Past S. Korean gov’ts blamed for abuses, deaths at facility
By KIM TONG-HYUNG

1 of 5

Park Sun-yi, left, a victim of Brothers Home, weeps during a press conference at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission office in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022. The commission has found the country's past military governments responsible for atrocities committed at Brothers Home, a state-funded vagrants' facility where thousands were enslaved and abused from the 1960s to 1980s. 

(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has found the country’s past military governments responsible for atrocities committed at Brothers Home, a state-funded “vagrants’ facility” where thousands were enslaved and abused from the 1960s to 1980s.

The landmark report on Wednesday came 35 years after a prosecutor first exposed the horrors at the facility in the southern port city of Busan and details an attempted cover-up of incriminating evidence that would have confirmed a state-sponsored crime.

The commission’s chairperson, Jung Geun-sik, urged South Korea’s current government to issue a formal apology to survivors and explore ways to ease their suffering as he announced the initial results of its investigation into Brothers, including extreme cases of forced labor, violence and deaths.

The commission also called for the government to review the conditions at current welfare facilities around the country and swiftly ratify the United Nations convention against enforced disappearances.

The commission “confirmed that the direct and indirect exercise of government authority resulted in the forced confinement of people deemed as vagrants at Brothers Home and caused serious violations of human rights, including forced labor, physical assault, cruel treatment, deaths and disappearances,” Jeung said in a news conference at the commission’s office in Seoul.

“The state has ignored pleas (by inmates) to correct the human rights violations at Brothers Home, had knowledge of the problems but did not act to resolve them, and attempted to distort and minimize the scale of the abuses after the Brothers Home incident became known in 1987, preventing proper legal handling (of the abuses) based on facts,” he said.

Lee Jae-seung, a senior commission official who oversees the Brothers inquiry, said he wouldn’t hesitate to define Brothers as a state crime.

The commission’s report was based on an examination of a broad range of evidence, including documents from police, prosecutors and courts, and Brothers’ own files, such as intake documents and death certificates. It also found records that suggest the facility abusively administered psychiatric drugs to control inmates.

The commission said the violence and abuse at Brothers were even worse than previously known. It said its examination of records so far point to at least 657 deaths at Brothers, which was higher than the previously known tally of 513 between 1975 and 1986 documented in the facility’s records.

The commission also confirmed that Busan police randomly seized people off the streets to send them to Brothers, regardless of whether they had easily identifiable homes or families. They often allowed Brothers employees, who toured the city in trucks, to do the kidnapping themselves.

Brothers, run by late owner Park In-keun and his family, also embezzled the wages of thousands of inmates who were forced into slave labor, which involved construction work both offsite and at Brothers, as well as work in factories making clothing, ballpoint pens and fishing hooks.

So far, no one has been held accountable for hundreds of deaths, rapes and beatings at Brothers.

Jung acknowledged that the recommendations the commission makes to the government aren’t binding but said its findings could be used as evidence for survivors if they pursue lawsuits for damages against the government or any remaining Brothers stakeholders. The commission did not directly recommend the pursuit of criminal charges.

The commission’s report was based on its investigation into the cases of 191 individuals, who were among 544 Brothers survivors who have so far filed applications. The commission plans to produce more reports as it continues its investigations.

Jung said the commission also plans to look into the foreign adoptions of Brothers children, which The Associated Press first confirmed in 2019. Through documents obtained from officials, lawmakers or through freedom of information requests, the AP found direct evidence that 19 children were adopted out of Brothers between 1979 and 1986, and indirect evidence suggesting at least 51 more adoptions.

Some Brothers survivors wept from their seats as Jung and Lee announced the results of the investigation.

Choi Seung-woo, who landed in Brothers as a schoolchild in 1982 after being kidnapped by police and endured severe beatings and sexual abuse for years, said the report gives survivors “hope and courage.” He urged the government to actively support survivors who are grappling with financial and health problems and intense “trauma.”

“(The commission’s findings) give us another opportunity to redeem ourselves in court, but no one knows how long that’s going to take,” Choi said.

Lee Chae-sik, another former inmate, said the commission’s truth-finding efforts won’t mean much if survivors don’t receive immediate help.

“I am fine. I run three convenience stores, but what about this guy?” Lee said, showing his text messages with another former inmate stuck in a long-term care hospital. “Our country has been waiting for us to die.”

From the 1960s to 1980s, South Korean military dictators ordered roundups to beautify the streets. Thousands — including homeless and disabled people, as well as children — were snatched off the streets and brought to facilities where they were detained and forced to work. The commission said such roundups were “illegal and unconstitutional” as they violated people’s fundamental rights and freedoms.

