Seattle schools sue tech giants over social media harm


This combination of 2017-2022 photos shows the logos of Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat on mobile devices. On Friday, Jan. 6, 2023, Seattle Public Schools filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, suing the tech giants behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, seeking to hold them accountable for the mental health crisis among youth. 

GENE JOHNSON
Sat, January 7, 2023 

SEATTLE (AP) — The public school district in Seattle has filed a novel lawsuit against the tech giants behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, seeking to hold them accountable for the mental health crisis among youth.

Seattle Public Schools filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court. The 91-page complaint says the social media companies have created a public nuisance by targeting their products to children.

It blames them for worsening mental health and behavioral disorders including anxiety, depression, disordered eating and cyberbullying; making it more difficult to educate students; and forcing schools to take steps such as hiring additional mental health professionals, developing lesson plans about the effects of social media, and providing additional training to teachers.

“Defendants have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth, hooking tens of millions of students across the country into positive feedback loops of excessive use and abuse of Defendants’ social media platforms,” the complaint said. “Worse, the content Defendants curate and direct to youth is too often harmful and exploitive ....”

Meta, Google, Snap and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.

While federal law — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — helps protect online companies from liability arising from what third-party users post on their platforms, the lawsuit argues that provision does not protect the tech giants' behavior in this case.

“Plaintiff is not alleging Defendants are liable for what third-parties have said on Defendants’ platforms but, rather, for Defendants’ own conduct,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants affirmatively recommend and promote harmful content to youth, such as pro-anorexia and eating disorder content."

The lawsuit says that from 2009 to 2019, there was on average a 30% increase in the number of Seattle Public Schools students who reported feeling “so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row" that they stopped doing some typical activities.

The school district is asking the court to order the companies to stop creating the public nuisance, to award damages, and to pay for prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media.

While hundreds of families are pursuing lawsuits against the companies over harms they allege their children have suffered from social media, it's not clear if any other school districts have filed a complaint like Seattle's.

Internal studies revealed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021 showed that the company knew that Instagram negatively affected teenagers by harming their body image and making eating disorders and thoughts of suicide worse. She alleged that the platform prioritized profits over safety and hid its own research from investors and the public.

Teslas of the sea? CES showcases electric hydrofoil boats





People look at a boat with a Mercury Avator electric outboard boat motor at the Brunswick booth during the CES tech show Friday, Jan. 6, 2023, in Las Vegas.

 (AP Photo/John Locher)


MATT O'BRIEN
Fri, January 6, 2023 

Flying cars and self-driving vehicles always get attention at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas, but this year electric recreational boats are making bigger waves.

Swedish company Candela on Thursday unveiled a 28-foot (8.5-meter) electric-powered hydrofoil speedboat that can cruise for over two hours at 20 knots, or about 23 mph. California startup Navier tried to outdo its Scandinavian rival by bringing an electric hydrofoil that's a little bit longer, though Candela is further along in getting its products to customers.

Even the recreational motorboat conglomerate Brunswick Corporation tried to make a splash in Nevada this week by showing off its latest electric outboard motor — an emerging segment of its mostly gas-powered fleet.

WHY ELECTRIC?

A chief reason is environmental, as well as to save on rising fuel costs. But electric-powered boats — particularly with the sleek foiling designs that lift the hull above the water's surface at higher speeds — can also offer a smoother and quieter ride.

“You can have a wine glass and it does not spill,” Navier CEO Sampriti Bhattacharyya told The Associated Press last month. “And it’s quiet, extremely quiet. You can have a conversation, unlike on a gas boat.”

WHEN CAN YOU GET ONE?

Candela CEO Gustav Hasselskog said his company has already sold and manufactured 150 of its brand-new C-8 model. The Stockholm-based startup has been scaling up its workforce from 60 employees a year ago to about 400 later this year as it prepares to ramp up production.

But with a roughly $400,000 price tag, neither the C-8 nor Navier's N30 is aiming to replace the aluminum boat used to fish on the lake. They've been described as Teslas of the sea, with hopes that what starts off as a luxury vehicle could eventually help transform the marine industry.

“They tend to be entrepreneurs,” Hasselskog said of Candela's first customers. “They tend to be tech enthusiasts, if you like, with an optimistic view about the future and the ability of technology to solve all kinds of societal challenges.”

Navier's investment backers include Google co-founder Sergey Brin, which means he's probably getting one, too.

ARE BOATERS READY FOR THIS?

Probably not. These early electric boat models are expensive, heavy and could instill more serious “range anxiety” than what drivers have felt about electric cars, said Truist Securities analyst Michael Swartz, who follows the leisure boat industry.

“How safe is it for me to go out in the middle of the week with no one around, miles from shore, in an electric outboard engine?” Swartz said.

Swartz said they might make more sense to use electric motors — such as a new CES offering from Brunswick-owned Mercury Marine — to power a fleet of small rental boats, perhaps at the widely-used boating clubs also run by Brunswick.

“You’re not anywhere near the type of electric boat where you can go 50 miles offshore and go fishing for a couple of hours and come back,” Swartz said. “There’s no technology that can enable you to replicate that experience outside of an internal combustion engine.”

BRING ON THE WATER TAXIS?

Both Candela and Navier are planning for a secondary market of electric ferries that could compete with the gas-powered vehicles that now carry commuters around populated regions such as the Stockholm archipelago or along San Francisco Bay.

Hasselskog said the same technology powering Candela's new leisure boat will also be used to power a 30-passenger catamaran prototype that could operate in Sweden by summer.

For a city like Stockholm, which has already electrified most of its public ground transportation, its dozens of large ferry boats are an outlier in producing carbon emissions.

