Recharge

Some good news, for once

  • Saved at Sea, a Family of Nurses Reunite 4 Decades Later With Their Rescuers

    January 22, 2020

    Thao Nguyen and Chip Reichert reunite almost 40 years after a rescue in the South China Sea.WGN-TV

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    In 1981, the USS John Young spotted a motorless fishing boat filled with people in the South China Sea—and saved their lives. They were without food, without water. That rescue was the first of hundreds for the Navy ship that year. Veterans carried those memories for decades, and recently, a group of those Vietnamese refugees, now US citizens, joined the veterans at a reunion in Mobile, Alabama.

    One retired sailor, Chip Reichert, had a gasp of recognition when a girl they’d rescued, Thao Nguyen, now an adult, walked to the podium.

    “I want to say thank you,” she told the veterans. “You all made a difference, and what you did mattered.”

    Reichert hugged Nguyen, who came to the reunion with her mother, her aunt, and a cousin. “She looked at me, and all we did was cry,” Reichert told WGN-TV. “Twenty minutes of just seriously crying.” She and several family members, all rescued by the Navy ship, had become nurses in the United States, inspired by the kindness of those who’d saved them.

    “If I can help someone else, I want to,” Nguyen said, “because I know I wouldn’t be where I am if people didn’t save me.”

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Who we are. After a 2018 neo-Nazi rally on Hitler’s birthday in the town of Newnan, Georgia, progressive portions of this fast-growing town came together to resist racism and honor the broad diversity of people living there peacefully. The community commissioned a photographer to create large portraits of its racially diverse residents to put on walls of its buildings—and challenge assumptions about Newnan. The 17 larger-than-life portraits, including one of two Georgia-born Muslim sisters wearing hijabs, opened up public conversations that drove the town to come to terms with residential change. “We need to talk about who lives in our community and, if they are different, why does that make us uncomfortable?” said David Jones II, pastor of Newnan Presbyterian Church. The display prompted the Rev. Jimmy Patterson to take to the pulpit of his First Baptist Church to decry racism and reveal a secret: a family will that once bequeathed enslaved people to him. He read the will from the pulpit, as some in the audience shed tears. Readers, I don’t know about you, but I’d like to see those portraits in person before the installations come down in June. (New York Times)

    Buckin’ broncos. She’s 13 years old, 4-foot-10, and 70 pounds, but she’s turning heads in professional bull riding. Najiah Knight, who started riding sheep at age 3, is the only girl on the Mini Bull Riders tour around the country. “I kind of earned the boys’ respect the first year I competed, because I ended up on some of the rankest bulls—I was one of the first ones who came close to riding some of them,” Najiah said. She’s already received a big endorsement from the Ariat boot company. Thanks to colleague Dru Sefton for suggesting this story. (Vogue)

    I stuttered; so what? As a kid, he was bullied and humiliated when he couldn’t get his words out. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III worked hard to transcend his stuttering, and his voice was clear and steady as he safely landed his failing jetliner in the Hudson River in 2009, saving the lives of everyone aboard. Sullenberger was heralded as a hero, played by Tom Hanks in the Hollywood tribute. “A speech disorder is a lot easier to treat than a character defect,” Sullenberger writes. “You become a true leader, not because of how you speak, but because of what you have to say—and the challenges you have overcome to help others. Ignore kids (and adults) who are mean, or don’t know what it feels like to stutter.” (New York Times)

    Recharge salutes: Doris Miller, a Navy hero at Pearl Harbor who, almost 80 years later, will have a $12.5 billion aircraft carrier named after him; 6-year-old Owen Colley, who has raised more than $260,000 to help animals affected by bushfires in Australia by making and selling little clay koalas; a community in Newfoundland that got behind a third grader named Yaman, originally from Syria, teaching him how to skate and giving him money for hockey gear. Yaman chose tape with the design of a maple leaf for his hockey stick because he wanted the Canadian flag close to him, wrote journalist Muhammad Lila.

    I’ll leave you with this wintry sunrise at Maine’s Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Have a great week ahead!

  • You Don’t Need an Olympic Medal to Stand Up for Human Rights, but How’s This for a Protest?

    January 15, 2020

    Kimia Alizadeh, the first woman from Iran to win an Olympic medal, before announcing her decision to defect in protest.Andrew Medichini/AP

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    They told her where to go, what to wear, how to act, what to say. Iran’s only female Olympic medalist has said enough is enough: She’s defected in protest.

    “My troubled spirit does not fit into your dirty economic channels and tight political lobbies,” said Kimia Alizadeh, announcing her defection. “I have no other wish except for taekwondo, security, and a happy and healthy life.” In her weekend announcement to her 400,000-plus followers on Instagram, Alizadeh, 21, included an image of her from the 2016 Summer Olympics, where she became Iran’s first woman to win an Olympic medal.

    She also spoke of “oppressed people of Iran” and the “obligatory veil” required of women. The New York Times quoted reports that she has moved to the Netherlands and hopes to compete in the 2020 Olympics for another country.

    Alizadeh said she was looking forward to not being used as a “tool” by Tehran’s authoritarian government. “They took me wherever they wanted,” she wrote. “Whatever they said, I wore. Every sentence they ordered, I repeated.” She said she “didn’t want to sit at the table of hypocrisy, lies, injustice, and flattery.”

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    A (Michelin) star. Mariya Russell, a fledgling chef in Charleston, South Carolina, moved back to Chicago after her father died. She ended up running the kitchen at Kumiko, a cocktail bar, and at Kikko, in its basement, which offers seven-course omakase dinners. Two days shy of her 30th birthday, Russell became the first Black woman ever to be awarded a Michelin star. After returning to Chicago, Russell had taken the only position available, a back server, and had worked her way up to sous chef and then executive chef. Among Russell’s standouts: her agedashi tofu and her Japanese milk bread. (Eater)

    Saving lives. The shutdown of hundreds of coal-fired power plants over the past decade has saved more than 26,000 American lives, a new study says. The move saved the planet more than 300 million tons of carbon dioxide, according to Nature Sustainability. Levels of nose- and throat-irritating nitrogen dioxide? That went down 60 percent. Sulfur dioxide? Down 80 percent. (Guardian)

    Students sue to stop climate change. By failing to develop a plan on climate change, Florida officials are violating the constitutional rights of teenagers and putting their future at risk, according to a group of Florida students. The students demand that the state develop an energy plan that won’t make climate change worse. “The time has come for real action,’’ says one plaintiff, Delaney Reynolds. The students say Florida is the second-highest emitter of carbon dioxide in the country, and third in energy consumption. (Tampa Bay Times)

    Recharge salutes: Wolf Cukier, a 17-year-old NASA intern who discovered a planet nearly seven times larger than Earth on his third day of work. “At first I thought it was a stellar eclipse, but the timing was wrong,” Cukier told NBC 4 New York. “It turned out to be a planet.”

    I’ll leave you with this wintry image of the skinny shafts of rock, known as hoodoos, that rise from the basin of Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park. The image, courtesy of the Interior Department’s Twitter feed, shows the seasonal mix of the orange rock with white snow. Thanks for reading Recharge, and have a great week ahead.

     

  • The Nazis Couldn’t Destroy This Joyful Concerto

    January 8, 2020

    Violinist Janusz Wawrowski brings to life a lost World War II–era concerto whose music sheets had been buried by its composer before fleeing the Nazis.Cezary Aszkiełowicz/Szczecin Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    When the Nazis were advancing toward his home, composer Ludomir Różycki stuffed the pages of his violin concerto in a suitcase and buried it in his yard in Warsaw, Poland, before fleeing. His home was destroyed near the end of World War II, and he died in 1953 without knowing the fate of his concerto.

    But his composition was unearthed by builders after the war. Poland’s top classical violinist discovered it in the archives of the national library, and after years of work, the upbeat piece—reminiscent of Gershwin in places—was performed recently to great acclaim in the northwest Polish city of Szczecin, the Guardian reported.

    Violinist Janusz Wawrowski, who brought it to life onstage, tried to channel the hopeful exuberance of the work and of the once-prominent Różycki. “To me it’s full of the energy and life of Warsaw before the war,” Wawrowski said, “and I think he was trying to conjure and convey this positive energy as he wrote it in 1944 in a very dark time, as the artillery of the Nazis rained down on the city.”

    Różycki’s relatives were stunned upon hearing the concerto. “It’s like getting to know my great-grandfather for the first time,” said Ewa Wyszogrodzka, an economist. “To think, these pieces might have been lost forever.”

