The Washington Post National Weekly - September 29, 2019

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2019

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IN COLLABORATION WITH

ABCDE NATIONAL WEEKLY

A SECOND CHANCE The 47 dogs rescued from Michael Vick’s fighting operation 12 years ago enriched the lives of countless people and altered the path of animal welfare. PAGE PAGE 812

Politics Behind the whistleblower report 4

Nation Town split over migrant kids 8

5 Myths Aging 23

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POLITICS | ANALYSIS

Pelosi and Trump raise the stakes BY

D AN B ALZ

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uesday was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s day.

Wednesday was President Trump’s. Depending on where you sit, it was either a very bad day or a not-so-bad day. As is often the case with the president, it was some of both.

Wednesday began with the White House release of the rough transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the contents of which showed the president pressing Zelensky to open an investigation into former vice president Joe Biden, who could be his challenger in next year’s election, and Biden’s son Hunter. Trump told Zelensky in that call that he was asking for “a favor.”

The day ended with a defiant — and weary — president twice facing the press, arguing that what he had done in the phone call with Zelensky was in fact “perfect,” that he had done nothing wrong, that there was no quid pro quo and that in fact it was others — Democrats whom he accused of doing what he has now been accused of having done, and the news media, which he said was delivering fake news about the Ukraine situation.

Back to back, the Pelosi announcement on Tuesday of an impeachment inquiry and the unfolding events of Wednesday neatly encapsulated what is now before the country. The speaker, once reluctant to start a formal impeachment inquiry, has now done so, a decision that dramatically raised the stakes not just for the president but also for her own party.

Trump responded as he always has when attacked, with fury and with countercharges that are often designed to obfuscate and demean his accusers. He does that because such tactics have often been successful for him, and he no doubt believes that, once again, he will survive this latest and perhaps the most significant challenge to his power and position.

Pelosi and Trump have circled each other from the moment she

MELINA MARA/THE WASHINGTON POST

Impeachment clash between political adversaries will play out constitutionally and personally retook the gavel after a surge of anti-Trump voters knocked House Republicans out of the majority in the 2018 midterms. The president learned almost immediately that the speaker was someone with a keen sense of strategy and the tenacity to go with it. He lost their first battle, over a government shutdown, and came out of it with a clearer understanding that she was no ordinary adversary.

That shutdown battle was child’s play compared with what Pelosi’s decision has touched off.

After months of hesitation and after numerous House committees were stymied in their efforts to investigate the president, Pelosi took a step that barely a week ago seemed nearly unthinkable.

That of course was before anyone knew much at all about the president’s effort to force Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son.

Trump and his allies claimed the rough transcript was exculpatory. Others read it far differently, calling it an unprecedented case

of a president repeatedly asking a foreign leader for help to dig dirt on political rivals and offering the assistance of Attorney General William P. Barr and Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who for months has pursued and pushed for the very same investigations.

Trump’s and Giuliani’s descriptions of what Biden had done as vice president do not square with what actually happened, but as the Democrats have begun to circle, Trump has done everything he can to make this all about his possible challenger instead of himself.

The impeachment inquiry is both an epic battle between the speaker and the president and, more fundamentally, a constitutional clash that will help define the limits on presidential power, and the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches.

The outcome will shape, perhaps decisively, the 2020 campaign. Trump will either be out of

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (DCalif.) meets with her leadership and committee chairs to discuss plans going forward with the impeachment inquiry of President Trump on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

office by January 2021 or he will have emerged victorious, reelected to a second term in large part because of what would then, inevitably, be interpreted as an enormous gamble by the speaker and the Democrats that went terribly wrong.

The past days have shown that there is no turning back.

The confrontation between the speaker and the president is an irresistible part of the story, in part because it is so personal. That might not be Pelosi’s ideal, as she has cast this in constitutional rather than personal terms. But it is inevitable, given the history between the two, and Trump showed again on Wednesday that he will do everything in his power to make this as personal as possible — and all about himself as a victim of what he immediately branded as another Democratic witch hunt.

This is much more than a personal struggle, however, and one reason that Pelosi moved as she did on Tuesday was to protect and defend against a president who has so stretched the limits of his office that there seemed no other way to check him than to move toward possible impeachment.

Seen from the speaker’s office, it was a necessary, if not a preferred, step, given the political risks; a decision based more on the prerogatives of checks and balances than on assumed political gain.

Presidents have long usurped power from Congress. There has been a steady accretion of power by the executive, often as a result of a supine legislative branch.

But perhaps not since the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868 has a Congress been so constitutionally and repeatedly aggrieved by the actions of a sitting president.

It took a long period of conflict between Johnson and the Radical Republicans in Congress, during which Johnson repeatedly flaunted his powers, before Congress finally snapped and tried to stop him by impeaching him. At the heart of the conflict were issues of race and of what kind of nation would emerge after the Civil War.

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POLITICS Though there were various articles of impeachment drawn up, the strongest encompassed the issue of abuse of power by Johnson.

That is where House Democrats are now heading, to counter a president who they believe has repeatedly abused his powers, first during the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and now by asking a foreign government to investigate a political rival. It could be a messy road ahead.

Time is now a factor. The House committees have spent nine months mostly spinning their wheels, locked down in legal battles with the White House. Now the Democratic leaders appear more tightly focused on Trump, Ukraine and Biden. They have the power to draw up articles of impeachment and perhaps the votes to impeach.

Then it would go to the Senate, where it currently seems highly unlikely that the president’s accusers could obtain the necessary two-thirds majority for a conviction. Trump would claim that, again, the Democrats swung and missed.

In the first impeachment trial, Andrew Johnson was acquitted, but as historian Brenda Wineapple describes in her recent and timely book, “The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Nation,” those who pushed the impeachment made their point about what kind of country would emerge after the Civil War by standing against him.

Johnson survived the trial in the Senate, but he was soon out of office as a result of the 1868 election. He was not even on a national ticket in that election. That fate doesn’t seem to await Trump, despite several challengers for the GOP nomination, as the machinery of the Republican Party is working in his favor. The question is whether he will emerge from the coming impeachment proceeding weakened or strengthened by having survived.

This clash has been coming almost from the start of Trump’s presidency. Constitutional and institutional principles are at stake, but so too is the raw exercise of political power. Pelosi has drawn her line in the sand. Trump has responded with all the vigor he can muster. The entire country will live with the consequences. n

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Trump fixated on Biden long before Ukraine call

BY T OLUSE O LORUNNIPA AND M ATT V ISER

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efore President Trump pressed his Ukrainian counterpart to “look into” Joe Biden, he had turned ridiculing the former vice president into something of a presidential pastime.

He attacked Biden at the White House and at campaign rallies. He attacked Biden on Twitter and on Instagram. He attacked Biden in France and in Japan, during news conferences and official speeches, in phone calls and in interviews, on Air Force One and in the Rose Garden, during morning “executive time” and in late-night tweet storms.

