RIP
Darcelle, world’s oldest working drag queen, dies at 92

By CLAIRE RUSH

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In this Sept. 2019 photo, Darcelle XV, performs in Portland, Ore. Walter C. Cole, better known as the iconic drag queen who performed for decades as Darcelle, has died of natural causes in Portland, Ore, on Thursday, March 24, 2023. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP)

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Walter Cole, better known as the iconic drag queen who performed for decades as Darcelle XV and a fearless advocate for Portland’s LGBTQ+ community, has died of natural causes in Portland, Oregon. He was 92.

Darcelle, who died Thursday, was crowned the world’s oldest working drag performer in 2016 by the Guinness Book of World Records and was regaling audiences until the very end. As a performer, Darcelle was known for hosting the longest-running drag show on the U.S. West Coast. Off stage, Cole, an Army veteran, championed LGBTQ+ rights and charitable work in Portland.

The nightclub that Darcelle opened more than 50 years ago in downtown Portland, Darcelle XV Showplace, posted a statement on Facebook expressing grief and asking for privacy and patience.

The club, which had become a Portland cultural institution by the 1970s, was listed in 2020 on the National Register of Historic Places, making it the first site in Oregon to be nominated specifically for its significance in LGBTQ+ history. In the venue’s early days in the 1970s and 1980s, it was seen as taboo and protesters picketed outside, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

It provided a lifeline for many in the city’s LGBTQ community, including Cole, he told the newspaper in a 2010 interview. Cole preferred female pronouns when performing, but told The Oregonian he preferred male pronouns off-stage.

“If I hadn’t admitted who I was, I’d probably be dead now,” he told the paper. “I’d be sitting on a couch retiring from ... management. Not for me.”

“She touched the lives of so many, not only through her performances but also through her fearless community advocacy and charitable works,” said Todd Addams, the interim executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, speaking of Darcelle. “She was nothing short of an icon.”

Writer Susan Stanley described the club a place of “warmth and affection” where performers were “glittering in sequins and satin and a shimmering froth of feathers,” in what’s credited as the first profile of Darcelle XV, published in Willamette Week in 1975.

When speaking of Darcelle, Cole, a gay man, referred to his persona in the third person using female pronouns. “I’m an entertainer with a capital E,” Cole told Stanley. “Darcelle is a character — like in a play — and I work very hard at her.”

Stanley wound up briefly working at the club and becoming Cole’s close friend. She described the performer not only as a talented artist, who also sewed many of the club’s costumes, but as a caring person deeply invested in the LGBTQ+ community and the fight against the social stigma of the time.

“(Darcelle) was just a very, very nurturing person. She encouraged other guys to perform and get out of their shells,” Stanley told the AP in a phone interview.

After decades of advocacy by LGBTQ+ activists organizing for civil rights and freedoms, Stanley said she was saddened to see how drag has become so polarized in today’s political climate.

“It bespeaks a really, really big misunderstanding,” she said. “Politicians wanting to step back decades in attitudes … it’s mystifying and horrifying to me at the same time.”

Cole was born in 1930 and raised in Portland’s Linnton neighborhood. He served in the U.S. Armed Forces and was discharged in the late 1950s, according to the club’s website, which says he used money he received from the military to start his first business.

After dabbling in a coffee store and a jazz club, Cole purchased the space that would become the Darcelle XV Showcase in 1967.

Two years later, he had developed the “alter ego” named Darcelle and came out as gay, according to a profile on the club’s website.

He left his wife and began a relationship with his artistic director. During the 1970s, the Showplace became a popular destination for cabaret and drag performance.

In 1999, Darcelle became the oldest drag performer on the West Coast, after the closing of San Francisco’s drag venue Finocchio’s Club.

On Friday, fans including Portland’s mayor mourned Cole’s death on social media. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said in a social media post that “Darcelle carved out an unforgettable chapter in Portland’s history” with “pioneering courage.”

Darcelle XV Showplace said that details of a public memorial will be announced and all shows will go on as scheduled, per Darcelle’s wishes.

“Please join us and celebrate her legacy and memory, thank you in advance for your continued support,” the club’s statement said.

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Claire Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. You can follow Rush on Twitter @ClaireARush.

 

Darcelle XV, Portland's drag queen superstar, dead at 92

 

Darcelle XV (Full Documentary) | Nation’s Oldest Performing Drag Queen | Oregon Experience | 2021

CONNECTICUT
Bill allowing limited bear killing advances, hunt nixed


 HUMAN CAUSED BEHAVIOUR

A black bear that had been previously tranquilized and removed from a Waterbury, Conn., neighborhood earlier in the year chews on a garbage container in Wolcott, Conn.

