Quick hits: Racing cars with a 'twist;' egg prices slide; lower tariff for 'happy nut;' bird flu cases slow; PFAS trial

The Gary Wilson Jr. 2009 Toyota Yaris heads down the track. (Photo by Sam Wolfe, NPR)

Camden, S.C., may only have 7,800 people, but it hosts a raucous event where residents and visitors are treated to cars with bad rap sheets and crazy detailing. "The race cars roll into downtown like an old-fashioned circus . . . . A Honda Civic has a lawnmower, squirrels and flamingoes on its roof," reports Bill Chappell of NPR. "They're all here for the local installment of 24 Hours of Lemons, an endurance car race with a major twist: The cars can't cost more than $500. The series bills itself as 'racing for real people.' The 24 Hours of Lemons races started more than 15 years ago in California. There are now 23 races each year, from coast to coast."

Good news! Sort of. "The average price for a dozen Grade A eggs declined to $5.12 last month after reaching a record $6.23 in March," reports Dee-Ann Durbin of The Associated Press. "It was the first month-to-month drop in egg prices since October 2024. Overall, the average price of eggs of all sizes fell 12.7%, the steepest monthly decline since March 1984. . . . Still, retail egg prices remain near historic highs."

California farmers grow millions of pounds of
pistachios a year. (Adobe Stock photo)

U.S. farmers aren't the only ones grateful for a break from extreme U.S.-China tariffs -- Chinese pistachio lovers are also rejoicing. "Chinese consumers crave pistachios for their taste and health benefits, referring to them in a way that translates to 'happy nuts,'" reports Jim Carlton of The Wall Street Journal. "Since 2017, the value of U.S. pistachios shipped into China has shot up 20-fold from $42 million to $842 million last year, accounting for almost a third of the $3 billion crop."

Dairy trade between the United States and the United Kingdom has historically been skewed in the UK's favor; however, the new negotiation framework announced by the Trump administration "marks a crucial turning point as the U.S. seeks a level playing field with global dairy exporters," reports Karen Bohnert of Dairy Herd Management. "According to Gregg Doud, president of the National Milk Producers Federation, achieving a robust trade agreement with the UK is a vital step in correcting the current imbalances in the dairy trade."

Chickens, farmers and farm workers enjoy a reprieve from bird flu infections. (MedPage Today photo)

While not entirely explainable, "detections of H5N1 avian influenza have slowed in both animals and humans, but continued surveillance is warranted, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said," reports Kristina Fiore of MedPage Today. "Someone questioned whether there was seasonality to H5N1. . . .Todd Davis, PhD, chief of the virology at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said any seasonality noted in other countries 'primarily corresponds to migratory bird patterns.'"

The first PFAS, or "forever chemicals," personal injury trial will focus on plaintiffs who allege they developed kidney cancer from firefighting foam. "The trial, set for Oct. 20, could include up to three individuals who claim their exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) caused their cancer," reports Pat Rizzuto of Bloomberg Law. "In [an] effort to manage the nearly 10,000 personal injury cases that are part of the Aqueous Film-Forming Foams Products Liability Litigation MDL 2873, Judge Richard M. Gergel, with the U.S. District Court for the District of S.C., established three batches of cases involving different illnesses."

White lawmen in Mississippi plead guilty in case where they tortured black men; lawyer says first such verdict in state

Brett McAlpin, chief investigator for the sheriff's office, got the call
and gave the initial order to investigate. (Photos by Mississippi Today)

Six white former law enforcement officers charged with beating, torturing and sexually abusing two handcuffed black men and shooting one of them pleaded guilty Monday to hindering prosecution, in what appears to be a landmark case in a state with a deep history of racism.

“To my knowledge, never in the history of Mississippi have, in particular, white officers been held to account for brutality against Black victims,” Trent Walker, attorney for Eddie Parker and Michael Jenkins, told Mississippi Today. They were living with, and providing care to, a white woman in Rankin County, which is a destination for many whites leaving Hinds County, to the south.

"Goon Squad" members carried this coin. (Mississippi Today)

The six were "part of a 'Goon Squad' operation aimed at getting African Americans to 'go back' to the predominantly Black city of Jackson . . . nicknamed because of the group’s willingness to beat people up during arrests," Mississippi Today reports. "The officers previously pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges related to the beating, torture, unwarranted search and coverup. Sentencing hearings are set for mid-November." The sentence recommendations range from 80 to 120 years. State sentence recommendations are five to 15 years. The hindering-prosecution charge stems from the officers' attempted cover-up, Michael Goldberg of The Associated Press reports.

Nate Rosenfield, Jerry Mitchell and Brian Howey of Mississippi Today relate the details, starting with: "On the evening of Jan. 24, a white neighbor informed McAlpin that 'several Black males' were living in the home of a white woman in the neighborhood. According to the criminal information, the neighbor claimed he had seen “suspicious behavior” in the home. Without a warrant, they kicked the doors down. The officers shouted orders that the two men complied with, according to the criminal information" filed against the defendants.

Opinion: Now that it's a national holiday, Juneteenth needs to retain the historic textures of long-held local observances

NYT illustration by Noel Spiva, photos by Getty Images

Historian and author Tiya Miles shares childhood memories of her family's Juneteenth celebrations before the day became a national holiday. She draws from Montana's rich Black history for an insightful reframing of how the holiday could be nationally celebrated without commercial gimmicks. A condensed version of her New York Times opinion piece is below. The full version is here.

The signing of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law in 2021 was an expression of real progress in the collective understanding of the Black struggle that reinforced our national ideals of liberty and dignity. But I confess my ambivalence. I am worried about what official national recognition might do to what has always been a community-based holiday.

My own memories of Juneteenth, like those of so many others, are distinctly local. They are rooted in a sense of place. When I was young, that place was Eden Park, high on the hills along the Ohio River in Cincinnati, where I would spend the day contentedly with my mother and the many other families who attended. Years later, after I formed a family of my own with my spouse (who is not Black or Midwestern, but Native American from Montana), I discovered where Juneteenth events were held, who organized them and who turned out was like holding a black light to the invisible-inked map of the present and past African American community.

