Monthly Archives: May 2021

City of Akron unveils rubber worker statue downtown, honoring the history of the rubber industry – cleveland.com

Posted: May 14, 2021 at 5:59 am

AKRON, Ohio Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan and Zanesville-based sculptor Alan Cottrill joined city leaders Thursday to pull the tarp off Cottrills Rubber Worker sculpture, the showpiece of the nearly completed Main Street Phase 1 construction project in downtown Akron.

The 12-foot high, cast bronze statue depicts a rubber worker hand-wrapping a tire and is based on the image on the cover of the 1999 book Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron by David Giffels and Steve Love. The sculpture figure stands on two tiers of marble and is the centerpiece of a newly built roundabout at the intersection of Main and Mill Streets.

To provide historical context about the statue and Akrons rubber history, resident Miriam Ray and the Art x Love arts collective organized the Rubber Worker Stories & Statue Project. Across from the statue on the northeast corner of the roundabout is a plaza paved with commemorative bricks dedicated to Akrons rubber workers.

The plaza includes a kiosk for visitors to view and listen to archival footage and oral histories from rubber workers and their descendants.

For more than a century after Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich came to town in 1870, Akron was the rubber capital of the world. Its people worked in the rubber shops of Goodrich, Goodyear, Firestone, General, Seiberling, Mohawk and Sun. Workers lived in Goodyear Heights and Firestone Park, the neighborhoods fostered by their employers.

The statue was paid for by the city, Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiros office, Huntington Bank, PNC, FirstEnergy, Akron Childrens Hospital and the GPD Group.

Cleveland.coms Robin Goist contributed to this article.

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Busted-up drug operation one of biggest in LCSO history, Marceno says – Wink News

Posted: at 5:59 am

WINK NEWS

The Lee County Sheriffs Office on Thursday announced they took down one of the largest drug trafficking operations in its history after a months-long investigation.

Sheriff Carmine Marceno said the operation was run by the Cossio family of 170 Avalon Lake Circle in Gateway. Investigators conducted surveillance on the Cossio residence, conducted traffic stops and served several search warrants as a result of the investigation.

Investigators on Wednesday were seen at CLB Autobody & Paint at 4170 Evans Avenue in Fort Myers, which Marceno said was connected to the operation.

Ive always felt super safe, Choe Kent said. I never would have imagined anything like that would have been happening around here.

More than $1 million in cash, 12 firearms and multiple kilograms of cocaine and fentanyl were seized, as were several high-end vehicles Marceno said were bought with proceeds of the operation.

Its just overwhelming to think that stuff like this can happen right next to you, Kent said. I mean, I literally walk, have walked around every street of this neighborhood. Ive walked right by it, so its weird to think about.

Kent says her neighborhood is extremely family friendly. She never would have guessed a family of six in her community would have long rap sheets and now accused of something like this.

The suspects have more than 70 combined prior arrests, mostly related to drugs, Marceno said.

Arrested were:

Gabriel M. Cossio, 60Gabriel M. Cossio Jr., 32Melissa Cossio, 33Jesus F. Cossio, 58Aaron Pruitt, 52Christopher Ramirez, 53

You can watch a replay below or by clicking here.

In court Thursday morning, the prosecution called the entire family a flight risk.

There sheriffs office said the investigation into this operation is still very much active.

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Four in five female prisoners in Scotland found to have history of head injury – The Guardian

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Four in five female prisoners in Scotland have a history of significant head injury, with sustained domestic abuse the most likely cause, according to research that experts argue bolsters the case for routine screening of inmates.

The study led by Glasgow University, funded by the Scottish government and published in the Lancet Psychiatry also found that violent criminal behaviour was three times more likely in women with a history of significant head injury, and that these women spent three times longer in prison.

The work adds to a growing body of research on the over-representation of people with brain injuries in the prison population, in particular among women.

Domestic violence was cited by 89% of survey participants who reported repeat head injuries. Two-thirds (66%) reported repeat head injuries over many years, and 40% had an associated disability. A first head injury before the age of 15 was reported by 69% of the women.

Common effects of significant head injury include the impairment of information processing, impulsivity and egocentricity, which can increase the risk of offending. Injuries incurred before adulthood can affect how the brain matures.

For the study, researchers interviewed 109 women around a quarter of Scotlands female prison population between 2018 and 2019 and assessed them for a history of head injury as well as for disability and mental and physical health conditions.

Almost all participants in the study, 95%, reported a history of abuse, with more than half reporting sexual abuse in childhood and 46% reporting sexual abuse in adulthood. A history of alcohol or drug misuse was common, and 92% complained of mental health difficulties, with anxiety and depression the most common.

