The Paris Olympics have just ended, but some diehard fans are already planning for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, California. Vivianne Robinson is one of them. The self-described Olympics superfan has been following the Games’ flame all over the world. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Vazgen Varzhabetian.
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Category: United States
United States news. The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional republic and liberal democracy with three separate branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. It has a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives, a lower house based on population; and the Senate, an upper house based on equal representation for each state
US prioritizes deterrence over denuclearization on North Korea, experts say
washington — As North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs become increasingly sophisticated, U.S.-based experts see the United States shifting the focus of its diplomacy from the pursuit of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula to one of deterrence.
Officially, the U.S. State Department insists that denuclearization remains the primary goal of the United States and South Korea, a policy that is unlikely to change regardless of the outcome of the November U.S. presidential election.
But in a series of email interviews with VOA Korean, more than half a dozen experts said they saw scant hope that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could be persuaded to give up his growing nuclear arsenal and that the U.S. must concentrate instead on seeing that it is never used.
“I think, in practical terms, most Americans believe we have little choice at this point but to prioritize deterrence, at least for the foreseeable future,” said Michael O’Hanlon, director of foreign policy research at the Brookings Institution in Washington, in an email to VOA Korean this week.
Robert Peters, research fellow for nuclear deterrence and missile defense at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA Korean via email that American politicians on both sides of the political spectrum are questioning whether North Korea would even consider abandoning its nuclear weapons.
“I think there is little appetite in either political party to seek denuclearization with North Korea, given the failures of the late 2010s,” Peters said, referring to the collapse of the nuclear talks between former U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who met three times in 2018 and 2019.
“I think all sides recognize that Kim will not give up nuclear weapons at any price.”
Shifting priorities
Negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program between Washington and Pyongyang have been nearly nonexistent since October 2019.
Peters added, “Bottom line — without question, the ground has shifted regarding how we think about the North Korean nuclear threat.”
Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, said Washington’s shift in direction was inevitable.
“The U.S. government has been forced to place more emphasis on deterrence over denuclearization because Kim Jong Un has shown no willingness to negotiate a nuclear deal or even meet with the U.S. to discuss denuclearization,” Samore told VOA Korean via email.
“Instead, North Korea has continued to advance its nuclear and missile program, and the U.S. has responded by strengthening military cooperation with the ROK and Japan, including joint efforts to enhance extended deterrence.”
ROK stands for Republic of Korea, the official name of South Korea.
Denuclearization of North Korea is now viewed in Washington as a “mission impossible,” said Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation.
“I think it is fair to say that the U.S. government is now more focused on deterrence, which is largely succeeding, than on denuclearization,” Bennett told VOA Korean via email.
“This change does not mean that the U.S. and ROK have abandoned trying to negotiate for denuclearization, which North Korea steadfastly refuses to do, but rather that our governments no longer see denuclearization as a viable solution to the North Korean nuclear weapon threat.”
Markus Garlauskas, director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, told VOA Korean via email it was “fully appropriate” that Washington has been paying more attention in recent years to deterring North Korean aggression than attempting to negotiate denuclearization.
“I have long argued that Kim Jong Un does not intend to give up his nuclear weapons, that the nuclear weapons and missile capabilities of North Korea have grown and will continue to grow, meaning that we in the United States and its allies must adjust our strategy and policy accordingly,” he said.
“We should not let hopes of negotiations get in the way of making tough decisions to improve deterrence,” added Garlauskas, who served as the U.S. national intelligence officer for North Korea from 2014 to 2020.
He stressed, however, that “accepting the reality that North Korea is nuclear-armed and will remain so while under Kim Jong Un’s leadership” does not mean that the U.S. should or would give up denuclearization as a goal.
“Our principled stand can and should remain that North Korea must comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions by halting its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and relinquishing its nuclear weapons, and I do think there is still broad agreement on that in Washington,” Garlauskas said.
Commitment to denuclearization
Sydney Seiler, who until last year was the national intelligence officer for North Korea on the U.S. National Intelligence Council, said the U.S. should keep denuclearization as a priority, adding that “denuclearization and deterrence are not mutually exclusive.”
“We have a responsibility on a day-by-day basis to deter provocative actions, coercion, blackmail and even possible invasion by North Korea and have been doing so for the last 70 years of armistice,” said Seiler, who is now a senior adviser on Korean affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Successfully ensuring deterrence does not mean abandoning the goal of the denuclearization of North Korea,” he told VOA Korean via email.
Robert Abrams, a retired U.S. Army four-star general who served as commander of U.S. Forces Korea from 2018 to 2021, emphasized that a strategy of deterrence should be clearly differentiated from the goal of denuclearization.
“The U.S. strategic deterrent was never about stopping the North Korean regime from developing their own nukes,” Abrams told VOA Korean in an August 20 email.
“Sanctions and diplomatic efforts were intended to stop North Korea’s nuclear program. The strategic deterrent is to deter North Korea from ever using nuclear weapons, and that has obviously been very successful.”
Officially, Washington reiterates that denuclearization of North Korea remains a goal of the U.S.-South Korea alliance.
“The United States and the ROK continue to pursue the shared objective of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA Korean via email this week. “We believe that the only effective way to reduce nuclear threats on the peninsula is by curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”
But the spokesperson stressed that deterrence was also a crucial element of U.S. policy toward North Korea.
“At the same time, the United States and the ROK will continue working together to strengthen extended deterrence in the face of increasingly aggressive DPRK rhetoric about its nuclear weapons program,” the spokesperson said.
He added that the 16-month-old Washington Declaration “reinforces the fact that any nuclear attack by [North Korea] against [South Korea] will be met with a swift, overwhelming and decisive response from the United States.”
In April 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol adopted the Washington Declaration, which outlines a series of measures to deter North Korea’s nuclear weapons use.
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At US theme parks, Halloween celebrations start in summer
los angeles, california — Halloween has arrived earlier than ever at major U.S. theme parks, as operators such as Disney, Six Flags, and Universal Studios seek to expand their reach and build on consumers’ love of spooky costumes and scares.
