SUMMARY:A fire underneath the rubble of the collapsed residential building in Florida is slowing the work of the search and rescue teams. At least 150 people are still missing and four deaths have been confirmed. While the Miami-DadeMayor has announced an investigation into the collapse, a 2018 report released overnight points to a “major error” in the design of the building. NPR Correspondent Brian Mann joins.
SUMMARY: The search and rescue for at least 150 unaccounted for people has entered the fourth day after a condominium building in Florida collapsed on Thursday. The death toll from the accident has gone up to nine as questions arise on the faulty building structure. Officials say they are notifying families as they recover more bodies from the rubble. NPR Correspondent Brian Mann joins with the latest.
SUMMARY: Lung disease is a well-known deadly consequence of working in the coal industry. But a new NPR study finds miners are suffering from the most advanced form of the disease at a rate ten times higher than the government has reported. Hari Sreenivasan speaks with NPR's Howard Berkes about the causes of this late-stage lung disease, possibilities for treatment and why it's been direly underestimated.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):For the past five years, the government has reported just under 100 cases of complicated black lung disease, which is also called progressive massive fibrosis. But a new NPR investigation found nearly 1,000 cases in nearly the same time from clinic reports in four states — Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
The extent of the problem has stunned a number of researchers and experts who work with miners as well. One of the miners diagnosed with black lung and profiled in the NPR stories — Mackie Branham — spoke of just how difficult it is for him to breathe and his ill health. But he said mining was in his blood.
MACKIE BRANHAM, Diagnosed With Black Lung: Takes a lot of pressure in my chest at all times. I've never been scared to death. It don't bother me a bit. It's just I won't see my kids grow up. But if I had it to do over, I would do it again. If that's what it took to provide for my family.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Howard Berkes has been uncovering this in a two- part series that concludes tonight on “All Things Considered” (NPR show) and he joins me now from Salt Lake City.
Howard, it is so difficult to hear that man struggling to breathe, and it's also hard to reconcile how he says he would do this again because this is what he would do for his family, even though the health challenges that he and so many people in this community are facing.
HOWARD BERKES, NPR: It's so common to hear that. Miners want to go back to work. Mackie Branham told me if he could get a lung transplant tomorrow, he hopes he could go back to work, which is not going to happen. But mining, as he said, is in his blood. It's part of the local culture, local history. Generations of families mine and it really is about the only decent job in most parts of Appalachia.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right. Let's talk about the gap between the numbers here, the numbers the government documented, and the numbers you're able to uncover in your investigation. What accounts for this?
HOWARD BERKES: Well, first of all, it's the limitations on government researchers. This is the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and they track black lung disease by bringing in miners for x-rays. But they're limited by law to only testing working miners (number one) and the x-rays are voluntary (number two).
So, they miss non-working miners, people who've retired, and they're also missing a huge segment, most miners, really, who avoid getting tested because they fear if there's a positive test for black lung, somehow their mining company will figure out and they will lose their jobs.
COMMENT: In my 22yr carrier in the U.S. Navy (now retired), I was cleared for Secret, and trained on classifications. In the military, it is somewhat easier to decide. BUT note, the person responsible for actually assigning the ORIGINAL classification to ANY COMMUNICATION (voice, document, email, etc) is the ORIGINATOR of the communication. There is no magic filter-in-the-sky to place classifications.
There are rules for classifying material, but they are very big, complex, and can change from day-to-day. What is classified Secret today MAY NOT have been classified yesterday.
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SUMMARY: On Friday, the FBI released two key documents from its investigation into the private email server Hillary Clinton used as secretary of state. One file contains the FBI's notes from its interviews with Clinton; the other summarizes the agency's findings. Hari Sreenivasan speaks with NPR's Carrie Johnson about what new information these materials reveal and why their publication is controversial.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): Today, the FBI released two key documents about its investigation into the private email server Hillary Clinton used when she was secretary of state.
One contains the agency's notes from Clinton's FBI interview, and the other is a 47-page summary of the FBI's findings.
NPR's Carrie Johnson is covering the story and joins me now.
So, what's new about the documents that were released today?
CARRIE JOHNSON, NPR: There are several new details, including really a sense of what Hillary Clinton told FBI investigators in that three-and-a-half-hour interview at FBI headquarters on July 2.
Hari, she said she used this personal server as a matter of convenience. She never had a concern that she or anybody close to her was mishandling classified information, and that she actually doesn't recall attending a security briefing or any kind of training about open records lawsuits or open records laws, which is interesting, because these materials only came out after a host of FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests from news organizations and calls from Republicans in Congress.
HARI SREENIVASAN: And there was — one of the emails — or at least one of the quotes that we have is about a drone program. I think we can put that up.
