Right-wing pastor doubles down on belief that autism is 'demonic': report

Story by Brandon Gage •

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash© provided by AlterNet

Last Wednesday, Pastor Rick Morrow of Beulah Church in Richland, Missouri ignited fury when he asserted in a sermon that autism was the result of demonic forces corrupting children's minds.

"I know a minister who has seen lots of kids that are autistic, that he cast that demon out, and they were healed, and then he had to pray and their brain was rewired and they were fixed," Morrow said. "Yeah, I just went there. I mean, you can get online and see lots of examples of it. If it's not demonic, then we have to say God made them that way. Like, that's the only other explanation."

Morrow continued, 'Why [does] my kid have autism?' Well, either the devil's attacked them, he's brought this infirmity upon them, he's got them where he wants them, and/or God just doesn't like 'em very much and he made 'em that way. Well, my God doesn't make junk. God doesn't make mess-ups. God doesn't make people that way."

According to Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist, who helped Morrow's remarks receive public attention, "infuriated people in the community, some of whom have children with autism and have no trouble reconciling it with their faith." Mehta pointed out that the "sentiment was shared by many people who commented under the church's video on Facebook, with responses ranging from 'This whole congregation needs to run away' to 'I'm embarrassed this is in our community.'"

Mehta noted at the time that "one Missouri mother was so upset about his sermon that she reached out to Morrow personally to tell him how her son, who has autism, is a blessing. She explained that he doesn’t have an 'illness.' Rather, he's a 'brilliant child' who simply communicates differently. She also asked Morrow if he felt the same way about children with Down syndrome. He said that, too, was Satan's fault."

Mehta stressed that "Morrow isn't merely some random ignorant pastor. He's also a school board member for the Stoutland R-II School District. This guy oversees education for public school students, at least some of whom we have to assume are on the autism spectrum. That would mean he believes the devil has attacked all of them and the only way to handle those students is with prayer instead of therapy or academic intervention."

On Sunday, September 10th, Mehta updated that Morrow finally responded to the criticism that his beliefs received. But instead of making amends, Morrow doubled down.

READ.MORE: Authoritarians are the reason we still have 9/11 conspiracy theories

"I made a statement Wednesday night talking about demons, and we're going to keep talking about them on Wednesday night. And I made a statement. I said, 'Let's talk about something demonic.' And I said, 'autism.' And then I said, 'God doesn't make junk,'" Morrow recalled. "Those of you that know me know that I love people and I would never say that people are junk. It has been perceived that I'm evil, that I am full of the devil, that I am possessed myself because I said kids with autism are junk. That's what has been perceived. What was intended was autism is junk. People that have it are loved by God and loved by me."

Mehta rejected Morrow's defense.

"Let me remind everyone that Morrow claimed kids with autism could be 'healed' with prayer," Mehta wrote. "That's a lie. He said that the only alternative to believing autism is caused by demons is saying, of children, 'God just doesn't like 'em very much and he made 'em that way.'"

Mehta added, "Oh. And he’s still on the local public school board."

'IRONY'

'Freedom Convoy' lawyers attempt to block Ottawa residents from testifying at trial

Story by The Canadian Press •

'Freedom Convoy' lawyers attempt to block Ottawa residents from testifying at trial© Provided by The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The lawyers defending two of the most prominent organizers of the "Freedom Convoy" protests are expected to make their case today to block nine Ottawa residents and business representatives from taking the stand.

Tamara Lich and Chris Barber are on trial for criminal charges related to their role in the demonstration, which blockaded Ottawa city streets for weeks last year as protestors railed against COVID-19 public health measures.

The Crown plans to call five Ottawa residents as witnesses in the case, including Zexi Li, who filed a class-action lawsuit against the organizers on behalf of people who live and work in downtown Ottawa.

Related video: Highly-anticipated criminal trial of 'Freedom Convoy' organizers underway (Global News)

The Crown also intends to call the owner of a women's clothing boutique, and employees from the National Arts Centre, the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel, and the local public transit operator.

Lich's lawyer Lawrence Greenspon says he will argue on Monday afternoon that those witnesses should not be allowed to testify.

Lich and Barber have already filed signed admissions to the court acknowledging the protest interfered with public transit, and the lawful use and enjoyment of property and businesses.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2023.

The Canadian Press

TORY CONVENTION

Transgender Tory candidate says vote against gender-affirming care could cost lives

Story by The Canadian Press


The first openly transgender person to run for the federal Conservatives warns that a policy adopted by the party over the weekend could harm gender-diverse children if it ever becomes law.

However, Hannah Hodson said she feels it's unlikely the contentious policy would be a top priority for the Conservatives if the party is voted into power.

"If these policies (are) passed, people are going to die, children are going to die in this country without access to any gender-affirming care," said Hodson, who ran for the party in the 2021 federal election in Victoria, B.C.

Party delegates voted in favour of a future Conservative government prohibiting "medicinal or surgical interventions" for gender-diverse and transgender children on Saturday. The vote came during a three-day policy convention in Quebec City.

The proposal, which passed with assent from 69 per cent of the voting members, came from a riding in British Columbia.

