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WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — For years, Jill Biden couldn’t bring herself to pray, her faith shattered by the 2015 death of her son Beau from brain cancer at age 46. She felt “betrayed, broken.”
Then a face in the crowd at one of her husband’s stops in 2019 as he campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination would, in her words, change her life.
Robin Jackson, wife of the pastor at Brookland Baptist Church in South Carolina, offered to be Jill Biden’s “prayer partner” when the Bidens worshipped at the church.
Thus began a relationship that the first lady said had helped “shape my life.”
Jill Biden talked about her South Carolina friend as recently as February of this year, but always without naming her. On Sunday, she returned to Brookland Baptist to help celebrate Pastor Charles B. Jackson Sr.’s 50th year of service and laid out in emotional detail how his wife had helped her reclaim her faith.
“I’m sorry if you’ve heard it before but I’d like to share it again,” she said before retelling the story.
The first lady doesn’t usually speak publicly about her faith but said Sunday that “it’s always been an important part of who I am.” She recalled being a teenager who “fell in love with the peace of the quiet wooden pew,” the “joy of the choir” and the “deep wisdom of the Gospels.”
She said prayer helps her “connect to the people that I love and to the world around me.”
“But in 2015, my faith was shaken,” the first lady said, her voice breaking as she described watching “my brave, strong, funny, bright young son fight brain cancer.”
“Still, I never gave up hope,” she said. “Despite what the doctor said, I believed that my son would make it. In the final days, I made one last, desperate prayer and it went unanswered.”
She didn’t understand how Beau could die. She grew angry, then distant from God.
“I felt betrayed by my faith, broken,” the first lady said, her voice quivering. Her own pastor emailed occasionally to check in and invite her back to service “but I just couldn’t go. I couldn’t even pray. I wondered if I would ever feel joy again.”
Then she accompanied her husband, Joe, to Brookland Baptist on May 5, 2019.
“Something felt different that morning,” the first lady said. She described how Robin Jackson came to sit beside her and ask to be her “prayer partner.”
“And I don’t know if she sensed how moved I had been by the service,” Jill Biden said. “I don’t know if she could still see the grief that I feel still hides behind my smile.”
“But I do know that when she spoke it was as if God was saying to me, ‘OK, Jill. You had enough time. It’s time to come home,’” she said. “And in that moment, I felt for the first time that there was a path for my recovering my faith.”
The first lady said Robin Jackson’s “kindness, mercy and grace pushed past the callouses on my heart and, like the mustard seed, my faith was able to grow again.” She said it reminded her that what was at stake was not an election or a partisan battle, but a country in need of healing.
“This church changed my life,” she said to applause.
The pastor’s son, the Rev. Charles B. Jackson Jr., said that his mother began texting prayerful reminders to Jill Biden a few days after they met. The first lady returned the texts.
“This would continue on all the way till today,” Jackson Jr. said.
Jill Biden said earlier this year the relationship with Robin Jackson had made a difference in her life.
“It really helped me find my faith again,” she said on Kelly Clarkson’s daytime talk show.
She occasionally accompanies the president, a devout Catholic, to Mass and was with him Saturday when he worshipped at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington.
Her role in celebrating the pastor’s 50th anniversary was a surprise for Robin Jackson in keeping with the first lady’s reputation for doing thoughtful things for people she cares about. Jackson Jr. said his mother did not know the first lady would participate in the celebration.
“It took everything in us to keep it from her,” Jackson Jr. said.
The White House did not publicly announce Sunday’s trip and the first lady flew, apparently by coincidence, on an unmarked D.C. Air National Guard airplane.
Rental car giant Hertz announced it was buying 100,000 Tesla electric vehicles that will be available to customers starting next month.
Tesla stock soared on news of the massive order, and its market cap hit the $1 trillion milestone during intraday trading Monday, a feat very few U.S. companies have attained.
The announcement also comes just months after Hertz emerged from bankruptcy, after the COVID-19 pandemic gutted the travel and rental car industry in 2020.
In addition to the initial order of 100,000 Teslas by the end of 2022, Hertz also announced it was adding new electric vehicle charging infrastructure at outposts across its global operations.
Starting in early November, the company said customers will be able to rent a Tesla Model 3 at Hertz airport and neighborhood locations in major U.S. markets and select cities in Europe. It will offer digitized guidance to educate customers about the electric vehicles, and soon hopes to offer an expedited electric vehicle rental booking process through its app.
"Electric vehicles are now mainstream, and we've only just begun to see rising global demand and interest," Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields said in a statement Monday.
"The new Hertz is going to lead the way as a mobility company, starting with the largest EV rental fleet in North America and a commitment to grow our EV fleet and provide the best rental and recharging experience for leisure and business customers around the world," Fields added.
The company said it was the first U.S. car rental company to introduce electric vehicles to its rental fleet in 2011 and that with the current order, electric vehicles will comprise more than 20% of Hertz global fleet.
Hertz is teaming up with seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady on an ad campaign about its new electric vehicle fleet.
