Transcript

11.20.25 · Washington Post

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Speaker 1: Good morning everybody on this dreary Thursday, the twentieth of November,
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to the reading of the Washington Post. And as you know,
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RADIOI is a reading service intended for people who are
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blind to have other disabilities that make it difficult to
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read printed material. Your reader for today is Rod Brotherton.
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Today's front headlines from the Washington Post are social Security
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scraps plan to limit disability benefits after an uproar. Imagine
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that the Social Security Administration has abandoned plans to block
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thousands of older Americans from qualifying for disability benefits after
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an uproar that reached senior officials and the Trump White House.
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According to people familiar with the decision, the agency is
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also halting a plan to use modern labor market data
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to help judge whether disability claimants can work, a project
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that has cost the federal government more than three hundred
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and fifty million dollars so far. The new data would
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have replaced the long outdated jobs database that until recently
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included obsolete occupations such as nut sorters and telephone quotation clerks.
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The policy affecting older people would have fundamentally altered who
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qualifies for the two federal disability programs by eliminating or
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limiting a person's age as a factor to consider. It
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fulfilled the long held goal of Trump officials to tighten
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the federal safety net, and had been on track to
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be announced in the Federal Register as soon as December,
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but widespread opposition mounted following an article in The Washington
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Post in October that reported the new policy could result
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in a loss of future benefits for hundreds of thousands
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of people. Jason Turkish, an attorney representing disabled people and
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co founder of the advocacy group Alliance for America's Promise,
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said SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignado and other administration.
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Speaker 2: Officials assured him in meetings.
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Speaker 1: Over the past week that the proposal would not move forward.
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A formal Social Security executive familiar with a disability program
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confirmed that Bisignano had scrapped.
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Speaker 2: The proposed rule.
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Speaker 1: The commissioner took a decisive, unambiguous role in correctly ruling
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out that this mega regulation would move.
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Speaker 2: Forward, Turkish said.
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Speaker 1: A White House spokesman said that the White House has
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not seen any such proposal. However, President Trump remains fully
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committed to protecting and strengthening social Security while making it
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easier for millions of Americans to engage with the Social
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Security Administration. Social Security officials did not respond to requests
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for comment on Wednesday. The about phase follows months of
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turmoil at the agency that issues retirement and disability benefits
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to seventy two million Americans. Thousands of staff cuts, voluntary
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departures and reassignments, service failures, and an aggressive takeover by
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Elon Musk's us DOGE service early in Trump's administration have
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led to widespread customer complaints and low morale at the
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agency's workforce. Social Security evaluates disability claims by considering age,
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work experience, and education to determine if someone can adjust
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to other types of work. Applicants over fifty have a
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better chance of qualifying because age is treated as a
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limitation in adapting to many jobs. But with prodding from
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the Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought earlier
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this year, the agency began to consider eliminating age as
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a factor entirely of raising the threshold to sixty. According
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to people familiar with the plans who spoke on the
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condition of anonymity to share private discussions. Leyland Dudek, the
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acting commissioner at the time, instructed officials to begin drafting
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the new rule shortly after he took office. Advocates for
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the disability and abled people applauded the decision to back
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off Social Security. Disability insurance is a crucial lifeline for
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people who find themselves no longer able to work. Jones,
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vice president of Financial Security for AARP, sat in a statement,
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we appreciate Commissioner Bisignanosk's commitment to a careful and transparent
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process because any changes to disability insurance can impact older
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Americans across the country who rely on Social Security for
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their independence and livelihoods. A cut in disability benefits would
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have significant political consequences, advocates and lawmakers have warned, pointing
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to Trump's campaign promise not to touch Social Security. I'm
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incredibly pleased to see Commissioner Bisignano and the administration decided
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not to pursue proposed cuts to social securities disability programs,
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cuts which would have been out of step not only
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with what the American people want, but also with President
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Trump's repeat promises not to.
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Speaker 2: Cut Social Security.
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Speaker 1: Rebecca Vallis, CEO of the National Academy of Social Insurance
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set in a statement. Conservatives have long argued that since
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Americans are living longer and fewer have jobs that require
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manual labor, many physically disabled workers could adapt to desk work,
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with the result that fewer people would qualify.
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Speaker 2: For disability benefits.
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Speaker 1: Social Security had prepared a similar rule at the end
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of the first Trump administration, but ran out of time
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to formally propose it. To determine the jobs a disability
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applicant might still be able to do, social Security has
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long relied on a database compiled by the Labor Department,
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which abandoned the list more than thirty years ago as
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the economy shifted from blue collar work to information and services.
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Martin Nompali, who served as Social Security Commissioner during the
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Biden administration, removed many of the jobs from the consideration
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after the scrutiny from lawmakers following a post investigation in
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twenty twenty two, but the agency did not replace them
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with a sophisticated database of jobs in the modern US
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economy compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics over the
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course of years. Among the Trump administration's concerns with using
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the new data is that younger disabled people with cognitive
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and mental impairments would probably qualify for fewer jobs, potentially
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leading more of them to be awarded benefits, the former
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Social Security executives said. According to two former officials, starting
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next year, the agency plan to develop a database using
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the BLS data to help determine which jobs, if any,
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someone seeking benefits could perform. Disability advocates say they worry
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that such a database would be programmed to come up
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with a vast array of jobs, particularly if advancing age
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was no longer a limiting factor, and would end up
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denying benefits to tens of thousands of claimants every year.
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Michelle spatafor a New York based disability attorney, said that
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advocates were most concerned about the proposal that could have
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made more older Americans ineligible for disability, and are willing
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to wait until the agency moves forward with a modern
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job's database. I don't know if there's a way not
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to throw out the baby with the bathwater, she said.