 Connecticut lawmakers voted Friday, March 24, 2023, to allow special state permits to kill bears that threaten or damage crops, livestock or bees. However, they shelved a more contentious proposal to allow a limited bear hunt supported by state environmental officials grappling with an increase in human-bear conflicts

. (Steven Valenti/Republican-American via AP, File)

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut lawmakers voted Friday to allow special state permits to kill bears that threaten or damage crops, livestock or bees. However, they shelved a more contentious proposal to allow a limited bear hunt supported by state environmental officials grappling with an increase in human-bear conflicts.

The proposed annual bear hunt, which would have been limited to a northwestern Connecticut county, was pulled following outcry from animal rights advocates who argued it was inhumane and wouldn’t reduce the number of incidences.

Data from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, which supported the hunt, show the number of reported conflicts between humans and bears has more than doubled in recent years with less than 1,000 in 2015 to more than 2,000 in 2022. The number of towns where these interactions, such as the 67 home entries reported last year, have occurred has also increased.

There were two bear attacks last year, including an incident where a 250-pound (113-kilogram) black bear mauled a 10-year-old boy playing in his grandparents’ backyard.

The bill, which cleared the General Assembly’s Environment Committee and awaits action in the Senate, also makes killing a bear justified if the animal is inflicting or about to inflict great bodily harm to a human or is injuring or killing a pet. The proposal further prohibits intentional and unintentional feeding of a potentially dangerous animal.

COP CITY COVER UP

Georgia activist killed by troopers shot first, officers say



ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia authorities allege that state troopers in January fatally shot an environmental protester who had fired at authorities after a trooper shot pepper balls into the protester’s tent, according to incident reports obtained Friday by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The newspaper obtained multiple Georgia Department of Public Safety use-of-force incident reports through an open records request. The records offer the most complete account yet of authorities’ version of the Jan. 18 killing of Manuel Paez Terán, who went by the name Tortuguita and used the pronoun they.

Paez Terán was killed in DeKalb County’s South River Forest as officers tried to clear activists who were camping near the site of a planned police and training center that protesters derisively call “Cop City.”

Protesters have questioned officials’ assertion that officers shot Paez Terán in self-defense after the 26-year-old shot a trooper. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation continues to examine the shooting and has released few details about the incident, other than to say that preliminary evidence supports authorities’ assertions and that the trooper was shot with a bullet from a gun Paez Terán legally purchased in 2020.

According to the newly obtained incident reports, Paez Terán briefly spoke to officers who came to the protester’s tent and refused their demands to leave the area, prompting authorities to fire pepper balls. Authorities say Paez Terán then fired multiple shots from inside the tent, and six officers returned fire, shooting the activist more than a dozen times.

“I knew the suspect in the tent was shooting at us because I could hear the gun shots coming from inside of the tent,” according to a report written by a Georgia Department of Public Safety corporal. “I could see the front of the tent door flapping as the bullets ripped through it and I could hear bullets striking the vegetation surrounding me.”

The corporal said authorities had encountered Paez Terán inside the tent, and at one point the activist told the officers: “No, I want you to leave.”

The corporal said Paez Terán was “very confident” in asking authorities to leave and “it was immediately apparent” that the protester had “no intentions of cooperating.”

The corporal also wrote that, prior to the gunfire, he told Paez Terán that officers were about to fire chemical agents into the tent and that Paez Terán would be charged with criminal trespassing.

Paez Terán’s death and their dedication to opposing the training center has vaulted the “Stop Cop City” movement onto the national and international stage, with leftist activists from across the country holding vigils and prompting some to travel and join the protest movement that began in 2021. They say officers at the 85-acre (34-hectare) center would be trained to become more militarized and quell dissent, all while hundreds of trees are cut down, damaging the climate and flood mitigation in a poor, majority-Black neighborhood.

A few protests have turned violent, including earlier this month when more than 150 masked activists left a nearby music festival and stormed the proposed site of the training center, setting fire to construction equipment and throwing rocks at retreating law enforcement officers.

The Atlanta City Council approved building the proposed $90 million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in 2021, saying a state-of-the-art campus would replace substandard offerings and boost police morale, which is beset by hiring and retention struggles in the wake of violent protests against racial injustice that roiled the city after George Floyd was killed by police in 2020.

For more than two months, Paez Terán’s family and their attorneys have called on officials to release information about the shooting. According to an autopsy the family commissioned, Paez Terán was sitting cross-legged with their hands in the air at the time they were shot. The autopsy report also notes it is “impossible to determine” whether the activist was holding a firearm at the time they were shot.

The family commissioned the autopsy after the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office conducted the initial examination. Officials have not released the DeKalb County report, so it’s unclear whether it reached a similar conclusion that Paez Terán had their hands raised with palms facing inward at the time of the shooting.