It says, “Clinton stated” — this is the FBI saying: “Clinton stated deliberation over a future drone strike didn't give her cause for concern regarding classification.”
Is this willful oversight, ignorance? Was she too busy? What were the reasons that they gave?
CARRIE JOHNSON: Recall, Hari, that the FBI director, James Comey, has said that Hillary Clinton and closest aides were extremely careless with government secrets, but he didn't find enough evidence to prosecute anyone for wrongdoing.
That said, these new documents today include more information about what was going through her own email server, a lot of documents, a lot of emails about the drone program, one of the government's most secret tools in the national security space, to allow officials at the CIA and the Pentagon to engage in extrajudicial killing of terrorists or would-be terrorists overseas.
And what Hillary Clinton was asked about by the FBI were a number of emails about targeted killings about to happen, disputes between different government agencies about who should be targeted for those kinds of drone strikes and other things.
What Hillary Clinton said in response to FBI questions was mainly, listen, I relied on career State Department officials to make determinations about what should be classified and what shouldn't.
She also said that these programs were the subject of multiple debates in media, in newspapers, on television and the like. And, often, her aides were passing around articles from newspapers about drone strikes. So, she thought it was OK to write about that.
SUMMARY: Bob Boilen is known for being the host and creator of NPR's popular “All Songs Considered” podcast. But Boilen is also a former musician -- his band was the first ever act to play D.C.'s famous 9:30 Club. Boilen's new book, “Your Song Changed My Life,” recounts the history of modern music through the voices he has encountered, and he joins Jeffrey Brown at the 9:30 Club to share a few of them.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Many of you may know Bob Boilen as the host and creator of NPR's “All Songs Considered,” one of the most downloaded music podcasts.
At the popular 9:30 Club here in Washington, D.C., recently, Jeffrey Brown sat down with Boilen, whose own band was the first to play at that club 35 years ago.
His new book, “Your Song Changed My Life,” recounts the history of modern music through voices Boilen has encountered.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Your book, “Your Song Changed My Life,” right, that's true. I mean, a lot of people would say that, but why? Have you figured out what it is that — about music that has that impact?
BOB BOILEN, Author, “Your Song Changed My Life”:I think it's so visceral.
Music is so different than everything else. It's not tangible. You don't see it. It hits you on a level that is deeper than what we do and see in everyday life. I think it's pure emotion and tone, and a lyric. Somebody saying a lyric that repeats over and over can be a call to action for somebody.
I tell stories of people whose lives were changed by a song, and often in those formative years, what some people call the reminiscence bump, where you're more likely to be susceptible to something, with hormones raging, or the first time you ever like heard somebody go, YAH!, you know, like, those things are impactful because they're firsts. And…
JEFFREY BROWN: You were looking for those moments from people.
BOB BOILEN: Well, then it wasn't hard to find, either because so many musicians — there are 35 in my book, from — you know, you get Jimmy Page or a new artist like Hozier, or St. Vincent.
You get artists who became musicians because something like that happened to them, where they heard a song on the radio while they were 8 years old strapped to the back seat of a car.
Or, for Jimmy Page, he moved into a house that was empty and there was a guitar in that house, the only thing, right? ----- JEFFREY BROWN: Did you see themes emerge when you’re talking to all these different musicians, anything that really stood out or surprised you?
BOB BOILEN: Well, I think one thing is that parents (listen) you have a large influence on what your kids are going to like.
And for my generation, I was rebelling against my parents’ music.
JEFFREY BROWN: Right.
BOB BOILEN:But that’s not true anymore. Most kids embrace their parents’ music. Most kids look back with some sense of, I want to know more.
I’m curious what’s going to happen in the land of playlists. Like, is your kid going to inherit your playlists? Not likely.
SUMMARY: Commercial beekeepers across America have been struggling with great numbers of bee deaths over the past few years. What’s behind their failing health? Some research points to a class of pesticide that’s coated onto a large proportion of corn and soybeans grown in the U.S. Allison Aubrey of NPR reports.
ALLISON AUBREY (NPR): It’s harvest time at Adee Honey Farms in Bruce, South Dakota. Bret Adee’s the third generation to manage the 80,000 hives the Adees have scattered across five Midwestern states. He says beekeeping these days is much harder than it’s ever been.
BRET ADEE, Adee Honey Farms:In 2010, our bees were just destroyed in a couple of weeks. Most of our bees died.
ALLISON AUBREY: Bret says things really haven’t improved much.
BRET ADEE: I would to see about twice to three times as many bees in most of the hives right now. It will be a real challenge to keep them alive through the winter.
ALLISON AUBREY: The Adees are not alone. According to a preliminary survey from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, commercial beekeepers lost 42 percent of their colonies last year. Bees are a critical part of agriculture.
