For over a week, Pence has been scheduled to speak at First Baptist Dallas, a church led by Pastor Robert Jeffress, an enthusiastic supporter of President Donald Trump. But the coronavirus situation in Texas has deteriorated quickly in recent days, and Pence indicated Friday that his Texas visit will at least partially focus on the outbreak now.
Pence, who chairs the White House coronavirus task force, said during a briefing that he will bring another task force member, Dr. Deborah Birx, to Texas on Sunday as part of a tour of hotspot states "to get a ground report." Pence's office announced later Friday that Pence will meet with Gov. Greg Abbott and his "healthcare team" following the church appearance.
The briefing in Washington came just a few hours after Abbott announced his most significant action yet to address the growing outbreak in Texas, closing bars and reducing restaurant capacity to 50%, among other things. Pence said Abbott was among the governors that he has spoken to in the last 12 hours.
Texas was one of the states the task force highlighted during the meeting as a site of a concerning outbreak. Birx noted that testing has been going up in the state, but the rise in positivity rate — the ratio of cases to tests — is what showed "this was becoming an alert." The seven-day average of that rate hit 11.76% on Wednesday, exceeding the 10% threshold that Abbott had identified as cause for alarm. That rate's seven-day average is now nearing its record high of 13.86% set in April.
Dallas, which Pence is visiting Sunday, has been particularly hard hit by the virus. The county judge, Clay Jenkins, said Friday morning the county will report another record high of daily new cases — 496 — later Friday.
At First Baptist, Pence is participating in an event billed as "Celebrate Freedom Sunday." The church says it will feature an "annual fireworks celebration, patriotic music and a special message" from Pence. The church has also said Pence will be joined by Abbott and U.S. Housing Secretary Ben Carson.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn will also join Pence in Dallas, according to a Cornyn spokesperson.
It remains to be seen how large the First Baptist event will be. The church says on its website that there will be temperature screenings at the door, and no one whose temperature is over 100.4 degrees will be allowed to remain on the premises. Masks and social distancing are "strongly encouraged," according to the website.
Speaking during a Texas Democratic Party conference call Friday morning, Jenkins said he understands Pence will appear as part of a "large indoor event." The county has "tried to confer with [the church] about best practices" for Sunday, Jenkins added.
There is currently no occupancy limit for religious services in Texas, though it is unclear if the First Baptist event fits that category. In any case, Jenkins noted Texas is still asking people to generally avoid gathering in groups of 10 or more and that Abbott banned outdoor gatherings of over 100 people unless local officials approve.
"If they have to do it, I hope they do it outside, and if they do it outside, I hope they keep it to less than 100 people," Jenkins said, "and that's not really safe, but they have a right do it."
A section of border fence in Hidalgo.
Callie Richmond for The Texas Tribune
President Donald Trump’s transfer last year of $2.5 billion in military funds to pay for border wall construction was an illegal overreach of executive authority, a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled Friday.
The 2-1 ruling was a setback to the president’s increasing reliance on the Pentagon to finance hundreds of miles of new barrier along the Mexico border. Its long-term implications were less certain, as the Supreme Court ruled in Trump’s favor in a similar case last year and Friday’s decision only affects a portion of the funds the White House has budgeted for what has become one of the largest federal infrastructure projects in U.S. history.
The president, who ran for office in 2016 promising that Mexico would pay for the border wall, has obtained more than $15 billion in U.S. federal funds for his signature project, including $5 billion provided by Congress through conventional appropriations. The president has tapped into Pentagon accounts for the remaining $10 billion, including the $2.5 billion transfer last year that the 9th Circuit said Friday was unlawful.
Some of those funds already have been awarded as contracts to the private builders hired to construct the barrier. In its ruling, the court said the White House “lacked independent constitutional authority to authorize the transfer of funds” from the military.
“The panel noted that the Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution exclusively grants the power of the purse to Congress,” the judges ruled. “The panel held that the transfer of funds violated the Appropriations Clause, and, therefore, was unlawful.”
