Twins rookie outfielder/first baseman Alex Kirilloff enjoyed a fun milestone Friday night in Target Field when he went the other way for the first career home run of his career. There were even two runners on base, so how about a three-run shot for your first?
What a moment for Kirilloff. His first career home run opens up on a 4-0 lead over the team that entered Friday night with the best record in the AL, the Kansas City Royals.
He later added another bomb:
The Twins would go on to win, 9-1. They've now won two games in a row -- in blowout fashion, no less -- after a dreadful 7-15 start. It's worth mention that before this game, the Twins only had two home runs all season from left-handed hitters. Kirilloff matched that in one game.
Heading into this spring, CBS Sports prospect expert R.J. Anderson ranked Kirilloff as the 23rd-best prospect in baseball and the top prospect in the Twins' system. Here's what Anderson had to say regarding the young slugger:
Kirilloff made his big-league debut during the playoffs, going 1-for-4 in the Twins' Wild Card Series loss against the Astros. Expect him to get hundreds of more plate appearances during the 2021 season, and expect him to do far more damage. Kirilloff has the potential to hit for average and power, which will be more pivotal to him than the standard high-ranked hitting prospect: he's never walked in as much as nine percent of his plate appearances as a professional. Defensively, Kirilloff has enough arm strength to man right, though he could end up sliding to first base on a permanent basis as he matures.
The Twins' first-round pick out of high school in 2016 (15th overall) out of high school, Kirilloff carried a .317/.365/.498 career line in the minors and keep in mind he was always much younger than the average age per level. He's still just 23 years old.
Kirilloff came into Friday night hitting just .115 so far in 2021 in 26 at-bats, but there's a lot of potential lurking in that bat. Maybe the oppo shot here got him going.
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Twins' top prospect Alex Kirilloff slugs first career homer in front of home fans at Target Field - CBS Sports
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“A woman who speaks is a woman with power,” says Katya Azzam, who coaches the Rhyme and Reason speech and debate team of eight middle school students, most of whom attend Muirlands Middle School in La Jolla.
The all-girls team formed as a pod in June, and less than a year later, it’s gearing up to compete at state and national levels.
The team consists of Muirlands students Solaine Bardin, Elena Grilli, Sarah and Mira Lehman, Emma Weibel and Inji Hamdoun, along with Ruby Adler (who attends Francis Parker School of San Diego) and Misa Uchiyama (who attends Carmel Valley Middle School).
When schools were closed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last spring, some of the eventual Rhyme and Reason members approached their parents about starting a speech and debate team to supplement their intellectual stimulation. The parents, in turn, reached out to Azzam, a San Diego State University communications major, and formed a small pod that would meet in members’ backyards, in masks and with chairs spaced apart.
“They are the most self-motivated, amazing girls I have ever seen,” Azzam said. “They had a watered-down version of speech and debate at school but wanted to learn more. I teach parliamentary debate, and they wanted to learn more and more from me, so I’m showing them college-level concepts. For eighth-graders to get it blows my mind.”
For example, the girls practice kritiks (often referred to as K), a form of argument in policy debate that challenges a certain mindset or assumption made by the opposing team. They also learn how to debate in topical arguments, write speeches, and spot and win over “lay judges.”
Because there aren’t many middle-school-level speech and debate teams, Rhyme and Reason competes against other clubs. And because all tournaments are held online, the team has competed against others from across the country.
“When you advance to the final round, they call it breaking,” Azzam said. “Every single girl broke and made it to the final round in the last competition. They are making a name for themselves.”
Inji said one of the best things that has come from being on the team has been the personal connection and opportunity for conversation at a time when the pandemic confined many people to their homes.
“It allowed us to become very close,” she said. “We work well together and we helped each other get through the difficult times when we couldn’t see each other or physically be in school together. We met to study, prepare for tournaments and just support each other. It’s been really nice, and that reliability and support is valuable even now when we have finally been able to go back to school in person.”
Emma agreed. “During COVID-19, I missed social interactions, and debate has been the highlight of my week,” she said. “I have had so much fun being able to learn to spread a message in a logical way, and now I see the whole world, from politics to school, in a completely different way.”
Several members said they appreciate the critical thinking skills that come from speech and debate methods.
It has helped “expand our horizon beyond our local area to the entire world,” Solaine said. “It has allowed us to open our eyes and ask questions about what is happening around us rather than stand by.”
Elena said “debate has pushed me to become more educated about the issues of today. We have learned to think critically about politics rather than buy into the polarization that we see in the media.”
Sarah said she used to be nervous about public speaking in school, “but now I love it. It gives us a sense of empowerment and improves our understanding of the world around us and what we are passionate about.”
“Being on a team is amazing,” Ruby said. “We have teammates supporting us; if one of us wins, it feels like a win for all of us.”
Rhyme and Reason will be in a state competition the last week of May and a national tournament the first week of June.
Win or lose, participating in speech and debate has advantages later in life — especially for girls, Azzam said.
“I think so many times in our society, although we have progressed in so many ways, women are silenced in different areas,” she said. “Teaching a girl the value of their voice teaches her to ask for things, bridge the gap and push for more. Learning those levels of persuasion allows them to stand out and push forward.” ◆
Middle Park High School senior Drew Landy poses with his prototype of a plant laboratory box for space. Landy is one of five nationwide finalists for his design with NASA HUNCH. The winner will see their design go up to the International Space Station. Courtesy CarrieAnn Mathis
Middle Park High School senior Drew Landy is waiting to hear whether his design for a plant laboratory box will make it to the International Space Station.
Landy participated in the “High school students United with NASA to Create Hardware” program, also known as HUNCH. The challenge, sponsored and funded by NASA, asks high school students to develop products and prototypes to improve a number of tasks in space.
