Latest / The People's News / Trump SCOTUS kills VRA; HISD Terminates 25 Year Teacher; TPS Status at Risk for Haitians - TPN 5/3/26

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Trump SCOTUS kills VRA; HISD Terminates 25 Year Teacher; TPS Status at Risk for Haitians - TPN 5/3/26 · The People's News

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the week of May third, twenty twenty six, and
0:06
Speaker 1: this is what's on the People's News. Dead in the
0:09
Speaker 1: water for the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty five,
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Speaker 1: community outrage after child denied access to a bathroom at
0:17
Speaker 1: a local gas station. HISD teacher fired for teaching. May
0:24
Speaker 1: Day Houston celebrates the Rights of workers. Air Alliance brings
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Speaker 1: knowledge about what's in the air around the Gulf Coast.
0:34
Speaker 1: Denial of temporary protected status thrown out by the U. S.
0:37
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. A long time worldwide record is broken at
0:41
Speaker 1: the London Marathon. All that and more on the People's News.
0:46
Speaker 1: I'm Steve Gallington. This is the People's News, and the
0:49
Speaker 1: People's News starts now. The nineteen sixty five Voting Rights
0:58
Speaker 1: Act for six decades protected minorities right to vote. President
1:03
Speaker 1: Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act five months
1:06
Speaker 1: after state troopers attacked peaceful civil rights marchers on the
1:10
Speaker 1: Edmund Pettis Bridge in some Alabama. The Voting Rights Act
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Speaker 1: gave power to minorities after years of being denied the
1:17
Speaker 1: right to vote because of Jim Crow laws, especially in
1:20
Speaker 1: the Southern States. The Voting Rights Act is now defunct.
1:24
Speaker 1: As of last week, as the U. S. Supreme Court
1:27
Speaker 1: ruled six to three that there was no need for
1:30
Speaker 1: those protections in a colorblind society as we have now.
1:34
Speaker 1: The ruling in Louisiana versus Calais says that having a
1:38
Speaker 1: second black district in that state is unconstitutional. This is
1:42
Speaker 1: set up putting on hold an election for the midterms
1:45
Speaker 1: in November. Local reaction was swift as Congressman Al Green
1:49
Speaker 1: held a press conference on Friday to discuss plans.
1:53
Speaker 2: The message has to do with the Supreme Court of
1:56
Speaker 2: the United States of America.
1:58
Speaker 3: The Supreme Court.
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Speaker 2: Has changed the rules, changed the rules such that the
2:03
Speaker 2: Voting Rights Act is almost insignificant now. The Voting Rights
2:07
Speaker 2: Act had its birth at the Edmund Pettis Bridge on
2:11
Speaker 2: bloody Sunday. Much of what we have in the Voting
2:15
Speaker 2: Rights Act, while it was signed in ink, it was
2:18
Speaker 2: written with the blood of people at the Edmund Pettist Bridge.
2:22
Speaker 2: And because of what happened at the Edmund Pettist Bridge,
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Speaker 2: we have been able to have people of.
2:27
Speaker 3: Color elected across the length and breadth of the country.
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Speaker 2: To hold positions in Congress, to hold positions in state houses.
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Speaker 3: On Commissioner's courts to hold.
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Speaker 2: Positions that they would not have but for the Voting
2:39
Speaker 2: Rights Act. And there are some people who seem to
2:42
Speaker 2: believe that the times have changed to the extent that
2:45
Speaker 2: the Voting Rights Act is no longer needed, that we
2:48
Speaker 2: have progressed to the point now where we can be
2:51
Speaker 2: totally color blind. Well, I believe in a colorblind society,
2:55
Speaker 2: but I also understand that society was not color blind.
2:59
Speaker 2: But it allowed us to have people enslaved when it
3:02
Speaker 2: allowed us to have representation, such that we had in
3:05
Speaker 2: vidious discrimination known as segregation.
3:07
Speaker 3: It was not colorblind.
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Speaker 2: It saw people of color as less than persons who
3:12
Speaker 2: should be protected by the Constitution of the United States
3:15
Speaker 2: of America to the same extent as some others. So
3:17
Speaker 2: we are here because the Supreme Court in Louisiana versus
3:20
Speaker 2: Calais has changed the rules. The Supreme Court has said
3:24
Speaker 2: now to the world that in this country, partisan politics
3:30
Speaker 2: is more important than protecting the rights of people of
3:33
Speaker 2: color to have representation in Congress and in state houses
3:37
Speaker 2: and on commissioners courts and as city councils. This decision
3:41
Speaker 2: from the Supreme Court is far reaching and wide ranging.
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Speaker 3: It is going to make a difference in representation.
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Speaker 2: There are many who have already prognosticated that about twenty
3:50
Speaker 2: percent of the members of Congress.
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Speaker 3: Will no longer be there.
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Speaker 2: Well, seems that this prognostication has already manifested itself in Louisiana,
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Speaker 2: because the governor of Louisiana is postparting the election, postponing
4:02
Speaker 2: the election that's supposed to be starting, postponing it.
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Speaker 3: So that he can now draw new lines.
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Speaker 2: It is believed that when those new lines are drawn,
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Speaker 2: there will be one less person of color capable of
4:14
Speaker 2: being elected to the Congress of the United States of America.
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Speaker 3: The rules have changed.
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Speaker 2: When the rules change and partisan politics is allowed to
4:24
Speaker 2: in perpetrate in vidious discrimination of the guise of partisan politics.
4:29
Speaker 2: When you can do that, and you can discriminate and
4:32
Speaker 2: just simply say, oh, I did that for partisans political reasons. Well,
4:36
Speaker 2: when you can do that, how will we prove that
4:38
Speaker 2: in vidious discrimination, harm for discrimination, that people of color
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Speaker 2: are being denied accessed to Congress because of discrimination? How
4:47
Speaker 2: do we prove it when all you have to do
4:49
Speaker 2: is say it was partisan politics.
4:51
Speaker 3: That's about where we are.
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Speaker 2: So here are the rules now with this new partisan
4:56
Speaker 2: politics rule.
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Speaker 3: We have to understand that.
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Speaker 2: We can no long allow the fires that are started
5:02
Speaker 2: by others to go uncontested. We are gonna have to
5:05
Speaker 2: fight fire with fire. We can no longer say that
5:09
Speaker 2: this is wrong. You shouldn't do that. We are not
5:11
Speaker 2: gonna fight of you with the same rules that you're using. No,
5:15
Speaker 2: the rules have changed, and we've got to adopt the
5:17
Speaker 2: rules that others are using.
5:19
Speaker 3: And that means that.
5:19
Speaker 2: If there's a fire, then we've got to have a backfire.
5:22
Speaker 2: In forestry, when you have a raging fire, you start
5:25
Speaker 2: a backfire so that you can prevent the fire from
5:28
Speaker 2: proceeding along a certain line, where we now have to
5:30
Speaker 2: have a backfire. In basketball, when the rules changed and
5:34
Speaker 2: a three point shot became prevalent, every team adopted the
5:37
Speaker 2: three point shot so that they can win games. You
5:40
Speaker 2: can't rent a basketball game without using three point shot.
5:43
Speaker 2: And when the rules have changed and somebody is assaulting
5:46
Speaker 2: you with a knife, you can't fight back with a toothpick.
5:49
Speaker 2: You've got to have the same level of fight back
5:52
Speaker 2: to defend yourself that they're using to offend you.
5:55
Speaker 3: So we have to now change with the rules.
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Speaker 2: So if the Supreme Court has been stacked, and the
6:01
Speaker 2: deck has been stacked by President Trump. He has stacked
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Speaker 2: the Supreme Court so that we can get the decision
6:05
Speaker 2: that we have today. And if he's going to stack
6:08
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court, the only way we can unstack it
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Speaker 2: is to add more judges to it. And I am
6:14
Speaker 2: right now having my staff work with Legislative Council in
6:17
Speaker 2: Congress so that we can produce legislation to add more
6:21
Speaker 2: justices to the Supreme Court to bring back some sense
6:24
Speaker 2: of equality, some balance, to make sure that what the
6:27
Speaker 2: President has done to stack the court, we.
6:29
Speaker 3: Can do to unstack the court.
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Speaker 2: We've got to unstack it, yes, and that is by
6:35
Speaker 2: adding more justices.
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Speaker 3: I have already placed that in the hands of Legislative Council.
6:40
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for it to come back, and when we
6:42
Speaker 2: get that, I will let the world know what our
6:44
Speaker 2: pretensions are in terms of the number of new justices
6:47
Speaker 2: on the court.
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Speaker 3: We're going to do this. We've got to fight fire
6:50
Speaker 3: with fire. He used the fire of.
6:52
Speaker 2: Bringing in people who are committed to him, committed to
6:55
Speaker 2: allowing him to have his way when it comes.
6:57
Speaker 3: To war, committed to him to allow him to.
