Tucked in a little cabinet along a curb near downtown Loveland, shelves of canned goods, toilet paper, juice and other food await anyone in need. Stocked by a network of community volunteers, the Little Free Pantry has provided free food daily for the past seven months.
The concept is: “Take what you need. Leave what you can.”
“It’s a cross section of our entire society just about,” said resident Sharon Shuster Anhorn, who started the pantry and has seen people come by for food every day.
“I see older people come, seniors who are not making it very well, probably living on Social Security. I’ve talked to a lot of them. And I’ve seen people who actually have jobs, maybe part-time jobs or full-time jobs, who aren’t making it. The prices of food keep going up, and people aren’t making it to the end of the month so to speak.”
Shuster Anhorn started the Little Free Pantry, but she says it’s the entire community who has made it flourish. A network of people keep the pantry stocked, everyone contributing what they can.
“I don’t want anybody coming to that pantry and going away hungry,” said Shuster Anhorn.
The Little Free Pantry is stocked up Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020, outside Sharon Shuster Anhorn’s house on the corner of 13th Street and Garfield Avenue in downtown Loveland. John Rider, right, and Christopher Gilbert, left, helped Shuster Anhorn put the pantry together. (Jenny Sparks / Loveland Reporter-Herald)
How and why it started
In mid-April, when the pandemic’s affects were starting to spread across the community, Shuster Anhorn installed the Little Free Pantry next to her Little Free Library.
“A friend of mine actually planted the seed,” Shuster Anhorn said. “She wrote me and said, ‘What do you think about taking the books out of the Little Free Library and using it for a food pantry?’ I couldn’t give up the library. Because of COVID, people were using it more than ever. It’s been installed and running strong for seven years. I put up another cabinet especially for the food.”
She filled the small cabinet, thinking the size would be perfect. But then, as word spread through people talking about the Little Free Pantry and through posts on Facebook, donations outgrew the pantry and moved into several bins as well. And residents were accessing the food, needing it, Shuster Anhorn said.
“As more and more people were losing their jobs and more and more people were coming to the pantry, it was emptying out more quickly than we could fill it, so we started adding bins,” she said.
Through a Facebook site launched to help others during the pandemic, NOCO Community C.A.R.E.S., a network of supporters emerged. Community members have volunteered to help, keeping the pantry stocked and recently, since the weather dipped below freezing, helping Shuster Anhorn take canned goods in each night and bring them back out in the morning to stock the shelves.
Several volunteers, who gathered at the pantry recently, said for them it is an easy and safe way to help.
Rosie Haught had to stop volunteering at the Community Kitchen because she is immune-compromised, and providing food for the pantry was a way to help without being in contact with a lot of people.
“We’ve been there,” she said. “My husband lost his job, and we lost everything. We know what it’s like to be in need. This is a chance to pay it forward.”
Shuster Anhorn estimated that community members — many she has never met or even seen — have dropped off about $10,000 worth of goods since April 15.
“There’s wonderful, wonderful people coming and going,” Shuster Anhorn said. “I’ve been warmed about what the community has done around this.”
A larger trend
After launching her Little Free Pantry and seeing the need, Shuster Anhorn hopes others will follow suit and establish neighborhood food pantries across Loveland.
Nationwide, there are hundreds of Little Free Pantries that have registered with a specific website, littlefreepantry.org, all with the same goal of feeding their neighbors and helping those in need. So far, 23 Colorado locations are registered on the website with two in Fort Collins and one in Longmont.
The website states that the movement launched in 2016 when a woman in Arkansas started a Little Free Pantry pilot, a wooden box containing food and personal care items anyone could access at any time, no questions asked, hoping her spin on the Little Free Library concept would spread.
“We are not an organization,” the website states. “We are not a nonprofit. Like you, we are neighbors with jobs, families … responsibilities; we don’t have a lot of time, and our budgets are nearly maxed. But we see our neighbors’ daily struggles and feel called to do something in a way that reflects our shared values — compassion, generosity, and trust.”
Growing to meet a need
Most people who come to the Little Free Pantry started by Shuster Anhorn, take only what they need, leaving some for others. She takes heart in facilitating a way to help those people who need food.
Lara Arndt, a single mom and student, has frequented the pantry since she noticed it one day while riding her bicycle. She said the pantry always has shelf stable milk, which helps her because sometimes it is difficult to get to the store with her 5-year-old daughter.
“Poverty is not anyone’s fault,” said Arndt, explaining that she became a single parent suddenly by circumstance not by choice and is enrolled in school full time. “I work hard. I volunteer. I’m raising my child, and I’m trying to better myself. I think that’s what holds a lot of people back. They feel like they shouldn’t have to support other people. Poverty, for me, is just situational.”
The pantry, she said, provides more than just food. For her, it also gives “a sense of connection, and that people care about one another.”
In 2018, the national nonprofit Feeding America reported that there were 32,280 food insecure people in Larimer County, which was before the COVID-19 outbreak. Initial data and estimates from Feeding America expect an increase this year from 9.5% of Larimer County residents who are food insecure to 14.7%. And in a recent survey from Hunger Free Colorado, 37% of respondents say they struggle to afford food.
“We anticipate a rise in food insecurity as a result of the pandemic,” said Paul Donnelly, spokesman for the Food Bank of Larimer County. “We don’t see COVID-19 as a moment in time. Much like the 2008 recession, we think there will be a lasting effect to the pandemic that will impact food insecurity in Northern Colorado for some time.”
The Food Bank has juggled safety restrictions to continue to provide food to those in need and has added more outreach programs, serving a steady stream of residents during the pandemic. Donnelly stressed that the agency will continue its mission of helping those people feed themselves and their families.
Though the Little Free Pantry is separate from the Food Bank, Shuster Anhorn and the other volunteers who are making it happen share the same mission. They want to help.
“I think people are looking for ways to help,” said Mel Goldsipe, who learned about the pantry on Facebook and who, with her husband, Arthur, has been helping out any way she can.
“It’s a hard time, and we all want to feel better, and we want others to feel better … It hurts to think about people not being able to feed themselves.”
Shuster Anhorn and other volunteers are planning to install two larger food cabinets that they believe the network will continue to fill.
A couple donated the new cabinets, which volunteers John Rider and Christopher Gilbert are retrofitting and insulating so that the food will be safe in all temperatures.
As this Little Free Pantry grows, Shuster Anhorn hopes the concept will grow throughout Loveland, giving people more places to go for food and products they need.