Landy created a laboratory box for growing plants, which he presented to 20 or so NASA personnel on Wednesday.
“I think it went well,” Landy said, “just need to work on my public speaking a bit more.”
His faculty supervisor, Carla Hargadine, agreed he did a great job. Of the nationwide entrants into this particular category, Landy is one of five finalists for the design. If he wins, Landy’s design will go up to the International Space Station.
“It would feel like, ‘Oh gosh, I can’t believe this is happening,’” he said of the potential for getting his creation into space. “It all happened so fast … This is a topic I’m not at all confident in, so I just threw myself in.”
Adding to the impressive feat, most entrants worked in teams. Landy created the prototype by himself.
“I had to learn about how plants grow and how zero-gravity affects things,” he explained. “I had to also learn about how to work on my own a bit more since most other teams were in groups of three or so on average.”
The entire project challenged Landy, pulling him out of his comfort zone. Making it as far as he has is something he takes pride in, especially considering all the effort that went into his product.
“It’s all something I’m proud of,” Landy said. “It was a lot of hard work and I’m proud of my work on it. This is my 10th design, if you can believe it.”
Landy has a knack for the more “confusing” disciplines, and plans to pursue particle physics in college. Working through the difficulties of this challenge has helped him to prepare for such a pursuit.
“Dealing with different environments and how to think of something, I mean — I’ve never been to space,” Landy said. “It’s different and the laws of gravity don’t really apply, so I think that was also really interesting. To think about something in a different setting that I can’t be in directly but still try to conceptualize and think of solutions for.”
Landy and Hargadine don’t know exactly when they’ll hear the results of the challenge, but Hargadine is hopeful it will be in the next week or two.
Regardless of the results, Landy agreed it was a great to learn so much in a real world — or out of this world — setting.
Peru's presidential candidate Pedro Castillo of Peru Libre party, who will compete head-to-head with right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori in a second-round ballot in June, speaks to supporters during a rally in Lima, Peru/File Photo
The front-runner in Peru's presidential race, left-winger Pedro Castillo, returned to the campaign trail on Friday, a day after he was rushed to a clinic in the capital Lima for treatment for a respiratory illness, he told supporters in a tweet.
Castillo said doctors diagnosed a throat infection and that he would return to active campaigning as well as participating in his first debate on Saturday with rival in the June run-off, Keiko Fujimori.
"Nothing will stop us in our march with the people towards a shared dream of justice and freedom," he wrote.
Castillo, a 51-year-old primary school teacher, fell ill shortly after arriving to hold rallies in Lima on Thursday following several days of campaigning in northern Peru.
The leftist candidate had stretched his lead to 20 points ahead of right-wing Fujimori five days ago but the latest poll suggests that has now narrowed with just over a month to go until the election in the world's second-largest copper producer.
Datum International said on Friday that Fujimori, the daughter of the jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori, bolstered her support by eight percentage points to 34%, while Castillo's approval grew only three percentage points to 44%.
The poll, published in financial daily Gestion, showed the number of undecided voters shrank to 22% from 33% previously.
Fujimori's support grew most notably in Lima, home to nearly a third of the country's population, rising to 50% from 34%, while Castillo's support firmed to 65% from 54% in southern mining regions, the survey said.
Castillo, who has pledged to draft a new constitution to give the state more control over the economy, also remains on top in the country's poorer areas while Fujimori, who has promised to shield Peru's free-market model, polls stronger in wealthier areas.
Bond prices ticked higher on Friday even as Castillo returned to the campaign trail, according to Refinitiv data, following sharp drops earlier in the week.
The new study was carried out between April 27 and 29 on 1,200 people and has a margin of error of +/- 2.8%.
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Middle Park’s Elizabeth Hammond sets up to spike the ball while, from left, Bella Svoboda, Brianna Renteria, Kate McCauley, Katie Trail and Dominyka Reventaite shore up the Panthers defense vs. The Pinnacle on April 21 in Granby. Eli Pace / epace@skyhinews.com
If you see the Middle Park volleyball team smiling extra big on their way out of town today, you might smile back at them and wave because the Panthers have earned it.
For the team’s five varsity seniors — Brianna Renteria, Maggie Pfeiffer, Katie Trail, Dominyka Reventaite and Kate McCauley — they know what it’s like to struggle, to work hard and not always see the wins pile up behind them. Last year, the team didn’t perform nearly as well as they would have liked to, and that’s one reason this year’s success has been that much sweeter.
“We’re super excited and the progress from last year is like massive,” McCauley said during a break in Wednesday’s practice at MPHS.
Middle Park’s Kate McCauley throws her hands in the air while Elizabeth Hammond, center, and Katie Trail, center right, yell in joy after winning their last home game of the 2021 spring volleyball season. Eli Pace / epace@skyhinews.com
Middle Park will leave town today with a parade and police escort as the Panthers make their way to the Region 5 round of the Class 3A state tournament.
In Greeley, they’ll face regional-host University and Highland in a round-robin affair Saturday. University enters the bracket with the fifth seed while Highland is No. 20. The Panthers have spent much of this week preparing mentally and physically for the hard hitters and stiff blockers they expect to face on Saturday.
“After a tough year, it feels really great to win and show people that we are capable of a lot more than we did last year,” Pfeiffer said of the team’s success this season.
At 11-3 overall and 7-2 in the Western Slope, the Panthers got to this point by steamrolling their way through the 2021 spring volleyball campaign. Their victories include wins over KIPP Denver, Bennett, Sheridan, Platte Canyon, Arrupe Jesuit, The Academy, West Grand, Lake County and The Pinnacle.
All said and done, it was enough to earn Middle Park the No. 12 seed in the still-alive, 24-team field for the state tournament’s regional brackets this weekend.