"Although the company has been around for over 100 years, their constant evolution, especially now, is something that is amazing to be a part of," Brady said in a statement. "I've been driving an EV for years and knowing Hertz is leading the way with their electric fleet speaks to how the world is changing and the way companies are approaching being environmentally and socially conscious. I've always loved how easy and convenient Hertz makes it for me when I'm traveling to my favorite places like New York, LA and Tampa and can't wait to see what they continue to have in store."
The move comes amid mounting pressure on the private sector and beyond to take action on climate change. The transportation sector generated the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, per the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, primarily from burning fossil fuels for cars, trucks, ships, trains and planes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s business economists are slightly less optimistic about growth prospects over the next year, noting a number of threats ranging from higher-than-expected inflation to lingering disruptions from COVID-19 and snarled supply chains.
The National Association for Business Economics released a new report Monday that found 66% of NABE members responding to a survey expect the economy to grow by 3% to 5.9% over the next year while 28% were less optimistic, pegging growth over the next year at a far slower 0.1% to 2.9%.
That result represented a downgrade from the previous survey in July which had found an identical 66% who believed growth would be 3% to 5.9% but 20% of those surveyed expected growth to come in at an even stronger 6% to 8.9%. In the new survey, no NABE member saw growth higher than the 3% to 5.9% range over the next year.
The NABE forecast for GDP over the next year is generally in line with the expectations of many private forecasting firms.
The government on Thursday will release its first look at economic growth, as measured by the gross domestic product, for the July-September quarter. Economists are forecasting GDP grew at an annual rate of around 3% in the third quarter, a marked slowdown from growth rates of 6.1% in the first quarter and 6.7% in the second quarter.
The slowdown has been attributed to a surge in cases from the delta variant over the summer and supply chain problems which disrupted manufacturing output in many sectors, especially auto production and helped send consumer prices rising at the fastest pace in 13 years.
The NABE survey found 33% of those responding saw increased cost pressures as the biggest risk to their company’s outlook followed closely by 28% of NABE survey respondents who saw the possibility of higher COVID-19 cases as the biggest threat. Twenty percent saw further problems with supply chains as the biggest threat.
On the other side, 31% of the business economists saw an improving coronavirus outlook as offering the biggest potential for stronger growth than they are forecasting, followed by 26% who saw faster improvements in the supply chain problems as offering the biggest upside potential.
The NABE survey found that 47% of the survey group indicated their companies were experiencing worker shortages, up from 39% in July. None of the NABE survey members felt these labor shortages would be resolved by the end of this year but 36% felt the labor situation will improve in 2022 while 14% said the labor shortages would still be around in 2023 or even later.
In terms of the supply chain problems, half of those surveyed said their companies were experiencing delays or shortages in receiving materials, up from 40% in the July survey.
Two-thirds of the NABE survey group, 65%, reported that sales had increased at their firms in the third quarter, down slightly from the 66% who had reported rising sales in the second quarter.
“It is clear that the finance, insurance and real estate sectors experienced a strong third quarter according to survey respondents while the transportation, utilities, information and communication sectors suffered the largest deterioration across the board,” said Eugenio J. Alemán, chief economist at the Energy Information Administration and the chair of the NABE business conditions survey.
The NABE survey represented responses from 91 NABE members to the survey conducted Oct. 6-14.
Applying for mortgage preapproval before you shop for homes can make your offer more competitive.
A good Realtor will communicate with sellers and take your finances into consideration.
You can offer more than the asking price and waive contingencies, but make sure you're OK with it.
This article is part of "The Road to Home" series focused on helping first-time homebuyers navigate the daunting and exhilarating process of purchasing a home.
Today's real-estate market is competitive, and there are often multiple offers on one home. This means you may need to take action to make your offer stand out. Here are a few options for putting together a successful offer.
Get preapproved for a mortgage
Once you're ready to shop for homes, apply for preapproval with at least one mortgage lender. In a preapproval, the lender tells you which types of loans you could be eligible to take out, how much you may be approved to borrow, and what your rate could be. Once you've been preapproved, your rate is typically locked in for 60 or 90 days.
It's useful to apply for preapproval before you find the home you want to buy. You'll know how much you're approved to borrow, which will give you a good idea of what you can afford.
Having a preapproval letter in hand when you make an offer shows the seller that you're a serious buyer. They'll also see that you are financially stable enough to be preapproved for a mortgage by a lender. A preapproval letter could give you a leg up over other prospective buyers who don't have letters yet.
As you search for real-estate agents, look for candidates who are Realtors. (Look for that capital R.)
All Realtors are real-estate agents, but not all real-estate agents are Realtors. Both are certified, but Realtors are members of the National Association of Realtors®. This means they have to abide by a strict code of ethics, and they may have additional certifications. For example, an At Home with Diversity Certification teaches Realtors how to work with buyers of different cultures, and a Military Relocation Professional Certification is useful for Realtors working with military members and veterans.
A good agent will work hard to communicate with the seller, tailor your experience to your needs, and make your offer competitive without increasing it to more than you can afford.
Consider offering more than the asking price
The US real-estate market is a seller's market right now, which means there aren't enough houses for all the people who want to buy. As a result, many homes are selling for more than the asking price.