Goldsipe added, “There should be one in every neighborhood.”
How can I help?
The Little Free Pantry is located on the northwest corner of Garfield Avenue and 13th Street. Residents can drop off donations curbside any time. Organizers post on the NOCO Community C.A.R.E.S. Facebook page when supplies are getting low or when specific items are needed.
Always needed are:
Nonperishable foods, particularly those rich in protein.
Paper goods, including tissues and toilet paper.
Feminine hygiene products.
Toothbrushes and toothpaste.
Baby food.
Pet food.
Sharon Shuster Anhorn waves to people who help support her Little Free Pantry Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020, outside her house on the corner of 13th Street and Garfield Avenue in downtown Loveland. (Jenny Sparks / Loveland Reporter-Herald)
KALAMAZOO, MI — A new restaurant is bringing the sweeter side of Mexican cuisine to Kalamazoo.
Little Mexico, located at 3501 Stadium Drive, specializes in authentic Mexican snack food you will not find at most other Mexican restaurants in Kalamazoo.
“Essentially, every Mexican restaurant in the area follows the same taco-and-burrito formula found all across the country, but we wanted to offer something radically different,” said Daniel Van Doren, a marketing consultant for the restaurant and longtime friend of Little Mexico’s owner.
Van Doren said the two of them spent years working together in several restaurants, and had experienced unemployment at the same time.
Those driving by the building, which was once the location of Menna’s Joint, will quickly notice the colorful decals and vibrant images of food plastered on the front door and windows.
Van Doren said that the variety of different desserts at Little Mexico — like its fried ice cream, churros rellenos and other Mexican favorites — makes for a menu unlike any other restaurant in town.
“Our focus is on our elote, sandwiches, smoothies, ice creams and novelty food items that a real native would eat in the home country,” Van Doren said.
Another popular item you will find at Little Mexico is its raspados.
The shaved ice treat is doused in syrup, mixed with fruit and typically topped off with chili powder, but can come customized in a number of different ways. You can pick your favorite flavor of ice, then choose from an assortment of fruit chunks, before adding a skewer of fruit or chili powder as garnish.
Hungry customers looking for a full meal will find plenty of options within the restaurant’s extensive menu that features American and Mexican dishes.
Lunch is available from Monday to Friday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and includes staple dishes like tacos, enchiladas and tostadas. The restaurant also offers a kids menu that includes hot dogs and chicken tenders.
Little Mexico is open Monday through Friday, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. 11 p.m.
October 31, 2020 at 06:30PM
https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2020/10/local-eats-enjoy-shaved-ice-treats-and-more-at-little-mexico-in-kalamazoo.html
Local Eats: Enjoy shaved ice treats and more at Little Mexico in Kalamazoo - mlive.com
By Kevin Crowley, Javier Blas and Laura Hurst on 10/31/2020
HOUSTON and LONDON (Bloomberg) --It was Andrew Swiger, the chief financial officer at Exxon Mobil Corp., who summarized the attitude of the whole industry after Big Oil ended reporting another dismal set of quarterly earnings: “Prices will have to rise.”
After months of low oil and gas prices driven by weak demand, the world’s largest international oil companies have largely exhausted their financial defenses, leaving little room to maneuver if they’re dealt further blows. Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SE and BP Plc have already reduced 2021 spending probably to as much as they can.
With the exception of perhaps Chevron and Total, which entered the downturn with the strongest balance sheets, leverage is approaching uncomfortable levels. Put together, Big Oil is now completely at the mercy of a worldwide rout in fuel demand that, absent a Covid-19 vaccine, shows no signs of abating, as well as OPEC+ leaders Saudi Arabia and Russia.
“I will say that a lot of the performance of the company today, but also in the future, will depend on the macro environment that we will be enjoying or suffering as the case may be,” said Ben van Beurden, chief executive officer of Shell.
Debt Dilemma
Brent crude closed this week below $38 a barrel, bringing the year’s decline to 43%. At such levels, the industry is underinvesting in supply to such an extent that shortages are inevitable in the future, which means higher prices, Exxon’s Swiger argued. But a price recovery relies on two other things: higher demand and OPEC+ holding the line on production curbs, underpinned by the often uncomfortable alliance between Russia and Saudi Arabia.
With U.S. Covid-19 cases hitting a record this week and new lockdowns looming across Europe, the virus and its impact on petroleum demand show no sign of abating. And for all the brainstorming of executives from Dallas to Paris, the oil supermajors account for less than 15% of pre-pandemic global oil demand. If supply discipline is to succeed, the heavyweight national oil producers will have to work together, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Vladimir Putin must continue to get along.
One bright spot is U.S. shale production, which is in free all after a decade-long, debt-fueled surge that surprised the supermajors and loosened OPEC’s power over the oil market. Executives at some of the biggest U.S. independent oil producers believe America may never return to peak production seen earlier this year, and that further declines are likely in 2021.
Big Oil CEOs can do little to foster geopolitical cooperation, but for the last six months they have been pulling all the levers they can to stop the bleeding of cash. Or in corporate jargon, they have focused on self-help: Curtailing unprofitable production, reducing spending and future investment, and firing tens of thousands of employees.
Exxon is paradigmatic of the trouble the supermajors are in. A year ago, the Texas-based company was targeting 2021 capital expenditure of as much as $35 billion; now, it’s planning to spend half that. It announced this week it will reduce its staff and contractors by 15%, or 14,000 people, by 2022. Even then, Exxon is spending more than it’s earning, with capital and dividend outlays consuming all its cash from operations.
Many in the market think the situation is unsustainable, and if prices don’t rise, Exxon will have to cave and cut the dividend for the first time in more than four decades. “The message is clear: Equity needs the protection of higher oil prices,” said Alastair Syme, a London-based analyst at Citigroup Inc.
Shell and BP cut their dividends earlier this year but are still weighed down by high debt levels. Shell outlined an intention to increase the payout this week. Still, that would need higher oil prices, and take decades of small hikes to reach prior levels.
Cost cutting appeared to bear fruit in the third quarter, with four of the five large Western majors posting profits on an adjusted basis. But they can only cut so far.
Regaining Relevancy
Chevron, for example, plans to invest just $14 billion next year, even after recently buying Noble Energy Inc. That’s not far above the $10 billion level that the company has historically said is the minimum to sustain production. CFO Pierre Breber said the company would let oil volumes drop if it made financial sense. “We’re not trying to sustain short-term production,” he said.