In interviews with dozens of former Brothers inmates, many said that as children, they were brought to the facility after police officers kidnapped them, and that their parents had no idea of their whereabouts.

Many inmates were enslaved, raped and, in hundreds of cases, beaten to death or left to die, their bodies dumped in the woods, according to dozens of interviews with survivors and a review of an extensive range of government and Brothers documents obtained by the AP.

The commission said the facility’s death records describe many of the victims as already dead upon arrival at hospitals, which it said either indicates dismal health conditions at the overcrowded facility or an attempt to conceal deaths caused by beatings and torture.

The commission said records show that Brothers, which had a designated ward for inmates with mental health problems, purchased abnormal volumes of psychiatric drugs. Such drugs were likely forced upon a broad range of inmates as the facility’s owners tried to maintain their grip over a sprawling compound they controlled with severe violence and military-style discipline.

“Brothers Home arbitrarily administered drugs to inmates who struggled to adjust or were rebellious, and the psychiatric ward was used as a so-called ‘disciplinary ward,”’ the commission said in its report.

The commission also highlighted an extreme case of a former Brothers inmate who reunited with his relatives nearly five decades after he landed at the facility.

The man, identified only by his surname Seol, was grabbed from a Busan train station and locked up at Brothers sometime around 1974 and 1975. He was transferred years later to an orphanage, which registered him as an orphan, soon after his family registered him as dead following years of futile searches. Seol reunited with his relatives in June last year, following the commission’s investigation into his family background.

The roundups intensified as South Korea began preparing to bid for and host the 1988 Summer Olympics. Brothers, a mountainside compound in Busan, was the largest of these facilities and had around 4,000 inmates when its horrors were exposed in 1987.

Kim Yong Won, the former prosecutor who exposed Brothers, told the AP that high-ranking officials blocked his investigation under direction from the office of military strongman Chun Doo-hwan, who feared an embarrassing international incident on the eve of the Olympics.

Following Kim’s watered-down investigation and narrow indictments, Park, the Brothers’ owner, was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 1989 of charges linked to illegal confinement of inmates. Park, who served a short prison term for embezzlement and other relatively minor charges, died in 2016.

The commission began investigating the Brothers abuse in May last year, following a yearslong struggle for redemption by Brothers survivors, many of whom are struggling with financial and health problems.

Crucial illegal road threatens Amazon rainforest
By FABIANO MAISONNAVE

1 of 4

This May 2, 2022, photo provided by Xingu + Network shows an illegal road inside a protected area called Terra do Meio (Middle Earth) Ecological Station in Para state, in the Brazilian Amazon. The dirt road is now just a few miles shy of connecting two of the worst areas of deforestation in the region. (Xingu + Network via AP)

An illegal dirt road ripping through protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon is now just a few miles shy of connecting two of the worst areas of deforestation in the region, according to satellite images and accounts from people familiar with the area. If the road is completed it will turn a large area of remaining forest into an island, under pressure from human activity on all sides.

Environmentalists have been warning about just this kind of development in the rainforest for decades. Roads are significant because most deforestation occurs alongside them, where access is easier and land value higher.

On the east side of the new road is a massively-deforested area where Brazil’s largest cattle herd, 2.4 million head, now grazes. This municipality of Sao Felix do Xingu is the country’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter, thanks to deforestation, according to Climate Observatory, a network of environmental groups. It is roughly the size of Maine and has a population of 136,000.

To the west is an area where three years ago ranchers coordinated the burning of several swaths of virgin forest in an episode famously known as the Day of Fire. This municipality, larger than Maryland, is Brazil’s eighth-largest greenhouse gas emitter.

Wedged in between is the Xingu basin. The Xingu River that runs through it is one of the main tributaries of the Amazon River. It begins in the drier Cerrado biome, surrounded by tens of thousands of square miles of protected areas.

The Xingu River is home to several Indigenous peoples, who are now pressed on both sides by an onslaught of settlers who have built a large network of dirt roads and illegal airstrips. Experts said the stakes could not be higher.

The opportunities for new deforestation “in the center of the corridor of protected areas of the Xingu brings the risk of an irreversible breaking of the Amazon rainforest, dividing it into islands of degraded forest, which does not have the strength to resist climate change. We need to protect and maintain large forest corridors to sustain the resilience of the threatened biome,” Biviany Rojas, the program coordinator of Socio-Environmental Institute, a Brazilian non-profit, told the Associated Press.