Adee trucks his bees out to pollinate California’s almond groves every year. And it’s not just almonds. Bees pollinate everything from apples to cherries and squash. To figure out what’s plaguing the bees, the Obama administration assembled a task force last year. Scientists at the EPA, USDA and researchers across the country who have been studying the problem are finding there are multiple issues.
Bees have fewer wildflowers to forage on due to a loss of habitat. There’s viruses that pests pass on to the bees. Climate change is thought to play a role too. Another issue is pesticides. Some studies suggest that a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoid, or neonics for short, are harming the bees.
These pesticides are coated onto the seed of about 80 percent of the corn that’s grown in the United States and about half the soybeans too. To get a sense of that scale, imagine a cornfield like this taking up the entire state of California. That’s how much of this re-treated seed is being planted.
SUMMARY: While high school graduation rates have climbed steadily the last decade to an all-time high, a new investigation by NPR finds reasons to question the increases. Federal data show 81 percent of students finish, but the value of a high school diploma can vary widely depending on the state and the student’s path. William Brangham learns more from Anya Kamenetz, lead education blogger for NPR.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): High school seniors are graduating across the country this month. Federal officials laud the fact that graduation rates have climbed steadily through the last decade.
But new reporting calls into question whether those numbers are rising for all the right reasons.
William Brangham brings us the details.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour): High school graduation rates are at an all-time high. Federal data show 81 percent of students finish, and finish on time.
But a new investigation by NPR finds reasons to question that number. Their reporting found that the value of a high school diploma can vary widely between, and even within, states. In just nine states and the District of Columbia, students must complete required classes to be considered “college-ready” and to earn a diploma. Twenty-three states allow students to opt in, or out, of a more rigorous path to graduation.
That leaves 18 states with requirements below what experts say students need for their next step in life.
NPR’s Anya Kamenetz has been working on the series and joins me now.
Anya, let’s talk initially about this 81 percent graduation rate number. You say in your reporting that we should take that number with a big grain of salt. Why?
ANYA KAMENETZ, Lead Education Blogger, NPR: Well, that’s exactly what researchers are saying too.
And the reason is that other indicators such as the NAEP, the Nation’s Report Card, remediation rate at colleges, and even SAT and ACT scores, those are all flat. So the fact that we have seen a 10-point gain or so in the last decade in the high school graduation rate really should be giving us pause.
Money before people, Republican 1st Commandment. It is not coincidence that the states doing this are Republican controlled.
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SUMMARY: Workers’ compensation benefits have played a critical role in the American labor market by allowing businesses to pay for medical costs and wages if an employee is injured on the job. But a new investigation has found that more than 30 states have passed laws reducing these benefits. Judy Woodruff learns more about the impact from Michael Grabell of ProPublica and Howard Berkes of NPR.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Workers’ compensation benefits have long played a critical role in the American labor market. Simply put, businesses pay insurance for claims if a worker is injured on the job. The employee gives up the right to sue, but the employer pays medical costs and part of the wages while the worker recovers.
But a new investigation by ProPublica and NPR finds workers’ comp is being substantially eroded. Over the past couple decades, legislators in more than 30 states have passed laws reducing benefits or making it more difficult in many cases to qualify for them. States have also cut off benefits after arbitrary time limits.
Let’s hear from one of the workers who was profiled.
Joel Ramirez was paralyzed in a warehouse accident after a 900-pound crate fell on him in 2009. Last June, his home health aide was taken away after the state of California passed a new law.
His wife, Lupita, gave up her job to help him, including with his personal hygiene.
LUPITA RAMIREZ: When he was walking before, he’s a very, very strong man. Even — I said, I can’t imagine. When I saw him like this, it just destroyed my soul, you know?
JOEL RAMIREZ: There was my mom here, but she’s 75 years old. Oh, my God, I was trying to clean up. My God, I couldn’t finish cleaning. So, I can’t even do it right now. How am I going to do it when I get older?
JUDY WOODRUFF: Let’s look more closely at the impact of all this.
Michael Grabell was the lead reporter on this for ProPublica. And reporter Howard Berkes of NPR collaborated with him.
Over the past decade, states have slashed workers’ compensation benefits, denying injured workers help when they need it most and shifting the costs of workplace accidents to taxpayers.
Dennis Whedbee’s crew was rushing to prepare an oil well for pumping on the Sweet Grass Woman lease site, a speck of dusty plains rich with crude in Mandaree, North Dakota.
It was getting late that September afternoon in 2012. Whedbee, a 50-year-old derrickhand, was helping another worker remove a pipe fitting on top of the well when it suddenly blew.
Oil and sludge pressurized at more than 700 pounds per square inch tore into Whedbee’s body, ripping his left arm off just below the elbow. Coworkers jerry-rigged a tourniquet from a sweatshirt and a ratchet strap to stanch his bleeding and got his wife on the phone.
