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Genome – Jerry E. Bishop & Michael Waldholz

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Genome

The Story of the Most Astonishing Scientific Adventure of Our Time—the Attempt to Map All the Genes in the Human Body

Jerry E. Bishop & Michael Waldholz

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $3.99

Publish Date: July 29, 2014

Publisher: Open Road Media

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


An “invaluable [and] highly readable” account of the quest to map our DNA, the blueprint for life—and what it means for our future ( The Philadelphia Inquirer ). Genome tells the story of the most ambitious scientific adventure of our time. By gradually isolating and identifying all the genes in the human body—the blueprint for life—scientists are closing in on the ability to effectively treat and prevent nearly every disease that strikes man, from muscular dystrophy, diabetes, and cancer to heart ailments, alcoholism, and even mental illness.   Such discoveries will change the course of human life. At the same time, they raise profound ethical questions that have tremendous implications: Can insurance companies demand genetic tests to determine who poses a health risk? Should parents be able to choose their baby’s sex or eye color? Will employers screen out potential employees who are genetically susceptible to occupational health problems?   An exciting true tale of discovery that is revolutionizing our world, Genome helps us understand our future.

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Genome – Jerry E. Bishop & Michael Waldholz

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It’s official: Federal judge shuts down the largest oil refinery on the East Coast

A federal judge finally confirmed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan of Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) on Thursday. The plan includes the sale of PES’s 1,300-acre refinery complex to a real estate company — putting an end to the largest oil refining operation on the East Coast.

A month earlier, dozens of Philadelphia-based climate activists made a trek to New York City to protest outside the building where a closed-door auction to sell the refinery site was being held. The activists hoped to prevent the site from being sold to a bidder with plans to keep the site running as a refinery. The following week, their wish seemed to have come true: Hilco Redevelopment Partners, a Chicago-based real estate company with a track record of turning defunct fossil fuel infrastructure into logistics centers, was the selected winner. For a moment, the future of the site looked bright. All that was left was approval from the bankruptcy court.

But the other bidders didn’t give up so easily. Industrial Realty Group (IRG), which had made a higher bid than Hilco, teamed up with Phil Rinaldi, the former chief executive of PES, to try to get the results of the auction voided so that IRG could continue running the site as a refinery. With the support of union leaders representing former refinery workers, Rinaldi urged the White House to get involved, arguing that more than a thousand jobs and national security interests were at stake. Peter Navarro, the assistant to President Trump for trade and manufacturing policy, openly backed IRG’s plan, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer, “We’d love to see that remain as a refinery.”

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross had a tough decision to make. Last week, the Delaware judge delayed the confirmation hearing to give stakeholders more time to object to the plan. But on Thursday, he officially signed off on the plan. “I’m very much satisfied that the sale to Hilco is the highest bid and sale,” Judge Gross said. “Clearly is in the best interest of the community as well, given the risks that were attended to the prior operations with the refinery, and a refinery frankly that had numerous and repeated problems over the years.”

As a result of yesterday’s hearing, Hilco is now set to buy the plot of land for $252 million, $12 million more than what was initially agreed upon. The final bankruptcy plan also includes $5 million in severance for laid-off refinery workers, as part of a larger settlement for all the refinery’s unsecured creditors. In addition, the plan will also pay PES executives as much as $20 million in bonuses on top of the millions of dollars in bonuses paid to them right after the refinery exploded last June.

Since the explosion, Philly Thrive — the grassroots environmental justice group that organized the protest of the auction — ramped up its efforts to organize and rally against the refinery for threatening public health. The group held several protests in front of the refinery, hosted call banks, wrote testimonies, and occupied government-owned buildings. Meanwhile, a report released last week found that the PES refinery, which processed 335,000 barrels of crude oil each day, released the highest levels of cancer-causing benzene pollution of any refinery in the country.

“Some people can’t afford to get up and move,” South Philadelphia resident Carol White, who lives about a mile away from the refinery and is also a member of Philly Thrive, told Grist after the June explosion. “There are older people living here inhaling fumes, newborn babies, kids under five, and ultimately, it’s impacted people of color.”

