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[mariacallous]

When Jay Bulckaert answered his phone, he was standing in a fire break clearing brush in Kam Lake, just outside of Yellowknife, the capital city of Canada’s Northwest Territories. Just miles away, a massive wildfire is stalking the city and threatening to move closer as the winds shift. Thousands of people have left Yellowknife since an evacuation order was announced Wednesday evening. Not Bulckaert, though, nor the other volunteers who showed up Friday morning to do whatever they could to stop the fire from razing the city of 20,000. “It’s all hands on deck,” he says.

They divvied up tasks as soon as they met up Friday. Doing admin work, driving buses and tractors, operating chain saws, feeding the crew—everyone brings something to the table. “Right now we’re clearing brush. Probably next we’ll be moving sprinklers. We’re just a rag-tag crew of locals that showed up here and volunteered to help the effort. We’re going to do whatever they ask us to do,” says Bulckaert, who normally works as a filmmaker.

Bulckaert doesn’t plan to leave, and won’t until officials force him to. He’s part of Yellowknife’s last line of defense. “This is my town,” he says. “I’m here until the bitter end.”

Yellowknife is in the southern portion of the Northwest Territories, sitting on the shore of Great Slave Lake, the deepest in North America and the world’s tenth largest by area. It is named for people of the Dene First Nation, a group of Indigenous peoples who together represent 28 percent of the territory’s population.

The city is surrounded by boreal forest, the world’s largest intact forest ecosystem, stretching from the tip of Newfoundland and Labrador in the east to Alaska in the west. In the part within the Northwest Territories, a collection of conifers—spruce, firs, pines—and other native plants are home to hundreds of species of wild animals, including bears, bison, beavers, wolves, ravens, and porcupines. At night, it’s not uncommon to see the Northern Lights dance across the treetops.

Two million hectares—more than 8,200 square miles—of this pristine wilderness has burned since May, in what is now the worst year on record for forest fires across Canada. More than 1,000 wildfires are currently burning across the country. This season, a total of 5,767 fires have been recorded. Together, they’ve burned 14 million hectares, an area roughly the size of the US state of Alabama, or the total area of Greece.

The Northwest Territories alone have 236 active fires right now. The one closest to Yellowknife—the territory’s only real city—is named ZF015. That fire, along with another closer to Ingraham Trail, a local highway, have “encircled” the city in flames, says territory information officer Mike Westwick. Across the North Slave region, thousands of people have been forced from their homes and into evacuation centers, strangers’ spare bedrooms, and camping trailers across Alberta, the closest province to the south of the territory.

On the phone from a rest stop in Grand Prairie, Alberta, nearly 1,200 kilometers from Yellowknife, recent high school graduate Naledi Ndlovu describes her family’s drive out of the city.

On Wednesday evening, they left the city in a convoy of three cars, just before the formal evacuation was ordered. Ndlovu says smoke and fire laced the edges of Highway 3, the only road out of town. Frantic wildlife, including bears, ran alongside the road, while others lay dead on the shoulder, having not been able to escape.

Ndlovu’s father gripped the steering wheel as the sun set and the sky darkened. The highway was packed with scared, frustrated drivers weaving from exhaustion through an endless haze of smoke. “At some point it got so smoky that we couldn’t see the cars in front of us,” Ndlovu says. “People were just panicking during that drive. People are trying to make it to the safety area as fast as they can—overtaking other people really fast.”

Along the way, the family’s Toyota Tundra pickup got rear-ended—not the only accident as people rushed to overtake others on the undivided highway. Then, a tire blew. When they got out to examine the truck, they discovered that all four of their rubber tires had deformed due to the heat of the road.

Ndlovu’s family will have to get a new set of tires before continuing to Calgary, another seven hours’ drive south.

Yellowknife is not the only community in the region under an evacuation order. The Dene communities of N’dilo, Dettah, and Kakisa were told to leave over the past week, as have the people of Hay River, Enterprise, Fort Smith, K’atlodeeche First Nation, and a handful of other towns.

Garth Carman left his Hay River home on Sunday afternoon, just as the evacuation order was issued for the town.

He and wife Linda had taken in five cats from people in Fort Smith when their evacuation order came in the day before. He loaded the cats into his new Jeep—along with his own three cats—and hit the road, with Linda following behind in her Subaru Legacy station wagon. As they made their way three hours east to Fort Resolution, a wave of flames rolled over the highway. Trees exploded. “Boom, boom, boom. They were coming towards us faster than you can run,” he says. “Instantly the air got super hot and humid, like looking into a kettle of boiling water.”

Trucks and trailers careened as they spun around to escape. In the chaos Carman lost track of his wife. Poor cell service and even worse internet connectivity made it impossible to find her. Only when he saw her Subaru in the Hay River airport parking lot did he learn she’d been sent to Alberta. Reunited since midweek at a friend’s house near the town of Valleyview, the pair are now taking care of 16 cats.

Back in Hay River, Ginger Murphy reckons a fifth of the town’s population, roughly 500 people, stayed behind despite the order to leave.

Each day since the town was evacuated, Murphy has woken by 8 am, grabbed a coffee, and checked in on people’s loved ones and pets. Once everyone has been accounted for, she heads over to Enterprise to look for the missing pets that displaced owners are fretting over. That town, about a half-hour drive south from Hay River, is about 90 percent destroyed, save for a handful of homes and city buildings. “Enterprise looks really bad,” she says. “A lot of it got burned.”

More than half of the Northwest Territories’ 45,000 people left their homes this month because of the threat of fire, and that number will only increase as more people heed the warnings of Yellowknife officials.

According to local officials, just over 5,100 vehicles have crossed over the Deh Cho bridge, which crosses the Mackenzie River about 300 kilometers south of Yellowknife. Another 1,500 people left Yellowknife by plane on Thursday, and near-hourly flights on military, charter, and commercial planes on Friday had room for 2,000 more. Airlines are asking people to crate their animals. It’s a lot to ask for many Yellowknifers, who tend to let their cats live a cage-free existence.

One of them is Theo, a handsome gray tabby with jade-colored eyes. As people left Yellowknife en masse, Megan Cooper, Theo’s owner, spent most of the week desperately trying to get back home to rescue him and her pup, Dandelion.

She’d been on vacation in Europe, but hadn’t been having a great time the past few days. Instead, she was glued to her phone, barely sleeping and desperately scrolling for information about the fires, about a possible evacuation, about how to get her pets to safety. Online, rumors swirled about the fire and what the city was doing about it, adding to the stress. She was wracked with guilt, unsure Theo would come if a stranger called him out of the brush.

She decided to hop on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris and then board a nine-hour flight to Calgary, with every intention of making it back home to Yellowknife in time to pack her animals up in her van and head south. By the time she landed in Alberta, a friend of a friend—a total stranger—had lured Theo out by shaking a package of cat treats. Cooper will soon travel to Edmonton to be reunited with her pets who, at the time of writing, are en route to the city.

Cooper is trying to remain optimistic by reminding herself of the collective resilience of Yellowknife. The community is one stitched together by a mutual love for nature, adventure, and isolation. “It’s a capital city with people from wildly different backgrounds—a relatively large immigrant population, a mining town, a community on traditional Dene territory, and a hub for the Western Arctic,” she says. “Yellowknifers love being out on the land and are especially self-sufficient and capable people who trade easy access to some modern conveniences for the freedom and adventure that offers,” she says.

On the outskirts of Yellowknife, the city and private entrepreneurs have installed massive fuel breaks measuring 100 meters by 15,000 meters in efforts to stop the fire in its tracks. Firefighters from across Canada and from as far away as South Africa are working to suppress the fires closest to population centers. Ignition operations—setting intentional fires to eliminate fuel sources—have also been deployed alongside a maze of sprinklers and a coating of fire retardant.

The community and its allies are working shoulder to shoulder to save Yellowknife as the fire inches closer. It’s likely to hit the edge of the city this weekend if the weather continues to be uncooperative.

“The idea of it burning down is devastating,” says Cooper. “Nowhere can replace it.”

[avilahomesolutionsblog-blog]

How You Can Avoid Paying Taxes with a 1031 Exchange

What is a 1031 exchange?

"In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes" said the wise Benjamin Franklin. Well.. that was before the 1031 tax exchange bill. Before you sell that investment property, wait up and read this article because you could be saving yourself some Benjamins!

A 1031 tax deferred exchange is defined under section 1031 of the IRS code. A 1031 tax exchange is a process in which property owners can defer payment of capital gains taxes of an investment property by reinvesting the proceeds from that sale on another "like-kind" property within a certain timeframe.

Capital Gains Taxes

When you make a profit on the sale of a property, uncle Same will ask you for a piece of that pie in the form of, you guessed it, taxes. If you sell a property that is not your primary residence that you’ve held for at least a year, you are responsible for paying capital gains taxes on the profit and could be up to 15% of the sale price. They are calculated based on the difference between the sale price and the original price you paid.

In order to avoid paying taxes, the property must be transferred to a "qualified intermediary", which can be another person or company that helps facilitate the exchange of the property by holding the funds until they can be transferred to the seller of the new property.

What Are the Benefits of a 1031 Exchange?

The main and most obvious benefit is the tax savings. With a 1031 exchange, you can defer on paying capital gains taxes (sometimes forever if you do it  right!) which frees up your capital so you can invest in a new property and continue building wealth. Sounds amazing right? It is!

How To Choose a Replacement Property- Timing and Rules

1. Like-kind properties

Like-kind properties have more to do with their purpose and less to do with their physical aspects. In order to qualify a like-kind property, both properties being exchanged must be used for business or investment purposes. In addition, like-kind property "must be of the same nature or character", even if they differ in grade or quality. To put it another way, you can't exchange a John Deer tractor for a duplex because they're not the same asset. Seems obvious, but the law doesn't allow for misinterpretations! However, you could exchange a single family home for a condo, or a larger property for multiple smaller ones.

