Category: Security

After large drops during the pandemic, life expectancy in the United States should recover to 2019 levels this year nationally and in 26 states — but not as fast as it should compared with similar countries, according to a new study.

Bad habits such as junk food, smoking and illicit drug use are preventing longer lifespans even as technology brings major progress in diseases such as cancer and heart disease, according to a new study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

By 2050, U.S. life expectancy is projected to increase from 79.1 years to 80.4 years for babies born in that year, a modest improvement that would drop the United States behind nearly all other high-income countries, according to the study.

Poverty and inadequate health insurance are slowing progress in some states. Wealthier, more urban and better-educated states are doing better and are more likely to adopt policies that save lives, from curbing gun access to offering income supports for young mothers. Nine of the 10 states (all but North Dakota) with the longest life expectancies for babies born this year are dominated by Democrats, and all 10 have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. All 10 states with the shortest life expectancies are controlled by Republicans (though Kentucky has a Democratic governor), and they include five of the 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid.

A Stateline analysis of data from the study shows how some states have risen, and some have tumbled, in terms of life expectancy.

In 1990, for example, New York and West Virginia were nearly tied at Nos. 39 and 41 among states’ life expectancy rankings. But the two have since taken sharply different paths — New York rose to No. 3 in 2024 and is projected to have the longest life expectancy of any state by 2050, passing Hawaii and Massachusetts.

West Virginia outranks only Mississippi in 2024 and is projected to be last among states in 2050.

New York has benefited from good health care availability in New York City hospitals as well as state policies such as strict gun laws that have curbed suicides, and harm reduction policies to curb overdose deaths with supervised use sites and other controversial programs, said Brett Harris, president of the New York State Public Health Association and an associate professor in the University of Albany’s Department of Health Policy.

Harris said she’s not surprised that New York state, despite its ascent in life expectancy among states, would still drop from No. 33 to No. 41 by 2050 if ranked as a nation, according to the analysis.

“I think part of that is how individualistic we are in this country, the idea of always trying to get ahead, versus more of a community-based environment in other countries,” Harris said. “Their social policies tend to be better for health outcomes. If you live in more of a family environment versus an individualistic environment, that builds in more support.”

West Virginia’s sparse population and rural poverty make it harder to get health care. It’s also hard to get past community and political skepticism about health measures, said Brian Huggins, health officer for Monongalia County, West Virginia. Huggins has worked with other county health officials to advocate for stricter anti-smoking laws and to maintain school vaccination mandates in the face of opposition.

“It hurts to see West Virginia ranked at the bottom. We’re a proud state,” said Huggins, adding that life expectancy there also is hampered by lack of economic opportunity that drives young, healthy residents to move away. A plethora of concerns include a lack of sidewalks that make healthy walking more hazardous, and a dietary culture that does not include vegetables; both promote obesity.

Huggins also has seen conditions abroad. While stationed in Germany for the U.S. Army, he saw generous health provisions for Germans, such as two-week retreats with massages and sauna baths for those feeling stressed or burned out at work.

“Their goal in Germany is they want you back at work. Prevention and keeping a healthy workforce are their priority because that contributes to the economy,” said Huggins. “On the other hand, they have built a tax system to support this. You pay like an 18% tax on everything you buy there — that would not be something Americans would necessarily accept.” Germany’s valued-added tax, now 19%, applies to most goods and services.

Life expectancy dropped two years in a row during the COVID-19 pandemic, including a national drop of more than 1.8 years between 2019 and 2020, from 79.1 to 77.3 years. Recovery will not be complete until this year, according to the projections, with slow progress predicted until 2050 — when the national life expectancy will be about 80.4 years.

Some of the states that recovered fastest from the pandemic were North Dakota, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, where life expectancy gained about a year between 2019 and 2024. Twenty-four states still haven’t regained their 2019 life expectancy.

The District of Columbia, which is not a state, had a lower life expectancy than all 50 states in 1990, but this year it ranks 23. Ali Mokdad, an author of the study and the chief strategy officer for population health at the University of Washington, said D.C.’s improvement is at least partly due to an influx of more affluent and well-educated people since 1990.

Most states that were in the top 10 in 1990 have fallen out: Colorado (from No. 7 to 11), Iowa (from No. 4 to 17), Kansas (from No. 8 to 36), Nebraska (from No. 9 to 19), South Dakota (from No. 10 to 21) and Utah (falling from No. 2 to 12).

Those new to the top 10 in 2024 compared with 1990 are: Massachusetts (from No. 13 to 2), New York (as mentioned from No. 39 to 3), California (from No. 24 to 4), New Jersey (from No. 26 to 6), Rhode Island (from No. 19 to 8), and Washington state (from No. 14 to 10).

Urban concentrations of people are important to long life because of the availability of top-flight care, said Mokdad.

“I’m very close to the hospital [in Seattle] and I have health insurance. But is that true for everyone in Washington state? You might live two or three hours from Seattle, so even for people of my income and education level it’s not the same,” Mokdad said.

Quality care and insurance also are important, Mokdad said, to ensure that problems such as obesity and high blood pressure are noted and controlled.

