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Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities Publicizes New Grants

National Endowment for the Humanities Announces New Grants

The Morgan Library & Museum, the University of Chicago and the new Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, N.M., are among 239 beneficiaries of new grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities that were announced on Tuesday.

The grants, which total $28.4 million and are the second round awarded this year, will support projects at museums, libraries, universities and historic sites in 45 states, as well as in Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. They will enable the creation of a documentary about the Colfax Massacre — in which dozens of former slaves were killed in a Louisiana town during Reconstruction — by City Lore, a nonprofit New York art gallery; the development of Archaeorover, an autonomous robot that uses ground-penetrating radar to search for buried sites and artifacts, by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania; and research for a biography of the neuroscientist and author Oliver Sacks by Laura J. Snyder, a New York-based writer and researcher.

Adam Wolfson, the endowment’s acting chairman, said in a statement that the projects, which include educational programming for high school and college students and multi-institutional research initiatives, “demonstrate the resilience and breadth of our nation’s humanities institutions and practitioners.”

In New York, 35 projects at the state’s cultural organizations will receive $3.6 million in grants. Funding will support the creation of a new exhibition on the portraiture of the Northern Renaissance artist Hans Holbein the Younger at the Morgan Library & Museum, set to open next Spring; an exhibition at the Queens Museum that will reinterpret its “Panorama of the City of New York” from the World’s Fair in context of its ties to city planning, including how urban expansion reinforced racism and classism, upon the panorama’s 60th anniversary in 2024; and a reinterpretation of the American art galleries at the Brooklyn Museum to focus on underrepresented voices. Those galleries are expected to reopen before 2025.

Funding will also support the storage of 117 Chinese opera costumes and 330 traditional Chinese garments called qipaos that were damaged in a January 2020 fire at the Museum of Chinese in America, as well as the preservation of 70,000 photographs, political cartoons and other materials documenting the 123-year history of the Jewish publication The Forward.

Elsewhere, the grants will assist with the reinterpretation of the colonial Old North Church in Boston and its congregation’s ties to slavery from the American Revolution to the Civil War, support the creation of a digital catalog of the works of Georgia O’Keeffe, and enable publication of a comprehensive, freely available print and online edition of all surviving Greek- and Latin-inscribed legislation from classical Rome by the University of Chicago.

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Politics

U.S. decide denies landlords’ request to dam CDC nationwide eviction ban

U.S. judge denies landlords' request to block CDC national eviction ban

Housing advocates and New York City renters march to call on Governor Andrew Cuomo to cancel rent on October 10, 2020 amid the pandemic.

Andrew Lichtenstein | Corbis News | Getty Images

A US judge on Friday denied a motion by rental groups to block the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new eviction moratorium.

The decision of US District Judge Dabney Friedrich is a win for the Biden government.

More than 11 million Americans are left behind with their rentals, prompting the CDC to issue a new eviction ban earlier this month after the previous one expired on July 31. This protection is valid until October 3rd and for places where Covid rates remain high.

Broker groups are likely to appeal against Friedrich’s decision.

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The CDC’s eviction ban has faced numerous legal challenges and landlords have criticized it, saying they couldn’t afford to house people for free or shoulder the land’s massive arrears in rent. On Thursday the US Supreme Court lifted at least part of the eviction moratorium in New York.

Housing advocates say evictions must be banned until states distribute the $ 45 billion in rental subsidies provided by Congress. According to a recent analysis by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, only around $ 4.2 billion of that money has reached households.

“It is imperative that cities and states provide rental subsidies to vulnerable communities as soon as possible to prevent evictions and the public health impact in all of our communities,” said Emily Benfer, visiting law professor at Wake Forest University.

