Artists hail revolutionary Joni Mitchell at pre-Grammy gala


Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock performs 'Hejira' during the 2022 MusiCares Person of the Year gala honoring Joni Mitchell

 (AFP/ANGELA WEISS)

Joni Mitchell was all smiles at the MusiCares pre-Grammy gala in her honor (AFP/VALERIE MACON)



US singer-actor Billy Porter performs "Both Sides Now" during the 2022 MusiCares Person of the Year gala honoring Joni Mitchell 


Mickey Guyton (R) and Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Russell (L) perform "For Free" in tribute to Joni Mitchell

Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell speaks after accepting the 2022 MusiCares Person of the Year award 

Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell (4th L) stands on stage with performers honoring her, performing a medley of "Big Yellow Taxi" and "The Circle Game" 




Brandi Carlile and Stephen Stills perform "Woodstock" on stage during the 2022 MusiCares Person of the Year gala honoring Joni Mitchell 





Maggy DONALDSON

Sat, 2 April 2022

Music's legends and hitmakers turned out Friday to honor Joni Mitchell -- the Canadian-born folk icon behind classics including "A Case Of You" -- at a charity gala ahead of the Grammys that featured moving tributes and glassy eyes.

The 78-year-old Mitchell donned a sequined kimono-style robe, bejeweled black beret and bright red nails at the MusiCares show where artists including Herbie Hancock, Cyndi Lauper, Angelique Kidjo and Stephen Stills, along with this year's leading Grammy nominee Jon Batiste, paid homage to her vast oeuvre.

"It's been quite a year," the artist known for her distinct contralto and open-tuned guitar told journalists on the red carpet.

In December she was among the inductees at the Kennedy Center Honors gala, one of America's most prestigious arts awards.

The evening marked a rare public appearance for the trailblazing Mitchell, who in 2015 suffered a brain aneurysm that left her temporarily unable to speak, the aftermath of which has involved extensive physical therapy.

But on Friday she was glowing, telling reporters she's been having artistic "ideas" even as she continues to focus on improving her health.

The influential artist who inspired everyone from Neil Diamond to Prince is perhaps best known for the intensely personal 1971 album "Blue," a deep dive into emotional heartache.

Last summer "Blue" charted number one on iTunes as it hit its fiftieth anniversary -- outperforming even pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo's "Sour."

Voicing her own astonishment over the milestone, Mitchell explained her album's enduring popularity and recent resurgence: "Maybe people want to get a little bit deeper."

And asked by reporters how she was feeling health-wise, she said "pretty good," adding she'd been "making improvements."

- 'Touches the world' -

Jazz great Hancock -- who in 2007 released a tribute album to Mitchell entitled "River: The Joni Letters" -- hailed his longtime friend's artistic "courage."

"She bares her soul, but she does it in such a poetic way," Hancock told AFP on the red carpet, in the hours before he delivered a performance of Mitchell's song "Hejira" onstage.

He credited Mitchell, who is widely considered among the 20th century's greatest songwriters -- with teaching him "how to listen to lyrics."

"Some people -- and I'm one of 'em -- when we listen to music, we hear the harmonies and the musical textures, and the lyrics sound like gibberish," he continued.

Yet Mitchell's "poetry" still strikes him, Hancock said: "Nobody writes lyrics like Joni."

"She's given all of us the courage to tell the truth," said performer Billy Porter, who paid tribute to Mitchell singing her beloved "Both Sides Now" onstage. "To use our art to grow; to use our art to heal."

"To set some other people free -- she's powerful that way."

The star-studded gala is an annual tradition from MusiCares, the charitable wing of the Recording Academy that raises money to help musicians in need prior to the Grammy Awards.

This year's celebration also featured an affecting remote performance of "A Case Of You" from Graham Nash, of the folk supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, a band Mitchell both deeply influenced and shared a rich working relationship with.

She also dated both David Crosby and Nash, and mined the latter break-up for inspiration on a number of the songs comprising the seminal "Blue," including the touching "A Case of You."

Neil Young appeared in a video message sending Mitchell "lots of love," while Stephen Stills attended the ceremony in Las Vegas and praised Mitchell as "one of the great artists of this world."

"Back when we were kids we had a good time trying to figure out the tunings that she used. Crosby happened to be the most adept at it," he told AFP. Crosby produced her debut album, "Song to a Seagull."

Stills played guitar as Brandi Carlile belted out a rollicking rendition of "Woodstock" on an evening flush with performances, that left many in the room, especially Mitchell, with tears welling.

"I could retire now, and just let other people do it," she joked when she accepted her award. "Everybody was splendid."

"Did you enjoy it?" she asked the audience to rounds of applause, before joining the night's performers to sing "The Circle Game" and "Big Yellow Taxi."

Stills summed up the mood: "God bless you Joni Mitchell, for being in our lives."

mdo/ssy

 

Generations sing to Joni Mitchell in pre-Grammys tribute

By ANDREW DALTON

1 of 10

Joni Mitchell accepts the Person of the Year award at the 31st annual MusiCares benefit gala on Friday, April 1, 2022, at the MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)


LAS VEGAS (AP) — An 81-year-old jazz giant and a 15-year-old rock singer were the first to perform tributes to Joni Mitchell on Friday night.

Such was the diversity of artists honoring a most diverse artist, Mitchell, a Canadian-turned-Californian, folkie-turned-rocker-turned-jazz explorer who was honored as the 2022 MusiCares Person of the year by the Recording Academy two days before the Grammy Awards.

Herbie Hancock played a jazz piano rendition of music from Mitchell’s 1976 album “Hejira” that was followed by a rocking version of 1974′s “Help Me” from Violet Grohl, the teenage daughter of Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, to open the tribute concert in a ballroom at the MGM Grand Las Vegas.

Mitchell, sitting at the front table, brought out the teenager in many of the older entertainers.

“When I first heard Joni Mitchell it was 1968 and I was 15 years old,” Cyndi Lauper, now 68, said. “I had never heard anyone sing so intimately about what it was like to be a young woman navigating this world.”

Lauper recited several of Mitchell’s lines that moved her most, before launching into “Magdalene Laundry” while playing mountain dulcimer.