However, like past leaders, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said he is not bound to include the policies adopted at party policy conventions into an eventual election platform.

After the proposal that any future Conservative government prohibit "life-altering medicinal or surgical interventions" for those under 18 was accepted, Hodson posted online about the betrayal she felt.

"To all the (Conservative Party of Canada) people who have told me they love me, support me, and would fight for me, and who are now telling me to calm down and just go along with this," she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"I see you and I will not forget."

The vote comes as the issue of children and gender identity is gaining traction among Conservatives in both Canada and the United States.

Hodson said Canadian politics is beginning to resemble the American playbook.

"There's a long and storied history of political actors using vulnerable minorities in order to early on achieve power, raise money," she said in an interview. "It is like, 'Hey look over there, not over here at this other serious problem, that we're not fixing.'"

Hodson said she began distancing herself from the Conservative party after last year's "Freedom Convoy" protests in Ottawa, where she and her friends were subjected to harassment.

She finally withdrew her membership when New Brunswick instituted a policy in June requiring students under 16 who are questioning their gender identity to get their parents' consent before teachers can use their preferred first names or pronouns at school.

"Pierre Poilievre gave it tacit approval," Hodson said. "That really just was the last straw."

Conservatives approve policy to limit transgender health care for minors | Watch (msn.com)

Poilievre was asked about the province's decision earlier this summer, and he suggested Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should stay out of the issue, saying he believes the matter is one for the province and parents to decide.

His office has not yet responded to a request for comment since Saturday's vote.

 Combatting 2SLGBTQI+ Hate | Watch (msn.com)

Saskatchewan has also ushered in changes requiring schools to seek parental consent if a child under 16 wants to be referred to by a different name or pronoun.

Over the weekend, delegates at the Conservative convention voted on a suite of amendments to the party's policy handbook, ranging in issues from foreign affairs to the environment and health.

They also passed a motion to amend Conservative policy to say the party believes women should have access to "single-sex spaces" in areas like prisons, bathrooms and sports. That motion passed with 90 per cent of delegates' votes.

Helen Kennedy, executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy group Egale Canada, said the wording specifically targets transgender people.

"Trans women are women, and trans women have a right to use women's bathroom," she said. "There's no debate about that."

She said the next federal election will likely come as housing costs soar, health-care systems fail and life becomes increasingly unaffordable.

"But we're having an election over trans rights," she said. "When we just want to be left alone."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2023.

Ritika Dubey, The Canadian Press

Opinion: New Texas law deprives families of religious liberty rights

Opinion by Opinion by Amanda Tyler

•9/11/2023

Editor’s Note: Amanda Tyler is the lead organizer of Christians Against Christian Nationalism. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. 

A new Texas law allows public schools to replace counselors with chaplains and to use funds earmarked for school safety and mental health to pay them. The law went into effect this month.


Amanda Tyler - Courtesy BJC© Provided by CNN

Each of Texas’ more than 1,000 school districts now has six months to vote on whether or not to create chaplain programs. There are no requirements to be called a “chaplain” outside of passing a background check. People allowed to serve as chaplains in this program are not barred from proselytizing and do not have to have any chaplaincy training or expertise in working with children or people from different faith traditions.

“Chaplains represent God in government and are already extremely successful in helping our first responders, military, providing support in hospitals, and counseling in our prison systems,” Republican state Sen. Mayes Middleton from Galveston wrote about his motivation in authoring the legislation. “I believe that chaplains will greatly benefit our school students, teachers, and other school district staff. Our schools are not God-free zones.”

As a constitutional lawyer and Baptist leader committed to religious liberty, I couldn’t disagree more. The very premise that the government plays a role in religious affairs betrays the foundational values of religious freedom.

Students are free to exercise their religion in ways that do not interfere with classroom instruction, but the school itself should not be in the business of propping up or denigrating anyone’s religion. While there are good reasons for chaplains in certain settings where someone cannot freely access religious services, those circumstances are not present in the public school context.

But, more personally, as the parent of a child in a Texas elementary school, I have deep concerns about any move to religious indoctrination or instruction in the public schools. My husband, who is Jewish, and I are raising our son in an interfaith household. My son sits in the pew with me for worship most Sunday mornings at our Baptist church, and we’ll soon celebrate the Jewish holidays together with our extended family at our Reform temple.

He is able to access both religious traditions as he develops his own sense of what it means to be human, and whatever questions my husband and I can’t answer, we have a rich community of clergy and lay leaders to help in his religious education.

To me, this is the essence of what flourishing religious freedom means, free of government interference. I don’t want government chaplains inserting themselves into my family’s — or any family’s — religious discernment.

Texas chaplains have voiced their strong opposition to this new law. More than 100 signed an open letter to the state’s school districts calling on them to reject this chaplain program.

“Government-sanctioned chaplains make sense in some settings, but not in our public schools,” states the letter, which is organized by BJC, Texas Impact and Interfaith Alliance. “Many of us serve in contexts in which individuals cannot access their religious services — such as the military, a prison, or hospital — which is hardly the case for children in public school. … Parents or guardians must have the right to choose the religious leaders who will influence their children’s spiritual journey.”

The Texas chaplains specifically stated that they “are not qualified for the duties envisioned by SB 763.