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The threat of taking age out of the equation is
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so great that even though we want to see a
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modernizations of job data, we're willing.
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Speaker 2: To wait on that.
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Speaker 1: The next story is gnome at odds with Trump appointed
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panel over the future of FEMA, A panel appointed by
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President Trump to review whether to eliminate the Federal Emergency
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Management Agency, has instead concluded in a report that the
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agency should be more powerful and autonomous. Homeland Security Secretary
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Christy L. Nuam, however, wants to take FEMA in a
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different direction. The wrangling over the FEMA Reviews Council's long
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waited report, which has been in the works for nearly
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ten months, will help determine the fate of one of
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Trump's controversial efforts to reshape the government and its ability
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to respond to disasters such as floods, fires, and hurricanes.
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Nome As, the council co chair, is responsible for finalizing
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the report and sending it to Trump for review. Draft,
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which is not finished, recommends keeping FEMA within the Department
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of Homeland Security and largely removing FEMA from its direct
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role in disaster relief, instead turning it into a more
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of a grant making operation. According to five people familiar
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with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity
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to discuss the private deliberations, the council's earlier draft did
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not recommend those changes, but rather that FEMA gets elevated
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to a cabinet level office. Nome's office also wants to
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reduce the federal government's share of disaster related costs to
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fifty percent, with states having to fund the other fifty
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percent with cash, which some Council members staunchly opposed. According
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to a person familiar with the situation, under FEMA guidelines,
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the federal government covers about seventy five percent of the costs,
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and in extreme cases, it will nearly one hundred percent
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for a period of time. The Council is recommending FEMA
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keep its current cost share responsibility, which is defined by.
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Speaker 2: The Stafford Act.
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Speaker 1: A spokesperson for DHS denied Nome was trying to alter
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the report. Secretary Nome is the chairwoman of the Council
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and has worked with committee members collaboratively on the reform report,
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DHS spokeswoman Trisha McLaughlin said in a statement. She said
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the Council has spent months working to provide recommendations to
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reshape and to reform the bureaucratic mess that exists at FEMA.
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The negotiations over the report are still in flux, and
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the President's final decision is not yet clear, According to
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people familiar with the process since he initially floated reforming
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and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA. In January,
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Trump at first with first responders and victims, families, and
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disaster areas, and heard from advisors and Republican officials who
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oppose eliminating the agency. The final report, which carries no
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legal weight but is a recommendation to the President for
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FEMA's next steps, is expected in mid December. The New
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York Times first reported details of tensions around the FEMA
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Review Council's report earlier Wednesday. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson
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described the council's mandate as recommending how to make sure
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the federal role remains supplemental and appropriate to the scale
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of disaster. Secretary Nome is working hard to implement the
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President's vision that will best serve the American public, Jackson said, Trump,
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who has been highly critical of FEMA, appointed the council
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in part to address criticism of the way the federal
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government response to natural disasters. According to people involved in
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the process, the ten member council, led by Noam and
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co chaired by Secretary of defend Pete Hegsith, is composed
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of Republican state and local elected officials, a veteran FEMA official,
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and an insurance CEO. When we first heard about the
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creation of this council, I think there were concerns that
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would not do its due diligence, said Pete Gaynor, who
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led FEMA for a time during Trump's first administration. But
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I think the Council has done some pretty good work.
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I think they have made some positive recommendations on turning
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this thing from an overly complicated recovery process into something
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more simplified. I think that meets everybody's goals. In early November,
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the Council submitted a one hundred and sixty page draft
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proposal on how to revamp FEMA and improve the country's
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disaster respond system, the result of about thirteen thousand public
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comments and about a dozen public and closed meetings with communities,
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many small and rural, from Puerto Rico to Louisiana, Wyoming
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to California. The overarching conclusion aligned with Trump's impulse to
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push more disaster response capabilities and decisions to states, But
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the council, according to a person involved in the process
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and a review of meetings, became more focused on improving
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and elevating the agency rather than shrinking or eliminating it.
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President Trump is putting Americans first by creating at once
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in a lifetime opportunity to methodically align and strengthen how
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emergency management is integrated across all levels of government. Kevin Guthrie,
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Florida's Director of Emergency Management, said during an August FEMA
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Review Council meeting in Oklahoma City, we don't get an
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opportunity to hit the reset button often, and we've been
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given that opportunity through this committee. Some of the council's
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detailed suggestions include making it easier for disaster stricken residents
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and communities to get FEMA's individual and public assistance funds
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by accelerating the dispersal of funding to the communities, and
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reforming how FEMA manages the National Flood Insurance Program. According
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to three people familiar with the report and a copy
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of its table of contents, it also proposed moving FEMA
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out of DHS and making it a cabinet level department.
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But after the report's submission, Noel and her top advisor,
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former Trump campaign manager Corey Ludinowski, cut the draft proposal
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to fewer than twenty pages.
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Speaker 2: While keeping open.
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Speaker 1: The possibility of releasing the rest as supplemental material.
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Speaker 2: Officials.
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Speaker 1: Some White House officials received the copy of the Council's
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unadded to draft. According to two people familiar with the matter.
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Speaker 2: It's like Edward scissor Hands.
