US Judge rules against landlords seeking end to eviction moratorium


A court in Georgia has ruled against a group of landlords seeking to lift the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's eviction ban. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

July 15 (UPI) -- An appeals court in Georgia has ruled against a group of landlords seeking a preliminary injunction against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's temporary moratorium on evictions as they failed to prove that the measure imposed amid the coronavirus pandemic will cause them irreparable harm.

"We fail to see how the temporary inability to reclaim rental properties constitutes an irreparable injury," the three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said in their ruling on Wednesday.

The judges ruled 2-1 against the National Apartment Association and several landlords who had requested the court to lift the CDC's measure preventing them from evicting non-paying tenants.

The moratorium was first put in place under the CARES Act at the end of March of last year, which the CDC extended in September, attracting the lawsuit filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the landlords days later.

The moratorium has been extended several times since, with the White House in June keeping it in place until July 31, saying it was extending the ban "for one final month."

The landlords had been earlier denied the injunction by a district court and had filed an appeal.

The CDC's order does not relieve tenants from their rent-paying obligations but only denies the landlords for evicting them while the order is in place. However, the plaintiffs had sought the injunction on the grounds that the order was unconstitutional, that they were being denied access to their property and that they would never recover the rent owed to them as the tenants were insolvent.

The court ruled that none of these injuries satisfy the strict irreparable harm standard.

Concerning the measure being unconstitutional, the court said there is no precedent for that finding but there is precedent to support the government's position.

The court also said ejecting someone from a property is irreparable harm but "we fail to see how the temporary inability to reclaim rental properties constitutes irreparable injury."

On the third claim, the plaintiffs offered as evidence documents signed by their tenants that said they couldn't afford their rent due to substantial loss of household income caused by a reduction in hours, layoffs and medical expenses.

The court said the plaintiffs' evidence was "flimsy" as the documents only speak to their tenants' current situation and not about their ability to pay in the future.

"These attestations certainly show that the tenants could not afford their rent at the time they were signed. But they paint a hazy picture -- at best -- of any given tenant's ability to pay later," the court said in its 97-page opinion. "The declaration sheds little light on, among other things, a tenant's educational background, employment history, criminal history, credit history or rental payment history -- factors that would be probative of a tenant's ability to pay after the moratorium is lifted."

The New Civil Liberties Alliance rejected the court's decision as a denial of justice and was setting a dangerous precedent.

"It is unfathomable that the harm suffered by NCLA's landlord clients and caused by CDC's unlawful actions does not count as 'irreparable,' especially when at least a majority of the court appears to believe CDC lacked statutory authority to do what it did," Mark Chenoweth, executive director and general counsel at NCLA, said in a statement.

In a dissenting opinion, former President Donald Trump-appointee Judge Elizabeth Branch said there is nothing to support that Congress had intended to give the CDC "sweeping authority" over the national rental market.

She also disagreed with the majority's opinion concerning the landlords' stance that they will not receive rent owed to them in the future.

"Because the landlords have demonstrated that their tenants are insolvent and that a future money judgement is not likely to be collectable, the landlords have demonstrated that they face an irreparable injury absent an injunction," she said.

She also said the government has failed to show "that allowing a handful of evictions to go forward would cause any loss of life, let alone the massive loss of life it has claimed could happen if the order is invalidate nationwide."

Several similar lawsuit have been filed throughout the nation, with the Supreme Court ruling late last month against the Alabama Association of Realtors who had petitioned to lift the CDC eviction ban.

US Newsroom Staffing Has Dropped 26% in 12 Years, Research Shows
Aarohi Sheth

The number of digital newsroom employees rose 144% from 2008 to 2020, helping offset a drop in newspaper newsrooms of 57%, Pew Research Center data analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.

© TheWrap newsroom employment 2008-2020

According to the analysis, overall newsroom employment in the U.S. has dropped by 26% since 2008, as digital-native news organizations experienced "considerable gains."