Just make sure both properties being exchanged are within the United States in order to qualify for a 1031 exchange.

2. Greater or Equal Value The rule says that in order to defer a 100% of the tax, the new property purchased must have a value that is equal to or greater than the property being sold. You also have to reinvest all of the money you receive from the sale into the new property (closing costs and broker fees go towards this price).

3. Properties Must Be  Investment or Business Properties (No residences allowed!) You may use a 1031 exchange for investment or business purposes only. To give you an example, if you move from Alabama to California,  you may not swap out your house in Alabama for a new one in California. (I wish it  were that simple!). But you could exchange a single-family rental in Alabama for a condo in California. See how that works?

4. May Not Receive "Boot"

Let's say you sold your property for $200,000 and you exchange it for another that is $150,000 (50k less). You would have to pay capital gains taxes on the $50,000 difference, also known as "the boot".

5. Same Tax Payer In a 1031 exchange, the taxpayer who owns the relinquished property must also be the same titleholder who takes ownership of the new property. If you own a single member limited liability company (smllc), you may use that company you own as the new titleholder and still be in compliance with the 1031 exchange code.

6. 45 Day Identification Window This rule says that the seller of the relinquished property has 45 days from the date of sale of the relinquished property to find up to 3 potential replacement properties.

Exceptions to the Rule ->200% Rule - If you want to identify more than 3 properties, you can use the 200% rule. The 200% rule states that you can identify any number of properties as long as the total value does not exceed twice the market value of the relinquished property.

7. 180 Day Purchase Window The exchange must be completed no later than 180 days after the sale of the relinquished property or the due date of your Federal income tax return for the tax year in which the relinquished property was sold, whichever comes first.

Summing it Up

As you can see, there's many rules and intricacies to the 1031 exchange that might intimidate even the most seasoned investors. If you acquire a property at a loss because it was a poor investment, you're still responsible for paying taxes on the relinquished property and this could spell out financial ruin. It is critical that you have a firm understanding of the ebbs and flows of the real estate market, and general real estate investing before getting started in real estate. But, if you take time to educate yourself and work with a reputable exchange facilitator,  you may avoid paying thousands in taxes and create substantial wealth too! If you’re an investor looking for a new opportunity and need sell to sell quickly, Avila Home Solutions buys properties in less than 10 days.

[landscapeusa]

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[orbemnews]

Biden Administration Ramps Up Debt Relief Program to Help Black Farmers Representative James E. Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat who played an influential role in helping Mr. Biden secure the party’s presidential nomination, has also been a major voice highlighting the experience of Black farmers and helped drive the stimulus provisions, according to congressional staff aides. The funding aims to address longstanding problems with discrimination at the Agriculture Department — particularly its refusal to grant farmers of color the same access to capital that helped tide over white farmers during difficult periods in history. Minority farmers have confronted other issues, like a lack of access to legal services that have complicated farm inheritances, and a lack of public investment in rural communities and on reservations, including in the water supply and roads and transportation to get farm products to market. Those factors led to a substantial loss of land. While the number of farmers in the United States has fallen sharply over the past century as farms mechanized and more people found work in factories and offices, Black farmers suffered disproportionately. According to Agriculture Department data, in 1920, the United States had 925,708 Black farmers, making up 14 percent of farmers in the country. But by 2017, only 35,470 of the nation’s more than two million farms were run by Black producers, or 1.7 percent. Joe Patterson, 70, whose family has farmed in the Mississippi Delta for decades, said discriminatory lending had forced many Black farmers around him out of business over the years, and led to some lean times for his own family. Frequently Asked Questions About the New Stimulus Package How big are the stimulus payments in the bill, and who is eligible? The stimulus payments would be $1,400 for most recipients. Those who are eligible would also receive an identical payment for each of their children. To qualify for the full $1,400, a single person would need an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or below. For heads of household, adjusted gross income would need to be $112,500 or below, and for married couples filing jointly that number would need to be $150,000 or below. To be eligible for a payment, a person must have a Social Security number. Read more. What would the relief bill do about health insurance? Buying insurance through the government program known as COBRA would temporarily become a lot cheaper. COBRA, for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, generally lets someone who loses a job buy coverage via the former employer. But it’s expensive: Under normal circumstances, a person may have to pay at least 102 percent of the cost of the premium. Under the relief bill, the government would pay the entire COBRA premium from April 1 through Sept. 30. A person who qualified for new, employer-based health insurance someplace else before Sept. 30 would lose eligibility for the no-cost coverage. And someone who left a job voluntarily would not be eligible, either. Read more What would the bill change about the child and dependent care tax credit? This credit, which helps working families offset the cost of care for children under 13 and other dependents, would be significantly expanded for a single year. More people would be eligible, and many recipients would get a bigger break. The bill would also make the credit fully refundable, which means you could collect the money as a refund even if your tax bill was zero. “That will be helpful to people at the lower end” of the income scale, said Mark Luscombe, principal federal tax analyst at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting. Read more. What student loan changes are included in the bill? There would be a big one for people who already have debt. You wouldn’t have to pay income taxes on forgiven debt if you qualify for loan forgiveness or cancellation — for example, if you’ve been in an income-driven repayment plan for the requisite number of years, if your school defrauded you or if Congress or the president wipes away $10,000 of debt for large numbers of people. This would be the case for debt forgiven between Jan. 1, 2021, and the end of 2025. Read more. What would the bill do to help people with housing? The bill would provide billions of dollars in rental and utility assistance to people who are struggling and in danger of being evicted from their homes. About $27 billion would go toward emergency rental assistance. The vast majority of it would replenish the so-called Coronavirus Relief Fund, created by the CARES Act and distributed through state, local and tribal governments, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. That’s on top of the $25 billion in assistance provided by the relief package passed in December. To receive financial assistance — which could be used for rent, utilities and other housing expenses — households would have to meet several conditions. Household income could not exceed 80 percent of the area median income, at least one household member must be at risk of homelessness or housing instability, and individuals would have to qualify for unemployment benefits or have experienced financial hardship (directly or indirectly) because of the pandemic. Assistance could be provided for up to 18 months, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Lower-income families that have been unemployed for three months or more would be given priority for assistance. Read more. “When it all boiled down to it, it was a lack of funds that kept the Black farmers down,” said Mr. Patterson, who spoke by phone from the cab of a tractor he had pulled over to the side of the road. “If we had the same amount of investment that the other farmers had, a lot of Black farmers would still be farming this date.” He added, “But because they didn’t have those funds, each year would get worse and worse.” Anthony Daniels, a Democrat in Alabama’s state legislature who serves on the board of One Country Project, a Democratic group focused on rural issues, said that many Black farmers were still suffering from burdensome debt, and that the stimulus provisions would help them pay off loans and related taxes. Source link Orbem News #administration #Biden #Black #Debt #farmers #Program #Ramps #relief

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

The pandemic destroyed 225 million jobs worldwide, but billionaires got richer, reports find (Washington Post) At least 225 million full-time jobs disappeared worldwide last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report published Monday by the International Labor Organization, losses four times worse than those from the global financial crisis in 2009. But the ultrarich have seen their wealth soar. According to another report released Monday, by the anti-poverty nonprofit group Oxfam, the combined wealth of the world’s 10 richest men has risen by more than $500 billion since the crisis began—enough to vaccinate the entire planet and then some, according to the organization. Both sets of findings identify rising inequity as one of the pandemic’s principal outcomes. “Job destruction has disproportionately affected low-paid and low‑skilled jobs,” which “points to the risk of an uneven recovery, leading to still greater inequality in the coming years,” the ILO found. That unevenness is already apparent: Global poverty could take 14 times longer to return to pre-pandemic levels than the recovery of the world’s wealthiest, according to Oxfam. Last year, 8.8 percent of global working hours were lost, according to the report by the ILO, a U.N. agency. It found “unprecedented disruption” among global labor markets, and that women and young people have felt the worst impact.

US virus numbers drop, but race against new strains heats up (AP) Coronavirus deaths and cases per day in the U.S. dropped markedly over the past couple of weeks but are still running at alarmingly high levels, and the effort to snuff out COVID-19 is becoming an ever more urgent race between the vaccine and the mutating virus. The government’s top infectious-disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said the improvement in numbers around the country appears to reflect a “natural peaking and then plateauing” after a holiday surge, rather than the arrival of the vaccine in mid-December. The U.S. is recording just under 3,100 deaths a day on average, down from more than 3,350 less than two weeks ago. New cases are averaging about 170,000 a day after peaking at almost 250,000 on Jan. 11. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has fallen to about 110,000 from a high of 132,000 on Jan. 7.

California lifts virus stay-at-home order and curfew (AP) Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted stay-at-home orders across the state Monday in response to improving coronavirus conditions, a surprising move hailed by beleaguered businesses but that prompted caution from local health officials concerned the public may let down its guard. The turnaround puts California in a starkly different place than it was last month, when some Southern California hospitals overwhelmed by virus patients were crafting emergency plans for rationing care. Newsom crafted the stay-at-home order in December as coronavirus cases worsened and in anticipation of surges from holiday gatherings. He divided the state into five regions and ultimately four of them had the order imposed because their ICU capacity fellow the stat mandated 15%. Only rural far Northern California stayed above the threshold. The lifting of the stay-at-home order allows restaurants to serve diners outdoors and places of worship to offer services outside. Hair and nail salons and other businesses may reopen and retailers can have more shoppers in their stores. The state also is lifting a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew, but San Francisco is keeping it in place.

