UCSF Dr. Rupa Marya Fired For Opposing Genocide In Palestine By UC Bosses
SF City Workers Rally To Protest Mayor Lurie's Layoffs Of Frontline Workers
The Trump Attack On Harvard UAW Members & The Assault On Education with UAW 5118 HGSU Pres Speller
The Moss Landing Lithium Battery Fires, Toxins & Cover-ups With Dr. James Dahlgren & Scott Smith
Healthcare For All! National Single Payer Rally In San Francisco-Medicaid Cuts Will Kill People
Chris Hedges On Zionism, Nazism, US Imperialism, Democrats & The Genocide Of Palestinians
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/mit-disciplines-student-commencement-speaker-who-condemned-school-s-ties-to-israel-as-complicit-in-genocide/ar-AA1FNCm4?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=5041db1176094d7ef0c44e648809f9eb&ei=18
(JTA) — The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has barred the senior class president from further graduation events after she accused the school…
www.msn.comBen Shahn’s Social Realist Art Feels Relevant Again in Landmark Survey
An old master of the Great Depression painted a portrait of America as it still may be.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/arts/design/ben-shahn-jewish-museum.html
A painting of a gallery at the Whitney …Museum shows sculptures from the annual survey of the nation’s artists. The walls surrounding the modern works are covered in Ben Shahn’s own realist paintings.
Ben Shahn, “Contemporary American Sculpture,” 1940, from a retrospective at the Jewish Museum. The artist depicts his own realist paintings surrounding modern sculptures.Credit…Estate of Ben Shahn/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY; via Art Institute of Chicago
Blake Gopnik.png
By Blake Gopnik
Published May 29, 2025
Updated May 30, 2025, 9:54 a.m. ET
With some artists, there’s one work that seems to capture their essential achievement.
In the long-overdue retrospective now at the Jewish Museum in New York, the entire artistic project of the American painter Ben Shahn comes clear in a single fascinating painting from 1940 called “Contemporary American Sculpture.” It depicts a gallery at the Whitney Museum hosting sculptures from that January’s survey of the nation’s artists — except that Shahn, left out of that survey, reimagines the walls surrounding those stylized modern works as covered in his own realist paintings.
Those show scenes of everyday life during the Great Depression — decrepit workers’ housing; a farmer by his shack; poor Black women at a welfare hospital — depicted as though the Whitney’s walls have been pierced to reveal the all-too-real world out beyond. It recalls how Renaissance murals pierced church walls to let in the more-real world of the Bible.
“Contemporary American Sculpture” captures what’s at stake in the most potent works in “Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity,” as this revelatory survey is called. Those works use the time-honored art of painting to make the modern world, and its signature troubles, as present as Shahn can manage. The effect is gripping, and feels utterly relevant for the troubled moment we are living in now.
For a decade or so on either side of World War II, Shahn’s achievements made him an art star, earning him a major show at the Museum of Modern Art and honors including a place in the American Pavilion of the 1954 Venice Biennale, shared with the Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning.
Image
Painting of three men with hats near the railroad tracks, facing the viewer. Voting posters are behind them.
Ben Shahn, “Scotts Run, West Virginia,” 1937. During the Great Depression, Shahn felt sympathy for Americans suffering the deprivations he grew up with. (This painting was based on a photograph he took.)Credit…Estate of Ben Shahn/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY; via The Jewish Museum
But it was de Kooning and his ilk who went on to dominate the art world; as Cold War reaction took hold, Shahn, a dedicated leftist, saw a slow but unbroken decline in his critical fortunes. There has barely been an uptick since. The Jewish Museum show is Shahn’s first notable survey in the United States since one at the same museum in 1976. Featuring 175 artworks and objects, photos by Shahn and his peers as well as illuminating ephemera, it was organized abroad, at the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid, where it was a big hit in 2023; the curator Laura Katzman had to work hard to find an American museum to take it.
Shahn was raised in immigrant Brooklyn, where his family, who were Jewish, had landed in 1906, when he was 8. They were fleeing deprivation, antisemitism and oppression in their native Lithuania, then under Russian rule. Shahn’s father, a socialist and anti-czarist, had been forced into exile in Siberia. In the United States, the Shahns still had such struggles that young Ben had to drop out of high school to help fund the household. He landed in a lithographer’s workshop, where he mastered the fundamentals of visual art.
But his career as an artist took a while to jell, as he attended various courses in various places — New York University, the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., the City College of New York. In the 1920s, Shahn, supported by a hard-working wife, Tillie Goldstein, was able to take in the high points of old master and modern art across Europe. (He arranged a meeting with Picasso but got cold feet and called it off.)
By 1933, Shahn was back in New York, assisting the great Diego Rivera on his infamous mural for Rockefeller Center, soon hacked off the wall because of its portrait of Lenin. Unlike his mentor, Shahn never quite subscribed to communist doctrine, though he shared the movement’s egalitarian aims.
For a solo show at the prestigious Downtown Gallery in New York, that same year, Shahn portrayed scenes from the saga of Tom Mooney, a labor leader falsely imprisoned for a 1916 bombing, who wasn’t released until 1939.
If the images in the survey feel more like news than comment, that’s partly because we can sense the press photos Shahn used as his sources. Though his paintings themselves aren’t close to photorealistic — his technique can be potently slapdash — their subjects have the verve of seeming caught on the fly. His image of two perjurers who helped convict Mooney has the strange perspective of a wide-angle lens, as does its newspaper source, on view at the Jewish Museum alongside other documentation that gives insight into Shahn’s art.
Image
A new photograph shows two men in suits, sitting and handcuffed in a courthouse. One, at left, has a large handlebar mustache.
A 1923 news photograph showing Bartolomeo Vanzetti (left) handcuffed to Nicola Sacco, in a courthouse in Dedham, Mass. Shahn used it as his source for a painting in the Jewish Museum show.Credit…via Boston Public Library
Image
Painting of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, handcuffed, in 1931.
Ben Shahn, “Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco,” 1931-32, gouache on paper. This painting retains the tight cropping of its source photograph.Credit…Estate of Ben Shahn/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY; via Museum of Modern Art
The exhibition includes an earlier series on the controversial 1921 trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian immigrants executed for murder despite flimsy evidence. Shahn’s painting of the two handcuffed men is cropped weirdly tight; we see that it echoes a source photo that had been cropped the same way, to save space on the printed page. Shahn borrows the feel of a photograph’s direct observation to make his painted subjects seem more directly observed by us.
In the mid-1930s, he took up the camera himself, as part of a New Deal project to document Depression hardships. His photographs in this show stand up fine against nearby ones by famous colleagues like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. Shahn used them as sources for the New Deal murals he was soon making — the show mostly includes them as studies — and then for many of his later paintings.