Juneteenth festivities have long represented tucked-away spaces, deeply local, somewhat surprising and fitted to the variances of Black life in America. They have supported micro-cultures of Black crafts and local economies of neighborhood enterprise, fostering the kind of community exchange that will be most sustainable in the future. Whether they are rural or urban, their local specificity, and their hiddenness from those who would misunderstand their gravity, have made Juneteenth events special and enduring.

Montana is largely imagined by the rest of the country as a white place, with only a glancing acknowledgment of its significant Indigenous populations and histories. But it has a long and complex Black history, which has only recently been reconstructed through a multimedia project of the Montana Historical Society. A handful of Black fur traders crossed into the Rocky Mountain West in the mid-19th century, but most African Americans migrated to Montana after the Civil War. . . . As the Black population grew in Montana in the late 19th century and early 20th century, tens of thousands of people formed communities in or near cities such as Havre, Great Falls, Butte and Helena. African American residents in the city of Butte celebrated Emancipation Day with a pilgrimage by train into the snow-peaked mountains, where they enjoyed picnics, fun and frivolities.

For the second year in a row, the Montana Historical Society, in partnership with the Holter Museum of Art and the Myrna Loy Theater, will host a free Juneteenth festival, drawing on a local history of diversity and perseverance. Based in Helena, these activities include a trolley ride (reminiscent of those Butte train rides more than a century ago), a tour of Black historic sites, and a documentary about a cross-country journey by Black soldiers of the 25th Infantry in 1897 to test whether bicycles could replace horses.

Juneteenth celebrations mounted by groups on the ground grow out of these rich histories, help us to recognize them and illuminate pathways toward greater understanding and connection where people live, work and visit. But the day's new national recognition has brought a level of commercialization that threatens to eclipse these local celebrations in all their wondrous specificity. Today we can find Juneteenth T-shirts aplenty at Walmart, a Juneteenth makeup sale courtesy of an online boutique and apparel on Etsy boasting the ironic claim 'Culture Not for Sale' in Kwanzaa colors. In just two years, we've already seen examples of how this kind of rapid commercialization can go awry. In 2021, Target had to admit that a Juneteenth display of hot sauce, Kool-Aid and watermelon 'missed the mark.'. . . When we allow corporations and distant event planners to hijack Juneteenth, we lose the texture of these various places and their particular commemorations. We share the responsibility to prevent that.

With care and concerted effort, the Juneteenth holiday might rival Thanksgiving as a new communal ritual, highlighting the value of shared freedoms as our workweek tempo slows and personal rhythms align, even as we notice and cherish the treasure of each distinct celebration. In these right-size gatherings in parks, on blocks, at town greens and city squares, we can gain so much more than kitschy displays and logo T-shirts — loneliness dispelled, neighborhoods sustained and a torn national fabric slowly darned from the inside out. For the sake of our history and maybe our country, we should let a thousand Juneteenths bloom.

Hodding Carter III, rural journalist, diplomatic spokesman, documentarian and journalism foundation chief, dies at 88

Hodding Carter III (2003 Associated Press photo by Susan Walsh)

Hodding Carter III, a small-town editor-publisher who became best known as the State Department's spokesman during the Iran hostage crisis, then produced award-winning documentaries and ran the nation's largest journalism foundation, died Thursday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He was 88 and had suffered strokes.

Carter was the son of Hodding Carter Jr., who won a 1946 Pulitzer Prize for editorials that decried racial, religious and economic intolerance. He worked at the family's Delta Democrat-Times in Greenville, Miss., for 17 years, keeping a gun in his pocket and his desk because of threats the family received for their editorial stances, and won the Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial writing in 1961. In 1968 he headed "a racially diverse group that won a credentials fight at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, unseating the all-white delegation by Mississippi’s governor, John Bell Williams," The Associated Press notes. He worked on the 1976 presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter (no kin), which led to his administration job. He resigned after the failed raid to rescue the hostages, following Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who had opposed it.

The Carter family's 1980 sale of the paper to a conservative chain angered some of their liberal readers, reports Harrison Smith of The Washington Post. But Carter returned to journalism as a columnist and broadcast journalist and won four Emmy Awards for documentaries on foreign policy and civil rights. He liked to say, "Power never likes to be questioned, analyzed or covered at all critically." From 1998 to 2005, he was president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and "grew the organization’s endowment to more than $1.9 billion and more than doubled its grants to journalists and news organizations, to some $90 million annually," Smith notes.

One of Carter's last grants was $250,000 to the University of Kentucky to help start the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog and is dedicated to the sustainability of rural journalism. Carter told those seeking the grant that despite his history, the foundation had never done anything for rural journalism, so he was giving them the most he could without running the plan past a foundation committee, according to Al Smith, a retired Kentucky newspaper publisher who was an editor at one of the New Orleans papers when Carter was an intern there. "He taught me how to drink martinis for lunch," Carter said of Smith, who drank himself out of jobs at both New Orleans papers but kicked alcohol in 1962 and was chairman emeritus of the institute's advistory board when he died in 2021.

Carter served two years in the Marine Corps, was a professor at the universities of Maryland and North Carolina, and wrote two books, The South Strikes Back, in 1959, and The Reagan Years, a 1988 collection of essays published from 1981 through 1987. He "held deeply the notion of service — to his country, to justice and equity and to his family — throughout his life, instilling in those he knew personally and professionally 'this incredible sense of social responsibility'," stepson Mike Derian told The News & Observer of Raleigh.

His survivors include his wife, Patricia O'Brien of Brookline, Mass.; four children from his first marriage, to Margaret Ainsworth Wolfe: Hodding Carter IV of Camden, Maine, Catherine Carter Sullivan of Jackson, Miss., Margaret Carter Joseph of Brevard, N.C., and Finn Carter of Worcester, Mass.; three stepchildren from his marriage to Patt Derian: Mike Derian of Takoma Park, Md., and Craig Derian and Brooke Derian of Chapel Hill; a brother, Philip Dutarte Carter; and 12 grandchildren. He will be buried in Greenville. Sullivan told the News & Observer that the family will hold a celebration of life in Chapel Hill at a date to be determined.

