Two Black former DC Comics editors describe the career obstacles they faced, from white leadership saying they'd never be promoted to their achievements being undercut

tclark@businessinsider.com (Travis Clark) 

© DC Comics; Samantha Lee/Business Insider DC Comics; Samantha Lee/Business Insider

Harvey Richards and Lateef Ade "L.A." Williams, two Black former DC Comics editorial staffers, told Business Insider they felt their careers at the company were hindered because of their race.

Richards was fired in December 2019 after 22 years and was the only Black editorial staffer at DC when he left. He was only promoted once. 

Williams exited in 2000 after six years without a promotion and after disputes with white members of DC leadership.

The careers of Richards and Williams cut across two decades, but the similarities in their experiences, from being told they'd never be promoted to a feeling that their achievements were not valued, show how little has changed for Black staffers.

DC's small editorial team shapes the comics that inspire lucrative movies, video games, and merchandise. Richards and Williams said that it's important for Black editors at DC to be in a position to champion diversity.

Harvey Richards and Lateef Ade "L.A." Williams have a lot in common. They both grew up reading comics with aspirations to work in the industry one day. They both ultimately nabbed roles on the editorial staff of DC Comics in the 1990s.

And they are both Black men who say they never achieved their full potential at DC Comics because of their race.

There are differences in their stories — notably, the time periods. Williams exited his role as an assistant editor in 2000 after six years without a promotion, while Richards spent 22 years at the comics giant with just one promotion before he was fired in December 2019.

But the similarities that cut across those two decades are striking and speak to how little has changed for Black editorial staffers at DC Comics and in the comics industry at large.

Richards was the only Black staffer in the main DC editorial department at the time of his exit in 2019, which included about 15 people, he said. He added that DC had since hired a Black assistant editor. DC declined to comment on personnel matters.

DC, which is home to Batman, Superman, and other iconic characters, is much larger than its comics editorial department, with around 200 employees on the publishing side. But the small team of editors shape the comics and characters that inspire lucrative movies, video games, TV shows, and merchandise.

"You need [Black] editors to help nurture talent to foster diverse characters," Richards said.

Besides being the only Black editorial staffer at the time of his exit, Richards felt stymied in his own career, he said. In his 22 years at the company, he was only promoted once. He began as an assistant editor and 12 years later, in 2009, he was promoted to associate editor.

L.A. Williams can relate.

"My personality and work style is different than Harvey's, who is different from every other name I could rattle off," Williams said. "But no matter how different our work styles or personalities are, the reality is that every one of our stories ended up the same. When it keeps happening year after year, person after person, you have to ask yourself what all of these people have in common."

A Latinx former assistant editor, who exited in 1999 after five years without a promotion, shared similar concerns with Business Insider about a lack of a career path forward at DC and a sense that her work was undervalued.

The stories of these three former DC editors are also similar to that of Charles Beacham, a former Marvel editor who spoke with Business Insider in July. Beacham was one of two Black editorial staffers Marvel had employed in the last five years and quit in 2017 because he felt his voice wasn't heard.

For Richards, there were many instances during his time at DC where he felt he was treated unfairly because of his race. He recalled specific instances with Paul Levitz, the DC publisher at the time, like when Levitz told Richards he had "grammar problems," and when Levitz told him "some people think you deserve this" when Richards won an award. Richards was never promoted while Levitz was publisher and president.

Williams also described a confrontation with Levitz, in which Levitz told Williams that he would never be promoted as long as he was publisher.

In response to a request for comment, Levitz said: "I'm not going to comment on decades old incidents. I'm proud of the increasing diversity at DC in my time as an executive there, and while we didn't achieve an ideal balance, I think much changed for the better."

Since Richards' departure, DC has taken some steps to promote diversity and inclusion.

Two women — Marie Javins and Michele Wells — were named interim editors-in-chief after recent layoffs. DC recently hired former Activision Blizzard exec Daniel Cherry, who is Black, as its new senior vice president and general manager, overseeing marketing, sales, and more for the company.

DC is also reviving Milestone, a division of DC that focused on Black characters like Static Shock and was founded in 1993 by four Black men. It ceased operations in 1997 but will return in February.

But for Richards and Williams, it's essential to have Black voices on the editorial front to help inspire change and champion a diverse set of voices and characters.

© DC Comics/Jim Lee Milestone Comics, including Static Shock, is returning in 2021. DC Comics/Jim Lee

'I've had my doubts about you'

For Williams, comics were his life. He had written his senior thesis in Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts on the history of Black characters in superhero comics.

So when he got a job at DC Comics in 1994, it was a dream come true. But he faced roadblocks that previewed Richards' own experiences in the coming years.

Williams, 51, recalled an instance in 2000 when some assistant editors were given a monthly comic to edit on their own by then-executive-editor Mike Carlin, who is now a DC Entertainment creative director. Williams said the assistant editors of color were set up to fail and given comics that were doomed from the start.

But Williams turned his assigned book, "Impulse," starring a Flash sidekick that had been hurting in sales, into a success.

Carlin wasn't happy. Williams said Carlin cursed him out for getting veteran comics creator Walt Simonson to draw two issues of the comic, and "wasting his time on Impulse when he should be drawing other characters like Superman."

Carlin did not return a request for comment. DC declined to provide a comment on his behalf.

That sense of not being valued even when he succeeded was a hallmark of Williams' time at DC, he said.

After a white associate editor was fired, Carlin offered Williams to take over that editor's books, which included one of DC's best-selling comics at the time, "Wonder Woman."

Williams remembered vividly what Carlin told him: "I've had my doubts about you, but you've delivered. Everything is always on time, it sells, and critics like it."

"I thanked him for my promotion," Williams said. "And he interrupted me and said it didn't come with a promotion. I feel so stupid now, but at the time I was so confused and asked why it wouldn't come with a promotion."