Theme park operators have introduced a range of attractions, live performances, merchandise and food and beverages in August — before summer has ended and well before the October 31 holiday — to take advantage of the surging popularity of Halloween. These holiday-themed efforts come at a time when domestic theme park attendance has slumped, following a surge in demand after COVID.
Edithann Ramey, chief marketing officer at Six Flags, told Reuters that the theme parks saw attendance gains and increases in guest spending in 2023 when it introduced attractions based on the horror films “SAW” and “The Conjuring.”
The offerings were so successful that the theme park company has been investing more in Halloween experiences, Ramey said.
“It’s become this time of the year that’s grown in explosive ways,” Ramey said. “It’s become a billion-dollar industry in the last five years.”
Jakob Wahl, chief executive for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, said Halloween has become one of the strongest selling points for parks that cater to young people and families.
“We actually see a growth every year in terms of Halloween events, not only North America, but across the world,” Wahl said.
Disney starts season in August
Walt Disney’s parks started the Halloween season earlier than ever this year with “Mickey’s Not So Scary Party” beginning on August 9 and running through the end of October.
The Oogie Boogie Bash, a separately ticketed event named for the “Nightmare Before Christmas” villain, sold out this year in 11 days, Disney said. Its popularity prompted the company to push the release date to August 25 from September 5.
“We’ve seen from our guests in years past that there’s a demand for them to come and enjoy that season with us,” said Tracy Halas, creative director of Disney Live Entertainment.
Six Flags also kicks off Halloween early this year, on September 14, with a new experience called “Saw: Legacy of Terror” celebrating the 20th anniversary of the “SAW” horror movie franchise.
Following the $8 billion merger of Six Flags and former rival Cedar Fair, which created the nation’s largest amusement park operator, with 42 parks across 17 states, Six Flags is increasing its investment in Halloween.
That includes adding Hollywood-themed experiences to Six Flags Fright Fest based on Netflix’s science fiction series, “Stranger Things,” as well as horror films “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and “The Conjuring.”
Universal adds ‘Ghostbusters’ haunted house
Comcast-owned Universal Studios 2024 Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando runs from August 30 to November 3, the longest season they’ve ever had. The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Universal is adding a “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” haunted house to its Halloween programming alongside the first attraction inspired by horror franchise, “A Quiet Place.”
Universal also aims to attract guests at Universal Studios Japan with a new 4D show in collaboration with the anime television series “Chainsaw Man.”
Both Universal Orlando and Japan will add cast members dressed as the antagonists called Death Eaters to haunt Diagon Alley during Horror Nights.
Disney villain Cruella de Vil hosted a “Let’s Get Wicked” celebration at Hong Kong Disneyland in 2022, which received an industry award and returns this year.
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California lawmakers approve laws banning deepfakes, regulating AI
Sacramento, California — California lawmakers approved a host of proposals this week aiming to regulate the artificial intelligence industry, combat deepfakes and protect workers from exploitation by the rapidly evolving technology.
The California Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, is voting on hundreds of bills during its final week of the session to send to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. Their deadline is Saturday.
The Democratic governor has until Sept. 30 to sign the proposals, veto them or let them become law without his signature. Newsom signaled in July he will sign a proposal to crack down on election deepfakes but has not weighed in on other legislation.
He warned earlier this summer that overregulation could hurt the homegrown industry. In recent years, he often has cited the state’s budget troubles when rejecting legislation that he would otherwise support.
Here is a look at some of the AI bills lawmakers approved this year.
Combating deepfakes
Citing concerns over how AI tools are increasingly being used to trick voters and generate deepfake pornography of minors, California lawmakers approved several bills this week to crack down on the practice.
Lawmakers approved legislation to ban deepfakes related to elections and require large social media platforms to remove the deceptive material 120 days before Election Day and 60 days thereafter. Campaigns also would be required to publicly disclose if they’re running ads with materials altered by AI.
A pair of proposals would make it illegal to use AI tools to create images and videos of child sexual abuse. Current law does not allow district attorneys to go after people who possess or distribute AI-generated child sexual abuse images if they cannot prove the materials are depicting a real person.
Tech companies and social media platforms would be required to provide AI detection tools to users under another proposal.
Setting safety guardrails
California could become the first state in the nation to set sweeping safety measures on large AI models.
The legislation sent by lawmakers to the governor’s desk requires developers to start disclosing what data they use to train their models. The efforts aim to shed more light into how AI models work and prevent future catastrophic disasters.
Another measure would require the state to set safety protocols preventing risks and algorithmic discrimination before agencies could enter any contract involving AI models used to define decisions.
Protecting workers
Inspired by the monthslong Hollywood actors strike last year, lawmakers approved a proposal to protect workers, including voice actors and audiobook performers, from being replaced by their AI-generated clones. The measure mirrors language in the contract the SAG-AFTRA made with studios last December.
State and local agencies would be banned from using AI to replace workers at call centers under one of the proposals.
California also may create penalties for digitally cloning dead people without consent of their estates.
Keeping up with the technology
As corporations increasingly weave AI into Americans’ daily lives, state lawmakers also passed several bills to increase AI literacy.
One proposal would require a state working group to consider incorporating AI skills into math, science, history and social science curriculums. Another would develop guidelines on how schools could use AI in the classrooms.
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Wall St Week Ahead — US stock rally broadens as investors await Fed
New York — A broadening rally in U.S. stocks is offering an encouraging signal to investors worried about concentration in technology shares, as markets await key jobs data and the Federal Reserve’s expected rate cuts in September.
As the market’s fortunes keep rising and falling with big tech stocks such as Nvidia NVDA.O and Apple AAPL.O, investors are also putting money in less-loved value stocks and small caps, which are expected to benefit from lower interest rates. The Fed is expected to kick off a rate-cutting cycle at its monetary policy meeting on Sept. 17-18.
Many investors view the broadening trend, which picked up steam last month before faltering during an early August sell-off, as a healthy development in a market rally led by a cluster of giant tech names. Chipmaker Nvidia, which has benefited from bets on artificial intelligence, alone has accounted for roughly a quarter of the S&P 500’s year-to-date gain of 18.4%.
