a brain injury related to the incident, according to his attorney.

Gugino, of Amherst, New York, had been in serious but stable condition before his condition was upgraded to fair earlier this week. He was moved to Erie County Medical Center’s rehabilitation floor.

On Thursday, his lawyer, Kelly Zarcone, said Gugino’s brain is injured and he has started physical therapy.

“Martin is a soft spoken but thoughtful and principled man,” Zarcone said in an emailed statement. “As heartbreaking as it is, his brain is injured and he is well aware of that now.”
  

Martin Gugino shown in June 2019 at at Buffalo Youth Climate Strike rally.

Given this development, he does not plan to do media interviews, she said.

“He feels encouraged and uplifted by the outpouring of support which he has received from so many people all over the globe. It helps,” Zarcone’s statement continued. “He is looking forward to healing and determining what his 'new normal' might look like.”

Gugino was one of several dozen individuals standing in front of Buffalo City Hall at about 8:10 p.m. on June 4, after a peaceful protest held in the area had dispersed.

Longtime activist: Elderly Buffalo man pushed to ground by police 'comes from a peace tradition'

'Black Lives Matter': Amherst man pushed by police responds after Trump tweet

In a bystander video, Gugino can be seen approaching a group of police, and within seconds, he was shoved backward. He stumbled and fell back, his head whacking the sidewalk. Blood could be seen running from his ear and pooling near his head as police called emergency personnel.

The incident stirred a powerful reaction from citizens across Buffalo and the nation, and within days, two Buffalo police officers had been charged with second-degree assault, a felony.

President Donald Trump tweeted about the incident on Tuesday, theorizing that Gugino could be an "antifa provocateur" and that the whole interaction could have been a setup.

Gugino is a longtime activist and has taken up a variety of causes, including prisoner rights.

“He’s the victim of police brutality,” said Keith Giles, program director at Peace Catalyst International, a nonprofit based in Houston, Texas, and a longtime friend of Gugino’s.

Gugino does “want people to think,” and he is a bit of a jokester, Giles said. He recalled a time when Gugino, while participating in a donation drive in southern California for soldiers overseas, brought small bottles of whisky and other alcohol to contribute.

Martin Gugino, left, listens at a talk by West Cosgrove, of Rural & Migrant Ministry in Feb. 2019.

“I said, ‘Martin, what are you doing?’” Giles said with a laugh. “And he said, ‘This is what they want!’ and I said, ‘We can’t send these to them from the church.’”

“He tried to make a point — that was who he was,” Giles said. But he didn’t go looking for trouble, and nothing would have justified what happened to him, Giles said.

The impact of the incident was made worse by the numerous theories that arose following Gugino’s injury, with social media users calling him a fake and accusing him of trying to disrupt police communications or using a tube of fake blood under his mask, Giles said.

“Almost immediately people would have noticed (a tube) when they looked at it . . . No one would have fallen for that,” said Giles. “This is the reason why I had to speak. I want people to know he’s a real person.”

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Sarah Taddeo is the consumer watchdog reporter for USA Today Network's New York State Team. She investigates stories about your consumer rights, including scams, negligent landlords, safety issues and unemployment troubles.

This article originally appeared on New York State Team: Buffalo protester Martin Gugino, pushed by police, has brain injury

Teachers across America are talking about racial injustice with 'fed up' students: 'They're sick of living in a world that's trash'


Kristyn Martin June 11, 2020

Teachers across the country are engaging with their students about issues of race and justice in the wake of the death of George Floyd. (Photo illustration by Nathalie Cruz, Yahoo Life)

Teachers across the country are having emotional, candid and sometimes imperfect conversations with their students about the death of George Floyd, racial inequity, police brutality and protests.

In Seattle, the first thing teacher Evin Shinn did when he heard about Floyd’s death was send a text out to all of his students.

“I said, ‘Hey, all, I just wanted to acknowledge the trash that is happening in our nation with regards to black lives. If we were in class, we’d debrief it and talk about it. It’s hard, real hard sometimes. If you want to chat, feel free to hit me up.”

Evin Shinn, an 11th-grade U.S. history and language arts teacher at Cleveland High School in Seattle, sent this text to his students after the death of George Floyd. (Photo Illustration: Nathalie Cruz, Yahoo Life)

In Chicago, Gregory Michie, a middle school social studies, language arts and media studies teacher at Seward Elementary, presented a series of slides to his students after Floyd’s death, reading the names and showing the faces of black lives taken at the hands of police brutality to help his students understand the anger behind the protests happening in their neighborhoods. “We also use the Martin Luther King Jr. quote about ‘a riot is the language of the unheard’ and had them think about what that means. So I think those things are helpful in putting it into a larger context.”

In New York City, Carlos Romero, principal at PS 126 Manhattan School of Technology, which teaches pre-K through eighth grade, says teachers, psychologists and counselors hold daily Zoom meetings with students to talk about the issues around Floyd’s death and to provide resources on how to take action against racial injustice. They also encourage the older kids to write their thoughts about the death of George Floyd in a blog. One student, Jared, wrote: “The media doesn’t seem to pay attention to protesters when it is done peacefully. They are now paying attention because their property is being damaged. It may be chaotic, but it is the only way for them to have change. At least that’s how protesters see it.”

“We talked a little bit about truly listening to the message and listening to the different perspectives,” says Romero. “And for them to be able to come up with their own perspective based on what they’re hearing.”

