This piece is da bomb dang! #IlhanOmar #AOC #RashidaTlaib #Democrats #AntiSemitism 👀 https://t.co/GXk6LPdfJp
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 6, 2019
Issa vibe pic.twitter.com/P2TQelSpK1— iamcardib (@iamcardib) March 5, 2019
PLEASE ME MUSIC VIDEO OUT NOW !!!https://t.co/KjukhV6aHi pic.twitter.com/7oITviHbiN— iamcardib (@iamcardib) March 2, 2019
Porsche is trying to reinvent itself in the wake of Germany's diesel-emissions scandal by turning itself into an environmentally friendly sports-car company. It's a billion-euro bet with enormous possibilities -- and enormous risk. https://t.co/nJDT1YyiIH— SPIEGEL ONLINE English (@SPIEGEL_English) February 27, 2019
The Porsche of the future is still so secret that it's not allowed off the company's premises without an elaborate disguise. Two fake exhaust pipes stick out the rear, while a green pollution badge adorns the windshield. It's all an act to mislead competitors. Under the hood, there's neither a combustion engine nor an injection system. Instead, there are two electric motors and a heavy battery.Combustion engines are the best, and it'd be sad if this environmental push destroyed the brand.
So far, it's just a test vehicle inconspicuously parked in front of Porsche's development center in Weissach, near Stuttgart. Porsche, however, is planning to unveil its first electric car at the end of 2019, and revamp its brand from the ground up.
Even for the engineers responsible for its roll-out, the new e-model is a culture shock. Ever since the first sports car hit the pavement 70 years ago, the name Porsche has stood for flashy combustion engines that roar when drivers hit the gas. Poor emission values and high fuel consumption were practically part of the brand's DNA. But the company's new model, the Taycan, is emissions-free -- and it's as quiet as a toy car.
For Porsche, this means it's no longer competing with the likes of Ferrari, Maserati, BMW or Mercedes. It's now in a direct contest with Tesla, the pioneering electric-car company from California. "Our goal is to be a technological trailblazer," says Porsche CEO Oliver Blume.
The End of an Era
Blume's plans are more ambitious than those of other German automobile manufacturers. By 2025, he wants at least half of the cars Porsche sells to be electric. Five years later, according to the company's own forecasts, Porsche will hardly have any vehicles on its assembly line with conventional combustion engines.
In late 2018, the company's supervisory board resolved to outfit Porsche's best-selling car with an electric motor within the next few years. The new version of the Macan, a compact off-road vehicle, will soon be fully electric. For the petrol-powered model, there will be only an update. After that, the era of the gas-guzzler will gradually come to an end.
It's a billion-euro bet with enormous possibilities -- and enormous risk. If Blume's plan works out, Porsche could become an ecologically oriented sports-car company, a role model for the entire German automobile industry. It would be proof that the industry has learned its lesson after the diesel scandal -- in which Porsche's parent-company, the Volkswagen Group, was found to have tricked emissions tests to make its vehicles seem more environmentally friendly than they really were -- and that it has not entirely slept through the transition to electric mobility.
The problem, however, is that Porsche's offensive comes at a time of great uncertainty. Nobody knows whether the company will be able to sell enough of its new e-cars. The brand has many loyal fans with a penchant for combustion engines. Even one of Porsche's brand ambassadors, Walter Röhrl, an ex-rally driver, has said e-mobility is the "wrong track."
Porsche's Dirty Past
Meanwhile, demand in the world's two largest automotive markets, the United States and China, is slowing, and disputes are further weighing on business. If U.S. President Donald Trump makes good on his threats to impose punitive import tariffs on foreign cars, Porsche would be more adversely affected than other German manufacturers. The sports-car maker sells nearly a quarter of its vehicles in America, yet has none of its production facilities there. The result would be a sharp drop in profits.
Then there's the fact that Porsche, in its quest toward a clean future, is regularly confronted with its dirty past.
At the end of January, the carmaker filed self-indictments with Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) and the U.S. environmental authorities. The reason: Porsche's iconic 911 sports car was emitting more CO2 than the company had previously disclosed. And it wasn't just older models: its 2016 and 2017 models were affected as well. The authorities are now investigating whether Porsche's failure to disclose was a mere oversight -- or possibly Germany's next exhaust scandal. The Public Prosecutor's Office in Stuttgart has initiated a so-called inspection process. Porsche has added that it's continuing its own internal investigations.
