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The Niche Food Group concept features classics like Quattro Fromagio and Margherita alongside shakshuka and taco pizzas.

Today on TAP: Biden’s progressive regulators act to put new muscle in an old law.

The 2022 KISS Kruise just got even bigger. The 11th edition of the "Rock and Roll All Nite" icons' annual seafaring event has added a second week, set to take…

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STAUNTON - For the first time, The Macoupin Art Collective has combined their annual Spring Art Bazaar and Spring Plant Sale/Swap into one large event. Both events are now being held for one day, Saturday, May 14, 2022; however, the times will be slightly staggered: Art Maker’s Mart 10 am-5 pm and Plant Sale 9 am-2 pm. The Maker’s Mart will feature 15 different artists set up in outside tents and in their gallery space indoors from 10 am to 5 pm. You will find a variety of items for sale from jewelry to ceramics, paintings and other wall art, stained glass and fused glass, wreaths, epoxy resin, and much more. The Plant Sale/Swap will be located outside beginning at 9 am and running until 2 pm. Jared and Lisa Wirth will be bringing a large selection of vegetable seedlings and some house plants, too. This event is special in that they are open to trades. If you have extras of one plant and would like to share, bring them with you. If you have nothing to share then

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The space will feature up to 12 pickleball courts, which will be available on a reservation basis.

More than 1,000 non-profits benefitted from donations.

Last month, the Missouri House granted preliminary approval to the 10-page "Parents' Bill of Rights of 2022."

Thursdays, with their it’s-not-Friday-yet-and-still-there’s-so-much-to-do energy, often need a little help in the unwinding department. With this week proving no exception, I meandered over to the Gustine Market, my neighborhood corner shop, after work to see what goodies it had on offer in its chill-out department.

by Ken Armstrong

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in a draft opinion obtained and published this week by Politico, detailed his justifications for overturning Roe v. Wade, he invoked a surprising name given the case’s subject. In writing about abortion, a matter inextricably tied to a woman’s control over her body, Alito chose to quote from Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th-century English jurist whose writings and reasonings have caused enduring damage to women for hundreds of years.

The so-called marital rape exemption — the legal notion that a married woman cannot be raped by her husband — traces to Hale. So does a long-used instruction to jurors to be skeptical of reports of rape. So, in a way, do the infamous Salem witch trials, in which women (and some men) were hanged on or near Gallows Hill.

Hale’s influence in the United States has been on the wane since the 1970s, with one state after another abandoning his legal principles on rape. But Alito’s opinion resurrects Hale, a judge who was considered misogynistic even by his era’s notably low standards. Hale once wrote a long letter to his grandchildren, dispensing life advice, in which he veered into a screed against women, describing them as “chargeable unprofitable people” who “know the ready way to consume an estate, and to ruin a family quickly.” Hale particularly despaired of the changes he saw in young women, writing, “And now the world is altered: young gentlewomen learn to be bold” and “talk loud.”

An excerpt from Hale’s “Letter of Advice.” (Via Google Books)

Hale became Lord Chief Justice of England in 1671. In his time (Hale’s contemporaries included Oliver Cromwell and Charles II), Hale was a respected, perhaps even venerated, jurist known for piety and sober judgment. He wrote a two-volume legal treatise, “The History of the Pleas of the Crown,” that has proved influential ever since.

Alito, in his draft opinion, invokes “eminent common-law authorities,” including Hale, to show how abortion was viewed historically not as a right, but as a criminal act. “Two treatises by Sir Matthew Hale likewise described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ and a ‘great misprision,’” Alito wrote.

Even before “quickening” — defined by Alito as “the first felt movement of the fetus in the womb, which usually occurs between the 16th and 18th week of pregnancy” — Hale believed an abortion could qualify as homicide. “Hale wrote that if a physician gave a woman ‘with child’ a ‘potion’ to cause an abortion, and the woman died, it was ‘murder’ because the potion was given ‘unlawfully to destroy her child within her,’” Alito wrote.