Tom McMillan, a professor of clinical neuropsychology at Glasgow University and the lead author of the study, said: It is already recognised that women in prison are vulnerable because of histories of abuse and substance misuse. However, this research shows that a history of significant head injury is also a vulnerability and needs to be included when considering mental health needs and in developing criminal justice policy.

We need routine screening to identify women with serious head injuries, and also to educate them, as they often dont realise that repeated knocks have an impact. We know that the Prison Service is considering placement and custody for women more generally, and this really needs to be included in their assessment.

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Stringers History of Bad-Faith Feminism – The Nation

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Scott Stringer, Elyse Buxbaum, Audrey Gelman, Terry Richardson at the after party for Girls Season 2 held at Capitale, New York City, in January 2013. (Sipa via AP Images)

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Back when Scott Stringer was first running for comptroller in 2013, consent and sexual harassment were not the reigning feminist issues in Democratic politics. Prostitution was much higher on the list: Less than a decade ago, you could still campaign for office in New York City as a champion of womens rights while dismissing the rights and sovereignty of sex workerssay, by exploiting them to embarrass your rival, ex-governor Eliot Spitzer. Stringer was eager to rile up the public about Spitzers lack of integrity, thumping his chest about how he wouldve fired the former prosecutor: He couldnt work in my office.

He could never run that race today, given the mainstreaming of sex-worker decriminalization as a labor and human rights issue for the left.

Post-#MeToo, sexual misconductparticularly in the workplaceis now the metric the mayoral hopeful finds himself up against. After a woman made a public declaration of being forcibly touched by Stringer when she was an unpaid volunteer on his public advocate campaign 20 years ago, much of his institutional and coalition support evaporated within 48 hours.

The merits of the claim aside, the role reversal of sex work and consent as disqualifying issues have seemingly turned 2021 and 2013 into mirror images of each other.

In those heady days, now-disgraced figures like Harvey Weinstein and fashion photographer Terry Richardson were assaulting women at work, calling it a day, and showing up at political fundraisers with no problem. Whereas Weinsteins predation was still mostly an intra-Hollywood open secret without much of a public record, Richardsons was well documented. Nevertheless, Stringer gladly took money from and pictures with Richardson, who was then his press secretarys boyfriend. What we knew about his exploits at the time would be completely disqualifying for any politician to be remotely associated with today. MORE FROM Alexis Grenell

As early as 2009, a writer named Ana had described her experience of being photographed by Richardson in a letter to Jezebel: I felt a dick pressing into the side of my face. Terry Richardsons semi-hard penis was plunged into the outside of my cheek, and he was jabbing it into my face. That same year, a 19-year-old model discussed her experience of being coerced into giving Richardson a violent hand job on set, during an interview with the now-renowned labor rights activist and model Sara Ziff for her documentary Picture This. A subsequent 2010 story in the New York Post quoted a model describing Richardsons MO in gross detail: [He] takes girls who are young, manipulates them to take their clothes off and takes pictures of them they will be ashamed of. They are too afraid to say no because their agency booked them on the job and are too young to stand up for themselves.

Which didnt block Richardson from attending a fundraiser for Stringers comptroller run where Lena Dunhamever eager to pitch herself as a feminist iconpreached to the glittering crowd about electing someone with a record of respecting women. Since then, still more has come to light, and Richardson has been mostly blacklisted by his industry. Stringer has remained mum, hoping that the whole mess would disappear into the recesses of our Twitter-length memories.Current Issue

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His opportunistic attacks on Spitzer as being anti-woman because he paid for sex have similarly faded to black. But as his defenders bemoan the fact that hes been unfairly maligned by a misguided feminism, its worth remembering when Stringer was willing to do the same.

I wrote about this particular nonsense at the time, pointing out that the women Spitzer slept with were well-paid and willing sex workers, and that supposedly standing up for women in their name was incredibly condescending. These were fully consenting adults, not trafficking victims, and some of them were pushing for legalization. Stringer ignored all that, buoyed by the dominant feminist narrative dismissing sex workers as incapable of agency and in need of saving. It was an unbelievably shallow and craven play that worked like a charm. The New York City branch of the National Organization of Women (NOW) invested in an anti-Spitzer PAC, and the political director of Planned Parenthood, Sasha Ahuja, panned Spitzer in favor of candidates that dont just give a nod to womens issues. For what thats worth, Ahuja is now the comanager of Andrew Yangs campaign for mayor. No one for a minute bothered to consider decriminalization of sex work as a valid issue for political discourse.

Recently, I spoke to Caroline Andrews, a former sex worker and contributor to the trailblazing $pread magazine, as well as a close political observer. Her 2008 story about Spitzer and the media framing of sex work is included in the magazines anthology of seminal articles, published by the Feminist Press at the City University of New York.