“No matter how you slice and dice it you have seen a pretty meaningful broadening out and I think that has legs,” said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment officer at Charles Schwab.
Value stocks are those of companies trading at a discount on metrics like book value or price-to-earnings and include sectors such as financials and industrials. Some investors believe rallies in these sectors and small caps could go further if the Fed cuts borrowing costs while the economy stays healthy.
The market’s rotation has recently accelerated, with 61% of stocks in the S&P 500 .SPXoutperforming the index in the past month, compared to 14% outperforming over the past year, Charles Schwab data showed.
Meanwhile, the so-called Magnificent Seven group of tech giants — which includes Nvidia, Tesla TSLA.O and Microsoft MSFT.O — have underperformed the other 493 stocks in the S&P 500 by 14 percentage points since the release of a weaker-than-expected U.S. inflation report on July 11, according to an analysis by BofA Global Research.
Stocks have also held up after an Nvidia forecast failed to meet lofty investor expectations earlier this week, another sign that investors may be looking beyond tech. The equal weight S&P 500 index, a proxy for the average stock, hit a fresh record [last] week and is up around 10.5% year-to-date, narrowing its performance gap with the S&P 500.
“When market breadth is improving, the message is that an increasing number of stocks are rallying on expectations that economic conditions will support earnings growth and profitability,” analysts at Ned David Research wrote.
Value stocks that have performed well this year include General Electric GE.N and midstream energy company Targa Resources TRGP.N, which are up 70% and 68%, respectively. The small-cap focused Russell 2000 index, meanwhile, is up 8.5% from its lows of the month, though it has not breached its July peak.
The jobs report “tends to be one of the more market moving releases in general, and right now it’s going to get even more attention than normal.”
Investors are unlikely to turn their back on tech stocks, particularly if volatility gives them a chance to buy on the cheap, said Jason Alonzo, a portfolio manager with Harbor Capital.
Technology stocks are expected to post above-market earnings growth over every quarter through 2025, with third-quarter earnings coming in at 15.3% compared with a 7.5% gain for the S&P 500 as a whole, according to LSEG data.
“People will sometimes take a deep breath after a nice run and look at other opportunities, but technology is still the clearest driver of growth, particularly the AI theme which is innocent until proven guilty,” Alonzo said.
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US hotel workers strike in Boston, Greenwich as contract negotiations stall
NEW YORK — About 1,070 hotel workers in the U.S. cities of Boston and Greenwich are on strike after contract talks with hotel operators Marriott International MAR.O, Hilton Worldwide HLT.N and Hyatt Hotels H.N stalled, the Unite Here union said on Sunday.
The strikes in Boston and Greenwich will last three days, the union said, adding that more hotel workers in different cities are expected to walk off the job across the U.S. throughout the Labor Day holiday weekend.
Unite Here, which represents workers in hotels, casinos and airports across the United States and Canada, said frustrated workers may strike in major destinations including San Francisco and Seattle as they struggle to agree with hotel operators on wages and on reversing pandemic-era job cuts.
“Strikes have also been authorized and could begin at any time in Baltimore, Honolulu, Kauai, New Haven, Oakland, Providence, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle,” Unite Here said in a statement.
A total of 40,000 Unite Here hotel workers in more than 20 cities are working under contracts that expire this year. About 15,000 of those workers have authorized strikes in 12 markets from Boston to Honolulu.
Workers have been in negotiations for new four-year contracts since May.
“We’re on strike because the hotel industry has gotten off track,” Unite Here President Gwen Mills said.
“We won’t accept a ‘new normal’ where hotel companies profit by cutting their offerings to guests and abandoning their commitments to workers,” Mills added.
Unite Here workers in 2023 won record contracts in Los Angeles following rolling strikes and in Detroit after a 47-day strike.
In Las Vegas, casino operators MGM MGM.N, Caesars CZR.O and Wynn WYNN.O resorts reached an agreement in November to avert a strike with 40,000 hospitality workers days before a deadline that would have crippled the Vegas Strip.
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Newborn rattlesnakes at Colorado ‘mega den’ make their live debut
CHEYENNE, Wyoming — A “mega den” of hundreds of rattlesnakes in Colorado is getting even bigger now that late summer is here and babies are being born.
Thanks to livestream video, scientists studying the den on a craggy hillside in Colorado are learning more about these enigmatic — and often misunderstood — reptiles. They’re observing as the youngsters, called pups, slither over and between adult females on lichen-encrusted rocks.
The public can watch too on the Project RattleCam website and help with important work including how to tell the snakes apart. Since researchers put their remote camera online in May, several snakes have become known in a chat room and to scientists by names including “Woodstock,” “Thea” and “Agent 008.”
The live feed, which draws as many as 500 people at a time online, on Thursday showed a tangle of baby snakes with tiny nubs for rattles. They have a lot of growing to do: A rattlesnake adds a rattle segment each time it sheds its skin a couple times a year, on average.
The project is a collaboration between California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, snake removal company Central Coast Snake Services and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
By involving the public, the scientists hope to dispel the idea that rattlesnakes are usually fierce and dangerous. In fact, experts say they rarely bite unless threatened or provoked and often are just the opposite.
Rattlesnakes are not only among the few reptiles that care for their young. They even care for the young of others. The adults protect and lend body heat to pups from birth until they enter hibernation in mid-autumn, said Max Roberts, a CalPoly graduate student researcher.
“We regularly see what we like to call ‘babysitting,’ pregnant females that we can visibly see have not given birth, yet are kind of guarding the newborn snakes,” Roberts said Wednesday.
As many as 2,000 rattlesnakes spend the winter at the location on private land, which the researchers are keeping secret to discourage trespassers. Once the weather warms, only pregnant females remain while the others disperse to nearby territory.
This year, the scientists keeping watch over the Colorado site have observed the rattlesnakes coil up and catch water to drink from the cups formed by their bodies. They’ve also seen how the snakes react to birds swooping in to try to grab a scaly meal.
The highlight of summer is in late August and early September when the rattlesnakes give birth over a roughly two-week period.