A higher dollar amount can make your offer stand out, but think about the consequences before you bump up the offer. You don't want to pay more if you ultimately can't afford to do so. It probably isn't a good idea if the resulting higher monthly payments will make your life difficult in the long run.
Consider waiving contingencies
When you make an offer on the home, you will sign a contract before you close. You and the seller will agree to certain contingencies in this contact, which are the terms under which you will close on the home. You'll sign this contract after you make an offer but before you officially close.
For example, an appraisal contingency may state that if the appraisal shows that the home is worth less than a certain dollar amount, you can legally cancel the contract. An inspection contingency states that you have a certain amount of time to get the home inspected; you may cancel the contract if more than a certain amount is needed for repairs or request that the seller cover repairs.
There can be multiple contingencies in your contract, and waiving some could make your offer more competitive. The more contingencies there are, the greater risk that the deal will fall through — so a seller may prefer a buyer who waives contingencies.
Don't waive any contingencies that are important to you, though. If you know you want a general inspection, for example, don't waive the inspection contingency and risk buying a home that will cost you tens of thousands of dollars in repairs.
There are several ways to make your offer on a home successful, but think about whether these steps are worth any sacrifices.
Laura Grace Tarpley is an editor at Insider, responsible for banking and mortgage coverage on Personal Finance Insider. She covers mortgage rates, refinance rates, lenders, bank accounts, and borrowing and savings tips. She is also a Certified Educator in Personal Finance (CEPF). Before joining the Insider team, she was a freelance finance writer for companies like SoFi and The Penny Hoarder, as well as an editor at FluentU. You can reach Laura Grace at ltarpley@insider.com.Learn more about how Personal Finance Insider chooses, rates, and covers financial products and services »
When Amish gather for worship each week, they regularly sing the solemn, German-dialect hymns that their spiritual forebears composed nearly five centuries ago in a condition akin to that of 17 missionaries recently kidnapped in Haiti — captivity.
Those hymns emerged from miserable prison conditions experienced by early Anabaptists — founders of the movement carried on today by Amish, Mennonites, Brethren and others — and their words extolled the virtues of loving one’s tormentors and persevering at risk of persecution, even martyrdom.
So when kidnappers in Haiti abducted 12 adult missionaries and five of their children, including an infant, it wasn’t surprising that those sharing that Christian tradition would draw on these values as they joined around-the-clock prayer vigils.
The words of the captors’ families and supporters, while holding out hope for the safety of the hostages, put a heavy emphasis on different themes: “Love your enemies.” “Forgive them.” “Pray for the kidnappers.”
One joint statement by the hostages’ families even spoke of the situation in welcoming terms. “God has given our loved ones the unique opportunity to live out our Lord’s command to, 'love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,'” said the statement, issued by Christian Aid Ministries. It is based in Ohio’s Amish heartland of Holmes County, and has operated in Haiti and other lands for nearly four decades.
Such statements may seem surprising, even callous, to those who might expect the prayers to focus on the well-being of loved ones.
But these statements are deeply rooted in the unique religious tradition of conservative Anabaptists — a group that shares some beliefs with mainstream evangelical Christians, such as salvation through Jesus, but also has stark differences.
Conservative Anabaptists largely seek to live separate from mainstream society and are distinctive for their plain dress, with women wearing head coverings. They emphasize a “non-resistance” to evil and violence, a stance that goes far beyond their refusal to serve in the military. They also have a deep tradition of martyrdom – well-earned, since their forebears suffered fierce persecutions from their 16th century Reformation origins, when they were deemed too radical to Catholics and fellow Protestants alike.
Anabaptists in particular draw on the biblical Sermon on the Mount, which contains some of Jesus’ most radical and counter-cultural sayings — to love enemies, live simply, bless persecutors, turn the other cheek, endure sufferings joyfully.
“Living out the Sermon on the Mount principles is one of the key tenets of our faith,” said Wayne Wengerd, a member of a steering committee that represents the Amish in church-state relations. “That is something that we take literally.”
Those principles mandate “we do good to those who hurt or persecute us, and we pray for not only those that are likeminded but those that are not yet within the faith," he said.
Wengerd, who lives in Wayne County, adjacent to Holmes, said it would be a misunderstanding to view such a mindset as callous to the real suffering involved with the kidnappings.
“People are still concerned, they are aware, they talk about it, they pray and of course hope for a good outcome,” he said. At the same time, “We realize as Christians, as followers of Christ, there will be persecution.”
The missionary group was kidnapped Oct. 16 while returning from a visit to an orphanage supported by CAM. The 400 Mawozo gang has threatened to kill the 16 Americans and one Canadian if ransom demands aren’t met.
CAM says those kidnapped are from Amish, Mennonite and other conservative Anabaptist communities in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Ontario. Conservative Anabaptists make up the core of CAM’s missionary staff, donors and volunteers.
Wengerd said Anabaptists draw on resources such as the “Ausbund,” a hymnal that includes the 16th century prison hymns, and the book, “Martyrs Mirror,” for “reminding us of the cost of discipleship in Christ’s kingdom.”