“Babe,’’ he said, “tell everyone I love them.”
It was exactly the sort of accident that workers’ compensation was designed for. Until recently, America’s workers could rely on a compact struck at the dawn of the Industrial Age: They would give up their right to sue. In exchange, if they were injured on the job, their employers would pay their medical bills and enough of their wages to help them get by while they recovered.
No longer.
Over the past decade, state after state has been dismantling America’s workers’ comp system with disastrous consequences for many of the hundreds of thousands of people who suffer serious injuries at work each year, a ProPublica and NPR investigation has found.
The cutbacks have been so drastic in some places that they virtually guarantee injured workers will plummet into poverty. Workers often battle insurance companies for years to get the surgeries, prescriptions and basic help their doctors recommend.
Two-and-a-half years after he lost his arm, Whedbee is still fighting with North Dakota’s insurance agency for the prosthesis that his doctor says would give him a semblance of his former life.
The changes, often passed under the banner of “reform,” have been pushed by big businesses and insurance companies on the false premise that costs are out of control.
In fact, employers are paying the lowest rates for workers’ comp insurance since the 1970s. And in 2013, insurers had their most profitable year in over a decade, bringing in a hefty 18 percent return.
All the while, employers have found someone else to foot the bill for workplace accidents: American taxpayers, who shell out tens of billions of dollars a year through Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare and Medicaid for lost wages and medical costs not covered by workers’ comp.
ProPublica analyzed reams of insurance industry data, studied arcane state laws and obtained often confidential medical and court records to provide an unprecedented look at the unwinding of workers’ comp laws across the country.
Among the findings:
Since 2003, legislators in 33 states have passed workers’ comp laws that reduce benefits or make it more difficult for those with certain injuries and diseases to qualify for them. Florida has cut benefits to its most severely disabled workers by 65 percent since 1994.
Where a worker gets hurt matters. Because each state has developed its own system, an amputated arm can literally be worth two or three times as much on one side of a state line than the other. The maximum compensation for the loss of an eye is $27,280 in Alabama, but $261,525 in Pennsylvania.
Many states have not only shrunk the payments to injured workers, they’ve also cut them off after an arbitrary time limit — even if workers haven’t recovered. After John Coffell hurt his back at an Oklahoma tire plant last year, his wages dropped so dramatically that he and his family were evicted from their home.
Employers and insurers increasingly control medical decisions, such as whether an injured worker needs surgery. In 37 states, workers can’t pick their own doctor or are restricted to a list provided by their employers.
In California, insurers can now reopen old cases and deny medical care based on the opinions of doctors who never see the patient and don’t even have to be licensed in the state. Joel Ramirez, who was paralyzed in a warehouse accident, had his home health aide taken away, leaving him to sit in his own feces for up to eight hours.
The scope of the changes, and the extent to which taxpayers are paying the costs of workplace accidents, has attracted almost no national attention, in part because the federal government stopped monitoring state workers’ comp laws more than a decade ago.
The cuts have gone so deep in some states that judges who hear workers’ comp cases, top defense attorneys for companies and even the father of the modern workers’ comp system say they are inhumane.
Presented with ProPublica and NPR’s findings, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., one of the leading worker advocates in Congress, said the changes undermine the basic protections for injured workers.
The rollback “would be bad if it were happening in one state,” he said. “But the fact that a number of states have moved in this direction is disturbing and it should be unacceptable to people in both political parties.”
“They call them reforms,” Casey added. “That’s a real insult to workers.”
Legislators who pushed through cuts in their states, however, insist they are necessary to keep and attract business.
“That was always the No. 1 issue,” said state Sen. Brian Bingman, the Republican president protem of the Oklahoma Senate. “Your workers’ comp rates are way too high.”
The state’s 2013 reform law provided tremendous cost savings, he said, and its supporters proudly acknowledge it was written primarily by a young lawyer at a drilling company and a lobbyist for the state chamber of commerce.
While the vast majority of injured workers need only minor medical care and experience little friction in getting it, the changes often affect those who need the system the most.
After Whedbee lost his arm, his doctor said he’d be an ideal candidate for a modern prosthesis with a movable hand.
But North Dakota’s workers’ comp insurer sent him to another doctor — not in North Dakota or his home state of Pennsylvania — but in Minnesota. After seeing him once, that doctor recommended a cheaper prosthesis with a metal hook.
“I lost a hand,” Whedbee pleaded with the insurer to no avail. “I didn’t lose a hook.”
The Industrial Revolution and the Nixon Commission
Workers’ comp was born in the early 1900s as a “grand bargain” forged by business and labor as awareness grew about the grisly workplace accidents that came with industrialization.