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    One bright spot. The wildfires devastating swaths of Australia were bearing down on the zoo with the country’s largest collection of primates. So the staff took the monkeys and pandas home. The Mogo Wildlife Park saved each one—about 200 of them. “Right now, in my house,” zoo director Chad Staples said last week, “there’s animals of all descriptions in all the different rooms so that they’re safe and protected.” (Washington Post)

    Positions of power. Princeton University has displayed 10 oil paintings of not-so-famous members of its community: dining hall staff, security guards, grounds workers, and cleaning crew. Painter Mario Moore said he wants to pay tribute to unsung heroes of the campus community and “put them in positions” of greater power, starting with African American workers as painting subjects. Princeton has purchased some of the 8-foot-high portraits for its permanent collection, and Moore is teaching a drawing class this semester. Both endeavors are helping to “heal some of the lasting wounds of racial division that have long marred this institution’s history,” said Tracy K. Smith, chair of Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts. (CNN)

    Late bloomer. Rose Valdez loves the sunshine. Each year, often sitting in the sun, the 94-year-old in Pueblo, Colorado, crochets wool caps. Since taking up the craft at 90, Valdez has supplied hundreds of the cozy hats for people in need. “I don’t do nothing else, so I might as well do something for somebody,” Valdez says. She is a blessing, says the Pueblo Cooperative Care Center, which distributes the caps. (My Modern Met)

    Recharge salutes other late-blooming artists such as Amy Sherald, Stan Lee, Paul Cézanne, and Yayoi Kusama. Sherald, best known for her portrait of Michelle Obama, didn’t get that break until she was 43, Artnet News reported. Lee’s own star turn came at 43, when he began drawing The Fantastic Four. Cézanne didn’t get a solo show until he was 56. Kusama, whose Instagram-friendly installations are now wildly popular, was 60. Fortitude as well as ability is key, said critic Jerry Saltz. He should know. Saltz, 68, a self-described “failed” artist and a long-haul trucker into his 40s, won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2018.

    I’ll leave you with this image from the Pacific Crest Trail in California, courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management’s Twitter feed. Thanks for reading, and happy trails.

  • A Story Your New Year’s Hangover Could Use: $5.3 Million in Debt Wiped Out

    January 1, 2020

    Valeriya/Getty

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    It was a startling announcement: A California church had raised enough money to pay off the medical debts of 5,555 struggling Los Angeles–area residents in time for Christmas, wiping out more than $5 million in bills.

    Parishioners at Christian Assembly Church donated more than $50,000 and then worked with a debt-forgiveness nonprofit to reach the staggering $5.3 million amount, the Los Angeles Times reported. Reporter Colleen Shalby told me the church has already gotten calls from ministers in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, and Portland who want to do the same thing.

    Everyone, regardless of religion or resources, is vulnerable to a capricious health care system that can erase life savings in a flash or saddle people with crushing debt, says Pastor Tom Hughes: “Basically, every person I’ve ever met has probably known someone who has a medical condition that’s come out of the blue.”

    Hughes worked with the nonprofit that helped comedian John Oliver and his HBO Last Week Tonight erase $15 million in medical debt for 9,000 people in 2016. Next up for the church: working with credit agencies to repair people’s credit scores.

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Teaching her mom hope. Charlotte Nebres, 11, knew she had to give it all she could. Charlotte is the first Black dancer to perform the role of Marie in more than a half century of New York City Ballet productions of The Nutcracker. “It sunk in that, ‘Well, if I’m going to be doing this role and I’m the first person, then I want to make it count,’” Charlotte said. Her mother, Danielle, says she’s learning about hope from her daughter. “It’s sort of magical for me to see that sort of just hopefulness and just realizing that there is no limits. So I’m sort of learning through her that maybe the way things were aren’t what they are any longer.” The ballet runs through Sunday. (CBS News)

    He made a difference. Because of federal investigator Jack Mitchell, cigarettes are more tightly regulated. Former FDA chief David Kessler said Mitchell, who died December 5 at age 69, “broke open tobacco” by cultivating a whistleblower inside the tobacco industry. That whistleblower detailed how tobacco companies manipulated nicotine levels to keep people addicted to the cancer-causing substance. Mitchell’s investigation, Kessler said, led to greater FDA regulation of the industry and “changed how this country views tobacco.” The percentage of Americans who smoke has dropped by more than a third since 2005, the CDC says. (Washington Post)

    When NASA called. David Myers was one of 11 deaf men who helped America get to the moon. The Gallaudet Eleven, nicknamed for the college they attended, did the same training as the astronauts but did not experience the same motion sickness. Their work helped show that motion sickness was caused in the inner ear. With that knowledge, scientists created medications to help the astronauts. Myers told TV host and podcaster Emily Calandrelli that he’s still waiting for a call from NASA to go to space. Calandrelli says Myers and the Gallaudet Eleven remind us that “even though astronauts are the ones we spotlight when it comes to space exploration, many of our brave explorers—who help push the boundaries of exploration in the solar system—remain firmly on the ground.” (Twitter)

    Recharge salutes: Shane Sheil, once among the oldest kids in a Florida foster care system, has overcome incredible hurdles and childhood trauma to make an inspiring, self-determined life for himself, and built a family, in the 13 years since a newspaper first profiled him; Julieanne Kost, who dealt with her fear of flying by taking stunning landscape photographs from her window seat; and the 300,000 additional people worldwide each day who first get access to electricity, and the 200,000 who get access to piped water.

    I’ll leave you with an Ohia Lehua blossom, the first plant to grow after lava cools in Hawaii. This image is from the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Thanks for reading, and I hope 2020 blossoms for you!

  • A Group of Students Were Never Taught About Their Voting Rights—So They’re Suing

    December 25, 2019

    Gilmanshin/Shutterstock

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    What does the right to vote entail exactly? What is the separation of powers guaranteed in the Constitution?

    At a time of impeachment, escalating climate change, and justified fears of foreign interference and widespread voter suppression in the presidential election, these are the crucial questions that a group of Rhode Island students say they haven’t been taught to answer in school. So they’ve gone to court to ensure they’re educated, the Christian Science Monitor reported. The students’ lawsuit argues that Rhode Island violates their constitutional rights by not teaching them the skills or providing knowledge to vote or serve on juries.

    “I didn’t learn my voting rights through school,” says Aleita Cook, a Providence public school graduate and a plaintiff. Nor, Cook says, did she learn about how the three branches of government are checks and balances on power, a key constitutional feature designed to prevent a dictatorial power grab.

    The Rhode Island students aren’t alone in turning to courts to demand education. Detroit students have filed a separate lawsuit, arguing there’s a constitutional right to literacy.

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    A place to help. At 12:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, here they come, led by two 100-pound-plus Bernese mountain dogs. The pack is headed to Dog Time at Washington, DC’s N Street Village. The dogs do not judge, are not particular about social status or wealth, and do not know which of the women at this center are or aren’t homeless. Dog owners (and neighbors) Sid Stolz and David Hatfield watch as their pets are loved and give love. Stroking one of the big dogs, one woman says, “They’re huge. And you think they’re scary. They’re not.” (Washington Post)

    She helped. A quick-thinking high school student opened the doors of her mosque to shelter more than 100 students during a fatal school stabbing and shooting earlier this month in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. “I just felt like I did what had to be done,” 17-year-old Duaa Ahmad told ABC News. She punched the key code to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s Oshkosh chapter mosque and held the door open for fleeing, panicked students from her Oshkosh West High School, across the street. Ahmad, a senior, told CNN that her AP English literature class heard a gunshot, and the teacher told them to run. Ahmad led students across the street until the situation was under control. (Daily Kos)

    Duck seeking duck. Yellow Duck hadn’t felt the same since a predator snatched her mate from a farm, so her owner wrote a singles ad and posted it on the community bulletin board of a coop in Blue Hill, Maine. “Serious replies only,” wrote Chris Morris, a 31-year-old teacher. One thing led to another, and now Yellow Duck has her pick of several male ducks at Sadie Greene’s nearby organic farm. “Ducks are one of the few species that mate for life, so when they lose their partners, they tend to mourn,” Greene said, “but they can replace their partners pretty quickly, so it will be interesting to see what happens.” (Bangor Daily News)

    Recharge salutes: The Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe in Northern California, whose big solar grid provided power for 13,000 neighbors who were evacuated, their power cut, after wildfires; 14-year-old Hannah Rountree of Roseburg, Oregon, who found her cat, Spunky, while volunteering at an animal shelter; Antonio “Tony” Covay of Washington, DC, who never saw a Black Santa while growing up—so he decided to become one.

    I’ll leave you with this icy (but sunny) image from Wisconsin’s Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, shared by the Interior Department’s Twitter feed on the first day of winter. Brrrr! Have a great week ahead, and see you next week, in 2020!

  • A Group of Young Blind Children Have Found a Way to See the World That’s Intensely Vivid

    December 18, 2019

    Dr. Carla Curran works with a student at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts.Michael Brook/Courtesy of Perkins School for the Blind

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    The students can’t see the 3D models of microscopic marine life, but they can feel them, graph them, and make groundbreaking discoveries about them. It’s one of the latest ways teachers are bringing blind and partially sighted students more fully into the world of science.