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Health

Biden to Nominate Rahul Gupta to Run Nationwide Workplace of Drug Management Coverage

Biden to Nominate Rahul Gupta to Run National Office of Drug Control Policy

Charleston’s program was nationally recognized, but it was criticized by the city’s mayor when Dr. Gupta was the health commissioner. Dr. Gupta’s department issued an audit that found fault with the program, including shoddy record keeping, which led to the program’s decertification after the city had already shut it down.

Public health experts said its closure had a chilling effect on other programs, and kept some from getting off the ground.

As a state health official, Dr. Gupta had no authority to stop the closure. In a 2018 interview with West Virginia Public Broadcasting shortly before he left the health commissioner’s job, Dr. Gupta said that the closure was “not in the best interest of the community” and that needle exchange programs like Charleston’s should not be shut down “reactively.”

But critics faulted him for not using his platform forcefully enough to defend the program.

Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at Yale University and a longtime AIDS activist, on Tuesday called Dr. Gupta a “terrible choice” who “represents a return to the old ways of thinking about drug use in America, and is not the forward-thinking leader we need right now.”

Other experts said that Dr. Gupta was caught in a difficult situation with the battle over the syringe exchange. Mr. Raymond, while describing the closure of the Charleston program as “a tragedy,” called Dr. Gupta an “excellent choice.” That assessment was echoed by Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a public health expert at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who worked with Dr. Gupta to address the opioid crisis in West Virginia.

“He knows the value of syringe service programs, he understands the evidence on harm reduction and he is very supportive,” Dr. Sharfstein said. “West Virginia is a very difficult environment for discussion of these topics, and he had to navigate under those constraints.”

The White House announced the selection of Dr. Gupta in a statement on Tuesday, along with 10 other nominations, including that of Jeff Flake, the former Republican senator from Arizona, to be the ambassador to Turkey and that of the writer Atul Gawande to a post at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

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Politics

Biden commemorates Pleasure Month, names Pulse Nightclub a nationwide memorial

Biden commemorates Pride Month, names Pulse Nightclub a national memorial

President Joe Biden commemorated Pride Month at the White House Friday and designated the location of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting a national memorial.

Biden signed a bill honoring the 49 people killed in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on Nov.

The bill passed the Senate by vote earlier this month and the House of Representatives passed its own version in May.

The president also announced the appointment of Jessica Stern, leader of New York’s human rights group OutRight Action International, as special envoy to the State Department. Stern will help guide U.S. diplomatic efforts to advance the human rights of LGBTQI + people around the world.

Biden signed the bill along with survivors of the shooting and the victim’s family members, as well as members of the Florida Congressional Delegation and the Congressional Equality Caucus.

“The site of the deadliest attack on the LBGTQ + community in American history is now a national memorial,” said Biden.

The President, along with Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, made remarks who broke barriers by becoming the first openly gay man to serve in the Cabinet. The president was introduced by 16-year-old transgender advocate Ashton Mota. In attendance were LGBTQ + advocates, elected state and local officials, and members of Congress.

“The fact that we are here shows how much change is possible in America,” said Buttigieg on the podium.

Biden is also urged that the Senate pass the Equality Act, a landmark bill on LGBTQ + rights that would create legal protection for LGBTQ + Americans. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives on February 25, but faces an tougher battle in the evenly divided Senate.

He also condemned the recent proliferation of anti-LGBTQ + laws passed in several states. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, 23 states reviewed more than 50 bills targeting transgender youth during the 2021 legislature.

“More than a dozen of them have already passed … let’s get that straight, this is nothing more than bullying disguised as legislation,” Biden said.

Biden also outlined the steps his government has taken to advocate for equality for LGBTQ + Americans. This includes, among other things, the recognition of Pride Month in a proclamation from 1.

“Representation is important, recognition is important. Another thing that matters is results, ”Biden said at the White House. “I am proud to lead the most professional LGBTQ equality administration in US history.”

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Politics

Trump escapes FEC sanction for hush cash, Nationwide Enquirer writer pays effective

Trump escapes FEC sanction for hush money, National Enquirer publisher pays fine

Karen McDougal, Playboy Playmate of the Year 1998.