More than two decades later, Williams said the answer was obvious to him.

© Harvey Richards Richards. Harvey Richards

'Some people think you deserve this'

Williams' DC career ended just as Richards' was just getting started.

Richards, 48, moved from Akron, Ohio, to New York City in 1995 and began his comics career with an internship at the original Milestone, which then shut down in 1997. His Milestone connections eventually led him to DC, where he started in the mailroom and then became an assistant editor.

"I was living my dream at this point," Richards said.

In 2001, after four years as an assistant editor, Richards was offered the chance to work on the Superman titles. It wouldn't have been a promotion, but a chance to prove himself (the chain generally went like this: assistant editor, associate editor, editor, group editor, and executive editor).

But Richards was given what he said was the "unusual" task to write about what he "could bring to the Superman books." Paul Levitz, then the EVP and publisher of DC, told Richards he had "grammar problems" after he completed the assignment.

"After that, Levitz made up his mind about me," Richards said. "I felt he already had because most people are promoted after four years. But after that, it was over, even if I got a good review or worked on good projects or got company awards for going above and beyond."

Richards won two such awards, called "Carrots," which were given by DC's parent company, Warner Bros. After he won the second time, Levitz handed it to him and said "some people think you deserve this," Richards said.

Richards was finally promoted to associate editor in 2009, 12 years after he was hired, when Diane Nelson took over as president of DC Entertainment.
'Change is going to come'

Richards' time at DC came to an end in December.

He had been put on zero-tolerance probation in August of last year. The document Richards provided Business Insider outlined "poor time management skills and an inability to meet deadlines." Richards said he was being overworked.

The day after he returned to the office from Thanksgiving break last year, he was let go with a six-month severance and told he "no longer fit company standards."

He's still looking for work while honing his digital art skills. He said a potential employer asked him why he was only promoted once in all that time at DC.

"It wasn't because of my work performance," Richards said. "I feel like they blacklisted me."

19 years earlier, Williams had left DC with similar sentiments.

After a confrontation over Williams using the likeness of the Alabama governor in an issue of "Impulse," Levitz told him: "As long as I am publisher of DC Comics, you will never be promoted. You're welcome to stay here in the role of assistant editor for as long as you like."

Williams thought the timing of the dispute — shortly after he had filed a racial-discrimination complaint with human resources against Carlin — was suspect. He quit shortly after.

"I naively thought that as long as I do good work, the comics sell, and the critics like them, I'm going to do well," he said. "As a Black man in America, I knew I wouldn't be able to make as many mistakes as others. But I thought the solution was, work harder and do better."

Their experiences highlight why editors of color are so important, Richards said. They can help "realize a creator's vision" and promote more diversity in comics. He lamented that he never got that opportunity. And Black editors in senior positions could provide a source of support for ones in assistant or associate roles, he said.

"Ideas came down, they didn't go up," he said. "And I didn't have anyone above me advocating for me."

He hopes the recent shakeup at DC affords marginalized groups more opportunities and he sees more women in comics than ever before. Jessica Chen, who is Asian American, was promoted from associate editor to editor last year, for example. But Richards also noted there is still a lack of Black women in the industry.

"Change is going to come," he said. "It has to."

"This Day In Weather History”
October 28, 1707 - The Great Japan Earthquake of 1707

© Provided by The Weather Network

The Oct. 28, 1707 Hōei earthquake struck south-central Japan at 2 p.m. local time. At the time, it was the largest earthquake in Japanese history. Photo: Pixabay.

Japan is located along an intersection of four tectonic plates. As a result of this, a tremor occurs in the country every five minutes at least. This results in a total of 2,000 quakes each year, which is a recipe for disaster.

The Oct. 28, 1707 Hōei earthquake struck south-central Japan at 2 p.m. local time. At the time, it was the largest earthquake in Japanese history. This stood for 304 years until the 2011 Sendai earthquake, which destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

But this very early 18th century quake caused severe damage throughout southwestern Honshu, Shikoku and southeastern Kyūshu. The earthquake was powerful enough to trigger an accompanying destructive tsunami, which alone caused more than 5,000 deaths.

This 1707 event ruptured all of the segments of the Nankai megathrust simultaneously, the only earthquake known to have done this, with an estimated magnitude of 8.6 or 8.7. It is also reported to have triggered the last eruption of Mount Fuji some 49 days later.

On today's podcast, Chris Mei talks about the infamous 1707 earthquake, its catastrophic damage and specific details on what made it so devastating.

"This Day In Weather History” is a daily podcast by The Weather Network that features unique and informative stories from host Chris Mei.

#ANTICOLONIALISM

Activist attempts to steal artwork from Louvre in latest stage of campaign

By Jack Guy, Barbara Wojazer and Gaelle Fournier, CNN

European cultural institutions are under mounting pressure to return colonial artifacts to their countries of origin, and one Congolese activist has taken matters into his own hands.

© Bardos Florent/Abaca/Zuma Activist Emery Mwazulu Diyabanza made the latest in a series of protest actions at the Louvre museum in Paris on October 22.

Emery Mwazulu Diyabanza appeared in court Monday accused of joint theft of a cultural asset after attempting to steal an artwork from the Louvre museum in Paris, a judicial source told CNN Wednesday.


Diyabanza tried to make off with an 18th-century "swimming sculpture" from eastern Indonesia on October 22, according to a statement from the Louvre.

Museum staff intervened to stop the theft and prevented any damage to the artifact, said the museum.

"The perpetrators have been taken in for questioning by the police," read the statement ."A complaint was immediately filed."

Hakim Chergui, a lawyer representing Diyabanza, told CNN his client will return to court on December 3.

Diyabanza is the spokesperson of a pan-African group named Unité Dignité Courage, which strives for the "liberation and transformation of Africa" and the restitution of African heritage.

