Month: December 2017

Keillor Says MPR Wrong to Dismiss Him Without Investigation

Posted on by Corts

Garrison Keillor says Minnesota Public Radio shouldn’t have dismissed him last week without fully investigating what the radio station has called “multiple allegations.”

Jon McTaggart, CEO of MPR’s parent company APMG, told employees Wednesday that the allegations against the 75-year-old former “A Prairie Home Companion” host covered an extended period of time. He provided no details.

 

In an email late Wednesday, Keillor told the Associated Press MPR has made an “enormous mistake … by not conducting a full and fair investigation.”

 

An MPR spokeswoman told AP last week that two people made complaints against Keillor, though only one claimed his behavior was directed at her.

 

Keillor’s attorney, Eric Nilsson, said Thursday that he knows of only one person making allegations against Keillor. Nilsson says McTaggart must “set the record straight.”
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Opioid Overdoses Take Toll on Medical Community

Posted on by Cosc

Within seconds of pulling out of the station parking lot, Major Mike Will gets his first call to respond to a crisis. Wills switches on his lights and siren and picks up the pace.

A thirty-year veteran of the Louisville’s emergency medical services, he has witnessed the explosion in opioid overdoses that have ravaged the city over the past two-years.

“The information we have right now is a 52-year old adult male who is unconscious, CPR in progress. And it look like an overdose,” he tells us.

The epidemic is taking a toll on Louisville’s first responders who field an average of over 20 overdose calls a day.

“When I first started, we could anticipate making narcotic or opioid overdose calls maybe five times a year,” he says. “And in the past year or two we have several of our crews that are making five in a 12 or 16 hour shift.”

As overdoses have steadily risen in cities and small towns across the country, officials have been searching for answers. Louisville reached a crisis point last August, with 151 overdoses over a span of four days.

Doctor on the front lines

Dr. Robert Couch, an emergency room physician and medical director at Louisville’s Norton Audubon Hospital, was on call at that time. He saw nine overdoses in five hours.

“We have been seeing heroin overdoses for a long time. But what was unusual about this overdose experience was it was taking larger and larger doses of the antidote Naloxone to reverse the effects of it,” he says. “So we knew that it wasn’t just heroin.”

Couch had learned of a similar spike in overdose cases in Ohio and West Virginia several weeks earlier. According to toxicology reports, those cases were caused by heroin mixed with Carfentanil, an opioid derivative often known as “the elephant tranquilizer,” that is 5,000 times more powerful than heroin.

“It is toxic in microgram quantities,” says Couch. “And so I suspected what other communities had seen was moving into Louisville at that time.”

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Fentanyl and Carfentanil are synthetic opioids predominantly manufactured in underground laboratories in China. Often sold as research chemicals, they can be bought on the dark web.

Cheaper to produce than heroin, they are often delivered to the U.S. through the mail. Dealers then mix the synthetics with their heroin to boost profits. The results are often deadly.

“Unfortunately, users don’t know what they are getting,” says Couch. “Heroin is toxic enough as it is. These other derivatives can cause death almost immediately through respiratory depression.”

Fentanyl and its derivatives have forced emergency rooms across the country to change their protocols for overdose patients.

“A couple of years ago we would start with a very small dose, say 0.4 milligrams of Naloxone and that would be effective,” Couch tells us. “That dose has increased to about 2 milligrams and now we are using 4 milligrams of Naloxone just to restore breathing initially.”

Naloxone can suppress opioids in the body for about 30 minutes, which is long enough to treat a typical heroin overdose. The Fentanyl derivatives are so potent emergency rooms are having to re-dose patients as the Naloxone wears off.

“People can re-sedate and be right back in the throes of their overdose even though they have been administered the reversal agent,” Couch says.

Fear on the streets

As overdoses have risen, so has fear on the street among drug users.

“To find a bag of heroin is pretty rare – that is just heroin,” says Mathew LaRocco, who runs the Louisville Metro Needle Exchange out of the first floor of a city government building. The exchange provides clean needles and other supplies to 400 drug users a week.

Studies have shown that drug users who frequent needle exchanges are 5 times more likely to seek treatment and less likely to contract HIV, hepatitis, and other health problems associated with intravenous drug use.

LaRocco works closely with the drug-using community in metro Louisville and says people are legitimately scared.

“There is a lot more respect for the product that is on the street,” he says. “People are realizing just how dangerous this is.”

LaRocco says several years ago when Fentanyl first came on the scene there was a small subset of users – usually young male users – who had the attitude that it would never happen to them.

“You don’t see that anymore,” he says. “You are seeing a volatility to the drug where people who used to inject five times a day are now injecting 15 times a day. They are still using the same amount of drug throughout the day, they are just breaking it up into smaller doses because they don’t want to die.”

He says Fentanyl and its derivatives are also showing up in other street drugs like methamphetamine.

“I have a client that only shoots methamphetamine,” says LaRocco. “He doesn’t shoot anything else. He was drug-screened and there was Fentanyl in his screen.”

LaRocco says even with the fear on the streets it is still difficult for an addict to overcome their irrational cravings.

“That still doesn’t change the fact that when someone overdoses on a bag of dope, everybody want to figure out where they got that bag of dope from. Because they know it is going to get them high,” he told us.

Lucky man

Major Mike Will arrives on the scene and pulls up behind a fire truck parked in a middle-class, suburban neighborhood lined with sidewalks. Two police officers are standing in the yard of a modest house with a brick front porch. Inside, paramedics are administering Naloxone, the opioid antidote, and the patient begins to regain consciousness.

“The transport unit was right on top of the run,” says Will. “So that gives this individual a much better chance because the first responders were so close. Apparently we had a two minute response time.”

A few minutes later, a white man with graying hair walks out under his own power and lays on a gurney waiting for him in the front yard – cheating certain death. Major Wills says he’s one of the lucky ones.

“You know these people we are bringing back with Naloxone, it’s giving them a second chance,” he says. “And it is frustrating to see these folks doing it over and over again. But I mean, you know, addiction is a sickness. And these people are addicted.”
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Dementia Set to Triple in Next 30 Years as Global Population Ages

Posted on by Cosc

The World Health Organization warns the number of people living with dementia globally will triple from 50 million to 152 million by 2050.  WHO is launching a global monitoring system on dementia, which will track progress and identify areas of concern.

The WHO reports dementia exacts a huge social and economic burden, one that will grow as people age and succumb to this mental illness.  