“You see obesity in many areas, especially the Southern states, has increased tremendously and while smoking has dropped in rich areas, it has stuck around in other communities. This is explaining many of these [state differences] — what we call preventable risk factors,” Mokdad said.

“There’s an increase in life expectancy but a lot of people are still left behind,” Mokdad said.

Even in urban areas, racial minority groups and women can find themselves in impoverished circumstances that can cut short both their lives and their children’s lives. One report in the same Lancet issue this month focused on a program in majority-Black Flint, Michigan, where doctors prescribe money for women from late pregnancy through the first year of a child’s life.

The program, launched this year, is the first nationally to mimic some in 140 other nations that offer cash subsidies for child health, according to the article. The success of similar, temporary child tax credits early in the pandemic has prompted other states to adopt or expand their own tax credits for young mothers.

“We increasingly know that what happens in early childhood can impact life expectancy,” said Dr. Mona Hanna, a Flint pediatrician who founded the program, called Rx Kids. It relies on state help, in the form of permission to use federal funds, as well as private donations.

Michigan included $20 million in its state budget for next year to expand the program to other cities as well as to mostly white, rural counties in the state’s Upper Peninsula. The program grants $1,500 to expectant mothers plus $500 a month for the first year of the baby’s life.

“This is a concrete solution to conquer these place-based disparities and inequities,” Hanna said. “The stress of being born into poverty can lead to things like prematurity and low birth weight. Moms are more likely to have stress and maybe smoke. I see it every day. Families can’t make it to the doctor because they don’t have transportation. They have trouble eating healthy food because it’s too expensive.”

Rural areas in West Virginia could benefit from similar programs to address the state’s issues with poverty, aging and reliance on declining industries like coal, said Darren Liu, a health policy professor at the School of Public Health at West Virginia University.

To get more access to care for rural residents, the state should expand telemedicine, deploy more mobile clinics and offer student loan forgiveness for health care workers in rural areas, Liu told Stateline in an email.

Huggins, the county health officer in West Virginia, said money is a problem despite new federal guidelines that mandate many health screenings at no cost for insured patients. Often low-income patients get screenings but can’t afford to treat disabling conditions such as the knee and back pain they get from manual labor jobs.

“Because of the barriers that insurance companies put up, because they have to be profitable, I think that’s another reason why West Virginia is ranking low,” Huggins said. “That’s a barrier that we have to try to figure out. Almost any insurance now has well over a $1,000 deductible.”

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© 2024 States Newsroom

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Federal officials are cracking down on poultry operations looking for taxpayer relief from bird flu losses and will now require a biosecurity audit before insuring birds against future avian influenza outbreaks.

The new requirement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture is an effort to stamp out the nearly three-year-old outbreak that has claimed 128 million birds nationwide. Infections continue in Minnesota and elsewhere, driving up the cost of eggs and meat.

As the outbreak spreads, the public costs continue to rise. The biosecurity requirement is an attempt to rein in the cost of compensating growers, who are required to euthanize their entire flock when bird flu is detected. Producers are reimbursed for the market value of the birds they had to euthanize.

Of the 1,200 producers who have received federal indemnity payments, 67 have had at least two infections, the USDA said Monday.

Those multiple-outbreak operations have been quite large, accounting for $365 million of $1.1 billion of indemnity payments to date, according to the USDA.

That’s also true in Minnesota, where much of the $170 million in federal reimbursements have gone to the largest poultry companies in the state, including Hormel-owned Jennie-O Turkey Store and egg producer Forsman Farms, which has received eight indemnity payments for $73 million.

There have been 18 facilities with three or more outbreaks nationally.

“Biosecurity is proven to be our best weapon in fighting this virus, and this update will ensure that poultry producers who received indemnity for HPAI are taking measures to stop future introductions of the disease and avoiding actions that contribute to its spread,” USDA Chief Veterinary Officer Dr. Rosemary Sifford said in a news release.

Poultry operations that don’t comply with beefed-up biosecurity requirements “will not be eligible for indemnity payments if the premises experiences future infections within the same outbreak,” the USDA said.

As more chickens are put down, the price of eggs has shot up again this fall after backing off record highs set in early 2023, according to federal data. After decades of trending under $2, a dozen eggs rang up for $3.65 on average in November, up 8.3% over October.

In Minnesota, nearly 100,000 turkeys were culled this month amid outbreaks in Fillmore, Chippewa and Stearns counties, according to the state. The state, which leads the nation in turkey production, has lost nearly 9 million birds.

In Iowa, several flocks, including one with 4 million birds, were infected in December, according to USDA figures.

The virus known as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) or H5N1 also has jumped to cattle but does not yet pose a widespread risk to people, health officials say. Experts are urging further measures to stop the spread before it mutates into a virus that poses a pandemic threat.

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© 2025 The Minnesota Star Tribune

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Colorado’s new voter-approved gun initiative has a target unlike those of previous measures meant to reduce gun violence. The tax on guns and ammunition is meant to generate revenue to support cash-strapped victim services, and it’s an open question whether it will affect firearms sales.

The 6.5% tax on manufacturers and sellers — including pawnbrokers — of guns, gun parts, and ammunition will generate an estimated $39 million a year. The money is aimed primarily at crime victim services, including groups that help victims of domestic violence. Some of it is earmarked for behavioral and mental health for veterans and youth, and a sliver will support school security.

