Detroit casino workers to vote on authorizing strikes this Friday

2023/09/28


(Reuters) - Workers who staff the majority of operations at the three casinos in Detroit will vote on Friday to authorize potential strikes, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union said.

The union, in a release on Thursday, said workers staffing operations such as slots and table games, as well as restaurants at MGM Grand Detroit, MotorCity Casino and Hollywood at Greektown, will cast ballots on whether to authorize strikes as they negotiate for a new contract.

The announcement comes as labor unions are taking advantage of low unemployment to push for higher pay and better working conditions in their talks for new labor agreements.

About 18,300 UAW members working at the Detroit Three automakers are already on strike, which has led to the shutdown of one assembly plant at each of the three carmakers and 38 parts distribution centers at General Motors and Chrysler parent Stellantis.

Should casino workers authorize a strike in Friday's vote, the Detroit Casino Council, the negotiating committee for workers, could call for strikes as soon as mid-October when contracts expire, according to the union.

(Reporting by Shivansh Tiwary in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

© Reuters

Amazon has deep bench of defense lawyers to fight US FTC lawsuit

2023/09/27


By Andrew Goudsward and Mike Scarcella

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s monopoly lawsuit against Amazon.com filed on Tuesday poses perhaps the biggest legal test so far for the platoons of lawyers who have defended the technology giant for years against allegations of antitrust and consumer protection violations.

The long-awaited FTC case against Amazon, joined by 17 state attorneys general, accuses the company of abusing its dominance as an online retailer to thwart competitors and harm sellers and customers that rely on its platform. The company vowed to fight the lawsuit, saying its practices have spurred competition and innovation.

Kevin Hodges, a partner at law firm Williams & Connolly, was the first member of Amazon's defense team identified in a court document in the case. His partner Heidi Hubbard will lead the team, which also includes attorneys from law firm Covington & Burling, according to a person familiar with the hires.

Hubbard and Hodges, who is a former managing partner of the Washington-headquartered firm, are also representing Amazon in an ongoing antitrust lawsuit by California's attorney general accusing the company of forcing artificially high prices on consumers.

Williams & Connolly, known for its focus on litigation, in April successfully defeated a separate private lawsuit accusing the company of curbing competition for shipping and fulfillment services.

Hodges represented state attorneys general who joined the U.S. Justice Department's historic antitrust case against Microsoft in the 1990s and defended BP in lawsuits following the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according to court records and his firm's website. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Williams & Connolly is also a lead defense firm in another major antitrust case targeting Big Tech. Partner John Schmidtlein heads a team comprised of several big law firms defending Alphabet's Google in an ongoing landmark trial over the company’s alleged monopoly power in online search.

An Amazon spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about its legal team. The company is likely to rely on multiple law firms to defend the FTC case.

Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky, a 24-year veteran of the company's legal department, can turn to a stable of top outside law firms that already represent it.

Covington & Burling, another major Washington firm, worked with Williams & Connolly in 2021 in an unsuccessful attempt to force FTC Chair Lina Khan, a vocal critic of Amazon, to recuse from matters involving the company. Thomas Barnett, co-chair of the firm’s antitrust practice and a former senior Justice Department official, was involved in the effort.

Covington is also representing Amazon in another pending lawsuit brought by the FTC accusing the company of enrolling customers into its paid Amazon Prime service without their consent and making it difficult for them to cancel. The company has denied the allegations.

Covington advised Amazon in two consumer privacy settlements with the FTC in May related to the company’s Alexa voice assistant and Ring home security service.

A Covington spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on whether the firm is defending Amazon in the FTC antitrust case.

Amazon has also turned to U.S. law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to navigate government scrutiny. Paul Weiss secured the dismissal of an antitrust lawsuit brought by Washington, D.C.’s attorney general. An appeal remains pending.

The firm joined Covington in negotiating a $25 million Alexa child privacy settlement with the FTC.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Mike Scarcella in Washington; Editing by David Bario, Matthew Lewis and Marguerita Choy)

© Reuters

Analysis-US crypto industry comes to Washington, but faces uphill struggle

2023/09/27


By Hannah Lang

(Reuters) - Crypto companies are descending on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, but their push to advance industry-friendly laws is likely to be overshadowed by a fight over the federal budget and a Senate crackdown on the use of crypto for money laundering.

Dozens of executives from digital asset companies are meeting with lawmakers and their staff on Wednesday as part of a grassroots advocacy campaign organized by Coinbase, the biggest U.S. crypto exchange, and Stand With Crypto, a non-profit it founded.

The House Financial Services Committee in July passed two major bills that would help provide clarity over which existing financial rules apply to the industry, and crypto lobbyists hope they can convince lawmakers to advance those through Congress.

But with lawmakers focused on averting a government shutdown and other competing bills that must pass this year, including the Farm Bill and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the industry may struggle to be heard.

"There's a mind-boggling number of competing areas but ... we need to keep pounding the table," said Katherine Dowling, general counsel and chief compliance officer at Bitwise, a crypto investment manager. The company is one of several pushing for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to approve a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

Crypto companies have been expanding in Washington to combat growing regulatory scrutiny, especially from the SEC which says the industry has been flouting its rules. Lobbying escalated after the SEC sued Coinbase and its rival Binance in June for allegedly failing to register tokens, claims they deny.

The industry spent nearly $13 million on federal lobbying in the first half of 2023, putting it on track for another record year after spending $21.6 million in 2022, new data provided by OpenSecrets to Reuters showed. Coinbase led the pack at $1.4 million.

The crypto delegation on Wednesday includes Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who is meeting with Democrats and Republicans from both chambers of Congress, a spokesperson said. It also includes an executive from OpenSea, the top non-fungible token marketplace.