“They need something like 220 of these (electric) vessels to replace the current fleet,” Hasselskog said. And instead of running on fixed schedules with empty seats, the smaller electric vehicles might be able to be summoned on demand such as how Uber or Lyft work on land.

AUTOMATIC DOCKING

Many of the companies developing electric boat propulsion also have teams working on making these vehicles more autonomous. But since most recreational boaters like piloting their own boats — and most ferry passengers likely prefer a human captain at the helm — the self-driving innovation is focused on what happens at the marina.

“There's an intimidation factor with boating and a lot of the intimidation factor you hear from consumers is with docking,” said Swartz, the Truist analyst. “So if that can be made seamless and automated, it’s a huge deal.”

Germany backs Norwegian plan to capture carbon from cement


 German Economy Minister Habeck addresses the media at a joint statement in Berlin

Fri, January 6, 2023 

BREVIK, Norway (Reuters) - Germany's economy minister Robert Habeck threw his weight behind a Norwegian project to capture carbon emissions and re-use them being carried out by multinational HeidelbergMaterials.

Habeck's visit to the Norcem cement plant in Brevik, Norway, represents a shift in German policy back towards efforts to deal with planet-warming emissions by capturing them and making use (CCSU) of them in industrial processes.

Projects have repeatedly stalled on issues of cost and environmental opposition as campaigners have been concerned carbon capture and storage can serve to prolong the use of fossil fuels.

The mood has changed in Germany as the problem of climate change has become more urgent and the focus has shifted to dealing with the emissions that are hardest to avoid at the same time as accelerating the use of renewable energy.

As cement-making inevitably emits carbon, its capture is necessary to mitigate pollution, and the Norwegian plant is meant to serve as a global blueprint, eventually capturing 400,000 tonnes of CO2 - half its emissions - per year.

Norway is providing 85% of the 400 million euro ($424.08 million) cost for Heidelberg subsidiary Norcem to set up a carbon capture facility that should allow storage of carbon dioxide under the seabed near the Brevik site in about two years' time.

"CCUS is the key technology to decarbonise our product and eventually our sector," HeidelbergMaterials chief executive Dominik von Achten said in a statement.

Globally, HeidelbergMaterials is investing 1.5 billion euros in CCUS technology up to 2030.

The cement manufacturer last year rebranded itself and adapted its former name, HeidelbergCement, to reflect a broader strategic focus on sustainability and digital solutions.

Germany aims to cut 65% of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 compared with 1990 and to become carbon-neutral by 2045.

During Habeck's visit, Norwegian state-controlled oil firm Equinor and German utility RWE said separately they planned to develop a supply chain for low-carbon hydrogen.

($1 = 0.9496 euros)($1 = 0.9432 euros)

(Reporting by Markus Wacket, additional reporting by Ilona Wissenbach, writing by Vera Eckert, editing by Barbara Lewis)

Now able to sell abortion pill, U.S. pharmacies weigh if they should

Fri, January 6, 2023 
By Ahmed Aboulenein, Gabriella Borter and Michael Erman

Jan 6 (Reuters) - Pharmacies across the United States are weighing whether to sell mifepristone, a pill used in medication abortions, following the Food and Drug Administration's announcement earlier this week that they can now do so.

What they decide is primarily based on where they are located given that almost half the states ban or restrict abortion after the Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v Wade ruling, though some pharmacists told Reuters the local culture and attitudes or their own personal beliefs on abortion is what guides them.

The FDA rule will make medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions, more accessible in states where abortion remains legal, but its impact on pharmacies in the states that have banned abortion remains to be seen.

Bill Patel, who has owned Care Rite Pharmacy in Marianna, Florida, for five years, said he would not seek out certification to dispense mifepristone at his pharmacy because he is personally opposed to abortion. The pharmacy is located near Florida's borders with Georgia and Alabama, where abortion is severely restricted.

He said he would only do it if asked by the health department. "I just oppose it to be honest with you," he said. "I'm against abortion."

Florida currently bans abortion after 15 weeks and has several other restrictions.

National pharmacy chain giants Walgreens Boot Alliance Inc and CVS Health Corp have said they plan to offer mifepristone in states where it is allowed. Other national and regional chains including Southeastern Grocers Inc, which owns Winn-Dixie stores, said they are still considering if they will offer it and where.

A spokesperson for GenBioPro, one of two companies that make mifepristone in the United States, said the drugmaker has already started to receive applications for certification but did not provide further details.

Michelle Vargas, owner of independent Lamar Family Pharmacy in Lamar, South Carolina, said she is not considering dispensing it.

"We're in a very small rural area. We're not near an abortion clinic or in a larger city where that happens more," she said. "That's just not something we see here."

Legal questions are swirling around the prospects of a drug with FDA approval being made illegal under state law in some parts of the country.

With the legal issue unsettled, pharmacies in states restricting abortion are likely to face legal risks and could lose their licenses if they decide to sell mifepristone in violation of state laws, said American Pharmacist Association interim CEO Ilisa Bernstein, who worked at the FDA for 30 years.

Other factors, such as safety for pharmacies and pharmacists, are also at play, said Bernstein.

Steve Moore, pharmacist and owner of Condo Pharmacy in Plattsburgh, New York, a state where abortion is legal, plans to dispense the drug.

"As far as my role as a pharmacist, I feel it's to help people safely and effectively use the medications," said Moore. "I'm not in the role of limiting access to medication."

"We've had patients give us a hard time for dispensing the morning after pill or birth control. That's certainly your prerogative. But if that's a concern, then we're not the pharmacy for you, because we're certainly not going to stop doing that," he said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Gabriella Borter in Washington, Michael Erman in New York; Editing by Caroline Humer and Lisa Shumaker)

L.A. lets rain flow into the Pacific Ocean, wasting a vital resource. Can we do better?