The Department of Homeland Security, a defendant in the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees construction of the barrier, did not immediately respond to questions about the financial impact of the ruling on work currently underway.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal Friday’s ruling to the Supreme Court, which last year sided with the White House and lifted a 9th Circuit injunction freezing transfers of funds from military accounts. The Sierra Club and a collection of border activists sued the administration again last year when Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper tapped new funding streams for a fresh $2.5 billion.
Private contractors have completed about 220 miles of new fencing along the Mexico border, and DHS officials say they remain on track to deliver on Trump’s pledge to finish 450 miles by the end of 2020.
The Supreme Court last year lifted the lower-court injunction without ruling on the legality of the administration’s Pentagon transfers. But the administration has insisted the White House has the legal authority to pay for physical barriers as part of a wider effort to protect and defend the country’s borders. The Trump administration also has argued in recent months that security at the southern border is a crucial element of preventing further influx of the coronavirus, though the outbreak within the United States is by far the worst in the world.
The court’s conservative majority ruled that the government had “made a sufficient showing at this stage” that private entities could not challenge the transfer of money by the executive branch.
But the 9th Circuit panel said “it is for the courts to enforce Congress’s priorities” and found the Sierra Club “may invoke separation-of-powers constraints, like the Appropriations Clause, to challenge agency spending in excess of its delegated authority.”
The showdown between Trump and Democratic lawmakers over border wall funding led to a 35-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history. It ended last January when the president dropped his funding demand for $5 billion, reaching into military accounts instead.
A three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit also ruled this year in favor of the administration, lifting a lower-court injunction blocking the use of military funds for barrier construction in the El Paso area.
Hours after shutting down bars across the state, Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday expressed regret over the reopening process.
Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via REUTERS
Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday expressed regret for the first known time about the reopening process he spearheaded during the coronavirus pandemic, saying he should not have allowed bars to open as quickly.
"If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would have been to slow down the opening of bars, now seeing in the aftermath of how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting," Abbott said during an evening interview with KVIA in El Paso.
Abbott added that the "bar setting, in reality, just doesn't work with a pandemic," noting people "go to bars to get close and to drink and to socialize, and that's the kind of thing that stokes the spread of the coronavirus."
In a subsequent interview with WFAA in Dallas, Abbott reiterated regret over the pace of bar reopenings, calling it an "easy thing to pinpoint" as he looks back on the process.
Abbott's comments came hours after he shut down bars across the state as part of a series of moves to contain a coronavirus spike in Texas. He also scaled back restaurant capacity to 50%, shut down rafting and tubing businesses, and banned outdoor gatherings of over 100 people unless approved by local officials.
“At this time, it is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars," Abbott said Friday morning. "The actions in this executive order are essential to our mission to swiftly contain this virus and protect public health."
Abbott permitted bars to reopen for the first time on May 22, at 25% indoor capacity. On June 3, he allowed bars to move to 50% capacity as long as customers are seated.
But cases have climbed rapidly in recent weeks. On Thursday, Texas saw another record number of new cases — 5,996 — as well as hospitalizations — 4,739. The hospitalization number set a record for the 14th straight day. During the increase, Abbott has cited Texas' large hospital capacity and the availability of respirators. But many hospitals in Texas' big cities have reported crowded intensive care units in recent days, and some cities have begun reviving plans to treat patients at convention centers and stadiums.
Despite turmoil in the real economy, the stock market spent months surging. That is, until recently. We speak with a Nobel laureate about what might be happening.
(Image credit: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)
The eighties live again in this teen romance. Kerrie, a rather bookish high school junior has a not so secret crush on Mike Price. During the annual “Genie Week”, Kerrie’s friends arrange it so that her “genie” for the week is Mike. (I am still trying to figure out the educational value of girls getting a high school boy as a genie to do their bidding for an entire week.) Kerrie gets mixed up because it seems that Mike likes her. But is he only doing that because he has to? Kerrie is convinced that no one likes smart girls so she must be completely wrong to expect him to actually like her. She is not one of the cool kids. Of course, hijinks ensue, and I will leave it to you to guess how this ends.