The vast majority of photographs in Shahn’s day were black-and-white and very small. They couldn’t have the sheer presence of scenes at life scale, in full color. That had been the territory once staked out in the “history paintings” of the European old masters; in the best works in the show, Shahn channels the potent “reality effect” of those paintings, but uses it to capture distinctly modern subjects and social ills, and the modern look of a photographed world.
Image
A man wearing a hat with his head in his hands and a white shirt sits on a wooden splintered bench with a newspaper, its banner headline reading “Dust Storm.”
Ben Shahn, “Years of Dust,” 1936, poster. Shahn was a fierce proponent of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.Credit…via Museum of Modern Art
That achievement comes especially clear in the colorful posters he made during World War II for the American Office of War Information, which show figures, at life size or larger, suffering under the Nazis and their partners. Those figures might as well be Christian martyrs on the walls of a Renaissance church. (Shahn reworked one poster about Nazi slave labor into a painting called “1943 AD,” in which a stretch of barbed wire becomes a crown of thorns on one of the enslaved.)
Shahn’s vision was too potent for the Office of War Information: It seems to have released only two of his posters.
A bit later in the 1940s, working for the Congress of Industrial Organizations — a major confederation of unions — he created other posters that used the same effects to champion causes such as colorblind hiring and voting rights. Welders — one Black and one white — loom above us in this show, as if they were just the other side of the museum wall.
Image
Black and white photograph of two men in shirtsleeves, welders’ glasses and welding helmets.
A photograph by Alfred T. Palmer, showing two welders, October 1941. Shahn used this photograph as the source of a poster, changing the race of one of the welders to Black.Credit…The Jewish Museum
Poster that echoes the two welders, one Black and one white, with a building’s frame seen in the reflection of his glasses.
Ben Shahn, “For Full Employment After the War, Register, Vote,” 1944.Credit…Estate of Ben Shahn/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY; via The Jewish Museum
Unfortunately, in the decade or so before his death in 1969, Shahn could seem more interested in modern aesthetics than in modern people and their plights. His pictures became palimpsests of allusive symbols, reheating modern styles from Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso. Toward the end of this show, we miss the immediacy of Shahn’s earlier pictures, with their close ties to an observed world. Instead, we’re offered illustrations of moral themes and spiritual subjects that can read like vaporous musings.
What Shahn couldn’t have realized, as he turned away from his potent visions of the 1930s and 40s, was that they would find new purchase almost a century later, when once again we face issues of racial injustice, and what our nation might do about it, and prosecutions that can seem to serve politics, not justice.
Back in 1933, in an essay for the Downtown Gallery show, Rivera called Shahn “magnificent,” and said his paintings captured “a complete portrait” of the reality Shahn had grown up in. At the Jewish Museum, a century later, they seem to offer a portrait of our reality, too.
Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity
Through Oct. 12, the Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan; 212-423-3200, thejewishmuseum.org.
A correction was made on May 29, 2025: An earlier version of this review gave an incorrect date for the artist Ben Shahn’s exhibition at the Downtown Gallery. It was 1933, not 1939. It also misstated the date of Tom Mooney’s release from jail. It happened in 1939, not 1933. The review also misstated the frequency of publication of the artist’s New Deal photographs. They were widely disseminated, not rarely shown.
An old master of the Great Depression painted a portrait of America as it still may be.
www.nytimes.comCDC told health providers not to treat after East Palestine derailment: Lawsuit
…https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/midwest/ohio-train-derailment/cdc-health-providers-east-palestine-lawsuit/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKmrhJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFiVTFiT0NFNWU5YzVBTGI2AR5lZx1b4rO1aJaGCpOKn1AEyXmQhOiAzIOxlxwPLkIUaT3bOK7MI5hbW1eY_Q_aem_bVn81wYEPsOCpurqj-pPXw
2023 derailment and burn released hydrogen chloride, phosgene into the air
Residents have long complained of lingering health problems
Some say they were denied medical care
Rich McHugh
Updated: MAY 29, 2025 / 06:59 PM CDT
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (NewsNation) — Two years after the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine and the subsequent toxic plume of smoke that devastated the area, a lawsuit against the transport company alleges a conspiracy to deny health care to those impacted.
Tara Hicks, Christa Graves and Lonnie Miller are among the 793 East Palestine residents involved in the litigation against Norfolk Southern and more than 50 other defendants, including state and local agencies, involved in the investigation and cleanup.
Powell meets with Trump as president bashes Fed over interest rates
The lawsuit alleges a conspiracy to deny health care on behalf of Vanguard, BlackRock, Mercy Health and Quest.
“We’ve been lied to from the beginning,” said Hicks. “They’ve said everything is fine when we know that that’s not the case. And now we’re finding out for a fact that we were right. We’ve been poisoned.”
CDC allegedly ‘failed to ensure proper public health response’: Lawsuit
The lawsuit cites the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for “failure to ensure proper public health response, testing, and medical support for the affected residents of East Palestine.”
It also alleges the CDC “negligently instructed health professionals and testing facilities not to test for dioxins and other toxic chemicals, denying residents accurate diagnosis and critical medical care.”
This video screenshot released by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) shows the site of a derailed freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, the United States. About 50 Norfolk Southern freight train cars derailed on the night of Feb. 3 in East Palestine, a town of 4,800 residents near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, due to a mechanical problem on an axle of one of the vehicles. There were a total of 20 hazardous material cars in the train consist, 10 of which derailed, according to the NTSB, a U.S. government agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. (NTSB/Handout via Xinhua)Read More »
FILE – A black plume rises over East Palestine, Ohio, as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk Southern trains Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)Read More »
FILE – This photo taken with a drone shows portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, Feb. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)Read More »
Portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed the night before burn in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)Read More »
FILE – Cleanup continues, Feb. 24, 2023, at the site of a Norfolk Southern freight train derailment that happened on Feb. 3, in East Palestine, Ohio. (AP Photo/Matt Freed, File)Read More »
This video screenshot released by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) shows the site of a derailed freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, the United States. About 50 Norfolk Southern freight train cars derailed on the night of Feb. 3 in East Palestine, a town of 4,800 residents near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, due to a mechanical problem on an axle of one of the vehicles. There were a total of 20 hazardous material cars in the train consist, 10 of which derailed, according to the NTSB, a U.S. government agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. (NTSB/Handout via Xinhua)Read More »
This video screenshot released by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) shows the site of a derailed freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, the United States. About 50 Norfolk Southern freight train cars derailed on the night of Feb. 3 in East Palestine, a town of 4,800 residents near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, due to a mechanical problem on an axle of one of the vehicles. There were a total of 20 hazardous material cars in the train consist, 10 of which derailed, according to the NTSB, a U.S. government agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. (NTSB/Handout via Xinhua)Read More »
FILE – A black plume rises over East Palestine, Ohio, as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk Southern trains Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)Read More »
1 / 6
FILE – A black plume rises over East Palestine, Ohio, as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk Southern trains Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)Read More »
“Just tell us the truth,” said Miller. “We’re all adults. We can handle the truth. What were we exposed to? I want accountability. I want justice for my family.”