Hayley Smith
Fri, January 6, 2023 

High surf brought spectators to Manhattan Beach on Friday.

 (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles River roared to life this week as a series of powerful storms moved through the Southland. In Long Beach, 3 feet of water shut down the 710 Freeway in both directions, while flooding in the San Fernando Valley forced the closure of the Sepulveda Basin.

It was by all accounts a washout, but despite heaps of water pouring into the area, drought-weary Los Angeles won't be able to save even half of it. The region's system of engineered waterways is designed to whisk L.A.'s stormwater out to sea — a strategy intended to reduce flooding that nonetheless sacrifices countless precious gallons.

Voters in 2018 approved Measure W, which is aimed at improving L.A.'s aging stormwater capture system. Officials are making progress, but experts say there's a long way to go. Of an estimated 5 billion to 10 billion gallons pouring into the Los Angeles Basin from current storms, only about 20% will be captured by the county.


"In a region that imports 60% of our water, it's just a huge untapped potential for a local water supply," said Bruce Reznik, executive director of L.A. Waterkeeper. "We passed the Safe Clean Water Program to get us there, but we're just not there yet. It's going to take us some years."\\

Many years, in fact. County officials have said it will take three to five decades to build its stormwater capture system to full capacity, with the ultimate goal of capturing 300,000 acre-feet, or roughly 98 billion gallons, of water annually.

Part of the challenge is that the current system was built about 100 years ago, in an era when Angelenos were more concerned about saving lives and property from flooding than they were about drought. Their solution was to lay millions of barrels of concrete to get rid of that water faster — channelizing the L.A. River, Ballona Creek and nearly every other waterway in the area.

Though a few regional watersheds, such as the Upper San Gabriel River, have good soils and systems for capturing stormwater, they are few and far between, with the vast majority of water that comes to the region "on a superhighway to get out," said Reznik.

"Water is the most precious resource we have, something that we cannot live without, and yet we do everything we can, when it comes to rain, to get rid of it as soon as possible," he said.

Los Angeles County Department of Public Works spokesman Kerjon Lee said Measure W is working, however. Since its approval in 2018, the agency has awarded $400 million to more than 100 regional infrastructure projects, such as the Rory M. Shaw Wetlands Park Project to convert a 46-acre landfill into a wetlands park that can collect stormwater runoff.

But he also said much of the rain is ending up in the Pacific, with L.A. River outflows measuring about 28,500 cubic feet per second Thursday.

"The conditions were ripe for capturing more, but when it comes all at once — which is kind of how we get our water here — we've got to move that water away from city streets and away from properties to save life and property," Lee said. "We have that dual mission: flood protection and supporting local water supply."

City officials said similarly that stormwater capture capability is improving, including about 20 projects from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in the last decade. Updates to the Tujunga Spreading Grounds facility in the San Fernando Valley, for example, doubled its ability to capture stormwater from 8,000 acre-feet per year to 16,000.



But managing the influx of water in a drought is a delicate dance, according to Marouane Temimi, an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Ocean Engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

During normal rain events, green infrastructure projects such as parks and gardens can help capture and store more water. But during extreme events, such as the atmospheric rivers hitting California this week, larger infrastructure investments are needed.

"Each city has to balance between the major and the minor infrastructure projects to control runoff from extreme events, as well as frequent events, to cover the whole spectrum of rainfall, because throughout the years, we receive different rainfall events with different magnitudes," he said.

Rain can also bring pollution as the stormwaters sweep up debris, dirt, litter and even chemicals from roadways. While managing water quality is important, Temimi said it falls second to managing quantity during major flood events. At least three people were killed by floodwaters in Northern California this week.

The problem is not unique to Los Angeles. California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said the whole state is dealing with aging infrastructure that need improvement.

"In order to be resilient to floods and drought, which are kind of two sides of the same coin of extreme weather, we need to be able to adapt our infrastructure to the new normal," he said. "And that means significantly expanding water recycling, capturing stormwater, modernizing conveyance and recharging groundwater basins, and so we're in a race."

Crowfoot called Measure W a "world-leading policy," that can also help reduce pollution from reaching oceans and bays.

"We are missing an opportunity to actually take that water that's falling in greater L.A. and actually putting it into the groundwater basins for future use," he said. "L.A., as a result of Measure W passing four years ago, has more resources than almost any other place in the country to do that. But the implementation is very much a work in progress."

There are other hurdles, said Anne Lynch, integrated water management lead with engineering and consulting firm GHD. She noted that while droughts and floods are "not mutually exclusive," it can be hard to garner public and political will for storm projects in dry times.

The state's last big funding bill allotted far more to sectors such as transportation than to water, she said, which "tells you how, as a society, we view water — it's out of sight, out of mind until there's a catastrophe."

Water managers also have to work around the existing environment — including the hundred-year-old system designed for a different climate — which can create challenges for planning new projects.

"Not only are we dealing with the built environment but this ever increasing flow that's coming into the system," she said. "So we're like, behind the eight ball."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Nigerian schools: Flogged for speaking my mother tongue


Cecilia Macaulay - BBC News
Sat, January 7, 2023 


Nigeria says it wants primary school teachers to conduct lessons in local languages instead of English, which is currently used. But how practical is that in a country where more than 600 different tongues are spoken?

Kareem Abiodun Habeebullah, whose mother tongue is Yoruba, was just a secondary school student when he was whipped in class for not speaking in English.

"When I was growing up, I was struggling to speak English," he tells the BBC. "There was a particular class," he says, recalling the incident in 2010. The teacher called him up to answer a question, and he was stumped.

"I know the answer but I can only respond with my mother language," he remembers saying.