Getty Images

The Federal Election Commission will let former President Donald Trump avoid punishment for directing hush money payments to his alleged ex-mistress Karen McDougal — but the publisher of The National Enquirer agreed to pay more than $187,500 for its role in the scandal, records showed Tuesday.

The FEC recently likewise failed to approve a recommendation from staff that it sanction Trump for directing a $130,000 hush money payout to former porn star Stormy Daniels, who has said she had sex with him years ago, according to the advocacy group Common Cause.

That group had filed FEC complaints related to payments to both women.

Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, admitted to paying off Daniels at Trump’s behest shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

In McDougal’s case, American Media — the then-publisher of the tabloid Enquirer, and its boss David Pecker — paid the former Playboy model McDougal $150,000 to keep her quiet about her claims of an affair with Trump before the same election.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance violations related to facilitating payoffs to both women, as well as to other crimes, and served more than a year in prison.

AMI signed a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in which it admitted it made the payment to McDougal to avoid her going public about her alleged affair and influencing the 2016 election.

The company’s payment to the FEC came in response to a finding by the commission that AMI and Pecker had knowingly and willfully violated campaign finance law by making “prohibited corporate in-kind contributions” to Trump’s campaign with the payoff to McDougal.

Federal prosecutors have said, without actually naming Trump, that he directed Cohen to facilitate the payments to both women. Trump was never criminally prosecuted in the case.

“Trump masterminded this whole thing, and so far he’s walked,” Common Cause vice president of policy and litigation Paul Ryan said.

“Everyone who carried out his dirty work here, Cohen and AMI, paid penalties and did prison time.”

“It’s good news that the Federal Election Commission is holding the tabloid company AMI accountable for its illegal actions in the 2016 election,” Ryan added. “But it’s head-scratching that the mastermind of this criminal enterprise, Donald Trump, has still not been held accountable.”

Trump has denied having sex with either McDougal or Daniels. But he and his company reimbursed Cohen for his payment to Daniels.

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Common Cause provided CNBC copies of FEC records it received in connection with the case on Tuesday.

In a letter to Ryan, acting FEC general counsel Lisa Stevenson wrote: “The Commission found reason to believe that respondents David J. Pecker and American Media, Inc. knowingly and willfully violated 52 U.S.C. § 30118(a).”

“On May 17, 2021, a conciliation agreement signed by A360 Media, LLC, as successor in interest to American Media, Inc. was accepted by the Commission and the Commission closed the file as to Pecker and American Media, Inc.,” the letter said.

The letter went on to say: “There were an insufficient number of votes to find reason to believe that the remaining respondents violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.”

Ryan said the other respondents were Trump and his election committee.

AMI merged last year with the wholesale distribution and logistics company Accelerate360, with the merged entity known as A360Media. Pecker stepped aside as CEO and became an executive advisor, according to press reports at the time.

Ryan said he suspects that two Republican FEC commissioners who voted against sanctioning Trump for the Daniels hush money payments also voted against punishing him for the McDougal payments. Two Democratic commissioners voted to continue the probe.

The Washington Post reported last month that those two GOP commissioners, Sean Cooksey and Trey Trainor, “said they voted to dismiss the case because it was ‘statute-of-limitations imperiled’ and that pursuing it further would be a poor use of agency resources.”

The Post also noted that, “They argued that because there had been other federal inquiries into the incident — namely the Justice Department probe that led to Cohen’s prosecution — an FEC case would be redundant.”

Ryan said the votes will eventually be publicly disclosed by the FEC.

An FEC spokeswoman declined to comment, saying records in the case were not yet cleared by public release by the agency.

CNBC has sought comment from A360 and a representative for Trump.