They say they were told that a letter was sent out, instructing health care officials to disregard their concerns.
‘Testing or treatment related’ to train derailment not recommended: CDC letter
NewsNation has obtained the clinical guidance letter from the CDC that was sent to hospitals and local health providers after the derailment and burn.
Can you get unemployment benefits if you quit a job?
“No testing or treatment related to a specific chemical exposure is recommended,” it read in part.
“Do not diagnose anything related to chemicals. Don’t do any testing related to chemicals. This is all a stress reaction,” is what Miller says she was told.
Attorney believes CDC letter meant to make residents feel ‘crazy’
Mindy Bish, one of the attorneys representing the residents who spoke with NewsNation, said that letter was an attempt to convince residents they were “crazy.”
“It [the CDC letter] says, specifically, we don’t believe you should test or treat. And it even goes on to say that residents can feel stressed as a result of a major environmental disaster,” said Bish. “So when I read it, I thought that is the beginning of telling these people that they’re just crazy. Nothing’s really wrong with you. You’re just crazy.”
Play VideoFrustration, new demands in East Palestine: ‘We have to live here’ | Morning in America
Miller says CDC workers in East Palestine also became sick and left the area.
“I’m angry. I’m angry because every single one of those agencies at the bottom of that form, from federal, state, local, they all failed us,” said Miller.
The residents say their lawsuit is about truth and accountability.
Social media unites Texas girl and woman with similar heart conditions
“Justice has always been found with a jury and only with a jury,” said Bish. “So we’re going to find justice with juries until these companies realize that they just can’t act this way anymore.”
NewsNation has reached out to Norfolk Southern and the CDC for comment.
NewsNation has obtained a letter from the CDC sent to hospitals and health care providers after the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
www.newsnationnow.comCDC told health providers not to treat after East Palestine derailment: Lawsuit
…https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/midwest/ohio-train-derailment/cdc-health-providers-east-palestine-lawsuit/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKmrhJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFiVTFiT0NFNWU5YzVBTGI2AR5lZx1b4rO1aJaGCpOKn1AEyXmQhOiAzIOxlxwPLkIUaT3bOK7MI5hbW1eY_Q_aem_bVn81wYEPsOCpurqj-pPXw
2023 derailment and burn released hydrogen chloride, phosgene into the air
Residents have long complained of lingering health problems
Some say they were denied medical care
Rich McHugh
Updated: MAY 29, 2025 / 06:59 PM CDT
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (NewsNation) — Two years after the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine and the subsequent toxic plume of smoke that devastated the area, a lawsuit against the transport company alleges a conspiracy to deny health care to those impacted.
Tara Hicks, Christa Graves and Lonnie Miller are among the 793 East Palestine residents involved in the litigation against Norfolk Southern and more than 50 other defendants, including state and local agencies, involved in the investigation and cleanup.
Powell meets with Trump as president bashes Fed over interest rates
The lawsuit alleges a conspiracy to deny health care on behalf of Vanguard, BlackRock, Mercy Health and Quest.
“We’ve been lied to from the beginning,” said Hicks. “They’ve said everything is fine when we know that that’s not the case. And now we’re finding out for a fact that we were right. We’ve been poisoned.”
CDC allegedly ‘failed to ensure proper public health response’: Lawsuit
The lawsuit cites the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for “failure to ensure proper public health response, testing, and medical support for the affected residents of East Palestine.”
It also alleges the CDC “negligently instructed health professionals and testing facilities not to test for dioxins and other toxic chemicals, denying residents accurate diagnosis and critical medical care.”
This video screenshot released by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) shows the site of a derailed freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, the United States. About 50 Norfolk Southern freight train cars derailed on the night of Feb. 3 in East Palestine, a town of 4,800 residents near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, due to a mechanical problem on an axle of one of the vehicles. There were a total of 20 hazardous material cars in the train consist, 10 of which derailed, according to the NTSB, a U.S. government agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. (NTSB/Handout via Xinhua)Read More »
FILE – A black plume rises over East Palestine, Ohio, as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk Southern trains Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)Read More »
FILE – This photo taken with a drone shows portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, Feb. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)Read More »
Portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed the night before burn in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)Read More »
FILE – Cleanup continues, Feb. 24, 2023, at the site of a Norfolk Southern freight train derailment that happened on Feb. 3, in East Palestine, Ohio. (AP Photo/Matt Freed, File)Read More »
This video screenshot released by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) shows the site of a derailed freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, the United States. About 50 Norfolk Southern freight train cars derailed on the night of Feb. 3 in East Palestine, a town of 4,800 residents near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, due to a mechanical problem on an axle of one of the vehicles. There were a total of 20 hazardous material cars in the train consist, 10 of which derailed, according to the NTSB, a U.S. government agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. (NTSB/Handout via Xinhua)Read More »
This video screenshot released by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) shows the site of a derailed freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, the United States. About 50 Norfolk Southern freight train cars derailed on the night of Feb. 3 in East Palestine, a town of 4,800 residents near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, due to a mechanical problem on an axle of one of the vehicles. There were a total of 20 hazardous material cars in the train consist, 10 of which derailed, according to the NTSB, a U.S. government agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. (NTSB/Handout via Xinhua)Read More »
FILE – A black plume rises over East Palestine, Ohio, as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk Southern trains Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)Read More »
1 / 6
FILE – A black plume rises over East Palestine, Ohio, as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk Southern trains Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)Read More »
“Just tell us the truth,” said Miller. “We’re all adults. We can handle the truth. What were we exposed to? I want accountability. I want justice for my family.”
They say they were told that a letter was sent out, instructing health care officials to disregard their concerns.
‘Testing or treatment related’ to train derailment not recommended: CDC letter
NewsNation has obtained the clinical guidance letter from the CDC that was sent to hospitals and local health providers after the derailment and burn.
Can you get unemployment benefits if you quit a job?
“No testing or treatment related to a specific chemical exposure is recommended,” it read in part.
“Do not diagnose anything related to chemicals. Don’t do any testing related to chemicals. This is all a stress reaction,” is what Miller says she was told.
Attorney believes CDC letter meant to make residents feel ‘crazy’
Mindy Bish, one of the attorneys representing the residents who spoke with NewsNation, said that letter was an attempt to convince residents they were “crazy.”