Despite the 144% increase, the number of newsroom employees in the digital-native sector remained at "about 13,000 below the number in the newspaper sector in 2020," as the number of newspaper newsroom employees went from roughly 71,000 to about 31,000 between 2008 and 2020, while the number of Digital-native newsroom employees went from 7,400 workers to roughly 18,000.

Due to the decline in newspaper jobs, the sector now accounts for an overall smaller portion of overall newsroom employment than it once did. According to the data analysis, newspaper employees made up about 62% of newsroom jobs overall, but by 2020, the share had dropped to about 36%.

As of 2020, television broadcasting employees account for 10% more of the overall newsroom employees than they did in 2008. Similarly, digital-native news outlets increased from 6% of all newsroom employees to 21% from 2008 to 2020.

Fossil fuel workers ready for a just transition, poll finds


A majority of Canadians working in fossil fuels are interested in switching to jobs in the net-zero economy, but are worried about being left behind, according to a new poll.


The poll, released Wednesday morning, was done by an oilpatch worker-led organization, Iron & Earth, in partnership with Abacus Data, and surveyed 300 fossil fuel workers across Canada from May 24 to June 11.

Ninety per cent of workers surveyed believe they could transition to at least one type of net-zero technology with 12 months or less of training, according to the poll results.

Edmonton-based machinist Stephen Buhler has worked in oil and gas for over 12 years and says we can’t afford to delay the transition away from fossil fuels any longer.

“Not making the transition means that a lot of workers like myself are going to be stuck with jobs that aren't in demand the way that they were before,” he said.

Buhler is confident he can transition with little training. Because “whether it's building a part for a pipeline or building a part for a wind turbine, it's really no different for me,” he said, but acknowledged that for many workers, it won’t be so easy.

The poll also showed 61 per cent of workers worried about having to invest money into retraining, and 64 per cent were concerned with the time commitment involved.

Nearly 85 per cent of workers said they would participate in a paid training program of 10 days or less, with that number dropping to 70 per cent if they had to pay out of pocket.

“For the vast majority of other workers, taking on the financial burden of a year's training, or even four years’ training … that's a pretty tough pill to swallow,” said Buhler, adding the government should step up to help alleviate the financial burden of retraining.

Luisa Da Silva, executive director of Iron & Earth, agrees.

“The key here, really, is paid, rapid upskilling training for fossil fuel workers,” she said.

According to Iron & Earth’s calculations, Da Silva said, it would cost approximately $10,000 on average to rapidly upskill one worker, and to do the entire fossil fuel industry workforce would cost upwards of $5.5 billion.

Because many workers live in rural communities, Da Silva said it’s also vital to bring the training directly to those workers, so it is inclusive and accessible.

The data showed workers in the 45-plus age category were less confident in their ability to thrive in a net-zero economy than younger workers.

“It is definitely a little terrifying to be close to the end of your career, thinking about retirement, and all of a sudden, the entire world around you is going to be changing, and you’re told that the thing you were doing before is no longer needed or wanted,” said Buhler.

As a younger worker, Buhler said older workers should be given supports and noted they will be valuable for the short-term work needed to decommission and refurbish existing infrastructure.

Despite an overall high desire to switch to net zero and broad recognition of the threat of climate change, the poll found 60 per cent of workers worry they’ll be left behind in this transition without further training or career support.

“Until there is action by the government, which includes a just transition plan with paid training for fossil fuel workers, it's understandable that a lot of workers may be hesitant,” said Da Silva.

Ultimately, it all boils down to jobs, said Ed Brost, who worked for Shell for 30 years before retiring to start his own consulting company.

“People need jobs, they need income, they have to take care of their families and their needs, and people are talking about changing your job … of course, it's going to be apprehensive. I would be,” said Brost.

He said no one has to be left behind, but it’s up to our governments to show there is a path forward.

Iron & Earth is pushing for the federal government to support a national upskilling initiative so workers can be confident they won’t have to pay out of pocket for training, and it will be quick to make the switch.

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), said coal transition policies the AFL helped create when Alberta began phasing out coal-fired power plants will serve as a valuable blueprint for the much larger transition away from oil and gas.