“Martyrs Mirror” tells of hundreds of Anabaptists and other Christians who died for their faith. One entry tells of Dirk Willems, a 16th century Dutch Anabaptist who was fleeing authorities in winter — but turned around to saved the life of a pursuer who had fallen through the ice. Willems was arrested and executed anyway. His example of sacrificial love for an enemy is still widely taught.
An often-cited modern example of Anabaptist values is the response of the Amish community around Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, after a gunman killed five Amish schoolgirls and wounded five more in 2006 before taking his own life. Local Amish immediately expressed forgiveness for the killer and supported his widow. “If we do not forgive, how can we expect to be forgiven?” the Amish leaders said in a statement.
Marcus Yoder, executive director of the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center in Holmes County, said he often tells the story of Dirk Willems to groups touring the museum. One tour included a survivor of the Nickel Mines shooting.
“She cried and cried and cried,” Yoder recalled. “Her father had used the story to talk to his own family about forgiveness. These pieces of our history really do reside a long time in our worldview and theology.”
Yoder, a Mennonite minister, said these examples shouldn’t obscure the ordeal of those whose loved ones were kidnapped. “I cannot imagine the anguish that the families are going through,” he said.
Steven Nolt, professor of History and Anabaptist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, recalled attending one of the Nickel Mines funerals in which the preacher said within a span of a few minutes, “We don’t understand but we just accept what happened as God’s will” and “It’s not God’s will that people shoot other people.”
That seems contradictory, said Nolt. But it reflects a profound belief in “divine providence” — that believers can’t always understand why things happen, but they “can know what God wants and how humans are to live.”
Ron Marks, pastor of Hart Dunkard Brethren Church in Hart, Michigan, whose members include a parent with children who are among the hostages, said it is “our Lord’s command” to pray for one’s persecutors and seek their conversion. “That would be the ultimate positive outcome of this ordeal,” he said.
Many in the outside world have valorized Anabaptists’ beliefs in forgiveness.
But it has a dark side, say advocates for victims of sexual abuse in Anabaptist communities. They say victims and their families are often forced to reconcile with abusers after the latter make a confession and undergo a brief period of discipline.
Hope Anne Dueck, co-founder of A Better Way — an Ohio-based group that provides education on sexual abuse and advocates for victims in Anabaptist and other church settings — said the current focus needs to be on the safety of the hostages.
But the kidnappings follow by two years the eruption of a sexual-abuse scandal involving one of CAM’s former longtime missionaries to Haiti, Jeriah Mast. He was sentenced in Holmes County in 2019 to nine years in prison for having earlier abused two boys in Ohio, and his judge said at his sentencing that Mast had also confessed to molesting at least 30 boys in Haiti.
The current hostage crisis “has caused a lot of pain in the survivor and advocacy community for those who have experienced sexual abuse or grieved what has happened to Jeriah’s victims,” Dueck said.
She strongly endorsed the current prayer chain on behalf of the hostages but lamented: “As far as I know, there were no 24/7, around-the-clock prayer chains for Jeriah’s victims.”
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Looking every bit the classic Hollywood superstar, British singer Adele's two-hour CBS special called Adele: One Night Only premiered on Sunday night.
The prerecorded event featured an interview with Oprah Winfrey and an intimate concert performance of old hits and new songs from the singer's upcoming album, 30, set to be released on Nov. 19.
Here is everything you need to know about Adele's glamorous performance, her first album in six years, her weight loss and her recent divorce.
Performs 4 new songs to star-studded audience
Performing at the iconic Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, Adele sang 10 songs, including four new tracks from 30, her upcoming album: Hold On;Love Is A Game; and the lead singles Easy On Me and I Drink Wine. It was an intimate but star-studded affair, with attendees such as Drake, Leonardo DiCaprio, Seth Rogen, Melissa McCarthy, Ellen DeGeneres and Lizzo spotted in the audience.
Listen to Adele's only Canadian interview with Q host Tom Power on CBC Radio or on-demand this Friday, and watch on The National on Sunday.
About midway through the special, the singer hushed her audience so that a fan could surprise his girlfriend onstage with a marriage proposal. To the delight of her audience, she serenaded the engaged couple with her cover of the Bob Dylan-written Make You Feel My Love.
We dare you to try to name something more perfect than #ADELE singing “Someone Like You” at dusk.
During the singer's exclusive sit-down interview with Oprah, she admitted that she "kept the alcohol industry alive" in the wake of her split from ex-husband Simon Konecki — but eventually stopped drinking completely.
The former couple were married in 2018 and separated a year later, which Adele said was "embarrassing," as it felt like she couldn't make her marriage work.
"I've been obsessed with a nuclear family my whole life because I never came from one," the singer said, in reference to her father's absence. She added that she'd always been "fascinated" by alcohol as her dad struggled with substance abuse.
"I would like to do...the same for people that feel so alone when they're feeling something to be reminded that they're not alone." - #ADELEpic.twitter.com/4rZHrWUmth
Explaining why she divorced her husband, the singer said that she wanted to be the "happy version" of herself in front of their nine-year-old son. She noted that while many tend to stay in difficult marriages for a child's sake, leaving one can be an equal act of love.