“How do you create a welcoming and safe environment? How do you deal with the anxiety that kids have? How do we make sure we meet their needs? How do we create more equity?’ says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which represents 1.7 million teachers across the county. “The dilemma is, this is not the first time we have focused on these issues, but it may be a tipping point in America that enables real change.”

A protester in Times Square in Manhattan. (Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images)

The AFT, along with the National Education Association (NEA), issued a joint letter earlier this week supporting students across the country who are protesting police brutality and the death of George Floyd.

“How many times has a kid died at the hands of either a racist or police officers who are racist?” says Weingarten.

For Shinn, an 11th-grade U.S. history and language arts teacher at Cleveland High School in Seattle — a school with predominantly students of color— this was the first of a series of texts, letters and virtual meetups to engage his students about these issues.

“As a black educator, to quote [the movie] Network, ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore,’” he says. “There’s so much rage. And so often in my classroom, I feel the need to temper that. I don’t want students to see that part of me, because I also want them to see that there are other ways to be angry.”

Shinn followed up with individual texts to his black students acknowledging that it’s a scary time, followed by a letter to all of the students and parents in his school.

A sample of teacher Evin Shinn’s text exchanges with his black students in the wake of the death of George Floyd. (Photo Illustration: Nathalie Cruz, Yahoo Life)

“As a teacher, we don’t really know what to say. You don’t want to say everything’s going to be OK, because it’s not, right? We want to be honest and we want to be truthful to them about what’s actually happening.”

In his letter to students and parents, Shinn addressed the pain and rage he was feeling and acknowledged that a revolution is taking place. “I’m telling students to look around and embrace what’s happening in the world right now. We are living in history.”

Shinn says his school is known in Seattle as being a leader in social justice education and points to the city’s racial equity team in some schools, which works with teachers to drive the conversation about race. Shinn says the team helps teachers answer critical questions: “How are we going to teach teachers how to talk about race? How are we going to ensure that black and brown students are not being left behind?”

School districts and teachers are grappling with those questions about race across America.

District leaders from across the country have expressed remorse over the death of George Floyd, including superintendents from Broward County, Fla., and Milwaukee. Some have even condemned police brutality, including superintendents in Los Angeles and St. Paul, Minn.

But many districts don’t have clear plans about how to address and discuss race in their classrooms. Students are demanding action. Some are circulating petitions asking for anti-racist curriculum be added in schools.

In response to Floyd’s death, Chicago Public Schools sent an 11-page document to teachers called “Say Their Names” that included guidance for talking with students about racism, police brutality and activism.

Michie, who teaches in a Chicago public school with mostly Latinx students, applauds the effort but believes much more needs to be done. “I think it’s great that they did it, but I think we need a whole lot more,” he says. “I know there hasn’t been time yet, but I just felt that in Chicago Public Schools — and all school districts — this has got to be a sustained and deep commitment.”

Michie, who is white, says white teachers also need to step up during this time and not place the burden for curriculum around race and racism on black and brown teachers.

“I’ve sensed ... a hesitancy on the part of white teachers about addressing these issues,” he says. “For things to really change, white teachers have to also see it as central and drop the defensiveness and realize we have a lot to learn. I mean, if 90 percent of the students are black and brown, how can we not make issues of race and racism and racial justice central?”

White teachers, the curriculum is George Floyd and anti-racism. It's not the job of Black teachers to carry this weight. It is on us--this week & always. If we are not actively teaching against racism, if that is not a central thread in our curriculum, we are part of the problem.
— Gregory Michie (@GregoryMichie) May 31, 2020

Eighty percent of public school teachers across the country are white, according to 2015-2016 data from the National Center for Education Statistics, a number that has only reduced 3 percent in more than a decade.

“In general, we need to stop centering on whiteness ... and privileges of white people in education,” says Joe Truss, principal for the Visitación Valley Middle School in San Francisco, which serves about 400 students in sixth through eighth grades, many of whom he says are black, brown and immigrant. “Which also means moving the folks who have been marginalized and oppressed to the center of everything: the center of the curriculum, hearing their stories, the center of the pedagogy, learning and teaching how folks of color learn ... and having relationships that actually center kids of color.”

He says the current call to action for teachers to talk to students about race is important, but it’s an integral part of the curriculum at his middle school.



White people: We need white folks to use their white privilege and oftentimes their money to occupy all lanes of antiracist work. Don’t choose. White folk, have multiple cars. Caravavan towards racial justice. https://t.co/NFGXAPUA3Y

— Joe Truss - Culturally Responsive Leadership (@trussleadership) June 6, 2020

“I don’t think we necessarily think about the perpetual experience of being discriminated against or being bombarded with images or messages that, if you are a black person, you are less than a white person,” he says. “That’s a perpetual, ongoing routine trauma that people of color — black people — experience.”

As a result, Truss says, his teachers take a trauma-sensitive approach with their students because of the difficult experiences they are having in their neighborhoods and communities, including the death of George Floyd.

“When you see someone taking someone’s life in broad daylight, and no one is doing anything about it ... you’re being told your place in society,” he says. “So the best thing we can do as teachers ... is you’ve got to build the kid up. If they have some sort of understanding of what that is so that they can hold both things to be true: this is the way it is, but this isn’t the way it has to be. And you could do something about it and you should, as soon as you can and any way you can.”