"Everybody wants to make sure that what they're doing isn't going to be erased by the government," said Kara Calvert, head of U.S. policy at Coinbase, referring to the crypto industry.

An OpenSea spokesperson said the company was excited that policymakers have taken an interest in NFTs, and "hope(s) that a collaborative approach" to regulation will foster innovation and protect users.

Coinbase also this month launched a media campaign which will include advertisements in Washington and calls-to-action on its own platform for crypto users to urge their members of Congress to pass crypto legislation.

The outcome is uncertain, said Mark Hays, senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress.

"It's not clear to me whether the industry's efforts to bootstrap a crypto grassroots campaign out of nowhere is going to translate into something that's politically impactful."

'LAST THING WE NEED'

The July bills would define when a cryptocurrency is a security or a commodity, curtailing the SEC's authority. Another bill would create federal rules for stablecoins, tokens pegged to a traditional asset.

The next step is consideration by the full House, or for the bills to be introduced in the Senate. A House vote before year-end is possible, but the outlook is dimmer in the Senate, where industry-friendly crypto bills have failed to gain traction.

Instead, both sides of the aisle are focused on curbing the use of crypto in money laundering and terrorist financing. The Senate in July passed its version of the NDAA, which included an amendment increasing scrutiny of anonymous crypto transactions.

And Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown of Ohio has shown little interest in making it a priority to advance the House bills.

"The last thing we need is for the crypto industry to write their own rulebook — too many Ohioans have been burned by fraud and scams," said Brown in a statement to Reuters.

"We need a framework of rules for crypto that protects our economy and protects Ohioans' hard-earned money."

Still, Coinbase is stepping up its efforts in Ohio, where Brown is facing re-election next year, with grassroots events raising awareness of the industry's role in the local economy.

Without Brown's support, industry-backed crypto legislation in the near-term remains unlikely, said Ian Katz, managing director of policy research firm Capital Alpha Partners. "If it doesn't seem urgent, and the chairman of the relevant committee isn't that into it, it's hard to see it happening."

(Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Michelle Price and Richard Chang)

© Reuters

Polish opposition holds massive Warsaw rally ahead of tight election

2023/10/01


By Justyna Pawlak

WARSAW (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of people held an opposition rally in Warsaw on Sunday, two weeks ahead of an election that the liberal Civic Platform (PO) says may decide Poland's future in the European Union and its democratic standing.

Opinion polls suggest the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government could win the vote but may struggle to form a majority amid discontent among some over rising living costs and concern over an erosion of democratic checks and balances.

Warsaw city authorities said about a million people attended in the capital's biggest rally on record. Public broadcaster TVP, which independent media observers say has become a government mouthpiece under PiS rule, quoted police saying about 100,000 people had joined.

Online news channel onet.pl said that according to its calculations some 600,000-800,000 people attended the rally.

Some carried banners saying "PiSexit" or "The cat can stay", referring to the pet animal of PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

The opposition is hoping the march galvanises voters to participate in the election, giving it a chance to come ahead.

"Big change is coming. This is a sign of Poland's rebirth," PO leader Donald Tusk told crowds gathered in a central Warsaw square, many people waving Polish and EU flags.

Tusk, a former European Council president, has said PiS could aim to take Poland out of the EU, something the party denies, and has framed the election as crucial for minority and women's rights.

PiS, in power since 2015, has campaigned on a pledge to keep migrants out of Poland, saying that was key for national security, and to continue funnelling money towards families and the elderly.

"I want to be free, be in the EU, I want to have a say, I want to have free courts," said Hanna Chaciewicz, a 59-year-old dentist from Otwock, a town outside of Warsaw.

PiS denies western criticism that it has subverted democratic norms and says its reforms of the judiciary are aimed at making the country fairer and free of vestiges of communism, while its changes to public media rid it of foreign influence.

But it has yet to gain access to billions of euros in EU COVID recovery funds which Brussels has withheld over the Polish court reforms.

"Everybody is investing in jobs, in fighting the climate catastrophe. And we have been denied this money because someone has decided to destroy democracy in Poland," Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, a senior PO member, told those at the rally.

(Reporting by Justyna Pawlak, Marek Strzelecki and Kuba Stezycki; Editing by Hugh Lawson, William Maclean)











© Reuters

Climate change means New York City's flooding is 'new normal,' governor says

THEN QUIT RENTING BASEMENTS OUT

2023/09/30


By Kanishka Singh and Joseph Ax

(Reuters) -Torrential downpours that caused flash flooding in New York City on Friday reflect a "new normal" due to the effects of climate change, New York Governor Kathy Hochul warned on Saturday, as the city began drying out after one of its wettest days ever.

Almost eight inches (20 cm) of rain fell in some parts of the most populous U.S. city, enough to enable a sea lion at the Central Park Zoo to swim briefly out of the confines of her pool enclosure.

While the risk of flooding in the city had receded by midday Saturday, a municipal hospital in the borough of Brooklyn said it would evacuate all patients and staff following a power failure on Friday.

NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull had switched to backup power after Friday's neighborhood outage, but repairs will require the power to be shut off entirely for several days, hospital officials said. The facility was transferring its 120 patients to other hospitals on Saturday, a process expected to take eight hours.

The intense rainfall turned some streets into rivers, stranding buses and cars for hours, and forced some subway and commuter rail lines to shut down. Flights were delayed or canceled, and one terminal at LaGuardia Airport was evacuated.

"This is unfortunately what we have to expect as the new normal," Hochul said.

A state of emergency, which allows faster allocation of resources to deal with a crisis, will remain in effect for the next six days, Hochul said. No fatalities were reported as a result of the storm.