“As soon as they’re born, they know how to move into the sun or into the shade to regulate their body temperature,” Roberts said.
There are 36 species of rattlesnakes, most of which inhabit the U.S. They range across nearly all states and are especially common in the Southwest. Those being studied now are prairie rattlesnakes, which can be found in much of the central and western U.S. and into Canada and Mexico.
Like other pit viper species but unlike most snakes, rattlesnakes don’t lay eggs. Instead, they give birth to live young. Eight is an average-size brood, with the number depending on the snake’s size, according to Roberts.
Roberts is studying how temperature changes and ultraviolet sunlight affect snake behavior. Another graduate student, Owen Bachhuber, is studying the family and social relationships between rattlesnakes.
The researchers watch the live feed all day.
“We are interested in studying the natural behavior of rattlesnakes, free from human disturbance. What do rattlesnakes actually do when we’re not there?” Roberts said.
Now that the Rocky Mountain summer is cooling, some males have been returning. By November, the camera running on solar and battery power will be turned off until next spring, when the snakes will re-emerge from their “mega den.”
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Pickleball picks away at American tennis
New York — Does American tennis have a pickleball problem?
Even as the U.S. Open opened this week with more than a million fans expected for the sport’s biggest showcase, the game’s leaders are being forced to confront a devastating fact — the nation’s fastest-growing racket sport (or sport of any kind) is not tennis but pickleball, which has seen participation boom 223% in the past three years.
“Quite frankly, it’s obnoxious to hear that pickleball noise,” U.S. Tennis Association President Dr. Brian Hainline grumbled at a recent state-of-the-game news conference, bemoaning the distinctive pock, pock, pock of pickleball points.
Pickleball, an easy-to-play mix of tennis and ping pong using paddles and a wiffleball, has quickly soared from nearly nothing to 13.6 million U.S. players in just a few years, leading tennis purists to fear a day when it could surpass tennis’ 23.8 million players. And most troubling is that pickleball’s rise has often come at the expense of thousands of tennis courts encroached upon or even replaced by smaller pickleball courts.
“When you see an explosion of a sport and it starts potentially eroding into your sport, then, yes, you’re concerned,” Hainline said in an interview with The Associated Press. “That erosion has come in our infrastructure. … A lot of pickleball advocates just came in and said, ‘We need these tennis courts.’ It was a great, organic grassroots movement but it was a little anti-tennis.”
Some tennis governing bodies in other countries have embraced pickleball and other racket sports under the more-the-merrier belief they could lead more players to the mothership of tennis. France’s tennis federation even set up a few pickleball courts at this year’s French Open to give top players and fans a chance to try it out.
But the USTA has taken a decidedly different approach. Nowhere at the U.S. Open’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is there any such demonstration court, exhibition match or any other nod to pickleball or its possible crossover appeal.
In fact, the USTA is flipping the script on pickleball with an ambitious launch of more than 400 pilot programs across the country to broaden the reach of an easier-to-play, smaller-court version of tennis called “red ball tennis.” Backers say it’s the ideal way for people of all ages to get into tennis and the best place to try it is (wait for it) on pickleball courts.
“You can begin tennis at any age,” USTA’s Hainline said. “We believe that when you do begin this great sport of tennis, it’s probably best to begin it on a shorter court with a larger, low-compression red ball. What’s an ideal short court? A pickleball court.”
And instead of the plasticky plink of a pickleball against a flat paddle, Hainline said, striking a fuzzy red tennis ball with a stringed racket allows for a greater variety of strokes and “just a beautiful sound.” Players can either stick with red ball tennis or advance through a progression of bouncier balls to full-court tennis.
“Not to put it down,” Hainline said of pickleball, “but compared to tennis … seriously?”
So what does the head of the nation’s pickleball governing body have to say about such comments and big tennis’ plans to plant the seeds of its growth, at least in part, on pickleball courts?
“I don’t like it but there is so much going on with pickleball, so many good things, I’m going to stick to what I can control, harnessing the growth and supporting this game,” said Pickleball USA CEO Mike Nealy.
Among the positive signs, Nealy said, is the continuing construction of new pickleball courts across the country, raising the total to more than 50,000. There’s also growing investment in the game at clubs built in former big-box retail stores, pro leagues with such backers as Tom Brady, LeBron James and Drake, and the emergence of “dink-and-drink” establishments that tap into the social aspect of the game by allowing friends to enjoy pickleball, beer, wine and food under the same roof.
“I don’t think it needs to be one or the other or a competition,” Nealy said of pickleball and tennis. “You’re certainly going to have the inherent frictions in communities when tennis people don’t feel that they’re getting what they want. … They’re different games but I think they are complimentary. There’s plenty of room for both sports to be very successful.”
Top-ranked American tennis player Taylor Fritz agreed. “There are some people in the tennis world that are just absolute pickleball haters, and that’s fine. But for me, I don’t really have an issue with pickleball. I like playing sometimes. … I don’t see any reason why both of them can’t exist.”
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Family confirms death of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin
JERUSALEM — The family of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin announced the young man’s death early Sunday, ending a relentless campaign by his parents to rescue him that included meetings with world leaders and an address to the Democratic convention last month.
Goldberg-Polin, 23, was seized by militants at a music festival in southern Israel on October 7. The native of Berkeley, California, lost part of his left arm to a grenade in the attack. In April, a Hamas-issued video showed him, his left hand missing and clearly speaking under duress, sparking new protests in Israel urging the government to do more to secure his and others’ freedom.
Israel’s announcement is bound to bring urgent new calls for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a deal to bring home remaining hostages. The Israeli leader has taken a tough line in negotiations and repeatedly said that military pressure is needed to bring home the hostages. According to Israeli media, he has feuded with top security officials who have said a deal should be reached urgently.
President Joe Biden, who had met with the parents, said he was “devastated and outraged.”
“It is as tragic as it is reprehensible,” he said. “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”
The family issued a statement early Sunday, hours after the Israeli army said it had located bodies in Gaza.
“With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh,” it said. “The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time.”
