Apple to Reevaluate Policy on Mapping ‘Disputed Borders’ After Crimea Outcry
Apple says it will reevaluate how it identifies “disputed borders” after receiving criticism for displaying Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula as part of Russia on maps and weather apps for Russian users.
Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told Reuters on Friday that the U.S. technology giant was “taking a deeper look at how we handle disputed borders.”
Muller said Apple made the change for Russian users because of a new law that went into effect inside Russia and that it had not made any changes to its maps outside the country. Review of law
“We review international law as well as relevant U.S. and other domestic laws before making a determination in labeling on our maps and make changes if required by law,” she told Reuters.
Muller added that Apple “may make changes in the future as a result” of its reevaluation of the policy, without being specific.
Russian and Ukrainian embassies in the United States did not immediately return requests for comment.
When using the apps from the United States, Ukraine, and in parts of Europe, no international borders are shown around the peninsula.
After the reports surfaced of the appearance of Crimea as part of Russia, the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington told RFE/RL that it had sent a letter to Apple explaining the situation in Crimea and demanding that it correct the peninsula’s designation.
It also said on Twitter that “let’s all remind Apple that #CrimeaIsUkraine and it is under Russian occupation — not its sovereignty.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystayko tweeted, “Apple, please, please, stick to high-tech and entertainment. Global politics is not your strong side.” Applause from Russia
Vasily Piskarev, who chairs the Russian State Duma’s Committee on Security and Corruption Control, welcomed Apple’s move, saying, “They have brought [their services] in line with Russian law.”
“The error with displaying Crimean cities on the weather app has been eliminated,” Piskarev told reporters.
Competitor Google Maps has designated Crimea differently over the years depending on the user’s location, listing it as Russian for Russian users and Ukrainian for most others.
“We make every effort to objectively depict the disputed regions, and where we have local versions of Google Maps, we follow local legislation when displaying names and borders,” a Google spokesperson told Tech Crunch magazine. Troops entered in 2014
Russia took control of Crimea in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries.
Moscow also backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed more than 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.
The international community does not recognize Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, and the United States and European Union have slapped sanctions on Russia over its actions against Ukraine.
Reuters and the Crimea Desk of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service contributed to this report.
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Ugandan Pageant Fights HIV Stigma
Nearly a third of Uganda’s new HIV infections occur among 15-to-25-year-olds, who say that despite progress, stigma is still a problem. To raise awareness ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, Uganda holds an annual fashion and a beauty pageant for young people infected with HIV and calls them the Young Positives. Halima Athumani reports from Kampala.
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Facebook Places Label on User’s Post Under Singapore ‘Fake News’ Law
Facebook said Saturday it had issued a correction notice on a user’s post at the request of the Singapore government, but called for a measured approach to the implementation of a new “fake news” law in the city-state.“Facebook is legally required to tell you that the Singapore government says this post has false information,” said the notice, which is visible only to Singapore users.The correction label was embedded at the bottom of the original post without any alterations to the text.Singapore requests noticeThe Singapore government said Friday it had instructed Facebook “to publish a correction notice” on a Nov. 23 post that contained accusations about the arrest of a supposed whistleblower and election rigging.Singapore, which is expected to call a general elections within months, said the allegations were “false” and “scurrilous” and initially ordered user Alex Tan, who runs the States Times Review blog, to issue the correction notice on the post.Tan, who does not live in Singapore and says he is an Australian citizen, refused, and authorities said he is now under investigation. Reuters could not immediately reach Tan for comment.“As required by Singapore law, Facebook applied a label to these posts, which were determined by the Singapore government to contain false information,” a spokesman for Facebook said in an emailed statement. “As it is early days of the law coming into effect, we hope the Singapore government’s assurances that it will not impact free expression will lead to a measured and transparent approach to implementation.”Some Singapore users however said that they could not see the correction notice. Facebook could not immediately explain why the notice was unavailable to some users.Blocked contentFacebook often blocks content that governments allege violate local laws, with nearly 18,000 cases globally in the year to June, according to the company’s “transparency report.”Two years in the making and implemented only last month, Singapore’s law is the first to demand that Facebook publish corrections when directed to do so by the government.The Asia Internet Coalition, an association of internet and technology companies, called the law the “most far-reaching legislation of its kind to date,” while rights groups have said it could undermine internet freedoms, not just in Singapore, but elsewhere in Southeast Asia.In the only other case under the law, which covers statements that are communicated in the country even if they originate elsewhere, opposition political figure Brad Bowyer swiftly complied with a correction request.The penalties range from prison terms of as much as 10 years or fines up to S$1 million ($733,192).
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Twitter CEO Pledges to Live in Africa for Several Months in 2020
Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey has wrapped up of a trip to Africa by pledging to reside on the continent next year for up to six months. Dorsey tweeted this week: “Africa will define the future (especially the bitcoin one!). Not sure where yet, but I’ll be living here for 3-6 months mid 2020.”The CEO of the social media giant did not say what he planned to do on the African continent.Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, did not offer more details on Dorsey’s plans. On Dorsey’s recent trip, he visited entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. Dorsey, 43, co-founded Twitter with several other entrepreneurs in 2006. He ran the company until he was ousted in 2008 but was brought back seven years later to again lead the platform.Dorsey also co-founded the payment processing app Square and is also CEO of that operation. The tech exec holds millions of stock shares in both companies, and Forbes estimates his net worth at $4.3 billion.Twitter, along with other social media companies, has faced criticism of its handling of misinformation and has come under scrutiny ahead of next year’s U.S. presidential election. Dorsey announced in October that Twitter would ban political advertisements on the platform.
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South Korean K-pop Stars Sentenced to Prison for Illicit Sexual Relations
A South Korean court sentenced two K-pop stars to prison terms Friday for sexual relations with a woman who was unable to resist.Thirty-year old Jung Joon-young and 29 year old Choi Jong-hoon were convicted of committing “special quasi-raping,” which means multiple people collaborating to have illicit sexual intercourse with a person who was unconscious or unable to resist, the Seoul Central District Court said in a statement.Jung who was sentenced to six years behind bars, was convicted of raping the woman, filming the act, and sharing it with friends in a group chat.
Choi was sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in the crime.The two singers were also ordered to undergo 80 hours of sex offender treatment programs.South Korea’s lucrative entertainment industry has produced pop songs, TV dramas and films hugely popular in Asia and beyond, but many sexual scandals in recent years have revealed its dark side.