“I don’t know how you do what you do, I just know I need it like food,” Meryl Streep said in a video message played for Mitchell and the crowd. “Ever since we were both young girls. We didn’t know each other, but you sang me into being. You sang my life.”

Seven years after a brain aneurysm that left her temporarily unable to walk or speak, Mitchell, 78, was delighted to be in Las Vegas and out at a major public event for the first time since the pandemic began.

“I had the best margarita that I’ve ever had at our hotel,” she told The Associated Press as she walked into the gala.

Mitchell is a presenter and a nominee for best historical album at Sunday’s Grammys. She says she’s always found herself in the genres and categories that don’t make the Grammy telecast.

“I usually win the behind-the-curtain awards,” she said with a laugh.

Inside, sitting a table with Hancock and director Cameron Crowe, Mitchell often appeared near tears as a parade of artists praised her before giving their takes on her songs.

“Not unlike people who lived in the time of Shakespeare, and of Beethoven, we are living in the time of Joni Mitchell, and it shows tonight,” said Brandi Carlile, who sang a version of “Woodstock” that began as a quiet ballad before the house band kicked in and Stephen Stills — who played on the most famous version of the 1970 song with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young — joined her for an electric guitar solo.

In a new approach to this year’s MusiCares tribute, organizers appointed Carlile, who is up for five Grammys on Sunday, and Jon Batiste, who is up for 11, as music directors to coordinate the artists and their approaches to the difficult, genre-bending songs of Mitchell’s five-decade career.

“We helped shepherd artists to their Joni songs, the ones that their souls connected to,” Carlile told the AP. “This isn’t easy music. This is complicated, brilliant music that is really hard to interpret.”

Before singing one of those esoteric songs, “The Jungle Line” from 1975′s “The Hissing of the Summer Lawns,” Beck said “preparing for this event I feel like I’ve been in Joni school.”

John Legend gave a surprise performance, singing and playing solo piano on Mitchell’s “River” on a spinning stage in the middle of the room as the crowd of 2,400 was finishing their spinning dessert, an edible Grammy trophy on a turntable.

“Everybody was splendid, it just kept getting better and better and better,” Mitchell said in a brief acceptance speech near the concert’s end. “I can retire now and just let other people do it.”

But she showed she’s not quite done yet.

Carlile and Batiste brought most of the night’s performers back to the stage for a sing-along of “The Circle Game” and “Big Yellow Taxi.”

Mitchell eventually made her way to the mic to join them, delivering the famous baritone ending of the latter song.

“Put up a parking lot,” she sang, to laughs and whoops from the crowd.

The MusiCares Person of the Year is a career achievement award handed out for a combination of inspiring artistic accomplishments and philanthropy. The gala handing it out raises funds for the programs of MusiCares, the Recording Academy charity that provides health and welfare services to musicians in need.

Past honorees include Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton and Aerosmith.

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

Tribes seek more inclusion, action from US officials

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN and FELICIA FONSECA

1 of 6

FILE - Interior Secretary Deb Haaland waves after speaking to a crowd during a totem pole delivery ceremony by Native American tribal leaders and Indigenous activists, on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 29, 2021. Secretary Haaland vowed on her first day on the job to ensure Native American tribes have opportunities to speak with her and the agencies she oversees. Native American and Alaska Native groups are seeing change under Haaland but some remain frustrated with the pace of action. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)


ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — It was a quick trip for U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland with stops to hike through desert scrub near the U.S.-Mexico border and to marvel at the jagged Organ Mountains before soaking in what life was like in one of the oldest settlements along a historic trade route.

For Haaland, the time spent in West Texas and New Mexico over recent days helped to highlight the work being done to conserve parts of the borderlands.

But it also marked an opportunity for Haaland — as head of the agency that has broad oversight of tribal affairs — to deliver on promises to meet with Native American tribes that have grown increasingly frustrated about the federal government’s failure to include them when making decisions about land management, energy development or the protection of sacred sites.

Haaland’s selection as the first Native American to serve in the position opened a door for tribes who pointed to a history fraught with broken promises.

“I want the era where tribes have been on the back burner to be over, and I want to make sure that they have real opportunities to have a seat at the table,” Haaland said on March 17, 2021, her first day on the job.

Haaland has since met with nearly 130 of the nation’s 574 federally recognized tribes as she seeks to overhaul a federal system that has limited Native American relations to a check-the-box exercise.

And while some tribes say her aspirations are admirable, others remain skeptical they will see real change and say they have yet to experience meaningful dialogue with the federal government or key decision makers.

Haaland’s department has developed a plan for improving formal consultations with tribes and established an advisory committee that will aid with communication once it’s up and running. In an effort to make consultation a hallmark of her tenure, Haaland has said she wants integration of tribal input to become second nature for her employees.

There has been some success as tribes felt heard when the Biden administration restored the original boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and when the U.S. Department of Agriculture pulled back an environmental impact statement that paved the way for an Arizona copper mining operation to consult further with tribes.

But frustrations persist among tribal leaders who say their conversations with the federal government have not resulted in action on the ground.

For the Ute Indian Tribe in Utah, those frustrations lie in management of the Colorado River basin as western states grapple with less water amid a megadrought and climate change. Tribes were not included in a century-old compact that divvied up the water, and the Ute tribe says it’s seeing the same exclusion now.

The tribe’s Business Committee has spent hours in meetings and preparing formal comments and says it’s tired of having to reiterate its position that the federal government must protect the tribe’s water rights or support development of water infrastructure to serve the reservation.

Committee Chairman Shaun Chapoose said he’s seen proposals, but “actual where-the-rubber-meets-the-road stuff hasn’t occurred yet, and the drought gets worse.”

There are similar sentiments among Navajo Nation lawmakers who are concerned about Haaland’s plans to make oil and gas development off-limits on federal land surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico.

Advocacy groups sent a letter to Haaland on Thursday, saying more needs to be done to include tribes as her department charts a path forward for protecting culturally significant areas in northwestern New Mexico.

The Interior Department said more meetings with the Navajo Nation and other tribes are planned in April and that Navajo-language translators will be present.

