9/11 records still hidden
ANOTHER VIEW | NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
It was 20 years ago this month when we started writing about how the toxic fallout from the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorists was sickening and killing people. Then the politicians were named Bloomberg, Pataki and Bush. The politicians' names have changed, but not the importance of getting to the bottom of what happened with the health catastrophe.
It's now less than two months until the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the man running the city's Law Department, Corporation Counsel Steve Banks, are saying all the right things. But city lawyers are still fighting disclosure in court and violating the state Freedom of Information Law.
On June 30, Mamdani said: "As we prepare to mark 25 years since the horrific Sept. 11 terror attacks, we are committing more than $34 million to create a public portal that will finally release documents from across city government related to post-9/11 air quality and health risks."
That same day, Council Speaker Julie Menin said in a press release: "The Council secured $6.25 million for the Department of Investigation (DOI), including $4 million to complete and release its long-awaited report on 9/11 toxins."
So why are city lawyers in court papers and in sworn depositions saying there are no documents?
The truth is that the records do exist and it was only a few years ago that city lawyers told local members of Congress that they would cough up the documents if Congress passed a law shielding the city. So what were those papers?
The truth will come out eventually. Mamdani and Banks shouldn't wait for DOI, as the clock to the 9/11 anniversary ticks away every second.
Clean up abuse of food stamps
ANOTHER VIEW | LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
The threat of financial penalties has states scram-bling to clean up their food stamp programs. For this, the White House deserves applause.
President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act features a provision that imposes penalties on states that tolerate fraud in U.S. Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
According to the agency's own figures, more than 10% of the money devoted to the program is wasted on "improper" payments. The program cost $101.7 billion in fiscal 2025 — the feds pay for it, while the states administer it — meaning more than $10 billion went up in smoke.
The new provisions go into effect next year. States with error rates higher than 6% will lose a portion of their federal funding for food stamps, forcing them to pick up the difference. Only nine states made the grade in fiscal 2025.
Give the White House credit for implementing a more fiscally responsible course.
When newspapers close, partisanship and lies grow
BRIER DUDLEY
Americans generally understand that losing local newspapers is bad for democracy and their communities.
They may take solace, though, in thinking people could still get traditional news from national outlets.
But that's not really happening, according to a distressing study published June 29 in Communication Research.
When people lose their local newspaper, the study found, they also consume less mainstream, national news.
Instead, they fill the void with more partisan sources, especially if they're liberals, according to the research by Jianing Li, assistant professor of communication at Rutgers, and Michael Wagner, director of UW-Madison's journalism school.
Instead of replacing good, local information with good, national information, they're replacing it with more ideological national information," Wagner explained.
It gets worse.
Americans without local newspapers who turn to partisan sources also are more likely to believe lies propagated by elites in their political party, increasing polarization and disagreement about what's true.
Wagner said much of the news from partisan, national sources is accurate. But it also includes a lot of inaccurate information.
So when someone's news diet is filled by those sources, it amplifies the degree to which they believe "things that aren't true that are said by their side."
"So Republicans tend to believe more false things that President Trump says, Democrats tend to believe more false things that Democratic politicians say," Wagner said.
People don't exclusively consume local newspapers when they're available. They get news from all manner of sources.
But the presence of local newspapers "has a moderation effect on the relationship between partisanship, media use and misperception," the authors wrote, after analyzing 2,063 news consumers in 295 counties.
This isn't to say local newspapers are a paragon. Of course they aren't perfect and could do a better job of avoiding biased coverage.
But they generally strive for objectivity and have standards in place. They give people a more balanced sense of what's happening.
When local newspapers disappear, the research suggests, people become unmoored from traditional journalism and drift toward hazardous shoals.
"They're losing one of the sources that reports news in a way that takes competing sides seriously and treats them as more honest brokers," Wagner said, "whereas a lot of ideological news will treat one side with kid gloves and the other side much more skeptically."
Consider that in context with the spread of news deserts in the U.S. More than two newspapers a week are closing and more than half of counties now have few to no local news outlets.
No wonder voters are angry, dissatisfied and choosing more extreme candidates, with or without experience.
More than 50 million Americans no longer have local newspapers that kept them in the habit of using traditional, relatively balanced media to stay informed.
When that moderating effect is gone, it magnifies people's existing partisanship and they turn to more partisan sources.