The agency estimates five percent of the world’s older population suffers from dementia and is in need of care.  Belying common belief, WHO says this is not mainly a problem of rich countries as dementia also affects people living in poorer countries.

The health agency says the cost of caring for dementia patients today is $818 billion or one percent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product.  Tarun Dua is a medical officer in WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse.  She says this economic cost will be more than $2 trillion by 2030.

“Moreover, there is stigma, human rights violations associated with people with dementia and their caregivers,” said Dua. “And, therefore, it is imperative that we have a public health response.  An important step that has been taken by all member States has been endorsing an action plan on dementia this year.” 

She says the plan focuses on caring for people who have dementia, on preventing and on finding a cure for this illness.  She says raising awareness of this problem is essential.

“Many people consider that dementia is a normal part of ageing, which is not true,” said Dua. “We need to think about risking, preventing dementia because the risk factors for dementia are the same for communicable diseases.  So, good exercise, good diet, no tobacco, decreasing alcohol, all of this can decrease the risk of dementia.”

Along with this, she says elderly people who suffer from depression should receive treatment for this malady.  She says social inclusion and cognitive exercise are other strategies that should be employed to reduce the risk of dementia. 
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Nobel Laureates Say Change Coming for Women in Sciences

Posted on by Cosc

A group of 2017 Nobel Laureates have addressed the lack of female representation in sciences ahead of the prize-awarding ceremony in Stockholm.

The seven winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry and Economic Sciences – all white men – said change is happening.

Jacques Dubochet, who won the chemistry prize, told reporters: “Science has been made by males, for males. It is changing, it takes time, but you will see it, they (women in science) are coming.”

Physicist Kip Thorne pointed to the increase in the number of women entering undergraduate programs in sciences today compared to when he was a student.

He said Thursday: “Change is coming, but there is a long delay between entering freshman and the Nobel prize.”
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New Jimi Hendrix Album With Unreleased Songs Coming in March

Posted on by Corts

Unreleased songs recorded by Jimi Hendrix between 1968 and 1970 will be released next year.

 

Experience Hendrix and Legacy Recordings announced Wednesday that they will release Hendrix’s “Both Sides of the Sky” on March 9, 2018. The 13-track album includes 10 songs that have never been released.

 

Hendrix died in 1970 at age 27. The new album is the third volume in a trilogy from the guitar hero’s archive. “Valleys of Neptune” was released in 2010, followed by “People, Hell and Angels,” released in 2013.

 

Eddie Kramer, who worked as recording engineer on every Hendrix album made during the artist’s life, said in an interview that 1969 was “a very experimental year” for Hendrix, and that he was blown away as he worked on the new album.

 

“The first thing is you put the tape on and you listen to it and the hairs just stand up right on the back of your neck and you go, `Oh my God. This is too (expletive) incredible,” said Kramer. “It’s an incredible thing. Forty, 50 years later here we are and I’m listening to these tapes going, ‘Oh my God, that’s an amazing performance.”’

 

Many of the album’s tracks were recorded by Band of Gypsys, Hendrix’s trio with Buddy Miles and Billy Cox. Stephen Stills appears on two songs: “$20 Fine” and “Woodstock.”

 

“It sounds like Crosby, Stills & Nash except it’s on acid, you know,” Kramer, laughing, said of “$20 Fine.”

 

“Jimi is just rocking it,” he added. “It’s an amazing thing.”

 

Johnny Winter appears on “Things I Used to Do”; original Jimi Hendrix Experience members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding are featured on “Hear My Train A Comin”’; and Lonnie Youngblood is on “Georgia Blues.”

 

Kramer produced the album alongside John McDermott and Janie Hendrix, the legend’s sister and president of Experience Hendrix. Kramer said though “Both Sides of the Sky” is the last of the trilogy, someone could find new Hendrix music in an attic or a basement, which could be re-worked.

 

He also said they have live footage of Hendrix, some just audio and some in video, which they plan to release.

 

“It was amazing just to watch him in the studio or live. The brain kicks off the thought process — it goes through his brain through his heart and through his hands and onto the guitar, and it’s a seamless process,” Kramer said. “It’s like a lead guitar and a rhythm guitar at the same time, and it’s scary. There’s never been another Jimi Hendrix, at least in my mind.”
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Gene Therapy Offers Hope of a Cure for Blood Disease

Posted on by Cosc

Gene therapy has freed 10 men from nearly all symptoms of hemophilia for a year so far, in a study that fuels hopes that a one-time treatment can give long-lasting help and perhaps even cure the blood disease.

Hemophilia almost always strikes males and is caused by the lack of a gene that makes a protein needed for blood to clot. Small cuts or bruises can be life-threatening, and many people need treatments once or more a week to prevent serious bleeding.

The therapy supplies the missing gene, using a virus that’s been modified so it won’t cause illness but ferries the DNA instructions to liver cells, which use them to make the clotting factor. The treatment is given through an IV.

Hope of a one-time treatment

In a study published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, all 10 men given the therapy now make clotting factor in the normal range. Bleeding episodes were reduced from about one a month before gene therapy to less than one a year. Nine of the 10 no longer need clotting factor treatments, and the 10th needs far fewer of them. There were no serious side effects.

Follow-up is still short, a year on average. Some cells with the new gene might not pass it on as they divide, so the benefits may wane over time, but they’ve lasted eight years in other tests in people and up to 12 years so far in dogs.

“The hope is that this would be a one-time treatment” to fix the problem, said the study leader, Dr. Lindsey George of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 

Spark Therapeutics, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, company that makes the treatment, and Pfizer, which now is working with Spark on it, paid for the study, and some of the study leaders work for or have stock in Spark.

Dr. Matthew Porteus of Stanford University, who wrote a commentary in the journal, called the results striking and said, “I think we’re definitely on the road” to a cure. 

‘It’s pretty magical’

It feels like one to Canadians Jay and Bill Konduras, brothers who live an hour’s drive outside Toronto who were in the study.

“It’s pretty magical,” said Jay Konduras, 53, who runs a bakery and was treated in June 2016. 

“Life-changing,” said Bill Konduras, 58, a machinist treated in March.

Before, even small amounts of exertion would cause tiny muscle tears and bleeding problems requiring clotting factor treatment.

“Even something as innocuous as reaching over your head to get something out of a closet, or reaching down to tie a shoe” could trigger trouble, Bill Konduras said.

