Starbucks CEO is blind to the publicity in labor organizing

Jason Sattler, Alternet
September 14, 2022

Starbucks Corp Chief Executive Howard Schultz in Seattle, Washington March 18, 2015. REUTERS/David Ryder

The billionaire who built the Starbucks brand into one of the globe’s favorite recreational drug dealers returned in April as interim CEO of the company. He’s determined, it seems, to either kill the union drives sweeping up his company’s stores or his brand or both.

The National Labor Relations Board has accused Howard Schultz’s company of breaking federal labor laws with the carelessness and passion of a twice impeached president stealing nuclear secrets.

And the caffeineglomerate was recently ordered by a federal judge to rehire seven employees of a Memphis Starbucks, who claim they were fired for union organizing. Starbucks Workers United claims that’s a tiny fraction of the more than 75 workers who’ve been sacked by the company for seeking the basic right of collective bargaining.

READ MORE: How labor unions are combating domestic violence

We have no idea how much Starbucks is spending on union-busting compared to the millions being spent by Amazon. The company seems to be evading that reporting requirement.

But no matter how much that amount is, the result has been filling garbage bins with stinky wads of cash and setting them aflame.

Until the 12th month of 2021, there were zero – zero! – unionized Starbucks stores.

There are now 209.

READ MORE: Ralph Nader: The rule of law overwhelmed by 'unbridled political power of corporatism and other lawless forces'

This floundering matches Schultz’s embarrassing attempt to run as an “independent” for president, which flared out after a couple of “Morning Joe”s and a few fat checks to the political consultants – the only people excited by the idea of Schultz in the White House.

While the pace of new unionized stores has held pretty steady – one every two days – Schultz has escalated his war on workers seeking collective bargaining by closing stores. The company says closures are coming for “safety” reasons. You’re probably not surprised at all to learn that union organizers disagree.

"Every decision Starbucks makes must be viewed through the lens of the company’s unprecedented and virulent union-busting campaign," Workers United said in a statement.

Likewise, everything Schultz does must be seen through the lens of a man who may hate unions more than he loves his company.

Because if you look at this historic union drive from almost any other perspective, you will see what could be the best thing to happen to the Starbucks’ brand this century.

Here’s why.

Labor is more beloved now than it’s been in half a century.

Organized labor hasn’t been this popular since Donald Trump got two of five deferments that kept him out of the Vietnam War.

The labor movement has experienced an extraordinary upswing in popularity since the beginning of the Great Recession, when the Occupy Movement was birthed. This accelerated in the birther era, when Republicans embraced the rhetoric of (white) worker populism as they continued policies engineered for billionaires’ pleasure.

The overwhelming embrace of unions is pretty remarkable given the country’s polarization and unions’ close relationship with the Democrats. But it’s even more remarkable given that the last time unions were this popular the share of workers who were in a union, 28.4 percent, was almost triple what it is today, around 10.3 percent.

With public affection for unions, an organized workforce would give Starbucks a serious competitive advantage against other chains.

Schultz is well aware his customers like the idea of a company that treats its workers well – it was a cornerstone of Starbucks’ appeal as the company’s stores reached near ubiquity. But the thought of giving workers a voice that puts them on more equal footing with shareholders is apparently his worst nightmare.

The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency that enforces the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees the right of nearly all private sector employees to organize. Of course, under Republican presidents they tend to do the exact opposite.

Since 2021, the Biden-appointed Democratic majority on the NLRB has been attempting to make the case that who the president is really, really, really, really, really, really, really important for workers.

“NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is quite possibly the most pro-labor agency chief in its history,” according to Ryan Cooper of the American Prospect. She has “an agenda that would transform the American workplace.”

Schultz has decided to become the poster billionaire for union busting, stepping in the fray to take on labor directly right after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos stepped back and let someone else be the face of his company’s assault on organizing.

That means he has to be Public Enemy No. 1 of anyone who cares about workers’ rights. Gruesome tactics against Shultz’s employees will result in reputational loss for this man with a Venti ego.

But that’s not all.

Continued losses at the NLRB may not have a huge financial cost for the company (because our labor laws aren’t strong enough), they could embolden workers in the more than 15,000 Starbucks stores not yet close to being organized while shattering Shultz’s legacy.

Unless he wants to go down in history as a clownish Dickensian villain who got schooled by one of America’s favorite movements.

You have to forgive Baby Boomers for assuming that youthful values fade into reactionary retirement planning by time you buy a house. That’s certainly what happened for many of them and their peers.

But the times actually do seem to be changing, possibly because America’s young people have never been so diverse, connected and in love with labor organizing. They are helping power the organizing surge, according to the dean of labor journalism, Steven Greenhouse.

“Inspired in many instances by Sen. Bernie Sanders’s calls for economic justice and by the Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter, and the #MeToo and environmental movements, today’s young workers are more enthusiastic about unions than those who grew up during Ronald Reagan’s 1980s,” he wrote.

