Influencers debate leaving Twitter, but where would they go?

By ALEXANDRA OLSON and MARYCLAIRE DALE

yesterday

Pariss Chandler, of Randolph, Mass., founder of the recruitment platform website Black Tech Pipeline, sits for a photograph at her home, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022, in Randolph. Chandler built a community for Black tech workers on Twitter that eventually became the foundation for her own recruitment company. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Pariss Chandler built a community for Black tech workers on Twitter that eventually became the foundation for her own recruitment company.

Now she’s afraid it could all fall apart if Twitter becomes a haven for racist and toxic speech under the control of Elon Musk, a serial provocateur who has indicated he could loosen content rules.

With Twitter driving most of her business, Chandler sees no good alternative as she watches the uncertainty play out.

“Before Elon took over, I felt like the team was working to make Twitter a safer platform, and now they are kind of not there. I don’t know what’s going on internally. I have lost hope in that,” said Chandler, 31, founder of Black Tech Pipeline, a jobs board and recruitment website. “I’m both sad and terrified for Twitter, both for the employees and also the users.”

Those qualms are weighing on many people who have come to rely on Twitter, a relatively small but mighty platform that has become a digital public square of sorts for influencers, policy makers, journalists and other thought leaders.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, took over Twitter last week in a $44 billion deal, immediately making his unpredictable style felt.

Just days later, he had tweeted a link to a story from a little-known news outlet that made a dubious claim about the violent attack on Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband at their California home. He soon deleted it, but it was a worrying start to his tenure for those concerned about the spread of disinformation online.

Musk has also signaled his intent to loosen the guardrails on hate speech, and perhaps allow former President Donald Trump and other banned commentators to return. He tempered the thought after the deal closed, however, pledging to form a “content moderation council” and not allow anyone who has been kicked off the site to return until it sets up procedures on how to do that.

Yet the use of racial slurs quickly exploded in an apparent test of his tolerance level.

“Folks, it’s getting ugly here. I am not really sure what my plan is. Stay or go?” Jennifer Taub, a law professor and author with about a quarter million followers, said Sunday, as she tweeted out a link to her Facebook page in case she leaves Twitter.

For now, Taub plans to stay, given the opportunity it provides to “laugh, learn and commiserate” with people from across the world. But she’ll leave if it becomes “a cesspool of racism and antisemitism,” she said in a phone call.

“The numbers are going down and down and down,” said Taub, who has lost 5,000 followers since Musk officially took over. “The tipping point might be if I’m just not having fun there. There are too many people to block.”

The debate is especially fraught for people of color who have used Twitter to network and elevate their voices, while also confronting toxicity on the platform.

“As a user of Twitter — as a power user in a lot of ways — it has had a great utility and I’m very concerned about where people go to have this conversation next,” said Tanzina Vega, a Latina journalist in New York who once received death threats on Twitter but also built a vital community of friends and sources there.

A software engineer, Chandler hoped to counter the isolation she felt in her white-dominated field when she tweeted out a question and a selfie four years ago: “What does a Black Twitter in Tech look like? Here, I’ll go first!” The response was overwhelming. She now has more than 60,000 followers and her own company connecting Black tech workers with companies large and small.

She also received hate message and even some death threats from people accusing her of racism for centering Black technologists. But she also had connections with Twitter employees who were receptive to her concerns. Chandler said those employees have either left the company or are no longer active on the platform.

Chandler’s company also uses Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn but none can replicate the type of vibrant community she leads on Twitter, where people mix professional networking and light bantering.

Instagram and TikTok are fueled more by images than text exchanges. Facebook is no longer popular with younger users. LinkedIn is more formal. And although some developers are trying to rush out alternative sites on the fly, it takes times to develop a stable, user-friendly site that can handle millions of accounts.

Joan Donovan, an internet scholar who explores the threat that disinformation poses to democracy in her new book, “Meme Wars,” said it’s not clear if Twitter will remain a safe place for civic discourse. Yet she called the networks that people have built there invaluable — to users, to their communities and to Musk.

“This is the exact reason that Musk bought Twitter and didn’t just build his own social network,” Donovan said. “If you control the territory, you can control the politics, you can control the culture in many ways.”

In his first few hours at the helm, Musk fired several top Twitter executives, including chief legal counsel Vijaya Gadde, who had overseen Twitter’s content moderation and safety efforts around the globe. And he dissolved the board of directors, leaving him accountable, at least on paper, only to himself. On Friday, Twitter began widespread layoffs.

European regulators immediately warned Musk about his duty under their digital privacy laws to police illegal speech and disinformation. The U.S. has far more lax rules governing Twitter and its 238 million daily users. But advertisers, users and perhaps lenders may rein him in if Congress does not first tighten the rules.

“If the advertisers go and the users go, it may well be that the marketplace of ideas sort of sorts itself out,” said Cary Coglianese, an expert on regulatory policy at the University of Pennsylvania law school.

That could leave Twitter to be just another magnet for extremists and conspiracy theorists — a concern driving some to urge their network of friends to stay, in order to counter those narratives.

Chandler said she can only “walk on eggshells” and take a wait-and-see approach.

“I’m personally going to stay on Twitter until there is really not a reason to stay anymore. I don’t know what the future holds, I’m kind of hoping for some sort of miracle,” she said. “For now, I won’t be going anywhere.”

___ Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale.

Chandler Wins Egmont Nomination

Well Craig Chandler sold enough memberships to his extreme right-whingnut pals to win the Calgary Egmont Conservative MLA nomination. You may remember Craig " Alberta; Love it or Leave It" Chandler from my previous posts. If not check them out.