Alabama produces three Pulitzer Prizes, including two by a news outlet that's now online-only, and a book of history

The winner of the Fiction prize,
Appalachia's first since 1958

Two online-only publications covering Alabama and Mississippi, including the states' rural areas, were among Monday's winners of Pulitzer Prizes in journalism. In prizes for books, one on a rural Alabama county won the prize for History, and the Fiction prize went to Barbara Kingsolver's latest book based in rural Appalachia.

The top Pulitzer, for Public Service, went to The Associated Press for its coverage of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, and the finalists were the Austin American Statesman for its coverage of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and The Washington Post for its investigation of the fentanyl crisis. Perhaps indicating how close the Austin paper came to winning, the Uvalde shooting was mentioned among major news events in the script introducing the announcement of the prizes. 

The prize for Local Reporting was shared by two online-only publications: Mississippi Today, for Anna Wolfe's investigation that revealed how a governor steered millions of  "welfare dollars to benefit his family and friends, including NFL quarterback Brett Favre," and AL.com, for the series by John Archibald, Ashley Remkus, Ramsey Archibald (John's son) and Challen Stephens that revealed "how the police force in the town of Brookside preyed on residents to inflate revenue, coverage that prompted the resignation of the police chief, four new laws and a state audit," the announcement says.

AL.com is owned by the Newhouse family's Advance Publications, which stopped printing its newspapers in Birmigham, Mobile and Huntsville this year. It won another Pulitzer, for Commentary, Kyle Whitmire's  "measured and persuasive columns that document how Alabama's Confederate heritage still colors the present with racism and exclusion, told through tours of its first capital, its mansions and monuments – and through the history that has been omitted."

Barbour County (Wikipedia)

A book about a southeast Alabama county, Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, by Jefferson Cowie of Vanderbilt University, won the History prize. The announcement said Barbour County, where George C. Wallace was born and raised, was "shaped by settler colonialism and slavery," and the book "illustrates the evolution of white supremacy by drawing powerful connections between anti-government and racist ideologies."

The Fiction prize was shared by Kingsolver for Demon Copperhead, "a masterful recasting of David Copperfield, narrated by an Appalachian boy whose wise, unwavering voice relates his encounters with poverty, addiction, institutional failures and moral collapse–and his efforts to conquer them," and Hernan Diaz for Trust, "a riveting novel set in a bygone America that explores family, wealth and ambition through linked narratives rendered in different literary styles, a complex examination of love and power in a country where capitalism is king." Kingsolver lives in southwest Virginia and grew up in Kentucky; her Fiction prize was the first to go to an Appalachian writer since James Agee of Knoxville won it for A Death in the Family in 1958, reports Lilly Knoepp of Blue Ridge Public Radio.

Race and ethnicity figured in other rural-oriented prizes. The Audio Reporting prize went to the staff of Gimlet Media, "notably Connie Walker, whose investigation into her father’s troubled past revealed a larger story of abuse of hundreds of Indigenous children at an Indian residential school in Canada, including other members of Walker’s extended family, a personal search for answers expertly blended with rigorous investigative reporting."

African American banjo and fiddle player Rhiannon Giddens, a native of North Carolina, and Michael Abels won the Music prize for "Omar," an opera "about enslaved people brought to North America from Muslim countries," the announcement says, adding that the work "respectfully represents African as well as African American traditions, expanding the language of the operatic form while conveying the humanity of those condemned to bondage." For the full list of prizes, click here.

Okla. official who discussed killing weekly's journalists quits

"A county commissioner in far southeast Oklahoma who was identified by a local newspaper as one of several officials caught on tape discussing killing reporters and lynching Black people has resigned from office," Sean Murphy of The Associated Press reports. A spokesperson for Gov. Kevin Stitt "said the office received a handwritten resignation letter from McCurtain County Commissioner Mark Jennings."

The McCurtain Gazette surreptitiously recorded Jennings' conversation with Sheriff Kevin Clardy, sheriff’s Capt. Alicia Manning and Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix after a county commission meeting. "During that conversation, Clardy, Manning and Jennings appear to discuss Bruce Willingham — the longtime publisher of the Gazette-News — and his son Chris Willingham, a reporter," Murphy recounts.

“I know where two deep holes are dug if you ever need them,” Jennings said, and Clardy replied, “I’ve got an excavator.” Jennings also said he has known “two or three hit men” in Louisiana, and “They’re very quiet guys.” Jennings also appeared to complain about not being able to hang Blacks.

In a post on the sheriff’s office Facebook page on Tuesday, officials did not address the recorded discussion but claimed the recording was illegally obtained," Murphy reports. Bruce Willingham said he left a recorder on after the meeting because he suspected that the officials were conducting business in violation of the state Open Meetings Act.

Newspaper's publication of surreptitious recording of Okla. officials' racist, threatening remarks brings calls for ousters

Part of the latest front page of the McCurtain Gazette-News (Image from "The Rachel Maddow Show," MSNBC)

Bruce Willingham, publisher of the McCurtain Gazette-News in southeast Oklahoma, said he left a voice-activated recorder inside the county commissioners' meeting room March 6 because he suspected they were "continuing to conduct county business after the meeting had ended, in violation of the state's Open Meeting Act," The Associated Press reports. What the recorder picked up, and the newspaper's reporting of it, has created a firestorm.

"Oklahoma’s governor is seeking the resignation of four county officials after a newspaper’s audio recording apparently captured some of them complaining about two of the paper’s journalists and knowing hit men and where two holes are dug," AP's Sean Murphy reports. "It also appears to capture one of the four making racist comments about Black people."

Protesters called for the officials' resignations at Monday's county
commission meeting. (Photo: Christopher Bryan, Southwest Ledger)

Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt called Sunday for the resignations of Sheriff Kevin Clardy, sheriff’s Capt. Alicia Manning, Commissioner Mark Jennings and Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix. Idabel Mayor Craig Young and state Rep. Eddy Dempsey, who represents the county, echoed Stitt's call, and "More than 100 people gathered outside the McCurtain County Courthouse in Idabel on Monday, with many of them calling for the sheriff and other county officials to resign," AP reports.

In the newspaper's transcript of the recording, Clardy, Manning and Jennings appear to discuss Bruce Willingham and his son Chris, a reporter for the paper. Jennings tells the other officials, “I know where two deep holes are dug if you ever need them,” and Clardy responds, “I’ve got an excavator.” Jennings adds that knows “two or three hit men” in Louisiana who are “very quiet guys.” At another point, "Jennings also appears to complain about not being able to hang Black people, saying 'They got more rights than we got'," AP reports.