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Climate Activists Invade East German Coal Mines in Protest
Climate activists protested at open-pit coal mines in eastern Germany, pouring onto the premises to urge the government to immediately halt the use of coal to produce electricity.The news agency dpa reported that police estimated more than 2,000 people took part Saturday at sites near Cottbus and Leipzig and that some of the demonstrators scuffled with police. Three officers were reported slightly injured at the Janschwaelde mine near Cottbus. The mine operators, Leag und Mibrag, filed police reports asking for an investigation and possible charges.Burning coal releases carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed by scientists for global warming. The German government plans to end the use of coal by 2038 and spend 40 billion euros ($44 billion) on assistance for the affected mining regions.
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More Deaths Feared From Cholera in Cameroon
Cameroonian health and emergency personnel are working to stem a cholera outbreak that has killed at least a dozen people and sickened at least 100 others in the Bakassi Peninsula that shares a maritime boundary with Nigeria.It is feared the outbreak will claim more lives in the coastal area, which lacks health infrastructure.Emergency medical workers, together with some civilians, are working to improve hygiene and sanitation by clearing dirt and debris from water beneath houses on the shores in the area. Among them is 31-year-old Cameroonian fisherman Lucas Emimo, who says he lost his younger sister to cholera. Emimo says he has joined the humanitarian workers because he fears many more people may die from the infectious disease that causes severe watery diarrhea, leading to dehydration and even death if untreated.Dirty water flows underneath houses in Idabato, Cameroon, Nov. 28, 2019. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA)”We lack toilets, potable water,” Emimo said. “There is no hospital. People defecate beside the sea, under the houses, everywhere and so it makes the place not good to stay.”Dr. Ebongo Zakius Nandji, the area’s top health official, says humanitarian workers were deployed when news broke that people were dying and some were being rushed to hospitals. He says there is no doubt cholera is to blame.”Upon the reception of a distress signal from our team in the Bakassi health district, we came down to [the city of] Idabato, myself and my entire emergency response team,” Nandji said. “The situation on the ground really sends a pointer to the fact that we are in an outbreak of cholera.”Nandji said six people had been reported dead and hundreds of suspected cholera sufferers were still in villages around Idabato. Civilians said they had buried six others before the medical team’s arrival. The actual death toll could be higher, because many live in remote locations, complicating efforts to get accurate health data.Nandji urged people to be vigilant and report any cholera symptoms.Hospitals underusedBut the government says only 20 percent of the population visits hospitals. Most of them prefer traditional African medicine. Some complain that the only government hospital in Idabato is understaffed and lacks medication.Roland Ewane, a top Cameroonian official in Idabato, says Nigerians living in the region prefer to return to their country for health care. However, making the journey reduces chances of survival for cholera patients.A humanitarian worker disinfects homes in Idabato, Cameroon, Nov. 28, 2019. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA)”We have a population of about 40,000,” Ewane said. “They are mostly Nigerians. We have been carrying out sensitization campaigns [educating the population] on the necessity of using or the importance of using government services. One of them is the hospital. They do not come to the hospital. It is a big cry [to use hospitals].”The Bakassi Peninsula is by the sea, but potable water is hard to find. Few have toilets and the local hospital struggles to handle epidemics.Nigeria ceded full control of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon in 2013, in keeping with a 2002 International Court of Justice ruling. Some 300,000 Nigerians live on the peninsula — approximately 90 percent of its population. The territory is rich in hydrocarbons and fisheries, but lacks basic social services.Most health workers trained by Nigeria to serve in the area returned to their country when Cameroon did not continue paying their salaries. Some also fled attacks by separatists fighting for the independence of Cameroon’s English-speaking regions from the French-speaking majority. Cameroon has faced difficulties replacing departed medical staff.
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UN: More than 300 Children Die Daily of AIDS-Related Causes
World AIDS Day, the annual event to raise awareness of the global epidemic, turns 31 this year. However, as longevity, treatment, and access to care improve worldwide, the United Nations Children’s Fund is sounding the alarm, reporting that more than 300 children die every day of AIDS-related causes, and is urging young people to get earlier testing and treatment. In Johannesburg, VOA’s Anita Powell met with some of the now-grown children who lived, to talk about the struggles they overcame
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Rosa Parks Statue to be Unveiled Sunday
A new statue of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks will stand in downtown Montgomery.The city said the statue will be unveiled Sunday at 1 p.m. at Montgomery Plaza at the Court Street Fountain.The unveiling coincides with the anniversary of Parks’ historic Dec. 1, 1955 arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. Her arrest sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement.FILE – The statue of African-American civil rights activist Rosa Parks is seen in Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Dec. 1, 2014,There will also be four granite markers to honor the plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle – the landmark case that ruled segregation on Montgomery buses unconstitutional.The civil rights memorials are a partnership among the city and county, the Alabama tourism department and the Montgomery Area Business Committee for the Arts.
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Native Americans Played Pivotal Role in the First Thanksgiving
Every year in November, Americans get a day off to give thanks. The Thanksgiving Day holiday originated centuries ago, with a harvest celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621. For many Americans, the holiday is also a time to celebrate the arrival of the first immigrants to the the New World. But historians say it is important to remember that without the help of the Wampanoag tribe, Europeans back in those days may not have survived to celebrate. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit reports.
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Zimbabwe’s Pregnant Forced to Use Midwives, Deliver in Unsafe Conditions
As Zimbabwe’s healthcare system collapses amid medical worker strikes, some women are being forced to rely on midwives and give birth in unsanitary conditions, which experts say puts the mother and child at risk infections.Zimbabwe’s clinics have often been forced to suspend operations since medical workers went on strike to push for better wages in September.Pregnant women have been turning to midwives to deliver their babies, explains Esther Zinyoro-Gwenya, who is a midwife in one of Harare’s poorest townships, Mbare.“I ask each expecting mother to bring a razor blade, a pin for the baby’s navel and cotton. Nothing untoward has happened. It’s an easy task after the baby is delivered, I ask the mother to go into my bedroom to rest while I take care of the next one,” she said.The 74-year-old Zinyoro-Gwenya said she has already delivered about 250 babies in November.While she said all mothers and babies survived, the lack of sanitation means a higher risk of infection. It is also a symptom of the ailing state of health care in the country, said Dr. Tawanda Zvakada from the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association. “It’s a sad situation that we find ourselves in whereby women are now giving birth in place that is not sterile, that does not meet the minimum World Health Organization’s requirements for a facility that suits for delivery of babies. It is just a reflection of our health systems which is on the verge of a collapse; people seeking alternative health methods. We call upon the responsible authorities to act on the situation with the urgency that it deserves,” said Dr. Zvakada.Zimbabwe’s doctors and nurses want the government to provide modern equipment to clinics and hospitals, which have deteriorated along with the country’s economy. The World Bank expects Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product to shrink by 7.5% in 2019.George Guvamatanga, secretary for Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, said Harare is aware of the healthcare problems and that the government is working to address the issues.“We are very much on top of the situation within the health and education sectors. We are working closely with the Ministry of Health to make sure that sustainable and adequate resources as required by the doctors are provided,” he said.Meanwhile, expectant mothers in Zimbabwe are doing the best they can.