Wage top-ups for unemployment insurance, training vouchers for $12,000 and pension-bridging packages were all part of a transition package negotiated with the Alberta government, but McGowan said one thing missing from the coal transition package was a guarantee of employment.

Despite any shortcomings, he said the coal transition has been successful and much quicker than anticipated, lending hope to the idea that an oil and gas transition can follow suit.

“The thing is, the number of workers in coal is tiny compared to the number of people working in oil and gas,” said McGowan. “So scaling up this approach is going to be much more challenging.”

With over 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, Brost said transitioning will provide some immunity from boom-and-bust cycles, which, for younger workers especially, should be something to get excited about.

“I've been in the sector during good times and the bad, and it's really scary when you know that the company you're working for is going to cut the workforce by two or three or five per cent,” he said.

But workers need a just transition plan if they are to benefit from the long-term growth promised by renewable energy and green infrastructure, and McGowan said the Alberta government will continue to bury its head in the sand until “our federal government actually starts implementing policies instead of just talking about them.”

Natural Resources Canada spokesperson Ian Cameron said the government remains fully committed to helping workers “build the clean energy future we need.”

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, National Observer

The average CEO made nearly 300 times the median employee pay last year, and that gap is only growing, a new AFL-CIO analysis finds

sjackson@insider.com (Sarah Jackson) 10 hrs ago

© Provided by Business Insider Alistair Berg/Getty Images

The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio at S&P 500 companies was 299-to-1 in 2020, the AFL-CIO says.

Its report says S&P 500 CEOs saw their pay increase by $712,720 on average over the year prior.

The findings come as many companies scramble to find workers to fill jobs at existing wages.

The gap between the salaries of CEOs and their workers grew wider in 2020, according to a new analysis from the AFL-CIO.

The average CEO of an S&P 500 company made 299 times more money than the median employee last year, the union federation said in a press release issued Wednesday. This is greater than the CEO-to-worker ratio of 264 to 1 in 2019, Reuters reports.

"2020's growth in pay inequity between workers and CEOs confirms the 'executive base salary reductions' touted during the COVID-19 crisis were just lip service," the AFL-CIO said in the release.

Video: New survey shows businesses still struggle to find workers (CNBC)

The greatest chasm between CEOs' and workers' pay emerged in the consumer discretionary sector, where the average pay ratio was 741-to-1. This sector includes Amazon and retail companies like Starbucks, McDonald's, and Chipotle, whose workers are often paid lower wages.

The AFL-CIO also found that CEOs of S&P 500 companies received $15.5 million in total compensation on average last year. The average S&P 500 CEO's pay grew $712,720 last year, according to the analysis.

In the past 10 years, the average S&P 500 CEO's pay has grown by $2.6 million, representing an increase of $260,000 per year. The average wage for production and nonsupervisory workers only rose $957 per year in the same period, the AFL-CIO says.

News of the growing pay gap comes as the US grapples with a shortage of workers to fill jobs at current wages as the economy reopens from the coronavirus pandemic. Some companies are responding by hiking up wages, offering additional benefits, and even offering cash to show up for an interview. Staff fed up with working conditions are also walking off their jobs en masse at some stores.

Read the original article on Business Insider

THIRD WORLD USA

Bay Area renters have to make between $31 and $68 an hour in order to afford an apartment

htowey@insider.com (Hannah Towey) 

Resident does yoga on the roof of his apartment building in San Francisco, California. (Gabrielle Lurie/The San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images)

Bay Area renters have the most expensive housing in the country, according to a new report.

To afford a one-bedroom apartment, Bay Area renters have to work 2.2 full-time jobs at minimum wage.

San Francisco's high cost of living is due to its booming tech industry and proximity to Silicon Valley.

San Francisco Bay Area renters have the most expensive housing in the US, according to a new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The high cost of living in San Francisco and surrounding counties is nothing new, and it's due to its booming tech industry and proximity to Silicon Valley. Despite the recent outflow of tech talent from the Bay Area to places like Lake Tahoe and Austin, it is still one of the most expensive places to live in the US.