Dempsey told The Oklahoman, “Being from southeast Oklahoma, I don’t honestly think it was serious, but you still can’t take things like this lightly. You live in a glass bubble when you become a politician. I hope this gets resolved quickly. All my life we always say we don’t get enough recognition in southeast Oklahoma, but we don’t need this kind of recognition.”

AP reports, "Bruce Willingham said he believes the local officials were upset about 'stories we’ve run that cast the sheriff’s office in an unfavorable light,' including the death of Bobby Barrick, a Broken Bow, Okla., man who died at a hospital in March 2022 after McCurtain County deputies shot him with a stun gun. The newspaper has filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office seeking body camera footage and other records connected to Barrick’s death."

Willingham told AP he has given his recordings to the FBI and the state attorney general, and has talked with federal investigators. Before that, "I talked on two different occasions to our attorneys to make sure I wasn't doing anything illegal," he said. Joey Senat, a journalism professor at Oklahoma State University, "said under Oklahoma law, the recording would be legal if it were obtained in a place where the officials being recorded did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy," AP reports. The Oklahoman reports, "The audio released online matches some of the quoted material in the story, but The Oklahoman has not yet independently verified who the speakers were in the recordings." AP said likewise. The sheriff's office says the recording was illegal. (UPDATE, May 18: Oklahoma Press Association Executive Vice President Mark Thomas said in The Oklahoma Publisher, “These public officials, including two of three county commissioners, were meeting in a public space. There is no expectation of privacy in a public space.  That’s why people are allowed to have video doorbells that show activity on a street, or dash cams in their car, or even pull out a camera and record things they see on the street.”)

Jonathan Edwards of The Washington Post reports that Willingham sued county commissioners, the sheriff’s office, Clardy and Manning in federal court, accuding them of slander. "His suit followed years of reporting on the sheriff’s department for the Gazette-News. In November 2021, the newspaper ran the first article in what would be an eight-part series about misconduct in the sheriff’s office, according to the lawsuit. Over the next five months, the newspaper exposed several instances of alleged misconduct in the sheriff’s office based on interviews with current and former employees, including homicide evidence that had been tainted, questionable hirings of employees with no previous law enforcement experience and an investigation into who in the sheriff’s office was leaking information, the suit says. In an effort to plug the leak, Clardy threatened to fire any of his employees who spoke with Willingham, and Manning told deputies she would get search warrants for their cellphones, it alleges." The suit claims Manning defamed Willingham "by telling someone that the reporter had traded marijuana for child pornography," Edwards reports, and insinuating that he had been convicted of having child pornography and sexually abusing a child.

Studies shows racism and sexism were central to Trump's success, but he's broadened his appeal to many moderates

"Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory continues to confound election experts. How could American voters put such a fractious figure into the White House?" asks Thomas B. Edsall, a retired Washington Post political reporter in his latest weekly column for The New York Times, which often collects research and writing about American politics to explain causes and effects. "Three books . . . shed light on Trump’s improbable political longevity," Edsall reports. "Each points to the centrality of racial animosity."

The books are Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America by John Sides of Vanderbilt University, Michael Tesler of the University of California-Irvine and Lynn Vavreck of UCLA; White Identity Politics by Ashley Jardina of George Mason University; and Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity by Lilliana Mason of Johns Hopkins University. Edsall also explores other research that dives deeper.

The first book draws on responses to poll questions about “the importance of white identity, how much whites are being discriminated against, the likelihood that whites are losing jobs to nonwhites, and the importance of whites working together to change laws unfair to whites” and finds that white identity and “was strongly related to Republicans’ support for Donald Trump.” Edsall notes, "On a 17-point scale ranking the strength of Republican primary voters’ white identity from lowest to highest, support for Trump grew consistently at each step — from 2 percent at the bottom to 81 percent at the highest level." But he notes a research paper that says the key difference for Trump was an increase in racially motivated voting among people with only moderate racial resentment.

Those researchers, Justin Grimmer and Cole Tanigawa-Lau of Stanford University and William Marble of the University of Pennsylvania, "make the case that explanations of Trump’s victory pointing to the role of those at the extremes on measures of racial resentment and sexism, while informative, are in their own way too comforting, fostering the belief that Trump’s triumph was the product of voters who have drifted far from the American mainstream," Edsall writes. "In fact, the new analysis suggests that Trumpism has found fertile ground across a broad swath of the electorate, including many firmly in the mainstream. That Trump could capture the hearts and minds of these voters suggests that whatever he represents beyond racial resentment — anger, chaos, nihilism, hostility — is more powerful than many recognize or acknowledge. Restoring American politics to an even keel will be far tougher than many of us realize." Perhaps forthcoming court proceedings, and the reactions of Trump and the public's reactions to him, will be the next chapter in this story.

How a rural paper hits a target reader — over 60, Black, parent — when its staff has none of those characteristics

"Editors need to have a keen sense of news judgment, which requires a clear view of their publications’ target readers. But what if the target reader is over 60 years old, or African American, or a mother juggling the lives of her children and the reporting staff is young, white and single?"

So asks Buck Ryan, associate professor of journalism at the University of Kentucky, in his latest case study of the Chatham News + Record in Chatham County, North Carolina. He reports that Editor-Publisher Bill Horner III "has found a way to hurdle that challenge in award-winning fashion," getting more prizes "than any other newspaper its size from the North Carolina Press Association over the last three years."

Black History Month coverage included a story about a local woman
who had written a book about her family's white-supremacist history.

Chatham County, has a population of 75,070 people, with a Hispanic community (12%) about as large as its African American community (11%), Ryan notes. Horner has started, suspended, and revived a Spanish-language edition and talked with Ryan about appealing to Black and older residents. The county's average age is 47.

The paper has a “6 Over 60” feature in partnership with Chatham County’s Council on Aging. The paper has sponsored events for COA, which has used grant funds to buy subscriptions for senior citizens who didn’t already subscribe.