The question is not will Big Oil survive but whether it can still make investors care. BP and Shell are no longer the dividend linchpins of European stock markets. Exxon, the profit powerhouse that dominated the top spot on the S&P 500 Index for years, now ranks outside the top 50. Energy is now worth about 2% of the S&P 500 Index, making it a rounding error in many generalist fund managers’ portfolios.
“Making energy relevant and investable again is the million dollar question,” said Jennifer Rowland, a St. Louis-based analyst at Edward Jones. “They’re still trying to figure that out.”
For Rowland, having a compelling strategy in a low-carbon future is key. While that hands an advantage to the Europeans, who are pledging net zero emissions by mid-century, unlike Exxon and Chevron, BP and Shell still need a recovery in their traditional businesses to fund the move, Rowland said. With less cash, a green pivot becomes more difficult.
Exxon’s Swiger is convinced that prices will recover. Things are so bad that prices across oil, refining and chemicals are “at or significantly below bottom of the cycle conditions,” he said. Whether Big Oil investors are willing to wait for that forecast to come true remains to be seen.
What started as a single tree fire in the mountains of Idaho in 2012 quickly escalated into a smoke-filled inferno that surrounded United States Forest Service helicopter rappeller Jonathon Golden and his small team.
Capable of accessing land that is too rugged or steep to reach by foot, rappel crews are the first to respond to wildfires buried deep within forests. Their goal is simple: stop small fires before they balloon out of control.
Golden, who retired from the agency in 2019, was the first of his four-person team to rappel into the smoldering ridge. He remembers the smoke being so thick that not even the whirl of the helicopter improved visibility on the ground.
“One tree turned into five, five trees turned into 20. It was this cascade of fire erupting,” Golden said. “You could hear the unmistakable sound of a freight train of fire roaring up at you.”
A forest service helicopter returns to the south fork of the Payette River on Aug. 6, 2012, after dropping water on the Springs Fire, east of Banks, Idaho.Joe Jaszewski / The Idaho Statesman via AP
Golden, who was 30 years old at the time, had heard about previous firefighter fatalities in the region and didn’t want to take any chances. He was working to establish an escape route when one of his crew members went “rogue,” compromising the team’s ability to stay together.
Using his radio, Golden asked for additional air support but other crews were tied up with their own attack plans. His team was forced to find its own way out.
“I thought we were done, frankly,” Golden said. “I thought we were going to die.”
Eight years later, Golden still cannot shake the experience. He was forced to leave behind his equipment and pack, including his wallet and many of his belongings. They were all destroyed in what was later named the Mustang Fire, which incinerated more than 300,000 acres in the Salmon-Challis National Forest.
Golden was a temporary seasonal forestry technician at the time and never received treatment for what he thinks could be post-traumatic stress. He took just one day off to order a new bank card and was back at work the next day. When he tried to talk to his supervisor about the experience, he was told to move on: “You might as well forget about it.”
Missing birthdays and other special events is one of the many drawbacks wildland firefighters like Jonathon Golden face.Courtesy of Jonathon Golden
Golden is just one of thousands of federal wildland firefighters who work six months out of the year and whose part-time status doesn’t come with the typical benefits or job security given to state and city firefighters.
NBC News spoke with 27 current and former USFS firefighters with similar stories. Nearly all of them said they are grossly underpaid to perform life-threatening work. Many don’t have access to health care and other benefits, particularly during the off-season. They are not even considered to be firefighters, instead falling into a bureaucratic quagmire that designates them as forestry technicians. Some grimly joke that only in death does the agency recognize them as bona fide firefighters.
“It takes us dying to get their attention,” said Riva Duncan, a forest management officer.
Despite the low pay and benefits, many wildland firefighters said they can’t imagine a life outside fire. For some, the adrenaline rush becomes a kind of compulsion. For others, sleeping under the stars and protecting federal land is a higher calling.
“For those of us who stick it out, our love for what we do outweighs everything,” said Duncan, who has been with the USFS for 37 years. “The sacrifices we have made — it’s because we believe in the mission.”
Amid escalating fire threats fueled by climate change and forest mismanagement, these workers are now organizing and lobbying Congress in new ways. They are finding bipartisan support among some Western lawmakers, but many worry the federal agency that employs them is ill-equipped to provide adequate pay and benefits despite the dangerous nature of their jobs.
A plane drops repellant on a forest fire Jonathon Golden was fighting.Courtesy of Jonathon Golden
According to the Congressional Research Service, as of Oct. 1, over 44,000 wildfires have burned nearly 7.7 million wildland acres this year alone. That’s more than 12,000 square miles, or an area about 1 1/2 times the size of New Jersey.
Over the last decade, fire seasons have gradually turned into fire years. This year, more than 4 million acres have already burned in California alone, forcing thousands of evacuations and power outages across the state. Longer-burning fires have also resulted in more dangerous work. In September, a Hotshot squad leader was killed battling the El Dorado Fire in San Bernardino County, California.
The USFS declined to make anyone in leadership available for an interview and did not directly address many of NBC News’ detailed questions.
Babete Anderson, a spokeswoman for the USFS, said in a statement that the agency is “working to identify solutions by listening to our firefighters to ensure their needs are met.”
“We need to treat the landscape at a much larger scale, 2-3 times what we do now, together with our partners,” she wrote. “Only then will we significantly reduce the threat of wildfire to communities, ensure our forests endure into the future and provide firefighters the safe spaces they need to respond.”
It’s difficult to fully appreciate how large the American West is, and most don’t realize how much of it is federally owned and managed. Most states west of Kansas have substantial portions of their territory controlled by the federal government.
The U.S. Forest Service, which operates under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is responsible for roughly 30 percent of all federal land: 193 million acres, or over 301,000 square miles, the overwhelming majority of it in the West. The total area of USFS-managed land is larger than the entire state of Texas by approximately 30,000 square miles.
Western federal lands managed by five agencies.Congressional Research Service
To oversee all of that land, and the 28,000 employees that work on it, the agency has an annual budget of $5.3 billion. Nearly half ($2.4 billion) of that budget is currently spent on “wildland fire management.” A 2015 USFS report estimated this cost will rise to over two-thirds of the agency’s annual budget by 2025, to the detriment of nearly all other agency priorities, including vegetation and watershed management, facilities maintenance and more.