“It [the CDC letter] says, specifically, we don’t believe you should test or treat. And it even goes on to say that residents can feel stressed as a result of a major environmental disaster,” said Bish. “So when I read it, I thought that is the beginning of telling these people that they’re just crazy. Nothing’s really wrong with you. You’re just crazy.”
Play VideoFrustration, new demands in East Palestine: ‘We have to live here’ | Morning in America
Miller says CDC workers in East Palestine also became sick and left the area.
“I’m angry. I’m angry because every single one of those agencies at the bottom of that form, from federal, state, local, they all failed us,” said Miller.
The residents say their lawsuit is about truth and accountability.
Social media unites Texas girl and woman with similar heart conditions
“Justice has always been found with a jury and only with a jury,” said Bish. “So we’re going to find justice with juries until these companies realize that they just can’t act this way anymore.”
NewsNation has reached out to Norfolk Southern and the CDC for comment.
NewsNation has obtained a letter from the CDC sent to hospitals and health care providers after the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
www.newsnationnow.comTrump pardons a labor union leader of Operating Engineers on the eve of sentencing for failing to report gifts
https://apnews.com/article/james-callahan-union-trump-pardon-9caa702512cf98fc9274c2bfea8e5b5e
BY MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Updated 3:43 PM PDT, May 28, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) …— A labor union leader who pleaded guilty to failing to report gifts from an advertising firm was pardoned by President Donald Trump on the eve of his sentencing hearing Wednesday, court records show.
James Callahan, of Lindenhurst, New York, was general president of the International Union of Operating Engineers when he accepted — but failed to properly report — receiving at least $315,000 in tickets to sporting events and concerts and other amenities from a company that the union used to place ads.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes was scheduled to sentence Callahan on Wednesday. On Tuesday, however, Callahan’s attorneys notified the court of Trump’s “full and unconditional” pardon and asked for the sentencing hearing to be vacated.
The pardon itself doesn’t specify why Trump granted him clemency. The White House didn’t explain why Trump pardoned Callahan, whose union endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection over Trump in 2023. Callahan signed a letter that explained the endorsement.
The judge said she was “quite disappointed” to learn of Callahan’s pardon after he accepted responsibility for his criminal conduct, according to a transcript of Wednesday’s hearing.
Trump's latest pardons benefit political allies and public figures
Trump's latest pardons benefit political allies and public figures
“I don’t know why you were pardoned,” she said. “You weren’t pardoned because you were wrongfully convicted. You pled guilty to the misdemeanors. You weren’t pardoned because you were missentenced. Sentencing hadn’t even occurred. You weren’t pardoned because the law was somehow unfair, either in general or to you.”
Earlier this month, prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of six months for Callahan, calling him “one of the most powerful union leaders in the country.” They said Callahan’s salary and other compensation topped $500,000 annually. Now retired and living in Florida, he has a net worth of more than $5 million, according to prosecutors.
“That the Operating Engineers were unknowingly funding Defendant Callahan’s spree of pricey entertainments — a lifestyle his substantial salary could easily accommodate — is especially condemning,” they wrote.
Reyes told Callahan that, at a minimum, she would have sentenced him to 500 hours of community service.
“I can’t force you to do community hours. I can’t sentence you to them. But you can do them. No one’s going to stop you from doing them. You want to take your lumps? Do the hours,” she added.
Callahan declined to address the judge apart from saying that he “heard every word you said.”
Reyes pressed lawyers for Callahan and the government on how and when they learned of the pardon.
“Had Mr. Callahan applied for that pardon or it just came out of the blue?” the judge asked.
“Your Honor, I’m not going to answer those questions,” defense attorney David Schertler replied. “I don’t think that’s an appropriate inquiry for the court at this point.”
The judge is holding Callahan’s sentence “in abeyance” — a temporary state of suspension — until prosecutors file a formal request to dismiss the case.
Ed Martin Jr., now the Justice Department’s pardon attorney, was acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia when Callahan pleaded guilty on Jan. 29 to knowingly filing false annual reports with the U.S. Labor Department.
A spokesperson for Martin didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Schertler declined to answer questions about the pardon. He said in an email that Callahan is “extremely grateful for President Trump’s consideration and pardon and the opportunity to get back his life and his reputation.”
Callahan’s plea agreement required him to repay the union $315,000 for the tickets and to immediately resign as union president.
“Those tickets and amenities properly belonged to the Operating Engineers, and yet Defendant Callahan used many of those tickets personally and provided other tickets to members of his family and persons who were not members of the Operating Engineers,” prosecutors wrote.
The Washington-based union that Callahan led represents nearly 400,000 heavy machinery operators on construction and industrial sites throughout the U.S. and Canada.
President Trump’s actions mixed his willingness to pardon prominent Republicans and other supporters, donors and friends with the influence of …
www.latimes.comDriverless Semi Trucks Are Here, With Little Regulation and Big Promises
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/business/driverless-semi-trucks-aurora-innovation.html
As the trucking industry struggles to recruit drivers, driverless trucks won’t need sleep, won’t speed and won’t get …road rage. But experts and truck drivers say they are not a panacea.
Listen to this article · 9:11 min Learn more
Share full article
A black shiny semi truck next to warehouses as workers stand in the background.
Under normal circumstances, experts say, robotrucks drive more safely than humans. But some caution that the road is unpredictable and designers can’t anticipate all situations a truck would encounter.Credit…Dylan Hollingsworth/Bloomberg
Tim Balk
By Tim Balk
Published May 27, 2025
Updated May 28, 2025
Leer en español
The semi truck rumbled down the congested, five-lane Texas highway, letting a small sedan pass on its right, then accelerating past another semi on its left.
In the back seat of the truck’s sun-drenched cabin, a middle-aged man watched YouTube videos on his phone. Behind him, a 53-foot refrigerated trailer carried nearly 25,000 pounds of pastries.
Nobody was in the driver’s seat.
Last month, Aurora Innovation, based in Pittsburgh, became the first company to operate a driverless 18-wheeler on an American highway, ushering in an era that could dramatically change how cargo moves across the United States.
Video
00xp-trucks-37175-cover-videoSixteenByNine1050.jpg
Aurora Innovation has operated two driverless trucks on Texas interstates so far.CreditCredit…
Autonomous trucks, proponents say, could solve a knot of problems facing the American shipping industry, which has struggled to recruit drivers for grueling, low-paying long-haul shifts, and which expects major growth in cargo shipment activity in the coming decades, driven by the overwhelming popularity of online shopping.
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
These new trucks won’t need sleep, they won’t speed, and they won’t get road rage. They won’t ride the brakes or make unnecessary lane changes, wasting fuel. And they won’t need to abide by the 11-hour daily driving maximum imposed on long-haul truckers for safety reasons.