Rental car giant Hertz declared bankruptcy last month, which should have made their stock worthless. So how come people keep buying it? | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Brian “Sunny” Sunblade found himself face down on the ground in downtown San Antonio surrounded by cops on June 2. The black 24-year-old construction worker says his hands were cuffed behind his back, his legs were hoisted into the air, and an officer pressed a knee onto his head. Sunblade’s crime? Crossing against a pedestrian control sign, then resisting arrest. He says he wasn’t involved in a demonstration that was going on nearby, and was just out to survey several days of damage—shattered glass, boarded-up windows, graffiti—from prior demonstrations with his neighbor and friend, Priscilla Gonzalez. As they walked, Sunblade went to check out whether the Whataburger across the street was open. A group of officers near the door called out and told him not…View Original Post
Gov. Greg Abbott at a press conference at the state Capitol in Austin on Monday, June 22,2020.
Ricardo B. Brazziell/Pool/American-Statesman
Need to keep tabs on the latest coronavirus news in Texas? Our evening roundup will help you stay on top of the day's latest updates to the pandemic in Texas. Sign up here.
Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday took his most drastic action yet to respond to the post-reopening coronavirus surge in Texas, shutting bars back down and scaling back restaurant capacity to 50%.
“At this time, it is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars," Abbott said in a news release. "The actions in this executive order are essential to our mission to swiftly contain this virus and protect public health."
Bars must close at noon Friday, and the reduction in restaurant capacity takes effect Monday.Before Abbott's announcement Friday, bars were able to operate at 50% capacity and restaurants at 75% capacity.
As for outdoor gatherings, Abbott's decision Friday represents his second adjustment in that category this week. Abbott on Tuesday gave local governments the choice to place restrictions on outdoor gatherings of over 100 people after previously setting the threshold at over 500 people. Now outdoor gatherings of over 100 people are prohibited unless local officials explicitly approve of them. State officials have noted that case numbers in Texas began to increase around Memorial Day weekend, and have expressed worry about big public gatherings for Fourth of July.
Abbott's actions Friday were his first significant moves to reverse the reopening process that he has led since late April. He said Monday that shutting down the state again is a last resort, but the situation has been worsening quickly.
Abbott put Texas under what was effectively a stay-at-home order for most of April, shutting down all but businesses considered essential by the state. After letting that order expire at the end of April, he moved forward with a phased reopening of the state that was one of the earliest and quickest in the country. By early June, Abbott had permitted almost all business to open at at least 50% capacity.
But cases have climbed rapidly in recent weeks. On Thursday, Texas saw another record number of new cases — 5,996 — as well as hospitalizations — 4,739. The hospitalization number set a record for the 14th straight day. During the increase, Abbott has cited Texas' large hospital capacity and the availability of respirators. But many hospitals in Texas' big cities have reported crowded intensive care units in recent days, and some cities have begun reviving plans to treat patients at convention centers and stadiums.
There has also been rapid rise in the state's positivity rate, or the ratio of tests that come back positive. The rate, presented by the state as a seven-day average, has gone up to 11.76% — where it was at in mid-April and above the 10% threshold that Abbott has said would cause alarm for the reopening process.
Abbott specifically cited the positivity rate in explaining his actions Friday.
“As I said from the start, if the positivity rate rose above 10%, the State of Texas would take further action to mitigate the spread of COVID-19," he said.
And later Friday, Abbott expressed regret for how he handled the reopening of bars in the first place.
"If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would have been to slow down the opening of bars, now seeing in the aftermath of how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting," he said during an evening interview with KVIA in El Paso.
On Thursday, Abbott announced the state was putting a pause on any future reopening plans, though none were scheduled and the announcement did not affect businesses that were already allowed to reopen. Earlier in the day, Abbott sought to free up hospital space for coronavirus patients by banning elective surgeries in four of the state's biggest counties: Bexar, Travis, Dallas and Harris.