And young organizers include many TikTok and meme masters who have 50-plus years of coffee consumption ahead of them.

A tight job market with a beloved labor movement and a new generation of activated citizens who may actually be interested in living out their values make welcoming unionization the best advertising that Starbucks can’t buy.

Or Schultz can just keep on losing and hope right-wingers get back into power before it’s too late. Given his spectacular lack of political instincts, you can probably guess which path he’ll take.

READ MORE: How employers are trying to bust union efforts

Biden trolls WSJ editorial board after securing railroad worker deal they suggested wouldn't happen
Brad Reed
September 15, 2022

President Joe Biden is having better news this week, 

with Senate wins and an end to his Covid bout. 

(OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP)

President Joe Biden on Thursday took a victory lap after he and his administration secured a deal to avoid a nationwide railroad workers strike -- and he also used the opportunity to take a shot at his critics at the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

Writing on Twitter, Biden pointed to a WSJ editorial published this week that criticized the president and Democrats for not doing enough to avoid a railroad strike that would have had severely negative effects on the American economy.

"You'd think some $5 trillion in new spending by this Congress, much of which will fatten union bottom lines, would be enough to buy some labor peace," the editors wrote. "Let's see if Democrats side with their Big Labor allies, or with the U.S. economy that needs the trains to run on time."

On Thursday morning, Biden announced he and his administration had struck a deal between the railroads and the unions that increased workers' pay and also the ability to take unpaid time off of work to take care of routine preventative medical care.

"Thanks for your concern, WSJ," Biden wrote in response to the editors. "To answer your question: yes, the trains are running on time."

Florida newspaper disgusted by Republicans refusing to disavow Nazi and white supremacist supporters

Raw Story - 11h ago
By Sarah K. Burris


Florida Governor Rob DeSantis speaks at the University of Miami in 2019. (Shutterstock.com)© provided by RawStory

It's only been a few weeks since President Joe Biden made a speech calling out violent domestic terrorism from white supremacists, militia groups, neo-Nazis and others that have been embraced under the MAGA banner. Now the Miami Herald is concerned that too many of these groups are within Florida's borders and they're part of Gov. Ron DeSantis' (R-FL) supporters.

In an Editorial Board piece on Thursday, the Herald explained hat these "extremists don’t always wear white robes and burn crosses." But they were certainly breaking through the windows of the Capitol on Jan. 6. they were flying swastika flags over interstate overpasses, they harassed those they believed were Jewish and people of color, they staged an event outside of a right-wing conference and held a rally outside of Disney World.

Groups like these were once hidden behind hoods and shamed into the dark corners of the internet. That is no longer the case, however. They've removed their hoods to march with tiki torches in Charlottesville and some replaced them with white gaiter face covering and ballcaps.

The Herald remarked that anyone concerned about what they've seen have been labeled by conservatives as "hysterical liberals."

"Even as we learned about the Proud Boys’ close ties to Miami Republican politics, in addition to their prominent role in the Jan. 6 attacks, many state leaders remained mum," they wrote. Citing a new Anti-Defamation League report, they explained that "Florida has seen a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic incidents — a 50% increase in 2021 compared to the previous year — and hate crimes. Nationwide, anti-Semitic acts also rose but at a slower pace of 34% increase. The organization also found that between 2020 and 2022, there were 400 instances of white supremacy propaganda distribution — 95% of those anti-Semitic — in the state."

They prefaced their comments with the note that neither DeSantis nor Trump said that they support Nazis or white supremacists, "through dog whistles like 'critical race theory' and an anti-LGBTQ agenda," and other buzzwords certainly embrace the ideologies.

"We cannot ignore that the GOP has an extremism problem — and an even bigger problem disavowing it within its ranks," the report explained. "Florida has the largest number of people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attacks, according to the ADL. There was a “significant increase in violent rhetoric in right-wing online spaces” after the FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the report found."

They recalled Trump telling the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," during a 2020 debate, which then became a rallying cry for the militia group. They then helped organize attacks on the Capitol for Jan. 6. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (r-GA) attended the white supremacist event, the America First Political Action Conference in Orlando.

Any time that DeSantis is asked about it, he refuses to give an answer, instead saying Democrats are "trying to 'smear' him with the Jewish community and calling demonstrators 'jackasses' and 'malcontents.'" It shouldn't be difficult to reafirm opposition to Nazis while also attacking Democrats, yet, DeSantis never manages it.

The Proud Boys growing in numbers in the Miami-Dade County GOP led the Herald Board to start asking Republican candidates about it.

"One of them fumbled her response, and did not strongly disavow extremism, so we changed our mind about recommending her in a Florida House primary," the board explained.

The closed by calling on all Florida leaders to speak up and disavow hate and extremism. It's unknown if it will happen, however.