“It’s just crazy, crazy to think we’ve come this far having been so low in the rankings last year, and just knowing that all of our hard work paid off is really exciting,” Renteria noted.
Senior Brianna Renteria lines up to smash the ball against The Pinnacle. Eli Pace / epace@skyhinews.com
Advancing to the league tournament last weekend, Middle Park handled Bennett for the third time this year, but DSST:Montview, which clipped the Panthers in their season opener, continued to be problematic for Middle Park and emerged the victor.
Throughout the season, the girls have played under COVID guidelines. That means wearing masks during their games and that their hometown fans have been limited in the numbers allowed into the games.
But if you ask the team about how COVID has affected their year, their response might surprise you.
“In my personal opinion, I think it’s been to our advantage,” Trail said. “We got an extra couple months to prepare. We’ve done CrossFit. We had more time to practice. It’s been a year and a half (since the 2019 volleyball season) so we’ve had that much more time to prepare.”
Seniors Kate McCauley, left, and Katie Trail give Pinnacle’s hitters fits at the net on April 21 in Granby. Eli Pace / epace@skyhinews.com
Looking back at the season, the team’s five seniors all said they greatly enjoyed beating Bennett three times this year, essentially turning the tables on a Tigers team that had the Panthers’ number last year.
Surprisingly, some of the girls also see the first game of the season, where Middle Park fell to DSST, as one of the highlights. It was in that game, Trail said, she saw how well the team could play together and that this year “was a whole different ballgame.”
The team has depth across the classes, but the success of this squad rests heavily on the senior class. And all five of them have clear direction with plans for college after high school.
McCauley will travel the farthest from home to attend California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. As previously reported in an article about her business endeavors, Trail has her sights on Snow College, Utah, where she’ll focus on business.
Staying in state, Renteria is going to the University of Northern Colorado to study nursing, Pfeiffer will attend the University of Colorado-Boulder and Reventaite is going to Colorado State University to study interior design.
Panthers senior Maggie Pfeiffer serves the ball to Pinnacle. Pfeiffer has been money from the service line all season long and had two aces in the Panthers’ last regular season game of the year. Eli Pace / epace@skyhinews.com
After going through the last four years together, the seniors describe themselves and the team as “a family.” As they move past high school, the impact of this family unit will be felt for a long time to come.
“I definitely see (our team) as a family now,” Reventaite said. “When we first came to high school we were scared of the seniors and everything. But us being seniors, we’re friends with everyone. It’s a big bond that we share and it’s something that we’re definitely going to miss.”
And the program and their coach will miss them, too.
“These five seniors, when I think back about them, they will be the foundation of the program as long as I am the coach,” said Kelly Friesen, who’s been the head volleyball coach for two years now. “They definitely set the standard of what it means to be a team player and what it means to be a student-athlete. They’re going to leave big shoes to fill, and I’m going to be really sad when they go.”
That’s later, though. Today, they’re driving to Greeley.
Shagara Bradshaw wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary last month when she dropped into a vaccination site in Jacksonville, Florida, for her second COVID-19 shot.
Bradshaw hadn’t heard that Vice President Kamala Harris was visiting the tented facility to encourage people to get vaccinated. But when she was pulled out of the registration line to meet Harris, Bradshaw knew how she wanted to introduce herself.
Shagara Bradshaw, left, met Vice President Kamala Harris at a vaccination site in Jacksonville, Fla., on March 22.Provided by Shagara Bradshaw
“Good afternoon, soror,” Bradshaw, 38, said to her delighted fellow Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sister and fellow graduate of a historically Black university.
As Navy troops wearing military fatigues prepared doses, Bradshaw and Harris chatted about being a role model by getting vaccinated and about Bradshaw’s job at a Jacksonville school where she is teacher of the year – an honor that was the highlight of her year until she met Harris.
“I felt like I was speaking to someone that understood me,” Bradshaw said. “She knows what it’s like, the struggles of African American women, what we have to go through.”
Harris, the first woman – and first woman of color – to hold the second-highest national office, has embraced that identity at a time when the country is facing a racial reckoning – and when race remains a deeply sensitive and politically volatile issue.
US President Joe Biden listens as Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks on the guilty verdict against former policeman Derek Chauvin at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 20, 2021.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI, AFP via Getty Images
As Democrats applaud the spotlight that Harris and others in the administration have put on equity, Republicans accuse the administration of deepening the racial divide by ignoring gains in the fight against racism.
“Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country,” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the only African American Republican in the Senate, said in the GOP’s response to President Joe Biden’s joint address to Congress Wednesday.
Harris, the next morning, responded that she does not believe America is a racist country.
“But we also do have to speak truth about racism in this country, and its existence today,” Harris said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Harris' willingness to dive right into the topic is evident in a USA TODAY review of her public schedule, which shows how much she has emphasized issues important to people of color, and to women, in her first 100 days.
(Top) Vice President Kamala Harris speaks while visiting Fibre Space, a woman-owned small business in Alexandria, Virginia. (Bottom) Harris speaks during a virtual roundtable with Black chambers of commerce.(Top) Vice President Kamala Harris speaks while visiting Fibre Space, a woman-owned small business in Alexandria, Virginia. (Bottom) Harris speaks during a virtual roundtable with Black chambers of commerce.(Left) Vice President Kamala Harris speaks while visiting Fibre Space, a woman-owned small business in Alexandria, Virginia. (Right)Harris speaks during a virtual roundtable with Black chambers of commerce.Win McNamee, Getty Images; NICHOLAS KAMM, AFP via Getty Images
Other than administering the oath of office to fellow Cabinet members or interacting with foreign leaders, most of the more than 40 other solo activities on her public schedule through late April have had at least some connection to her identity and those who share it.