"We want this to be as limited in duration as possible. However, we can only slow the spread if everyone in Texas does their part," Abbott said. "Every Texan has a responsibility to themselves and their loved ones to wear a mask, wash their hands, stay six feet apart from others in public, and stay home if they can."
Democrats said they were grateful for the decision but that it came too late and was the latest example of a mismanaged response from the start.
Abbott's latest moves "will help, but because the governor has waited so long to act, it's going to be very hard to put this genie back in the bottle," state Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said during a state Democratic Party conference call. U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D- Houston, called for Abbott to expand testing in the state and give more power to local officials to regulate activity in their jurisdictions.
"Governor Abbott failed the people of Texas when he rushed to reopen the state last month," she said. "Instead of listening to doctors and public health officials and asking us to cover our face, he was more concerned with covering for President Trump and going back to business as usual."
Some local officials and business leaders also urged Abbott to do more, especially with regard to face masks.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo elevated the state's biggest county's threat assessment to its highest level, urging residents to stay home. And Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said Abbott "is now being forced to do the things that we have been demanding that he do for the last month and a half." Jenkins added that Abbott still needs to issue a statewide order requiring Texans to wear masks and until then, "we will continue to see more and more people getting sick, and we won't be able to reverse this second wave."
Later Friday, the city of Abilene said it will not enforce Abbott's order but encouraged business owners and residents "to use common sense, and to follow the Governor's Executive Orders to the extent they can." City leaders made the decision "under the advice of the City Attorney," Abilene City Manager Robert Hanna said in a statement, later telling The Texas Tribune that the move was not an attempt to "make a political statement."
"We're just trying to say, hey, look, TABC is the enforcer on alcohol in Texas," Hanna said. "We're not ignoring the governor's orders. We never have and we never will."
The Texas Restaurant Association also reiterated its push for a statewide mandate on masks, removing the burden from restaurants to enforce policies themselves. Abbott previously banned counties and cities from enforcing mask policies on individuals, but later allowed them to fine businesses who didn’t require them. This means restaurants can face fines for not enforcing the policies.
In an already bleeding industry, this puts restaurant employees in a dangerous and unfair situation, said Emily Williams Knight, president of the Texas Restaurant Association, during a virtual press conference Friday morning.
Williams added that, while the capacity reduction feels like a “big step backward,” other issues restaurants are making the issue worse.
“We're currently projecting 30% of our restaurants could close. We'll see what the next couple weeks bring, but that number could accelerate,” she said. “I don't think the 50% [capacity limit] alone will be the driver. I think it's part of a much larger puzzle that restaurants are carrying the burden on right now — many are not going to make it.”
Knight said most restaurants have struggled to reach 50% capacity due to social distancing guidelines anyway — they typically didn’t have the square footage to keep a larger number of people six feet apart. She said that the decision to scale back capacity wasn’t surprising given the recent increase in COVID-19 case count, and the association supports the decision in the name of public health and preventing further shutdowns.
“If you were to go back to zero percent, it would definitely be catastrophic,” she said. “We don't want to get there and that's why I think if we go to 50% for restaurants that that is the right decision today.”
Reese Oxner and Cassi Pollock contributed reporting.
Hovertext: I was supposed to write the foreword to his last book, but wasn't able to get around to it in time. With characteristic directness and understanding, he suggested using one of my comics he'd inspired. I still feel guilty about it.
The movement for racial justice needs you at protests, and needs you to be registered to vote — but it also could use your donations. There are so many organizations that have long been in the fight, and more than ever, they need your funds to keep the momentum. You give, and they can do more. Simple as that. Here’s the beginning of a list we’ll be adding to regularly. Have no funds to donate, but want to volunteer? Many of the organizations below can use your volunteer hours. More orgs you’d like to nominate? Write to kitania@thehawkinsproject.org.
Just Cities takes a restorative justice approach to fighting for racial justice through policy, planning, and development. In order to transform cities to function well for every resident, especially marginalized residents, they have several initiatives. These include multiracial leadership development, housing as a fundamental human need, police transformation, and inclusive neighborhood development for communities of color, among others.