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Possible New Doping Sanctions Loom for Russia
Top Russian officials decried the recommendations by a World Anti-Doping Agency committee to suspend Russia from international competition over tainted athlete doping probes — the latest in a drawn out saga over accusations of Russian state sponsored doping that has roiled global sport since 2014.Russian athletes, unsurprisingly, joined in expressing bitterness about the WADA recommendations. But while some argued the suggested WADA penalties were unduly harsh, others blamed a failure in Russian sport leadership for risking their chance to compete in the next two Olympic Games and perhaps beyond.The recommendations, issued by WADA’s Compliance Review Committee on Monday, alleged evidence of tampering of some 2000 athlete probes at Moscow’s RUSADA testing facility, and called for a four-year suspension of Russia from international competition, including the Olympic Games.Reacting to the pronouncement at a news conference on Tuesday, Russia Minister of Sport In this file photo dated Wednesday, July 24, 2019, Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov speaks to the media in Moscow, Russia. Russia has sent a formal response to the World Anti-Doping Agency, Tuesday Oct. 8, 2019.The charges, argued Lavrov, were carried out by those who “wish to show Russia as guilty in anything and everything.”The Kremlin was more sanguine. A spokesman merely noted that President Vladimir Putin — who has gladly cast Russia’s return to sporting glory as a symbol of the country’s rising global status under his 19-year rule — had no plans to meet with government sporting officials over the issue.WADA is expected to make a final decision regarding the committee’s recommendations on December 9. Whatever the outcome, Russia would have a right to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for a final ruling.Athletes reactYet athlete anger was also palpable — with leading athletes lashing out at both WADA and Russia’s sporting bureaucracy for failing to lift a doping cloud that has hung over Russian athletics ever since a 2015 WADA investigation detailed widespread cheating at international events.Indeed, just days prior to this week’s WADA committee recommendations, World Athletics, the sport’s global governing body formally known as the IAAF, provisionally suspended top figures from Russia’s Track and Field for helping champion Russian high jumper Danil Lysenko avoid doping tests earlier this year.The charges prompted the immediate full suspension of efforts to reinstatement Russia’s track and field association following its 2015 suspension. Until the most recent violation, the talks reportedly had been making headway.In a letter addressed to Russia’s Minister of Sport and head of Russia’s Olympic Committee, acclaimed high jumper In this Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019 file photo, Gold medalist Mariya Lasitskene, who participates as a neutral athlete, poses during the medal ceremony for the women’s high jump at the World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar.While Russia has acknowledged problems with doping to a degree, it has also argued the country is being unfairly singled out — with Russian athletes being punished en masse for the sins of a few.In turn, the International Olympic Committee made allowances for Russian athletes who undergo additional drug screening to compete as neutral athletes, without state uniform or flag or anthem, at the 2016 and 2018 Olympics.In a statement released Tuesday, the IOC criticized Russia over the doping probe manipulations while suggesting bad actors at RUSADA had sabotaged what it otherwise saw as a good faith effort by Russian Olympic Officials.”The report does not indicate any wrongdoing by the sports movement in this regard, in particular the Russian Olympic Committee or its members,” noted the IOC statement.“In this context, the IOC welcomes the opportunity offered by WADA to Russian athletes to compete, “where they are able to demonstrate that they are not implicated in any way by the non-compliance.”Yet some Russians — including leading sporting legends — expressed exasperation over the Russian government’s continued inability to weed out drug offenders and make peace with WADA.“The fact that there are more honest and clean athletes in our country than lying and irresponsible ones is a fact,” wrote Yelena Isinbayaeva, the former two-time Gold medal winner.“So why is it that we still can’t seem to separate these two groups — the honest from the deceitful?” Access of the Moscow RUSADA laboratory doping probes was one of two key condition to WADA’s so-called “roadmap to return” to international competition.Yet from President Putin on down, Russian officials have been loathe to meet WADA’s other supposed requirement: that Russia admit it engaged in a massive doping effort with support from the government and security services to help secure medals — most notably at the Russia-hosted Sochi 2014 Winter Games, in which Russia placed first among nations.Russian officials and, to a degree athletes, argue geopolitics have helped hype the hysteria around Russian doping — with sport long ago joining Ukraine, Syria, election interference, and a myriad of other issues that currently infect Russian relations with the West.Given the political stakes involved, observers puzzled out possible motives behind the latest manipulation of athlete probes at the Moscow lab — with the popular sports.ru website coming to what it admitted was an uncomfortable conclusion: someone in the Russian government had chosen to gamble the Olympic dreams of young Russian athletes rather than admit past doping transgressions.“We don’t have sport in a traditional sense — in Russia, it long ago became a special-operation for winning medals,” said the editorial.“Our manipulation of the database — is, by fact, an admission. It’s proof of a government doping system.”
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UN: HIV/AIDS Infections and Deaths Down, but Challenges Remain
New United Nations data shows that global HIV/AIDS infection rates and deaths are down and treatment is up, but new infections remain a serious challenge in certain high-risk groups.In a report launched Tuesday ahead of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, UNAIDS reports that of the nearly 38 million people globally living with HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — more than 24 million patients are receiving antiretroviral therapy (ARVs). That is a significant increase from nine years ago, when about 7 million people were accessing the life-saving treatment.UNAIDS says about 8 million people do not know they are infected with HIV.AIDS-related deaths worldwide are also down by more than half since 2004. Some 770,000 people died of the disease last year.”The gains continue to be made against the epidemic, but those gains are getting smaller year after year,” said Ninan Varughese, director of the UNAIDS New York office.He said improvements in eastern and southern Africa are driving global progress rates, but many other areas of the world have faced setbacks, such as Central Asia and Eastern Europe. High-risk groups
More than half of new infections are among high-risk groups and their sexual partners.”If you look outside sub-Saharan Africa it is 75%,” Varughese said. “For example, more than 95% of new infections in Central Asia and Eastern Europe are among key populations.”He said the risk of being infected with HIV is 22 times higher among homosexual men and intravenous drug users, 21 times higher for sex workers, and 12 times higher for transgender persons.Women and girlsAnother demographic group that is seeing a negative trend is adolescent sub-Saharan African women and girls, with 6,000 new infections each week among those between the ages of 15 and 24.”In sub-Saharan Africa, 4 in 5 new infections among adolescents age 15 to 19 are among girls,” Varughese added.More money is needed to fund the global response. UNAIDS estimates a need of $26.2 billion for 2020.While 19 countries are on track to reach the 2030 target of ending the AIDS epidemic, most of the world is not.
