Good morning all. Here’s the news today.
As we’ve been mentioning, GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump rolled into town yesterday with his buddy, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Instead of prattling on about what Trump’s Sharonville appearance was like, I’ll just leave you with the lede from this New York Times story and let you think about where we are as a country right now.
“Donald J. Trump on Wednesday offered a defiant defense of his campaign’s decision to publish an image widely viewed as anti-Semitic — saying he regretted deleting it — and vigorously reaffirmed his praise of Saddam Hussein, the murderous Iraqi dictator.”
• Cliftonites don’t have much longer to wait until their neighborhood has a market again. Co-op grocery Clifton Market is moving along and expects to be open sometime in September, thanks to some 1,250 members who each purchased a share in the co-op. In the meantime, Market organizers July 9 are holding a film screening of locally made and Sundance screened comedy The Fourth, which will be followed by a cookout utilizing products that will be available at the Market when it opens. All proceeds from the event will benefit the Market.
• Did local mega-corporation Procter & Gamble cheat on its taxes in Italy? That’s what a probe by international officials aims to find out. The investigation is focusing on whether P&G illegally ran profits made in Italy through Switzerland to avoid paying taxes on them. The company has operated in Italy since 1963. In April, its Rome offices were raided by Italian officials seeking evidence of possible tax evasion. The company has also been under recent investigation in Mexico and Argentina for similar charges.
• Going back to mystifying things national celebrities are doing locally for a minute, actor James Franco has announced he will film two more movies in Hamilton. Franco last year shot two films in the withering post-industrial city where I was born and try not to go back to ever. Now, Franco and Hamilton-born filmmaker Jay Davis say they plan to do two more low budget, high concept sci-fi films in Hamilton, lured back in part by state tax credits and the city’s aesthetic, whatever that means.
• The stream of officer-involved shootings of African Americans continues, brought to light by cell phone cameras. Just a day after the police shooting of 37-year-old black man Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana was captured on video, a woman in Falcon Heights, Minnesota live streamed on Facebook the immediate aftermath of a traffic stop that ended with the shooting of 32-year-old Philando Castile. The Baton Rouge video shows police on top of an immobilized Sterling before shooting him multiple times. The Falcon Heights video shows Castile, who told officers he had a legal firearm and a concealed carry permit, bleeding in the passenger seat of his girlfriend’s car as an officer points a gun through the window. The woman’s young daughter sits in the back seat. Both shootings have sparked protests in their respective cities. Investigations are ongoing into the incidents.
This article appears in Jul 6-13, 2016.