“As the work is done for the employer, and therefore ultimately for the public,” President Theodore Roosevelt said in 1907, “it is a bitter injustice that it should be the wage-worker himself and his wife and children who bear the whole penalty.”
In return for a measure of a security, workers gave up their right to sue their employers — even in cases of gross negligence — protecting businesses from lawsuit judgments that could bankrupt them. By 1920, nearly every state had enacted workers’ comp laws.
The systems differed in their particulars but aimed to answer the same questions: Is an injury work-related? What’s the appropriate medical care? How much compensation should injured workers receive and for how long? Each decision affected employers’ costs as well as workers’ solvency and well-being.
The first national assessment of workers’ comp protections came in the early 1970s when Congress established a commission to study state laws as part of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
Convened by President Richard Nixon and led by John Burton, a Republican economist and law professor, the commission unanimously concluded that state laws were “inadequate and inequitable.”
The commission made dozens of recommendations that laid the foundation for modern workers’ comp systems: Nearly every employee should be covered. Workers should be able to pick their own doctors. If employees couldn’t work, they should get two-thirds of their wages up to at least the state’s average wage. Compensation should last as long as the person is disabled, with no arbitrary caps. Spouses should receive death benefits until they remarry, children until they graduate college.
In 1972, the commission advised Congress to mandate 19 of these recommendations as minimum federal standards if states didn’t enact the provisions on their own. States quickly did. But over time the political winds shifted. A wave of cutbacks began in the 1990s, swelled in the mid-2000s and, after slowing during the recession, picked up again.
The U.S. Labor Department used to keep track of how states complied with the presidential commission’s recommendations, but stopped after budget cuts in 2004.
A ProPublica analysis of state laws done in consultation with Burton found that only seven states now follow at least 15 of the recommendations made during the Nixon administration. Four states comply with less than half of them.
The recent changes are “unprecedented in the history of workers’ comp,” Burton said in an interview. “I think we’re in a pretty vicious period right now of racing to the bottom.” Saving Companies Money, Forcing Workers Into Poverty
Sitting at a table on the 10th floor of a Tulsa office building, Mark Schell, senior vice president and general counsel of the Unit Corporation drilling company, argued that Oklahoma’s old workers’ comp system was bad for employers and workers alike.
Lawyers had clogged the workers’ comp courts while doctors approved costly, unnecessary medical care. Oklahoma cut benefits three times between 2005 and 2011, resulting in a 10 percent drop in employers’ insurance rates. But other states experienced even steeper drops in costs, leaving Oklahoma comparatively expensive, he said, especially against neighbors like Texas and Arkansas.
So, in 2012 and 2013, the state chamber of commerce and a group led by retailer Hobby Lobby and Unit Corp. spearheaded an effort to rebuild the workers’ comp system from scratch.
“I’m proud of what we did,” Schell said. Nodding to his firm’s associate general counsel, Drew Harding, across the table, he noted, “Drew was one of the main authors of the bill.”
Buried among a number of changes, from altering how disputes are heard to letting employers opt out of workers’ comp entirely, the reform cut the maximum wage-replacement benefits for injured workers from $801 a week to $561 a week. The new rate was the third lowest in the country.
The chamber’s lobbyist, Jonathan Buxton, rationalized the cuts as tough love for Oklahoma workers. “Getting them healed and back to work is the goal of our system, and it’s better incentivized now,” he said.
ProPublica’s review of workers’ comp changes nationwide found that many were steered by big business, aided by the recent Republican takeovers of state legislatures.
While rising medical expenses have long concerned insurers, the reforms were mostly driven by the recessions of 2001 and 2007-2009, which pitted states in a seemingly endless competition to lure business with lower costs. Even in states dominated by Democrats, worker advocates have been forced to make major concessions to achieve slight increases in benefits — sometimes just to keep up with inflation.
Florida, New York and Tennessee have chopped compensation for workers with permanent partial disabilities — such as debilitating back injuries — by at least 20 percent.
In California, West Virginia, North Dakota and Oklahoma, lawmakers have placed time limits on wages for temporarily disabled workers, limiting such benefits to two years even for those who can’t go back to work or need more medical care.
Few of the cuts were driven by concerns about fraud, which is estimated to account for only a small percentage of the $60 billion spent on workers’ comp each year. And studies show most of the money lost to fraud results not from workers making false claims but from employers misclassifying workers and underreporting payroll to get cheaper insurance rates.
Recently, some judges have questioned whether states have cut too deeply in the name of saving employers money.
In August, a Florida circuit court judge ruled that the state’s workers’ comp law was unconstitutional, saying benefits had been “decimated” and the law “fails miserably” as to safety, health, welfare and morals. If the ruling is upheld, workers in Florida would be able to sue their employers, and the legislature would have to rewrite the law.
