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Aug 8, 2020 • 10 tweets • 5 min read

States are going broke.

Personal income taxes and sales taxes — two leading generators of revenue — are crashing across the country. And so state legislators are considering some drastic actions. n.pr/3invyN0

@azpmnews

In Arizona, when tax revenues for April were released in June, the picture was not as dire as analysts initially predicted.

The state was facing a budget shortfall of $700 million at most. @azpmnews n.pr/3gMJQq8

@CapRadioNews

California was projecting a $5.6 billion surplus in January. The pandemic quickly transformed that into a $54 billion deficit. @CapRadioNews n.pr/2XCbU7Z

@COPublicRadio

Colorado state lawmakers had to slash about a quarter of the budget to keep state finances in the black. Of the $3.3 billion cut, education and health care were hit especially hard. @COPublicRadio

@DelawarePublic

In Delaware, the pandemic left state lawmakers with about $400 million less to work with than projected in January.

To soften the blow, the state used half of a nearly $126 million budget stabilization fund created in 2018. @DelawarePublic n.pr/2DO2TBs

@WFSUNews

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently approved the largest financial vetoes in state history, canceling out over $1 billion in spending for the upcoming fiscal year.

He called the cuts the "equivalent of the red wedding from Game of Thrones." @WFSUNews n.pr/33DIfiw

@mygpb

In Georgia, the new fiscal year has started out with more than $2 billion in cuts — about 10% of the state budget — as revenues are projected to continue to decline because of the pandemic. @mygpb n.pr/3kr3Fp3

@wearehpr

Hawaii is facing a potential budget shortfall of more than $2 billion. In the span of two months, its economy went from having the lowest unemployment rate in the country to one of the highest. @wearehpr n.pr/2PBgMFV

@NETNewsNebraska

Nebraska expects to have only about $50 million less to spend than projected before the pandemic, nowhere near the kind of dropoff seen in other states. @NETNewsNebraska n.pr/3a96q9A

@wvpublic

West Virginia's governor has faced criticism for how he decided to use some of his state's $1.25 billion from the federal CARES Act, meant for states to cover coronavirus-related expenses. @wvpublic n.pr/3kvEB0i

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Jan 15

The CDC has reported that in a single 12-month period, fatal overdoses claimed 101,623 lives.

Researchers and drug policy experts say the grim toll obscures an important and hopeful fact: Most Americans who experience alcohol and drug addiction survive.
n.pr/3fsGuJI

Americans often see the more destructive side of addiction, drug crime, people slumped in doorways and family members who are spiraling downward.

Less visible are the people who survive the illness and rebuild their lives.

A study published by the CDC and the National Institute on Drug Abuse in 2020 found 3 out of 4 people who experience addiction eventually recover.

"I think it kind of goes against our cultural perception that people never get better," said Dr. John Kelly.

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Nov 17, 2021

Racial covenants — language that barred Black people and other minorities from living in white neighborhoods — are still on the books across the U.S.

They're unenforceable now, but remain an ugly reminder of the nation’s racist past.

And they can be shockingly hard to remove 🧵

Experts estimate there are millions of racist covenants still on the books across the U.S.

“I’d be surprised to find any city that did not have restrictive covenants,” says LaDale Winling, an expert on housing discrimination.

Another historian, Colin Gordon, argues that racist covenants are the “original sin” of segregation in America — and are largely responsible for the racial wealth gap that we see today. npr.org/2021/11/17/104…

Read 7 tweets

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@NPR

Nov 9, 2021

Exclusive: We obtained secret tapes of an emergency NRA meeting held shortly after the Columbine shooting that reveal the group’s PR strategy.

Officials considered a victims fund — but worried it would be “crass” and chose an unapologetic stance instead.
n.pr/2Yt3Slm

The conference call was convened so top NRA officials could decide whether to cancel their 1999 Denver convention, scheduled just a few miles away from the site of the mass shooting that left 13 dead and 20 injured.

Some agonized over the optics.

One PR adviser worried that canceling the convention would result in the NRA’s most extreme members descending on the Denver area — and top officials derided those members as “hillbillies” and “fruitcakes” who might go off-script after Columbine and embarrass them.

Read 8 tweets

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@NPR

Aug 26, 2021

President Biden said the group known as ISIS-K had long planned attacks on American personnel and others, which is why he wanted to limit the duration of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

So, what is ISIS-K? Here's what is known about the group:

n.pr/2WscxDH

The Islamic State Khorasan formed in late 2014 and operates as an ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Khorasan is a historical term for a region that includes present-day Afghanistan and parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. The group is also known as ISIS-K or IS-K.

The founding members included militants who left both the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban.

In a 2015, the group's leader at the time, Hafiz Saeed Khan, and other top commanders pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State's then-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Read 7 tweets

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Aug 26, 2021

The stolen data from China's massive hack of Microsoft Exchange accounts in January may be part of a grander plan: fueling the development of world-class artificial intelligence.

(A thread.)
npr.org/2021/08/26/101…

Chinese government-backed hackers, known as Hafnium, stole Microsoft Exchange data from tens of thousands of unsuspecting victims: mom-and-pop shops, dentist offices, school districts and local government — all part of a brazen effort to vacuum up as much information as possible.

A Microsoft security chief said he'd never seen an attack scale up so quickly. Nation-state hackers usually focus on clear targets — they don’t have a scatter-shot approach.

In this case, the Chinese acted like cybercriminals, seemingly unconcerned about whom they swept up.

Read 8 tweets

NPR

@NPR

Jul 18, 2021

1/ Sonia Gutierrez achieved her dream of becoming a reporter at her hometown news station KUSA 9News, but it came at a steep cost.

If she wanted to cover immigration, she was told, she had to disclose her own immigration status on air, in every story. n.pr/3xTu2dy

2/ Gutierrez says she balked at the station's directive. She was told she could continue pitching stories about immigration but, she says, she found them subjected to more scrutiny than that given to other reporters.

3/ She was ousted from her job along with two other Latina journalists. One had pushed editors to involve Black and Latino colleagues in more decisions about news coverage. The other was dropped as she was recovering from a stroke. She had also pushed for better coverage.

Read 5 tweets

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