Almost half of Brazil’s climate pollution comes from deforestation, according to Climate Observatory. The destruction is so vast now that the eastern Amazon, just east of Xingu basin, has ceased to be a carbon sink, or absorber, for the Earth and has converted into a carbon source, according to a study published in 2021 in the journal Nature.

“They come to deforest, to extract timber and to dig for gold,” Indigenous leader Mydjere Kayapo told the AP in a phone interview. His people, the Kayapo, have suffered invasions from loggers and gold miners, who contaminate rivers with mud and mercury, co-opt leaders and provoke internal division.

The new road was detected earlier this year. According to satellite images analyzed by a network of nonprofits called Xingu+ and reviewed by the AP, it is 27 miles (43 kilometers) long.

The road cuts through two ostensibly protected areas: Terra do Meio (Middle Earth) Ecological Station, a federal unit, and Iriri State Forest, managed by the state of Pará, famous for its deforestation rates.

From January to August, Terra do Meio alone lost 9 square miles (24 square kilometers) of forest, and Iriri lost 6 square kilometers (2 square miles) of rainforest along the illegal road. In July, Xingu+ reported the illegal road-building to Brazil’s attorney general.

The city of Novo Progresso is also west of the new road. In recent days, the city has been covered by thick smoke from wildfires, deliberately set. On Monday alone, satellite sensors picked up 331 outbreaks of fire in the municipality, according to monitoring from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. August, which falls in the dry season, is typically the second worst month for both deforestation and fire.

Brazil’s federal agency ICMBio, which manages protected areas, and Pará’s secretary of environment, didn’t respond to AP emails seeking comment about the illegal road. These are the agencies responsible for protecting the areas flanking the road.

Under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, the area deforested in Brazil’s Amazon has reached a 15-year high, according to official data. The space agency said its national monitoring systems showed the Brazilian Amazon lost more than 5,000 square miles (13,200 square kilometers) of rainforest in the 12 months from Aug. 2020 to July 2021. New data is expected out by the end of the year.

____

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

LIFE & TIMES OF THE 1%

Paul Newman’s daughters sue late actor’s charity foundation
By DAVE COLLIN


1 of 4

FILE — Susan Newman, left, and Nell Newman arrive at the SeriousFun Children's Network event at the Dolby Theatre, May 14, 2015, in Los Angeles. A new lawsuit filed Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022, has exposed a deep rift between two of Paul Newman's daughters and the late actor's charitable foundation, over how it gives away some of the millions of dollars it makes off the Newman's Own line of food and drink products. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)


HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A new lawsuit has exposed a deep rift between two of Paul Newman’s daughters and the late actor’s charitable foundation funded by profits from the Newman’s Own line of food and drink products.

The daughters, Susan Kendall Newman and Nell Newman, allege their own charity organizations are both supposed to receive $400,000 a year from the Newman’s Own Foundation under a mandate by their father, but the foundation has cut those payments in half in recent years.

They filed a lawsuit Tuesday in state court in Stamford, Connecticut, seeking $1.6 million in damages to be donated to their foundations for charitable giving.

The daughters say their father, who started Newman’s Own Foundation three years before he died in 2008, allowed the foundation to use his name and likeness — but only on several conditions including giving each of the two daughters’ foundations $400,000 a year.

Susan Kendall Newman, who lives in Oregon, and Nell Newman, of California, worry the foundation is setting the stage to completely remove them from having any say in how some of profits from Newman’s Own products are donated to charities. They also accused the foundation of “contradicting” their father’s wishes and intentions for years.

“No one should have to feel that the legacy of a departed loved one is being dishonored in the way that Newman’s Own Foundation has disregarded the daughters of Paul Newman,” Andy Lee, a New York City attorney for the daughters, said in a statement.

“This lawsuit does not seek personal compensation for Mr. Newman’s daughters, but simply seeks to hold (Newman’s Own Foundation) accountable to the charities they have shortchanged in recent years and would ensure they receive an increased level of support in the future, in line with Mr. Newman’s wishes,” he said.

Newman’s Own Foundation has not yet filed a response to the lawsuit in court but has released a statement.

“Best practices surrounding philanthropic organizations do not allow for the establishment of perpetual funding allotments for anyone, including Nell and Susan Newman,” the statement said. “A meritless lawsuit based on this faulty wish would only divert money away from those who benefit from Paul Newman’s generosity.”

The foundation added, “While we expect to continue to solicit Newman family recommendations for worthy organizations, our funding decisions are made each year and will continue to reflect the clear aim of Paul Newman and our responsibility to the best practices governing private foundations.”