Porsche is also still under pressure for its role in Germany's "Dieselgate" scandal. Three company employees are under investigation on suspicion of fraud and false advertising. And the case against them is getting stronger, sources familiar with the investigations say. The defendants have yet to be granted access to the evidence against them, but it is conceivable that charges will be filed against them in 2019, the sources add.
To this day, Porsche rejects any blame for the German diesel scandal. The company has remained firm on its assertion that it didn't build the motors in question itself, but rather bought them from its sister brand Audi. Porsche has even considered pursuing financial compensation from Audi to the tune of 200 million euros ($227 million)...
Half a lifetime ago, I lived in Belgium. I have never seen something more shocking and yet, been totally unsurprised. https://t.co/E97MONGaiF
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) March 4, 2019
BREAKING: Prime Minister @theresa_may calls for @DerbyChrisW to be suspended from @UKLabour to show that @jeremycorbyn "actually wants to take action against racism".
— Jewish Telegraph (@JewishTelegraph) February 27, 2019
She also praised the work of @CST_UK, in response to a question from @JamesCleverly.#LabourAntisemitism #PMQs pic.twitter.com/nNTM6QeX8M
When the actor Jussie Smollett charged that two men shouting this is “MAGA country” had attacked him, also yelling racist and homophobic taunts, my fellow liberals were quick to blame the rise in such incidents on President Trump and his supporters who want to “Make American Great Again.”More.
Smollett was indicted by an Illinois grand jury on Feb. 20 for apparently faking the whole episode, but the larger trend is real: Hate crimes have spiked during the Trump era. And surely the president’s own bigoted rhetoric — Mexicans are rapists, Africans live in s—hole countries and so on — has something to do with that.
So why aren’t we also denouncing the culture of intolerance on America’s university campuses, where dissenting voices have faced physical attacks? And doesn’t our silence on that score make us partially responsible for the violence, just as Trump is complicit in hate crimes?
Consider the assault on a conservative activist last month at UC Berkeley, where he was displaying posters declaring “This is MAGA country” — which is what Smollett said his attackers shouted — and “Hate crime hoaxes hurt real victims.”
Two men accosted the conservative activist with expletives. One denounced him for “encouraging violence.” As if on cue, the second man then punched the activist in the face.
Noting that the incident took place on Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza, epicenter of the university’s Free Speech Movement in 1964, school officials were quick to denounce it. “We strongly condemn violence and harassment of any sort, for any reason,” they said in a statement. “Our commitment to freedom of expression and belief is unwavering.” Friday, they announced an arrest...
Someone has been killed within walking distance of 89% of L.A. County's high schools. In neighborhoods with high rates of homicide near public high schools, the impact can be devastating and costly for students, schools and communities. https://t.co/amxucXOyDJ— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 3, 2019
Jaleyah Collier had just said goodbye to Kevin Cleveland outside a doughnut shop a few blocks from Hawkins High School on a spring afternoon in 2017. Get home safe, she told him before walking away.Lots more. (The interactive graphics interfere with the scrolling function. Be sure to scroll using the right side-bar.)
Minutes later someone drove into an alley nearby, got out of the car and asked Kevin, 17, and two others about their gang affiliation. The gunman then sprayed them with at least 10 rounds, killing Kevin and injuring the others.
Jaleyah, then a high school sophomore, barely had time to grieve when a month later, her best friend, Alex Lomeli, 18, was shot and killed when someone tried to rob a market about a mile from the same high school, located at 60th and Hoover streets.
In the early hours of Mother’s Day 2018, two other teens Jaleyah was close to, Monyae Jackson and La’marrion Upchurch, were walking home with friends, when they were fatally shot near Dymally High School.
Each of Jaleyah’s friends was killed within walking distance of public high schools in Los Angeles.
“You don’t know when it’s going to be a person’s last day,” said Jaleyah, a senior at the Community Health Advocates School, one of three small schools on the Hawkins campus. “[Kevin] woke up not knowing.”
The impact of that violence can be devastating and costly. Campuses have begun incorporating the inevitability of trauma into their curricula, addressing stress reduction and how to settle differences without resorting to violence. Students suffer symptoms resembling post-traumatic stress disorder and psychiatric social workers are now a staple at many campuses. Because there is too little mental health funding to meet the need, teachers and staff are often on the front lines in identifying the warning signs of emotionally needy students.