A letter written by Evin Shinn to his 11th-grade students, who are primarily black. (Photo illustration: Nathalie Cruz, Yahoo Life)

And while ethnic studies, social-emotional learning and culturally responsive teaching aren’t new to his school, he understands why so many teachers across the country are now looking for more information on how to talk to their students about race.

Truss, who is also a consultant, says his latest virtual course for teachers, “Dismantling White Supremacy Culture in Schools,” has seen a dramatic increase in interest, with more than 700 people signing up. “I have done them in the past, and there was nowhere near the response that it’s getting right now,” he says.

He has also compiled a list of books around anti-racism to help teachers learn.

“It’s life’s work. It’s not about a moment. It’s not about doing the right thing, right now. It’s not about a 50-minute racial sensitivity course now that someone’s been killed again. It’s about asking the question of why it’s happening and what conditions would have to be present for it not to happen,” he says.

“It’s your responsibility as a teacher to learn about [black] culture, to learn about the history so that you can fairly reflect that to the boys and girls,” says Waynel Sexton, a retired elementary school teacher and consultant in Houston who was also George Floyd’s second-grade teacher. “We can’t just continue to present white history as United States history, we have to include everyone.”

When Sexton began teaching in 1970 at Frederick Douglass Elementary School, a black school, Houston’s school system was not yet desegregated.

“The integration system at that time was based on what was called the Singleton ratio, where teachers were integrated according to certain percentages in certain schools. And so sadly, a lot of brand-new white teachers went to many inner-city schools and experienced black teachers were sent out to white schools,” she says.

Sexton describes an environment where black and white teachers had intense conversations to bridge divides and form alliances. And, she says, it was a time when she had many conversations about race with her own students.

“I can remember talking with my boys and girls about Jim Crow,” she says. “And, because I’m Caucasian, I wanted them to know that we could talk about that together. And I think that sets a pattern for future conversations.”

While she only had Floyd as a student for one year in the second grade, she kept a paper he wrote in her class about famous Americans and his desire to be a Supreme Court judge working in the field of justice.

“He’s certainly famous and he’s certainly advancing the cause of justice, not in the way that we would have wanted it to happen, not in a way that we could have ever imagined that it would happen,” she says.

Waynel Sexton, a retired elementary school teacher and consultant in Houston, was also George Floyd’s second-grade teacher, who was then called “Perry.” She kept a paper he wrote in her class about famous Americans and his desire to be a Supreme Court judge working in the field of justice. (Courtesy of Waynel Sexton)More

Michie says he believes a key element to helping students understand and process racial inequality is to teach about the history of racism in conjunction with inequality happening today. “If we tag back and forth between what’s happened in history and what’s going on now, and specifically ask students to make connections, I think that not only the history becomes more alive to them, but they see how the inequities and injustices today are connected to things that happened in generations past in important ways.”

Shinn says part of the education happening in his classroom now involves talking not just about the protests but about the policies that need to change as well. He says he recently showed students how to find their city councilperson and write a letter. “I literally just shared my screen with them and ... I typed up a very quick email to my city councilperson about how I felt about what’s going on with the Seattle Police Department. And I just hit send,” he says. “I think that right now students want to feel agency. They want to feel like they have the chance. And we should equip them as teachers, for them to feel that agency to make them feel like they are doing something different.”

Shinn says he believes the more agency he can teach his students, the better chance they have to change the world and the landscape of politics in America.

“They are going to be the reason that Congress changes. They are going to be the reason that we’re going to see a new City Council taking harder stances on things,” he says. “Students are fed up. Students have had it. They’re done. They’re sick of living in a world that’s trash. They want something better, and they deserve something better. And that’s what they’re going to get.”

Read more from Yahoo Life

How the black community can prioritize mental health in the wake of George Floyd's killing, protests and ongoing racist violence

Mom photographed breastfeeding at George Floyd protest says image has given her a bigger platform to 'advocate for police reform'

#SayHerName: Tepid response to Breonna Taylor's killing has many wondering which black lives matter?

Tightrope act for Canada circus students facing unemployment

Anne-Sophie THILL, AFP•June 11, 2020



Canada's Cirque du Soleil, seen during a performance in January 2020, had to cancel 44 productions worldwide and lay off 4,679 acrobats and technicians
Canada's Cirque du Soleil, seen during a performance in January 2020, had to cancel 44 productions worldwide and lay off 4,679 acrobats and technicians (AFP Photo/Gints Ivuskans)

Montreal (AFP) - Students soon to graduate from Montreal's esteemed National Circus School expect months of uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has closed shows around the world and thrust their career prospects into doubt.

Head upside down, feet pointed to the sky, Antino Pansa balances on a slack wire strung in the courtyard of his apartment building, a few feet off the ground.

The makeshift installation allows the 20-year-old circus student to stay in shape despite the school's closure in early March, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Several months without training is a lot," Pansa tells AFP. "My only solution was to install a wire between two trees."

"It creates a lot of constraints: I can't do all my tricks on it," he says, complaining of too many trees, a nearby staircase and other physical obstacles.

Pansa had expected to join a circus troupe in Switzerland for a six-month gig upon graduating at the end of June, but the offer was postponed.

In the meantime he has been forced to take a job as a security guard.

- Sad clown, brave face -

The pandemic has similarly upset career plans of 60 other students at this internationally renowned school.

At the end of three years of study, each normally puts on a show in front of headhunters from around the world scouting new circus talent.