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NYC Commuters Enjoy Thanksgiving Feast on Subway car
Thanksgiving came early for a group of New York City commuters who enjoyed a holiday feast on a subway train. Video footage shows riders standing behind a white-clothed table covered with plates of turkey, mashed potatoes and cornbread in the middle of a Brooklyn-bound L train on Sunday. Stand-up comedian Jodell “Joe Show” Lewis tells the New York Post he organized the Thanksgiving dinner to “bring a little excitement to commuters” and feed any New Yorkers who might be hungry.
Lewis says he chose the L train after he saw how “dreary and upset” riders were at the inconvenience of a construction project that has cut service on the line.
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How George Washington Ignited a Political Firestorm Over Thanksgiving
In September 1789, members of America’s first Congress approached the nation’s first president, George Washington, and asked him to call for a national Thanksgiving.That seemingly benign request ignited a furor in Congress over presidential powers and states’ rights. Critics had two main concerns with the idea of a presidential proclamation to declare a national Thanksgiving. First, some viewed Thanksgiving as a religious holiday, which put it outside of the purview of the president. Secondly, opponents of the measure believed the president did not have the authority to call a national Thanksgiving because that was a matter for governors.It was a challenging time for the young nation. America had won the Revolutionary War but the country — made up of the 13 former colonies — was not fully unified yet. Calling a national Thanksgiving was a way to bring Americans together. Painting of George Washington with his family, wife Martha and her grandchildren, by artist Edward Savage.In the end, Washington did issue a proclamation, the first presidential proclamation ever, calling for a national “day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” He also came up with a solution designed to appease the opposition. “When he issued the proclamation, he sent copies of that to governors of each of the states, 13 at the time, and asked them to call a national Thanksgiving on the day that Washington specified, the last Thursday of November,” says Melanie Kirkpatrick, author of “Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience,” and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “And, of course, Washington’s prestige being what it was, every governor did.”Yet the battle over a national Thanksgiving did not end there. As president, Thomas Jefferson refused to issue Thanksgiving proclamations, even though he had done so as governor of Virginia. John Adams and James Madison did issue proclamations calling for days of “fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving.”However, after Madison, no U.S. president issued a Thanksgiving proclamation until Abraham Lincoln. He did so in the middle of the U.S. Civil War in 1863 in an effort to unify the country.“The Battle of Gettysburg had been fought a few months earlier. It was becoming clear that the Union was going to win,” Kirkpatrick says. “Every family in America was deeply affected by that terrible war. In the midst of all that, he was talking about the blessings of the country and what we had to be grateful for. And then he asks the people to come together as one, with one heart and one voice, to celebrate the holiday.”Since then, every president has called for a national Thanksgiving. President Abraham Lincoln’s signature, (left) on his Thanksgiving proclamation issued in 1863.It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who stirred the pot again in 1939, by moving Thanksgiving to the third Thursday in November. Up until then, Americans had marked the holiday on the last Thursday in November, a date first specified by Lincoln.The new date was Roosevelt’s bid to lengthen the Christmas shopping season and boost the nation’s economic recovery after the Great Depression.“It was very annoying to some businesses. For example, the calendar industry, which had printed its calendars for the next year already,” Kirkpatrick says. “But one of the most vocal groups were colleges and universities, specifically the football coaches, because a tradition had developed of having Thanksgiving football championship games on Thanksgiving weekend.”President Franklin D. Roosevelt carves the turkey during Thanksgiving dinner for polio patients at Warm Springs, Ga., with first lady Eleanor Roosevelt beside him, Dec. 1, 1933.The divide over when to celebrate the holiday was so deep that half of the states adopted the new day, while the other half stuck to the traditional day. Roosevelt eventually reversed his decision, and Congress ended the long national debate over Thanksgiving in 1941 by passing a law making the fourth Thursday in November a legal holiday.Today, Thanksgiving continues to unify millions of Americans who gather to celebrate the holiday with family and friends. Many will serve traditional foods like turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce. George Washington made a point of declaring that Thanksgiving should be celebrated by people of all faiths, a distinction that still resonates for Americans, including immigrants marking their first Thanksgiving. “It’s 398 years since the so-called first Thanksgiving. It’s America’s oldest tradition,” Kirkpatrick says. “It’s tied up with a lot of seminal events in our history, such as the Revolution and the Civil War, and it’s also a rite of passage for new Americans. The idea is that once you celebrate Thanksgiving, you know you are truly participating in a national festival that cements your position as an American.”
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Violence Forces DRC Ebola Responders Out of Critical Areas
More than one-third of the United Nation’s Ebola responders in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Beni were relocated Tuesday amid growing insecurity in the area, while the other responders remained to help combat the deadly outbreak.The World Health Organization said a surge in violence in Beni forced 49 “non-critical” staff members to be moved south to Goma.Seventy-one essential staff remained to harness the outbreak in Congo that has left some 2,200 dead, the U.N. health agency said.Violence has hindered efforts to rein in the outbreak that began in August 2018.The military said at least four protesters were killed Monday when they stormed a U.N. compound over a perceived failure of U.N. peacekeepers to prevent attacks by rebel militia groups.Seventy-seven civilians have been killed in the recent surge in violence since November 5, according to the non-profit Congo Research Group.WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier acknowledged the spike in violence Tuesday at a news conference in Geneva, but emphasized Ebola responders were not targeted as they were during previous violent outbreaks.Health workers have worked to halt the spread of the virus through vaccinations and by tracking anyone who has been in contact with infected people. Lindmeier said health workers tracked only 17 percent of those contacts on Monday, dramatically fewer than the 90 percent who are typically tracked.WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted Monday evening that every day Ebola responders “don’t have full access to affected areas” is a “tragedy” that prolongs the second worst Ebola outbreak in history.Each day that we don’t have full access to all #Ebola-affected areas in #DRC we cede ground to the virus, prolonging the outbreak.This is a tragedy because it will only add to the suffering of already overburdened communities.— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 26, 2019
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Wintry Weather Threatens to Snarl US Holiday Travel