Six years ago, he nearly lost his leg after a motorcycle crash tore open an artery; he spent nearly a month in the hospital. Since the gene therapy, neither brother has needed clotting factor treatment.

Costs are unknown

The therapy is still experimental and its eventual cost is unknown, but clotting factor treatment costs about $200,000 per patient per year, Porteus said.

Another gene therapy, from BioMarin Pharmaceutical for a different form of hemophilia, also showed promise in a different study. Thirteen patients have been treated and have had a big drop in bleeding episodes and clotting factor treatments, study leaders report. One-year results will be given at an American Society of Hematology conference that starts Saturday.

Other companies are working on hemophilia treatments; Sangamo Therapeutics is testing traditional gene therapy and gene editing approaches.
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Memoir by Japan’s Hirohito Fetches $275,000 in NY

Posted on by Corts

A memoir by the late Japanese Emperor Hirohito about the years leading up to World War II has been purchased by a Japanese cosmetic surgeon who has has been condemned for denying the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and imperial Japanese forces.

Katsuya Takasu purchased the handwritten document Wednesday from Bonham’s auction house in New York City for $275,000, nearly double its expected top price, at an auction in Manhattan on Wednesday.

The 173-page document was dictated to Hirohito’s aides soon after the end of the war. It was created at the request of General Douglas MacArthur, whose administration controlled Japan at the time.

The memoir, also known as the imperial monologue, covers events from the Japanese assassination of Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin in 1928 to the emperor’s surrender broadcast recorded Aug. 14, 1945.

The document’s contents caused a sensation when they were first published in Japan in 1990, just after the emperor’s death.

The two volumes are each bound with strings, the contents written vertically in pencil.

It was transcribed by Hidenari Terasaki, an imperial aide and former diplomat who served as a translator when Hirohito met with McArthur.

The monologue is believed among historians to be a carefully crafted text intended to defend Hirohito’s responsibility in case he was prosecuted after the war. A 1997 documentary on Japan’s NHK television found an English translation of the memoir that supports that view.

According to the Associated Press, the manuscript, was in the possession of the daughter of Terasaki. Hirohito wrote the document in 1946, a year after Japan surrendered to Allied forces and the emperor faced the possibility of being tried as a war criminal.

Takasu says he purchased the document so it can be kept in Japan.

Takasu has been condemned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Jewish human rights group, for using social media to praise Nazi Germany and describe the Holocaust and the Nanjing massacre in China as fabrications.

Japanese forces swept through Nanjing in December 1937 and killed scores of civilians and soldiers over a brutal six-week period.

The transcript was kept by Terasaki’s American wife, Gwen Terasaki, after his death in 1951 and then handed over to their daughter, Mariko Terasaki Miller, and her family.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Climate ‘Refugees,’ Sidelined From Global Deal, Ask: ‘Where Is the Justice?’

Posted on by Coeco

Vulnerable communities uprooted by climate change are being left out of a voluntary pact to deal with migration, campaigners said, after the United States pulled out of the global deal.

Although people within low-lying states are being forced to relocate because of worsening storms and rising seas, they will not be recognized in U.N. migration pact talks next year, putting lives at risk, campaigners said.

“Many of the situations we find ourselves in, here in the Pacific, are not caused by us. We continue to ask, ‘Where is the justice?’ Those of us who are least responsible, continue to bear the brunt,” said Emele Duituturaga, head of the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (PIANGO).

Hoping for acceptance

“We hope that there will be an openness and an acceptance that climate-induced migration is one that the world community has to be responsible for,” she said on the sidelines of a conference co-hosted by PIANGO in Fiji’s capital, Suva.

With a record 21.3 million refugees globally, the 193-member U.N. General Assembly adopted a political declaration in September 2016 in which it also agreed to spend two years negotiating a pact on safe, orderly and regular migration.

U.S. President Donald Trump this week withdrew from negotiations because the global approach to the issue was “simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres regretted the U.S. decision, his spokesman said, but expressed hope the United States might re-engage in the talks ahead of the start of formal negotiations in February.

Unique heritage

Climate displacement is already a reality for Telstar Jimmy, a student from the Bank Islands in northern Vanuatu.

Her family has relocated several times because of worsening cyclones and flooding, as rising seas slowly wash away ancestral homelands and burial sites.

“The foundations of our unique heritage were taken,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Relocation just meant safety and continuing to exist. But now the question is: Safe and existing for how much longer?”

Worldwide, sea levels have risen 26 centimeters (10 inches) since the late 19th century, driven up by melting ice and a natural expansion of water in the oceans as they warm, U.N. data show. Seas could rise by up to a meter by 2100.

‘It’s only going to get worse’

“With climate-induced displacement, we know that there are already people, communities and countries at risk,” said Danny Sriskandarajah, head of the rights group CIVICUS, co-hosting the Fiji conference. “It’s only going to get worse [and] we need to come up with ways to manage those flows.”

PIANGO and CIVICUS are among campaign groups drafting a declaration that calls on the United Nations to recognize climate change as a key driver of migration.

The 1951 Refugee Convention recognizes that people fleeing persecution, war and conflict have the right to protection, but not those forced out by climate change.

Trump also plans to pull out of the 2015 Paris climate accord, which seeks to end the fossil fuel era this century with a radical shift to cleaner energies to curb heat waves, downpours, floods and rising sea levels.

The deal aims to hold the global temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and try to limit the rise even further, to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The U.S. is the only country that is not part of the climate pact after Syria and Nicaragua joined this year.

“I’m a bit nervous because other countries may also pull out with the U.S., and that’s going to be a bigger issue for us, especially at a time when we’re trying to battle climate change,” said Vanuatu local Jimmy. “Whatever each country does will impact the lives of other people around the whole globe.”
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New Apps, Gadgets on Display at this Year’s TechCrunch Berlin

Posted on by Cobiz

Those apps on your phone are expected to earn their developers about $77 billion this year.  Some entrepreneurs who are looking to grab a bit of that market were showing off their products in Germany this week. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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China’s Sinopec Sues Venezuela in Sign of Fraying Relations

Posted on by Coeco

Sinopec USA, a subsidiary of the Chinese oil and gas conglomerate, has sued Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA in a U.S. court, claiming it never received full payment for an order of steel rebar.

The lawsuit asks for $23.7 million for breach of contract and conspiracy to defraud. The legal action signals a split with another of Venezuela’s biggest backers as the cash-strapped country seeks to restructure some $60 billion in debt in a landscape of low oil prices and production.