Courts have long leaned on precedents established by old cases and the scholarship of legal authorities from centuries gone by. But what happens when you trace citations back to their ancient source? In Hale’s case, you sometimes find a man conceiving precepts out of thin air. Other times it was the opposite, as he clung to notions that were already becoming anachronistic in the last half of the 17th century.

Consider the marital rape exemption. In “Pleas of the Crown,” Hale wrote, “The husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract.” So, according to Hale, marriage, for a woman, amounts to contractual forfeit, in which she loses legal protection or recourse should her husband sexually assault her.

Hale’s pronouncement became the accepted common law and served as foundation in the United States for immunizing a husband accused of raping his wife. And where did Hale’s pronouncement come from? What did he base it upon? Who knows? “Hale appears to have been the first to articulate what later would become an accepted legal principle, that a husband cannot be charged with raping his wife,” according to a footnote in one law review article. Another law review article, titled “The Marital Rape Exemption: Evolution to Extinction,” called Hale’s pronouncement “an unsupported, extrajudicial statement” lacking in authority.

Starting in the 1970s, states began to abandon the marital rape exemption, in whole or in part. In 1981, the Supreme Court of New Jersey wrote that it could find no support for Hale’s proposition among earlier writers. Hale’s declaration, the court found, “cannot itself be considered a definitive and binding statement of the common law, although legal commentators have often restated the rule since the time of Hale without evaluating its merits.” In 1984, the Supreme Court of Virginia wrote: “Hale's statement was not law, common or otherwise. At best it was Hale's pronouncement of what he observed to be a custom in 17th century England.” The Virginia court went on to note, “Moreover, Hale cites no authority for his view nor was it subsequently adopted, in its entirety, by the English courts.”

Like the marital rape exemption, the so-called Hale Warning to jurors caused centuries of misfortune in the American courts.

In “Pleas of the Crown,” Hale called rape a “most detestable crime.” Then, in words quoted many times since, he wrote, “It must be remembered, that it is an accusation easy to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, tho never so innocent.”

Hale evoked the fear of the false accuser — and made for that fear a legal frame, which lasted for more than 300 years. In weighing the evidence in cases of alleged rape, jurors (all men, in Hale’s time and for long after) needed to consider a series of factors, Hale wrote. Did the woman cry out? Did she try to flee? Was she of “good fame” or “evil fame”? Was she supported by others? Did she make immediate complaint afterward?

Hale’s words and formulation became a standard feature of criminal trials in the United States, with jurors instructed by judges to be especially wary of allegations of rape. The effect was predictable: Charges of rape were frequently rejected. In the United States, one early example was chronicled by historian John Wood Sweet in his soon-to-be-published book, “The Sewing Girl’s Tale.” (I was allowed to read an advance copy.)

In 1793, in New York City, an aristocrat, Henry Bedlow, was accused of raping a 17-year-old seamstress, Lanah Sawyer. Bedlow hired six lawyers, including a future U.S. Supreme Court justice, who used Hale’s framework to destroy Sawyer. Sawyer said she screamed. But, one attorney asked the jury, did she also stamp her feet? Witnesses spoke of Sawyer’s good fame, according to the trial record. But “she may have had the art to carry a fair outside, while all was foul within,” the same attorney argued. “Ultimately, the defense team’s dizzying effort to dispute and distort reality had been part of a relentless effort to transform a young woman who mattered into one who didn’t,” Sweet wrote. The jury took 15 minutes to acquit.

Starting in the 1970s and 1980s, courts in the United States began moving away from instructing juries with Hale’s admonition to be particularly skeptical of rape claims. The repudiation of Hale became so complete that when a Maryland lawmaker, in 2007, invoked Hale’s words in a state legislative hearing, it was met with “outrage,” according to the Washington Post.