Diyabanza uploaded a video of the incident to his personal Facebook page detailing his motivations for stealing the artifact.

The Louvre contains "inestimable richness that some people have given themselves the right to steal and to keep for their benefit," says Diyabanza.

"I came to take what has been stolen, what has been looted from Africa," he adds, picking up the sculpture.

"The day when we will ask for permission to a thief to get back what is ours, is the day our mission will have failed," says Diyabanza in the video. "Millions of African children need to have access to this."

This is not the first action Diyabanza has taken in his campaign.

On June 12 UDC uploaded a video to YouTube showing Diyabanza taking an artifact from the Musee de Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris.

He was initially accused of "attempted theft" but later convicted of "aggravated theft" by a criminal court in Paris, which handed him a 1,000 euro ($1174) fine on October 14, his lawyer Hakim Chergui told CNN.

Three other activists were handed down suspended fines for their role in the incident, while another was acquitted.

Diyabanza and the other activists are appealing their sentences, said Chergui.

"For my clients, as well as for millions of people in Africa, to keep goods that belong to their history is experienced as an affront, it's a form of violence. These goods have been despoiled and stolen," said Chergui.

The group aims to encourage the French government to return artifacts currently held in the country to Africa, but the Louvre action was intended to demonstrate how the issue affects countries around the world, said Chergui.

"He targeted an Indonesian statuette to show that the issue of the restitution of cultural property is not only about the relationship between France and Africa," the lawyer explained.

"It is much wider and concerns the domination of the relationships between the North and the South. Goods have been despoiled by other colonial powers."

In November 2018, a report commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron advised him to pull thousands of African artifacts looted during the colonial era out of French museums and return them to the continent.

French collections house at least 90,000 pieces originating from sub-Saharan Afric,a with around 70,000 works in Paris' Quai Branly museum alone, according to French historian Bénédicte Savoy and Senegalese writer and academic Felwine Sarr, the co-authors of the report.

They also estimated a further 20,000 objects are held across several port cities throughout the country

Biden’s space policy: One giant leap for climate change
By Jacqueline Feldscher POLITICO

Don’t expect a President Joe Biden to jettison the Space Force.

© Drew Angerer/Getty Images Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks during a drive-in campaign rally.

If the Democratic nominee wins the Nov. 3 election, he'll likely maintain the fledgling military service branch — along with many of President Donald Trump’s other space initiatives, from returning humans to the moon to sending them to Mars to reforming government regulations so space companies can flourish.

But he’ll also be turning NASA’s attention closer to home.

Biden’s pledge to rededicate the U.S. to combating climate change would mean a greater role for NASA’s Earth science research, an area that has been squeezed by Trump, according to space leaders who are advising or supporting Biden’s campaign, and outside analysts.

“If they talk about the Green New Deal, that would rely heavily on NASA to be a part of getting that implemented using technology in orbit,” said retired Maj. Gen. Charles Bolden, who served as NASA administrator in the Obama administration.

The space agency already uses satellites to study and understand the environmental changes that are causing more droughts, rising sea levels, more frequent deadly storms and natural disasters, while figuring out what human actions might reverse or minimize the damage.

And those tools could be central to the government-wide effort that Biden has proposed to invest in clean energy and beef up infrastructure to withstand climate change, which he has called an “existential threat.”

“We believe in continuing the spirit of discovery that has animated NASA’s human space exploration, in addition to its scientific and medical research, technological innovation, and educational mission that allows us to better understand our own planet and place in the universe,” states the Democratic Party’s platform.

It also calls for “strengthening NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth observation missions to better understand how climate change is impacting our home planet.”

That would be a major shift from the Trump administration.

Every year Trump's federal budget proposals have sought to cut the space agency’s Earth science programs, including attempts to cancel programs aimed at the environment.

In its budget request for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, for example, the administration zeroed out a program to study the oceans and another aimed at making more accurate climate measurements. Overall, the White House requested $1.8 billion for Earth science for this fiscal year. The House increased that to $2 billion in its version of the spending bill, but Congress has yet to pass a budget for the year and the space agency is operating under a continuing resolution.

Democrats on Capitol Hill have successfully restored some of the funding in the final budgets, a fight they are unlikely to have to wage if Biden is in the White House and the programs get higher billing in the new president’s budget request.

That’s not to say that a Biden administration won’t continue to pursue NASA’s ambitious programs to explore the heavens, many of which have been accelerated under Trump.

Biden is expected to support NASA’s Project Artemis to develop a long term presence on the moon, but could push back the timeline established by Trump to reach the lunar surface by 2024.

“I suspect that they will continue with Artemis and returning humans back to the moon, but my guess is they might not be on the same timeline as the current administration,” said Eric Stallmer, head of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

Bolden also says the former vice president is “a big fan of Mars,” which has been established as a longer-term goal for NASA’s human space exploration. The Trump administration has not set a date for the first crewed mission to Mars, but one think tank report predicted it would be feasible in the late 2030s at the earliest.

Another former NASA administrator who has endorsed Biden sees the former vice president as uniquely suited to expanding international cooperation on space exploration.

Sean O’Keefe, who ran NASA under President George W. Bush, cited the “sheer amount of experience, background, and temperament that Joe Biden possesses in dealing with international coalition and partnership arrangements.”

He said Biden knows “how you piece together a coalition necessary to move an agenda forward.”

Biden is likely to also maintain another of Trump’s space achievements: the Space Force.

The newly established military branch, which will mark its first anniversary in December, has broad bipartisan support in Congress as lawmakers agree that the military’s growing space mission needs a dedicated organization.

The Biden campaign declined to comment about the candidate’s space priorities, instead pointing to past statements depicting his support for the overall space program.

Biden said in May that he would focus on “advancing America’s commitment to pursuing space exploration and unlocking scientific discoveries that will inspire a new generation of dreams to gaze up at the sky.”