“We cooperate with mental health counselors — we do not compete with them. Further, professions which help children with sensitive matters, such as therapists and police investigators, typically require special training on how to interview and treat juveniles.” They also explain that “[c]haplaincy programs do not train chaplains on active shooter situations or to be public safety professionals.”

Texas recently required public schools to display “In God We Trust” posters if they are donated to the school. Another piece of legislation aimed to mandate the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms in the state. Fortunately, the bill died after the Texas House didn’t meet a deadline to act on it.

While the Ten Commandments are central teachings in both Judaism and Christianity, there are diverse texts and interpretations in both faiths and among different Christian denominations. Teaching and talking about the Ten Commandments should be up to my family and the religious leaders at the church and synagogue where my family worships. The state of Texas should not control how my son learns about how, when, or if to worship God.

Texas parents who are Christian, Jewish, another religion or not religious should be able to unite across ideological differences to keep the government out of religious indoctrination and proselytization. It’s not a conservative or liberal position to believe that houses of worship and other religious institutions are better equipped than the government to teach children about religion.

My opposition to this and other forms of government-sponsored religion in schools is also rooted in my own Baptist faith. Baptists should be the loudest defenders of church-state separation – historically, we have been.

The organization I lead, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC), has worked for 87 years to defend religious freedom for all. We file friend-of-the-court briefs at the US Supreme Court, lead coalitions to pass legislation such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and advocate for federal agencies to uphold religious freedom through their regulatory agendas. Our work is rooted in the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom and our Baptist conviction of “soul freedom.”

Soul freedom means that each individual is free to deal personally with God. Our direct relationship with God is an individual right and responsibility, and there should be no political interference with faith. Texas is increasingly getting in the way of soul freedom.

It’s not just Texans who should be concerned. A public school chaplain law is being pushed in Ohio, and one was proposed earlier this year in Oklahoma. At least a dozen other states (Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia) require schools to display “In God We Trust.”

These efforts are part of a resurgence of Christian nationalism, the political ideology that conflates American and Christian identities. BJC launched the Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign in 2019 to specifically call out the ways Christian nationalism distorts our faith and to make sure Christian nationalism doesn’t go unchallenged in the public square or our churches. More than 35,000 Christians across the country have already signed our statement of principles.

This increase in state-based attacks on church-state separation have been emboldened by the US Supreme Court’s recent decisions that opened the door to more government meddling in religious affairs. During the 2021-2022 term alone, the Court sided with a public school football coach who had a history of leading post-game prayers with the team and decided that Maine cannot exclude religious schools from a tuition assistance program.

As challenging as the circumstances are in Texas and many other places across the country, we can’t give up on the American experiment in secular democracy — one that allows all faiths to flourish by guaranteeing equal citizenship without regard to religion. Christian nationalism is a powerful ideology in a majority-Christian nation. But I’m hopeful that most Americans — of all faiths and of no faith — do not want the government deciding religious matters for our families.

Lahaina’s fire-stricken Filipino residents are key to tourism and local culture. Will they stay?


Evangeline Balintona, left, and Elsie Rosales pose on the balcony of a hotel room in Lahaina, Hawaii, on Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023. They are among the many Filipinos who work as Maui hotel housekeepers living temporarily in hotel rooms after losing their homes to a deadly fire. (AP Photo/Jennifer Sinco Kelleher)

Elsie Rosales sits inside a hotel condo after her home burned down in Lahaina during the Hawaii wildfires, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023, in Kahana, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)


Evangeline Balintona, left, and her sister Elsie Rosales sit inside a hotel condo after they both lost homes in Lahaina to the Hawaii wildfires, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023, in Kahana, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

BY JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER

September 10, 2023

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Ambulance and fire truck sirens wailed outside as Elsie Rosales stripped linens from king-sized mattresses at a beachfront resort in Lahaina.

She tried to focus on the work, but was beset by dread: Had a wildfire taken the home she scrimped to buy on a housekeeper’s wages?

It had. And now Rosales, like many other Filipino housekeepers used to cleaning hotels, is living in one with her family, a poignant example of how the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century has afflicted Maui’s heavily Filipino population.

“All our hard work burned,” Rosales told The Associated Press in an interview conducted in Ilocano, her native language. “There is nothing left.”


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The disaster has prompted fears about what will become of Lahaina’s community and character as it rebuilds.

Many are concerned residents like Rosales won’t be able to afford to live in Lahaina after the community is rebuilt, and that affluent outsiders seeking a home in the oceanfront town will price them out.

Will Filipinos, Native Hawaiians and others who have been the backbone of the tourism industry for so long be able to remain here? Will they want to?


Workers harvest a pineapple field in Maui, Hawaii, on March 5, 2002. Filipinos began arriving in Hawaii more than a century ago to labor on sugarcane and pineapple plantations. In 2023, they account for the second-largest ethnic group on Maui, with nearly 48,000 island residents tracing their roots to the Philippines, 5,000 of them in Lahaina — about 40% of the town’s population before the fire. 