Despite those legal changes, the fear of the false rape accuser still persists in the justice system, at times leading to horrendous outcomes. I began researching Hale when writing, with T. Christian Miller, “An Unbelievable Story of Rape,” published by ProPublica and the Marshall Project. The story reconstructs what happened when a young woman in Lynnwood, Washington, reported being raped. We later expanded the story into a book, “Unbelievable,” in which we described Hale’s influence in rape cases at greater length. (The story also became a Netflix series.)

Then there was Hale’s role in what today is synonymous with the perversion of justice: witch trials.

In 1662, Hale presided at a jury trial in Bury St. Edmunds in which two women, Amy Denny and Rose Cullender, were accused of being witches. In a book on this case, “A Trial of Witches,” authors Ivan Bunn and Gilbert Geis wrote that by 1662, “belief in witches was in retreat in England.” Hale, however, was not part of that retreat. He believed witches were real. “Hale represented not a mainstream position but rather one rapidly becoming anachronistic,” Bunn and Geis wrote.

What’s more, Hale instructed the jurors that witches were real. A written record of the trial recounts what Hale told them: “That there were such creatures as witches he made no doubt at all; for first, the scriptures had affirmed so much. Secondly, the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such persons, which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime.”

The jury convicted Denny and Cullender, after which Hale sentenced both women to hang. (Four years before, Hale had also sentenced to death another woman convicted of being a witch.)

Hale’s influence, once again, extended beyond the immediate case and his time. Thirty years later, his handling of the trial in Bury St. Edmunds, preserved in written record, served as a model in Salem, Massachusetts, in the infamous witch trials in 1692. “Indeed, the Salem witch-hunts might not have taken place if there had not been a trial at Bury St. Edmunds: the events at Salem notoriously imitated those at Bury,” Bunn and Geis wrote.

Hale is known mostly for his legal treatises. But his views toward women are perhaps best revealed in a letter he wrote to his grandchildren, titled “Letter of Advice.” (In a twitter thread this week I said Hale’s letter was 182 pages long. I may have understated it. I’ve since found a version online that goes on for 206 pages.)

The title page of Hale’s letter. (Via Google Books)

In this letter, Hale prescribes individualized counsel for three granddaughters.

Mary, he wrote, possessed great wit and spirit, and “if she can temper the latter, will make an excellent woman, and a great housewife; but if she cannot govern the greatness of her spirit, it will make her proud, imperious, and revengeful.”

Frances, he wrote, possessed great confidence: “If she be kept in some awe, especially in relation to lying and deceiving, she will make a good woman and a good housewife.”

Ann, he wrote, possessed a “soft nature.” “She must not see plays, read comedies, or love books or romances, nor hear nor learn ballads or idle songs, especially such as are wanton or concerning love-matters, for they will make too deep an impression upon her mind.”

Hale complained in his letter that young women “make it their business to paint or patch their faces, to curl their locks, and to find out the newest and costliest fashions.” And with that, he was just getting started. Hale followed with a 160-word sentence that is a marvel in its depth of disdain.

“If they rise in the morning before ten of the clock, the morning is spent between the comb, and the glass, and the box of patches; though they know not how to make provision for it themselves, they must have choice diet provided for them, and when they are ready, the next business is to come down, and sit in a rubbed parlour till dinner come in; and, after dinner, either to cards, or to the exchange, or to the play, or to Hyde Park, or to an impertinent visit; and after supper, either to a ball or to cards; and at this rate they spend their time, from one end of the year to the other; and at the same rate they spend their parent’s or husband’s money or estates in costly clothes, new fashions, chargeable entertainments: their home is their prison, and they are never at rest in it, unless they have gallants and splendid company to entertain.”