But in many states, few people — even the lawmakers who sponsored bills paring back benefits — seem to fully understand the bills’ impact on workers.
Before his injury, John Coffell, 30, was solidly part of the nation’s blue-collar rank and file.
He made $17.42 an hour as a tread booker at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber plant in Lawton, Oklahoma. With overtime and bonuses, he was earning close to $1,000 a week. It still wasn’t easy for a family with three kids, but he and his wife were managing.
Then, on a graveyard shift last July, Coffell was winding long strips of rubber compound onto heavy metal spools and loading them onto a truck when he felt a pinch and burning sensation in his lower back.
“As time went on throughout the night, it got worse and worse and worse,” he said. “It hurt when I walked. It hurt when I stood up. It hurt when I sat down.”
When the pain didn’t go away, he was prescribed physical therapy and placed on temporary disability.
If Coffell had been hurt a few months earlier, workers’ comp would have provided close to his take-home pay. But under the new law that took effect in early 2014, his disability check was capped at $561 a week — just above the poverty line for a family of five.
A high summer electricity bill and some unexpected fees from the credit union had already put the family behind. With less money coming in, things slid downhill quickly. The utilities went first, followed by Coffell’s truck, which was repossessed. Then the family received a letter from their landlord evicting them from their rental home.
Because none of their relatives had room for them all, the family had to split up.
Coffell’s wife, Justine, helped look after him. They alternated between his grandmother’s small home and her father’s camper. The kids, ages 5, 7 and 9, moved in with John’s mother 40 miles away.
John and Justine had only enough gas money to see them on weekends.
“I’m one of those families, we lived paycheck to paycheck,” John said. “I didn’t have all the bills caught up, but I had plans to get them caught up with being able to work and get overtime. My dominoes were stacked and they got knocked over — all for getting hurt.”
Since John went on workers’ comp, the Coffells have had to fill the gap by filing for food stamps. Such cost-shifting has become common. Dozens of injured workers said in interviews they’ve been forced to seek help from government programs because workers’ comp fell short.
A study by J. Paul Leigh, a health economist at the University of California, Davis, estimated that workers’ comp covered less than a third of injured workers’ medical costs and lost earnings in 2007 and that government programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid had shelled out about $30 billion to fill part of the gap.
The rest came from regular health and disability insurance or out of workers’ pockets, Leigh said.
“We’re talking about taxpayers picking up the bill of something that should have been paid for by workers’ compensation insurers,” Leigh said.
Bingman, the Oklahoma state senator who sponsored the 2013 workers’ comp cutbacks, said he couldn’t speak to the particulars of Coffell’s plight and wasn’t aware of similar complaints from other injured workers.
But if such hardships were “a pattern,” Bingman said, it would be “something we need to look at.”
Coffell, like most workers, had no idea his benefits were shrinking until he got hurt.
The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Monday for a second time in a case that combines Middle East policy with the dueling foreign policy roles of the President and Congress. It's a political hot potato that asks what U.S. passports should say about the birthplace of American citizens born in Jerusalem.
Ever since the founding of Israel in 1948, the U.S. has taken the position that no country has sovereignty over Jerusalem until its status is negotiated in a Middle East peace deal. Israel's supporters in Congress, however, have tried to force a different policy, passing legislation that would move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and require the State Department to allow U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem to list Israel as their place of birth on their passports.
The Bush administration and the Obama administration both refused to do so, contending that the passport mandate unconstitutionally infringes on the President's foreign policy powers.
Enter Menachem Zivotofsky, born in Jerusalem 12 years ago to American parents who emigrated to Israel and now maintain dual citizenship. The Zivotofskys want their son's place of birth on his passport to say Israel — not just Jerusalem. So they sued to force the State Department to let them do that.
Three years ago, when the case first went to the Supreme Court, the justices did not issue a definitive ruling, instead opting to send the case back to the lower court for further action. But now, the case is back. And a look back at the 2011 argument gives some clues about the justices' thinking.
The Zivotofskys' lawyer, Nathan Lewin, opened the argument back then by telling the Court that under the Constitution, foreign policy is a power shared by the president and Congress, but that Congress has the final say once it passes a statute, as it did here. Lewin, however, faced a blast of skeptical questions.
"You say foreign relations is a shared power. So, if it is a shared power, why does Congress trump the executive?" Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked.
Justice Anthony Kennedy called Lewin's view a "narrow and crabbed interpretation of the President's foreign affairs power." Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it would hobble the President.
"It seems to me you're not arguing for a co-equal congressional power, you're arguing for a superior congressional power. You're saying whatever Congress says, the president has to comply with," Justice Antonin Scalia observed.