Read the full column at the Miami Herald.

Ottawa announces up to $250M to help Canadians transition to greener home-heating options

Aya Al-Hakim - 

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault announced that the federal government will invest up to $250 million over four years to help make heating more affordable for families across Canada. Nearly half the amount will be set aside for Atlantic Canadians, he said.


Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 17, 2022. Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault announced Thursday that the federal government will invest up to $250 million to help make heating more affordable for families across the country, especially for Atlantic Canadians.

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Patrick Doyle

In a press conference Thursday, Guilbeault said that the funding will help homeowners who currently use home heating oil move to more affordable and greener home heating sources, like electric heat pumps.


"We can help Canadians save thousands of dollars on yearly energy bills, all while fighting climate change," he said.

"We committed to Atlantic Canada that we would come to the table with more help for home energy costs, and today we are delivering on that promise," the minister added.

Of the $250 million investment, up to $120 million will be allocated to Atlantic Canada. This money will be provided over four years through the Low Carbon Economy Fund (LCEF), according to the government.

About 30 per cent of homes in Atlantic Canada currently use oil for heating, a press release issued by the government said.

"Allocations by province will be finalized pending final confirmation with each jurisdiction," the release added.

Member of Parliament for Kings–Hants and Chair of the Atlantic Liberal Caucus, Kody Blois, who was also at the conference said that, "Atlantic Canadians are particularly vulnerable to global increases in fuel costs, caused by the war in Ukraine and a worldwide disruption in energy markets."

"Half of our households in the Atlantic region still use home heating oil, and the cost of transitioning to a new, energy efficient electric heat pump can be really daunting, he added.

Early estimates indicate that clean energy transitions funded by this new investment could help 10,000 to 25,000 homes nationwide, with over 40 percent of those in Atlantic Canada, said the government, adding that about 30 per cent of homes in Atlantic Canada currently use oil for heating.

The feds said that by taking advantage of a range of funding programs from different levels of government, some households could see up to 100 per cent of their eligible expenses covered, with up to 75 per cent covered through federal programs.

Will Ottawa invest in massive de-carbonization plan?

Duration 2:35   View on Watch

The four Atlantic premiers wrote to Guilbeault on Sept. 1 seeking an extension to the federal deadline to submit new carbon pricing plans but were turned down.

They submitted plans on the Sept. 2 deadline but requested talks with Guilbeault's office to address their hopes for a ``practical solution'' to address the costs of implementing carbon pricing during a time of inflationary pressures.

It says that by taking advantage of a range of funding programs from different levels of government, some households could see up to 100 per cent of their eligible expenses covered, with up to 75 per cent covered through federal programs.

The four Atlantic premiers wrote to Guilbeault on Sept. 1 seeking an extension to the federal deadline to submit new carbon pricing plans but were turned down.

They submitted plans on the Sept. 2 deadline but requested talks with Guilbeault's office to address their hopes for a ``practical solution'' to address the costs of implementing carbon pricing during a time of inflationary pressures.

-- with files from The Canadian Press

The West’s water crisis is worse than you think

Jonathan Overpeck, Ph.D., opinion contributor - THE HILL


A couple of years back I moved from Arizona to Michigan, in part because I’m worried about the Colorado River’s growing water crisis.


The West’s water crisis is worse than you think© Provided by The Hill

I have good reason to worry. I lived in the West for over 35 years, first in Colorado and then Arizona, working as a scientist studying climate and hydrological change around the globe, but always with a special focus on the West and the Colorado River.

The West’s water crisis is worse than most think. You can see the lack of appropriate concern in the way the Colorado River is being managed. Most everyone is focused on meeting the declining water levels in the nation’s two largest reservoirs — Lake Mead and Lake Powell — solely with reduced water use.

Water levels are getting lower and lower because of two big problems. First, the long agreed-upon annual allocation of water to about 40 million users in seven states (e.g., California) and Mexico exceeds the supply of water flowing in the river. Second, and ignored by many, the water flowing in the river is also dropping relentlessly, as a warmer, drier climate reduces the amount from snow and rain that reaches the river.

As long as the world keeps warming, there will be less and less water in the Colorado River and across the region for people to use. Climate change is aridifying the West and shrinking the Colorado River as it does.

The federal government has asked the seven states to solve the crisis by reducing their demand for water by up to 25 percent. So far, the states can’t agree on how to do this tough task equitably. They’ve been upping their water demand for years, and now they must reverse course and use a lot less if they want to keep the massive reservoirs from drying up. This task is complicated by the river’s legal framework, which dictates that some states must forsake more water than others.

In the hierarchy of who has the most “senior” or strongest legal rights to Colorado River water, California is king, and thus theoretically, California has to sacrifice the least. This is because California spent decades successfully making deals and strengthening its “senior” rights to the Colorado River water.

This creates an opportunity for California to use its position of strength to help all the Colorado River Basin states create a more lasting sustainable water future for California and the rest of the region.