President Joe Biden was briefed on the flooding on Friday and Saturday, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was prepared to assist if needed, according to the White House.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey; Additional reporting by Joel Schectman; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Leslie Adler)





© Reuters

Caregivers want answers to mystery link between ALS, military service

2023/10/01

For the past several years, the Winter Garden resident been cared for with the help of the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa, his daughter Ashley Lee and his granddaughter, Kaylei Lee, 18.. - Courtesy of Ashley Lee/Ashley Lee/TNS

Darrell Lee has lost almost all control over his body as he grapples with the relentless grip of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Lying in his daughter Ashley Lee’s Winter Garden home, the 72-year-old is kept alive by a series of medical marvels: a ventilator, feeding tube and a catheter. Communication has evolved into a language of subtle gestures: a closed-eye response for “yes,” a slight mouth movement of “I love you,” the shadow of a smile on his face. It’s a poignant performance that requires a discerning eye to detect, but to Ashley Lee, it’s a testament to the resilience that defines her father.

Though his muscles have failed him, his mind is awake.

“He’s not one of those people that’s going to say, ‘I’m tired. I don’t want to do this,’” Ashley Lee said. “He always looks for a way to overcome.”

Darrell Lee was diagnosed with ALS in 2009. Each year, the neurogenerative disease strikes roughly 5,000 Americans. It often leads to respiratory failure and death within two to five years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Less than 10% live more than 10 years after diagnosis.

The quest for a cure or a cause remains elusive, with only a small fraction of cases showing hereditary links and a few medications that slow the disease’s progression. Yet, hidden in Darrell Lee’s past is a clue to why ALS chose him: he’s a Vietnam U.S. Air Force veteran.

Studies indicate that people who served in the military are 1.3 to 2 times more likely than the general population to die of ALS. Data suggests this elevated risk of death occurs regardless of war or branch, or even if a vet served during peacetime. The association holds true for other countries, too, such as Denmark. In 2008, recognizing ALS as a service-connected injury, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs began covering 100% of treatment for veterans who served 90 days or more.

Still, advocates are pushing for more research, more recognition and more support for veterans and their caregivers. Those in the end stages of the disease require full-time ventilation and in Florida, ventilator-equipped facilities are scarce.

Ashley Lee, Darrell’s daughter, laments the widespread lack of awareness: “It’s surprising how many people still don’t know” about service’s connection to ALS, she said. She found out about it when her dad was diagnosed.
A veteran’s struggle

Darrell Lee’s 15-year bout with ALS started, as all do, with the degeneration and death of motor neurons: nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement. As these neurons died, they stopped sending signals to his muscles, causing them to weaken, twitch, and eventually atrophy.

It’s still unclear what may have contributed to his ALS, a disease thought to be caused by a variety of genetic and environmental risks. The disease is more common among people who are white, male, and over 60. Sporadic evidence suggests exposure to pesticides, chemicals, heavy metals and head trauma during service may contribute to veterans’ increased rates of this disease, according to a 2020 review of 19 studies on the topic, though the study’s authors said there wasn’t enough evidence to make a conclusion.

As Darrell Lee’s condition progressed, he persisted, aided by a chin-operated wheelchair and a sip-and-puff computer supplied by the Veterans Health Administration. (Though there’s no cure, the VA can provide equipment, support and a full treatment team.) He became ventilator-dependent in 2016 but didn’t lose the ability to talk or eat until two years ago, Ashley Lee said.

“When we asked him if he was scared, he said, ‘Of course I don’t want to not be able to talk, but the biggest thing that makes me sad is that I won’t be able to make people laugh anymore.’ He just never wanted to take anything too seriously,” she said.
A caregivers commitment

There are 37 veterans with ALS in the Orlando VA’s catchment area — Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Brevard, Lake, Volusia and parts of other surrounding counties. These patients have an average age of 67, and all but 1 are male, said Orlando VA Healthcare System Melanie Thomas.

Though the Orlando VA is closer, Lee’s family has chosen to commute from Winter Garden to the James A. Haley VA Hospital in Tampa for Darrell Lee’s treatment since the beginning. He has stayed at Ashley Lee’s home since his diagnosis, and she’s dedicated to caring for him until the end.

“It’s my dad and I’ll be with him however long I need to,” she said.

She talks to him, jokes with him, plays him ’70s rock music, and takes him out to experience the world as much as possible. Just a couple weeks ago, they went to a Tampa Bay Rays game.

“We can’t forget that even though the disease itself is devastating and awful, there’s still the person behind it,” said Lee, whose dad’s battle inspired her to get a doctorate in psychology. She’s focused on quality-of-life research for veterans with spinal cord injury and disease.
An increasing burden

In the final stages of this disease, however, Ashley Lee is finding it harder and harder to serve as a caregiver.

Since her husband died in a 2013 motorcycle accident, her 18-year-old daughter is often the only help she has.

Lee, a fellow for the Elizabeth Dole Foundation for veteran caregivers, is advocating for the passage of the Elizabeth Dole Home Care Act, a bill that aims to expand access to VA home and community services. In July, the U.S. House Veterans’ Affairs Committee passed it unanimously.

“The VA has been incredible for us over the years,” she said. “We always have considered ourselves very blessed to have them, but I have noticed, especially in the later years, that our biggest obstacle is help.”

Ashley Lee said she very rarely leaves home without taking her dad with her, typically only venturing out for necessities like her doctors’ or dentist appointments, during which her daughter watches him. Though the VA has a number of programs that aim to provide at-home assistance ranging from aides to trained RNs, and the agency pays Ashley Lee to be an at-home caregiver, she hasn’t been able to get a ventilator-trained nurse to the house to watch her father.