The pandemic caused San Francisco rent prices to plummet 30% year-over-year, Insider's Katie Canales reported in October. Even with rent declines, workers have to make between $31 and $68 an hour in order to rent a two-bedroom apartment.

That means minimum-wage employees have to work 2.8 full-time jobs, or 112 hours per week, to pay for rent and still have enough left over for living expenses. The minimum wage in California is $14 per hour, and the average renter's hourly wage is $24.89.

Affordable housing has long been an issue for America's technology capital - one that Mayor London Breed has tried solving. With 45% of California's population being renters, the impact of the crisis is widespread.

"I think the problem we have, and why we are seeing even more homeless people than we have in the past, has a lot to do with the fact that we have not kept up pace with building more housing," Mayor Breed said on a Freakonomics podcast last October.

The counties with the most expensive housing in the Bay Area are San Mateo County and Marin County. Lower rent prices can be found in Solano, Napa, and Sonoma counties, the three northernmost Bay Area neighborhoods.

Living further from the city center comes with a cost though, as commuting to San Francisco is notoriously expensive due to high gas prices. The city's average price for regular unleaded gas is currently $4.46 per gallon, CBS SF reported. In comparison, New York City gas costs around $3 per gallon, as of this week.

The affordable housing crisis is rarely fought neatly across partisan lines. Research shows that voters on both the right and the left tend to oppose new developments in their own neighborhoods, Insider's Taylor Borden reported.

"San Francisco has become more popular as more people were working here," Breed said. "The tech giants like Google and Facebook that revitalized the area were also key drivers behind the city's climbing cost of living and widening wealth gap."

Read the original article on Business Insider

THIRD WORLD USA
The average person earning minimum wage has to work 79 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment

insider@insider.com (Heather Schlitz) 11 hrs ago

© Provided by Business Insider An employee of McDonald's protests outside a branch restaurant for a raise in their minimum wage to $15 an hour, in Fort Lauderdale on May 19, 2021. Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images

Rent is unaffordable for the average minimum-wage earner in the US, according to a recent report.

Though the Fight for $15 has gained traction, $15 an hour often isn't enough to afford housing.

Low-wage workers will continue to struggle after the pandemic ends.

For the nation's minimum-wage workers, even working two full-time jobs sometimes isn't enough to afford rent, according to a new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The average minimum-wage worker would have to work 79 hours a week to afford a modest one-bedroom rental and 97 hours a week to afford a modest two-bedroom rental, hours that would be difficult for a single person and nearly impossible for single parents.

"People who work 97 hours per week and need 8 hours per day of sleep have around 2 hours per day left over for everything else - commuting, cooking, cleaning, self-care, caring for children and family, and serving their community," the report stated. "Even for a one-bedroom rental, it is unreasonable to expect individuals to work 79 hours per week to afford their housing. For people who can work, one full-time job should be enough."


The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and hasn't increased in over a decade. Though the Fight for $15 - a nationwide campaign to raise the minimum wage - has gained momentum with some major companies and states instituting $15 minimum wages, even a $15 hourly wage isn't enough to lead a comfortable life.

According to the report, an individual would have to earn $20.40 an hour to afford the average modestly priced one-bedroom rental and $24.90 for a two-bedroom apartment, without spending more than 30% of their income on housing.

"Stable, affordable housing is a prerequisite for basic well-being, and no family should live in danger of losing their home," the report stated.

In more expensive housing markets, workers must earn even more to afford rent. In New York state, where the average housing wage is $34.03 an hour, an Amazon employee making $19.30 an hour in New York City has lived in her car since 2019 because she can't find affordable permanent housing.

Although wages overall jumped during the pandemic as businesses struggled to fill open positions, salaries for people already in the workforce didn't go up. Even pre-pandemic economic conditions were difficult for low-wage workers, and the report predicts that workers will struggle even more now to pay off debt accumulated during the pandemic.

"Even if economic recovery is robust and sustained, low-wage workers will continue to struggle."