There is a silver lining to his victory though. It opens Calgary Egmont to a possible Liberal victory. As Calgary Grit writes;

As a constituent in Calgary Egmont, I'm a little torn about this one. Having Craig Chandler as my MLA is a scary thought but, at the same time, it puts a riding that was never going to elect a Liberal MLA before into play. The Alberta Liberals have nominated former Catholic school board trustee Cathie Williams in the riding - quite the catch. Cathie is an accomplished woman who is smart, politically astute, passionate about policy, and not Craig Chandler. These four qualities of hers should make Calgary Egmont a riding to watch during the upcoming provincial election.

Or perhaps an NDP sneak up the middle.
Or maybe not.

And PB blogger Daveberta apparently live blogged Chandlers victorious nomination win. live from the edmontonians for craig chandler party

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Doctoral student recruiting volunteers in effort to quadruple number of known active asteroids

Thousands of ‘Citizen Scientists’ needed to scan the night sky for rare solar system objects

Business Announcement

NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THE ACTIVE ASTEROIDS PROJECT IS HOSTED ON THE ZOONIVERSE PLATFORM. view more 

CREDIT: COLIN CHANDLER, NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY

The study of active asteroids is a relatively new field of solar system science, focusing on objects that have asteroid-like orbits but look more like comets, with visual characteristics such as tails.

Because finding an active asteroid is such a rare event, fewer than 30 of these solar system bodies have been found since 1949, so there is still much for scientists to learn about them. Roughly only one out of 10,000 asteroids are classified as active asteroids, so an enormous number of observations will be needed over the span of many years to yield a larger sample for study.

Through funding from a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award in 2018, doctoral student Colin Orion Chandler in Northern Arizona University’s Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science just launched an ambitious new project, Active Asteroids, which is designed to engage volunteers in the search for more of these enigmatic objects. The highly competitive and prestigious program, awarded to only 15 percent of the more than 2,000 yearly applicants, provides three years of funding for Chandler’s research.

“With the generous help of ‘Citizen Scientists’,” said Chandler, project founder and principal investigator, “we hope to quadruple the number of known active asteroids and encourage study of an ambiguous population of solar system objects, knowledge of which is currently hampered due to a very small sample size.”

The implications of finding more active asteroids for science and engineering are far-reaching, including:

• Helping to answer key unsolved questions about how much water was delivered to Earth after it formed, and where that water originated.
• Advising searches for life about where water—a prerequisite for life as we understand it—is found, both in our own solar system and other star systems, too.
• Informing spaceflight engineers seeking more practical, inexpensive and environmentally responsible sources of fuel, air and water.
• Appraising volatile availability for prospective asteroid mining efforts and sample-return missions.

In preparation for the launch, Chandler, an NAU Presidential Fellow, conducted the beta review phase of the project, enlisting the help of more than 200 volunteers, who completed 4,798 classifications of 295 objects.

“I am very, very excited the project is finally launching,” he said. “The project has been years in the making, from selection by the NSF until this launch. Even during the preparations for the project launch, we have made several important discoveries, including discovering a new active object and uncovering information about several previously known objects. These discoveries have led to three publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, with another one in the works right now.”

As part of the testing phase, the team noticed an unusual "smudge" kept showing up around one particular object. The object was a Centaur, an icy body with an orbit between Jupiter and Neptune. The team carried out follow-up observations with other telescopes and discovered the object was active, one of only about 20 active Centaurs discovered since 1929, and published their findings in the Astrophysical Journal Letters (see related article).

Although it will depend on the number of volunteers participating and how quickly they complete classifications, the duration of the project could be up to one year. Chandler hopes to recruit thousands of volunteers to participate. No previous astronomy experience is needed; training is provided through Zooniverse, an online platform for people-powered research hosting the Active Asteroids project.

“We need to examine 5,000 square degrees of the sky in the Southern Hemisphere, which means there are many—more than 10 million—asteroid images to classify!” he said.

Co-founders of the project are Jay Kueny of Lowell Observatory and the University of Arizona, who began collaborating with Colin in creating the project when he was a senior at NAU—and who has since then also received a GRFP award from the NSF—and NAU associate professor Chad Trujillo, who serves as the project's Chief Science Advisor. Other contributors are graduate students Annika Gustaffson and William Oldroyd.

The project’s Science Advisory Board consists of several eminent scientists, including Henry Hsieh of the Planetary Science Institute, NAU professor David Trilling, NAU assistant professor Tyler Robinson and NAU assistant professor Michael Gowanlock.

Ready to classify objects? Visit the Active Asteroids project site to get started.

This project was supported through NASA grants 80NSSC21K0114 and 80NSSC19K0869.

###

About Northern Arizona University

Northern Arizona University is a higher-research institution providing exceptional educational opportunities in Arizona and beyond. NAU delivers a student-centered experience to its nearly 30,000 students in Flagstaff, statewide and online through rigorous academic programs in a supportive, inclusive and diverse environment. Dedicated, world-renowned faculty help ensure students achieve academic excellence, experience personal growth, have meaningful research opportunities and are positioned for personal and professional success.

GM announces closure of Arizona IT Innovation Center, resulting in 940 job cuts

Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press
Updated Wed, August 23, 2023 
General Motors is cutting 940 salaried jobs as it closes its Arizona IT Innovation Center at the end of October.

The news comes almost a week after the automaker said it gave notice to about 200 engineers elsewhere that their positions were being eliminated.

On Wednesday, GM notified the 1,029 nonunion employees at the Arizona IT Innovation Center of the decision to cut most of the jobs there, followed by a companywide email, which was obtained by the Detroit Free Press.

General Motors will close its Information Technology innovation center in Chandler, Arizona at the end of October cutting about 940 jobs.