Paul Newman, who lived in Westport with his wife, actor Joanne Woodward, created the Newman’s Own brand in 1982, with all profits going to charities. Today the product line includes frozen pizza, salsa, salad dressings and pasta sauces, as well as dog food and pet treats.

In his will, Paul Newman left his assets to his wife and Newman’s Own Foundation.

Newman’s Own, the products company, is a subsidiary of Newman’s Own Foundation, a nonprofit organization. The foundation says more than $570 million has been given to thousands of charities since 1982.

According to 2020 tax records, the foundation had more than $24 million in income and paid out $11.5 million in contributions, gifts and grants. Operating and administrative expenses totaled nearly $4.5 million.

According to his daughters’ lawsuit, Newman’s Own Foundation wrote to them only four days after their father’s death, saying it would reserve the right to stop allocating funds to charities identified by the daughters. The lawsuit says that contradicted Paul Newman’s explicit instructions to the foundation.

SO WHY DIDN'T DADDY PUT THEM ON THE FOUNDATION BOARD

THE GOVERNOR IS NOT PRO LIFE

Oklahoma governor rejects clemency for death row inmate
By SEAN MURPHY and KEN MILLER

FILE - In this photo from a video screen, death row inmate James Coddington speaks to the Oklahoma Board of Pardon and Parole on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022, in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has rejected clemency for Coddington, who is facing execution for the 1997 hammer killing of a man. Stitt’s decision on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022, paves the way for Coddington to be executed by lethal injection on Thursday. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)


OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday rejected clemency for a man facing execution this week for the 1997 hammer killing of a Choctaw man, despite a recommendation from the state’s Pardon and Parole Board that his life be spared.

James Coddington was convicted and sentenced to die for the beating death of his friend and coworker, 73-year-old Albert Hale, inside Hale’s Choctaw home. Prosecutors say Coddington, who was 24 at the time, became enraged when Hale refused to give him money to buy cocaine.

Coddington’s execution is scheduled for Thursday morning.

“After thoroughly reviewing arguments and evidence presented by all sides of the case, Governor Kevin Stitt has denied the Pardon and Parole Board’s clemency recommendation for James Allen Coddington,” Stitt’s office said in a statement.

During a clemency hearing this month before the state’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board, an emotional Coddington, now 50, apologized to Hale’s family and said he is a different man today.

“I’m clean, I know God, I’m not ... I’m not a vicious murderer,” Coddington told the board. “If this ends today with my death sentence, OK.”

Mitch Hale, Albert Hale’s son who had urged the parole board not to recommend clemency, said he feels a sense of relief with Stitt’s decision.

“Our family can put this behind us after 25 years,” Hale, 64, said. “No one is ever happy that someone’s dying, but (Coddington) chose this path ... he knew what the consequences are, he rolled the dice and lost.”

Hale said he, his wife, goddaughter and a friend were en route to McAlester to attend the execution.

Coddington’s attorney, Emma Rolls, told the panel that Coddington was impaired by years of alcohol and drug abuse that began when he was an infant and his father put beer and whiskey into his baby bottles.

Rolls said Coddington doesn’t have any pending appeals that would delay or stop his execution on Thursday.

“While we are profoundly disheartened by this decision, we appreciate the pardons board’s careful consideration of James Coddington’s life and case, Rolls said in a statement following Stitt’s announcement.

“The Board’s clemency recommendation acknowledged James’s sincere remorse and meaningful transformation during his years on death row,” Rolls said.

The Rev. Don Heath, chair of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said “there is no mercy or forgiveness” in Stitt’s heart.

“I am surprised, and, quite honestly, angry at Gov. Stitt’s rejection of clemency for James Coddington. Stitt’s statement does not give a reason for his denial — it simply states that a jury convicted Coddington of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death,” Heath said in a statement.

“We have 25 executions scheduled over the next 29 months. I am afraid that the Pardon and Parole Board hearings will be moot exercises,” Heath said.

The parole board had voted 3-2 to recommend Coddington for clemency.

Stitt, a Republican, had said he planned to meet with Hale’s family, prosecutors and Coddington’s attorneys before making his decision.

Coddington was twice sentenced to death for Hale’s killing, the second time in 2008 after his initial sentence was overturned on appeal.

Stitt has granted clemency only one time, in November, to death row inmate Julius Jones just hours before Jones was scheduled to receive a lethal injection. The first-term governor commuted Jones’ sentence to life in prison without parole.