7:00
Speaker 2: Have his way when it comes to redistrictive committed to
7:02
Speaker 2: him to allow him to just take seats out of
7:04
Speaker 2: Texas five seats and to put them over in a
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Speaker 2: Republican column simply because he wanted more votes in Congress
7:10
Speaker 2: so that he can maintain power. Well, we have to
7:13
Speaker 2: fight that kind of fire with the same kind of fire,
7:17
Speaker 2: and every state in this country has to be prepared
7:20
Speaker 2: now to redraw the lines. There is no need for
7:22
Speaker 2: us to continue to say this is wrong, we can't
7:25
Speaker 2: do it.
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Speaker 3: The other Supreme Court is said it's right. So we've
7:27
Speaker 3: now got to be prepared to redraw the lines.
7:30
Speaker 2: We've got to meet that fire that they have started
7:33
Speaker 2: with a similar kind of fire.
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Speaker 3: I don't like having to say this.
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Speaker 2: My preference would be that the Supreme Court have allowed
7:39
Speaker 2: the Voting Rights to Act to maintain what it was doing,
7:41
Speaker 2: which was allowing people of color to get elected and
7:44
Speaker 2: protecting them. But that is no longer the case now
7:48
Speaker 2: that case has been set aside by the Supreme Court
7:51
Speaker 2: with the Louisiana case.
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Speaker 3: So finally, this friends, we are going to have to litigate.
7:57
Speaker 3: I believe in that.
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Speaker 2: Let's continue to litigate. We're gonna have to negotiate. I
8:02
Speaker 2: believe in that as well. But we're also going to
8:05
Speaker 2: have to engage in addition to litigation and negotiation, we're
8:09
Speaker 2: gonna have to engage in protestation.
8:11
Speaker 4: There is a time and a place for us to
8:14
Speaker 4: peacefully protest. If you're gonna treat us like you treated
8:17
Speaker 4: us in nineteen sixty five, then we got to behave
8:21
Speaker 4: lawfully peacefully like we behaved in nineteen sixty five.
8:26
Speaker 3: And in nineteen sixty.
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Speaker 2: Five, to acquire the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five,
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Speaker 2: John Lewis and others went to the Edmund Pettis Bridge.
8:34
Speaker 2: They were marching from Selwyn to Montgomery, and in so
8:38
Speaker 2: doing that we had what was called Bloody Sunday. But
8:40
Speaker 2: they marched on. They did not turn back. They were
8:43
Speaker 2: beaten back to the church where they started. So if
8:46
Speaker 2: we are going to be treated like people were treated,
8:49
Speaker 2: and they should have been treated the way they were
8:51
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty five, then we've got to resort to
8:53
Speaker 2: the same tactics, and that tactic includes protests.
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Speaker 3: We have got to be prepared to protest.
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Speaker 2: I am now instructing my staff to be prepared for
9:04
Speaker 2: us to have a peaceful protest right here in Houston.
9:06
Speaker 2: Texas to combat this level of invidious discrimination that's being
9:10
Speaker 2: perpetrated upon people of color, and the Supreme Court is
9:13
Speaker 2: sanctioning it. So with the Supreme Court sanctioning it, then
9:17
Speaker 2: we've got to let the Supreme Court know that the
9:19
Speaker 2: people are not going to tolerate it.
9:21
Speaker 3: And if we are not going to tolerate.
9:22
Speaker 2: It, we will go back to the slogan that we've
9:24
Speaker 2: used many times, and that is no.
9:26
Speaker 4: Justice, no peace, No justice, no peace, no justice, no peace,
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Speaker 4: no justice, no pe.
9:35
Speaker 1: The effects of this ruling will have impact on the
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Speaker 1: midterm elections and beyond, but its immediate impact is that
9:42
Speaker 1: minorities in Louisiana voting rights are being denied. A child
9:47
Speaker 1: in the Sunnyside area of Houston South Side was denied
9:51
Speaker 1: access to use a restroom and was told to go
9:53
Speaker 1: outside and defecate on the wall of the building the
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Speaker 1: Fuel Depot gas station on Belford Avenue. It is a
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Speaker 1: brand new facility with brand new restrooms. The worker was
10:04
Speaker 1: said to have videotaped the child and shared it for
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Speaker 1: others to see. Kwanell X, leader of the New Black
10:11
Speaker 1: Panther Party Nation, spoke to the People's News about the situation.
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Speaker 5: Thank you for having me on your show this morning. Brother.
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Speaker 5: It is a privilege and honor to be on your
10:20
Speaker 5: airways with your listening audience, to bring the audience up
10:24
Speaker 5: to speed and to give them integra details of what
10:26
Speaker 5: took place in southeast Houston in the historical Sunnyside community.
10:31
Speaker 5: There's a brand new store that was built called a
10:33
Speaker 5: Few Depots that's been built in the last year. It
10:35
Speaker 5: is owned by them Indian individuals. And one day a
10:39
Speaker 5: young man coming from school having a medical situation. Coming
10:43
Speaker 5: from school, needed to use the restroom. He stopped by
10:48
Speaker 5: the store, the young thirteen year oki and said, can
10:51
Speaker 5: I use the restroom? They told him no. In spite
10:54
Speaker 5: of having brand new restrooms for men and women, restrooms
10:57
Speaker 5: were not being cleaned. They were not both in a shutdown.
11:00
Speaker 5: They were branded and so he told him no. He said, sir,
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Speaker 5: it's an emergency. I'm fit and I believe you savest him.
11:07
Speaker 5: He said no because I don't want you to steal anything,
11:10
Speaker 5: and then told the little boy to go outside and
11:12
Speaker 5: use it on the side of the building. That's what
11:13
Speaker 5: he told me. So the young boy goes outside on
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Speaker 5: the side of the building and does the number two
11:19
Speaker 5: on the side of the building. Then the young boy
11:23
Speaker 5: chrits brown and wipes his bront on the grass because
11:27
Speaker 5: he's nothing to like to wipe himself with. The store
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Speaker 5: clerk then records he's recording everything. He takes a still
11:36
Speaker 5: picture of a young boy coopering on the side of
11:39
Speaker 5: the ground and begins to take the picture on the
11:42
Speaker 5: front door of the store. Then when his fellow students
11:47
Speaker 5: get out of school that evening, he takes the video
11:50
Speaker 5: and puts it on his phone, and then it showing
11:54
Speaker 5: the kids coming from the school the video of the
11:57
Speaker 5: young boy pooping on the girl now making fun of
12:02
Speaker 5: the young black brothers Genitalia. So all of the kids
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Speaker 5: they take their video, start taking copies of the video
12:09
Speaker 5: from the man in the store, and they started posting it.
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Speaker 5: The young man in return started getting bullied, embarrassed, harass
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Speaker 5: in this store owner, not from our community, making so
12:20
Speaker 5: little of our children, having a medical emergency coming from
12:23
Speaker 5: school early because of the emergency, forces him to pool
12:26
Speaker 5: pool on the ground while there's no one in the restroom.
12:30
Speaker 5: They're cleaning and brand new, not out of order, not
12:32
Speaker 5: being cleaned. They available and made that child poopoo on
12:36
Speaker 5: the ground because he could take the opportunity to record him,
12:40
Speaker 5: to make mockery of him, and to correct jokes about
12:42
Speaker 5: the child.
12:43
Speaker 6: What are the details of the outcome, because the district
12:46
Speaker 6: attorney or somebody should be.
12:49
Speaker 5: City leaders should be saying something about this. The grandmother
12:53
Speaker 5: has made police reports and as of yesterday they opened
12:57
Speaker 5: up an investigation. The store owner of sure us that
13:00
Speaker 5: the employee is fired and would not be allowed to return.
13:04
Speaker 5: And we also said to him that we wanted more
13:07
Speaker 5: than that. We want an apology to the community, which
13:09
Speaker 5: the store on our greed to give. Secondly, we're the
13:12
Speaker 5: manager the district attorney's office. Treat this gentleman the same
13:16
Speaker 5: way you would treat anyone else who traffic in videos
13:19
Speaker 5: showing naked children. You cannot share videos of naked children.
13:24
Speaker 5: That is a crime, and we want those same laws
13:27
Speaker 5: applied to this Indian store worker who have vivo respect
13:31
Speaker 5: for black people and black children. We did shut the
13:34
Speaker 5: store down for over an hour. For over an hour,
13:37
Speaker 5: they sold no das, didn't sell no cigarettes, no deal,
13:41
Speaker 5: not a piece of candy. It didn't sell anything. We
13:44
Speaker 5: wanted to shut it down instead of the message, and
13:46
Speaker 5: we successfully set it down for one hour. That was
13:48
Speaker 5: our goal and that was our player to shut it
13:50
Speaker 5: down for one hour, and we did that. And we're
13:53
Speaker 5: the manning that law enforcement treat the case with the
13:55
Speaker 5: sensitivity and priority that it deserves. And to send the
13:58
Speaker 5: message to all other businesses ons who think that you
14:01
Speaker 5: could do something like this, that any human being, you
14:03
Speaker 5: think you could do something like this to a child
14:04
Speaker 5: and lead and get away with it. We are black
14:07
Speaker 5: people must have dego tolerance for those in our community
14:11
Speaker 5: who are nothing more of increditives playing on all the
14:14
Speaker 5: children under the guys, the store owners, teachers, city workers,
14:18
Speaker 5: men and women the community, or even family members. Enough
14:21
Speaker 5: is enough. Our babies are sacred and if our children
14:25
Speaker 5: are not sacred and protected, then what kind of men
14:26
Speaker 5: are we in our comunity?