There was no immediate comment from the army, details on the exact circumstances of his death or identities of other bodies recovered.
Asked about the case earlier on Saturday, Biden said bodies were still being identified and that families were being notified. But he called for an end to the war and said cease-fire efforts were progressing.
“I think we’re on (the) verge of having an agreement,” he said as he left church in Delaware. “It’s just time to end. It’s time to finish it.”
Goldberg-Polin’s parents, U.S.-born immigrants to Israel, became perhaps the most high-profile relatives of hostages on the international stage. They met with Biden, Pope Francis and others and addressed the United Nations, urging the release of all hostages.
On August 21, his parents addressed a hushed hall at the Democratic National Convention — after sustained applause and chants of “bring him home.”
“This is a political convention. But needing our only son — and all of the cherished hostages — home is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue,” said his father, Jon Polin. His mother, Rachel, who bowed her head during the ovation and touched her chest, said “Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you, stay strong, survive.”
Both wore stickers with the number 320, representing the number of days their son had been held. It had long become part of a morning ritual — tear a new piece of tape, write down another day.
“I find it so remarkable how nauseating it is every single time,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin told The Associated Press in January, ahead of the 100-day mark. “And it’s good. I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t want anybody to get used to the fact that these people are missing.”
She asked other people around the world to take up the ritual, too, not only for her son, who moved to Israel with his family when he was 7, but for the other hostages and their families.
She and her husband sought to keep their son and the others held from being reduced to numbers, describing Hersh as a music and soccer lover and traveler with plans to attend university since his military service had ended. At events she often addressed her son directly in the hope he could hear her, urging him to live another day.
Some 250 hostages were taken on October 7. Before the military’s announcement of the latest discovery of bodies, Israel said it believed 108 hostages were still held in Gaza and about one-third of them were dead. In late August, the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six hostages in southern Gaza.
Eight hostages have been rescued by Israeli forces, the most recent found on Tuesday. Most of the rest were freed during a weeklong cease-fire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Two previous Israeli operations to free hostages killed scores of Palestinians. Hamas says several hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and failed rescue attempts. Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israelis who escaped captivity in December.
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Mississippi bus crash kills 7, injures dozens
BOVINA, Mississippi — Seven people were killed and dozens were injured in Mississippi after a commercial bus overturned on Interstate 20 Saturday morning, according to the Mississippi Highway Patrol.
Six passengers were pronounced dead at the scene and another died at a hospital, according to a news release. The bus was traveling west when it left the highway near Bovina in Warren County and flipped over. No other vehicle was involved.
The crash was caused by tire failure, the National Transportation Safety Board said on the social media platform known as X. The bus was operated by Autobuses Regiomontanos based in Laredo, Texas. A woman who answered the phone at the company said it was aware of the crash, but she didn’t answer questions or provide her name.
The transit company says it has 20 years of experience providing cross-border trips between 100 destinations in Mexico and the United States. Its website promotes “a modern fleet of buses that receive daily maintenance,” and offers “trips with a special price for workers.”
The dead included a 6-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister, according to Warren County Coroner Doug Huskey. They were identified by their mother. Authorities were working to identify the other victims, he said.
Thirty-seven passengers were taken to hospitals in Vicksburg and Jackson. The department is continuing its investigation and hasn’t released the names of the deceased. No other information was immediately provided.
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Border arrests expected to rise in August; 5-month drop might have ended
san diego, california — Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico during August are expected to rise slightly from July, officials said, likely ending five straight months of declines.
Authorities made about 54,000 arrests through Thursday, which, at the current rate, would bring the August total to about 58,000 when the month ends Saturday, according to two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that has not been publicly released.
The tally suggests that arrests could be bottoming out after being halved from a record 250,000 in December, a decline that U.S. officials largely attributed to Mexican authorities increasing enforcement within their borders. Arrests were more than halved again after Democratic President Joe Biden invoked authority to temporarily suspend asylum processing in June. Arrests plunged to 56,408 in July, a 46-month low that changed little in August.
Asked about the latest numbers, the Homeland Security Department released a statement by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas calling on Congress to support failed legislation that would have suspended asylum processing when crossings reached certain thresholds, reshaped how asylum claims are decided to relieve bottlenecked immigration courts and added Border Patrol agents, among other things.
Republicans including presidential nominee Donald Trump opposed the bill, calling it insufficient.
“Thanks to action taken by the Biden-Harris Administration, the hard work of our DHS personnel and our partnerships with other countries in the region and around the world, we continue to see the lowest number of encounters at our Southwest border since September 2020,” Mayorkas said Saturday.
The steep drop from last year’s highs is welcome news for the White House and the Democrats’ White House nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, despite criticism from many immigration advocates that asylum restrictions go too far and from those favoring more enforcement who say Biden’s new and expanded legal paths to entry are far too generous.
More than 765,000 people entered the United States legally through the end of July using an online appointment app called CBP One and an additional 520,000 from four nationalities were allowed through airports with financial sponsors. The airport-based offer to people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela — all nationalities that are difficult to deport — was briefly suspended in July to address concerns about fraud by U.S. financial sponsors.
San Diego, California, again had the most arrests among the Border Patrol’s nine sectors on the Mexican border in August, followed by El Paso, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona, though the three busiest corridors were close, the officials said. Arrests of Colombians and Ecuadoreans fell, which officials attributed to deportation flights to those South American countries. Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras were the top three nationalities.
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Harris calls on Trump to debate with mics ‘on the whole time’
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee in the November 5 U.S. presidential election, on Saturday called on her Republican rival, Donald Trump, to debate her with their microphones switched on throughout the event.
Harris and the former president have agreed to a debate, hosted by ABC News, on September 10.
“Donald Trump is surrendering to his advisors who won’t allow him to debate with a live microphone. If his own team doesn’t have confidence in him, the American people definitely can’t,” Harris said in a post on social media platform X.
“We are running for President of the United States. Let’s debate in a transparent way with the microphones on the whole time.”
Trump has said that he preferred to have his microphone kept on and that he did not like it muted during the last debate against then-contender President Joe Biden.