A number of questions still remain. One is whether Biden would retain the Cabinet-level White House National Space Council now led by Vice President Mike Pence that has energized space policy over the past few years.

Keeping the council functioning could offer Biden’s running mate Sen. Kamala Harris a high-profile role to bolster her resume for future political ambitions, said Peter Garretson, co-director of the American Foreign Council’s Space Policy Initiative

“That’s an extremely powerful format and one that I think commands the respect of most Americans and our overseas partners,” he said.

The Biden team has begun to consider who will lead the administration’s space efforts, including a number of contenders to be the first women to lead the space agency, according to an industry official who spoke on background to share ongoing discussions.

One potential candidate mentioned by multiple space industry insiders is Pam Melroy, a retired Air Force test pilot and astronaut who serves on the National Space Council’s User Advisory Group.

Others in consideration include Wanda Sigur, a former Lockheed Martin executive who worked on the Orion deep space capsule; Wanda Austin, a former CEO of the Aerospace Corporation; Gretchen McClain, who serves on the board of Booz Allen Hamilton; and Waleed Abdalati, a former chief scientist at NASA, according to the industry official.

O’Keefe also said he’s watching for John Grunsfeld, a former astronaut, to play some role in shaping Biden’s space policy.

Whoever rounds out the space leadership in a Biden administration is likely to play a role in furthering its domestic agenda.

Refocusing NASA on climate change could allow Biden to frame space as integral to a number of his policy priorities, including economic recovery and workforce diversity.

But that also means NASA, like all federal agencies, will have to grapple with where to prioritize its limited dollars.

“Part of the problem specific to a Biden-Harris administration,” Garretson said, “is how can they sustain the momentum despite lots of tugs on resources for other things?”CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed the final quote. It was made by Peter Garretson.

Washington Post: Trump administration to roll back federal protections from Alaska's Tongass National Forest

By Devan Cole, CNN 

Federal protections for Alaska's Tongass National Forest will be lifted this week by the Trump administration, allowing "logging and other forms of development" to occur in the world's largest intact temperate rainforest known as America's Amazon, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

© Julian Quiñones/CNN The arrival of tourism cruise ships helped the forest, as visitors didn't want to see bare slopes, locals say.

"As of Thursday, it will be legal for logging companies to build roads and cut and remove timber throughout more than 9.3 million acres of forest," the Post said.

The newspaper, which noted that the federal protections were put in place in 2001 during the waning days of Bill Clinton's presidency, said the rollback by President Donald Trump represents "one of the most sweeping public lands rollbacks" Trump has made during his tenure. The President previously removed acreage from two national monuments and worked to open more federal lands and waters to oil drilling and mining.

The forest -- about the size of West Virginia -- and region form the world's largest intact temperate rainforest. The area is a vibrant habitat for bear, eagle and salmon, plus towering old-growth cedar, hemlock and spruce. It includes Alaska's capital, Juneau, and 31 other communities.

The area also features "old-growth stands of red and yellow cedar, Sitka spruce and Western hemlock," according to the Post, which said some of the trees "are between 300 and 1,000 years old (and) absorb at least 8 percent of all the carbon stored in the entire Lower 48′s forests combined."

Dominick DellaSala, the chief scientist with the Earth Island Institute's Wild Heritage project, told the Post that although "tropical rainforests are the lungs of the planet, the Tongass is the lungs of North America," adding that the forest is "America's last climate sanctuary."

Environmentalists plan to mount a legal challenge to the rollback, according to the Post, which said advocates have successfully protected the forest since the 1970s.

"There's never been a strong economic argument for logging, and neither has there been a strong biological or cultural argument. And we're confident we'll continue to prevail in the courts," Sam Sankar, the vice president for programs at Earthjustice, told the newspaper.

Both supporters and opponents of the rollback say it has important economic implications.

Robert Venables, the executive director of the Southeast Conference, told the Post that Alaska's economy "is collapsing" amid the coronavirus pandemic, so the rollback might allow loggers to access timber from the area.

"There's some common-sense, near-term relief," he said, according to the newspaper.

But all five of Alaska's native tribal nations have opposed the action, going so far as to recently withdraw as cooperating agencies in the process after the US Forest Service published a blueprint for opening up the entire forest for development, the Post said.

In an interview with the newspaper, Marina Anderson, the tribal administrator for the Organized Village of Kasaan on Prince of Wales Island, said "tribal officials oppose extensive logging because old-growth trees help lower stream temperatures and provide key wildlife habitat," which the village relies on for food.

"It will only devastate even more what is already in progress," Anderson told the Post.

© Sergi Reboredo/VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Icebergs near the Dawes Glacier, Endicott Arm, Tongass National Forest, Alaska.

Trump rally attendees stranded in the cold for hours in Omaha

Caitlin O'Kane

President Trump held a rally in Omaha, Nebraska, on Tuesday night – but it's what happened after the rally that many reporters and attendees are talking about. Police said the last person was loaded into a bus from the site of the rally close to midnight, hours after it ended. 

© Aaron Sanderford/The World-Herald omaha-1-mandatory-creidt-aaron-sanderford-omaha-world-herald.jpg

Fox News' West Coast correspondent Jeff Paul tweeted videos from the rally at Eppley Airfield, writing: "Thousands of people left out in the cold and stranded in Omaha, Nebraska after a Trump rally."

"I'm told the shuttles aren't operating & there aren't enough busses," Paul's tweet continued. "Police didn't seem to know what to do. Some walked. I saw at least one woman getting medical attention." The video he shared showed lines of people standing outside in the dark.

"The above video & this one were taken around 10:15pm," he wrote in a second tweet, sharing another similar video of stranded attendees. "The #Trump rally ended around 8:45pm. Some just gave up and walked from the airfield, back to wherever they parked. It was about 32° out at the time. Many had already spent hours outside as they waited for POTUS to arrive."