    Many of the students “heard things that I didn’t hear,” says Amy Bower, an oceanographer who assists them. “As a visually impaired scientist myself, I know how quickly blind students can be left out altogether in school science labs.” Learning science “through other senses means you don’t have to rely solely on vision,” says Izzy Primeau, a recent graduate of the program at Perkins School for the Blind outside Boston. Primeau, who lost part of her vision, says the confidence she learned at Perkins has driven her to study animal care after graduation. Students have ventured out to hear whales and touch marine creatures in saltwater tanks, the Christian Science Monitor reports, and they’ve detected patterns in ocean currents and fluctuating fish populations by listening to audio recordings of numerical charts.

    “Science uses sound to study the ocean,” says marine science professor Carla Curran, a guest educator at the program. The hands-on classwork and field trips to the ocean “bring science alive for all students, sighted or not,” Bower says.

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Toronto’s secret sauce. With the multiplying effects of climate change, “we need a way to get people out of their cars faster than we can rebuild the suburbs where most people live,” writes urban planning doctoral candidate Jonathan English. Canada’s biggest city has developed a suburban bus system that’s the envy of most US cities. Buses stop every 10 minutes until late at night, three times as frequent as the busiest routes in New York City and Long Island, and less dependent on subsidies than most US systems. Bonus: effective bus transportation costs far less than subways. (Globe and Mail)

    Climate refuge city? It’s time to quit making fun of Buffalo, New York. In a warming world, no massive wildfires, hurricanes, or floods have hit this waterside city, air conditioned by Lake Erie. Maria Robles, a recent newcomer from Puerto Rico, said she’d take a Buffalo snowstorm any day over the hurricanes that have destroyed homes elsewhere in the world, including her family’s. Buffalo, whose population has dropped by half since the 1950s, has enough land, housing, sewer infrastructure, and water to accommodate half a million more people. “We may actually thrive as a region in a world where the climate is changing,” said SUNY Buffalo State climate scientist Stephen Vermette. “With climate change, the world is going to suck, but Buffalo may suck less.” (City Lab)

    Housing first. How has Finland been the only European Union country to reduce its homeless population? Partly because it changed its assumptions about homelessness. Instead of providing dodgy shelters and short-term hostels until someone could get an apartment (which didn’t work), Helsinki, the capital, got homeless people into low-cost apartments first. With government and NGO help, 3,500 such apartments have been built in the past decade. Staff support is strong. The payoff: an estimated $17,000 in savings per person in hospital care alone. “A home should be the secure foundation that makes it easier to solve your problems,” says Juha Kaakinen, who runs a foundation providing affordable and supported housing. (Guardian)

    Readers, if you’re interested in US efforts to put housing first for homeless people, catch this interview from April with Emilio Estevez and Mother Jones Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery.

    I’ll leave you with this image of a pronghorn, the fastest animal in the Americas, at Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes National Park, via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Have a great week ahead!

  • How a Single Song Became a Searing Anthem for Anti-Rape Protests

    December 11, 2019

    Protesters stand together against sexual assault and torture.Matteo Nardone/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    Last week, thousands of women gathered at a former torture center in Chile, standing shoulder to shoulder to sing a new feminist anthem that has spread from demonstrations in Chile to similar ones throughout Latin America and now Europe.

    “The rapist is you,” the women sang. “It’s the cops, the judges, the state, the president.”

    A feminist theater group in the Chilean city of Valparaiso wrote “A Rapist in Your Path,” which took off in late November as the nation erupted in protests against social inequity and the country’s right-wing billionaire president. Videos of the song and its choreographed dance moves have grown worldwide and been adopted by other protesters.

    “It was never intended to be a protest song. The women of the marches transformed it into something more,” Paula Cometa, a member of the theater group, told the Guardian. Cometa said the choreography reflects life in a nation where security forces have faced widespread allegations of rape and torture.

    Chileans have expressed gratitude over the way the song challenges the shaming of assault victims and how it’s brought so many women together worldwide. “I cried the first time I heard [it],” said Victoria Gallardo, 71, one of the protesters at the former torture center. “I’m so proud of the young women of today—and this performance represents us all.”

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Expert witnesses. Five-year-old Michael had to go to court in Grand Rapids, Michigan, last week for his adoption hearing. He and his new parents invited his whole kindergarten class, some of whom served as expert witnesses when the judge asked about him. “Michael’s my best friend,” said one. “I love him,” said another. Each carried paper hearts on sticks, which they waved in support of their classmate. At the end of the ceremony, the judge carried one, too. (CNN)

    For mom. Daphne Caruana Galizia’s three sons vowed to unearth those behind their mother’s 2017 murder. A reckoning is happening, as the highest officials in their country have been engulfed in the investigation of the assassination of Malta’s top investigative journalist. On December 1, following street demonstrations, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat announced he would quit after the government’s mishandling of the case. A prominent business leader has been arrested in the contract killing of Caruana Galizia, who had been investigating high-level corruption. A political ally to the prime minister also has quit. (Washington Post)

    A teachable moment. In the United States, people have challenged the justification for monuments to Confederate leaders. In New Zealand, a Maori resident took a claw hammer and a can of paint to a public statue of a man behind a land-grab campaign that killed 2,000 of New Zealand’s native warriors. New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, reacted to that attack by calling for the nation to come together. She educated New Zealand about the ugly and often hidden history exposed by that attack, and she changed public school curricula to require teaching about wars against people who lived in the land before white settlers. A local newspaper also began recounting the long-ignored history, an effort that proved popular with readers. The public’s reaction, Prime Minister Ardern said, has been “incredible and far-reaching.” (New York Times)

    Recharge salutes: 17-year-old Feroza Aziz, who created a viral “cosmetics” video on the Chinese-owned TikTok service. Under the surface, the video really reported on Beijing’s roundup of up to 1 million minority Muslims into incarceration camps. When TikTok, which has squelched reporting about authoritarian China’s horrors before, suspended her account, the story got even bigger. (TikTok later apologized, reinstating the account and restoring the video). Aziz, a New Jersey high schooler, acknowledged she had begun the political story with talk about eyeliner in hopes the video would get past Chinese censors—and interest young people. “A lot of people want bigger lashes,” she told Rolling Stone. “Let me reel them in.”

    After those stirring stories, let’s take a breath: I’ll leave you with these clouds floating over Two Medicine Lake at Montana’s Glacier National Park, via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Okay, exhale—and have a great week ahead.

  • One of Spain’s Fastest Runners Has an Urgent Message

    December 4, 2019

    Screenshot: Canal Sur/YouTube

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    At 14, Kone Yossodjo lost his father, and his mom said she couldn’t take care of him. He made his way from Ivory Coast to Morocco, then to Spain, where, at 19, Yossodjo has become one of the nation’s fastest runners.

    “He’s young, but he’s distinct and the fastest I’ve seen in 35 years,” Paco Vallés, his coach, told the Guardian.

    In the last running season, Yossodjo won five of 11 races and became Andalusia’s 5,000-meter champion. He’s aiming to represent Spain in the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The teen is running for a reason beyond fame and glory. At a time of growing xenophobia and anti-migrant sentiment across the world, “I want to show the people of Spain that migrants can add to the society.”

    As improbable as his journey to Spain was, his move from a juvenile detention center in 2016 to second place nationwide in Spain’s youth 3,000-meter final was less likely, he said: “It was a major shock to go from jail to racing in the championships in just one year.” Yossodjo has a residency card and is studying Spanish while working as an attendant in a nursing home when he isn’t training.

    He encourages other migrating teens to pursue competitive sports, and he has another goal in mind: If he can trim 30 seconds from his four-minute mark in the 1,500-meter run, his coach said, Spain will also grant him citizenship.

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Keeping a town alive. When Ben Cutler grew up in his Kansas town of Neodesha, families and institutions were strong, providing a springboard for his success in life. His hometown has dwindled to 2,300 people, but the retired businessman has told the town’s 300 middle- and high-schoolers that he’ll take care of their tuition and fees, provided they maintain a 2.5 GPA. “I’m still in shock right now,” said De’Jua Pouncil, a senior hoping to study dental hygiene at Wichita State University. “This is just a real relief off of our shoulders.” (KCUR)

    She was there. For hundreds of people dying of AIDS, a compassionate Arkansas woman named Ruth Coker Burks became their final caregiver. Many of them were young men, and most were gay, a point of distinction that led their families to abandon them, which enraged but motivated Burks. She buried more than 40 of them herself at an Arkansas cemetery, and she recently oversaw the creation of a memorial in their honor. Thanks to colleague Dru Sefton for this story suggestion. (A Mighty Girl)

    Breaking down shame. Namibia decreased the HIV incidence rate among adults by 50 percent between 2012 to 2017, after expansion of treatment and prevention services. A higher percentage of patients in Namibia know their status, are on treatment, and now can’t pass on the virus than patients in the United States. How did Namibia do it? Partly through a community-centered approach, addressing risk factors like poverty, educational access, and gender inequality. (The Ground Truth Project)

    Recharge salutes: Betty X. Davis, who didn’t want presents on her 104th birthday. Instead, the Texan, a former public school speech therapist, asked donors for books for children. Thanks, reader David Plata, for the story suggestion. (GMA)

    I’ll leave you with this amazing sky above Maine’s Acadia National Park via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Have a great week ahead!