In Nevada, several tribes and the National Congress of American Indians have asked the Interior Department and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to uphold a duty to engage in “robust and adequate” tribal consultation regarding plans for a massive lithium mine at Thacker Pass. So far, the tribes say that hasn’t happened.

Under the U.S. Constitution, treaties and statutes, the federal government must consult meaningfully and in good faith with Native American and Alaska Native tribes when making decisions or taking action that is expected to impact them.

However, a 2019 report from a government watchdog found some federal agencies lacked respect for tribal sovereignty, didn’t have enough resources for consultation or couldn’t always reach tribes.

Another top complaint from tribes is that they are brought in when a course of action already has been set, instead of including them in the earliest phases of planning.

“The federal government says all the right words, but their mentality is one in which they are not really doing this in a way that reflects the proper government-to-government relationship that I think tribes are orienting to when they enter into these conversations,” said Justin Richland, a professor at the University of California-Irvine School of Social Sciences who specializes in Native American law and politics.

Consultation doesn’t always lead to action or create any substantive rights on the part of the tribes, making it somewhat of a “toothless tiger,” said Dylan Hedden-Nicely, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation who directs the Native American Law Program at the University of Idaho.

He said it’s reasonable, although incorrect, to think things would move quickly with Haaland — a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico — because she had a base of knowledge about Indian Country when she took the office. But the groundwork is still being laid to effectuate real change, Hedden-Nicely said.

“It’s not immediate, but it’s going to be worth the wait, I’m hoping,” he said.

During Haaland’s confirmation hearings, Interior staff consulted with tribes on how to improve the process.

“Secretary Haaland and the entire department take our commitment to strengthening tribal sovereignty and self-governance seriously, and we have affirmed that robust consultations are the cornerstones of federal Indian policy,” department spokesman Tyler Cherry said in a statement to The Associated Press.

President Joe Biden issued a memo during his first month in office, reaffirming previous executive orders on tribal consultation and directing federal agencies to spell out how they’ll comply. That set in motion Haaland’s efforts to give tribal leaders a direct line of communication to the Interior Department.

A congressional committee is scheduled next week to consider a bill by Democratic U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona that would codify a framework for tribal consultation that supporters say would insulate the process from changes in administration.

The legislation faces an uphill battle, and some tribes want to ensure that it includes a pathway not only for the federal government to initiate consultation, but for tribal leaders to start conversations, too. Similar legislation introduced in the past has failed.

For Amber Torres, chair of the Walker River Paiute Tribe in Nevada, consultation should be more than a generic letter or email.

“I want true, meaningful, face-to-face dialogue with a timeline, intent and follow-up and next steps agreed by both parties,” she said. “Making the tribal consultation process a law is long overdue, and it would be a step in the right direction to ensure tribal nation sovereignty is protected.”

___

Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Arizona.

Missouri regulates boarding schools after abuse allegations

By JIM SALTER


1 of 3

This undated photo shows Maggie Drew. Drew, now 29, is among several former students of Circle of Hope Girls' Ranch who have alleged abuse at the Christian boarding school in southwestern Missouri. The husband-and-wife operators of the school have been charged with around 100 crimes combined. Religious boarding schools like Circle of Hope and a nearby facility for boys, Agape, have come under scrutiny amid tales of abuse, prompting a new state law providing greater oversight. 

(photo by Maggie Drew via AP)


Maggie Drew’s dad sent her to Circle of Hope Girls’ Ranch in Missouri in 2007, hoping strict Christian teachings would stop his 14-year-old daughter’s teenage rebellion.

Instead, Drew said, she found herself in a nightmare, sexually abused by one of the boarding school’s founders and left with permanent spinal injuries after a fall from a hay barn for which she received no medical attention.

Just 25 miles away at another Christian boarding school, Brett Harper says he endured abuse that included staff members stomping on his back.

They are among dozens of people who say they were abused at either Circle of Hope or Agape Boarding School — allegations that helped prompt a new Missouri law aimed at reining in religious boarding schools that for decades went without any oversight by the state.

“I still have nightmares about these people and the things they did to us,” Drew said.

The founders of Circle of Hope face around 100 charges, some alleging sexual abuse. Agape’s doctor is charged with child sex crimes and five employees are accused of assault, though Missouri’s attorney general thinks many more workers should have been charged.

The schools are unrelated and are not affiliated with any particular Christian denomination. But both opened in southwest Missouri under a 1982 state law that gave religious boarding schools free rein and the state no way to monitor how kids were educated. Even the health department had no oversight, including for schools that claimed to address mental health, behavioral and addiction issues.

The new law approved last year followed extensive reporting from The Kansas City Star that found that several faith-based boarding schools, including Agape, relocated to Missouri after being investigated or shut down for abuse or neglect elsewhere.

Legislators heard testimony from former students such as Chanel Mare, who told of girls at Circle of Hope being forced to eat their own vomit; and James Matthew Lawson, who said he was raped at Agape and called “seizure boy” because of his epilepsy.

The Associated Press generally does not name victims of sexual abuse, but Larson and Drew both came forward publicly to discuss the allegations.

Supporters of religious boarding schools say they provide structure to troubled young people. Megan Stokes, executive director of National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs, said the wrongdoing alleged at Agape and Circle of Hope is exceedingly uncommon.

Yet unlike Missouri and many other states, her trade association requires state licensing for all of its 150 member schools, including the religious ones. Agape is not a member, nor was Circle of Hope.

Boyd and Stephanie Householder opened Circle of Hope in 2006 in the remote town of Humansville. “We use the BIBLE to teach (girls) that they are to obey their Parents and the authority over them,” the school’s website, which has been taken down, stated.

The school closed amid a 2020 investigation; 25 girls were removed. In March 2021, Boyd Householder, 72, was charged with 79 crimes and Stephanie, 56, was charged with 22.

Sixteen former residents alleged they were restrained with handcuffs, whipped with belts, and punched. Nearly two dozen counts against Boyd Householder accuse him of sexual contact with girls.

Messages left with the Householders’ attorney were not returned. In an August interview with the Star, the couple said the accusers made up their stories.