Ryan reports that the News + Record's front page "typically contains a photo or a story about someone in Chatham County’s African American community, and asked Horner to describe his approach to news coverage of that community. "We are intentional about it in part because when it comes to news—and recognition in the county—that’s an underserved population," Horner said, adding that it made  aspecial effort to make this year's Black History Month coverage better than last year's, when "in all honesty, we didn’t do a great job last year of highlighting Black history and stories."

Horner said that as the paper has reported the removal of a Confederate monument and the placing of a historical marker remembering local lynching victims, "reaction has been mixed. No question we’ve lost some readers, but we’ve gained others. But it’s news, it’s part of what’s happening in a growing and changing market, and it’s incumbent upon us to take the lead to say what’s happening and why."

Ryan's interview with Horner also touched on the paper's newsletters on parenting and other topics, its staffing, a grant-funded revival of the Spanish-language edition, and a final section titled "Literacy, Good Writing and Required Reading." Some exceprts from that:

"My best writers are those who have been the most devoted readers of books and of great reporting. I hope I can say that I push them to be better writers and reporters. There’s only so much you can teach; there has to be a willingness and a desire to get better on their part, and also the capacity to understand and instinctively know what’s really good when it comes to reporting and writing. So we talk a lot about writing and share 360-degree feedback.

"We talk about what we’re reading. I give my kids books about writing and reporting and recommend books on those subjects to them. For example, Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences About Writing is one I’ve given everyone. . . . I ask my reporters a lot of questions about word choice and sentence structure. We don’t do it as much in person; it’s mostly often done through editing on our server. As I said, I try to push. I don’t mind telling them a lede stinks; I have them read my stuff, and if my lede stinks, I want to know! . . . 

"One thing I’ll never forget from my studies at the William Allen White j-school at the University of Kansas was one of my professors, Elmer Lower, telling us that the world will always, always need people who write well. If we, as journalists, could develop into strong writers, he said, there would always be a place for us." For Ryan's full report, click here.

Federal and state officials erased a Black cemetery; their only public notice was a legal ad too many people missed

Mike and David Moseley at an ancestor's grave
(Photo by Christopher Smith for ProPublica)

Construction site excavators often unearth surprises, but what comes after the find can be more disturbing.

"Nobody working to bring a $346 million Microsoft project to rural Virginia expected to find graves in the woods . . . but surveyors happened upon a cemetery. The largest of the stones bore the name Stephen Moseley in a layer of cracking plaster. Another stone, in near perfect condition, belonged to Stephen’s toddler son," reports Christopher Smith for ProPublica.

"This is not as bad as it sounds," an engineering consultant wrote in March 2014 to Microsoft and an official in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, who was helping clear hurdles for the project — an expansion of a massive data center. "We should be able to relocate these graves." But archaeologists, which federal law required, said the cemetery was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places because it was for "a community of landowners who farmed tobacco in the wake of the Civil War and Reconstruction," Smith writes. Their report "stressed the cemetery’s significance to African American life and death, citing the fact that Stephen Moseley and his relatives were Black,' and advising: "It is recommended that the area be avoided."

The county and consultants challenged the recommendation. "They sent the report to another archaeologist, seeking a second opinion," Smith writes. "But the archaeologist didn’t go along. . . he rejected the notion that some of the people buried there might be white. 'Jim Crow would not have had whites and blacks buried that closely together,' he wrote. . . . He suggested that the original firm conduct additional historical research. 'More work needs to be done on Moseley family members to identify who’s in the graves,' he wrote in an email to Jones’ boss, who forwarded it to the county. . . . The county and its consultants ignored the advice."

The county and consultants continued to pursue the property for Microsoft. They "ran a legal notice tucked among the ads and classifieds in several weekly print editions of The Mecklenburg Sun," Smith reports. "The second week the notice ran, the paper published a front-page story [about another subject] under the byline Mike Moseley. Moseley is a staff writer. He is also Stephen Moseley’s great-grandson. . . . Mike Moseley would not have been hard to locate, had the county actually tried to find Stephen Moseley’s descendants." Mike Moseley told Smith, “Everyone who works for the county knows me. They know who we are. It’s hard to understand how they didn’t come talk to us.”

When Smith asked Moseley "if he’d seen the notice in the pages of his own newspaper, he responded: 'Do you read the classifieds and the ads? I do not.' . . . Like his nephew, David Moseley heard nothing from the county about the threat to the cemetery. The soft-spoken retired schoolteacher and administrator, who is now 85, grew up on the land adjacent to where Microsoft was building its data center." He told Smith, “Somebody would have called me if they moved the cemetery."

Smith reports, "In the months after the notice that ran in The Mecklenburg Sun, workers kept finding graves, ultimately 37 of them. . . . A crew dug up each of the graves, collecting bones, casket fragments, metal handles and hinges, etched epitaph plaques, a pair of eyeglasses, an ivory comb. The remains and other items were packed in plastic crates and stored in an office. Months later, all of it was reburied in four tightly packed, $500 cemetery plots one town to the north." The county did not reply to Smith's questions about the handling of the issue, Other than County Administrator Wayne Carter saying the newspaper notice was sufficient to comply with the law.

Smith writes: "In Mecklenburg County, before Microsoft took possession of the land — for free, with significant tax breaks, along with state development dollars earmarked for struggling tobacco farming regions — the Army Corps [of Engineers] raised no concerns about the development’s compliance with the [National Historic] Preservation Act. Nor did the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the agency tasked with enforcing state and federal preservation laws, make any effort to step in and protect the site. . . . The Army Corps and the Department of Historic Resources facilitated the cemetery’s legal erasure."

David Moseley and other family members, "still own the eastern 83 acres of the property," Smith writes. "Every so often, David Moseley or another family member gets an offer to buy their remaining land. Sometimes the correspondence is signed by Wayne Carter, the county administrator who oversaw the permitting process for the Microsoft data center. David asked Smith, "If they can find us to buy the land, why couldn’t they find us for the cemetery?”

Fred McGhee, an African American archaeologist, told Smith: “We are among the only developed countries in the world that considers archaeological sites on private property to be private property themselves rather than cultural heritage. Black historic places are some of the first to get maligned.”