Vice President Kamala Harris visits with students in a pre-school classroom at West Haven Child Development Center on March 26, 2021 in West Haven, Connecticut.Drew Angerer, Getty Images
Harris traveled to the majority minority cities of Oakland, California, to discuss “water equity”; New Haven, Connecticut, to talk about child poverty and education, and Greensboro, North Carolina, to talk about jobs. In Greensboro, she sat at the former Woolworth’s lunch counter where a peaceful sit-in became a defining moment in the civil rights movement.
While emphasizing the need to "speak truth" even if it “may make folks uncomfortable,” Harris has met with Black mayors, members of local Black Chambers of Commerce, leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, women’s leadership groups, female labor leaders and faith leaders from minority communities.
“The truth is,” she told the House Democratic Caucus in March, “inequity has become the norm.”
In an interview with USA TODAY in March, Harris said the coronavirus pandemic "has exposed the failures, the fractures, the fissures that have long existed in our society, and it has made them bigger and more obvious."
Harris noted that longstanding inequities in health care have put Black people at higher risk of dying from the virus. She added that many frontline workers face inequities around pay, family leave and child care affordability.
"These are all issues that have disproportionately impacted Black women in the workforce," she said.
Harris also has put a spotlight on the successes and contributions of women and people of color. In the Washington area, she visited a women-owned knitting store, where one of the yarn colors was named after her. And at a stop at a local Veterans Affairs hospital, she delivered Valentine’s Day treats to about two dozen workers of color.
At the National Institutes of Health, she lauded the work of Black women in science during and met Dr. Kizzy Corbett, who worked on the Moderna vaccine.
Duchess Harris, professor of political science and American studies at Macalester College in Saint Paul.
For people to know that a Black woman helped develop the Moderna vaccine, and for the vice president, who is a Black woman, to highlight the work of Black women in science, that's critical.
“For people to know that a Black woman helped develop the Moderna vaccine, and for the vice president, who is a Black woman, to highlight the work of Black women in science, that's critical," said Duchess Harris, professor of political science and American studies at Macalester College in Saint Paul.
On International Women’s Day, Harris was on hand when Biden praised the promotion of two female generals to four-star commands. She recounted roles women have played in defending the nation, including transporting sensitive military information through enemy territory during the American Revolution and disguising themselves as men to fight in the Civil War.
Even a virtual visit with the prime minister of Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day emphasized the familiar theme. The two leaders celebrated the first group of Ireland-bound Frederick Douglass Global Fellows, participants of a summer study abroad program for students of color.
“Together, may we build on the legacies of Frederick Douglass … and all of those who have fought for freedom,” Harris said after showing off the sculpture of the abolitionist in her office that’s on loan from her alma mater, Howard University, a historically Black university.
Many Americans who haven’t felt fully represented in Washington have been thrilled to see themselves and their experiences reflected through Harris, akin to how a young Black boy wanted to touch President Barack Obama’s hair to find out if it felt like his.
“My VP looks like me!!” read the chalkboard held up by 6-year-old Maya Cedor when Harris went to Connecticut.
During Harris’ Jacksonville visit, a 9-year-old Black girl waved a sign painted in pink and purple letters that read “Girls can change the world.”
Obama, however, found he paid a price when he answered a question at a 2009 news conference about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Black Harvard professor. The arrest occurred at the professor's own home in Cambridge, Massachusetts after police responded to the report of a possible break-in as Gates was trying to force his door open.
After Obama criticized Cambridge police for acting "stupidly," he saw a huge drop in support from white voters.
"It was support that I'd never completely get back," he wrote in his memoir.
Niambi Carter, associate professor of political science at Howard University in Washington, said Obama didn't have "the space or the room" to address his identity the way that Harris does just a decade later.
Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, a political science professor at the University of Southern California who is helping to organize a scholarly convention on Harris, dismissed the risk that Harris could become too narrowly defined.
“I don't think that she would be pigeon holed so much as I think that there's a calculation being made that a certain part of the population will never agree that structural racism exists,’’ she said.
Aimee Allison, head of the advocacy group She the People, which pushed Biden to choose a woman of color as his running mate, said Harris and Biden have a “mandate from the base” to directly address racial, economic and gender issues.
“It’s demonstrated she is proof positive that who she is, and her experience, makes her more qualified, not less, makes her more able to speak to America and lead America, not less,” Allison said.
Aimee Allison, head of the advocacy group She the People
It’s demonstrated she is proof positive that who she is, and her experience, makes her more qualified, not less, makes her more able to speak to America and lead America, not less.
After a record number of women ran for – and failed to win – the 2020 presidential nomination, Biden committed to picking a woman as his running mate. He faced tremendous pressure to choose a woman of color because of the large role African Americans – and particularly Black women – have played in the Democratic Party and because of the racial issues thrust into the foreground through the coronavirus pandemic and the deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police.
Biden seems to make a point of having her by his side at public events like bill signings as well as private meetings, including his daily security briefings and updates on the pandemic.
The significant amount of time she’s spent with Biden so far is important not only for developing their relationship, said vice presidential scholar Joel Goldstein. It also “credentializes” her.
(Top) U.S. President-elect Joe Biden fist bumps newly sworn-in Vice President Kamala Harris after she took the oath of office.(Bottom) President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on March 12, 2021, in the Rose Garden of the White House.(Top) U.S. President-elect Joe Biden fist bumps newly sworn-in Vice President Kamala Harris after she took the oath of office.(Bottom) President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on March 12, 2021, in the Rose Garden of the White House.(Left) U.S. President-elect Joe Biden fist bumps newly sworn-in Vice President Kamala Harris after she took the oath of office.(Right) President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on March 12, 2021, in the Rose Garden of the White House.Drew Angerer, Getty Images; Alex Brandon/AP
“The fact that she’s in the room makes her important to everybody else,” he said.
