April 06, 2023

By Cora Jackson-Fossett

Managing Editor

An endearing figure in the Watts community was commemorated with renaming of a pocket park in her honor.  Betty F. Day Park was unveiled on Saturday, March 31, to the cheers of Day’s family, neighbors and friends.

Councilmember Tim McOsker (CD-15) and Assemblymember Mike Gibson co-hosted the ceremony to acknowledge the civic leader for her contributions to improving Watts. 

Early in her career, Day managed the Watts Towers Teen Post, which offered after-school programs for youth. Later, she worked with LAUSD and the Watts Labor Community Action Committee before founding and becoming board president of the Watts Gang Task Force.

Day’s commitment to the uplifting the community impressed McOsker as he ran to represent CD 15 on the City Council.

“On the campaign trail, I spent a lot of time with the Watts Gang Force and all paths led back to Betty Day. People like [County Supervisor and former CD 15 Councilmember] Janice Hahn and [Watts Gang Task Force President] Donny Jubert all directed me to Betty Day,” recalled McOsker.

“Towards the end of my campaign and sadly, towards the end of her earthly journey, I had a chance to meet with her. I just sat with her and talked. She was so gracious and just had great advice for me.  I decided then and there that one of the first things I wanted to do when I came to office was to rename Grape Street Pocket Park for Betty Day,” he added.

Immediately after taking office, the councilmember made a motion to obtain a status on renaming the park and took steps to ask the Recreation and Parks Commission to consider it.  The commission approved the action and McOsker arranged to have the renaming ceremony scheduled.

“I really wanted to get it done by March because that would be the one-year anniversary of her transition,” McOsker said.  “She did so much in the community. It’s probably unfair to pick one thing because she did so much. 

“The most significant thing was founding the Watts Gang Task Force in the early 2000s when we had such a spike in violent crime. The Watts Gang Task Force still meets weekly to this day.”

The Betty F. Day Park is located at 10729 Grape street in the Watts community of Los Angeles.

April 06, 2023

By Marcia Dunn

Associated Press

NASA on Monday, April 3,  named the four astronauts who will fly around the moon late next year, including the first woman and the first African American assigned to a lunar mission.

The first moon crew in 50 years — three Americans and one Canadian — was introduced during a ceremony in Houston, home to the nation’s astronauts as well as Mission Control.

“This is humanity’s crew,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

The four astronauts will be the first to fly NASA’s Orion capsule, launching atop a Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than late 2024. They will not land or even go into lunar orbit, but rather fly around the moon and head straight back to Earth, a prelude to a lunar landing by two others a year later.

The mission’s commander, Reid Wiseman, will be joined by Victor Glover, an African American naval aviator; Christina Koch, who holds the world record for the longest spaceflight by a woman; and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen, a former fighter pilot and the crew’s lone space rookie. Wiseman, Glover and Koch have all lived on the International Space Station. All four are in their 40s.

“This is a big day. We have a lot to celebrate and it’s so much more than the four names that have been announced,” Glover said.

This is the first moon crew to include someone from outside the U.S. — and the first crew in NASA’s new moon program named Artemis after the twin sister of mythology’s Apollo. Late last year, an empty Orion capsule flew to the moon and back in a long-awaited dress rehearsal.

“Am I excited? Absolutely,” Koch said to cheers from the crowd of schoolchildren, politicians and others. “But my real question is: ‘Are you excited?’ ” she said to more cheers.

The Canadian Space Agency snagged a seat because of its contributions of big robotic arms on NASA’s space shuttles and the space station. One is also planned for the moon project.

Hansen said he’s grateful that Canada is included in the flight.

“We are going to the moon together. Let’s go!” he said.

During Apollo, NASA sent 24 astronauts to the moon from 1968 through 1972. Twelve of them landed. All were military-trained male test pilots except for Apollo 17′s Harrison Schmitt, a geologist who closed out that moonlanding era alongside the late Gene Cernan.

Provided this next 10-day moonshot goes well, NASA aims to land two astronauts on the moon by 2025 or so.

NASA picked from 41 active astronauts for its first Artemis crew. Canada had four candidates. Almost all of them took part in Monday’s ceremony at Johnson Space Center’s Ellington Field, a pep rally of sorts that ended with Wiseman leading the crowd in a chant.