The president’s fixation on Biden is now at the heart of a historic impeachment inquiry launched by Democrats, who accuse Trump of using the power and leverage of the U.S. government to pressure Ukraine into investigating his potential rival.

In a July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump seemed to push for Ukraine’s government to develop evidence against Biden and son Hunter, according to a rough transcript of the call released by the White House on Wednesday.

Trump said during the call that he would get U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr to work with the Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens, which set off a whistleblower complaint and events that could culminate in an impeachment trial.

The reinvigorated impeachment push this past week is already leading the president to further focus on Joe Biden, as Trump and his supporters seek to shift attention from potential White House misconduct to whether the former vice president abused his position to help Hunter when he served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company during the Obama administration, charges that have little grounding in fact.

On Wednesday, Trump said he

NG HAN GUAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

In 2013, Vice President Joe Biden arrived in China with son Hunter and granddaughter Finnegan. A rough transcript of a call shows President Trump urging the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens.

was willing to release the whistleblower complaint against him so long as information was also released about Biden’s dealings with Ukraine and China.

Trump’s advisers say the president has targeted Biden in recent months for several reasons: He has emerged as a front-runner in a crowded field of Democratic contenders, he has a long record in Washington that allows the president to position himself as an outsider and he has been leading Trump in polling in key swing states.

Campaign aides previously had been wary of singling out any of the Democratic presidential candidates, opting instead to lump the group of more than 20 contenders together under the banner of “socialism.”

That began to change early this summer, as Trump’s focus on Biden hardened and the president began taking aim at the former vice president more often and more energetically than any other candidate. Trump’s attacks intensified as internal and public polling showed Biden as the president’s biggest challenger, with large leads in states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

“For someone who claims to be a ‘dealmaker,’ Donald Trump has certainly given Joe Biden a lot of

rent-free real estate in his own head,” said Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman.

When Biden formally joined the race in April — launched with a criticism of Trump’s response to racist violence in Charlottesville in 2017 — Trump greeted him with a tweet.

“Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign,” he wrote. “It will be nasty — you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate!”

In the months since, Trump has widened his attacks on Biden, criticizing him over China, trade, Iran, North Korea, his work with segregationists, his support for the 1994 crime bill and his mental acuity.

In the past, Biden’s campaign has relished the fights with Trump, contending that it elevates him in the Democratic field to showcase what a general election would look like.

“I understand the president’s been tweeting a lot about me this morning. I wonder why the hell he’s doing that,” Biden, practically giddy, said during his first trip to Iowa. “Yo yo, woah woah woah.

Anyway. I’m going to be the object of his attention for a while, folks.” n

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NATION

Migrant kids fill Minn. town’s schools M ICHAEL E . M ILLER in Worthington, Minn.

BY

I

t was the first day of school, so Don Brink was behind the wheel of his bus, its yellow paint glistening in the drizzling dawn. Wearing jeans and a John Deere cap, he turned the radio to an oldies station and, with hands callused thick by 50 years of farming, steered the vehicle toward the edge of town.

He stopped in front of familiar farmhouses surrounded by fields of soy and corn, where blond children boarded the bus, chatting in English.

“Morning,” the 71-year-old Vietnam veteran said.

This was the Worthington he knew.

But then Brink headed back into town, past the meatpacking plant that was the area’s main employer and into the neighborhood he called Little Mexico, even though most of its residents were Central American.

This was the Worthington he did not know — the Worthington he resented.

At the corner of Dover Street and Douglas Avenue, a handful of Hispanic children were waiting.

At Milton Avenue, there were a few more. And at Omaha Avenue, a dozen students climbed aboard — none of them white.

Brink said nothing.

“I say ‘good morning’ to the kids who’ll respond to me,” he said later. “But this year there are a lot of strange kids I’ve never seen before.”

Those children, some of whom crossed the U.S.-Mexico border alone, have fueled a bitter debate about immigration in Worthington, a community of 13,000 that has received more unaccompanied minors per capita than almost anywhere in the country, according to data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

Five times in just over five years, the district has asked residents to approve an expansion of its schools to handle the surge in enrollment. Five times, the voters have refused — the last time by a margin of just 17 votes. A sixth

COURTNEY PERRY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Unaccompanied minors overwhelm community, and their bus driver is part of the backlash referendum is scheduled for November.

The divide can be felt all over Worthington, where “Minnesota nice” has devolved into “Yes” and “No” window signs, boycotts on businesses and next-door neighbors who no longer speak.

The driving force behind the defeats has been a handful of white farmers in this Trumpsupporting county, including Brink, the bus driver.

Even as he earns a paycheck ferrying undocumented children to and from school, Brink opposes the immigration system that allowed them to come to Worthington.

“Those kids had no business leaving home in the first place,” Brink said. “That’s why we have all these food pantries, because of all these people we are supporting. I have to feed my own kids.”

Now he pulled up to the same high school where he and his wife had walked arm-in-arm as teenage sweethearts, and watched his passengers step down into a

stream of dark-haired children, among them a pregnant 15-yearold from Honduras and a 16-yearold girl from Guatemala who had arrived months earlier.

For the two unaccompanied minors, their first day of school was an opportunity.

For Brink, it felt like an affront.

‘They arrive every day’ Since the fall of 2013, more than 270,000 unaccompanied minors have been released to relatives around the country as they wait for immigration hearings. Many have ended up in large cities: 16,000 in Los Angeles; 18,000 in Houston; 20,000 in the Washington, D.C., area.

Thousands more, however, have ended up in small towns like Worthington, where their impact is dramatic.

In those six years, more than 400 unaccompanied minors have been placed in Nobles County — the second most per capita in the country, according to ORR data.

Their arrival has helped swell

Don Brink picks up students in Worthington, Minn., which has received more unaccompanied minors per capita than most places.

Worthington’s student population by almost one-third, forcing administrators to convert storage space into classrooms and teachers to sprint between periods, book carts in tow.

“All of our buildings are over capacity,” said Superintendent John Landgaard.

“The school district is busting at the seams,” added Mayor Mike Kuhle.

School districts don’t track immigration status but they do keep tabs on English language learners (ELL), who are generally more difficult and costly to educate.

The number of ELL students in Worthington has nearly doubled since 2013, to 35 percent of students. In the high school, where most unaccompanied minors are placed, it has almost tripled.

“They arrive every day, all year long,” said Julie Edenborough, director of migrant services for Guymon Public Schools in Texas County, Okla., the only place to receive more unaccompanied minors per capita than Nobles County. “We’re talking about kids who couldn’t write their own name, who couldn’t hold a pencil.”

School districts like Guymon and Worthington have scrambled to hire Spanish-speaking teachers, who are part educators, part parents, part therapists. Many unaccompanied minors live with unfamiliar relatives who offer little support. Teachers often fill the void, arriving early, staying late, even buying their students groceries.