But the pandemic has forced the cancellation of the performances.

"It's unfortunate that we had to cancel, it's a big loss, because it serves as a launching pad for graduates to enter the labor force," said school director Eric Langlois.

Joaquim Verrier puts on a brave face, but says: "It is also very demoralizing to say that the culture and entertainment industry is at a standstill."

Going from 15 hours of training per week at school to three or four hours in his apartment, the cigar box juggler says it is "very difficult to stay motivated," but he considers himself "lucky" at least to be able to continue practicing.

Others cannot and worry about it. "I worked so much, so much, it's hard to get to my level," says tightrope walker Joel Malkoff.

The 25-year-old American, who used to train every day, is alarmed by the idea that he may not be able to practice his discipline again on a professional level: "That's what scares me."

- Circus is not hiring -

Cirque du Soleil, Canada's cultural flagship on the brink of bankruptcy, had to cancel 44 productions worldwide and lay off 4,679 acrobats and technicians, amounting to 95 percent of its workforce.

Aware of the grim job market, the National Circus School has implemented entrepreneurship training aimed at supporting students.

While 95 percent of its graduates normally find work at circus companies, in cabarets or aboard cruise ships, its director says nobody is hiring at the moment and the sector is not expected to bounce back for another 18 to 24 months.

This year's graduating class of 21 students is facing a total loss, Langlois said.

According to an April survey of 561 circus workers and organizations, 66 percent expect to have to retrain in another field.

At 23, Verrier brushes aside the idea of letting go of his passion.

"I trained for five years to become a circus artist and I would find it a shame not to be one," he said, refusing to let the pandemic "stop me from following my dream."

The extra $600 Americans get in weekly unemployment benefits ends next month — here’s what lawmakers are proposing to replace it

Published: June 11, 2020 By  Elisabeth Buchwald

Extending the extra $600 could create a disincentive to return to work, some lawmakers say

REPUBLICANS NEVER SAY THE SOLUTION IS THE BOSS TO PAY MORE

Last month, 2.5 million Americans returned to work, but more than 21 million remain unemployed and could have their benefits slashed by $600 if lawmakers fail to act before July 31. GETTY IMAGES

Americans who have been laid off from their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic have been able to collect an additional $600 a week in unemployment benefits on top of what they get from their state. That extra relief was part of the $2.2 trillion stimulus package known as the CARES Act.

But next month, if lawmakers fail to act, Americans who are out of work will see that $600 a week disappear from their unemployment checks.

The supplemental $600 Americans receive has been controversial, especially given that two-thirds of laid-off workers receive more money from their unemployment benefits than they did from their jobs. But at the same time, proponents of the extra $600 say that decreasing those benefits could cost the country even more jobs.

As lawmakers consider a new round of stimulus funding, there are three proposals on the table on how to replace the extra $600, two of which would allow unemployed Americans to receive additional funds on top of state unemployment benefits. But one calls for just the opposite — a return-to-work bonus.

Extending the supplemental $600 through Jan 2021

If these benefits were extended through January 2021, five of every six recipients would receive more in benefits than they would from working those six months, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Last month, the Democratic-run House passed the $3 trillion HEROS Act, which would, among other things, extend the extra $600 federal unemployment benefit to January 2021.

The Congressional Budget Office found that if these benefits were extended through January 2021, an estimated five of every six recipients would receive more in benefits than they would from working those six months.

“If the benefit of $600 per week was extended, fewer than one in thirty recipients would receive benefits — generally the maximum amount in their state — that were less than 50% of their potential earnings,” the CBO report states.

Some have argued those generous benefits will keep people from seeking new jobs. But extending the $600 unemployment benefit would mean that Americans would have more money to spend in stores, and that could ultimately lead to lower unemployment, Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank based in Washington, D.C., said.

“It’s not true that there’s a pool of jobs out there that people would fill if they weren’t receiving unemployment benefits,” she said.

Related: ‘We are saving every penny we can’: What life could look like for this 66-year-old man when he loses all his unemployment benefits next month


For every dollar spent on unemployment insurance, there’s a multiplier effect leading to a 1.64 increase in GDP, according to a 2008 study published by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics MCO, -6.69%. Meanwhile, for every dollar spent on infrastructure projects, U.S. GDP could be expected to increase by a multiple of 1.59.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last month that the HEROS Act “reads like the speaker of the House pasted together random ideas from her most liberal members and slapped the word ‘coronavirus’ on top of it.” He also referred to it as a Democratic “wish-list.”

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week that she thinks Senate Republicans will “catch the spark,” and that their “their tone is changing.”
A sliding scale of unemployment benefits tied to state unemployment rates

Unlike the HEROS Act, one Democratic proposal which has bicameral support calls for additional unemployment benefits that are tied to state unemployment rates.

The proposal, known as the Worker Relief and Security Act, would allow Americans to continue to receive the additional $600 benefit for as long as the national emergency or state emergency for COVID-19 is in effect. Once the national or state emergency is terminated, jobless Americans would receive benefits based on their state’s unemployment level.


‘We continue to push for inclusion of automatic stabilizers in relief legislation, and I feel it is a top priority because it would help to prevent some of the political obstruction that unnecessarily prolonged the Great Recession.’— Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat and sponsor of the Worker Relief and Security Act

For instance, in states where the total unemployment rate is below 7.5%, unemployed Americans would be eligible to receive $350 in weekly benefits on top of state unemployment benefits. After 13 weeks, if they’re still unemployed, they would receive an additional $200 a week.