Jones’ case had drawn national attention after it was featured in “The Last Defense,” a three-episode documentary that cast doubt on Jones’ conviction, and there were numerous protests in Oklahoma City in the days leading up to Jones’ scheduled execution date.

Stitt said in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this month that had he allowed Jones’ execution to go forward “that would have definitely torn our state apart.”

Coddington’s execution would the the fifth since Oklahoma resumed carrying out the death penalty in October.

The state had halted executions in September 2015 when prison officials realized they had received the wrong lethal drug.

It was later learned the same wrong drug had been used previously to execute an inmate, and executions in the state were put on hold.

Alberta school boards say they shouldn't be using savings to pay teachers


While the Alberta government touts an upcoming net provincial increase in school staff this fall, growing school boards say drawing from their savings accounts to hire more teachers is unsustainable.


Some growing Alberta school divisions say they have to pull money 

out of savings to cover the cost of staffing their schools.© Bryan Labby/CBC

The provincial government says school divisions and charter schools will pull millions of dollars out of their reserves to help pay for approximately 800 more teachers and 790 more support staff in the coming school year.

"I'm thrilled to see more teachers and educational assistants will be hired in the coming school year," Education Minister Adriana LaGrange said in a press release on Wednesday.

LaGrange's acting press secretary, Erin Allin, also said school divisions with more than two per cent enrolment growth will also qualify for a new $7 million grant to help them handle the influx of pupils.

The population of Alberta K-12 students continues to grow. The ministry projects that more than 760,000 students will enrol in school this September— a jump of 2.1 per cent from the previous year.

Enrolment changes

Meanwhile, growing school boards continue to warn that the province's $142 million increase to the education budget isn't keeping pace with inflation or enrolment growth. The flux in staffing for the coming school year also varies widely across Alberta.

Leduc-based Black Gold School Division is drawing more than $2.4 million from its savings — with the minister's permission — and almost all of it will pay for staff to accommodate an anticipated 4.3 per cent enrolment decrease.

But, the division also budgeted for 13 fewer education assistants in classrooms to help pay for more teachers.

Superintendent Bill Romanchuk said in an email on Friday he hopes extra funding from a one-year learning disruption grant announced in June will help to hire some of them back.

"Drawing from reserves for any organization is unsustainable," Romanchuk wrote. "With this in mind, we are working to build capacity in each school to minimize the effect of reduced staffing in upcoming years."

Teacher and support staff numbers for 2022-23

Also dipping into savings to pay for staff is Edmonton Public Schools. School board chair Trisha Estabrooks said half of the $10 million draw down will pay for salaries to help educate an extra 2,800 students expected to enrol this fall.

Reserves should instead be used for unanticipated costs and emergencies, she said.

With a provincial funding formula that sees grants lag behind enrolment growth, the division calculates it will be short of the funding equivalent for 1,700 students.

"This is indicative of a broken funding model, right?" Estabrooks said on Thursday. "For large school divisions, this model doesn't work for us."

To soften that blow, the education ministry is giving some school divisions "bridge funding," which they intend to phase out over time.

The $7 million set aside for school divisions experiencing exceptional growth is a drop in the bucket compared to the need, Estabrooks said.

Allin said that exceptional growth funding could be higher if enrolment exceeds predictions.

Phasing out a parallel system of online schooling that was in place for much of the COVID-19 pandemic also means Edmonton Public is planning to employ 218 fewer teachers and 128 fewer support staff this coming year.

Similarly, the Calgary Board of Education is preparing for an influx of more than 1,500 new students – enough to fill a high school — with an increase of 12 full-time teaching staff. Calgary Catholic Schools is expecting 543 more pupils this year and will have three fewer teachers to work with.

Projected Alberta school budgets

Alberta Teachers' Association president Jason Schilling says asking school divisions to dip into rainy day funds to cover the ongoing cost of doing business is problematic.

"It tells me that the government's not serious about funding education appropriately," he said Thursday.

In addition to larger class sizes, teachers are seeing increasingly complex classes populated by students with more diverse needs.

The ministry is also handing schools $50 million more than it promised in the spring budget to help them pay the costs of a new collective agreement for teachers.

Dove Canada Throws Shade Over Lisa LaFlamme’s Controversial Ousting

Brent Furdyk -

Lisa LaFlamme© Photo by George Pimentel/Shutterstock

Canadian TV viewers were shocked when longtime "CTV National News" anchor Lisa LaFlamme was let go by the network's parent company, Bell Media.

That shock turned to outrage when reports emerged indicating the reason behind LaFlamme's ouster was her decision to stop dyeing her hair, with the Globe and Mail quoting a "senior company official" who said that execs were uncomfortable with her her decision to let her hair revert to its natural grey.