CNN's senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny also tweeted: "President Trump took off in Air Force One 1 hr 20 minutes ago, but thousands of his supporters remain stranded on a dark road outside the rally. 'We need at least 30 more buses,' an Omaha police officer just said, shaking his head at the chaotic cluster that is unfolding."

In an emailed statement to CBS News, Samantha Zager, deputy national press secretary for Mr. Trump's campaign, said: "President Trump loves his supporters and was thrilled to visit Omaha last night. Despite the cold, tens of thousands of people showed up for his rally."

"Because of the sheer size of the crowd, we deployed 40 shuttle buses – double the normal allotment – but local road closures and resulting congestion caused delays," the statement continued. "At the guest departure location, we had tents, heaters, generators, hot cocoa, and handwarmers available for guests. We always strive to provide the best guest experience at our events and we care about their safety."

According to a preliminary report, seven people were transported to area hospitals "with a variety of medical conditions," Michael Pecha, public information officer for the Omaha Police Department, said in an email to CBS News. He said 30 people were contacted for medical reasons.

"Those needing medical attention were contacted by medics over the duration of the event, not just at the end," Pecha said. "Eppley Airport Fire Department will have a better accounting of the total number of medical contacts, reasons and times."

According to Pecha, 40 buses took about 25,000 people to the event site over a 10-hour period, from 10:00 a.m. to the start of the rally at 8 p.m.

© Provided by CBS News According to a preliminary report, seven people were transported to area hospitals

"Law enforcement did assist people out of the area who wanted to leave or couldn't make it on buses before the rally ended," Pecha said. "When the speech was over at about 9 p.m., people flooded to the waiting buses."

There were buses specifically for handicap people in attendance and additional Metro Area Transit buses were called in to get people back to their cars, Pecha said.

"Many people elected to walk back to the parking areas instead of waiting for a bus. The shortest walk to the nearest parking lot was approximately 2.5 miles," his email continued. "The foot traffic on Lindberg Drive slowed bus traffic and delayed bus trips considerably. There was an abundance of uniformed officers in marked cars and on foot attempting to direct traffic to clear the congestion."

Pecha said officers gave rides to some elderly and some others. "Many people underestimated the distance from the event back to the parking lot on foot. The last person was loaded into a bus from the rally site at about 11:50 p.m.," Pecha said.

At around 12:30 a.m., pedestrian traffic returned to normal, he said.

Kris Surface Beckenbach, who was a volunteer at the rally, told CBS News that "attendees waiting for transport had no information until an officer started providing updates."

She said there was a 90-minute stretch where they saw no buses, and she saw people who needed assistance, but did not see any emergency situations. "I was alone and it was dark," Beckenbach told CBS News via Facebook message, adding that some of her friends chose to walk to their cars in the cold.

"It was no one's fault that traffic was a mess," Beckenbach said. "No one expected the number of attendees and vehicles."

"Most people were dressed appropriately. But everyone gets tired after hours of standing," she continued. "I personally shared a beanie I had bought for a friend, an ear warmer, a blanket, and hand warmer I had in my bag. We take personal responsibility, and we take care of each other."

Beckenbach said the rally ended at 9 p.m. and she got back to her car at 12:15 a.m.

© Provided by CBS News Kris Surface

Teens, tweens volunteer for vaccine trials while opponents call the move 'absurd,' 'crazy'

When Abhinav, an Ohio seventh grader, learned that a Covid-19 vaccine trial near his hometown was enrolling children, he wanted to participate. But there was one aspect of the study that had him worried

.

© Provided by NBC News

“I was mostly a bit nervous about the blood draws, because I had one about five years ago, and it wasn’t so comfortable,” Abhinav, 12, said.

Nonetheless, he decided to enlist in the trial, which is run by Pfizer Inc.

“I think that it could really benefit the world, and I think it could also help scientists know more about the coronavirus,” said Abhinav, whose family asked that their last name not be used to protect their privacy.

Abhinav received his first injection at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center last Thursday, making him among the youngest participants in the world to take part in a Covid-19 vaccine trial. His father, Sharat, a bone marrow transplant physician, had already been in the trial himself, and encouraged Abhinav to sign up after experiencing no ill effects other than a fever that lasted for a day or two.

“I’m happy that he’s doing his bit for science,” Sharat said of his son. “With the Pfizer study, no major side effects have been reported so far, so that made me comfortable with enrolling Abhinav as well.”

Earlier this month, Pfizer became the first pharmaceutical company in the United States to receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration to test its vaccine on children as young as 12. The kids who have signed up say they are proud to be participating — and say they feel safe doing so.

“They were talking about symptoms, and they were just fatigue, low-grade fever, headache. I was thinking, ‘I hope I don’t have anything like that because I don’t want it to mess with school or work,’” Katelyn Evans, 16, of Green Township, Ohio, said. “But I wasn’t thinking about my permanent health for a short-term inconvenience.

”

© Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Katelyn Evans, 16, receives a Covid-19 vaccine during a trial at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center on Oct. 14. (Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center)

Like most of the other coronavirus vaccine trials, Pfizer’s involves getting two shots. Participants are given the shots three weeks apart and then have their health monitored for two years by researchers. The participants do not know whether they are receiving a placebo injection or an actual Covid-19 vaccine.

Either way, the youngest trial volunteers say they have confidence in the vaccines that are being developed — putting them at odds with many adults across the country.

Manufactured during a highly politicized pandemic in a matter of months versus the years or decades that a vaccine typically takes, the Covid-19 vaccines have prompted growing skepticism. A survey in October from Stat News and the Harris Poll found that only 58 percent of the American public would get a vaccine when it becomes available, down from 69 percent of those polled in August.