Read the original article on Business Insider

THIRD WORLD USA

Nowhere in US can minimum wage afford a ‘fair market rent’ 2-bedroom home; Florida among worst states for affordability


CAROLINE GLENN ORLANDO SENTINEL
JULY 15, 2021 

For the second year in a row, a group studying the chasm between declining wages and soaring rents found that nowhere in the U.S. can a minimum-wage worker afford a two-bedroom apartment at the fair market rent.

In its signature Out of Reach report released this week, the National Low Income Housing Coalition determined that a full-time hourly worker would need to earn $24.90 an hour, more than three times the $7.25 federal minimum wage, in order to afford a $1,295-a-month rental home. That’s the average “fair market rent” in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“It keeps telling the same story,” said Anne Ray, manager of the data clearinghouse at the University of Florida’s Shimberg Center for Housing Studies. “Housing costs have really just come unhinged from wages for a lot of jobs and a lot of common jobs like retail, hospitality, customer service, in some early career teaching, pre-school, in part child care.

“Somehow things are to the point where even though there’s that huge demand for relatively low-cost housing, the units aren’t getting produced.”

According to the report, Florida is one of the states where the gap between the minimum wage and what’s actually necessary to afford modest housing is widest.

The state minimum wage is $8.56, equivalent to $17,804 a year and, after Amendment 2 was passed last November, will increase to $10 in September. But to be able to afford a two-bedroom unit at the $1,290 fair market rent, you’d need to make $24.82 an hour, which amounts to $51,619 for a yearly salary.

Put another way, a minimum-wage worker would have to work 115 hours a week.

“This report affirms the sad truth, what we already know about Florida’s housing crisis: The average person is priced out of the market,” said Sen. Victor Torres, who was elected to the Legislature in 2012 and represents Osceola County and parts of Orange County. “When it comes to rents, they’re $1,300, $1,400, $1,500 a month depending on if you need a two-bedroom or a three-bedroom. It’s just not fair.”

Ray said it’s an issue that affects most of Orlando’s workforce, half of which makes below $17.59 an hour, according to data from NLIHC and the state that the Shimberg Center uses to analyze Central Florida’s rental market. Professions in tourism, including cashiers, retail workers, restaurant cooks and servers, make far less than the necessary wage that NLIHC calculated, and even other jobs such as firefighters, electricians, auto mechanics, hairdressers, social workers and constructions laborers largely do not make enough to afford reasonably priced housing on their own.

For someone in Florida working a full-time job making $17.59, the most they could afford to pay in rent without spending more than 30% of their income — how the feds and most housing experts define “affordable” — is $915 a month.

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“For people who can work, one full-time job should be enough,” the NLIHC contested in its report.

But the affordable housing shortage doesn’t just affect working families. Florida’s seniors who are on fixed income also struggle.

In the Orlando metropolitan area, Ray said there are about 240,850 people who get Social Security retirement benefits. The average benefits are between $1,341 and $1,559 per month, meaning they’d have to find a two-bedroom rental for $402 to $468 a month in order to avoid spending more than 30% of their income on rent. Otherwise, a one-bedroom “fair market rent” apartment would eat up as much as 75% of their Social Security.

The result is a state with millions of households, of various ages and income levels, that spend a big portion of their pay on rent, making it more difficult to save, handle an unexpected expense or break into homeownership. The Shimberg Center has found that 1.4 million renter households spend at least 30% of their yearly income on rent, and of those, 938,957 pay even more.

During the pandemic, when droves of workers were suddenly laid off or furloughed, that had devastating effects. With no income and not much savings, paying rent simply became impossible, and despite eviction moratoriums and rental assistance programs set up to help, thousands of people were evicted while the coronavirus was spreading.

As the report points out, most new rental housing that gets built is for high-income renters to balance out high development costs and landlords can “virtually never, without state or federal subsidies” afford to rent out their units at a price that the lowest-income renters can afford.

That’s led to a shrinking supply of affordable homes — for renters and buyers.