Firearm deaths have been rising in Colorado since at least 2006, growing more quickly than the state’s population, and with a notable bump in homicides early in the covid pandemic, which prompted a national gun-buying spree. The tax could have public health effects beyond generating money for social services, researchers said. But they don’t know for sure because only one other state, California, has a gun-and-ammo tax — an 11% tax that has been in effect only since July.

Emmy Betz directs the Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and wonders if the tax will change consumer behavior. “The question is whether that will change gun sales or not,” she said.

A federal tax has been levied on gun manufacturers for more than a century — currently at 10% for pistols/revolvers and 11% for other kinds of firearms, plus cartridges and shells.

Colorado state Rep. and Majority Leader Monica Duran, a Democrat, co-sponsored the new law, scheduled to take effect in April. Voters approved it in November as Proposition KK. The connection between firearms and domestic violence is stark: Nationally, every month an average of 57 women are killed by an intimate partner using a gun. Researchers have also found that 59% of mass shootings between 2014 and 2019 in the United States were related to domestic violence.

Support groups for victims of domestic violence and other crimes receive funding through the 1984 federal Victims of Crime Act. Those dollars mostly come from fines and penalties from convicted federal criminals and fluctuate annually depending on what cases the Department of Justice pursues. Federal prosecutions and fines have dropped, so the state’s pot of money has shrunk from nearly $57 million in 2018, when Duran was first elected, to about $14 million in 2024 — a 76% drop.

But the need for victim support services has grown, said Duran, who is a gun owner and a survivor of domestic violence who used such services to escape homelessness.

Colorado’s new tax is what economists call a “Pigouvian” tax, which seeks to compensate financially for the societal toll or damage a product causes. For example, people who drive cars pay a tax on gas, which goes toward repairing roads.

“It’s not because you’re a bad driver that we’re taxing gasoline. It’s because we need this money to be able to improve our infrastructure in ways that allow people to continue to use that product,” said Rosanna Smart, an economist who co-directs the Rand Gun Policy in America initiative.

She said Colorado’s gun tax is similar: It supports the social infrastructure that’s required in a society with firearms.

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people can carry a gun outside their homes for self-defense. Smart said the decision made it harder to pass laws restricting gun possession and highlighted the importance of historical precedent. Both the California and Colorado tax laws cite taxes passed by eight states and then-independent Hawaii between 1844 and 1926.

The actual effect of the Colorado and California laws won’t be known for some time. But should other states pursue similar policies, researchers think focusing taxes on specific weapons or places might be more effective at reducing harm, rather than simply generating revenue.

Smart, for example, found that if the goal is to reduce harm, a more optimal design would be to follow the lead of alcohol policies and have varying tax levels based on an item’s likelihood to cause harm.

Adam Rosenberg, a doctoral candidate in economics at Stanford University, found doing so at the national level, by rejiggering the federal tax to be 13.3% on handguns and nothing on long guns, would prevent deaths while holding industry profits steady.

The Colorado tax applies to firearms dealers, manufacturers, and ammunition vendors that make at least $20,000 a year (excluding sales to law enforcement or active-duty military). Neither state officials nor lawmakers nor industry groups could confirm what fraction of firearm businesses that represents. According to data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, about 2,200 firearms dealers or pawnbrokers and manufacturers of ammunition/firearms operate in the state. Ammunition sellers aren’t tallied in that figure.

Some firearms businesses worry the tax will drive people across state lines to purchase guns.

“We’ve already got people saying, ‘Well, we can run over to Utah or Wyoming instead,’” said Frank Sadvar of Northwest Outfitters, a gun store and pawn shop in Craig. The city is a 40-minute drive to Wyoming and 1½ hours to Utah.

“The way it was worded on the ballots, it looked really good,” he said. But Sadvar suspects the revenue will fall short of the $39 million estimated because supporters didn’t factor in sales lost to other states.

In Cortez, which is a half-hour drive from New Mexico, Jesse Fine said he’s heard people say they’d rather drive there to buy a gun than pay the tax in Colorado — even though they’d face a seven-day waiting period there.

Fine, who manages Goods for the Woods, an outdoor gear shop carrying a range of firearms and hunting equipment, said he believes the tax discriminates against gun owners who are exercising their civil rights.

“It makes it hard for a mom-and-pop shop to stay in play,” he said. “We’re going to take the biggest hit because we’re not a big corporation.”

Victim services organizations said they will be in a tight spot financially until the new tax’s revenue starts to fully flow in 2026.

Courtney Sutton, public policy director of the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance, said most victim service agencies in the state, many of which are members of COVA, “heavily, heavily rely on” the federal funds that have been ballooning up and down.

“We did get $6 million from the state budget, but that’s not very much across 215 programs,” she said, referencing the state’s four victim services coalitions.

The new tax is estimated to bring in $30 million a year to such groups.

Rocky Mountain Victim Law Center executive director Emily Tofte Nestaval said she hopes the new tax revenue will help the center restart a program for people sorting out protection orders, housing issues, and name changes, among other things. Nestaval said that, for now, crime victims in Colorado are on their own.