Harris has had more than 120 joint public or private events with Biden, compared with more than 80 solo activities, according to a USA TODAY review of the daily schedules released by the White House and announcements of calls with foreign leaders through April 28. (The publicly released schedules include only a fraction of the president’s and vice president’s activities.)
“She’s not been a VP that you don’t see or hear from,’’ said Melanie Campbell, convener of the Black Women's Roundtable. Harris addressed the group at its virtual conference last month.
"Whether we’re in the room or not, we know she’s in the room,” Campbell said.
While most of Harris’ solo events – outside of swearing-in Cabinet officials or talking with foreign leaders – have had a connection to her identity, Biden hasn’t relegated the equity issue to Harris. He’s vowed to “make equity and justice part of what we do every day.”
And when Biden speaks on the issue, as he did when former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd, his words naturally carry more import.
Nina Rees, a domestic policy aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney
The right messages matters, but having the right messenger matters just as much.
But, as president, Biden’s task is also to try to appeal to everyone, regardless of color, race and ethnic origin, said Nina Rees, who was a domestic policy aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
And it’s smart to put Harris forward when the issues of diversity, inclusion and equity have played such a large role in the public conversation.
“The right messages matters,” Rees said, “but having the right messenger matters just as much.”
Outlining Harris’ early activities, a senior White House official said Harris raised in every meeting about the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package the particular problems faced by women workers who have lost jobs at higher rates and had to leave the workforce to care for children.
Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said Harris is “really picking up that mantle” on gender wage gaps, healthcare disparities and childcare concerns “in a way that I just don't think would happen in the same way, or have the same resonance or the same impact, if there weren't a woman and a woman of color in that position.”
The day after Chauvin was convicted of murdering Floyd, Harris and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker ducked into the vice president’s office just off the Senate floor to strategize advancing the police reform bill they’d introduced after Floyd’s death last year when Harris was in the Senate.
“We had a good talk about not just the urgency of the bill, but she had some really practical thoughts,’’ Booker said, noting Harris’ experience as California’s attorney general.
Another early priority was the Paycheck Protection Program, federal loans to help businesses survive the pandemic that the new administration believed were not getting to those most in need, including the smallest businesses and those in rural or minority communities.
Harris got on the phone with bank CEOs, according to an administration official, but wanted to make business owners themselves aware that things had changed. That’s why Harris met with members of the Black Chamber of Commerce and with people like Wendy Garcia, an Arizona woman who came to the United States from Mexico when she was 17 and now has her own restaurant. In fact, all of the small business owners she met with on one of her first days in office were either women, people of color, or both.
And that’s how we’re thinking about the American people. When they see these plans, do they see themselves in the plan?
Harris tells her aides to think about the fact that when someone looks at a wedding album of a friend, they’re most interested in the photos in which they appear.
“And that’s how we’re thinking about the American people,” said Rohini Kosoglu, Harris’ chief domestic policy adviser. “When they see these plans, do they see themselves in the plan?”
Harris’ most high profile – and potentially trickiest – assignment is working with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries to try to stem the flow of migrants to the U.S. border.
The administration has struggled to handle the record number of unaccompanied children crossing the border as Biden tries to deliver on a promise of creating a more humane and equitable system for immigrants and refugees.
Republicans have hammered Harris for not going to the southern border, bringing to a recent news conference a milk carton with her picture on the side along with the words “missing at the border.”
Republicans have hammered Harris for not going to the southern border, bringing to a recent news conference a milk carton with her picture on the side along with the words 'missing at the border.'
Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, said Harris "needs to go down to the border and see this for herself."
When Harris traveled to New Hampshire last week, a protestor held up a sign with an arrow and the directions: "Mexico – 2,254 mi."
Harris and her team have emphasized that she is working on the root causes, and not the symptoms, of the problem.
“It is something that is going to require diplomatic work,” Harris said this month, a few days after announcing she will travel to Mexico and Guatemala.
She met virtually Monday with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and plans to talk soon with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The University of Southern California’s Hancock Alfaro said the assignment could have high rewards and risks. It raises Harris’ foreign policy profile and Biden will be grateful if she comes up with solutions. But it also puts her “right square in the middle of one of our country’s most controversial subjects.”
California Rep. Barbara Lee, who is working on the issue with Harris through a House subcommittee Lee chairs that funds international activities, said Harris brings to the task the perspective of being the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica.
Vice President Kamala Harris on March 26, 2021, in New Haven, Connecticut.Mark Mirko/AP
“It’s not going to be easy, but she’s going to do it,” Lee said. “Have you ever had a Black woman and South Asian woman deal with it?”
Michael Feldman, who was a senior adviser to former Vice President Al Gore, said Harris should welcome such a meaty task with both international and domestic consequences.
“Guess what?” he said. “You’re not an effective vice president if you’re not willing to take on the tough problems.”
Speculation on her own presidential ambitions is a topic Harris avoids for now. But if she were to run, rallying the base – which is dominated by women and people of color – would be essential.
Booker, a close friend of Harris, said she is “ 100% focused on the now.”
Dresden Cedor, 8, and Maya Cedor, 6, of New Haven, Connecticut, prepare to greet Vice President Kamala Harris on March 26, 2021.Provided by Gayathri Cedor.
One person who hopes to see Harris in the top job one day is Gayathri Cedor, the mother of 6-year-old Maya who held up the “My VP looks like me!!” sign in New Haven, Connecticut.
When Cedor heard Harris was coming, she wanted her daughter and son to get a glimpse, even if it was only of the vice president’s motorcade leaving the airport.
Like Harris, Cedor’s children’s are half Indian and half Black, a fact she noted on the other side of the chalkboard. Their families even share some of the same first names, like Maya and Meena.
“We were waving to her and she gave a thumbs up,” said Cedor, a 42-year-old mechanical engineer. “It’s just so exciting to see that background represented at such a high level.”