Philly Thrive’s months-long fight to end the refinery — along with its years-long fight to breathe clean air — have paid off. The PES refinery will now be permanently shut down and most likely be redeveloped as a mixed-use property. But the group said it’s not an end to the fight, and it looks forward to working with Hilco in determining the future of the land.

“Thrive members are already seeing and planning for the next fight ahead of us, including holding Hilco to a process of involving the public around redevelopment, taking on measures to get whatever justice we can around the benzene emissions, and also linking up with efforts around a Green New Deal,” Philly Thrive organizer Alexa Ross told Grist. “This is not the end of the fight.”

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It’s official: Federal judge shuts down the largest oil refinery on the East Coast

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Sold: Bankrupt Philadelphia oil refinery goes to a real estate company

Last Friday, 35 Philadelphians rose early to board a charter bus bound for New York City at 6:30 a.m. That day, a closed-door auction held in Manhattan would determine the new owner of the 1,300-acre plot that housed Philadelphia Energy Solutions, the largest oil refinery on the East Coast, which filed for bankruptcy after an explosion and fire tore through the complex last summer. Though they wouldn’t be allowed to attend the auction, the Philadelphians on the bus — members of a grassroots environmental justice group called Philly Thrive — were determined to have a say in the fate of the land. Their hope? To prevent it from ever operating as a refinery again.

Alongside New York-based climate activists, Philly Thrive set up shop in the lobby of the building where the auction was taking place on the 50th floor. One by one, the activists walked up to the security guards and asked if they could go upstairs. They said things like “My life is at stake here” and “I have as much of a say as the men in suits upstairs.” Later, the protestors sang, told stories about how the refinery affected their health, and recited poems as office workers stepping out for lunch navigated their way through.

“These polluting industries think they can come into our communities and just set up shop,” Cameron Powell, a Philly Thrive organizer, told Grist. “They’re destroying the environment, and they think that’s okay. We as residents of the city of Philadelphia and New York are simply here to let them know that it’s not.”

Carol Hemingway asking security if she could enter the building where the closed-door auction is being held. Rachel Ramirez / Grist

Though details are still scarce, it looks like Philly Thrive’s members may have gotten their way. According to court documents filed on Wednesday, Philadelphia Energy Solutions has agreed to sell its refinery complex for $240 million to Hilco Redevelopment Partners, a Chicago-based real estate company that has a history of acquiring defunct fossil fuel infrastructure for redevelopment, often turning the sites into logistics centers. Although the company’s plans for the site have not yet been disclosed, a Philadelphia city official who attended the auction told the Philadelphia Inquirer on Wednesday that Hilco does not intend to reopen the refinery.

When rumors emerged on Tuesday that Hilco was the buyer, Alexa Ross, one of the founders of Philly Thrive, said the group was “cautiously pleased” that it wasn’t a fossil fuel company but still had many questions about Hilco’s plans. “We want Hilco to know for a fact that leasing out land to operate the refinery or other polluting industries is not going to fly with us, and we’re going to keep up the same level of opposition to any kind of plans to lease with polluting companies,” Ross told Grist on Tuesday.

Philly Thrive Organizer Alexa Ross speaking at St. Bartholomew’s Church before the rally. Rachel Ramirez / Grist

Recent projects by Hilco offer insight into what that fight might look like. In 2017, the company purchased a retired coal-fired power plant in Little Village, a neighborhood on the west side of Chicago, with plans to turn it into a million-square-foot warehouse and distribution center.

The coal plant closed after it could not afford upgrades to meet federal air quality standards and under mounting pressure from grassroots groups concerned about air pollution. That’s not so different from the situation in Philadelphia. But now, those same groups are worried that Hilco’s Chicago warehouse will bring more diesel trucks to the area, replacing one major polluter with many smaller sources of pollution. Hilco CEO Roberto Perez told Block Club Chicago that the company would build electric vehicle charging stations at the development and encourage prospective tenants to use electric trucks but said Hilco ultimately doesn’t have control over tenant operations.

The Chicago project also illuminates how long it might be before any development on the site in Philadelphia is up and running. Hilco initially expected the development to be ready to lease in early 2020, but now, two years after the sale was approved, they are still in the demolition phase.

Climate activists gather in the streets of New York City to protest the closed-door auction to sell PES land. Rachel Ramirez / Grist

The Philadelphia refinery is laden with more than 150 years of contamination, and a complex web of players are involved in the remediation process.