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Speaker 1: A person familiar with the situation said of nomes edited
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version of the report, she wants to chop it up
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and decentralize and really drastically limit FEMA. Many members of
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the Council are not happy with how she has put
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her thumb on the scale. Norm's revisions also include a
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recommendation to further cut FEMA staff by about half and
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have FEMA only handled debris removal and emergency protective measures
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when responding to a disaster, moving most of its other work,
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such as helping repair damaged utilities, roads and bridges, public buildings,
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and parks to other agencies, according to a person familiar
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with the reports. In addition, about a month ago, Nome
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announced a desire to reach FEMA's headquarters from d C
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to Texas, which Politico first reported. Those ideas concerned some
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experts on the Council, who warned that state and local
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governments lacked the resources to take over those responsibilities from FEMA,
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and that the changes needed to be phased in to
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give states and local communities time to shift their budgets
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to better support their own emergency management capabilities. After Trump
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commissioned the Council through an executive order in January, the
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administration had largely pinned FEMA's future on what the Council
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would suggest.
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Speaker 2: The members took that mission.
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Speaker 1: Seriously, according to people familiar with the process. While it
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was clear to some that Trump and Neuam both desired
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to get rid of FEMA as it exists today, members
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of the Council spent months sifting through feedback from all
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corners of the US, including tribes that often struggled to
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get federal disaster assistance, and determined that FEMA needed to
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make its programs more accessible to rural regions. According to
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people familiar with the report, the Council also highlighted the
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need to mitigate risk by enabling communities to rebuild more safely.
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Speaker 2: They said.
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Speaker 1: That effort, one person said, created some tension between some
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Council members and Num and Ludinowski, who would often come
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into their meetings and interject his thoughts. One example is
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Noum's proposal to move FEMA to Texas and potentially taped
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Nim Kidd, the head of the Texas Division of Emergency
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Management and a member of the Council, to lead the agency.
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She argued that relocating the agency's headquarters was one of
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Trump's desires, According to two people with knowledge of the situation,
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who added that some members of the Council were shocked
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by the proposal, the shift had not been something the
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Council was to discussing, and relocating much of the agency's
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operations out west seemed counterintuitive to the Council's goal of
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enabling FEMA to operate more efficiently and nimbly when responding
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to disasters across the US, Those people said. White House
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officials told some Council members that the relocation was not
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one of Trump's priorities. Transferring much of the agency's operations
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nearly across the country would make it much harder to
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coordinate a federal emergency response, experts and current and former
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official said, especially since one of FEMA's key responsibilities is
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ensuring that the executive branch can function during a national
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emergency such as a terrorist attack, and overseeing national emergency
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communications systems for the last few months, there has been
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speculation as to whether NOME would accept the Council's outline
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for future of FEMA and thus the nation's des disaster
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response framework. At the National Emergency Management Association's conference last month, Guthrie,
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the Florida Emergency Management Director, addressed to ten ds, telling
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them about the much awaited council report. Cameron Hamilton, FEMA's
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former acting administrator, whom Noom fired this spring for going
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against her desire to eliminate the agency, then ask him
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a blunt question, what degree of confidence do you have
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that the report that you submit to DHS will be
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what is submitted to the president? Guthrie side Hamilton recalled.
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He said he feels confident in the report that they
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submit to the Secretary, and that's where he stopped.
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Speaker 2: And next.
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Speaker 1: Internationally, Israeli figures Warren state has lost control as West
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Bank settlers attack from Jaba on the West Bank. Israeli
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political and military leaders are scrambling to contain a recent
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wave of settler attacks across the West Bank, warning against
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further violence targeting Palestinian communities as vigilantes have rampaged through villages,
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beating local residents, torching a mosque, assaulting and injuring Israeli
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security forces who helped demolish an illegal outposts this week
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near the flashpoint city of Hebron. The attacks, carried out
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by roving gangs of masked men and boys, have underscored
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the extent to which the Israeli government has allowed Jewish
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settlers to operate with impunity in the occupied territory. They
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have also exposed a deep rift between the most radical
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Israeli settlers, who believe they have a divine right to
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the land, and parts of the traditional security establishment, which
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sees the violence as destabilizing and undermining the state. In
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recent days, senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
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President Isaac Herzog, and Defense Minister Israel Katz, have condemned
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what they described as violent incidents perpetrated by a small
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group of extremists. Herzog called the violence shocking and serious
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and said it crosses the red line, and Katz, who
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last year ended administrative detention for Jewish settlers suspected of attacks,
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pledged more money in resources Monday for a defense ministry initiative,
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he said seeks to reduce the attacks through dialog but
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current and former members of Israel's political and security elite
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have also urgently raised the alarm and instead blamed the
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government for enacting policies they said either encouraged settler violence
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or allowed it to flourish. Israel is reaping what it sowed,
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the entire racist policy of pushing and harming the Palestinians
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while giving Jewish terrorism complete freedom of action, said Israel Ziv,
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a retired general who served as head of the Operation
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Directorate of the Israel Defense Forces. Through explicit policies on
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one hand and silence on the other, refusing to condemn,
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refusing to act, the state has lost control, he said.
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Neta Nahu's government has slent significant support to the expansion
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of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, taking dramatic steps
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to ensure that it retains control over most of the
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territory which Israel sees from Jordan during the nineteen sixty
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seven war, while approving housing and other infrastructure projects for
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Israeli settlements at a record rate. The government has also
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increased demolition of Palestinian property while deprioritizing investigations into attacks
24:07
on Palestinians. According to rights groups monitoring the trends. Settlers
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have also expelled Palestinians from villages, according to the United Nations,
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and in an effort to thwart the creation of a
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Palestinian state. In an interview Tuesday with Israel's Channel fourteen,
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Bizalel Smotrich, the country's far right finance minister, acknowledged the violence,
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but said the attacks were being used to defame Israel
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and the settler movement.