  • When a Republican Fell Sick, His Democratic Colleague Showed Him the Meaning of Friendship

    November 27, 2019

    Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.)Melina Mara/Pool via AP

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    John Lewis has survived a storm of physical and verbal attacks. He was beaten as a young man while campaigning for civil rights, one time fracturing his skull. The current president denigrated Lewis, a widely respected House member, for refusing to attend his inauguration.

    Division and polarization persist, but last week, the Georgia Democrat rose in Congress to salute a Republican he’d worked with for two decades, retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson. “You, Senator, led a team that could cross the aisle without compromising your values,” Lewis told the crowd.

    As Lewis closed his remarks, he told the ailing senator, “I will come over to meet you, brother.” Lewis crossed the aisle and embraced Isakson in a gesture that inspired Republicans and Democrats.

    The aisle-crossing embrace is not uncommon for Lewis, who has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the 2016 National Book Award. “Hate is too heavy a burden to bear,” Lewis tweeted last year. “Love is the better way.” (11Alive)

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    No to carbon. That’s what hundreds of Yale and Harvard students said, as well as alums such as actor Sam Waterston, as they risked arrest to disrupt the Yale-Harvard football game by swarming the field for a climate change protest. Forty-two of them got misdemeanor summonses for disorderly conduct. The protesters demanded that the two universities divest their combined $70 billion–plus endowments of fossil fuel investments. “We’re showing them that games like these, like life at Yale, cannot go on as usual until Yale divests, and we’re going to continue doing this,” junior Sophie Lieberman told the Yale Daily News near the 50-yard line. Waterston added, “We will take courage from these young people [getting arrested] to speak up ourselves.” (Patch)

    No slacker. “Weirdo,” they called her. “Oddball.” Adhara Pérez, diagnosed at age 3 with Asberger’s syndrome, didn’t want to go to school—and ended up sleeping through classes. Adhara’s mom wound up taking her to therapy, which identified an IQ higher than Albert Einstein’s. Her mom found alternative education for Adhara. Now 8, the Mexico City native has graduated from elementary and secondary schools and is taking college courses online. She has also written a memoir and is planning on specializing in astrophysics. (People)

    A no-brainer. What prison program can turn a 50 percent recidivism rate into a 4 percent rate? That would be college courses for people behind bars, an underfunded and politically unpopular move in American politics. PBS’s four-part documentary this week, College Behind Bars, persuasively makes a case for corrections departments to save money by expanding this opportunity. What’s more corrective than learning? (Washington Post)

    Recharge salutes: These four teen surfers who saved drowning swimmers from a riptide off Northern California; and Britain’s Russ Mantle, who, at 82, hit 1 million miles bicycling—and would have reached the landmark faster, he said, if he hadn’t taken a year off in 1992 after breaking his hip.

    I’ll leave you with this underground glimpse of Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave
    National Park via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Have a great week ahead!

  • Baltimore’s Largest Museum Is Doing Something Bold and Brave, and a Lot of Conservative Men Are Gonna Hate It

    November 20, 2019

    Amy Sherald. Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between (detail). 2018. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchase by exchange with funds provided by the Pearlstone Family Fund and through a partial gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. © 2019 Amy Sherald.

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    How can a museum challenge decades of gender imbalance in what it displays to the public? The Baltimore Museum of Art has a plan for 2020: Every painting, sculpture, and photograph it purchases for its permanent collection will be by women.

    “We’re attempting to correct our own canon,” museum director Christopher Bedford told the Baltimore Sun. “We recognize the blind spots we have had in the past, and we are taking the initiative to do something about them.”

    Every museum should do this, said Bianca Kovic, incoming executive director of the New York–based National Association of Women Artists.

    Among the artwork the Baltimore museum has purchased: Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between, a 2018 painting by Amy Sherald, best known for her portrait of Michelle Obama in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

    Bedford said the Baltimore museum had no choice: “To rectify centuries of imbalance, you have to do something radical.”

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week: 

    Her mind worked differently. When she awoke from surgery, Oscar-winning actor Mary Steenburgen couldn’t stop thinking about music. Everything was music. She wrote music and lyrics incessantly. And wouldn’t stop playing the accordion. Her family was worried. “I couldn’t get my mind into any other mode,” she acknowledged. Years later, refusing to trade on her stardom, she wrote songs using a pseudonym and landed a contract on the strength of her creativity, including one of the best movie songs of the year. (Indie Wire)

    A helping hand. He was the only person working at Waffle House that night, after his expected help didn’t arrive—so first one customer, then another, began helping the employee, named Ben, with orders, dishes, coffee, and table cleaning. “It was just one of the most wild instances of really, really cool people just coming together,” said customer Ethan Crispo, who recorded the late-night scene at the Birmingham, Alabama, restaurant. The chain said it was grateful for the emergency support and urged one helper to fill out a job application. (al.com)

    Therapy llamas. Readers, I made a vow that I wouldn’t clutter Recharge with cute pandas or with puppies that found their way back home. But I never said anything about the three 300-pound llamas that stroll through a Texas nursing home, getting petted by residents and pausing for selfies. One therapy llama, Knock, has walked to a hospice patient’s bed and waited while the patient reaches out for him. “It’s taken me several visits,’’ said llama owner Carol Rutledge, “to be able to get through it without getting emotional.” (New York Times)

    I’ll leave you with this image of what the Interior Department’s Twitter feed calls alpenglow at the Alabama Hills National Scenic Area in California. Please send links or tips for possible Recharge items to recharge@motherjones.com. Have a glowing week, and thanks for reading.

  • How One Homeless Man Became His Own Shelter’s Executive Director

    November 13, 2019

    Astrid Riecken for the Washington Post via Getty

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    “Your story is not over,” Reggie Cox tells homeless people as he provides a hot meal. The new executive director of the Washington, DC, homeless center Charlie’s Place should know: Six years ago, he had come to this outreach arm of an Episcopal church, homeless himself, looking for a meal.

    “Sometimes it’s difficult to think about how you felt at that time,” Cox told the Washington Post. “After a while, I said, ‘I’m sleeping at the ATM machine.’ I thought, ‘This is how low I’ve come.’ I thought of all the other homeless people I would see, passing by them and having conversations with them, and now I knew exactly how they felt.”

    Back then, Cox hid his homelessness from his friends and family. At Charlie’s Place, he shared his story. He began volunteering, then became a floor coordinator and a program manager. Cox had lost his job in media monitoring, lost his apartment, and had nowhere to go.

    To fellow guests at Charlie’s Place, Cox was compassionate and a calming spirit who understood homelessness, said the Rev. Richard Mosson Weinberg. When searching for a new leader, “it quickly became obvious that we need not look any further than Reggie.”

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Saving voters. Georgia is culling hundreds of thousands of people from its voter rolls for infrequent voting. Reporters found 294 people who had indeed voted recently and should not have been placed on the list to lose one of the most important rights of citizenship. Last Thursday, Georgia said those 294 voters will not have their voter registrations canceled. Ohio, another state with a use-it-or-lose-it voter registration, had been set to mistakenly purge nearly 50,000 Ohioans from rolls before its mistakes had been caught. (APM Reports)

    “A clear conscience.” To Melpomeni Dina and her two sisters, it was the right thing to do: Secretly shelter a Jewish family of seven in their one-bedroom home during Nazi occupation of northern Greece in World War II. The orphaned sisters split their rationed food with the family, clothed them, and helped them escape into the mountains when Nazis began searching. Last month, Dina, 92, traveled to Jerusalem to meet two surviving members of the Mordechai family—and 40 of their descendants. This burgeoning family, Dina was told, was largely because of her actions. The risk to defy Nazis and shelter the family was enormous, Dina’s daughter, Margarita, acknowledged. She said her mother gained something invaluable: “a clear conscience.” (New York Times)

    A snap decision. Georgia nurse Lori Wood had a new patient, a homeless office clerk who needed a heart transplant. But Jonathan Pinkard couldn’t get a transplant unless he had a place to go and a person to take care of him after surgery. After two days, Wood decided to “adopt” Pinkard, a move that floored him. Wood had never done anything like this in her 35-year career. “For me, there was no choice,” she said. “I’m a nurse; I had an extra room. It was not something I struggled with. He had to come home with me.” Post-op, Wood has helped Pinkard with the 34 pills he must take each day, and Pinkard is expected to resume his job soon. (Washington Post)

    A telenovela’s power. Uganda is recutting and dubbing a popular Venezuelan soap opera to help promote birth control in its own nation. The country is ecstatic about soap operas and also has one of the world’s highest birth rates, said Gosia Lukomska, director of integrated media at Peripheral Vision International. Lukomska has hopes beyond Uganda for the soap opera, Love & Wealth. “We believe this show will be well received by and relevant to a wide audience on the continent,” she said. (Guardian)

    Recharge salutes: More than 650 volunteers in Norman, Oklahoma, who formed a human chain to move books from an old library to its new one across a park; and 7-year-old Kiyoko Merolli, who with her friends demonstrated their First Amendment rights for her birthday party outside the White House on Saturday, hoisting signs like “Batman 2020,” “Homework kills trees,” and “Time’s up for the bad guys.” (Thanks to Tracy Jan for this suggestion).