“The goal of the Worker Relief and Security Act is to prevent political gridlock from interfering with relief efforts by tying financial support for workers to public health and economic conditions,” said Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat who is a sponsor of the bill and vice chair of the Joint Economic Committee.


‘Unemployment benefits should always be pegged to economic conditions.’— Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project

“We continue to push for inclusion of automatic stabilizers in relief legislation, and I feel it is a top priority because it would help to prevent some of the political obstruction that unnecessarily prolonged the Great Recession.”

This plan is the most logical, said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy organization focused on workers’ rights.

“Unemployment benefits should always be pegged to economic conditions,” she said. When the CARES Act passed in March, the economic impacts of coronavirus “didn’t seem like it would go on as long as it has or be as bad as it is.” So at that time, it seemed reasonable to provide the additional $600 through July. But even though 2.5 million workers went back to work last month, more than 21 million Americans are out of work, which is a sign that additional support is needed, Evermore said.

Also see: Some Americans who got laid off are going back to work — here’s which sectors are rehiring

Former Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen also support Beyer’s proposal.

“Such an approach delivers help quickly and automatically as needed, without Congress having to act, and likewise winds down extra assistance as conditions improve,” Bernanke said. “This approach would not only help the unemployed in a timely way, it would also tend to stabilize the broader economy by increasing purchasing power in times of high unemployment.”

“It’s essential to support an economic recovery,” Yellen said. “The Worker Relief and Security Act is important because it guarantees that the CARES Act’s critical unemployment benefits will remain in place for however long they’re needed.”
A return-to-work bonus

The most recent unemployment report was surprisingly positive and showed that 2.5 million Americans had gone back to work — a sign that there are more job openings as states reopen parts of their economy. Extending the $600 weekly benefit past July would disincentive Americans from returning to work if they receive more money from remaining unemployed, says Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio.

He’s proposing a back-to-work bonus, which would provide an additional $450 a week for Americans who return to work.

“Not only is the return-to-work bonus proposal the right policy in terms of incentivizing people to safely return to work and allowing businesses to reopen, but it could also benefit the American taxpayer through significant cost savings compared to the current money we’re spending on the CARES Act unemployment benefits,” Portman said in a statement to MarketWatch.


‘We need to be sure that there’s no financial disincentive for these individuals to get back into the workforce when those jobs become available to them again.’— Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio

“Moving forward, it is critical that we have a workforce that’s ready to step into their old jobs or newly available jobs now that the economy is safely reopening,” Portman said previously.

“Given that more than 15 million unemployed Americans are categorized as ‘temporary layoffs,’ we need to be sure that there’s no financial disincentive for these individuals to get back into the workforce when those jobs become available to them again.”

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said that the Trump administration is looking “very carefully” at Portman’s proposal, which Portman said he plans to introduce more formally this week.

Beyer said this proposal “inherently misunderstands the root cause of unemployment: a deadly pandemic, and also fails to look ahead to the looming demand crunch which will fuel new rounds of job cuts.”

The return-to-work bonus could end up incentivizing people to take “the wrong jobs,” Evermore said. “People will take the first job they get,” she said, which could mean settling for a job that pays less or one for which they’re overqualified.

Wichita State president’s job on line as former board member says cancellation of Ivanka Trump speech puts Koch money at risk

 

Published: June 10, 2020 By Associated Press

Faculty, students and alumni complained about the speech in light of the Trump administration’s response to nationwide protests against police brutality

Presidential adviser, and eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump looks on as President Donald Trump speaks about small businesses in August 2017. GETTY IMAGES
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Some donors are pushing the state higher education board in Kansas to fire Wichita State University’s president after he canceled a virtual speech by Ivanka Trump for its technical school’s graduation.

The Kansas Board of Regents scheduled a special meeting Wednesday to discuss what it called “personnel matters.” Its staff did not say more, but the meeting comes only two days after a former board member from Wichita said the regents should ask for President Jay Golden’s resignation.

The latest:Wichita, Kan.–based Koch Industries says financial commitments to the university are being honored

Golden canceled Trump’s speech after students and faculty protested. Students staged an impromptu rally Wednesday to support Golden.

Steve Clark, the former regent seeking Golden’s ouster, sent a letter Monday to board members saying Golden’s decision to cancel the speech by President Donald Trump’s daughter threatens a multimillion-dollar relationship with Koch Industries, the vast conglomerate led by billionaire and conservative political donor Charles Koch, the Wichita Eagle reports. A Koch Industries spokeswoman said Wednesday that financial commitments to the university are being honored and that it doesn’t tie funding to university employment actions.

Clark is the chairman and CEO of a Wichita investment firm who served as chairman of search committees for both Golden and his predecessor, John Bardo. Golden became president in January, after Bardo died in March 2019.

Clark told the regents that officials from Koch Industries and several longtime donors and supporters are “very upset and quite vocal in their decisions to disavow any further support.” He said canceling Trump’s speech damaged the school’s reputation with some high-profile donors.

“These relationships can only be restored by Dr. Golden’s departure,” he wrote the regents. “I would strongly encourage you not to let this linger.”

Steve Feilmeier, Koch Industries’ executive vice president and chief financial officer, said he’s been asked to serve on the Wichita State Foundation board and how the speech controversy is resolved will “weigh heavily” on his decision.