Tornado rips through Alabama, killing 1 and injuring at least 20 (Washington Post) A tornado devastated Fultondale, Ala., and other areas just north of Birmingham late Monday, killing at least one person, injuring another 20 and causing significant damage for miles. The storm touched down at around 10:40 p.m. in Jefferson County near Interstate 65, and a tornado soon ripped through Fultondale, a city of more than 8,000 located eight miles north of Birmingham. The tornado cut a path nearly a quarter-mile wide, severely damaging Fultondale High School and multiple businesses in a period of about 30 minutes. Debris is estimated to have carried to around 15,000 feet in the air. About 12,000 people were without power in the state early Tuesday.

Agent Orange lawsuit (Foreign Policy) A French court is to hear a case brought against a number of international companies involved in the development of the toxic chemical defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam war, with possible implications for the United States. The case was brought by Tran To Nga, a 78-year-old French-Vietnamese woman, who alleges that the companies—which include Monsanto and Dow Chemical—played down the herbicide’s toxicity and misled the U.S. government. The companies named in the lawsuit maintain that it was the U.S. government that ultimately designed Agent Orange, leaving the firms blameless for the severe illnesses, birth defects, and other medical problems experience by those who were exposed.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to resign (Washington Post) Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is planning to resign Tuesday, in a move that extends the country’s political chaos and risks complicating the coronavirus response. Conte’s decision leaves Italy with no straightforward path to reestablishing a workable government, all while the country tries to manage the pandemic’s health crisis and a vaccine campaign that has slowed because of Pfizer-BioNTech shortages. Though Italy is known for short-timer prime ministers and regional divisions, Conte had become the face of a surprisingly top-down pandemic response, announcing lockdowns and decrees in late-night news conferences. For a while, the pandemic had created an uneasy peace among Italy’s political factions. But that broke apart this month when a former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, pulled his small party’s support for the ruling coalition. Renzi cited inadequacies in how the government was managing its economic recovery. But many pundits—as well as the majority of Italians—felt Renzi was instigating the crisis out of his personal contempt for Conte, a fellow centrist whom he views as a competitor for voter support.

New India-China Border Clash Shows Simmering Tensions (NYT) Indian and Chinese troops have clashed along their disputed Himalayan border, according to media and military reports on Monday, as Beijing quietly intensifies pressure against its southern neighbor with new incursions into territory claimed by both sides. Details about the latest skirmish remain foggy, and Indian officials played down the events. Indian media outlets and independent military analysts said that the clash happened several days ago, and that soldiers on both sides were wounded, although no fatalities were reported. Though details were scant, reports of a clash show that tensions are still simmering between the two Asian giants, which fought a war in 1962 and have been eyeing each other warily across their unresolved frontier ever since. Tensions burst into the open in June, when troops from both countries engaged in a deadly brawl along the border of the Ladakh region in northern India. No shots were fired in that battle, stemming from a tacit understanding that neither side along the tense Himalayan border should use firearms. Still, the deaths of more than 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops exposed the increasing aggressiveness of both countries, which are governed by nationalist leaders with little political incentive to back down. As many as 100,000 troops from the Indian and Chinese armies are now facing off across inhospitable mountain passes in subzero temperatures in the Ladakh region alone, military experts estimate.

Farmers back at protest camp after deep challenge to PM Modi (AP) Tens of thousands of farmers who stormed the historic Red Fort on India’s Republic Day were again camped outside the capital Wednesday after the most volatile day of their two-month standoff left one protester dead and more than 300 police officers injured. The protests demanding the repeal of new agricultural laws have grown into a rebellion that is rattling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. On Tuesday, more than 10,000 tractors and thousands more people on foot or horseback tried to advance into the capital, shoving aside barricades and buses blocking their path and at times met by police using tear gas and water cannons. Their brief takeover of the 17th-century fort, which was the palace of Mughal emperors, played out live Indian news channels. The farmers, some carrying ceremonial swords, ropes and sticks, overwhelmed police. In a profoundly symbolic challenge to Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government, the protesters who stormed Red Fort hoisted a Sikh religious flag. “The situation is normal now. The protesters have left the streets of the capital,″ New Delhi police officer Anto Alphonse said Wednesday morning.

China to conduct South China Sea drills (Foreign Policy) China is to conduct military exercises in the South China Sea this week in what appears to be partly in response to a U.S. carrier group entering the area on Saturday. On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian admonished the U.S. government, saying the U.S. operations were merely to “flex its muscles.” “This is not conducive to peace and stability in the region,” Zhao added.

New Zealand’s borders may stay shut for most of the year, PM Ardern says (Reuters) New Zealand’s borders will remain closed for most of this year as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, but the country will pursue travel arrangements with neighbouring Australia and other Pacific nations, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Tuesday. “Given the risks in the world around us and the uncertainty of the global rollout of the vaccine, we can expect our borders to be impacted for much of this year,” Ardern said at a news conference. For travel to restart, authorities either needed confidence that those vaccinated don’t pass COVID-19 on to others, which is not yet known, or enough of the population needed to be vaccinated so people can safely re-enter New Zealand. But both possibilities will take some time, she said. “In the meantime, we will continue to pursue travel bubbles with Australia and the Pacific, but the rest of the world simply poses too great a risk to our health and our economy to take the risk at this stage.”

Student-run free grocery store helps feed town’s hungry (AP) Traditional school stores might offer snacks and knickknacks, school gear and notebooks—but the one at Linda Tutt High School in Sanger, Texas, has a very different inventory and clientele. At Linda Tutt you can get everything from produce, milk and eggs to pasta, peanut butter and canned goods to dishwasher soap and laundry detergent. Students and staff can shop there, but on Tuesdays the store is open to the community. And it’s all free. “I like seeing their smiles, seeing how appreciative they are, and knowing that they are thankful that we’re doing something like this,” said Hunter Weertman, a 16-year-old junior who stocks shelves and takes inventory at the store housed in an unused art room. It has been open since November. The idea is to provide students with job skills, and at the same time help students, staff and local residents who are in need. And the store has one more purpose: teaching the youngsters the value of giving back to their community. “I’ve really seen the students take pride in working in the store,” principal Anthony Love said. “They’re excited about coming to school. They’re excited about helping in the grocery store and just being a part of it.”

[samanthasroberts]

Why did Roy Moore escape to Australia? Clues remain in the outback wilderness

In the early 1980s, the now scandal-hit would-be US senator was taken in by a deeply religious town where some remember him as a troubled soul

It’s easy to get lost on the vast expanse of land they call Telemon.

Nestled in the foothills of Australia’s central Queensland highlands some 560 miles north-west of the state capital, Brisbane, the sprawling cattle station larger than Manhattan is a maze of wandering dirt roads Google Maps has never heard of.

It’s greener than you might imagine the Australian outback to be – a terrain of bottle trees and scrub, and horizons so vast they are vaguely anxiety-inducing. And everywhere cattle, staring back incuriously.

Drive for long enough though and eventually you’ll find the house. An abandoned single-storey timber thing with a veranda out the back, empty but for a few dusty beer bottles and rolled-up sleeping bags. A small handmade wicker crucifix is still tucked into an architrave in the dilapidated cottage next door. A 7ft-high (2m) cross leans haphazardly. Magpies swoop visitors and jacaranda trees bloom extravagantly in the overgrown yard.

It’s not a place that people visit very often, but maybe that’s the point.

Thirty-three years ago Telemon was home for Roy Moore – the one-time chief justice of the Alabama supreme court, defiant courtroom displayer of the Ten Commandments, current US Senate candidate and accused abuser of numerous women and underage girls in a period spanning from the late 1970s to 1991.

US Senate candidate Roy Moore has faced a litany of sex assault allegations going back to the 70s. Photograph: Brynn Anderson/AP

In 1984 Moore spent the better part of a year in the Queensland outback, where he lived and worked with the Rolfe family, the hard-working, deeply religious former owners of Telemon. But how he ended up there and what drove an ambitious 37-year-old assistant district attorney to this remote outpost has mostly remained a mystery.

The Guardian spent a week in central Queensland, seeking out those who knew Moore to find out what he was doing so far from home. What emerged was a portrait of a man overcoming his own personal demons, but one who never left the impression on those he met that he was “anything but a gentleman”.

“Roy was struggling at that stage, although he never talked to me about it,” Doug Rolfe said. “We were considerably younger than Roy, so he confided in my father rather than in us … I just kind of understood he had difficulties.”

A typical American

In 1982 Moore, then the assistant district attorney in Gadsden, Alabama, made an unsuccessful bid to become a county circuit judge in Etowah county after a falling out with the local judiciary. According to his biography, the loss left him broke, bitter and directionless, and he decided to travel to Australia for a stint of “R & R”.

Moore travelled initially to Brisbane and then to the coastal town of Ayr, where he briefly worked on sugar cane farms, before heading west to the town of Emerald to fulfil his “real desire … to work in the Australian outback”.

Today, Emerald is one of those largish country towns where pastries and tractor parts are sold on the same block and where it might just about be possible to go a day without seeing someone with whom you went to high school. But in 1984 it was all dusty roads and farmers driving trucks.

It was here that Moore met Colin Rolfe, a cattle farmer and poet who was training to become a deacon in the Anglican church.

“Dad went into a cafe in Emerald and one way or another they got talking,” said Doug Rolfe, one of Colin’s sons. “They got along on a religious, Christian basis. Dad never said much about what they talked about, but they certainly struck a chord, because they seemed to be reasonably close.”

The Rolfe family – Colin, his wife Cleone and their six children – were known for having foreign visitors living and working on the station and Colin invited Moore to come and stay on the property.

“It was pretty normal for us,” Colin’s daughter Isla Turner said. “People would come to spend a few nights and end up staying a few months.”

Telemon, which in 1984 was more than double its current size, is about 75 miles (120km) south of Emerald, past the small town of Springsure, population 1,100.