The complaint suggests “patience is getting really thin at this point,” said Mark Weidemaier, law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an expert on international debt disputes. “This is a further sign of frostiness in the Chinese-Venezuelan relations.”

PDVSA declined to comment.

China, which has loaned Venezuela more than $50 billion over the past decade, recently has been reluctant to involve itself more deeply in the South American country’s debt crisis. It has curtailed its credit to Venezuela in the last 22 months because of chronic payment delays, troubles with joint venture projects, and crime faced by Chinese firms operating in the country.

In its lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Houston on Nov. 27, Sinopec said PDVSA paid half of a 2012 purchase order for 45,000 tons of steel rebar, which is used in oil rigs, by its fully owned subsidiary Bariven.

It accused the Venezuelan oil company of using Bariven “as a sham to perpetrate fraud against Sinopec,” and called the PDVSA subsidiary an “undercapitalized shell with the sole purpose of preventing Sinopec from having a remedy.”

Any solution to Venezuela’s financial crisis will need the involvement of the Chinese and Russian governments, which are owed a substantial amount from the country. A Russian state-owned shipping company, Sovcomflot, also brought suit last year against PDVSA over $30 million in unpaid shipping fees.

PDVSA is in talks with a handful of European companies to obtain credit for oil and gas projects in a bid to reverse a slump in output to an almost 30-year low, and has been seeking financing from China and Russia.

But kidnappings and thefts in Caracas have prompted some Chinese executives working in the country to move to Colombia to escape the problems, sources have said. Chinese-run infrastructure projects also have faced delays.

Carmakers and small grocery stores that flourished under late president Hugo Chavez due to preferential currency exchange terms have either closed or downsized. Current president Nicolas Maduro no longer offers the same preferential terms for Chinese businesses to have access to cheap imports.

“The Chinese don’t have a whole lot to show for their loans,” a Western diplomat in Caracas said.
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Russia’s Olympic Ban Strengthens Putin’s Re-election Hand

Posted on by Corts

Opinion polls show Vladimir Putin is already a shoo-in to win a fourth presidential term. But a ban on Russia taking part in the Winter Olympics is likely to make support for him even stronger, by uniting voters around his message: The world is against us.

Putin announced on Wednesday that he would run for re-election in March’s presidential vote, setting the stage for him to extend his dominance of Russia’s political landscape into a third decade.

With ties between the Kremlin and the West at their lowest point for years, the International Olympic Committee’s decision to bar Russia from the 2018 Pyeongchang Games over doping is seen in Moscow as a humiliating and politically tinged act.

Putin, echoing his familiar refrain that his country is facing a treacherous Western campaign to hold it back, said he had “no doubt” that the IOC’s decision was “absolutely orchestrated and politically-motivated.”

“Russia will continue moving forwards, and nobody will ever be able to stop this forward movement,” Putin said.

Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the upper house of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, had been among the first to cast the move as part of a Western plot against Russia, which sees sport as a barometer of geopolitical influence.

“They are targeting our national honor … our reputation … and our interests. They (the West) bought out the traitors … and orchestrated media hysteria,” Kosachyov wrote on social media.

The IOC ruling is also seen by many in Russia as a personal affront to Putin, who was re-elected president in 2012 after spending four years as prime minister because the constitution barred him from a third consecutive term as head of state.

The sport-loving leader cast his hosting of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, at which the IOC says there was “unprecedented systematic manipulation” of the anti-doping system, as a symbol of Russia’s success under his rule.

But Putin has often extracted political benefit from crises, and turned international setbacks into domestic triumphs, by accusing the West of gunning for Russia and using this to inspire Russians to unite.

“Outside pressure on Russia, understood as politically motivated and orchestrated from the U.S., leads to more national cohesion,” Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said on Wednesday.

“Various sanctions are being turned into instruments of nation-building.”

Putin’s popularity, supported by state television, is already high. Opinion polls regularly give him an approval rating of around 80 percent.

But casting the IOC ban as a Western plot to hurt Russia, something he did when Russian athletes were banned from last year’s Summer Olympics in Rio over doping, could help him mobilize the electorate.

Public anger over the IOC move could help Putin overcome signs of voter apathy and ensure a high turnout which, in the tightly controlled limits of the Russian political system, is seen as conferring legitimacy.

There were early signs that fury over the IOC’s decision was duly stirring patriotic fervor.

“Russia is a superpower,” Alexander Kudrashov, a member of the Russian Military Historical Society, told Reuters on Moscow’s Red Square after the IOC ruling.

Without Russia, he said, the Olympics would not be valid. He linked the decision to a Western anti-Russian campaign which many Russians believe took hold after Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

“Choosing between the people in Crimea, who wept when the Russian flag was run up and who were doomed to genocide, and sportspeople taking first place on the podium, I choose the people who couldn’t defend themselves,” Kudrashov said.

‘We soak it up and survive’

Blaming the West is an approach the Kremlin has often used before when faced with international allegations of wrongdoing — over Crimea’s annexation, the shooting down of a Malaysian passenger plane over Ukraine in July 2014 and charges of meddling in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists rebelled against rule from Kiev after Crimea was annexed.

The tactic taps into Russians’ patriotism and makes Putin almost bullet-proof when it comes to scandal. The 65-year-old former KGB agent is regarded by many voters as a tsar-like father-of-the-nation figure who has brought their country back from the brink of collapse.

When at the start of the year it seemed there was a window to repair relations with the West after the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, who said he wanted better ties, the narrative of Russia versus the world was muted.

But when it became clear that U.S. allegations of Russian meddling in Trump’s election precluded any rapprochement, Putin doubled down on the narrative. In October, he launched a stinging critique of U.S. policy, listing what he called the biggest betrayals in U.S.-Russia relations.

Sources close to the Russian government say the IOC ban, along with continued Western sanctions over Ukraine and the prospect of new sanctions, will help the authorities rally voters around the banner of national unity which Putin embodies.

“Outside pressure just makes us stronger,” said one such source who declined to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, set the tone on social media in comments that found ready support from many Russians.

“What haven’t we been forced to suffer from our ‘partners’ in the course of our history,” she wrote. “But they just can’t bring us down. Not via a world war, the collapse of the Soviet Union or sanctions … We soak it up and survive.”
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‘The Last Jedi’ Aims to Capture That Old Star Wars Feeling

Posted on by Corts

Han Solo is dead. Luke Skywalker is back, but changed. And Leia Organa’s story will soon be coming to an end. 

