US Business

The babies are gone and so are the veterans. Buried at the edge of an African-American cemetery in the US city of Houston, their bodies were washed away by a nearby bayou during major storms in past decades.

Under the blazing Texas sun, dozens of volunteers mowed grass and cleaned tombstones recently to help save what is left of Olivewood Cemetery’s 4,000 graves.

Some parts of the cemetery at first appear forgotten, with broken or dirty headstones.

But the graveyard is in fact receiving newfound care — part of a modern push to preserve Black heritage, as interest in saving neglected or even erased African-American historical sites spikes.

The “George Floyd murder, I think it just was a crystallizing moment,” said Antoinette Jackson, a professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida, explaining the new interest in such places.

African-American cemeteries “have been continually erased and information about them silenced,” she said.

Margott Williams, president of the Descendants of Olivewood nonprofit, laments those whose graves have washed away at the Houston cemetery: “There were babies back there. I don’t see my babies back there anymore. There were veterans back there. I don’t see my veterans back there.” 

To help record the existence of such sites, Jackson created the Black Cemetery Network, which allows people to share the location of African-American graveyards, many of which have been lost to time and neglect.

– Reverse script and seashells –

The reasons for the cemeteries’ disappearance from public knowledge are many.

The oldest plots hold enslaved individuals, who were generally buried on white people’s land. Those white people did not systematically record the graves’ existence, and subsequent landowners, if they knew about them, often ignored them.

Other Black cemeteries have been claimed by local government landgrabs in which the community’s rights to their burial grounds weren’t respected, Jackson said.

Such was the case in Tampa, Florida where Mayor Jane Castor earlier this year apologized for the city’s confiscation of two cemeteries from the Black community to resell in the 1930s to white developers.

In the suburbs of Washington, an attempt to sell to an investor land that was once a slave cemetery is attracting attention, with various groups mobilizing against the move.

And finally, many cemeteries were forgotten after African-Americans were driven from nearby areas due to the construction of infrastructure such as highways or outright gentrification.

At Olivewood Cemetery, a single African-American family still lives nearby in a modest house that is now surrounded by high-end buildings.

The graveyard was only recently classified among the country’s most endangered historic places by the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The move comes decades after Charles Cook first rediscovered the cemetery in 1993, after it was more or less abandoned for 40 years.

“It was a jungle,” he told AFP.

Machete in hand, he cleared it himself and continues its upkeep at his own expense, visiting the graveyard every day. In researching its occupants, he discovered two of his own ancestors were buried there.

A study will soon propose solutions to protect it from the dangers of eroding rainwater and the bayou. How the work will be financed remains to be seen, however.

Nationally, in February, an African-American Burial Grounds Preservation Act was introduced in the US House and Senate “to research, identify, document, preserve, and interpret historic African-American burial grounds,” which Jackson thinks will be adopted in the fall.

In the meantime, on Saturday, anthropology student Jasmine Lee was supervising the Olivewood volunteers. 

She says she is fascinated by the tombs which testify to “cultural, spiritual ideals that were not only founded in practice during enslavement, but carried over into freedom.”

Some of the tombstones’ script is written upside-down or in reverse to trick evil spirits or otherwise allow the dead to read their own names from below.

Elsewhere, shells were used as decorations to evoke a sea voyage, which in some parts of Africa symbolizes departure to the other side.

Further down the way, iron pipes in the ground no doubt helped the spirits get out and amble about.

– Sugar Land 95 –

In Sugar Land, a suburb southwest of Houston, a memorial is in the works to honor 95 African-Americans whose graves were found in 2018 during construction work on school district grounds.

The skeletons, as it would turn out, belonged to prisoners who died between 1878 and 1911 and who had been loaned out by judicial authorities to work the local sugarcane farms. 

The work was grueling and the convicts’ poor health was evident from the state of their bones.

The “convict leasing system,” as it was called, was abolished in Texas in 1912 and at the federal level in 1941.

Shifa Rahman, campaign director for the Convict Leasing and Labor Project, is advocating for the forthcoming memorial to “properly and equitably” educate about what the prisoners “had to endure under the convict leasing system.”

The nonprofit is also calling for DNA tests to identify the remains. 

For now, everyone has an identical tombstone, on which “unknown” is written, followed by a number.

US President Joe Biden faced open criticism Thursday at an Americas summit, along with complaints about foreign pressure by Brazil’s far-right leader, as he sought progress on issues from migration to climate change.

Biden is welcoming leaders from across the hemisphere in Los Angeles in a choreographed bid to show that democracy can work, amid rapid inroads by China in a region long seen by Washington as its turf.

But just after Biden made his pitch at the Summit of the Americas, he heard an earful over his decision to exclude the leftist leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela on the grounds that they are autocrats — a decision that already triggered a boycott by Mexico’s president.