I can imagine many outcomes that might break the current deadlocked crisis. In one scenario, the states agree or the federal government demands (they do have that power), that all the states give up a share of the needed water allocation cuts. This has happened in the past when water savings were needed, and California has even been known to share water voluntarily. In this scenario, the current situation is just like in the movie “Ground Hog Day” — here we go again. A temporary fix to an ever-worsening problem.

However, the situation is far too grave to simply share the pain, make more cuts to the water demands and consider the job done. This is because climate change guarantees that the western water crisis will only worsen for as long as the planet keeps warming.

What’s not fair is that California is putting great effort into stopping climate change, while other Colorado River Basin states do less. Indeed, many leading politicians from Arizona, Utah and Wyoming don’t even acknowledge that human-caused climate change is a grave threat to their water, their forests, their economies and their region. It’s time for California to stand up and say no to continued water sharing unless the other six states of the Colorado River Basin all agree to step up and fight climate change as if the future of their states depended on it.

Fortunately, California should already have climate action allies in the other basin states. Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico are firmly committed to climate action. Moreover, majorities of people across the whole region favors action on climate change. The Southwest is also ideally situated for growth in wind and solar energy, and renewable energy businesses are already starting to boom across the region, including in Arizona and Wyoming. And crucially, the federal government has just made unprecedented funding available to fight climate change.

For a share of its Colorado River water, and the end of the 2022 water crisis, California should demand the formation of a “Southwest Climate Action Alliance,” in which every Colorado Basin state commits to at least halve their economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and be net-zero by 2045. Such an alliance would speed climate action in the United States as a whole, and thus around the globe. This would also place more states of the West with California at the forefront of the 21st century global energy transition. Concerted regional climate action would ensure that the flows in the very lifeblood of the region — the Colorado River — would stop declining and instead become a sustainable resource for generations of Californians to come.

Alternatively, the region can continue to pump its groundwater dry while the Colorado River flows less and less under a hotter and hotter climate, and so become an enduring poster child of climate disaster. It’s just not smart to ignore climate change while time to implement real solutions is rapidly drying up.

Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist, was the founding university director of the Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center and is currently the Samuel A. Graham dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. Follow him on Twitter: @GreatLakesPeck

How a Soviet plot to beam the U.S.

Embassy with microwaves led to 

 a 'brain weapons arms race'

Michael Isikoff

·Chief Investigative Correspondent

Thu, September 15, 2022 at 3:00 AM·

In some of the darkest days of the Cold War, the U.S. intelligence community was alarmed by a startling discovery: the Soviet Union was bombarding the U.S. Embassy in Moscow with microwaves, in what some officials feared was an attempt to harm American diplomats and possibly, even mess with their minds.

The discovery in the 1950s led to years of highly classified research by the Pentagon to assess the impact on the body and mind of what the Russians were doing. Were the Russians implanting sounds or even words into the heads of American diplomats in an effort to disrupt their work and damage their health?

The questions ultimately triggered a supersecret “brain weapons arms race,” says journalist Sharon Weinberger in today’s episode of the "Conspiracyland" podcast entitled “The Mystery of the Moscow Signal.” (It is the second of three episodes in the "Conspiracyland" series “The Strange Story of Havana Syndrome.”)

“So one of the working theories was that [the Soviets] knew something we didn't know,” said Weinberger, the author of a book, “The Imagineers of War,” that dug into the issue. “That they had uncovered some secret of weaponizing microwaves. And so we had to catch up with them, and we had to have our brain weapons.”

The Cold War concerns about the impact of microwave bombardment on American diplomats is newly relevant to one of the most perplexing issues that has confronted U.S. officials in recent years: the epidemic of strange health ailments, ranging from vertigo and dizziness to, in some cases, brain injuries, reported by U.S. diplomats and spies. It is a phenomenon known as Havana syndrome.

In the early 1950s, U.S. officials discovered a microwave-generated bug concealed inside this Great Seal of the United States given as a gift to the U.S. ambassador in Moscow. (Photo combination: Yahoo News; photos: Mark Seman/Yahoo News)

When the reports of health ailments first surfaced in 2017, and later spread to U.S. officials serving all over the world, some in the U.S. intelligence community — and many in the media — concluded that the "Havana syndrome" symptoms were the direct result of secret Russian microwave attacks comparable to what diplomats in Moscow had experienced decades earlier.

But as "Conspiracyland" shows, that theory only goes so far: Pentagon researchers were never able to establish a connection between microwave exposure and injuries to the body and brain, undercutting the entire U.S. interest in developing a brain weapon.