I had a huge problem at the time with how that was dealt with, she said, reflecting on the narrative around the prostitution scandal. You will find that Scott has been pretty consistently with the NOW folks, and therefore pretty consistently into slut-shaming. Thats what that meansit means being that brand of feminist who is not in favor of womens sexual autonomy, who are not socialists, who certainly dont care about the material reality of non-privileged, nonwhite women. I dont think hes ever shown that thats a politic hes interested in. I dont think hes a progressive hero, or a feminist.

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She went on: Ive always thought of him as a knee-jerk liberal populist that doesnt have any depth and could easily change his position to a different one tomorrow. And so he did, coming around to decriminalization just in time for the mayors race when he scooped up support from the young, lefty women in the legislature driving the discussion.

Many observers are now uncomfortable with the idea that one womans unconfirmed claim could destroy a mans prospects for mayor. But the fact is that Stringer himself has already deployed the kind of surface-level attacks that caused real-world harm in the name of women against many more.

That casual use of feminism for political gain is and was offensive.

Eight years later, its catching up with him.

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Sorry, but ‘Gone With the Wind’ is not a history book – Roll Call

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Why? Because for all the chest-thumping toughness so many Americans brag about, apparently white students are too fragile to hear the truth, or see the pictures on prized postcards that treated lynchings as entertainment for the whole family, an indictment of more than a few rogue racists.

Black students, of course, subject to disproportionate school suspensions, stereotypical assumptions from teachers and keen scrutiny by law enforcement on their way to and from, and sometimes in, the classroom, know all too well that the problems they face stretch back 400 years and more. But the laws being passed and pushed in states across the country no surprise dont have them in mind.

For those making and debating these rules,in statessuch as Idaho, Tennessee,Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas, creating an alternate reality, a version that resembles a Disneyfied diorama, is fine even if it is false, as long as it accommodates white feelings and gives in to white fears.

How will these laws be enforced? Government monitors? Would a fine be imposed if a teacher steps over some vague line? Well, yes,in Arizona,the penalty could be $5,000. If a curious student asks a question, will the teacher no longer be allowed to answer?

The late Rep. John Lewis, brave and persistent, who endured brutal beatings as a consequence of his civil rights activism including his part in the Freedom Rides would seem to be someone Americas students could look up to. But Im doubtful his march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 would make it past the curriculum censors since his attackers were agents of the state, enforcing unjust laws that prevented African Americans from voting, from living a free life.

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Fort Necessity steeped in history | Special Sections | heraldstandard.com – Uniontown Herald Standard

Posted: at 5:59 am

About one month after the French vowed to avenge their dead soldiers and retaliate against the British, they surrounded Fort Necessity and fulfilled their pledge.

On May 28, 1754, Lt. Col. George Washington led a small group of men to Jumonville Glen, about one mile from Fort Necessity, and surrounded a French encampment. All of the French soldiers were killed or captured, including their leader, Ensign Coulon de Jumonville. One French soldier escaped to Fort Duquesne in Pittsburgh to gather reinforcements, said park ranger Tom Markwardt.

On July 3, 1754, Jumonvilles brother led a group of 600 French soldiers and 100 Native American allies to Fort Necessity. The French surrounded the British at the Fort, and forced surrender after one day of fighting. The British were permitted to march away, and the French burned the fort July 4.

Markwardt said many locals are aware of the battle, but may not be aware of its implications.

They may not be aware that the battle spread, not only here, but around the world, he said. The last shots of the Seven Years War were fired nine years later in Manila in the Philippines.

The battle at Fort Necessity is considered a prelude to the French and Indian War, a part of the Seven Years War.

Fort Necessity was not built for battle, but for supplies. Markwardt said one of the questions visitors ask him most often is Why is the fort so small?

It was built, basically, commensurate with the size of the unit that was defending it, and it was not intended to be a manned fort at all, he said. It was basically a supply depot that Washington had built for the Forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburgh sits today.

Separated by decades in time but less than a mile in space is the Mount Washington Tavern, a National Road-era tavern located adjacent to Fort Necessity.

It was a tavern during the heyday of the National Road, which was built in the early 1800s, Markwardt said.

The tavern was a stagecoach stop, which was a high-end type of tavern along the National Road contracted by stagecoach lines.

The Mount Washington Tavern contracted with the Good Intent Line in Uniontown, and the Farmington tavern was the first stop headed east from Uniontown. Stagecoach taverns were located about 12 miles apart, because horses could only travel about that distance.