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© 2024 KFF Health News.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Today I’m going to … get engaged: YouTube star MrBeast is engaged to fellow influencer Thea Booysen, a.k.a. the future MrsBeast.

The “Beast Games” host, 26, who is the most-subscribed-to YouTuber, proposed to his girlfriend of two years on Christmas Day and revealed on New Year’s Day that they were affianced.

“Ya boy did a thing,” he wrote Wednesday on Instagram, sharing a photo of himself down on one knee presenting an engagement ring to Booysen in their living room. The online content creator, whose YouTube channel boasts more than 341 million subscribers, shared additional photos of the proposal, which included the couple wearing matching MrBeast holiday sweaters and family members looking on.

Booysen, 27, also posted about the engagement, sharing a post-proposal video clip and showing off her new ring — a round-cut diamond on a rose gold band with additional diamonds on each side.

“Jimmy ” she captioned the clip, referring to her fiancé’s birth name, James “Jimmy” Donaldson.

In an interview with People, the couple said Booysen’s family flew to North Carolina from South Africa to celebrate Christmas with them. Donaldson said he wanted to include Booysen’s family in the “momentous occasion” because she’s very close to them.

“We were opening presents, and then for the very last present he asked me to close my eyes because it was a surprise,” Booysen said.

Donaldson said that he intentionally dropped a large box to make noise before presenting Booysen with the real gift with the ring inside.

“And then I went down on a knee and proposed,” he said. After Booysen opened her eyes, she “of course said yes” and was “extremely excited,” she told People.

Donaldson, best known for his viral challenges, affinity for blowing things up and elaborate and exorbitantly priced stunts, flouted expectations with the intimate proposal.

“My friends thought I would want to propose in a very public way, like some sort of spectacle at the Super Bowl or somewhere else really big like that, but I knew that I wanted it to be the opposite, to be really private and intimate,” he said.

Likewise, the popular public figure is planning to make their wedding a private affair.

“I don’t take much vacation because of how hard I work, so I definitely want to make sure that the wedding will be a time to celebrate with her and spend time with friends and family who we really enjoy being with. It will be the ultimate way to take some time away and enjoy things,” he said.

Booysen, who said that getting married at this point is “just a formality,” suggested having their nuptials on an island “far away from just about everybody.”

“We’re not going to try and have a big, extravagant wedding. It’s going to be nice, but it’s certainly going to be intimate [with] close family and friends,” she said.

Donaldson and Booysen met in 2022 while MrBeast was visiting South Africa. The two had dinner with a mutual friend and she was disarmed by the YouTuber’s down-to-earth nature and intelligence. They “vibed instantly,” he told People.

They made their red-carpet debut at the Kids’ Choice Awards in April 2022. Although Donaldson planned to propose in 2023, the couple opted to wait until Booysen — who has a bachelor’s degree in law — completed her master’s program. Booysen posted in November about fulfilling her dream and graduating with a master’s degree in human cognitive neuropsychology from the University of Edinburgh.

The couple’s engagement, which comes weeks after the premiere of Donaldson’s much-maligned Prime Video reality series “Beast Games,” capped an eventful but controversial year for the high-earning content creator. Donaldson last year was blasted for using “inappropriate language” in his early videos and faced scrutiny over his channel’s philanthropic efforts, the Associated Press reported. The YouTuber also was criticized over the workplace culture on his show and hit with allegations of dangerous on-set conditions, which he has denied.

In September, “Beast Games” contestants sued his production company and Amazon for sexual harassment, failure to pay minimum wages and negligent infliction of emotional distress, among other allegations.

In late December, Rolling Stone reported that Donaldson, along with singers Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson and celebrity chef Guy Fieri, were among the celebrities with whom the Pentagon entered production deals to boost the military’s image with Gen Z.

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© 2025 Los Angeles Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced his bid to be the state’s next governor Thursday, becoming the first Democrat to enter what will likely be a crowded 2026 primary field.

“There’s critical work ahead. I want to help do it — I want to help Colorado, I believe in Colorado, I want to serve the people of Colorado,” Weiser told The Denver Post shortly after announcing his candidacy in a morning news release.

Weiser’s early jump allows him to begin raising money immediately, even though the June 2026 Democratic primary is still nearly 18 months away. It also gives him an early chance for voters “to get to know me,” he said — before several other candidates enter the fray.

Weiser, 56, said his campaign will focus on affordability and housing — two issues that are consistently top of mind for Colorado voters — as well as curbing climate change’s impact on the environment and addressing the youth mental health crisis, which he referenced repeatedly during the interview.

His announcement serves as a starting pistol for what will be an extensive 2026 campaign season, and it ends the yearslong shadow campaign that’s been waged quietly by would-be successors to Gov. Jared Polis: Weiser has long been expected to pursue the governor’s mansion after Polis, as has Secretary of State Jena Griswold, U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse and Ken Salazar, a longtime Colorado political figure who’s now U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

Several lesser-known Republican, unaffiliated and third-party candidates have filed to run, but Weiser is the first major candidate of any affiliation to declare his campaign.

A recent early poll of four potential 2026 Democratic gubernatorial candidates showed Weiser in last in terms of support by likely primary voters, behind Neguse, Griswold and Salazar, though the highest share of respondents — 37% — said they were undecided. More voters said they had never heard of Neguse or Weiser than the other candidates.