A small crucifix is tucked above the door in the house in Telemon where Roy Moore lived in 1984. Photograph: Michael McGowan for the Guardian

From there, Telemon is about a further 18 miles (30km) south-west on what’s known locally as the Tambo Road, an infrequently surfaced, undulating stretch linking Springsure with the gargantuan cattle stations that dot this part of Australia. While there, Moore lived with the family and worked on the property, mustering cattle, fixing fences and building stockyards.

“I don’t think he’d ever done that sort of manual labour in his life, but he took to it like a duck to water,” Turner said.

Colin Rolfe was diagnosed with cancer not long after Moore arrived and died on Christmas Eve in 1984. But in interviews with four of the six Rolfe children, as well as others who met him while he was staying in Queensland, all expressed shock at the allegations made against Moore.

“Nothing like that ever came up,” John Rolfe, Colin’s eldest son, said. “He seemed very straightforward, very much how you’d expect a young American. I’m quite surprised. It’s not what we saw at all in his time with us … We thought very highly of him.”

One woman, who was 16 years old when Moore lived with the Rolfes and came in close contact with him, said she never felt uncomfortable around him.

“There was nothing of that kind on my part. I certainly didn’t feel uneasy with him,” the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Guardian.

“There was never anything remotely like that [and] I was in my teenage years, which I guess would have been the prime time if he was going to do something. Usually you have your antenna out for that sort of thing and nothing untoward came about. I remember he was gregarious, very bubbly and loud … a typical American.”

Some kind of personal crisis

About 56km (35 miles) west of Springsure on the Tambo Road, the Tresswell State School is attended by the children of cattle farmers. At the back of the school is a tennis court where the Rolfes played on the weekend.

“I do remember Roy sucked at tennis,” Doug Rolfe said.

Pat Klose, who was the teacher and principal at Treswell in 1984 and was friends with the Rolfe family, said he never had any cause to suspect Moore was anything but “a good bloke”.

“There certainly weren’t any alarm bells or anything … He just seemed like a very pleasant bloke, that’s all I can recall,” Klose said. “But maybe he was trying to get away from something, I guess you can never know.”

All of the Rolfes remember that Moore was dealing with some kind of personal crisis. In his biography, Moore says losing the circuit court contest was a “bitter political defeat” that had “broken [his] spirit” and left him with “nowhere to turn”. He decided to travel to Australia because he’d been unable to visit the country after his tour of Vietnam.

“I don’t know the [entire] story before us … what it was in his history that he’d had struggles with,” Doug Rolfe said.

The Rolfes believed Moore’s “struggles” related to his thwarted ambition, but the allegations that have surfaced against Moore recently paint a more disturbing picture about what his “struggles” may have been.

The huge cattle station in outback Queensland is where Roy Moore spent a year in 1984. Photograph: Michael McGowan for the Guardian

Leigh Corfman was 14 in 1979 when, she alleges, Moore, then 32, took her to his house, removed most of her clothes, groped her and put her hand on his genitals. Another woman, Beverly Young Nelson, alleges that Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 16.

Nelson said Moore physically attacked her in a car, grabbing her breasts and trying to force her head down on to his crotch.

“I thought he was going to rape me,” Nelson said at a press conference in November.

A number of other women have come forward to say that Moore romantically pursued them when they were teenagers and he was an assistant district attorney aged in his 30s.

There have been other reports of Moore pursuing at least three other teenagers when he was in his 30s and the New Yorker magazine reported that Moore was banned from a mall in Alabama because he repeatedly badgered teenage girls. Moore denies the allegations and has accused all of the women of lying.

But in Australia, the Guardian did not find any reports of improper behaviour.

“In a small town like this, those sorts of things don’t stay secret and they aren’t forgotten,” said Desley Abdy, the owner of the local convenience store.

Desley Abdy (left) owns Springsure Convenience and remembers Roy Moore. Photograph: Michael McGowan for the Guardian

In any case, the deeply religious Moore found himself in one of Australia’s most religious pockets.

Springsure was once known as “the Holy City”, where about 85% of residents identify with some form of Christianity. A giant image of the Virgin Mary clutching the baby Jesus literally looms over the town, appearing inside a niche in the escarpment of Mount Zamia, known colloquially as the Virgin Rock, beside which the town is nestled.

In his biography, Moore says his meeting with Colin Rolfe came “as if by the hand of providence”, calling the family “wonderful hosts and devout Christians who read the Bible to one another before bedtime”.

Ian Rolfe, Colin’s younger brother, remembers him as a man with “a deep religious belief”.

Ian, who still lives on another property further along the Tambo, told the Guardian his brother was “a gentle man” with “a beautiful singing voice”.

“He really was taken too soon,” Ian said. “He genuinely thought the cancer wouldn’t kill him, he thought the Lord would save him, but I guess the Lord had other plans for him.”

But even the Rolfe children say Moore’s conservatism stood out to them.

“I think he was even more staunch as a Christian than my father was, but it wasn’t anything unusual for us,” Doug Rolfe said. “I was a very devout Christian for a period of time in my life as well … He wouldn’t carry on like a hallelujah Christian or anything; he was just very set in his ideas about moral standards and so forth.”

Ian Rolfe remembers Roy Moore when the American worked for his brother Colin. Photograph: Michael McGowan for the Guardian

Asked about the allegations against Moore, they each had different reactions.

Turner said it “wasn’t possible”, and suggested the accusations against him were “political”.

“Why has it taken this long for it all to surface?” she said.

But Doug Rolfe was more equivocal.

“It’s interesting. Roy is a person who’s a little bit set in his beliefs and doesn’t like to change [so] when he has an idea about something, it’s black and white and he doesn’t see it in grey,” he said.

“I couldn’t say whether the allegations may be correct or not … I find it very surprising, because his treatment of us and the family and the women who were with us was very morally correct.

“It is always possible. People have a second side outside of moral company.”

Source: http://allofbeer.com/why-did-roy-moore-escape-to-australia-clues-remain-in-the-outback-wilderness/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/19/why-did-roy-moore-escape-to-australia-clues-remain-in-the-outback-wilderness/

[adambstingus]

Why did Roy Moore escape to Australia? Clues remain in the outback wilderness

In the early 1980s, the now scandal-hit would-be US senator was taken in by a deeply religious town where some remember him as a troubled soul

It’s easy to get lost on the vast expanse of land they call Telemon.

Nestled in the foothills of Australia’s central Queensland highlands some 560 miles north-west of the state capital, Brisbane, the sprawling cattle station larger than Manhattan is a maze of wandering dirt roads Google Maps has never heard of.

It’s greener than you might imagine the Australian outback to be – a terrain of bottle trees and scrub, and horizons so vast they are vaguely anxiety-inducing. And everywhere cattle, staring back incuriously.

Drive for long enough though and eventually you’ll find the house. An abandoned single-storey timber thing with a veranda out the back, empty but for a few dusty beer bottles and rolled-up sleeping bags. A small handmade wicker crucifix is still tucked into an architrave in the dilapidated cottage next door. A 7ft-high (2m) cross leans haphazardly. Magpies swoop visitors and jacaranda trees bloom extravagantly in the overgrown yard.

It’s not a place that people visit very often, but maybe that’s the point.

Thirty-three years ago Telemon was home for Roy Moore – the one-time chief justice of the Alabama supreme court, defiant courtroom displayer of the Ten Commandments, current US Senate candidate and accused abuser of numerous women and underage girls in a period spanning from the late 1970s to 1991.

US Senate candidate Roy Moore has faced a litany of sex assault allegations going back to the 70s. Photograph: Brynn Anderson/AP

In 1984 Moore spent the better part of a year in the Queensland outback, where he lived and worked with the Rolfe family, the hard-working, deeply religious former owners of Telemon. But how he ended up there and what drove an ambitious 37-year-old assistant district attorney to this remote outpost has mostly remained a mystery.

The Guardian spent a week in central Queensland, seeking out those who knew Moore to find out what he was doing so far from home. What emerged was a portrait of a man overcoming his own personal demons, but one who never left the impression on those he met that he was “anything but a gentleman”.

“Roy was struggling at that stage, although he never talked to me about it,” Doug Rolfe said. “We were considerably younger than Roy, so he confided in my father rather than in us … I just kind of understood he had difficulties.”

A typical American

In 1982 Moore, then the assistant district attorney in Gadsden, Alabama, made an unsuccessful bid to become a county circuit judge in Etowah county after a falling out with the local judiciary. According to his biography, the loss left him broke, bitter and directionless, and he decided to travel to Australia for a stint of “R & R”.

Moore travelled initially to Brisbane and then to the coastal town of Ayr, where he briefly worked on sugar cane farms, before heading west to the town of Emerald to fulfil his “real desire … to work in the Australian outback”.

Today, Emerald is one of those largish country towns where pastries and tractor parts are sold on the same block and where it might just about be possible to go a day without seeing someone with whom you went to high school. But in 1984 it was all dusty roads and farmers driving trucks.

It was here that Moore met Colin Rolfe, a cattle farmer and poet who was training to become a deacon in the Anglican church.

“Dad went into a cafe in Emerald and one way or another they got talking,” said Doug Rolfe, one of Colin’s sons. “They got along on a religious, Christian basis. Dad never said much about what they talked about, but they certainly struck a chord, because they seemed to be reasonably close.”

The Rolfe family – Colin, his wife Cleone and their six children – were known for having foreign visitors living and working on the station and Colin invited Moore to come and stay on the property.

“It was pretty normal for us,” Colin’s daughter Isla Turner said. “People would come to spend a few nights and end up staying a few months.”

Telemon, which in 1984 was more than double its current size, is about 75 miles (120km) south of Emerald, past the small town of Springsure, population 1,100.

A small crucifix is tucked above the door in the house in Telemon where Roy Moore lived in 1984. Photograph: Michael McGowan for the Guardian

From there, Telemon is about a further 18 miles (30km) south-west on what’s known locally as the Tambo Road, an infrequently surfaced, undulating stretch linking Springsure with the gargantuan cattle stations that dot this part of Australia. While there, Moore lived with the family and worked on the property, mustering cattle, fixing fences and building stockyards.