"Today we announced the difficult decision to cease IDT (information and digital technology) operations at the Arizona IT Innovation Center at the end of October. This decision was not an easy one, but it will help to optimize our innovation center footprint and gain the efficiencies and effectiveness we need to have to continue to support the company," wrote Stacy Lynett, GM's vice president of Information and Digital Technology.

Lynett wrote that all information and digital technology jobs are being eliminated at the center to streamline operations so that GM can focus on its growth areas, which she did not further explain. Those employees who lose their jobs can apply for other openings at GM, she wrote, and GM will provide outplacement support. Those with at least one year with the company will be eligible for a severance package, she wrote.

GM spokesman Kevin Kelly confirmed the cuts, saying that some of the employees at the center who work on vehicle software will remain in their jobs. The rest, about 940, will be let go. The closure is not for cost-cutting purposes, he said, but rather to streamline efficiencies.

"We're rationalizing the number of IT innovation centers we have in the country," Kelly said. "We're keeping the other three. But as we look at efficiencies there were some redundancies and that's why we decided to remove one of the centers."

The Arizona center, located in Chandler, about 5 miles southeast of Tempe, opened in 2014, according to GM's website. It "supports GM’s IT needs including web technologies, end-user applications, dealer and factory systems and vehicle technology," the website said.

GM’s three other IT centers are in Warren, Michigan; Austin, Texas, and another in suburban Atlanta.

The move comes after GM had been expanding its presence at the Chandler center. In a post on the city of Chandler's website in February 2022, it noted GM was looking to hire several hundred employees for software-based positions at the center saying, "GM selected Chandler in part for its strong local workforce when it opened the site in 2014, and the company has found success recruiting from area universities, as many of the available positions are entry level."

Lynett said in the email that GM will be formulating a plan to transition some of the work that was being done at the Arizona IT Center to other centers.

"As we continue reshaping the organization, we will be working with individual leaders on a plan to transition the work and knowledge," Lynett wrote in the GM email. "This includes realigning teams and updates to employees with a leader in Arizona. I am confident that together we can determine how to continue to deliver our most critical initiatives."

I Was Misquoted

Can you misquote yourself? Apparently according to Craig Chandler.Of course a little bit of careful post blog editing helps too.

Here is his original post;

"Alberta is growing in a way that was never expected and many of the people coming here do not truly appreciate Alberta or even understand the history of this province or the relationship with the Alberta Progressive Conservative party. To those of you who have come to our great land from out of province, you need to remember that you came to our home and we vote conservative. You came here to enjoy our economy, our natural beauty and more. This is our home and ... If you wish to live here, you must adapt to our rules and our voting patterns or leave. Conservatism is our culture. Do not destroy what we have created."

And here is his revision.

Alberta is growing in a way that was never expected and many of the people coming here do not truly appreciate Alberta or even understand the history of this province or the relationship with small 'c' conservatism. To those of you who have come to our great land from out of province, you need to remember that you came here to our home and we vote conservative (meaning Social Credit, Alberta Alliance, Wildrose or the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party). You came here to enjoy our economy, our natural beauty and more. This is our home and if you wish to live here, you must adapt to our rules and our voting patterns, or leave. Conservatism is our culture. Do not destroy what we have created.

However since Chandler is a historical revisionist, like others of his ilk, who would have us believe Alberta has always been a conservative bastion. When exposed they revise their stories.

Like he did by saying Link Byfield endorsed him as a candidate for Egmont, implying he did so as a Director of the Wild Rose Party, when in fact it is a quote from the past prior to the creation of the Wild Rose Party.

And of course he accuses those who expose his bigotry of being Liberals.

"The reality is that I have now signed up more members to the Alberta PC Party in Calgary-Egmont than the Liberals had votes in the last election in this area. Calgarians will decide who gets elected, not a well-known Liberal journalist from Edmonton."

Whether they are or not since it's an assertion with no evidence just like his assertion that the majority of Albertans are conservatives.


SEE:

Chandler Redux

Outing Chandler

Vote Conservative...Or Else

g posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Alberta, Premier,Ed Stelmach,
Social Credit,Socreds, PC, Calgary, Party of Calgary, politics, leadership, Conservatives, Edmonton, One Party State,History, Politics, Economics,Craig Chandler, social conservatives, PGIB,
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Chandler Says Breed More Conservatives

On the Project Alberta forum outspoken Craig Chandler comes up with a solution to the problem of immigrants to Canada and migrants to Alberta voting Liberal or NDP. Of course historically the folks that vote Liberal federally are New Canadians.

If you hadn't guessed the racist implications of his comments before this, it can't be much clearer.

Rhys,

Congrats. Now start breeding because lately it seems the only way to beat the Liberals is to out breed them.

Craig

SEE:

I Was Misquoted

Chandler Redux

Outing Chandler

Vote Conservative...Or Else

g posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Alberta, Premier,Ed Stelmach,
Social Credit,Socreds, PC, Calgary, Party of Calgary, politics, leadership, Conservatives, Edmonton, One Party State,History, Politics, Economics,Craig Chandler, social conservatives, PGIB,
Alberta, MLA,

Earth spun faster June 29, causing shortest day since 1960s


Earth's spin has actually been slowing down over time,

 causing days to get longer rather than shorter.

 Photo courtesy of NASA

Aug. 1 (UPI) -- The Earth spun faster around its axis on June 29, making it the shortest day since the planet's rotation began being measured with atomic clocks in the 1960s.

Earth completed one spin in 1.59 milliseconds shy of the typical 24 hours on June 29, according to Time and Date and The Guardian. The record comes as Earth has seen consistently shorter days in the past few years.

Earth's spin has actually been slowing down over time, causing days to get longer rather than shorter. A single day would pass in less than 19 hours around 1.4 billion years ago.