    I’ll leave you with this glimpse of the northern lights in Alaska, via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Please send links or tips for possible Recharge items to recharge@motherjones.com. Have a great week, and thanks for reading.

  • Can White Graduates of Racist Schools Unlearn Hate?

    November 6, 2019

    Ken Wiedemann/Getty

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    As kids, they were thrown into “segregation academies” in the South—private all-white schools where parents could send their children to avoid the integration of public schools, and where kids were, as one put it, “conscientiously and misguidedly furnished with an unbending white universe.”

    At least 3,000 of these schools opened in the South in the early 1970s. By 1975, as many as 750,000 white students were being what they thought was “educated” there. Now, graduates of those all-white schools are telling stories about the resounding racism they learned—and the decades that some have spent unlearning or trying to unlearn it. A new website, TheAcademyStories.com, is posting their stories in hopes of striking a chord with other people raised with and steeped in white supremacist ideologies who are trying to critically dismantle and understand their own hate.

    “I want to gauge how the thinking bred in such a culture — growing up inside a white society that invested huge energy and money into the segregation academy’s creation — lingers inside our heads still,” wrote Ellen Ann Fentress, a longtime journalist whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, and a documentary filmmaker who is spearheading the project with support from the Mississippi Humanities Council.

    Fentress told me that some graduates of the academies are opening up about their years through self-reflection, while others say they wish she and outlets like the Jackson Free Press had never shed a spotlight on the schools. “To some of them, it looks like a personal attack on parents and faculty,” said Fentress, who posted the first essays and a call for submissions last week.

    “This isn’t a proud narrative, but it’s essential U.S. history that shapes how both towns and individuals live their lives now,” as well as how structures and institutions continue to operate, Fentress said. “The conversation is unsettling” but necessary.

    On the website’s first day, Fentress she got half a dozen new writers. Author and journalist Kristen Green, an early contributor, wrote that her all-white Virginia academy had “normalized and centered whiteness for me in my formative years.” For decades afterward, she said, “I didn’t have the skill set to make friends with people who looked different than me, to report knowledgeable stories about people of color” as a journalist.

    Some graduates, such as Jackson, Mississippi, lawyer Lynn Watkins, have spent their lives trying to fight the racial hate that created their schools. “From the tenth grade forward, I attended and ultimately graduated from a white Citizens’ Council School; at one time, it was reportedly the largest private school system in the country,” Watkins wrote, describing her eventual work in journalism and law to expose the very systems she grew up benefitting from. “Later, as a journalist and later still as a lawyer, I learned the real lessons of history.”

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Pen pals: A letter means a lot. That was the message that Army Brig. General Vincent Buggs gave a group of high school seniors in Stillmore, Georgia, who had exchanged letters with him when he was fighting in Iraq in 2007—and they were kindergartners. The kids had also sent him a toy gingerbread man, and Buggs sent back photos of the toy in different situations, creating a story about the gingerbread man in Iraq. Last month, Buggs got to meet and properly thank the students. “I needed to tell them how much they meant to me.” As he wrote earlier to the local paper, “The simplest gestures in life often have the greatest impacts.” (New York Times)

    Postal heroes. One mail carrier stopped a home from burning. One saved an injured beagle from being mauled by a pit bull. Another encountered a 16-year-old girl who had just escaped from men who had kidnapped her for three months. (That postal worker helped her call her mother, who called 911, and stayed with the teen until police arrived.) All were honored last week by the National Association of Letter Carriers. Theresa Jo Belkota, a carrier in Buffalo, New York, who saved an injured boy’s life, reflected the graciousness of the honorees. “I’m just so happy,” she said, “to have this job.” (Washington Post)

    Book heaven. Literacy, kindness, and a shared purpose have propelled Finland in the past few decades. Helsinki’s soaring state-of-the-art library has ignited national pride and brought citizens together. Two-thirds of the capital’s residents visited it within a month after its opening in December. The three-story library was designed to reinforce community trust, said Tommi Laitio, Helsinki’s executive director for culture and leisure. “This progress from one of the poorest countries of Europe to one of the most prosperous has not been an accident,” Laitio said. “It’s based on this idea that when there are so few of us—only 5.5 million people—everyone has to live up to their full potential.” (City Lab)

    Follow-up. We wrote two weeks ago about a highway marker honoring Emmett Till. Another highway marker to another civil rights icon is being unveiled this Saturday in Gretna, Louisiana. In 1948, 44-year-old Royal Cyril Brooks was killed by a white police officer after Brooks offered to help exchange fares with a bus passenger who’d mistakenly paid to enter the wrong bus and wanted off, a common courtesy among passengers. The driver called a police officer, who beat Brooks, held him at gunpoint, ordered him off the bus, and shot him. The killing prompted the formation of a civil rights legal group that helped lead to the indictment of the officer for manslaughter, but a jury would not convict him. In a successful fundraising effort this year, the Brooks family said the marker “will represent a significant part of history…and become a space for future generations to learn.” (Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project)

    I’ll leave you with this glimpse of Maine’s Acadia National Park in late autumn. Please send links or tips for possible Recharge items to recharge@motherjones.com. Have a great week, and thanks for reading.

  • A Fearless 19-Year-Old Abortion Advocate Just Became the Youngest Lawmaker in Latin America

    October 30, 2019

    19-year-old Ofelia Fernández, the youngest lawmaker in Buenos Aires historyRicardo Ceppi/Getty

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    Ofelia Fernández, an uncompromising student leader, has captured the imagination of people beyond her native Argentina. On Monday, she won her campaign for the Buenos Aires legislature, becoming the youngest lawmaker in the city’s history.

    “Is the political system ready for us to enter?” the Washington Post quoted 19-year-old Fernández as asking hordes of young supporters at a campaign event several weeks ago. “The answer is, ‘I don’t care because we will force our way in.’”

    Fernández, already a high school student body president and a courageous leader of Argentina’s movement to legalize abortion, became an internet phenomenon last year with a detailed, authoritative rebuke of a pundit who tried to dismiss her as a chiquita (little girl) on TV.

    Fernández, with more than 338,000 Instagram followers, says she represents thousands of young women who took to the streets to legalize women’s right to choose. The effort failed in Argentina’s Senate.

    Earlier this month, Fernández told a gathering of 200,000 women in the Argentine city of La Plata that women candidates, if elected, would change the country. “With sensitivity, sisterhood, and gathering together, we’re going to knock it all down,” Foreign Policy quoted her as saying.

    On Monday, she sent her gratitude to supporters. “We all won,” she tweeted.

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Not stopping now. Mirza Dinnayi has risked his life rescuing fellow Yazidis from ISIS. He has kept it up even after one mission in Syria in which the helicopter he was riding in crashed. Dinnayi, one of three humanitarians to win the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, said he had no other choice: “Wherever the victims are, if you know about them and you say, ‘I don’t care,’ you will forever feel guilty.” (Washington Post)

    Overdue. Settlers stole the Wiyot Tribe’s land, then massacred scores of adults and children. Last week, after 159 years, their land was deeded back to them by the Northern California city of Eureka. “It’s been far too long,” said City Council member Kim Bergel. A tribal administrator credited her community’s resilience in pressing for this deal. “The Wiyot people never gave up the dream,” said Michelle Vassel. Thanks for the tip, Julie Wick. (Associated Press)

    Everybody should eat. As a mother of six, Champale Anderson already has enough lunches to make. So each day she makes 100 more—PB&J with a varying assortment of snacks—and puts the meals in bags. Any child who knocks on her door gets one. “I’m just trying to help the kids that don’t have enough at home or just hungry after school,” said Anderson, of St. Louis. She supports part of her operation through a GoFundMe page and hopes to grow it to feed more hungry kids. Thanks to my colleague Sam Van Pykeren for suggesting this story. (Because of Them We Can)

    Recharge salutes: The Dutch city of Utrecht, which created havens for bees by putting “green roofs” atop 316 bus stops; Boston Dr. Riley Bove, who helped find a likely cause to a rare neurological condition after her 4-year-old became afflicted with it; the Richland Source, a locally owned news agency, which won four national awards on Friday for revitalizing community news and engagement in north-central Ohio; and a Jordanian women’s soccer team, which temporarily stopped a match to help shield an opposing player whose hijab had started to fall.

    I’ll leave you with this image of the full flush of autumn at Glacier National Park in Montana, thanks to the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Happy Halloween, have a good week ahead, and thanks for reading!