The family’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.

GEOTHERMAL IS MINING
Geothermal developer wants to delist endangered Nevada toad

By SCOTT SONNER

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FILE - In this image provided by the Nevada Department of Wildlife, a Dixie Valley toad sits atop grass in Dixie Valley, Nev., on April 6, 2009. The developer of a geothermal power plant planned in Nevada says it intends to sue U.S wildlife officials to try to overturn the endangered species listing of a toad that lives in adjacent wetlands. The move could end up pitting two Biden administration agencies against each other in one of a series of legal battles over President Joe Biden's efforts to combat climate change with so-called "green energy" projects. (Matt Maples/Nevada Department of Wildlife via AP, File)

RENO, Nev. (AP) — In an unusual move that could pit two Biden administration agencies against each other, the developer of a planned Nevada geothermal power plant says it intends to sue U.S wildlife officials to overturn the endangered species listing of a toad in adjacent wetlands.

Ormat Technologies said in a 60-day notice of its intent to sue the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service that the listing of the Dixie Valley toad in December was illegal.

“The toad does not meet the definitional standard for a threatened — let alone endangered — species, and the service failed to base its decision on the best scientific and commercial data available,” Reno-based Ormat said.

It’s the latest legal maneuver in a series of conflicts underscoring challenges President Joe Biden faces in vowing to protect fish and wildlife while also pushing the development of so-called green energy projects on U.S. lands to help combat climate change.

A court battle over the toad’s listing would put the administration in the precarious position of using its Justice Department lawyers to defend the wildlife service’s decision to list the toad, while continuing to defend the Bureau of Land Management’s approval of the geothermal project in a lawsuit brought by conservationists and a tribe.

The Interior Department, which oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service and the BLM, had no comment, spokesman Tyler Cherry said.

The project planned about 100 miles (161 kilometer) east of Reno is among three in Nevada at the forefront of Biden’s push to speed the transition from greenhouse-emitting fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources.

The other two, which also face opposition from environmentalists and/or Native American tribes, are lithium mines intended to produce a key element in electric vehicle batteries.

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe first sued the BLM in federal court in Reno in January 2022 seeking to block the construction of the geothermal plant — a case that has already made one trip to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ormat is a formal intervenor in that case, with its own lawyers arguing alongside the Justice Department lawyers representing the BLM.

A Dixie Valley toad is seen around the hot spring-fed wetland in the Dixie Valley in Fallon, Nev., Wednesday, May 4, 2022. The developer of a geothermal power plant planned in Nevada says it intends to sue U.S wildlife officials to try to overturn the endangered species listing of a toad that lives in adjacent wetlands. The move could end up pitting two Biden administration agencies against each other in one of a series of legal battles over President Joe Biden's efforts to combat climate change with so-called "green energy" projects. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via AP, File)

The opponents say pumping hot water from beneath the earth’s surface to generate carbon-free power would adversely affect the levels and temperatures of surface water critical to the survival of the toad. The hot springs that feed the wetlands are sacred to the tribe.

The service concluded in its listing decision that the geothermal project posed the single biggest threat to the toad and that “threatened species status is not appropriate because the threat of extinction is imminent.”

The decision came after the agency temporarily listed the speckled, quarter-sized amphibian on an emergency basis in April 2022, which marked only the second time in 20 years it had taken such emergency action.

The notice gives the wildlife service 60 days to “come into compliance” with the Endangered Species Act or face a lawsuit seeking to rescind the listing.

“The species is not currently in danger of extinction,” Jessica Woelfel, Ormat’s general counsel, wrote Wednesday.

The listing was “based on an outdated project design, inflated possible harms and disregard for Ormat’s mitigation plan,” Woelfel wrote. She said it doesn’t reflect a scaled-back plan to initially build a much smaller 12 megawatt power plant, instead of two capable to producing 60 megawatts.

Patrick Donnelly, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Great Basin director, said the organization is confident the listing of the toad as an endangered species will hold up in court.

“There’s widespread consensus among government and independent scientists that this geothermal project puts the Dixie Valley toad at risk of extinction,” Donnelly said. “The only ones who disagree are those on Ormat’s payroll or at the Bureau of Land Management.”

Last summer, the San Francisco-based appellate court refused to grant a temporary injunction blocking construction of the power plant the bureau approved in December 2021.

But just hours after that ruling, Ormat announced that it had agreed to temporarily suspend all work on the project until this year. Then, in late October, the company asked for the case to be put on hold while it developed a smaller plan in anticipation of the endangered species listing.

Ormat said in its notice of intent to sue that the wildlife service knew the company was in the process of scaling back the size of the initial project when the agency issued the listing decision.

“As a result of Ormat’s proposal, BLM rescinded the 60 MW project approval and issued a new one for 12 MW ... just days after the final listing rule,” the letter said.

