And good afternoon, folks. Welcome, at least virtually, to Fort Worth, Texas. We're delighted that you're part of this neighborhood USA conference and in particular part of our session this afternoon about creating more equitable communities, Fort Worth's Task Force on Race and Culture. I don't think I'll be saying anything controversial by commenting that almost exactly a year ago, the killing of George Floyd ignited calls for racial equity in communities across the country and around the world. And of course, Fort Worth, Texas was no exception, but I would say that we had had our own George Floyd moment, our own awakening to racial justice issues about three or four years before then, in December of 2016. So in a sense, we've had a three-year head start on many other cities in addressing these issues. And so we hope that our experience in Fort Worth, what we've done right and what we might have been able to do better, will be of some benefit to everyone in the session today. Now I see that we have among folks in the audience, Ms. Mitchell from Birmingham, Alabama. Ms. Mitchell, you all in Birmingham probably had about a 60-year head start on us. So forgive us for being somewhat presumptuous. Many of you have been involved in civil rights work over the course of many years and we would benefit from your questions and comments as well. I'd like to begin with a brief overview of our Racing Culture Initiative. And then I'd like to pose some questions to our panelists, after which we would like to entertain questions from the audience. So if you have questions, please follow the instructions that Catherine gave us a few moments ago and post those questions in the question box. And we'll be sure to do everything we can to address them. So I'm going to try to share with you a file with information about our Race and Culture Initiative. And this should be showing up in just a moment. You should see the cover slide with the title of today's session. Thank you Catherine. And you see the names of the folks who are serving in the panel. Besides myself, we have customer Bivens, Ms. Biggins, Rabbi Bloom, Mr. Sanders, and Mr. Tucker, about whom a little more in due course. As I mentioned, it was December of 2016 when the news media around the world and of course we live today at a time when news anywhere becomes news everywhere almost instantaneously. Headlines around the world captured the drama and Fort Worth associated with what ordinarily might have been a routine request for police assistance and it turned into an overreaction and calls for justice. And these protests extended over a period of roughly six months, many late night City Council meetings, eventually leading to the appointment of a task force on race and culture. In June of 2017, the Forest City Council held a special called meeting and announced its intent to appoint this task force with four co-chairs and authorizing those four co-chairs, so you see pictured on the screen, to select the other members of the task force. The City Council's intent was for this task force to be community based and to have broad discretion over its charge to address issues of race and culture in our community. And in fact, the task force took that responsibility seriously and discharged it, I think, in an exemplary manner. The presiding co-chair was Rosa Navajar who could not join us today, but we do have the other three co-chairs, Ms. Biggins, Rabbi Bloom, and Mr. Sand. We also had Estrus Tucker, who is our professional facilitator for the task force on race and culture and of course, a council member Bivens. Here's a picture of Estrus Tucker and the logo for the National League of Cities. We also employed the resources of NLC, which has its own program to promote racial equity. I would say that we were particularly blessed to have had Estrus Tucker in support of our efforts. Mr. Tucker is a nationally, actually internationally respected expert on human relations. He just happens to have lived in Fort Worth and because Fort Worth is his hometown, he assigned priority to working with us on this effort. So we're particularly indebted to Estrus Tucker for his leadership of this effort. The city council adopted a resolution in August formally creating the task force and giving it some modest tasks, including that of conducting community conversations about race and culture, assessing disparities in the way that we provide municipal services and providing some leadership training. But the task force determined at an early stage that their mission should be much broader. And in fact, they went back to the city council and asked them to extend their deadline from August of 2018 to December of 2018, so they have enough time to complete its work. Here you see a listing of all the task force members, the four co-chairs plus 18 others who were serving at the time that the task force completed its work. The task force's mission was to listen, learn, build and bridge in order to create an inclusive Fort Worth for all residents with the vision that Fort Worth becomes a city that is inclusive, equitable, respectful, communal, and compassionate. We provided leadership training to city officials, but also to community leaders and interested residents. We had many different public engagement opportunities, 89 different events, and involved some 2100 participants through those activities. And they identified various issues that we should be addressing. The top 10 included discrimination in education, failure to acknowledge the pervasiveness of racism, that this was largely an issue that we were not discussing, that we needed, first of all, to acknowledge it and then to explore it deeply. Discrimination, economic development and criminal justice, continuing racial segregation in the community, racial prejudice, lack of political representation, discrimination in public accommodations and employment and in housing. I'm sure that these are all familiar themes for many on this call. Some of the more salient comments that we heard more than once from members of the public included the perception that the city is doing little or nothing to improve race relations, that the problem is really systemic, structural and institutional racism, not simply personal or individual behavior, that again we had failed to acknowledge the problem causing the victims of racism to feel unheard. And finally the need to continue to expand and deepen community conversations about race and culture. This is an ongoing effort, not a one and done kind of activity. The task force determined that we really needed to look at the full scope of quality of life issues in Fort Worth, how residents in different circumstances experienced life in Fort Worth. If you live on one side of the railroad track, so to speak, you experience Fort Worth differently than if you live on the other side, and we need to understand that about each other. And so the task force decided that rather than looking exclusively at municipal sources, they would look at all aspects of life in Fort Worth