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Speaker 2: There is no.
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Speaker 1: Place for violence or taking the law into one's own hands,
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and certainly not for throwing stones at.
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Speaker 2: Soldiers, he said.
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Speaker 1: This is not how you build the land of Israel.
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He added, we are killing the idea of a Palestinian state,
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day by day, an hour by hour, with more than
24:57
a hundred farms that already ban over seventy hundred thousand
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dunams are one hundred and seventy three thousand acres. As
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the government has highlighted its grip to the West Bank,
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the number of attacks by Israeli settlers or soldiers on
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Palestinian farming communities in twenty twenty five has surpassed any
25:19
year on record since the UN began counting in twenty
25:22
oh six. The annual olive harvest, which is now drawing
25:27
up to a close saw gangs of Jewish extremists burning cars,
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looting farming equipment, and vandalizing more than fifty seven hundred
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trees and saplings cultivated by Palestinians across eighty seven towns
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and villages. On Thursday, settlers torched and vandalized.
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Speaker 2: A mosque in the West Village.
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Speaker 1: Bank of dier Itaya, about five miles northwest of the
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aerial settlement. They scrawled a message to the head of
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the army's central command before they left. We are not afraid,
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we will come back a vibluth, the graffiti said. In
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the southern West Bank on Monday, a rare move from
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the army to dismantle an i llegal outpost of a
26:13
larger settlement sparked clashes with security forces. Local media reported
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within hours gangs of young men had descended on two
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nearby Palestinian villages, burning property and beating residents. Israel's Heritz
26:29
newspaper reported that the assault on the village of Um Albutum,
26:35
nestled just below the Tuzur Mizgavi outpost, began as security
26:40
forces were still stationed up the hill. One group broke
26:44
into the home of a sixty six year old woman
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and beat her with styx. Heritz reported. Then it was
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the turn of the Palestinian village of Jaba, southwest of Bethlehem,
26:56
where residents said Mussa halslashe recalled hearing the attackers report
27:02
approaching his home. He watched on security cameras his mask
27:07
men torched his car and pelted the building with stones,
27:10
he said.
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Speaker 2: In total.
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Speaker 1: Mohammad al Subi, the member of the local community, said
27:16
the settlers burned four cars and two buildings. One of
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them told my niece that they would come back and
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burn our house. Abu Sali said of their village graffiti tags,
27:27
one read a Jew. Dozen evicted Jew residents reported that
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the army arrived at seven pm Local times, several hours
27:34
after the settlers had left. The army checkpoint is one
27:38
hundred meters away from our village. If the army was
27:41
concerned with preventing the incident, they would have been able
27:45
to prevent it, Abu Sable said. In a statement Monday night,
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the IDF said that it was conducting searches to locate
27:54
involved individuals. These violent incidents divert the attention of commanders
28:00
and soldiers away from their primary mission of defense and
28:04
counter terrorism. The statement said. The military did not respond
28:09
to follow up questions about the violence in um A Btum,
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but political observers again pointed to the government's role in
28:18
fanning the flames. Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving prime minister, returned
28:25
to office in December of twenty twenty two on the
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basis of a coalition agreement that promised to promote and
28:31
develop settlements in all parts of the Land of Israel,
28:36
including Judea and Samaria, the biblical name for the West Banks.
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Smotrich and Itamar Binevir, Israel's Minister for National Security, have
28:47
both been key figures in a push to annex the territory.
28:52
They're raising the hornets and then suddenly they're frightened of
28:57
their own creation, said Ziv the return General of for Shilash,
29:03
a former lawmaker who is now a researcher at the
29:06
Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said that
29:10
the Surgeon violence came because the perpetrators feels the government
29:15
is on their side. Add to that the weakness of
29:19
the police and its leadership, and the fact that both
29:22
the police and shin Bett have limited tools. This is
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what you get, Shilash said, referring to Israel's domestic security agency.
29:32
It shouldn't surprise anyone.
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Speaker 2: The Aer Golan, leader.
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Speaker 1: Of Israel's Democrats party and the former deputary military chief
29:40
of Staff, urged the country's leadership to describe at tax
29:45
as Jewish terrorism. How else can you describe this? If
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the same acts had been committed by Palestinians, we would
29:55
call this Palestinian terrorism, he said in an interview with
29:58
con News, Israel's public broadcaster. A country that is unable
30:03
to safeguard itself from terrorists and is unable to uphold
30:07
the rule of law sentences itself to extinct extinction. The
30:13
outlet reported Thursday that four settlers detained during the demolition
30:17
of Tazun Mizgavi had been released, and that no one
30:21
was arrested after the violence in Jaba. On the hill
30:25
above Um Albatum, piles of wood and white plastic marked
30:29
the spots where the demolished caravans had stood. Ask about
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attacks on Palestinian residents just down the slope, Israel Poper,
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a thirty year old Yeshiva student, said an investigation needed
30:44
to be conducted before the identity of the vigilantes could
30:47
be known. Let's see who it was, he said. Maybe
30:52
it was a fight between Arabs, or if it was Jews,
30:55
maybe the Arabs went to their houses before Hours later,
31:01
the military said that it had neutralized two terrorists at
31:05
the nearby Gush et Zion junction in the West Bank
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after a ramming and stabbing attack that killed a seventy
31:12
one year old man and wounded three others. Israeli's security official,
31:17
who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were
31:20
not authorized to speak to the media, said the attackers
31:24
were Palestinian residents of Hebron and the village of bit Umar.
31:30
Numerous Idea forces are conducting roadblocks, surrounding villages and searching
31:36
the areas, the military said.