In Florida, for instance, over the past 20 years nearly 200,000 rental units priced under $1,000 per month have disappeared as landlords increased rents, while at the same time about 1 million units priced above $1,000 were added, according to the Shimberg Center. The Orlando Regional Realtor Association has also seen the inventory of entry-level homes recede to record lows.

In 2019, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings convened a Housing For All task force made up of homebuilders, Realtors and leaders from the region’s theme parks, labor unions, charities and hospitals that devised a 10-year-plan to inject $160 million into housing projects and build 30,000 new places to live, but few would be for extremely low-income rents. About a third of the units that could be created would be for households that make between $26,000 and $83,000 a year, and two-thirds would be for those who make between $83,000 and $97,000.

The plan also called for loosening zoning codes and offering bonuses to entice developers to the most housing-hungry neighborhoods, and also established a $3.5 million loan fund for nonprofit builders and identified dozens of lots that the county will donate to nonprofits to be redeveloped as affordable houses.

Sen. Torres said he believes the state and local governments can do more, though, including enacting rules to force builders to set aside affordable units in market-rate developments. He also criticized the decision by Senate President Wilton Simpson and House Speaker Chris Sprowls this past session to permanently siphon half of the state’s affordable housing trust fund to spend on environmental projects. The Florida Realtors Association, the largest trade association in the state, has launched a campaign to get a constitutional amendment on the 2022 ballot to restore the fund.

“The Legislature is controlled for the past 20 years by Republicans (who) have their own version of how they want to use those funds,” Torres said, adding that this year lawmakers passed a $100 billion budget. “The money is there, it just depends on the will of the government.”

But aside from building to fix the shortage, the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Biden administration is pushing for a massive expansion of housing programs for the poor, including universal rental assistance to increase the funding for housing vouchers programs, which allow people to rent from the private market while only paying a portion of the rent. The rest is offset by the housing voucher, which is administered by the local housing authority directly to the person’s landlord.

Right now, only 1 in 4 very low-income renters who are eligible for voucher programs receive one.

 

Pandemic layoffs pushed hospitality workers to leave industry

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

VANCOUVER, Wash. - The psychological toll of losing a job due to COVID-19 caused many young hotel and restaurant workers to consider changing careers, according to a Washington State University study.

In the study, the laid-off and fully furloughed hospitality employees reported being financially strained, depressed, socially isolated and panic stricken over the pandemic's effects, leading to increased intention to leave the industry all together. The intention to leave was particularly strong among women and younger workers.

"It's a warning sign for my industry that the younger generation was really hit hard," said Chun-Chu Chen, an assistant professor in WSU's School of Hospitality Business Management and lead author on the study in the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. "We've already witnessed that as the hospitality business is recovering and trying to hire more people, they cannot find the workers they want. There are many factors for that, but one may be that because of the pandemic, people think that hospitality is no longer an industry they want to work for."

Chen added that previous research has indicated that younger workers may not have as strong of a career identity as more experienced employees, making it easier for them to change careers.

Unemployment in the hospitality industry reached 37.3% in April 2020 after many lockdown measures were put in place, according to U.S. Labor Statistics. Chen heard about the impact directly from his own hospitality students who had lost jobs and decided to find out more about how other lodging and food service employees were faring during the pandemic.

For this study, Chen and coauthor WSU Professor Ming Hsiang Chen surveyed more than 600 laid-off and fully furloughed hospitality workers in June 2020. While all the workers in the study had no income at the time, furloughed workers reported somewhat less distress than those who were laid-off, a difference the authors said employers should note for the future.

"Being furloughed is not good, but it's a little bit better than being laid-off," said Chen. "One possible explanation is that if you are furloughed, you are technically still part of the organization, so you still have a sense of community, of belonging."

That feeling of being connected is important in a profession that tends to attract people who are very social, Chen said. In fact, the researchers found that social isolation was the most important factor predicting wellbeing for these workers. But it was financial strain and the perceived impact of the pandemic that predicted whether the workers were considering a career change.