Stagecoaches were the fastest way to travel in the early 19th Century, Markwardt said, because horses could be rotated at the stagecoach stops and eliminate the need for extended rest periods. Only wealthier travelers used stagecoaches.

Stagecoach taverns were typically used for meal breaks instead of overnight stops, he said. They also served other functions, such as mail drop-offs for the U.S. Postal Service and polling places.

They were places where people would meet and discuss events of the day, he said. They were busy, newsy places.

The tavern was built in 1830 by Judge Nathaniel Ewing and sold to James Sampey in 1840, who operated the tavern with his family.

The National Road was dotted with stagecoach taverns in the 1800s, with many stagecoach lines contracting with taverns along the road.

A lot of those taverns, you can still see today as you drive up and down 40, Markwardt said

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The Feminist History of Child Allowances – JSTOR Daily

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Joe Bidens new stimulus package includes provisions for a Child Allowance that economists estimate could cut child poverty in the United States by half. The allowancepaid out in monthly installments of $300 per month for each child under the age of 5, and $250 per month for older children has champions on both the Left and the Right. The policy takes its cues from an even more generous proposal drafted by Mitt Romney, known as The Family Security Act.

Despite bipartisan interest in reducing child poverty, Republican lawmakers, including Mike Lee and Marco Rubio, have dismissed Child Allowances by claiming that an essential part of being pro-family is being pro-work, and warning that the monthly allowances will discourage parents from seeking paid employment.

That fear, however, is substantially unfounded: the allowance is neither enough to live on, nor is it tied to wages, so the benefit is not depleted by earned income. But the fact that such a fear exists is telling. It is a fear that categorically separates family and work, and revolves around the assumption that the only forms of valuable labor deserving of compensation are those performed outside the home. That is, the only forms of valuable labor are those performed in spheres not traditionally associated with womenand women of color in particularas care work is in the US.

By offering monetary benefits to parents of young children, the Child Allowance has the potential to help challenge assumptions around the meaning and value of work. One of the bigger symbolic purposes of the child allowance is to say the work a parent does is validits valid as work, Samuel Hammond, director of poverty and welfare policy at the center-right Niskanen Center, told the New York Times. I do think its a market failure in capitalist economies that there isnt a parenting wage.

The socialist feminist leader Crystal Eastman came to that conclusion a century ago. At the time, Child Allowances were known as Motherhood Endowments, and were a part of Eastmans vision for womens economic and social equality. Eastman (18811928) was a labor lawyer, peace activist, socialist, and radical suffragist who, among other achievements, drafted the first workers compensation legislation in the United States (~1910); co-founded the Congressional Union for Womens Suffrage (1913), and the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom (1915); co-founded the ACLU (1920); and co-authored the original Equal Rights Amendment (1923).

She wrote in 1920:

What is the problem of womens freedom? It seems to me to be this: how to arrange the world so that women can be human beings, with a chance to exercise their infinitely varied gifts in infinitely varied ways, instead of being destined by the accident of their sex to one field of activityhousework and child-raising. And second, if and when they choose housework and child-raising, to have that occupation recognized by the world as work, requiring a definite economic reward and not merely entitling the performer to be dependent on some man.

The idea of a Motherhood Endowment as a conduit to personal freedom through economic empowerment, which would allow a woman to support herself and her children, without forced dependency on a man, based on wages earned for the real and necessary work of childrearing, stood in radical opposition to the argumentsand statutesthat underpinned Mothers Pensions, state-level grants made to single mothers in the United States between 1911 and 1935.

Eligibility for the Pensions, and the amounts they offered, varied from state to state, but most states required that applicants be deserving mothers who are without the support of the normal breadwinner. Therefore, it was necessary that recipients be either widowed or abandoned, or in the case that they were married, that their husbands be incapacitated, either physically or mentally.

The goal of these pensions was to keep women in the home, and in the role of caregiver. In most states, mothers who received the grants had to agree to give up outside work, on the grounds that children became delinquent because their working mothers could not care for them. The rationale was that women and children ought to be supported, and in exchange for such support, needy mothers were expected to display their natural dependency, and prove their moral rectitude. The implication was the opposite of Eastmans assertion that childcare was a form of work, as equal and necessary as any other: that work outside the home disrupted womens natural role as dependent caregivers, and should be discouraged by state aid.

These prevailing social attitudes that women belonged in the home, that they were naturally dependent on men, and that only certain categories of morally fit women deserved the attention of the State, were part of a host of issues that Eastman believed she and her radical feminist colleagues needed to fight against in the wake of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment (womens suffrage).