Congratulations streamed in from retired astronauts, including Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin and Scott Kelly, the first American to spend close to a year in space. “Huge risks, huge commitment, eternal benefits for all. What a crew!” tweeted Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian commander of the space station a decade ago who performed David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” from orbit.

President Joe Biden spoke with the four astronauts and their families on Sunday. In a tweet Monday, Biden said the mission “will inspire the next generation of explorers, and show every child — in America, in Canada, and across the world — that if they can dream it, they can be it.”

April 06, 2023

By Sara Burnett

Associated Press

Brandon Johnson, a union organizer and former teacher, was elected as Chicago’s next mayor Tuesday in a major victory for the Democratic Party’s progressive wing as the heavily blue city grapples with high crime and financial challenges.

Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, won a close race over former Chicago schools CEO Paul Vallas, who was backed by the police union. Johnson, 47, will succeed Lori Lightfoot, the first Black woman and first openly gay person to be the city’s mayor.

With about 91% of the vote counted, Johnson had 51.4% to 48.6% for Vallas. More votes will be counted as absentee ballots arrive in the mail.

Lightfoot became the first Chicago mayor in 40 years to lose her reelection bid when she finished third in a crowded February contest.

Johnson’s victory in the nation’s third-largest city capped a remarkable trajectory for a candidate who was little known when he entered the race last year. He climbed to the top of the field with organizing and financial help from the politically influential Chicago Teachers Union and high-profile endorsements from progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Sanders appeared at a rally for Johnson in the final days of the race.

Taking the stage Tuesday night for his victory speech, a jubilant Johnson thanked his supporters for helping usher in “a new chapter in the history of our city.” He promised that under his administration, the city would look out for everyone, regardless of how much money they have, whom they love or where they come from.

“Tonight is the beginning of a Chicago that truly invests in all of its people,” Johnson said.

Johnson, who is Black, recalled growing up in a poor family, teaching at a school in Cabrini Green, a notorious former public housing complex, and shielding his own young kids from gunfire in their West Side neighborhood.

He referenced civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Jesse Jackson and called his victory a continuation of their legacies. He also noted that he was speaking on the anniversary of King’s assassination.

“Today the dream is alive,” Johnson said, “and so today we celebrate the revival and the resurrection of the city of Chicago.”

It was a momentous win for progressive organizations such as the teachers union, with Johnson winning the highest office of any active teachers union member in recent history, leaders say. For both progressives and the party’s more moderate wing, the Chicago race was seen as a test of organizing power and messaging.

Johnson’s win also comes as groups such as Our Revolution, a powerful progressive advocacy organization, push to win more offices in local and state office, including in upcoming mayoral elections in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

Vallas, speaking to his own supporters Tuesday night, said that he had called Johnson and that he expected him to be the next mayor. Some in the crowd seemed to jeer the news, but Vallas urged them to put aside differences and support the next mayor in “the daunting work ahead.”

“This campaign that I ran to bring the city together would not be a campaign that fulfills my ambitions if this election is going to divide us,” Vallas said.

In a statement, Lightfoot also congratulated Johnson and said her administration will collaborate with his team during the transition.

Johnson and Vallas were the top two vote-getters in the all-Democrat but officially nonpartisan February race, which moved to the runoff because no candidate received over 50%.

On Tuesday, Johnson took many of the predominantly Black southern and western areas where Lightfoot won in February, along with the northern neighborhoods where he was the top-vote getter back then, according to precinct-level results released by election officials. Vallas did well in the northwest and southwest areas that are home to large numbers of city employees, just as he did in February.

The contest surfaced longstanding tensions among Democrats, with Johnson and his supporters blasting Vallas — who was endorsed by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat — as too conservative and a Republican in disguise.

Both candidates have deep roots in the Democratic Party, though with vastly different backgrounds and views.

After teaching middle and high school, Johnson helped mobilize teachers, including during a historic 2012 strike through which the Chicago Teachers Union increased its organizing muscle and influence in city politics. That has included fighting for non-classroom issues, such as housing and mental health care.

Vallas, who finished first in the February contest, was the only white candidate in that nine-person field. A former Chicago budget director, he later led schools in Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Bridgeport, Connecticut.