A storm that dumped heavy snow in Colorado and Wyoming forced airlines to cancel hundreds of flights in Denver on Tuesday and has made driving impossible in some parts of the two states just as the busy Thanksgiving week travel period went into high gear.About 7 inches (18 centimeters) was on the ground at Denver International Airport by morning but more was expected through the afternoon.About a third of the airport’s average 1,500 daily flights were cancelled, but the airport said in a tweet that many airlines would resume operations later in the morning or early in the afternoon as snow clearing crews worked to keep most runways open.More than 2 feet (60 centimeters) of snow had fallen in northern Colorado and about a foot (30 centimeters) fell in southern parts of Wyoming by midmorning.Heavy snow and gusty winds forced the closures of long stretches of Interstates 70 and 76 in Colorado and Interstate 80 in Wyoming, and parts of I-80 were buried under snow drifts of up to 4 feet (1.2) meters.“We are mindful that this is a holiday travel week and we are working as fast and as quickly as possible to reopen the roads, and we will do that once the roads are safe for travelers,” said Wyoming Department of Transportation spokeswoman Aimee Inama.Many government offices in the Denver area and in Cheyenne, Wyoming were closed along with colleges and schools not already on holiday break.The storm system led the National Weather Service to issue blizzard and wintry weather warnings extending into the Great Lakes.The storm was expected to move into the Plains later Tuesday, bringing high wind and more snow to Minnesota, Wisconsin and upper Michigan.It could bring another round of snow to the Upper Midwest from Thursday through Saturday, and a chance of snow this weekend in interior New England, said Alex Lamers, a National Weather Service meteorologist.“That could be a coast-to-coast storm,” he said.It also could mean disappointment for fans of the larger-than-life balloons flown at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.Organizers were preparing for the possibility that they’ll have to ground the iconic balloon characters, given 40-50 mph (64-81 kph) gusts in the forecast. Rules put in place after several people were injured by a balloon years ago require lower altitudes or full removal if sustained winds exceed 23 mph (37 kph) and gusts exceed 34 mph (54 kph). The decision will be made on parade day.The Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area could see its biggest November snowfall in nearly a decade, and travel is northwestern Wisconsin “is going to be chaotic,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Brent Hewett.The Minneapolis airport could be hit, but Chicago, with its two big airports, should only see rain from the storm, weather service officials said.A second storm developing in the Pacific Ocean was expected to hit the West Coast of the U.S. on Tuesday afternoon or evening, bringing snow to the mountains and wind and rain along the coasts of California and Oregon.Forecasters warned of “difficult to impossible travel conditions” across much of northern Arizona later this week as that storm dumps about 2 feet (0.6 meters) on areas that include Interstate 40. The National Weather Service’ office in Flagstaff said travel conditions will start to deteriorate Wednesday night, followed by the heaviest snowfall Thursday through Friday morning. This month, AAA predicted that the number of travelers over a five-day stretch starting Wednesday will be the second-highest, behind only 2005, despite rising costs for a road trip.At the start of the week, a gallon of regular gas cost $2.59 on average, up 3 cents from a year ago, and rental cars averaged around $75 a day — their highest Thanksgiving price since AAA started keeping track in 1999. Hotel rooms are a mixed bag, with prices falling from last year at highly rated hotels but rising slightly at midrange ones.People might feel they can afford a trip because of low unemployment, rising household net worth, and the stock market’s continuing strength.For those who are flying, the airlines expect traffic to be up about 4% from this time last year. Airlines added about 850 flights and 108,000 seats per day on average to handle the increase over last year’s crowds, according to the trade group Airlines for America.Airline travel before Thanksgiving tends to be spread out over several days, but most people want to go home on the Sunday or Monday after the holiday.American Airlines plans to operate 7,046 flights Sunday, just one less than on Aug. 8, its heaviest schedule this year. In all, 22 of American’s 23 busiest days occurred during the summer vacation season, with this Sunday being the only exception.“Everybody talks about Thanksgiving being a busy travel time, but summer is Thanksgiving week for the entire summer,” said Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for the airline.
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No thanks: Native Americans to Hold 50th Gathering of Grief
Happy Thanksgiving to you in the land your forefathers stole.That’s the in-your-feast message Native Americans are preparing to send as they convene their 50th annual National Day of Mourning in the seaside town where the Pilgrims settled.United American Indians of New England has held the solemn remembrance on every Thanksgiving Day since 1970 to recall what organizers describe as “the genocide of millions of native people, the theft of native lands and the relentless assault on native culture.”But Thursday’s gathering will have particular resonance — and, indigenous people say, a fresh sense of urgency.Plymouth is putting the final touches on next year’s 400th anniversary commemorations of the Pilgrims’ landing in 1620. And as the 2020 events approach, descendants of the Wampanoag tribe that helped the newcomers survive are determined to ensure the world doesn’t forget the disease, racism and oppression the European settlers brought.“We talk about the history because we must,” said Mahtowin Munro, a co-leader of the group.“The focus is always on the Pilgrims. We’re just going to keep telling the truth,” she said. “More and more nonnative people have been listening to us. They’re trying to adjust their prism.”As they have on every Thanksgiving for the past half-century, participants will assemble at noon on Cole’s Hill, a windswept mound overlooking Plymouth Rock, a memorial to the colonists’ arrival.Beneath a giant bronze statue of Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader in 1620, Native Americans from tribes around New England will beat drums, offer prayers and read speeches before marching through Plymouth’s historic district, joined by dozens of sympathetic supporters.Organizers say they’ll also call attention to the plight of missing and murdered indigenous women, as well as government crackdowns on migrants from Latin America and the detentions of children. Promotional posters proclaim: “We didn’t cross the border — the border crossed us!”Past gatherings have mourned lives lost to the nationwide opioid addiction crisis, shown solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and condemned environmental degradation.The tradition was born of Plymouth’s last big birthday bash in 1970 — a 350th anniversary commemoration that triggered angry demonstrations by native people excluded from a decidedly Pilgrim-focused observance.Since then, the National Day of Mourning has become a louder, prouder and increasingly multiethnic affair in the community nicknamed “America’s Hometown.”Although mostly peaceable, there has been tension. In 1997, 25 protesters were arrested after their march through town erupted into a melee with police.There have also been colorful moments. Over the decades, activists have ceremonially buried Plymouth Rock in sand, boarded the Mayflower II — a replica of the ship that carried the English settlers to the New World — and draped Ku Klux Klan garb on a statue of William Bradford, a Pilgrim father who eventually became governor of the Plymouth Bay Colony.In a likeminded tradition dating to 1975, tribes in the San Francisco area hold a similar ceremony called Unthanksgiving Day, gathering at sunrise on Alcatraz Island to recall how Native Americans occupied the island in protest for 19 months starting in November 1969.Francis Bremer, a Pilgrim scholar and professor emeritus of history at Pennsylvania’s Millersville University, thinks the nation is becoming more receptive “to a side of the story that’s too often been ignored.”“Fifty years ago, for nonnative people, these were uncomfortable truths they didn’t want to hear. Now they’re necessary truths,” he said.To help right old wrongs, Munro’s coalition is pushing what it calls the Massachusetts Indigenous Legislative Agenda. Among other things, the campaign includes a proposal to redesign the state flag, which critics say is repressive. It depicts a muscular arm wielding a broadsword over a Native American holding a bow.Paula Peters, a Wampanoag writer and activist who isn’t a member of the group that organizes the public mourning, sees progress in getting Americans to look past the Thanksgiving myth of Pilgrims and natives coexisting peacefully.“We have come a long way,” she said. “We continue to honor our ancestors by taking our history out of the margins and into the forefront.”