Eastman maintained that the vote itself was not enough to bring political, social and economic equality to American women. Indeed, she saw the suffrage victory as too narrow, and noted that because mainstream feminists like Alice Paul had hushed up subjects like birth control and the rights of Negro women during the battle for the ballot, American women who had fought for the vote could not be congratulating ourselves that the feminist movement had begun in America. As it is all we can say is that the suffrage movement is ended.

In her landmark 1920 essay, Now We Can Begin, published in The Liberator, a Journal of Revolutionary Progress, which she founded and edited with her brother, Max Eastman, she laid out a four-fold platform for what the beginning of egalitarian American feminism might look like: a balance of work, life, and labor both inside and outside the home.

The first pillar of her platform was freedom of occupational choice and equal pay. Second was a revolution in the early training and education of both boys and girls, so that it would be considered womanly as well as manly to earn your own living, to stand on your own feet, and manly as well as womanly to know how to cook and sew and clean and take care of yourself in the ordinary exigencies of life.

This feminist education was needed because women, who had in reality been working outside the home for generations, saw their labor doubled when their male partners did not share domestic responsibilities. These bread-winning wives, she wrote, have not yet developed homemaking husbands. Instead the woman simply adds running the home to her regular outside job. Equality meant not only opening up all avenues of traditional paid employment to women, but also dignifying and sharing the burden and joy of all labor, including domestic labor and childcare.

Her vision was strikingly egalitarian, and thereby aimed not only at empowering women, but also at creating parity between men and womenand between anyone who chose to engage in care work and anyone who did not. Of Domestic Science, she wrote in 1924, why not welcome the idea of a compulsory course but insist that it be generalfor boys and girls alike? That way, those who like it, of either sex, can take it up as a trade. Her point was that all people should be equally prepared, and equally free, to make choices around what type of personal and professional lives they wished to lead.

Accordingly, the third pillar of her program was voluntary motherhood, access to birth control and information about family planning. Birth control she maintained, is just as elementary an essential in our propaganda as equal pay, because, birth control, like equal pay, was a labor issue. Birth control afforded women, some freedom of occupational choice; those who do not wish to be mothers will not have an undesired occupation thrust upon them by accident, and those who do wish to be mothers may choose in a general way how many years of their lives they will devote to the occupation of childraising.

Eastman had two children with her second husband, Walter Fuller. The family practiced Marriage Under Two Roofs, wherein Crystal lived with her children and supported them, and Walter kept a separate apartment. As a voluntary mother and a breadwinner, Crystal Eastman recognized that raising children was both an act of love and an occupation, which a woman might choose, just as she might choose any other occupation. That recognition brought Eastman to the fourth feature of her four-pronged program of equality: the Motherhood Endowment. She wrote:

It seems that the only way we can keep mothers free, at least in a capitalist society, is by the establishment of a principle that the occupation of raising children is peculiarly and directly a service to society, and that the mother upon whom the necessity and privilege of performing this service naturally falls is entitled to an adequate economic reward from the political government. It is idle to talk of real economic independence for women unless this principle is accepted.

Some women in the socialist feminist and pro-birth control movements at the time, including the activist, nurse, and educator Margaret Sanger, saw childrearing not only as a service to society, but as an unpaid service to the capitalist class, which actively blocked access to information about birth control because it relied on working-class women to produce large families so that their children could in turn staff sweatshops. A womans struggle for control of her body was, in a literal sense, a struggle over the means of production.

Eastmans claim that childrearing was a valid form of work, and that there should be definite economic rewards for ones work when it happens to be home-making, was broader than that: she saw that a motherhood endowment could help ensure equal pay, because it would remove justification for the family wage paid to men on the assumption that men were supporting their families while women were not. Further, she believed that the motherhood endowment would free women from the dependent state of performing unpaid labor, arguing, along with her National Womens Party colleague Doris Stevens, that the home-keeping, child-rearing wife shared a working-partners claim on the family income that her household labor helped make possible.

What separated her from so many other feminist thinkers of her generation, was that she saw womens desire for fulfillment on many frontsthrough love and sex, through paid work, and through familyas equally natural, and equally valid. She wrote in 1918:

Feminists are not nuns. That should be established. We want to love and to be loved, and most of us want children, one or two at least. But we want our love to be joyous and freenot clouded with ignorance and fear. And we want our children to be deliberately, eagerly called into being, when we are at our best, not crowded upon us in times of poverty and weakness.

Because she understood that many women wanted children at the same time they wanted economic freedom, she believed the feminist movement would need to reconcile those two objectives. If the feminist program goes to pieces on the arrival of the first baby, she wrote it is false and useless. The motherhood endowment, coupled with access to birth control, offered an answer here too: it could free women not only from unwanted, unpaid labor, but also free women to embrace motherhoodwhen they wanted to.