Argentina’s center-left president, Alberto Fernandez, who was persuaded to attend by Biden, said that dialogue “is the best way to promote democracy.”

“Being the host country of the summit doesn’t grant the ability to impose a right of admission on member countries of the continent,” Fernandez said.

Biden heard even more direct criticism from one of the hemisphere’s smallest nations Belize, whose representatives told him it was “inexcusable” not to invite all countries and called the half-century US pressure campaign against Cuba a “crime against humanity.”

Prime Minister John Briceno also questioned whether Biden would follow through financially on lofty promises.

“We know that money is not the problem. In less than three months, two countries in this hemisphere committed $55 billion to Ukraine,” he said, referring to the United States and Canada.

Biden, who applauded politely and greeted each leader, returned to the podium to insist his agenda was on track.

“Notwithstanding some of the disagreements relating to participation, on the substantive matters, what I heard was almost unity and uniformity,” Biden said.

Biden said the United States would raise specifics on how the hemisphere can do better together on improving public health and clean energy.

Biden plans to close the summit Friday with a declaration on migration, a hot-button issue in the United States, despite the snub of the summit by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

– Meeting ‘Tropical Trump’ –

Biden met for the first time in Los Angeles with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of former president Donald Trump, who has questioned the legitimacy of elections both in his country and in Brazil.

Biden steered clear of fireworks in his public appearance with Bolsonaro and saluted Brazil for making “real sacrifices” to protect the Amazon.

“I think the rest of the world should be able to help you preserve as much as you can,” Biden said.

Bolsonaro has horrified environmentalists by championing agribusinesses that have cut down the rainforest, a crucial “sink” for carbon emissions that are heating up the planet.

Bolsonaro told Biden that the Amazon had “incalculable riches” and that “we do our best to defend our interests.”

“Sometimes we feel that our sovereignty is threatened in that area but Brazil preserves its territory well,” Bolsonaro said.

US officials saw at least modest progress with Bolsonaro on climate, with the announcement of a low-key initiative on deforestation and Brazil joining a UN pact on renewable energies.

Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, earlier said Biden would not shy away from calling for free elections in Brazil, where Bolsonaro is trailing in polls to former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a leftist icon controversially jailed for corruption.

Bolsonaro told Biden that he wanted “clean, auditable elections” in the October vote.

Oliver Stuenkel, a professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, said it was an odd time for Biden’s meeting amid expectations that Bolsonaro will soon be out of power.

But he said Bolsonaro had leverage to request a meeting, boosting his domestic standing, as Biden needed to avoid boycotts of the leaders of both Brazil and Mexico, Latin America’s two most populous nations.

“Basically Bolsonaro is helping Biden avoid a diplomatic flop,” Stuenkel said.

– ‘Inflection point’ –

Latin American summits are often fractious, with the United States for decades on the receiving end of criticism over its efforts to isolate Cuba.

Biden made a veiled plea for understanding as he contrasted himself with Trump, saying, he was offering “proposals that I think are a far cry from what we saw from a previous American administration.”

He said that Latin America and the world stood at an “inflection point.”

“More is going to change in the next 10 years than has changed in the last 30 years in the world,” Biden said.

“I find no reason why the Western Hemisphere over the next 10 years is not developed into the most democratic region in the world.”

The torrid pace of US inflation may have eased slightly in May, but prices have remained high to the detriment of Americans’ wallets, sending President Joe Biden and the Federal Reserve racing to help.

Consumer prices in the world’s largest economy have soared by the fastest pace in more than four decades, with gas prices at the pump hitting new records daily amid the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as well as ongoing supply chain challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Biden, whose popularity has taken a hit as prices surge, has made fighting inflation his top domestic priority, but is finding he has few tools to directly impact prices.

“Inflation is the bane of our existence,” Biden acknowledged in an interview Wednesday with late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel.

The Labor Department is set to release the May consumer price index (CPI) data on Friday, which analysts expect will show a slightly higher monthly increase than in the prior month, but potentially saw a modest slowdown in the torrid annual pace.

US consumer prices jumped 8.3 percent in the 12 months ending in April, and though economists say the rate probably peaked in March at 8.5 percent, it is likely to remain high for months to come, something the White House has acknowledged.

“We estimate the 12-month change in overall CPI eased only slightly” to 8.2 percent, said Rubeela Farooqi of High Frequency Economics.

Sam Stovall of CFRA expects the rate slow to 8.1 percent but warned further declines are likely to be “glacial.”

However, a consensus forecast sees the rate holding steady at the 8.3 percent the pace seen April.

Biden has tried to hammer home his optimistic message about the economic progress in the wake of the pandemic, including rapid GDP growth and record job creation, while pressing Congress to take action to lower costs on specific products, and go after firms such as shipping companies that are taking advantage of limited competition to impose steep price hikes.

“We have the fastest-growing economy in the world,” he said. “That’s allowed us at least to stay on top of and a little bit ahead of what’s happening around the world.”