Some observers have been taken aback that Alito referenced Hale. But not everyone was surprised. Eileen Hunt, a Notre Dame political science professor who has written extensively about Mary Wollstonecraft, author of the path-breaking 1792 treatise “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” tweeted:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a conservative Supreme Court justice will cherry-pick an Enlightenment-era man as a timeless authority on reproductive rights but ignore #Wollstonecraft’s pivotal philosophical views on women, mothering, and the sexual double standard.”

Following the brutal killing of an unarmed black man (George Floyd) by a Minnesota police officer (convicted murderer Derek Chauvin), protests against police violence erupted around the country. Police agencies reacted predictably. Rather than dial back their aggression in response to vocal complaints about their aggression, they gave protesters everything they wanted: more violence. This […]

As the nationwide manhunt for escaped inmate Casey White and assistant director of corrections Vicky White stretches on, Sheriff Rick Singleton is revealing new details about his former employee.

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Columbia Records is celebrating Bob Dylan's 60th anniversary as a recording artist for the label by releasing a new music video for his classic 1965 song "Subterranean Homesick Blues."  The…

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The fire in April 2021 destroyed the local Church of the Latter-day Saints.

by Rob Perez, Honolulu Star-Advertiser

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

The Hawaii Legislature on Thursday unanimously passed landmark legislation appropriating $600 million for the state’s Native Hawaiian homesteading program, a chronically underfunded initiative that has long fallen short of its promise to return Native people to their ancestral land.

The amount represents the largest one-time infusion of money in the program’s 101-year history, and it’s more than seven times the record amount that state lawmakers approved last year. The majority of the funds will go toward the development of nearly 3,000 lots, most of them residential, on Hawaii’s main islands.

Under the program, people who are at least 50% Hawaiian are entitled to lease land for $1 a year and, upon getting the lease, to buy or build a home on the parcel. The homes cost roughly half the market price because the program’s beneficiaries are not paying for the land.

But, as the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and ProPublica have reported, the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, the agency that manages Hawaii’s 203,000-acre land trust, has failed to meet a crushing demand for housing. Today, more than 28,700 Native Hawaiians sit on an ever-growing waitlist. More than 2,000 people have died while waiting, according to the news organizations’ first-of-its-kind analysis.

In 2020, an investigation by the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica revealed a number of structural shortcomings that contributed to the problem. For example, the department has focused on building large subdivision housing, which proved too expensive for many low-income waitlisters, including those who are homeless. The analysis also showed that at the rate DHHL had been developing lots for the previous quarter century, it would need 182 more years to get everyone off the waitlist as it stood in 2020.

In response to the coverage, DHHL officials acknowledged that bold action was needed to deliver on the department’s main mission, and they pressed for more funding. In turn, legislative leaders prioritized the homesteading program this year. It was a top issue for House Speaker Scott Saiki, who cited the news organizations’ reporting as a major factor in the $600 million legislation.

“I never thought I would see the day that something like this would happen,” said Sen. Maile Shimabukuro, who heads the Senate’s Hawaiian Affairs Committee, as the bill was positioned for passage.

Rep. Patrick Branco, a Native Hawaiian lawmaker, called the legislative action great news. “When Native Hawaiians benefit, all of Hawaii benefits,” he said.

Legislators on the floor at the Capitol. (Jamm Aquino/Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

Timing also helped the push succeed. As Native Hawaiians and others have become more politically active in recent years about issues affecting Native culture, lawmakers this session faced the rare situation of deciding how to spend a huge budget surplus — about $2 billion — in a year in which all legislative seats are up for grabs in the coming election.

Given all that, the newsrooms’ revelations about the failures of the homesteading program boosted public awareness and prodded legislators to consider big initiatives, according to beneficiaries, advocates and others.

“No doubt about it,” said former Gov. John Waihee, the only Native Hawaiian to serve in the state’s top political post. “It’s like everything came to a head, and all of a sudden you’ve got money.”