“Any assessment of risk associated with a project five times larger than the approved project capacity is completely irrelevant,” it said. “A 60 MW project cannot currently threaten the (toad) because it literally does not exist.”

Bezos’ rocket company pins crash on overheated engine nozzle

By MARCIA DUNN

In this image from video made available by Blue Origin, the New Shepard rocket lifts off from the company's West Texas site on Sept. 12, 2022. An overheated rocket engine nozzle caused the failure of this launch that has grounded flights for six months, the company said Friday, March 24, 2023. The vehicle was carrying experiments but no passengers. (Blue Origin via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An overheated rocket engine nozzle caused last year’s Blue Origin launch failure that has grounded flights for six months, the company said Friday.

Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin said it expects to resume its quick trips to space from West Texas sometime later this year.

The New Shepard rocket was carrying experiments but no passengers when its engine nozzle broke apart due to excessive temperatures last September.

As the rocket started veering off course a minute into flight, the escape system kicked in and the capsule catapulted off and parachuted to safety.

But the rocket came crashing down, with the wreckage confined to the designated keep-out zone.

No one was hurt and no property on the ground was damaged. All of the critical flight hardware was recovered within days.

The investigation found that a design change led to the problem, which is being fixed, according to Blue Origin. The next flight will carry the experiments that were on the failed launch.

It was the first launch accident for the Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin, founded in 2000 by Bezos, who also started Amazon.

The company has launched 31 people to the edge of space since 2021, including Bezos and William Shatner, the original Captain Kirk of TV’s “Star Trek.”

Los Angeles schools, union reach deal after strike

By ROBERT JABLON

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SEIU Local 99 Executive Director Max Arias, left, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and District superintendent Alberto Carvalho lock in arms after announcing on a new contract together in Los Angeles City Hall Friday, March 24, 2023. The Los Angeles Unified School District and union leaders say they have reached a deal on a new contract for workers after a strike that shut down the nation's second-largest school system for three days. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Unified School District and union leaders said Friday they reached a deal on pay raises for bus drivers, custodians and other support staff after a three-day strike that shut down the nation’s second-largest school system.

The deal includes a series of retroactive raises going back to 2021 as well as pay bumps this coming July and January that will collectively hike worker pay by about 30%, said Max Arias, executive director of SEIU Local 99.

The deal also sets the district’s minimum wage at $22.52; provides a one-time $1,000 raise for any worker who was employed in 2020 in appreciation of their work during the COVID-19 pandemic; and creates a $3 million educational and professional development fund for union members, district Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said at a news conference.

Free health care will be provided for any employee working at least four hours a day and their families, he added, calling the deal historic and unprecedented in the nation.

“This agreement’s going to make a lot of superintendents very nervous,” he said. “And that’s a good thing. … Elevate the bar and, in the process, elevate the people.”

The deal “elevates the dignity, the humanity of our workforce, respects the needs of our students, but also guarantees the fiscal viability of our district for years to come,” Carvalho said.

He announced the deal alongside Arias and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Both sides credited Bass, who took office in December, with helping reach the agreement.

The mayor has no authority over the schools but she does have a grandson in the district.

The deal must still be voted on by the school board and the full union, which represents about 30,000 workers also including cafeteria employees, special education assistants and other support staff. However it gives them most if not all of what they demanded and is expected to pass handily.

Those workers walked off the job Tuesday through Thursday amid stalled talks, and classes for some 500,000 students resumed Friday.

Members of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing 35,000 educators, counselors and other staff, joined the picket lines in solidarity, lending muscle to the walkout.

Teachers waged a six-day strike in 2019 over pay and contract issues, but support staff didn’t join and schools remained open.

This time Carvalho had warned parents that classrooms would close for safety reasons because both instructors and support staff were taking part. The strike ended up snarling schedules for many parents because schools had to find alternate ways to provide daycare and the meals offered on campuses.

The strike has shone a spotlight on the issue of underpaid workers who serve as the backbone of schools across the country.

The union said district support staffers earn, on average, about $25,000 per year and many live in poverty or must work several jobs because of low pay or limited hours while struggling with inflation and the area’s high cost of housing.

Carvalho agreed that what he called indispensable workers were being underpaid.

The deal came just days after the union accused the district of engaging in unfair labor practices. Arias noted that another contract must be negotiated next year but added: “There is no strike planned for the foreseeable future.”

“Thanks to the parents of Los Angeles and the students of Los Angeles and everyone who stood shoulder to shoulder with our members,” he said.

SEIU members have been working without a contract since June 2020, while the contract for teachers expired in June 2022. The unions decided last week to stop accepting extensions.