The Star Wars that inspired four decades of passionate fandom appears to be slowly but surely fading as “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” prepares to descend on Dec. 15, giving way to a newer generation of intergalactic rebels and their foes, like Rey and Kylo Ren, and a fresh voice behind the endeavor in writer-director Rian Johnson (“Looper”).

J.J. Abrams’ “The Force Awakens” set the stage for this new era of the franchise, but “The Last Jedi” has to move it forward and keep audiences interested for the next one too.

After all these years and billions of dollars, Star Wars isn’t exactly a scrappy underdog anymore, but the franchise is in somewhat uncharted territory. The prequels did their own damage, but at least no one had to say goodbye to their original heroes.

And then there’s the seemingly impossible standard set by that other Star Wars sequel, “The Empire Strikes Back.” 

​Premiere is Dec. 9

Besides the main cast, filmmakers and some Lucasfilm and Walt Disney Co. brass, no one will see “The Last Jedi” until the Los Angeles premiere on Dec. 9. And determining what exactly audiences should expect is a bit like trying to assemble a puzzle with no picture and most of the pieces missing. The cast has left some adjective breadcrumbs (“intense,” “emotional,” “intimate,” “cinematic”) but for the most part, it’s a mystery.  

“For me, ‘The Last Jedi’ is not a particularly happy story to tell, but it’s just my part,” Mark Hamill says cryptically. Hamill, 66, returns to play Luke Skywalker after being seen in only a few frames of “The Force Awakens,” which ends on a wind-swept cliff as the young protege Rey (Daisy Ridley) approaches him looking for training from the missing Jedi. Luke and Rey are just one of the new pairings promised for the film, which finds every character out of their comfort zone and facing new challenges as the Resistance organizes to go up against the First Order. 

 “It’s got so much going on,” Hamill adds. “You can cut from the more somber scenes I have to the action/adventure, the suspense, the humor … I’ve only seen it once but I thought, “This is too much information to process.’”

The marketing campaign, no doubt playing into the tone set by “Empire,” has focused on the darkness and intensity of “The Last Jedi,” but Johnson says that’s only one element. He stresses that it is, first and foremost, a Star Wars movie. To him, that means capturing that thing that makes you want to “run out of the theater and into your backyard” to play with your spaceship toys — even without the curmudgeonly wit of Harrison Ford’s Han Solo.

“That’s what everyone was concerned about going in: How do you do it without him?” Johnson, 43, says. “I saw so much potential for humor in it. I was looking at every single character and trying to find opportunities to break the tension. I think people are going to be surprised by how fun and light on its feet it is.” 

Expanded roster

In addition to Luke and Rey, the film brings back Carrie Fisher as Leia in her last film role (Fisher died after filming had wrapped), Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, fresh off murdering his father Han Solo, the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), Domnhall Gleeson’s General Hux, the ace pilot Poe (Oscar Isaac), the ex-Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) and his old boss Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), Chewbacca, the droids and a host of newcomers, like Laura Dern’s purple-haired Vice Admiral Holdo, a maintenance tech, Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), a hacker (Benicio Del Toro) and some cute little creatures called Porgs. 

His script, which he was able to write while “The Force Awakens” was being made, took some of the cast aback at first. 

“I was going, ‘Uh, I’m not sure about this,’” Ridley says. “It just took us all a second to be like, ‘Ok this is where the story is heading.’” 

​The new boyfriend

Johnson jokes that he’s like the new boyfriend at Thanksgiving dinner who everyone has to get used to.

“(Rian) had a different challenge which was to expand the Star Wars universe further with more inventive ideas, taking more risks,” Boyega says. “He was a real fan. I feel like he ticked off his Star Wars fanboy theories just one by one with this film.”

That fandom has also helped Johnson, who Hamill refers to as his Obi-Wan, reach a sort of zen-like state with the film. It also doesn’t hurt that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who has not been afraid to make tough decisions and fire or bench directors if something isn’t working, was so pleased with their collaboration and the resulting film that she has already enlisted Johnson to develop a new Star Wars trilogy separate from the Skywalker saga (he’ll write and direct the first). 

 

Loyal fanbase

Now it’s just a matter of putting “The Last Jedi” out in the world. Financially, there’s not much to worry about — it’s tracking to open somewhere in the $200 million range (far below “The Force Awakens”’ $248 million debut, but stunning nonetheless). Also box office and the expectations and hopes of a loyal fanbase, who have been burned before, are two very different things.

“Having been a Star Wars fan myself for the past 40 years, I know intimately how passionate they are about it and how everyone has stuff they love and hate in every single movie. That takes the pressure off a little bit just thinking, `Ok, there’s going to be stuff that everyone likes, there’s going to be stuff that people don’t like and it’s going to be a mixture,”’ Johnson says. 

And with a smile and a shrug, he adds: “That’s what being a Star Wars fan is.”
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‘Swiss-Made’ Label Lacks Precision for Watch Industry

Posted on by Coeco

If you buy a “Swiss-made” watch thinking it’s almost entirely produced in Switzerland, you might be mistaken.

The manufacture of components including dials, sapphire glass and cases is flourishing in China, Thailand and Mauritius and many of these end up in watches designated as “Swiss-made.”

Stricter rules came into force this year for watches bearing the coveted label on their dial and for which consumers are prepared to pay a premium.

The key requirement is that 60 percent of the manufacturing costs occur in Switzerland, up from a previous 50 percent threshold that applied only to the movement – the core mechanism.

The new rules were meant to make the label more credible in the eyes of consumers and to shield the industry from Asian competition.

But the change has made it difficult for the makers of cheaper Swiss watches to cut costs and weather a harsh industry downturn. And at the same time it has left the makers of more expensive brands enough leeway to shift a chunk of component supplies to Asia to protect their profit margins.

“Since the Swiss-made rules were tightened, we have fewer orders, not more,” said Alain Marietta of dialmaker Metalem, based in Swiss watchmaking hub Le Locle. “Some customers ask us to produce half of the components in China so we can be cheaper.”

He said he was concerned about losing customers but had stuck to his principles. “We want to offer a real Swiss made in Switzerland, otherwise for the people working in the watch industry here, it’ll mean slow death.”