“If you’re a farm that has fresh produce, the reach of your farm just expanded dramatically,” said Chris Urmson, the chief executive of Aurora, who was riding in the back seat during the first run.
Aurora’s new truck, which has already logged more than 1,000 driverless miles shuttling goods along Interstate 45 in Texas, is equipped with nearly 360-degree sensors that can detect objects 1,000 feet away.
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
But some truckers, academics and labor groups are uneasy. They see an unregulated and risky sphere emerging, and worry that American roads could be facing a new menace.
Byron Bloch, an auto safety expert in Maryland, said that federal oversight of the new robotrucks was “totally inadequate” and that the technology was being rushed into use with “alarming” speed.
“My initial thought is: It’s scary,” said Angela Griffin, a veteran truck driver from outside Hagerstown, Md.
She said misting rain had caused A.I.-powered scanners on her semi truck to malfunction, and she worried that unpredictable traffic patterns in congested areas or challenging weather conditions could lead to catastrophic errors by unmanned trucks.
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Image
A truck with no driver in the drivers seat but one person in the passenger seat.
A test track in Pittsburgh, where Aurora is based.Credit…Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press
Image
A blue semi truck.
The truck is outfitted with 25 laser, radar and camera sensors. The company said the trucks can detect objects 1,000 feet away.Credit…Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press
Ms. Griffin recalled a particularly difficult episode: Driving down a rain-soaked Interstate 95 in Fredericksburg, Va., early one morning, signs directed her that the right two lanes would be blocked off because of construction.
Following the signage, she moved her semi to the far left lane, but when she went around a bend, she discovered the sign was wrong: two construction trucks were parked in the left lane, she said. There was a semi on her right. Workers were in between the trucks, and there was no left shoulder. She slammed on the brakes and yelled. Her truck pulled up just in time.
“I thought for sure I was going to kill those people,” she said. “I don’t see how a driverless truck would have been able to read and recognize the threat that was imminent.”
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
And Ms. Griffin wondered if the lack of a driver might slow the response time if an autonomous truck runs over a pedestrian, or freezes in the road and gets rear-ended. (Mr. Urmson, the Aurora chief, declined to say how many people in a remote assistance center would be assigned to each robotruck.)
Semi trucks, the skeptics note, bring dangers different from those posed by the self-driving cars that have started to take over the streets of San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin and Las Vegas. The trucks are far heavier, and need at least a football field’s length to come to a complete stop at highway speeds. Some carry flammable or hazardous materials.
The rollout of robocars has itself been bumpy. In Arizona in 2018, a driverless car ran over a pedestrian walking a bicycle, killing her. In San Francisco and Austin, the vehicles have slowed emergency response times and caused accidents.
With larger vehicles, the critics say, the dangers multiply. The risks seemed to crystallize on an Arizona highway in 2022, when an autonomous truck with a driver aboard veered across Route 10 and careened into a concrete barrier. (Nobody was hurt.)
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
“It’s potentially disastrous from a safety perspective,” said John Samuelsen, head of the Transport Workers Union of America, who is also worried about trucking jobs being automated out of existence.
Mr. Samuelsen appears to have public opinion on his side. A survey conducted by AAA this year found that 61 percent of motorists in the United States feared self-driving vehicles and that 26 percent were unsure about them.
Mr. Urmson, the Aurora chief, vowed that his trucks would be safe. “We have something like 2.7 million tests that we run the system through,” he said.
Image
A blue Aurora driverless truck carrying a white trailer.
The shipping industry has struggled to recruit truck drivers in recent years for grueling long-haul shifts.Credit…Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
And he said they would not displace truckers, citing growing demand and an aging work force. “It is a noble job,” he said of trucking. “That said, people don’t particularly want to do it anymore.”
The safety concerns are not universal among truckers. Gary Buchs of Colfax, Ill., who has been driving big rigs since the 1980s, said he expected driverless trucks would be safer and more predictable. He doubted they would eradicate trucking jobs.
“I think the growth of jobs will outpace the addition of autonomous trucks,” Mr. Buchs said, predicting that for any lost long-haul trucking jobs, there would be new, higher-quality careers for shorter deliveries. “Younger people want the jobs changed.”
Just about everybody agrees on one thing. The robotrucks are coming, fast. “Like a freaking Corvette — doing zero to 60,” Mr. Samuelsen said.
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
The consulting firm McKinsey & Company has projected that 13 percent of the heavy-duty trucks on U.S. roads will drive themselves within a decade.
For now, Aurora, whose investors include Uber, has operated just two trucks without a driver — only in good weather and during the day. And last week, Aurora said it was temporarily returning an observer to the driver’s seat at the request of the truck’s manufacturer. But Aurora says it plans to expand its driverless runs to at least 20 trucks by year’s end, and to push into more challenging conditions.
The company is fine-tuning the technology for bad weather, and said its robotruck would drive conservatively in the rain and use blasts of high-pressure air to clean the lenses of its sensors. Runs in the snow appear more distant. (Mr. Urmson previously ran Google’s self-driving car project, now known as Waymo, which has had successes in San Francisco and other cities.)
At least three other companies are also developing driverless trucks. One of the companies, Kodiak Robotics, has started to use driverless trucks on dirt roads in Texas.
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Experts spoke highly of Aurora, describing the company as a leader in safety. But they also expressed concern about a lack of regulation.
“What Aurora’s doing is being much more careful than most,” said Philip Koopman, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in autonomous vehicles. “But there’s still no requirement for independent checks and balances.”
The Transportation Department, which regulates commercial trucking through its Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said in a statement that “comprehensive federal regulations specific to automated trucks are still under development.” But the department added that it was working with the trucking industry and state governments to “modernize safety oversight.”
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, said in a statement that he welcomed the arrival of Aurora’s trucks and that his state “offers businesses the freedom to succeed.”
ADVERTISEMENT
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Although there is no federal regulatory framework in place, a number of states have considered legislation to regulate self-driving trucks.
Under normal circumstances, experts said, robotrucks may prove much better at driving than humans. “For our ordinary set of traffic crashes, automated trucking will be safer,” predicted Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who focuses on driverless vehicles, citing existing research on vehicle automation.
But experts caution that it is impossible to predict how the trucks will react to circumstances their designers did not anticipate: a storm of tumbleweeds, perhaps, or a broad cyberattack that affects their systems.
“This technology is really good at things it’s practiced, and really bad at things it has never seen before,” Professor Koopman said, adding, “From a safety point of view, nobody knows how it’s going to turn out.”