So-called “hot mics” can help or hurt political candidates, catching off-hand comments that sometimes were not meant for the public. Muted microphones also prevent the debaters from interrupting their opponent.
A representative for ABC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The debate would be the first time Harris and Trump face off since Biden dropped out of the presidential race following a poor performance at a CNN debate in June that raised doubts about his mental acuity.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance have agreed to an October 1 debate on CBS News.
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Harris’ record in California praised, ridiculed, in US presidential campaign
U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris is from one of America’s most politically liberal states — California. Her work as a local prosecutor, the state’s attorney general and U.S. senator is central to Harris’ presidential campaign. Her opponent, Donald Trump, says that Harris’ record in California shows she is too liberal for the rest of America. From Los Angeles, Genia Dulot tells us what Californians are saying.
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Here’s what Harris and Trump have said about easing costs for families
WASHINGTON — The high cost of caring for children and the elderly has forced women out of the workforce, devastated family finances, and left professional caretakers in low-wage jobs — all while slowing economic growth.
That families are suffering is not up for debate. As the economy emerges as a theme in this presidential election, the Democratic and Republican candidates have sketched out ideas for easing costs that reveal their divergent views about family.
On this topic, the two tickets have one main commonality: Both of the presidential candidates — and their running mates — have, at one point or another, backed an expanded child tax credit.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination last week, has signaled that she plans to build on the ambitions of outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration, which sought to pour billions in taxpayer dollars into making child care and home care for elderly and disabled adults more affordable. She has not etched any of those plans into a formal policy platform. But in a speech earlier this month, she said her vision included raising the child tax credit.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican, has declined to answer questions about how he would make child care more affordable, even though it was an issue he tackled during his own administration. His running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, has a long history of pushing policies that would encourage Americans to have families, floating ideas like giving parents votes for their children. Just this month, Vance said he wants to raise the child tax credit to $5,000. But Vance has opposed government spending on child care, arguing that many children benefit from having one parent at home as caretaker.
The candidates’ care agendas could figure prominently into their appeal to suburban women in swing states, a coveted demographic seen as key to victory in November. Women provide two-thirds of unpaid care work — valued at $1 trillion annually — and are disproportionately impacted when families can’t find affordable care for their children or aging parents. And the cost of care is an urgent problem: Child care prices are rising faster than inflation.
Kamala Harris: Increase child tax credit
When Harris addressed the Democratic National Convention, she talked first about her own experience with child care. She was raised mostly by a single mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who worked long hours as a breast cancer researcher. Among the people who formed her family’s support network was “Mrs. Shelton, who ran the day care below us and became a second mother.”
As vice president, Harris worked behind the scenes in Congress on Biden’s proposals to establish national paid family leave, make prekindergarten universal, and invest billions in child care so families wouldn’t pay more than 7% of their income. She announced, too, the administration’s actions to lower copays for families using federal child care vouchers, and to raise wages for Medicaid-funded home health aides. Before that, her track record as a senator included pressing for greater labor rights for domestic workers, including nannies and home health aides who may be vulnerable to exploitation.
This month at a community college in North Carolina, Harris outlined her campaign’s economic agenda, which includes raising the child tax credit to as much as $3,600 and giving families of newborns even more — $6,000 for the child’s first year.
“That is a vital — vital year of critical development of a child, and the costs can really add up, especially for young parents who need to buy diapers and clothes and a car seat and so much else,” she told the audience. Her running mate selection of Tim Walz, who established paid leave and a child tax credit as governor of Minnesota, has also buoyed optimism among supporters.
Donald Trump: Few specifics, but some past support
For voters grappling with the high cost of child care, Trump has offered little in the way of solutions. During the June presidential debate, CNN moderator Jake Tapper twice asked Trump what he would do to lower child care costs. Both times, he failed to answer, instead pivoting to other topics. His campaign platform is similarly silent. It does tackle the cost of long-term care for the elderly, writing that Republicans would “support unpaid Family Caregivers through Tax Credits and reduced red tape.”
The silence marks a shift from his first campaign, when he pitched paid parental leave, though it was panned by critics because his proposal excluded fathers. When he reached the White House, the former president sought $1 billion for child care, plus a parental leave policy at the urging of his daughter and policy adviser, Ivanka Trump. Congress rejected both proposals, but Trump succeeded in doubling the child tax credit and establishing paid leave for federal employees.
In his 2019 State of the Union address, Trump said he was “proud to be the first president to include in my budget a plan for nationwide paid family leave, so that every new parent has the chance to bond with their newborn child.”
This year, there are signs that his administration might not pursue the same agenda, including his selection of Vance as a running mate. In 2021, before he joined the Senate, Vance co-authored an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal opposing a proposal to invest billions in child care to make it more affordable for families. He and his co-author said expanding child care subsidies would lead to “unhappier, unhealthier children” and that having fewer mothers contributing to the economy might be a worthwhile trade-off.
Vance has floated policies that would make it easier for a family to live off of a single income, making it possible for some parents to stay home while their partners work. Along with his embrace of policies he calls pro-family, he has tagged people who do not have or want children as “sociopaths.” He once derided Harris and other rising Democratic stars as “childless cat ladies,” even though Harris has two stepchildren — they call her “Momala” — and no cats.
Even without details about new care policies, Trump believes that families would ultimately get a better deal under his administration.
The Trump-Vance campaign has attacked Harris’ record on the economy and said the Biden administration’s policies have only made things tougher for families, pointing to recent inflation.
“Harris … has proudly and repeatedly celebrated her role as Joe Biden’s co-pilot on Bidenomics,” said Karoline Leavitt, a campaign spokeswoman. “The basic necessities of food, gas and housing are less affordable, unemployment is rising, and Kamala doesn’t seem to care.”
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High rents are forcing small businesses in into tough choices
NEW YORK — While many costs have come down for small businesses, rents remain high and in some cases are still rising, forcing many owners into some uncomfortable decisions.
“Every time the rent goes up, we have to raise prices, to keep up with the cost,” said Adelita Valentine, owner of HairFreek Barbers in Los Angeles. “But with the cost of living, it makes it difficult on our customers.”