Outside of the vice president's trip to her city, Cedor hasn’t been closely following Harris’ activities or the new administration generally but is pleased with the overall vibe.
“It just feels like it reflects America,” she said. “It reflects us.”
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President Joe Biden addresses a joint session of Congress. | Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images
President Joe Biden told Congress he wants to show that “democracy can deliver” after the United States “stared into an abyss of autocracy and insurrection.” But a growing crowd of Europeans doesn’t see the appeal, just as Biden needs them marching in lockstep to out-flank China and Russia.
From France to Poland, from Hungary to a list of eastern European and Balkan countries seeking European Union membership, liberal democracy’s continental skeptics are shifting their efforts up a gear.
While the U.K.’s difficult EU exit and the decline of the far-right Alternative for Deutschland have dulled the voter appeal of nationalists in some quarters, that’s not true for about a dozen governments and popular opposition parties. Instead of merely “attacking the liberal principles that underpin democracy,” those leaders are now “setting new norms themselves and openly spreading antidemocratic practices,” said Zselyke Csaky, author of a new Freedom House report into democratic backsliding.
In France, the thought of far-right Marine Le Pen winning the presidency in May 2022 is no longer shrugged off as impossible.
Years of sporadic terror attacks, sluggish economic growth and the collapse of the country’s traditional center-right and center-left political parties have left France both deeply divided and uncertain of its future.
The latest warning sign of further political disruption: a public letter signed by about 1,000 current and former military members, including 20 generals, foreshadowing civil war. The letter was published April 21 — the 60th anniversary of a failed military coup against President Charles de Gaulle — and suggested a military takeover if France does not crack down harder on Islamists.
François Lecointre, the French Army chief of staff, said he was “repulsed” by the letter and called it “an unacceptable attempt to manipulate the military.” Cutting across efforts to soften her image, Le Pen threw her support behind the generals and urged them to “join me in my fight for France.”
When asked who they would choose between Le Pen and Macron in a presidential run-off vote, Le Pen trails Macron by 54 to 46 percent: much tighter than Le Pen’s 66-34 defeat in 2017, or the 2002 landslide defeat of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen (82-18).
With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic making the impending presidential campaign less predictable than past races, the door is open for Le Pen to peel off center-right politicians into a new anti-Macron alliance.
Democracy losing currency
“The idea of democracy as an aspirational end point has started to lose currency in many capitals,” said Csaky. That narrative is familiar to those who have followed the transition of the Soviet Union’s satellite states and allies since 1991, but the specific conclusions in Freedom House’s Nations in Transit report — funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development — are often shocking.
Csaky concluded that none of the countries currently seeking European Union membership can be classified as a democracy. Democratic institutions were weakened in 18 of the 29 countries assessed from Central Europe to Central Asia — a region now in its 17th consecutive year of overall democratic decline, she said.
The EU aspirants — Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Ukraine — are all listed as “transitional or hybrid regimes,” scoring below 50 out of 100 in Freedom House’s ranking. That puts them on par with Hungary, which is singled out as the biggest long-term democratic backslider in Europe.
Hungary consistently tops the list of fraud investigations into misuse of EU funds, with EU investigators finding misuse of at least 1 in every 25 dollars the EU spends in the country. Most recently, Orbán has bucked EU solidarity by buying Chinese and Russian Covid vaccines not approved by the European Medicines Agency, arguing “there’s no such thing as an Eastern vaccine or a Western vaccine: There are only good vaccines and bad vaccines.”
Freedom House recommends that the U.S. and EU work together to “address the threat posed by antidemocratic norm setting” in both EU and non-EU countries via targeted sanctions against corrupt officials and human rights abusers, and withholding financial assistance from governments that obstruct civil society and journalists.
The EU’s strongest step in this direction is a 2020 rule that allows the European Commission, the EU’s executive, to withhold funding from member countries that fail to uphold the rule of law.
The new law is being put to the test in Poland — which slipped the furthest in Freedom House’s 2020 ranking — on two fronts.
The first sees the EU’s executive suing the Polish government over accusations it is pressuring judges not to implement EU law in Poland. That battle risks exploding over a projected $65 billion that may be coming Poland’s way as part of the EU’s Covid recovery fund. Democracy experts and Poland’s opposition parties fear that the $65 billion will become a slush fund for the ruling Law and Justice party.
The broader risk is that Warsaw could use EU money to undermine the EU’s legal fabric across the continent. “Hungary and maybe others might take notice and follow in Poland’s footsteps,” Freedom House’s Csaky warned. Democracy experts are now calling on the EU to cut off funds to Poland.
Piotr Buras, who heads the Warsaw office of the European Council for Foreign Relations, says now is the time to turn off the funding taps. “If the EU fails to use its financial resources to stop the spread of autocracy, its post-pandemic recovery will at best become a Pyrrhic victory,” he said.
The second front is the government-controlled Polish Constitutional Tribunal, which has taken it upon itself to decide whether Polish or EU law has primacy in Poland. If the Tribunal asserts on May 13 that Polish courts supersede the European Court of Justice, the country’s EU membership would be in question.
Krystyna Pawłowicz, the judge in charge of the decision, is a former member of parliament of the governing Law and Justice party who has labeled George Soros “the most dangerous man in the world,” and who Buras describes as the party’s “most radical and vocal critic of the EU.”
With Warsaw taking a consistently skeptical position on Vladimir Putin’s Russia and a warm view of American military engagement in Europe, it may be Washington — not Brussels — which holds the most leverage in nudging Poland back toward Europe’s democratic mainstream.
The real test of America’s influence will come in how the Biden administration structures the invitations and agenda of its planned Democracy Summit later in 2021.