There is strong evidence that Crystal Eastman was absolutely right: consider that American women are currently having fewer children than theyd like, and that Canada, which offers a more generous child allowance than the one included in Bidens newest aid package, has a higher proportion of women in the labor force. Neither of these Child Allowance policies reaches the level of compensation that Crystal Eastman envisioned, a level that would make childrearing a fully compensated vocation for any parent who wished it.

We have not yet fully realized any of the four pillars of Eastmans equality program. More than 100 years ago, she wrote in Now We Can Begin that with a generous endowment of motherhood provided by legislation, with all laws against voluntary motherhood and education in its methods repealed, with the feminist ideal of education accepted in home and school, and with all special barriers removed in every field of human activity, there is no reason why woman should not become almost a human thing.

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Woodbury, Conn.: Peace and Rustic Beauty, With a Sense of History – The New York Times

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According to information provided and compiled by SmartMLS, Inc., as of May 3, there were 29 single-family homes on the market, from a 2,018-square-foot, three-bedroom 1760 colonial on 4.1 acres, listed for $195,900, to a 2,416-square-foot, four-bedroom 1845 colonial on 33 acres, with a pool and pool house, listed for $1.899 million. Three multifamily homes were available: a 906-square-foot two-bedroom for $368,500; a 2,434-square-foot two-bedroom for $449,900; and a 5,600-square-foot five-bedroom for $724,900. One condominium was on the market, a 546-square-foot one-bedroom, for $125,000, as was one rental, a 3,159-square foot, four-bedroom house, for $18,000 a month.

Prices are up across the board. The median sale price for a single-family home during the 12-month period ending May 3 was $392,500, up from $356,000 during the previous 12 months. The median price for a multifamily home was $313,750, up from $277,500. The median sale price for a condominium was $145,000, up from $127,500. And the median monthly rental was $1,500, up from $1,400.

Because of its variety of housing, Woodbury is more socioeconomically diverse than many of its Litchfield County neighbors. Mr. Drakeley, a lifelong resident, said the community is a mix of families who have stayed for generations and transplants from New York City, Westchester County and more built-up places nearby, like Southbury, Watertown and Waterbury. Ms. Perkinson described Woodbury as having a hometown feel, where everybody knows everybody.

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Not in My Court: Northern District of Texas Bankruptcy Court Dismisses NRA Bankruptcy Cases as Filed in Bad Faith – JD Supra

Posted: at 5:56 am

On May 11, 2021, Judge Harlin D. Hale, of the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas (the Court) found that the bankruptcy cases of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) and its subsidiary Sea Girt LLC (collectively, the Debtors)1 were filed in bad faith to (i) gain an unfair litigation advantage, and (ii) avoid the regulatory scheme of the State of New York.2 The Court dismissed the cases without prejudice but noted that if the NRA filed a new case, the Court would revisit its concerns regarding, among other things, disclosure, transparency, secrecy, and conflicts of interest, which could cause the appointment of a trustee to address the ability of the NRA, as a debtor in possession, to fulfill its fiduciary duties.

The NRA is a 150-year-old not-for-profit New York corporation headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia. On August 6, 2020, the New York Attorney General (NYAG) filed a lawsuit in New York State Court against (i) the NRA (NYAG Action) and (ii) certain individual defendants, including the NRAs Executive Vice President, Wayne LaPierre, for, among other things, breach of fiduciary duties, gross mismanagement, wrongful related-party transactions, self-dealing and unjust enrichment. As a remedy, the NYAG sought (i) dissolution of the NRA, (ii) restitution of funds, (iii) ban on certain officers from serving as fiduciaries of any New York charity, and (iv) voiding of certain transactions.3

On September 10, 2020, the NRAs president created a Special Litigation Committee to oversee, among other things, the NYAG Action (as well as other lawsuits). Thereafter, on January 7, 2021, the NRA held a board meeting at which the board of directors adopted a resolution formalizing the Special Litigation Committee and approving a new employment agreement for Mr. LaPierre, which permitted Mr. LaPierre to exercise corporate authority in furtherance of the mission and interests of the NRA, including without limitation to reorganize or restructure the affairs of the Association for the purposes of cost-minimization, regulatory compliance or otherwise.4 No discussion of bankruptcy or the possible reorganization of the NRA occurred at that meeting, nor were the board of directors informed that the language could authorize Mr. LaPierre to unilaterally authorize a bankruptcy petition.