The teacher replied "no way", came to where he stood, and then the beating began. Corporal punishment is still common in some Nigerian schools, although moves have been made to eradicate it.

"She gave me one stroke of [the] cane," and sternly reminded Mr Habeebullah that he was not allowed to speak Yoruba in class, he says.

His was not an isolated incident he says, and other students at his school received harsh reprimands for daring to speak in Yoruba instead of English.

More than 60 years after independence from Britain, English remains Nigeria's official language, and is used in public settings such as schools, universities, government and many work places.

But the political tide appears to be turning. In November, Education Minister Adamu Adamu announced the National Language Policy which stipulates that the first six years of primary education should be taught in the children's mother tongue.

He said the changes were necessary because pupils learn better when they are taught in "their own mother tongue."

Currently, primary school children are taught in English, with teachers in certain communities mixing local languages with English for ease of comprehension.

However, it is unclear how the new policy will be rolled out because - in a country where government estimates say 625 different languages are spoken, and with people moving around the country - many Nigerian children live in areas where their mother tongue is not the dominant local language.

Teaching in the mother tongue was in fact first put forward as a national policy in the 1970s, but because of difficulties rolling it out in such a linguistically diverse country, it was never put into effect, as the government wishes to do now.

The policy is already facing stiff opposition. Despite his own experience, Mr Habeebullah, who is now a school teacher, does not think teaching in local languages is a good idea.

"If you were to take a look at Nigeria as a country, we have more than 500 languages, which will make it very hard" to implement.

He questions how classes could be taught properly in a local language when it may contain students who speak different tongues at home. In his own class in Sabongidda-Ora, in the southern Edo State, five different languages are spoken, he says - Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Ora and Esan.

Although he is supposed to teach in English, there are times when he has to explain things in Pidgin English, so all the pupils can understand.

"There's no point in teaching them something they cannot decipher, it would be very wrong."

However, "I can't be teaching students in their local language" he insists, because he simply does not know how to speak all the various tongues spoken by his students.

Furthermore, if they don't speak English in primary school, they will find it difficult later on, he adds.
'Too little too late'

For many middle-class Nigerians, especially in the south, English is now their mother tongue and some may not speak any local languages. This is partly a result of marriages between members of different ethnic groups, and people moving to cities, where English is the lingua franca.

Tayo Adeyemo, 46, from Lagos State agrees that teaching children in their local language at primary school is impractical.

Lagos' local language is Yoruba, but as it is the country's commercial hub, people who speak other languages have also moved there and still speak their mother tongue.

"I don't think it's a very good idea," the father of a nine-year-old primary school student tells the BBC.

"For many years now English has been used. I used English in my primary school, many, many years ago. So for them to bring such a policy now, I don't see it as something that would work."

Despite English and Pidgin being the lingua franca in the ethnically diverse city of Lagos, education ministry spokesperson Ben Goong confirmed to the BBC that Yoruba would be the language of instruction in the metropolis.

At first glance the new policy sounds positive because the government "is trying to bring back the culture" of local languages, Mr Adeyemo says.

But his children speak English at home so he doesn't think his youngest son would even understand classes taught in Yoruba: "There's this increasing trend of people speaking more of English. It's the lingua franca anyway," he says.

It "just seems easier" to speak English at home because that is the language the children are taught in at school, he says.

Although he would like his son to speak Yoruba, he thinks "it's too little, too late" now.

"Unfortunately, you are unable to let them understand both languages at the same time."
'Failing the children'

However for the many Nigerian children who don't speak English at home, being taught in a language they don't necessarily understand very well from an early age puts them at a disadvantage at school.

Senior education specialist at the World Bank, Dr Olatunde Adekola, tells the BBC the current teaching setup is "failing the children".

Some parents who speak their local language at home complain that their children are "not learning fast" enough in schools, says Dr Adekola, who is from Nigeria. He blames this on the language barrier - namely, teaching in English.

When the language spoken at home is completely different to that taught in schools, it creates confusion and a "disconnect" he says.

It is not necessarily the role of the school to teach primary school children how to speak English, but to boost their literacy by teaching them how to read and write in their first language - whether that be Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Pidgin or another Nigerian language, he says.

"If any school is going to be meaningful in Nigeria" it must "start from the language the children speak to their parents, irrespective of where your parents come from".

Dr Adekola adds that the key to whether the new way of learning succeeds is how it is put into practice.

Another huge stumbling block is that many current teachers simply cannot read and write at a high enough level in a local language to teach it to students, Dr Adekola warns.

"If you go to university now, how many teachers are reading bachelor's in education, or diploma in education in languages and how to teach children in their languages?" he asks.

"So, you need to first equip the teacher to know about the language so they will be well-equipped on how to teach the children."

For years children in Nigeria have been taught in English and there are fears the new policy push may not be workable

The education minister, Mr Adamu, admitted at the time of the announcement that it would be a challenge to make the changes. He said it would "require a lot of work to develop materials to teach and get the teachers" who have the skills in local languages.

He said that the language used in each school should be the tongue spoken in whichever local community the school is located.

"We have 625 languages at the last count and the objective of this policy is to promote, and enhance the cultivation and use of all Nigerian languages," he added.

The policy will not be limited to teaching in just Nigeria's three major local languages - Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo - but once it is "fully operational" there will also be teaching in the hundreds of other tongues spoken across the country.

The government says the children will also have the chance to learn a second Nigerian language as well as receive teaching in a foreign language such as English, French or Arabic at a "certain stage".

However, it is not entirely clear when the policy will be put in action.

As for Mr Adeyemo, he admits that he wishes his children were fluent in their local language, despite speaking to them in English at home. But he is clear in his reasoning behind this choice.

"English, being the lingua franca, would always have an edge".