The United Nations' International Telecommunication Union will occasionally add seconds to the world clock in June or December to make up for the longer days, most recently in 2016.

It may now be unlikely that the ITU will add time during the next opportunity to do so this December, The Guardian reported.

Leonid Zotov, a professor of mathematics, is expected to suggest that the recent trend of shorter days could be explained by a phenomenon known as the "Chandler wobble" at annual meeting of the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society next week.

The Chandler wobble was first spotted in the late 1880s when astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler noticed the poles wobbled over a 14-month period.

"The normal amplitude of the Chandler wobble is about three to four meters at Earth's surface but from 2017 to 2020 it disappeared," Zotov told Time and Date.

Natural disasters and weather effects such as El Nino can also influence the speed of the Earth's spin, The Guardian reported. An earthquake in the Indian Ocean in 2004 shortened the length of the day by nearly three microseconds.

Craig Chandler Bids For Ed's Domain

In the comments section over at daveberta's blog discussing the threatened law suit over his ownership of edstelmach.ca, bad boy of the right Craig Chandler left this comment;

Craig B. Chandler said...

Again sell me the website.

I will pay your legal fees and I will simply post a message on the website that says:

Premier Stelmach I will gladly sell you this domain for $127,000.

Sincerely,
Craig B. Chandler
Democratically Elected Alberta Progressive Conservative in Calgary Egmont

Wednesday, January 09, 2008 11:47:00 PM

Wow now that would put Ed and his lawyer Tyler Shandro out of the proverbial frying pan and into the fire. Delicious. I am tempted to say go for it. But of course Dave won't he is a principled guy.

But as this shows Ed and Tylers threats against Dave have resulted in a fire storm of criticism, and laughter across the blogs and the net. Dumb and Dumber would be appropriate nick names for these two.

Expert expects preem to lose domain lawsuit

He's one of Canada's foremost experts and he says Premier Ed Stelmach is probably going to lose, big time, partly because he's not well known.

No, he's not talking about Stelmach's prospects in an election; but Michael Geist does think Steady Eddie would be barking up the wrong blog if he takes on local writer David Cournoyer over the use of www.edstelmach.ca.

Stelmach's lawyers recently sent a letter to Cournoyer, who blogs under the title Daveberta, threatening legal action if he doesn't give up the domain name, which Cournoyer purchased last year for $14.

But according to Geist, a prominent writer and Carleton University's Canada Research Chair on Internet and E-Commerce Law, Canada clearly defends critics who use the domain names of people they're criticizing - and Daveberta is definitely a critic of Stelmach's government.

I find it interesting that Shandro as the domain administrator for Ed's current web sites, works for a legal firm that specializes in slap suits, the same company making legal threats against Dave.

Can you say conflict of interest.

The real reason for the PC concern about Dave's web site was revealed in the media this morning.

Conservative insiders say Premier Ed Stelmach will seek a new mandate after the Feb. 4 throne speech.

SEE:

Hey Ed Your Domain Is Available

My Name Is Ed


ags
Ed Stelmach, internet, blog, daveberta, edstelmach.ca, web sites,

Jollibee opens new US, Canada branches PINOY RESTAURANT CHAIN FROM PH

Jollibee, the flagship brand of Jollibee Foods Corp., ended the 

decade with back-to-back milestone openings in Chandler, 

the first in the state of Arizona in the US; and Regina, 

the first in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. The openings

 were greeted by thousands of people in line, many of whom 

camped out for as long as three days amid extremely cold temperatures.

Iris Gonzales (The Philippine Star) - January 5, 2020 

MANILA, Philippines — Jollibee, the flagship brand of Filipino-owned Asian food conglomerate Jollibee Foods Corp., has expanded anew in the global market with openings in Chandler, the first in the state of Arizona in the US and Regina, the first in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada.

The two openings bring Jollibee’s total store count in the US and Canada to 50, and are part of the brand’s accelerated North American expansion plan.

JFC plans to grow its North American network to 250 stores or 150 branches in the US and 100 branches in Canada.

The Arizona store is located at 2800 E Germann Road, Chandler, AZ 85288; while the Regina store is located at 2830 Quance Street, Regina, SK, S4V 3B9.

As with other international Jollibee openings, eager customers had lined up days ahead for a first-hand  experience of Jollibee in their countries.

 “I waited in line for a long time for my son and niece because they have never experienced Jollibee. My mom and dad usually took me to Jollibee when I was younger, and I want my son to experience it. I’m very ecstatic, and with Jollibee, I feel like I’m back home again,” said Irene Ballesteros-Shields, the first customer of Jollibee Chandler, Arizona, who lined up three days prior to opening day, JFC said in a statement.

The Arizona line set a new record for Jollibee US openings as even non-Filipinos lined up.

Jason Marx, a Canadian, was first in queue in Jollibee Regina, Saskatchewan and lined up for 19 hours before the opening.

“I’ve known about Jollibee for a while, but without any stores in Canada at that time, it was hard for me to try it,” Marx said.

JFC is now one of the world’s largest and fastest growing Asian restaurant companies with more than 5,800 stores across 15 brands in 35 countries.

In 2019 alone, the brand more than doubled its store count in Canada. For 2020, the brand’s expansion in Canada will focus on Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec.

At the same time, the brand’s areas of focus in the US will be in Florida, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Texas, Nevada, California and Hawaii

JFC North America president Beth Dela Cruz thanked the customers who lined up for the new openings.

“Jollibee is a family brand so it means the world to us that members of the community linked up with their loved ones to come to our store and share in the joy that Jollibee brings.”

AMERIKA PRISON NATION INC.