This finding is buttressed by newly declassified documents released just this week about Project Pandora — a top-secret project in which Pentagon researchers in the 1960s bombarded rhesus monkeys with waves of microwaves in an effort to test whether this had any impact on their ability to perform basic tasks on a computer, in exchange for receiving banana pellets. The documents were obtained by the nonprofit National Security Archive. (Peter Kornbluh, a senior researcher at the National Security Archive, appears in a special bonus episode of "Conspiracyland," which will be released today, called “Henry Kissinger’s Radiation Treatment.”)

As the documents show, the researchers couldn’t find evidence that the monkeys were in any way disrupted or harmed by the microwave bombardment, undermining the idea that U.S. diplomats were being injured at the embassy in Moscow. “I feel confident in stating that … persons exposed are at no risk of injury,” a CIA analyst wrote in a September 1967 memo about the monkey experiments.

U.S. Embassy in Moscow from circa 1964. (Bettmann Archive via Getty Images)

"Conspiracyland" also includes an interview with James McIlwain, a neuroscientist who had reviewed the Project Pandora monkey tests for the Pentagon and similarly concluded “there’s no convincing evidence of the effect of a special signal [of microwaves] on the performance of monkeys.”

Still, the conviction that microwave bombardments were affecting the health of U.S. diplomats persisted for years and reached a crescendo in the 1970s, when Walter Stoessel, the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, demanded that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger confront the Soviets over the issue. Stoessel had been diagnosed with leukemia while serving as ambassador, and believed his condition could have stemmed from the Soviet’s microwave-beam bombardment.

Documents obtained by the National Security Archive include transcripts of sometimes testy, sometimes humorous conversations that Kissinger had with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin over the issue.

"I wanna talk to you about the signal,” Kissinger said during one conversation on Dec. 9, 1975. "What signal?" replied Dobrynin, feigning ignorance of what Kissinger was talking about.

"That beam you are beaming into our embassy in Moscow," Kissinger says. He urged the Soviets to “turn it off” — at least until he arrived in Moscow during an upcoming trip — at which point “you can turn it on again” and “give me a radiation treatment.”

“Then you would be radioactive,” joked Dobrynin.

But for all the humorous asides, Kissinger made clear this was a serious issue: The State Department was under pressure to call out the Russians publicly and pressure them to stop the microwave bombardments. “Look, we're really sitting on it here, but too many people know about it,” Kissinger told Dobrynin. “We will catch hell unless we say something is happening."

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, left, chats with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Dec. 5, 1974, as they awaited the arrival of West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. (AP Photo)

The Soviets never 'fessed up to bombarding the embassy with microwaves, although eventually they turned it off in the 1970s under U.S. pressure. The prevailing theory today is they were using the microwaves to activate secret listening devices they had installed to eavesdrop on the conversations of U.S. diplomats.

But the Pentagon’s interest in developing its own microwave weapon didn’t go away. As Weinberger explains in "Conspiracyland," after the Sept. 11 attacks, researchers stepped up their efforts to develop a microwave weapon that could even implant sounds and words into the heads of terrorist targets. It came to be called “a voice of God weapon.”

“So at some point, over the years, the idea was forwarded that if you could create the sensation of sending words into people's heads, you could make them think they're crazy, that their mind is going crazy,” she said. “You could make them think that God is talking to them” and tell them to “lay down your weapons.”

That, she said, would be “the ultimate gaslighting.” But like much else in the realm of microwave weapons research — including those monkey experiments, so far as anybody knows — the exotic theories never panned out.

Subscribe to 'Conspiracyland' on Apple Podcasts

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Mark Seman/Yahoo News; Bettmann Archive via Getty Images, Getty Images

WAIT, WHAT?!
U.S. limits export of fentanyl to Russia, calling it a potential weapon

The United States on Thursday strictly limited the export of fentanyl and related chemicals to Russia, saying that they “may be useful” as chemical weapons to support Russia’s “military aggression.”


U.S. limits export of fentanyl to Russia, calling it a potential weapon© Jacquelyn Martin/AP

The Commerce Department said sales to Russia of the powerful opiate will now require a U.S. government license. The rule also applies to exports to Belarus, whose leadership supports Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Fentanyl is widely known in the United States as an illicit street drug that has caused thousands of overdose deaths in recent years. But it also has legal uses as a prescription painkiller. It is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Commerce Department didn’t respond to questions about why it took the step. But the move brings the United States in line with the European Union, which controlled fentanyl and related drug exports to Russia in June, saying that the substances “have been used as toxic chemicals … in the past by Russia.”

In 2002, Russian special forces used a gaseous form of fentanyl as a knockout agent before storming a theater where hostages were being held. The gas allowed the agents to enter and kill the Chechen militants who had taken hundreds of people hostage, but the powerful narcotic also killed more than 100 of the hostages.

Russian officials at the time wouldn’t identify the type of gas used, saying only that it was a nonlethal anesthetic. But U.S. officials said that tests done by U.S. Embassy doctors on Americans present during the hostage-taking indicated that the gas was fentanyl.