Additional reporting by Olivia Ndubuisi in Lagos

How two men shaped Haiti’s bloody revolutionary history

Paul Lay
Sat, January 7, 2023 

In this article:

Toussaint Louverture
Haitian general and revolutionary

Henri Christophe
President and King of Haiti (1767-1820)

Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Leader of Haitian Revolution and first ruler of independent Haiti (1758-1806)


'Black Spartacus': Toussaint Louverture, leader of the Haitian Revolution by de Baptiste (1875) - Photo 12/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images

By the time of the French Revolution, France’s colony of Saint-Domingue, the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (now Haiti), was the most valuable plot of land on Earth. The wealth of the “Pearl of the Antilles” came from the new-found European taste for sugar and coffee – it produced half the world’s supply of both and was responsible for one third of French maritime trade.

But the economy of Saint-Domingue was underpinned by the violence and suffering inflicted on almost half a million enslaved Africans, who vastly outnumbered the white population of 40,000, and the slightly smaller – and free – mixed-race population. More than 300 Africans arrived in chains every week to be “fed into the slave machine”.

A slave revolt had long been feared, and brute force was the plantation-owning class’s way of maintaining order. Memories remained fresh of the fate of François Makandal, a Maroon – an escapee from slavery – who had been taken to the bustling, metropolitan city of Cap-Français to be burned at the stake in 1758 for inciting rebellion. The fear was finally realised in August 1791, amid tensions between the ruling classes exacerbated by the French Republic’s declaration of the Rights of Man and its opposition to slavery. Hundreds of plantations in the fertile north were ravaged, and both white and mixed-race settlers were massacred on a horrendous scale.

The aftermath of these tumultuous events is now the subject of two very different books. Sudhir Hazareesingh’s Black Spartacus (★★★☆☆), an “epic life” of François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, the leader of the Haitian Revolution, has already won high praise and the 2021 Wolfson History Prize. Scholarly and highly readable, it is occasionally too much of a love letter to its subject: “Great Man” history, long disparaged among academics, is still acceptable, it seems, with a change of cast. Paul Clammer’s Black Crown (★★★★☆), however, a life of the less well-known Henry Christophe, who became King Henry I of Haiti in the years after the revolution, grasps the essential tragedy of history, in all its ambiguity and contingency.

Christophe, born into slavery on Grenada, would become a lieutenant of the much-feted Toussaint Louverture, a former coachman who became a free man in his 30s. Louverture subsequently owned slaves of his own, as a coffee-planter.

The Rebellion of the Slaves in Santo Domingo by the French School, an 18th century coloured engraving of the 1791 insurrection - Archives Charmet

Where historical fact is sparse, mythology flourishes, and there is uncertainty about what role Louverture actually played in the 1791 slave revolt. The plot appears to have been hatched on August 14, and unleashed a week later, when the Colonial Assembly was due to meet in Cap-Français. Its leader was Boukman Dutty, another coachman but also a priest.

The violence, according to one witness, “would make Nero blush”, and panicked whites fled to the cities and towns. It can be said with some certainty, however, that Louverture saved the wife of his former master by escorting her to safety from their plantation. Louverture, unlike many of his fellow revolutionaries, was open to white allies and believed to the end that the plantation system – albeit one manned by free labourers – was essential to future prosperity.

The embattled white colonists invested their hopes of restoring the old order in the British, who arrived to do just that in 1793; they failed when their forces were devastated by yellow fever. France, desperate to keep Saint-Domingue within its orbit, endorsed its commissioners’ decision to abolish slavery there in 1794.

By then, Louverture’s star was in the ascendant, though dependent upon the support of his army of former slaves and a strong relationship with the governor, Etienne Laveaux, who was the first to proclaim him “Black Spartacus”. He was faithful to France, sending his two sons to be educated there, but with Laveux’s departure, the metropole became ambivalent in its commitment to the freedom of Saint-Domingue’s black population – a red line for Louverture.

Napoleon, now similarly ascendant, had no such uncertainty and, having made peace with Britain in 1802, he launched an expedition to Saint-Domingue, led by his brother-in-law, Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc. Louverture was outlawed and cracks appeared in his already fractious alliance. Then he made a fatal mistake. He sought a truce with the French, but was arrested, transported to France – on a ship called The Hero – imprisoned in a medieval castle in the Jura mountains, and died within eight months.

An illustration of English General Thomas Maitland and Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L'Ouverture as they sign a treaty in March 1798 - Science Source/Photo Researchers History/Getty Images

The fate of his cause was now in the hands of two men, once his deputies, who may have conspired against him: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe. Learning from the errors of Louverture, they sought to eliminate all rivals, press labourers back to work on the plantations, and indulge the French forces on Saint-Domingue just long enough that they would succumb to yellow fever, just as the British had done and Leclerc would do.

Their plan worked, and at the Battle of Vertières they defeated the weakened French. Soon the last of the colonial forces would be shepherded into captivity on Jamaica courtesy of the Royal Navy. On December 5 1803 – the same day that, 311 years before, Columbus had made landfall on the island – a new free nation was born: Haiti.

A Declaration of Independence was signed on January 1 1804, first by Dessalines, then by Christophe. Dessalines’s secretary observed that the ideal arrangement would be for “the skin of a white to serve as parchment, his skull as an inkwell, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for a pen”.

The slaughter of French residents followed, as did war against the French garrison that remained in Santo Domingo, the Spanish, eastern side of the island. It was clear that power rested on military strength and the regime commissioned the vast Citadelle fortress, designed by Henry Barré, which was to tower over northern Haiti. Restrictions were placed on labour and movement, and Dessalines became Emperor Jacques I. He would soon fall victim, in the southern city of Port-au-Prince, to an alliance of northern Maroons and the southern free mixed-race population crushed by Louverture. “Cruel poetry,” observes Clammer.