What happened at the nation’s first nitrogen gas execution: An AP eyewitness account


Anti-death penalty signs placed by activists stand along the road heading to Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala., ahead of the scheduled execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. On Thursday, Alabama put Smith to death with nitrogen gas. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler, File)

This undated photo provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted in a 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of a preacher’s wife. On Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024, Alabama put Smith to death with nitrogen gas. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP, File)

BY KIM CHANDLER
Updated 5:58 PM MST, January 26, 2024Share


ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — As witnesses including five news reporters watched through a window, Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to die in the 1988 murder-for hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett, convulsed on a gurney as Alabama carried out the nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas.

Critics who had worried the new execution method would be cruel and experimental said Smith’s final moments Thursday night proved they were right. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, however, characterized it on Friday as a “textbook” execution.

Here is an eyewitness account of how it unfolded. Times, unless otherwise noted, are according to a clock on the execution chamber wall at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility.



Alabama man shook violently on gurney during first-ever nitrogen gas execution




Alabama executes a man with nitrogen gas, the first time the new method has been used


The curtains between the viewing room and the execution chamber opened at 7:53 p.m. Smith, wearing a tan prison uniform, was already strapped to the gurney and draped in a white sheet.

A blue-rimmed respirator mask covered his face from forehead to chin. It had a clear face shield and plastic tubing that appeared to connect through an opening to the adjoining control room.

FINAL WORDS

The prison warden entered the chamber, read the death warrant setting his execution date and held a microphone for Smith to speak any final words.

“Tonight Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards,” Smith began. He moved his fingers to form an “I love you” sign to family members who were also present. “I’m leaving with love, peace and light. ... Love all of you.”

The Sennett family watched from a viewing room that was separate from the one where members of the media and Smith’s attorney were seated.

THE EXECUTION IS GREENLIGHTED

Marshall, the attorney general, gave prison officials the OK to begin the execution at 7:56 p.m. That was the final confirmation from his office that there were no court orders preventing it from going forward.


A corrections officer in the chamber approached Smith and checked the side of the mask.

The Rev. Jeff Hood, Smith’s spiritual advisor took a few steps toward Smith, touched him on the leg and they appeared to pray.

The Department of Corrections had required Hood to sign a waiver agreeing to stay 3 feet (0.9 meters) away from Smith’s gas mask in case the hose supplying the nitrogen came loose.

THRASHING AND GASPING BREATHS

Smith began to shake and writhe violently, in thrashing spasms and seizure-like movements, at about 7:58 p.m. The force of his movements caused the gurney to visibly move at least once. Smith’s arms pulled against the against the straps holding him to the gurney. He lifted his head off the gurney the gurney and then fell back.

The shaking went on for at least two minutes. Hood repeatedly made the sign of the cross toward Smith. Smith’s wife, who was watching, cried out.

Smith began to take a series of deep gasping breaths, his chest rising noticeably. His breathing was no longer visible at about 8:08 p.m. The corrections officer who had checked the mask before walked over to Smith and looked at him.

THE EXECUTION ENDS

The curtains were closed to the viewing room at about 8:15 p.m.

Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm told reporters afterward that the nitrogen gas flowed for approximately 15 minutes. The state attorney general’s office declined Friday to discuss at what time the nitrogen gas began flowing, or at what time a monitor connected to Smith during the execution showed that his heart had stopped beating.

State officials said Smith was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m.
___

Chandler was one of five media witnesses for Smith’s execution by nitrogen hypoxia. She has covered approximately 15 executions in Alabama over the last two decades, including the state’s first lethal injection.

Alabama man shook violently on gurney during first-ever nitrogen gas execution

A man put to death using nitrogen gas shook and convulsed on the gurney as Alabama carried out the first-of-its-kind execution that once again placed the United States at the forefront of the debate over capital punishment. (Jan. 26)

BY KIM CHANDLER
January 26, 2024



ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — A man put to death using nitrogen gas shook and convulsed for minutes on the gurney as Alabama carried out the first-of-its-kind execution that has ignited debate over the humaneness of the method.

Breathing through a nitrogen-filled face mask that deprived him of oxygen, 58-year-old convicted killer Kenneth Eugene Smith convulsed in seizurelike spasms for at least two minutes of the 22-minute execution by nitrogen hypoxia Thursday. The force of his movements at times caused the gurney to visibly shake. That was followed by several minutes of gasping breathing until his breath was no longer perceptible.

Smith’s supporters expressed alarm at how the execution played out, saying it was the antithesis of the state’s promise of a quick and painless death. But Alabama’s attorney general characterized the execution as “textbook” during a Friday news conference.

“As of last night, nitrogen hypoxia as a means of execution is no longer an untested method. It is a proven one,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said, extending an offer of help for states considering adopting the method.




Alabama calls nitrogen execution method painless and humane, but critics are raising doubts

Why are states like Alabama, which is planning to use nitrogen gas, exploring new execution methods?

Asked about Smith’s shaking and convulsing on the gurney, Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm said they appeared to be involuntary movements.

“That was all expected and was in the side effects that we’ve seen or researched on nitrogen hypoxia,” Hamm said. “Nothing was out of the ordinary from what we were expecting.”

Marshall said he anticipated Alabama “will definitely have more nitrogen hypoxia executions.” More than 40 death row inmates have selected nitrogen as their preferred execution method over lethal injection but did so at a time when the state hadn’t developed nitrogen procedures.

AP AUDIO: Alabama man shook violently on gurney during first-ever nitrogen gas execution.

AP correspondent Sagar Meghani has the story.

Attorneys for those inmates have asked the court to order Alabama to turn over records and information about Smith’s execution. Litigation will almost certainly focus on Smith’s convulsions and movements during the execution.