Rural residents, especially Black men, are at increased risk for heart failure, National Institute of Health study finds

Are rural populations at increased risk of heart failure? Yes, and for Black men it's worse. "Adults living in rural areas of the United States have a 19% higher risk of developing heart failure compared to their urban counterparts, and Black men living in rural areas have an especially higher risk – 34%, according to a large observational study supported by the National Institutes of Health," the NIH reports. "Even after adjustment for other cardiovascular risk factors and socioeconomic status."

"We did not expect to find a difference of this magnitude in heart failure among rural communities compared to urban communities, especially among rural-dwelling Black men," said Dr. Véronique L. Roger, the study’s corresponding author and a senior investigator. "This study makes it clear that we need tools or interventions specifically designed to prevent heart failure in rural populations, particularly among Black men living in these areas." Roger is in NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

Study co-author Sarah Turecamo, a fourth-year medical student at New York University Grossman School of Medicine agreed, saying, “It is much easier to prevent heart failure than to reduce its mortality once you have it."

The release outlines broader results: "The study showed white women living in rural areas had a 22% increased risk of heart failure compared to white women in urban areas, and Black women had an 18% higher risk compared to Black women in urban areas. No association was found between rural living and heart failure risk among white men. . . . . Roger, who is also a practicing cardiologist, noted one of the biggest contributors to heart failure is hypertension, or high blood pressure, which Black men experience at disproportionately high levels."

The study, "Rurality and heart failure: The Southern Community Cohort Study," was published in JAMA Cardiology, a publication of the American Medical Association.

Native Americans' fight for salmon rights continues; and they're subject to more discipline in New Mexico schools

In New Mexico, a detailed analysis of state records reveals that "Native American students are expelled far more often than any other group and at least four times as often as white students," reports Bryant Furlow of New Mexico In Depth and ProPublica. "Gallup-McKinley County Schools are responsible for most of the disparity. The district has a quarter of New Mexico’s Native students, but it accounted for at least three-quarters of Native student expulsions in the state during the four school years ending in 2020."

Furlow reports, "The state education department requires school districts to report all disciplinary incidents. Gallup-McKinley reported at least 211 expulsions over the four school years, an annual rate of 4.6 per 1,000 students. That’s at least 10 times as high as the rest of the state. The disparities persisted from elementary through high school."

A spokesperson for New Mexico Attorney General-elect Raúl Torrez called the news outlets’ findings 'alarming' but told Furlow that the office doesn’t have the authority to investigate civil-rights abuses by school districts or other public bodies.

Gina Laura Gullo, assistant director of education services at the Pennsylvania State Education Association, who did her Ph.D. dissertation on unconscious bias in school discipline, told Furlow she found that school administrators who scored higher on measures of implicit racial bias assigned harsher discipline to students of color than white pupils: "Infractions that are more subjective in nature such as disorderly conduct, insubordination, classroom disturbance and the like, are those that are specifically subject to more implicit bias.”

Salmon rights: The classroom isn't the only rocky battleground for Native Americas. Tribal fishing rights are also a fight for justice. Randy Settler is a member of the Yakama Nation, a tribe that has spent generations fishing along the Columbia River. He is fighting for his tribe's right to harvest salmon, reports Tom Schick for Oregon Public Broadcasting: "They had fought for their right to fish, a right the U.S. government promised to honor more than 150 years ago and then violated generation after generation through laws, policies and flat-out discrimination. He inherited that fight. Now, with climate change threatening the remaining salmon runs, he thinks about the legacy they left for him, the one he’ll pass down to his nephew, George, and to George’s 10-year-old daughter."

Columbia River watershed (American Rivers map)

The past 50 years have been marked with "many disputes over the federal government’s actions toward salmon and tribes," Schick writes. "Settler summed up the tribal position in his testimony before Congress at the time. Fish runs are in terrible condition, he told them: 'The United States is not living up to its commitments in the Treaty of 1855.'"

There have been some positive discussions that may help the Columbia River tribes including the White House recommendation that dams along the Snake River be removed and funding for the reintroduction of salmon of be provided.

Opinion: Rural America is listening for leadership to support its economic and social renewal, but hears mostly silence

America needs a coherent rural policy, writes Tony Pipa, a senior fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution, leader of the Reimagining Rural Policy Initiative and host of its Reimagining Rural podcast.

"Despite widespread acknowledgment since 2008 that rural places have generally been left behind, our nation still lacks a coherent federal rural policy," Pipa writes for The New York Times. "The Rural Electrification Act, Title V of the Housing Act and other national-scale development programs helped bring rural America into the modern era, and its contributions helped make the American economy the envy of the world. But today’s federal programs were built for a different era. We need a renaissance of rural policy to enable a renaissance of rural America.

"What we have are lots of programs — over 400 available for community and economic development spread across every nook and cranny of the federal government. But navigating that maze and the peculiarities of their applications, reporting and matching requirements is a high bar for anybody, let alone the part-time volunteer elected officials and the bare-bones staffs that make up many local rural governments. That leaves most rural communities starved for investment. Very few can get the type and level of resources necessary to reinvent their economy or unleash the full potential of their human, intellectual and natural capital as they face rapid change."

Agricultural policy is often mistaken for rural policy, Pipa writes: "Farming now accounts for just 7 percent of rural employment. Service jobs, retailing, manufacturing and government employment all outweigh agriculture." And contrary to prevailing belief, rural America is ethnically and racially diverse: "People of color make up 24 percent of the rural population. Close to half of rural Native Americans and more than half of rural Black Americans live in a distressed county. That’s compared with 18 percent of rural white residents." The image of rural America as an overwhelmingly white place may have cooled some Democrats' interest in it, but elements of the Biden administration remain interested.

"While the Biden administration has started the Rural Partners Network to embed federal staff members in rural communities to help them identify and secure federal resources, the program is limited to select communities in just 10 states and Puerto Rico," Pipa notes. "The country needs a national rural prosperity strategy that offers a coherent vision for rural America in the 21st century. Someone at the highest levels of the White House should be responsible for its execution and cutting through the bureaucratic entanglements. Canada and Ireland, among other countries, have completed such policies and created cabinet-level positions to carry them out. Governors in Wisconsin and Michigan have created rural prosperity offices."

What about Congress? "Rural policy is one issue where Republicans and Democrats should be able to find common ground to work together," on such things as the new Farm Bill, Pipa writes. "Yet early indications signal high-profile fights over food stamps, agricultural subsidies and conservation investments — and limited attention to rural development. . . . Rural America is listening for how public leadership and resources can better support the economic and social renewal of rural communities, but it hears mostly silence."