L.A. schools to reopen as support employees end three-day strike

More than 400,000 students in the L.A. Unified School District will return to classes Friday following a three-day strike by service workers that shuttered the nation's second-largest school system. 

Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

March 24 (UPI) -- The Los Angeles Unified School District will resume classes on Friday after a three-day strike by a union representing staff members concluded without a deal.

The Service Employees International Union Local 99 spokeswoman Blanca Gallegos said its members will return to work today hoping they have brought enough public attention to their situation where headway can finally be made in negotiations, which have been going on for a year.

"Our struggle was heard around the country," a statement from the union said. "We will keep standing strong until LAUSD also values our work. Our strike brought us back to contract talks with the leadership of Mayor Karen Bass. Our team has been working hard to reach an agreement."

A public schedule sent out Bass' office said she will get involved in talks between the district and the union, as her officials said the mayor hopes to "guarantee fair treatment of all LAUSD workers."

Bass' office has been engaged in trying to energize talks since Wednesday when the union's strike entered its second day.

The union represents some 30,000 workers, including custodians, cafeteria workers and bus drivers, who are asking for a 30% raise. The school district said it has responded by offering a 23% recurring raise and a 3% cash bonus.

Union demonstrators said while they are returning to work on Friday, other strikes and rallies could take place if contract negotiations don't make progress. Some have said it is already hard to make ends meet without the extra support.

"We have a lot of our coworkers who have two to three jobs, so when they come to school, we want them to be fresh, we want them to be filled with energy," Mirna Hernandez, a special education assistant and union member, told KTLA-TV.

The Service Employees International Union Local 99 spokeswoman Blanca Gallegos said its members will return to work today hoping they have brought enough public attention to their situation where headway can finally be made in negotiations. 

Mayor Karen Bass' office said she will get involved in talks between the district and the union, as her officials said the mayor hopes to "guarantee fair treatment of all LAUSD workers."

The union represents some 30,000 workers, including custodians, cafeteria workers and bus driver, who are asking for a 30% raise. The school district said it has responded by offering a 23% recurring raise and a 3% cash bonus. 

Photos by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

Indigenous artists help skateboarding earn stamp of approval

By TERRY TANG

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Expert skateboarder Di'Orr Greenwood, an artist born and raised in the Navajo Nation in Arizona and whose work is featured on the new U.S. stamps, rides her skateboard next to her artworks in the Venice Beach neighborhood in Los Angeles Monday, March 20, 2023. On Friday, March 24, the U.S. Postal Service is debuting the "Art of the Skateboard," four stamps that will be the first to pay tribute to skateboarding. The stamps underscore how prevalent skateboarding has become, especially in Indian Country, where the demand for designated skate spots has only grown in recent years. 

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

PHOENIX (AP) — Years ago, skateboarding was branded as a hobby for rebels or stoners in city streets, schoolyards and back alleys. Those days are long gone.

Skateboarding, which has Native Hawaiian roots connected to surfing, no longer is on the fringes. It became an Olympic sport in 2020. There are numerous amateur and professional skateboarding competitions in the U.S. And on Friday, the U.S. Postal Service is issuing stamps that laud the sport — and what Indigenous groups have brought to the skating culture.

Di’Orr Greenwood, 27, an artist born and raised on the Navajo Nation in Arizona whose work is featured on the new stamps, says it’s a long way from when she was a kid and people always kicked her out of certain spots just for skating.

“Now it’s like being accepted on a global scale,” Greenwood said. “There’s so many skateboarders I know that are extremely proud of it.”

The postal agency ceremoniously unveiled the “Art of the Skateboard” stamps in a Phoenix skate park as a skateboarding competition was going on nearby.


The stamps feature skateboard artists from around the country, including Greenwood and Crystal Worl, who is Tlingit Athabascan. William James Taylor Jr., an artist from Virginia, and Federico “MasPaz” Frum, a Colombian-born muralist in Washington, D.C., round out the quartet of featured artists. Everyone but Taylor was in attendance.

“Over time skateboards themselves have become works of art highlighting artists’ creativity, boldness and energy,” William Zollars, of the USPS Board of Governors, told an audience of city officials and supporters. “As an American institution older than the country itself, the Postal Service is always looking for ways to highlight and honor stories and histories that are unique to the United States.”

The stamps underscore the prevalence of skateboarding, especially in Indian Country where the demand for skate parks is growing.

The artists see the stamp as a small canvas, a functional art piece that will be seen across the U.S. and beyond.

“Maybe I’ll get a letter in the mail that someone sent me with my stamp on it,” said Worl, 35, who lives in Juneau, Alaska. “I think that’s when it will really hit home with the excitement of that.”