14:29
Speaker 7: What is it?
14:29
Speaker 6: Because this seems like any other time they would say
14:32
Speaker 6: it would be child pornography, you know, because if he's,
14:35
Speaker 6: if he's if he's showing it to other people, then
14:38
Speaker 6: you know that's that's I'm not a lawyer, but you
14:41
Speaker 6: know that's I would assume that, you know, some type
14:44
Speaker 6: of charges would be filed against that gentleman. And what's
14:47
Speaker 6: what's stopping that gas station owners from checking and sending
14:50
Speaker 6: in that employee to another store in somebody else's community.
14:54
Speaker 5: We assure him that if we ever saw him in
14:57
Speaker 5: any store in our community with then we would do
15:00
Speaker 5: what is necessary to shut it down. Now, if he
15:03
Speaker 5: goes to a store in another community, somebody would have
15:05
Speaker 5: to bring that to our attention and we would more
15:07
Speaker 5: than have to get involved there also if they don't
15:09
Speaker 5: do it themselves. But the bottom line is, brother, we
15:12
Speaker 5: have to send the message our children's sacred and we
15:14
Speaker 5: will not tolerate such dehumanizing disrespect of our babies. That's
15:17
Speaker 5: the going to happen.
15:19
Speaker 6: This is not the first time that you know, we've had,
15:22
Speaker 6: you know, places like these gas stations treating people, especially
15:27
Speaker 6: Black people, like second class.
15:29
Speaker 5: Citizens in their own community. Well, the reason why this
15:32
Speaker 5: continues to happen, brother, is because one thing they honorable
15:35
Speaker 5: Minister Little for our Time, caught us that these type
15:38
Speaker 5: of activities and behaviors of outsiders within our community, it
15:42
Speaker 5: only flourishes among the community what people look like they
15:45
Speaker 5: don't love one anothering when there's a lack of love
15:48
Speaker 5: for self and lack of love for one another, this
15:50
Speaker 5: type of exploitation and abuse of our children can take
15:53
Speaker 5: place until we bite people fall in love with one another.
15:57
Speaker 5: No outside would that comes into our community under any
16:01
Speaker 5: capacity and commit any crime or do any harm to
16:05
Speaker 5: a member of our community. Espress level children because he
16:07
Speaker 5: knows and they would know that this community is in
16:10
Speaker 5: love with themselves. They have zero tolerance, and there'll be
16:12
Speaker 5: an immediate repercussion and there'll be an immediate response and
16:15
Speaker 5: consequences will flow quickly if we do something like this.
16:18
Speaker 5: But that's not where we are in the black community.
16:21
Speaker 5: We should be owning our own gas stations. The they
16:25
Speaker 5: have to come where we shut down that gas station
16:28
Speaker 5: because we got black gas stations to direct our people too.
16:32
Speaker 5: If we don't like the way a foreigner is treating
16:34
Speaker 5: us at their particular business where then they should be
16:37
Speaker 5: an equal black owned business somewhere in the area that
16:40
Speaker 5: we can point and direct our people too. We continue
16:44
Speaker 5: this level of disrespect because we are not producing for
16:48
Speaker 5: ourselves the adequate things that we need to survive as
16:52
Speaker 5: the community. So outsiders come in and provide for us,
16:56
Speaker 5: and they look at us as bugs and unproductive men
16:58
Speaker 5: and women. So they think they treated family want to
17:01
Speaker 5: treat us because by the behavior of some of us.
17:04
Speaker 5: They try to judge all of us, but that's not
17:06
Speaker 5: going to happened. Not why I have breath in my
17:08
Speaker 5: lung and they go unchecked. All right, one more question.
17:13
Speaker 5: I just got to get your thoughts on this whole.
17:15
Speaker 6: Supreme Court decision yesterday taking on your voting rights.
17:20
Speaker 5: The honorable life to Theehomit said in the nineteen sixties
17:23
Speaker 5: that the signing of the Civil Rights Act was nothing
17:27
Speaker 5: more than a hypocritical trick. He said, the same man
17:31
Speaker 5: that has the power to give you a law has
17:34
Speaker 5: the power to take it back, and that when we
17:37
Speaker 5: were celebrating the Civil Rights Act, he said it was
17:40
Speaker 5: a hypocritical trick and looked in twenty twenty six he
17:45
Speaker 5: has bad witness. He spoke the truth that the same
17:49
Speaker 5: white government that vote in the Civil Rights say the
17:52
Speaker 5: Act for us as black people, for the civil rights movement,
17:55
Speaker 5: has now literally crushed it and crippled it to what's
17:58
Speaker 5: no longer effected for black people and women out losing
18:00
Speaker 5: Black congressionals deconceptive will lose even more until we as
18:05
Speaker 5: a people come together selectively and you might the honorable
18:10
Speaker 5: Minisu as for a comet. It's teaching the message of
18:12
Speaker 5: Muhamma taught him that our unity is more powerful than
18:16
Speaker 5: a nuclear bond. The unity of black people is more
18:19
Speaker 5: powerful than an a comic bond. What we lack is
18:24
Speaker 5: not the energy to complain. We got plenty of energies.
18:28
Speaker 7: Fact.
18:29
Speaker 5: We don't lack your resources. We got plenty of resources
18:32
Speaker 5: for fact. What we lack is a common agenda that
18:36
Speaker 5: black people could u night around, pull our resources in
18:41
Speaker 5: unity and give to our people what we're begging somebody
18:44
Speaker 5: else to give to us. Because if we were truly
18:47
Speaker 5: united as a people, then you're not a supreme court together.
18:49
Speaker 5: You're supreme court would not make that type of decision
18:52
Speaker 5: because Black people financially are the tenth registration on earth
18:57
Speaker 5: with the money we make and the money we spend,
18:59
Speaker 5: and a man with that type of economic hall, we
19:02
Speaker 5: could shut a math of completely back. Until we exhibit
19:07
Speaker 5: and demonstrate the power of that reality. Through unity, these
19:11
Speaker 5: things that we're still fighting today that we've just sortainly
19:14
Speaker 5: been fighting, will continue.
19:16
Speaker 1: That was kwantel X, leader of the New Black Panther
19:18
Speaker 1: Party Nation. As of Sunday, HPD is investigating the incident
19:23
Speaker 1: and the worker has not been seen at the store.
19:26
Speaker 1: Former HISD teacher for twenty five years and president of
19:30
Speaker 1: the Houston Education Association. Michelle Williams was fired by Houston
19:35
Speaker 1: is D's state appointed Board of Managers when they voted
19:39
Speaker 1: again to terminate her contract at Benbrook Elementary despite an
19:44
Speaker 1: independent examiner's recommendation to reinstate her. She was fired for
19:49
Speaker 1: not teaching to the plans set out by the board.
19:53
Speaker 1: We talked to her about the decision.
19:55
Speaker 8: So whither one.
19:57
Speaker 9: I was put alan in August of twenty twenty five
20:04
Speaker 9: for really some false allegations. They said I left the
20:09
Speaker 9: building without telling anyone for a grimenteering and then they
20:14
Speaker 9: said I was at the bordinate wouldn't implement the hive
20:19
Speaker 9: D model NESM is some discrepancies in.
20:21
Speaker 8: That, but that was what they were alleging that I did.
20:27
Speaker 9: So I had been on leased in August twenty twenty five,
20:31
Speaker 9: the twenty seventh, August twenty seventh, twenty five, and I
20:35
Speaker 9: had my hearing with the Independent Hearing Examiner on Seventuary
20:41
Speaker 9: third and four. On the third, HID presented its case,
20:45
Speaker 9: and then on the fourth we presented our case, and
20:49
Speaker 9: the Independent Examiner found that HID.
20:52
Speaker 8: Did not.
20:54
Speaker 9: Prove its case with a preponderance of evidence. So as
21:01
Speaker 9: a matter of fact, she said that they'd improve any
21:04
Speaker 9: of them at all, and that I was a credible
21:07
Speaker 9: witness and that I had served HID faithfully and to
21:13
Speaker 9: the great benefit of the teachers and students. So here
21:18
Speaker 9: that came out February twenty seventh from the Independent Hearing Examiner,
21:23
Speaker 9: which THA assigns.
21:25
Speaker 8: Now we're talking about THA.
21:27
Speaker 9: So the process is that it goes back to the
21:31
Speaker 9: board for consideration.
21:32
Speaker 8: They can approve, deny, or modify.
21:37
Speaker 9: Well, the Independent Hearing Examiner also found that I had
21:43
Speaker 9: implemented the curriculum according to the law, so that it
21:47
Speaker 9: complied with law because I had special education students and
21:50
Speaker 9: I had emergent bi lingual students, and they were you know,
21:54
Speaker 9: they have accommodations, and they have requirements under the Texas
21:58
Speaker 9: Education Code, and we have teaching standards that.