Alliances will play a crucial role: The EU has failed to significantly influence Warsaw and Budapest on its own. The Obama administration tried to wield a stick: limiting engagement from senior officials and withholding perks such as a White House visit from Hungary’s Orbán, but got nowhere. The Trump administration used carrots: encouraging Euro-skeptic tendencies, making visits and issuing White House invitations to Hungarian and Polish leaders: the backsliding continued.
At home, Biden has decided to go big in his first 100 days, seizing the Covid crisis to push for bills that would fund trillions of dollars of generational change. But if he wants to achieve his foreign policy goals of realigning the world around the norms of social democratic governance, he may have to figure out a way to go all in on Europe, too.
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As a boy, Dayne Goodheart became fascinated with the sun. He'd learned that its energy was being harnessed to power spacecraft and started to wonder about such technology's potential on Earth.
His fascination grew over the years, as did that potential. As an adult, Goodheart vowed to use solar power to help free his Nez Perce reservation from a reliance on dams and other outdated energy sources that threatened the Idaho tribe’s way of life.
Jasmine Neosh came to a similar awakening later in life. She was working as a bar manager in Chicago when the Dakota Access Pipeline protests erupted at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 2016.
Jasmine Neosh looks around an outdoor classroom at College of Menominee Nation.Samantha Madar
Neosh, a member of the Menominee Nation in Wisconsin, sympathized with activists’ fears that the pipeline would threaten the Dakota regions’ water supply and sacred burial grounds. Frustration at feeling anything she did couldn’t make a difference drove her to go back to school — and back to the Menominee Reservation – to get her associates degree in natural resources.
Why this Native American college was an 'obvious choice' for this student activist
Jasmine Neosh is a proud member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. When it was time for her to go to college, her choice was clear.
Samantha Madar, USA TODAY
But for Goodheart, a father of three in his early 30s, and Neosh, 32, the path toward a sustainable future is riddled with obstacles.
The green economic boom that promises many Americans a new entry to the middle class hasn’t lifted everyone equally. The fields are so new that connecting workers with training opportunities is difficult. Plus, what training exists often fails to resonate with Native people, focusing more on technical skills than on environmental knowledge and cultural practices.
As a result, green-collar jobs are dominated by white men, with many low-income people of color either unaware of the opportunities or unable to access them. Roughly three-quarters of green-collar jobs – fields ranging from water conservation and sustainable agriculture to solar-panel installation and resource-efficient construction – are held by men. White people account for more than 4 of 5 positions in the sector, according to a 2017 study.
Dayne Goodheart stands near buildings with solar arrays installed at the Nez Perce Reservation in Lapwai, Idaho, April 1, 2021.Joe Whittle for USA TODAY
The disconnect is especially striking in Indigenous communities, where a sustainable lifestyle is often seen not only as a cultural and moral imperative, but an existential one, too.
"Indigenous people are natural stewards of Mother Earth," Goodheart said. "And … when I pass on, I want to be able to leave behind a place for my kids where they don’t have to worry about power or water.”
After all, he noted, “there’s no shortage of the sun.”
Missed opportunities: green jobs are booming. Training isn't
There’s no shortage of jobs in green industries, either. Wind turbine inspectors and solar panel installers are two of the three fastest-growing jobs in the U.S., federal data shows.
The trend toward green jobs is bolstered by record-high demand for sustainable products and government incentives to move away from fossil fuels and practices such as factory farming and overfishing. The election last year of President Joe Biden, who’s made climate change reform a top priority and proposed funneling billions of dollars toward clean-energy efforts, has furthered the momentum.
Career and technical education — programs that typically generate associate degrees and certificates that focus on the skilled trades and applied sciences — plays a critical role in bringing more Americans into these highly skilled and highly paid jobs.
Such education is flexible and hands-on, allowing students to adapt to changing technologies in an effort to meet the demand for a workforce that’s both skilled and environmentally conscious, experts say. It gives them real-world experience and sets a foundation for “upskilling” – when people in technical industries can advance their careers by continually learning new skills.
Dayne Goodheart
Indigenous people are natural stewards of Mother Earth. And … when I pass on, I want to be able to leave behind a place for my kids where they don’t have to worry about power or water.”
North America’s Indigenous people – including continental tribes as well as Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians – would seem ideal candidates to ride the green wave. They are “disproportionately vulnerable” to the devastation of a warming planet in the view of the National Congress of American Indians’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That's because nearly all tribes are located in flood plains or areas prone to extreme weather events and/or dependent on economies “linked with climate-sensitive resources,” the panel concluded.
The devastation could extend beyond native people’s livelihood, the panel warned: “The large role of climate change in separating tribal people from their natural resources poses a threat to Indigenous identity.”
Yet for various reasons, green-minded career and technical education, or CTE, has struggled to reach native communities, where the unemployment rate reached 26% at the start of the pandemic.
Enrollment in CTE overall is down. The number of associate-degree earners dropped by roughly 7% in the first few months of the pandemic, while that of certificate earners plummeted by nearly 20%, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse.
Meanwhile, many native communities — especially those that are concentrated in poor, rural areas — are impoverished and poorly equipped to develop green CTE programs on their own, often lacking state-of-the-art equipment enjoyed by programs elsewhere.
And, generally speaking, Indigenous Americans face limited access to higher education and science, technology, engineering, and math-related fields. Seventy percent of STEM workers are white and 65% are male, as a pair of researchers with the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute noted in a USA TODAY op-ed last year.
Leaders in CTE policy are often based in areas where “the Indigenous presence is minimal,” said Amanda Bergson Shilcock, a senior fellow at the National Skills Coalition. “A lot of the gatekeepers to this work have a big blind spot."
CTE, which used to be known as vocational education, has “a painful history of tracking,” she added, referring to the practice of funneling people of color into low-wage jobs. “There's a bunch of communities in this country that feel like vocational education was ... patronizing or condescending or even racist.”