Antonio Alcalá, USPS art director, led the search for artists to paint skate decks for the project. After settling on a final design, each artist received a skateboard from Alcalá to work on. He then photographed the maple skate decks and incorporated them into an illustration of a young person holding up a skateboard for display. The person is seen in muted colors to draw attention to the skate deck.

Alcalá used social media to seek out artists who, besides being talented, were knowledgeable about skateboarding culture. Worl was already on his radar because her brother, Rico, designed the Raven Story stamp in 2021, which honored a central figure in Indigenous stories along the coast in the Pacific Northwest.

The Worl siblings run an online shop called Trickster Company with fashions, home goods and other merchandise with Indigenous and modern twists. For her skate deck, Crystal Worl paid homage to her clan and her love of the water with a Sockeye salmon against a blue and indigo background.

She was careful about choosing what to highlight.

“There are certain designs, patterns and stories that belong to certain clans and you have to have permission even as an Indigenous person to share certain stories or designs,” Worl said.

This image provided by the U.S. Postal Service shows its new the "Art of the Skateboard" Forever stamps. The agency on Friday, March 24, 2023, is debuting the stamps at a Phoenix skate park. The stamps feature designs from four artists from around the country, including two Indigenous artists. (Courtesy of USPS via AP)

The only times Navajo culture has been featured in stamps is with rugs or necklaces. Greenwood, who tried out for the U.S. Women’s Olympic skateboarding team, knew immediately she wanted to incorporate her heritage in a modern way. Her nods to the Navajo culture include a turquoise inlay and a depiction of eagle feathers, which are used to give blessings.

“I was born and raised with my great-grandmother, who looked at a stamp kind of like how a young kid would look at an iPhone 13,” Greenwood said. “She entrusted every important news and every important document and everything to a stamp to send it and trust that it got there.”

Skateboarding has become a staple across Indian Country. In Oregon, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs will reopen a refurbished skate park March 29 thanks to a partnership with pro skateboarder Tony Hawk’s nonprofit, The Skatepark Project. Skateboarders on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in eastern Arizona recently got funding from there, too. A skate park opened in August on the Hopi reservation. Youth-organized competitions take place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Dustinn Craig, a White Mountain Apache filmmaker and “lifer” skateboarder in Arizona, has made documentaries and short films on the sport. The 47-year-old remembers how skateboarding was seen as dorky and anti-establishment when he was a kid hiding “a useless wooden toy” in his locker. At the same time, Craig credits skateboarding culture as “my arts and humanities education.”

So he is wary of the mainstream’s embrace, as well as the sometimes clique-ish nature, of today’s skateboarding world.

“For those of us who have been in it for a very long time, it’s kind of insulting because I think a lot of the popularity has been due to the proliferation of access to the visuals of the youth culture skateboarding through the internet and social media,” Craig said. “So, I feel like it really sort of trivializes and sort of robs Native youth of authenticity of the older skateboard culture that I was raised on.”

He acknowledges that he may come off as the “grumpy old man” to younger Indigenous skateboarders who are open to collaborating with outsiders.

The four skateboards designed by the artists will eventually be transferred to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, said Jonathan Castillo, USPS spokesperson.

The stamps, which will have a printing of 18 million, will be available at post offices and on the USPS website beginning Friday. For the artists, being part of a project that feels low-tech in this age of social media is exciting.

“It’s like the physical thing is special because you go out of your way to go to the post office, buy the stamps and write something,” Worl said.

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Terry Tang is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ttangAP

Navajo Tech 1st among tribal universities to offer PhD


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In this photo provided by Navajo Technical University, graduates at the school stand during a ceremony in Crownpoint, N.M., Dec. 16, 2022. On Friday, March 24, 2023, school officials said the creation of a doctoral program focused on Dine culture and language marks a milestone for the university and is the first doctoral program among tribal colleges and universities in the United States.

 (Wafa Hozien/Navajo Technical University via AP)

A university on the largest Native American reservation in the U.S. launched its accredited doctoral program, becoming the first among more than 30 accredited tribal colleges and universities across the country to offer such a high level degree.

The program at Navajo Technical University will be dedicated to sustaining Diné culture and language. Diné is the Navajo word meaning “the people” and is commonly what tribal members call themselves.

A celebration is planned on the Crownpoint campus in western New Mexico in April, and the school already started accepting applications for the fall semester.

The offering marks a milestone for the university, which already has more than 30 degree and certificate programs spanning science, technology, engineering, business and liberal arts, Navajo Tech President Elmer Guy said.

Guy told The Associated Press on Friday that he believes the program in which students will receive a Ph.D. in Diné Culture and Language Sustainability will have a profound impact on the future of the tribe’s language and culture. He said he’s excited to see how students shape their dissertations.

The idea was to create a program that would lead to employment opportunities and effect change for Navajo communities on the reservation that stretches into New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.