“I’ve been isolated and wouldn’t be able to leave my house ever, if not for my daughter, for three years now,” she said.

Dr. Neil Thakur, chief mission officer at the ALS Association, said that veterans have “the best ALS care coverage in the country” thanks to ALS’ designation as a 100% service-connected condition, but caregiver support is something that needs improvement.

ALS Association surveys indicate 68% of ALS caregivers spend more than 30 hours per week providing care and almost half feel unprepared for more intense caregiving duties as the disease progresses.
Florida falls short

It’s even harder to find support for Floridians with ALS who are ventilator-dependent.

Less than two dozen Florida nursing homes in total offer care for this group of people, according to data from the Agency for Healthcare Administration.

There aren’t any community nursing homes at all for ventilator-dependent veterans in the state of Florida, said Dr. Kevin White, who is the chief of Spinal Cord Injury Medicine at the Michael Bilirakis Spinal Cord and Disorders Center at the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa.

“That’s a huge challenge,” White said. “In the future, that’s something that may be needed.”

Another hurdle: not every veteran with ALS realizes all the resources available to them, says White, who coordinates care for ALS patients throughout Central Florida, not just Tampa.

“Unfortunately, most veterans do not know that this is a 100% service-connected condition,” White said. “We’re hoping to do a lot more outreach to the community, and let them know that this is something that’s here. There’s a big difference in terms of what’s able to be provided for a veteran in the VA system versus outside of the VA system.”

He added that the VA system throughout Central Florida could accommodate more ALS patients than it currently sees.

“It’s rare that there would be any waitlist in terms of providing care for any of our patients,” White said.
Looking forward

Standing in a hospital hall at the Tampa VA where White works, Ashley Lee marvels at how long her dad has lived compared to others with the disease: 15 years.

“He’s the longest-living ALS patient at this Tampa VA right now, which, unfortunately, doesn’t seem like he’s going to be too much longer — but right now, it’s still true,” she said in a Tuesday phone call.

He suffered a serious health setback a couple of weeks ago, and has been hospitalized ever since.

As she looks back at her dad’s life, Ashley Lee laments that in the time from his diagnosis in 2009 to now, there is no firm answer as to why veterans worldwide experience this disease at higher rates than other populations.

“There have been so many advancements,” she said. “But in all of these 15 years, there’s been absolutely zero advancement in the answers to why.”

There has been progress on other fronts. Several drugs have been approved to slow the progression of ALS, with varying success rates. The 2014 ALS Ice Bucket Challenge increased awareness and amplified funding, advocates agree.

Researchers are continuing to ask why and have also begun to examine whether there’s a way to prevent veterans from developing the disease by targeting pre-symptomatic people who have biomarkers that suggest the disease is on its way.

“There’s a lot of hope on the horizon, and there’s better and better news coming out every day,” said ALS Association’s Thakur. “I do believe we can make dramatic improvements in the number of people who are able to live with ALS in a much more humane and comfortable way.”

Courtesy of Ashley Lee/Ashley Lee/TNS

© Orlando Sentinel

Illinois is running out of volunteer firefighters: ‘It’s going to become very critical, very shortly’

IT'S A PROFESSION MAKE IT FULL TIME

HIRE WOMEN

2023/10/01
Assistant Chief Alex Justi puts away a hose after testing engine pumps and hoses in the Dalzell Grade School parking lot on Aug. 31, 2023. - Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

DALZELL, Ill. — The 76-year-old man was sitting at his kitchen table one Tuesday morning in June when he lost consciousness and fell to the floor.

A few blocks away, Alex Justi’s emergency pager went off. The 24-year-old firefighter and paramedic is one of only six people who make up Dalzell’s volunteer-run fire department, and one of only two who lives in the town of about 660 residents in north-central Illinois, near Starved Rock State Park.

Justi raced to the station, jumped in an engine and drove, solo, to the man’s house. Once there, he quickly realized the man wasn’t breathing. Justi placed a device over the man’s nose and mouth and manually pumped oxygen into his lungs, continuing for at least five minutes until first responders from a neighboring town arrived to help.

The man survived. But, Justi reluctantly acknowledged, the outcome could have been different.

“If somebody wasn’t breathing for him, he would have been dead by the time the ambulance showed up,” Justi said.

“That was when we realized that we need some help here.”

Just over half of all firefighters in the United States are estimated to be volunteers: men and women who, like Justi, leave their homes and jobs at any moment to respond to house fires and car crashes, medical emergencies and natural disasters.

In Illinois, about two-thirds of the state’s roughly 1,100 fire departments rely almost entirely on volunteers.

And, with few exceptions, those departments are running out of volunteers.

The fluctuating ranks of volunteer departments make it difficult to accurately track the losses. But fire chiefs across Illinois say they’re facing historic staffing lows.

In Dalzell, the roster of six should be 16 to be fully staffed, said Chief Tom Riordan. Over in Divernon, in central Illinois, Chief Randy Rhodes said he’s lost eight volunteers just in the past two years. And the bylaws for the Galena Fire Department, billed as the state’s oldest, cap volunteer membership at 62. They’ve got 24, Chief Bob Conley said.

The alarming shortages come amid increased service demands driven by rising medical calls attributed largely to the state’s growing senior population.

As a result, departments are increasingly relying on surrounding agencies to aid in their emergency responses, while some chiefs have tapped into federal grant dollars to pay for part-time help to augment their aging rosters of existing volunteers.

“It’s going to become very critical, very shortly,” said Kevin Schott, an Illinois Firefighters Association board member. “The county and the state are going to need to look at this because the public safety is going to be impacted.”