The university has said Koch Industries and its associated foundations have spent or pledged to spend more than $15 million there in the past seven years. Company spokeswoman Jessica Koehn said it respects “the university’s independence” in making employment decisions.

But she also said Koch Industries believes canceling speakers “cuts off the chance to engage, debate, and criticize.”

Wichita State has 14,000 students, including some 3,000 at its technical school, and is home to a national institute on aviation research. Parts of Wichita and its suburbs are politically conservative, and Donald Trump carried the county in 2016 by 18 percentage points. Ivanka Trump visited WSU Tech last fall to promote its training programs.

The university announced Thursday that she would give a virtual speech for WSU Tech’s graduation and canceled it hours later after a professor’s open letter of protest garnered nearly 500 signatures.

Days earlier, police under federal command in Washington used tear gas to force back a peaceful protests of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis while detained by police. The police action allowed the president to walk to a church near the White House and pose with a Bible, accompanied by his daughter. The president also threatened to use the military to quell violence.

WSU Tech President Sheree Utash later apologized, calling the timing of the announcement of Ivanka Trump’s speech “insensitive.” Golden has said that the university is committed to diversity and that he canceled the speech to avoid a distraction from celebrating the students.

Ivanka Trump responded by tweeting a link to her remarks and saying universities should be “bastions of free speech.”

“Cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination are antithetical to academia,” she said.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former Wichita-area congressman, called the cancellation “shameful,” adding in a statement: “The losers here are freedom of thought, the students, and the central idea of universities as places of tolerance and learning.”

TRUMPS BORDER WALL WILL HALT COVID-19
White House eyes Mexico, rather than states reopening too early, for coronavirus surge

Published: June 11, 2020 By Associated Press

Task force looking into travel from Mexico as source of new outbreaks

WASHINGTON — The White House is exploring the possibility that travel from Mexico may be contributing to a new wave of coronavirus infections, rather than states’ moves toward reopening their economies.

The notion was discussed at some length Thursday during a meeting of the administration’s coronavirus task force in the White House Situation Room that focused on identifying commonalities between new outbreaks. Officials also considered how to surge response capabilities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was deploying teams to Arizona and other hotspots to try to trace the outbreaks and contain them.

In addition to Arizona, other states experiencing recent spikes of infections include California, Texas and North Carolina — particularly within the Hispanic community. As a result, the task force is looking at whether those spikes may be tied to legal travel between the U.S. and Mexico, which is experiencing an ongoing severe coronavirus outbreak.

Two officials familiar with the discussions described them to The Associated Press, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly describe internal conversations.

While President Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to seal U.S. borders to both legal and illegal immigrants during the outbreak, American citizens and permanent residents are still allowed entry to the U.S., as are agricultural workers.

The White House task force was also looking at other causes for a recent uptick in numbers, noting that the issues likely differ by location. Delays in test reporting and the fact that some infected people take multiple tests in order to get an all-clear to return to work are among the other theories that are being explored.

Trump has long pointed to Mexico as a source of crime and disease in the U.S., and has used the crisis to push forward some of his most hard-line immigration proposals, including blocking asylum at the border and limiting the issuance of green cards to those living outside the country.

New Trump rule would redefine who qualifies for refuge in U.S.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez,
CBS News•June 11, 202



The Trump administration on Wednesday unveiled a series of proposed restrictions to the country's asylum system that would constitute one of the most far-reaching attempts yet to redefine who qualifies for safe harbor on U.S. soil.

A 161-page proposal by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security would establish additional barriers at all stages of the U.S. asylum process, granting officers and judges more power to deny requests for protections. It would make it more difficult, if not impossible, for foreigners to seek refuge from certain forms of persecution, including gender-based violence, gang threats and torture at the hands of "rogue" government officials.

The draft rule is slated to be formally published in the federal government's journal of regulations on Monday, after which the public will have 30 days to comment on it. The government will then work on publishing a final regulation that may or may not be altered in response to the public comments.

The impact of the rule on humanitarian programs at the southern border will be contingent on when it goes into effect because the administration has been rapidly expelling most unauthorized migrants from there since late March. If enacted, however, the proposed changes would rewrite multiple regulations and affect cases of new border crossers, as well as asylum-seekers already in the U.S.

"If this regulation is finalized and put into place, it would result in many legitimate asylum-seekers being denied the chance to seek refuge in the United States," Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute, told CBS News. "There are so many provisions in here that make it impossible for even the most meritorious asylum-seekers to get through the U.S. asylum process."

Under U.S. law, foreigners can be eligible for asylum if they can prove they were persecuted — or have a well-founded fear of persecution — in their native countries based on their race, religion, political opinion, nationality or membership in a "particular social group." Migrants, including those who cross the border without authorization, can apply for asylum, as well as other lesser forms of protection, to block their deportation.

The Trump administration has argued that Central American migrants in search of better economic opportunities have exploited these humanitarian programs to gain easy entry into the U.S. Over the past three and a half years, the administration has implemented a series of restrictions to limit access to these protections, which officials have said are plagued with loopholes.

Implementing the proposed changes, the government said in its proposal, would help officials "screen out non-meritorious claims and focus limited resources on claims much more likely to be determined to be meritorious."

The rule would require immigration judges to generally reject asylum cases of people who fear being persecuted in their home countries because of their gender or resistance to being recruited and coerced by gangs, guerrillas, terrorists and other non-state groups.