“I thought it would be important to make that connection,” Guy said, explaining that it’s a step beyond the call by tribal leaders for their people to learn the language and stay engaged with their culture. “Individuals will get a degree and they’ll be professionals. You have to make it applicable. By making it more meaningful, people will have an interest in it.”

The effort is paying off. About 20 students have applied so far and will be vying for five coveted spots in the inaugural class, said Wafa Hozien, an administrator who helped with the program’s creation.

A collaboration with other academic institutions and community partners, the doctoral program was developed with the help of tribal elders, university professors and linguistic experts. Community-based research and internships will be part of the curriculum so students gain practical experience they can apply in the real world.

Guy said he’s hopeful this inspires other tribal colleges and universities to create their own programs.

Hozien said Navajo Tech’s program represents a paradigm shift in that learning through a Diné lens — with culture and language — creates leaders who can advocate for their people in the judicial system, education, land management, business, technology and health care, for example.

Guy said the work done by the university to train court reporters to document Navajo testimony and translators to help with reading ballots during election season already has addressed some of the pressing needs within communities.

The possibilities will be even greater as students earn doctoral degrees, he said.

“They will be part of solving problems,” Guy said. “These students have energy and creativity, and our job is to give them the tools.”

In this photo provided by Navajo Technical University, university President Elmer Guy poses during a higher education conference in Albuquerque, N.M., March 8, 2023. On Friday, March 24, 2023, school officials said the creation of a doctoral program focused on Dine culture and language marks a milestone for the university and is the first doctoral program among tribal colleges and universities in the United States. (Wafa Hozien/Navajo Technical University via AP)

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Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Italy partisans criticize Meloni over Nazi massacre comment

By NICOLE WINFIELD

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A man walks amid the graves of the 335 victims of one of the worst World War II-era massacres in German-occupied Italy at the Ardeatine Caves in Rome, on its 79th anniversary, Friday, March 24, 2023. 335 people were shot to death on March 24, 1944, as a reprisal for an attack by partisans that killed 33 Nazi soldiers on a street in Rome. (Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via AP)

ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni marked the anniversary Friday of one of the worst World War II-era massacres in German-occupied Italy, but the main association of partisans who fought to free Italy from fascism quickly criticized her comments.

Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has neo-fascist roots, issued a statement to commemorate the March 24, 1944 massacre at the Ardeatine Caves on Rome’s outskirts. There, 335 people were shot to death as a reprisal for an attack by partisans that killed 33 Nazi soldiers on a street in Rome.

Meloni said it was up to all Italians to remember the “barbaric” slaughter and to teach future generations what happened. She said the massacre “marked one of the deepest and most painful wounds inflicted on our community: 335 innocent Italians slaughtered simply because they were Italian.”

The National Association of Italian Partisans, or ANPI, which preserves the memory of the World War II resistance movement against fascism and has warned of an emboldened far-right in Italy, criticized Meloni for “not remembering everything.”

The group faulted in particular the premier’s reference to the 335 people killed merely “because they were Italian.”

“Sure, they were Italians, but they were chosen on the basis of a selection that affected anti-fascists, resistance fighters, political opponents and Jews,” ANPI leader Gianfranco Pagliarulo said in a statement.

He added that the list of those who were slaughtered was compiled “with the complicity” of Rome’s police chief, the interior minister of deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s northern Republic of Salo and a Nazi war criminal. Pagliarulo said they were “all fascists.”

Opposition lawmakers also faulted Meloni’s comment. “One day will you be able to write the word ANTIFASCIST?” tweeted Nicola Fratoianni, a lawmaker from the Alliance of Left Greens.

Meloni has sought to allay concerns about her party’s neo-fascist roots, insisting during Italy’s election campaign last year that the Italian right had “handed fascism over to history” and had unambiguously condemned the suppression of democracy and anti-Jewish laws.

Since becoming premier in October, she also has reached out repeatedly to members of Rome’s Jewish community.

But one of the Brothers of Italy’s leaders, Senate President Ignazio La Russa, has also proudly displayed Mussolini memorabilia in his home. La Russa joined Italy’s president and other dignitaries at a commemoration Friday at the Ardeatine site, which took place while Meloni was in Brussels for a European Union summit.

Asked about her comments, Meloni said she was being inclusive, or “omnicomprehensive,” in describing antifascists as Italians, the ANSA news agency said.

Italy never went through a process similar to Germany’s denazification, and a neo-fascist party, the Italian Social Movement, or MSI, was part of Italy’s first postwar government in 1946. Meloni joined the MSI’s youth branch as a teen-ager in Rome and went onto lead the youth branch of MSI’s successor party, the National Alliance.

The Brothers of Italy party succeeded the National Alliance and retains the tricolor flame of the original MSI as its logo.