Sunoco, an earlier owner of the refinery, is responsible for cleaning up hazardous waste accumulated on the site through 2012, and that clean-up process is ongoing. Through its purchase agreement, PES became responsible for any new contamination to the site after 2012, and will now pass that responsibility on to Hilco under the terms of the sale. But the remediation process is further complicated by a potential land use change under Hilco’s ownership. Under Pennsylvania’s Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act, Sunoco was responsible for restoring the site to a standard appropriate for an oil refinery. If Hilco decides to redevelop the land for a different use, which seems likely, the company may need to remediate the site to a higher standard.

Despite the complicated nature of the cleanup, there are signs the company intends to turn the site around quickly. Brian Abernathy, the city of Philadelphia’s managing director, who attended the auction on Friday, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Hilco’s timeline is aggressive, and that the company has already been in talks with Sunoco, the EPA, and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. He said the company planned to redevelop the property in phases.

In a press release issued Wednesday, Philly Thrive stated that its members will continue raising their voices as the sale is finalized. The group provided an initial list of requests for Hilco, including barring any new refining operations on the site, involving the public in plans for redevelopment, and setting aside union jobs for folks in surrounding neighborhoods like Grays Ferry.

“Good jobs for young people in Grays Ferry would change lives,” former refinery worker and Philly Thrive member Rodney Ray said in the statement. “Let’s get some apprenticeship programs started. I know there will be less violence and less crime if people have the option to make a decent paycheck. That’s what I want for my community: the right to breathe clean air and good jobs.”

Climate activists gather in the streets of New York City to protest the closed-door auction to sell PES land. Rachel Ramirez / Grist

As Philly Thrive members wrestle with what the sale will mean for their community and health, former employees of the refinery have also been left hanging. Prior to the explosion and closure, the United Steelworkers Union had more than 600 members employed at the refinery.

“The nail’s probably in the coffin for the refinery,” Ryan O’Callaghan, the president of the USW Local 10-1, told the Inquirer. “We’re waiting to see what Hilco’s plans are.”

While the prospect of a deal with USW seems unlikely, the development is sure to bring new jobs to the area. In 2012, the parent company of Hilco Redevelopment Partners bought the Sparrows Point steel mill near Baltimore, Maryland, and began transforming it into “Tradepoint Atlantic,” a logistics center. The 3,100-acre site now houses operations for companies like Amazon and FedEx, as well as a 100,000-square-foot indoor farm, and a total of 10,000 new jobs are expected to be created on the site by 2025.

The Philadelphia sale is still contingent on approval by PES’s creditors and U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin Gross. A confirmation hearing is scheduled for February 6th. Philly Thrive — in collaboration with Youth Climate Strike leaders — is mobilizing for another rally at the refinery on Saturday to emphasize their demands ahead of the bankruptcy hearing.

Philly Thrive “has been a part of creating this wave against fossil fuels,” said Ross. “We’re going to see it all the way to the end until healthy land use is occurring over there and residents are really at the center of final decisions and negotiations of how that business is going to operate.”

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Sold: Bankrupt Philadelphia oil refinery goes to a real estate company

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Residents say they’ve already had enough as investigation starts into Philadelphia refinery fire

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Residents say they’ve already had enough as investigation starts into Philadelphia refinery fire

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Water bills are skyrocketing, and people of color are being hit hard.

A new Chicago Tribune investigation found that residents in black and Latino communities are charged water rates up to 20-percent higher than those in predominantly white neighborhoods.

The Tribune examined 162 Chicagoland communities with publicly managed systems using water from Lake Michigan. While only 13 percent of the cohorts surveyed are majority-black, those groups included five of the 10 areas with the highest water rates.

Water bills are soaring across the country. A recent USA Today report of 100 municipalities found that over the past 12 years, the monthly cost of water doubled in nearly a third of cities. In Atlanta, San Francisco, and Wilmington, Delaware, the price of water tripled or more.

Low-income residents and communities of color are bearing the brunt of surging water rates, which have buried families in debt, causing some to lose their homes. In Flint, Michigan, more than 8,000 residents faced foreclosure because of unpaid water and sewage bills.

