September 9, 2021

20 years after 9/11, metro Detroit Muslims tired of apologizing, being viewed differently

(Detroit Free Press) On 9/11, life changed for Americans.

Some of us lost friends, colleagues or family in the attacks. Those painful losses can never be forgotten. And all of us lost something: the sense of safety and security that Americans had taken for granted. That, of course, is the intent of terrorism: to replace safety with fear.

Within minutes, life had changed for American Muslims. The 9/11 hijackers were members of the militant group al-Qaida, and for some, that was damning evidence — cause to view Muslim Americans with fear and suspicion. In metro Detroit, home to the nation’s largest Muslim community, familiarity sometimes brought comfort, from friends and neighbors quick to reassert the bonds of community. And sometimes, it made American Muslims a target. The decades that followed have held profiling, unfair immigration policy, threats, targeting, harassment. But they’ve also held community, progress, hope.

We asked Muslim Americans in metro Detroit to reflect on the last 20 years, to tell us how their lives have changed.

We heard remarkable stories. We’re telling these stories today with words and photos, and in the upcoming installment of our new weekly podcast "On the Line," out Friday. .........(more)

https://www.freep.com/in-depth/news/local/michigan/2021/09/09/9-11-20th-anniversary-muslims-detroit-michigan/5654741001/

September 9, 2021

Washington DC: Metro considers Georgetown station, Blue Line expansion to address future ridership

Ridership on Metrorail in the D.C. region is expected to increase over the coming years, and transportation officials are considering how to address that growth.

A Georgetown Metro station and a Blue Line expansion to National Harbor are among the options raised in a future capacity and reliability study published this week by Metro’s Finance and Capital Committee.



The plan could include a realignment of the Blue Line, the addition of a second Rosslyn Metro station and the construction a new tunnel to a new Georgetown station.

That could cost between $20 billion and $25 billion and be the most significant improvement for ridership growth. It would expand ridership by 180,000 weekday trips and generate $154 million in annual revenue. ...........(more)

https://wtop.com/tracking-metro-24-7/2021/09/metro-considers-a-new-georgetown-station-blue-line-expansion-to-address-future-ridership/

September 8, 2021

Ida left behind a water crisis in the Gulf

Ida left behind a water crisis in the Gulf
Hundreds of thousands of people remain without drinking water -- and there's no timeline for getting it back.


(Grist) It has been a week and a half since Hurricane Ida hit the Gulf Coast and the devastating impacts of the Category 4 storm are still being felt throughout the region. Some 418,000 people in Louisiana remain without power, unable to run air conditioning units to deal with scorching late summer temperatures or keep food fresh in homes and grocery stores. The storm has also forced hundreds of municipal water systems offline, creating a drinking water crisis that officials warn could last weeks.

As of Tuesday, 51 water systems across Louisiana, each serving between 25 to 20,000 people, remained shut down due to Ida. Another 242 remained under boil water advisories. Around 642,000 people remain without access to clean water, according to the Louisiana Department of Health. In Mississippi, the state Department of Health has 10 active boiling water notices, affecting 7,142 people.

“There is no particular timeframe for all systems to come back up to 100 percent,” Kevin Litter, a spokesperson for Louisiana Department of Health, said in an email. “This will be different for every system and also based on location.”

The reasons for the immediate water crisis are two-fold: Across Louisiana and Mississippi, Hurricane Ida ripped down power lines, leaving water systems unable to get the electricity they needed to pump groundwater or to run treatment facilities. Even though Louisiana mandates that all water systems have backup, fuel-powered generators, many don’t comply with the rule, Litter explained. Those who do have backup pumps are being affected by the extended blackout still crippling parts of the Gulf a week post-storm — a situation that has created fuel shortages that leave generators useless. Flooding on roads can also leave critical infrastructure, like water wells or pump stations, out of reach, making it impossible to fix storm damage. Lastly, the destruction of roads and bridges has literally ripped apart water pipelines, disrupting the whole system. .............(more)

https://grist.org/equity/ida-left-behind-a-water-crisis-in-the-gulf/

September 8, 2021

Texas Abortion Law Could Cost Companies Millions as Others Cut Ties

Portland, Ore. (AP) -- The city of Portland, Oregon’s plan to boycott Texas goods and services over its new abortion law could cost Texas companies millions of dollars a year, officials said Tuesday.