The NAACP LDF is America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice. Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, LDF seeks structural changes to expand democracy, eliminate disparities, and achieve racial justice in a society that fulfills the promise of equality for all Americans. LDF also defends the gains and protections won over the past 75 years of civil rights struggle and works to improve the quality and diversity of judicial and executive appointments.
Impact Justice dares to dream of a humane and restorative system of justice in the United States. Through innovation, research, policy, and advocacy, they are forging a new path to a justice system that is fair to all of us.
Color Of Change helps people respond effectively to injustice in the world around us. As a national online force driven by 1.7 million members, they move decision-makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people in America. By designing strategies powerful enough to fight racism and injustice — in politics and culture, in the workplace and the economy, in criminal justice and community life, and wherever they exist — they are changing both the written and unwritten rules of society. They mobilize members to end practices and systems that unfairly hold Black people back, and champion solutions that move us all forward.
The Equal Justice Initiative is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
Causa Justa :: Just Cause builds grassroots power and leadership to create strong, equitable communities. Born through mergers between Black organizations and Latino organizations, they build bridges of solidarity between working-class communities. Through rights-based services, policy campaigns, civic engagement, and direct action, they improve conditions in neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area, and contribute to building the larger multi-racial, multi-generational movement needed for fundamental change.
Forward Justice serves as a strategic partner for nonprofit organizations, coalitions, and networks at the forefront of movements organizing for a more just, equitable, and free South. Their work catalyzes success for movements and expands democratic opportunities for people affected by injustice.
The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, they have taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach.
In their legal work the Community Justice Project collaborates closely with community organizers and grassroots groups in low-income communities of color because they believe that a more democratic, more just and more equal society can only truly come about through grassroots organizing and social movement. They are a part of that social movement in South Florida and strive to support organizing through our varied and often innovative legal work.
The Mississippi Center for Justice is advancing racial and economic justice through an approach that combines legal services with policy advocacy, community education, and media outreach. The Center partners with national, regional, and community organizations to develop and implement campaigns designed to create better futures for low-income Mississippians and communities of color in the areas of educational opportunity, financial security, healthcare, affordable housing, and other vital issues.
Gov. Greg Abbott said the temporary measure will help the state "corral the spread" of COVID-19 in Texas, which has seen a sharp rise in cases and hospitalizations in recent weeks.
The seven-day average positivity rate surpassed 10%, exceeding another one of the governor's key metrics.
Allie Goulding/The Texas Tribune
Seven weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott began allowing businesses to reopen, Texas exceeded another one of his key metrics Wednesday when the seven-day average positivity rate passed 10%, a level that Abbott previously called a “warning flag.”
The positivity rate is the ratio of positive cases to the number of tests conducted. The seven-day average has returned to 10.42%, a level the state hasn’t seen since mid-April, when Texas was under a stay-at-home order. In other words, for the past week, an average of about 1 out of 10 people tested for the coronavirus were positive.
It’s the latest in a streak of rapidly increasing indicators that have worried public health experts and local officials in Texas.
“The outlook is not good,” said Rebecca Fischer, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health. “We are in a super dire situation.”
For 13 days in a row, the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has reached record highs, soaring to 4,389 on Wednesday and more than doubling since the beginning of June. The daily count of new COVID-19 cases passed the 5,000 mark Tuesday and reached 5,551 on Wednesday — a 94% jump since June 1.
A spokesperson for the governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Abbott told an Amarillo television station Wednesday that “there is a massive outbreak of COVID-19 across the state of Texas.”
The positivity rate is a metric he’d pointed to before, calling it “one of the most important data points” and one officials would watch as the state reopened.
“Anything below 7.2% is going to be a good number,” Abbott said at a May news conference. “If the positivity test rate is more than 10%, that’s one of those red flags that we begin to look at.”