22:01
Speaker 8: We're supposed to follow. Two in HID under Mike Miles.
22:05
Speaker 9: They're not following any of that, and you know, they
22:08
Speaker 9: were telling I had one of the assistant principles tell
22:11
Speaker 9: me that there was not any time to teach the
22:14
Speaker 9: children how to read because they were transitioning.
22:17
Speaker 8: From bilingual ED.
22:18
Speaker 9: And I told them that these kids can't read these passages,
22:21
Speaker 9: and they basically wanted me to give those passages to
22:24
Speaker 9: those students even though they couldn't read them, and I
22:26
Speaker 9: wasn't going to do that. What they were doing was
22:28
Speaker 9: illegal and unethical. And after hearing hid, they said that
22:35
Speaker 9: I was supposed to follow the directives and no disregarding
22:42
Speaker 9: that what they were telling me to do was illegal.
22:46
Speaker 9: And we proved with evidence that that's what was taking place.
22:52
Speaker 8: I had teachers to testify.
22:54
Speaker 9: So the district's position on last Thursday was there, I
22:57
Speaker 9: was supposed to comply with unlawt directives and they chose
23:02
Speaker 9: to terminate my contract.
23:06
Speaker 8: What happens now.
23:06
Speaker 6: There's a lot of things in that, primarily the fact
23:10
Speaker 6: that your teaching specially at special education kids, and it's
23:14
Speaker 6: a certain way. You can't just go by a guide
23:16
Speaker 6: book to teach to teach special education kids. And they're
23:21
Speaker 6: trying to say that that's my opinion is wrong.
23:25
Speaker 8: Yes, that's what they were saying.
23:26
Speaker 9: So we have special populations, we have gifted and talented,
23:31
Speaker 9: we have emerging bi lingual students that are learning English,
23:34
Speaker 9: which chapter seventy four of the Education Code I think
23:38
Speaker 9: is seventy four point four. Governents emergent my lingual students.
23:42
Speaker 9: So we're supposed to help them learn and transition to English.
23:46
Speaker 8: We're not supposed to dump them in there. And that's
23:48
Speaker 8: what Mike Miles is actually doing and telling teachers to do.
23:51
Speaker 9: I've been teaching twenty six years and never in my
23:54
Speaker 9: life have I ever had anyone.
23:56
Speaker 8: Tell me to break the law. And I wasn't going
23:59
Speaker 8: to do it, just I'm not and especially education students.
24:03
Speaker 9: I filed two complaints with t A and both of
24:06
Speaker 9: them were substantiated that they were not implementing the student's
24:09
Speaker 9: I TS. How do I know because I was there, so.
24:14
Speaker 8: You know they are.
24:16
Speaker 9: You know, they don't want to follow law, and I'm
24:20
Speaker 9: not going to be a part of that. First of all,
24:22
Speaker 9: I have to sleep at night. These are children's lies
24:25
Speaker 9: that we're affecting, and I'm not going to be a
24:27
Speaker 9: part of that.
24:30
Speaker 8: Who's do they have any.
24:32
Speaker 6: Type of not guidelines? But the board can make the decision,
24:37
Speaker 6: But who's the t A is over the board?
24:41
Speaker 8: So if they're breaking the rules and t A is not.
24:45
Speaker 6: Not monitoring, will not forcing them to go go by
24:50
Speaker 6: the law, who's to stop them from doing anything?
24:53
Speaker 9: Well, that's where I come in with the courts would.
24:58
Speaker 8: Have to stop them. And but it.
25:00
Speaker 9: Takes teachers to stand up and say that it is wrong.
25:06
Speaker 9: But you know, there's not a lot of people that
25:08
Speaker 9: are going to do that. I just wasn't willing to
25:10
Speaker 9: have my certification put online for that and my reputation
25:15
Speaker 9: as a teacher. And because what can happen is if
25:19
Speaker 9: you don't implement things IEPs, the district can come back
25:22
Speaker 9: and say you're not doing it, and it's your word
25:25
Speaker 9: against theirs.
25:25
Speaker 8: But they told you to do that.
25:27
Speaker 9: But you can't plead ignorance of the law.
25:30
Speaker 8: When teachers signed an i.
25:32
Speaker 9: EP for a student, that's a legal, one binding contract
25:35
Speaker 9: saying that you're going to implement these accommodations as written,
25:40
Speaker 9: and there's no other alternative for that.
25:44
Speaker 6: It seems like they were targeting you, just you know,
25:48
Speaker 6: just in general, because.
25:51
Speaker 9: Yeah, they were targeting me and in my first thing,
25:55
Speaker 9: because this is the second termination here, this is not
25:57
Speaker 9: the first.
25:58
Speaker 8: This is number two. They sit to now.
26:00
Speaker 9: Renew my contract. In March twenty twenty four, that was
26:05
Speaker 9: the first attempt and I won. Then this is the
26:07
Speaker 9: second time I've won against HID and this to me,
26:12
Speaker 9: this is more egregious. The first one was them just
26:15
Speaker 9: lying saying that my students wasn't making progress. And you know,
26:19
Speaker 9: Mike Miles beating his chest because I wouldn't get off
26:22
Speaker 9: of social media. That's really what that was about. He
26:25
Speaker 9: thought that he could make me get off social media and.
26:27
Speaker 8: I was not.
26:29
Speaker 9: But in that first termination, we had a grievance combined
26:36
Speaker 9: with retaliation, and they found that the district had already
26:41
Speaker 9: have retaliated against me. So that's in the first termination here.
26:46
Speaker 9: So HID under Mike Miles we have a long history
26:51
Speaker 9: because he does not want to find a law.
26:53
Speaker 8: And here's what I tried to explain to educators, more
26:57
Speaker 8: specifically blank and Hispanic educators.
27:02
Speaker 9: They are creating a system of hands and have not
27:06
Speaker 9: on the backs of black and Hispanic educators. And then
27:11
Speaker 9: when the system is created, guess who's not going to
27:13
Speaker 9: be employed. It's not black and Hispanic teachers because they're
27:17
Speaker 9: effectively trying to roll back bilingual support there. They don't
27:22
Speaker 9: want to teach black kids at all. So you know,
27:26
Speaker 9: and unfortunately there's very few people that will stand up.
27:30
Speaker 9: That's why they're taking over our school districts.
27:33
Speaker 8: But HID was.
27:34
Speaker 9: The experiment, and I tried to tell everybody that if
27:37
Speaker 9: we don't stop it in Houston, it's going to spread out.
27:41
Speaker 8: And that's what we're seeing today.
27:44
Speaker 5: What happens with you in your future? You have any plans?
27:50
Speaker 8: Oh, absolutely not.
27:51
Speaker 9: I'm running for a state representative and I'm focused one
27:54
Speaker 9: on my campaign right now, and because in order for
28:00
Speaker 9: this unlawfulness to stop, we have to be policymakers, and.
28:06
Speaker 8: That's what I'm focusing all right now.
28:08
Speaker 9: I'm going to leave the fight and appeals or whatever
28:13
Speaker 9: legal appeals that I have available to me to my attorney,
28:18
Speaker 9: and I'm going to focus on winning this seat for
28:22
Speaker 9: in the November election.
28:24
Speaker 1: That was Michelle Williams, former HISD teacher, fired by the
28:27
Speaker 1: Houston ISD state appointed Board of Managers. Hi, this is
28:32
Speaker 1: Steve Gallington, producer and host of the People's News. The
28:36
Speaker 1: People's News is people powered news. We are free to
28:39
Speaker 1: report the unvarnished and unspun truth and challenge the status
28:43
Speaker 1: quo of corporate propaganda and social media advertising disguised as
28:47
Speaker 1: real news. Shiny new one hour episodes of The People's
28:51
Speaker 1: News drop each Sunday on The People's News Podcast. Thanks
28:56
Speaker 1: for listening. Air Alliance Houston anounced in partnership with regional advocates,
29:02
Speaker 1: community leaders, and national leaders, the expansion of its air
29:06
Speaker 1: mail alert system across the Gulf Coast. Airmail is a
29:10
Speaker 1: first of its kind platform designed to bridge the information
29:14
Speaker 1: gap in environmental health. Air Mail ensures that communities, especially
29:18
Speaker 1: those historically overburdened by pollution, receive timely and easy to
29:23
Speaker 1: understand updates about nearby industrial activity and permit decisions. Jennifer
29:29
Speaker 1: Hadaiah with Airlines Houston, talked about the benefits of airmail alerts.
29:34
Speaker 10: That's a great question. So our response to that has
29:37
Speaker 10: always been that every environmental decision may buy Texas Comission
29:41
Speaker 10: Environmental Quality is an opportunity for the community to have
29:45
Speaker 10: a voice, to have a say, to weigh in on
29:47
Speaker 10: the decisions that are going to affect their lives, not
29:51
Speaker 10: affect the commissioner's lives. The commissioners don't live in our communities,
29:53
Speaker 10: but they are approving the permits that will decide how
29:56
Speaker 10: much pollution people breathe every day, how much pollution they
30:00
Speaker 10: are exposed to in their water every day, how much
30:02
Speaker 10: pollution they might be exposed to when they're just out recreating, gardening,
30:06
Speaker 10: taking a walk with their dog, or their family. Those
30:08
Speaker 10: are the people that deserve a say in those decisions.