(Amanda Cowan/The Maui News via AP, File)

Filipinos began arriving in Hawaii more than a century ago to labor on sugarcane and pineapple plantations. As their descendants and successive generations of immigrants have settled, they have become deeply ingrained in the community’s culture.

Today, they account for the second-largest ethnic group on Maui, with nearly 48,000 island residents tracing their roots to the Philippines, 5,000 of them in Lahaina, which was about 40% of the town’s population before the fire. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates about one-fourth of Hawaii’s 1.4 million people are of Filipino descent.

Many of them work in hotels, health care and food service. Filipinos account for about 70% of the members of UNITE HERE Local 5, the union representing workers in those industries, union President Gemma Weinstein said. She is Filipino and a former Honolulu hotel housekeeper.

“If it wasn’t for the Filipinos having two or three jobs, a lot of the businesses here, including the hotels, would have a hard time operating,” said Rick Nava, a community advocate and Filipino immigrant who lost his own home in the fire.
A month after the Aug. 8 disaster killed at least 115 people, nearly 6,000 people were staying at two dozen hotels serving as temporary shelters around Maui.

A number are hotel housekeepers like Rosales, 61, who is staying in a two-bedroom suite with her two sisters, her son, his wife and three grandchildren at the Sands of Kahana resort. Rosales’ 72-year-old sister, Evangeline Balintona, works there as a housekeeper.

In the sisters’ suite, there is an artificial plant in the corner of the living room, between a window overlooking the ocean and the flat-screen TV, that Balintona has dusted countless times. When she makes the bed, she does it the way she always has done for work, with layers of sheets and a comforter tucked neat and tight under a heavy mattress.

“I know every corner of this room,” Balintona said.


While surrounded by food donations, Evangeline Balintona, left, and her sister Elsie Rosales sit inside a hotel condo after they both lost homes in Lahaina to the Hawaii wildfires, Friday, Sept. 1, 2023, in Kahana, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

She is thinking about returning to Ilocos Norte, the family’s hometown in the Philippines. She hopes her son there has saved enough from the monthly remittances she sent over the years to support her if she returns with nothing.

Tourists have been told to avoid Lahaina for now, and many hotels are housing federal aid workers. Balintona and others worry about the futures of their jobs.

Rosales, who said she did not know anyone who died in the fire, immigrated to Hawaii in 1999. After years of renting and saving for a down payment, she bought a five-bedroom home on Lahaina’s Aulike Street in 2014 for $490,000. Her mother and siblings owned homes nearby. Those also are gone now.

She continues to work at another resort a few miles from where the sisters are staying. On her days off, she sorts out insurance paperwork, including trying to itemize belongings lost in the fire.


 Homes consumed in recent wildfires are seen in Lahaina, Hawaii, on Aug. 16, 2023. Filipinos began arriving in Hawaii more than a century ago, lured by promises of work on sugarcane and pineapple plantations to support their families back home. Many of those who perished or lost homes in the August 2023 fire were of Filipino descent, a labor force vital to Maui’s tourist industry. 

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Rosales recalled the night of the fire when she and her co-workers — almost all from the Philippines — were forced to remain in the hotel because roads were blocked. She didn’t learn the fate of her home until the next morning, when her youngest son called.

“Mom, no more house,” he told her.

“No, anak ko!” she shrieked, using an Ilocano term meaning “my child.”

Around her, other housekeepers sobbed as they received similar calls.

The Rev. Efren Tomas, pastor of Christ the King Church in Kahului, worries about the mental health of survivors. He has been counseling groups of Filipinos staying in hotels, even celebrating Mass in a hotel reception room.

“For Filipinos, it’s very hard for them to go into one-on-one counseling,” he said. “They want to gather in a group. I think they get strength from each other.”

Many longtime Lahaina residents, including Native Hawaiians, told the AP they worry that whatever is built from the ashes of Lahaina won’t include Filipinos and other ethnic groups who made it the working class community it was.

“The new Lahaina should be the old Lahaina,” said Alicia Kalepa, who lives in a Hawaiian homestead where most of the houses survived the fire. “Mixed culture.”

Gilbert Keith-Agaran, a state senator from Maui who is stepping down to focus on litigation work involving the fires, said he won’t be surprised if many Filipinos leave for places such as Las Vegas, an affordable destination for Hawaii residents who no longer can afford to live here.

“I think it’s hard to take the Filipinos out of the fabric of our community,” said Keith-Agaran, whose father came from Ilocos Norte in 1946 for plantation work. “We intermarried a lot with others who are here.”

Melen Magbual Agcolicol was 13 when she arrived on Maui from the Philippines more than four decades ago with her family. Since then, she has become a community advocate and is president of Binhi at Ani, “Seed and Harvest,” which operates Maui’s only Filipino community center.

Her group unveiled a fund called Tulong for Lahaina, or Help for Lahaina. The idea is to provide grants to Filipinos who lost homes, shops or loved ones.

“The starting over is so difficult. How are you going to start over? Number one, you don’t have a job,” she said. “Number two, your sanity. Your sanity is not normal until you think that you can accept what happened to you.”

Rosales’ three sons don’t want her to sell her property, but she is finding it difficult to think about the future. She can’t sleep or eat, can’t stop crying.