Every fire season, in the spring, USFS ramps up and hires an additional 12,000 seasonal employees, hired primarily for firefighting, most of whom have to reapply for their job each season.
This seasonal employment model is one that many younger firefighters who spoke with NBC News lament: In the off-season, they seek work in fields as diverse as construction to farming to photography, and some even receive unemployment benefits.
In the parlance of the agency, the bulk of the USFS firefighters are “1039s,” referring to the number of work hours they are capped at in a given season. That is just a single hour shy of six months of paid work, which means the federal government can classify those workers as temporary. They are not able to receive automatic health care, retirement or other benefits afforded to permanent employees.
In practice, firefighters battling an active fire often end up working well beyond the 1,039 base hours with overtime, sometimes accruing up to additional 1,000 hours.
One current forest service employee, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said his low pay means he sometimes can’t afford basic necessities for his kids.
“I struggle to put new shoes on my children as a temporary firefighter,” he said. “I had to look at my 6-year-old and tell her I couldn’t afford brand-new shoes for her while we were shopping at a thrift store after a complete season of firefighting.”USFS firefighter pay is dictated by the federal pay scale, where most start at the GS-3 level and where pay tops out at around $31,000 annually for full-time employees. By comparison, a first-year firefighter with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, better known as Cal Fire, makes nearly double that amount.
Most rank-and-file temporary seasonal workers are starting at an hourly base salary of approximately $13 per hour plus overtime and hazard pay. One current USFS firefighter posted to Reddit recently showing that after eight years of service his gross pay topped out at around $30,000 annually.
“What the federal government is doing is asking 20-year-olds to risk their lives for $13 to $15 and say, ‘Sayonara,’ with no retirement benefits, nothing,” said Brandon Dunham, a former USFS and Bureau of Land Management firefighter. “That is a human tragedy right there.”
U.S. Forest Service firefighters monitor a back fire while battling to save homes at the Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif., on Nov. 8, 2018.Stephen Lam / Reuters file
Dunham and others recently sent a letter to top senators seeking to “advocate for fair pay and wage equality,” among other requests for their ilk.
The former “helitack” crew member — a type of wildland firefighter specializing in helicopter operations — has given up firefighting after 11 years, in favor of working construction, spending more time at home with his wife and hosting a podcast by and for wildland firefighters called “The Anchor Point Podcast.” He decided to leave the field as he felt there was no future for him there.
When asked if he would like to return to wildland firefighting, with an agency like Cal Fire, Dunham did not hesitate.
“I would go jump on a Cal Fire engine in a heartbeat,” he said.
Larger fires, increasing demand
The Reno, Nevada, resident left the USFS at a time when, according to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service, an average of nearly 7 million acres of federal land has burned every year since 2000, more than double the average annual acreage burned during the 1990s.
Beginning in the USFS 2019 Budget Justification document, even the USFS itself began remarking on the fact that there is now “year-round fire activity” rather than a traditional fire season. “The Nation is experiencing more extreme fire behavior and high risk, high cost wildfire suppression operations in the wildland-urban interface have progressively become the new normal over the last two decades,” the fiscal year 2021 document stated. “It is estimated that 63 million acres of National Forest System lands and 70,000 communities are at risk from uncharacteristically severe wildfires. Annually, there are typically more than 5,000 fires on National Forest System lands.”
There is a rapidly increasing disconnect between the fiscal realities of firefighting (they are paid relatively little) and the ground truth: Fires are burning larger areas than ever before and these firefighters are in higher demand.
“The bureaucracy of the federal government does not match the speed with which fire is changing,” said one USFS firefighter based in Oregon who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.
As fires have increased in frequency and intensity in recent years, fatalities among wildland firefighters have also increased. A 2014 Quadrennial Fire Review commissioned by the USFS and the Department of the Interior Office of Wildland Fire found that the 10-year moving average of wildland firefighter fatalities had nearly doubled in 40 years.
Despite the increased fire threat, many wildland firefighters say they are not given the resources or protections necessary to continue working with the U.S. Forest Service year after year.
It took Mike West a decade to become a full-time employee with the agency and even then finding treatment for his PTSD was difficult.
“I had too many close calls,” he said. “I didn’t really want to be out in the field anymore.”
Mike West at the Gasquet Fire on the Six Rivers National Forest in 2015.Courtesy of Mike West
In 2013, a childhood friend who worked as a smokejumper was killed by a limb from a burning tree. The loss devastated West and triggered an onslaught of symptoms — including anxiety, nightmares and depression — he later learned were caused by PTSD.
“I just sort of covered it up,” he said. “At the time I thought it would be weak if I said anything, so I didn’t tell anybody.”
Three years later the symptoms were worse. He developed short-term memory loss and decided to seek treatment through the USFS. The first counselor assigned to him did not have the necessary background to treat PTSD, West said. He found another doctor that could address his trauma but that therapist was located 90 miles away in Reno, Nevada.
For six months West made the commute, which only exacerbated problems at home. He had two small children that he rarely saw and a wife who grew increasingly tired of juggling child care and her own full-time job.
One night, after working an 18-hour shift as a dispatcher, West had enough.
“It got to the point where I had to choose: Do I want to be a good family man and a bad firefighter or do I want to be a really good firefighter and bad with my family? I couldn’t find a balance,” he said.
“More often than not, people leave because of the strain,” he added. “I don't know too many people who are married and still do the work.”
West finally resigned from the Forest Service in July after 17 years with the agency and became a teacher. His final pay scale as a dispatcher came out to $21.50 an hour plus overtime. In his resignation letter, West pointed to “systemic problems” within the service that made it impossible to continue working for the agency.
Among those problems is their classification as forestry technicians, instead of being fully recognized for their firefighting work.
“You’re a firefighter if you’re thinking about applying, a forestry technician while you’re fighting fires, and if you die you’re a firefighter again?” West wrote in the letter. "I didn’t want to risk my children growing up without a dad because I died fighting fire for an agency that didn’t even consider me a firefighter."
Communication breakdowns and department mismanagement have persisted for over a generation — and it’s frustrating the dwindling ranks of seasonal firefighters, as retirements are outpacing hiring. This is especially problematic at a time when wildland fires continue to burn larger, faster and stronger than ever before.
In April, 11 U.S. senators sent a letter to U.S. Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen warning that the confluence of Covid-19 and high levels of drought in many Western states could make for volatile firefighting conditions, including a 6 percent "'cumulative mortality rate' at large fire camps."