  • Haters Kept Shooting Emmett Till’s Memorial. Now It’s Bulletproof.

    October 23, 2019

    Mother Jones illustration; AP

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    The first historical marker was removed and thrown in the river by vandals. The second and third signs were riddled with bullet holes.

    On Saturday, a fourth roadside memorial to Emmett Till was dedicated in Mississippi, honoring the 14-year-old whose torture and murder at the hands of white supremacists in 1955 helped galvanize the civil rights movement. This time, the marker—made of steel—weighs 500 pounds and is covered with bulletproof glass.

    A historical preservation group persisted in restoring the marker to ensure that the horrific attack and the significance of the site are publicly recognized, said Patrick Weems, executive director of the Emmett Till Memorial Commission. There will be a fifth or sixth monument if necessary, Weems said.

    “We just have to be resilient and know there are folks out there that don’t want to know this history or who want to erase this history,” Weems told the Associated Press. “We are just going to be resilient in continuing to put them back up and be truthful in making sure that Emmett didn’t die in vain.”

    Among those attending the dedication were two cousins of Till’s, including one who was with him the night he was kidnapped from his grandfather’s home by a group of white men.

    “What they did to Emmett was so ugly that even the Tallahatchie River spewed his body back out so he could be seen and found,” one cousin, Airickca Gordon-Taylor, told the New York Times. “Basically my family is still being confronted with a hate crime against Emmett Till and it’s almost 65 years later.”

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Gaming for peace. As a newborn, he was carried by his parents 225 miles from the civil war in Sudan. His two older sisters died. At 12, in a refugee camp, Lual Mayen gained computer skills after his mom sewed clothes for three months to buy his first laptop. Now, at 24, in Washington, DC, Lual is making video games that promote peace and conflict resolution. “If you’re going through something hard and you survive, the next thing is, how do you come out of that?” he said. “How do you utilize that opportunity to make your life better?” (Washington Post)

    A judge who did the right thing. A group of Michigan residents opened bank accounts to send money back to Yemen, their war-torn homeland. Because they didn’t register as a money-transfer business, they faced the prospect of years in prison. US District Judge Avern Cohn threw out the sentencing guidelines, spared them prison time, and commended them for trying to help one of the poorest nations on earth. “Only people without compassion” would object, said the 95-year-old judge. “As I’ve been here longer, I’ve come to the realization that the rules are flexible—at least to me.” (Associated Press)

    A surprise show of support. A transgender man’s family pulled together to show creative support after Richard Alcântara had top surgery: In a video that went viral, Richard walked into a family event shirtless, with bandages on his chest. The Brazilian’s cisgender male relatives surprised him at the event by also showing up wearing bandages on their chests in solidarity. “A year ago he suffered because he was not accepted by his family,” his girlfriend, Yuri Almeida, posted on Facebook. Things changed, she wrote. “We are who we are,” Yuri said, “no matter our colors, religions, opinions, or tastes.” (LGBTQNation)

    Recharge salutes: NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch for completing the first all-women spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Friday; Keanon Lowe, an Oregon high school football coach, who disarmed a suicidal student with a weapon, and then embraced him in a hug; the city of Los Angeles, which just hired its first forestry officer and announced plans to plant 90,000 trees by the end of 2021; and Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, who last week, at 73-plus years, became the longest-married couple in US presidential history.

    I’ll leave you this week with something different, a handwritten note from a KLM flight attendant to a grieving passenger. May we all show such care toward a stranger from time to time. Have a great week ahead.

  • How Giving $80 to a Stranger in Need Changed the Course of Science History

    October 16, 2019

    Jimmy Dorsey, a DC travel agent, helped a stranger in need, changing the traveler's life and altering the course of science history.Courtesy Jimmy Dorsey family via the Washington Post

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    Help me, the man pleaded with the travel agent. My country, Kuwait, has just been invaded, and I need to change an airplane ticket for job interviews.

    The travel agent, risking his own job if he were to help, took the leap and made magic happen for the traveler by changing the ticket—and also opened his own wallet to give that stranger $80, a gesture of selfless support.

    In the nearly 30 years since that fleeting moment, that traveler—scientist Mahmoud Ghannoum—got the job, settled into the United States, and has become the world’s leading microbiome (gut bacteria, probiotics) researcher.

    But he never got to thank the travel agent who’d showed self-sacrificing kindness and helped make the rest of Ghannoum’s life happen. After a search online, Ghannoum found Elaine Dorsey, who remembered her husband, Jimmy, telling her about that day at the travel agency, the man who needed help, the cash Jimmy gave him. “It wasn’t out of the norm for him to do something like this,” Elaine Dorsey told the Washington Post’s Paula Dvorak.

    Jimmy Dorsey, a Vietnam vet, volunteer firefighter, and youth football coach, died in February at 69 after a decade-long struggle with liver and lung cancer. But the Dorseys and the Ghannoums are making plans to meet to honor Jimmy’s memory.

    Elaine Dorsey hopes that the sudden surfacing of her husband’s act of kindness will inspire people to follow Jimmy’s lead.

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Don’t call me hero. Mike Stapleton said he was just doing his job, driving his cab in the wee hours, when he saw a car crushed under an overpass, smoke billowing from its hood. Inside were two unconscious men, and two women screaming, all teenagers. He stopped. One by one, he pulled them to safety as a fire grew under the dashboard. Then the car exploded. On October 7, Stapleton won the Royal Canadian Humane Association Canada Bravery Award for the rescue in St. John’s, Newfoundland. “I think they’re making too much of it,” Stapleton said. “Listen, you’re a human being, you got to do it. You see smoke, you’ve got to remove them.” (CBC)

    “The People’s Farmer.” Gail Taylor had a promising public policy career. These days, she heads weekly toward Capitol Hill—not to lobby, but to distribute food for her neighbors. On a farm 3 and a half miles from the White House, Taylor grows dark green cucumbers, hardneck garlic, orange and purple carrots, red gooseberries, yellow plums, and heirloom tomatoes. Nearly 200 people support and share in the bounty of her Three Part Harmony farm. Taylor began weeding and transporting as an avocation on a community farm, and it became a calling. “I loved it. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I never have to turn on a computer again.’” DC lawmaker David Grosso said she has inspired efforts to reclaim urban land for agriculture and help people follow her path. “She’s definitely the people’s farmer,” added Marla Karina Larrave, a food justice advocate and member of Taylor’s community agriculture program. “In terms of farming, you’re talking to the most awesome person in DC.” (Civil Eats)

    Vet’s best friend. Nick Leist served two tours in Iraq and has PTSD and limited mobility to show for it. One night, as he was starting to have a night terror, he felt the nose of Tess, his German shepherd, on his face. She knew, he said; she’s helped him many times during the year he’s had a service dog. A bipartisan bill in Congress would allow vets to access service dogs as part of work-therapy programs—and give some vets the opportunity to adopt the dogs. Research has shown service dogs can help mental health, improve interpersonal relationships, and lower substance abuse risk, said one sponsor, Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. The bill is “a good start,” said Leist. “It’s something to get it out there to bring it more light and [show] how they help people.” Thanks to Samantha Power for the story tip. (Livingston Daily)

    We asked, you answered. After our story last week on Chicago’s public library eliminating late fees, readers from Baltimore; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Florida’s Sarasota County emailed that their libraries are among those doing the same. Meredith Bird Miller, who worked in Vermont and New Hampshire libraries, wrote that two of her libraries did away with fines and fees—and brought in more money than they had before, through a “conscience box.” “Give it a try for six months!” she recommends. “See what happens!”

    I’ll leave you with this soothing view from Zion National Park in Utah (my favorite national park) via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Thanks so much for being part of this week’s Recharge, and have a great week ahead!

  • A Homeless Singer’s Viral Video Lands Her an Offer From a Grammy-Nominated Producer

    October 9, 2019

    Screenshot of video from LAPDHQ/Twitter

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    Emily Zamourka says she learned to sing by imitating opera performers on TV while growing up in Russia. Decades later, with her belongings beside her, she began singing at a Los Angeles subway stop—and a police officer’s video of the scene got more than 1 million views.

    The video also prompted a crowdfunding effort for the 52-year-old; efforts to find housing for her; and a paid gig on Saturday, singing the same Puccini aria at a Little Italy celebration.

    Zamourka told the Los Angeles Times that she had battled through a series of health issues to teach piano and violin lessons, and had played violin on the street for extra cash—until a stranger took and broke her violin in downtown LA. After that, she rode the subways at night with her belongings.

    Now, more than 2,100 strangers have contributed $77,000-plus to supplement the $400 a month in government aid she had lived on. A Grammy-nominated producer wants to give her a recording contract. One of several LA Times readers wrote in response to the stories: “She has already inspired many to cheer her on and to applaud her efforts to survive, ultimately to thrive and finally to triumph and share her gift.”