31:38
Speaker 2: In a statement.
31:39
Speaker 1: The Hamas militant group described the attack as a naturally
31:43
response to the occupation's attempts to eliminate the Palestinian cause
31:49
and to the escalating aggression. The attackers' bodies were still
31:53
lying by the roadside, surrounded by police as Washington Post
31:58
reporters passed through the area on Tuesday afternoon. News of
32:03
the stabbing was circulated on at least one WhatsApp group
32:07
used by settlers to share developments.
32:10
Speaker 2: If everyone feels safe.
32:12
Speaker 1: In their own home, then no one will feel they
32:15
need to take the law into their own hands to
32:17
feel safe, Poppers said of the attacks.
32:22
Speaker 2: The next story.
32:24
Speaker 1: DeSantis' makeover of a left wing Florida college has been costly.
32:30
Speaker 2: Nearly three years ago.
32:32
Speaker 1: As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis championed his culture war policies
32:37
during the run up to a bid for the White House,
32:40
he vowed to overhaul a small, quirky liberal arts college
32:43
in Sarasota. It was part of the state educational system.
32:48
New College of Florida was more into DEI CRT, the
32:53
gender ideology, the Republican governor said, using abbreviations for diversity,
32:59
equity and cludeson and for critical race theory. He added,
33:03
We're going to be able to offer some reforms. Desantas
33:08
has largely succeeded in transforming what was one of the
33:12
most liberal institutions in the state into a school that
33:16
is now hailed by conservatives across the country. He hand
33:21
picked a new president and appointed a board of trustees
33:24
who fired and a nine tenured to veteran professors. The
33:28
school closed its gender Study Center. It added sports teams
33:33
and turned classrooms in a historic campus building into donor
33:38
friendly spaces, with cigar smoking allowed on the balcony overlooking
33:42
Sarasota Bay. Now the bill for that effort has arrived,
33:47
and it shows a remarkably high price. According to a
33:51
report released this month by the Florida Department of Government Efficiency,
33:56
the cost to produce a degree at the New College
33:58
is four hundred and ninety fourth, seven hundred and fifteen dollars,
34:03
the highest among public colleges in Florida, and more than
34:06
three times the one hundred and fifty thousand, seven hundred
34:10
and twenty nine dollars cost at the state's flagship school,
34:13
the University of Florida. Operating expenses at New College are
34:18
eighty three thousand, two hundred and seven dollars per student,
34:22
compared with forty five thousand, seven hundred and sixty five
34:25
at the University of Florida. New College also has the
34:30
largest number of administrators per student, thirty three point three
34:33
per hundred, compared with twenty six point nine at the
34:37
University of Florida, a school with nearly sixty two thousand students.
34:42
Enrollment has increased since the overhaul, but with seven hundred
34:46
and thirty two current students, new College is still shorter
34:49
of the school's stated goal of twelve hundred. More than
34:52
the third of the new students are athletes recruited to
34:55
fill recently created collegiate sports teams, including baseball, basketball, and softball.
35:02
DeSantis and his supporters say the new college makeover, along
35:06
with the governor's other educational priorities, should provide a roadmap
35:11
for education leaders nationwide. New College of Florida, under President
35:17
Richard Corcoran's leadership and at the direction of Governor DeSantis,
35:22
has structurally changed its mission from a liberal arts school
35:27
rife with left wing and doctrination to classical liberal arts
35:31
college with an emphasis on truth in academics, civic education,
35:36
and academic freedom. Ted Veerman, DeSantis' deputy press secretary, said
35:41
in an emailed response to questions about the Florida DOGE
35:46
report findings. One of the new trustees DeSantis appointed was
35:51
Christopher Ruffo, the conservative activist who has led campaigns against
35:56
critical race theory and gender identity in schools, and has
36:01
advised the Centus on Education policy. Florida has become a
36:05
blueprint for the Red state government. Rufo wrote in an
36:08
introduction to a twenty twenty four book, Corker and wrote
36:13
about his early tenure at the school its title.
36:17
Speaker 2: Storming the Ivory Tower.
36:20
Speaker 1: How of Florida College became ground zero in the struggle
36:24
to take back our campuses. But critics say the spending
36:29
at the New College far exceeds what should be expected
36:32
from a change in curriculum. I don't think people appreciate
36:37
how obscene the levels of spending are, said Nathan Allen,
36:41
who was vice president of Strategy and Special Projects at
36:44
New College until October of twenty twenty four. The state
36:49
legislature approved fifty two point seven million dollars in additional
36:53
funding for New College. Soon after, Dessantus appointed six new
36:57
college trustees.
36:58
Speaker 2: In early of.
37:01
Speaker 1: The most ever provided in the school's history. It has
37:05
added more than twenty million dollars since then. What New
37:10
College needed wasn't more money. It needed good management, Allan,
37:15
who graduated from the school in nineteen ninety five, said
37:18
in an interview. But it's a holy political project. Democrats
37:24
in the state legislature said, spending at the school needs
37:27
to be scrutinized. I knew this was a top down
37:31
director from the governor. So I'm not surprised to see
37:34
how much we're spending on so much money on this college,
37:38
said Lorie Berman, the Democratic leader in the Florida Senate
37:42
and a member of the Higher Education Committee. I'm disappointed
37:46
that we're not getting results from it. The school had
37:50
long been an anomaly in Florida's sprawling higher education system.
37:55
It was small, with an enrollment that hovered around six hundred.
38:00
College emphasized individual student directed learning and didn't issue grades.