The warning was not passed down to those on the front lines. Instead, it was circulated among crews after someone found it on Reddit.
“I am more than happy to put my life in danger for the work that I do but it felt like a stab in the back,” a current wildland firefighter, who asked to remain anonymous, said.
Jonathon Golden and crew responding to a wildfire.Courtesy Jonathon Golden
When asked about the breakdown in communication between USFS and its employees, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who signed the letter, said, “I’m not just angry about that. I’m furious.”
“We’re going to get through this fire season, but we’re not going through another fire season where there is this kind of fragmented, poorly coordinated policy that our very own firefighters aren’t even getting adequate information from Washington, D.C.,” he said. “It’s unacceptable.”
The seasonality of the work, coupled with the low wages and risk, has made recruitment more difficult over the last two decades — and the government has done little to fix the problem.
In 1999, the Government Accountability Office told a House subcommittee it had found that the “firefighting workforces” of both the USFS and the Bureau of Land Management “are shrinking” as a result of retirement.
Over a decade later, the USDA’s Office of Inspector General, the department’s internal watchdog, reached a similar conclusion, warning of a wave of retirement without a corresponding increase in new hires.
In addition to the firefighter recruitment concerns, there’s also a budgetary shortfall for the agency to perform adequate year-round forest management work aimed at reducing wildfire risk.
In 2015, in a USFS paper, the agency warned that absent new large-scale funding, it had been forced to reallocate its budget toward firefighting and away from other priorities, concluding that the agency was now “at a tipping point.”
“As more and more of the agency’s resources are spent each year to provide the firefighters, aircraft, and other assets necessary to protect lives, property, and natural resources from catastrophic wildfires, fewer and fewer funds and resources are available to support other agency work—including the very programs and restoration projects that reduce the fire threat,” the paper stated.
Mike Rogers, a former Angeles National Forest supervisor and board member of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees, said forest management was originally the cornerstone of the agency’s work.
“Our workforce was never a fire department,” he said, underscoring that he began at the agency in 1957. “In the old days, everyone put out the fire when we had a fire but then we went back to our jobs and that was managing the forest. We didn’t have specialized firefighters.”
Despite these stark warnings, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, there has been little has been little substantial progress on increasing the Forest Service’s budget, nor has there been substantive movement on reclassification of forestry technicians as firefighters, expanding fuel reduction and other preventative efforts.
However, in a rare moment of bipartisanship, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., collaborated with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on the Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020, which aims to reduce fire risk in their respective states.
In a recent letter to Senate leadership, the two senators had a dire warning.
“If we don’t take strong action now, we worry that what’s happening to California and Montana will soon become the new normal in every state in the West,” they wrote.
BERLIN (AP) — Nine years late and far above its original budget, Berlin’s new airport is finally opening Saturday with little ceremony and, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, few passengers.
Construction of the Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt, named after the former West German chancellor though better known as BER, started in 2006 and it was initially slated to open in October 2011. But a string of technical and planning problems forced officials to abandon six opening dates — most embarrassingly, in 2012, just four weeks before flights were supposed to start.
That propelled the project to the status of a national joke as airport managers struggled to get a grip on various problems, including a complex fire safety system that long caused headaches.
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The airport has cost some 6 billion euros ($7 billion), about three times what was originally planned. It is finally opening at a time when air traffic has been hobbled by the pandemic. The opening of the new airport’s Terminal 2 has been delayed until early next year because it isn’t currently needed.
BER’s opening spells the end of West Berlin’s Cold War-era Tegel airport, the busier of the two aging and increasingly cramped airports that so far served the reunited German capital.
Saturday’s first landings at the new airport will kick off a week-long transition, with the last flight from Tegel due to depart on Nov. 8. The former East Berlin’s Schoenefeld airport, which is located across the runways from BER, is being incorporated into the new airport as its “Terminal 5.”
Tegel and Schoenefeld handled a total 35.6 million passengers last year, putting Berlin in third place in Germany behind the Frankfurt and Munich hubs.
Six people were arrested Friday in connection with a string of paintball shootings in Little Village and Lawndale.
Seven different paintball attacks were reported from Thursday night to Friday night in the Chicago Police Department’s 10th District, which covers the Lawndale and Little Village neighborhoods. The attacks left seven people injured, including one man who lost his eye, according to Chicago police spokesman Tom Ahern.
Deputy Chief Ernest Cato said six people were arrested Friday after being found with paintball guns and assorted paraphernalia. Detectives are investigating whether those in custody carried out any of the seven latest shootings, Cato said at a news conference Friday at the 10th Police District station, 3315 Ogden Ave.
Dep. Chief Ernest Cato and 10th Dist. Cmdr. Gil Calderon @ChicagoCAPS10 announce seven paintball gun attacks within the last 24hrs. One victim lost an eye. 6 arrests / 7 victims /5 paintball guns recovered including ammunition. Area 4 Detectives are investigating. #ChicagoPolicepic.twitter.com/J2oeZR9mzy
Paintball shootings across the city have skyrocketed this fall, with at least 208 attacks reported in September and October — nearly five times the 42 paintball shootings reported from January to August. The bulk of those shootings have happened on the South and West Sides.
Cato did not say what he believes is driving the increase in paintball shootings, but said the trend is new to Chicago.
Some of the weapons and paintball paraphernalia recovered by police Friday were displayed at a press conference at the 10th District Police Station.Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times
“It’s something that has increased, but I want to put the word out there right now: We are focused on this. We’re going to treat these paint guns like they’re regular guns, like they’re shooting real bullets, and today was a great effort by the officers in the 10th District,” Cato said.
Ahern said detectives are looking for any connections between those arrested Friday and other paintball shootings in Chicago.
LEWISTON — There were moments when the cross-town rivalry between Edward Little and Lewiston became intense — even in the final game of the touch football season.
But in the end, all Blue Devils coach Darren Hartley and Red Eddies skipper Dave Sterling wanted to talk about was how their teams remained together in a world turned upside-down by COVID-19.
Edward Little came out on top with an 18-6 victory on a clear but cold Friday night under the lights.
For Sterling, watching his athletes maintain their discipline and roll with the punches this season was most important to him.
“It was a lot of fun. It is great that Lewiston lets us come over and play,” Sterling said. “We just want a season. This is just single-touch football. A lot of these guys want to get into pads, play a game. It is tough to reel them back in. You’ve got to love the passion of these guys.
