Rebecca Brooks is the only full-time female butcher at at Forager’s Market, a nose to tail butcher shop in Brooklyn.
In general, female butchers are a minority in the butcher industry — a scant 24.6% of butchers are women, according to a 2010 analysis by the National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit for women’s rights.
Butchers and meat cutters are considered “nontraditional occupations” for women, alongside other male-dominated jobs like police, lawyers, engineers and firefighter, according to the center. Read more (8/14/17)
The Trump administration last week halted a government study regarding possible health risks associated with living near surface coal mining sites, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine announced on Monday.
“In an Aug. 18 letter, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement informed the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that it should cease all work on a study of the potential health risks for people living near surface coal mine sites in Central Appalachia,” the NASEM said in a news release.
The NASEM had been given a $1 million grant last August from the Office of Surface Reclamation and Enforcement — a government agency within the Department of the Interior — for a two-year study of the potential health risks on those living near surface coal mines in central Appalachia. The grant came at the request of the state of West Virginia. Read more.
Coming off one of the most tumultuous weeks of his presidency, President Donald Trump sought a middle ground on Saturday, thanking the thousands of protesters who turned out in Boston to shut down a far-right rally planned there.
It was a briefly conciliatory tone from a president under fire all week for doubling down on equivocating white supremacists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump now faces the question of whether he can sustain a shift away from the “bigotry and hate” he condemned this Saturday.
Trump is back in Washington. With his working vacation over, he will address the country at 9 p.m. Eastern on Monday to outline his approach to the war in Afghanistan. Generals have been calling for more U.S. troops in the country. Read more.
On Tuesday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill vastly expanding insurance coverage for abortion and birth control, while in Texas Gov. Greg Abbott scaled it way back.
“Shame on you, Gov. Abbott, for attacking Texans’ health and rights,” Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood Federation of America president, said in a statement. “It’s wrong for politicians to withhold a woman’s health coverage just to try to stop her from having an abortion.
Each woman has the right to make her own decisions about her body and her family, and that shouldn’t be up to a politician.”
HB 214 — the fruit of Texas lawmakers’ labors in their abortion-heavy special session — eliminates abortion coverage in state-sponsored private insurance plans, except in the case of a “medical emergency.” Read more (8/16/17)
As outcry continues to mount over Trump’s comments, an outstanding question for many Americans is one about policy: What, if anything, will the federal government do to help combat far-right white extremism?
The Obama Administration had implemented at least the beginnings of such a plan but, in late June, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security eliminated a federal grant of $400,000 for Life After Hate, a nonprofit working to de-radicalize neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
The decision received only minimal attention at the time, but has now been thrust into the limelight as Trump’s comments on Tuesday raise renewed questions over how his administration will respond to the violence which directly led to one death and 19 injuries in Charlottesville over the weekend. Read more (8/16/17)
As people packed into the Paramount Theater for Heyer’s memorial service, Sam Welty was nearby, working on a chalk mural in her honor.
“Someone who works for the city who was helping coordinate the memorial, he just called to see if I was available to come up and do this,” Welty said in a phone call with Mic. “It just seemed like the right thing to do.” Read more (8/16/17)
On Wednesday, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam strongly condemned Trump’s Tuesdayremarks equating anti-racist counterprotesters with the violent white nationalists.
“They were deplorable,” Northam said of Trump’s comments. “White supremacists and neo-Nazis came to Charlottesville for violence. There’s no question about that. And for the president to say there were ‘different sides’ [responsible for] this — there was only one side, and that was the white supremacists that came into Charlottesville.”
Northam, who is running for Virginia governor on the Democratic ticket, said Trump revealed “his true colors” when he suggested a moral equivalency between the far-right demonstrators and what Trump termed the “alt-left.” Read more (8/6/17 4 PM)
Following a wave of high-profile resignation from Trump’s two primary CEO councils, Trump tweeted Wednesday he was dissolving both the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum.
“Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both,” he tweeted. “Thank you all!