Texas didn’t meet the guidelines laid out by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May before moving to a phased reopening. The CDC suggested a downward trajectory of confirmed cases over 14 days, as well as a decrease in the positivity rate. The guidelines also recommended that hospitals shouldn’t be overwhelmed and that states should have a robust testing program, including the capacity to follow up with infected people using contact tracing.
Abbott’s stay-at-home order expired April 30, and retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters and malls were allowed to operate at 25% capacity starting in May. Restaurants were permitted to ramp up to 50% occupancy on May 18, and child care facilities could reopen. Restaurants can now operate at 75% capacity, with tables of up to 10 people, and virtually all other businesses, including bars, can operate at 50%.
As the number of infections and hospitalizations started to increase at the beginning of June, Abbott said there was “no real need” to scale back business reopenings, citing the number of hospital beds available.
But earlier this week, he began striking an urgent tone, saying Monday that “COVID-19 is now spreading at an unacceptable rate in Texas” and urging residents Tuesday to stay home as much as possible.
Although health officials agree that wearing face coverings is one of the easiest methods to slow the spread of COVID-19, Abbott has so far refused to require people to wear masks in public. The governor issued an executive order June 3 banning local governments from imposing fines or criminal penalties on people who don’t wear masks in public.
After weeks of pressure from county and city officials asking permission to require mask-wearing, Abbott said last week that his plan authorized local governments “to require stores and business to require masks.” He had never publicly mentioned that option before. Many of the state’s largest cities quickly issued new orders, mandating that businesses require employees and customers to wear masks.
On Tuesday, Abbott allowed local officials to tighten restrictions on outdoor gatherings — limiting them to 100 people, a threshold he originally set at 500 people. He also said the state would impose new safety rules for child care centers, after making prior rules optional earlier this month.
The governor’s plan to reopen the economy, published in late April, does not identify a benchmark positivity rate that would prompt officials to reimpose stay-at-home orders or other restrictions.
It does say that rural counties that were allowed to reopen more quickly would have to slow down if certain conditions were met. High and steadily rising positivity rates were among them.
Shelley Payne, director of the LaMontagne Center for Infectious Disease at the University of Texas at Austin, said the increased positivity rate means “a higher percentage of [the] population infected.”
“The rates are really dependent on how many people you’re testing and who you’re testing,” Payne said. “So if you’re only testing people that you’re pretty sure have the disease, you’re going to have a high positive rate. If you test 10 times as many as people and many of those are not infected, then the positivity rate is going to go down.”
A&M’s Fischer said the metric can also indicate that the state is not testing enough.
“Some scientists have suggested that this 10% mark is really relevant as an indicator that testing is not widespread enough and … that we don’t really have a good handle on the situation — not just in terms of what we’re doing, but also what we know about it,” she said.
David Lakey, vice chancellor for health affairs and chief medical officer at the University of Texas System, said the growing number of people hospitalized and the rising positivity rate suggest that “we have more disease here in Texas right now.”
Hospitals and other facilities could also have stopped testing those considered unlikely to have the virus.
Chris Van Deusen, a spokesperson for the Department of State Health Services, said the agency is concerned with “any increasing rate of positive tests,” especially when the amount of testing is also increasing.
“That’s an indication that the number of cases in the community is growing, and it’s a clear signal that Texans need to take action to slow the spread of COVID-19,” he said.
Van Deusen advised Texans to wash their hands, disinfect surfaces, wear masks in public, and “heed the advice of leaders and stay home whenever possible.”
Patrick Svitek also contributed to this story.
Disclosure: Texas A&M University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Using TaskRabbit and Venmo, a Silicon Valley investor and his business partner had workers repackage nonmedical KN95 masks so he could sell them to Texas emergency workers.
Boston has become the second-largest city in the US to bar police and other local agencies from using facial recognition software (via WBUR). The city's 13-member council voted unanimously to ban the technology outside of use in specific criminal cases. The bill also prevents any city official from obtaining the technology through a third-party.
The bill was put forward in part to protect the city's minority residents. "Boston should not use racially discriminatory technology that threatens the privacy and basic rights of our residents," said councilor Michelle Wu, who co-sponsored the bill alongside councilor Ricardo Arroyo. Ahead of the vote, the two officials contested the technology is widely inaccurate at identifying people of color.