Drew, now 29, said her life was upended when her brother died in a car wreck in 2007. Her grieving father joined a church in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Drew said that when she refused to wear a skirt and her grades dropped, church leaders persuaded her dad to send her to Circle of Hope.

“It was absolute torture,” said Drew, who also accused the Householders of stealing a $25,000 inheritance from her.

James Clemensen, a retired California trooper, and his wife, Kathy, started Agape in Stockton, Missouri, in 1990. He told a reporter in 2002 that he picked Missouri because of its lack of regulation. He died in October.

Agape serves 120-150 boys ages 12-17. Its website says it’s a nonprofit school “designed to show God’s love to teen boys struggling with behavior issues that can threaten their future.”

The school remains open. Five staffers were charged in September with abusing students. In December, Dr. David Smock was charged with sexual abuse. He pleaded not guilty in March.

Phone messages left with Agape’s director and Smock’s attorney were not returned.

Harper was 14 when he was sent there from his rural Oregon home in 1999. Now 36, he recalled long hours moving large rocks from one pile to another, toting lumber by hand and clearing land. Harper said his injuries have left him unable to keep a job.

“What I went through at Agape primed me for abusive relationships with people, it primed for being an ignorant young man not knowing the way the world worked, it destroyed my family relationship,” Harper said.

Missouri’s new law sets minimum health and safety requirements for boarding schools, which still don’t have to be licensed. The law mandates background checks for employees; requires adequate food, clothing and medical care for students; and says parents must be allowed access to their children at any time without prior notice.

After a state investigation last year, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt recommended charges against 22 Agape employees. But in Missouri, only the local prosecutor can file charges, and Cedar County Prosecuting Attorney Ty Gaither does not plan to file more.

“The attorney general has his agenda,” Gaither said. “I’m an experienced prosecutor and I filed what I believe are the appropriate charges.”

James Clidence, who taught math at Agape from 2012 to 2015, said he left after witnessing abuses so concerning that his wife contacted federal, state and local authorities. None would investigate, he said.

“I’m for religious liberty. I’m a pastor. But at this point we’re talking about children’s well-being,” Clidence, who now leads a Baptist church in Maryland, said.

Harper is among those who question whether religious boarding schools will get real scrutiny in Missouri.

“How many things have to happen before they act?” he asked.

Peru to Target Miners’ ‘Excess Profits’ in Tax Reforms: Reuters

Max Zimmerman, Bloomberg News

A drilling machine moves copper concentrate at the Southern Copper smelter facility in Ilo. Photographer: Dado Galdieri/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Peru will target the “excess profits” that mining companies have earned from rising metal prices around the world, Economy and Finance Minister Oscar Graham told Reuters in an interview late Friday.

The world’s second-largest copper supplier will focus on surplus profits, potentially through an “adjustment” to taxes, Graham said, as the metal trades at near record levels of around $10,000 per ton following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Graham said the margins of the adjustment are being evaluated but it is important the mining sector retain its competitiveness and that investment will not be discouraged. He also told Reuters that Peru needs a better distribution of mining wealth to communities to quell recent protests, which have halted output of some key mines.

Peru Government, Communities Agree on Truce for Las Bambas

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo pledged to raise taxes on the mining sector when he came to office last year. His current plan, however, is much less ambitious than initially promised after it faced resistance from miners and a split Congress, according to the report.

UN rights body appoints Tuvalu negotiator as climate change expert

Ian Fry has negotiated on behalf of least developed countries, ensuring that human rights were part of the final package. 

PHOTO: FENNERSCHOOL.ANU.EDU.AU

PUBLISHED
APR 2, 2022

GENEVA (REUTERS) - The UN top rights body appointed an expert on climate change and human rights for the first time on Friday (April 1), a move that is expected to embolden environmental defenders and provide more support for victims of extreme weather.

The new Special Rapporteur position was formally created by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council in October at the same time as the body recognised access to a clean and healthy environment as a fundamental right.

The first to hold the post will be Ian Fry, who holds both Australian and Tuvaluan nationality. He has negotiated on behalf of least developed countries including at the 2015 Paris climate conference where he helped ensure that human rights were part of the final package.



Tuvalu, a tiny, low-lying Pacific nation, has been prominent in drawing global attention to the struggle against rising sea levels. Its foreign minister gave a video address to the United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow last year standing knee-deep in seawater.

The mandate of the new independent expert is to "study and identify how the adverse effects of climate change, including sudden and slow onset disasters, affect the full and effective enjoyment of human rights and make recommendations on how to address and prevent these adverse effects".

In his letter stating his reasons for seeking the post, Fry stressed the need for action to help those forcibly displaced by extreme weather, having witnessed this first hand after Cyclone Pam in Tuvalu in 2015.

"I believe the displacement due to climate change is one of the greatest human rights threats confronting the international community," he wrote.

Fry, who teaches environmental policy part time at an Australian university, was one of 26 candidates for the position, UN documents showed. The appointment is for three years.

FETUS FETISHIST
Five Fetuses Were Found In The Home Of An Anti-Abortion Activist, DC Police Said


Salvador Hernandez
Fri, April 1, 2022, 1:52 PM·4 min read

Five fetuses were found in the home of an anti-abortion activist on Thursday after Washington, DC, police received a tip about a "bio-hazard material" at the home, the Metropolitan Police Department told BuzzFeed News.

The grisly discovery was made after the US Department of Justice announced federal charges against Lauren Handy and eight others in a 2020 incident where they allegedly forced their way into a reproductive health clinic in DC, barricaded themselves inside, and livestreamed it all on Facebook.

Police released few details of the discovery on Thursday, stating only that the fetuses were collected by the DC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the investigation is ongoing.

A reporter for WUSA saw Handy outside the home as police were on scene and asked her what officers had found inside.


"People will freak out when they hear," she told him.



On Friday, an anti-abortion group associated with Handy, Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, confirmed in a statement that one of the defendants from the federal criminal case "privately arranged" to notify D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department about the fetuses.

The group claimed the fetuses appeared to show injuries suggesting violations of the Partial Birth Abortion Act, which prohibits certain methods of abortion.