But researchers say the vaccines they are testing are safe.

“There is a perception that corners are being cut. That is the perception; it’s not the truth,” said Dr. Robert Frenck, director of Gamble Vaccine Research Center at Cincinnati Children’s and the lead site researcher for the Pfizer trial there. “It’s not that anyone is doing anything less, it’s just more compressed.”

Pauses in other trials, including those of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, show that proper safety protocols being observed across the board, Frenck said. Both AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson recently resumed their studies in the U.S. after briefly putting them on hold to investigate whether an adverse event in a participant was related to the vaccines — something experts say is common in large-scale trials.

Pfizer has not reported any unexpected illnesses among its participants, and has said it could be ready to apply for emergency use authorization of its vaccine by late November.

For the study in Cincinnati, one of several Pfizer sites testing children, dozens of parents contacted by researchers were eager to get their kids involved, Frenck said.

“Parents were asking how many times they’re going to have to come in, how many doses it would have to be,” he said. “But it hasn’t been, ‘Oh, heck no.’”
Why include children if they are least likely to get ill?

While the parents of the children in the trial are comfortable with the level of risk they are assuming, others find it mind-boggling that children are being asked to enroll.

Bianca De La Cruz, 33, a paraprofessional for the New York City Department of Education, works with elementary school students and has a 13-year-old daughter. She said she feels Pfizer is using children as “guinea pigs.”

“It’s absurd,” she said. “We really don’t even know much about Covid to begin with, and then to be testing a vaccine that they developed within six months? It’s crazy.”

Pfizer argues otherwise. The decision to include children came only after the pharmaceutical giant gathered "satisfactory" safety and efficacy data on adults and older adolescents first, Jerica Pitts, Pfizer's director of global media relations, said. In September, Pfizer expanded its study from 30,000 adults to about 44,000 people, which included teenagers as young as 16 and individuals with chronic conditions, such as HIV and hepatitis B and C. After receiving FDA approval to test younger children and reviewing the data on the 16- and 17-year-olds, Pfizer added children ages 12 through 15.

© Courtesy Bianca De La Cruz Bianca De La Cruz with her daughter, Noelia. (Courtesy Bianca De La Cruz)

Opponents like De La Cruz still question why kids need to be part of the study. Children generally fare much better than adults when they catch the coronavirus, and the science still is murky on whether children, especially those under the age of 10, transmit the virus as easily as adults do.

Yet, the American Academy of Pediatrics believes it is crucial for children to be in vaccine trials. On Sept. 29, the group wrote a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn urging them to allow children to be tested, pointing out that more than 587,000 cases of the coronavirus have been reported in children.

“While the likelihood of spreading the disease may vary among different aged children, we know that children can and do spread the virus to household members, grandparents, teachers, and other children,” the letter said. It added, “Children must be included in vaccine trials to best understand any potential unique immune responses and/or unique safety concerns.”

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Dr. Yvonne “Bonnie” Maldonado, a professor of pediatrics, epidemiology and population health at Stanford Medicine, is among those who support children being in Covid-19 vaccine trials.

“We really feel that while, at this point, it doesn’t appear that Covid-19 is really targeting the pediatric age group, children are not immune to this disease,” she said, pointing out that while children only comprise about 10 percent of the coronavirus cases in the U.S., and typically display milder symptoms than adults, more than 100 children have died in this country from the virus.

And it is possible that children may respond differently to the vaccines than adults do.

“Our belief would be you would get the same kind of response in children,” Frenck said. “But you won’t know until you test for sure and if you need to change the dose, the number of doses — we need to know that so we’re making sure we’re giving the right vaccine at the right time.”
‘Pride’ in contributing to medical research

So far at Cincinnati Children’s, there have been seven participants in the 12-15 age group and 10 participants in the 16-17 age group, the hospital said.

Katelyn, the Ohio 16-year-old, did not have any side effects from the shot she received.

“It’s really not scary. There’s nothing dangerous or intimidating about it,” she said, adding that she hopes others her age join the study.

© Courtesy Laurie Evans Laurie Evans with her children, Katelyn and Andrew. (Courtesy Laurie Evans)

Katelyn’s mother, Laurie Evans, an elementary school teacher, said most friends and family members were supportive of Katelyn’s decision to join, although some questioned whether it was safe to get a vaccine developed at record speed.

“She’s got a big heart. She obviously had no fear of this,” Evans said. “I guess I’m more afraid of Covid than I am of the vaccine.”

Other parents whose children have participated in medical research say they felt the same way.  

© Courtesy of Heather Hannon Image: Heather Hannon with family (Courtesy of Heather Hannon)

Heather Hannon, 48, an oncology nurse practitioner who lives in Chesterfield, Virginia, signed two of her children up for a late-stage vaccine trial for H1N1, or swine flu, during that pandemic in 2009. Her kids, 16 and 14 now, were just 5 and 3 at the time, and Hannon used the opportunity as a teaching moment for them.

“It was excitement, it was pride, it was an understanding that life is about more than just you,” Hannon said.

“I imagine many parents these days would think I was quite nuts,” she added. “But I think the thing about a clinical trial is there are lots of safety mechanisms built into that, so you’re not totally in the dark, and it’s really exciting to be involved in research.”

Sharat, the father of 12-year-old Abhinav who is participating in Cincinnati Children’s Covid-19 vaccine trial, hopes his son will feel the same sense of helping others that Hannon’s children did.

“While most kids are going to do fine if they’re exposed to Covid, a small portion might get very sick, and up front, we don’t know who is going to get very sick,” Sharat said. “By being part of this study, we help others. It’s a small contribution

BLUE TSUNAMI

Muslims in the U.S. are more politically engaged than ever, study finds

Muslim Americans are more politically engaged and registered to vote in 2020 than ever before, a report published last week says.