As the trucking industry struggles to recruit drivers, driverless trucks won’t need sleep, won’t speed and won’t get road rage. But experts and…
www.nytimes.comOp-ed: The fight for a free Palestine is also a fight for our democratic rights
https://dailybruin.com/2025/05/28/op-ed-the-fight-for-a-free-palestine-is-also-a-fight-for-our-democratic-rights
COMMUNITY, OPINION
op-ed-26.png
4d943600f3f17420190388730e2de001By Peter …Racioppo
May 28, 2025 10:38 p.m.
Editor’s Note: The following submission contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault that may be disturbing to some readers.
The genocide in Gaza has entered a new phase.
Since unilaterally ending the ceasefire agreement March 18, the Israeli government has made clear that its aim is the complete ethnic cleansing and annexation of Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We will implement the Trump Plan, the voluntary migration plan.”
He announced May 21 that “all the territory of Gaza will be under Israeli security control” and that the implementation of the “Trump plan” was a new condition for ending the “war.”
The Israeli military announced May 25 that it will attempt to take over some 75% of Gaza, up from its current 40%, and push the entire population into three small zones.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich describedthe aims of this operation.
“Within a few months, … Gaza will be totally destroyed,” he said. “The population of Gaza will be concentrated from the Morag Corridor southwards. The rest of the Strip will be empty.”
For nearly 20 months, Israel has bombed hospitals, schools and refugee camps; directly targeted medical workers, patients, journalists, intellectuals, children and the elderly; executed paramedics and rescue workers; disappeared thousands into prisons where they are subjected to systematic torture and sexual assault; systematically destroyed civilian infrastructure; and committed countless other war crimes.
Over 50,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed and over 100,000 injured, though when the effects of disease, prolonged starvation, the complete destruction of the medical system and the inability to count all the dead are taken into account, the total is surely much higher.
Almost the entire population has been displacedand is suffering from extreme hunger and lack of water; tens of thousands have likely died of starvation, which is especially deadly for childrenand which Israel is using as a method of war.
Israel began blocking any food, water, fuel or medicine from entering Gaza on March 2. According to a May 12 UN-backed report, the entire population is at “critical risk of Famine” with “half a million people (one in five) facing starvation.”
Tens of thousands of children have been killed at a rate “unprecedented in the history of modern wars,” and thousands of children have had limbs amputated, most without anesthesia.
“Nearly every day I was there, I saw a new young child who had been shot in the head or the chest,” trauma surgeon Feroze Sidhwa wrote in an article published by the New York Times.
For 20 months, Israeli government officials, generals and public figures shamelessly broadcasted their genocidal intent to the world: “Erase Gaza,” “Burn Gaza now,” “Erase all of Gaza off the face of the earth,” “Bring down buildings!! Bomb without distinction!,” “Those are animals, they have no right to exist. … They need to be exterminated,” “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”
And these have been matched by statements by major United States politicians: “We should kill ‘em all,” “Finish them,” “Goodbye to Palestine,” “May the streets of Gaza overflow with blood,” “Stop the trucks. Let them eat rockets,” “THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY.”
Mass slaughter on this scale would not be possible without the tens of billions of dollars of military aid supplied by the U.S. government.
U.S. arms companies are making billions of dollarsoff mass murder and reaping skyrocketing stock valuations, while U.S. tech giants have helped develop artificial intelligence systems to automate genocide, including the perversely named “Where’s Daddy?”, which tracks targets back to their homes to kill them with their families, according to media reports.
Professor Nizam Mamode, a surgeon, describedthe use of sniper drones in Gaza in a hearing held by a committee of the British Parliament.
“The drones would come down and pick off civilians – children,” Mamode said.
Graduate students at UCLA have recently produced a white paper detailing some of the UC’s investments in war profiteers, which is available at Unmasking UCLA at the UC People’s Tribunal for Palestine.
As U.S. oligarchs finance and co-direct a genocide abroad, they are attempting to impose a dictatorship at home. Trump is carrying out Project 2025, which aims to destroy trade unions, dismantle and privatize public services and overturn fundamental democratic rights.
As part of this drive toward dictatorship, the Trump regime has begun a campaign of intimidation, expulsions and firings at universities, as well as the unlawful abduction and detention of students, including Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk.
Students are cynically labeled “foreign agents” or “terrorist sympathizers” and “part of a global Hamas Support Network.” Sixty universities, including four UCs, are currently being subjected to fraudulent McCarthyite “investigations.”
University administrators are falling in line. Not only did Columbia University facilitate the kidnapping of Khalil through complacency, but the university also capitulated to all of Trump’s demands, including mass expulsions, increased policing, a mask ban, placing departments under thought-police “receiverships” and adopting a formal policy labeling opposition to Zionism as antisemitism.
Universities and noncitizen students are being targeted as a first step toward worse political repression. The measures being normalized today to suppress pro-Palestine speech will be used to target anyone who opposes Trump’s anti-democratic agenda, whom he calls “scum” and “the enemy within.”
Following Columbia’s lead, on March 10, UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk announced a so-called “Initiative to Combat Antisemitism” only five days after the Department of Justice announced it was opening an investigation on antisemitism at the UC.
In March, UCLA’s Office of Student Conduct announced its recommendation that the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which was suspended in February, be banned indefinitely from campus.
Since then, the administration has escalated its violent repression on campus, including sending riot police to forcibly clear an SJP film screening, dispersing a May 15 rally to commemorate Nakba Day and arresting a protester for using amplified sound. The UC administration has attempted to justify this police repression by repeatedly smearing student protesters and falsely accusing them of “violence.”
The UC is also seemingly doing nothing to protect students from visa revocations and has cooperated with a federal witch hunt against UC faculty.
The reality is that the unelected corporate executives and political careerists who make up the UC Board of Regents are not members of the “UC community.” Rather, they are members of the same corporate oligarchy that is attempting to overturn hardwon democratic rights.
Trump wants to go to war with public unions – the UC has already been at war with its workers and unions for years.
Trump wants to crack down on universities – the UC has already retaliated against students, staff, faculty and ethnic studies departments.
Trump wants to deport anti-genocide protesters – the UC administrators have already built up a police apparatus and normalized its use against students and legally picketing workers and provided the smears that will be used to justify a worse stage of repression.
However, a mass movement is developing in this country, and Trump’s attacks on millions of working people will not go unanswered.
Our unions should begin a national campaign against the attacks on international students at Harvard, Columbia and elsewhere. When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement comes onto our campus or members of our community come under attack, we must be ready to mobilize mass protests of students and workers and prepare for united strike action across the state.
Peter Racioppo is a graduate student in the Department of Statistics and a member of Rank and File for a Democratic Union, a caucus in the UCLA chapter of United Auto Workers Local 4811.