The ban comes after software called DataWorks Plus and human error led to the wrongful arrest of a Black man in Detroit. Police arrested Robert Williams after the software incorrectly matched his driver's license photo to security footage from the scene of a burglary. The incident is the first known instance of a wrongful arrest in the US based on an incorrect facial recognition match, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). However, research suggests most facial recognition software isn't great at correctly identifying people of color. A 2018 MIT study, for instance, found that three commercially available programs incorrectly identified dark-skinned women as much as 34.7 percent of the time.
"This is a crucial victory for our privacy rights and for people like Robert Williams, who have been arrested for crimes they didn't commit because of a technology law enforcement shouldn't be using,” said ACLU of Massachusetts executive director Carol Rose. “Lawmakers nationwide should follow suit and immediately stop law enforcement use of this technology. This surveillance technology is dangerous when right, and dangerous when wrong."
It's worth pointing out that once Boston Mayor Marty Walsh signs the bill into law, it won't prevent federal agencies like the FBI from using the tech while conducting investigations in the city. Still, with cities like San Francisco and Boston limiting the use of the technology, other jurisdictions may do the same.
From this point forward, NASA’s Washington DC headquarters will be known as the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters, named after the agency’s first Black female engineer. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced the change today.
Jackson was one of the women who inspired the book and movie Hidden Figures, about the Black women who helped NASA launch the first American into orbit. Fittingly, the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters is located on Hidden Figures Way.
“Mary W. Jackson was part of a group of very important women who helped NASA succeed in getting American astronauts into space. Mary never accepted the status quo, she helped break barriers and open opportunities for African Americans and women in the field of engineering and technology,” Bridenstine said in a statement.
Jackson was born in Hampton, Virginia, and earned a dual degree in math and physical sciences from Hampton Institute in 1942. She worked as a math teacher, bookkeeper and US Army secretary before joining the segregated West Area Computing Unit of the Langley Research Center. In 1951, she was recruited by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which was later succeeded by NASA.
Jackson worked as a “human computer” for two years. After which, she conducted experiments in the 60,000-horsepower Supersonic Pressure Tunnel, which blasted models with winds nearly twice the speed of sound. Jackson was encouraged to take a training program that would allow her to advance from mathematician to engineer. But because the classes were held at the then-segregated Hampton High School, she needed special permission to attend.
Jackson did complete the training, and in 1958 she became NASA’s first Black female engineer. She authored and co-authored numerous reports and joined Langley’s Federal Women’s Program, where she worked to address the hiring and advancement of the next generation of female mathematicians, engineers and scientists. She worked alongside Katherine Johnson, Dororhty Vaughan and Christine Darden, also featured in Hidden Figures.
Jackson retired in 1985 and was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal posthumously in 2019.
“NASA facilities across the country are named after people who dedicated their lives to push the frontiers of the aerospace industry. The nation is beginning to awaken to the greater need to honor the full diversity of people who helped pioneer our great nation… We know there are many other people of color and diverse backgrounds who have contributed to our success, which is why we’re continuing the conversations started about a year ago with the agency’s Unity Campaign. NASA is dedicated to advancing diversity, and we will continue to take steps to do so,” Bridenstine said.
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Brian “Sunny” Sunblade found himself face down on the ground in downtown San Antonio surrounded by cops on June 2. The black 24-year-old construction worker says his hands were cuffed behind his back, his legs were hoisted into the air, and an officer pressed a knee onto his head. Sunblade’s crime? Crossing against a pedestrian control sign, then resisting arrest. He says he wasn’t involved in a demonstration that was going on nearby, and was just out to survey several days of damage—shattered glass, boarded-up windows, graffiti—from prior demonstrations with his neighbor and friend, Priscilla Gonzalez. As they walked, Sunblade went to check out whether the Whataburger across the street was open. A group of officers near the door called out and told him not…
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