“I don’t think he’d ever done that sort of manual labour in his life, but he took to it like a duck to water,” Turner said.

Colin Rolfe was diagnosed with cancer not long after Moore arrived and died on Christmas Eve in 1984. But in interviews with four of the six Rolfe children, as well as others who met him while he was staying in Queensland, all expressed shock at the allegations made against Moore.

“Nothing like that ever came up,” John Rolfe, Colin’s eldest son, said. “He seemed very straightforward, very much how you’d expect a young American. I’m quite surprised. It’s not what we saw at all in his time with us … We thought very highly of him.”

One woman, who was 16 years old when Moore lived with the Rolfes and came in close contact with him, said she never felt uncomfortable around him.

“There was nothing of that kind on my part. I certainly didn’t feel uneasy with him,” the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Guardian.

“There was never anything remotely like that [and] I was in my teenage years, which I guess would have been the prime time if he was going to do something. Usually you have your antenna out for that sort of thing and nothing untoward came about. I remember he was gregarious, very bubbly and loud … a typical American.”

Some kind of personal crisis

About 56km (35 miles) west of Springsure on the Tambo Road, the Tresswell State School is attended by the children of cattle farmers. At the back of the school is a tennis court where the Rolfes played on the weekend.

“I do remember Roy sucked at tennis,” Doug Rolfe said.

Pat Klose, who was the teacher and principal at Treswell in 1984 and was friends with the Rolfe family, said he never had any cause to suspect Moore was anything but “a good bloke”.

“There certainly weren’t any alarm bells or anything … He just seemed like a very pleasant bloke, that’s all I can recall,” Klose said. “But maybe he was trying to get away from something, I guess you can never know.”

All of the Rolfes remember that Moore was dealing with some kind of personal crisis. In his biography, Moore says losing the circuit court contest was a “bitter political defeat” that had “broken [his] spirit” and left him with “nowhere to turn”. He decided to travel to Australia because he’d been unable to visit the country after his tour of Vietnam.

“I don’t know the [entire] story before us … what it was in his history that he’d had struggles with,” Doug Rolfe said.

The Rolfes believed Moore’s “struggles” related to his thwarted ambition, but the allegations that have surfaced against Moore recently paint a more disturbing picture about what his “struggles” may have been.

The huge cattle station in outback Queensland is where Roy Moore spent a year in 1984. Photograph: Michael McGowan for the Guardian

Leigh Corfman was 14 in 1979 when, she alleges, Moore, then 32, took her to his house, removed most of her clothes, groped her and put her hand on his genitals. Another woman, Beverly Young Nelson, alleges that Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 16.

Nelson said Moore physically attacked her in a car, grabbing her breasts and trying to force her head down on to his crotch.

“I thought he was going to rape me,” Nelson said at a press conference in November.

A number of other women have come forward to say that Moore romantically pursued them when they were teenagers and he was an assistant district attorney aged in his 30s.

There have been other reports of Moore pursuing at least three other teenagers when he was in his 30s and the New Yorker magazine reported that Moore was banned from a mall in Alabama because he repeatedly badgered teenage girls. Moore denies the allegations and has accused all of the women of lying.

But in Australia, the Guardian did not find any reports of improper behaviour.

“In a small town like this, those sorts of things don’t stay secret and they aren’t forgotten,” said Desley Abdy, the owner of the local convenience store.

Desley Abdy (left) owns Springsure Convenience and remembers Roy Moore. Photograph: Michael McGowan for the Guardian

In any case, the deeply religious Moore found himself in one of Australia’s most religious pockets.

Springsure was once known as “the Holy City”, where about 85% of residents identify with some form of Christianity. A giant image of the Virgin Mary clutching the baby Jesus literally looms over the town, appearing inside a niche in the escarpment of Mount Zamia, known colloquially as the Virgin Rock, beside which the town is nestled.

In his biography, Moore says his meeting with Colin Rolfe came “as if by the hand of providence”, calling the family “wonderful hosts and devout Christians who read the Bible to one another before bedtime”.

Ian Rolfe, Colin’s younger brother, remembers him as a man with “a deep religious belief”.

Ian, who still lives on another property further along the Tambo, told the Guardian his brother was “a gentle man” with “a beautiful singing voice”.

“He really was taken too soon,” Ian said. “He genuinely thought the cancer wouldn’t kill him, he thought the Lord would save him, but I guess the Lord had other plans for him.”

But even the Rolfe children say Moore’s conservatism stood out to them.

“I think he was even more staunch as a Christian than my father was, but it wasn’t anything unusual for us,” Doug Rolfe said. “I was a very devout Christian for a period of time in my life as well … He wouldn’t carry on like a hallelujah Christian or anything; he was just very set in his ideas about moral standards and so forth.”

Ian Rolfe remembers Roy Moore when the American worked for his brother Colin. Photograph: Michael McGowan for the Guardian

Asked about the allegations against Moore, they each had different reactions.

Turner said it “wasn’t possible”, and suggested the accusations against him were “political”.

“Why has it taken this long for it all to surface?” she said.

But Doug Rolfe was more equivocal.

“It’s interesting. Roy is a person who’s a little bit set in his beliefs and doesn’t like to change [so] when he has an idea about something, it’s black and white and he doesn’t see it in grey,” he said.

“I couldn’t say whether the allegations may be correct or not … I find it very surprising, because his treatment of us and the family and the women who were with us was very morally correct.

“It is always possible. People have a second side outside of moral company.”

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/why-did-roy-moore-escape-to-australia-clues-remain-in-the-outback-wilderness/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/173083380517

[kansascityhappenings]

Train hauling 10 million pounds of human feces stranded in Alabama town

PARRISH, Ala. – Right now, dozens of train cars carrying 10 million pounds of poop are stranded in a rural Alabama rail yard. Technically it’s biowaste, but to the 982 residents in the small town of Parrish, that’s just semantics.

They want it gone. The load has been there for almost two months, and it’s making the whole place smell like a rotting animal carcass.

To add insult to injury, it isn’t even their poop. For the last year, waste management facilities in New York and one in New Jersey have been shipping tons of biowaste — literally, tons — to Big Sky Environmental, a private landfill in Adamsville, Alabama. But in January, the neighboring town of West Jefferson filed an injunction against Big Sky to keep the sludge from being stored in a nearby rail yard.

It was successful — but as a result, the poo already in transit got moved to Parrish, where there are no zoning laws to prevent the waste from being stored.

‘God help us if it gets hot’

Parrish Mayor Heather Hall said she is doing everything in her power to get the feculent freight out of her town.

“It’s so frustrating,” Hall said. Last week, Hall met with Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, and she and other Montgomery lawmakers told Hall they would help get it sorted out. “They’re trying to work behind the scenes to get us a little bit of help, but we’ve been told that for weeks, and there’s still no solution.”

Why trainloads of other people's poo have been rotting in an Alabama town for months https://t.co/1srOHx8rU4 pic.twitter.com/9kSG9TzHxP

— CNN (@CNN) April 4, 2018

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Hall said the stench permeates everything. The rail yard is across from a baseball field and next to a softball field. Parrish only measures about 2 square miles, and pretty much everything is within smelling distance.

“It greatly reduces the quality of life,” Hall said. “You can’t sit out on your porch. Kids can’t go outside and play, and God help us if it gets hot and this material is still out here.” On Tuesday, when Hall spoke to CNN, the temperature in Parrish reached 81 degrees.

“You can’t open your door because that stuff gets in your house. It’s really rough,” Parrish resident Robert Hall told CNN affiliate WVTM. Other residents said the waste smelled like dead bodies.

‘Is that not a public health issue?’

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management have both told Hall the material isn’t dangerous, because it’s supposed to be Grade A biowaste, not raw sewage (which is also the reason for the unique smell).

She’s willing to take them at their word, but that doesn’t mean she and other Parrish residents aren’t concerned.

“Other than it smelling absolutely terrible, I have to trust them that it’s not going to hurt you,” she said. “But if you have asthma or COPD or breathing problems, what is that going to do to you? [The rail yard] is probably less than 50 yards away from homes. What happens if flies get into someone’s house? Is that not a public health issue?”

Hall said her colleagues in the capital city of Montgomery have asked her not to file an injunction against the landfill, not that it would be a smart idea anyway; if they went to court over the matter, the other matter would just sit there, stinking up Parrish, until the trial was over.

‘They keep telling us the situation is almost over’

So, in short, nobody knows when the poop will be moved.

“I’m just getting little bits and pieces of information, and I cannot tell you how frustrating it is,” Hall said. “My understanding is, they are really trying to work on the problem, and they keep telling us the situation is almost over.”

Hall hasn’t been in contact with Big Sky for a few weeks. When she first spoke to the company, when the cars of waste were just beginning to be stockpiled in Parrish’s rail yard, they told her it would take seven to 10 days to move them out. That was two months ago.

CNN contacted Big Sky and is waiting to receive comment.

Parrish isn’t the only town on the waste route that has been dealing with the fetid fallout. According to AL.com, residents in Birmingham were livid when at least 80 train cars full of the sludge came to a stop in their city in January.

Hall said, at one point, there were 252 tractor-trailer loads of the stuff stockpiled in her town.