"I was really ignoring myself for a long time, which was wild to me when I realized it."
She added that she sometimes feels "selfish" for "dismantling" her son's life for her own happiness, but believes he would be "furious" with her if she stayed in an unhappy relationship. Her album 30 is partially a way of explaining her divorce to her child; the record is dedicated to him, but the songs are about her life.
The singer's dramatic weight loss was the subject of intense public scrutiny. She shared that she lost roughly 100 pounds in two years — but the change wasn't planned.
"It wasn't even really about the weight," she told Winfrey. "It was about my anxiety."
After a stretch of issues with deep, "terrifying" anxiety, the singer realized that her feelings subsided during workouts and she began exercising on a daily basis. She said that she is an athlete who loves boxing and lifting weights.
Of fans who were let down by the physical transformation, she said, "It's not my job to validate how people feel about their bodies," adding that she has been objectified for her entire career. "I'm trying to sort my own life out!"
The most beautiful venue I’ve ever played. Thank you to everyone who made it possible. To Oprah for allowing me to tell my truth lovingly in a safe space. The whole thing was pretty overwhelming, I’ve seen it twice and cried my eyes out both times.
Adele said she spent years trying to heal from her father's absence and "lack of effort" during her childhood. She said the song To Be Loved from her new album is about her difficult relationship with him.
Adele's father, Mark Evans, died last May of bowel cancer. Having reconciled with him shortly after he fell ill, she says that she "felt that huge, gaping hole fill" after his death. She added that until she shared her new album with him, including playing him To Be Loved over Zoom, her father had only listened to her debut 2007 single Hometown Glory and nothing else.
"Him really understanding my childhood wound through my song was amazing for me," the singer said.
Relationship with Rich Paul 1st time 'I've loved myself'
In an October interview with Vogue Magazine, Adele confirmed that she is dating sports agent Rich Paul. The couple met a few years ago on the dance floor during a friend's birthday party.
The singer told Winfrey that the relationship marks the first time she has "loved myself and been open to loving and being loved by someone else."
"He's hilarious; he's so funny. He's very smart. It's quite incredible watching him do what he does," she said, adding that there is an ease to their relationship.
The rollout to get COVID-19 vaccines into kids' arms could begin as early as next week.
Why it matters: Many parents have been eagerly awaiting this moment for months, especially as schools returned to in-person instruction. And doctors, pharmacists and federal regulators already have a plan in place to help get kids vaccinated as soon as possible.
State of play: The FDA is expected to sign off today on an emergency use authorization for Pfizer's vaccine in kids ages 5-11 — two shots that are each about a third of the size of the adult dose. Then the CDC will likely recommend that people actually get the shots.
What's next: The Biden administration and Pfizer have coordinated to make sure more than 25,000 pediatric and primary care offices — along with hundreds of community clinics, and tens of thousands of pharmacies — will have doses available as soon as they get the government's stamp of approval.
Pfizer is expected to begin shipping vaccines, specifically packaged for child-sized doses, as early as this weekend, said Christopher Cox, a senior vice president in CVS Health's pharmacy division.
The vaccines may not be available everywhere all at once. CVS will have the vaccine in "thousands" of locations on day one, but not in every store, Cox said.
What we're watching: Experts say that about a third of families will want to get their newly eligible kids vaccinated right away.
"I think there will be enough in the market in the first week for that third of the population who will want to rush in," Cox said. "The trick will be matching the doses with where the demand is ... I think [the vaccine] is going to be in every community really early on."
Doses could be available from primary care providers and for pediatric inpatients as early as Wednesday, said Claire Boogaard, a pediatrician and the medical director of the COVID-19 Vaccine Program at Children's National Hospital.
Her hospital will also offer "larger-scale, invite-only mass vaccine events" on Saturdays, so that kids don't have to miss school, she said. And while some parents may prefer to go to their pediatrician, "it's perfectly safe to go to a pharmacy," especially when time is a factor, she noted.
The bottom line: The vaccines are likely coming. But kids won't be fully vaccinated by Thanksgiving.
Like the adult shots, the first and second doses must be spaced at least three weeks apart.
"If it mimics the antibody levels we saw in adults, it's not even halfway protective," Boogaard said. "So still be vigilant over the holiday. Wear your masks."
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Marques Armstrong had just got out of the shower one morning this fall when he heard gunshots that seemed to come from his Minneapolis backyard. After ducking, he ran upstairs to check on his wife and daughter, then looked out to see a car speed away.
“Everybody says we want the police to be held accountable and we want fair policing. No one has said we need to get rid of the police,” said Armstrong, a Black activist who owns a mental health practice and a clothing store. “There needs to be a huge overhaul from the ground up, but we need some form of community safety because over here shots are ringing out day and night.”
The ballot proposal that goes to voters Tuesday has roots in the abolish-the-police movement that erupted after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer last year. It has drawn strong support from younger Black activists who were mobilized by Floyd’s death, as well as from some Black and white residents across this liberal city.
Many people of color who live in the city’s highest-crime areas say they fear a steep drop in the number of police officers will leave them more vulnerable amid a dramatic spike in violent crime.