This year, Philadelphia launched an income-based, tiered assistance program to aid low-income residents. City Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez spearheaded the bill because residents in her district — which includes some of Philly’s largest Puerto Rican communities — bore 20 percent of the city’s unpaid water debt despite only being a tenth of its population.

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Water bills are skyrocketing, and people of color are being hit hard.

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Watch Samantha Bee’s haunted house of climate hell.

A new Chicago Tribune investigation found that residents in black and Latino communities are charged water rates up to 20-percent higher than those in predominantly white neighborhoods.

The Tribune examined 162 Chicagoland communities with publicly managed systems using water from Lake Michigan. While only 13 percent of the cohorts surveyed are majority-black, those groups included five of the 10 areas with the highest water rates.

Water bills are soaring across the country. A recent USA Today report of 100 municipalities found that over the past 12 years, the monthly cost of water doubled in nearly a third of cities. In Atlanta, San Francisco, and Wilmington, Delaware, the price of water tripled or more.

Low-income residents and communities of color are bearing the brunt of surging water rates, which have buried families in debt, causing some to lose their homes. In Flint, Michigan, more than 8,000 residents faced foreclosure because of unpaid water and sewage bills.

This year, Philadelphia launched an income-based, tiered assistance program to aid low-income residents. City Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez spearheaded the bill because residents in her district — which includes some of Philly’s largest Puerto Rican communities — bore 20 percent of the city’s unpaid water debt despite only being a tenth of its population.

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Watch Samantha Bee’s haunted house of climate hell.

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A Book of Bees – Sue Hubbell

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A Book of Bees
Sue Hubbell

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: January 24, 2017

Publisher: Open Road Media

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


A New York Times Notable Book: “A melodious mix of memoir, nature journal, and beekeeping manual” ( Kirkus Reviews ). Weaving a vivid portrait of her own life and her bees’ lives, author Sue Hubbell lovingly describes the ins and outs of beekeeping on her small Missouri farm, where the end of one honey season is the start of the next. With three hundred hives, Hubbell stays busy year-round tending to the bees and harvesting their honey, a process that is as personally demanding as it is rewarding.   Exploring the progression of both the author and the hive through the seasons, this is “a book about bees to be sure, but it is also about other things: the important difference between loneliness and solitude; the seasonal rhythms inherent in rural living; the achievement of independence; the accommodating of oneself to nature” ( The Philadelphia Inquirer ). Beautifully written and full of exquisitely rendered details, it is a tribute to Hubbell’s wild hilltop in the Ozarks and of the joys of living a complex life in a simple place. “The real masterwork that Sue Hubbell has created is her life.” — The New York Times   “Beautifully written.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer   “A latter-day Henry Thoreau with a sense of the absurd.” — Chicago Sun-Times   “Engaging . . . Satisfying . . . Ms. Hubbell’s piquant style is as enticing as blackberry blossoms to her bees.” — Winston-Salem Journal Sue Hubbell is the author of eight books, including A Country Year and New York Times Notable Book A Book of Bees . She has written for the New Yorker , the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , Smithsonian , and Time , and was a frequent contributor to the “Hers” column of the New York Times . Hubbell lives in Maine and Washington, DC.

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A Book of Bees – Sue Hubbell

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Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn – Amanda Gefter

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Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn
A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything
Amanda Gefter

