News reports proclaim that the Governor of Virginia has signed into law a bill allowing localities in Virginia to remove Confederate statues. In reality, this new law allows Virginia cities and counties to remove, alter, or relocate any war monuments – something Virginia law had forbidden for 15 wars, including the U.S. Civil War.

The law up until now fairly clearly did not apply to several war monuments in the City of Charlottesville and at the University of Virginia in Albemarle County, which encircles Charlottesville. It arguably did not apply to any of them. But the new law erases any doubts. Charlottesville and UVA can now act without any legal concern, should they choose to.

Progressive friends who are used to gathering on the second Saturday for the Free Press salons met together through Zoom on April 11 from 7-9pm for a "Cyber-Salon." About 37 people were able to tune in to hear speakers, announcements and music. The idea was proposed by Free Press Board President Pete Johnson and our video production/technical support guru Trane DePriest hosted and produced the Zoom event, available here at the Free Press YouTube Network.

After the welcoming remarks and a bit of Free Press history, the first speaker was Torin Jacobs, reporting on his new initiative to give grocery gift cards to people in need now that there is COVID-19 and many of our neighbors and friends are out of work. The local Mutual Aid group will distrbute most of the $50 gift cards and the Free Press will be accepting nominations of people who need them - send an email to: colsfreepress@gmail.com to nominate someone, and put "Gift Card" in the subject line.

The COVID Pandemic has thrown America’s atomic reactor industry into lethal chaos, making a major disaster even more likely.  Reports from “terrified” workers at a Pennsylvania reactor indicate vital precautions needed to protect them may not even be possible. 

Nationwide, with falling demand and soaring prices for nuke-generated electricity, the Pandemic casts a dark shadow over reactor operations and whether frightened neighbors will allow them to be refueled and repaired. 

America’s 96 remaining atomic reactors are run by a coveted pool of skilled technicians who manage the control rooms, conduct repairs, load/unload nuclear fuel.

Because few young students have been entering the field, the corps of about 100,000 licensed technicians has been—-like the reactors themselves—-rapidly aging while declining in numbers.  Work has stopped at the last two US reactors under construction (at Vogtle, Georgia) due to the Pandemic’s impact, which includes a shrinking supply of healthy workers. 

Join us for the Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon on Zoom.
Facebook Event

night from 7-9pm on Zoom.

Join Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/222255972
Meeting ID: 222 255 972

Presentations by Bob Fitrakis on elections, Esther Flores on her nonprofit 1DivineLive4Health and Torin Jacobs on helping our neighbors in need.

The film “Prosecutor,” tells the story of the International Criminal Court, with a focus on its first chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, with lots of footage of him in the year 2009. He held that office from 2003 to 2012.

The film opens with the Prosecutor helicoptering into an African village to inform the people that the ICC is bringing its form of justice to locations all over the world, not just their village. But, of course, we all know it isn’t true, and we know now that even in the decade since the film was made, the ICC has not indicted anyone from the United States or any NATO nation or Israel or Russia or China or anywhere outside of Africa.

Moreno-Ocampo had successfully prosecuted top officials in Argentina in the 1980s. But when he began at the ICC the focus was on Africa. This was in part because African nations asked for these prosecutions. And some who argued against a bias toward Africa were, of course, criminal defendants whose motivations were far from selfless.