  

© Provided by NBC News

According to a poll by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, 78 percent of eligible Muslim voters in the United States are registered to cast their ballots this year, compared with just 60 percent who were registered in 2016.

“Muslim Americans have become so politicized,” the institute's research director, Dalia Mogahed, told NBC Asian America. “They command way more attention than their numbers would suggest makes any sense. They’re 1 percent of the population, yet talked about, discussed, scapegoated so often. So it's really important that if they're going to be talked about that they also have a voice, that they also have a place at the table.”

After President Donald Trump took office, Muslim American satisfaction with the U.S. took a sharp decline. Since 2018, it has more or less plateaued, and since last year, it has begun to climb slightly.

The study showed that Muslim American support for President Donald Trump has also climbed by a small margin since 2016, though it is lower than the group’s support for any other candidate, including all Democratic Primary contenders.

Throughout his 2016 presidential campaign and time in office, Trump has made Islamophobic comments, which Mogahed says have alienated Muslim voters.

At a 2015 campaign rally, Trump told a supporter he would look into the country’s “Muslim problem”. Later that year, he made promises to implement a database or “watchlist” to track Muslims in the U.S., and issued a statement calling for the shutdown of Muslim immigration to the U.S. He also falsely claimed he watched thousands of Muslims cheering as the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11. During a debate, he said “Islam hates us.”

The institute recorded a 22 percent drop in Muslim American satisfaction with the country between 2016 and 2017.

In 2017, the first executive order in what is commonly referred to as Trump’s “Muslim Ban” went into effect, banning refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Between 2017 and 2018, Muslim American satisfaction with the U.S. dropped to just 27 percent.

Mogahed says that the Trump administration’s Islamophobic rhetoric and policy is part of what has led Muslims across the country to take more of an interest in politics, and that while rates of satisfaction have gradually increased to 37 percent, race has been a better determinant than religiosity.

According to the study, Muslims who identified as white were just as likely as white Americans in the general public to approve of Trump’s performance as president, while Black Muslims, Asian Muslims and Arab Muslims were shown to support the president at very low rates.

“It just shows that American Muslims aren't immune to having race be a salient factor in how you view the president,” Mogahed said. “Although it's not as stark in the Muslim community, that trend is still there as well.”

Overall, Muslims still face the highest rates of institutional and interpersonal religious discrimination in the country, with 44 percent of respondents reporting discrimination at airports, 33 percent when applying for jobs, and 31 percent in interactions with law enforcement.

After 20 years of studying anti-Muslim sentiment, Mogahed says she sees a pattern: Islamophobia in politics will peak among Republicans during elections seasons — and Democrats will often feed into it in the run-up to wars.

“So what has happened with Trump taking office is there is a partisan divide where ... the Islamophobia among Republicans has increased, but it's almost like a net zero because it is decreasing among Democrats,” she said.

CANADA GREEN BUILDINGS

Design practice: Buildings as a Climate Change Solution

By Chris Magwood 

The focus of green building has long been on reducing impacts… doing “less bad” to the planet and ourselves by shrinking our ecosystem, chemical and climate footprints through conscious design and material selection. But when it comes to our current climate crisis, doing less bad is simply not going to be good enough. The climate science is clear: we collectively need to get to net zero emissions as soon as possible AND remove carbon from the atmosphere in order to meet the targets in the Paris Accord1. The building industry is now tasked with doing “more good” by reducing net emissions to zero and actively contributing to carbon drawdown. 

Fortunately, there is a clear roadmap for the building sector to move from being a leading cause of climate change to becoming a key part of the solution. Unlike many sectors, climate change does not force builders to face an existential crisis because it is possible for buildings to become a climate positive industry.

The starting place on the roadmap is for all designers and builders to understand the nature of the issue. Collectively, we’ve done excellent work to address the operational emissions from buildings and have helped move the bar on better codes and created a proliferation of voluntary systems to achieve near zero emissions from high performing new buildings and renovations.

But operational emissions are only part of the problem. A building that achieves zero emissions during its operation is an important step. The other half of the problem now needs to be addressed: material-related emissions.

By recent estimates, the production of building materials accounts for approximately 21% of all emissions globally. We cannot adequately address climate change through operational improvements alone; we cannot “net zero” our way out of this. The “embodied carbon” side of the equation needs equivalent focus and action. We need to take responsibility for all the emissions we cause through harvesting, manufacturing, transporting and installing building materials because of the sheer scale of these emissions.

Tackling these “material emissions” may be easier than you think. The data and tools available to make carbon-smart materials choices is growing rapidly and the evidence of the emission reductions that can be achieved is encouraging.

In a study I completed in 2019, a small (930 m2) multi-unit residential building was modelled with a range of different materials that are all comparable in terms of code compliance, cost and practicality. Material selection was found to have a remarkably broad range of potential results (See graphic top of page 59).

The model with the worst results was responsible for over 240 kg of emissions per square metre of floor area. There is no way that climate change is going to be adequately addressed if new buildings are adding emissions to the atmosphere at that rate.

Some simple material swapping reduced this carbon footprint by over 60%, getting it down to 90 kgCO2e/m2. This is an excellent example of our ability to do “less bad,” and to do so with minimal effort and no undue cost or scheduling issues.

But we can do better. A model for doing “more good” also emerged from the study. It resulted in no net emissions from its materials, but instead recorded a small amount of net carbon storage. At the end of construction of this building, there would be less CO2 in the atmosphere than before it was built. 

How is it possible for a building to have net carbon storage? To get to the answer, we need to understand a bit about the global carbon cycle. Every year, the earth’s plants draw down billions of tonnes of CO2  from the atmosphere and through photosynthesis absorb carbon and release oxygen. In a natural cycle, the carbon thus stored in plants is released back to the atmosphere when the plants die and decompose or burn. (See graphic next page.)