“The State promised the world the most humane method of execution known to man. Instead, Mr. Smith writhed and thrashed before he died. No further executions should take place by this method until the events of this evening are examined by an independent body,” Assistant Federal Defender John Palombi, who represents death row inmates who requested nitrogen, said in a statement.

Smith’s spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, agreed that the execution did not match the state attorney general’s prediction that Smith would lose consciousness in seconds followed by death within minutes.

“We didn’t see somebody go unconscious in 30 seconds. What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life,” said Hood, who attended the execution.

Dr. Philip Nitschke, a euthanasia expert who designed a suicide pod using nitrogen gas and appeared as an expert witness for Smith, said the description of Smith’s thrashing matches what he would expect to happen when nitrogen gas is used in a mask and someone holds their breath or takes the smallest possible breaths.

“I think this outcome is inevitable if the nitrogen gas is to be used in execution where people do not want to die and will not cooperate,” Nitschke said.

Outside the country, the European Union and the U.N. Human Rights Office expressed regret Friday over the execution. The 27-nation EU and the Geneva-based U.N. rights office say the death penalty violates the right to life and does not deter crime.

Smith, who was paid $1,000 to kill an Alabama woman more than 30 years ago, said in a final statement: “Tonight Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards. I’m leaving with love, peace and light.”

He made the “I love you sign” with his hands toward family members who were witnesses. “Thank you for supporting me. Love, love all of you,” Smith sai

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said the execution was justice for the murder-for-hire killing of 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett in 1988.

“After more than 30 years and attempt after attempt to game the system, Mr. Smith has answered for his horrendous crimes,” Ivey said in a statement. “I pray that Elizabeth Sennett’s family can receive closure after all these years dealing with that great loss.”

“Tonight Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards. ... I’m leaving with love, peace and light.”
Kenneth Eugene Smith, in a final statement

Mike Sennett, the victim’s son, said Thursday night that Smith “had been incarcerated almost twice as long as I knew my mom.”

“Nothing happened here today is going to bring Mom back. It’s kind of a bittersweet day. We are not going to be jumping around, whooping and holler, hooray and all that,” he said. “I’ll end by saying Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett got her justice tonight.”

Alabama had previously attempted to execute Smith in 2022, but the lethal injection was called off at the last minute because authorities couldn’t connect an IV line.

The execution came after a last-minute legal battle in which his attorneys contended the state was making him the test subject for an experimental execution method that could violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Federal courts rejected Smith’s bid to block it, with the final ruling coming Thursday night from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

“Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its ‘guinea pig’ to test a method of execution never attempted before. The world is watching,” Sotomayor wrote.

The White House also expressed concern over the execution method, with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying during a media briefing Friday that reports about Smith and his death were “very troubling.”

Sennett was found dead in her home March 18, 1988, with eight stab wounds in the chest and one on each side of her neck. Smith was one of two men convicted in the killing. The other, John Forrest Parker, was executed in 2010.

Prosecutors said they were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her pastor husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance. The husband, Charles Sennett Sr., killed himself when the investigation focused on him as a suspect, according to court documents.

Tremors strike Haitian city still reeling from quake

Authorities say the official death toll has risen to 2,189 following the earthquake in the country’s south.

Thousands of people were injured in the August 14 earthquake and the death toll has now risen to 2,189 [Orlando Barría/EPA]

19 Aug 2021

Fresh tremors shook buildings late on Wednesday in the southern Haitian city of Les Cayes, a Reuters witness said, a few days after a devastating earthquake killed almost 2,200 people across the Caribbean nation and injured thousands more.

A police officer on patrol in Les Cayes said there were no immediate reports of further deaths or damage in the region, which is still reeling from the 7.2 magnitude earthquake on Saturday morning.

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Across the seaside city, families were sleeping on mattresses in the streets.

Haitian authorities said late on Wednesday that the official death toll from the quake had risen to 2,189.

The poorest country in the Americas, Haiti is still recovering from a 2010 quake that killed over 200,000.

‘On its knees’

Prime Minister Ariel Henry said that the quake had left Haiti “on its knees”, as survivors showed increasing frustration about the sluggish arrival of relief in hard-hit areas.

Henry had promised a rapid increase in aid. But in a video address on Wednesday evening, he conceded that the Caribbean nation was in trouble.

“The earthquake that devastated a large part of the south of the country proves once again our limits, and how fragile we are,” said Henry.

Dozens of people went to Les Cayes airport demanding food after a helicopter arrived carrying supplies, a witness told the Reuters news agency. Police intervened to allow a truck carrying aid to leave.

Following another night of rains, residents in Les Cayes, including those camped in a mushrooming community of tents in the city centre, complained of scant assistance.



Concern was also growing for more remote places outside Les Cayes such as Jeremie to the northwest, where access roads were damaged, videos on social media showed.


Pierre Cenel, a judge in Les Cayes, rebuked the government in Port-au-Prince.

“As a judge, I must not have a political opinion. But as a man, as a man concerned about the situation of my country, nothing is working. They didn’t do anything to prepare for this disaster,” Cenel said

.Residents look on as workers receive humanitarian aid from a US helicopter at Les Cayes airport after Saturday’s magnitude 7.2 earthquake [Henry Romero/Reuters]

The poorest country in the Americas, Haiti is still recovering from a 2010 quake that killed more than 200,000 people. The latest disaster hit just weeks after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated on July 7, plunging Haiti into political turmoil.

Jerry Chandler, the head of Haiti’s civil protection agency, told a news conference he knew aid had yet to reach many areas but officials were working hard to deliver it.

“The frustration and despair of the population is understood, but … the population is asked not to block the convoys so that civil protection can do its job,” he said.