Firefighting organizations and some state lawmakers have tried over the years to address the dearth of volunteers, offering tax breaks and other incentives aimed at buoying department ranks.

Those efforts have thus far found little success. And some department leaders fear the worst is yet to come.

If nothing changes, fire chiefs in Dalzell and elsewhere say they’ll no longer have enough people to answer medical calls, ceding that responsibility to neighboring agencies or private ambulance services. Other departments are looking at mergers as a way to hopefully prolong their survival.

All this could put hundreds of thousands of Illinois residents in the dangerous position of having to wait longer for help to arrive.

“A lot of people think when they call 911, help is going to be there,” said Jim Gielow, chief of the volunteer fire department in Pinckneyville, in southern Illinois. “They may not realize one day that won’t be the case.”
A long tradition, a slow decline

It wasn’t always like this.

Veteran fire chiefs wax nostalgic about decades past when the volunteer fire service thrived, ensconced in a centuries-old tradition (Ben Franklin is credited with creating the model with his Union Fire Company in Philadelphia) and encapsulated in a 1931 “The Saturday Evening Post” cover illustration by famed artist and chronicler of Americana, Norman Rockwell.

They had full rosters and waiting lists back then. They had generations of the same last names in their ranks, and high school “explorer” programs, like internships, that infused their departments with a youthful energy.

The residents of those communities, meanwhile, enjoyed fire protection without the costs of salaries and benefits, which freed up tax dollars for police and parks and roads.

The system worked, until it didn’t.

To be clear, the long, steady decline of the volunteer fire service isn’t unique to Illinois. Headlines across the country tell similar stories of depleted ranks

In 1995, there were an estimated 838,000 volunteer firefighters in America, according to figures from the National Fire Protection Association.

Twenty-five years later, that number fell to 676,900.

The ratio of volunteers per 1,000 people dropped by nearly 25% in that same time, estimates show.

There are plenty of explanations for the downfall.

One obvious factor is Illinois’ shrinking population. The state lost a little over 104,000 residents between 2021 and 2022, U.S. Census Bureau estimates show. The losses were felt in all but 11 of the 102 counties.

Some chiefs believe the sense of community pride and civic duty that once motivated people to volunteer has vanished.

“It just seems to be getting harder and harder to get the younger generation to step up and donate their time,” said Eric Lancaster, fire chief in the central Illinois town of Girard, population 1,785. “It’s definitely been a struggle. And it is definitely getting worse.”

And while it’s true that volunteerism has generally fallen over the last decades, a report earlier this year from the U.S. Census and AmeriCorps found that Illinois was one of only two states (Wyoming the other) that did not see a drop in the percentage of Americans who formally volunteered with organizations between 2017 and 2021 (Illinois’ formal volunteering percentage went from 28.1% to 28.3% in that time).

Changing economic conditions also play a role. Families are increasingly unable to survive on one income. And with fewer job opportunities in rural communities most dependent on volunteer firefighters, people are forced to travel farther to work for employers who aren’t always as willing to let their staff answer emergency calls.

Then there’s the simple reality that being a volunteer firefighter is demanding on the person and their families. Emergency pagers can go off during family dinners and at 2 a.m., on Christmas morning and at a school recital.

“There were times I missed things,” said Lt. Chris Garza, 48, a father of two who has volunteered with the Galena department for the past 13 years. “And you can’t get those moments back. But I know I’m helping somebody when they’re having the worst day possible.”

Others say the training requirements have made the volunteer fire service a hard sell. A basic firefighter certification can take around 180 hours to obtain, and though volunteer firefighters aren’t required to be certified, they do have to be trained to the state standard.

That means departments typically ask their members to attend weekly training sessions, usually one night a week.

Emergency medical training, also not required, can take another six months, and is often crucial given that medical calls account for about 70% of the incidents Illinois fire departments respond to each year.

“Guys get burned out after a while,” said Pinckneyville’s chief, Gielow. “They’re a little more on edge, working their full-time jobs and running a bunch of calls. It’s hard on their personal lives. It all kind of adds up.”
‘We can’t let off the accelerator’

On the last Monday of July, about 30 members of the Glen Ellyn Volunteer Fire Company gathered for a weekly training exercise. In this particular session, they wore full protective gear, face masks and oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, and waited for their turns to go inside an abandoned motel to rescue one of their own from a room filled with smoke billowing from a machine.

There was Vinh Lu, 50, a freelance film location scout and father who started volunteering with the fire department nearly five years ago because, like his military service, it gave him the chance to be part of something bigger.

Richard Arehart, 49, wanted to be a firefighter as a kid but instead became a banker. Nearly three years ago, he saw an online ad looking for volunteers and moved his family to Glen Ellyn so he could make his childhood dream come true.

Clare Doran, 53, went to a department open house seven years ago thinking she’d file paperwork or tidy up the office, only to realize the ask was to be a firefighter.

“I was like, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t think I could carry anybody out,” Doran remembered. “And chief said, we’ll teach you. And they taught me.”

The west suburban fire department is one of the few in the Chicago area that still relies almost entirely on volunteers. And with about 60 members, it’s thus far managed to avoid the shortages that have plagued other volunteer departments. About 35 people showed up to a recruitment open house earlier this month, said Matt Andris, second assistant chief. Seven submitted applications to join, with more expected.

“I can’t put a finger on why we’re successful other than really hard work,” Andris said.

There are, of course, other contributing factors.

For one, the village has a separate, paid ambulance service. That means fire department volunteers aren’t required to go through more intensive emergency medical training, nor are they faced with the added strain of answering medical calls, which state data show have climbed by 35% in the last decade.