“A lot of these kids suffer horrible trauma on the journey to the United States,” said Perla Banegas, who until recently taught newcomers at Worthington High.

“Some were sexually abused. Others were almost murdered by a gang or left in the desert.”

Many students feel pressured to work to pay off their debts and contribute to household expenses: rent, electricity, even WiFi. One 17-year-old asylum seeker from Guatemala said he cleaned a meatpacking plant by night, attended class by day and milked cows in the afternoon before grabbing a few hours of sleep.

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NATION But he could never fully repay the Worthington relative with whom he was living. Now 18, he’s dropped out of school, moved to another state and works construction. His asylum hearing is scheduled for March in Minneapolis but he fears he won’t have the money to attend, forfeiting his already uphill battle for asylum.

“I didn’t think the United States was going to be like this,” he said recently. “So hard.”

This school year didn’t start easily for the 16-year-old from Guatemala or the 15-year-old from Honduras. The older girl misread her schedule and arrived 45 minutes late, then had to leave to get vaccinated. The younger one arrived on time only to be scolded.

“You can’t wear shirts like that,” the attendance secretary told her in English, pointing to the Honduran’s floral blouse, which hung off her shoulders and exposed her bra straps. As a family friend who’d driven her to school translated, the girl tugged up her shirt.

‘It is racism’ When Don Brink attended high school in the 1960s, Worthington was almost entirely white. But by the end of the century, the population was 20 percent Hispanic: primarily Mexicans drawn to the area’s poultry farms and meatpacking plant.

In 2007, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 230 undocumented workers at the plant. Immigrants kept coming, however, mostly from Central America. Today the town is almost two-thirds minority. Hispanics outnumber whites. While nearby towns have shrunk and their schools have closed, Worthington has grown.

Even as Worthington has changed, however, its tax base still depends largely on white farmers like Brink, pitting the town’s future against its past.

In 2013, when the school district first asked voters to pay for new classrooms amid the influx of unaccompanied minors, those farmers feared they would bear the brunt of the $39 million. The bond referendum failed.

Three years later, when the school district asked for $79 million, some locals felt insulted.

“They shot for the moon,” said Dave Bosma, who transports livestock for a living. He voted for the referendum the first time around

immigration and threatened to kill him, the priest recalled. And a stranger at a gas station spit in his face.

“They can call it whatever they want,” Callahan, 69, said of the opposition to expanding the school system, “but the bottom line is that it is racism.”

COURTNEY PERRY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

only to join Brink and others in opposing it in 2016. They called themselves Worthington Citizens for Progress, raising money doorto-door and distributing “Vote No” fliers at the town’s turkey race.

The second referendum was defeated by a 2-1 margin on Nov. 8, 2016 — the same day Donald Trump won 62 percent of the vote in Nobles County.

Attitudes have only hardened since then, as three more referendums have failed. Citizens for Progress unsuccessfully tried to oust the superintendent, and a former teacher who shared students’ private information with

the group was charged with a crime. Accusations of racism have become commonplace.

“White people here don’t want to pay for people of color and undocumented children to go to school,” said community activist Aida Simon.

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, Father Jim Callahan took to the pulpit at St. Mary’s Church to defend the migrants. As he delivered his sermon, boos echoed off the stained glass windows. A parishioner’s son, in town for the holiday, was heckling him.

Another man approached Callahan after a different sermon on

What has been lost The 15-year-old sat near the classroom window, her belly nearly touching the desk in front of her.

She hadn’t known she was pregnant when she left Honduras in February, after the father who’d left her behind as a baby called to tell her to join him and his new family in America. Then she’d started throwing up in her hotel room in southern Mexico.

She’d thought about turning back, back to the boyfriend who had begged her to stay.

Instead, she continued north, crossing the Rio Grande on a raft before spending two days in a Texas Border Patrol facility and a month in a Florida shelter.

Now she was 3,000 miles from home, back in school and about to give birth.

“I want to learn a little bit more about you guys,” her teacher said, first in English, then Spanish.

She had worried she’d be surrounded by kids who didn’t speak her language. Instead, she found herself in a class with 14 Guatemalans and two Salvadorans.

Sitting across the room, the 16year-old from Guatemala was one of the last to speak.

She was the shy youngest child of maize farmers in the western highlands who were too poor to send her to school. It had been three years since she sat in a classroom. Asked about the best part of her first day, she would later say simply: “Learning.”

At 2:50 p.m., she walked out of school with a new friend. The two girls had grown up a few miles from one another in Guatemala but only met in America.

Across town, Don Brink was picking up kids at the middle school, which is 20 percent white.

He earns $83 a day from the bus route. But as he drove through the town that immigrants had revived, listening to oldies, he thought only of what has been lost. And he worried that this time, the referendum would pass. n

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“Those kids had no business leaving home in the first place.”

Don Brink, a bus driver and farmer in Worthington

A Guatemalan teenager sits in her bedroom in Worthington, Minn.

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WORKPLACE

Fighting hair discrimination at work BY

J ENA M C G REGOR

I

n 2017, at a gala luncheon hosted at the opulent Cipriani 42nd Street in New York, Minda Harts found herself seated next to a recruiter for corporate board positions. Over cocktails and a plated fish entree, the two talked about race in the boardroom; the recruiter, a white woman, complained about the challenges of finding black women to be corporate directors.

To test how she would respond, Harts, who founded a career development company for women of color and had a book on the topic released in August, asked the recruiter who she would feel more comfortable putting forward as a candidate for a board: a woman of color with a sleek ponytail, or one with a natural hairstyle such as locs or an Afro. The recruiter said the woman with the ponytail, Harts recalled. “The phrase she used was ‘clean-cut,’ ” Harts said.

Harts said she wasn’t altogether surprised, given the woman had said it was difficult to find black female directors. But it was a reminder that “these unconscious and conscious biases keep us from even having the opportunity to have a seat at the table. We haven’t even had the chance to introduce ourselves, and there [are] these assumptions of unprofessionalism,” Harts said.

“I’ll be honest with you: I wear my hair straight probably 99 percent of the time because, being in corporate America, I’ve seen how clients who have braids and natural hairstyles can be looked upon.”

Concern about the damage caused by heat and chemical straightening and the support offered by online communities are contributing to the latest iteration of the natural hair movement, with some black women adopting locs, braids, soft curls and otherwise embracing their cultural heritage.

Several states have recently taken steps to push employers, schools and the broader culture to move with them, and help dismantle a culture of discrimination experienced by black women and

MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST

More states are trying to protect black employees with natural styles men who say they continue to face implicit or explicit pressures to conform, unwelcome comments or even outright discrimination.

New Jersey, Tennessee, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and other states have proposed legislation to explicitly ban race-based hair discrimination — tackling a remaining loophole in the law governing discrimination in workplaces, schools and other public places.