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Concern Over US Climate Action Grows Among Republican Voters, Survey Shows
The majority of Americans, including a growing share of moderate Republicans, are dissatisfied with U.S. government efforts to curb global warming, researchers said on Monday.In a survey by the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based non-partisan think-tank, two-thirds of Americans said U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration was “doing too little” to reduce the effects of climate change. Since taking office, Trump has rolled backed Obama-era rules limiting planet-warming emissions from sectors of the economy such as electricity, transport, and oil and gas.The Trump administration filed paperwork this month to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, while his opponents have championed a “Green New Deal” that seeks to slash U.S. emissions within a decade.In the Pew survey, the proportion of people who said the government was taking too little action to tackle climate change was unchanged from a year ago – but unease among moderate Republicans grew significantly, noted the report.“Previous analysis showed that concern about climate change has gone up over the past several years (since 2013) among Democrats but not Republicans,” said Cary Funk, director of science and society research at Pew.But the new survey, which polled more than 3,600 people last month, found that 65% of moderate or liberal Republicans said the federal government was not doing enough to reduce the effects of global warming, up from 53% in 2018.A divide was also seen by age, with 52% of 18 to 38-year-old Republicans displeased with government climate action, compared with 41% of those from 38-54, and 31% of those aged 55 or above. Among Republicans, 46% of women thought the government was doing too little, compared with 34% of men.Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, said the recent wave of extreme wildfires, hurricanes and flooding hitting the United States had likely played a part in shifting Republican opinion.“People are beginning to hear and see that the impacts of climate change are here – now,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.Most climate scientists believe a human-produced increase in greenhouse gases is heating the planet but the survey found no change in the longstanding U.S. political divide on that issue.Just under half of respondents agreed human activity contributes a great deal to climate change, and another 30% said human actions have some role.“Many people, not just Republicans, underestimate the scientific agreement about this stuff,” noted Leiserowitz.For decades, the fossil fuel industry has pushed a message that climate change is part of natural cycles, he said. Nonetheless, the survey showed most Americans favor adopting renewable energy sources, with 92% of adults supporting the expansion of solar power and 85% backing wind power.
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Anti-Doping Investigators Recommend Four-Year Ban on Russia
Russia faces a four-year ban from global sporting events, including next year’s Tokyo Olympics, because of a continued failure to cooperate with anti-doping investigators.The ban recommendation made Tuesday by the compliance panel of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), came after investigators found evidence of a further drug cover-up by Russian officials, who are alleged to have deleted and tampered with positive drugs tests from a database at a Moscow laboratory earlier this year.The executive committee of the anti-doping agency will decide at a meeting in Paris scheduled for December 9 whether to approve the sanction, including stripping Russia of sporting events already awarded to the country “unless it is legally or practically impossible to do so.” Russian government officials would also be barred from attending events for the next four years and the country’s flag wouldn’t be flown at World sporting tournaments for the ban’s period.Russia was banned from sending a team to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea but individual athletes from the country were allowed by the International Olympic Committee to compete, if they passed strenuous doping tests. The new ban recommendation is the latest twist in a saga of state-sponsored doping stretching back to before the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and which is said to rival in its magnitude the extensive and notorious East German drug program of the Cold War years.Flag bearers from various nations attend the closing ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Feb. 25, 2018.The expert panel’s advice would include banning Russia’s team from competing in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but Russia would still be able to host four games from the 2020 European Championship in St Petersburg because it is a regional football tournament and not a World competition.US Anti-Doping Agency head Travis Tygart welcomed the sanctions recommendation saying it “recognized the egregious conduct of Russia toward clean athletes and now let’s all hope the Wada executive committee uses the same resolve to ensure clean athletes are not again sold down the river and actually supports this unfortunate but necessary outcome.”Rusada was initially declared non-compliant in November 2015 after a report by sports lawyer and academic Richard McLaren found widespread evidence of state-sponsored doping in Russian track and field athletics. A subsequent report in 2016 commissioned by WADA accused Russia of operating a state-sponsored doping program for four years across the “vast majority” of summer and winter Olympic sports. Last year the country sport bodies were declared compliant after the release of data from its main Moscow anti-doping laboratory but data handed over in January proved to be “inauthentic” according to investigators.The compliance panel says a forensic review found serious inconsistencies, saying investigators had uncovered “an extremely serious case of non-compliance with the requirement to provide an authentic copy of the Moscow data, with several aggravating features.”More than 2000 samples supplied by the Moscow laboratory had been tampered with, the compliance panel says. The huge scale of Russian doping first came to light in 2015 when Grigory Rodchenkov, who for a decade was Russia’s anti-doping lab chief, fled to the U.S..McLaren’s report confirmed the allegations made by Rodchenkov, concluding that more than a thousand Russian athletes had been doping up between 2012 and 2015 and that Russian officials, the country’s sports ministry and Russia’s FSB security agency had conspired in a “cover-up that operated on an unprecedented scale.”Russian officials say a four-year ban would be devastating and unfair, pointing to an acknowledgement by the compliance panel that aside from the alleged Moscow laboratory tampering Russian officials are being cooperative. Russian sport official Yuri Ganus told local media it would be a “tragedy,” if Russian athletes faced a suspension.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday ahead of the ban recommendation: “Our sports authorities have been in close contact with WADA and will continue cooperating with the body and international sports community.” He added: “No decisions have been made so far. You know that the Russian Federation provided all necessary information. Let’s wait for results and analyses of reports provided by the Russian side.”In October Russian President Vladimir Putin said at an international forum that Russia was keen to overcome the doping controversies. “We want our athletes to be fully represented in international events where they can demonstrate their talent without any restrictions. We want them to become role models for amateur sports lovers and professionals, first of all for our young generation,” he said.