Residents have not been allowed to return to the burned areas. Rosales wants to go back. She wants to comb through the rubble of her American dream, hoping to find a piece of her jewelry collection, a gold bracelet or a watch, luxuries she would never have been able to afford in the Philippines.

“Even if it’s black,” she said, “I want to take it as a remembrance.”

She touched the delicate gold hoops dangling from her ears. She put them on the morning she left her house to go to work.
___

Associated Press writer Bobby Caina Calvan contributed.

Hawaii volcano Kilauea erupts after nearly two months of quiet

Kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, began erupting Sunday after a two-month pause, displaying glowing lava that is a safe distance from people and structures in a national park on the Big Island. The Hawaii Volcano Observatory says the eruption was observed in the afternoon at the summit of Kilauea. The observatory says gases released by the eruption will cause volcanic smog downwind of Kilauea. Kilauea, Hawaii’s second largest volcano, erupted from September 2021 until last December. A 2018 Kilauea eruption destroyed more than 700 homes. (Sept. 10)

 September 11, 2023

HONOLULU (AP) — Kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, began erupting after a two-month pause, displaying glowing lava that is a safe distance from people and structures in a national park on the Big Island.

The Hawaii Volcano Observatory said the eruption was observed Sunday afternoon at the summit of Kilauea.

The observatory said gases released by the eruption will cause volcanic smog downwind of Kilauea. People living near the park should try to avoid volcanic particles spewed into the air by the eruption, the observatory said.

The volcano’s alert level was raised to warning status and the aviation color code went to red as scientists evaluate the eruption and associated hazards.

In June, Kilauea erupted for several weeks, displaying fountains of red lava without threatening any communities or structures. Crowds of people flocked to the Big Island’s Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which offered safe views of the lava.

Kilauea, Hawaii’s second-largest volcano, erupted from September 2021 until last December. A 2018 Kilauea eruption destroyed more than 700 homes

Kamala Harris says hip-hop is ‘the ultimate American art form*’ as she hosts a 50th anniversary party


1 of 14 
Vice President Kamala Harris is seen on a video monitor as she speaks at a 50th anniversary celebration of hip-hop at the Vice President’s residence, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023, in Washington.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a 50th anniversary celebration of hip-hop at the Vice President’s residence, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023, in Washington.

Comedian Deon Cole speaks during a 50th anniversary celebration of hip-hop at the Vice President’s residence, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023, in Washington. 

Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of The Recording Academy, speaks during a 50th anniversary celebration of hip-hop at the Vice President’s residence, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023, in Washington.

AP Photos/Manuel Balce Ceneta

 September 9, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday hosted a celebration of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary with appearances by some of the music genre’s pioneers and stars.

Common, Jeezy, MC Lyte and Roxanne Shante were among the hip-hop artists invited to join Harris for the party at the vice presidential residence.

Hip-hop’s 50th birthday has inspired a host of anniversary events this year. Many trace the genre’s creation to an Aug. 11, 1973, back-to-school party where 18-year-old Clive Campbell, also known as DJ Kool Herc, deejayed at a Bronx apartment building in New York City.

Harris said hip-hop is “the ultimate American art form” that “shapes every aspect of America’s popular culture.”

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“Hip-hop culture is American culture,” she told the crowd.

Hip-hop has grown into a global artform, becoming one of the world’s most influential cultural forces, an integral part of social and racial justice movements and a multibillion-dollar industry built on generations of rapping, emceeing, deejaying, breaking and graffiti.

Harris noted that Public Enemy rapper Chuck D has described rap as “Black America’s CNN.”

“It has always channeled the voices of the people. It tells the stories that don’t make the news,” she said before joining her husband, Doug Emhoff, to watch musicians’ performances.

Saturday’s celebration was a collaboration with Recording Academy’s Black Music Collective and Live Nation Urban.

“This is a hip-hop household!” Emhoff said.

* THAT WOULD BE JAZZ

TIFF

Vicky Krieps on the feminist Western ‘The Dead Don’t Hurt’ and how she leaves behind past roles


1 of 9 |
Vicky Krieps poses for a portrait to promote the film " The Dead Don’t Hurt” during the Toronto International Film Festival, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023, in Toronto. 

(Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

BY JAKE COYLE
September 9, 2023

TORONTO (AP) — Vicky Krieps noticed that while there’s plenty of instruction for getting into a role, there’s curiously little about getting out of one.

For Krieps, the disarmingly natural Luxembourgish actor of “Phantom Thread,”“Corsage” and “Bergman Island,” it’s not a small issue. It may even be the most important part of the process. If she’s still stuck the headspace of a character, she can’t keep moving forward.

After struggling in the aftermath of her breakthrough in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread,” in which she starred opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, Krieps found a solution. She could put a capstone on the character through music.

“I have to leave my characters in a peaceful way and say: Now she lives in song,” says Krieps.

Krieps, 39, has since followed every performance by writing a song for the character. She sings and plays acoustic guitar. She’s currently recording an album of those songs but she took a break to travel to the Toronto International Film Festival for the premiere of her latest film, “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” directed by Viggo Mortensen.