Genre: Physics

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: January 14, 2014

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY  KIRKUS REVIEWS In a memoir of family bonding and cutting-edge physics for readers of Brian Greene’s The Hidden Reality and Jim Holt’s Why Does the World Exist?, Amanda Gefter tells the story of how she conned her way into a career as a science journalist—and wound up hanging out, talking shop, and butting heads with the world’s most brilliant minds.   At a Chinese restaurant outside of Philadelphia, a father asks his fifteen-year-old daughter a deceptively simple question: “How would you define nothing?” With that, the girl who once tried to fail geometry as a conscientious objector starts reading up on general relativity and quantum mechanics, as she and her dad embark on a life-altering quest for the answers to the universe’s greatest mysteries.        Before Amanda Gefter became an accomplished science writer, she was a twenty-one-year-old magazine assistant willing to sneak her and her father, Warren, into a conference devoted to their physics hero, John Wheeler. Posing as journalists, Amanda and Warren met Wheeler, who offered them cryptic clues to the nature of reality: The universe is a self-excited circuit, he said. And, The boundary of a boundary is zero. Baffled, Amanda and Warren vowed to decode the phrases—and with them, the enigmas of existence. When we solve all that, they agreed, we’ll write a book.   Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn is that book, a memoir of the impassioned hunt that takes Amanda and her father from New York to London to Los Alamos. Along the way, they bump up against quirky science and even quirkier personalities, including Leonard Susskind, the former Bronx plumber who invented string theory; Ed Witten, the soft-spoken genius who coined the enigmatic M-theory; even Stephen Hawking.   What they discover is extraordinary: the beginnings of a monumental paradigm shift in cosmology, from a single universe we all share to a splintered reality in which each observer has her own. Reality, the Gefters learn, is radically observer-dependent, far beyond anything of which Einstein or the founders of quantum mechanics ever dreamed—with shattering consequences for our understanding of the universe’s origin. And somehow it all ties back to that conversation, to that Chinese restaurant, and to the true meaning of nothing.   Throughout their journey, Amanda struggles to make sense of her own life—as her journalism career transforms from illusion to reality, as she searches for her voice as a writer, as she steps from a universe shared with her father to at last carve out one of her own. It’s a paradigm shift you might call growing up.   By turns hilarious, moving, irreverent, and profound, Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn weaves together story and science in remarkable ways. By the end, you will never look at the universe the same way again. Praise for Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn   “Nothing quite prepared me for this book. Wow. Reading it, I alternated between depression—how could the rest of us science writers ever match this?—and exhilaration.” — Scientific American   “To Do: Read Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn . Reality doesn’t have to bite.” — New York   “A zany superposition of genres . . . It’s at once a coming-of-age chronicle and a father-daughter road trip to the far reaches of this universe and 10,500 others.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer From the Hardcover edition.

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Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn – Amanda Gefter

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After a Career Suing Cops, This Lawyer Wants to Be Philly’s Next District Attorney

Mother Jones

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Civil rights attorney Larry Krasner has spent his career standing up to cops. A former public defender who’s no stranger to pro bono work, he’s defended Black Lives Matter protesters, ACT UP alums, the Arch Street United Methodist Church pastors, Grannies for Peace, and Occupy Philly activists.

So he hardly seems like someone who’d want to assume the mantle of one of America’s top prosecutor jobs—for one thing, Krasner has no formal political experience. But as he watched the usual suspects throwing their hats in the ring for Philadelphia’s 2017 district attorney’s race, the 56-year-old felt like it was time to try and change things from within. On February 8, standing alongside activists and organizers from groups he’d previously defended, he announced his campaign. Just a few months later, as the city gears up for its primary on May 16, Krasner’s being hailed as an unlikely favorite and a radical outsider who just might have the gumption—and the support—to shake up Philadelphia’s punitive culture and send a message to the country that mass incarceration is a failed strategy.

Nowhere is the reality of “tough on crime” more evident than Philadelphia. Former DA Lynne Abraham, winner of four straight terms from 1991 to 2010, was known both as “America’s Deadliest Prosecutor” and the “Queen of Death” for her fervid pursuit of executions, over 100 in total. Former mayor and police commissioner Frank Rizzo is among the most notorious cops in American history, once claiming he’d “make Attila the Hun look like a faggot” while on the mayoral campaign trail. That legacy has helped give the City of Brotherly Love the highest incarceration rate of the 10 largest cities in the United States, twice the national average. (It’s also the poorest, with one of the lowest-rated public school systems to boot.)

Criminal justice crusaders saw some hope when Democrat Seth Williams, a self-identified progressive reformer, took the job as the city’s first African American DA in 2010. He claimed he’d champion reasonable reforms to chip away at mass incarceration. But since then, Williams has managed to run up a rap sheet that evinces an almost cartoonish level of corruption. He has been under FBI investigation since August 2015 and on the receiving end of the largest fine ever imposed by the Philadelphia Board of Ethics for gift taking and failure to disclose contributions in excess of $175,000. He fought for the death penalty and prosecuted a man who’d been cleared of murder by DNA evidence. On February 10, Williams announced he would not seek a third term. Then on March 21, he was indicted on 23 counts of corruption and bribery-related charges. His alleged misbehavior, said an FBI special agent, was “brazen and wide-ranging, as is the idea that a district attorney would so cavalierly trade on elected office for financial gain.”