"These babies were given to police based on the suspicion of these violations," the statement read.

Public records show Handy has been arrested on multiple occasions on suspicion of various charges, including disorderly conduct.

According to the federal indictment, Handy and eight others plotted to get inside a DC clinic that provides abortions on Oct. 22, 2020, aiming to keep patients from being treated inside.

The nine defendants used force to get inside and carried tools with them to barricade themselves, including ropes and chains, in order to prevent patients from getting in, the indictment said.

Handy allegedly called the clinic days in advance, giving them a false name and making an appointment for 9 a.m. that day. Before the clinic opened, Handy then walked up to a receptionist outside, according to the indictment, and gave her false name for the appointment. In the meantime, one of the other defendants was starting a Facebook event titled "No one dies today" to stream the incident.

When the clinic doors opened, seven other defendants allegedly forced their way inside. One nurse fell and sprained her ankle while Handy and others blocked the doors, the indictment said.

According to the indictment, Handy directed the other defendants on what to do.

Handy is director of activism for a group called Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, which said in a statement that Handy was released just hours after her arrest Wednesday.

The group describes itself as a "progressive grassroots pro-life activists."

"We will not stop mobilizing against violence until every unjust law has been struck down," the group said in a Facebook post.

Terrisa Bukovinac, founder of the group, declined to speak to BuzzFeed News but referred a reporter to the organization's media contact, Randall Terry, a prominent anti-abortion activist who founded Operation Rescue, a fundamentalist Christian anti-abortion group.

Terry could be heard in the background passing his contact information to Bukovinac to give this reporter. When Terry answered the phone, he first spoke in an accent seemingly imitating the cartoon character "Speedy Gonzalez" and identified himself as "Jose Jimenez" before bursting into a laugh.

Terry referred to the clinic where Handy was arrested on Oct. 22, 2020, as an "abortion mill" and said the fetuses found in Handy's home were obtained from the same clinic.

The fetuses, however, were not obtained during the Oct. 22, 2020 incident, he said.

"On a different time, the babies were retrieved," he said. "There's a direct connection. We're going to lay out a timeline."

Terry declined to say when the group would provide more information, or to say if the five fetuses were the only ones obtained from the clinic.

Police did not answer questions about the origin of the fetuses, or if any other items were discovered in the home.

In her Facebook profile, Handy has made multiple anti-abortion posts and described actions that she and others have taken. In March, for example, she claimed she and other activists had gained access to the University of Washington's fetal organ labs and freezers.

Kristin Monahan, a member of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, said nothing was taken from the freezers during the group's activities at the University of Washington.

How Brexit axed abortion access for Europe’s most marginalised

Post-Brexit immigration rules mean the UK has abandoned European citizens in dire need of basic healthcare

Jenna Norman
1 April 2022

A march in Dublin for ‘free, safe and legal’ abortion, 2018 |
Fabrice Jolivet Photography / Alamy Stock Photo. All rights reserved

Last year, Alessia, 24, became pregnant. She’s from Malta, where abortion is banned, but she needed to end her pregnancy. She knew that you could order abortion pills online, but was terrified of the consequences of getting caught. Desperate, she discovered that she could travel to the UK to have a safe surgical abortion up to 24 weeks into her pregnancy, giving her time to save money and plan the trip.

But then she realised she needed a passport to travel to England, because of the new rules after Brexit. Malta is in the European Union, so Alessia was used to relying on freedom of movement to travel and had never needed one before. Also, a passport cost €70; an expedited one was double the price.

Eventually, Alessia contacted the Abortion Support Network (ASN), a UK-based charity that helps people access safe abortions. She managed to travel to Spain, where the legal limit is 14 weeks and the cost of the procedure is higher, to have a termination just in time.

Alessia is one of many European citizens whose access to abortion has been severely restricted by Britain’s exit from the European Union. On 1 October 2021, UK immigration rules changed: anyone visiting the UK from outside the Common Travel Area, even for the shortest time, is now required to have a passport.

Before Brexit, thousands of pregnant people travelled from within the EU to clinics, primarily in London, Liverpool and Manchester, using national ID cards, to make use of the lengthy abortion time limit (24 weeks) in England, Wales and Scotland. Brexit changed this for good.

“The majority of our clients [in Poland] don’t have passports,” said Mara Clarke, founder and director of ASN, which supported more than 700 Polish women to end unwanted pregnancies between 2019 and 2021. It’s “impossible to get an expedited passport,” she added.

Clarke said the formal rule changes consolidated a clear pattern since 2016, the year of the UK’s referendum on Brexit: “Almost immediately after [the referendum] we noticed that it was almost impossible for us to get visas for people, no matter what the circumstances.” This has completely changed the way ASN works. “We send the majority of our clients to the Netherlands now,” she told me.

This is borne out by figures from the UK’s Department for Health and Social Care, which show an 80% reduction in “non-resident” abortions in England and Wales between 2016 and 2020 (Scotland’s figures are separate).

In 2016, 4,810 people travelled to England and Wales to have an abortion, followed by 4,633 in 2017 and 4,687 in 2018. In 2019, that number plummeted to 2,135 before collapsing to 943 in 2020 as a result of the added complications of Brexit and COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Irene Donadio from the European arm of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), which advocates for sexual and reproductive health and rights, explained: “The new Brexit requirements to have a passport plus visas plus COVID testing act as increased barriers and costs for women in desperate need of abortion care.”
Mainland Britain and abortion

Why was mainland Britain previously such an important refuge for people in need of abortions?

Key factors are the relatively stringent time limits and uneven provision that exist across Europe. In France, the non-exceptional limit for abortion (where there is no risk to life or health and the pregnancy is not the result of rape) is 14 weeks. In Italy and Germany, it’s 12. Bans on abortion in Malta and Poland mean women are forced to travel abroad (at their own expense).

Provision in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, despite the much-celebrated legal changes, remains patchy at best, and the number of weeks into a pregnancy someone can have a surgical or medical abortion is only 12 weeks – assuming you can find a hospital to perform the operation.