38:08
It was founded in nineteen sixty as a private college
38:12
and built on waterfront property that once belonged to circus
38:15
magnet Charles Wringling. Wringling's elegant marble mansion is the campus's showpiece.
38:23
Famed architect Imp was selected to design the campus to
38:29
symbolize aspirations of the school's founders. Dirt from Harvard University
38:34
was brought in and mixed with soil at new college
38:37
as it was being built. It's the state's only designated
38:42
residential honors college and at one point produced more Fulbright
38:46
scholars per capita than any other Florida school. It didn't
38:51
have a sports program or other than intermural teams, but
38:56
it did have an unofficial mascot, the null Set, which
39:01
reflected the brainy and iconoclastic student body. New College was
39:08
frequently on the brink of closing because of financial struggles,
39:12
but when DeSantis said the school needed an overhaul, he
39:15
stressed ideology more than money. The offices of both DeSantis
39:21
and Corcoran blame high expenses on the way the old.
39:24
Speaker 2: New College was run.
39:27
Speaker 1: Righting these wrongs has always been expected to take some time,
39:32
especially with a new administration, new principles, and a complete
39:36
academic overhaul. De Santis spokesman Vererman said the Dessantus administration
39:42
pledged to model New College after Hillsdale College, a private
39:47
Christian school in Michigan. New College adopted what it calls
39:51
a classical curriculum centered on the Western Canon. Freshmen are
39:56
required to take a class on Homer's Odyssey. Attorney Alan Dershowitz,
40:02
a staunch supporter of President Trump, spoke at New College's
40:06
commencement in May. Corcoran announced in September that the school
40:11
is commissioning a statue of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk
40:15
for the campus, to be funded by public donations. New
40:19
College also volunteered to be the first to sign Trump's
40:22
Compact and offered by the administration to colleges and universities
40:27
for preferential treatment and federal funding decisions in exchange for
40:31
compliance with his ideological priorities. Corcoran said New College is
40:37
already undertaking those priorities. He called the Florida doje on
40:41
it ridiculous at a November twelfth faculty meeting. Corkoran, who
40:46
was the Florida Education Commissioner in DeSantis' first term, became
40:50
one of the highest paid public officials in the state
40:53
when he was named to lead New College in twenty
40:55
twenty three, with a salary and benefits of up to
40:58
one point three million dollars. The Dessantus appointed trustees fired
41:03
the former president, Patricia Oker as one of their first
41:07
actions in January of twenty twenty three. Okre was paid
41:11
about three hundred and fifty three thousand dollars. Corcoran told factorily,
41:16
you can't measure us until twenty twenty eight, according to
41:20
an audio recording of the meeting obtained by The Washington Post.
41:24
In an op ed published Tuesday, Corcoran said most of
41:27
the spending since the overhaul has been used to repair
41:30
decades of catastrophic neglect. We inherited that included moldy dorms
41:35
and historic mansions that were in ruin. New College wasn't struggling,
41:41
it was in a death spiral.
41:43
Speaker 2: He wrote.
41:45
Speaker 1: The school's spirit, once nationally recognized for rigor and intellectual independence,
41:51
had become so dysfunctional that it was described as toxic.
41:55
Corcoran added New College has dropped sixty places in the
42:00
US News and World Report ranking since the overhaul, to
42:03
one hundred and thirty fifth among national liberal arts colleges.
42:08
While the annual list has been criticized for valuing wealth
42:12
and prestige, most colleges still tout high rankings when they
42:17
get them, and DeSantis has frequently celebrated high rankings of
42:21
Florida universities. In a separate op ed last month, Corcoran
42:27
said the rankings formula punishes reform. For decades, the same
42:32
universities that built bloated bureaucracies and ideological echo chambers have
42:38
graded each other on a curve, rewarding peers who protect
42:43
the status quo and punishing any institution brave enough to change.
42:48
He wrote, students at New college say they're adapting to
42:52
the changes. Galen Rizdik, who graduated in January, saw both
42:58
versions of the school. He said the old new college
43:02
had a vibrant student body and top notch professors. Risdik,
43:06
who earned a joint degree in applied math and quantitative
43:10
economics and a separate degree in music, now teaches high
43:14
school geometry in Florida. He said the overtly political messaging
43:19
from Corkoran and others when the overhaul began seemed antagonistic.
43:25
I think the students thought to a large degree that
43:28
their voices were not being heard and that the direction
43:32
was changing in a way that they didn't want, Risdik said.
43:35
For myself, I was a little bit frustrated that we
43:39
had a public university that had very political messaging. The
43:45
next story is entitled The Deadliest Roads in America from Memphis.
43:53
After his brother was fatally struck by a vehicle while
43:56
crossing the seven lanes of Jackson Avenue, Eith Smith found
44:01
a single clue, a chunk of broken headlight that he
44:05
suspected came from a utility truck. The impact separated David
44:11
Booker's skull from the bones in his neck, left his brain,
44:15
bleeding tore along and caused internal injuries. According to an
44:19
autopsy report. Doctors declared him brain dead a day later.
44:25
With a little sign of a police investigation, Smith fruitlessly
44:29
sought surveillance video from a nearby McDonald's. He stood vigil
44:34
on Jackson Avenue for days, hoping to spot a heavy
44:38
forward truck with a shattered headlight, until Smith said people
44:42
started looking at him as if he were crazy. The
44:46
case remains listed as an unsolved hidden run, written off
44:52
in Smith's view, just another pedestrian death in a rough
44:56
part of town. Oh well, another person got hit. But
45:01
you know it's common, Smith said. It's like it's part
45:05
of life right here. The stretch of Jackson Avenue is
45:08
among the deadliest roads in Memphis itself the nation's most
45:13
dangerous metro area for pedestrians. But it's not just Jackson Avenue,
45:19
and it's not just Memphis. Booker's death in September of
45:24
twenty twenty two fit an escalating pattern on America's roads.