Editor’s Note: The following submission contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault that may be disturbing to some readers. The genocide …
dailybruin.com"Yankee, Go Home!" – Canadian Anti-Trump Song – YouTube Music
“Yankee, Go Home!” is a bold and patriotic song that captures Canada’s unwavering commitment to sovereignty and independence. Written in response …
music.youtube.comIncident at Oakland high school has set off ugly battle pitting principals against teachers
By Jill Tucker,
Education Reporter
May 29, 2025
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/oakland-principal-teacher-union-20337166.php
The United Administrators of Oakland Schools… held a press conference at La Escualita School in Oakland on May 14. Members such as Nidya Baez, principal of Fremont High School, met to strategize a response.
The United Administrators of Oakland Schools held a press conference at La Escualita School in Oakland on May 14. Members such as Nidya Baez, principal of Fremont High School, met to strategize a response.
Nathan Weyland/For the S.F. Chronicle
Students had settled into their first class of the day when the president of the Oakland teachers union walked up to the entry gate at Fremont High School on March 17.
What school staff say happened next has sparked an ugly public spat pitting the district principals and their union against the teachers’ labor leaders, with administrators accusing the teachers union of harassment, physical threats and bullying.
Multiple staff members reported to district officials and told the Chronicle that the teachers union president, Kampala Taiz-Rancifer, threatened to beat up the principal, Nidya Baez.
Taiz-Rancifer denied the allegations, telling the Chronicle that “as a mother and a teacher that’s not how I approach the world.”
Fremont High School security footage
Security video at Fremont High School in Oakland shows Kampala Taiz-Rancifer, president of the teachers union and the second person to enter the door on the right, is stopped by Amado Rosas in a school hallway on March 17 after she reportedly refused to check in at the main office for a visitor pass.
Provided to S.F. Chronicle
School leaders said Taiz-Rancifer and two other union officials came to the school to meet with a special education teacher, who was teaching on an interim credential, and who the principal had decided not to rehire for the upcoming school year.
Taiz-Rancifer said she was on campus that day to defend one of the union’s members, who is Black. She called out what she said was “the disproportionate way that Black people are treated” by the district.
“That we have had to do this kind of advocacy in this district around these real harmful things that happen but go unnoticed,” she said, without specifying what she meant. “It is unfair. And that's all I'm gonna say about that.”
The Chronicle interviewed several witnesses to the interaction between Taiz-Rancifer and staff at Fremont High, viewed copies of four witness statements and obtained exclusive access to a school security video showing some of the incident.
The United Administrators of Oakland Schools, which represents 368 principals, supervisors, managers and others, has called on district officials and the school board to intervene. Spokesman John Sasaki said the district takes all reports of threats seriously, does not comment on personnel matters and would not say if the district was investigating the incident.
The labor clash adds significant tilt to an already unsteady ship. The district’s leadership is in flux after the teachers union-backed school board majority forced an early exit of the homegrown superintendent, Kyla Johnson-Trammell, in a divisive process in April — just eight months after extending her contract through June 2027.
ratio3x2_960.jpegratio3x2_960.jpegratio3x2_960.jpegSuperintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell addresses the media May 14 while announcing the cancellation of the Oakland Unified School District teachers strike at McClymonds High School.
Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell addresses the media May 14 while announcing the cancellation of the Oakland Unified School District teachers strike at McClymonds High School.
Don Feria/For the S.F. Chronicle
At public meetings, officials from the administrators union have referenced the Fremont incident as well as what they said was persistent intimidation of and retaliation against principals across the district by the teachers union leadership, often over the termination or release of a teacher.
The teachers union, the Oakland Education Association, represents the district’s 3,000 teachers, counselors, aides and other educators.
“Our members have been targeted with such language such as, ‘I'm going to kick her ass,’ ‘We will find you in the community,’ ‘We control the board, we got Kyla fired, we can get you fired,’” said the president of the administrators union, Cary Kaufman, at the April 23 school board meeting. “Our members don't feel safe walking to their cars. It happens over and over and over again.”
According to a staff member who spoke with the Chronicle and two witness statements, Taiz-Rancifer identified herself as a parent at the Fremont High gate, saying she was heading to a classroom to see a teacher on that day in mid-March.
The staff member told the Chronicle they informed Taiz-Rancifer that she needed to get a visitor pass first. Taiz-Rancifer refused, said the staff member, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution.
The staff member, who said they didn’t know who the visitor was at the time, said they couldn’t remember the exact words used by Taiz-Rancifer, but that the union leader threatened to beat up the principal. “She said, I’m going to hit her or I’m going to do something to her,” the person said.
One witness, in the signed statement, said Taiz-Rancifer said that if she went to the office, the principal “was going to get it.” Another wrote that she said “something along the lines of, ‘If I see Ms. Baez, I’m going to go off.’”
As Taiz-Rancifer proceeded to the classroom, the two staff members wrote in their statements, they notified other staff and administrators via walkie talkie that a person was on campus proceeding to a classroom without checking in at the office. Both said they didn’t know who she was at the time.
A case manager at the school, Amado Rosas, told the Chronicle he heard the transmission in his office and headed to intercept the person. By then, Taiz-Rancifer had met up with another union official.
The video shows the other member of the union going into a classroom and Taiz-Rancifer remaining in the hallway with Rosas as the door shuts.
Rosas said he told Taiz-Rancifer that the procedure was to check in at the main office.
ratio3x2_960.jpegratio3x2_960.jpegratio3x2_960.jpegKampala Taiz-Rancifer of the Oakland Education Association was present at the school board meeting held May 14 at La Escualita Elementary School in Oakland.
Kampala Taiz-Rancifer of the Oakland Education Association was present at the school board meeting held May 14 at La Escualita Elementary School in Oakland.
Nathan Weyland/For the S.F. Chronicle
“She said, ‘I understand your procedure, but if I go down there and I see your principal, I will mess her up,’” Rosas said. “But it was more threatening. She said something more along the lines of, ‘I will f— her up.’”
Taiz-Rancifer denied using such language.
“I'll just say unequivocally, I have not ever, ever, ever said any of that,” she told the Chronicle. “It's horrible and offensive.”
Rosas, who said he was among those who signed a witness statement, told the Chronicle that the situation felt “very dangerous,” because the threat of physical violence appeared sincere.
“When you throw those words around it creates a hostile environment,” he said.
Taiz-Rancifer also said several times that Fremont High had an anti-Black atmosphere, Rosas said.
Assistant Principal Derek Boyd told the Chronicle he also heard the walkie talkie reports of a person making threats against Baez, who was teaching a leadership class at the time.
Boyd ensured staff members were following procedures for a threat on campus, and then stood outside Baez’s classroom to guard the door, he said.
When Baez finished teaching, Boyd said, he escorted her to his office, where she remained until the union leaders left sometime around noon.