Heather Hafer, a spokeswoman with the Office of Management and Finance, said Portland has inked almost $35 million in contracts with Texas-based businesses over the last five years, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

She also said Portland employees have made 19 separate trips to the Lonestar State on official business since 2019, a number she said would have been significantly higher if travel hadn't been stopped for a year amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The potential financial impact information comes after Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Twitter Monday called Portland boycotting Texas “a complete joke.” ..........(more)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-08/planned-ban-over-abortion-law-could-cost-texas-7m-a-year

September 8, 2021

Florida Man Steals Pickup Truck, Crashes, Pretends To Grill On Stranger's Porch

A Florida man has been arrested after stealing 60 sets of keys from an auto dealership and chose to drive off in a 2005 GMC Sierra pickup truck.

Police responded Friday to a burglary report at LG Auto Sales located in Boyton Beach, where the suspect, identified as Gino Puglisi, 52, allegedly stole property estimated to be worth around $36,500, WPTV reported.

According to Boynton Beach police, Puglisi also made off with a 45-inch Samsung TV valued at $1,500, two Dell laptops valued at $1,000 each, and $3,000 worth of wrenches, screwdrivers, and pliers — along with the 60 sets of keys and truck.

....(snip)....

Police say that a pursuit ensued until it was called off as Puglisi continued at high rate of speed.

The 52-year-old man then crashed the truck into an office building, fled the scene, and was taken into custody by police after he was found pretending to be grilling on a porch at a nearby apartment. ...........(more)

https://www.tampafp.com/florida-man-steals-pickup-tuck-crashes-pretend-to-grill-on-strangers-porch/

September 7, 2021

Man falls from cliff, dies during visit to Upper Peninsula's Presque Ile Park

MARQUETTE, Mich. — A visitor fell from a cliff and died at a park in the Upper Peninsula, police said.

The death occurred Monday at Presque Isle Park in Marquette.

"The investigation is ongoing at this time, but preliminary information suggests that the victim fell while descending the cliff to take photographs," Marquette police said.

The victim was found in Lake Superior near shore. Efforts to save the man were unsuccessful. ..............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/09/07/cliff-presque-ile-park-michigan/5753297001/

September 7, 2021

'Forever chemicals' found at three Michigan military bases near the Great Lakes

(Detroit Metro Times) Six military bases in the Great Lakes region, including three in Michigan, have high levels of “forever chemicals” that are contaminating the groundwater, according to U.S. Department of Defense records obtained by an environmental advocacy group.

The toxic class of chemicals known as PFAS are oozing into the Great Lakes, contaminating wildlife and posing a risk to people who eat fish tainted with the chemicals, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) warned.

Most of the PFAS come from firefighting foams used by the Defense Department.

The six affected sites in Michigan are the Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Harrison Township, Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, and Alpena County Regional Airport in Alpena. The other sites are Duluth International Airport in Minnesota, Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station in New York, and General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee.

“PFAS from these sites could be harming the Great Lakes’ wildlife, including lake trout, walleye and smelt, posing potential health risks to anyone who consumes the contaminated fish,” EWG said in a report. ...........(more)

https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2021/09/03/forever-chemicals-found-at-three-michigan-military-bases-near-the-great-lakes

September 7, 2021

Nothing sacred: From Jefferson to Jan. 6, America's toxic mythologies are destroying us

Nothing sacred: From Jefferson to Jan. 6, America's toxic mythologies are destroying us
Thomas Jefferson hid the ugly truth of Bacon's Rebellion — an early example of the myths emerging around Jan. 6

By DONALD EARL COLLINS
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 6, 2021 6:00AM


(Salon) One of the great myths of the United States is that rebellion and insurrection are among the necessary components of patriotism. Myth-making provides the U.S. a way to recycle its gory mess of violent anti-government white supremacy and white privilege into something sacred. Perhaps no nation has accumulated more myths about itself in its short 245 years of existence than America, which has used those myths to justify everything from Indigenous genocide and slavery to dropping nuclear weapons on Japanese cities at the end of World War II.