30:11
Speaker 10: We call it environmental democracy because every environmental decision should
30:15
Speaker 10: be an opportunity for the people who are affected to
30:18
Speaker 10: have a say in that outcome. Our program no worries.
30:22
Speaker 10: Our program. It's called airmail Gulf Coast. It's called airmail
30:25
Speaker 10: because it literally.
30:26
Speaker 7: Uses the nail.
30:26
Speaker 10: It uses a simple tool for communication. It sends out
30:29
Speaker 10: postcards to communities that are in the radius, in the
30:34
Speaker 10: fence line, in the front line of a pollution source.
30:36
Speaker 10: So let's say a concrete batchplant wants to build in
30:38
Speaker 10: your neighborhood. Let's say a petrochemical company wants to expand,
30:42
Speaker 10: and that expansion is going to blow carcinogenic air pollution
30:45
Speaker 10: into your neighborhood. You're going to hear from us. You're
30:47
Speaker 10: going to hear from us. You're going to know about it,
30:49
Speaker 10: because knowing is the first step. Many times people don't
30:51
Speaker 10: even know that it's happening. And after you know about it,
30:54
Speaker 10: we are going to stand beside you and support you
30:57
Speaker 10: in speaking up, getting your questions answered, helping you tell
30:59
Speaker 10: your story of what it's like to live near the
31:01
Speaker 10: petrochemicals here in the energy capital of the world. What
31:04
Speaker 10: it's like to live near a concrete plant, what it's
31:06
Speaker 10: like to live by our massive, overbuilt state highway systems.
31:09
Speaker 10: We forget sometimes that our cars and trucks in the
31:12
Speaker 10: roads that we build our major sources of pollution, and
31:14
Speaker 10: our air mail notification tool can notify you of those
31:17
Speaker 10: expansions too. So that's been our solution. It is to
31:20
Speaker 10: put the opportunity for decision making back in the hands
31:25
Speaker 10: where we believe it belongs, and that's what the people
31:27
Speaker 10: who are living with it day to day today. So
31:29
Speaker 10: that is our project. What we are celebrating today is
31:32
Speaker 10: an expansion of that project. We have been doing this
31:34
Speaker 10: work in Houston, Harris County, and Fortmann County for about
31:37
Speaker 10: three years now, and we have seen it changed the landscape.
31:41
Speaker 10: We've seen it in power communities. We've seen it stop
31:43
Speaker 10: new construction, We've seen it work. We decided a few
31:47
Speaker 10: years ago that because of these successes, we wanted to
31:49
Speaker 10: bring this tool to other communities that are facing the
31:51
Speaker 10: same things. We are more powerful when we come together
31:55
Speaker 10: to fight pollution than when we stay separated simply because
31:58
Speaker 10: of geography, simply because of the zip code So this
32:00
Speaker 10: project that we are launching today will bring that same
32:02
Speaker 10: tool through work with partners in eight total Texas counties
32:06
Speaker 10: all the way from Corpus Christy to Port Arthur, Beaumont
32:09
Speaker 10: and places in between, and we will be able to
32:12
Speaker 10: launch a pilot of the same work for the Louisiana
32:15
Speaker 10: River parishes. So our neighbors are Gulf Coast neighbors in
32:19
Speaker 10: cancer rally will have some of these same tools over
32:21
Speaker 10: the next year.
32:23
Speaker 1: Texas State Representatives Ron Reynolds of District twenty seven and
32:26
Speaker 1: Christina Morales Texas State Representative District one forty five talked
32:31
Speaker 1: about state cutbacks on environmental regulation and the dangers they
32:35
Speaker 1: present to the Gulf Coast.
32:37
Speaker 11: I will say that ultimately the power is with the
32:40
Speaker 11: people and getting them out to vote. My colleague and
32:44
Speaker 11: I we fight in the Texas legislature, but we are
32:48
Speaker 11: at such a disadvantage and it really hurts. It hurts
32:52
Speaker 11: to see our communities suffer. It feels like they have
32:56
Speaker 11: their foots on our net and we can't do anything
33:00
Speaker 11: trying to bring out productive legislation that would empower and
33:05
Speaker 11: help all Texans, but instead they'd rather focus on social
33:09
Speaker 11: issues that don't help anybody, and behind the scenes they
33:13
Speaker 11: are helping billionaires become trillionaires. We are sick of it
33:17
Speaker 11: and doing everything in our power to make sure people
33:20
Speaker 11: understand and get out to vote. We have Texas is
33:23
Speaker 11: not a red state. It is a non voting state.
33:25
Speaker 11: So in the next weeks, months, years, I will be
33:29
Speaker 11: doing everything I can to make sure that our community gets.
33:31
Speaker 5: Out to vote.
33:33
Speaker 12: I agree with everything my colleagues said, and I don't
33:35
Speaker 12: think I would add is that having served on the
33:37
Speaker 12: House Environmental Regulation Committee for the last sixteen years, I've
33:41
Speaker 12: seen Governor Abbott bend over backwards to protect the polluters,
33:45
Speaker 12: to protect industry over public health in the environment. I've
33:50
Speaker 12: seen the Trump administration rollover backwards to roll back the
33:55
Speaker 12: protections that President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden put
33:59
Speaker 12: in place to protect clean air through the EPA. I've
34:03
Speaker 12: seen them roll back those protections and under the Attorney
34:06
Speaker 12: General compacts and file lawsuits to stop those enforcement of
34:10
Speaker 12: the Clean Air Acts.
34:11
Speaker 3: So, yes, Representative Morales is right.
34:13
Speaker 12: The people have the power to get those people out
34:16
Speaker 12: of office. Because Governor Abbott has the ability to appoint
34:20
Speaker 12: the commissioners of the TCEEQ that has oversight over the
34:27
Speaker 12: permits for these concrete bash plans. They have put in
34:32
Speaker 12: their business model as a cost of doing business, and
34:35
Speaker 12: like represented Morales Head, they're just trying to make their
34:38
Speaker 12: corporations more profitable at the expense of public health. The
34:42
Speaker 12: citizens shouldn't be expendable, clean air, shouldn't be expendable, clean.
34:46
Speaker 7: Water and the land.
34:47
Speaker 12: But that is what we have here in Texas under
34:49
Speaker 12: Governor Abbots failed leadership, and many of those MAGA Republicans
34:53
Speaker 12: are in the pockets of these polluters, from the concrete
34:58
Speaker 12: bash plants to the oil and gas industry. Uh, they're
35:01
Speaker 12: they're they're in for who's And I think that they're
35:03
Speaker 12: complicit because they simply allow them to write the rules
35:07
Speaker 12: of which they're governed by.
35:09
Speaker 9: Uh.
35:09
Speaker 12: They don't want regulations because regulations cost money, and so
35:12
Speaker 12: they're putting a price tag on the public health and safety.
35:15
Speaker 12: Even our children and most vulnerable, our seniors are at risk,
35:18
Speaker 12: and they don't seem to care.
35:20
Speaker 13: This is a piece is in black and brown communities
35:22
Speaker 13: that thinkpecialty areas.
35:25
Speaker 12: Absolutely it's predominant. That's why that's why it's an environmental
35:28
Speaker 12: justice issue.
35:29
Speaker 7: Uh.
35:30
Speaker 12: They don't put these concrete bash plants in river Oaks,
35:33
Speaker 12: in the affluent areas. They put them in black and
35:35
Speaker 12: brown and poor communities because they know they don't have
35:38
Speaker 12: the resources to fight them.
35:39
Speaker 5: That is what they do and.
35:40
Speaker 12: That is why it's so incumbent upon us as legislators
35:44
Speaker 12: in the community. People like Airlines Houston to stand in
35:46
Speaker 12: the gap and fight. It's David versus Blive. They have
35:49
Speaker 12: the resources, they have the power of the pen with
35:52
Speaker 12: Governor Abbott, but we have the pupil power and that's
35:55
Speaker 12: why we have to mobilize protests. But more importantly, the
35:58
Speaker 12: people can change it at the ballot box, UH this November,
36:02
Speaker 12: because Governor Abbott is on the ballot, Lieutenant Governor Patrick
36:05
Speaker 12: is on the ballot, every state representative is on the ballot,
36:08
Speaker 12: many state senators on the ballot. So this November, before
36:11
Speaker 12: we go into the ninetieth legislative session, the people have
36:13
Speaker 12: the power to change those dynamics so that we can
36:16
Speaker 12: get environmental justice bills passed that protect climate change and
36:21
Speaker 12: environmental justice issues will get a fair opportunity to pass.
36:27
Speaker 5: They haven't had a fair opportunity in the past.