    Zamourka is grateful and a little overwhelmed, and she has this advice for encountering people who are homeless, whether or not they have creative talent: “Don’t wait until…you discover something. Be there for them. Help them out…Everyone deserves a chance.”

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Making the library public. Until this month, 343,208 users of the Chicago Public Library—including one in five patrons under 14—could not borrow books because they had run up more than $10 in late fees. Now, the library has forgiven them—and declared the end of late fees. “We are taking a step in the right direction to help our library system once again serve as a gathering place for the entire community, regardless of your financial status,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said. Chicago is the biggest city so far to eliminate fees, but cities such as Phoenix, Miami, Dallas, San Francisco and Washington, DC, have already done so. Has your community? Should it? Let us know at recharge@motherjones.com. (Chicago Sun-Times)

    Creative conservation. A Tuscan fisher has come up with a way, he hopes, that illegal bottom trawling won’t scoop up all the fish off the coast from his village. Paolo Fanciulli has placed 24 Carrara marble statues at the bottom of the sea to protect fish from the bottom trawlers. He has 18 more statues—carved from marble from Michelangelo’s preferred quarry—ready to dunk. Fanciulli, preaching his sustainable fishing mantra to tourists and fellow fishers, calls the underwater sculptures “the biggest museum in the world to save the sea.” (New York Times)

    Grassroots victory. GEO Group is the biggest player in the private prison and immigrant detention “industry.” Now none of GEO’s banking partners want anything to do with it. Eight major lenders said they’re ending their exposure in this business. Protesters have called it unconscionable to profit off prisoners (indeed, the first private US prison opened only in 1984). Several Democratic presidential candidates have called for an end to for-profit prisons. (Forbes)

    Recharge salutes: Retired teacher Lisel Heise, who at 100 won her first bid for electoral office, running on a platform to help Germany’s younger generations; Texas high school cheerleader Tyra Winters, who jumped off a parade float to save the life of a choking toddler; and runner Braima Suncar Dabo of Guinea-Bissau, who helped a struggling fellow 5,000-meter racer, Jonathan Busby of Aruba, cross the finish line at the sweltering world track-and-field championships in Qatar. “My thoughts were to help him finish. That is the point of the race,” Dabo said Friday.

    I’ll leave you with this fiery sunset over the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Thanks so much for being part of this week’s Recharge, and have a great week ahead!

  • How a Hospital Was Shamed Into Forgiving 6,500 People’s Unpaid Medical Bills

    October 2, 2019

    Carrie Barrett (left), a former defendant in a suit brought by a large hospital network, celebrates the cancellation of her mounting medical debt after an investigation by ProPublica and MLK50 Memphis.Andrea Morales for MLK50

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    In a city where nearly 1 in 4 people live below the poverty line, Memphis’ biggest nonprofit hospital network had filed more than 8,300 lawsuits in five years to collect from patients who couldn’t pay. It even garnished the wages of more than 70 hospital employees for their own treatment.

    An investigation exposed the hard-line bill-collection efforts, prompting the hospital network to discontinue its court collection process—and, last week, to erase the unpaid medical debts of more than 6,500 patients. The move followed widespread criticism of Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare by medical professionals, elected officials, and the United Methodist Church, which is affiliated with the network.

    The collection efforts stood out as particularly aggressive to other nonprofit hospitals, which generally do not have to pay taxes in return for significant charity care and financial assistance.

    Among the patients relieved of medical debt is Carrie Barrett, whose $12,019 bill for a heart catherization had ballooned to $33,000 as the hospital system piled on its attorneys’ fees, added interest seven times, and garnished her wages 15 times. Barrett, who has a part-time supermarket job, would have had to pay a court-ordered $100 a month for her two nights in the hospital until she was 90 years old.

    Barrett got the good news that her bill was wiped clean two weeks ago from a court administrator, she told MLK50 Memphis, the local news site that investigated with ProPublica. “He said, ‘The balance is zero…I said, ‘You don’t know how good that sounds to my ears.’”

    Barrett later stood up and made the announcement to her church congregation, which knew of her long struggle with the hospital.

    “I just want to thank God for blessings that he has brought to me,” she shouted. “I thank him for the victory!” (MLK50 Memphis)

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    A superlibrarian’s star turn. Millions of people who use the internet at public libraries have Jean Armour Polly to thank. Long before the web existed, the Liverpool, New York, librarian pushed to get free internet to library patrons, at first through a dial-up service. “I thought, ‘How are we going to get this into the public’s hands?'” said Polly, making the news with her induction last week into the Internet Hall of Fame. Another contribution: She popularized the term “surfing the internet”—and apologized to surfers who were initially offended. (Wired)

    Hellraisers’ honeymoon. LaCrystal Robertson and Steve Ferguson met at the General Motors plant. They married. Just after the nuptials on September 21, Robertson and Ferguson, still in their formal attire, joined their fellow employees on the picket line outside GM’s Spring Hill, Tennessee, plant. “Just because it’s our special day,” Ferguson said, “we’re not forgetting about what we’re fighting for.” Their colleagues greeted them with applause. (Washington Post)

    The call to help. Rebecca Asaro was 9 when she last saw her dad. Her brother Marc was 7. Last week, they followed their father into service with the New York Fire Department. The Asaros are among 19 new firefighters who had lost a parent on 9/11 or to 9/11-related illnesses. The reward of following in their father’s footsteps, the Asaros said, is in helping others. “I feel like my dad’s with me every step of the way,” Rebecca said, “and it brings me a little closer to him.” (CBS News)

    Reunited. For 75 years, cousins and best friends Morris Sana and Simon Mairowitz each believed the other had been killed in the Holocaust. On September 21, after younger members of their families connected on Facebook, the two reunited in Israel. “I know it’s a long time,” said Simon as he held Morris’ face in his hands. “We’ve got each other now.’’ (People)

    Recharge salutes: Air Force Tech Sgt. Kenneth O’Brien, who was flying back to the States to accept a heroism award when he saved a baby’s life; the English town of Frome, which began treating loneliness as a medical condition—and found huge medical savings; and Tommy Cash Cosman, who flourished in his last years as a radio talk show host and as a character around his remote Nevada town. He was beloved for the humanity behind his goofy, spiky exterior. “You hear a taunt long enough,” writes John M. Glionna, who profiled Cosman for the Los Angeles Times, “you start to miss it when it’s gone.”

    I’ll leave you with these fall colors at Denali National Park in Alaska, via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Thanks so much for being part of this week’s Recharge, and have a great week ahead!

  • He Spent Every Day Handing Out a Free Newspaper. When the Paper Shut Down, His Community Stepped Up.

    September 25, 2019

    Hassan Nezhadessivandi, 65, used to distribute the Express newspaper in Washington, DC, before it ceased publication, leaving him jobless but not without support.Bobby King Sr.

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    For five years, Hassan Nezhadessivandi had stood in the same spot handing out free newspapers for several hours every morning in the snow, rain, and heat. He wished commuters good morning and high-fived a few regulars.

    Last Thursday, a bus driver broke the news to Nezhadessivandi that this was the last edition of his Express newspaper. The Washington, DC, commuter paper was closing, and Nezhadessivandi, 65, was crushed: He felt as if he’d been put “in the trash.”

    His “customers,” however, rallied for him. Two sisters started a GoFundMe campaign that has raised about $15,000 for him as of Tuesday. One contributor wrote: “Hassan, although you probably don’t know who I am, you brightened my commute every day!” Another wrote: “You showed more commitment than I do to most things in my life.”

    Visibly touched, Nezhadessivandi responded with a thank you video.

    Nezhadessivandi, who came to the United States from Iran in 1978, told Washington Post columnist Theresa Vargas he didn’t expect the support from people who interacted with him for just a few seconds each morning. He was particularly grateful to the two sisters who’d launched the crowdfunding effort.

    “I think if I didn’t have these two friends that went out of their way, and did that for me, what would I have done?…I would have been really stuck. At this age, 65, it’s really hard to get a job.”