Civil war followed between north and south, with former ally Alexandre Pétion president of the southern Republic of Haiti. After Dessalines’s death in 1806, Christophe declared himself King Henry I. Apologists argued that the institution of monarchy was a link to Africa’s own dynasties: “Are there not in Africa an infinity of empires, kingdoms, and independent states?” And did the Taino, Haiti’s original inhabitants, not have their own hereditary chiefs, the caciques?

‘Destroyer of tyranny’: King Henry I of Haiti (formerly Henri Christophe); - Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo

Whatever the reasoning, Christophe enjoyed the trappings. He took the additional titles of “Destroyer of Tyranny, Regenerator and Benefactor of the Haitian Nation…” and so on. He expanded the aristocracy, threw banquets, and built a palace, Sans Souci (named, probably, after a celebrated Maroon rather than Frederick the Great’s Potsdam residence). It was decorated with Greek gods and heroes depicted as Africans.

More productively, his navy intercepted slaving vessels, freeing those aboard to make a new life in Haiti. On one occasion, rescued Hausa children danced before him at court. His actions caught the attention of Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, who wrote: “To see a set of human beings emerging from slavery, and making rapid strides towards the perfection of civilisation, must I think be the most delightful of food for contemplation.” The abolitionist William Wilberforce paid for the passage to Haiti of Prince Saunders, a teacher in Boston’s African school, who introduced smallpox inoculation and played a key role in education policy.

But amid the progress, there was capricious brutality. Typical of this was the fate of a merchant, Vilton, a godfather of Christophe’s daughters, who in 1802 had tried to persuade him to surrender to Leclerc. He was put to death in 1819 for an alleged affair. An adulterous countess, meanwhile, was “obliged to ride through the streets of Sans Souci in a state of perfect nudity, at noon-day, on the back of a donkey, with her face toward the tail”.

It all came crashing down when, on August 15 1820, the king had a stroke while attending mass, just as a huge fire swept through Port-au-Prince. Knowing both the south and the French were empowered, King Henry committed suicide with a shot to the heart. Amid scenes of more brutality, his male heirs were butchered and his wife and daughters sent into exile. While Toussaint Louverture’s story is a heroic one, it is Henry’s tragedy that is the more compelling.

Black Spartacus by Sudhir Hazareesingh is published by Penguin at £10.99. To order your copy, call 0844 871 1514 or visit Telegraph Books

Black Crown by Paul Clammer is published by Hurst at £25. To order your copy for £19.99. call 0844 871 1514 or visit Telegraph Books

Amrit Kaur: the Indian princess who defied the Nazis

Rupert Christiansen
Sat, January 7, 2023 

Book review of In Search of Amrit Kaur: An Indian Princess in Wartime Paris, a new book by Livia Manera Sambuy - Victoria and Albert Museum

Ranking highest in the murky annals of the fabulously wealthy, alongside Roman emperors, American tycoons and Russian oligarchs, are the Indian maharajahs, whose riches – licensed by the British empire in return for their fealty – manifested themselves above all in the diamonds and pearls they ostentatiously displayed on their embroidered persons. In the popular imagination they tend to cut absurdly pretentious rather than tragically magnificent figures, their assets ultimately stripped by the levelling taxations of Partition and Indira Gandhi. But as Kipling tartly put it, “Providence created the maharajahs to offer mankind a spectacle”, and their romantic fascination casts a spell over the Italian journalist Livia Manera Sambuy.

While in Mumbai on a professional assignment, she visits an exhibition of portrait photographs of the Raj loaned from the V&A. Her eye is caught by an image, dating from 1924, of the elegant Amrit Kaur, daughter of the Maharajah of Kapurthala, a region in the Punjab. The caption announces that she died in Nazi imprisonment after her arrest in Paris on the charge of selling her jewellery to assist Jews attempting to escape France.

Manera Sambuy immediately becomes obsessed with this tantalising claim, which proves to be only half true. Pursuing wild hunches and blessed with the lightning flashes of serendipity and coincidence that all researchers pray for, she starts to excavate Amrit’s peripatetic life. Quite how she finances this expensive project, including several trips to India, is never made clear, but she makes an exemplary sleuth, both astute and open-minded.

Amrit's father was a westernised but polygamous Sikh commuting between a palace in India modelled on Versailles and a hôtel in the Jewish bankers’ compound of the Bois de Boulogne. Moving in Proustian circles, he was a figure of extravagant glamour, surrounded by the beau monde – his daughter-in-law, for instance, was Sita Devi, one of the great beauties of her day, a muse to Man Ray, photographed by Beaton and dressed by Mainbocher.

But Amrit, born in 1904, appears to have had a more serious bent. Educated at the progressive Clovelly-Kepplestone school in Eastbourne, she became a fervent champion of women’s rights. In 1927 she was interviewed by the New York Herald Tribune in the wake of a furore surrounding the publication of an incendiary book called Mother India which excoriated a native society that its American author Katherine Mayo depicted as corrupt and brutal. In response Amrit speaks out against child marriage and the patriarchal culture of purdah. “The men won’t really do much to help,” she complains. “It is for the women to try and get education for themselves and bring themselves to the level of men.” This was brave talk at the time, not least as Gandhi was insisting that women stay at home, subservient and spinning.

In 1923 Amrit had married a rajah and embarked on a very grand tour during which they were received in London by George V. Back in India, her husband soon took another woman and married again, by which time Amrit had given birth to a son and a daughter. Manera Sambuy tracks the latter down in Poona, but she is frustratingly unable to provide any clues, as it emerges that Amrit apparently abandoned her children in 1933 to live in Paris, never to return. To take the story any further here would spoil the unraveling of the mystery.