Of the differences between Weiser and his potential opponents, he said he was proud of his record and said he would run a positive campaign.

Weiser is starting the final two years of his second term as Colorado’s attorney general. He previously worked as the dean of the University of Colorado Law School and as a policy adviser in the Obama administration. He first moved to the state to clerk for a federal judge after graduating from New York University’s law school. He also clerked for two U.S. Supreme Court justices, Byron R. White and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

According to his website, Weiser’s campaign is chaired by former Gov. Roy Romer and co-chaired by former U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter and Fort Collins Mayor Jeni Arndt. His supporters also include several current and former elected officials, including former House Speaker Terrance Carroll and former Senate President Brandon Shaffer.

Weiser, whose mother was born in a Nazi concentration camp one day before it was liberated in 1945, has said he came to Colorado because he looked for clerkships in states that had a baseball team and a Jewish community.

His six years as attorney general have seen his office oversee the distribution of tens of millions of dollars in settlement payments from companies involved in the opioid crisis. He has also joined several prominent national lawsuits and legal efforts, including to block the merger of the Kroger and Albertsons grocery chains, and he’s backed consumer protection litigation against companies including Wyatts Towing and, more recently, controversial companies in the housing market like RealPage and CBZ Management.

Weiser said Thursday that he would support the type of land-use reforms pursued by Polis in recent years that seek to boost development along the Front Range to increase the housing supply. He also would continue his work targeting junk fees and alleged price fixing in the rental market.

When he ran for AG in the 2018 election, Weiser prominently described his plans to combat then-President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and generally to serve as a legal bulwark against the Trump administration.

His pitch for the governor’s mansion will likely turn on those same pledges, as Trump prepares to enter the White House again later this month on a platform of mass deportations and promises of regulatory rollbacks. Indeed, in a call with state House Democrats in early December, Weiser said his office had already begun researching when the military or National Guard could be called out — as Trump has pledged to do to support his deportation plans.

On Thursday, Weiser told The Denver Post that he would “work with anybody” in Washington, D.C., who was willing to collaborate.

But “if there are people who are going to hurt us in Colorado, who are going to undermine our values or threaten people here … I’m ready for those battles ahead,” he said.

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© 2025 MediaNews Group, Inc

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A new report claims that two major news outlets buried stories regarding a recent study that suggested diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) education “increased hostility” and made participants more likely to agree with slightly modified statements from Adolf Hitler.

According to the National Review, both The New York Times and Bloomberg told the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) that they would not publish stories regarding the institute’s recent study, which was titled “Instructing Animosity: How DEI Pedagogy Produces the Hostile Attribution Bias.” The NCRI’s study discovered that people exposed to DEI education were more likely to experience “perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice.”

The NCRI study featured 850 participants who were separated into two groups. One group was given a politically neutral essay about India’s caste system, while the other group was provided with DEI training material produced by Equality Labs, a left-wing organization that promotes civil rights education.

According to the study, participants who read the DEI material and later read modified statements from Hitler that substituted the word “Jew” with the word “Brahmin,” which stands for the upper class of India’s caste system, were more likely to agree that members of the upper class system were “‘parasites’ (+35.4%), ‘viruses’ (+33.8%), and ‘the devil personified’ (+27.1%).”

The NCRI noted that the DEI educational material appeared to “engender a hostile attribution bias and heighten racial suspicion, prejudicial attitudes, authoritarian policing, and support for punitive behaviors in the absence of evidence for a transgression deserving punishment.”

READ MORE: Video: Holocaust survivor slams Harris for comparing Trump to Hitler

An NCRI researcher told the National Review that while The New York Times and Bloomberg “jumped on the story enthusiastically,” the stories at both news outlets were “inexplicably pulled at the highest editorial levels.”

Regarding the unpublished story by The New York Times, a NCRI researcher told National Review, “The piece was reported and ready for publication, but at the eleventh hour, the New York Times insisted the research undergo peer review after discussions with editorial staff — an unprecedented demand for our work.”

In a statement to The Daily Caller, a New York Times spokesperson claimed that the outlet’s journalists often choose not to move forward with various news stories “for a variety of reasons” after evaluating them. The spokesperson added, “Speculative claims from outside parties about The Times’s editorial process are just that. It’s not true that The Times had prepared a story ‘ready for publication’ on this topic.”

While two Bloomberg reporters initially told NCRI that the recent DEI study would lead to “an important story,” the National Review reported that Nabila Ahmed, who serves as the team leader for Global Equality at Bloomberg News, later told NCRI that the story would not be published due to an “editorial decision.”

The city of Palm Springs, California, recently agreed to pay $5.9 million in reparations to black and Latino families decades after a neighborhood was destroyed in the 1960s to build commercial buildings in the city.

According to The Associated Press, the Palm Springs City Council unanimously approved the reparations earlier this month.

The New York Times reported that the one-mile area of Section 14 of Palm Springs, which was owned by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, was destroyed between 1965 and 1967. According to the outlet, prior to the development of commercial buildings in the area, Section 14 held 230 dwellings that were primarily rented by black and Latino families.