California and New York were the first to sign legislation into law in July, and New York City issued guidelines on the issue earlier this year.

The topic has gotten attention from Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg as well.

“Hair discrimination is racial discrimination, and we ought to recognize that at the national level, too,” he said at Essence Fest, an event produced by the company behind the black women’s magazine.

The legislation is backed by lawmakers in at least eight states and by a coalition that includes the civil rights groups Color of Change, National Urban League and Western Center on Law & Poverty, as well as the marketing heft of beauty brand Dove. Unilever, which owns Dove and has pointed its focus toward society’s beauty standards for women and featured diverse figures in its campaigns, has also provoked consumer rage, including with a much-criticized ad for body wash.

Black hair has a long history of being politicized and stigmatized in the workplace — for men as well as women, said Lori Tharps, a professor at Temple University and co-author of “Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America.”

“If a black person was going to be part of corporate culture, they would be expected to not only dress the part but dress their hair

“These unconscious and conscious biases keep us from even having the opportunity to have a seat at the table.”

Minda Harts, founder of a career development company for women of color

the part,” Tharps said.

She said the new laws are getting traction because the latest natural hair movement — which differs from the protest movements of the 1960s — has “almost normalized” natural hairstyles such as braids, twists and locs. “We have a critical mass now,” she said.

That’s been fueled by the Internet, particularly YouTube with its community and how-to videos about wearing natural hairstyles, said Gillian Scott-Ward, a psychologist in New York who directed a 2017 documentary on identity and natural hair.

“It allowed everyday people to document their natural hair journey — this is how I wash it; this is how I detangle it; this is how I deal with the fact that my mom wants to disown me; this is how I talk to my boss about it.”

At a time when diversity issues are getting more attention, employment lawyers say the new

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WORKPLACE state laws did not face significant opposition from the business community. And they said that while some grooming policies may specifically prohibit certain styles, more common are general guidelines that call for “professional” or not “extreme” looks that can disproportionately lead to bias against black employees or students.

Patricia Okonta, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which was not involved in the coalition, said the legislation “recognizes that people should have access to opportunities and resources regardless of their hair texture and regardless of their race.”

The LDF currently represents a 7-year-old boy and his family in an administrative complaint with the Florida Department of Education after he was denied entry to a private school because of his locs; the organization was also involved in the case of Chastity Jones, a woman who wore her hair in locs and said her job offer was rescinded because of her hairstyle. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear her case last year.

Stories alleging hair-based discrimination have gone viral on social media, including Andrew Johnson, a New Jersey studentwrestler who was forced to have his locs cut; Kerion Washington, a Texas teen whose mother said he was not hired at Six Flags because of his hairstyle; and Brittany Noble Jones, a former news anchor in Mississippi who alleged that her decision to wear a natural hairstyle was a factor in her dismissal.

In a Medium post, Noble Jones claimed her news director said her natural hair was “unprofessional and the equivalent to him throwing on a baseball cap to go to the grocery store.”

Sandra Daniels, a Six Flags representative, said in an email that the amusement park modified its grooming policy this spring and male employees “may now wear dreadlocks — provided, per our standard guidelines — they are well-groomed and do not extend past the bottom of the collar.” Nexstar Broadcasting and its station, WJTV-TV, said in a statement that it stood by its decision, and that Noble Jones was fired for other reasons.

Most related incidents don’t result in legal action, said Wendy Greene, a professor at Kline

PHOTOS BY WHITNEY MATEWE

Top: "It's just allowing your hair to be free," Vernita Bediako said. "I think if it curls, kinks, locs, then that's the form that it wanted to go in.”

Above: “I get to be my raw, authentic self,” Gabby Hayes said about wearing her hair naturally.

School of Law at Drexel University. Lawsuits are expensive and time consuming, and only a few states and municipalities “expressly prohibit appearance discrimination,” she said in an email.

As a result, many lawyers will not advise that their clients pursue a lawsuit “in light of the restrictive interpretations of federal civil rights law” and the gaps in local protections the new laws are trying to fix.

Stories like that of Jones, the Alabama woman whose case was declined by the Supreme Court, were part of what led Dove to get involved, said Esi Eggleston Bracey, who leads beauty and personal care for Unilever in North America. Bracey spoke about the issue with the National Black Caucus of State Legislators last year, she said in an interview. “I am someone with textured hair and I’ve worn textured hair, and I’m very committed personally to driving this commitment,” she said.

California state Sen. Holly J. Mitchell (D), who wears her hair in locs, said Bracey’s talk resonated with her own experience and those of young black women in her district. She said her staff suggested drafting legislation, dubbing it the CROWN Act (“Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair”).

“It’s not just about hair. It’s about choice and about people being empowered to be who they are culturally in the workplace,” Mitchell said in an interview.

Dove’s efforts on the issue follow its long history of cause marketing campaigns focused on beauty standards but also come after an uproar that erupted in October 2017 over an online Dove ad. It depicted a smiling black woman taking off a skin-colored shirt to show a smiling white woman — an ad many found reminiscent of historically racist imagery. Amid strong backlash, Dove apologized and removed the post with the ad.

Bracey and Joy Collective, a marketing firm hired by Dove that noted Dove’s 2017 “embarrassing PR mishap” in text about the CROWN Act that it has since removed from its website, said the current efforts are not a direct response to past ads. “Dove has always been dedicated to championing women’s individual beauty so that it is respected and celebrated authentically,” Bracey said in an

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email. “When I joined Unilever in January 2018, my goal was and still is to create systemic change in the beauty industry and to celebrate beauty inclusivity.”

Employment lawyers say they won’t be surprised if more states adopt the provision or if businesses amend their policies. Companies with employees in multiple states “tend to look at the most restrictive state or state with the most protection” and use that as the default, said Natalie Fujikawa, an attorney for Fisher Phillips.

She will advise clients to do workplace training that includes discussions about bias or unwelcome comments around hair, conversations that could raise awareness and perhaps make more people comfortable with natural hair styles at work.

Some still aren’t. Harts recalls recently getting back from vacation with braided hair and not having time to get it blown straight before a meeting. “I felt uncomfortable — I felt people were judging me because of the narrative we’ve been told.”

Marie Smith, a lawyer in New Jersey, said she’s never been discriminated against at work but until recently wore a wig daily, in part to avoid comments or perceptions from co-workers in an office where there are no other black female attorneys. “For me it’s been more of a proactive thing,” said Smith, adding she was taught, growing up, to straighten her hair for an interview.

But with the arrival of the new laws, she’s begun wearing more natural styles in the office. “It’s 2019,” she said. “I kept thinking about it — I was like, ‘Why am I putting myself through this?’ ” Meanwhile, Lucrecia Johnson, an attorney in Washington, D.C., recalled the time she was working at a Big Law firm and a white colleague asked if her hairstyle — twists pinned up on top of her head — was “heavy” and then reached out to touch it. “I’m not a sideshow,” recalled Johnson, who has since founded her own firm.