Bell Media took to social media for some damage control, announcing that steps are being taken "to initiate an independent third-party internal workplace review of our newsroom."

Meanwhile, controversy has only been growing since LaFlamme parted ways with her employer of 35 years, even meriting an op-ed in the Washington Post, and now an iconic Canadian soap brand is wading into the fray.

In posts on Twitter and Instagram, Dove Canada subtly threw some shade with a new campaign urging women to #KeepTheGrey.

"Age is beautiful. Women should be able to do it on their own terms, without any consequences. Dove is donating $100,000 to Catalyst, a Canadian organization helping building inclusive workplaces for all women," reads the caption.

This is accompanied by a video, in which the text "women with grey hair are being edged out of the place," can be read, along with "together we can support women aging beautifully on their own terms," which then features a colour photo of a woman that fades to grey, urging others to transform their own selfies into greyscale and share with the aforementioned hashtag.

Here's a sampling of how people have been responding to Dove Canada's new campaign on Twitter.

Workers say employers are guilty of 'quiet firing' them as the debate over 'quiet quitting' goes viral

bnguyen@insider.com (Britney Nguyen) - 

ciricvelibor/Getty Images© ciricvelibor/Getty Images
The term "quiet quitting" is going viral online, but social media is pushing back at what it means.
Some argue the term is making employees look bad for just doing the job they're paid to do.
"Quiet firing" is placing blame on bosses for treating workers badly instead of firing them.

"Quiet quitting" is the latest buzzword taking over the workplace. But people on social media are arguing the term is focusing on the wrong problem.

The term, which took off on TikTok among millennials and Gen Zers, is referring to employees doing what their job expects of them, and not offering to do more than what they get paid to do.

In a post on the r/antiwork Reddit page, one user wrote that quiet quitting is just "someone only doing what's in their job description and nothing more."

"Why is it apparently an expectation that someone should do more than what they have been hired to do?," the user wrote.

Enter "quiet firing" — the response to quiet quitting.

Quiet firing, as people on social media are describing it, is when employers treat workers badly to the point they will quit, instead of the employer just firing them.

Related video: Quiet Quitting Duration 1:32  View on Watch

In a reply to a tweet about quiet quitting, software developer Randy Miller said, "A lot of talk about 'quiet quitting' but very little talk about 'quiet firing' which is when you don't give someone a raise in 5 years even though they keep doing everything you ask them to."

But a raise isn't the only indicator of quiet firing. Others on social media pointed to lack of respect from employers, and bosses expecting workers to do extra work without being compensated for it, as red flags.

Another Twitter user pointed to minimal paid time off and minimal sick time as indicators of being quietly fired, too.

The debate between quiet quitting and quiet firing is reminiscent of a larger conversation about the relationship between employers and employees.

For example, employers were complaining about employees "ghosting coasting" — showing up to work as a new employee for a few days, then leaving without notice before they could be fired for being under-qualified.

But employees said it was employers who had been ghosting job applicants for years, by not returning calls and not showing up to job interviews.

While employers are placing blame on employees for not going above and beyond at their jobs by calling them "quitters," the quiet-firing crowd is pointing out that they shouldn't have to if their needs can't be met too.

Have you been 'quiet fired,' or 'quiet fired' someone? Contact the reporter from a non-work email at bnguyen@insider.com.

AN ISSUE FOR DEMS TO RUN ON

AP-NORC poll: Most in US say they want stricter gun laws

By SARA BURNETT

yesterday

Various guns are displayed at a store on July 18, 2022, in Auburn, Maine. Most U.S. adults think gun violence is increasing nationwide and want to see gun laws made stricter. That's according to a new poll that finds broad public support for a variety of gun restrictions. The poll comes from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)


CHICAGO (AP) — Most U.S. adults want to see gun laws made stricter and think gun violence is increasing nationwide, according to a new poll that finds broad public support for a variety of gun restrictions, including many that are supported by majorities of Republicans and gun owners.

The poll by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows 71% of Americans say gun laws should be stricter, including about half of Republicans, the vast majority of Democrats and a majority of those in gun-owning households.

The poll was conducted between July 28 and Aug. 1, after a string of deadly mass shootings — from a New York grocery store to a school in Texas and a July 4 parade in Illinois — and a 2020 spike in gun killings that have increased attention on the issue of gun violence. Overall, 8 in 10 Americans perceive that gun violence is increasing around the country, and about two-thirds say it’s increasing in their state, though less than half believe it’s increasing in their community, the poll shows.