There were at least 600,000 people in need of humanitarian assistance and 135,000 families displaced, Chandler said. The goal was to deliver aid to everyone in need within a week.

Risk of disease

In the tent city in Les Cayes displaced residents were getting worried.

“We need help,” said Roosevelt Milford, a pastor speaking on radio on behalf of the hundreds camping out in soggy fields since the quake destroyed their homes.

Milford and others said they lacked even the most basic provisions, such as food, clean drinking water and shelter from the rain. Tanks of drinking water were destroyed during the earthquake, authorities said.

Tropical Storm Grace this week swept away many shelters and inundated the field.

Moril Jeudy, a community leader in Marigot area, south of Port-au-Prince, said while the town had emerged intact from the earthquake, Grace had flooded hundreds of homes, killed four people and left several more missing. And no help had arrived yet.


“Even the NGOs didn’t come,” he said.

Security concerns about gang-controlled areas on the route from the capital Port-au-Prince, have slowed aid access.A woman sits with her child at a stadium used as a shelter for residents who were evacuated from their damaged homes after Saturday’s 7.2 magnitude quake, in Les Cayes, Haiti August 18, 2021. [Henry Romero/Reuters]

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said negotiations with armed groups had permitted a humanitarian convoy to reach Les Cayes.

Chandler said the government was increasing the number of aid convoys going by land, and aimed to reach three a day soon.

In L’Asile, a town of more than 30,000 people about 60km (40 miles) northeast of Les Cayes, community leader Aldorf Hilaire said government help had yet to arrive and survivors were relying on support from charities such as Doctors Without Borders.

“We are desperate,” he told Reuters. “The springs are dirty: the water is not drinkable … We had a bad night during the storm and the people need tents and tarps.”

In a rare piece of good news, 34 people had been rescued in the last two days, Chandler said. But hopes are fading.
SOURCE: REUTERS

Survivors of California’s forced sterilizations: ‘It’s like my life wasn’t worth anything’

Kelli Dillon testifies. Dillon was forcibly sterilized as an inmate in a California prison. Photograph: Courtesy of Belly of the Beast

A new reparations program will compensate survivors of prison system sterilizations and the 20th century eugenics campaign


Erin McCormick
Mon 19 Jul 2021 

It wasn’t until years after Kelli Dillon went into surgery while incarcerated in the California state prison system that she realized her reproductive capacity had been stripped away without her knowledge.

In 2001, at the age of 24, she became one of the most recent victims in a history of forced sterilizations in California that stretches back to 1909 and served as an inspiration for Nazi Germany’s eugenics program.

But now, under new provisions signed into California’s budget this week, the state will offer reparations for the thousands of people who were sterilized in California institutions, without adequate consent, often because they were deemed “criminal”, “feeble-minded” or “deviant”.


Belly of the Beast: California's dark history of forced sterilizations

The program will be the first in the nation to provide compensation to modern-day survivors of prison system sterilizations, like Dillon, whose attorney obtained medical records to show that, while she was an inmate in the Central California women’s facility in Chowchilla, surgeons had removed her ovaries during what was supposed to be an operation to take a biopsy and remove a cyst.

The investigations sparked by her case, which is featured in the documentary Belly of the Beast, showed hundreds of inmates had been sterilized in prisons without proper consent as late as 2010, even though the practice was by then illegal.

The new California reparations program will also seek to compensate hundreds of living survivors of the state’s earlier eugenics campaign, which was first codified into state law in 1909 and wasn’t repealed until 1979.
There is a level of dignity bestowed on the survivors by the acknowledgment that this happened. If we don’t do this now, when will weWendy Carrillo

That law allowed state authorities to sterilize people in state-run institutions, who were deemed to have “mental disease which may have been inherited” and was “likely to be transmitted to descendants”. The law was later greatly expanded to include “those suffering from perversion or marked departures from normal mentality”. Those targeted were often Black or Latina women, though some men were sterilized as well.
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“California established these egregious eugenics laws, that were actually even followed by Hitler himself, in an effort to curb the population of unwanted individuals or people with disabilities,” said the state assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo, who introduced the bill to create the compensation program.

Wendy Carrillo introduced the bill to create the compensation program. 

Photograph: Rich Pedroncelli/AP

She said, in all, more than 20,000 people were sterilized in California, including the historic cases prior to 1979 and hundreds of additional cases in the prisons documented until 2010. Many of the historical survivors have since died, but the state believes about 400 are still living, about a quarter of whom are expected to apply for compensation.

“No monetary compensation will ever rectify the injustice of this,” said Carrillo. “But there is a level of dignity that is bestowed on the survivors by the [state’s] acknowledgment that this happened. If we don’t do this now, when will we?”

She hopes that each qualified applicant to the program will get about $25,000 starting in 2022.

‘Saturated with racism, sexism and prejudice’

The state follows North Carolina and Virginia in developing programs to provide compensation for sterilizations that took place in the state-sanctioned eugenics programs of the mid 1900s, but California is the first to recognize and attempt to atone for much more recent cases in the prisons. Three previous attempts to create a reparations program have failed to make it through the California legislature.

From its outset at the turn of the 20th century, the state’s eugenics campaign was steeped in the kind of racist thinking that would eventually lead to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, said Alexandra Minna Stern, a University of Michigan historian who first uncovered file cabinets filled with medical records of early California victims in 2007 in the course of researching a book on American eugenics.

“A lot of this came out as ideas of using science for the common good, human improvement, race improvement,” she said. “Of course, all that was saturated with the racism, sexism and disability prejudices of the era.”