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Gahan Wilson, Darkly Funny Cartoonist, Dies at 89
Gahan Wilson, whose humorous and often macabre cartoons were a mainstay in magazines including Playboy, the New Yorker and National Lampoon, died last week. He was 89.Wilson’s stepson, Paul Winters, said he died Nov. 21 in Scottsdale, Arizona, from complications of dementia.Wilson delighted readers with his haunting scenes and dark humor. One cartoon shows a man reading a doctor’s eye chart with progressively shrinking letters that spell out, “I am an insane eye doctor and I am going to kill you now.” Behind him, a mad scientist gleefully holds a blade, ready to strike.In another, two fishermen sit in a boat, unaware the captain behind them is removing a human mask to reveal a fish-like face, a mischievous toothy smile and scaly chest. “How did you come to name your boat the Revenge, Captain?” reads the caption.In a story posted on his website, Wilson recalled how he’d struggled to convince editors that their readers would understand and appreciate his cartoons. His big break came from a fill-in cartoon editor at Colliers who didn’t know the conventional wisdom about his work.”Not being a trained cartoon editor, he did not realize my stuff was too much for the common man to comprehend, and he thought it was funny,” Wilson wrote. “I was flabbergasted and delighted when he started to buy it!”He went on to reflect on artists who push boundaries and shock the status quo.”Art should lead to change in the way we see things,” he wrote. “If some artist comes up with a vision which gives a new opening, it usually creates a lot of stress, because it’s frightening.His regular multi-panel strip in National Lampoon in the 1970s was called “Nuts,” a take on Charles Schultz’s “Peanuts.”Gahan Allen Wilson was born Feb. 18, 1930, in Evanston, Illinois. His father was an executive for a steel company, his mother a publicist for a department store. He served in the U.S. Air Force and went to the Art Institute of Chicago.His wife of 52 years, writer Nancy Winters, died in March. He’s survived by two stepsons, a daughter in law, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
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UN: Greenhouse Gasses Reach Record High
Atmospheric levels of climate-changing greenhouse gases hit a record high in 2018, “with no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline,” the World Meteorological Organization said.In a report released Monday, the WMO said despite international pledges made under the Paris Agreement, the levels of carbon monoxide, methane and nitrous oxide all surged by higher amounts in 2018 than average for the past decade.The global average of carbon dioxide concentration reached 407.8 parts per million in 2018, up from 405.5 parts per million in 2017, the U.N. agency said. The concentration of methane was the highest recorded since 1998 while the levels of nitrous oxide, which is responsible for eroding the ozone layer was the highest ever recorded.”This continuing long-term trend means that future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of climate change, including rising temperatures, more extreme weather, water stress, sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystems,” according to a summary of the report.The report was released ahead of next month’s global climate summit in Madrid.“It is worth recalling that the last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of carbon dioxide was 3-5 million years ago,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said.At the time, the Earth’s temperature was as much as 5 degrees warmer and sea levels were as much as 65 feet higher than they are now, he said.
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As Stigma Ebbs, College Students Seek Mental Health Help
More college students are turning to their schools for help with anxiety, depression and other mental health problems, and many must wait weeks for treatment or find help elsewhere as campus clinics struggle to meet demand, an Associated Press review of more than three dozen public universities found.On some campuses, the number of students seeking treatment has nearly doubled over the last five years, while overall enrollment has remained relatively flat. The increase has been tied to reduced stigma around mental health, along with rising rates of depression and other disorders. Universities have expanded their mental health clinics, but the growth is often slow, and demand keeps surging.Long waits have provoked protests at schools from Maryland to California, in some cases following student suicides. Meanwhile, campus counseling centers grapple with low morale and high burnout as staff members face increasingly heavy workloads.”It’s an incredible struggle, to be honest,” said Jamie Davidson, associate vice president for student wellness at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which has 11 licensed counselors for 30,000 students. “It’s stressful on our staff and our resources. We’ve increased it, but you’re never going to talk to anyone in the mental health field who tells you we have sufficient resources.”The Associated Press requested five years of data from the largest public university in each state. A total of 39 provided annual statistics from their counseling clinics or health centers. The remaining 11 said they did not have complete records or had not provided records five months after they were requested.FILE – Students walk on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Nov. 14, 2019.The data shows that most universities are working to scale up their services, but many are far outpaced by demand.Since 2014, the number of students receiving mental health treatment at those schools has grown by 35%, while total enrollment grew just 5%. By last year, nearly 1 in 10 students were coming for help, but the number of licensed counselors changed little, from an average of 16 to 19 over five years.1 counselor, 4,000 studentsOn some campuses, that amounts to one counselor for every 4,000 students, including at Utah Valley University. An industry accrediting group suggests a minimum of one counselor per 1,500 students, but few of the 39 universities met that benchmark.When Ashtyn Aure checked in at the mental health clinic at Utah Valley last year, she was suffering anxiety attacks and had not slept for days. Her mind kept returning to past traumas. When she asked to see a counselor, a staff member told her the wait list stretched for months. She left without getting help.”I was so obviously distressed, and that was the place I was supposed to go. What do you do after that? Do you go to the hospital? Do you phone a friend?” said Aure, 25, who graduated this year.Ultimately, she turned to her church, which helped her find therapy at an outside clinic. “If it wasn’t for that,” she said, “I don’t know.”FILE – Ashtyn Aure, who attended Utah Valley University, is seen in Portland, Oregon, Oct. 28, 2019.Officials at Utah Valley said they are working to avoid such cases. If staff know a student is in crisis, they said, a counselor can see that person in a matter of minutes. But staff members have only a few moments to make an assessment.”Unfortunately, stories like this are not that uncommon,” said Dr. William Erb, senior director of student health services at Utah Valley. “We train, review and revise these procedures so that situations like this can be avoided as much as possible.”Weeks-long waitAt most universities, students contemplating suicide or otherwise in crisis are offered help right away. Others are asked to schedule an appointment. For cases that are not urgent, the wait can range from hours to months, depending on the time of year and the design of the clinic.Many schools that provided data to the AP said it takes weeks to get an initial appointment. At Utah Valley, students waited an average of more than four weeks last year. At the University of Washington at Seattle, it was three weeks. During busy times at Louisiana State, wait times stretched to four or five weeks.Some other schools have adopted a model that provides screenings the same day students ask for help, but it can take weeks to get further treatment.To some students, waiting is just an inconvenience. But it raises the risk that some young people will forgo help entirely, potentially allowing their problems to snowball.Students at Brigham Young University drew attention to delays last year after a student took her own life on campus. Days after the suicide, an anonymous letter was posted at the counseling center describing the dilemma some students face.”I have a therapist on campus, and he is wonderful and well qualified. But I only see him once a month. Because he has too many clients to see in one week,” the letter said. “It is the story of many of us barely getting by here at BYU. If I died would anything change?”Students at the University of Maryland called for change last year after some on campus said they had to wait 30 days or more for an initial appointment. Organizers called the campaign “30 Days Too Late.””We quickly realized that there were a lot of people on campus who believed in what we were doing and had had their own experiences,” said Garrett Mogge, a junior who helped organize the effort. “Thirty days can be a long time. And once you get there, it’s