The debate over racial justice in policing that erupted after Floyd’s death has brought national attention to Tuesday’s vote, as well as a river of out-of-state money seeking to influence an outcome that might shape change elsewhere, too.
Raeisha Williams, an activist with Guns Down Love Up, said she believes the plan’s supporters are mainly white residents who haven’t experienced police misconduct or the violence that Black residents are seeing on the north side. Her brother, Tyrone, died in a shooting there in 2018.
“It’s like our voices are not heard — they are hijacking a movement yet again and making it their own,” said Williams, who is Black.
JaNaé Bates, one of the young, Black activists leading the movement to pass the ballot proposal, said her group worked hard to take all voices into account. Bates said more than 1,400 of the roughly 20,000 signatures on the petitions to get the measure on the ballot came from north side residents.
Bates said their effort to inform people about what the initiative would do involved knocking on the doors of north Minneapolis homes to hear the voices of those most affected by public safety issues.
“We’ve been extremely intentional because the residents of these neighborhoods are tired of accepting the status quo, both around police brutality and community violence,” Bates said.
Steve Fletcher, a white City Council member who supports replacing the police department, said there’s both support and opposition to the plan from all areas of the city.
“I think a lot of people are just recognizing that we cannot be the city that killed George Floyd and didn’t grow or change,” he said.
The ballot question calls for a new Department of Public Safety to take “a comprehensive public health approach to the delivery of functions” that would be determined by the mayor and City Council. Fletcher and other supporters argue it’s a chance to reimagine what public safety can be and how money gets spent. A frequent example from supporters is funding programs that don’t send armed officers to call on people in crisis.
“Nobody is proposing to reduce our investment in public safety,” Fletcher said. “We are proposing to change the way that we make those investments, and ultimately I think in the end, investing more in public safety than we ever have.”
The change is being proposed as violent crime in the city is spiking. There have been roughly 80 homicides in Minneapolis so far this year – 35 on the north side, according to online police department crime data. Three victims were children, including one who was shot while jumping on a trampoline at a birthday party. The city could near the record 97 homicides of 1995, when it drew the nickname “Murderapolis.”
That trend is compounded by the fact the city is down about 300 officers from its authorized force of 888, partly due to officers claiming post-traumatic stress disorder after Floyd’s death and the unrest in the city that followed.
Jerome Rankine, a Black resident in the Kingfield neighborhood on the city’s more affluent southwest side, strongly backs the amendment. Rankine, who also sits on his neighborhood association board, says dropping the city’s requirement for a minimum number of officers would open the way to innovative ideas to change policing.
“Unfortunately, the way that our city charter is set up, we lack the power to turn those ideas into reality,“ he said. “I’m voting yes because a yes vote is a vote for taking the barrier to change out of the equation and taking these imaginative ideas of how our policing system can be better.”
Rankine’s board last week endorsed a vote in support of the public safety question. He said his own neighborhood is divided on the question, and that’s fine: “There are no monoliths that cut cleanly across lines, there’s no opinion that cuts cleanly across lines of race,” he said.
“If we are in a movement against police brutality then I feel like all should be welcome in that movement,” he said. “We have seen Minneapolis police take lives over the last several years and they’ve taken the lives of all races and backgrounds, so I feel like there should be no barriers to entry when it comes to being part of the movement.”
Bishop Divar Kemp of New Mt. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, back on the city’s north side, said the ballot question comes up every day at his church. He said the police department needs to be changed, but the current proposal is dangerous.
“We need the police -- there’s no other way I can say that,” he said.
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Mt. Juliet Police Department Police Chief James A. Hambrick is a leading visionary thought leader who has released a new project with some timely insights from a national perspective. Police Chief James A. Hambrick Coffee With A Cop
The Complex Dynamic Between 'Violence Interrupters' and Police
Rahson Johnson of Save Our Streets in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York on Oct. 8, 2021. Save Our Streets staff work on preventing gun violence in the neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant Booklyn by mediating conflicts and acting as peer counselors to the people who are at risk of perpetrating or being victimized by violence.
Just off a stretch of Eastern Parkway, the highway-like street that goes through many of Brooklyn, New York’s most disenfranchised neighborhoods, is a small office in Crown Heights.
What fills this small space is vital to the community. It’s the Crown Heights location for Save Our Streets (SOS), an activist group dedicated to combating gun violence in the borough. Inside there are desks, chairs and cubicles; a small indoor basketball hoop and a punching bag. There are posters on the walls, with portraits of Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. One reads “Don’t shoot, I want to grow up.” Another says “stop shooting, start living.”
Rahson Johnson (left), and Joshua Simon, work in the Save Our Streets office in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York on Oct. 8, 2021.
Nate Palmer for TIME
In a back room, a team of young Black men and women are preparing for a community event. They are volunteers, outreach workers and practitioners of what’s known as violence interruption—the work of credible neighborhood messengers attempting to quell violence within inner-city communities. Among them is Rahson Johnson, 46, the organization’s associate director of community safety. Johnson is stoic, measured and methodical as he prepares to lead the group outside for an event.