Six decades after the neighborhood’s destruction, Palm Springs is paying $5.9 million to former residents of the area. According to The Associated Press, the Palm Springs City Council also approved $10 million for a first-time homebuyer assistance program and $10 million for a community land trust and the construction of a monument in honor of Section 14. The New York Times reported that former residents of the neighborhood and their descendants are expected to be the first residents to benefit from the financial assistance package.

READ MORE: 2024 presidential candidate supports reparations

According to KESQ, the city’s agreement to construct a Section 14 monument will include a “racial healing center driven by the former residents of Section 14.”

“The City Council is deeply gratified that the former residents of Section 14 have agreed to accept what we believe is a fair and just settlement offer,” Palm Springs Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein said in a statement obtained by KESQ. “The City Council has always respected the historical significance of Section 14, and with this resolution of the claim … we are taking bold and important action that will create lasting benefits for our entire community, while providing programs that prioritize support for the former residents of Section 14.”

Following the city’s decision to offer reparations, 86-year-old Margarita Genera, a member of the Palm Springs Section 14 Survivors group, which pushed for the city to provide financial compensation over the former demolition of Section 14 housing, told The New York Times, “We have been fighting for a long time to tell our story.”

Rachel Rodriguez looks around her store, and emotions surface at the sight of her relatives’ portraits on the walls. They’re a reminder of a legacy that dates back more than 200 years.

Her business, Constantine’s Wood Center, soon will close in Oakland Park.

It’ll conclude a chapter in the long-running story of the family business, whose vibrant history centered on mastering cabinetwork and offering a “craftsman’s headquarters for fine woods.”

The tradition, tracing to New York in the early 1800s, endured with the Oakland Park store, at 1040 E. Oakland Park Blvd. The store lasted as a stable spot for almost 50 years in Broward, but then business waned.

“It’s hard,” Rodriguez says at work on a recent Friday, wiping a tear. “It’s your life.”

Rachel’s husband and business partner, Rodolfo “Rudy” Rodriguez, says the challenges only grew in recent years, particularly during the pandemic. “For two years it’s been rough,” he said. “But we did everything we could to hold on to it.”

Today, the store’s sign still states, “Constantine’s Wood Center, Serving Satisfied Craftsmen For Over Two Centuries.” But now a large banner looms over it, announcing in all capitals, “Store Closing. Everything Must Go!”

Establishing a company

The Oakland Park store sign gives a nod to the company’s long history, noting its first iteration was established in the early 1800s.

A founder was Thomas Constantine, whose family immigrated from England to New York City when he was a child, and then he, as a young adult, went on to become a cabinetmaker, according to a biography about him featured on the U.S. Senate’s website.

“Between 1806 and 1812, Constantine apprenticed with New York City cabinetmaker John Hewitt, and then served as a journeyman in the same shop between 1812 and 1814,” the biography says. “Thomas opened his own cabinet shop in 1815, and in 1817 his firm, T. Constantine & Co., began competing with some of the city’s most notable furniture manufacturers.”

Some of his work would tie into American history: He pitched in with furniture as America recovered from the War of 1812.

On Aug. 24, 1814, during the War of 1812, British troops burned the Capitol and almost all other public buildings in Washington, including the Senate building. America called on Constantine: “In 1818, the U.S. government hired him to provide furnishings for the Senate,” reads an article in The New Yorker.

He received a contract to “provide the House of Representatives Chamber with carpets, wall hangings, lamps, 192 chairs, and 51 tables,” according to the Senate website.

“The following year, Constantine was awarded a contract to furnish the Senate Chamber with 48 mahogany armchairs and desks, as well as other furnishings, lighting, and textiles.”

Constantine’s brother, John, is known to have assisted with the upholstery of the chairs made for both chambers.

The Oakland Park shop has some of the family memorabilia, including portraits, and a receipt of sale from the government, which has line items for 48 desks ($34 each) and chairs ($46 each), eight sofas ($150 each) and five committee room tables ($48 each), among other items. There were only 48 desks and chairs because it was the 1800s and since Alaska and Hawaii didn’t join the union until 1959.

The work was so famous in its time that a box of Constantine’s wood samples also is now owned by the National Museum of American History.

An old black-and-white photo shows the Constantine’s store in the Bronx, with a 1950s Buick parked right outside. “Visit our display room for craft supplies,” reads the sign on the store’s exterior.

The business closed in 2001. The family said at the time that the New York store’s closure may have been hastened by poor access and no adjacent parking and high taxes and the upkeep.

A move to Florida

When Rachel Rodriguez’s father, John Constantine Docherty, moved to South Florida in 1974, he opened J.C. Woodcraft Center on Oakland Park Boulevard in 1975.

Docherty told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in 2001 that the store lost money over the first eight years until he renamed it Constantine’s Wood Center, recognizing the value of the family name and noting that South Florida was teeming with New Yorkers.

He added and then discarded a power tool line, unable to beat the prices of chains such as Home Depot, and added what became a successful line of decorative moldings.

Some of the items neatly arranged on the store shelves have been in their packages for decades, unsold, like a blending stain, still in the envelope marked with their last New York location on Eastchester Road in the Bronx.

Other items fly off the shelves and have been the bread-and-butter as high-end customers seek unique lines and colors for their custom charcuterie boards and cutting boards.