Other owners are choosing to be late on payments or seeking out new locations where the rent is lower. A few are pushing back against their landlord.
Although inflation is easing, it remains a top concern for small businesses. According to Bank of America internal data, rent payments per small business client rose 11% year-over-year in July. That’s more than twice the increase for renting and owning a residence, a metric known as shelter, according to the government’s monthly Consumer Price Index. That figure rose 5.1% in July.
And although the situation has improved since the height of the pandemic, a survey by business networking platform Alignable of more than 6,000 small business owners found that 41% could not pay their July rent on time and in full. And 52% said they’ve encountered rent spikes in the past six months.
The rent for Valentine’s barbershop rose to $4,000 in January from $3,600 in December, the fifth increase in the past eight years. She had to raise the price for her cuts from $35 to $40.
Two months ago, she moved locations for a cheaper $3,200 rent, but her space is smaller now and she sees fewer families coming in.
“A lot of people can’t afford to take a whole family to get haircuts,” after the price increase, she said.
Peter Yu has owned iPAC Automotive, an auto repair and detailing shop in Ontario, Canada, for six years. He said the rent on the shop typically went up about 4% a year. But when his landlord sold the property to a new owner, Yu’s rent jumped from about $1,800 (2,500 Canadian dollars) to about $2,700 (3,700 Canadian dollars) after three months.
He contemplated moving but decided that the cost of a move would be more than just paying the extra rent.
Yu tried to raise prices a month ago, but customers would come in and say “Oh, its too expensive,” and leave, he said. So, he had to drop the price increase in order to get those customers back.
“When we do try to raise our prices, consumers don’t have the money to pay for it. They’re looking for financing options,” he said. Yu’s services run the gamut from paint correction that costs a few hundred dollars to troubleshooting problematic EV battery and electric drive units for out-of-warranty Teslas that can cost up to $15,000.
So instead, he’s going to try to improve his marketing, close more sales, and find a way to offer more financing.
Standing firm against a landlord sometimes works. Janna Rodriguez has run her home-based The Innovative Daycare Corp. in Freeport, New York, since 2018. When she first signed her lease, she paid $3,500, plus costs including landscaping and maintenance. In 2020, the pandemic began, and her landlord raised her rent to $3,800 and also made her start paying half of the homeowner’s insurance. Last year, the landlord raised her rent to $4,100, plus the additional expenses.
Rodriguez raised her prices for the first time, by $10 per child per week, to help offset the rising rent.
This year she successfully pushed back when the landlord wanted to raise the rent yet again.
“I said to them, if you do that, then I’m going to find another property to move my business to, because at this point now you’re trying to bankrupt a business, right?”
It’s worked – so far. But Rodriguez is worried about the future.
For others, negotiating a late payment is an option. Nicole Pomije owner of Minneapolis-based The Cookie Cups, which makes cookie kits for kids, has a 372-square-meter office space along with a warehouse where she develops her line of baking kits. Her rent rose 10% this year to $4,000 monthly. Then there are unanticipated bills, such as $1,500 for snow plowing.
“There’s so much stuff that pops up that you just you never expect,” she said. “And it’s always when you never expect it.”
Pomije hasn’t raised prices, but instead tried to mitigate the higher rent costs by buying materials in bulk – like ordering 5,000 boxes instead of 1,000 boxes for a 40% discount — and finding cost savings elsewhere.
Still, there have been several months over the past couple of years where she couldn’t pay rent on time. So, far the landlord has been amenable.
“If we have a conversation like hey, we don’t know if we’re going to make it for the first this month. It might be closer to the tenth,” she said.
Asked if she thinks costs might ease in the future, Pomije said she is focused on the present.
“It’s weird, but I’m trying not to think about the future too much and I’m trying to just do what we have to do, and get ready for a holiday season and just, like, get everything paid on time now,” she said. “And then we’ll kind of reevaluate everything in January.”
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X platform suspended in Brazil amid Brazilian judge’s feud with Musk
SAO PAULO — A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Friday ordered the suspension of Elon Musk’s social media giant X in Brazil after the tech billionaire refused to name a legal representative in the country, according to a copy of the decision seen by The Associated Press.
The move further escalates the monthslong feud between the two men over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes had warned Musk on Wednesday night that X could be blocked in Brazil if he failed to comply with his order to name a representative. He set a 24-hour deadline. The company hasn’t had a representative in the country since earlier this month.
In his decision, de Moraes gave internet service providers and app stores five days to block access to X, and said the platform will remain blocked until it complies with his orders. He also said people or companies who use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access X will be subject to daily fines of 50,000 reais ($8,900).
“Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” de Moraes wrote.
Brazil is an important market for X, which has struggled with the loss of advertisers since Musk purchased the platform, formerly Twitter, in 2022. Market research group Emarketer says about 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, access X at least once per month.
X had posted on its official Global Government Affairs page late Thursday that it expected X to be shut down by de Moraes, “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”
“When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts,” the company wrote. “Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him.”
Musk characterizes judge as tyrant
X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to comply with orders to block users.
Accounts that the platform previously has shut down on Brazilian orders include lawmakers affiliated with former President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing party and activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy.
Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” has repeatedly claimed the justice’s actions amount to censorship, and his argument has been echoed by Brazil’s political right. He has often insulted de Moraes on his platform, characterizing him as a dictator and tyrant.
De Moraes’ defenders have said his actions aimed at X have been lawful, supported by most of the court’s full bench and have served to protect democracy at a time in which it is imperiled. His order Friday is based on Brazilian law requiring foreign companies to have representation in the country so they can be notified when there are legal cases against them.
Given that operators are aware of the widely publicized standoff and their obligation to comply with an order from de Moraes, plus the fact doing so isn’t complicated, X could be offline as early as 12 hours after receiving their instructions, said Luca Belli, coordinator of the Technology and Society Center at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Rio de Janeiro.
Other apps suspended in past
The shutdown is not unprecedented in Brazil.