The new U.S. export controls also apply to the precursor chemicals needed to make fentanyl, and to a group of compounds closely related to fentanyl.

The measure was one of a list of additional sanctions and export controls the United States adopted on Thursday in relation to Russia. It slapped new controls on the export of quantum computing technology to Russia. It also sanctioned additional executives in Russia’s financial sector.

And it adopted new sanctions on people it accused of supporting Putin’s war in Ukraine and committing human rights abuses, including Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov; a Russian neo-Nazi militia allegedly fighting in Ukraine, and a Russian official who the United States said has “led Russia’s efforts to deport tens of thousands of Ukrainian children.”

Mexican Independence Day is here: How September 16 signifies a 'moment of hope' for Mexico

Jordan Mendoza, USA TODAY - 

For some, Sept. 16 may just be another day in the United States, but across the border, it signifies one of the most important days in Mexico's history. It’s the anniversary of the country’s declaration of independence from Spain.

The day commemorates when Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo in 1810 made the cry for independence hours after midnight by giving a riveting speech in the town of Dolores – now known as Dolores Hidalgo – and ringing the town’s church bells. The moment, which became known as the "Grito de Dolores," was the start of the 11-year Mexican War of Independence that resulted in Mexico gaining freedom from Spain after being under colonial rule for over 300 years.

Those unfamiliar with the holiday may see comparisons to the U.S. Declaration of Independence. They are similar in that each country broke away from European rule, but that’s as close as they get.

Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

Here's what to know about Mexican Independence Day.

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How Mexico's independence story differs from the US

Gaining freedom in Mexico didn't happen at the flip of a switch.

“Technically, they gained their freedom. But the way that freedom was gained was not true freedom,” Alexandro Gradilla, associate professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at California State University, Fullerton, previously told USA TODAY. “It's a mix of Fourth of July, Juneteenth, and sadly I would say April Fool's, because people didn't get the freedom they thought they were going to get.”

To Gradilla and other historians, being under Spanish rule was vastly different than Americans under British rule. Spaniards had greater power over the Indigenous people of Mexico, who were often seen as second-class citizens.

That’s what made the Grito de Dolores such an iconic moment in the new country; it gave people hope that they would be free.

The ensuing war would result in around 15,000 Mexican deaths, according to the New World Encyclopedia, much higher than the estimated 6,800 Americans killed in action during the Revolutionary War.

“The country was still in such a precarious position,” said Dolores Inés Casillas, director of the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Chicano Research Institute. “It was a war-torn country after that, so building it was much more difficult.”

‘I don’t know if I will be deported’: Young immigrants prepare for DACA to end

A new nation tries to form before Mexican-American War

Mario Garcia, a Chicanx historian from UC Santa Barbara, said the war also severely impacted the country’s natural resources, creating instability economically and politically, therefore making Mexico “much less prepared for independence.”

“If you look at the first years, the first decades of Mexico's independence, it was a very weak country,” Garcia said. “They were ill-prepared to become an independent country.”

Attempting to build a country following the war is what made it more difficult for Mexico to defend itself in the Mexican-American War that resulted in the U.S. obtaining much of the present-day Southwest

“Mexico had no history of self-governance, and that's a major difference between Mexico and the United States when it achieves its independence,” Garcia added.


Hundreds of military troops hold cards making a mosaic depiction of the Mexican coat of arms in Mexico City, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016.© Rebecca Blackwell, AP
Hidalgo's bell still rings 300 years later

Regardless of the toll the wars took on Mexico, it was still a major victory in becoming its own nation, one that is greatly celebrated today.

Every year during the late night of Sept. 15, the president of Mexico stands on the balcony of the National Palace in Mexico City and delivers a speech similar to Hidalgo's and honors those who fought for the country’s independence. The president also waves a Mexican flag and rings the same bell Hidalgo did over 300 years ago.

Casillas said when she was in the country in September 2017, she remembered everyone feeling “a sense of national pride.”

“Everybody's really excited about the moment,” she said.

Watch: US and Mexico announce massive cooperation

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Mexican Independence Day vs. Cinco de Mayo


The National Guard practices for the upcoming Independence Day parade at Campo Militar N-1 in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022.© Marco Ugarte, AP

Despite the celebration, the holiday still often gets confused with Cinco de Mayo, which is the celebration of Mexico defeating another global superpower, France, in the Battle of Puebla in 1862.

Some people, like Robert Castro, director of Chicanx and Latinx studies at the University of California, San Diego, say Sept. 16 gets overshadowed in the U.S. because of Cinco de Mayo.

There are many reasons as to why the May holiday is more recognized, with Casillas saying corporations' sales surrounding the day helped it gain popularity in the U.S.

Gradilla and Castro both said that many Mexican-Americans were inspired by the May holiday during the Chicano Civil Rights Movement in the middle of the 20th century, which was about “ending oppression and tyranny.”