That includes exotic items of Bubinga wood and zebrawood from Africa, purpleheart wood from Dutch Guiana, and India padauk.

There are shelves of basswood sticks, a mainstay for architecture college students who seem to pop in at the same time each year when their midterm 3D models are due.

The shop sometimes has had to rush orders to soothe college students in a panic who proclaimed, “My project is due in two days!”

A South Florida family

Rudy Rodriguez said he’s grateful for what they have had.

He and Rachel met when they were students at Northeast High School in Oakland Park, and when he saw her in the hallway, it was love at first sight.

But he was just a sophomore and she was a junior, so she rebuked his interest.

“I was a class above him so I couldn’t be bothered with him,” she admits.

But Rudy was persistent. A love affair blossomed. Then they had two children while still in school, so Rudy’s relationship with his future father-in-law started off strained, he said.

“I had to earn my father-in-law’s love,” he said. “We didn’t start off on the right foot.”

At age 20, he was finally hired to paint the warehouse floor and he never left, grateful to his father-in-law for teaching him how to run a business and the sales associates who taught him everything he needed to know about wood, including the right way to color match and how to use a table saw.

In 2001, Rachel Rodriguez’s father made the duo his officers, and when he retired, she and her husband took over in September 2012.

Today Rudy Rodriguez is 50 and his wife is 51. The store and its financial success through the years helped them raise three children and buy their starter house, and then the next house.

They knew it was a legacy that mattered.

“I told her dad it wasn’t going to close on my watch,” Rudy Rodriguez said. “I meant it. But we didn’t anticipate the pandemic.”

“My dad has given him his blessing,” Rachel Rodriguez said in assurance. “It’s had its run.”

‘Definitely the quality’

One of Constantine’s loyal customers has been Mike Schneider, owner of Flatface Fingerboards in Andover, Mass. He’s been buying veneer thin wood from them for more than a decade online, from the Constantine’s website.

He uses it to make miniature skateboards, items that are used with fingers instead of feet for tricks and competitions.

“They are one of my best sources for wood,” he said. “Definitely the quality over everything else, that’s the No. 1 (thing) I look for.”

Seth Brody tagged along with his father, who was a customer when the younger Brody was a high school student at Nova High in the 1990s. Brody’s dad repaired furniture and popped in to buy items such as wheels for an end table.

Now Brody lives in Brooklyn, but when he was in South Florida on vacation and saw the closing sign, he had to come by. For old time’s sake.

He bought a veneer pack, packs of 30 wood species that are 3-inch-by-6-inch each, for a planned coffee table.

He fondly remembers the days of purchasing wood when customers could “see the wood, touch the wood.”

Even other businesses give them business.

Kimberly Transtrum, manager at Builders Direct Kitchen, which shares the building as an adjacent storefront, said she is saddened to see the wood shop close.

Because her business is kitchen and bath remodeling, she said they have used Constantine’s over the years for moldings and decorative trims and stains.

She said Builders Direct Kitchen is now in talks with the landlord to take over the wood shop’s space.

“It’s very sad to see a family-run business go out of business after so many years,” she said.

Rudy Rodriguez knows many of the regulars by name.

“I’m going to miss the customers,” he says. It often was, “Hey, John! Hey, Larry! Hey, Bob!”

Facing change

Today, the Rodriguezes say it’s a different experience to run the store, with spiraling overhead and increasing rent and clamps and fasteners and brushes and glues that can be bought online.

Even the luggage locks don’t sell any longer. “We discovered Amazon has everything,” Rachel Rodriguez said.

There are items that lay unwanted, such as decorative ornaments for dressers and furniture.

“We used to not be able to keep these things in stock,” she said. “But now I can’t sell them.”

“There’s not enough sales so not enough capital to buy the products that sell,” she said.

As customers’ habits were changing, the COVID pandemic delivered a crushing blow.

Suppliers who always used a middleman now pivoted to sell to customers directly or through Amazon, said Rudy Rodriguez.

Because of online competitors, customers no longer needed a specialty shop for mainstream items of tools, such as chisels, although the ones sold at Constantine’s are made of steel and have a wood handle.

Rudy Rodriguez said he can’t compete against the plastic furniture made from Ikea and the tools sold in hardware stores that are made in China.

They think the doors will stay open till the end of January as they try to unload their remaining inventory.

Looking ahead

There is sweetness in their memories and their legacy, but there’s also a pang of regret.

Rudy Rodriguez wonders aloud, what if they knew more about marketing? What if they were more tech savvy and knew more about social media? Would that have made any difference?

“I never thought I’d be the one to close the place,” he said.

Rachel Rodriguez stares at the family portraits on the wall.

One of the portraits shows her great-grandfather, Albert Constantine Jr., who at 18 joined his father’s business in 1920, started the Constantine Craft Division and also wrote the book, “Know Your Woods.”

“I think they’d say it was something to be proud of,” she says.

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© 2024 South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Podcaster and rapper Joe Budden has been charged with lewdness in New Jersey after his neighbor reportedly saw him naked on their doorbell camera trying to enter their apartment.

The alleged incident happened at an apartment complex in Edgewater around 7:21 a.m. on Dec. 4, and was first made public by police on Monday.