Wagner said people use their local newspaper not only to understand what's happening in their community, but because "it's a driver of consensus and helps people understand things they have in common."
When people interested in politics lose their local newspaper, "it just becomes a lot easier to say, well, why don't I just get my information from folks who tell me what I think is the right thing to think — and the people who don't think that way are dangerous and un-American and, you know, need to be stopped."
This complements recent Pew Research Center polls that found relatively few Americans feel well informed about important topics like economic and tax policy.
Fewer than half of Americans now count the news media as their major source of information on most major topics, like voting and elections or healthcare and vaccines, Pew found.
Other research established that places without local papers have more uninformed and unengaged voters, with many unable to name their mayors and other elected leaders.
It was also thought that losing newspapers increased polarization by pushing people to national outlets that emphasize partisan battles.
Li and Wagner draw an even clearer picture of what's happening to our news diets and how the local journalism crisis is degrading mutual understanding and civic discourse.
Local newspaper closures aren't just pushing people toward national sources. They're also pushing them, and the nation, off a cliff.
Dudley is editor of The Seattle Times Save the Free Press Initiative: bdudley@seattletimes.com.
Three reasons not to visit Europe this summer
FROMA HARROP
For some reason, many Americans seem convinced they have to tour Europe this summer — despite the heat, oppressive crowds and high prices all descending on the continent. And if anyone needs a fourth reason, it's to recognize the growing resentment among many Europeans as the tourist hordes turn their town centers into trinket malls, eroding their way of life and, in the process, stripping what made those places worth visiting in the first place.
The mystery remains why so many Americans insist on their grand tour when they, too, are made miserable by the big three discomforts. The heat has become especially brutal. Paris traditionally enjoys a temperate climate. This year, a heat wave has pushed temperatures there well above 100 degrees. Even now, there isn't much air conditioning in Paris.
Spain seems the current ground zero for locals trying to get through the rampart of tourists as they go about their day. Barcelona has become the main battleground for overtourism. The city now has a commissioner for "sustainable tourism." He says his goal is to keep the numbers down, especially among the (unruly) brigades there to party rather than absorb the local culture. The city, he says, still welcomes foreigners coming on business.
Barcelona's La Boqueria was considered one of Europe's greatest food markets. It offered a bounty of vegetables, fish and meat that the locals would buy to cook at home. Vendors selling street food to tourists have taken it over, causing many residents to stop going there.
This dry, hot summer has set off walls of flame now engulfing parts of Spain, Portugal and Greece. There are many deaths. In Spain alone, over a dozen retirees, mainly British and Belgian, have gone missing. Yet the tourists keep pouring in.
Three years ago, we found ourselves in Paris for a family wedding. The wide plaza fronting Notre Dame Cathedral was so clogged with tourists, we had to walk by in the street. The crazy part was that Notre Dame wasn't even open then. It was still closed for reconstruction following a devastating fire several years before.
That reminded me of an unhappy hour once spent waiting in the hot Roman sun to gain entry to the Colosseum. It was a fabulous thing to see, but the discomfort of getting in was as memorable as the place itself.
The European Union now has a process at the border called the Entry-Exit System. What it does is subject non-EU visitors to a more exhaustive identity process. The goal — to stop foreigners from sneaking into the Schengen visa-free travel area — is understandable.
But it ends up subjecting visitors from the U.S., Britain and other non-EU-countries to endless waits to get through passport control. One survey found that negotiating the longest airport lines took over three hours. (Then it's off to baggage claim.)
The post-pandemic inflation that Americans complained about was worse in much of Europe, and that's reflected in the prices for restaurant meals, hotels and airfare. Making it still more expensive is a dollar that has weakened against the euro. Its buying power is down about 4.2% from two years ago.
Back home, we have shade trees, a bed of zinnias and cardinals splashing in the birdbath. Life outdoors is good or at least not miserable. When the temps pass 90, we retreat into the AC.
I was once determined to visit part of Europe every year or two. It's now been three since I've been back. Sure, I'd like to see Barcelona. But I'm going to do myself and the Barcelonans a favor by not going, even though I'm a nice person and can speak Spanish. Save the microwaved paella for someone else.
Harrop, who lives in New York City and Providence, Rhode Island, writes for Creators Syndicate: fharrop@gmail.com.