One well-documented victim was Andrea Garcia, a 19-year-old born in Mexico, who was sterilized in 1941 under the orders of an asylum near Los Angeles for those “afflicted with feeblemindedness”. Staff there decided she shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce because she was a “mentally deficient, sex delinquent girl” from an “unfit home”, according a dissertation by Natalie Lira, a University of Michigan researcher who reviewed historic medical documents of the sterilizations uncovered by Stern.

Garcia’s mother went to court to challenge the sterilization policy, but lost her case. Both mother and daughter have since died.

Stacy Cordova, whose aunt was a victim of California’s forced sterilization program that began in 1909, holds a framed photo of her aunt Mary Franco, who was sterilised in the 1930s. Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP

Lira also outlined the case of 14-year-old Antonio Duran, who was sterilized in 1939, after being charged with burglary and painted as a criminal for entering a house and taking several items. The sterilization requests described him as “high tempered, unreliable, an habitual truant and a bully” and said his parents were “of low-grade Mexican mentality”.

Stern said this kind of egregious thinking wasn’t wiped out when California finally took the eugenics law off its books in 1979, around the time it also began closing the state institutions that for decades had warehoused people with mental illness and those deemed unfit for society.

She said she believes it is no coincidence that this is the same time period when the state’s prison population began to explode in an unforgiving era of mass incarceration, which she said saw many of those same people, often poor people of color, being incarcerated in prisons for long periods. It isn’t a big stretch to see how prison officials could begin abusing their power in a renewed push to prevent their charges from reproducing, Stern said.

“I see a lot of similar ingredients and sets of pre-conditions that allowed for [later] sterilization abuse in the prisons,” she said.
Somebody felt I had nothing to contribute to the point where they had to find this sneaky and diabolical way to take my ability to have childrenKelli Dillon

After undergoing sterilization without her consent or knowledge, Kelli Dillon said she began experiencing menopause symptoms when she was only 24.

“They weren’t telling me what they did and my body was going haywire,” said Dillon, who was released from prison in 2009 and now runs her own non-profit domestic violence counseling and violence prevention program and serves on a family services commission for the city of Los Angeles.

At the time, she was serving a 15-year manslaughter term for killing her abusive husband, after, she said, he hit her with an iron and threatened her two young sons.

Dillon said she had authorized the prison doctors to give her a hysterectomy only if cancer was found in the surgery, but no signs of cancer were ever reported.

She said the sterilization shattered her dreams of one day restarting her family and left her struggling with anxiety and depression.

“It was like my life wasn’t worth anything,” she said. “Somebody felt I had nothing to contribute to the point where they had to find this sneaky and diabolical way to take my ability to have children.”

A quest for justice, but concerns remain

While still incarcerated at Central California women’s facility, Dillon began to realize that many of her fellow inmates were getting hysterectomies and sterilization procedures as well. Sometimes it was after giving birth, while others had procedures that they were told were necessary to look for cancers or correcting gynecological issues. And so with her attorney, Cynthia Chandler, she began gathering the stories of other inmates.

Eventually, this led to an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) that identified 132 cases of women being given tubal ligation sterilizations in the prisons without proper state approvals and a 2014 state audit, which found nearly 800 hysterectomies and other sterilizations were performed there.

One of the prison doctors told CIR that he viewed sterilization as a way to prevent prisoners from procreating and having “unwanted children” that could cost the state money.

Kelli Dillon and her attorney, Cynthia Chandler. Photograph: Courtesy of Belly of the Beast

“He articulated that it was a cost-effective way of preventing people from needing welfare,” said attorney Chandler. “He actually thought he was doing the taxpayers a favor.”

Chandler began working on the case in the early 2000s while with the prisoner rights advocacy group Justice Now, which she co-founded. She eventually helped to get a bill passed to make it clear that prison sterilizations are illegal and has been fighting to get compensation for survivors ever since.

The procedures often left patients unclear what had happened to them.

While an inmate at Valley state prison for women in 2003, Gabriela Solano underwent a surgery in which doctors said they were going to remove her swollen left ovary, but at the end they told her they had removed her right ovary instead, she told the Guardian.

When she questioned her prison doctors about it later, she said he told her “what do you care? You’re a lifer anyway.”

“I just remember him saying that to me,” she told the Guardian in a call from Mexico, where she now lives. “A lot of the girls I knew went through unnecessary hysterectomies.”

But many advocates of the new compensation program worry that the same sentiments that allowed the eugenics abuses of the past to occur still permeate American culture.

Prisoners, people with disabilities and people of color “are still considered to be at the margins of our society and not worth the bother of dignity or respect by many”, said Hafsah Al-Amin, the program coordinator for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, which has worked with many of the current and former inmates who may be eligible for the compensation.

California is the first state to recognize and attempt to atone for much more recent cases of forced sterilization in the prisons. Photograph: Ric Francis/AP

“When people hear the term eugenics they often think of something that happened a long time ago,” said Lorena García Zermeño, the policy and communications coordinator for the California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, a co-sponsor of the bill. “But the legacy of eugenics continues to this day.”


Allegations of unwanted Ice hysterectomies recall grim time in US history

She pointed to recent reports of women detained in US immigration centers being unnecessarily sterilized. But she also said health disparities, such as the huge numbers of Black people and Latinos who have died of Covid-19, are rooted in the same sense of disregard for the lives of people of color and poor people.

“It’s extremely important for the state to confront the racist, sexist, ableist beliefs that perpetuate health disparities happening now.”

Dillon said the idea that California is finally going to compensate eugenics survivors makes her feel like spinning in the streets like the 1970s television character Mary Tyler Moore, who played a TV journalist.

What finally helped her come to terms with the fact that she couldn’t have children, she said, was getting to know her now-eight-year-old grandson.

“I was given an opportunity, praise God, to have children before I went to prison,” she said. “And, through that, I now have the chance to be a mom or mother figure to my grandchildren.”