As far as one can gather from Todd Portnowitz’s fluent translation from the Italian, Manera Sambuy writes with impassioned style and insight, attributing the motivation for her long and dogged hunt for Amrit to crises in her own life and lost relationships: self-analysis provides a running counterpoint to her investigation into Amrit’s story.

But the result is one of those books where the casual reader may struggle to keep pace with the author’s enthusiasm for his or her subject and the trail that is being followed. The chronology ricochets, minor characters come and go without ever quite coming into focus, and since many of the intriguing twists and turns lead to dead ends, the big reveal in the puzzle of Amrit’s behaviour comes as a faint disappointment, not least because the evidence that surfaces leaves her a shadowy enigma whose voice is only faintly heard.

In Search of Amrit Kaur is published by Chatto & Windus at £25. To order your copy call 0844 871 1514 or visit Telegraph Books

Indian-Americans driving change in North Texas as their political, economic clout grows


Dalia Faheid
Sat, January 7, 2023 


Little Elm Councilman Tony Singh likes to joke that he’s an accidental politician. Growing up as a military brat with his father in the Indian Navy, 42-year-old Singh had become accustomed to packing his bags every few years.

“But now, Little Elm is my home forever,” Singh says.

With the goal of serving his newfound community, Singh signed up for Citizens Government Academy, an eight-week program offering Little Elm residents the opportunity to learn about the local government’s daily functions and roles. To help keep residents safe, the sales engineer and his wife Crystal volunteered with the police department, the fire department, Citizens on Patrol and Make 380 Safe. Before joining the town council, Singh served as a commissioner on the town’s planning and zoning commission.

“I thought elected officials should be more proactive, should be there for the community all the time, they should be accessible,” he said of his run for the town council. “People should be your first priority. I’m a volunteer first and a politician second.”

The growing number of Indian-Americans in North Texas is establishing itself as a formidable block in cities throughout the Metroplex. From technology, to schools to politics, Indian-Americans like Singh have made an indelible mark in the cultural fabric of North Texas.

U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2010 and 2020 5-year estimates

Asians are the state’s fastest-growing population, with Indian-Americans being the largest group in that category. Overall, Texas has the second largest Indian-American population in the country. In 2010, there were 230,842 Indian-Americans in Texas, making up 0.9% of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2020, that number nearly doubled, with 434,221 Indian-Americans making up 1.5% of the state’s population.

U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2010, 2015, 2020 5-year estimates

That growth was apparent in Dallas-Fort Worth, where about 220,000 Indian-Americans live. In Collin County, the Indian-American population grew from 3.8% to 7.5% in the last decade, and Denton County from 2.2% to 4.1%. The percentage of Indian-Americans in Dallas County went from 1.6% to 2.4%, and in Tarrant County it increased from 0.9% to 1.1%. Between 2015 and 2020 alone, about 14,189 more resided in Fort Worth, Dallas and Plano.

A career solving problems

McKinney resident Dinesh Hooda, 39, said he came to Texas in 2011 for the job opportunities. He had worked for cybersecurity company McAfee in India for nearly eight years before being transferred as a senior software engineer. Hooda earned a master’s degree in computer science in India, and later an MBA from Texas A&M University.

“Technology always fascinated me from the beginning when I was a child, because you can achieve more things by following the latest technology and it leads to more work,” he said. “Technology makes good use of human power and multiplies it a lot.”

Hooda is one of a large proportion of Indian-American science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workers in North Texas. More than half of Indian-American employees work in only three industries: computer science and mathematics, management and health care. They also own 5% of all businesses in Collin, Denton, Dallas and Tarrant counties, representing more than a third of all Asian businesses.

Indian-Americans are among the highest earners of all immigrants, according to an August report from the Indian American CEO Council and the Institute for Urban Policy Research at the University of Texas at Dallas. The average income for Indian-Americans in Dallas-Fort Worth is $58,879, about 48% more than other groups. And 41% make $150,000 or more annually, according to the Census Bureau. In North Texas, most Indian-Americans are college educated, with nearly half having a graduate or professional degree.

It was difficult for Hooda, his wife and four-year-old son to adjust to the change at first, not having the community he had in India. Even finding vegetarian food, which was usually easily accessible to them, had proved to be a challenge. And when school started, his son was anxious to go fearful that his teachers wouldn’t understand him.

“We did not know anyone here except my manager to whom I was reporting to,” he said. “When you don’t know anyone, then smaller things also become bigger things.”

That was until Hooda attended an Indian Independence Day event hosted by the India Association of North Texas. For the first time, Hooda’s family was able to connect with Indian Americans living in North Texas. Since then, that group has given them a sense of belonging and a tie to their Indian culture.

“It was really big for me, because I made a couple of friends from that group. And then that way, I felt that yeah there are more more people here in the area which look more like me. And then they also were going through the same immigration challenges in which I am going through,” Hooda said.

Hooda now works as senior technical program manager at Uber, where he works with engineers to prevent fraud on the platform.

“I want to definitely continue to work on challenging problems and solve them, and continue to grow in my career,” Hooda said.

A family’s promising future

Frisco resident Urmeet Juneja, 50, moved to the U.S. in 2012 to build a promising future for his family of four. Over the past decade, he and his wife Harleen raised their two kids Rajmeet and Manraj in North Texas, and that future has become a reality.

“Since I came from India to the U.S., it was kind of a little challenging to settle down. Not that much for me, but for my family and kids, because it was a change in culture, it was a change in language,” Juneja said. “So the kids took some time to get acclimatized with the culture and the language here. It was a couple of years before they actually felt settled down.”