She thinks it’s great that states are passing such laws, but said lasting change will come from more awareness and cultural shifts. “It’s a hearts and minds thing,” she said. “The more it’s seen [in the workplace], the less likely someone will begin to question it. That’s when the real change will occur.” n

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COVER STORY

Meryl, believed to be 16 years old, rides on a golf cart with caregiver Jeff Jabs at Best Friends Animal Society’s sanctuary in Kanab, Utah.

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Michael Vick’s dogfighting case was a game-changer for animal welfare NOT LONG BEFORE LUNCHTIME, Mya’s wagging tail splashes as she waits for the tank to drain. The bowlegged black pit bull just finished a three-minute hydrotherapy session, guided by treats offered from a staffer reaching down into the apparatus. But while Mya walks slowly on the submerged treadmill, she notices Laura Rethoret’s car through the window. Once the tank empties, Mya scurries down the ramp as fast as she can with her weakened legs, which have splayed more as she has aged.

“Good morning, beautiful!” says Rethoret, who embraces Mya with a towel. “I’m right here!”

Rethoret loads Mya and her runmate, Curly, into her car and drives to the quiet office where the dogs hang out a few times a week. These dogs are reminders that even now, 12 years later, survivors of former NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s dogfighting operation live on in pockets throughout the country, including here at Best Friends Animal Society’s 3,700-acre sanctuary.

Vick pleaded guilty in 2007 to running an illegal dogfighting ring in southeastern Virginia, a scandal that cast a spotlight on the problem of dogfighting rings around the nation. But for 47 dogs pulled from Bad Newz Kennels, there was another, less publicized development that helped change how dogs taken in large-scale dogfighting busts are treated. Rather than being euthanized, the Vick dogs were given a chance to live.

The dogs became ambassadors, tail-wagging proof of what’s possible through rescue and rehabilitation. In doing so, they changed how the public — and some prominent rescue organizations — view dogs freed from fighting rings.

Dogfighting remains prevalent, but now, in large part thanks to these dogs, others seized in fight busts are evaluated to see whether they can become pets.

The Washington Post tracked down all 47 dogs and took a look into their post-adoption lives and the families they joined. They landed in homes from California to Rhode Island, embraced by people with jobs ranging from preschool teacher to attorney. Some adopters love sports. Others had never heard of Vick, once the highest-paid player in the NFL who at PHOTOS BY BONNIE JO MOUNT/THE WASHINGTON POST

A SECOND CHANCE TO LIVE

BY EMILY GIAMBALVO in Kanab, Utah

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COVER STORY

the time of the bust starred for the Atlanta Falcons. Some of the dogs struggled to heal emotionally and remained fearful through their lives. But they all found homes far more loving than the horror-film kennel that made headlines around the globe.

“While Michael Vick [was] a deplorable person in a lot of ways, the fact that he was the one that got caught was really a big boom for this whole topic and for these animals,” Best Friends co-founder Francis Battista said. “It just catapulted it into the public eye.”

In late August, just a few weeks after her therapy session, Mya spent her final moments lying on blankets and surrounded by Best Friends staffers, including Rethoret, whose face turned red as Mya slipped away. She’s one of five of the Vick dogs who have died in recent months, leaving just 11 survivors. They are poignant reminders of their tragic beginnings but also of the grace, patience and unexpected opportunities that followed.

When Vick’s dogfighting operation was broken up, animal rescues from around the country understood the gravity of the case but also the opportunities it presented because of the NFL star’s fame. Eight organizations received custody of the animals. Some groups placed a single dog into a foster home. Best Friends agreed to give the 22 most challenging cases a place to recover and, for some, a permanent home.

The organizations worked to redefine what made a dog adoptable. The dogs were seen as victims, not irreparably damaged. They weren’t just pit bulls or fight dogs. They became Mya and Curly, Frodo and Zippy.

“Michael Vick brought dogfighting into the living room of every American,” said Heather Gutshall, who adopted Handsome Dan and later founded a rescue organization that aims to help survivors of dogfighting. “Am I glad it happened? No. Am I glad, that if it was going to happen, that it happened the way it did?

Absolutely. They changed the landscape.”

MOMENT IN ANIMAL WELFARE In southern Utah, the city of Kanab makes the NFL feel like a distant enterprise. The feature of the town, which has two stoplights and fewer than 5,000 residents, is that it once served as the backdrop for Western films.

As the highway curves from the tiny town center and through a scenic southwestern landscape of vast skies and towering orange cliffs, one right turn leads into Best Friends, a haven for second chances that is home to 1,600 animals, including dogs, cats, horses and birds. Dogs cruise by with caregivers on golf carts. The chorus of barking chaos quiets as you venture deeper through the sandy trails.

John Garcia, who at the time of the Vick case co-managed the Dogtown at Best Friends, grew up in a neighboring town without a TV. He doesn’t watch sports. Garcia only learned of Vick through his case, but he remembers the message from the rescue’s senior leadership:

“Hey, if we get involved in this, it’s a big deal,” he said. “We may be able to change the world.”

The pressure to help the dogs — and to prove they could indeed be helped — was palpable.

Because Vick’s fame turned the dogfighting bust into a national story, not just a conversation in the animal welfare community, many watched with curiosity or skepticism, wondering whether a dog from a traumatic past could ever live normally in society.

BADRAP, an Oakland-based organization, emerged as an early voice advocating for the dogs. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Humane Society of the United States thought they should be killed, in keeping with their long-standing belief that the emotional trauma such dogs had suffered would be too much to overcome. Of the 51 dogs listed in court documents, just one needed to be euthanized for behavioral reasons. One, named Rose, was euthanized for medical reasons, and two died in care.

BADRAP had worked with individual dogs seized from fighting situations many times, which gave the organization confidence. Donna Reynolds, the director of BADRAP, said once staff members met the dogs for evaluations in Virginia, there was a sense of relief.

They knew they would be able to work with them.

Pit bulls continue to face breed discrimination, with blanket bans in parts of the country. As of this year, however, 22 states have provisions against this type of legislation, and Best Friends has spearheaded initiatives to increase that number. Rehabilitating the Vick dogs has helped further the argument that the owner, not the breed, dictates a dog’s behavior. And this marquee moment in animal welfare preached values that extend beyond just pit bulls and into the overarching no-kill movement.

Mya, one of the dogs rescued from Michael Vick’s operation, gets her head scratched at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. She died in August, leaving just 11 survivors of the dogfighting ring.

“This is what really excites me because it goes to that pushing the boundaries and the demonstration of what is adoptable,” Best Friends CEO Julie Castle said.

Most involved with the Vick case, from the adopters to rescue staffers, express indifference toward the former quarterback himself. Visitors often ask Michelle Weaver, who once co-managed Dogtown and now oversees all animal care at Best Friends, what she thinks about the quarterback who abused dogs such as the ones that have lounged in her office for years. Her answer: She doesn’t think about Vick. Her energy usually goes toward the dogs.

