She leaped into office six years ago as a 29-year-old outsider intent on upending the Democratic establishment, and has used her platform to challenge party leaders at nearly every turn. But in the waning weeks of the 2024 election, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has thrown herself fully behind Vice President Kamala Harris, stepping onto the presidential campaign trail for the first time as an emissary to skeptical young progressives.

The congresswoman has turned out boisterous crowds in Wisconsin, Texas and Pennsylvania, warning college students about the costs of letting older voters decide the outcome. She has taken aim at Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee who Democrats fear could win over disillusioned voters, blasting her as “not serious” and “predatory” in videos on social media, where Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has millions of followers. And she rallied thousands of volunteers in swing states trying to mobilize Latino and union voters.

…In an interview, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she was motivated by several factors: the urgent threat that she believes former President Donald J. Trump poses to American democracy, the challenge of standing up a presidential campaign in just a few months and “a certain understanding” she had developed with Ms. Harris, a fellow woman of color. She recalled that Ms. Harris, then a California senator, had been among the first people to call her after a Republican congressman called Ms. Ocasio-Cortez “disgusting” and cursed at her on the Capitol steps in 2020. (The congresswoman declined to detail her more recent conversations with the vice president, but acknowledged that “there are certain things I don’t love” about her campaign’s positions, including an embrace of cryptocurrency.) She also pointed to something simpler: Unlike other Democrats, Ms. Harris had asked for help.

…For Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, embracing her party’s nominee has alienated some of her earliest supporters on the left. The national leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America pulled its endorsement this summer. An organizer for the group in New York City wrote an essay in The Nation calling the congresswoman’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, in which she said Ms. Harris was working “tirelessly to secure a cease-fire in Gaza,” a “betrayal” of their movement. Yet her new role has allowed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to take her vision of politics to places that previously shut her out, and has given Democrats like Ms. Harris a messenger who can reach corners of the electorate that others cannot.

…The congresswoman’s appeal is “a commodity that she has, and she’s learning how to use it and exploit it,” said Joseph Crowley, the high-ranking Democrat whose primary loss to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez in 2018 shook the political world. “That’s how you make friends, by being willing to expend some of that capital,” he said. “It’s not so much a game. It’s real life, and I think she gets that.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/nyregion/aoc-kamala-harris.html?unlocked_article_code=1.VE4.lZNh.VMXCl0wAFhOp&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

“Working class people in this country have the right to be angry. They have that right. But what we don’t have the right to do is to take that anger, which is legitimate, and place it on people who are even worse off than we are.

“If you are angry, have the guts to take on the people who made the decisions that impacted your life. It’s always easier, and demagogues always do it, to beat up on the people down below who are powerless. To demonize them. It’s not so easy to take on ruling class people and the big money interests.”

With his whirling, twisting delivery -- strikingly unique from any other pitcher in history -- Luis Tiant turned his performances into theater. During the peak of his career in the 1970s, you didn’t need a radio or television to know that Tiant was pitching at Fenway Park. Throughout the packed houses he pitched in front of, cries of “Looie, Looie, Looie!” echoed around Kenmore Square and other parts of Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. The lovably charismatic El Tiante -- as he came to be known throughout his memorable career -- died on Tuesday at the age of 83.

…In a 19-year Major League career, the Cuban native had a career record of 229-172 with a 3.30 ERA, pitching for Cleveland (1964-69), Minnesota (’70), Boston (’71-78), the Yankees (’79-80), Pittsburgh (’81) and the Angels (’82). When fellow Cuban Tony Oliva was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2022, he stood on the stage on a stifling hot Sunday in Cooperstown, N.Y., and noted that Tiant deserved to be there also. Though Tiant never got the call from the Hall, the three-time All-Star led the American League in Baseball Reference WAR for pitchers in 1968 and was in the top 10 in seven other seasons. That '68 season was the Year of the Pitcher and Tiant played the part better than anyone not named Bob Gibson or Denny McLain, posting a 1.60 ERA in the first of his eventual four 20-win seasons.

…The 1975 World Series, in which the upstart Red Sox played a compelling seven-game set before ultimately falling to Cincinnati’s vaunted Big Red Machine, turned Tiant into a household name. But for the gritty righty, the son of a Negro Leagues star (Luis Tiant Sr.), it all started in Cuba, where he was born on Nov. 23, 1940. Tiant followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming an ace in his homeland during his youth.

The problem was that Cuba didn’t have professional baseball once Fidel Castro took power in 1959. For three seasons -- from 1959 through ’61 -- Tiant pitched for the Mexico City Tigers, hoping he would be noticed by a pro scout. Tiant got his wish when Cleveland purchased his contract from Mexico City for $35,000 prior to the '62 season…

More at https://www.mlb.com/news/luis-tiant-dies

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is running out of staff to deal with the potential devastation of Hurricane Milton as it barrels toward Tampa with wind speeds that have reached 175 miles per hour. As of Monday morning, just 9 percent of FEMA’s personnel, or 1,217 people, were available to respond to the hurricane or other disasters, according to the agency’s daily operations briefing.