The defenders of and the deflectors from the Jan. 6 insurrection have been spinning a new tale for the world for months now. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., said in May, "There was no insurrection, and to call it an insurrection, in my opinion, is a bold-faced lie." Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., an ardent Trump supporter, defended the insurrectionists under investigation and arrest for their roles in the Jan. 6 riot. "The DOJ is harassing peaceful patriots across the country," Gosar said on May 12. As author Mychal Denzel Smith put it in a recent article for New York magazine, "If we let the mob participants and sympathizers claim their own version of the narrative, it will be told through a righteous lens." They have already laid the groundwork for making the House hearings on Jan. 6 a dog and pony show.

This sort of mythological alchemy dates back to America's violent beginnings. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure," founding father and third president Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to William Stephens (future president John Adams' son-in-law) in 1787. Jefferson wrote this during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, in which Massachusetts had threatened open rebellion against a new centralized federal system of governance. In his letter to Stevens, Jefferson also wrote, "What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them."

Aside from owning slaves and his love affair of statutory rape with Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson was also one of America's first great myth-makers. With white America's first big insurrection in Bacon's Rebellion, Jefferson as president tried to plaster over the bedrock reality of open rebellion against extreme class inequalities among Englishmen that developed in colonial Virginia and elsewhere. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/09/06/nothing-sacred-from-jefferson-to-jan-6-americas-toxic-mythologies-are-destroying-us/

September 7, 2021

Mexico revives dream of San Antonio-to-Monterrey rail service

Sep. 1—For more than three decades, politicians and rail advocates have dreamed of building a passenger train link between San Antonio and Monterrey, northern Mexico's largest city.

Each time, they've woken up with no financial commitments or concrete development plans.

Nevertheless, top Mexican rail officials are back at it.

They plan to begin a $2 million feasibility study for San Antonio-to-Monterrey service by the end of 2021. It will examine the potential costs of building and operating a rail line, and gauge passenger demand for service between the two cities, which are 300 miles apart.

"We need to prove that train service between the two cities can be a success," said David Camacho, head of Mexico's Regulatory Agency for Rail Transport. ............(more)

https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/news/21236764/mexico-mexico-revives-dream-of-san-antoniotomonterrey-rail-service

September 6, 2021

SF Bay Area: Versatile but problem-plagued, the last 1990s-era C2 BART car is gone

The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) has officially retired the last of the 1990s-era C2 train cars.

The C2s had more than their share of issues affecting riders and workers and were strategically targeted to be the first cars in the legacy fleet completely decommissioned. The last one was scrapped in August.

C2s were the most likely to have HVAC breakdowns leading to hot cars and rider misery. The operator cab was cramped with failure-prone sash windows. Engineers and mechanics had to come up with do-it-yourself fixes for problems like overshooting windshield wipers and passenger doors that popped off their tracks, taking cars out of service and causing delays.

However, the C2 cars (and their close cousin, C1s, which are next on the list for fully decommissioning as BART replaces its fleet) had some important distinctions that made them significant in BART history. Because of their versatility to be placed anywhere in a multiple-car train, they ushered in the modern era of train dispatch efficiency. And riders knew them as the first to have a blue interior color palette, instead of the 1970s vintage brown and orange of BART’s early days. ..........(more)

https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/vehicles/press-release/21237060/bay-area-rapid-transit-bart-versatile-but-problemplagued-the-last-1990sera-c2-bart-car-is-gone