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Health

Nationwide Poetry Month: Coping With the Covid-19 Pandemic

National Poetry Month: Coping With the Covid-19 Pandemic

Amanda Gorman’s inspired and inspirational poem, which the show stole from President Biden’s inauguration in January, has shown millions of Americans the emotional and social power of poetry and, hopefully, got them to use it themselves.

Diana Raab, psychologist, poet and writer in Santa Barbara wrote on her blog: “Poetry can help us feel part of a bigger picture and not just live in our isolated little world. Writing and reading poetry can be a stepping stone to growth, healing, and transformation. Poets help us see a piece of the world in a way that we may not have had in the past. “

Dr. Rafael Campo, poet and doctor at Harvard Medical School, believes that poetry can also help doctors become better carers, nurture empathy with their patients, and bear testimony of our shared humanity, which he believes are essential to healing. In a TEDxCambridge lecture in June 2019, he said: “When we hear rhythmic language and recite poetry, our body translates rough sensory data into nuanced knowledge – feeling becomes meaning.”

According to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, a psychiatrist from the University of California at Los Angeles, Medical Center, poetry can empower people to talk about taboo subjects like death and dying and enable healing, growth, and transformation.

Regarding the pandemic, Dr. Rosenthal: “This crisis affects more or less everyone, and poetry can help us deal with difficult feelings such as loss, sadness, anger and hopelessness. While not everyone has the gift of writing poetry, we can all benefit from the thoughts that so many poets have expressed beautifully. “

Indeed, the first section of the book contains Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art” about losses that can comfort those who suffer. She wrote::

Even to lose you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I won’t have lied. It is obvious

The art of losing isn’t too difficult to master

though it can look like (write it!) like a disaster.

“When people are devastated by casualties, they should be allowed to feel and express their pain,” said Dr. Rosenthal in an interview. “They should be offered support and compassion, and not asked to move on. You cannot force it to close. If people want a shutdown, they will do it in their own time. “

The closure wasn’t a state that Edna St. Vincent Millay, who wrote this, cherished

“Time brings no relief; you all lied

Who told me that time would free me from my pain? “

Dr. However, Rosenthal pointed out that time brings relief to most people, despite what his friend Kay Redfield Jamison wrote in her memoir, An Unquiet Mind. For her, the relief “took up her own and not particularly sweet time”.

I now know that thanks to Dr. Rosenthal can be a literary panacea for the pandemic. They let us know that we are not alone, that others have survived devastating loss and desolation before us, and that we can be lifted up by the images and cadence of the written and spoken word.

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Health

Nationwide Guard urges U.S. to comply with well being measures as army races to vaccinate inhabitants

National Guard urges U.S. to follow health measures as military races to vaccinate population

US Air Force Tech. Sgt.Nathan Korta, medical technician with the Joint Task Force Steelhead Mobile Vaccination Team, delivers the COVID-19 vaccine to a resident of Orcas Island, March 2, 2021, Orcas Island, Wash.

Senior Airman Mckenzie Airhart | US Air National Guard

WASHINGTON – National Guard leaders on Thursday urged people in the US to continue to adhere to Covid-19 containment measures as the military races to vaccinate the population.

“We look forward to following that [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] Science that tells us what it is smart to do to keep protecting the civilian population around us, “Col. Russell Kohl, commander of the Missouri National Guard’s 131st Medical Group, told CNBC when asked about concerns from more states pass relaxing leadership.

“You will still see us socially distancing ourselves, you will still see us in masks and we will try to encourage as many people as possible to get the vaccine because I think this is really a multi-step process for We are overcoming this pandemic and returning to any kind of normalcy to the extent that there will be such a thing as normality as opposed to a new normal, “Kohl added.

Kohl’s comments came after California – the most populous state in the country – announced this week that it would lift most of its Covid-related restrictions by June 15. Over the past month, a number of states relaxed restrictions to varying degrees.

“We are the instruments of national power, not the decision-makers, and what the elected leaders do at the national, local and state levels is their decision,” Brig told the US Army. General Adam Flasch, Director of Joint Staff for the Maryland National Guard and dual status commander for the Title 10 active troops.