Rajmeet and Manraj had to leave behind friends as well as extended family back in India, so Texas was initially a lonely place for them. Because English had not been their primary language, it took about a year of ESL classes before they felt fully comfortable communicating with classmates and teachers.

“What I could see is they would hang out with friends who were of the same culture and same background,” Juneja said. “It took them some time to get into the groove where they had friends who were non-immigrants.”

Soon, the family found a gurudwara, or Sikh temple, to worship at every Sunday. Later, Juneja became president of the India Association of North Texas. That community involvement helped the family remain connected to their values and culture and makes them feel at-home, Juneja said.

“We have a very large community,” Juneja said. “I myself am involved with the India Association of North Texas, so that’s kind of heavy involvement in the cultural activities and educational activities that the association does, plus we also deal with the state representatives, the mayor and all to take up the issues of the Indian community, if any, and then we also focus on growing the cultural diversity and showing that to the community at large. That keeps even the children connected with their culture, which is back in India.”

A senior at UTD, Rajmeet, 21, will be earning a computer science and engineering degree in 2023. As a Centennial High School senior, Manraj wants to attend the UT McCombs School of Business, majoring in business and finance. In the long-term, the 17-year-old plans to take up corporate law.

“That was the goal — that my kids would live in an environment where they’ll get a better education, they’ll get more prospects once they grow up,” he said. “I’m hoping my kids grow up and get into good jobs or start something of their own and do well in their life. And at the same time, also keeping intact their cultural values and being in touch with their Indian value system which we have grown up into.”

A significant political constituency

The more than 4.16 million Indian-Americans have appeared as a significant political constituency. In the United States, there are 1.9 million Indian-American voters.

Indian-Americans serve as elected officials throughout the Lone Star State, and even more are running for county, state and federal office this year. In the November election, advocacy group Indian American Impact endorsed six Texas candidates of South Asian descent. One of those running for re-election is Judge Juli Mathew, who in 2018 became the first Asian judge in Fort Bend County. Also, Euless resident Salman Bhojani would be the first South Asian elected to the Texas legislature.

“When I was running, there were very few [Indian-Americans] running, but now I see more and more people are running every year,” Councilman Singh said. “In coming years, Indian-Americans will be a very big group, which can influence a lot of things in this area, in all of Texas.”

Because of their relatively young status and recent arrival, the IACEO/UTD report says, it’s possible that the full political impact of the Indian-American community has not been fully realized. The Indian-American population is relatively young, with a median age of 40, compared to 46 for other immigrants. About two-thirds arrived in the U.S. after 2000. Dallas-Fort Worth approved the fourth highest number of green card holders from India, behind New York City, Chicago and San Francisco.

Groups like SAAVETX and the Indian American Coalition of Texas are helping to register South Asian voters in places of worship, community centers and neighborhoods throughout Texas. Those efforts helped to drive record turnout for the 2020 election. The biggest concern for the Indian-American community is the immigration system, Juneja says.

“I was fortunate enough to come on an L-1A visa, which is the executive visa, but most of the Indian American community comes on the H-1B visa and then they struggle to keep the status intact. A lot of times their kids they grew up for like 14, 15 years, they stay on H-1B, and the kids after the age of 21 they are out of status and they have to struggle to find their own immigration status,” Juneja said. “We have the people who have been staying here from such a long time. But then also we have an influx of new people coming in every year on an H-1B visa, those who have been here for 10 years and still struggling to get a permanent status.”

In 2003, Singh moved to Texas from India to get his master’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. Then in 2011, he decided to settle in Little Elm with Crystal because it had the unique charm of a small town, like the beach on the shores of Lake Lewisville, with all the amenities of a big city, including health care that Crystal needed as a cancer survivor.

Now in his second term, Singh still does regular volunteer work, like helping out at the Little Elm Area Food Bank every first Saturday of the month and making donations through his nonprofit called the Little Elm Angels Foundation. He aims to get more residents informed of what is happening with their town and get more involved.

“As long as I can take care of the people, respond to people on-time, be accessible to people and create value for the town, we’ll be here,” Singh said.

UAW workers reject CNH offer, extending 8-month strike


Sat, January 7, 2023 

More than 1,000 striking CNH Industrial workers in Iowa and Wisconsin rejected the “last, best and final offer” from the maker of construction and agricultural equipment Saturday night, extending their eight-month stoppage.

In a statement, the United Auto Workers union announced the result of the vote by members who work for CNH and said the union's bargaining committee “will meet to discuss next steps to take with” the company.

It was the first vote on an offer since the workers walked off the job months ago. The UAW said this week that it had decided to put the offer before members, but didn't offer details.

Workers at the plants in Burlington, Iowa, and Racine, Wisconsin, previously rejected at the start of the strike a three-year deal that included 18.5% raises because of concerns that the proposed raises wouldn't cover soaring inflation and health insurance costs. The UAW has not provided many updates on what CNH has offered since the strike began last May.

Workers on the picket line in Burlington told WQAD television Monday that they wanted to go back to work but only if they receive a fair contract.

There was no immediate response to AP email messages requesting comment from the company late Saturday.

CNH Industrial, which is based in the United Kingdom, has more than 37,000 employees worldwide. In its most recent earnings report, CNH reported a profit of $559 million in the third quarter. That's up nearly 22% from the previous year's $460 million net income as it increased the prices of its tractors, backhoes and other equipment.

The CNH strike is one of the longest ones over the past couple of years as workers have increasingly demanded better pay and working conditions coming out of the pandemic. There have been a number of strikes, including a high profile monthlong strike involving 10,000 Deere & Co. workers, and several new unions have been established at Starbucks stores and Amazon warehouses although some locations have rejected unions. The Deere workers secured 10% raises and improved benefits after their strike.