Organizers of Beto O'Rourke visit to Newtown apologize for not including some Sandy Hook families

Not everyone in Newtown was pleased with Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s visit on Wednesday evening.

O’Rourke spoke to hundreds of gun control activists in Newtown, not far from the site of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The event was sponsored by the Newtown Action Alliance, a group of activists supporting gun control. But organizers apparently did not include Nelba Marquez-Greene, whose daughter Ana was murdered during the Sandy Hook attack.

In a series of tweets Wednesday night and Thursday, Marquez-Greene said “certain families” were excluded from the event. She also thanked O’Rourke for intervening and making sure the event was open to all Sandy Hook families.

https://twitter.com/Nelba_MG/status/1189573147172818944

The Newtown Action Alliance, which organized the event, tweeted an apology Wednesday evening. "We will make that all the families are invited next time,'' the group said. “This is a genuine apology.”

https://twitter.com/NewtownAction/status/1189901702058725379

Read more: https://www.courant.com/politics/capitol-watch/hc-pol-newtown-beto-invite-20191031-n7oiyokkk5dmpf42b6zbuxzfhm-story.html

Organizers of Beto O'Rourke visit to Newtown apologize for not including some Sandy Hook families

Not everyone in Newtown was pleased with Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s visit on Wednesday evening.

O’Rourke spoke to hundreds of gun control activists in Newtown, not far from the site of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The event was sponsored by the Newtown Action Alliance, a group of activists supporting gun control. But organizers apparently did not include Nelba Marquez-Greene, whose daughter Ana was murdered during the Sandy Hook attack.

In a series of tweets Wednesday night and Thursday, Marquez-Greene said “certain families” were excluded from the event. She also thanked O’Rourke for intervening and making sure the event was open to all Sandy Hook families.

https://twitter.com/Nelba_MG/status/1189573147172818944

The Newtown Action Alliance, which organized the event, tweeted an apology Wednesday evening. "We will make that all the families are invited next time,'' the group said. “This is a genuine apology.”

https://twitter.com/NewtownAction/status/1189901702058725379

Read more: https://www.courant.com/politics/capitol-watch/hc-pol-newtown-beto-invite-20191031-n7oiyokkk5dmpf42b6zbuxzfhm-story.html

The Specials - Ghost Town

Cruz calls impeachment a 'partisan mission' as crucial House vote nears

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Cruz Wednesday said that he doesn’t believe the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump protects due process rights, namely those of House Republicans, who are in the minority.

“The process they’re employing continues to deny basic due process protections, including, most critically, the right for the minority to subpoena witnesses,” the Texas Republican told McClatchy.

His comments come a day before the House of Representatives plans to vote on a resolution addressing the next steps in its impeachment inquiry.

The vote Thursday would be the first formal House vote in the impeachment investigation, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, announced in September.

Read more: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article236829003.html

Speaking about being partisan, Ted...

The World's Largest Nuclear Power Producer Is Melting Down

On the shores of the English channel in Normandy, engineers are struggling to fix eight faulty welds at a plant that’s supposed to showcase France’s savoir faire in nuclear power.

As they consider sending in robots to access hard-to-get-to areas between two containment walls, for Electricite de France it’s just the latest setback in a project that’s running a decade late and almost four times over budget.

“We hear every year that there’s a new problem,” Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday. “It is not acceptable that one of the most prestigious and strategic sectors for our country is facing so many difficulties.”

The Flamanville plant is now slated to be completed in 2022 at a price tag of 12.4 billion euros ($13.8 billion), with the latest glitch costing a whopping 1.5 billion euros. Bemoaning the loss of France’s edge in the sector because of a 15-year gap between the start of construction at the plant and that of the previous reactor, Le Maire has given EDF a month to come up with an action plan to restore the industry’s know-how before the country can determine whether it will build any new atomic plants.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-31/the-world-s-largest-nuclear-power-producer-is-melting-down

Fiat Chrysler and PSA Plan Carmaking Tie-Up to Face Expensive Future

Rival carmakers PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV unveiled a plan to combine, pooling resources to confront an expensive new era of trade tariffs, emissions rules and electrification.

Shareholders of each company will own 50% of the combined entity, to be listed in Paris, Milan and New York. Investors in Fiat will receive a dividend of 5.5 billion euros ($6.1 billion) and its robotics arm Comau, while France’s PSA plans to distribute its 46% stake in auto-parts maker Faurecia SE. Cost savings from the deal without plant closures are projected to be about 3.7 billion euros.

PSA shares dropped as much as 9.1% in Paris, the most in more than three years, while Fiat rose as much as 10% in Milan.