Cost pressures

Affordable brands struggle to make money in Switzerland, where labor costs are high, margins are low and intense foreign competition, including from smartwatches, means they can’t raise prices.

Citychamp’s Rotary brand, which had used the label for decades, offers no “Swiss-made” pieces in its latest collections, saying the new rules made it hard to deliver value and quality.

Swatch Group, whose watches span all price points and which has extensive production facilities in Switzerland, said it was benefiting from the new rules it advocated. Chief Executive Nick Hayek said in a recent newspaper interview the group might soon be without competition in affordable “Swiss-made” watches.

Mondaine Group’s Ronnie Bernheim said the group’s brands, which include popular Swiss railways watch Mondaine, had also abandoned some models that would not have met the new criteria.

National Watch Federation (FH) statistics show the value of exported watches with a retail price of up to 600 Swiss francs ($610), fell by more than 11 percent in the first 10 months of 2017, versus an overall rise of 2.4 percent for all price tags.

Watches account for roughly 10 percent of overall Swiss exports and almost 57,000 people work in the industry.

Specialist companies have sprung up that offer brands the optimum product mix that will qualify for the “Swiss-made” tag.

EOS Watch Development, for example, promises on its website to deliver “Swiss-made” products that will help customers save money by combining Swiss and Far East suppliers.

Tough at the top

At the top end of the market where timepieces sell for thousands of francs, a severe downturn in demand translated into sharply lower profits in recent years.

Profitability at luxury group Richemont and more diversified Swatch Group is recovering now, helped by improving sales, but a tight focus on costs remains vital.

“Some brands in the high end would up to now never have considered buying components abroad for ethical reasons, but also because their excessive retail prices and resulting margin levels allowed it,” said a Swiss dialmaker who asked to remain anonymous.

“The slowing demand forced almost all brands to reposition their products and they benefit from the new law, which is very explicit, to improve their margins by partly sourcing abroad.”

He said his own dial company was mainly producing in Mauritius, where salaries are much lower, but a technical bureau performing some operations in Switzerland meant the dials qualified as “Swiss-made.”

Several sources said almost all watch case makers now imported sapphire glass from Asia. Luxury watchmakers generally keep their suppliers secret, but recently there have been some initiatives denouncing this lack of transparency.

Francois Aubry, a supplier turned watchmaker, recently launched a timepiece with “99.99 percent Swiss production,” publishing the list of all its suppliers, while the Swiss CODE41 watch project raised 543,000 francs on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter with a concept of total transparency on the mostly

Chinese origin of its components.

Industry body FH said it was its task to intervene if “Swiss-made” rules were not respected. It has decided to set up a task force to make sure everybody plays by the new rules, especially once a transition period expires at the end of 2018.

However, some watchmakers have already lost patience with the system.

High-end brand H.Moser & Cie this year dumped the “Swiss-made” label while declaring its own watches over 95 percent Swiss. It denounced the official rules as “too lenient, providing no guarantee, creating confusion and encouraging abuses.”

 
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China’s Exports to Cuba Slump as Island’s Cash Crunch Deepens

Posted on by Coeco

Chinese exports to Cuba have plunged this year in the latest sign of a worsening in the Communist-run island’s financial situation, which began in 2015 with the economic crisis in its top trading partner Venezuela.

Chinese exports to Cuba slumped 29.8 percent to $1 billion from January through October compared with the same period last year, according to Chinese customs.

Chinese exports peaked at a record $1.9 billion in 2015, nearly 60 percent above the annual average of the previous decade. They slipped slightly last year to $1.8 billion.

China sends a broad array of supplies to Cuba, from machinery and transportation equipment to raw materials, chemicals and food.

The Chinese commercial office in Havana said the decline was due to Cuba’s payment problems. China ranked as Cuba’s first trading partner in terms of goods in 2016, followed by Venezuela.

The economic crisis in Venezuela, lower revenue from commodity and related exports, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Irma and the Trump administration’s tightening of business and travel restrictions have left Cuba without cash to pay some suppliers and investment partners.

Western diplomats and businessmen estimate Cuban state-run banks, which must pay suppliers, have fallen behind by anywhere from $800 million to well over a billion dollars since 2015.

“China’s exports to Cuba are experiencing difficult times and the pressure continues for many businessmen due to the economic difficulties this Caribbean nation is going through,” Hong Xiao, economic and commercial counselor at the Chinese embassy, told Chinese business representatives attending a Havana trade fair last month, according to news agency Xinhua.

Cuba’s trade in goods last year was $12.6 billion, compared with $15 billion in 2015, more than 80 percent imports.

The cash crunch and lower oil supplies from Venezuela have forced the government to slash imports and reduce the use of fuel and electricity, helping tip its economy into recession in 2016 for the first time in nearly a quarter century.

The island’s economy relies on imports to fuel economic activity, so a drop in Chinese exports does not bode well.

“The fall in imports from China is a pattern more or less across the board and in part reflects the government’s efforts to balance revenues and pay debt,” said former Cuban central bank economist Pavel Vidal, now a professor at Universidad Javeriana Cali in Colombia.

“That means less consumer goods and supplies for the productive sector, which effects growth,” said Vidal, who expects little if any growth this year despite increased government spending and foreign investment.

The government had hoped for a 2 percent increase in the gross domestic product after last year’s contraction of 0.9 percent.
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Too Chic for Amazon: Luxury Firms in EU Can Pick Sales Sites

Posted on by Coeco

Luxury goods companies may ban sales of their products on online platforms like Amazon to preserve their aura of exclusivity, the European Union’s top court said Wednesday. 

The European Court of Justice ruled in favor of the German branch of luxury cosmetics group Coty, whose brands include Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs, which sought to keep its products from selling on non-authorized digital sale platforms. 

​The court said Coty’s effort to limit distributors “is appropriate to preserve the luxury image of those goods,” adding that it “does not appear to go beyond what is necessary.” Coty wanted to ban an authorized distributor from selling its products on Amazon.de in a case pending at a Frankfurt court, which requested a ruling from EU judges.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association said the ruling was “bad news for consumers who will face fewer choices and also less competition when they want to shop online.”

Germany’s antitrust agency said it was examining the EU court ruling, but expected it to have only a limited effect on its own decisions.

The court in Luxembourg “apparently made a great effort to limit its statements to the realm of real prestige products, where the luxurious aura is a significant part of the product itself,” said Andreas Mundt, the head of the Federal Cartel Office.