For later abortions in particular, the British mainland was a crucial destination. For European migrants in Ireland, geographical proximity enabled the journey to be done in a day, saving on accommodation and childcare expenses. But the decision to no longer allow travel with EU identity cards has closed this window completely.
Poor and marginalised suffer most

Unsurprisingly, it is the poorest and most marginalised women who are most affected. Passports cost money, which immediately creates a financial barrier to access. Racism also plays a role, especially for those travelling from Ireland by ferry: ASN reports that racial profiling during ‘randomised’ immigration checks makes this journey feel particularly unsafe for people of colour.

Punitive border laws and punitive abortion laws are impacting the same group of people: the people who don’t have the money to buy their way through things

ASN’s Clarke concludes: “Punitive border laws and punitive abortion laws are impacting the same group of people: the people who don’t have the money to buy their way through things.” Donadio from IPPF agrees: “The fatal combination of anti-choice and anti-immigration policies might mean that poorer women, especially undocumented migrant women or asylum seekers, become double victims of these radical policies because their legal and economic status does not allow them to travel to access crucial care like abortion.”

For example, Irish citizens can still travel to the UK with an ID card on most airlines and ferries, but European migrants in Ireland must have a passport – even though they probably used an EU identity card to enter Ireland.

This leaves migrant women stranded without options if they experience an unwanted pregnancy while, for example, studying abroad – as in the case of another of ASN’s clients last year. Lisa (not her real name) got pregnant while she was studying in Ireland, but the baby was diagnosed with foetal abnormalities in the 13th week.

Despite her best efforts, she could not get two doctors to certify the baby’s condition (as required by law) and permit an abortion. The hospital advised her to travel to mainland Britain instead, but she only had her Irish residency ID and no passport. Lisa did not get the necessary documents and had to continue with the pregnancy.

This is the terrible consequence of what Clarke calls “state-sanctioned medical negligence” when it comes to the post-Brexit maelstrom of anti-choice and anti-immigration policies. The growing anti-choice movement in Europe is coinciding with the rise of what Donadio describes as “ultra-nationalist […] authoritarian governments that are xenophobic and anti-migrant”, including in the UK.

When asked what needs to change, both Clarke and Donadio sounded resigned to the current situation. “I spend all my time trying to decrease the obstacles between people who need abortions and the abortions,” says Clarke. She describes the UK’s provision of abortion as “when it is good, it is very good and when it is bad, it is horrid. And it is horrid for the people who are already marginalised or at risk or poor.”

Leaving the EU has seen the UK – formerly a relative champion of reproductive justice – abandon European citizens in dire need of basic healthcare. Experts such as ASN and IPPF think that rates of non-resident abortions in the UK will never recover from COVID-19 travel restrictions as a result of the Tory government’s stringent post-Brexit rules.

For women and pregnant people like Alessia and Lisa, living in places that actively suppress their rights to their own bodies, Brexit has created yet another obstacle to justice and security.

Colonial taxes built Britain. That must be taught in lessons on Empire

UK government ministers want the British Empire's benefits taught in schools. Don’t let them ignore the death and destruction it inflicted

Gurminder K. Bhambra
1 April 2022

Gurminder Bhambra as a child with her grandfather, Mohan Singh |
Gurminder Bhambra

Recent weeks have seen a variety of UK government ministers – from Oliver Dowden to Kemi Badenoch to, most recently, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi – both extol the benefits of British Empire and urge the teaching of those benefits. This follows on from the government’s response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which set out the need for a new model curriculum for history which would advise schools on how best to teach these issues. This is all part of the government’s Inclusive Britain strategy which calls on us to acknowledge the rich and complex history of ‘global Britain’.

In the spirit of this call, I offer one account of the complex, entangled histories of colonial taxation and national welfare that continue to shape modern Britain. Few people know that colonial subjects from the Indian subcontinent paid taxation, including income tax, to the British government in Westminster. Or that that taxation was used to alleviate the conditions of poorer people within Britain at a time when the working class and middle class here were exempt from paying income tax.

Taxation – and the ways in which it is returned to citizens through welfare – is one of the main ways in which the ‘imagined community’ of the nation comes into being. That is, the relationship between taxes and welfare is part of the process of constructing institutions and the idea of the nation. If we were to recognise that this ‘imagined community’ was built not only through national taxes, but also colonial ones, then how might that change our understanding of what it is to be British today?

My grandfather, Mohan Singh, was born in 1913 in a small village in the Punjab, in what was then British India. He was four years old when his father, Gurdit Singh, died and 17 when his uncle, Harnam Singh, who had been supporting him, also passed away. My grandfather had planned on attending the Government College in Lahore, but – needing to support his mother and younger sister – he instead spent six months training as a boilermaker. He then got married to Pritam Kaur and travelled to Calcutta to work in a variety of factories, engineering works and rolling mills.

In 1942, he travelled to the British colony of Kenya – bringing his family over later – and worked for 18 years at the East African Railways and Harbour Company. He spent the last two decades of his life in the UK, working at Chalvey Engineering in Slough as a sheet metal worker before retiring at the age of 65 in Southall, west London.

Calls to ‘go home’ have been the refrain of right-wing opponents of immigration from at least the 1970s

Mohan Singh criss-crossed three continents during his lifetime, but he never left the jurisdiction of the British Empire. In his application for registration as a citizen of the UK and Colonies – in the aftermath of the British Nationality Act of 1948 – he wrote: “I was born in British India.” He further noted that he lived and worked in India and Kenya, two countries that were colonies of Britain. It was these connections that confirmed his citizenship and gave him the right to travel to and live in Britain. He duly exercised those rights but, on arrival, he had them called into question by the local population, who were either unaware of them or indifferent.

Calls to ‘go home’ have been the refrain of right-wing opponents of immigration from at least the 1970s – as well as having been plastered on the sides of vans as part of the UK government’s ‘hostile environment’ policies of recent years. They are also implicit in an influential body of scholarly work oriented to questions of belonging and entitlement that argue for priority in public policy to be given to the ‘white working class.’ This is on the basis of them being ‘insiders’ who have contributed through their taxes to the wealth that is disbursed through welfare.