45:29
Between ten, twenty ten and twenty twenty three, yearly deaths
45:33
caused by cars and trucks striking pedestrians rose seventy percent.
45:39
An examination of federal data and other public records by
45:43
the Washington Post shows, city by city across the United States.
45:50
The surge from forty three hundred and two and twenty
45:53
ten to seventy three hundred and fourteen deaths in twenty
45:57
twenty three largely occurred on roads with a few things
46:02
in common. They were concentrated on multi lane roads, with
46:07
the largest clusters of death occurring on thoroughfares that cut
46:12
through economically distressed neighborhoods and had a fading commercial strips.
46:17
According to the Post investigation, wide roads, fast moving vehicles,
46:23
especially when combined with signs of poverty, homelessness, drug and
46:28
alcohol abuse, and lack of pedestrian focused roadway improvements, produced
46:33
a pattern of death by vehicle that is uniquely American.
46:37
According to the investigation, which draws on crash data, census records,
46:42
and thousands of pages of police reports, as well as
46:46
interviews with current and former officials, engineering experts, and victims families,
46:54
the more people in those areas lack cars and are
46:57
forced to walk, while many of those killed tend to
47:01
be impaired and were taking risks trying to cross. The
47:04
review found the country has become a global outlier, as
47:09
fatality rates and such incidents have declined almost thirty percent
47:13
in other developed countries in the decade ending twenty twenty three.
47:18
The POST analysis documents for the first time a sharp
47:22
increase in places with clusters of pedestrian deaths, revealing the
47:26
deadliest neighborhoods and stretches of roads in hundreds of cities.
47:30
The number of locations with at least three recent pedestrian
47:34
deaths clustered within a mile of one another tripled during
47:39
this period, from more than two hundred and seventy five
47:42
and twenty ten to more than eight hundred and twenty
47:44
five and twenty twenty three. The POST found those hot
47:48
spots increased most in states in the southern half of
47:52
the country, such as Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arizona. It's
47:59
just turning into a death trap in some parts of
48:02
these cities, said Nick Fahrenchach, Department of the Transportation Research
48:07
Board Pedestrian Committee, which is part of the National Academies
48:11
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In addition, more than
48:16
thirty eight hundred people were killed almost immediately when they
48:19
were struck in twenty twenty three. An indication that high
48:22
speeds and larger vehicles are making impacts more violent. The
48:27
rate at which pedestrians are declared dead at the scene
48:30
of the crash has more than doubled, according to the
48:32
POSTS analysis. Despite abundant evidence of dangers, state and city
48:39
agencies have been slow to invest in improvements such as
48:43
safer places to cross or take steps to curb vehicle speeds.
48:48
According to experts and former officials, a priority among local
48:53
transportation agencies remains avoiding traffic jams, rather than responding to
48:59
concerns of pedestrians and the most danger who are more
49:03
likely to live in poor neighborhoods and wheel less political influence,
49:08
the federal government has urged communities to enhance pedestrian safety
49:14
and provided some money for solutions, but it has not
49:17
tied the bulk of funding to better safety outcomes. While
49:22
the Biden administration provided modest financial backing to improve pedestrian safety,
49:28
the Transportation Department under President Trump is trying to claw
49:32
back some of that money from several cities. A federal
49:35
official told Boston's transportation agency in September that the administration
49:41
was pulling funds for a project it deemed hostile to
49:44
motor vehicles, according to correspondence obtained by the Post. In
49:49
a statement, the Transportation Department said the withdrawal of grants
49:53
was part of a shift away from what it called
49:56
the Biden administration's costly social and climate and issuectives that
50:01
deprioritize the needs of American drivers and increased congestion risks.
50:08
The Post investigation used data from police reports and other
50:11
records collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, focusing
50:16
from when pedestrian deaths began to climb in twenty ten
50:20
to the most recent year with data available twenty twenty three.
50:25
It revealed short stretches of road that had become exceptionally deadly.
50:29
In Albuquerque, thirty four pedestrians were killed along a three
50:34
mile stretch of Central Avenue between twenty ten and twenty
50:37
twenty three. In Los Angeles, thirty three people were killed
50:42
on Western Avenue, just south of downtown during that time,
50:47
and in Houston, vehicles hit and killed.
50:50
Speaker 2: Thirty six people in a three and a half.
50:52
Speaker 1: Mile section of Westheimer Road, which runs through.
50:56
Speaker 2: The city's west side.
50:59
Speaker 1: The fatalities included a nineteen year old Hailey Reid, who
51:02
had recently moved to the city to presume a nursing degree.