The question of how to prevent such violence has long divided politicians and many voters, making it difficult to change gun laws. In June, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court expanded gun rights, finding a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

Later that same month, President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan gun safety bill. The package, approved in the wake of shootings like the one that killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, was both a measured compromise and the most significant bill addressing gun violence to be approved in Congress in decades — an indication of how intractable the issue has become.

The poll finds that majorities of U.S. adults view both reducing gun violence and protecting gun ownership as important issues.

Nicole Whitelaw, 29, is a Democrat and gun owner who grew up hunting and target shooting in upstate New York with her strongly Republican family. Whitelaw, who now lives along Florida’s Gulf Coast, supports some gun restrictions, such as prohibiting people convicted of domestic violence from owning firearms and a federal law preventing mentally ill people from purchasing guns.

She said other restrictions — such as banning sales of AR-15 rifles — are “going too far” and may not solve the problem. Whitelaw pointed to the the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people bought up all the toilet paper they could find.

“I think people would start trying to hoard guns,” she said, adding that a better approach is to make smaller changes and see what impact they have.

The poll shows bipartisan majorities of Americans support a nationwide background check policy for all gun sales, a law preventing mentally ill people from purchasing guns, allowing courts to temporarily prevent people who are considered a danger to themselves or others from purchasing a gun, making 21 the minimum age to buy a gun nationwide and banning those who have been convicted of domestic violence from purchasing a gun.

A smaller majority of Americans — 59% — favor a ban on the sale of AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic weapons, with Democrats more likely to support that policy than Republicans, 83% vs. 35%.

Chris Boylan, 47, from Indianapolis, opposes restrictions on guns. As a teacher for many years, Boylan said he has “buried more kids than I care to count” and believes gun violence is a major problem. But the Republican, who said he leans more toward Libertarian in his personal stances, believes the issue is more about mental health and a too-lenient criminal justice system.

“Blaming the gun is an oversimplification of what the issues really are,” Boylan said. “It’s not the gun. It’s a hearts-and-minds issue to me.”

The new poll finds 88% of Americans call preventing mass shootings extremely or very important, and nearly as many say that about reducing gun violence in general. But 60% also say it’s very important to ensure that people can own guns for personal protection.

Overall, 52% of Americans -- including 65% of Republicans and 39% of Democrats -- say both reducing mass shootings and protecting the right to own guns for personal protection highly important.

University of Chicago professor Jens Ludwig said the poll’s findings show that concerns raised by opponents of gun restrictions are “very off base.” Led by the National Rifle Association, the gun lobby argues that any new limitations on who may have a gun or what type of firearms may be sold will lead to nationwide bans on all weapons and ammunition.

The poll showed most Americans’ opinions are more nuanced and there is support for some changes even among Republicans, who as elected officials typically oppose gun control, said Ludwig, who also is director of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab.

“It should shut the door to some of the ‘slippery slope’ arguments,” he said.

The poll also found that only about 3 in 10 Americans support a law allowing people to carry guns in public without a permit. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats are opposed. Among Republicans, 47% are in favor and 39% are opposed.

Ervin Leach, 66, lives in Troutman, North Carolina, north of Charlotte, believes gun violence is a major problem and says that laws should be much more strict. A Democrat, Leach said he supports measures like background checks — or what he said should be “in-depth studies” — and a minimum age of 21 to buy a gun.

The poll found 1 in 5 people have experienced gun violence themselves in the last five years, such as being threatened with a gun or a shooting victim, or had a close friend or family member who has. Black and Hispanic Americans are especially likely to say that they or someone close to them has experienced gun violence.

Leach, who is Black, said the gun violence he sees in the news has made him more cautious.

“I don’t like people approaching me,” he said. “It used to be if someone was on the side of the road, you’d stop to help. Now, you go to help somebody, you might lose your life.”

All the killings have caused Leach to contemplate buying a gun for his own protection. While he hasn’t had a chance yet to get his gun permit, he said, “That is my intention.”

___

AP Polling Reporter Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report.

___

The poll of 1,373 adults was conducted July 28-Aug. 1 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of gun violence at https://apnews.com/hub/gun-violence.

Just over half of Americans say U.S. should back Ukraine until Russia withdraws - Reuters/Ipsos poll

By Simon Lewis

August 24, 2022,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After half a year of war in Ukraine, a slim majority of Americans agree that the United States should continue to support Kyiv until Russia withdraws all its forces, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Wednesday.