36:29
Speaker 13: How can how can we get through especially Latino community
36:31
Speaker 13: where mostly predominance of dominant Spanish speaking and predominant surity
36:35
Speaker 13: to say anything that's that's, that's that may may bring
36:39
Speaker 13: attention to any of their family members.
36:41
Speaker 9: How do you?
36:42
Speaker 5: How do you do?
36:42
Speaker 13: How do you?
36:43
Speaker 5: How do how can there be protected?
36:45
Speaker 11: Yes, you brought up such an important point. A lot
36:47
Speaker 11: of these, especially in the ones that I represent our
36:50
Speaker 11: Spanish speaking communities, and they are afraid to speak up
36:53
Speaker 11: right now. I'm grateful to Air Alliance for providing information
36:57
Speaker 11: in Spanish, but the reality is that with ice raids
37:01
Speaker 11: and everything that's going on, they're not going to speak
37:04
Speaker 11: up right now. So it's incumbent on us to get
37:07
Speaker 11: up and speak and to make sure that we're using
37:09
Speaker 11: our voice, standing here today together as a collective, making
37:13
Speaker 11: sure that we're building coalitions of folks who will have
37:17
Speaker 11: a voice for the voiceless and speak to truth to power,
37:20
Speaker 11: Like my colleague always says, we must do that. And
37:25
Speaker 11: I can't even begin to tell you how imperative with
37:27
Speaker 11: what happened yesterday at the Supreme Court and gutting the
37:32
Speaker 11: Voting Rights Act. I mean, they're going after us, and
37:36
Speaker 11: I can't even tell you what the United States will
37:39
Speaker 11: look like in the future. It's very, very scary. People
37:42
Speaker 11: we're sounding the alarms. People need to listen. People need
37:45
Speaker 11: to get organized. People need to be a part of
37:46
Speaker 11: organizations like Air Alliance and others and get involved.
37:50
Speaker 1: That was Texas State Representatives Ron Reynolds of District twenty
37:53
Speaker 1: seven and Christina morale Is Texas State Representative District one
37:56
Speaker 1: forty five. Republicans in the state have moved to make
38:00
Speaker 1: Texas less clean. You can reach Air Alliance Houston at
38:04
Speaker 1: Air Alliance Houston all put together dot org. A cornerstone
38:09
Speaker 1: of the criminal, corrupt, and incompetent Trump administration is denying
38:14
Speaker 1: access into this country for anyone other than white people.
38:19
Speaker 1: Temporary Protected Status is a key part of protections for
38:22
Speaker 1: people coming into this country. The US Supreme Court is
38:26
Speaker 1: set to take up the Trump administration's proposed removal of
38:30
Speaker 1: Temporary protected status from Haitians coming into this country. People
38:35
Speaker 1: with TPS are given permission to live and work in
38:37
Speaker 1: the US because the government has deemed their home countries
38:41
Speaker 1: to be unsafe because of war, political instability, or natural disasters. Haiti,
38:47
Speaker 1: seven hundred miles away from Miami, has been drenched with violence,
38:51
Speaker 1: insecurity and a lack of a running government. Most non
38:55
Speaker 1: governmental agencies have left, and medical needs are getting harder
38:59
Speaker 1: and harder to get. Doctors without Borders have been there
39:03
Speaker 1: and are fighting an uphill battle. Tim Shank, senior communications
39:08
Speaker 1: officer with Doctors Without Borders, spoke on the situation.
39:12
Speaker 14: So Doctors without Borders and it's often known as Medicine
39:15
Speaker 14: Sut Flontier or MSF, that's the international name in French.
39:19
Speaker 14: We've worked in Haiti now for thirty five years and
39:23
Speaker 14: it's a very important place. It's a place where we
39:27
Speaker 14: see a lot of medical need and where at this
39:30
Speaker 14: time we're very keen to call attention to the extent
39:34
Speaker 14: to which the conditions have deteriorated for people that we serve,
39:39
Speaker 14: including even for our own staff, and it has just
39:43
Speaker 14: become a it has become a crisis on multiple levels,
39:46
Speaker 14: a very complex crisis. But the medical needs are very
39:50
Speaker 14: high and the humanitarian conditions are also very concerning. So
39:55
Speaker 14: this month we have a statement out really highlighting a
39:58
Speaker 14: couple of key facts. One is that has become a
40:00
Speaker 14: far more dangerous place in recent years, and this is
40:03
Speaker 14: from our perspective import of princes and elsewhere in the country.
40:07
Speaker 14: The level of violence that ordinary people are caught up
40:10
Speaker 14: in as there are armored groups that are challenging the government.
40:13
Speaker 14: People are affected by violence really on all sides, and
40:17
Speaker 14: that's something that we see very clearly. In addition, access
40:21
Speaker 14: to medical care has decreased. Medical facilities have been shut
40:25
Speaker 14: down in some cases, they have been looted, put out
40:27
Speaker 14: of service, in some cases they are only partly functioning,
40:30
Speaker 14: and so this has really decreased the access to care
40:33
Speaker 14: that people need, whether that's for emergency needs or chronic
40:35
Speaker 14: health needs. That it is much more difficult for people
40:39
Speaker 14: to reach medical care at this point. And so this
40:42
Speaker 14: is something that we're also keen to highlight as there
40:45
Speaker 14: are important policies other consideration, including here in the US
40:49
Speaker 14: where there's a case before the Supreme Court this week
40:52
Speaker 14: in which the Trump administration is expected to argue that
40:56
Speaker 14: it can deport more than three hundred and fifty five
41:00
Speaker 14: and Haitians in the US who have been here under
41:04
Speaker 14: a policy known as temporary protected status. So we're keen
41:07
Speaker 14: to highlight what's happening in Haiti now so that people
41:10
Speaker 14: know that when they're considering these kinds of questions.
41:14
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I was gonna ask you about how is
41:16
Speaker 6: that going to affect you. I know it's been a
41:18
Speaker 6: number of Haitians that have have imported themselves and went
41:22
Speaker 6: back to Haiti, and it's just and the status that
41:27
Speaker 6: you talk about, how would that affect the situation if
41:33
Speaker 6: you have even more Haitians coming back and making it
41:37
Speaker 6: making it eat a lot harder for people to get
41:40
Speaker 6: to get any type of help because of the concentration
41:42
Speaker 6: of of added of added stress.
41:45
Speaker 5: On the system there with.
41:47
Speaker 15: With more people.
41:49
Speaker 14: I think it's a really important fact that in mind,
41:51
Speaker 14: the situation now for people in Haiti is intolerable. The
41:54
Speaker 14: level of violence that people see, physical violence, even sexual
41:58
Speaker 14: violence is really intolerable. And so it would only compound
42:02
Speaker 14: this crisis to return Haitian TPS holders from the US
42:06
Speaker 14: against their will, putting them in harm's way. So I
42:08
Speaker 14: think this is a reality that needs to be recognized.
42:11
Speaker 14: US policy makers need to recognize what's happening in Haiti
42:14
Speaker 14: now and to see that it is not a wiser
42:18
Speaker 14: humane decision to return people there against their will.
42:23
Speaker 6: What happens is what happened to the situation there. I
42:25
Speaker 6: thought that with the added security with Kenyan soldiers or
42:30
Speaker 6: Kenyan soldiers coming to help out the situation, the safety
42:33
Speaker 6: would be a lot better.
42:36
Speaker 14: Well, I think that there are various policies that have
42:41
Speaker 14: tried to address the security situation. That's very much an
42:43
Speaker 14: ongoing problem, and I think everyone who looks at this
42:46
Speaker 14: seriously would say that it is a very serious problem
42:50
Speaker 14: and one that has not been resolved. And so what
42:53
Speaker 14: we do know is that the government and its supporters
42:57
Speaker 14: are increasingly trying to trying to wage battles against armed groups,
43:05
Speaker 14: armed groups that control various areas around the capitol and beyond.
43:09
Speaker 14: And so what we see at the current moment and
43:12
Speaker 14: anticipate is that this leads to a lot of violence
43:15
Speaker 14: that affects ordinary people. Whether they're living on one side
43:18
Speaker 14: or another, if they have to access a medical facility,
43:20
Speaker 14: if they have to just go about their daily lives,
43:22
Speaker 14: what they are facing is a reality of a lot
43:24
Speaker 14: of violence, armed clashes, straight bullets, various ways that they
43:29
Speaker 14: can be harmed, checkpoints where people may be killed or attacked,
43:33
Speaker 14: People may be killed or attacked in their homes.
43:36
Speaker 15: And so this is the.
43:37
Speaker 14: Reality for now, and it's the reality that we have
43:40
Speaker 14: to anticipate is going to continue here for the near term.
43:44
Speaker 14: At least, and so that's why it's really important to
43:46
Speaker 14: keep this in mind, that this is what people are facing.
43:48
Speaker 15: There are more than one point four million people who.
43:50
Speaker 14: Have put their homes in Haiti, so they are, you know,
43:53
Speaker 14: sheltering in open areas.
43:55
Speaker 15: They are sheltering in schools or churches or other public buildings.
43:59
Speaker 14: In many cases, they don't have adequate water, they don't
44:01
Speaker 14: have adequate toilet facilities, they don't have adequate medical care.