Chief Justice John Roberts noted that listing Israel as the place of birth for someone born in Jerusalem could, according to the president, present serious foreign policy problems. But Lewin rejected that premise.
"Congress has decided that saying Israel alone does not present a foreign policy issue," he said.
Roberts shot back: "An American citizen born in Northern Ireland doesn't have this option just because he thinks that's part of Ireland."
Arguing for the president's exclusive authority in this area, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told the justices that Congress cannot supersede the President's power.
But Justice Stephen Breyer questioned that proposition, declaring, "There are very few cases I can ever think of where the court has said the President can act contrary to a statute."
Verrilli replied that as far back as President Washington, this has been one of those areas of presidential authority. The court, he argued, should give great deference to the president's judgment on a matter with such serious foreign policy implications. A passport, he observed, is not a communication by the passport holder; it's an official document communicating the position of the United States.
Pressed by Justice Elena Kagan, Verrilli said the source for the president's power is the provision of the Constitution giving the chief executive the power to receive and recognize foreign diplomats, a power used since the founding to recognize foreign governments.
Justice Scalia didn't think much of that provision as authority to rest a case on, musing, "I mean, if you've got to cast about for something, I suppose, I don't know what else you'd land upon."
"It is there," Verrilli insisted.
It is there, Scalia acknowledges, "but it doesn't say a whole lot."
Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon is known for his blunt manner, and in an interview with NPR, he says a future map of the Middle East will look very different from the one that exists today.
The borders of many Arab states were drawn up by Westerners a century ago, and wars in recent years show that a number of them are doomed to break apart, according to Ya'alon, a career soldier who became Israel's defense minister last year.
"We have to distinguish between countries like Egypt, with their history. Egypt will stay Egypt," Ya'alon, who is on a visit to Washington, tells Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep.
In contrast, Ya'alon says, "Libya was a new creation, a Western creation as a result of World War I. Syria, Iraq, the same — artificial nation-states — and what we see now is a collapse of this Western idea."
Asked if Middle Eastern borders are likely to change in the coming years, Ya'alon says: "Yes, absolutely. It has been changed already. Can you unify Syria? [President] Bashar al-Assad is controlling only 25 percent of the Syrian territory. We have to deal with it."
On another key question facing the region, Ya'alon says he is deeply skeptical of a proposed deal between the international community and Iran on its nuclear program. He says that even if an agreement is reached, he thinks Iran is likely to break it.
"No deal is better than a bad deal," Ya'alon says.
Ya'alon spoke with Inskeep about: realignment of the Middle East post-Arab spring and the spread of ISIS; Iran nuclear negotiations; the recent war in Gaza; and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Interview Highlights
STEVE INSKEEP: Your government's broad skepticism about the U.S. and other nations negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program is well-known, but I wonder if you have a concern on an even deeper level. Do you believe that any worthwhile agreement with this Iranian government can be made?
MOSHE YA'ALON: Depends which agreement. With our experience, agreements which are not backed by interests are not surviving.
STEVE INSKEEP: You're saying if countries' interests do not mesh, any agreement they make is worthless.
MOSHE YA'ALON: Yeah, because they can sign agreements and violate it. Fatah violated the Oslo Accord on the day, the first day of the implementation, but let's leave it alone. I have many examples.
Nevertheless, what is a mistake now is regarding the negotiations with the Iranian regime. Let's leave alone the military nuclear project. What about terror activities? What about their activities to undermine moderate regimes? This is not discussed at all.
What is discussed now the number of the centrifuges that they should have. Why should they have the indigenous capability to enrich uranium, which is a core element in their military nuclear project? So what we claim regarding the current negotiations is that no deal is better than a bad deal. ...
STEVE INSKEEP: Many people around the world criticized [the recent war in Gaza] for going too far. But I know there was also another side of the debate within Israel that your government was criticized for not going deeper into Gaza, sending more troops, taking sharper measures. Did you go as far as you wanted to go?
MOSHE YA'ALON: Absolutely. We knew exactly what we wanted to achieve, and we understood that if we go too far, a part forms a dilemma of cost and benefit. No one was going to replace us. Neither the Egyptians, nor Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas], NATO, whatever.
STEVE INSKEEP: Meaning if you wiped out Hamas, say, or knocked them out of control, no one would take charge.
MOSHE YA'ALON: Yes, and so probably we were stuck. So we prefer to reach cease-fire according to our terms. ...
STEVE INSKEEP: Israel, of course, has been criticized because Israelis have settled in the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when visiting the United States earlier this year, cast that as a question not of national or states' rights but of individual rights. Why shouldn't Jews have the right to live where they want to live? Why should they be barred, he was asking, from living in different places? That it was an individual question. If individual Jews, Israelis, have a right to move where they like on the West Bank, should individual Palestinians, including refugees, have the right to choose to move back to Israel
MOSHE YA'ALON: The issue of refugees is very different. We can't allow refugees to come back ...