“People need to understand that this waste does not need to be in a populated area,” she said. “There are places to put it, industrial places. We’re a very small town caught in the middle of this, and I feel like that’s part of the issue here. This shouldn’t be happening.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2018/04/04/train-hauling-10m-pounds-of-human-feces-stranded-in-alabama-town-god-help-us-if-it-gets-hot/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2018/04/05/train-hauling-10-million-pounds-of-human-feces-stranded-in-alabama-town/

[notbemoved-blog]

The Start of the Southern Black Cooperative Movement

Second in a Series on the Federation of Southern Cooperatives

I’m reading a little-known but important work by former U.S. Labor Secretary Ray Marhsall and former Ford and Rockefeller Foundations executive Lamond Godwin called “Cooperatives and Rural Poverty in the South”, published in 1971 by Johns Hopkins Press. It discusses the very things I wrote about this summer in “50 Years of Courage, Cooperation, Commitment & Community”—the 50th Anniversary Commemorative book on the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. Even then, back in 1971, it was clear that the South needed cooperative organizations to help break through the cultural barriers to Blacks in agriculture. Thankfully, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives came along. Here is its foundational story. . . .

Mural (partial) at the Federation’s Rural Training Center in Epes, Alabama, created by the noted artist and graphic designer Donald Alexander (aka, ALDOX), from Lafayette, Louisiana--a hotbed of cooperative development in the 1960s.

It is difficult to precisely pinpoint how the idea of creating Southern Black-owned cooperatives initiated. Agricultural cooperatives, of course, were nothing new in America. The Midwest abounded with them, as did the segregated South. They were a way for farmers to realize economies of scale in the purchase of seed and fertilizer, to coordinate the sale and marketing of their crops, to gain some power in a volatile agricultural marketplace. They were also a way to exert some control, since the co-op was owned by the farmers it served. None of these points were lost on the Blacks who were trying to find a way out of the restrictive stranglehold of the White power structure. Surely the influence of the union and other collectivist, progressive movements of the 1930s and ‘40s also had a lasting impact.

Whatever the genesis, it was in the late 1950s that the idea of forming locally based farmer cooperatives seemed to take hold. One instigator was the Reverend A. J. McKnight, a Catholic priest from Brooklyn who had joined the Holy Ghost (Spiritan) Order and was assigned as pastor to an impoverished Black parish in Lafayette, Louisiana. McKnight was charged up with a fire to improve the lot of his parishioners and immediately began holding voter registration and literacy classes in the hope of helping the indigenous Black populace to gain a level of political power. But when few folks showed up for the classes, McKnight was stunned. Surely, they must want their freedom!

Wisely, McKnight began holding listening sessions to determine the “felt needs” of the community, rather than imposing his own vision of what was required. “One need that surfaced many times was how difficult and how expensive it was to borrow money,” McKnight would later write. With this insight, he realized that the first brick in what he was hoping would be a vast Southern cooperative structure was to create credit unions so that individuals in low-income communities could have access to capital. Because of the inherent difficulties with growing a capital base with limited funds in low-income communities, however, McKnight eventually struck upon the idea of creating a regional investment cooperative that could attract funding from outside sources and become the mechanism for funding all manner of cooperative enterprises. This became the Southern Consumers Cooperative (SCC), established in 1964. McKnight used to enjoy boasting, as he did in his autobiography Whistling in the Wind, that SCC “received the first loan in the War on Poverty”—$25,000 to help start one of SCC’s subsidiaries, a bakery called Arcadian Delight, which offered fruitcakes and other Creole delicacies and helped put people to work. SCC formed a number of other subsidiaries, including an education arm (Southern Consumers Education Foundation) and a capital development and lending arm (People’s Enterprise).  

Reverend A.J. McKnight--a leader in the creation of the Southern Black Cooperative Movement. 

Besides his fervor for cooperatives, McKnight’s very presence in southwest Louisiana was revolutionary. He was the first Black priest the parish had ever had. “It was a big deal,” said Carol Prejean, who was ten-years-old at the time McKnight arrived in the 1953. She and her older brother Charles began hanging out at the church, trying to imbibe the fresh wind of change that McKnight was preaching. McKnight seemed to embolden local Blacks to think bigger than they ever had before, to create their own institutions, to work their way out of the grinding poverty and dependence on the White ruling class that had characterized their existence for generations. Charles Prejean was smitten with McKnight’s fervor and determined that he, too, would become a priest. After a few years at seminary, however, he realized that a celibate life didn’t suit him, so he returned to Lafayette to work with McKnight and help build the cooperative institutions McKnight had begun dreaming up. “I came to the understanding,” Prejean said, “that the sense of communal life that I was being taught in the seminary was transferable—working in a community for the betterment of the community.” Prejean first volunteered with McKnight as a community organizer while teaching at the local Catholic high school; then he was brought on full time, first at People’s Enterprise and later, when McKnight was forced to spend more of his time on pastoral work, as general manager of SCC.

 But McKnight and the Prejeans were not the only cooperative boosters in the South. Indigenous cooperative institutions seemed to spring up everywhere all at once, usually sparked by a local need that could not be filled by other means and often spurred by White intransigence. For instance: 

·       When farmers and sharecroppers working for voting rights in west Tennessee were denied the ability to buy gasoline for their tractors from local White-owned gas stations, they started driving to the Missouri bootheel, just over the state line, to buy gas and oil and trucked it back home. Thus, the Mid-South Consumers Oil Co-op was born.

 ·       When a group of impoverished Black women in rural Alabama showed their handmade quilts to a Northern Episcopalian priest, he arranged for their wares to be shown at craft fairs up North where he knew a ready market would be enthralled. Thus, the Freedom Quilting Bee was born.  

 ·       When a group of Black sweet potato farmers realized they could break up the White landowners’ purchasing and distribution monopoly in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, by working together, the Grand Marie Vegetable Producers Co-op was born.

 ·       When sharecroppers in Sumter County, Alabama, got involved in advocating for equal rights and were evicted from the land their families had farmed for generations, forty of these families banded together to find a way to purchase their own land. Thus, the Panola Land Buying Association (PLBA) came into being.

 ·       When Black farmers in ten Black Belt counties of Alabama began comparing notes, they realized they could likely get a better price for their cucumbers, okra, and peas if they were to combine their output and mass market their crops. Thus, the Southwest Alabama Farmers Cooperative Association (SWAFCA) was born.

 It was these start-up co-ops that formed the nucleus of what would become the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. We have Al Ulmer to thank for pulling them all together. Ulmer was director of community outreach for the Southern Regional Council and had spotted a trend in majority Black counties throughout the South. It was Ulmer who invited and underwrote the travel expenses for representatives of ten of these emerging co-ops to a meeting in the spring of 1966 at the Mount Beulah Center, a church-based conference center just west of Jackson, Mississippi, where civil rights groups often met. 

Al Ulmer, Director of Community Outreach for the Southern Regional Council, identified a trend among rural Blacks for developing self-empowering cooperatives and invited their leaders to a gathering in Edwards, MS, which would become the foundational meeting of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives.

Once gathered, co-op representatives swapped information, learned more about each other’s cooperative enterprises, and began to conceive of a plan to coordinate and scale up their activities. All of them—each in their own sectors—were up against incredible odds, given the harsh racial climate of the times. Black people were not supposed to be successful. They were only supposed to thrive if they served and were subservient to the Whites in power. They weren’t supposed to create their own pathways to power or economic security. But as is the case in all societies, the poor find their own ways to survive, often outside of the established norms. They “make a way out of no way.” In the rural South of the 1960s, cooperatives seemed like one of the best ways to a better future.

 The Mount Beulah meeting led to a second gathering—again arranged for by Ulmer—in February of the following year, this time in Atlanta on the campus of Atlanta University. Those in attendance—22 representatives from various cooperatives in nine states throughout the South—agreed to establish a loose confederation of cooperatives to help them coordinate their activities and find ways of making each individual cooperative stronger. They called this new organization the Federation of Southern Cooperatives.

 NEXT: Carol Prejean’s Documentary Poetry of the Federation and a John Lewis 50th Anniversary Tribute.

[quboblu]

Mobile leaders wary on spending as sales taxes stagnate

Mobile has had its share of positive economic news in the last 18 months, including the start of production at the Airbus Final Assembly Line in the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley. Despite such job-creating developments, however, city sales tax revenues haven’t taken off — and that’s a trend that could make for hard choices if it continues. (Courtesy of Airbus) (bn)

Mobile seems to be out of sync with the rest of the state when it comes to sales tax revenues, and a lack of growth is leading city leaders to step cautiously as they shape the city’s 2018 budget.

As yet, there seems to be no sense that drastic cuts are required, or that the city will have to consider diverting money from a capital improvement plan that has been funding a three-year wave of infrastructure work. But there’s also no guarantee that the current sales-tax trend will change in time to save the city from painful choices.

Mobile’s finance director, Paul Wesch, sounded a note of concern when he addressed the Mobile City Council at the end of April. There was "good news and bad news, he said, "the bad news being revenues not where they need to be, primarily because of the failure of sales taxes to get to where we had projected they would be.

"Sales taxes actually are about $3.3 million dollars under projections at this point," he said. "Christmas was very damaging for sales taxes. We were about a million (point) eight under projections and a million under 2016 Christmas. What that means, obviously, is that people are doing much more shopping online during holiday periods."

The state has a Simplified Sellers Use Tax plan that directs some revenues from online sales to cities, and Mobile has received a little over $400,000 over the last two quarters. Wesch has been vocal about his view that the state set this tax up in a way that’s great for the state, but which shortchanges cities, and it’s a view he still holds. State leaders, including former revenue commissioner Julie Magee, maintain the view that whatever amount the cities get from the arrangement, it’s better than the nothing they’d get without it.

Speaking to the council in April, Wesch said the good news was that significant savings elsewhere in the budget – particularly in the city garage – were offsetting the lack of revenue. But that didn’t mean the sales tax issue was going away. "It’s liable to continue, at least that’s what we’re starting to be able to come to you and project."

The big picture

Curiously, Mobile’s affliction doesn’t seem to be statewide. The sort of sales tax growth that Wesch and others projected for Mobile – usually in the 2 to 4 percent range – seems to have been a shared expectation in Huntsville, Birmingham and the state as a whole. But they’ve gotten it.