44:05
Speaker 15: And we as part of our work, we.
44:06
Speaker 14: Run mobile clinics in some of these locations, so we
44:08
Speaker 14: see this directly, and we hear gunshots going off in
44:11
Speaker 14: these neighborhoods, and it's really a situation that is not
44:15
Speaker 14: it's not palable for people that are there. It would
44:18
Speaker 14: be worse if there were more people being brought in
44:21
Speaker 14: in a situation of vulnerability straight into the middle of
44:23
Speaker 14: all this.
44:25
Speaker 6: What about people that get shot and they need medical
44:28
Speaker 6: help and they are part of some of the gangs there,
44:31
Speaker 6: do you help them?
44:33
Speaker 14: The reality of how people are being wounded is that
44:39
Speaker 14: people are suffering physical injuries, you know, regardless of who
44:43
Speaker 14: they are. And so one of the things that medical
44:45
Speaker 14: providers need to be able to do is they need
44:47
Speaker 14: to look at a person and say, these are the
44:49
Speaker 14: medical needs that this person has.
44:50
Speaker 15: And here is the care that they need.
44:53
Speaker 14: And that is what has just become harder and harder
44:55
Speaker 14: for medical providers to be able to provide that care,
44:58
Speaker 14: their life saving care. And it's not for the medical
45:01
Speaker 14: provider to say, okay, you know you are X, y
45:05
Speaker 14: or Z type of person. Medical provider just needs to
45:07
Speaker 14: look at a patient and say, okay, you're hemorrhaging blood
45:10
Speaker 14: or something like that and to be able to respond
45:13
Speaker 14: in that moment.
45:14
Speaker 15: And that's a very important principle.
45:15
Speaker 14: That's true in Haiti, that's true in countries throughout the
45:18
Speaker 14: world that a medical provider needs to be able to
45:21
Speaker 14: focus on the medical needs that they see. So with
45:25
Speaker 14: that reality, you have to acknowledge that there are large
45:29
Speaker 14: areas of Haiti in which people have trouble getting.
45:32
Speaker 15: To a medical facility and if they come.
45:34
Speaker 14: From that area, they may be considered under suspicion by
45:38
Speaker 14: whoever's working at a checkpoint or providing security in a
45:42
Speaker 14: different place, and so people lose their lives trying to
45:45
Speaker 14: go from one neighborhood to another.
45:47
Speaker 15: They delay seeking care.
45:49
Speaker 14: You have pregnant women who are not receiving the care
45:52
Speaker 14: that they need during pregnancy because they are afraid to
45:54
Speaker 14: go from one neighborhood to another, and you now have
45:57
Speaker 14: a majority of verses that are not taking place in hospitals.
46:01
Speaker 14: This is a change in recent years, but it's something
46:02
Speaker 14: that we've been really keen to draw more attention to.
46:06
Speaker 14: Pregnant women are not in a majority of cases, they
46:09
Speaker 14: are not receiving the medical care that you would expect
46:12
Speaker 14: a person to.
46:13
Speaker 15: Receive to avoid destined childbirth.
46:14
Speaker 14: To avoid other complications, and so this is very much
46:17
Speaker 14: an indication of what is happening in Haiti, particularly in
46:21
Speaker 14: the capital, and what that means for healthcare more generally thought.
46:25
Speaker 6: At one point I saw doctors grab bores were leaving
46:28
Speaker 6: Hay because of the vows that become untolerable.
46:33
Speaker 14: There have been instances in which we have had to
46:35
Speaker 14: close a whole hospital. We've had to close the location
46:38
Speaker 14: that we were working and that is really a tragic
46:41
Speaker 14: outcome because of the high level of needs that we're seeing.
46:44
Speaker 14: We did not entirely leave Haiti. We have remained. We
46:46
Speaker 14: currently work in three hospitals and have a dedicated clinic
46:49
Speaker 14: for survivors of sexual violence that we've wrentmobile clinics, and
46:52
Speaker 14: we're looking in different ways if we're able to safely
46:55
Speaker 14: expand some of our activities. But indeed, we have had
46:58
Speaker 14: incidents that are very serious and that have caused us
47:01
Speaker 14: to curtail activities in certain places or even shut activities
47:04
Speaker 14: in certain places.
47:06
Speaker 6: And at one point I thought the situation was just
47:09
Speaker 6: on the outskirts or just in some areas. But you're
47:13
Speaker 6: saying now is all over Haiti. There's no area that's
47:16
Speaker 6: saying from Mina Regulnett.
47:18
Speaker 15: There there are such risks in so many places.
47:21
Speaker 14: At this point, you know that it is it is
47:25
Speaker 14: certainly less safe today to live in Haiti than it
47:27
Speaker 14: was a few years ago, and it is less safe
47:30
Speaker 14: to seek medical care. And this is true broadly speaking
47:33
Speaker 14: in the capital port of Prints and the surrounding West department.
47:36
Speaker 14: We also know of many concerning developments in the activity
47:40
Speaker 14: the saucer of departments, so very big areas of the
47:42
Speaker 14: country that are experiencing those security issues, hospitals being shut down,
47:47
Speaker 14: medical services going offline, and this mass displacement the people.
47:51
Speaker 14: So that's this other aspect that really drives some of
47:55
Speaker 14: these needs. So I think that the picture that's important
47:58
Speaker 14: to keep in mind is that the this situation has
48:01
Speaker 14: gotten worse, considerably worse, and and it's really important to
48:05
Speaker 14: know that when when you're considering these policies.
48:08
Speaker 6: And if if, if, if the TIP Administrator has its way,
48:12
Speaker 6: you have some more people coming there, it's going to
48:14
Speaker 6: be a bigger influence of people trying to leave the
48:16
Speaker 6: island under under even even more dangerous ways.
48:22
Speaker 14: Yeah, I think it's it's hard to project into the
48:24
Speaker 14: future not knowing what's going to happen. But it has
48:27
Speaker 14: been the case that that Haiti has really experienced a
48:32
Speaker 14: number of very serious crises and this does lead people
48:37
Speaker 14: to to do what they need to do in.
48:39
Speaker 15: Order to try to survive.
48:40
Speaker 14: And that's that's the tragic reality I think of of
48:43
Speaker 14: people who've been fleeing their homes, sometimes clean whole neighborhoods,
48:47
Speaker 14: you know, living in conditions that are that are not healthy,
48:50
Speaker 14: that are not safe, and and that's that's what we're
48:53
Speaker 14: bearing witness too.
48:53
Speaker 1: We see that that was Tim Shank, Senior communications officer
48:57
Speaker 1: with Doctors Without Borders. You can donate or find out
49:01
Speaker 1: information by going to Doctors without Borders All put Together
49:05
Speaker 1: dot org. Sebastian Saway broke the men's world marathon record,
49:11
Speaker 1: becoming the first runner ever to officially run a sub
49:15
Speaker 1: two hour marathon, finishing in one fifty nine thirty. We
49:20
Speaker 1: talked to John Warren, former distance runner and head track
49:23
Speaker 1: coach at Rice University, about how incredible a feat this
49:27
Speaker 1: is and how the shoes made it possible. He also
49:31
Speaker 1: talked about the great American sprinter Alison Felix making a
49:35
Speaker 1: comeback to qualify for the Olympic Games in la at
49:38
Speaker 1: the age of forty.
49:40
Speaker 7: Uh Sway, Sebastian Saway, the guy who won it. He
49:44
Speaker 7: is a historically he started pretty late. He's historically this
49:48
Speaker 7: really good. Like he started. His first half marathon was
49:50
Speaker 7: a fifty eight or fifty on a chemical witch and
49:52
Speaker 7: his first marathon, for I remember, he's a two O
49:54
Speaker 7: two marathon and he's run quite a number of two
49:57
Speaker 7: O twos. I think what happened is he's a two
49:59
Speaker 7: T marathon or that has shoes that are good enough
50:02
Speaker 7: to make it one to fifty nine. I think they're
50:04
Speaker 7: probably three minutes at least two are probably three minutes
50:06
Speaker 7: value in those shoes. These are shoes that when they
50:08
Speaker 7: come out they're gonna be six or seven hundred dollars
50:11
Speaker 7: and they bounced like crazy. So it's fantastic what he did,
50:16
Speaker 7: but he didn't. He didn't do it, unjust him because
50:20
Speaker 7: the shoes were helpful already.
50:23
Speaker 5: It was already was.
50:24
Speaker 6: There was a controversy with that a couple of years
50:26
Speaker 6: ago because the shoes weren't allowed. The rook was supposed
50:30
Speaker 6: to be broken, but they were wearing those shoes and
50:34
Speaker 6: uh so he did not allow the time, and now
50:37
Speaker 6: the owners are allowed.
50:38
Speaker 7: Uh yeah, they were, they there was, it was a minute.
50:42
Speaker 7: The rule on the shoes is you have forty milimeters stick.
50:45
Speaker 7: That's the only rule, and there was one I know,
50:47
Speaker 7: I think it was I'm gonna say venice, but there's
50:50
Speaker 7: a major marathon where somebody wore shoes that were fifty
50:52
Speaker 7: milimeters stick and they got disqualified. But they've they've been.