Organized and influential, promoters and organizers of recent book bans seek influence over a lot more than books

Florida Freedom to Read Project members. The project opposes
restrictions on reading. (Photo by Todd Anderson, New York Times)

Rancorous conflicts over attempts to ban books in libraries are about a lot more than books, report Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter of The New York Times. 

"Traditionally, debates over what books are appropriate for school libraries have taken place between a concerned parent and a librarian or administrator," they write. "But recently, the issue has been supercharged by a rapidly growing and increasingly influential constellation of conservative groups" that have "pursued their goals by becoming heavily involved in local and state politics. . . . They have created political action committees, funded campaigns, endorsed candidates and packed school boards, helping to fuel a surge in challenges to individual books and to drive changes in the rules governing what books are available to children."

The efforts seem to have have a social agenda. "The materials the groups object to are often described in policies and legislation as sensitive, inappropriate or pornographic," the Times reports. "In practice, the books most frequently targeted for removal have been by or about Black or LGBTQ people, according to the American Library Association."

The battle is limiting how librarians do their jobs. Florida has a list of "challenged books," which it distributes to school districts. Michelle Jarrett, the library media supervisor for the School District of Osceola County, told The Times, “This list could be seen as a warning, like ‘Don’t even bother with these books.' Librarians across the state are already self-censoring for fear of retribution, and asking themselves, ‘Am I ready to defend this book, is this worth the fight?’”

The Keller Independent School District in Dallas "banned books from its libraries that include the concept of gender fluidity. The change was pushed by three new school board members, elected in May with support from Patriot Mobile, a self-described Christian cellphone carrier. Through its political action committee, Patriot Mobile poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Texas school board races to promote candidates with conservative views on race, gender and sexuality — including on which books children can access at school," the Times reports.

Keller parents who did not support the bans found themselves "outflanked by deep-pocketed organizations whose actions can change longstanding policies in a matter of months." Laney Hawes, who has four children in Keller schools, told the Times, “They ran on the campaign of, ‘We’re going to get pornography and sexually explicit books out of our school libraries.' The parents didn’t have a PAC. We couldn’t compete with these people.”

Organizing a national resistance to book bans is challenging, but pushback is happening. Emerson Sykes, a First Amendment litigator for the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Times, "The restrictions infringe on students’ right to access a broad range of material without political censorship.” Librarian groups have also been organizing resistance. The Times reports: "Librarians in Texas formed FReadom Fighters, an organization that offers guidance to librarians on handling book challenges. In Florida, parents who oppose book banning formed the Freedom to Read Project, which urges its members to attend board meetings and tracks the work of groups like Florida Citizens Alliance."

As Democrats turn away from Iowa, some in party see ways to get more rural votes: show up, be humble, value work

Chart shows examples of Third Way analysis that found "most Democratic candidates improved on President Biden's 2020 performance in rural America — with some notable exceptions," such as Black nominees, Josh Kraushaar of Axios reports.

One step forward, two steps back, rural Democrats might say. The midterm elections showed that Democrats can still win elections with rural votes if they show up and ask for them, but the party's plan to end the Iowa caucuses' first place in the presidential nomination process "is not a great way to mend fences in rural America, where the Democratic brand has become virtually unmarketable," Storm Lake Times Pilot Editor Art Cullen writes in The New York Times, essentially rewriting a column that appeared in his weekly.

Art Cullen

For the locals, Cullen accepts some of the Democrats' rationale, but not "two frauds cooked up to put the caucuses to rest," one that the state party "messed up reporting results" in 2020. In both columns, he blames that on a cellphone app suggested by national Democrats, who rejected Iowa Democrats' plan.

For the national audience, Cullen seems to accept that "We are too white. . . . But diversity did have a chance here. Barack Obama was vaulted to the White House" in 2008 by a strong showing in rural caucuses, with the help of rural newspapers. "Iowa had no problem giving a gay man, Pete Buttigieg, and a Jewish democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders, the two top tickets out to New Hampshire last cycle."

Caucuses have virtues: "Candidates were forced to meet actual voters in village diners across the state. We took our vetting role seriously; you had better be ready to analyze Social Security’s actuarial prospects. . . . We did a decent, if imperfect, job of winnowing the field. Along with New Hampshire, we set things up so South Carolina could often become definitive, which it will be no longer." Cullen says "It's OK that South Carolina goes first," because having the first presidential voting hasn't paid off for Iowa: "Nothing really happened to stop the long decline as the state’s Main Streets withered, farmers disappeared and the undocumented dwell in the shadows."

Another view: Froma Harrop, whose column appears in some rural papers, says the change will be more democratic because most South Carolina Democrats are Black, and Black voters haven't had a big voice in the nomination process; and because the caucus process "favors activists who are not deterred by snow, cold or the dark and have the luxury of free evening hours. These folks are skilled in working the intricacies of the caucus process and often aggressive. Not favored are Democrats who work nights at Walmart, drive an Uber after hours and have little children to care for."

In a piece for The Hill, William S. Becker sees "signs that Democrats can build a more substantial base in rural America before 2024. All they have to do is think differently, talk differently and act differently." he cites a report from the Rural-Urban Bridge Initiative, "a group of experts brought together in 2021 by Appalachian farmer and author Anthony Flaccavento and several colleagues." They point out that "more than 40 percent of voters are rural in many battleground states," Becker writes. "Since 2006, their partisan allegiances have depended on which party pays more attention to them. Winning as little as 2 to 3 percent of their votes can change election outcomes."

Becker adds, "RUBI interviewed 50 rural candidates and researched recent studies on what makes candidates successful in rural areas. It distilled the results into 11 recommendations that seem more about respect and common courtesy than political strategy. They include listening more and talking less; respecting the local people’s knowledge and history; being humble and mission-driven rather than ego-driven; focusing on problem-solving; emphasizing involvement in local activities; treating voters of color as individuals rather than voting blocs, as well as not pandering to racism or gratuitously antagonizing white voters."