“We got 45 guys who stayed and practiced since July 6. To deny them an opportunity (to play tackle football) is so wrong. This is just a scrimmage. People are posting scores in the paper. That is giving credence that, ‘Oh, you’ve got a season.’ This not a season. These guys know that. Players are frustrated. They want a real season and they deserve it. We still have the lowest COVID numbers in the country.”
While touch football isn’t the same as a physical game complete with players wearing equipment, both teams’ desire to win was visible Friday.
After a scoreless first quarter, the Red Eddies struck first. Junior quarterback Jeff Keefe, who threw three TD passes, kept EL moving in the second quarter. He connected on three deep passes to seniors Devonte Scott, Tyson Green and freshman freshman Gavin Therriault to put the Eddies in striking distance. Keefe then tossed a TD pass to junior wide receiver Jason Brooker (two TDs). The conversion failed, but EL was the scoreboard first with a 6-0 lead.
The Blue Devils remained scoreless until the third quarter. Quarterback Matthew Dube threw three complete passes in a row to bring Lewiston to the 20-yard line. From there, Dube connected with Dalton Lajoie for a touchdown. The conversion failed, but the score was tied at 6-6.
“We have a come along way in just three weeks in the 7-on-7 game,” Hartley said. “Proud of our young guys tonight.
“Even though we had our opportunities to finish, I am reallyproud of the O-line group coming out in the second half and answering. It was really a positive moment. Like I said, I wish it ended a little bit different, but I am really proud of my seniors and where they helped bring our program.”
The Red Eddies put the game away in the fourth quarter. Keefe sent over his second TD pass to Brooker from the 3-yard line with 9:23 left in the fourth quarter. Zak Therriault then caught a touchdown pass from Keefe with 42 second left on the clock to cap the 18-6 win.
Edward Little senior lineman Ben Poland, who was sidelined with an injury, was proud of his team.
“Our boys did an amazing job,” Poland said. “I think we were amazing, especially on defense. We executed. We didn’t allow big plays. We did a good job.”
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WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense offered few details to a congressional oversight committee about why a struggling trucking company, YRC Worldwide, was determined to be critical to national security, a designation that allowed it to receive a $700 million stimulus loan.
The loan, which was approved in July by the Treasury Department, has been the subject of a congressional inquiry into whether the money was properly awarded and why YRC, which ships military supplies, was designated as critical to national security. The Congressional Oversight Commission, which was set up to police stimulus funds, has also been examining whether YRC’s ties to the White House were a factor in a loan.
In a letter to members of the commission the Defense Department provided limited explanation for why YRC deserved so much government assistance.
The letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times, said that YRC qualified for the loan because it was the Department of Defense’s largest domestic shipping provider, moving food, electronics and other supplies to military bases around the country. The explanation echoed the justification that the Treasury Department shared when it approved the loan in July, but provided no additional reason why the firm, which was on shaky financial ground and had been sued by the government, should receive a bailout when other shipping providers were available.
YRC lost more than $100 million in 2019 and was being sued by the Justice Department over claims it defrauded the federal government for a seven-year period. The case is unresolved.
The Defense Department noted in the letter that it had access to other shipping companies such as FedEx and UPS. YRC is the fourth largest small-freight shipping company in the United States.
Asked why the firm was deemed critical to national security, Ellen M. Lord, the under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, wrote: “It is important that our troops have the supplies they need in order to be able to perform their duties and defend the country.”
The Defense Department confirmed that it sent the letter to members of the commission last week. Amber Venzon, the chief clerk of the Congressional Oversight Commission, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a Congressional Oversight Commission report earlier this month, the Treasury Department said YRC provided 68 percent of the Defense Department’s small-freight shipping and provided services to the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency. As to why that made it critical for national security, the Treasury deferred to the secretary of defense, Mark Esper, who is responsible for making that certification.
A new report from the commission released Friday did not include the Pentagon letter but noted that it was received and expressed frustration with the Pentagon.
“The commission finds the Department of Defense’s delay inexcusable and its answers incomplete,” the report said. “The commission looks forward to further discussion of this matter in its November report.”
In the letter, Ms. Lord said that the Defense Department did not communicate with other trucking companies about whether they could meet its needs if YRC reduced or ceased operations and said that the agency had not developed contingency plans in the event YRC shut down.
Commission members had raised concerns that the company might have received a loan because of ties to the White House. YRC has financial backing from Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm with close ties to Trump administration officials.
Lawmakers from both parties wrote letters to the Treasury Department earlier this year urging the Trump administration to support YRC, which employs 30,000 workers.
The $17 billion fund to help companies that are deemed critical to national security was created out of the $2.2 trillion economic relief legislation that Congress passed in March. Companies can apply for the loans to the Treasury Department, which must get the Defense Department to affirm that they meet the national security requirements.
The Pentagon said in the letter that 19 other companies had been certified as critical to national security through the program. YRC is the only company to have received a loan so far.
ENGLEWOOD — Readers now have another little free library to visit in Englewood.
The box for the library was installed last weekend at R.A.G.E. Plaza, 6622 S. Union Ave. Passersby are able to borrow a book for free, with donors replenishing the stock. It’s part of the national Little Free Library program.
The Neighbor to Neighbor Literacy Project installed the box. Nancy Wulkan, who founded Neighbor to Neighbor, reached out to R.A.G.E. about putting up the library after learning about the neighborhood group’s work.
R.A.G.E. — the Resident Association of Greater Englewood — is a grassroots group that supports local businesses and creates opportunities for residents, among other things.
“I really admire what R.A.G.E. and its founder, Asiaha Butler, are doing. Englewood is having a renaissance and I’m happy to be a part of it,” said Wulkan, who has installed dozens of little free libraries around the city since last year.
The libraries are built from donated materials, like kitchen cabinets or newspaper boxes. Once volunteer carpenters repurpose them, Wulkan fills them with books collected from book drives or individual donors.
The new free library is one of at least three in Englewood, with one box stationed at 6110 S. Bishop Ave. and another at 5652 S. Princeton Ave. A steward from the neighborhood oversees the maintenance of the boxes, employing the “take one, replace one” rule.
Some boxes are stocked with personal protective equipment, as well.
Wulkan’s goal is to “create a citywide network” of book lovers.
“People have been meeting new neighbors, forming friendships. … The boxes bring people together,” Wulkan said. “We’re all the same. That we can unite around stories is a symbol of hope.”