Builders can interrupt this carbon cycle by taking carbon-rich plant material and locking it up in buildings, preventing its return to the atmosphere for the lifespan of the building. We have been doing this unintentionally for millennia, incorporating wood and other biofibers into buildings. Conventional building practices include a range of widely available and affordable plant-fiber materials, including products like cellulose insulation, wood fiberboard and many kinds of timber products. By combining these carbon-storing materials with other low-emission materials, results like the 11 kg/m2 of net stored CO2  from the MURB study are entirely feasible with no disruption to the design process, supply chain or construction methodologies. 

The use of biogenic materials in buildings can be increased and our carbon positive impact on the climate further improved. There are biogenic material options for every part of a building’s enclosure and finishes. By intentionally choosing appropriate biogenic materials, the amount of net carbon can be amplified so that buildings can actually become a measurable carbon sink on the planet.

The final model in the study (graphic top right) used this approach and was able to offer over 130 kg of net CO2  storage per square metre. None of the materials used in this model are unattainable and all can (and have) met Canadian building code requirements, but many of these are unconventional materials and not currently available through typical supply chains. There is work to be done to make this kind of change, but the result would be a construction industry that actually helps the climate to heal. 

Chris Magwood is  a director at The Endeavour Centre in Peterborough, ON,  which offers two full-time, certificate programs: Sustainable New Construction and Sustainable Renovations and hosts many hands-on workshops annually.

Michael Pace

AUGUST 17, 2020 AT 4:25 PM

Hi Chris, I enjoyed your article and would like to update you on some significant changes related to closed cell spray foam. It is true that spray foam and other insulation types, such as XPS, that use a HFC blowing agent, have high GWP or carbon footprint. The new versions of spray foam that use a HFO blowing agent have a GWP that is approx 80% less than HFC types. In addition, these new versions (BASF WALLTITE CM01) have a GWP that is appprox 50% of the GWP of products percived as being sustainable.
The good news is that HFC blowing agent foams will be banned in Canada as of January 1, 2021 and products that use HFO blowing agents will replace them. Please consider including information about this in future papers and let me know if you would like me to send you some additional information.

Fall Awards issue of SABMag to cover the winning projects of 2020 Canadian Green Building Awards   The nine winning projects of the 13th annual SABMag Canadian Green Building Awards, a program of Sustainable Architecture & Building [SABMag], will be published in the Fall issue. The winners include new and adaptive re-use projects from most regions of the country, and represent some of the best examples of sustainable, high-performance building design in Canada. See the winning projects here.

CANADA

EI commissioners say workers, companies want non-partisan review of system, stat

OTTAWA — The representatives for employers and workers in the employment insurance system say they are deeply concerned that a promised review of the program will be lost in the heat of a minority Parliament.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The shortcomings in EI, flagged for years by experts, have been exposed by the pandemic, including that not every worker is covered, nor can everyone who is covered get benefits when they need them.


The EI system is overseen by a commission that regularly reviews problems and the appeals system, as well as its financing. The commissioners bring the voices of workers and companies to the table, often consulting their constituents and raising concerns with permanent officials.

It is rare for them to speak publicly, but circumstances are different from when the Liberals promised, and failed to deliver, a review of EI during their first mandate.

The EI commissioners say they hope the government launches an independent commission soon to do a thorough review.

"There's a heavy preference for it to be an independent process so it doesn't become a hostage to the political habits and flows in Ottawa," said Pierre Laliberté, the commissioner for workers.

"This is what we're hoping that the government will come up with in short order so that we can finally focus on the issue and not be constantly on our toes."

Judith Andrews, the commissioner for employers, said there is broad agreement from business and labour groups that a review shouldn't be rushed in the middle of a pandemic.

One concern the duo have heard from the employers and labour groups they represent is that a process managed by politicians could be lost to changing priorities, or a snap election.

The government has heard their call in a form of a letter the commissioners, labour and business groups sent to Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough in September, seeking a body with marching orders on issues to explore and a deadline to provide recommendations.

The government is now vowing to modernize the EI system, which turned 80 over the summer. Some technological parts of it rely on programming language introduced in the 1960s.

Andrews said the coming months might be the perfect time to do the review because the government has eased access to EI and boosted benefits as a transitional program until the system is modernized.

There is much to look at in the system, from the eligibility requirements, whether special EI benefits like maternity and parental leave should remain in the employment insurance system or be funded separately, as well as whether the government should kick in its own funding.

Right now, for every $12 of funding, employers pay $7 and employees pay $5. The Liberals have frozen premiums paid by both groups for this year and next.

There are also other questions, such as what do with self-employed workers and those who have underlying health conditions that might make it dangerous for them to return to workplaces.

"We need to have a decent look at all of these things, and not just latch on to something that might seem superficially attractive because we're in the middle of a pandemic," Andrews said.

On Wednesday, the Business Council of Canada, which represents some of the largest employers in the country, asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to start a broad-based review of EI that took into account the needs of workers and employers.

A report from the council said there needed to be a greater emphasis in the system on skills training and helping workers adjust to labour market demands.

Federal officials effectively put large swaths of the EI system in sleep mode in March and April as three million jobs were lost. Officials worried that the decades-old system would crumble under the weight of mounting benefit claims, and that it would take a year to process claims in the usual way.

"If the program that is meant to provide income support during an economic crisis collapses on under the weight of the volume of cases when there is a crisis, well, then you have a problem," Laliberté said.

"All the programs should be prepared for this."

In EI's place was the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.

Late last month, the handover back to EI began, with almost 1.7 million recipients moving to the restarted system at last count and claims being processed at a faster pace than before the pandemic.

Some of that had to do with officials processing the approximately seven million records of employment that employers filled out in March and April, which have to be filed when there's a disruption in earnings so workers can access EI.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 28, 2020.

Jordan Press, The Canadian Press