Manufacturers of goods that aren’t luxury brands “still have no carte blanche to sweepingly limit their distributors’ use of sales platforms, according to our assessment,” Mundt added.
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With a Small Book, Gene Simmons Is Ready to Make you Rich

Posted on by Corts

Kiss co-founder and entrepreneur Gene Simmons has a new book out in which he hopes to reveal the principles of being rich and powerful.

There’s no quick fix: You’re going to have to wake up early, dress better, turn off the TV and study.

 

“On Power” is part guidebook, part self-help manual, with several profiles of people Simmons thinks we should admire, like Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffett.

 

His advice to gaining wealth is simple: Think of a good idea, start a limited liability partnership in your home, use social media and deduct the costs from your taxes. You can keep your old job until the rewards flow in.

 

If they don’t? You can declare bankruptcy and “then you can start again.”
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Driverless Buses Take to Some Roads in California

Posted on by Cobiz

Imagine the day you board a bus and it starts moving. It obeys all traffic signs and stops at signal lights. All without a driver. That’s the future, happening right now at a business park in Northern California. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes us on what’s probably your first ride on a driverless shuttle bus.
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6 Women Claim Weinstein Cover Up Was Racketeering

Posted on by Corts

Six women filed a lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein on Wednesday, claiming that the movie mogul’s actions to cover up assaults amounted to civil racketeering.

The lawsuit was filed at a federal court in New York seeking to represent a class of “dozens, if not hundreds” of women who say they were assaulted by Weinstein.

The lawsuit claims that a coalition of companies and people became part of the growing “Weinstein Sexual Enterprise” and that they worked with Weinstein to conceal his widespread sexual harassment and assaults.

“The Weinstein Sexual Enterprise had many participants, grew over time as the obfuscation of Weinstein’s conduct became more difficult to conceal,” the suit said.

A lawyer for Weinstein declined comment.

According to the lawsuit, actresses and other women in the film industry were lured to industry events, hotel rooms, Weinstein’s home, office meetings or auditions under the pretense that they were to discuss a project.

Plaintiffs included the scriptwriter and actress Louisette Geiss and the actresses Katherine Kendall, Zoe Brock, Sarah Ann Thomas, Melissa Sagemiller and Nanette Klatt.

The Associated Press generally doesn’t name alleged victims of sexual assault without their permission. All of the women have told their stories publicly.

At least 75 women have come forward in the media to detail accounts of assault, harassment and inappropriate conduct by Weinstein. Weinstein’s representatives have denied all accusations of non-consensual sex, but no charges have been filed.

Weinstein, 65, is being investigated by police in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, New York and London

Weinstein was ousted from the movie company he founded following a barrage of sexual harassment allegations that began with a bombshell New York Times article in early October. Since then, numerous prominent men in entertainment, business and politics and the media have been hit with allegations of improper behavior with women.

 
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AP News Break: Accusers Take on Toxic Culture in TV Newsrooms

Posted on by Corts

Women who say they were sexually harassed or mistreated by powerful men in television news have banded together to form a support network aimed at changing a newsroom culture they say has given men a free pass to misbehave for decades.

The women behind the Press Forward initiative tell The Associated Press they want a zero-tolerance policy for sexual misconduct at networks, better awareness of legal rights for women coming into the industry and better accountability for executives to ensure safety and improvements.

“Women should not have to go to work and worry that something like this is going to happen to them,” said Eleanor McManus, who said she was a 21-year-old job seeker when then-ABC News political reporter Mark Halperin tried to kiss her during a meeting in his office. “Women should not worry that mentors may act in an aggressive manner toward them. That’s not fair.”

Press Forward evolved over the last two months after McManus and other women went public with allegations against Halperin, CBS and PBS host Charlie Rose and NBC’s “Today” show host Matt Lauer, and others.

Halperin has said that he is “profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish” he has caused and, in reading the women’s accounts, recognized “conduct for which I feel profound guilt and responsibility.” Rose and Lauer have also offered apologies, while saying some the allegations are untrue. All have been fired.

This was the second wave of an industry-wide reckoning that began at Fox News with the removal last year of Fox News chief Roger Ailes and the dismissal in April of the network’s star host Bill O’Reilly. But the most recent revelations came as many Hollywood and other media executives have faced allegations, and more network women have come forward.

At first, McManus and a small group shared stories and hugs over drinks. They kept in touch via text messages and private Facebook groups, including one called “The Silver Lining.” Now they have reached out to other women with shared experiences to build a growing coalition.

“Nobody here is wallowing in their pain and anger,” said Dianna Goldberg May, a former ABC News researcher who said Halperin demanded she close the door and sit on his lap in his office in the mid-1990s when she was 23. “We are doing something to effect positive change in the workplace.”

The group’s first mission: figuring out what’s needed to make the television news business more equitable and effective. The women say they’ll spend the next six months talking with everyone from interns to executives and designing best practices that tear down the status quo.

After Lauer’s firing, NBC initiated a review of its handling of the matter and implemented in-person training on sexual harassment awareness and appropriate behavior in the workplace.

McManus said some of the networks have already expressed an interest in working with Press Forward.

“There are many reasons to have an industry-wide conversation about how we’re doing and how we’re living up to our norms,” said McManus, a co-founder of the Washington, D.C. public relations firm Trident DMG. “This is, perhaps, the most pressing because this is about the shameful power imbalance that has been in place too long.”

They already have plenty of ideas.

May, now a lawyer, wants the government to give sexual harassment victims more time to file a complaint. Currently, they have up to 300 days.

McManus wants newsrooms to evolve so women at all levels are not afraid to report wrongdoing by a top anchor or producer.

“We stayed silent because we thought we were the only ones,” said McManus. “We didn’t think that this happened to others, and that’s why we stayed silent so long. The cult of silence is finally broken.”

Emily Miller tweeted that Halperin sexually assaulted her while she was a researcher at ABC News. Lara Setrakian was 24 when she says Halperin kissed and touched her while they talked politics in his office.

They said they learned later that some people at the network had been aware of Halperin’s behavior, but that it didn’t stop. Setrakian said Halperin’s treatment of young women was considered an “open secret” in some circles.

“There’s clearly a problem here,” said Setrakian, now the chief executive of the digital media outlet News Deeply. “They should be launching rigorous investigations on how to fix the problem.”