DEA overseas review barely mentions corruption scandals

By JIM MUSTIAN and JOSHUA GOODMAN
 

Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2021. After nearly two years and at least $1.4 million spent, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Friday, March 24, 2023, released an external review of its overseas operations that gave short shrift to recent corruption scandals and offered a series of recommendations that critics dismissed as overly vague.

 (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — After nearly two years and at least $1.4 million spent, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Friday released an external review of its overseas operations that barely mentions recent corruption scandals and offers recommendations that critics dismissed as overly vague.

Much of the 50-page report outlines the DEA’s sprawling, 69-country “foreign footprint,” while lauding its efforts to plug gaping holes in the oversight of undercover money laundering operations and special vetted units overseas.

“This report is stunningly vague in its actual evaluation of known problems at the DEA and remedies to fix them,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “This speaks to the agency’s broader effort to evade oversight. The agency has attempted to dodge my oversight inquiries but I intend to push forward.”

The external probe was announced in 2021 following reporting by The Associated Press on the crimes of José Irizarry, a disgraced former DEA agent now serving a 12-year federal prison sentence after confessing to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels and skimming millions from seizures and informants to fund an international joyride of fine dining, parties and prostitutes.

Jose Irizarry speaks during an interview the night before going to a federal detention center, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti, File)

Irizarry told the AP last year that DEA agents have come to accept that there’s nothing they can do to make a dent in the flow of illegal cocaine and opioids into the United States that has driven more than 100,000 overdose deaths a year.

“The drug war is a game,” Irizarry said. “It was a very fun game that we were playing.”

Irizarry’s case got one paragraph in the external review. An ongoing federal grand jury inquiry into some of his jet-setting former DEA colleagues was mentioned in a footnote. Also, Irizarry’s lawyer told AP he offered to make his client available for an interview for the review but was never contacted.

“Interviews and documents demonstrated that the DEA has already largely implemented the recommendations from the DOJ OIG to enhance the oversight of compliance risks arising out of the agency’s foreign operations,” the review concluded, referring to the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General.

The probe found fault with the bureaucracy it said bogs down the assignment of agents to foreign divisions and recommended putting incentives in place to attract “top talent to hard-to-fill offices.” It also blamed the “corrupting influence” of cartels for instances of “individual misconduct by DEA personnel.”

“DEA also could do more to ensure supervisors are effectively evaluated and ultimately held accountable for compliance-related issues,” the review found.

Other recommendations included more regular audits of foreign offices and vetted police units, and stricter controls on expenses.

The external review was conducted by former DEA administrator Jack Lawn and Boyd Johnson, a former federal prosecutor who handled international drug cases. Public records show the no-bid contract was awarded to the law firm WilmerHale, where Johnson works, at a cost of $1.4 million. Johnson did not respond to emails seeking comment.

The report made little mention of the turmoil that has roiled DEA operations in Mexico, where law enforcement cooperation collapsed amid the tenure of a regional director who was quietly ousted from his post for having improper contact with lawyers for narcotraffickers.

AP reported earlier this year that Nicholas Palmeri served just 14 months in the post and retired before an Office of Inspector General report found he sought government reimbursement to pay for his own birthday party.

“For a report that cost the government over $1.4 million, it does not seem to recommend the types of changes that would actually prevent another Irizarry or other misconduct,” said Bonnie Klapper, a former federal prosecutor in New York. “While the report is very thorough in laying out DEA’s role and responsibilities, it mentions only a very few examples of misconduct, and its recommendations don’t go far enough.”

Palmeri arrived to Mexico in the wake of one of the biggest setbacks in recent years in the U.S.-led drug war: the botched arrest of former Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos. The retired general was nabbed on a sealed U.S. drug warrant upon arrival at the Los Angeles airport in 2020 only to be released a few weeks later under pressure from Mexico’s leftist president, who retaliated by disbanding an elite police unit that was a key DEA ally.

Neither the Cienfuegos incident nor the arrest of another prominent U.S. ally in Mexico — ex-security chief Genaro Garcia Luna — are mentioned in the report.

“The report’s key takeaway about improving information sharing and breaking down internal silos couldn’t be more commendable,” said John Feeley, a retired U.S. diplomat who worked alongside the DEA in numerous postings overseas. “But the biggest silo that needs to be dismantled from an operations perspective is the DEA’s failure to communicate to front offices and ambassadors when it’s investigating senior officials of host nations.”

DEA Administrator Anne Milgram, who has declined repeated interview requests, said in a statement that the agency would implement all 17 of the report’s recommendations.

“DEA is committed to meeting the challenges presented by today’s global drug threats and ensuring that our work is conducted at the highest level possible,” she said.

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Goodman reported from Miami. Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.