Unlike in rural parts of the state, Glen Ellyn’s 28,000 residents offer a large pool of potential volunteers, plenty of whom work in professions with flexible schedules that allow them more opportunity to donate their time. Some department members volunteer elsewhere. Doran, for example, volunteers with four other community groups.

The department also hired a Glen Ellyn-based marketing company to lead its recruitment efforts, which include targeted mailers, Google ad campaigns and volunteer profiles posted on the department’s website.

“We can’t let off the accelerator,” Chief Chris Clark said. “We have to continue to recruit the way we do. That’s just a fact for any volunteer organization.”
‘The bigger conversation is coming at us’

For the volunteer fire service to survive, recruitment needs to be the focus of every person in the department, said Steve Hirsch, a volunteer firefighter in Kansas and chair of the National Volunteer Fire Council.

“That’s our success,” he said. “It’s all those who wear red helmets out there recruiting friends and bringing names to us all the time.”

Departments also need to make sure their recruitment efforts are geared toward women and people of color, two groups that have historically been underrepresented in the fire service.

“We’ve not done a good job of recruiting in those communities,” Hirsch said of the fire service. “You’re overlooking half your population.”

It also takes money. The federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant program offers departments money for recruitment, retention and hiring. Since 2015, a little over 70 fire departments in Illinois received SAFER grants totaling close to $55 million.

Some departments use those federal dollars to pay volunteers a small stipend based on the number of calls they answered. Others have spent the money on part-time firefighters to answer calls during weekday hours when volunteer availability is especially limited.

Even Glen Ellyn, with its 60-member roster, still needs to augment its volunteer force by paying contractors to staff a fire engine during those hours.

But for some, the money’s not enough. They exist on fundraisers — 50/50 raffles, cookouts and craft fairs. They drive used fire engines donated by more fortunate peers and wear protective gear they can’t afford to replace despite it being too old by state standards.

Near the Quad Cities, the Colona Fire Department had hoped a federal grant could help it hire two people to cover daytime shifts in the town of 5,300 residents. Even with the money, the department couldn’t do it, Chief John Swan said.

“We’d have to pick up the tab after three years, and we can’t afford to do it,” said Swan, who noted that the department tried and failed last year to persuade residents to pass a tax increase to pay for daytime help.

“I have people in the department who are in their 50s and 60s that have to stay on because there’s no one available in the daytime,” he continued. “The public doesn’t understand. It just does not seem to sink in.”

Elected leaders in Springfield have passed bills in recent years aimed at giving volunteer departments a lift. One bill allowed volunteers to buy discounted tires for their personal vehicles at a government-discounted rate; another protects volunteers from being fired if they’re late to work or absent because of an emergency call.

This session, they passed a $500 tax credit for volunteer firefighters and a bill that allows state employees to leave work to attend firefighter training.

“Some of these bills look gimmicky,” said state Sen. Patrick Joyce, D-Essex, who sponsored the training bill. “But you have to throw something out there as a benefit. The bigger conversation is coming at us, and it’s going to be a lot of money.”

Lawmakers could pull from ideas generated 20 years ago, when Illinois fire department leaders and a bipartisan group of House members released separate reports on how to preserve the future of the state’s fire service.

Among the recommendations: Pass “pensionlike” legislation. Establish a life insurance and disability plan for volunteers. Create a scholarship program for volunteers and their families to attend Illinois universities and community colleges. Develop an incentive program for employers when their employees need to leave to answer emergency calls.

“I think you’re going to have a handful of firefighter bills every session from here to the end of time,” Joyce said. “You chip away at it and you try to address it.”
‘A dying tradition’

Their efforts might not be enough to save what Justi, the assistant chief in Dalzell, called “a dying tradition.”

In Peoria Heights, trustees in the town of 5,900 have been embroiled in an ongoing debate over the future of their volunteer fire department, which, like many, is short on volunteers.

After significant public pushback, trustees recently backtracked on a plan to offset that shortage by contracting help from the neighboring Peoria Fire Department, staffed by career firefighters.

What they do next will depend on whomever is picked as the next fire chief, said Matt Wigginton.

“There’s a lot of identity wrapped up in a local fire department,” Wigginton said. “But overarching, the biggest concern is public safety. At what point does that identity and nostalgia run up against public safety?”

Illinois already has a model program, called the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS for short), that instantly dispatches help from neighboring fire departments when needed. Some fire chiefs think that system will become increasingly necessary for every call, no matter the severity.

“As much as anybody hates to have to call out to assist, I see it happening more and more now,” said Lancaster, the fire chief in Girard.

Others see a future where volunteer departments merge with their neighbors, hoping the combination of resources could free up enough money to pay people to offset dwindling volunteers.

But Swan, the chief in Colona, fears department consolidation will lead to longer response times.

Colona has a roster of 17 volunteers, Swan said, well below the 32 needed to be considered fully staffed.

“If nothing changes, there will be calls where we don’t show,” said Swan, who also serves as past president of the Illinois Firefighters Association.

It’s already happened, he said, medical calls at night that his department couldn’t answer because there was no one to respond.

“We have an ambulance backup, but minutes count,” he said.

If nothing changes in Divernon, Chief Rhodes said his department could no longer have the ability to respond to emergency medical calls. Those would then fall to neighboring towns and private ambulance services, both of which are also facing paramedic shortages.

A few high school seniors have expressed an interest in taking emergency medical classes and volunteering at the department. But that wouldn’t be until next summer, he said, and “we don’t know if we could hold it until then.”

Back in Dalzell, the forecast looks no better.