Becker also cites a piece in The American Prospect, in which Robert Kuttner writes, “Just showing up turns out to be hugely important, as a sign of respect and commitment;” and a post from Bryce Oates and farmer Jake Davis in The Pulse, a nonpartisan blog focused on North Carolina: “If Democrats truly want to increase their competitiveness in rural America, they should start now by putting working people at the center of their narrative while supporting bold, popular policies that would allow those people to live a good life.”

UPDATE: On NBC's "Meet the Press," Sen. Jon Tester said Democrats should focus their messaging “more on the things we’re doing for rural America,” such as infrastructure. The Montana Democrat "pointed to bills he’s working on that deal with big packers and meat consolidation, which he said would help cow and calf operators make a better living."

N.C. county in turmoil over sheriff who made racist remarks, was suspended and re-elected; state investigating election

UPDATE, Dec. 29: "Almost immediately after he was sworn in Thursday morning for what is supposed to be a four-year term, the local district attorney filed a petition in court seeking — for the second time — to have Greene permanently removed from office, the Durham Herald-Sun reports. Greene's swearing-in was "delayed by post-election protests and clouded by state and federal investigations," notes The News Reporter, which published the DA's petition.

Columbus County in North Carolina

Columbus County, North Carolina, continues its heated debate over Sheriff Jody Greene. The conflict began in September, "when a phone recording from 2019 was released to the media. During the call, Greene called deputies 'Black bastards' and threatened to fire those he believed were aligned with the previous sheriff who contested his 2018 win," reports Ivey Schofield of the Border Belt Independent, a nonprofit started by Les High, former owner of The News Reporter, a weekly in the county.

The anger at Greene, the county's first Republican sheriff, is not limited to his racist statement. Jon David, a Republican and prosecutor in Columbus County, "filed an amended petition to the court on Oct. 21 outlining several other allegations against Greene," Schofield writes. "They include having an affair with a detective in the sheriff’s office, firing a Black sergeant, trying to influence county commissioners and failing to ensure proper supervision at the jail." A judge suspended Greene, who resigned but was re-elected shortly thereafter.

The latest grind is the "election board’s ruling to deny two protests" requesting a hearing to determine if Greene was qualified to seek re-election. "Greene, who was suspended and then resigned in October as the county’s first Republican sheriff, won another term with 54% of the vote." The two residents have filed an appeal with the State Board of Elections.

The board "is investigating two complaints of potential intimidation of poll workers," Schofield reports. "Three precincts on Election Day had malfunctioning equipment and subsequently turned away voters. In response, the state board decided to keep one precinct open late."

Schofield writes, "The local NAACP held a meeting to discuss next steps. The meeting was advertised as a public event by the Columbus County Democratic Party, but a Border Belt Independent reporter who tried to attend was asked to leave by one of the greeters." She writes that Rev. Andy Anderson, who attended the meeting, told her "that the group discussed strategies to engage Columbus County residents across racial and economic divides."

Black cowboys and cowgirls are not unusual in California

A touring event for Black cowboys and cowgirls from across
California and the nation. (Photo by Jason Armond, Los Angeles Times)

Actors like the late John Wayne are considered quintessential American cowboys, but that view may be changing. "Black cowboys and cowgirls are finally getting their moment to shine in the mainstream," writes Tyrone Beason of the Los Angeles Times. "The recent films 'Nope,' 'The Harder They Fall' and 'Concrete Cowboy' have burned images of Black ranchers, settlers and riders into the public’s consciousness."

Thirty years ago, seeing a Black cowboy was thought 'odd' but "Ron Jennings grew up in Los Angeles, but he’s all country, right down to his cowboy hat and folksy twang," Beason writes. "The 42-year-old smiles when recounting the strange looks he got from fellow passengers during bus rides to his grandfather’s horse stable in Gardena or to participate in rodeos at Griffith Park when he was a teen. The cowboy hat, the bell clanging against the rodeo gear in his bull bag — he came across as an oddity in the city, even more so because he is Black." 

In California, there are Black rodeos that attract African Americans from all over the nation: "At the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo’s latest stop in Los Angeles, not only are all of the cowboys and cowgirls Black — so are most of the 3,500 spectators," Beason reports. "The air smells of catfish frying and barbecue simmering."

Spectators come from all over to enjoy horses and history. Kairis Chiaji, who belongs to a Black trail riding club outside Sacramento, told Beason, "There’s something special about Black people coming together to revel in this heritage. In these spaces, it’s safe to be us.” Beason writes, "Most of those gathered express a determination to expose Americans to another facet of the West — and the Black experience."

Byron Levy, whose wife also rides, told Beason: “What’s televised about our culture, it’s always negative — Black-on-Black murders, but none of this is ever televised — how we get together with four or five hundred Black cowboys and cowgirls and there’s no incidents. . . . Al Sharpton don’t have to show up."

Historic Native American academy's last building in danger

The Choctaw tribe paid for a protective cover for the building. (Image from WKYT-TV)

When Dr. William 'Chip' Richardson bought some land near Georgetown, Ky., he discovered it had the last standing building of Choctaw Academy, a Native American school founded by Richard M. Johnson, later vice president of the U.S. Richardson "found a mostly undiscovered piece of American history. Now, he’s working to save the building and share its story, but the clock is ticking," reports Samantha Valentino of Lexington's WKYT-TV.

Opened in 1825, The Academy was an inter-tribal learning center for Native American boys. "It was unlike other missionary schools. It was secular and was built on request of and largely funded by Native Americans," Valentino says. The school taught English and writing skills so that young men could serve their tribes.

“This is a story that I think people have largely forgotten,” Richardson told Valentino. “You know, you always hear about conflict, right? It’s about the conflict with the Indians. But this is so different, because this was not; this was a place where we were embracing unity."

Johnson was a U.S. senator from Kentucky who became vice-president of the United States in 1837 under President Martin Van Buren. Dr. Richardson told Valentino, “Something I believe that Richard Mentor Johnson really truly believed, that people’s abilities weren’t based on the color of their skin." Johnson lived with an African American woman and their children.

Richardson's goal is to fully restore the building before its bicentennial in three years. "We have a very limited amount of time to do something to save that and I can’t do it by myself," he told Valentino. "I mean, it’s a daunting task. I know that a community can come together and find a way to save it." For more information on how you can help save Choctaw Academy, click here.