According to numbers provided by Huntsville’s Finance Department, general fund sales tax revenue rose from $96.6 million in the 2014-15 fiscal year to $101.4 million in 2015-16. The projection for the current fiscal year was $103.3 million, or a little over 2 percent growth. As of early May, receipts had shown 1.8 percent growth, but according to information provided by Director of Communication Kelly Schrimsher, that was close enough that revenue from the Simplified Sellers Use Tax made up the difference.

In Birmingham, operating budget sales tax revenues grew from $114.4 million in fiscal 2015 to $120 million in fiscal 2016, to a projected $126.2 million in the current year. (That bullish estimate of 5% growth was offset by a lower projected increase in use tax, for a combined total growth of 3.6 percent.) In May, city Finance Director Tom Barnett said his projection was that the city would come in "very, very slightly up" above projections in the fiscal year ending June 30.

Most of the state’s sales tax revenue flows into the Education Trust Fund. According to information in the 2017 budget, ETF sales tax revenues were $1.70 billion in the 2014-15 fiscal year, and estimated $1.77 billion in 2015-16 and a projected $1.83 billion in 2016-17. (That’s approximately 4 percent growth in each case.)

Magee, speaking before she left the post of revenue commissioner in May, said the state’s sales tax revenues were on track. Bright spots included rapid growth in the Simplified Sellers Use Tax – "this is new money," she said – while less helpful areas include corporate income tax revenue, which has dropped.

Mobile saw an actual decrease in sales tax revenues in the 2015-16 fiscal year; for the general fund, sales tax revenues dropped from 150.4 million to $147.5 million. For the current fiscal year, planners had projected a rebound to $151.5 million, or growth of about 2.7 percent. Instead, revenues have been flat.

The obvious question is, why? The answers are complex.

Trends and timing

Reid Cummings, an assistant professor of finance and real estate at the University of South Alabama, said national figures do show that the 2016 Christmas season saw a jump of more than 11 percent in online spending. Brick-and-mortar retailers saw a corresponding drop in traffic and sales, and the repercussions of the slump are still being felt in terms of lower stock prices and store closings.

But he said that while such trends affect the entire country, they don’t necessarily impact various areas the same way at the same time. Mobile could be experiencing "a combination of a shift mirroring what’s happening nationwide to online sales, and possibly a shifting population."

Cummings spoke well before the recent release of census figures showing that Huntsville has rocketed past Mobile to become the third-biggest city in Mobile, while a slight but persistent decline has dropped Mobile to fourth.

Paul Wesch

Wesch said that a few years back, Mobile entered a recession somewhat after the rest of the country, and even after other big cities in Alabama. It came out of the recession later, and enjoyed the post-recession rebound a little later. It might be that Mobile is still riding the same waves as everybody else, it’s just catching them a little later.

In the 2013-14 and 2014-15 fiscal years, "we were ahead of most other cities" in the state, he said, riding high on the post-recession rebound they’d already seen. For Mobile, things started to flatten out in late 2015, as that rebound tapered off.

So far, he said, he sees it as a cause for concern but not a cause for alarm: Mobile hasn’t seen plant closings or excessive loss of retail centers. The trick is to manage expenses and expectations – and that’s no small trick, when costs such as the city’s pension obligations are guaranteed to grow. So as work proceeds on the 2018 budget, the word to departments has been to hold the line. "Currently we are not projecting growth," Wesch said.

"What we are not doing is accessing any reserves," he said. "We’re not adding general fund expenditures by robbing capital."

Wesch’s good news to the council – the seven-digit savings at the county garage – didn’t just happen. It was the result of a sustained investment in new fire trucks, police cars and other rolling stock, which paid off in dramatically lower maintenance costs.

Asks if there are other such windfalls ahead, Wesch said there will be, though they might not be as conspicuous. The ongoing switch to a single citywide system for many records will result in some savings, he said. In the long run, the city’s three-year, multimillion-dollar capital improvement plan is making substantial road and drainage improvements that should cut down on maintenance and repair costs.

None of that solves the sales tax slump though, and that’s a problem.

Mobile City Councilman Joel Daves

Joel Daves, head of the Mobile City Council’s finance committee, said that regardless of what’s causing the slump, "we have to deal with the reality of the situation." He largely agreed with Wesch’s view that the answer was to keep a lid on expenditures, while resisting the temptation to dip into reserves or capital funds.

"Our reserve is at the minimum we need it to be," he said, and when a government raids its own capital fund, it piles up problems in the future. "That’s a path to disaster, and frankly a path the city followed too long," he said.

Daves credited Mayor Sandy Stimpson with leading a belt-tightening push that had reduced city expenses by millions, after he took office in 2013. "In government, reducing operating expenses at any time is a difficult, painful matter, so it’s rarely done," he said.

The problem with belt-tightening, Daves said, is that the belt can only get so tight. "A lot of the low-hanging fruit has been picked," he said, and further cuts aren’t likely to come without a fight.

Mobile has had some very positive economic developments in the last 18 months: expansion at Austal, the start of production at Airbus, the announcement of major projects by Walmart and Amazon. One problem, however, is that those have little direct impact on sales tax receipts. And if the people who work those jobs drive in from Baldwin County or Mississippi, they might not even have much indirect impact.

"The problem we have is that the jobs are in Mobile, but the money’s being spent elsewhere," Daves said.

"What’s good for the region is good for Mobile," he said. But the challenge for Mobile will be to retain the residents it has, and attract new ones.

Decisively winning that fight could take decades. But Mobile is making some steps in the right direction, Daves said, citing the capital improvements to streets, parks and drainage that ultimately make the city a better place to be.

"We’re not Baldwin County," Daves said. "But that doesn’t mean we can’t be as attractive a place."

Lupin pharmaceuticals has recalled birth control pills due to a packaging error that could result in them not working correctly. (Contributed photo/Lupin Pharmaceuticals) Alabama State Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, poses for a picture on a tractor sold at his tractor supply company in Daphne, Ala. Pittman is one of 10 GOP candidates seeking one of Alabama’s U.S. Senate seats during this summer’s special election. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com).

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[cubaverdad]

Una empresa inglesa comercializará café con el Gobierno cubano

Una empresa inglesa comercializará café con el Gobierno cubano DDC | Montreal | 18 de Enero de 2017 - 13:52 CET. La empresa LGC Capital Ltd. (LGC) anunció este martes que la inglesa The Cuba Mountain Coffee Company Ltd. (CMC) ha acordado los términos de un contrato con el Gobierno cubano y con la procesadora de café Asdrúbal López, la principal en Guantánamo, para comercializar y vender el mejor café producido en la región, según informó NewsWire. El proyecto está programado para comenzar este año con el primer café exportado al final de 2017. LGC Capital Ltd. es una empresa especializada en oportunidades de "crecimiento" en Cuba. CMC tiene una fuerte relación con Nespresso. Ambos firmaron un memorando de entendimiento el año pasado, y Nespresso espera comprar una gran parte del café cubano resultante de este proyecto aunque todavía está sujeto a un acuerdo final. El CEO de Nespresso, acompañado por parte de su equipo, ha visitado la Isla para inspeccionar la última cosecha y recorrer varias plantas de descascarado de café en las montañas. El proyecto incluye la instalación de una planta de torrefacción de café en la procesadora Asdrúbal López, que producirá una marca de café tostado para el mercado nacional y regional. Según LGC, también se está discutiendo con una compañía cubana para distribuir el café a través de tiendas minoristas, y que esperan que termine con la creación de la primera cadena de cafeterías cubanas. En febrero se prevé que CMC se reúna con autoridades del Gobierno de la Isla, entre ellos directivos del MINAGRI (Ministerio de Agricultura) para finalizar las revisiones y términos comerciales antes de que el proyecto vaya a la aprobación final con los ministerios interesados: el de Agricultura e Inversión Extranjera. El contrato propuesto permitirá a CMC administrar conjuntamente con la procesadora Asdrúbal López las 17 microrregiones más altas y mejores de la provincia de Guantánamo, la principal región cafetalera de la Isla. David Lenigas, copresidente y CEO de LGC, comentó: "Este es un emocionante desarrollo para LGC Capital y su inversión en The Cuban Mountain Coffee Company. Cuba es mundialmente famosa por sus cafés arábicos de alto crecimiento. Su maduración es ralentizada por las brisas del Caribe que permite desarrollar sabores complejos. El proyecto de CMC tiene como objetivo ayudar a restaurar los mercados de exportación y la reputación de los cafés finos de la Isla". Nespresso, de Nestlé S.A., a mediados de 2016 anunció que se convertirá en la primera empresa que importará café de Cuba hacia Estados Unidos en más de 50 años, según informó Reuters. En abril, el Departamento de Estado estadounidense sumó el café y otros productos a su lista de importaciones elegibles, producidas por empresarios cubanos "independientes". CMC, que tiene un memorando de entendimiento con Nespresso, firmará su acuerdo con entidades estatales. Las medidas económicas propugnadas por la Administración de Barack Obama como la importación de algunos productos cubanos, siempre y cuando se demuestre que provienen del sector privado, parte de una estrategia para "empoderar" a los emprendedores. Hasta ahora, algunos proyectos que se han trazado en este sentido no han beneficiado a este sector. A principios de 2016, Obama aprobó la apertura de la primera fábrica estadounidense en Cuba en más de medio siglo, al autorizar a una empresa de Alabama la construcción de una planta para ensamblar tractores pequeños en Mariel. Finalmente, el proyecto no se llevó a cabo y los tractores comenzaron a construirse en suelo estadounidense. Recientemente, se señaló el inicio de la exportación de carbón de marabú por cooperativas que el Gobierno no identificó y una empacadora que no mencionaron. Lo único claro sobre este negocio es que el carbón será enviado por la estatal CubaExport. Source: Una empresa inglesa comercializará café con el Gobierno cubano | Diario de Cuba - http://ift.tt/2iI6AbD via Blogger http://ift.tt/2jnMaGY

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Bothersome Beetles in BC (Bloomberg) From 2000 to 2015, 730 million cubic meters of pine in British Columbia were destroyed by the mountain pine beetle, a scourge that’s just one of several plagues of beetles devouring North American wood. The beetles wiped out a decade of lumber supplies and cut production in the interior of British Columbia by 40 percent, with the province estimating 55 percent of their marketable pine trees will be dead by 2020. Neighboring Alberta managed to reduce the area affected by the mountain pine beetle by 30 percent by drastic cut and burn techniques.