Two hospitals in the area closed this year — one in Peru, the other in Spring Valley — and the fallout has hit Dalzell and surrounding departments hard, exacerbating their staffing woes as ambulance crews are now tied up with longer transport times to and from hospitals.

Riordan, the fire chief, said they, too, might have to abandon medical calls.

“It’s the first thing that’s going to stop,” he said. “To be blunt, people are going to die because there’s nobody to take care of them.”

On a Thursday night in August, all six department members sat around a table in the fire station (also village hall) while Justi led a training on how to identify the types of hazardous materials that could be carried in the semitrailer trucks that lumber along Interstate 80 at the town’s northern border.

“Unfortunately, we’re not able to really mitigate the incident,” he told them. “Our job is to pretty much protect ourselves and everybody else that hasn’t been involved yet.”

All six said they were concerned about the department’s future and perplexed that no one in town seemed to care about the dire circumstances it faced.

“It’s really rough,” said Chris Mason, 44, a lieutenant who’s been with the department for nearly 17 years. “There’s not enough people to do anything.”

Later, they drove two fire engines and a water tanker truck — two of the three donated from other departments — to the elementary school parking lot to test hoses and engine pumps.

The first fire engine they tested, built in 1989, barely pumped water into its 500-gallon tank. It could be an easy fix, they hoped. If not, it could cost a few thousand dollars, money they can barely afford to spend.

During the testing, a man who lived nearby walked up to a few of the members. He’d been a volunteer years earlier but was asked to leave, he said, for missing too many training sessions.

He blamed his work schedule at the time. Now, standing in the grass as water sprayed from a fire hose attached to a nearby hydrant, he blamed the testing for turning the water at his house a funny color.

He asked them to stop, then turned and left.

A list of upcoming fundraisers and training sessions are written on a whiteboard at the Dalzell fire station. - Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Glen Ellyn volunteer firefighters take a break after participating in a training at a vacant motel in Glen Ellyn on Aug. 30, 2023. - Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Kirk Huot speaks to other volunteer firefighters during the Glen Ellyn Volunteer Fire Company training on Aug. 30, 2023. - Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Assistant Chief Alex Justi helps test hoses and engine pumps in the Dalzell Grade School parking lot on Aug. 31, 2023. - Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Volunteer firefighter Chris Mason helps test hoses and engine pumps in the Dalzell Grade School parking lot on Aug. 31, 2023. - Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Assistant Chief Alex Justi helps test hoses and engine pumps in the Dalzell Grade School parking lot on Aug. 31, 2023. - Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

© Chicago Tribune

In face of corporate behemoths, an indie music festival thrives

2023/10/01

The All Things Go festival kicked off its 2023 edition on Saturday at Maryland's historic Merriwether Post Pavilion ampitheater, with headliners including Lana Del Rey, boygenius, Maggie Rogers and Carly Rae Jepsen, who is performing here

Columbia (United States) (AFP) - Back in 2006, Spotify was a nascent start-up, your average stateside concert tickets went for $40 and many fans learned about the best new music from blogs like All Things Go.

Nearly twenty years later, most people find new artists via algorithms and the average US concert ticket costs $250 -- double what it was just five years ago.

All Things Go, however, has grown into a thriving indie music festival in a world where live events are increasingly owned by a handful of companies.

Now in its ninth year, the festival -- whose name derives from a Sufjan Stevens lyric -- embodies the same ethos as that of music blogging's turn-of-the-millennium heyday.

It focuses on emerging artists while prioritizing the experience of live performance over creating viral moments or appealing to social media influencers, both now dominant forces at more corporatized festivals.

The event kicked off its 2023 edition on Saturday at Maryland's historic Merriweather Post Pavilion amphitheater, spanning two days for the first time, with a women-led bill and headliners including Lana Del Rey, boygenius, Carly Rae Jepsen and Maggie Rogers.

The festival's founders first began transitioning from their corner of the internet to live venues by holding monthly club nights in Washington DC, hosting artists who were popular on their blog.

They held their inaugural festival at Washington's Union Market in 2014, later expanding to the Capitol Waterfront in 2016 before moving in 2021 to Merriweather, which can host up to 20,000 people per day.

"I think for us it really is about the music," co-founder Stephen Vallimarescu told AFP. "It's about creating the experience where you want to see the artist at noon as much as you want to see the headliner at 10:00 pm."

And with two stages "we basically set it up so that you can see every single band on the bill."

That's a far cry from the experience fans get at festivals like Coachella, where hundreds of thousands of people gather annually in the California desert for two three-day weekends featuring dozens of artists and six stages, with overlapping set times.

At that event, music is not the only draw: there are giant Instagrammable sculptures, a Ferris wheel, special food and drink attractions, celebrity and influencer-filled VIP tents and after-parties.

All Things Go's organizers are going for a more boutique vibe, said Vallimarescu.

"It is pretty unique to look at our community -- like these are music fans who go to 10, 20, 30 shows a year, and they come to the festival early," he said.

"They're there for the music, they're not there for Ferris wheels, or Instagram posts."
Consolidating festival market

It's no small feat to host an independent music festival these days. All Things Go certainly isn't the only event of its kind, but the landscape is increasingly dominated by giant live performance promoters like AEG and Live Nation, the two largest in the world.

In 2018, a group of indie festivals in Britain decried Live Nation's dominance of the industry there, accusing the California-based behemoth of practices including exclusivity deals with venues that "stifle competition."

In 2022, Live Nation -- which in addition to controlling significant swaths of the touring industry also owns Ticketmaster, the American ticketing titan -- recorded $16.7 billion in revenue, promoting 43,644 events including concerts and festivals worldwide, according to data compiled by Statista.

Most major music festivals are under the umbrella of Live Nation -- Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Isle of Wight among them -- or AEG, which owns the company behind Coachella.