He guides some of the other members like it’s second nature, reminding them of the supplies to bring: a speaker, pamphlets, shirts, water, snacks and masks for COVID-19 safety.
They are heading to the scene of a shooting—a street corner where, on Aug. 1, a young man was killed. (The NYPD has since made an arrest in the case.) As they walk, SOS workers also try to hand out their cards to people on the street. In the middle of a residential area, they set up a speaker so the entire block can hear what they have to say: They’re there to denounce gun violence, and to remind the community that they’re available to offer any kind of help or support. And they’re coming from a real position of expertise—most of the interrupters, if not all, were previously involved in street crimes and gun violence themselves.
“[A lot of us] were people who, at one point, we’re the ones pulling the trigger,” Johnson tells TIME. Johnson grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant (otherwise known as Bed-Stuy) neighborhood and at a young age got caught up in criminal behavior. He says he was a “stick-up” kid, and got involved in robberies. At the age of 16, he was arrested for armed robbery and spent 23 years in prison.
During their event to condemn the shooting, one by one, the interrupters take the microphone. “Our community feels like every time there’s a conflict it needs to end in gun violence,” one says. “We are failing—we have to do better.”
Rahson Johnson of Save Our Streets in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York on Oct. 8, 2021. Save Our Streets staff work on preventing gun violence in Brooklyn by mediating conflicts and acting as peer counselors to the people who are at risk of perpetrating or being victimized by violence.
Nate Palmer for TIME
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a surge in gun violence has hit the U.S. hard. New York City has grappled as badly as any other city, if not worse. More than 1,400 people have been shot in NYC this year with 360 deaths as of Oct. 12. These numbers are on pace to match or surpass the total incidents and fatalities accrued in 2020. In the two areas where SOS operates—Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy—there have been more than 75 shootings incidents in 2021, with more than 90 victims and 18 deaths as of Oct. 12. (While both neighborhoods are on track to have lower shooting victim numbers and incidents than in 2020, this is still a devastating toll.)
SOS’s work is based upon the a model espoused by Cure Violence, a national organization that addresses gun violence as if it were a disease and works to ‘treat’ it. And as more attention is paid to these initiatives, there is increasing evidence that they are effective in reducing shootings.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency related to gun violence on Aug. 2. Cuomo had planned to use $139 million to address the rise in gun violence; after his resignation, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced $23.7 million in grant awards to “end the gun violence epidemic.” (Though Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment, it’s understood that her figure replace the monies Cuomo was calling for.) In September, Eric Adams, the Democratic Mayoral nominee, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Congress to invest $5 billion in community funding to combat gun violence in New York City, which includes the work of violence interrupters.
Their work is viewed by many as a possible alternative to policing; in some situations, they can be in conflict with more traditional police department methods. Some within the communities directly impacted by gun violence question which ‘side’ is more effective at addressing gun crimes, framing it as an either-or situation—though in a more ideal world, these two groups would operate together more seamlessly.
At that August event, after spreading their message via loudspeaker, the SOS workers move to the corner where the shooting happened. More onlookers and community members are present. While many of them express their gratitude for this work, others are less enthused. One man in particular debates with one of the violence interrupters, saying those involved in shootings are “too far gone” and “need to be locked up.” The interrupter respectfully disagrees.
As all of this is going on, a cop car is parked across the street, with a couple of officers sitting inside.
The differing roles of community members and community police
Though they operate in two different spheres, police and community groups like SOS play significant roles in addressing both gun violence and the wider socioeconomic issues that impact it.
In recent years, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has tried to prioritize “community policing,” programs that involve beat police officers building personal relationships with the communities they serve. In 2015, the department introduced the Neighborhood Coordinating Officers (NCO) program, spearheaded by former Commissioner Bill Bratton, which featured more community-oriented policing strategies.
“There was a sense that our department needed to make this a priority. We felt the pressure both internally and externally,” a former NYPD bureau chief explains. “I thought it was something that we needed to do.”
According to the Mayor’s Management Report, an annual public account of the performances of all city agencies in the fiscal year, “the effectiveness of patrol officers as local crime fighters and local problem solvers has been enhanced by Neighborhood Policing.”
Police watch as SOS members hold a peace march in response to a surge in shootings in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn on July 16, 2020.
Spencer Platt—Getty Images
NCOs are assigned to “sectors” in a particular precinct; their job is to build trust and relationships with the community—”helping prioritize and adapt police operations to respond to community concerns,” as the Mayor’s Management Report puts it. That way, residents can, in theory, call or text an NCO directly when dealing with problems or reporting concerns. Since making the NCO program permanent, the NYPD has dedicated significant resources to it. A total of 51 precincts in the NYPD currently have NCO officers, usually around five to six officers per precinct. In both Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights, many residents and community leaders say they appreciate their presence.
“It was about connecting the officers to the community,” Henry Butler, the district manager for Community Board 3, which includes Bed-Stuy, says of the NCO program. “It’s so the community can see a regular face. When they’re there, the officers do a good job.”