50:55
Speaker 7: World Athletics has allowed these shoes since they came out,
50:59
Speaker 7: and even before they knew the existed, because we know
51:01
Speaker 7: that Nike has the people in them, and it's the
51:03
Speaker 7: foam and the fiber and the carbon fiber actually act
51:06
Speaker 7: as kind of springboards and increase your stridelink with no
51:10
Speaker 7: excess effort. I think what they do is they really
51:12
Speaker 7: do the work that your calf achilles, lower leg would do.
51:15
Speaker 7: And so you know, the smaller muscles don't fatigue, and
51:18
Speaker 7: you put the emphasis on the bigger muscles so you're
51:20
Speaker 7: able to feel good all the way through to the end.
51:22
Speaker 7: And they're just fantastic. And and and the two guys
51:25
Speaker 7: are I mean's always a bunch of deckers in a
51:27
Speaker 7: bunch of two O twos, which is just take this
51:29
Speaker 7: one away, is still phenomenal. And the guy that was second,
51:33
Speaker 7: I think his name is his career is he's he
51:36
Speaker 7: ran a three forty seven mile as a teenager. He's
51:39
Speaker 7: in thirteen, I mean twelve forty something in the five
51:42
Speaker 7: kids a teenager, and his history is incredible.
51:45
Speaker 5: And that was his first marathon, I think too.
51:48
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean he's he's that that's not a given.
51:50
Speaker 7: Those shoes, I mean his first marathon in normal and
51:52
Speaker 7: they last year's shoes are probably been two two as well.
51:56
Speaker 7: He's somebody that could be even go faster. He's he's
51:59
Speaker 7: a different I mean, it's alway obviously's awesome, but this
52:01
Speaker 7: I think the other guys are actual historically much better
52:04
Speaker 7: run of a much better background.
52:07
Speaker 6: We always talked about that before that. You know, a
52:11
Speaker 6: track runner can always beat a road runner because the
52:13
Speaker 6: track round has that that that that that turner, that
52:16
Speaker 6: that turnover rate that road runner doesn't have.
52:20
Speaker 7: Right, we stay back, but when you're running one fifty nine,
52:24
Speaker 7: they just hanging on at that point. But so much. Yeah,
52:28
Speaker 7: I think the real real key there was to go
52:30
Speaker 7: from two and two guys fifty nine. The big change
52:33
Speaker 7: wasn't any sort of in my opinion, any sort of
52:35
Speaker 7: spectacular training, uh that change or anything. I think it
52:38
Speaker 7: was more to do with the equipment. And also there's
52:41
Speaker 7: there's there's I don't even understand, there's start even by
52:44
Speaker 7: carbonate years they're taking. There's pep guides they're taking. There's
52:46
Speaker 7: all sorts of things that are legal that they're taking.
52:51
Speaker 6: Yeah, so you think they might we might be staying
52:55
Speaker 6: this all the time with these shoes there that they're wearing.
52:57
Speaker 7: Right, yep, I mean what what it went from? Uh
53:02
Speaker 7: before the shoes, you had a few people that were
53:04
Speaker 7: running two of five, uh even at two of three,
53:07
Speaker 7: and then when the shoes came two or three to
53:09
Speaker 7: come kind of normal, and so it jumps. So you're
53:13
Speaker 7: two of five people can two two people Now you're
53:15
Speaker 7: two or two people are gonna come on fifty nine
53:17
Speaker 7: and then one and again you go back with those
53:19
Speaker 7: folks and they might run on fifty five. Yeah, it
53:21
Speaker 7: could be I d the four to thirty three miles
53:23
Speaker 7: for the whole way, and you know it was that?
53:25
Speaker 8: Was that a flat course?
53:26
Speaker 6: I don't, I don't, I don't know.
53:27
Speaker 7: If that's Oh, it's very flat. It's a very fast course.
53:29
Speaker 7: It's a flat, fast course. Supposedly something like seventy percent
53:33
Speaker 7: of the course had a tailwind. It's just a perfect day. Yeah. Yeah,
53:36
Speaker 7: everything came into fruition. Add that to the you add
53:40
Speaker 7: that to the uh, the ability that these guys have.
53:44
Speaker 7: It's just it's like, let rephrase that. If you think
53:47
Speaker 7: of a different way, you go back to say, I'll
53:49
Speaker 7: way back to Derek Clayton here had a two eight
53:51
Speaker 7: marathon in the seventies and minutes better than any else.
53:54
Speaker 7: Derek Clayton's at two a one, two or two guy today,
53:57
Speaker 7: you know, uh, or or or maybe maybe you look
54:01
Speaker 7: at I don't got his name, our good American kid
54:04
Speaker 7: or into horror me. He's probably a two of six guy.
54:07
Speaker 7: A couple of years ago. But the shoes are better
54:09
Speaker 7: or that beneficial. It doesn't take much. I did the math.
54:11
Speaker 7: It's something because you had a minute a second episode,
54:13
Speaker 7: I'll get right an inch to your stride length two
54:16
Speaker 7: minutes doctors of marathon time and the end the shoes
54:19
Speaker 7: can you can add five six inches to your stridelink
54:21
Speaker 7: with no effort, no reaching, no nothing, no negative sense.
54:24
Speaker 6: For your guys, are you gonna start?
54:25
Speaker 3: Where are you gonna put them on?
54:27
Speaker 6: Your your guys over at Rice, we are, we.
54:30
Speaker 7: We've when we've done it in cross country a little bit,
54:33
Speaker 7: but really we can't use them because they're not legal
54:34
Speaker 7: on the track. The shoes, these forty millimeters shoes. Uh
54:39
Speaker 7: the track thickness that the most is twenty millimeters so
54:44
Speaker 7: and and they're in and they're the stuff in the
54:45
Speaker 7: track shoes too. Yeah, they're they're you're singing the track
54:48
Speaker 7: as well, just not as it is this most extreme
54:50
Speaker 7: in the marathon. Under the race, the uh, the more
54:54
Speaker 7: impactful the equipment is. Can we see some of that
54:57
Speaker 7: time like that in say Houston only already?
55:01
Speaker 9: Do?
55:02
Speaker 7: Yeah? I mean that's where the two o five that
55:07
Speaker 7: alby come back. I don't blame everyoy's name. Yeah, that's
55:09
Speaker 7: two five he's uh and he ran two o three
55:12
Speaker 7: at Boston. Well yeah, but none of these guys do
55:15
Speaker 7: go on that fat maybe two or three minutes slower
55:17
Speaker 7: forwarding for the shoes.
55:19
Speaker 6: She's all right, Hey, let's talk about not changing the topic.
55:24
Speaker 6: But Alison Felix is coming back, right, and how is
55:29
Speaker 6: that gonna affect athletics and in general as far as
55:32
Speaker 6: the excitement level, think she qualifies.
55:37
Speaker 7: At forty two years old, which is the ah she
55:39
Speaker 7: will be in twenty twenty eight, and after taking two
55:44
Speaker 7: years off, it would be very surprising but very exciting
55:49
Speaker 7: if she did it. I think that's what makes it interesting,
55:50
Speaker 7: is it's it's it's but based on normal standards there,
55:53
Speaker 7: it's very unlikely that she can make the team in
55:57
Speaker 7: two years, much less run near what she ran before.
56:00
Speaker 7: But why not? I mean, give it a shot. If
56:03
Speaker 7: if she doesn't try, she doesn't make the team. If
56:05
Speaker 7: she tries and doesn't make the team, she's no worse
56:07
Speaker 7: off and it'll be exciting to watch.
56:09
Speaker 5: I have better chance to relay.
56:12
Speaker 7: Well, was she the last medal she got or one
56:15
Speaker 7: of the last medals is on the mixed relay but
56:17
Speaker 7: but she still has to be top. She has to
56:19
Speaker 7: make at least make the final of the Olympic Trials
56:24
Speaker 7: and then they could pick teams from the quarter for
56:26
Speaker 7: those relay teams going to pick off her from the
56:27
Speaker 7: foreigner hurdles in the two hundred, so only the four
56:31
Speaker 7: in the four hurdles. But yeah, it's it's gonna be.
56:33
Speaker 7: It's gonna be hard and obviously talk because no one's
56:36
Speaker 7: ever done it. So she's trying to be the first
56:38
Speaker 7: person to ever be a master's runner rat masters sprinter
56:41
Speaker 7: to make an Olympic team, and that would be that
56:44
Speaker 7: would be phenomenal. If you're odds are against it. Odds
56:49
Speaker 7: are very much against it. It's highly unlikely, But like
56:52
Speaker 7: I said, that's what makes it interesting.
56:55
Speaker 1: That was Rice University track coach John Warren on last
56:57
Speaker 1: week's record breaking London Marathon and the great American Alison
57:02
Speaker 1: Felix making a comeback at over forty years old. The
57:08
Speaker 1: People's News is a production of Steve Gallington and Richard
57:11
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57:56
Speaker 7: Thank you,