Reports: Sony drops R. Kelly after furor over allegations
City of Houston begins new MLK tradition
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Story #. An Old Man Lived in the Village
An old man lived in the village. The whole village was tired of him; he was always gloomy, he constantly complained and was always in a bad mood. The longer he lived, the viler he became and more poisonous were his words. People did their best to avoid him because his misfortune was contagious. He created the feeling of unhappiness in others.But one day, when he turned eighty, an incredible thing happened. Instantly everyone started hearing the rumor: “The old man is happy today, he doesn’t complain about anything, smiles, and even his face is freshened up.”The whole village gathered around the man and asked him, “What happened to you?”The old man replied, “Nothing special. Eighty years I’ve been chasing happiness and it was useless. And then I decided to live without happiness and just enjoy life. That’s why I’m happy now.”Moral of the story: Don’t chase happiness. Enjoy your life. |
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Americans take stock of shutdown’s everyday effects You and your loved ones aren’t federal employees or contractors, and you don’t live in a setting or have a job closely tied to government programs. So what does the government shutdown have to do with you?More than you might think. Washington’s doings, or not-doings, can be woven into everyday American life from a bowl of breakfast cereal to a bottle of beer after work.The budget standoff between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats is rippling into some unexpected places.Like Carmen Bush’s cellphone.It’s being deluged with telemarketing calls, but she can’t get added to the National Do Not Call Registry. It is unavailable during the stalemate.“It’s turning into an every-15-minute reminder that the government is shut down,” the Oakland, California, high school English teacher says.“I feel bad because I know so many other people are being affected by the shutdown in so many more devastating ways, but this is just one way that didn’t even cross my mind.”Here’s a look at some more ways:___ ON YOUR PLATECaitlin Hilbert was enjoying some poke, the Hawaiian marinated raw fish dish, last week when the shutdown made her stop chewing.It occurred to her that the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees seafood safety, had suspended routine inspections.The agency said last Monday it was bringing workers back to resume checks of seafood and other “high-risk” items. Still, the moment made Hilbert reflect on the links between Washington and her life in San Mateo, California.“I want to be able to consume food without worry,” the college student and illustrator says.The FDA oversees about three-quarters of the food supply, from fresh vegetables to dry cereal. The agency conducts about 8,400 domestic-food inspections a year, about a third involving “high-risk” food.The agency said some checks — on imported food, for instance — have continued through the shutdown; so have U.S. Department of Agriculture inspections of meat and poultry.To be sure, inspectors don’t normally examine every morsel Americans eat, and plenty of food is safe.“The odds that you, as a consumer, will go in and pick up a box of food that was affected by the shutdown are low,” says Sarah Sorscher, deputy director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food safety advocacy group. “But particularly as the shutdown goes on, the chances increase that someone in America is going to get sick who wouldn’t have gotten sick, because of the shutdown.”__ THE COMPLAINT DEPARTMENTAfter enduring past shutdowns as a federal worker, Atlanta retiree David Swan hoped he wouldn’t feel the effects of this one.Then he tried to look at an identity theft complaint he filed with the Federal Trade Commission in 2017, after his personal information was compromised in a data breach and he learned that someone checked into a hotel under his name.Swan recently got an email saying his FTC account would be deactivated if he didn’t log in, but the system is offline because of the shutdown. (The commission does say accounts aren’t being deactivated in the meantime.)“The process of keeping the government open and keeping the government running should not be compromised for partisan politics,” he says.___ IN THE LUNCHROOMThe shutdown is showing up in school cafeterias in North Carolina’s rural Vance County, which plans to start paring student lunches this week.Fresh produce will be nixed in middle and high schools and reduced in elementary schools, and lunchrooms will stop offering bottled water and juice, among other changes announced in a Facebook post this week. Ice cream will be gone, too.The USDA assures that school lunch programs have funding through the end of March. But the Vance County school system said it’s trying “to conserve food and funding” in a district where most students come from families with incomes low enough to qualify them for free or reduced-price lunch. Federal money pays for 95 percent of its school nutrition program.