To put that into context: Over the previous five years, one-quarter of the agency’s staff was available for deployment at this point in the hurricane season. Even in 2017 — arguably FEMA’s busiest year in the past decade, after Hurricane Harvey flooded Houston, Hurricane Irma plowed through Florida, and Hurricane Maria plunged Puerto Rico into darkness — FEMA’s staffing reserves at this point in October were 19 percent, more than twice the levels they are at now.

The agency said Monday afternoon that it is well equipped to handle the strains. “FEMA is built for this,” said Leiloni Stainsby, the agency’s deputy associate administrator for response and recovery. But FEMA is stretched not just by the brutal aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 200 people and destroyed sections of western North Carolina. Its staff is also responding to flooding and landslides in Vermont, tornadoes in Kansas, the aftermath of Tropical Storm Debby in New York and Georgia and the Watch Fire in Arizona.

…The relentless string of disasters, which are becoming more frequent and severe because of climate change, is just one challenge. In a report last year, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found that 35 percent of FEMA’s positions were unfilled, partly because of “rising disaster activity during the year, which increased burnout and employee attrition.” The agency also faces a funding crunch. Congress last week approved FEMA’s request to top up its disaster relief fund.

That was before Hurricane Milton, and Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary, last week said FEMA needed additional funding from Congress to make it through the hurricane season. Speaker Mike Johnson has declined to call House lawmakers back from the campaign trail for an emergency session to fund hurricane relief and rebuilding.

More at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/07/climate/hurricane-milton-fema-staff-shortage.html?unlocked_article_code=1.QU4.bOrE.SmMfVnqzuZXk&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

The amount of rain that Tropical Storm Helene unleashed over North Carolina was so intense, no amount of preparation could have entirely prevented the destruction that ensued. But decisions made by state officials in the years leading up to Helene most likely made some of that damage worse, according to experts in building standards and disaster resilience.

Over the past 15 years, North Carolina lawmakers have rejected limits on construction on steep slopes, which might have reduced the number of homes lost to landslides; blocked a rule requiring homes to be elevated above the height of an expected flood; weakened protections for wetlands, increasing the risk of dangerous storm water runoff; and slowed the adoption of updated building codes, making it harder for the state to qualify for federal climate-resilience grants.

Those decisions reflect the influence of North Carolina’s home building industry, which has consistently fought rules forcing its members to construct homes to higher, more expensive standards, according to Kim Wooten, an engineer who serves on the North Carolina Building Code Council, the group that sets home building requirements for the state. “The home builders association has fought every bill that has come before the General Assembly to try to improve life safety,” said Ms. Wooten, who works for Facilities Strategies Group, a company that specializes in building engineering. She said that state lawmakers, many of whom are themselves home builders or have received campaign contributions from the industry, “vote for bills that line their pocketbooks and make home building cheaper.”

…Efforts to weaken building standards in North Carolina picked up steam after Republicans won control of both houses of the state legislature in 2010. In 2011, lawmakers proposed a law that limited the ability of local officials to account for sea-level rise in their planning. The comedian Stephen Colbert panned the change, quipping: “If your science gives you a result you don’t like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved.”

Two years later, lawmakers overhauled the way North Carolina updates its building codes. That change attracted far less attention than the sea-level rule — but would be more consequential for Helene. Every three years, the International Code Council, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., issues new model building codes developed by engineers, architects, home builders and local officials. Most states adopt a version of those model codes, which reflect the latest advances in safety and design. But in 2013, the North Carolina legislature decided that the state would update its codes every six years, instead of every three…

More at gift link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/03/climate/north-carolina-homes-helene-building-codes.html?unlocked_article_code=1.PU4.3cg3.jhT-8Sq8z4OX&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

An executive representing ports where tens of thousands of workers went on strike this week made a series of critical and crude remarks about Joe Biden, tied Kamala Harris to concerns about over-taxation, and appeared to endorse a rightwing conspiracy theory. David Adam, chairman and chief executive of the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), attacked prominent Democrats in a string of social media posts uncovered by the Guardian.

It comes after about 45,000 dockworkers at ports along the US east and Gulf coasts walked off the job – the first such strike since 1977 – as part of a dispute between the USMX and the International Longshoremen’s Association over pay and automation.

…A month ago, when a LinkedIn user suggested that “everything Biden has touched in the past is turning to shit!”, Adam replied: “The runny kind….” It was part of a discussion about how Biden’s student-debt relief plan was being held up in the courts. In another comment on the thread, Adam wrote: “If ya can’t get an American Democrat to pay what they borrrowed [sic], how you gonna get a California illegal immigrant to pay back their $150K loan the CA Dems are offering?”

…Just a few weeks ago, Adam commented on a meme that claimed the US has a 48% fuel tax, which was debunked in 2022 by Politifact, when the same post was shared in Canada with the same claim. He seemed to suggest responsibility lay with the Biden administration and Harris, however, writing: “Someone ask Kamala to explain why this is such and is she gonna fix it?!”

…The timing of the strike, just weeks before the election, also raised questions about the ILA’s relationship with Trump. A photograph of the union’s president, Harold Daggett, meeting Trump in November resurfaced on social media this week.

More at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/03/port-strike-usmx-biden-democrats?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other