The researchers found one protecting factor for unemployed or furloughed workers' wellbeing: self-efficacy, or the belief that they had personal control over their own circumstances.

However, when it came to some of Chen's unemployed hospitality students, that sense of personal control may have meant they decided to move on.

"I've seen some of my students actually looking for really good jobs in other service industries," said Chen. "I have mixed feelings about their decisions. Our students are well-equipped to thrive in most positions in the service sector. However, as much more opportunities are available right now, I would encourage them to stay in the hospitality industry."

###

Chuno, the Andean secret to making potatoes last decades

Issued on: 15/07/2021 - 

A woman stomps on potatoes to begin the dehydration process of chuno in Machacamarca, Bolivia, on June 30, 2021 AIZAR RALDES AFP


Machacamarca (Bolivia) (AFP)

It's seven o'clock in the morning on Bolivia's altiplano, and through the morning fog is visible an uneven carpet of thousands of potatoes, spread out in front of a water tank near a house.

It's a common sight at farms in Machacamarca, a small village to the south of La Paz.

"This is how we make chuno," says Prudencia Huanca, 52, referring to a traditional dehydration practice which allows potatoes to be eaten decades after they are dug up -- without losing their nutritional properties.

Huanca and her husband Egberto Mamani, 56, produce chuno from the potatoes they grow on a small piece of land about an hour from the capital.

Chuno comes from the indigenous Aymara word ch'unu. It is also practiced in Peru, but its origins are uncertain.

Before the pandemic, this farming couple worked in tourism in La Paz, but that work dried up when restrictions to halt the spread of Covid-19 were imposed.

So they returned to their home village to take up a family tradition.

"I still have my parents' chuno. They died more than 20 years ago but (the chuno) remains preserved," said Mamani.

- Frost -

Archeologist Jedu Sagarnaga believes this conservation method was developed "probably during the Formative Period" from around 2,000 to 200 BC.

It may be even older, as 2017 tests on chuno dug up in Peru showed it was more than 5,000 years old.

As the sun rises and fog dissipates in Machacamarca, Huanca and Mamani spread at least 10 different potato varieties over sacks on the ground.#photo1

It has been a tough growing season for them.

"The frost wiped out everything," complains Mamani.

If temperatures drop to below zero before winter arrives, the potatoes die before they are ready to be harvested.

Before deciding which potatoes to conserve for the long-term, the couple first pick out some for immediate consumption or to use as seeds for the following spring.

- Mummification process -

Once potatoes for chuno have been chosen, the couple lugs them down a hill to the field where they are left for three days to freeze overnight and dry out during the day.

That way they dehydrate and shrink -- the key to longevity.

But even after three days, some water still remains in the potatoes. So Huanca and Mamani wash their feet in a bowl and then take turns stomping on them, much like winemakers crushing grapes.

It's a communal activity, and neighbors come over to help, chatting in their Aymara language.

Some stomp on the chuno while others peel potatoes.#photo2

The next step sees the potatoes returned to the field for about two weeks, enough time for the so-called "mummification" process to be completed.

The chuno process takes three weeks in total, after which the potatoes have become dark brown or even black.

Another chuno variety, called tunta, preserve the potatoes' white color.

These are left in permeable plastic bags in a river or lake, sheltered from the sun, for 20-30 days.

- Substance over flavor -

"The secret for good chuno is that it has to be a gritty and sweet potato," said Huanca. She says she learned the technique from her great-great-grandparents.

Chuno is cultivated in June and July, during the southern hemisphere winter when temperatures drop low enough -- -5 degrees Celsius (23 Fahrenheit) -- for the potatoes to freeze in the open air.

The altiplano lies at 3,900-meters altitude, where daytime and nighttime conditions contrast sharply, allowing nature to perform a process that requires industrial freeze-drying in lower-lying lands.

This technique shrinks the potato to a fifth of its original size, making it easier to store and transport, while also creating resistance to insect infestations.

Chuno is kept in a dry place until it is ready to eat, when it is soaked for a few hours and then boiled for five minutes.