For more information or to make a donation, go to Neighbor to Neighbor Literacy Project’s Facebook page.
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MOREHEAD, Ky. (WTVQ/MSU Public Affairs) – Morehead State University’s School of
William Ditty
Creative Arts and its touring children’s theatre, The Little Company, will present its latest production as scheduled in ways no one – not even the cast and crew – ever expected.
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Adapted from the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, “Treasure Island” takes place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, through Saturday, Nov. 7, and Thursday, Nov. 12, through Saturday, Nov. 14. Performances will also be available for view on Sundays at 2 p.m. on Nov. 8 and Nov. 15.
To give the audience a live performance while ensuring audience safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, “Treasure Island” will be presented on a newly constructed outdoor stage at the Challenge Course in front of MSU’s Recreation and Wellness Center.
The show will have a drive-in format, allowing audience members to drive to see the show, stay in their cars and watch the performance while listening to the show on the radio. Attendees will also be given a “treasure box” with a treasure map and show souvenirs.
Purchasing a ticket to the live performance of “Treasure Island” also grants buyers access to a link to a recorded version where the entire performance is done in the Victorian style of paper theatre, a performance duplicated in miniature.
The stop-motion audio show features paper dolls dressed in the show’s original costume designs, along with music and sound effects.
“Treasure Island” chronicles the adventures of Jim Hawkins as he seeks out the buried treasure of a notorious pirate. Vivian Snipes, artistic director for Lexington Children’s Theatre, adapted the script for this production.
Octavia Biggs, the show’s director and director of The Little Company, said once she knew the coronavirus would affect the way MSU presents its theatrical season, she immediately started thinking of solutions.
“The challenge for me was to offer theatre majors an example of how to creatively problem-solve the issue and to generate excitement during such a sad time in our history,” Biggs said. “This project is huge, and I hope that I am making MSU proud and bringing attention to our University’s theatre department.”
In addition to showcasing students at both Rowan County Public Schools and MSU, some MSU theatre alumni have returned to campus to lend their talents and experience to the production.
MSU alumni who worked on “Treasure Island” include stage manager Atlanta Boggs (20), sound designer Jonathan Modaff (12) and set designer Chris Swanson (99, 01). Billy Ditty, who attended MSU from 1985 to 1990, designed the costumes for both the drive-in and paper theatre performances.
“As the director of The Little Company, it is always my objective to find creative ways to challenge our current students as well as connect them to the larger picture. MSU Theatre and The Little Company have a huge list of professionals working all over the world in theatre. I want those alumni to be a resource to our current students,” Biggs said. “When the pandemic hit, I kept hearing about friends and alums that had lost their jobs and I wanted to reach out and offer an opportunity to be a part of something different. I am so thankful for The Little Company and the plethora of experiences we have been able to offer to our students on campus.”
Tickets are $11 for the general public, $6 for seniors and non-MSU students and free with ID to MSU students. Tickets must be paid in advance and limited spaces are available.
MSU students can pick up their free tickets and treasure box at the MSU Theatre box office. The MSU Theatre box office is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. For more information on “Treasure Island” and to view the production’s playbill, visit www.moreheadstate.edu/treasureisland.
Online ticket purchase is available through the MSU University Store. Go to www.bookstore.moreheadstate.edu and click on “Theatre and Dance Tickets” under the “Merchandise” tab for online payment. Patrons should forward their confirmation email to mtdboxoffice@moreheadstate.edu to verify receiving a link and password.
Drive-in performance attendees must remain in their vehicles for the duration of the show. “Treasure Island” is approximately two hours long and there are no restrooms available.
Reservations are required for all MSU Theatre productions and can be made by calling 606-783-2170 or emailing mtdboxoffice@moreheadstate.edu.
TWIN FALLS — Many Magic Valley business owners have had to rapidly adjust to a dramatically changed U.S. economy.
“I think that some industries have been able to adapt quickly and sort of weather the storm,” Twin Falls Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Shawn Barigar said. “That said, there are some businesses that are struggling very hard.”
Gov. Brad Little talked Thursday to Magic Valley business leaders about Idaho’s economy. The governor ran through a lengthy list of statistics that painted a relatively rosy picture of Idaho’s economic situation. The Gem State has been resilient, he said.
“Idaho’s economy is doing phenomenally well compared to other states right now,” Little said to a socially distanced group at the College of Southern Idaho. “And we hope that holds.”
During his address, Little said that Idaho has been leading, or nearly leading, the country in economic recovery based on several metrics.
“Today Idaho is the No. 1 state for economic momentum,” Little said. Idaho is leading the country in personal income growth, too, he noted, calling that stat his favorite.
Gov. Brad Little addresses the business community Thursday during a Twin Falls Area Chamber of Commerce event at CSI in Twin Falls.
DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS
The National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures produce the economic momentum metric. It takes into account personal income growth, employment growth and population growth.
On top of that, Idaho’s ranked first in financial solvency, Little said. That essentially means the state has the least debt.
“It means we’ve got a budget surplus today — which is mind boggling to me — of over a half a billion dollars,” Little said.
Idaho has been relatively fortunate in terms of employment recovery as well. Back in August, Idaho had the third lowest unemployment rate in the U.S. at 4.2%. That slipped to 6.1% last month, the 16th best in the country.
Little emphasized for business leaders that he doesn’t anticipate unemployment insurance taxes to go up as a result of the pandemic.
“Idaho’s small businesses and employers will not see huge tax increases,” he said, adding that the state used federal pandemic assistance funds to add $200 million to the its unemployment trust fund to make it solvent.
The former rancher said if the state’s economy remains in good shape, he’ll fight to increase education spending and transportation infrastructure spending in 2021.
“We must keep pace with the growth that we’re experiencing and additional investment in these areas is needed,” Little said.
The hospitality sector could be facing tough times this winter. Barigar noted that, for the most part, the Magic Valley doesn’t see much winter visitation. Hotels did better than expected this summer, but there could be rough months ahead.
Overall, Barigar maintained a positive outlook on the coming months and years.
“I’m optimistic we’ll come out more resilient, better connected and able to adapt,” he said. “But it’s going to take some sacrifice and pain from a lot of folks.”
