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☆ Expired Paper License Plates Multiplied During Covid. The Crackdown Is Here.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-19 | by ( Michael Corkery | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After hearing complaints about streets filled with cars with expired temporary license tags, the mayor of St. Charles, Mo., invited his constituents to send in photos of bad plates. He received more than 4,100 in a year — from a city of about 71,000 people. The crackdown on “temp tags” comes in response to a problem that officials say has festered for years but exploded during the Covid-19 pandemic, alongside other chaos on American roads. Fatalities from car crashes rose, while pedestrian deaths in 2021 reached their highest level since the early 1980s. The rise in fake or expired plates has been robbing governments of needed revenue and making it harder to enforce traffic laws, which the American driver seems more emboldened than ever to ignore, part of a larger erosion of social mores.

Persons: Charles Organizations: St, D.C Locations: Mo, Washington, “, Texas

☆ As Bridge Cleanup Gets Underway, Officials Warn of ‘Daunting’ Process
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-29 | by ( Michael Corkery | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

With search and rescue efforts over, officials have fully turned to the cleanup and rebuilding phase in the aftermath of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. But reconstructing the bridge will be a long process, federal and state officials cautioned. The bridge collapse on Tuesday, caused by a 985-foot ship that struck a critical component of the structure, has rocked Baltimore and the shipping industry at large. Officials have called off the search for the other missing men, who are presumed dead, saying divers can no longer reach the area where they believe more victims remain, and moved to a cleanup operation. Wes Moore of Maryland said of the process on Thursday, declining to give a timeline.

Persons: Francis Scott Key, Wes Moore, Maryland Organizations: Port, Baltimore Locations: Baltimore, Port of Baltimore

☆ California Prosecutors Filing Murder Charges in More Fentanyl Deaths
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Michael Corkery | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Just about every state in America has cracked down on fentanyl distribution, by stepping up arrests and increasing prison sentences. But few places are as aggressive as Riverside County, Calif., in prosecuting people who supply fatal does of fentanyl. Since late 2021, the Riverside County district attorney, Mike Hestrin, has charged 34 suspected fentanyl suppliers with murder and is said to be the first prosecutor in California to achieve a guilty verdict from a jury in a fentanyl-related homicide trial. Riverside County has a reputation for aggressively prosecuting crimes (a “prosecutor’s paradise,” one local defense lawyer calls it). And like Riverside, some other counties — like San Diego and Placer, near Sacramento — that have also brought murder charges against fentanyl suppliers have sizable numbers of conservative-minded voters who tend to favor more punitive approaches to crime.

Persons: Mike Hestrin, ”, Hestrin Organizations: “ Locations: America, Riverside County, Calif, California, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Placer, Sacramento

☆ Oregon Leaders Declare Drug Emergency in Portland
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Michael Corkery | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Portland used to be known as one of the most desirable places to live in the United States. The emergency declaration is part of a broader plan announced late last year by Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, to curb public drug use and crime in Portland and re-establish a sense of security for workers and visitors. Kotek cited the “economic and reputational harm” that the fentanyl problem was inflicting on Portland and the state. Background: Oregon decriminalized most public drug use in 2020. State officials said a “command center” would be set up in central Portland, where various agencies from the state, city and county would coordinate their responses to the fentanyl problem.

Persons: REI, Oregon’s, Tina Kotek, Kotek Locations: Portland, United States, “, Oregon

☆ Maine, a Rare Democratic-Controlled State With Loose Gun Laws
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-25 | by ( Michael Corkery | Shaila Dewan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Maine, a largely blue state where Democrats control both chambers of the State Legislature and the governorship, has a long history of resisting gun control measures. The shootings in Lewiston on Wednesday that left 18 people dead are already fueling renewed calls from gun control groups to expand firearms restrictions in Maine. In regions where hunting is a big part of the culture, “if you are going to talk about restricting gun rights,’’ Mr. Brewer said, “you are going to have a hard time.”The authorities have not made public any information about what type of firearm was used in the Lewiston shootings on Wednesday, nor anything about how the weapon was obtained. Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates for tighter restrictions on guns, ranks Maine 25th in the nation in the strictness of its gun laws, with more permissive laws than nearby Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut.

Persons: Mark Brewer, ’, Mr, Brewer Organizations: Maine Senate, State Legislature, University of Maine, Safety, Maine Locations: Lewiston, Maine’s, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire

Hours before the wildfire became an inferno that wiped out the historic Hawaiian town of Lahaina, officials at the West Maui Land Company reached out to the state with an urgent request. The company, a real estate developer that supplies water to areas southeast of Lahaina, took note of the dangerous combination of high winds and drought-parched grasses Maui was facing. It asked for permission to fill up one of its private reservoirs in case firefighters needed it. In the interim, a brush fire that had been contained that morning flared up once again and swept through Lahaina, burning everything in its path. It is unlikely that filling up the private reservoir would have changed the course of the Lahaina wildfire, state officials say, and winds were so high that day that helicopter crews would have been unable to reach it.