The film, Mortensen’s second and most accomplished directing effort, is a Western from a different, more feminist perspective. Mortensen plays a Danish immigrant named Holger who meets the French-Canadian Vivienne (Krieps) in San Francisco. They soon settle down in a corrupt Nevada town, but Holger is compelled to join the Union Army. Vivienne is left in their remote cabin, and is brutally raped while Holger is away.

Vivienne’s song, Krieps says, is sad and dark.

“It starts as a lullaby of a woman singing her child to sleep,” Krieps says, sipping tea in a hotel restaurant. “And it always breaks off when she says, ‘I can’t sleep. I can’t close my eyes.’ There’s the hope of him coming back. At the same time, this is something that’s been done to women over centuries.”

“The Dead Don’t Hurt,” one of the highlights among the films on sale in Toronto, received an interim agreement for promotion from the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists since it was an independent production and doesn’t yet have a distributor. Krieps is also to receive a tribute award at the festival.

The film is the latest in a naturally evolving project for Krieps of playing women throughout history who reject the social conventions of their times. In last year’s acclaimed “Corsage,” she played the much constricted, independently minded 19th century Austrian Empress Elisabeth. In the ’50s-set “Phantom Thread,” only her Alma is capable of countering a battle of wills with Day-Lewis’s fastidious couturier Reynolds Woodcock. In “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” Vivienne packs her bags to flee after the assault, then puts them down and resolves to stay.

“At one point you have to ask yourself: What are you living for? I do believe that something is changing for women and I’m part of this. I can tap into my grandmothers and great-grandmothers and also try to connect with who’s coming and who was before,” says Krieps. “I don’t really know why. I just know that’s how it feels. I think the dialogue is broken between men and women because women learned to hide the wound.”

Since 2017’s “Phantom Thread,” Krieps has emerged as one the movies’ most authentic, instinctive and defiant screen presences. It’s not an act, either. Krieps, who lives in Berlin with her partner and two children, is herself a force of stubborn independence.

She doesn’t like to rehearse. Every take she does differently. She’s willing, she says, to risk a scene being bad in order to make it real.

“And I believe inside: They can’t tell me what to do,” says Krieps, smiling. “I was working with Gabriel Garcia Bernal, and he was like, ‘I think this director really wants us to say the lines.’ And I said, ‘I don’t care. They cannot tell me what to do.’ And he looked at me rather impressed.

“For me, art is like a wild creature,” she adds. “To tame it, you pretend that you’re not seeing it. But, of course, I want it to come to me so badly.”

This rebellious streak in Krieps is clearly present in other parts of her life. She describes being resentful of a streaming service that, after she had played Hitchcock, would recommend only things like “Tomb Raider.”

“You’re trying to (expletive) influence me!” she says. “And by chance, it’s made by you as well. What a coincidence! That’s why the system is (expletive). It’s hiding good cinema.”

Krieps, a deeply anti-algorithm actor, has sensed that her progress in the film industry, too, could become its own construct. She has, she says, tried to work frequently with first or second-time directors. She’s turned down many more Hollywood offers than she’s accepted.

“If I get too comfortable, then I might be led into superficial things as well,” Krieps says. “As an actor, you could be easily led into some life that’s not your life. You start thinking of who you are as an actor. ‘Oh, I’m this guy,’ or ‘I’m this woman. That’s what they like me for.’ All this stuff and the gifts and the parties, the ‘I love you’ and ‘I love you too!’ It’s like foam. It goes up and up and then there’s nothing left that’s actually real.”
___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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Schools are cutting advisers and tutors as COVID aid money dries up. Students are still struggling

BY HANNAH DELLINGER, MATT BARNUM OF CHALKBEAT AND COLLIN BINKLEY OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 5, 2023

DETROIT (AP) — Davion Williams wants to go to college. A counselor at his Detroit charter school last year helped him visualize that goal, but he knows he’ll need more help to navigate the application process.

So he was discouraged to learn the high school where he just began his sophomore year had laid off its college transition adviser – a staff member who provided extra help coordinating financial aid applications, transcript requests, campus visits and more.

The advisers had been hired at 19 schools with federal pandemic relief money. In June, when Detroit’s budget was finalized, their jobs were among nearly 300 that were eliminated.

“Not being able to do it at this school is kind of disappointing,” Williams said in August at a back-to-school event at Mumford High School.

An unprecedented infusion of aid money the U.S. government provided to schools during the pandemic has begun to dwindle. Like Williams’ school, some districts already are winding down programming like expanded summer school and after-school tutoring. Some teachers and support staff brought on to help kids through the crisis are being let go.

The relief money, totaling roughly $190 billion, was meant to help schools address needs arising from COVID-19, including making up for learning loss during the pandemic. But the latest national data shows large swaths of American students remain behind academically compared with where they would have been if not for the pandemic.

Montgomery County schools, the largest district in Maryland, is reducing or eliminating tutoring, summer school, and other programs that were covered by federal pandemic aid. Facing a budget gap, the district opted for those cuts instead of increasing class sizes, said Robert Reilly, associate superintendent of finance. The district will focus instead on providing math and reading support in the classroom, he said.

But among parents, there’s a sense that there remains “a lot of work to be done” to help students catch up, said Laura Mitchell, a vice president of a districtwide parent-teacher council.