    The sisters have launched a second fundraising effort to help the other 74 Express distributors who abruptly lost their jobs. It has raised $18,000 so far. (Washington Post)

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    Crazy nachos, please. In hospice care, she had one wish: a chauffeured limo ride to her favorite restaurant with her three best friends. On September 9, firefighters carried 99-year-old Agnes “Mickey” Santillo down the steps—and she got that sweet ride with her friends to El Fenix restaurant on Dallas’ Northwest Highway, courtesy of a limo company. It may be one of the last times Santillo leaves her building, and she made the most of it. Santillo got a half order of Crazy Nachos with chicken, no jalapeños, and a Dr Pepper. “I only drink one a day,” she said. (Dallas Morning News)

    Saving a school. How has Germany’s embrace of immigrants paid off for an aging nation? For the eastern town of Golzow, which had lost a third of its population in the past 30 years, new residents and community life were critical. Mayor Frank Schütz had to overcome prejudice from some townspeople to invite immigrants in a few years ago. Now, empty apartments have been filled, bakers offer Arabic pastries as well as German apple tarts, and a school, which faced closing, is prospering with children of the new arrivals. “The Syrians,” Mayor Frank Schütz said, “saved our school.” Thanks to Marcus Baram for the suggestion. (New York Times)

    Pay what you can. Lisa Thomas-McMillan and her husband, Freddie, got the idea from Jon Bon Jovi and his Soul Kitchen in New Jersey. At the McMillans’ restaurant, Drexel & Honeybee’s, in Brewton, Alabama, there are no prices on the menu. All the couple asks of customers is to pay what they can for the meal—and support their broader mission of feeding the hungry. Sometimes it’s just a note of thanks from a family of four who were allowed to eat. Or a quarter from another strapped person. “If you’re down and out and struggling, coming to a decent place and enjoying a hot meal can lift your spirit,” Lisa said. “It makes that person feel better about themselves. That’s what we do. Sit down here and no one cares what’s in your wallet. We want you to leave full—full of good food and good company.” (Alabama Living)

    Recharge salutes: Graphic novelist Raina Telgemeier, who is having an impact on children with anxiety issues; Virgil Mitchell, who walked free last week after sitting in jail for two years on false charges and said he never let the injustice defeat him; Zayne Cowie, a 10-year-old who took it upon himself to shield Greta Thunberg from photographers during her trip to Washington last week—and got this thank you:

     

     

  • R.E.M. Released a New Song and Every Dollar Is Going to Benefit the Bahamas

    September 18, 2019

    8-year-old Ayfon Minus collects donated food in a Hurricane Dorian–destroyed village in the Bahamas.Ramon Espinosa/AP

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    To Virginia’s historically black Hampton University, it was the right thing to do. To R.E.M., it was a gesture to help a nation it loved. To chef José Andrés, a US citizen since 2013, it was what he does.

    Each has done what they can to help the survivors of Hurricane Dorian while the administration in Washington has tightened visa enforcement on those fleeing the devastation—and has openly insulted them.

    Hampton offered free tuition and room and board to students of the University of the Bahamas-North who were uprooted by the natural disaster. R.E.M. dug up a 2004 song it had recorded in Nassau and released it on Thursday, saying all sales would go toward Bahamian relief. Andrés said Friday that his World Central Kitchen, which played a crucial role in feeding Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria, had served more than 200,000 free meals since arriving in the Bahamas in early September.

    R.E.M.’s Mike Mills said that donating proceeds from the song “Fascinating” was a no-brainer. “I spend a lot of time every year in the Abaco Islands, which was literally ground zero for this disaster. I know a lot of people who lost everything,” Mills told Bandcamp Daily.

    “I have been fortunate to spend many weeks working and playing in the Bahamas, making friends and lots of music there,” he added. “It breaks my heart to see the damage wrought by Hurricane Dorian.”

    Others have stepped up in myriad ways in the northern Bahamas. A Florida billionaire donated his yacht to deliver 30 tons of supplies—and rescue 50 dogs—according to the Naples Daily News. Another part of the US government, the Agency for International Development, has committed millions in disaster assistance. If you wish to help, nonprofit evaluator Charity Navigator has compiled a list of reputable charities working in the Bahamas.

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    How prejudice dies. A public outcry prompted a Northern California winery to reverse its no-same-sex wedding policy and offer to host the marriage of Dezanea Reyes and Alex Biddle. The Viaggio Estate and Winery initially sent an email rejecting to host the couple’s nuptials, saying same-sex weddings violated the owners’ personal religious beliefs. Reyes posted that email to social media, where it became drew national attention. Winery co-owner Teri Lawrence then apologized, changed policy, and belatedly offered the venue. Lawrence acknowledged that her rejection “was hurtful to the people involved.” For Reyes, the about-face came too late; she and her fiancée booked another place. Nonetheless, Reyes was pleased. “I want the next person to know that they won’t get the same [rejection] email,” she said. (Los Angeles Times)

    Saving the “Yosemite of the North.” Thousands of people came together to buy nearly 2,000 acres of a stunning glacier-carved gorge in British Columbia, saving it from developers. Students, sailors, and businesspeople joined forces in a three-month grassroots effort to raise $2.3 million for the land in Princess Louisa Inlet, part of a pristine stretch of the fjord-dotted Canadian Pacific Northwest. “These forests are our cathedrals,” said Andrew Day, chief executive of the British Columbia Parks Foundation, which will administer the land. A fifth grade classroom, which raised hundreds of dollars by selling food and crafts, put it this way in a letter to the foundation: “One day, we might all have the chance to visit this beautiful piece of wilderness, knowing that we played a role in saving it for future generations.” Thanks to Shirley Brady for the tip. (New York Times)

    Getting it right this time. When Chance the Rapper’s 4-year-old daughter, Kensli, was born, the Chicago musician embarked on a tour two weeks later, missing milestones in her life. He was absent, as he put it, “when her mother needed me the most.” After the birth of daughter Marli, Chance told fans last week he was delaying his upcoming tour, adding, “I need to be as helpful and available as possible to my wife [Kirsten Corley Bennett] in these early months of raising Kensli and Marli.” Fans celebrated Chance’s decision, and the parenting blog Motherly said Chance highlighted the fact that paternity leave needs to be paid and unstigmatized. “Today,” Motherly wrote, “we took a huge step toward that last part thanks to Kensli and Marli’s dad.” (Washington Post)

    On a final note, how better to distance yourself from the dizzying news cycle than by enjoying this view from Hawaii’s Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed? Thanks so much for being part of this week’s Recharge, and for all your comments, suggestions, and support. Have a great week ahead!

  • A Stranger’s Snap Judgment Prompted Sonia Sotomayor to Help Others

    September 11, 2019

    Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor talks to children during an event promoting her new children's book.John Amis/AP

    Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

    Diagnosed with diabetes in her youth, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was injecting herself with insulin in a restaurant restroom before a meal when another customer spotted her there.

    Sotomayor later heard that customer tell a companion that the justice was a drug addict.

    “Madam, I am not a drug addict,” Sotomayor responded. “I am diabetic, and that injection you saw me give to myself is insulin. It’s the medicine that keeps me alive. If you don’t know why someone’s doing something, just ask them. Don’t assume the worst in people.”

    The encounter has stuck with Sotomayor for years, she told NPR—and spurred her to write the children’s book Just Ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You. Her intention: to portray 12 kids working together to build a garden. Just like the plants, the kids are different—two have autism, for example; one has asthma; and another has Tourette syndrome.

    “I wanted to talk about children like me,” Sotomayor said. “Each of us is doing what we do best…each child is doing something to contribute to the garden, despite how they’re differently able.”

    Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

    “She was our best reporter.” Skeptical and curious journalist Dora Walters knew everybody in Longboat Key, Florida, and broke news into her 80s. She may have been prickly in the newsroom, but she dropped birthday cards on the desks of her colleagues and brought back treats from her trips to Mexico. On her final day of life, she had to go to the birthday party of a 98-year-old friend and turn in her weekly column. Of course, she made the party—and the deadline as well, said longtime friend Dawn DiLorenzo. “Nothing could keep her down,” DiLorenzo said. Thanks to Recharge reader William Weinbaum for the tip. (Longboat Observer)

    Happy little trees. Bob Ross, the chia-haired painter and cult star of public TV’s The Joy of Painting, didn’t just paint trees. He painted “happy little trees,” as in this 21-second video for MTV. Decades after the cheerful painter’s death, Bob Ross Inc. has partnered with the state of Michigan to help promote the planting of trees. The state is renaming a prison program that grows 1,000 trees a year to replace those in state parks that have been severely damaged. The Happy Little Trees program, with Bob Ross’ likeness on signage at state parks and on volunteer T-shirts, has already spurred help. “We put a call out to volunteers and said, ‘If you help us replace trees in state parks, you get a happy planting T-shirt,’” said Michelle Coss, volunteer and donor coordinator for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ Parks and Recreation Division. “We had over 500 people sign up to help us plant trees.” (Roadtrippers Magazine)

    A new crop. Since we last checked, in July, nearly 100 Little Free Pantries have sprung up outside homes and places of worship, bringing the total of informal food centers to nearly 700. Modeled after the Little Free Libraries’ take-something-leave-something movement, these pantries, with nonperishable food and indispensable items (think toothpaste, tampons, socks, school supplies) have become a judgment-free zone for those struggling to get by. “I felt like our world is in a pretty cruddy place and it felt very insurmountable—and I wanted to do something to give back,” said Tara Duffy, who built a Little Free Pantry outside her church in Burbank, California. Duffy said that for her two children, ages 7 and 3, the pantry is “a great example…that no one’s safe, no one’s exempt from bad things happening—and that if people need support, we can do things to help them.” (Los Angeles Times)

    I’ll leave you with this sweeping image from the Delaware Water Gap, dividing Pennsylvania and New Jersey, via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Thanks so much for reading, and have a great week ahead!