Changing the culture of television news so that men and women are on equal footing – with the same opportunities for advancement – is vital to ensuring its future, Setrakian said. That means not only eliminating the sexual misconduct that has caused scores of women to leave the industry, she said, but getting rid of double standards that judge women on their appearance.

“The current culture is muddling the meritocracy,” Setrakian said. “It’s pushing talented people out. It’s allowing toxic behavior to affect the performance and contribution of certain colleagues. That’s bad for business.”

Marcy McGinnis, who worked her way from secretary to senior vice president at CBS News, said as much as women should be told what resources are available to them if there is an incident, men need to know how to act in the workplace.

“Then we wouldn’t have to train women how to deal with it,” said McGinnis, who now works at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. “Why don’t we go to the source and fix that?”
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Apple CEO Hopeful Banned Apps Will Return to China Store

Posted on by Cobiz

Apple’s chief executive said Wednesday he’s optimistic some apps that fell afoul of China’s tight internet laws will eventually be restored after being removed earlier this year.

Speaking at a business forum in southern China, CEO Tim Cook also dismissed criticism of his appearance days earlier at an internet conference promoting Beijing’s vison of a censored internet.

Cook’s high-profile appearance Sunday at the government-organized World Internet Conference drew comments from activists and U.S. politicians who say Apple should do more to push back against Chinese internet restrictions.

He said he believed strongly in freedoms but also thought that foreign companies need to play by local rules where they operate.

When asked about Chinese government policies requiring removal of apps, including ones from operators of virtual private networks that can get around the country’s internet filters, he said, “My hope over time is that some of these things, the couple things that have been pulled, come back.”

“I have great hope on that and great optimism,” he added.

Cook said he didn’t care about being criticized for working with China, because he believes change is more likely when companies participate rather than opting to “stand on the sideline and yell at how things should be.”
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Fentanyl Fueling US Opioid Crisis: Experts

Posted on by Cosc

Fueling the increase in opioid addiction and overdoses in the U.S. is a little known synthetic opioid called fentanyl. In this segment of the series “State of Emergency – America’s Opioid Crisis,” we take a look at what the introduction of fentanyl into the drug supply has done to the community of Louisville, Kentucky. Jeff Swicord reports.
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Hard History: Mississippi Museums Explore Slavery, Klan Era

Posted on by Corts

In the 1950s and ’60s, segregationist whites waved Confederate flags and slapped defiant bumper stickers on cars declaring Mississippi “the most lied about state in the Union.”

Those were ways of defiantly pushing back against African-Americans who dared challenge racial oppression, and taking a jab at journalists covering the civil rights movement.

Decades later, as Mississippi marks its bicentennial, the state is getting an unflinching look at its complex, often brutal past in two history museums, complete with displays of slave chains, Ku Klux Klan robes and graphic photos of lynchings and firebombings.

The Museum of Mississippi History takes a 15,000-year view, from the Stone Age through modern times. The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum concentrates on a shorter, but intense span, from 1945 to 1976.

They open Saturday, the day before the 200th anniversary of Mississippi becoming the 20th state.

The two distinct museums under a single roof are both funded by state tax dollars and private donations. Officials insist the museums aren’t intended to be “separate-but-equal” in a state where that phrase was invoked to maintain segregated school systems for whites and blacks that were separate and distinctly unequal.

“We are telling a much longer story in the Museum of Mississippi History, a much deeper story in the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum,” said Katie Blount, director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “We want everybody to walk in one door, side by side, to learn all of our state’s stories.”

The general history museum depicts Native American culture, European settlement, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction. It examines natural disasters, including the Mississippi River flood in 1927 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It also has only-in-Mississippi items such as the crown Mary Ann Mobley wore as Miss America 1959.

The museums’ opening caps a yearlong bicentennial commemoration. Some events celebrated Mississippi’s success at producing influential authors and musicians, such as William Faulkner, Richard Wright, B.B. King and Elvis Presley. Others took a critical look slavery and segregation.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to attend the museums’ opening on Saturday.

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, a Trump supporter, invited the president. The Mississippi NAACP president is asking Bryant to rescind the invitation, with state chapter president Charles Hampton saying “an invitation to a president that has aimed to divide this nation is not becoming of this historic moment.”

Mississippi – one of the nation’s poorest states, population 59 percent white and 38 percent black – remains divided by one of its most visible symbols. It’s the last state with a flag featuring the Confederate battle emblem that critics see as racist. All eight public universities, and several cities and counties, stopped flying it in recent years.

There’s no flagpole outside the new museums.

Civil rights

Ellie Dahmer, the 92-year-old widow of slain civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer, said the flag represents an unabashed defense of slavery. She marveled at the existence of the civil rights museum in a state that won’t abandon the banner.

A display in the museum tells of the 1966 KKK firebombing of the Dahmer home outside Hattiesburg after local NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer announced he’d pay poll taxes for black people registering to vote. He fired back at Klansmen who were shooting at his burning house. The family escaped, but Vernon Dahmer’s lungs were seared; he died. The couple’s 10-year-old daughter was severely burned.

Parts of the Dahmers’ bullet-riddled truck are in the museum with photos.

The Mississippi museum joins several others focused on civil rights: the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta; the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee; the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Alabama; Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama. The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington has attracted crowds since opening in 2016.

Eddie S. Glaude Jr., a 49-year-old Mississippi native who chairs African-American Studies at Princeton University, said “Mississippi was ground zero” for the civil rights movement, and it’s significant that the state presents an honest account of its history.

“America can’t really turn a corner with regards to its racist and violent past and present until the South, and particularly a state like Mississippi, confronts it – and confronts it unflinchingly,” Glaude said.

In the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, columns list about 600 documented lynchings – most of them of black men. One gallery’s ceiling shows decades-old racist advertising images.

Ku Klux Klan robes are on display. So’s the remnant of a cross that was burned in 1964 outside white merchants’ in McComb after they refused to fire black employees who registered to vote. So are mug shots of black and white Freedom Riders, who were arrested in Jackson in 1961 for challenging segregation on buses.

A large display tells about Emmett Till, the black teenager from Chicago who was kidnapped and killed after witnesses said he whistled at a white woman working in a Mississippi grocery store in 1955.

The central gallery provides a hopeful respite: An abstract sculpture 30 feet (9 meters) tall lights up as a soundtrack plays the folk song “This Little Light of Mine.” As more visitors enter, more voices join the chorus and more lights flicker, symbolizing how one person’s work can become part of a larger effort that leads to change.
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