Mitchell, whose granddaughter attends high school in the district, said tutoring has been a blessing for struggling students. The district’s cuts will scale back tutoring by more than half this year.

“If we take that away, who’s going to help those who are falling behind?” she said.

Districts have through September 2024 to earmark the last of the money provided by Congress in three COVID relief packages. Some schools have already started pulling back programming to soften the blow, and the next budget year is likely to be even more painful, with the arrival of what some describe as a “funding cliff.”

In a June survey of hundreds of school system leaders by AASA, The School Superintendents Association, half said they would need to decrease staffing of specialists, such as tutors and reading coaches, for the new school year. Half also said they were cutting summer-learning programs.

As the spending deadline looms, the scope of the cuts is not yet clear. The impact in each district will depend on how school officials have planned for the aid’s end and how much money they receive from other sources.

State funding for education across the country has been generous of late. But states may soon face their own budget challenges: They also received temporary federal aid that is running out.

Many school officials are bracing for the budget hit to come. In Shreveport, Louisiana, officials say next year they might have to cut some of the 50 math teachers they added to double up on math instruction for middle schoolers.

Schools there added the teachers after identifying deep learning gaps in middle school math, and there’s evidence it helped, with a 4-point increase in math scores, officials say. But at a cost of $4 million, the program will be in jeopardy.

“Our money practically is gone,” Superintendent T. Lamar Goree said.

Some researchers have questioned whether the money was sufficient or sustained enough to address the deep declines in learning. But with a recent deal limiting federal spending increases in education, more money from Congress will not be forthcoming.

Meanwhile, some lawmakers and commentators have pointed to anemic academic recovery to suggest schools didn’t spend the COVID relief money wisely in the first place.

Experts district officials had wide discretion over how to spend the money, and their decisions have varied widely, from HVAC upgrades to professional development. “Some of the spending was very wise, and some of it looks, in hindsight, to have been somewhat foolish,” said Lori Taylor, an education finance researcher at Texas A&M University.

To date, there is limited research on whether the federal money has helped address learning loss. One recent study of eight districts’ summer school programs found no impact on reading scores but improvements in math. Since only a fraction of students in each district attended, this made only a small contribution to learning recovery, though.

School officials insist the money has made a difference.

“I wonder what the counterfactual would have been if we didn’t have the money,” said Adriana Publico, the project manager for COVID relief funds at Washoe County School District in Reno, Nevada. “Would students have been even worse off? I think so.“

The Washoe system has cut hours for after-school tutoring in half this year and eliminated teacher coaches from many elementary schools. The district just finished a dramatically expanded summer school program, but officials aren’t sure if they’ll be able to afford to continue it next summer.

Some school systems are trying to maintain COVID-era additions. In Kansas City, Missouri, district officials say they’re planning to keep a number of the positions that were added with federal money, including intervention teachers and clinicians who work with students who have experienced trauma. The district will be able to do so, said CFO Erin Thompson, because of higher property tax revenue.

“This might not be as bad as what we thought,” she said. “We’re optimistic at this point.”

In Detroit, which received a windfall of federal COVID money, district officials say they budgeted carefully to avoid steep cuts when the money runs out. This included earmarking more than half of their federal relief — some $700 million — for one-time building renovations to aging campuses across the city.

But ultimately, officials said some reductions were necessary. Expanded summer and after-school programs have been phased out, in addition to the hundreds of staff positions, like the college advisers.

“In an ideal world, I would rather have college transition advisers,” said Superintendent Nikolai Vitti. “But it’s another example of making hard decisions.”
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Barnum reported from New York and Binkley reported from Washington, D.C.
___

The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


by Taboola You May Like

Artificial intelligence technology behind ChatGPT was built in Iowa — with a lot of water


Traffic on Interstate 35 passes a Microsoft data center, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023, in West Des Moines, Iowa. Microsoft has been amassing a cluster of data centers to power its cloud computing services for more than a decade. Its fourth and fifth data centers in the city are due to open later this year. 

AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

A Microsoft data center is seen near Interstate 35, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023, in West Des Moines, Iowa. Microsoft has been amassing a cluster of data centers to power its cloud computing services for more than a decade. Its fourth and fifth data centers in the city are due to open later this year.

 (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

BY MATT O’BRIEN AND HANNAH FINGERHUT
, September 9, 2023


DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The cost of building an artificial intelligence product like ChatGPT can be hard to measure.

But one thing Microsoft-backed OpenAI needed for its technology was plenty of water, pulled from the watershed of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers in central Iowa to cool a powerful supercomputer as it helped teach its AI systems how to mimic human writing.

As they race to capitalize on a craze for generative AI, leading tech developers including Microsoft, OpenAI and Google have acknowledged that growing demand for their AI tools carries hefty costs, from expensive semiconductors to an increase in water consumption.

But they’re often secretive about the specifics. Few people in Iowa knew about its status as a birthplace of OpenAI’s most advanced large language model, GPT-4, before a top Microsoft executive said in a speech it “was literally made next to cornfields west of Des Moines.”