On January 15, 2021, (i) the NRA and (ii) Sea Girt LLC, a Texas limited liability company wholly owned by the NRA, which was formed on November 24, 2020 (approximately two months prior to the bankruptcy filing),5 filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Through the filing, the Debtors sought to restructure as a Texas nonprofit and to exit what it believes is a corrupt political and regulatory environment in New York effectively dumping New York. At the time of filing, the NRA claimed that it is in its strongest financial condition in years,6 and noted that it would propose a plan that pays creditors in full.

Thereafter, on February 10 and 12, respectively, (i) Ackerman McQueen, Inc.7 the Debtors former advertising agency, largest unsecured creditor, and counterparty to a lawsuit currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas and (ii) the NYAG,8 each filed motions to dismiss the Debtors bankruptcy cases and, alternatively, seek appointment of a chapter 11 trustee (collectively, the Dismissal Motions).9 Generally, the Dismissal Motions asserted (among other things) that the cases were filed in bad faith, solely as a litigation tactic (not to reorganize or respond to financial crises as the Debtors are solvent) and, in light of misappropriation and lack of oversight, grounds existed to appoint a trustee (rather than allow the NRA to continue to manage their cases as debtors-in-possession). In support of their positions, the movants highlighted (i) the lack of board authorization for, and notice of, the bankruptcy filing, which was authorized solely by Mr. LaPierre relying on his employment agreement approved on January 7, 2021, and (ii) a post-filing attempt to retroactively ratify the bankruptcy filing.

After a 12-day trial that included 23 witnesses, the Court dismissed the bankruptcy cases for cause under Section 1112(b) of the Bankruptcy Code, finding that the cases were not filed in good faith and that the appointment of a trustee or an examiner was not in the best interests of creditors and the estates.10 In evaluating the Debtors good faith, the Court reviewed whether the bankruptcies were filed (i) for a valid bankruptcy purpose and (ii) merely to obtain a tactical litigation advantage.

Ultimately, the Court found that the purpose of the filings was to avoid the potential dissolution of the NRA in the NYAG Action. In reaching that finding, the Court focused on the testimony of Mr. LaPierre to establish that (i) the filing was not related to the NRAs financial condition (as the NRA is financially healthy),11 (ii) if the case were dismissed, the NRA would be able to pay its debts in full and meet its obligations and (iii) but for the NYAG Action, a bankruptcy filing by the NRA would not have been necessary.

As such, the Court found that [t]he NRA is a solvent and growing organization using bankruptcy as a tool to win its dissolution lawsuit, and that is not an appropriate use of bankruptcy.12 The Court distinguished the present case from the more typical case, where a debtor files a bankruptcy to avoid a potential monetary judgment posing an existential threat. Here, in contrast, the NRA sought to deprive the NYAG of the statutory remedy of dissolution (if the NYAG could meet certain high thresholds),13 and the Court found that the Bankruptcy Code does not provide sanctuary from this kind of threat.14 Furthermore, using the bankruptcy process to avoid dissolution deprived the state of New York of the ability to regulate its not-for-profit corporations in accordance with its laws. As such, the Court found that the bankruptcy filings sought to (i) obtain a litigation advantage and (ii) avoid a regulatory scheme, each of which equates to bad faith for purposes of section 1112(b).

The Court next considered whether appointment of a trustee or examiner was in the best interest of creditors and the estates, but found that such relief was not warranted. Specifically, the Court was concerned with lingering issues of secrecy and a lack of transparency, and, in particular, the surreptitious manner in which Mr. LaPierre obtained, and exercised, authority to file bankruptcy for the NRA.15 The Court noted that [e]xcluding so many people from the process of deciding to file for bankruptcy, including the vast majority of the board of directors, the chief financial officer, and the general counsel, is nothing less than shocking.16 However, the Court also noted, among other things, that the NRA was financially healthy and, outside of bankruptcy, could pay its creditors, continue to fulfill its mission and improve its governance and internal controls and contest dissolution in the NYAG Action. As such, the Court believed such factors weighed in favor of dismissal, rather than keeping the cases in bankruptcy.

The NRA bankruptcy cases are a unique situation given, among other things, their high-profile nature, the ongoing litigation with the NYAG and the nature of the allegations against the NRA and Mr. LaPierre. Nonetheless, the cases offer valuable lessons and considerations regarding the scope of bankruptcy protections and filing rationales. Moreover, the cases highlight the (i) importance, and need, for corporate formalities and process and (ii) care and thoughtfulness that should go into planning, and implementing, a cohesive, justifiable, and feasible restructuring.

1 The cases were jointly administered under case number 21-30085-hbh-11. Citations to [ECF No. __] shall refer to documents filed on the docket in the case captioned In re National Rifle Association of America and Sea Girt LLC, No. 21-30085 (HDH) (Bankr. N.D. Tex. May 11, 2021).