“But there is good solid science behind masks and social distancing and hand washing to deny the virus or vector until we can be vaccinated,” Flasch added.

The National Guard has mobilized 2,250 vaccines in more than 1,000 locations to deliver the coronavirus vaccines to Americans. The service said earlier this week it had reached a milestone by firing 6 million shots to the public.

Federal health officials recently warned that the U.S. is still in a battle against the coronavirus, even as vaccine production spikes and record-breaking vaccine doses are given.

The Chief Medical Officer of the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned Monday that Americans should continue to take public health measures as the warmer summer months approach.

“You may remember a little over a year ago when we were looking for summer to save ourselves from waves. It was actually the opposite,” Fauci said at a coronavirus briefing.

“We saw some significant waves over the summer. I think we shouldn’t even think about relying on the weather to get rid of whatever we’re in right now,” he added.

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World News

A third Nationwide Lockdown Appears Seemingly in France as Hospitals Are Overwhelmed

A 3rd National Lockdown Seems Likely in France as Hospitals Are Overwhelmed

PARIS – After more than a year of lockdown and months of sputtering vaccination campaigns, Europe’s efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic suffered another setback on Wednesday when French President Emmanuel Macron announced new restrictive measures to stop a new wave of death. The move resulted in a third national lockdown for a month that he had long tried to avoid.

With infections rising, hospitals crowded with patients, and the virus now entering classrooms, Mr Macron gave up a three month gamble keeping France open in hopes that a steady pace of vaccinations will make a lockout unnecessary would.

As the coronavirus death toll steadily neared the 100,000 mark, Mr. Macron effectively gave in to scientists and opposition politicians who had been pushing for a new lockdown in recent weeks, adding France to the list of European nations huddled together again. Many of them put in new bans to respond to a wave of new cases where a slow vaccine rollout couldn’t be stopped.

France on Tuesday reported more than 5,000 people in intensive care units for the first time since last April, with bed shortages in hospitals becoming acute in the hardest hit areas. And the slow adoption of the vaccine hasn’t prevented an outbreak of infection, with an average of 37,000 new cases reported per day over the past week.

“The outlook is worse than scary,” Jean-Michel Constantin, director of the intensive care unit at the Pitié Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, told RMC Radio on Monday.

“We are already at the level of the second wave and are quickly approaching the threshold of the first wave,” he said. “April will be terrible.”

In mid-March, new restrictions were put in place at the regional level to stave off a third wave of infections that affects around a third of the population, including the Paris region. The rules forced businesses that are deemed unnecessary to close, ordered residents to limit their outdoor activities to locations within six miles of their homes, and prohibited travel to or from areas where infections were increasing.

But when the infections stubbornly increased, pressure had built up on Mr. Macron to take stricter measures.

In Le Journal du Dimanche, 41 doctors from the Paris region warned that hospitals could soon be so congested that they will have to decide which patients to save.

“All the indicators show that current measures are insufficient to quickly reverse the alarming contamination curve,” they write.

In late January, Mr Macron took a calculated risk of opposing a new national lockdown in hopes his government could tighten restrictions just enough to combat a surge in infections while people were being vaccinated.

That strategy seemed to work until mid-March, when infections spiked and the vaccination campaign didn’t pick up pace given the mess around the launch of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Political opponents as well as some scholars said Mr Macron had “lost his gambling”.

For Mr Macron, the timing of the announcement on Wednesday was particularly important: the introduction of further restrictions a year after France’s first lockdown and a year before the presidential election, which is expected to leave voters with his presidency after his handling of the epidemic and vaccination campaign judge .

Health officials announced Tuesday that about 8.3 million people had received at least one first shot of the coronavirus vaccine, representing about 12 percent of the total population. The government plans to vaccinate 10 million people by mid-April and 30 million by summer.