James Ezeilo, the chief strategy officer at the Greening Youth Foundation, also pointed to the fraught relationship that many Indigenous Americans have with the conservation industry. Greening Youth's mission is to connect young people of color with green careers, and Ezeilo said the foundation has struggled to recruit Indigenous youth for jobs with the U.S. Forest Service.
"If I was a Native American student and was being asked to come and work for the United States Forest Service – an entity that was very instrumental in removing me from my ancestral land – would it not be analogous to me being asked to come and work for some overseers?" said Ezeilo, who was born in Nigeria. "Wouldn't that be the same thing as being asked to come and work in a an administrative position on a plantation?"
A return to roots that also feels like a good business practice
Deciding shortly after high school that college “didn’t feel right," Goodheart started working in construction to start making money and learn about trade work. Still inspired by his childhood revelation of the sun's potential, he began flirting with the idea turning his blue-collar training into a green-collar profession.
Jasmine Neosh, undergraduate researcher at the Sustainable Development Institute, poses for a portrait at the College of Menominee Nation, Tuesday, April 20, 2021, Keshena, Wis.Samantha Madar, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
At Solar Energy International (SEI) in Colorado, he secured certificates in residential and commercial photovoltaic systems and solar business and technical sales. But it wasn’t until he returned to his reservation in Idaho that he figured out a way to bring his green tech training back home.
“Hindsight’s always 20-20,” he said, recalling how he was struck on that visit by the juxtaposition between the potential that renewable energy could provide and the status quo of living off of sources that go against everything his tribe believes.
After COVID shelved plans to go back for his bachelor's degree – he didn't like the idea of distance learning – Goodheart linked up with a local anti-poverty nonprofit that had done some work providing energy assistance to low-income members of the Nez Perce tribe. Within a few weeks, he was involved in a project aimed at outfitting a handful of tribal office buildings with solar panels.
Neosh, having completed her associates degree in natural resources, also found her way back to her reservation – as an intern at the Sustainable Development Institute, part of the College of Menominee Nation. Through that role, which is focused on climate change, she organizes and participates in networking events, such as webinars for Indigenous Americans involved in renewable-energy advocacy.
She grew up in the midst of a decades-long battle over a hard-rock mining project near the headwaters of the Wolf River, a scenic tributary that flows through the Menominee Reservation. Development of the mine began in the mid-1970s and was eventually stymied by a coalition of tribes that argued its toxic run-off posed widespread harm to the area’s wildlife.
So Neosh knew how special the Menominee’s forests are. She knew they’re so dense the reservation can be seen from space. She knew they’ve long garnered interest from scholars and environmentalists globally because of how they’re managed sustainably: As has been Menominee custom for thousands of years, the forests aren’t clear-cut.
Today, the forest – and the Menominees’ methods of sustaining it – fill her with pride. “It's a good business practice to make sure you're not just depleting your resources right off the bat in your first cut,” she said. “We want to make sure that future generations get to enjoy the beauty as well.”
Returning to her own roots also feels like the right move, she said.
“The reason I stayed was because … of that feeling of relief, of a burden being lifted off of me,” Neosh said. “Suddenly, things that were confusing to me aren't confusing.”
An alternative approach to green training
Goodheart and Neosh both took winding routes to find green jobs that served their homes. Advocates want to make it easier for others to follow them.
Each year Congress authorizes roughly $14 million to federally recognized tribes, Alaska Native organizations, and other Indigenous education entities to provide CTE to native students. The federal government has also given out grants through what’s known as the Sustainable Employment and Economic Development Strategies (SEEDS) program to support workforce development.
But advocates say funding is just part of the solution.
James Ezeilo, chief strategy officer at the Greening Youth Foundation, who was born in Nigeria
If I was a Native American student and was being asked to come and work for the United States Forest Service – an entity that was very instrumental in removing me from my ancestral land – would it not be analogous to me being asked to come and work for some overseers? Wouldn't that be the same thing as being asked to come and work in a an administrative position on a plantation?"
For CTE programs, including those focused on green jobs, to recruit more Indigenous Americans, they have to be “reflective of ... [students’] own cultural values,” said James Gregson, a professor emeritus at the University of Idaho who studies green-collar education and training. A place-based mindset to such education/training – and, specifically, efforts to recruit more Indigenous Americans to such fields – could be key to ensuring this industry promotes economic mobility.
Some tribal colleges have sought to fill those gaps through programs that pair green-workforce training with a more liberal-arts focus, said Kendra Teague, who oversees environmental sustainability programs for the American Indian College Fund.
"Especially in a mainstream institution, there are these extreme silos around what environmental [science] is and what math is, and that's just not how the world works," she said. "And that's definitely not how Black and Brown folks – and Indigenous folks – relate to place."
Dayne Goodheart performs an inspection of solar arrays installed buildings at the Pi-Nee Waus Community Center and Nez Perce tribal administration complex on the Nez Perce Reservation in Lapwai, Idaho, April 1, 2021.Joe Whittle for USA TODAY
Relating to a place is just what drove Goodheart while helping to outfit buildings on his reservation with solar panels. As part of the project, he assisted in training his fellow Nez Perce members in the nuts and bolts of the business. The trainees not only got a feel for a promising industry but also regained a sense of what it means to be part of a community of Native innovators. To be, as Goodheart put it, “a part of something that’s bigger than us.”
Goodheart says he's turned down several jobs outside of the reservation. He doesn't want to leave his home – a "utopia" where his children can eat food grown in the backyard and water the crops with rain collected on the premises and, eventually, derive their power not from dams but from the sun.
This story was produced as part of the Higher Education Media Fellowship at the Institute for Citizens & Scholars. The Fellowship supports new reporting into issues related to postsecondary career and technical education.