Former colonial subjects, like my grandfather, are regarded as immigrant outsiders even when they come to the metropole carrying passports of British citizenship. They are not seen to have contributed to the wealth of Britain by paying taxes and they are regarded as unfairly gaining access to the national patrimony. As Geoff Dench, Kate Gavron and Michael Young write in ‘The new East End’: “As newcomers, their families cannot have put much into the system, so they should not be expecting yet to take so much out.”

Britain established direct rule over India after suppressing the 1857 Indian Mutiny (also known as the First War of Independence). In 1860, it implemented an income tax upon colonial subjects, in part to pay for the costs associated with those revolts. Initially, a 2% rate was imposed on those earning between 200 rupees and 500 rupees a year and a 4% rate on those earning above 500 rupees annually.

The arrival of the British in India – first via the English East India Company and then through direct rule – had brought endemic famine across the subcontinent

When my grandfather started work in the 1930s, the average wage for a skilled worker in British India was about 40 rupees a month. He was very unlikely to have paid income tax, however, as he would not have earned enough to meet the threshold, which by then was 2,000 rupees a year. Of the amount that was collected, around three-quarters went to the imperial treasury, with only one rupee in a hundred for local purposes. Local purposes included the building of canals and roads, but not the alleviation of poverty, not even in times of catastrophic famine.

The arrival of the British in India – first via the English East India Company and then through direct rule – had brought endemic famine across the subcontinent. The 50 years after the implementation of the income tax saw one of the most intense such periods of famine, in which it is estimated over 14 million people died of starvation. This was in the context of grain being exported by rail from the famine regions (including to Britain) and colonial taxes continuing to be collected even in the worst-affected areas.

In all cases, the demands of ‘sound finance’ trumped those of public health and the primary thing to be avoided was any idea that the poor in India should be maintained at public expense. Ensuring sufficient funds for the ensuing military campaign in Afghanistan – from the taxes paid by colonial subjects for local purposes – was of more importance than using those taxes to alleviate severe hunger and avert the deaths of millions.

Here, we see quite clearly that the idea of the ‘imagined community’ created through taxation and its redistribution did not include colonial subjects. The taxes that Indians paid to the imperial treasury and to local provinces did not give them any entitlement to the redistribution of that income. Worse, any relief provided during famines was often dependent on undertaking hard labour in camps at a distance from a claimant’s locality.

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As academics, we teach about empire, slavery and colonialism because without them, the world makes no sense.

The most extreme instance was where the rations provided in return for heavy labour were scarcely above the level required for basic subsistence. The ‘Temple wage’ – named after the lieutenant-governor, Richard Temple, who brought it in – produced lethal results and, as Mike Davis notes in ‘Late Victorian Holocausts’, turned the work camps into extermination camps.

The death and destruction brought about by the Empire were known at the time. In 1925, Harry Pollitt, the leader of the Boilermakers Union in the UK, stated that the British Empire was drenched in blood. This was in the context of debates at the Trades Union Congress in Scarborough, where a resolution was eventually adopted – by three million votes to 79,000 – against imperialism and in support of the right of self-determination of those who were colonised.

Such sentiments, however, came up against more hard-nosed understandings concerning the utility of the Empire to those in Britain. As Labour foreign secretary Ernest Bevin proclaimed in Parliament in 1946, “I am not prepared to sacrifice the British Empire, because I know that if the British Empire fell … it would mean that the standard of life of our constituents would fall considerably.”

Here, Bevin acknowledged that the life of all within Britain was enhanced as a consequence of Empire. However, Empire was overwhelmingly disastrous for the majority of people subject to it. Their standard of life fell considerably as a consequence of colonialism and the famines it produced and, in many, many cases, they lost their lives to it.

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The government’s obsession with ‘culture wars’ is a threat to democracy
2 March 2021 | Sam Fowles
By threatening museums, ministers are forcing a preferred view of history. This is a trait of authoritarian states

One mode of survival was to move. This is why my grandfather moved from a village in the Punjab to train as a boilermaker in Lahore, before working in Calcutta, Nairobi and London. This is likely why his grandfather before him moved from famine-struck Orissa to Rajasthan to Punjab. These movements tend not to be seen to be part of the histories of Britain, global or otherwise, or of any consequence to understanding Britain or Britishness in the present.

The forgetting of the Empire involves also the forgetting of the political community – colonial and postcolonial – that was constructed through taxation. Few in Britain today understand the extent to which national projects – from social welfare to cultural institutions such as country houses, museums, and galleries – have been enabled through the taxes paid by former colonial subjects. There is an urgent need for us to recognise our shared histories and account for them.

One aspect of the ‘culture wars’ is the call to take the views of taxpayers into account when discussing ‘contested histories’. Samir Shah, the chair of London’s Museum of the Home, for example, argued that as heritage bodies are funded by taxpayers’ money, then the views of taxpayers – those he considers the silent majority – ought to be taken more explicitly into account. Given that both colonial subjects and their descendants paid taxes to the government in Westminster, then they/we also have a legitimate stake, in the government’s own terms, in how our shared history is represented. There is a benefit to the teaching of British Empire, but the reality is different from what these ministers suppose.

File:Hardt Michael Negri Antonio Empire.pdf - Monoskop 

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British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery: The Legacy of Eric Williams 

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In his classic study Capitalism and Slavery, Eric Williams argues vigorously ... capitalists from the ranks of the slave-owners and slave traders. The.

Western hypocrisy: What Joe Biden gets wrong about Russia

Those in the Middle East know the kind of destruction seen in Ukraine all too well – the West was the perpetrator


Paul Rogers
2 April 2022,

ODR: OPINION

Joe Biden's claims of the moral imperative of challenging Russian autocracy are likely to fall on deaf ears |
Yuri Gripas/Abaca Press/Alamy

Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine remains in a violent stalemate. Russian forces are pausing their attempts to occupy Kyiv, having withdrawn some of their forces from around the capital, but a major retreat is highly unlikely given Russia is recruiting several thousand mercenaries from Syria.

The Kremlin’s strategy now is to concentrate on overrunning the southern Ukraine port city of Mariupol, before joining up Russian forces in Crimea with those in Donbas to take control of as much of the region as possible.