The dissolution of the two councils deals a major blow to Trump’s mandate as a leader who would use his business acumen to steer the nation toward economic prosperity. Read more (8/16/17 2:05 PM)
Though Trump tweeted that the decision to disband the groups was his, the Wall Street Journal reported that the industry leaders had chosen to disband before the president’s tweet.
According to the Journal, Stephen A. Schwarzman, Blackstone Group LP Chief Executive and leader of Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum, call the president on Wednesday to tell him the group was disbanding. Read more (8/16/17 4 PM)
Following a wave of high-profile resignation from Trump’s two primary CEO councils, Trump tweeted Wednesday he was dissolving both the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum.
“Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both,” he tweeted. “Thank you all!
The dissolution of the two councils deals a major blow to Trump’s mandate as a leader who would use his business acumen to steer the nation toward economic prosperity. Read more (8/16/17 2:05 PM)
When Trump announced the creation of the American Manufacturing Council in January, the White House heralded it as a gathering of “the world’s most successful and creative business leaders.”
By the middle of August, at least four of the CEOs on Trump’s American Manufacturing Council would announce their decision to resign from the advisory board. Read more (8/15/17 10:50 AM)
In a tweet, Paul announced on Tuesday his resignation from the American Manufacturing Council because it was “the right thing for [him] to do. Read more (8/15/17 12:15 PM)
Following Trump’s return to blaming counter-protesters for the violence in Charlottesville on Saturday, Trumka announced Tuesday on Twitter that he could not work for “a president that tolerates bigotry.” Read more (8/15/17 6 PM)
Inge Thulin announced his resignation from Trump’s council on Wednesday, citing the concern that “the initiative is no longer an effective vehicle for 3M” to advance its stated mission of “sustainability, diversity and inclusion.” Read more (8/16/17 12:30 PM)
Two sisters who were injured when James Alex Fields Jr., 20, plowed through a crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia, are suing white nationalists.
According to their suit, Tadrint Washington and Micah Washington did not participate in the rally but were driving home when Fields took off.
They smashed into the dashboard and windshield, causing “serious injuries to their heads and extremities,” along with emotional injuries.
The suit names Fields and 27 other white nationalists associated with the rally, including Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and alt-right leader Richard Spencer.
The sisters say the white nationalists “intended to cause physical harm and incite fear in the public” and are seeking $3 million in damages.
According to Kenneth Abraham, a law professor at the University of Virginia, which is in Charlottesville, the Washingtons have a “conceivable,” but challenging case ahead of them in their 28-page suit against the white nationalists. Read more (8/16/17)
Amid threats of protests from those on the far right, counterprotesters arrived in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Wednesday to defend the memorial service for Heather Heyer, the victim of a premeditated fatal car attack during a white supremacist rally in the city over the weekend.
The counterprotesters — members of the “antifa,” or anti-fascist, movement — arrived in the hours leading up to the memorial service toting baseball bats and purple shields, journalist Taylor Lorenz reported. Read more (8/16/17 12 PM)
Leaders of the far right responded with praise for Trump. A sample:
• “Trump’s statement was fair and down to earth,” tweeted Richard Spencer, an alt-right leader.
• “Great press conference by Trump,” tweeted an account that says it works to preserve “Western culture and people.”
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• “Thank you for condemning the alt-left antifa thugs who attacked us in Charlottesville,” tweeted @BakedAlaska, a popular far-right account.
• “In putting equal blame on the violent alt-left, Trump is more honest than the entirety of the mainstream media,” tweetedInfoWars editor-at-large Paul Joseph Watson.
• On the website of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, a blogger wrote: “It took a great deal of courage for Donald Trump to condemn the violence perpetrated by what he called the ‘alt-left.’”
These comments show that far-right leaders felt a sense of vindication and legitimacy after the president’s comments.
Accustomed to widespread derision from across the political spectrum, white nationalists took Trump blaming “both sides” for violence in Charlottesville as a win. Read more (8/16/17)