“Many Chicano activists used that holiday as a way to celebrate their roots and show their appreciation and pride of Mexican culture. Because the Battle of Puebla was led by Mexico’s first and only Indigenous president, Benito Jaurez, they felt that event best symbolized their pride and identities as Chicanos, as Mexican Americans,” Castro said.

Costa Rica, Chile celebrate independence this month

Many Central American countries also observe their independence days around the same time as Mexico. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica celebrate Sept. 15, while Chile observes Sept. 18. The numerous days of independence are why Hispanic Heritage Month begins on Sept. 15.

Still, historians don’t think people should underestimate the significance of Sept. 16, and believe it should be celebrated.

There are many ways people can celebrate the holiday outside of Mexico. Families and friends will often throw parties together since the holiday is about coming together as one. Castro said the day represents solidarity, perseverance, liberation, freedom and joy, which are still some ideas Gradilla believes Mexican-Americans should be inspired to continue to fight for.

“The best way to honor the day is to do social justice or collective-minded political work," he said.

“They were able to change a system by organizing and by pushing back, and I think people have to always remember that change is possible. I kind of see it as a moment of hope.”

Editor's note: A version of this story was first published in 2021.

Follow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jordan_mendoza5.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mexican Independence Day is here: How September 16 signifies a 'moment of hope' for Mexico

Large part of Ukraine grain storage lost in war: report

AFP 

Ukraine has lost nearly 15 percent of its grain storage capacity in the war with Russia, threatening its role as a key food supplier to the world, a new report said Thursday.


Wheat storage silos near Riznykivka in Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine, currently under Ukrainian control© MIGUEL MEDINA

The US government-backed Conflict Observatory said Russians had seized 6.24 million tonnes' worth of food storage capacity, and that another 2.25 million tonnes of capacity in Ukrainian hands had been destroyed.

In total, the war has removed around 8.5 million of Ukraine's 58-million-tonne storage capacity, threatening the country's future ability to get crucial supplies of wheat, corn and sunflower oil to the world market, according to the report.

As a result, farmers are running out of room to store their output for shipment, which could discourage plantings for the next crop, especially winter wheat, the report said.

"Russia and Russia-aligned forces' damage and seizure of Ukrainian crop storage capacity threatens to turn Ukraine's current agricultural crisis into catastrophe," the report said.

"Millions of people around the world rely on Ukrainian agricultural products and are directly impacted by price spikes in global commodities markets caused by shortages linked to Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

The report, which was drawn up for the Conflict Observatory by the humanitarian research lab at Yale University's School of Public Health and the government's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, used satellite photography and object detection algorithms to assess the damage of storage facilities such as silos and grain elevators across Ukraine.

It noted that even partial damage at a facility can spoil stored crops.

Most of the captured and damaged facilities are in Mykolayiv, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblast, and the largest parts were near transportation hubs, suggesting they were damaged in deliberately targeted attacks.

"Indiscriminate targeting of crop storage infrastructure can constitute a war crime and a crime against humanity under international law," the report said.

pmh/to

Mexico arrests Army general in students’ disappearance

MEXICO CITY — Mexico has arrested an Army general accused of involvement in the deaths of the 43 students who disappeared on their way to a demonstration in 2014, authorities said, a crime that shocked the country but remains unsolved.


Mexico arrests Army general in students’ disappearance© Claudio Cruz/AFP/Getty Images

Gen. José Rodríguez Pérez is the latest in a series of officials arrested for allegedly participating in or covering up the abduction of the teachers’ college students from the rural town of Ayotzinapa eight years ago this month. The remains of three of the students have been recovered.

Jesús Murillo Karam, Mexico’s former attorney general, was arrested last month for his alleged role in a coverup. Taken together, the arrests show a rare effort by the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to hold security officials accountable for human rights abuses in Mexico.Mexico arrests former attorney general in kidnapping of 43 students

Rodríguez Pérez is the highest-ranking military officer arrested in the case. Warrants for three others also were issued this week, according to Mexico’s deputy security minister. Two of them were detained; one remains a fugitive.

“Four arrest warrants have been issued against members of the Mexican Army,” Assistant Public Safety Secretary Ricardo Mejía told reporters Thursday. “There are three people arrested, among them the commander of the 27th infantry battalion when the events took place in Iguala in September 2014.”

Rodríguez Pérez, who was a colonel at the time of the students’ disappearance, is accused of playing a significant role.

Six of the disappeared students “were turned over to the colonel,” Alejandro Encinas, Mexico’s undersecretary for human rights, said at a news conference last month.

Encinas said the six were “killed and disappeared on orders of the colonel, allegedly the then-Colonel José Rodríguez Pérez.”

The students were commandeering buses, a local custom, to travel to the demonstration in Mexico City. Encinas said they probably unwittingly stole a bus loaded with drugs or money.