STEVE INSKEEP: But could they just say, "We're individuals. We're coming back"?
MOSHE YA'ALON: ... Otherwise it will keep the conflict forever. Forever. But when we talk about the right to live, we do not deny the right of Arabs to live everywhere in the land of Israel. They enjoy political independence. They have their own government. They have their own parliament, municipalities.
And if we are talking about co-existence, what is better than to live together? Enjoying, you know, our prosperity. That was the case even in the Gaza Strip, when the Gazans enjoyed working in the Erez industrial zone or in the settlements, for their benefit.
Their insistence to clear the area from Jews, might call it ethnic cleansing. We don't call to do it with Arabs, we don't want to uproot or transfer Arabs, why is it so acceptable regarding the Jews?
STEVE INSKEEP: Well, I've heard that argument. It's compelling. You're arguing that Israelis move across into the West Bank, they bring money with them, they build, they may improve the economy. My question is what if a group of Palestinians, from whatever direction, whether they claim refugee status or not, simply showed up at the Tel Aviv airport, showed up at a border crossing, and said, "We want to claim that same individual right, and we're ready to move into Israel"?
MOSHE YA'ALON: They can go. They can go to live in Nablus, they can go to live in Ramallah.
STEVE INSKEEP: That's in the West Bank, but what if they want to live in Israel proper?
MOSHE YA'ALON: No. No. In Israel, no way. Otherwise, we are not going to solve the conflict, we are going to keep it to the end of the days.
On Friday, the embattled mayor of San Diego officially steps down. Allegations of sexual harassment against Bob Filner have rocked the eighth-largest American city, which now has to pick up the pieces and elect a new mayor.
The announcement last week that Filner would leave office was greeted with cheers, boos and a flurry of activity from the press — but it all went quiet when the soon-to-be ex-mayor emerged from a swell of bodyguards to speak at the podium.
"I take responsibility for putting the city through a very bad time," Filner said. "Again, I apologize to all of you. Certainly it was never my intention to be a mayor who went out like this."
Then the cracked voice and tone of apology gave way to indignation — and blame: "I started my political career facing lynch mobs," Filner said, "and I think we have just faced one here in San Diego."
That tone of persecution isn't completely misplaced, says University of California political scientist Steve Erie. As the first Democratic mayor in San Diego in 20 years, Filner went into office with a target on his back, Erie says.
"He was always a fighter for the little person. And his campaign was one of putting not only neighborhoods, but putting people of color, community activists, environmental and neighborhood activists first. They have not had a voice," Erie says. "This is a town that has been run by the downtown corporate welfare crowd for years."
Erie says the terrible irony is the guy who was supposed to stand up for the little person was going around making women feel small. Women like Laura Fink, the second to publicly accuse Filner.
Fink, who is also a Democrat, says a true progressive vision involves ending a culture of sexual harassment across the board.
"With more people coming forward, with more people reporting it, the less impact it will have and the stronger each workplace will be," Fink says. "And the more accountable these men in power will be."
So far, no woman has entered the race to replace Filner. A special election has been set for Nov. 19. It is unclear what party might have the upper hand.
Until then, City Council President Todd Gloria will serve as interim mayor. Gloria was one of the many members of Filner's own party who called for the mayor to step down.
"My hope is that we can show that Democrats can run this city and run it effectively and competently," he says. "I don't know that we've really seen that for the last number of months, but I know that we can see that in the next few months."
Gloria won't say yet if he is running to replace Filner permanently. But as he packs to make the move eight floors up to the mayor's office, he says the city needs to heal.
"When the average San Diegan can go about their day not wondering what horrible new story is going to come out of this building, I think that heals the city," Gloria says.
Another possible contender in the special election is longtime Republican council member Kevin Faulconer. Despite being on different sides of the political aisle, he and Gloria have been pretty inseparable as of late.
"Now we have an opportunity as a city to come together, to heal," he says, "particularly in the next several months."
But those next several months will also serve as the staging grounds for what could be a very contentious election.
SUMMARY: The Trayvon Martin murder trial against George Zimmerman has sparked fresh public discourse about race and racial tensions in America. Jeffrey Brown talks to NPR's Michele Norris, creator of The Race Card Project, which asks people to share their thoughts about race, ethnicity and cultural identity in six words or less.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): What we talk about and don't talk about when it comes to race and identity. It's a subject again at the fore after the death of Trayvon Martin and the trial of George Zimmerman.
And it's the subject of The Race Card Project, an effort by NPR journalist and author Michele Norris to engage people in a conversation about, as her website says, their experiences, questions, hopes, dreams, laments or observations about race and identity.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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