Vallimarescu noted that many indie festivals folded as the performance industry took a major hit, especially post-pandemic.

"The reality is that the larger festival ecosystem is very much being consolidated," said fellow co-founder Will Suter.

"Globally it's the reason you see kind of the same headliners across most of festival lineups these days."

All Things Go has lasered in on indie rock, a strategy Suter said works to help it stay competitive in the corporate-dominated festival scene.

"Doubling down on our genre, and really offering value to the consumer that justifies the ticket price" is a goal, he said, with the hope that fans are interested in 12 to 16 artists on the lineup, can actually manage to see them all, and are enticed to come back.

Tickets to All Things Go this year ranged from $105 to $500, the pricier end being heavy on perks.

The festival has also stood out by booking mostly women and non-binary artists -- from the headliners down the bill -- in an industry that's still heavily biased towards men.

Suter praised fellow indie festivals across the United States "that are working day in and day out" to keep live music accessible and eclectic.

"It's a community, including with shoulders to cry on," he said.

"It's cool to see different independent festivals still working."

© Agence France-Presse

Americans celebrate Jimmy Carter's 99th birthday as he receives hospice care
2023/10/01


By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans celebrated the 99th birthday of former President Jimmy Carter this weekend, with the White House putting up a wooden cake display on its north lawn and the Carter library in Georgia hosting a party for the public.

Carter, a Democrat who served as U.S. president from January 1977 to January 1981, is in hospice care after deciding in February to decline additional medical intervention. He turns 99 on Sunday.

In Atlanta, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum hosted a celebration that it said would feature cake, games, trivia and a food truck. The party was moved up to Saturday ahead of a possible government shutdown that could start around midnight on Sunday.

Back in Washington, a three-tiered wooden cake display, decorated in the red, white and blue colors of the American flag and featuring 39 candles in recognition of Carter's being the country's 39th president, festooned the White House lawn with a "Happy Birthday President Carter" message.

Carter, who was born on Oct 1, 1924, has lived longer after leaving office than any former president in U.S. history. He has garnered worldwide admiration for his post-presidency humanitarian work and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Carter has faced health challenges in recent years, including melanoma that spread to his liver and brain, but he has continued to show resilience, even after his decision to start hospice care.

He and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, who has dementia, took an outing a week ago to attend the annual peanut festival in their hometown of Plains, Georgia.

Carter's grandson Jason told the New York Times that the former president faced physical limitations and was "coming to the end," but was home, with his wife, and at peace.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Leslie Adler)









© Reuters

Lake Tahoe’s biggest champion, Dianne Feinstein, secured its beauty for future generations

2023/09/30

Lake Tahoe during the 22nd annual Lake Tahoe Summit, at Sand Harbor State Park, near Incline Village, Nevada, on Aug. 7, 2018. 

- Cathleen Allison/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Lake Tahoe’s internationally revered blue waters — once described “the fairest picture the whole earth affords” by humorist Mark Twain — could instead be muddy brown if not for the late senior senator from California, who died Friday at the age of 90, environmental advocates said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who spent her childhood and adult life in the mountainous region, was the “biggest champion Tahoe ever had and will ever have,” said Amy Berry, the CEO of the nonprofit Tahoe Fund. The state’s longest-serving U.S. senator secured more than half a billion dollars to keep Lake Tahoe from environmental harm.

“She used to say ‘Tahoe is in her blood,’” Berry said.

It was Feinstein’s sharp political acumen that brought Tahoe’s environmental threats to the national spotlight. Protecting Tahoe’s famed clarity was a symbol of protecting the environment, said Darcie Collins, the CEO for the League to Save Lake Tahoe, the oldest environmental organization tasked with protecting its waters commonly known for its slogan “Keep Tahoe Blue.”

“If we cannot protect Tahoe, what can we protect?” Collins said of the message at the time.

Feinstein spearheaded the 1997 Lake Tahoe Presidential Summit, now an annual event, and persuaded then-President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore to attend. Their appearances helped to spark the efforts behind the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act passed in 2000, said Geoffrey Schladow, the director of Tahoe Environmental Research Center and a professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at UC Davis.

Schladow added that Feinstein was an acute politician who leveraged federal funding to secure state and private monies for conservation efforts.

The restoration act is up for renewal again in Congress, this time through 2034.

Schladow said Feinstein took the environment personally — she allowed weather instruments to be attached to her private boat dock to collect real-time data.

Feinstein and her late husband, Richard Blum, who died last year, wrote the first checks for Tahoe Fund and came to fundraiser dinners, Berry said. She emphasized the bipartisanship needed behind supporting the efforts of Lake Tahoe.

Tahoe stretches across California and Nevada, which led Feinstein to work with Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who was the Senate majority leader and other stakeholders from both states, said Julie Regan, the executive director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. The respect Feinstein commanded from her colleagues, Regan said, helped to keep the protecting lake a nonpartisan issue.

Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., noted in a statement Friday that Feinstein helped support legislation that saved the city of South Lake Tahoe from the destructive 2021 Caldor fire.

“We couldn’t have done it without her,” he said.

Collins noted more than 100,000 boats have been inspected over 25 years for the destructive quagga mussels, preventing the invasive species from running afoul. Keeping the lake clear is directly related to Feinstein’s dedication to Tahoe, Regan said, who remembered the times Feinstein would carry a pipe teeming with mussels on Capitol Hill to remind them of what could happen without their help.

“Tahoe is blue thanks to her,” Collins said.

Dianne Feinstein, D- Calif., at a lunch hosted by the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce convention Center in Riverside, California, in October 2017. - Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/TNS

© The Sacramento Bee