Local law enforcement officials forced them off the vehicles. It’s unclear what happened next, but Encinas has said that state and federal officials neglected to stop the kidnapping and rescue the students, though they could have.Mexico putting civilian-led national guard under military control

The disappearance of 43 students shocked Mexico, but under former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, no serious attempts were made to solve the crime. Instead, officials shielded the role that federal officials played in the disappearance.

López Obrador now appears to be pursuing the federal officials that his predecessor would not. That effort has been seen as a positive development by the victims’ families and human rights advocates. But some analysts have questioned whether López Obrador is motivated primarily by the opportunity to criticize Peña Nieto.

López Obrador’s decision to arrest a senior member of the military — one of the country’s most powerful institutions — does carry some political risk. He has leaned on the military for a range of objectives, from deploying soldiers across the country in a domestic security initiative to constructing a 900-mile train in southern Mexico. That reliance on the armed forces has raised concerns among human rights advocates.

Mexico’s attorney general’s office has issued more than 80 arrest warrants in the case.

Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul contributed to this report.

Mexican authorities arrest general in case of missing students

Mexican authorities have arrested a general and two other members of the army for alleged connection to the disappearance of 43 students in southern Mexico in 2014, the government announced Thursday.


Family members and friends march seeking justice for the missing 43 Ayotzinapa students in Mexico City on Aug. 26. (Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)© (Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Assistant Public Safety Secretary Ricardo Mejía said that among those arrested was the commander of the army base in Iguala, Guerrero, in September 2014, when the students from a radical teachers' college were abducted. Mejía said a fourth arrest was expected soon.

Mejía did not give names of those arrested, but the commander of the Iguala base at that time was José Rodríguez Pérez, then a colonel. Barely a year after the students' disappearances and with the missing students' families already raising suspicions about military involvement and demanding access to the base, Rodríguez was promoted to brigadier general.

Last month, a government truth commission reinvestigating the case issued a report that named Rodríguez as being allegedly responsible for the disappearance of six of the students.

Interior Undersecretary Alejandro Encinas, who led the commission, said last month that six of the missing students were allegedly kept alive in a warehouse for days, then turned over to Rodríguez, who ordered them killed.

The report had called the disappearances a “state crime,” emphasizing that authorities had been closely monitoring the students from the teachers’ college in Ayotzinapa from the time they left their campus through their abduction by local police in the town of Iguala that night. A soldier who had infiltrated the school was among the abducted students, and Encinas asserted the army did not follow its own protocols and try to rescue him.

“There is also information corroborated with emergency 089 telephone calls where allegedly six of the 43 disappeared students were held during several days and alive in what they call the old warehouse and from there were turned over to the colonel,” Encinas said. “Allegedly the six students were alive for as many as four days after the events and were killed and disappeared on orders of the colonel, allegedly the then-Col. José Rodríguez Pérez.”

Numerous government and independent investigations have failed to reach a conclusive narrative about what happened to the 43 students, but it appears that local police pulled the students off several buses in Iguala that night and turned them over to a drug gang. The motive remains unclear. Their bodies have never been found, though fragments of burned bone have been matched to three of the students.

The role of the army in the students’ disappearance has long been a source of tension between the families and the government. From the beginning, there were questions about the military’s knowledge of what happened and its possible involvement. The students’ parents demanded for years that they be allowed to search the army base in Iguala. It was not until 2019 that they were given access along with Encinas and the truth commission.

Shortly after the truth commission's report, the attorney general’s office announced 83 arrest orders, 20 of which were for members of the military. Then federal agents arrested Jesús Murillo Karam, who was attorney general at the time.

Doubts had been growing in the weeks since the orders were announced because no arrests had been reported. The administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has also formed a closer public bond with the military than any in recent memory.

The president pushed to shift the newly created National Guard under full military authority, and his allies in congress are trying to extend the time for the military to continue a policing role in the streets to 2028.

On Thursday, Mejía also dismissed any suggestion that José Luis Abarca, who was mayor of Iguala at the time, would be released from prison after a judge absolved him of responsibility for the students' abduction based on a lack of evidence. Even without the aggravated kidnapping charge, Abarca still faces other charges for organized crime and money laundering, and Mejía said the judge’s latest decision would be challenged. The judge similarly absolved 19 others, including the man who was Iguala’s police chief at the time.

The Miguel Agustin Pro Human Rights Center and other nongovernmental organizations that have supported the families of the students said in a joint statement Thursday that the government had so far not notified the families of the case against Rodríguez nor the charges he would face.

They said that if the prosecution of Rodríguez did advance on “solid evidence,” it could be very relevant for holding the military accountable. The statement noted that there was “abundant” evidence about the collusion of soldiers from the Iguala base with organized crime.

The organizations also called on authorities to appeal the judge’s decision absolving Abarca and others. They said the ruling was the result of poor work by the attorney general’s office that originally brought the charges, including the extensive use of torture, which led much of the evidence to be excluded.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.