Into the void have sprung seven candidates, all jockeying for the Democratic nomination ahead of the May primary and the right to square off with Republican candidate Beth Grossman. Philadelphia is a deep blue stronghold, so the winner of the primary will likely cruise in the general election. Krasner’s campaign might be best described as an insurgency, and one that has drawn the national spotlight.

Born in St. Louis, Krasner has made Philadelphia home since age nine. He comes from a household that relied on disability checks to make ends meet, and he’s a veteran of the city’s public school system. After attending the University of Chicago, he went on to law school at Stanford, where he “accumulated a skyscraper-sized pile of student loans.” Upon graduation, he forewent prosecutor jobs to become a public defender in Philadelphia, which he considers his hometown. “I didn’t want to be a prosecutor,” he says, because “Philly had a culture that was in love with the death penalty.”

In 1992, when then-President George H.W. Bush came to Philadelphia, ACT UP, the famous activist group striving to end the AIDS crisis, marched a coffin full of fake ashes through the city, protesting perceived inaction by the president. “The coffin tipped, the ashes flew; I think the cops thought they were going to get HIV,” Krasner recalls. “The cops’ reaction was hyper violent—they cracked one person’s skull, made many of them bleed.” At that point, five years out of law school, he decided to dedicate himself to “representing people who were making the world a better place.”

In the years since, Krasner has filed more than 75 civil rights cases against police officers, and gotten 800 narcotics convictions thrown out after exposing two officers to have perjured themselves. Of the 420 protesters arrested at the 2012 Republican National Convention, Krasner won an acquittal rate of 99 percent over four years. Needless to say, these aren’t the usual credentials for someone running for a position sardonically referred to as “top cop.” When I ask him about that term, he bristles. As a district attorney, he says, “you’re supposed to seek justice in an evenhanded way—so if you know cops are dirty, you prosecute the cops.”

Against the backdrop of a new federal administration that wants to toughen rules on prosecuting crime, Krasner instead strongly believes that “mass incarceration hasn’t worked. It hasn’t made us safer; it hasn’t made us freer.” He wants to abolish the death penalty—Philly is the only city in the Northeast that still has it. He’s pledged to refuse to bring cases that have resulted from illegal stop-and-frisk actions. In Pennsylvania, which has more juveniles on life sentences without the possibility of parole than any other state in the country, Krasner has promised thorough resentencing. Rather than plastering uniform 35-year sentences on those juveniles, as the DA’s office has recommended, Krasner has vowed to revisit each case individually, considering things like childhood trauma in reducing sentences, because “this one-size-fits-all sentencing is appalling.”

Krasner also wants to end cash bail and reform civil forfeiture. Over half the people held in prisons in Philadelphia have not been convicted, but, unable to afford bail, have no choice but to await their trial behind bars. Krasner wants to implement alternatives for nonviolent offenders, like diverting addicts straight to treatment facilities, a practice known as “sweat bail.” When it comes to civil asset forfeiture, he says the city should not take anything unless there’s a conviction, and if assets are seized, they should go to the city’s general fund, not back to the DA’s office, as the program is currently structured.

The ideas seem to have resonated. Krasner has ripped up the playbook on incremental reforms, accelerating initiatives that looked politically impossible just a few years back. “Here’s what’s behind the sharp left turn in Philly’s DA race,” reads a recent article in Philly Mag profiling Krasner’s campaign. In fact, all seven Democratic candidates are now campaigning as reformers. National activist groups have hailed Philadelphia’s DA race as a historic one, a rebuke of the zero-tolerance approach championed by the current Oval Office.

“After decades of ‘wars’ on crime and drugs, public sentiment is now shifting toward a more expansive view of crime and justice,” says Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit that works on criminal justice reform. “Fortunately, a growing number of prosecutors view themselves as part of that movement.” Indeed, Krasner is not alone. 2016 saw reform candidates defeat hardline prosecutors in DA races in Florida, Louisiana, and Illinois. After a poor showing in the 2016 election cycle at the federal level, the Democratic Party has been refocusing its energy on local elections, and district attorneys’ offices have become an unlikely seat of progressive reform. Prosecutors are elected in all but four states, around 2,400 seats in total, a major political post that often runs uncontested.