Organizations: Maui Land Company Locations: Lahaina, Maui

Some Hawaii residents who lost their homes and jobs said they could not see how they would be able to stay. Many said they feared Lahaina would simply re-emerge as another Waikiki, dominated by corporate-owned luxury brands and packed with tourists. Four of her employees lost their homes. Already, a friend who ran a jewelry business in Lahaina told her that he planned to move his family to Kentucky. She said she hoped officials would approve building permits for reconstruction and allow people to reopen businesses that employ workers quickly.

Persons: Angie Leone Organizations: Leones Locations: Hawaii, Lahaina, Waikiki, Kentucky

The wildfires that leveled the town of Lahaina on Maui wiped out shops, restaurants and a hotel built more than century ago, burning across some of the most spectacular and wealthiest enclaves of the state. High-profile billionaires including Oprah Winfrey, Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos all have homes on Maui. But the deadly blaze also destroyed something less visible yet vital to this island’s economic survival: modest houses and apartments where many workers running Maui’s booming tourism industry lived. The destruction in Lahaina has highlighted Maui’s longstanding challenge with housing for the people who work in its hotels and on its golf courses, without whom the island could not function as a beloved destination for visitors from around the world. “We already had a housing crisis,’’ said Leslie Wilkins, president of the Maui Economic Development Board.

Persons: Oprah Winfrey, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, ’ ’, Leslie Wilkins, ” Organizations: Maui Economic Development Board Locations: Lahaina, Maui

☆ Fighting for Anthony: The Struggle to Save Portland, Oregon
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-29 | by ( Michael Corkery | More About Michael Corkery | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Come to Portland, his sister said. In 2018, Anthony Saldana took his sister’s advice. He left Las Vegas, where he was working in a casino, and moved to a Portland suburb. By early 2021, he was living in a tent, under a tree on the edge of a highway in Portland. He wouldn’t let his sister, Kaythryn Richardson, visit him and shared only a few details with her about his life on the streets.

Persons: Anthony Saldana, Saldana, wouldn’t, Kaythryn Richardson Organizations: Home, Disney Locations: Portland, Las Vegas

☆ Calling for New Gun Laws, Biden Says U.S. Children Are Suffering Like Soldiers in War
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Zolan Kanno-Youngs | Michael Corkery | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Even with majorities in both houses of Congress during Mr. Biden’s first two years in office, Democrats could not pass a ban on assault weapons. Any effort now is almost certain to fail in the Republican-controlled House, as the party has largely united against new gun control measures. But Mr. Biden said on Friday that Congress must find a way to tighten the laws. “If this Congress refuses to act,” Mr. Biden said, “we need a new Congress.”One year ago, a bipartisan group of lawmakers struck a narrow compromise, galvanized by a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two teachers. Mr. Biden said Friday that the Justice Department has provided more than $230 million for states to expand such laws, and the Department of Health and Human Services has also provided more than $1.5 billion to states to hire 14,000 mental health professionals for schools.

Persons: Biden’s, Biden, Mr Organizations: Republican, Justice Department, Department of Health, Human Services Locations: ”, Uvalde , Texas

☆ Will a Dollar General Ruin a Rural Crossroads?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Michael Corkery | Andrea Bruce | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Anne Hartley’s brick house in Ebony, Va., overlooks windswept fields, a Methodist church, a general store and the intersection of two country roads, a pastoral setting that evokes an Edward Hopper painting or a faded postcard from the South. Now this scene is being threatened, Ms. Hartley said, by a plan to build what every small American town seems to have: a Dollar General. A descendant of one of Ebony’s founding families, Ms. Hartley says the discount store — which would be built next to her home — will create traffic problems in the area, with people drawn to the brand’s signature yellow sign and its aisles filled with inexpensive food and household staples. Beyond the store itself, Ms. Hartley and many others with ties to Ebony think it will open the door to additional development that will spoil the character of their tiny, rural community of about 230 people. The name of their website and the rallying cry for their campaign against the Dollar General is “Keep Ebony Country.”

Persons: Anne, Edward Hopper, Hartley, Ebony, ” Organizations: Methodist, Dollar Locations: Ebony , Va, windswept

☆ Entry to Middle Class or False Promise? Franchises Face Scrutiny.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-26 | by ( Michael Corkery | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Today, Burgerim has run into trouble, leaving a trail of financial problems, a lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission and broader regulatory scrutiny of whether protections for franchisees like Mr. Laskin are adequate. The challenges highlighted by Burgerim come as franchising continues to grow as a way that people are choosing to start small businesses. There has been rising concern about whether franchisees need more protection in their contracts with franchisers. In the end, Mr. Laskin opened only one Burgerim restaurant, in Eugene, Ore., which closed in 2020 during the pandemic. Since then, Mr. Laskin has been depleting his savings to pay the bills.

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