Boyd, who said he was one of six staff members to submit a witness statement as part of an incident report, said a few staff members reported that Taiz-Rancifer threatened to harm Baez, saying she was going to “f—ing beat her ass.”
The Chronicle was able to view copies of four of the witness statements, with names redacted. The content reflected largely what staff said, although in one case, the time of Taiz-Rancifer’s arrival was described as between 9:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. rather than during the first hour of classes or closer to 8:45 a.m.
The district declined to immediately provide the statements or the report to the Chronicle and requested that the Chronicle file a public records act request, which it did.
“I've never had a union president act this way,” Boyd said.
Two of the union leaders at Fremont with Taiz-Rancifer, Vilma Serrano and Carrie Anderson, said the union president did not threaten anyone or make the profanity-laden statements.
“Those are inaccurate statements,” Serrano said. “We were there too. That didn’t happen.”
They said they were with Taiz-Rancifer the entire time at the school, though Fremont High staff members disputed that and a security video of Taiz-Rancifer’s interaction with Rosas, which does not include audio, shows she was not with the two union officials when they spoke in the hallway.
Taiz-Rancifer denied issuing the specific threats described by staff or any other threats of physical harm.
“None of the phrases you included are things that sound like anything I would say,” she said.
She did not respond to requests to clarify whether she made any type of verbal threat.
Since the encounter, the teachers union has launched a campaign to get the special education teacher rehired, saying in a flyer that Baez has “led a disturbing campaign of retaliation” against teacher Chris Jackson since his election to union leadership.
“Chris has also been a powerful voice in defense of Black educators and students, confronting racial epithets and longstanding anti-Blackness at Fremont High,” according to the flyer.
So far, 1,008 letters have been sent.
ratio3x2_960.jpegratio3x2_960.jpegratio3x2_960.jpegThe UAOS is speaking out against the teachers union in a rare display of division and anger over the harassment of principals and other administrators including physical threats and smear campaigns. They held a press conference at La Escualita Elementary on May 14.
The UAOS is speaking out against the teachers union in a rare display of division and anger over the harassment of principals and other administrators including physical threats and smear campaigns. They held a press conference at La Escualita Elementary on May 14.
Nathan Weyland/For the S.F. Chronicle
Baez said that making staffing decisions is part of a principal's job.
“We have to make these hard decisions,” she said, adding she expected to get a grievance or a phone call from the teachers union. “What I did not expect was a threat.”
She said that her team filed an incident report after the March 17 encounter, and that the district’s legal department issued a “stay away letter.” But Taiz-Rancifer has returned since, citing union business, and the district did not remove her from campus, Baez said.
Baez and staff, including Boyd, the assistant principal, who is Black, said the accusations based on one staffing decision were unfair. Data shows the school has an 88% graduation rate for Black seniors, one of the highest in the district.
Other principals told the Chronicle they’ve also been harassed for personnel decisions in recent years, but with more frequency this year, allegations they also made at public meetings.
“I have been one of the principals targeted,” said Shalonda Gregory, principal at MetWest High School, adding the union painted a picture of her as an “angry Black lady.” “Their goal is to intimidate us to the point where we don't do our jobs.”
School board President Jennifer Brouhard did not respond to requests for comment about the issue.
At Fremont High, Baez readied for the end of her 18th year as an educator. The last few months have been “unacceptable,” she said. “I worry about how we're going to move forward after all of this is done.”
Staff members told officials that the Oakland teachers union president threatened to beat up the principal at Fremont High School. She denies it.
www.sfchronicle.comThe St. Louis Commune of 1877 w/ Mark Kruger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM16tT4rLuk
Premiered Mar 19, 2022
David and Matt are joined by historian Mark Kruger to discuss his eye-opening book, "The St. Louis Commune
of 1877: Communism in the Heartland" which tells the …story of America's first general strike and a time communists
took over St. Louis. Topics include the 1848 revolutions, the US Civil War and postwar economy, the Paris Commune,
and the dynamics of the 1877 strikes.
David and Matt are joined by historian Mark Kruger to discuss his eye-opening book, “The St. Louis Commune of 1877: Communism in the Heartland” which…
www.youtube.comLiving In Exile: Carlos Mejía Godoy
https://vimeo.com/806217533
2 years ago
Jon Silver – Migrant Media.avif
Jon Silver – Migrant Media
A film by Jon Silver
Migrant Media Productions
Copyright 2023
All Rights Reserved
Duplication Prohibited
A film by Jon Silver Migrant Media Productions Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Duplication Prohibited For more information:…
vimeo.comWATSONVILLE ON STRIKE (1989) by Jon Silver, hosted by Reel Work Film Festival
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rrs85Zp4Yo&t=486s
Watsonville On Strike
(Jon Silver, 1989, 65 min, Watsonville)
Para celebrar el 40.º aniversario de la Huelga de las Conserveras de Watsonville, …Reel Work (http://www.reelwork.org/) presentó el documental "Watsonville en Huelga". Tras la proyección, el cineasta Jon Silver, junto con la directora del Festival de Cine de Watsonville, Consuelo Alba, y seis de los huelguistas originales (más dos Hijas de la Huelga) hablaron sobre sus experiencias personales e invitaron al público a hacer preguntas.
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Watsonville Cannery Strike, Reel Work (http://www.reelwork.org/) featured the documentary "Watsonville on Strike." Following the screening, filmmaker Jon Silver, along with Watsonville Film Festival director Consuelo Alba and six of the original strikers (plus two Daughters of the Strike) spoke about their personal experiences and invited questions from the audience.
Watsonville On Strike(Jon Silver, 1989, 65 min, Watsonville)Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Watsonville Cannery Strike, Reel Work…
www.youtube.comNew Orleans ILA Dockworker Darius Clement Missing On The Job
https://youtu.be/YmfSIjnmzDk
May 19, 2025
Darius Clement, a dedicated dock worker and Marrero, Louisiana native, mysteriously vanished during his overnight shift at the Port of New Orleans on April 22, 2025. Despite search …efforts by the Harbor Police and the U.S. Coast Guard, Darius remains missing, leaving his family and community desperate for answers. His life jacket, safety vest, and radio were found neatly on the dock, but Darius was nowhere to be seen. Security cameras that could have captured his last movements were reportedly not functioning that night, adding to the mystery surrounding his disappearance.
In this video, we take a deep dive into the timeline of Darius's last known moments, the search efforts, and the family's ongoing fight for answers. Join us as we unravel the details and highlight the calls for justice in this heartbreaking case.
If you have any information about Darius Clement's whereabouts, please contact the Harbor Police Department.
Darius Clement, a dedicated dock worker and Marrero, Louisiana native, mysteriously vanished during his overnight shift at the Port of New Orleans on…
youtu.be