Is Curly feeling okay? He has been slowing down lately. How’s Cherry doing in his Connecticut home?

“There’s not the anger. I think in the early days there was,” said Stacy Dubuc, a Green Bay Packers fan who adopted Ginger from the SPCA for Monterey County in northern California. “Honestly at this point, I hate to say it, but somehow [Vick] is involved in my life.

And I have the best dog possible because of it.

He was the face of dogfighting. It took a celebrity to become that. And I don’t talk about him.”

Vick, who paid nearly $1 million restitution for care of the dogs, says he regrets it all and didn’t have the strength to stop what he realized was wrong about a year before he was caught. Vick, 39, retired in 2017 and is an NFL analyst with Fox Sports. He has advocated for stronger animal cruelty laws and works to educate children.

“I think people have moved on,” Vick said in a telephone interview. “I think they’ve moved past it. It’s been 12-plus years since it all happened, so I don’t get any questions about it anymore.

People don’t talk about it. They don’t ask me about it. Life is kind of normal. But I still have a responsibility, and that will never change.”

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COVER STORY Left: Melissa Crampton leads Dakota from a building that was part of Vick’s dogfighting compound in southeastern Virginia.

Below: Mel gets a back rub from his owner, Richard Hunter, in Las Vegas.

TREATED AS INDIVIDUALS Mel’s life was not normal.

Mel trembled whenever strangers entered Richard Hunter’s suburban Las Vegas home, the emotional scars from his time at Bad Newz Kennels still evident 12 years on. But Hunter always emphasized the progress Mel had made, though he let the dog’s continued struggles serve as a reminder of what Vick did.

Every night, Hunter walked Mel and his two other dogs. It would take Mel a minute to get going. He would pause in the short driveway, look in each direction, take slow steps, assess the situation and only then decide he was ready to walk. The stories of all these dogs, Hunter said, shouldn’t be reduced to a Disneystyle tale.

“Everybody is great in a lot of ways now,” Hunter said in July, shortly before Mel’s death following a brief and unexpected illness. “But you better believe the ghosts of what Vick did to him and did to those other dogs stays with them to this day and always will.”

When Mel and the other 21 Best Friends dogs arrived at the Utah sanctuary, they sur-

prised the staff with their shyness. While some of Dogtown’s newest residents, dubbed the Vicktory dogs, were overconfident and aggressive, many seemed under-socialized and afraid. For at least six months, the dogs had 24-hour care. Garcia slept on the concrete floor of the building that housed the dogs for a month straight.

Progress was gradual. The issues varied.

Georgia, a former dogfighting champion, reacted to other dogs a football field away. Others loved canine companions, and socializing with dogs helped them get closer to people. Many had never walked on a leash. They hadn’t lived in a home environment. They needed to learn how to play.

“It was clear,” Weaver said, “that their world was pretty small before.”

Once in homes, the dogs still had their own quirks, which in many ways exemplify the legacy these dogs will leave — that all animals, even from a fighting background, should be treated as individuals. Layla, who died in June, needed her collar removed when she ate. The clanging of her tag hitting the stainless steel food bowl frightened her. Shadow, one of the 11 still alive, remains terrified of ladders, making his family wonder whether he saw dogs being hanged. His adopters don’t think Shadow fought, but the fights took place on the second level of a shed, accessible by a ladder.

Public Facebook pages have chronicled the dogs’ post-adoption adventures for thousands of followers. (Handsome Dan’s page has 546,000 likes.) Adopters shared successes and the dogs’ lives in a world that slowly became more comfortable.

“I almost forget where he came from because he’s such a typical dog now,” said Melissa Fiaccone, who adopted Cherry. The dog’s confi-

KLMNO WEEKLY

dence has surged through the years. Cherry spent a week this summer in a cabin with more than a dozen people, including many children.

The family posted a photo of Cherry on a dock with his massive tongue flopping happily.

‘THEY WERE GAME-CHANGERS’ About a year after the Vick dogs were dispersed around the country, a North Carolina man pleaded guilty to dogfighting. All 127 dogs seized — and the puppies born during the legal proceedings — were euthanized. Leaders from across animal welfare met to confront the issue, and it prompted the Humane Society to adjust its stance on dogs seized from fight busts. The experience with the Vick dogs, Battista said, was pivotal in that policy change.

PETA’s stance “remains firmly the same as it was in 2007,” Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch said in a statement, adding that dogs from these situations can be “unpredictable” and a danger to other animals and humans.

Dogfighting continues to be a problem in the United States, but Janette Reever, a senior specialist for Humane Society International’s global anti-dogfighting program, said she believes it’s declining. Dogfighting is an underground enterprise, however, so there’s not comprehensive data to prove that.

Since 2008, dogfighting has been a felony in all 50 states, and Reever said law enforcement has realized animal cruelty is often joined by other illegal activities, providing an additional incentive for police to look into reports of fighting rings.

Uba, a Vick dog who lives with Letti de Little in Northern Virginia, has a housemate named Jamie, a dog from a 2013 multistate fight bust in which 367 dogs were seized. The Missouri 500, a 2009 seizure of more than 400 dogs, is still the largest fight bust in U.S. history, and “thank God it happened after the Vick case,” said Ledy VanKavage, a senior legislative attorney for Best Friends whose dog, Karma, was among those rescued.

“She would be dead but for the Vick dogs,” VanKavage said. “I have no doubt. They were game-changers.”

Across from a small church in rural Virginia, Vick’s property has been purchased by Dogs Deserve Better, an organization that focuses on rescuing chained and penned dogs. On a summer day, dogs run in the fenced yard and the mood feels cheerful.

Then there are the four sheds, where Vick kept and fought his dogs. All are painted black, even the windows, to make them less visible at night. The group decided to preserve these relics of the dogfighting operation for educational purposes. The kennels inside one of the buildings still show claw marks on the walls.

But there’s hope and remembrance, too, through memorial candles and trees dedicated to each dog planted in a grassy field out back.

“They’ve gone through so much, and they’ve changed so much,” Garcia said. “They’ll never be forgotten.” n

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BOOKS

ISTOCK

The 18 books to read this fall BY

A NGELA H AUPT

Go ahead and clutch that pumpkin spice latte in one hand, but leave the other free for a book.

This fall brings new titles from literary heavy-hitters, plus long-awaited sequels and spooky reads to get you in the mood for Halloween. Here are some to look forward to this season.

Slay

By Brittney Morris, Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster

Imaginary Friend

By Stephen Chbosky, Grand Central, Oct. 1

Morris wrote her snappy YA debut in just 11 days after a transformative experience watching “Black Panther.” It’s about a black teen who must defend the popular online gaming community she’s created from racist, violent trolls — without revealing her identity as the creator.