Trump Administration Finalizes Plan to Open Arctic Refuge to Drilling (NYT) The Trump administration on Monday finalized its plan to open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas development, a move that overturns six decades of protections for the largest remaining stretch of wilderness in the United States. The decision sets the stage for what is expected to be a fierce legal battle over the fate of the refuge’s vast, remote coastal plain, which is believed to sit atop billions of barrels of oil but is also home to polar bears and migrating herds of caribou. The Interior Department said on Monday that it had completed its required reviews and would begin preparations to auction off drilling leases. Environmentalists, who have battled for decades to keep energy companies out of the refuge, say the Interior Department failed to adequately consider the effects that oil and gas development could have on climate change and wildlife. They and other opponents, including some Alaska Native groups, are expected to file lawsuits to try to block lease sales.

Amid outcry, postmaster general to testify before House (AP) Facing a public backlash over mail disruptions, the Trump administration scrambled to respond as the House prepared an emergency vote to halt delivery delays and service changes that Democrats warned could imperil the November election. The Postal Service said it has stopped removing mailboxes and mail-sorting machines amid an outcry from lawmakers. President Donald Trump flatly denied he was asking for the mail to be delayed even as he leveled fresh criticism on universal ballots and mail-in voting. Democrats and some Republicans say actions by the new postmaster general, a Trump ally and a major Republican donor, have endangered millions of Americans who rely on the post office to obtain prescription drugs and other needs, including an expected surge in mail-in voting this fall.

California power (Bloomberg) The operator of California’s power grid warned another round of rolling blackouts could hit Monday afternoon as a heat wave smothers the region. The outages, which could come as early as 3 p.m. local time, would be the third time in four days that utilities intentionally cut power to cope with a crush of demand for air conditioning. Governor Gavin Newsom has called for an investigation into why officials failed to anticipate the need for blackouts, which have plunged millions of people into darkness.

Outbreaks Drive U.N.C. Chapel Hill Online After a Week of Classes (NYT) Citing an “untenable situation” caused by a spike in coronavirus cases after the first week of classes, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said on Monday that it would shut down in-person instruction for undergraduates and move entirely online. The announcement, from one of the largest universities in the country to open its campus during the pandemic, demonstrated how difficult it may be for America’s institutions of higher learning to achieve even a modicum of normalcy in the fall semester. Criticism and worry continue to plague other colleges hoping to offer in-person learning this fall. In the last few days, widely circulated images of young people congregating without masks near campus in Tuscaloosa, Ala., home of the University of Alabama, and around Dahlonega, Ga., home of the University of North Georgia, have raised concerns about students’ cavalier attitudes to social distancing measures.

Coin shortage hits retailers, laundromats, tooth fairy (AP) The national coin shortage has been an unusual side effect of the pandemic. Among its victims? Retailers, laundromats and even the tooth fairy. The Federal Reserve announced in June that the supply system for coins had been severely disrupted by the pandemic. While there are still enough coins out there, they aren’t circulating as freely because many businesses have been closed and consumers aren’t out spending as usual. The U.S. Mint and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have urged Americans to use coins or turn them in to banks to help for now. As the economy recovers and businesses reopen, the coin supply is expected to normalize. In the meantime, people have been forced to find workarounds. Retailers large and small have urged shoppers to use cards or exact change whenever possible. Some won’t provide change. Laundromats and people who rely on coin-operated laundry machines in laundromats and apartment buildings are struggling as well. The shortage is even being felt by the young, who may find the tooth fairy coming up a little short on change.

Portugal president helps rescue two women in trouble at sea (BBC) Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has helped rescue two women who came into difficulty at an Algarve beach when their kayak capsized. The president, 71, was pictured on Saturday swimming over to the kayakers who were struggling in the water. He later told reporters that the women had been swept by currents from a neighbouring beach into the bay. The president had just spoken to journalists at Praia do Alvor beach when he noticed the women struggling. Video footage caught the moment he swam into the sea to assist them. Another man was already there, trying to help turn the kayak over while a person on a jet ski also approached to offer help. The man on the jet ski then managed to tow the kayak back to the shore. According to broadcaster 20 Minutos, the president is spending his holidays visiting different areas of the country to promote tourism.

No Longer Cowed, Belarus Has Message for Once-Mighty Dictator: ‘Go Away!’ (NYT) In an age of ascendant strongman leaders, President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus is suddenly looking surprisingly weak. As protests against his rule have grown and intensified over the last week, the man known as “Europe’s last dictator” turned in desperation on Monday to the once reliably loyal workers at a tractor factory. But instead of being showered with their support, he was shouted down with chants of “Go away! Go away!” Until he claimed a landslide victory on Aug. 9 in a fraud-tainted election, few leaders appeared stronger and more secure than Mr. Lukashenko, a former state farm director who has ruled Belarus for 26 years, backed by an expansive, brutal and unwaveringly loyal security apparatus. Now, in scenes recalling the popular uprising that came out of nowhere to topple Romania’s seemingly invincible dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, the Belarus capital of Minsk, long known for its cowed calm and order, has shed decades of fear and raised its voice with a simple, insistent demand: The dictator must go.

Italy imposes new coronavirus restrictions (NYT) With daily coronavirus case numbers rising, Italy on Monday imposed its first new restrictions on daily life since coming out of lockdown nearly four months ago, ordering the closure of nightclubs and mandating mask-wearing, even outdoors, in areas with nightlife. The new measures come as Italy faces its most precarious moment of the summer. School is due to start in less than a month, Italians are moving en masse for their August holidays, and tourists are coming in from other European countries that have seen even greater increases.

Japan ties national high-temperature record amid blistering heat wave (Washington Post) Temperatures soared into the triple digits and tied a national record in Japan on Monday, part of a sweltering heat wave that has swallowed the archipelago. Hamamatsu, a coastal city in Shizuoka Prefecture on the island of Honshu, hit 106 degrees (41.1 Celsius) on Monday. It tied a national record set in 2018 and occurred within a day of Death Valley in California recording one of the hottest temperatures observed on Earth. Temperatures about 10 to 15 degrees above normal are likely through the week across the entirety of the Japanese island chain, with only a brief return to more temperate conditions by the weekend. Anomalous heat is likely to return into next week.

Rocket attack in Kabul wounds at least 10, triggers embassy lockdowns (Reuters) More than a dozen rockets struck Kabul on Tuesday, wounding at least ten people, including children, prompting some foreign embassies to order a lockdown, officials and sources in the Afghan capital said.

Sharp rise in virus cases in Lebanon after deadly port blast (AP) Lebanon is facing a surge in coronavirus cases after a devastating blast at the Beirut port earlier this month killed scores and wounded thousands, prompting medical officials on Monday to call for a two-week lockdown to try to contain the pandemic. Virus numbers were expected to rise following the Aug. 4, explosion of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at the port. Around 180 people were killed, more than 6,000 wounded and a quarter of a million left with homes unfit to live in. The blast overwhelmed the city’s hospitals and also badly damaged two that had a key role in handling virus cases. Medical officials had warned of the dangers of crowding at hospitals in the aftermath of the explosion, at funerals, or as people searched through the rubble. Protests and demonstrations also broke out after the blast as Lebanese vented their anger at authorities.

Gaza's lone power plant shuts down amid tension with Israel (AP) Gaza’s lone power plant shut down on Tuesday, less than a week after Israel suspended fuel shipments to the Palestinian enclave over the launching of incendiary balloons that have caused brush fires in southern Israel. Gaza, run by Hamas Islamists, relies on Israel for most of its energy needs. Its population of two million currently receives around six hours of electricity followed by a 10-hour power cut. “The power feed may now decline to only four hours (per day),” said Mohammad Thabet, an official at Gaza’s main power distribution company, after fuel ran out at the plant. Gaza homes and businesses rely on generators to make up for the lengthy power cuts, increasing the financial pressure on its largely impoverished people. Officials in Gaza said the power plant’s closure would cause disruptions at vital facilities such as hospitals, which are also equipped with generators.

Talks Set to Resume Over Nile Dam Dispute (Foreign Policy) Representatives of Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt are expected to meet today to present their proposals for the management of Ethiopia’s controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The dispute began in 2011 after Ethiopia broke ground on the $4.5 billion project on the Blue Nile—one of the river’s major tributaries which provides 80 percent of its waters. The Ethiopian government considers the dam to be a critical part of its future economic development, claiming it will provide 60 percent of Ethiopian households with electricity, as well as fresh water for its rapidly expanding population. But the dam is a potential threat to the two downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan. For Egypt in particular, a huge proportion of its population lives along the banks of the Nile, relying on the river for irrigation and drinking water. Egyptian officials argue that damming the Nile closer to its source in Ethiopia could severely threaten the country’s water supply. The controversy came to a head in July after Ethiopia began filling the reservoir, a move Egypt and Sudan both said could not happen until the three countries had agreed to a legally binding deal.

Mali's president announces resignation after armed mutiny (AP) Mali’s president announced his resignation late Tuesday, just hours after armed soldiers seized him from his home in a dramatic power grab following months of protests demanding his ouster. The news of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s departure was met with jubilation by anti-government demonstrators and alarm by former colonial ruler France, and other allies and foreign nations.