But while the sentiment behind the formation of the NCO program in New York appears sincere, experts and observers say that’s not always the case when police departments enact these kinds of initiatives. “I’ve seen good examples of [community policing], but sometimes it feels like [authorities] are just going through the motions,” Paul Carrillo, the community violence initiative director at the Giffords Law Center, says. “Is it really embedded in the mission and the goals of the department?
“[The police] don’t actually care. It’s all for show,” Ellera Lewis, a lifelong Bed-Stuy resident, told TIME in August.
Because of the way these systems are structured, SOS members and the NCOs operate in the same neighborhoods and address some of the same concerns. Separately. SOS members say that they stay out of officers’ way—and that, for the most part, the police show them that same courtesy.
But there were some conflicts within their interactions in the summer of 2020 amid fallout from George Floyd’s murder, which was a turning point for both of these groups. According to SOS members, residents and community leaders who spoke with TIME, some officers were “upset” by calls to defund the police—and with the praise groups like SOS were getting. At the height of the protests, some SOS staff members say that they were asked by NYPD officials to “stand with the police.”(The NYPD did not respond to questions from TIME on this matter.)
Joshua Simon of Save Our Streets in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York on Oct. 8, 2021.
Nate Palmer for TIME
“There’s no way in the world we were going out there to stand with [the police],” Simon says. “We denounce all gun violence, including police gun violence.” SOS members make it clear that they would never cooperate with the police in solving crimes.
At the same time, in the eyes of community members, the police took a step back from their responsibilities. Residents say they saw fewer officers—and fewer NCOs specifically—on the streets. Though this can’t be the sole reason for the sharp increase in gun violence that summer, it was a loud and clear statement to some people.
In the year since SOS members tell TIME they believe the dynamic between them and the police has more or less gone back to normal. But even normal can be tense and it’s a baseline that both groups are tasked with working to better.
Finding middle ground
There’s no denying the work SOS members do is dangerous, and none of them are armed.
SOS’s Rahson Johnson recalls a specific incident back in 2019 when two young men—who Johnson says had been close friends “to the point where they referred to each other as brothers”—were in conflict over a girl one of them was dating. According to Johnson, the situation could have become dangerous. To mediate, he and another worker brought the two into the SOS office to discuss their differences. At first, the discussion was tense, Johnson recalls. The two men were yelling and trying to offend one another. Johnson says he told them both to take a pause and to focus on how their conflict had made them feel like individuals. He reminded them of how close they were. Eventually, they were able to come to an understanding and resolve the issue.
This speaks to the breadth of issues violence interrupters can work to address—their work is by no means limited to crimes. The goal for the SOS workers is to resolve every conflict they encounter, but that’s not their reality.
“You have people in this community whose mindset is strictly survival—and for them, the only way to survive is with a [gun] in their hand,” Johnson says. “It can be very challenging to change that.”
“It may be out of [our] control; the person is like ‘man, my mind is made up, this is what I’m going to do,’” adds Joshua Simon, a violence interrupter with the Bed-Stuy SOS office. So they may try and reach the person again the next day or the day after that. “Hopefully the message will resonate with them,” Simon says.
In some instances, when the interrupters can see a situation getting out of control and know that the police will soon be involved, they’ll ask if they can try and resolve it first. There have also been times, according to some SOS members, when NCOs have asked for help dealing with individuals.
“[The police] will say ‘we don’t want to have to lock them up. Can you guys talk to them,’” Lawrence Brown, an SOS member with the Bed-Stuy office says. “The answer is not always imprisonment, and so we appreciate when they do that.”
However, that’s as far as it’ll go. “We can only de-escalate a situation before it happens,” Simon says. “We’re not looking to make arrests—that’s the police job.”
Joshua Simon (right) and Rahson Johnson of Save Our Streets talk to community members in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York on Oct. 8, 2021.
Nate Palmer for TIME
In the four-block radius that the Bed-Stuy interrupters operate on, there has not been a shooting incident for 285 days as of Oct. 12. For the Crown Heights area, it’s been 78 days as of Oct. 12. The NYPD declined to allow TIME to interview NCOs—who are tasked with operating in a larger area—on the record for this story and did not provide TIME with comparable statistics or tracking related to officers’ work.
Butler appreciates the NCOs and believes they do a good job, but says the officers’ hands are tied: “The problem with the program is that the NCOs are only there for six to nine months,” Butler says. “By the time they build up that relationship with the community, they move on. It sort of defeats the actual purpose of the program.”
And what’s also hard to parse out is a preference from community members in these neighborhoods for one model or the other. Some activists have argued that it shouldn’t have to be an either/or situation. “Police do things that [violence interrupters] can’t. Violence interrupters have a connection to the community that the police don’t have,” Carrillo says. “There needs to be reform in some cases more than others but the interruption side of it and the police side of it are both important.”
Reflecting on the past 18 months, Johnson says he sees the shift in the discussion around gun violence: more people talking about it, more people working to find solutions. His hope is that the conversation goes beyond just the physical trauma that comes with the violence.
“The idea is safety. I don’t think that we have really honed in on the emotional safety and trauma that’s sustained over a period of time,” Johnson says. “For me, the question is how do we show up the next day, the next week with resources to help heal the community?”
Mt. Juliet Police Chief James A. Hambrick's New Project