Krasner is heartened to see criminal justice reform become so popular in his city’s race but remains skeptical of some of the rhetoric. Many of his competitors are former prosecutors, insiders, or assistant DAs. “The only other candidate who said he would unconditionally oppose the death penalty was supervising death penalties six months ago,” Krasner says, boasting that he’s been “walking the walk for 30 years.”

National groups are taking notice. Our Revolution, the progressive political action group associated with Bernie Sanders, endorsed Krasner. So, too, did Color of Change PAC, as well as major union groups Unite Here, PASNAP, and 1199C. He banked the endorsement of pop singer John Legend. And billionaire George Soros invested $1.45 million—a stunning amount for a local election—in a super-PAC called Philadelphia Justice and Public Safety that backs Krasner. That move brought extended scrutiny from his competitors, who have now started running negative attack ads aiming to identify Krasner as unsympathetic to victims.

Notably absent from that list of endorsements is the Fraternal Order of Police, Philadelphia’s police union, which was clashing with Krasner even before his campaign took off. When former Philadelphia Eagles running back LeSean McCoy was involved in a brawl with two off-duty Philly police officers, Krasner represented him, successfully getting all charges against him dropped. That led FOP President John McNesby to describe Krasner’s candidacy as “hilarious.” “He’s not laughing now,” chuckles Krasner. In March, the FOP endorsed Rich Negrin.

Still, Krasner believes that rank-and-file police will welcome his candidacy, if he can win. He points to his close relationships with multiple commissioners and the officers whose children he’s represented. He says he believes that the police will appreciate working with a DA who doesn’t spend his time courting a run for governor. The DA’s office in Philadelphia has often served as a launch pad for political careers at the state and national levels. But Krasner seems to view a stint as the district attorney as a culmination of his life’s work, rather than a stepping stone: “My chair after the DA’s chair,” he says, “will be a beach chair.”

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After a Career Suing Cops, This Lawyer Wants to Be Philly’s Next District Attorney

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LAPD Adopts New Policy: De-Escalate First, Shoot Later

Mother Jones

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This is from the LA Times yesterday:

The Los Angeles Police Commission voted Tuesday to require officers to try, whenever possible, to defuse tense encounters before firing their guns — a policy shift that marks a significant milestone in the board’s attempts to curb shootings by police.

Wait. This is new? This hasn’t always been LAPD policy? Apparently not, and apparently not much of anywhere else, either:

As criticism of policing flared across the country, particularly after deadly shootings by officers, law enforcement agencies looked to de-escalation as a way to help restore public trust. Like the LAPD, other departments have emphasized the approach in training and policies.

The Seattle Police Department requires officers to attempt de-escalation strategies, such as trying to calm someone down verbally or calling a mental health unit to the scene. Santa Monica police have similar rules in place, telling officers to try to “slow down, reduce the intensity or stabilize the situation” to minimize the need to use force.

….The focus on de-escalation represents a broader shift in law enforcement, said Samuel Walker, a retired criminal justice professor and expert in police accountability. Now, he said, there’s an understanding that officers can shape how an encounter plays out. “This is absolutely the right thing to do,” he added.

This is especially important in Los Angeles:

African Americans continue to represent a disproportionate number of the people shot at by officers. Nearly a third of the people shot at last year were black — a 7% increase from 2015. Black people make up about 9% of the city’s population but 40% of homicide victims and 43% of violent crime suspects, the report noted.

The LAPD also topped a list of big-city agencies with the highest number of deadly shootings by officers. Police in Los Angeles fatally shot more people than officers in Chicago, New York, Houston and Philadelphia did, the report said. The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department came in second, with 15 deadly shootings.

Go ahead and call me naive, but I would have figured that de-escalation was standard protocol everywhere. Not always followed in practice, of course, but at least theoretically what cops are supposed to do. But apparently not. It sounds like it started to catch on after Ferguson, and is only now being adopted as official policy in a few places.

Better late than never, I suppose, but I wonder what’s stopping this from being universally adopted? What’s the downside?

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LAPD Adopts New Policy: De-Escalate First, Shoot Later

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