The boards of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot and Citroen-maker PSA agreed to work toward a binding agreement in the coming weeks, they said Thursday in a joint statement. The accord would create the fourth-largest automaker with a combined market value of about $50 billion.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-30/psa-board-is-said-to-approve-plan-to-combine-with-fiat-chrysler?srnd=premium

Google v. Apple: While one takes on the housing crisis, the other stands back

They changed the world with their tech products, employ vast swaths of the Bay Area’s workforce and together own more than $16 billion in Silicon Valley property.

But Google and Apple — the valley’s two biggest tech property owners — differ wildly in a critical aspect: the way they use their resources in response to the region’s chronic housing crisis. A side-by-side comparison reveals that Google is taking a far more proactive approach to corporate citizenship than Apple, a disparity that illuminates the question many tech companies struggle with today: How much should they be expected to help the people and communities who fall victim to Silicon Valley’s success?

The answer will play a major role in shaping the future of the valley as residents grapple with sky-high demand for housing, soaring prices and painfully clogged roadways.

Google and Apple have similar portfolios — Google owned $7.5 billion and Apple owned just under $9 billion in taxable property in Santa Clara County as of the 2018 fiscal year, according to an analysis by a collaboration of local and national media, including this news organization, that has spent the last year studying land ownership patterns and their impact on the development of Silicon Valley. More of the collaboration’s work will be published and broadcast in coming days.

Read more: https://www.revealnews.org/article/google-v-apple-while-one-takes-on-the-housing-crisis-the-other-stands-back/

Illinois Legislators Vote to End License Suspensions for Motorists With Unpaid Parking Tickets

Illinois lawmakers approved a bill Tuesday that would eliminate driver’s license suspensions for unpaid parking tickets, putting an end to a decades-old practice that has hurt tens of thousands of motorists across the state.

The bill now awaits Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s signature. A spokeswoman for the governor said he looks forward to reviewing “this meaningful legislation.” Rep. Carol Ammons, a Democrat from Urbana-Champaign who co-sponsored the measure, said that the governor has told her he supports the bill’s intent and that she expects him to sign it.

The legislation, known as the License to Work Act, would end license suspensions for a number of non-moving violations, including the largest category: unpaid parking and vehicle compliance tickets. Advocates say that cutting off driving privileges hurts people trying to get to work, earn a living and pay off debts.

The vast majority of those suspensions affect motorists from low-income, black neighborhoods in Chicago and its suburbs, ProPublica Illinois has reported. Many of those affected have been unable to drive legally for years but do so anyway, risking arrest and getting swept into the criminal justice system.

Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/illinois-legislators-vote-bill-end-drivers-license-suspensions-unpaid-parking-tickets

In a Notoriously Polluted Area of the Country, Massive New Chemical Plants Are Still Moving in

The industrial stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, a region known as “Cancer Alley,” is one of the most highly polluted areas in the country. A ProPublica analysis using a scientific model developed by the Environmental Protection Agency shows that some of the neighborhoods where new plants are being built already have very high concentrations of toxic chemicals. But Louisiana continues to approve the building of these new plants and the expansion of existing ones.

The EPA model ProPublica used, known as Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators, or RSEI, calculates the estimated chemical concentrations from toxic industrial plant emissions across the country, down to 810-by-810-meter blocks. We then used that model to find where toxic levels of cancer-causing chemicals are highest in the seven parishes.

In these seven Louisiana parishes, more than 200 plants emit toxic chemicals at a high enough level that they must report their emissions to the government. (graphics identify East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Ascension, St. James, St. John the Baptist, and St. Charles parishes).

According to our analysis of the RSEI model, which incorporates these emissions, here's where toxic levels of cancer-causing chemicals are estimated to be highest along the lower Mississippi in 2017, the most recent year for which data is available.

The graphics accompanying the story are excellent. Read more: https://projects.propublica.org/louisiana-toxic-air/

Environmental study of Shasta Dam height halted

BACKSTORY
For decades, agricultural and municipal water districts have sought to raise the dam containing California’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, to capture more water as it flows out of the Cascade Range through the McCloud, Pit and Sacramento rivers. Some in Congress and the Trump administration’s Interior Department have given the project renewed consideration, though environmentalists have long rallied against it, and state officials contend that it would violate California law. It is also opposed by the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, whose members were forced out during the dam’s construction; they say even more ancestral land would be swallowed up. (“Interior revives the push for a higher Shasta Dam,” HCN, 6/11/18).

FOLLOWUP
In a recent turn of events, according to E&E News, the Westlands Water District announced in early October that it is halting its environmental study of raising the height of Shasta Dam. The study was meant to evaluate the environmental impacts as well as assess whether the project was worth the investment.

https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.18/latest-environmental-study-of-shasta-dam-height-halted
(High Country News) (no more at link)