This does not mean Putin intends to annex Donbas even if he can occupy it, since the economic costs for a weakened Russia economy would be considerable. He would instead support Donbas’s ‘independence’ and treat it as a client state, with the region’s reported shale gas reserves, coupled with the offshore gas reserves of Crimea, being satisfactory gains. If successful, this plan could, in time, undermine the Kyiv government and perhaps even achieve Russia’s original aim of installing a client government in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, global support for Ukraine remains strong but is very far from universal, with India, China and South Africa all studiously neutral. While many governments across the Global South supported the original UN resolution condemning Putin’s actions, plenty did not. And for many of those that did, the governments did not necessarily represent the views of their own people. While support for Putin may not be strong in the Global South, that does not translate into popular support for NATO, as openDemocracy’s Khatondi Soita Wepukhulu explained at the start of the war.

This mood was this week summarised in the opening line of an Al Jazeera analysis of world reaction: “The war in Ukraine has turned Russian President Vladimir Putin into a pariah – at least in the West.”

‘At least in the West’ is a theme that perplexes many people in the West. How is it that Russia can reduce cities to rubble – bombing hospitals, health centres and schools – and yet not face worldwide condemnation? It is a valid question and the answer is uncomfortable, but it must be faced if Russia’s actions are not to be repeated elsewhere. The answer, in short, is a widespread perception of Western hypocrisy.
A Western trail of death and destruction

Since 2010, the Watson Institute at Brown University in the US has been running the ‘Cost of War Project’, tracking and analysing the wars of the 21st century. In its recent study of the first two decades since 9/11, it reports that more than 929,000 people, including at least 387,000 civilians, have been killed by direct violence in US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Pakistan. The institute believes that several times those numbers have died through indirect impacts, such as malnutrition, starvation, freezing to death and disease, which is hardly surprising given it reports 38 million people have been displaced.

Many of those wars – which were started and largely fought by the US and its coalition partners, notably Britain – ended in failure, including in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. In Iraq alone, the current count for civilian deaths since 2003 ranges from 186,143 to 209,349, depending on the methodology used.

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Some would argue that the West’s more recent war, its sustained air assault on ISIS in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2018, successfully destroyed the group. But even that ‘success’ is now looking tarnished, as ISIS survives and remains active in both countries and, along with other extreme paramilitaries, is entrenched across the Sahel, has a presence in Mozambique and the DRC, impacts on Kenya and Uganda, and has links with groups in Somalia.

Put bluntly, states such as the US and UK, which now expect global support for their stance on Ukraine, have, in the view of many around the world, two decades of blood on their hands.

With that in mind, when President Biden talks of the moral imperative of democracies challenging the Russian autocracy, it is all too likely to fall on deaf ears. People simply contrast the president’s stance on Putin’s regime with Western links to autocracies worldwide, not least in the Middle East and North Africa. In 1986, to take but one example, during a spat between the US and New Zealand over nuclear-armed US warships visiting local ports, the US ambassador in Wellington, career diplomat Paul Cleveland, was moved to comment: “Sometimes it is more difficult to deal with a messy democracy like New Zealand than with some Asian dictatorships.”

Even so, there is still the argument that Russia’s brutal tactics in Ukraine, of reducing towns and cities to little more than rubble, transcend anything done by Western coalitions in the Middle East and South Asia. The problem is that this does not stand up to scrutiny; quite aside from US violence in Vietnam or rendition and torture in Guantanamo, there are plenty of more direct examples, not least from Iraq.

Take just three. In April 2001, a US supplies column to a forward base in the Iraq city of Fallujah was ambushed and it took hours of battle and reinforcements for those involved to escape to safety. There were casualties but no deaths, yet that night the Marine Corps called in the devastatingly effective AC-130 gunships and levelled six blocks of the city, in what was openly described as a punitive action. There is no record of the number of civilian casualties in the densely packed city.

In November of the same year, the Fallujah ‘problem’ was finally solved when the US took control during an all-out assault on the entire city. Thousands were killed, most of the public buildings were razed, and more than half of all the houses in the city were destroyed or severally damaged.

For many, what Russia is doing is not so different from what has been done by US-led coalitions

And, in the US-led war against ISIS (2014-18), the most difficult task was the taking of a key ISIS stronghold of western Mosul in northern Iraq, especially the old city. The US eventually succeeded in this aim, following intense aerial and artillery bombardment, but the cost was the near-complete destruction of the city, again with many deaths.

The appalling Russian bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities is broadcast to Western audiences thanks to near-24/7 coverage in the Western media. What is not realised by many of these audiences, is that this kind of coverage was also available, around the clock, during the Iraq War. Channels such as Al-Jazeera gave full accounts, including graphic images, of the injuries and deaths caused by Western forces, much of which was withheld on Western channels.

In short, there is rightly much anger across the West at what Putin’s forces have been doing and will continue to do in Ukraine. Many people living outside Western states are also appalled but, for them, what Russia is doing is not desperately different from what has been done by US-led coalitions in wars in South Asia, North Africa and especially the Middle East. If people are at a loss to understand why much of the world is not more forthright in its condemnation of Russia, that is where to look.

From: Inside Story

What’s next for Tunisia as its political crisis deepens?

President Kais Saied dissolves parliament in latest move to consolidate power.

It’s been nearly eight months since Tunisia’s president sacked the prime minister, suspended parliament and granted himself broad executive powers.

Kais Saied has now dissolved the parliament, accusing its members of attempting a coup.

KEEP READING

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Tunisia: Crisis deepens as opp’n leaders summoned for questioning

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Tunisia caught between president and parliament as crisis deepens

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Tunisia’s president dissolves parliament, extending power grab

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But legislators say it is Saied who is grabbing power illegally.

The president – a former constitutional law professor – has rejected calls for elections within three months

So what happens now in a country that had been praised as the only success story from the Arab Spring revolutions?

Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom

Guests:

Rabeb Aloui – Tunisian journalist

Moncef Khaddar – Associate professor, Department of International Relations, Cyprus International University

Cherif El Kadhi – Political commentator