One concern is practical: getting safely to and from school, avoiding not just bullets but gang flashpoints, street harassment, hit-and-runs and muggings. With limited district busing, some students opt for public transportation or other ride-sharing options. On their journeys, they sometimes pass candle- and flower-filled memorials to fallen friends.
Sixteen-year-old Carl Hull, a sophomore at Dymally High School, starts his walk to school each morning by turning into an alley to avoid gang members who live on his street. Once, when he was wearing a gray sweatshirt with the blue L.A. Dodgers logo, they stopped him and asked about his affiliation — he’s not involved in gangs, he told them. Another morning, a few days after hearing gunfire near his house, he found a 9-millimeter bullet shell. Each day, he said, is “like a guessing game.”
Decades of research suggest that the effects of exposure to violence on teenagers are wide-ranging, and can result in anxiety, depression, anger, absences and an inability to concentrate in class.
Even if students didn’t know the victims, they see reminders on social media, memorial posts and the T-shirts friends and family wear in trying to raise funds for a funeral.
Jaleyah woke up on Mother’s Day to find her Instagram feed filled with posts about the shooting of Monyae and La’marrion, she said.
Children in high-crime areas are “losing more people in their youth than most of us have lost when we get to 30 or 40,” said Ferroll Robins, executive director of the nonprofit organization Loved Ones Victims Services, which provides counseling for victims of violence and their families.
“I do worry about what is going to happen to them emotionally, mentally, how bad are they really being scarred?” Robins said. “And how much of those scars are going to play into their life later?”
Jaleyah, a bubbly and energetic 17-year-old, prides herself on her resilience but resents that this constant drumbeat of loss is her reality. In the days after a friend dies, she is unable to concentrate in class, she said. She goes to the funerals, some during the school week. She’s nervous walking to school, afraid a man with a hoodie pulled over his head might be hiding a gun, afraid to walk in alleys or on side streets. She feels a jolt whenever she sees her slain friends’ photos or someone mentions them, reminded each time that their lives had ended too early.
Jason Powell knows he can’t begin teaching his English and music classes at Dymally, at 88th and San Pedro streets, until the kids can address the latest violence in their lives. Over the last five years, 105 people have been killed within a mile of the campus, the highest number surrounding any public high school in the county. Ten of the victims were 18 or younger.
Last year alone, 20 people were killed within a mile — about one every 2½ weeks. Sometimes they are current or former students, including Monyae.
After the deaths of La’marrion and Monyae, Powell gathered his ninth-graders in circles during class and asked them how they deal with pain. The students were used to sharing because they have these circles often on subjects both mundane and serious.
The exercise was intended to develop positive coping and conflict resolution skills. One by one, the students took turns sharing stories of loss. Similar scenes played out at several area schools where students had known the boys who were killed.
When a friend dies, “they come in welled up with emotion, they’re crying and there’s no way they can concentrate on the lesson at hand, so whatever’s on the board as far as the lesson plan, that means nothing,” Powell said. “They need more immediate help.”
Jaleyah said that seeing the therapist on campus didn’t help her, but that participating in similar community circles at Hawkins taught her how to voice her anger and channel it into action. “They give us a chance to speak and feel free [in] what we have to say, without being afraid,” Jaleyah said.
Sometimes the loss is unrelenting. As Dymally was preparing for graduation just weeks after former student Monyae’s death, there was more tragic news: Campus aide James Lamont Taylor was killed at 8:30 a.m., walking on the street about a mile from the school.
The journey their children take just getting to school is a source of stress also for parents.
Carl’s mom worries about him getting robbed or shot on the way to Dymally, or hit by a car while crossing the street. Her older son, Brian Hull, was killed in 2016 crossing the street near her home. She and Carl have grown used to hearing gunshots from their apartment in Broadway-Manchester, less than a mile from the high school. She’s afraid that when he walks down the alley behind their home to get to school, he’ll get hurt.
“I have real bad, heavy anxiety,” Latanya Hull said. One afternoon in September, she began to worry when Carl didn’t get home at the usual time. His phone was broken, so she couldn’t reach him. She called the school. Carl was there, they said, in after-school tutoring...