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Building a large language model requires analyzing patterns across a huge trove of human-written text. All of that computing takes a lot of electricity and generates a lot of heat. To keep it cool on hot days, data centers need to pump in water — often to a cooling tower outside its warehouse-sized buildings.

In its latest environmental report, Microsoft disclosed that its global water consumption spiked 34% from 2021 to 2022 (to nearly 1.7 billion gallons, or more than 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools), a sharp increase compared to previous years that outside researchers tie to its AI research.

“It’s fair to say the majority of the growth is due to AI,” including “its heavy investment in generative AI and partnership with OpenAI,” said Shaolei Ren, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside who has been trying to calculate the environmental impact of generative AI products such as ChatGPT.

In a paper due to be published later this year, Ren’s team estimates ChatGPT gulps up 500 milliliters of water (close to what’s in a 16-ounce water bottle) every time you ask it a series of between 5 to 50 prompts or questions. The range varies depending on where its servers are located and the season. The estimate includes indirect water usage that the companies don’t measure — such as to cool power plants that supply the data centers with electricity.

“Most people are not aware of the resource usage underlying ChatGPT,” Ren said. “If you’re not aware of the resource usage, then there’s no way that we can help conserve the resources.”

Google reported a 20% growth in water use in the same period, which Ren also largely attributes to its AI work. Google’s spike wasn’t uniform -- it was steady in Oregon where its water use has attracted public attention, while doubling outside Las Vegas. It was also thirsty in Iowa, drawing more potable water to its Council Bluffs data centers than anywhere else.

In response to questions from The Associated Press, Microsoft said in a statement this week that it is investing in research to measure AI’s energy and carbon footprint “while working on ways to make large systems more efficient, in both training and application.”

“We will continue to monitor our emissions, accelerate progress while increasing our use of clean energy to power data centers, purchasing renewable energy, and other efforts to meet our sustainability goals of being carbon negative, water positive and zero waste by 2030,” the company’s statement said.

OpenAI echoed those comments in its own statement Friday, saying it’s giving “considerable thought” to the best use of computing power.

“We recognize training large models can be energy and water-intensive” and work to improve efficiencies, it said.

Microsoft made its first $1 billion investment in San Francisco-based OpenAI in 2019, more than two years before the startup introduced ChatGPT and sparked worldwide fascination with AI advancements. As part of the deal, the software giant would supply computing power needed to train the AI models.

To do at least some of that work, the two companies looked to West Des Moines, Iowa, a city of 68,000 people where Microsoft has been amassing data centers to power its cloud computing services for more than a decade. Its fourth and fifth data centers are due to open there later this year.

“They’re building them as fast as they can,” said Steve Gaer, who was the city’s mayor when Microsoft came to town. Gaer said the company was attracted to the city’s commitment to building public infrastructure and contributed a “staggering” sum of money through tax payments that support that investment.

“But, you know, they were pretty secretive on what they’re doing out there,” he added.

Microsoft first said it was developing one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers for OpenAI in 2020, declining to reveal its location to AP at the time but describing it as a “single system” with more than 285,000 cores of conventional semiconductors, and 10,000 graphics processors — a kind of chip that’s become crucial to AI workloads.

Experts have said it can make sense to “pretrain” an AI model at a single location because of the large amounts of data that need to be transferred between computing cores.

It wasn’t until late May that Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, disclosed that it had built its “advanced AI supercomputing data center” in Iowa, exclusively to enable OpenAI to train what has become its fourth-generation model, GPT-4. The model now powers premium versions of ChatGPT and some of Microsoft’s own products and has accelerated a debate about containing AI’s societal risks.

“It was made by these extraordinary engineers in California, but it was really made in Iowa,” Smith said.

In some ways, West Des Moines is a relatively efficient place to train a powerful AI system, especially compared to Microsoft’s data centers in Arizona that consume far more water for the same computing demand.

“So if you are developing AI models within Microsoft, then you should schedule your training in Iowa instead of in Arizona,” Ren said. “In terms of training, there’s no difference. In terms of water consumption or energy consumption, there’s a big difference.”

For much of the year, Iowa’s weather is cool enough for Microsoft to use outside air to keep the supercomputer running properly and vent heat out of the building. Only when the temperature exceeds 29.3 degrees Celsius (about 85 degrees Fahrenheit) does it withdraw water, the company has said in a public disclosure.

That can still be a lot of water, especially in the summer. In July 2022, the month before OpenAI says it completed its training of GPT-4, Microsoft pumped in about 11.5 million gallons of water to its cluster of Iowa data centers, according to the West Des Moines Water Works. That amounted to about 6% of all the water used in the district, which also supplies drinking water to the city’s residents.

In 2022, a document from the West Des Moines Water Works said it and the city government “will only consider future data center projects” from Microsoft if those projects can “demonstrate and implement technology to significantly reduce peak water usage from the current levels” to preserve the water supply for residential and other commercial needs.

Microsoft said Thursday it is working directly with the water works to address its feedback. In a written statement, the water works said the company has been a good partner and has been working with local officials to reduce its water footprint while still meeting its needs.

—-

O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

——

The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing agreement that allows for part of AP’s text archives to be used to train the tech company’s large language model. AP receives an undisclosed fee for use of its content.