51:07
In the early hours of October fifteenth, twenty twenty two,
51:11
she chased after a drunk friend into the nine lane road,
51:15
where a pickup plowed into her, causing Red to go
51:19
airborne approximately twenty feet. According to a police report, she
51:23
died at the scene. She hadn't even started life yet,
51:28
said Michael Watford, her grandfather. In Tampa, Hillsborough Avenue cuts
51:34
a twelve and a half mile swath through the community's
51:38
north side that has seen sixty seven fatalities from twenty
51:41
ten to twenty twenty three. The victims range from eleven
51:46
to ninety four years old. Felix de Laouz was on
51:51
his regular walk with his wife on a Saturday afternoon
51:54
in twenty eighteen when a Honda Civic rode up onto
51:58
the sidewalk. E la Ouz pushed his wife to safety
52:02
before being hit hard enough to smash a hole in
52:05
the car's windshield and be sent sliding across the parking
52:09
lot of a supermarket. Tampa police said he died a hero,
52:14
but among the largest metro areas, Memphis streets are the
52:19
most deadly for people on foot. According to the Post analysis,
52:24
its fatality rate more than quadrupled between twenty ten and
52:28
twenty twenty three. In the city, not including suburbs, deaths
52:34
peaked at eighty two in twenty twenty two, dipped to
52:38
fifty seven in twenty twenty three, and fell to forty
52:41
seven last year. The toll is on course to be
52:45
similar in twenty twenty five, with forty two deaths this year,
52:50
but wild deaths remain relatively high. City officials say the
52:54
recent declines indicate their efforts to redesign streets are paying off. Booker,
53:00
thirty five, was the eleventh pedestrian killed in the past
53:03
decade on a one and a half mile stretch of
53:06
Jackson Avenue. The road, seven miles from the city's heart,
53:11
has been documented by the city and state as disproportionately lethal,
53:16
but remains mostly unimproved. Aside from walk signs near where
53:21
Booker was hit, cars and trucks roar pass departments, restaurants,
53:26
corner stores, and gas stations, often well above the strips
53:31
forty miles an hour speed limit. With two years of
53:34
Booker's death, two more people were killed by drivers at
53:38
the same intersection. The national data shows how the design
53:42
of such roads is closely linked to the fatality rate.
53:46
Those with three lanes or more are by far the
53:51
most dangerous because they enable higher speeds Above thirty miles
53:56
an hour. Fatality risks increase sharply. At fifty miles an hour,
54:02
someone's chance of survival when struck is less than one
54:07
in five The family of dark trail Cherie Taylor, a
54:12
thirty six year old mother of three, said her injuries
54:16
after being hit by two vehicles on a dark Memphis
54:19
road left her unrecognizable at her funeral despite efforts to
54:23
reconstruct her face. That's when I broke down because I
54:28
was like, that is not my sister, Dureka Walker sid.
54:33
I was in denial for a long time because I
54:37
didn't get a chance to really see her and say goodbye.
54:42
Pedestrian fastalities are more common and more heavily black and
54:46
Latino neighborhoods and those with higher poverty rates. Black pedestrians
54:52
died at a rate double of whites, while for Native
54:55
Americans the rate was more than five times as high.
54:59
For many people living in the pedestrian death zones identified
55:03
by the Post, walking is a matter of necessity. On average,
55:08
Nearly a fifth of households and surrounding neighborhoods don't have
55:11
a car, more than double the rate of other communities,
55:15
according to the comparison of crash data and Census Bureau records.
55:20
Wherever we have these hotspots, these communities are not getting
55:24
what they need, said Robert J. Schneider, an urban planning
55:28
professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, who has
55:31
studied how crashes are clustered. Yes, it's the design, but
55:37
it's more than that. There's bigger socio economic problems, lack
55:42
of political power recognition. Those are consistent. Highway engineers and
55:50
other specialists said the jumping fatalities has multiple causes. The
55:55
vehicles on American roads have grown bigger and heavier, and
55:58
those with tail ta all front ends have been shown
56:01
to be more deadly for pedestrians. According to an analysis
56:05
by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, deaths have surged
56:09
at night, when research shows drivers often failed to see
56:14
someone in the road. The risk of drivers becoming distracted
56:19
by increasingly ubiquitous smartphones has well been established by safety researchers.
56:26
In the overwhelming majority of cases analyzed by the Post,
56:29
it was not known to investigators whether the driver was distracted,
56:33
and fatality data shows just a few crashes involving a
56:37
driver distracted by their phone each year. Also, experts said
56:42
widespread cell phone use would not explain why some places
56:46
have disproportionately higher rates of death. The most dangerous areas
56:52
are no longer in congested downtowns, but in less dense
56:56
neighbourhoods toward the edges of cities. According to a study
56:59
by the the University of New Mexico researchers, those roads
57:04
on urban outskirts were constructed decades ago to connect towns
57:08
before the era of interstate highways. As businesses and residents
57:13
have sprawled around them, these arteries now feature people walking
57:17
to fast food restaurants, convenience stores, liquor stores, supermarkets, and more.
57:23
What we're asking those roads to do for our society
57:27
is changing as the land ish use is changing, said
57:30
Brian Teft, with studied pedestrian deaths in Memphis and other
57:34
cities for the Triple A Foundation for Traffic Safety, a
57:38
nonprofit research group. Traffic signals with crosswalks are often up
57:43
to a mile apart, leaving pedestrians to face the choice
57:47
between walking far out of their way or attempting a
57:50
dash through traffic. Wide corners are dedicated lanes that avoid
57:54
intersections designed to allow drivers to turn without stopping, pose
57:59
a risk even where there are crossings. And one evening
58:03
in May of twenty two, Natalia Morris went to a McDonald's,
58:06
walking the five hundred feet rather than heating her mother's advice.
58:10
On the way back, carrying her dinner, she walked diagonally
58:13
through the intersection against the light and a corner cutting
58:17
path that would have taken her directly home. She was
58:20
hit by a jeep wrangler and died in the hospital
58:23
four days later. And this concludes the reading of the
58:27
Washington Post for today, Thursday, November twentieth. Your reader for
58:31
today has been Rod Brotherton, and if you have any questions, comments,
58:34
or concerns for this program, please feel free to call
58:38
us at eight five nine four to two sixty three ninety.
58:42
Thank you for listening, and now please stay tuned for
58:44
continued programming right here on Radio I