Lone Brazilian judges shut down Meta’s WhatsApp, the nation’s most widely used messaging app, several times in 2015 and 2016 when the company’s refused to comply with police requests for user data. In 2022, de Moraes threatened the messaging app Telegram with a nationwide shutdown, arguing it had repeatedly ignored Brazilian authorities’ requests to block profiles and provide information. He ordered Telegram to appoint a local representative; the company ultimately complied and stayed online.
X and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in several countries — mostly authoritarian regimes such as Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to quell dissent and unrest. Twitter was banned in Egypt after the Arab Spring uprisings, which some dubbed the “Twitter revolution,” but it has since been restored.
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Panama deports Ecuadorean migrants in second US-backed flight
PANAMA CITY — Panamanian authorities deported a group of migrants to Ecuador on a second flight financed by the United States, as part of an agreement between the U.S. and Panama to discourage irregular crossings and reduce the flow of mostly U.S.-bound migration.
The flight carrying 30 Ecuadoreans departed on Thursday evening en route to the coastal city of Manta, Ecuador, Panama’s migration service said, adding the migrants were deported for evading a migration checkpoint on the popular Darien Gap route.
Thousands of people every year cross the dangerous Darien Gap jungle on Panama’s border with Colombia on the way to the United States.
The flight on Thursday followed a maiden journey financed by Washington in mid-August, which returned around 30 migrants to Colombia.
The latest deportation comes days after Panama’s President Jose Mulino announced return flights for Indian migrants in September and for Chinese citizens on an unspecified date.
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NY nonprofit reclaims centuries-old cemetery for enslaved people
KINGSTON, New York — On a residential block in upstate New York, college students dug and sifted backyard dirt as part of an archeological exploration this summer of a centuries-old cemetery for African Americans.
Now covered with green lawns in the city of Kingston, this spot in 1750 was part of a burial ground for people who were enslaved. It was located on what was then the outskirts of town. An unknown number of people who were denied church burials were interred here until the late 19th century, when the cemetery was covered over as the city grew.
The site is now being reclaimed as the Pine Street African Burial Ground, one of many forgotten or neglected cemeteries for African Americans getting fresh attention. In the last three summers, the remains of up to 27 people have been located here.
Advocates in this Hudson River city purchased a residential property covering about half the old cemetery several years ago and now use the house there as a visitor center. Money is being raised to turn the urban backyard into a respectful resting place. And while the names of people buried here may be lost, tests are planned on their remains to shed light on their lives and identify their descendants.
“The hardships of those buried here cannot just go down in vain,” said Tyrone Wilson, founder of Harambee Kingston, the nonprofit community group behind the project. “We have a responsibility to make sure that we fix that disrespect.”
While the more-than-0.2 hectares site was designated as a cemetery for people who were enslaved in 1750, it might have been in use before then. Burials continued through about 1878, more than 50 years after New York fully abolished slavery. Researchers say people were buried with their feet to the east, so when they rise on Judgment Day they would face the rising sun.
Remains found on the Harambee property are covered with patterned African cloths and kept where they are. Remains found on adjoining land are exhumed for later burial on the Harambee property.
Students from the State University of New York at New Paltz recently finished a third summer of supervised backyard excavations in this city 129 kilometers upriver from Manhattan. The students get course credit, though anthropology major Maddy Thomas said there’s an overriding sense of mission.
“I don’t like when people feel upset or forgotten,” Thomas said on a break. “And that is what’s happened here. So we’ve got to fix it.”
Harambee is trying to raise $1 million to transform the modest backyard into resting spot that reflects the African heritage of the people buried there. Plans include a tall marker in the middle of the yard.
While some graves were apparently marked, it’s still hard to say who was buried there.
“Some of them, it’s obvious, were marked with just a stone with no writing on it,” said Joseph Diamond, associate professor of anthropology at New Paltz.
The only intact headstone recovered with a name visible was for Caezar Smith, who was born enslaved and died a free man in 1839 at age 41. A researcher mined historical records and came up with two more people potentially buried there in 1803: a man identified as Sam and a 16-year-old girl named Deyon who was publicly hanged after being convicted of murdering the 6-year-old daughter of her enslavers.
The cemetery was at first covered by a lumberyard by 1880, even though some gravestones were apparently still standing by that date.
In 1990, Diamond was doing an archaeological survey for the city and noticed the cemetery was marked on a map from 1870. He and the city historian went out to find it.
Coincidentally, Pine Street building owner Andrew Kirschner had just discovered buried bone chips while digging in front of the building in search of a sewer pipe. He put the pieces in a box. Kirschner said he was still digging when Diamond told him what they were looking for.
“The conversation begins and then I go, ‘Well, let me show you what I found.’ Of course, they were amazed,” said Kirschner, who had owned the building next to the current Harambee property.
Even after the discovery, Diamond said it was difficult to convince people there were graves on Pine Street. There were even plans in 1996 to build a parking lot over much of the site. Advocates purchased the property in 2019.
Similar stories of disregard and rediscovery have played out elsewhere.
In Manhattan, the African Burial Ground National Monument marks the site where an estimated 15,000 free and enslaved Africans were buried until the 1790s. It was discovered in 1991 during excavations for a federal building. Farther up the Hudson River, the renovation in Newburgh of a century-old school into a courthouse in 2008 led to the discovery of more than 100 sets of remains.
Antoinette Jackson, founder of The Black Cemetery Network, said many of the 169 sites listed in their online archive had been erased.
“A good deal of them represent sites that have been built over — by parking lots, schools, stadiums, highways. Others have been under-resourced,” said Jackson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Southern Florida.
She added that the cemeteries listed on the archive are just the “tip of the iceberg.”
Given the meager historical record in Kingston, advocates hope tests on the remains will help fill in some gaps. Isotopic analyses could provide information on whether individuals grew up elsewhere — like South Carolina or Africa — and then moved to the region. DNA analyses could provide information on where in Africa their ancestors came from. The DNA tests also might be able to link them to living descendants.
Wilson said local families have committed to providing DNA samples. He sees the tests as another way to connect people to heritage.
“One of the biggest issues that we have in African culture is that we don’t know our history,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of information of who we are.”
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