“All indications are that as far as food supply and funding, we are OK through March. But beyond that, we really don’t know,” so administrators want to stretch what they have, spokeswoman Terri Hedrick said.The USDA said in a statement Thursday that officials “understand that the current lapse in appropriations creates uncertainty for the future,” but they’re hopeful the budget stalemate will end soon.___ IN TAX TANGLESTax Day isn’t until April, but some of Mindy Schwartz’ accounting clients are anxious to contact the IRS now. They’ve gotten notices citing issues with past returns and saying the clients owe money.Normally, Schwartz calls up a special Internal Revenue Service number for tax professionals to get to the bottom of notices like this. But the line is now answered only by a message saying help “is not available at this time.”Help may be on the way: The IRS said was recalling about 46,000 of its employees, over half its workforce, as the official start of tax season approaches Jan. 28. The agency said workers would start staffing some phone lines “in the coming days.”For the moment, Schwartz’s concerned clients can only ponder whether to wait to get through, and perhaps risk penalties and interest, or pay what the IRS says they owe, even if they believe there’s an error.“Getting communications from the IRS tends to freak people out, so when you can’t get them an answer, it gets a little scary,” says Schwartz, of Carlsbad, California.___ AT THE AIRPORTJennifer Lyon-Weisman isn’t a worrier by nature. But she headed for the airport in Columbus, Ohio, over three hours before her Friday afternoon flight.She lives only 15 minutes away, but she didn’t want to take chances on her annual trip to a fundraising music festival in New Jersey. She’d heard reports of long lines and closed checkpoints at some airports, starting last weekend, after absenteeism spiked among now-unpaid federal security screeners.The sick-out rate has eased a bit, and the Transportation Security Agency said less than 6 percent of flyers nationwide waited more than 14 minutes in checkpoint lines as of Thursday.But with a holiday weekend likely to boost crowds, Lyon-Weisman was concerned.“And then I feel guilty because people aren’t being paid, and it’s a really small problem,” said Lyon-Weisman, a barber.In the end, the airport crowds were light and screening went swiftly, she said.While security screeners and air traffic controllers have been told to keep working, Federal Aviation Administration safety inspectors weren’t, until the agency began recalling some Jan. 12.About 2,200 of the more than 3,000 inspectors are now on the job, overseeing work done by airlines, aircraft manufacturers and repair shops. The government says they’re doing critical work but forgoing such tasks as issuing new pilot certificates.Meanwhile, passengers will probably have to wait a bit longer to check out Delta’s newest jet model, a 109-seater the airline says has “among the widest seats” among single-aisle planes. CEO Ed Bastian said the Jan. 31 launch date will likely be pushed back because of certification delays amid the shutdown.___ ON COLLEGE CAMPUSESSome college students and their families are also contending with shutdown woes as they try to get tax information for financial aid applications.With IRS phone lines and offices closed, some have struggled to get verification and documents they need to apply. The shutdown doesn’t affect the aid itself, but the Department of Education acknowledges that some “systems and processes depend on information from_and actions taken by_other federal agencies, several of which are currently closed.”Reynold Verret, the president of Xavier University of Louisiana, says some students at his Catholic, historically black New Orleans school have been caught up in the quandary.“We’re not exceptional. Every university in the United States right now is probably facing that, as well,” he said.___ FROM THE TAPMoney isn’t the only thing that’s not flowing during the shutdown. Some craft breweries are postponing new beer releases or expansions because they need permission from a federal agency that isn’t open.Such breweries tend to offer new seasonal and special brews frequently, and new beer labels need the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s approval to be sold across state lines.Milwaukee-based Lakefront Brewery, for one, has upcoming cherry lager and apple ale releases that could be delayed while it waits for the label-approval process to resume. Some other breweries have new locations idling while waiting for permits from the bureau.“To me, it kind of drives home to everybody what’s all happening and how many people are affected,” says Russ Klisch, Lakefront’s founder and president. “The government does touch everyone’s life, one way or another.”