too late for some people.”Officials at the University of Maryland said the campaign showed there was a need to raise awareness about same-day crisis services available on campus. The school also has hired additional counselors since the campaign began.Other schools that have received student petitions to improve counseling include Michigan State, Louisiana State, Columbia and Cornell universities.For cases that are not urgent, some argue that waiting isn’t necessarily bad — and could even lead to better outcomes.A recent study found greater reductions in anxiety and depression at clinics that focus on providing students counseling at regular intervals, a system that might mean waiting for a therapist’s caseload to open. That practice was compared with clinics that offer quick initial help but cannot always provide routine follow-up treatment.The study by Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Collegiate Mental Health found that prioritizing access over treatment “may have significant negative consequences for students in need.”Rising demandThe rising demand for campus mental health care has been attributed to an array of factors. Stigma around the issue has faded, encouraging more students to get help. Disorders that once prevented students from going to college are no longer seen as a barrier. Some people believe social media fuels anxiety, while others say today’s students simply have more trouble coping with stress.Mass shootings, and the fear they spread, have also been suggested as a factor. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, saw an increase in demand following a 2017 shooting at a nearby county music festival that left 58 people dead and hundreds wounded.FILE – Notes are attached to the Resilience Project board on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Nov. 14, 2019.”That really increased the number of students we were seeing,” said Davidson, the head of student wellness. The school later hired a trauma specialist and added a student mental health fee to hire more counselors, among other measures to reduce wait times.For years, national surveys have found rising rates of anxiety and depression among college students. Most colleges that provided data to the AP said those conditions, and stress, were the most common complaints. Some schools also have seen more students struggling with thoughts of suicide.The shifting landscape has spurred many universities to rethink how they provide help, including offering more short-term treatment options. More students are being steered to group therapy or anxiety workshops. Counseling centers offer yoga, and many train students to counsel one another.”We’re reframing what mental health looks like at a school. It’s not necessarily 10 therapists sitting in offices,” said Erb, the student health director at Utah Valley.Rising demand has also opened doors for businesses promising solutions. Some schools have signed on with companies that provide therapy over the phone or through video chats. Others urge students to try smartphone apps.Staffing numbersBut some say the changes will help little if clinics remain understaffed. Counselors at some California State University campuses are pressing the system to hire more staff even as it expands peer counseling programs and wellness workshops. A faculty union is lobbying to reach a ratio of one counselor for every 1,500 students. The system estimates it has one for every 2,700 students.”Some students come in, and they can be seen maybe once every five or six weeks. They are shocked, because that’s not what they’re used to out in the real world,” said Martha Cuan, a counselor at Stanislaus State University, one of the system’s 23 campuses.A state bill requiring the system to set a goal to meet the lower ratio failed to gain traction in the state Legislature this year, but its sponsor plans to reintroduce it next year. Other states tackling the issue include Illinois, which in August approved a law telling public universities to aim for one counselor per 1,250 students.For many schools, finding the money to add counselors is a challenge. Many campus clinics don’t charge students for services and generate little or no revenue. A 2016 bill in Congress proposed new grants for university counseling, but it never advanced to a vote.Some schools are adding new campus fees to hire counselors or are subsidizing clinics through athletics revenue, as the University of Texas recently did.Overall, the AP analysis found that campus counseling budgets have increased by about 25% over the last five years, but levels vary widely, from more than $200 per student at some campuses to less than $40 at others.The way students feel about campus mental health services is mixed, according to a recent poll by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Among adults ages 18 through 29 who have pursued higher education, about a third said colleges do a good job handling mental health needs, while about as many said they think schools do a bad job. Another 3 in 10 said it’s neither good nor bad.Push for more resourcesMost university presidents say mental health is a growing concern, but they lack the tools to address it, according to a separate survey of school chiefs by the American Council on Education. Given unlimited funding, the survey found, most presidents said they would first hire more mental health staff.On any campus, the greatest fear is that a student in dire need could fall through the cracks. Mike and Kim Predmore believe that’s what happened to their son, Chris, who was struggling as a freshman at Illinois State University in 2014.He had just been through a bad breakup. He didn’t make the soccer team. He was stressed about school and wasn’t sleeping. One night, he texted a friend and talked about suicide. His family persuaded him to visit the campus counseling center for help.At an initial screening, Chris Predmore told a counselor he was not thinking about suicide but wanted to try therapy, according to notes from the visit. He was told that there was a wait on campus and that he should explore nearby clinics with his parents. He never did. Two days later, he took his own life.His parents have since become regulars at a support group for families of suicide victims. Three other couples in the group also lost children who were in college. The Predmores wonder why there aren’t more counselors and why schools can’t do more. Often, they just wonder what might have been.”I think if they would have said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to get you into counseling,’ I don’t think he’d be dead,” Kim Predmore said. “I don’t know. I’ll never know. But I think he would have been able to hang on.”
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White House Kicks Off Holiday Season
The holiday season officially began at the White House Monday, as first lady Melania Trump received the 2019 White House Christmas tree.
Unlike last year, President Donald Trump did not attend the tree presentation.
The tree arrived by jingle bell-adorned horse and carriage, continuing an annual White House tradition to highlight the holiday spirit.
“Just a few decades earlier they were still delivering the tree in pick-up trucks,” said historian Matthew Costello from the White House Historical Association. “So it’s nice that they’ve made it more festive, to do it with a Christmas-themed sled and a drawn carriage,” Costello added.
This year’s tree, is a 5.6 meters tall Douglas fir grown by Larry Snyder of Mahantongo Valley Farms in Pennsylvania, winner of the National Christmas Tree Association’s Christmas tree contest.First lady Melania Trump poses with the 2019 White House Christmas tree as it is delivered to the White House in Washington, Nov. 25, 2019. The tree came from the Pennsylavia farm of Larry Snyder, third from left, pictured here with his family.As the winner, Snyder has the honor of presenting a Christmas tree to the White House. He called it, “a memorable experience of a lifetime for our family, especially for our children and grandchildren, who are accompanying us for the presentation.”
The first lady chatted with Snyder and took pictures with the Snyder family.
Holiday tree tradition
The National Christmas Tree Association has presented the official White House Christmas Tree every year since 1966. Each year’s tree has to fit the exact specifications of the White House Blue Room, where it is displayed as part of the holiday décor with a theme selected by the first lady.
Jacqueline Kennedy started the tradition of selecting a theme for the official White House Christmas tree in 1961.President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jaqueline Kennedy are see standing next to the White House Christmas tree in a picture taken during the 1961 holiday season. (Source – John F. Kennedy Presidential Library)Historian Costello said that the choice of themes tells us a little bit about the president and first lady who are living there. He said it shows “what they see as important to have this representation on the traditional Christmas tree.”
Melania Trump is scheduled to unveil the theme of her 2019 White House Christmas décor in early December.
Next up in the White House holiday events schedule is the Thanksgiving turkey pardon by President Trump later this week.
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