October 30, 2020 at 08:15AM
https://www.bigcountrynewsconnection.com/news/state/idaho/idahos-economy-is-doing-phenomenally-little-talks-state-finances-with-magic-valley-business-leaders/article_2d51d988-2f04-5b21-b93b-611baca9b672.html
'Idaho's economy is doing phenomenally': Little talks state finances with Magic Valley business leaders - bigcountrynewsconnection.com
WASHINGTON — Last July, as Joseph R. Biden Jr. was about to accept the Democratic nomination for president, the British ambassador to Washington invited a few of the former vice president’s close friends and advisers to an intimate dinner.
Among those who attended, according to one of the guests, was Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, who now holds Mr. Biden’s seat in the Senate. Others included Senator Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democrat and 2016 vice-presidential nominee, and Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia governor and Democratic Party chairman.
In years past, the British Embassy would have had a direct line to officials in both presidential campaigns — Democrat and Republican — to coax information about the policies and priorities of the next American leader, which the ambassador would have cabled back to the Foreign Office in London.
But in this strangest of campaign years — disrupted by a pandemic and haunted by fears of foreign influence — such privileged access to the Democrats has been cut off. The ambassador, Karen Pierce, has had to content herself with cultivating people one step removed from Mr. Biden’s inner circle.
Mr. Biden’s campaign, concerned over any possible perception of foreign meddling in the presidential election — or any comparison to Russian interference on President Trump’s behalf in 2016 — has ordered its high command to refuse nearly all conversations with foreign officials or members of Washington’s diplomatic corps, campaign officials said.
That has left the emissaries along Washington’s Embassy Row to woo Mr. Biden’s informal and unpaid political advisers, or lawmakers who are close to him, for any crumb of information that might be spilled during the gossip swapping that is the lubricant of their lavish parties and quiet soirees.
“During any campaign in normal times, any embassy that considers itself worth its salary is trying to get to know as many people as possible,” Ambassador Pierce said in an interview this week. “That would be the same whether it’s the Republican or Democratic candidates.”
The night before the July dinner, for example, the embassy had hosted a similar gathering with prominent Republicans, according to a person familiar with the event.
For some foreign officials, who spent the past four years assiduously cultivating Mr. Trump, his family and his senior aides, the prospect of a Biden victory is forcing a sudden shift in focus.
“A lot of these foreign governments, especially those in the Middle East that thought Trump was going to win again, are panicking now that reality is setting in,” said Mr. McAuliffe, who has known Mr. Biden for 40 years. “So they’re scrambling to meet with anybody they can that has a connection to Democrats.”
Diplomats have invited Mr. Biden’s friends and associates to cocktail receptions and pool parties. Many have tried to pick up insights by attending public appearances by his paid campaign officials, like a Chamber of Commerce video chat last month that featured his chief foreign policy adviser, Antony J. Blinken, who served as deputy secretary of state during the Obama administration.
The British Embassy also has reached out to experts with ties to Mr. Biden by inviting them to take part in video calls on policy issues, such as climate change, the future of artificial intelligence, or women, peace and security.
The British Embassy in Washington hosted back-to-back dinners for advisers to both political parties.Credit...Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
While the Biden campaign has only a handful of paid foreign policy advisers, there are dozens of people who do not have a formal role and volunteer their assistance and ideas. The majority of them have irregular contacts with Mr. Biden’s formal advisers and do not feel as bound to avoid embassies and other foreign officials.
In strikingly similar statements, representatives of Mr. Coons and Mr. Kaine said the senators regularly meet with ambassadors as part of their duties as members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“The dinner with the ambassador for the U.K. was one of many such meetings over the past eight years,” said Katie Stuntz, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kaine. Also at the dinner was John Podesta, who was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
A foreign official from one allied country said that the contacts have been strictly limited to people who make clear, at the outset, that they do not represent Mr. Biden or speak for his campaign.
Still, the limitations have not stopped some envoys from trying to send a message to Mr. Biden.
Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to Washington since 2008, has been telling Democrats in the capital that his country’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with Israel was not a coup for Mr. Trump but something they “took off the table” for Mr. Biden, according to senior Democrats who have spoken with him.
Being held at arm’s length has provoked complaints among some foreign officials who are irked at being treated as suspiciously as diplomats from Russia or China. Others have been bewildered as to why their longtime contacts in Washington’s Democratic circles have suddenly gone cold.
Last summer, a senior official who was part of a high-level delegation from a Middle Eastern country asked for a meeting with Mr. Blinken. The request, which was shared with The New York Times, stated that Mr. Blinken and the senior official “are friends on a personal level.”
The response came several hours later. “Unfortunately, Tony is prohibited from engaging with foreign officials, including diplomats, through the conclusion of the election in November,” it said.
Still, at a time when even unsubstantiated allegations about the foreign dealings of Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, quickly become campaign fodder, most envoys understand the ethics line that has been drawn.
At the Embassy of Qatar, officials have played host to Democrats close to Mr. Biden who now are working at think tanks or other private-sector jobs in Washington’s national security establishment, for discussions on foreign and domestic policy. Most of the larger events are held at either the embassy or the ambassador’s residence, with its lush gardens and elaborate display of roses, in suburban Virginia.
Senator Tim Kaine, right, Democrat of Virginia, and the state’s former governor, Terry McAuliffe, attended a dinner in July hosted by the British ambassador.Credit...Alex Wong/Getty Images
One senior Qatari official said the larger dinners and round-table discussions almost always include a mix of Democrats and Republicans. Qatar also hosted a dinner for Democratic policy advisers at think tanks last spring, and smaller gatherings are often held at the homes of other Qatari diplomats.
But the Qatari official said embassy officials try to avoid contacting Mr. Biden’s team for what he described as ethical reasons.
Even informal advisers to Mr. Biden who have steered clear of the embassies’ outreach acknowledge that the campaign’s edict against foreign contacts does not stop the usual networking of Washington.
“Any diplomat would want to understand the dynamic of who is in power and who is out of power — that’s their job,” said Lee A. Feinstein, a former diplomat and adviser to Democratic presidential campaigns who is now dean of the Hamilton-Lugar School of International Studies at Indiana University.
Foreign officials who have failed to heed what George P. Shultz, who was Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, referred to as “garden diplomacy” may now find themselves scrambling to sow contacts with Democrats after four years of trying to decode the Trump administration’s policies, Mr. Feinstein said.
“You plant the seeds and harvest them,” he added. “That’s a much better position to be in, rather than pulling an all-nighter.”
Lara Jakes and Jonathan Martin reported from Washington, and Mark Landler from London.
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