“The (doorbell camera) video depicted Budden attempting to enter a code into the door keypad several times before reentering his own residence across the hall,” read a press release from Edgewater Police Chief Donald Martin. “As a result of police investigation, Budden was charged with lewdness (disorderly persons offense) on a complaint summons.”

He’s due to appear in court on Jan. 16, according to Billboard.

An attorney for the 44-year-old entertainer expressed frustration with the police department, telling TMZ that Budden previously filed “possible felony charges against the persons behind these charges against him,” which they say should’ve been given consideration before the press release on Budden’s charges was made public by the cops.

“The allegations against Mr. Budden are a minor charge, not even resulting in an arrest,” his lawyer added. “The chief’s comments are reckless, and in our opinion racially motivated. Our research has not shown a single press release on a disorderly person charge on the police website this year. His choice to single out Mr. Budden in our opinion is self-motivated and based off of Mr. Budden’s race and celebrity status.”

The Edgewater Police Department has not returned a Daily News request for information.

Budden, who hosts a podcast bearing his name, has previously talked about being booted from his apartment for recording his podcast there, according to TMZ. He also recently spoke on his show about sleepwalking naked.

“I just sleptwalked somewhere I shouldn’t have sleptwalked,” he told his co-hosts around the time the alleged incident occurred. “Good naked sleepwalking. I just did it again.”

Budden is an East Harlem native whose family moved to the Garden State when he was a teenager. In 2003, he released the hit song called “Pump It Up,” which earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Male Rap Solo Performance. He previously performed with the hip-hop supergroup Slaughterhouse and appeared on VH1’s “Love & Hip Hop: New York.”

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© 2024 New York Daily News

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Chinese state-sponsored hackers broke into the computers of senior U.S. Treasury Department leaders as part of a recent breach of the agency, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the matter.

The hackers were able to access unclassified material stored locally on the senior officials’ computers, which were among the laptops and desktops that were infiltrated, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the investigation is ongoing. They didn’t specify which senior leaders’ computers were breached.

Investigators have so far found roughly 100 government computers that were compromised, according to the U.S. official, who added that the hackers accessed drafts and notes for policy decisions, itineraries and travel planning documents for Treasury leaders, as well as some internal communications. The agency is still assessing what was taken, but the hackers didn’t compromise the department’s email system or classified systems, according to both people.

These details of the breach, which haven’t been previously reported, offer a fuller view of what U.S. officials have said was a foreign rival’s intrusion into an agency central to managing the national debt, issuing sanctions and shaping U.S. economic policy.

Chinese officials have long denied U.S. allegations of state-sponsored cyberattacks, and a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson this week called the claims that it’s behind the Treasury hack “unwarranted and groundless.”

Treasury spokesperson Lily Adams declined to comment on Thursday. In a Dec. 30 letter to Congress reviewed by Bloomberg News, the agency characterized the breach as a “major cybersecurity incident” and said the hackers got in through a software provider, BeyondTrust Inc. The Georgia-based company sells managed access software and other cybersecurity products.

A Treasury spokesperson previously said the compromised BeyondTrust service had been taken offline, and that there’s no evidence the hackers continue to have access to the department’s information.

The hackers breached the Office of the Treasury Secretary and the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers economic sanctions, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Information about the Treasury’s sanctions deliberations would have been of high interest to the Chinese government in the past year. While visiting Beijing in April, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made clear to her counterparts that Washington would act to sanction Chinese financial firms if they were found financing trade with Russia that bolstered Moscow’s war with Ukraine.

“I stressed that companies, including those in the PRC, must not provide material support for Russia’s war, and that they will face significant consequences if they do,” Yellen told reporters during an April 8 press conference at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Beijing, using an abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.

“Any banks that facilitate significant transactions that channel military or dual-use goods to Russia’s defense industrial base expose themselves to the risk of U.S. sanctions.”

In the ensuing nine months, the Treasury hasn’t sanctioned any Chinese financial firms.

The attack on the Treasury Department lacked the stealth of previous cyber espionage campaigns blamed on China, including a recent one targeting U.S. telecommunications companies, according to the U.S. official and the person with knowledge of the breach.

Rather, the hackers appear to have opportunistically taken what was available to them on the hard drives of the machines they gained access to through the BeyondTrust system, they said. China has denied involvement in the hack of the telecommunications sector.

In the Treasury attack, the hackers illegally accessed a “key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service” that, in turn, provides technical support to the department, Treasury said in its letter to Congress. BeyondTrust Inc. informed Treasury of the breach on Dec. 8, according to the letter.

BeyondTrust has said a limited number of customers were involved in the breach, that they had been notified along with law enforcement and the company has been supporting its clients and the investigation. Company spokesman Mike Bradshaw declined further comment on Thursday.

BeyondTrust holds contracts with the federal government worth more than $4 million, according to government data compiled by Bloomberg. In addition to Treasury, the data show, BeyondTrust does business with the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Justice, along with other agencies.

A Department of Defense spokesperson said Tuesday that it had not received a notification about the breach from BeyondTrust. Officials with the Justice Department and Department of Veterans Affairs haven’t responded to separate requests for comment.

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