In an inhospitable region where the window for cultivating the land is short, residents are able to eat chuno all year round.

It can be served in a variety of styles, but is usually eaten as a snack during long work hours in the fields.

Huanca and Mamani lay their table ready for lunch: chicken with plantain and potatoes roasted in a clay oven, and some 10-year-old chuno.

Soft, brown and bitter, Mamani is not a fan of the taste, but he values substance over flavor.

"We make chuno so we're never lacking food," he says.

© 2021 AFP

 

Spain's Wild West: The Tabernas Desert

Andalusia is home to the driest region in Europe. It not only boasts a breathtaking landscape, but has also long been a popular backdrop for Western movies. Find out more in part 19 of our series "Extreme Places."

    

The sun burns down mercilessly from the sky, even in the early morning hours, as the sandy ground gets as hot as glowing coals. A horse and cart clatter on by, then a cowboy approaches from the distance on his horse and the saloon doors creak in the dry desert wind.

No, this is not the Wild West. This is not even the US. We are in fact in the south of Spain, more precisely, in Andalusia.

Barren beauty: Large parts of the Tabernas desert are characterized by rugged sandstone hills.

The Tabernas Desert begins around 30 kilometres north of Almería. The area, which is strictly speaking only a semi-desert, extends over 280 square kilometres (28,000 hectares=. The sun shines for more than 3,000 hours a year in this region. In the summer months, temperatures can easily climb to 35 – 40 degrees Celsius (95 – 104 Fahrenheit), and it is rare for more than 250 millimetres of rain to fall around here – during the entire year.

A piece of Hollywood in Europe

As a result, there are not many animals or plants to be found. But that is precisely the great potential of the region. With its barren landscape, it has already served many directors as a backdrop for various adventure films. Around 500 movies have been made in Tabernas.

Texas or Spain? The Tabernas desert has been transformed into many a different region on screen.

 

In fact, Arnold Schwarzenegger transformed into Conan the Barbarian here, while Harrison Ford became Indiana Jones. Even part of the classic desert film Lawrence of Arabia was filmed in this Spanish province.

But generally speaking, when the cameras roll the Tabernas Desert most often transforms into the Wild West. Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda fought out a duel here for Sergio Leone’s cult Western Once Upon a Time in the West. Clint Eastwood got into several shoot-outs with bad guys for A Fistful of Dollars, and Pierre Brice stood in front of the camera in the Tabernas Desert for the German TV production, Winnetous Rückkehr (Winnetou's Return).

Wild West Experience

Elaborate sets were built for many of these productions, and at one point, there were 14 such Western cities scattered across the area. Three of these structures are still standing today, and if there is no film production taking place, they are open to visitors. This way, tourists then get to enjoy the opportunity to feel like they're in the Wild West too – albeit in the middle of Europe.

And that's exactly what attracted DW reporter Hendrik Welling there when he visited the Tabernas Desert for the series "Europe to the Maxx" for DW's lifestyle and culture magazine "Euromaxx." 

In the western town of "Fort Bravo" he slipped into the role of a real cowboy and even fought a duel with a villain – played by one of the local showmen. Experience his cinematic performance and a whole lot more in our video.

Service tips:

Address: Tabernas Desert, Almería Province, 04200 Spain

Getting there: From Almería, you can reach Tabernas by car in half an hour.

Our special tip:Visit the movie backdrop town of Fort Bravo (daily 9am – 7.30pm), which still serves as a film location today. Visitors can experience stuntmen performing daily Western shows.

The accompanying book

Europe at its most extreme: The series "Europe to the Maxx" on DW's lifestyle and culture magazine Euromaxx brings Europe's superlative experiences to life — from extraordinary architecture to spectacular landscapes to unique cultural phenomena. Accompanying the series, the book 111 Extreme Places in Europe That You Shouldn't Miss was published in cooperation with Emons Verlag. It is an alternative travel guide, both informative and entertaining, for avid travelers, fans of Europe and anyone who likes to show off with unusual pub quiz trivia. Full of guaranteed record breakers!

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