2 Order Granting Motions to Dismiss, In re National Rifle Association of America and Sea Girt LLC, No. 21-30085 (HDH) (Bankr. N.D. Tex. May 11, 2021), ECF No. 740 (the Dismissal Order).

3 The suit, which remains pending, has spawned related litigation, additional federal suits and motion practice, including motions to dismiss and to transfer venue.

4 See Dismissal Order, at 8.

5 NRA Dumps New York to Reincorporate in Texas, Announces New Strategic Plan, NRA, Jan. 15, 2021, https://www.nraila.org/articles/20210115/nra-dumps-new-york-to-reincorporate-in-texas-announces-new-strategic-plan.

6 Id.

7 See Motion to Dismiss the Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Petition, or, in the Alternative, Motion for the Appointment of a Chapter 11 Trustee and Brief in Support [ECF No. 131].

8 See Motion to Dismiss, or, in the Alternative, to Appoint a Chapter 11 Trustee [ECF Nos. 155 and 156].

9 Subsequently, among other things, (i) the District of Columbia filed motions in support of the NYAGs motion to appoint a trustee [ECF No. 214] and dismiss the cases [ECF Nos. 423 and 429], (ii) Christopher Cox, a former executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, joined the NYAGs motion [ECF No. 172], (iii) the United States Trustee, in closing arguments, took the position that the evidence supported dismissal, the appointment of a trustee, or the appointment of an examiner, (iv) sixteen other States sought leave to submit a brief as amici curiae in support of the Debtors [ECF No. 439], which the Court granted on March 31, 2021 [ECF No. 439] and (v) the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors appointed in the cases also opposed the relief sought in the Dismissal Motions, contending, among other things that a bankruptcy proceeding was in the best interests of creditors (but suggested a trustee with limited powers to the extent that the Court were inclined to appoint a chapter 11 trustee) [ECF No. 369].

10 Section 1112(b) of the Bankruptcy Code provides the Court shall convert a case under this chapter to a case under chapter 7 or dismiss a case under this chapter, whichever is in the best interests of creditors and the estate, for cause unless the court determines that the appointment under section 1104(a) of a trustee or an examiner is in the best interests of creditors and the estate. 11 U.S.C. 1112(b).

11 Dismissal Order, at 28.

12 Id. at 32.

13 See N-PCL 1101 and 1102; see also Dismissal Order, at 28.

14 Dismissal Order, at 28.

15 Id. at 34.

16 Id.

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Not in My Court: Northern District of Texas Bankruptcy Court Dismisses NRA Bankruptcy Cases as Filed in Bad Faith - JD Supra

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Centric Brands adds to exec ranks, board as it eyes post-bankruptcy growth – Retail Dive

Posted: at 5:56 am

Dive Brief:

Centric Brands CEO Jason Rabin touted the operational and digital chops of Keswani and Hartman as the company works to execute on its "strategic growth initiatives."

Rabin said of Hartman, "Ruth has a great deal of knowledge and experience in the digital space that can help us capitalize on one of our key growth initiatives of expanding our online revenue." Prior to Lord & Taylor, Hartman was chief merchant of online clothing rental specialist Le Tote (which acquired Lord & Taylorin 2019 before filing for bankruptcylast year).

Before overseeing Pandora's operations on the continent,Keswaniserved as CEO of grocer Fiesta Mart and also spent 19 years with Target."Sid's extensive operational experience and strong leadership capabilities will help to drive efficiencies throughout the organization," Rabin said aboutKeswaniin a statement.

Centric filed for bankruptcy last year amid the disruption to retail in general and apparel in particular wrought by COVID-19. It was forced to shut its stores (mostly under the BCBG, Robert Graham and Joe's Jeans banners). Centric's wholesale business suffered as well as stores that sold its products closed as well, according to court papers from its Chapter 11 last year.

Since launching as a consumer products company in 1987, Centric Brands has gone through several names and incarnations.Over the years, it grew its portfolio of licensed products and private labels to include products under the Calvin Klein,Frye, Jessica Simpson, Nautica, Joe's Jeans,Timberland, Tommy Hilfiger and Under Armour brands, among others.

In all, the company's portfolio has more than 100 licensed brands as well as owned brands. The company has a heavy presence in kids apparel, which has suffered from school closures.

Its bankruptcy helped the company shed $700 million in debt and turned control over to financial firms Blackstone (its majority sponsor), Ares Management and HPS Investment Partners.

As they look to strengthen the company, Hartman and Keswanipointed to digital tools and data as paths to growth and better performance.

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Centric Brands adds to exec ranks, board as it eyes post-bankruptcy growth - Retail Dive

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