– Inflation remains ‘elevated’ –

The United States has come roaring back from the economic damage inflicted by the Covid-19 pandemic, helped by bargain borrowing costs and massive government stimulus measures.

But with the pandemic still gripping other parts of the world, global supply chain snarls have caused demand to far outstrip resources. Meanwhile, the conflict in Ukraine has sent global oil prices above $100 a barrel.

The Federal Reserve has begun raising interest rates aggressively, with another big hike expected next week, as policymakers attempt to combat inflationary pressures without triggering a recession.

The White House acknowledged inflation is likely to remain “elevated” in May, though Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday the administration continues “to believe the economy can transition from what has been a historic recovery… to stable steady growth.”

In a video posted on Twitter on Thursday, Biden urged Congress to pass a bill aimed at easing the cost of shipping containers to US ports, which in turn would bring down prices.

The bill passed the Senate in March, and the House of Representatives is set to vote on the legislation next week.

Another step Washington could take is to lift some of the punitive tariffs Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump imposed on China, which supporters argue would help ease price pressures by making imports cheaper.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers Wednesday that such a move was under “active consideration” and the administration would provide more information in “in coming weeks.”

Texas authorities on Thursday announced they had located an American woman whose parents were found dead in 1981 when she was a baby, and have appealed to the public for help in solving the mystery around their murder.

“Baby Holly has been located alive and well and is now 42 years of age,” the office of the southwestern state’s attorney general Ken Paxton said in a statement.

“We rejoice today that Holly has been found,” first assistant attorney general Brent Webster told reporters, but added: “We still are looking for suspects in this case.”

The family of Tina and Harold Clouse, and the baby known as Holly, say they last heard from the couple in 1980. 

In 1981, the bodies of the Florida couple were found in a wooded area in Houston, but they were not positively identified as the Clouses until last year, through the use of genetic genealogy techniques.

Holly “has been notified of the identities of her biological parents and got to meet her extended biological family for the first time this Tuesday,” Webster said, explaining it was a virtual meeting. 

“They hope to meet her in person soon.”

The prosecutor told reporters that Holly had been left at a church in Arizona, and was raised in a family whose members are not suspected of foul play.

Police are looking for two women who “identified themselves as members of a nomadic religious group” who brought Holly to the church, he said.

“They were wearing white robes and they were barefoot,” Webster said.

“They indicated the beliefs of their religion included the separation of male and female members, practicing vegetarian habits and not using or wearing leather goods.”

In late 1980 or early 1981, the relatives of the Clouses received a telephone call from a woman who called herself “Sister Susan,” he said. 

The caller said the Clouses had joined her group and wanted to cut ties with their family and give up their possessions. The woman offered to return the couple’s car to Florida in exchange for money.

Family members contacted police. When two or three robed women arrived with the car, they were arrested, but never charged, Webster said, urging the public to report any information related to the case.

“It is such a blessing to be reassured that she is alright and has had a good life,” Cheryl Clouse, Holly’s aunt, was quoted in the statement from the Texas attorney general’s office as saying.

A large swathe of the southwestern United States was on alert Thursday for a potentially deadly heatwave that could push temperatures as high as 47 degrees celsius (117 Fahrenheit) over the coming days.

Millions of people in California, Nevada and Arizona were warned to expect dangerous conditions for at least some of the weekend, with the National Weather Service advising residents to stay out of the sun.

While the region usually heats up at this time of year, forecasters warned it would be considerably hotter than average.

Inland and desert areas of California will be particularly hot on Friday and Saturday, with the tourist city of Palm Springs expected to hit 45 degrees, while nearby Ocotillo Wells could reach 47 degrees.

“We’ve had some prior heat waves this year, but not as intense as this one or as long duration,” San Diego weather service meteorologist Alex Tardy said.

Prolonged exposure to high temperatures can be exceedingly dangerous for humans.

The World Health Organization says excessive heat stresses the body, and increases the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular disease.

“Heatwaves can acutely impact large populations for short periods of time, often trigger public health emergencies, and result in excess mortality, and cascading socioeconomic impacts,” the WHO says on its website.

Heatwaves and temperature variations are a natural part of the climate, but scientists say human-caused global warming is creating a greater number of extreme events, sometimes with devastating consequences.

In June last year a “heat dome” sat over the western United States and Canada.

The intense temperatures and worst-in-a-millennium drought gripping the region led to numerous fires.

In the village of Lytton, northeast of Vancouver, temperatures reached 49.6 degrees in the days before a destructive fire swept through.

California, along with much of the American West, is on high alert for wildfires.

Years of below-average rainfall has left huge tracts of countryside tinder-dry, and almost the entire state is classed as suffering from severe drought or worse.

In 2020 and 2021, a total of almost seven million acres (2.8 million hectares) were burned in California alone, and forecasters are warning there could be another grim year ahead.