Twenty years later, the author of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” delivers his long-awaited second novel — and it’s a departure, to put it mildly.

In this epic horror story, Chbosky introduces a young boy who vanishes into the woods for six days and, upon return, is thrust into a good-vs.-evil battle that plays out over 700-plus pages.

Rusty Brown

By Chris Ware, Pantheon The cartoonist Ware spent nearly two decades on this graphic novel set in a Nebraska parochial school in the ’70s. “Rusty Brown,” the first of a twovolume series, promises to showcase Ware’s sublime artistic vision, blending his trademark drawings with a lyrical exploration of weighty themes.

The Topeka School

By Ben Lerner, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Oct. 1 Adam Gordon, a champion high school debater in Topeka, Kan., is the protagonist in this layered examination of toxic masculinity, politics, free speech and identity in Middle America. It’s the third novel from Lerner, the “10:04” author noted for blurring the line between fiction and autobiography.

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BOOKS Ninth House

By Leigh Bardugo, Flatiron, Oct. 8

Get a Life, Chloe Brown

By Talia Hibbert, Avon, Nov. 5

Bardugo, whose YA fantasy series include “Shadow and Bone” and “Six of Crows,” delivers a spooky adult debut that’s perfect for October. A high school dropout heads to Yale with a specific assignment: spying on its secret societies. Expect a clever blend of dark magic, ancient mysteries, murder and plenty of ghosts.

Hibbert’s sweet rom-com features a refreshingly real set of characters. Chloe, who suffers from chronic pain, almost dies, so she decides to shake things up by making a “get a life” list: go camping, ride a motorcycle, do something bad. When her tattooed, motorcycle-riding landlord agrees to help, sparks fly.

How We Fight for Our Lives

By Saeed Jones, Simon & Schuster, Oct. 8

The Family Upstairs

By Lisa Jewell, Atria, Nov. 5

Jones, a prizewinning poet and BuzzFeed staffer, reflects on his experiences as a gay black man from the South in this slim, poignant memoir. He grapples with coming out and coming of age against a backdrop of homophobia and racism.

When 25-year-old Libby suddenly inherits a house in London, she learns it belonged to the family she never knew — and it’s where she was found as a baby, beside the corpses of her parents. Jewell’s chilling psychological thriller follows Libby as she uncovers the dark, twisty secrets of her family’s past.

The Giver of Stars

By Jojo Moyes, Pamela Dorman/Viking, Oct. 8

Little Weirds

By Jenny Slate, Little, Brown, Nov. 5

During the Great Depression, horseback librarians hauled loads of books for hundreds of miles to remote areas of Kentucky. “Me Before You” author Moyes brings five of these women to life in an adventure-driven historical fiction novel already slated to become a movie.

Slate’s collection of nonfiction vignettes — sprinkled with magical realism — explore the actorcomedian’s emotions and world view, plus death, honeysuckle, rabbits and electromagnetic energy fields. Some are funny; others sad — expect equal parts whimsy, wisdom and wistfulness.

Celestial Bodies

By Jokha Alharthi, translated by Marilyn Booth, Catapult, Oct. 15

The Book of Eating: Adventures in Professional Gluttony

By Adam Platt, Ecco, Nov. 12

This family saga — about three sisters grappling with their country’s past — is the first Arabic novel to win the Man Booker International Prize.

Platt, New York Magazine’s restaurant critic, has eaten his way around the globe — and learned that the worst meals often make the best stories.

Foodies will appreciate this intimate glimpse into the restaurant world.

Find Me

By André Aciman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Oct. 29 In late 2017, the film adaptation of Aciman’s 2007 novel “Call Me by Your Name” was released to much fanfare — which ballooned when he announced he was writing a sequel. “Find Me” promises to check in with Elio and Oliver years after the fateful ’80s summer they spent together.

Astro Poets: Your Guides to the Zodiac

By Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky, Flatiron, Oct. 29 If you’re even marginally curious what the stars have in store for you this fall, call in the Twitterfavorite Astro Poets, who have more than 500,000 followers. They’ve crafted a fun, pop-cultureheavy guide to the cosmos that’s full of original poetry and might help you make sense of the world.

Nothing to See Here

By Kevin Wilson, Ecco, Oct. 29 Madison’s new stepkids have an interesting affliction: They burst into flames whenever they’re agitated. Her politician husband’s public can’t find out, so despite a decade-old falling out, she seeks help from her college roommate Lillian. It’s a darkly funny look at friendship and forgiveness.

Twenty-One Truths About Love

By Matthew Dicks, St. Martin’s, Nov. 19 What to know about this novel: 1) It’s written entirely in lists. 2) It’s about an anxious man struggling with family and financial issues. And 3) It’s an unconventional, endearing tale of impending fatherhood.

Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

By Dexter Palmer, Pantheon, Nov. 19 In 1726 in small-town England, Mary Toft gave birth to 17 rabbits — or so she told the bewildered medical community. The real-life events provide the premise for Palmer’s dark novel about a group of Brits who have to figure out if they’re dealing with a miracle or hoax.

Children of Virtue and Vengeance

By Tomi Adeyemi, Henry Holt, Dec. 3 The Legacy of Orïsha trilogy continues with this sequel to 2018’s Black Lives Matter-inspired young adult fantasy “Children of Blood and Bone.” As a civil war looms, protagonists Zélie and Amari must protect the kingdom from devastating ruin. n Haupt is a freelance writer and full-time health editor in D.C.

KLMNO WEEKLY

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OPINIONS

Birds are disappearing.

We need to help them.

MICHAEL PARR is the president of the American Bird Conservancy.

You probably see birds frequently — so much so that they might seem to be everywhere. The reality, of course, is that our subjective experience goes only so far. Last week, researchers released a new large­scale study that shows that bird populations in North America are undergoing massive and unsustainable declines — even species that experts previously thought were adapting to human­ modified landscapes. ¶ Three billion is an unimaginably large number. But that’s the number of birds that have been lost from North America since 1970. It is more than a quarter of the total bird population of the continent.

Though some species have increased, those that are doing better are massively outweighed by the losers. Among the worst­hit bird groups are insect­eating birds such as swifts and swallows, grassland birds such as meadowlarks and Savannah sparrows, and the longest­distance migrants such as cerulean warblers and wood thrushes.

Birds are a critical part of the natural food chain, and this loss of birds represents a loss of ecological integrity that, along with climate change, suggests that nature as we know it is beginning to die.

This is a genuine crisis, yet there is still time to turn it around. We know what the problems are, and we know the actions needed to affect change.

Alongside strong migratory bird, clean-water and endangered species legislation, and critically important work to mitigate and adapt to climate impacts, maintaining habitat is paramount.