The polling suggests continued support for President Joe Biden's policy of backing Ukraine, despite economic worries and domestic political developments grabbing Americans' attention in recent months.

The Biden administration has provided weapons and ammunition for Ukraine's bid to repel Russian forces and is expected to announce a new security assistance package of about $3 billion, a U.S. official said, as Ukraine's marks its Independence Day on Wednesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has vowed to recapture territory seized after the Feb. 24 invasion and in earlier incursions beginning in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.

Out of 1,005 people in the United States who took part in an online poll last week, 53% expressed support for backing Ukraine "until all Russian forces are withdrawn from territory claimed by Ukraine." Only 18% said they opposed.

That support came from both sides of the political divide, although Democratic voters were more likely to back the position, with 66% of Democrats in support compared to 51% of Republicans.

A slim majority, 51%, also supported providing arms such as guns and anti-tank weapons to Ukraine's military, compared with 22% who opposed.

In previous polls, higher numbers of Americans have backed providing arms to Ukraine but directly comparable polling was not available.

In line with past polling, there was little support among Americans from across the political spectrum for sending U.S. troops to Ukraine. Only 26% said they supported such an intervention, but 43% agreed with sending U.S. troops to NATO allies neighboring Ukraine who are not at war with Russia.

The poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Mary Milliken and Cynthia Osterman)

REACTIONARIES

Anti-mandate protesters converge on New Zealand Parliament

By NICK PERRY

yesterday

1 of 8

Freedom and Rights Coalition protesters demonstrate outside Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. About 2,000 protesters upset with the government's pandemic response converged on New Zealand's Parliament — but it appeared there would be no repeat of the action six months ago in which protesters camped out on Parliament grounds for more than three weeks.

 (Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald via AP)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — About 2,000 protesters upset with the government’s pandemic response converged Tuesday on New Zealand’s Parliament — but there was no repeat of the occupation six months ago in which protesters camped on Parliament grounds for more than three weeks.

Many of the protesters said they had no intention of trying to stay. And police ensured a repeat was unlikely by closing streets, erecting barricades and banning protesters from bringing structures onto Parliament’s grounds.

The previous protest created significant disruptions in the capital and ended in chaos as retreating protesters set fire to tents and hurled rocks at police.

This time there was also a counter-protest, with several hundred people gathering in front of Parliament as the main march entered the grounds. The two sides shouted insults but a line of police officers kept them physically separated.

The earlier protest had been more sharply focused on opposition to COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

New Zealand’s government initially required that health workers, teachers, police, firefighters and soldiers get vaccinated. But it has since removed most of those mandates, with the exception of health workers and some others. It has also removed requirements that people be vaccinated to visit stores and bars

Tuesday’s protest was as much about lingering discontentment over the government’s handling of the crisis as it was about current rules, including a requirement that people wear masks in stores.

Protester Carmen Page said people who hadn’t been vaccinated face ongoing discrimination and people lost their jobs and homes as a result of the mandates, which she said amounted to government overreach.

“We’re not here to be controlled,” Page said. “We just want to live our lives freely. We want to work where we want to work, without discrimination.”

At the counter-protest, Lynne Maugham said she and her husband had extended a stay in the capital to attend.

“I’ve got nothing but respect for the mandates, for the vaccinations, for the way the health providers have handled the whole thing,” she said.

Maugham said the government hadn’t done everything perfectly but had done a good job overall. “There’s no blueprint for handling a pandemic,” she said.

Like many of the protesters opposing mandates and other government’s actions, Mania Hungahunga was part of a group called The Freedom & Rights Coalition and a member of the Christian fundamentalist Destiny Church.

Hungahunga said every New Zealander had been negatively impacted by the mandates. He said he’d traveled from Auckland to protest but wasn’t planning an occupation.

“We’re just here for the day, a peaceful day, just to get our message through to the public and the people of Wellington,” he said.

Many of the protesters said they were hoping that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern would get voted out in next year’s election. Protest leader Brian Tamaki told the crowd he was starting a new political party to contest the election.

Tamaki and his wife, Hannah Tamaki, founded the Destiny Church, which they say is the largest Māori and Pacific Island church movement in New Zealand.

Ardern was first elected prime minister in 2017 and her initial pandemic response proved enormously popular. Her liberal Labour Party won re-election in 2020 in a landslide of historic proportions.

But as the pandemic dragged on and the country faced new problems, including inflation, Ardern’s popularity has waned. Recent opinion polls have put the conservative opposition National Party ahead of Labour.

Authorities said there were no initial reports of violence or other problems at the protests.