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Teen in confrontation with Native American: I didn’t provoke The student who stared and smiled at an elderly Native American protester drumming in his face outside the Lincoln Memorial as his schoolmates chanted and laughed says he did nothing to provoke the man in the videotaped confrontation and was only trying to calm the situation.The student identified himself in an email statement Sunday evening as junior Nick Sandmann of Covington Catholic High School in a northern Kentucky suburb of Cincinnati. An official working with the family confirmed Sandmann’s identity, speaking on condition of anonymity because the source didn’t want to distract from the statement.Videos posted of the confrontation drew wide criticism on social media. “I am being called every name in the book, including a racist, and I will not stand for this mob-like character assassination of my family’s name,” wrote Sandmann, who added that he and his parents have received death threats since video of Friday’s confrontation emerged.Both Sandmann and Nathan Phillips say they were trying to defuse tensions that were rising among three groups on a day Washington hosted both the March for Life and the Indigenous Peoples March. But video of Sandmann standing very close to Phillips, staring and at times smiling at him as Phillips sang and played a drum, gave many who watched it a different impression. Other students appeared to be laughing at the drummer; and at least one could be seen on video doing a tomahawk chop.The dueling accounts emerged Sunday as the nation picked apart footage from dozens of cellphones that recorded the incident on Friday in Washington amid an increasingly divided political climate fueled by a partial government shutdown over immigration policy.Phillips had approached Sandmann, but well before that, both his group and Sandmann’s, which had taken part in the anti-abortion rally, were confronted by a third group that appeared to be affiliated with the Black Hebrew Israelite movement.Videos show members of the religious group yelling disparaging and profane insults at the students, who taunt them in return. Video also shows the Native Americans being insulted by the small religious group.Sandmann wrote that the students were called “racists,” ”bigots,” ”white crackers” and “incest kids” by the third group. He said a teacher chaperone gave the students permission to begin their school chants “to counter the hateful things that were being shouted at our group.”One of those chants, however, is what led Phillips and Marcus Frejo, a member of the Pawnee and Seminole tribes, to approach the youths.It was a haka — a war dance of New Zealand’s indigenous Maori culture, made famous by the country’s national rugby team. Frejo, who is also known as Chief Quese Imc, told the AP in a phone interview that he felt the students were mocking the dance.Phillips, an activist described by the Indian Country Today website as an Omaha elder and Vietnam War veteran, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he was trying to keep peace between the high school students and the religious group.He said he heard people chanting “Build that wall” or yelling, “Go back to the reservation.” At one point, he said, he sought to ascend to the Lincoln statue and “pray for our country.” Some students backed off, but one student wouldn’t let him move, he added.“They were making remarks to each other … (such as) ‘In my state those Indians are nothing but a bunch of drunks.’ How do I report that?” Phillips said. “These young people were just roughshodding through our space, like what’s been going on for 500 years here — just walking through our territories, feeling like ‘this is ours.'”Sandmann said he heard no student chant anything beyond school spirit chants, and that he hadn’t even been aware of the Native American group until Phillips approached him.“The protester everyone has seen in the video began playing his drum as he waded into the crowd, which parted for him. I did not see anyone try to block his path,” Sandmann wrote. “He locked eyes with me and approached me, coming within inches of my face. He played his drum the entire time he was in my face.”Sandmann said one of the Native American protesters yelled at them that they “stole our land” and they should “go back to Europe,” but that he never spoke to or interacted with Phillips. “To be honest, I was startled and confused as to why he had approached me.”He wrote that he “believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping defuse the situation.”“I said a silent prayer that the situation would not get out of hand,” he wrote. He said the incident ended when the buses arrived and his teacher told him it was time to leave.Though many commenting on the internet were taken back by Sandmann staring at Philipps, the teen said he was “not intentionally making faces at the protestor. I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation.” He said he had never encountered any kind of public protest before.The Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington apologized for the incident on Saturday, saying “this behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.” They promised to take “appropriate action, up to and including expulsion.”Sandmann said he has provided a copy of his statement to the diocese and said: “I stand ready and willing to cooperate with any investigation they are conducting.” A spokeswoman for the diocese did not return an email Sunday night.Covington Catholic High School, in the northern Kentucky city of Park Hills, was quiet Sunday as the area remained snow-covered with temperatures in the teens. The all-male school, which has more than 580 students, appeared deserted with an empty police car parked in front of the building | ||||||||||
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