In fact, the single greatest cause of these bird declines has been the loss and degradation of high-quality habitat. Habitat loss can seem like “death by a thousand cuts,” but some cuts go deeper than others, and some are more easily healed. The condition of U.S. public lands is based on a collective decision — and we as a

nation must decide between an emphasis on exploitative and extractive uses or nature-based and recreational uses. By better managing public lands, we can do a lot to help birds, particularly grassland and sagebrush species such as the western meadowlark and greater sage-grouse, and birds found in fire-dependent forests in the West such as blackbacked and white-headed woodpeckers. Policies benefiting these and other birds will help restore nature as a whole.

Private lands can benefit from public support, too: Funding for farm-bill conservation programs makes an enormous difference to how private land management is supported — through the popular Working Lands for Wildlife initiative, for example. While birds such as the northern bobwhite and golden-winged warbler can act as “canaries in the coal mine” for the health of such habitats, programs that benefit them also help native plants,

DAVID ZALUBOWSKI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A western meadowlark in the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City, Colo.

insects and other wildlife.

Let’s not forget, however, that many of our declining birds are migratory and rely on habitat south of our borders. The Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act has funded hundreds of projects to improve wintering habitat for migratory birds, but it needs a significant funding increase. Many of these projects help people, too, by supporting sustainable agriculture, controlling erosion, and creating jobs in nature-based tourism and conservation.

When Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring ” was published in 1962, the primary concern was that pesticides — especially DDT — were poisoning birds. In the intervening years, we banned or phased out DDT and the most bird-toxic carbamates and organophosphates, only to see them replaced by a more pernicious generation of pesticides, the neonicotinoids.

“Neonics” are used to “inoculate” plants against insects and are used even when no pests are present. They remove both harmful and beneficial insects. If you use a billion pounds of insect poison annually — as we do on the American landscape — you are going to wind up with fewer and fewer insects. Then fewer birds.

Then fewer bird predators and, eventually, far fewer animals overall. It’s time to ban neonics until we can be sure that these poisons are not permanently damaging American nature.

Fortunately, each of us can do our part to make a difference for birds and other wildlife. Keeping cats indoors, adding decals or other bird deterrents to glass windows and eliminating harmful pesticides from our yards are all things that will help bird populations recover — if enough of us participate. Planting native plants also encourages beneficial insects and other wildlife to return, and rewards us with yards brimming with life. The corporate sector has a critical role to play, as well, by expanding sustainable forestry and placing wind turbines away from sensitive bird areas, for example.

While environmental news such as this new research on bird declines often tends to sound negative, it is simply data that we can choose to act on — or not. It’s a bit like hearing you have elevated cholesterol: You can choose to ignore it, but if you do, worse consequences likely await.

We now have a choice to make.

Let’s seize this moment to take care of the health of our planet, birds and all. n

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FIVE MYTHS

Aging BY

W ILLIAM M AIR

Across the globe, more of us than ever are reaching old age, thanks to advances in public health. But this success comes at a cost: The surge in age­related chronic disease is burdening health­care systems and leading to human suffering we are unprepared for.

The causes of aging, and the therapies that might alleviate its effects, are increasingly at the forefront of public interest and intrigue. Here are myths about aging that persist.

MYTH NO. 1 Biological aging can’t be slowed.

Aging is incredibly malleable.

Though they have identical DNA, queen bees can live 10 times longer than worker bees. There are countless examples of animals that can live hundreds of years (clams and whales) and some that show little sign of a greater risk of death in older ages (hydra and naked mole rats). Fundamentally, these animals don’t differ from us; they use the same genetic code and damage-control mechanisms.

Some humans also age exceptionally well: Centenarians live longer and better, compressing the usual end-of-life incapacity. The problem is that the science aimed at healthy aging lags behind advances that have generated more elderly people. The growing field of geroscience offers hope, showing that genetic alterations and drugs such as rapamycin can slow the rate at which animals age.

MYTH NO. 2 Live fast, die young.

In a 1927 article in the Baltimore Sun titled “Why Lazy People Live the Longest,” American biologist Raymond Pearl tied variation in longevity to metabolic rates — the “rate of living” — and stated that this explained the longevity of women as compared with men.

But the claim that longevity requires a slow metabolic rate was based upon only a handful of species, and now we know of

many exceptions. Naked mole rats live 10 times longer than their mice cousins and never get cancer despite a comparable metabolism. Recent work shows that regular exercise helps slow key signs of aging, boosting immune function and curbing mental decline. If anything, conserving our batteries as isolated couch potatoes ages us faster; successful aging is enhanced by exercise, engagement with life, staying in the workplace and maintaining social connections.

MYTH NO. 3 Antioxidants slow aging.

Supposedly, oxidants — or “free radicals” — are running rampant in our cells, damaging all they touch. And we are told that antioxidants in superfoods and beauty products will mop up free radicals, protecting us from their aging effects.

Free radicals, a class of molecules in cells that have unpaired electrons, can indeed cause damage in cells, but they have captured the public imagination as a source of old age with little scientific evidence. There is in fact more negative data than positive examples. Growing evidence even suggests that genetic manipulations that slow aging in animals like the nematode worm cause a small burst of free radicals that induces “mitochondrial hormesis,” preparing the worm for a stress to come and helping increase

BENOIT TESSIER/REUTERS

What’s the most important secret to aging well? Eating less? Avoiding exercise? Getting plenty of antioxidants? Probably none of the above.

life span — science’s way of saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

MYTH NO. 4 Fewer calories mean a longer life.

Calorie restriction has been shown to slow aging and the onset of disease in monkeys, and it might have beneficial effects in people.

In truth, we just don’t know that the benefit of strict diets lies solely in their calorie content.

Increasingly, it seems that many of the positive effects of calorie restriction on aging may be unrelated to caloric intake. Hungry animals and people tend to eat faster, and as a result spend more of their day eating nothing. These extended periods of abstinence are enough to slow aging in mice, whether overall calorie intake is reduced or not. The science uncoupling the effects of fasting and calorie restriction on aging is in its infancy.

MYTH NO. 5 Short telomeres explain aging.

As our cells divide, the chromosomes within them that carry the recipe for all cellular functions progressively shorten,

because the replication machinery cannot get right to their tips. To prevent loss of information, these tips have protective caps known as telomeres, often likened to the plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces.

But they can do only so much. With age, telomeres become too short to be protective, and cells go dormant.

Because cells in older people have shorter telomeres, telomere length is cited as a predictor of good or bad aging and even the central cause of the aging process. Lifestyle advice tips including more sex, meditation and yoga proposes to protect to increase wellness by protecting or even lengthening telomeres.

Aging is not caused by one event, however, as compelling as fraying telomeres may be. Some of our cells do not divide at all, and they age without shortened telomeres. Many animals have telomeres much longer than ours, yet they age faster than we do. Shortening telomeres may even be useful, protecting against unchecked cell division, which is a hallmark of cancer. n Mair researches the biology of the aging process in his lab at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he is an associate professor of genetics and complex diseases.

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