The state’s flush fiscal position also paved the way for the proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed in 1999 by more than 2,700 beneficiaries, mostly over the long waits for homesteads. Even though the court in 2009 found that the state breached its trust obligation and was liable for damages, the litigation has dragged on for years, and more than one-third of the original plaintiffs, many of them elderly, died without seeing a resolution. Lawmakers on Tuesday approved a separate $328 million appropriation to settle the case.

Both bills — totaling nearly $1 billion — now go to Gov. David Ige for his signature. He previously told the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica that fulfilling the state’s obligations to the Hawaiian homesteading program is a priority for his administration.

“This has been a historic legislative session for providing additional support to Native Hawaiian beneficiaries,” Ige said in a statement. “Collectively, we have appropriated more funds this session than ever in the history of the state of Hawaii to advance the ideas and priorities of the Hawaiian homesteading program.”

As the $600 million homesteading bill worked its way through the legislative process, lawmakers received hundreds of pages of written testimony, many from waitlisters who applied decades ago and still don’t have homesteads. Some lamented the missed opportunities that being homeowners would have given them and said they watched as beneficiaries left Hawaii because they couldn’t afford the high housing costs.

One who applied in 2008 and is still more than 7,000 names deep on the Oahu residential waitlist shared a common fear: “I don’t want to be like many of my relatives who died on the waitlist without being awarded a lease,” he wrote.

A high school teacher told legislators about one of her students who wrote of his family’s gratitude after getting a new home in a homestead subdivision. But the student’s grandfather, a Vietnam War veteran who had a separate entry on the waitlist, slipped in and out of homelessness and died while waiting.

The majority of the $600 million is expected to be used by DHHL for developing homestead lots and acquiring land — an effort that will be further boosted by a record $22.3 million that Congress approved earlier this year for Native Hawaiian housing. The agency is planning to tackle 17 projects totaling over 2,900 lots statewide. Eight of the developments, totaling nearly 1,700 lots, are on Oahu — the island with the greatest demand for beneficiary housing.

But, because those developments will still only help a fraction of the people on the waitlist, the bill also authorizes DHHL to spend some of the money to help waitlisters in other ways, including offering down-payment assistance to those seeking to purchase homes on the private market, off trust land. The agency could also provide mortgage or rent subsidies to waitlisters who already have housing. The rent relief is aimed at those who cannot afford to purchase their own homes. If the legislation becomes law, the department would have to develop rules and procedures for how the various forms of housing assistance would work. The measure allows DHHL to use a waitlister’s income level, among other factors, to set priorities for who gets assistance and in what amounts.

A department official said the agency was grateful for the one-time infusion but noted it would need up to $6 billion to clear the entire waitlist. Acknowledging that need, Ige, at a news conference Thursday, floated the idea of dedicating a portion of the state’s hotel tax to the homesteading program on an annual basis.

For now, though, DHHL’s plans are welcome news for beneficiaries like Mauna Kekua, a 50-year-old Oahu public school custodian who has been on the waitlist for nearly two decades. She inherited her spot in line from her mother, Sarah Hauoli Larinaga, who died in 2003 after waiting a quarter century for a homestead.

Kekua said she and her husband, a maintenance worker, have struggled to pay the $2,500 in monthly rent for a West Oahu home for their family of nine, including two sons, a son’s girlfriend and four grandchildren. But now they are hopeful they’ll land a spot in a new, 280-lot development that DHHL plans to build in Maili, a Waianae Coast town not far from where Kekua now lives. The first homes in that project are expected to be completed before the end of the decade. Kekua is No. 114 on the area waitlist — a position high enough to make her optimistic about her chances of getting a parcel.

“I’m praying on it,” she said. “I’m leaving this in God’s hands.”

The American economy gained 428,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at 338,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate remained at 3.6%. Among blue-collar workers, weekly wages were up 0.37% from last month. That's an annual rate of 4.6%, ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Net new jobs in April"

Take a load off and take in the views on a relaxing daytime cruise that shows St. Louis from the river that built it. Narrated

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