But France is still lagging behind some other Western countries in introducing vaccines. According to the New York Times, the UK has vaccinated 46 percent of its population and the US 29 percent.

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Politics

North Korea nationwide extradited to U.S., faces cash laundering expenses

North Korea national extradited to U.S., faces money laundering charges

Kim Yu Song, advisor to the North Korean embassy in Malaysia, reads a statement to the media in front of the North Korean embassy. North Korea is breaking diplomatic relations with Malaysia in protest after a court ruled that a North Korean citizen named Mun Chol Myong should be extradited to the United States for money laundering charges. The Malaysian government said it would order all diplomats to leave the country within 48 hours.

Wong Fok Loy | LightRocket | Getty Images

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Mun has been detained in Malaysia since his arrest by local authorities in May 2019, less than two weeks after being charged in Washington on six money laundering cases, including the money laundering conspiracy.

North Korea said last Friday it cut diplomatic ties with Malaysia over Mun’s extradition, which was approved by a Malaysian court last week.

The Associated Press reported on Saturday that Mun was in FBI custody in Washington.

Kang Son Bi (L) wife of Mun Chol Myong, the North Korean man who may be extradited from Malaysia to the US for money laundering, arrives at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur on December 6, 2019.

Mohd Rasfan | AFP | Getty Images

“One of the FBI’s biggest counterintelligence challenges is bringing overseas defendants to justice, particularly the North Korean case,” FBI assistant director Alan Kohler Jr. of the bureau’s counterintelligence division said in a statement.

“Thanks to the FBI’s partnership with overseas authorities, we are proud to bring Mun Chol Myong to the US for trial and we hope he will be the first of many,” Kohler said.

The indictment accuses Mun and co-conspirators of using a network of front-line firms, registering bank accounts under false names, and removing references to North Korea from international transfers and receipts.

In doing so, they enticed American banks to process transactions in favor of North Korean companies that they would otherwise not have been able to process.

“We are delighted that Mun has been extradited and will be on trial for the crimes alleged in the indictment,” Channing Phillips, acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a statement.

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Business

China Costs Forward With a Nationwide Digital Forex

China Charges Ahead With a National Digital Currency

But no major power is as far as China. His early steps could signal where the rest of the world is going with digital currencies.

“This is more than just money,” said Yaya Fanusie, a staff member at the Center for Economic and Financial Power, a think tank and author of a recent paper on the Chinese currency. “It’s about developing new tools to collect data and use that data to make the Chinese economy smarter and based on real-time information.”

While the Chinese government has not said if and when it will officially roll out the eCNY nationwide, several officials have mentioned that it is ready for tourists arriving for the Beijing 2022 Olympics. Recent articles and speeches from officials at People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, underscored the project’s ambitions and desire to be the first.

“The right to issue and control digital currencies is becoming a ‘new battlefield’ of competition between sovereign states,” said a September article in China Finance, the central bank’s magazine. “China has many advantages and opportunities in issuing fiat digital currencies, so it should accelerate to take the first path.”

The People’s Bank of China did not respond to a request for comment.

The development of a national digital currency began in 2014 when the People’s Bank of China set up an in-house group to work on one soon after Bitcoin caught the country’s attention. In 2016, the central bank created a division called the Digital Currency Institute. Last year, according to research by Sino Global Capital, a financial investment firm, trials of eCNY were started in the cities of Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan and Chengdu.

People invited to trial through a lottery on WeChat or other apps could click a link and receive a balance of 200 electronic yuan, which was sometimes displayed in their banking app over an image of an old-fashioned Chinese banknote with Mao Zedong’s face . To spend the money, users can use an eCNY app to scan a retailer’s QR code or create a QR code that the retailer can scan.

ECNY’s design borrows few minor technical elements from Bitcoin and does not use what is known as blockchain technology, a ledger-like system that most cryptocurrencies rely on, officials at People’s Bank of China have said.