The definition of persecution would be changed to "an extreme concept of a severe level of harm." Persecution would not include, among other threats and mistreatment, "every instance of harm that arises generally out of civil, criminal, or military strife in a country," nor "any and all treatment that the United States regards as unfair, offensive, unjust, or even unlawful or unconstitutional."

Even if migrants satisfy the burden of proof to receive asylum, the rule would encourage immigration judges to deny the relief to applicants who crossed or attempted to cross the border illegally, did not file taxes, worked without authorization or used fraudulent travel documents. Unlike the lesser forms of protection from deportation, asylum is discretionary, meaning a judge can deny the protection to anyone, even people who prove they could be persecuted if returned to their home countries.

Judges would also have to consider other adverse factors, including traveling through a third country to reach the U.S., living undocumented in the country for more than a year and having criminal convictions that were vacated or expunged.

Under the proposal, protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture would no longer be available to people who were tortured, physically or mentally, by "rogue" public government officials "not acting under color of law."

Other proposed changes in the rule include making it more difficult for migrants who are barred from seeking asylum to pass interviews that determine their eligibility for relief under the United Nations anti-torture convention or "withholding of removal," the other lesser form of protection. Over the past few years, the administration has rolled out several policies to disqualify most U.S.-bound migrants from asylum, including those who traveled through a third country, like Mexico, to reach the southern border.

The definition of a "frivolous" application would also be expanded under the proposal, giving judges and asylum officers more leeway to reject "manifestly unfounded or otherwise abusive claims."

Pierce, the immigration expert, said the regulation is one of several "layers" of asylum restrictions the administration has devised to mitigate unfavorable rulings in federal courts that have hindered its agenda. She said the proposed rule could be one of the tools the administration uses to deter migrants after the public health order under which officials are expelling most border-crossers is lifted.

The administration has said the expulsion directive by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is designed to block the entry of migrants who could spread the coronavirus inside the U.S. At an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday, acting Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said the directive, which has been extended indefinitely, would be the "order of the day for a while," citing the lack of a coronavirus vaccine.

Pierce said Wednesday's proposal would not achieve its stated purpose of curtailing meritless asylum claims. "If they sincerely wanted to deter less-than-legitimate asylum claims, they would look at processing asylum applications more fairly and efficiently, rather than just to put up barriers at every step along the way."

Trump administration proposes sweeping asylum restrictions

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed sweeping restrictions on asylum, seeking to align a legal framework with the president's efforts to limit immigration to the United States.

The moves are only the latest in a series of measures that Trump has taken to limit asylum — this time aimed at changing complicated guidelines and procedures governing immigration courts.

The changes, outlined in 150 pages of legalese, aim to redefine how people qualify for asylum and similar forms of protection to prevent them from being persecuted or tortured if sent home.

Judges will be allowed to dismiss cases without court hearings if supporting evidence is determined to be too weak. Rules will define when a claim may be declared “frivolous” and raise the threshold for initial screenings under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

The administration will propose new definitions for some ways people qualify for asylum, specifically “political opinion” and membership in a "particular social group.”

Asylum is for people who face persecution for their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group, a loose category that may include victims of gang or domestic violence. Narrowing those ways to qualify would mean more rejected claims.

The Justice and Homeland Security departments said asylum-seekers who clear initial screenings will have claims heard by an immigration judge in “streamlined proceedings,” according to a brief press release, replacing longstanding rules in immigration law.

Since the U.S. became the world's top destination for asylum-seekers in 2017, the Trump administration has made multiple attempts to make it harder to get, asserting that the system is rife with abuse.

The Justice and Homeland Security departments said the changes would bring more efficiency to a system with an immigration court backlog of more than 1.1 million cases.

The rules will “more effectively separate baseless claims from meritorious ones,” the departments said. “This would better ensure groundless claims do not delay or divert resources from deserving claims.”

Critics swiftly condemned the measure. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel for the American Immigration Council, said it was much more far-reaching than Trump's previous attempts to curb asylum and “would lead to the denial of virtually every claim except a lucky few.”

“The proposed changes would represent the end of the asylum system as we know it,” he said.

Details are expected to be published in the Federal Register on Monday with 30 days for public comment before they take effect. Lawsuits may delay or derail the effort.

The administration effectively put asylum out of reach for many people at the Canadian and Mexican borders in March under a 1944 public health law aimed at preventing spread of the coronavirus, but that move is described as temporary. It allows the government to immediately expel people from Mexico and Central America to Mexico without claiming asylum, usually within two hours.

HE WILL DECLARE A RACE WAR IN THE NAME OF LAWN ORDER

Trump may use executive order to address policing: White House

Reuters•June 10, 2020

McEnany: Trump 'appalled' by defund police effortWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump could take policy action on race and policing via an executive order, his spokeswoman told Fox News in an interview on Wednesday as lawmakers in Congress move forward with their proposals.

"We do believe that we'll have proactive policy prescriptions, whether that means legislation or an executive order," White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said. She declined to offer specifics, saying the Republican president was still weighing various possibilities.

The potential for executive action comes as both Democrats and Republicans in Congress push forward with proposals aimed at addressing police reform amid massive protests sparked by last month's death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who died while in police custody.

House Democrats on Monday unveiled a sweeping bill that would ban chokeholds, require body cameras for federal law enforcement officers and restrict the use of lethal force, among other steps, while Senate Republicans on Tuesday said were working on their own proposal.

Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary for Homeland Security, declined to provide details about what action Trump is considering.

"You will see a mix of legislative proposals that we can work on a bipartisan basis, just like the president did with criminal justice reform, and executive actions he can take on his own," Cuccinelli told Fox Business Network.

Trump signed bipartisan legislation in 2018 that changed sentencing requirements and the treatment of federal prisoners.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Trump suggests executive order on police use-of-force standards

Notably, Dallas’ mayor and three top law enforcement officials, all of whom are black, weren’t on hand for the roundtable discussion at the Dallas campus of Gateway Church.

Published: June 11, 2020 Associated Press

President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion Thursday in Dallas. 

‘We’re dominating the street with compassion,’ president says

DALLAS — President Donald Trump said Thursday he would pursue an executive order to encourage police departments to meet “current professional standards for the use of force,” while slamming Democrats for broadly branding police as the problem.

He also defended his calls on governors and mayors to aggressively quell violent protests that erupted across the country after the death of George Floyd, boasting, “We’re dominating the street with compassion.”

Trump offered few details about the yet-to-be-formalized order during a discussion on race relations and policing before a friendly audience in Dallas. The call for establishing a national use-of-force standard amounted to his first concrete proposal for police reform in response to the national outcry following Floyd’s death in a violent encounter with Minneapolis police.

The president also acknowledged that law enforcement may have some “bad apples,” but he said it is unfair to broadly paint police officers as bigots.


“We have to work together to confront bigotry and prejudice wherever they appear,” Trump said. “But we’ll make no progress and heal no wounds by falsely labeling tens of millions of decent Americans as racists or bigots. We have to get everybody together. We have to be on the same path.”

The president said the nation also needs to bolster its efforts to confront its long-simmering racial relations problems by focusing on inequality, redoubling on his contention that solving economic issues is the fastest way to healing racial wounds.

He said his administration would aggressively pursue economic development in minority communities, confront health care disparities by investing “substantial sums” in minority-serving medical institutions, and improve school choice options.

Trump made the comments in the city that has faced its own strained relationship between police and African American community in recent years.

In 2016, a sniper opened fire on police during a protest in downtown Dallas. The Army veteran fatally shot four Dallas police officers and one transit officer before authorities killed him using a robot-delivered bomb.

Last year, an officer was sentenced to a decade in prison for murder in the off-duty shooting of her neighbor. Amber Guyger killed Botham Jean in his home in September 2018. She later testified that after a long shift she mistook his apartment for her own and Jean, a 28-year-old accountant, for a burglar.

Notably, Dallas’ mayor and three top law enforcement officials, all of whom are black, weren’t on hand for the roundtable discussion at the Dallas campus of Gateway Church.

Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall, Dallas County Sheriff Marian Brown and Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot did not receive invitations to the event, according to their offices. Mayor Eric Johnson was invited but did not attend because of prior commitments, according to an aide.

A senior administration official who briefed reporters ahead of Trump’s trip noted other law enforcement officials were in attendance but did not directly respond to a question about why the three officials weren’t invited.

Trump filled the roundtable with police union officials and allies from the African American community, including a member of Black Voices for Trump — many who spoke glowingly about the president.

Democrats on Capitol Hill have unveiled sweeping police reform legislation, including provisions to ban choke holds and limit legal protections for police. Congressional Republicans say they are also open to some reforms, including a national registry of use-of-force incidents so police officers cannot transfer between departments without public awareness of their records.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and senior adviser Jared Kushner have been discussing possible packages with GOP lawmakers, but it’s unclear what the president himself would be willing to accept.

Trump, for his part, lashed at some in the Democratic party who have called for “defunding the police,” a broad call to reframe thinking about how communities should approach public safety.

“”Unfortunately there’s some trying to stoke division and to push an extreme agenda, which we won’t go for, that will produce only more poverty, more crime, more suffering,” Trump said. “This includes radical efforts to defund, dismantle and disband the police. They want to get rid of the police.”

Glenn Heights, Texas, Police Chief Vernell Dooley urged Trump to increase resources to provide police with more training. “We need training,” Dooley said. “This is not the time to defund police departments.”

Activists say it isn’t about eliminating police departments or stripping agencies of all their money. They say it is time for the country to address systemic problems in policing in America and spend more on other things communities across the U.S. need, like housing and education.

Trump has publicly expressed sympathy for the family of Floyd and suggested that Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin, who prosecutors say pressed his knee down on Floyd’s neck for several minutes, must have “snapped.”

But Trump has also underscored that he believes that 99% of police are “great, great people.” Top advisers, including Attorney General William Barr, have rejected the notion that systemic racial bias is a problem in American law enforcement.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, dismissed Trump’s Dallas visit in advance as a “photo op” and charged that the president has “run away from a meaningful conversation on systemic racism and police brutality.”

Trump, whose campaign effort has been largely sidelined by the coronavirus, was also holding a high-dollar fundraiser during his visit to Dallas. The intimate event for about 25 supporters was expected to raise $10 million to be split between his campaign, the Republican National Committee and 22 state parties, according to a GOP official.

—-

Madhani reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg in Dallas and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

POLICE VIOLENCE 
AGAINST NON WHITE MINORITIES
IS NOT A CASE OF A ROTTEN APPLE
BUT A ROTTEN SYSTEM