including criminal justice, economic development, education, governance, health, housing and transportation. And actually divided into committees to address these topics in considerable depth. They analyzed disparities with respect to each of these seven topics, the extent of disparities, the causes of disparities, and made recommendations for strategies, actions, potential challenges, responsible parties and needed resources. And finally, we wanted to measure our progress. We wanted those measures to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time constrained. Where are we going to be five years from now in reducing identified disparities with respect to all the topics that we addressed? So here's a matrix depicting the 22 race and culture strategies to address identified disparities. Each of the seven topics that you see listed on the left hand column contains three or four strategies to address corresponding disparities. The highlighted items are the ones on which we've made the most progress so far, creating independent oversight of our police department, establishing a police cadet program, expanding the capacity of our minority owned businesses through a new business equity ordinance, establishing criteria procedures for redrawing our city council district boundaries. So as to make it more feasible for folks who elect people who represent their interests, establishing a new department of diversity and inclusion in city government, a new diversity inclusion program, and providing training for all of our 6,000 or so city employees in issues of diversity. And establishing a transportation equity policy and five-year action plan. We're now moving to establish a municipal equity plan that encompasses all municipal services. So these are the 22 strategies. We've made progress on seven of them to a significant degree. We're making progress on all of them to one degree or another. And we have a dashboard for tracking our progress with respect to each of the race and culture strategies. But as I mentioned, this is not a one and done kind of thing. We want to have an ongoing oversight group that ensures the work of the task force on race and culture continues into the future. And so we're calling upon our newly reconstituted Fort Worth Human Relations Commission to undertake that responsibility if they've done so enthusiastically and vigorously. You see a picture on the screen of a demonstration in 1965 that led to the creation of the Human Relations Commission just two years afterwards. The Human Relations Commission has divided into the seven committees corresponding to the same seven committees that the Task Force on Race and Culture had established. And those committees are addressing those identified disparities and the strategies to address those disparities. They actually briefed our city council earlier this week on the progress that they're making. We're quite encouraged by the work of the Human Relations Commission along these lines. We're asking them to address the following questions. How much progress have we made in implementing those strategies? How should we accelerate that progress? How effective had the strategies and actions been in reducing racial and cultural disparities? Are we just taking action or are we actually moving the needle in respect to identified disparities? If necessary, if we're not moving the needle enough how should we adjust our strategies and actions to achieve better results? How should we update our five-year objectives? And how should we engage community leaders and other residents in meaningful discussions about these issues? Here are the four main points I want to make that may be of some value to other communities. The attributes of our process to eliminate disparities include a data-driven approach. We want the process to be driven by objective data, not merely by anecdotes. We want to focus on outcomes, not just how much we're contributing to this effort in the way of resources, which is important, not just what products we're issuing, but what outcomes have we actually achieved in making for a worthy more equitable community with respect to the disparities we had identified. And some of those disparities are rather glaring. I wish we'd had time to give you more illustrations. We want this process to be informed by public participation. The public needs to be an active part of this effort. This is not something to be done by a small group out of sight and out of mind. It's important for the public to be engaged. And finally, the city cannot do it alone. We need partnerships with many different community groups. This is a community-wide issue, not a city government issue, and we need to approach it with that idea in mind. So let me turn our conversation over now to our distinguished panelists. Pictured from left to right, you have Councilman Regina Biddens, who has had a long career in many different aspects of the community relations and communications, including her current work as Chief Executive Officer for North Texas Lead, an organization that promotes career opportunities for underrepresented minority groups. Next, we have Ms. Lily Biggins, who has allegedly retired recently from a long and successful career in healthcare administration. As an executive with Texas Health Resources, we welcome Ms. Biggins. Rabbi Andrew Bloom, one of the foremost spiritual leaders in our community, and active in a wide range of civic affairs. Barbara Sanders, some would say a legendary figure in our community as an executive with the Forest Art Telegram newspaper and other popular media. But I think better known for being a kind of conscience of the community, one who is not afraid to say that, which may not be popular at the moment, but which needs to be said. We welcome Mr. Sanders. And I introduced Estra's Tucker earlier, our esteemed facilitator of difficult conversations about the race and culture. So with that introduction, let me stop sharing and pose some questions and let's see if we can begin with the jump ball. Let me ask any of the five who wishes to jump in to respond to the following. Why did you agree four years ago to play a leadership role in a race and culture initiative? What were your expectations at that time? And to what extent has the initiative met your expectations? You'll just need to unmute yourself if you want to be the first one to speak. And if I've never known this group to be vast, let me say Rabbi. I always need to talk before Bob Ray because it's been that way for four years, so that's why I'll take the first one. For me, it was a great honor. I'll tell you before the task force for race and culture began, I'd been serving on the mayor's faith-based cabinet on Compassionate Fort Worth. So it's all sort of like a natural progression. And to me, each morning when we say our morning prayers in synagogues and around the world, one of the first prayers we say is, we thank God for making me and his image. And it doesn't say, made me Caucasian in his image or an African American in his image or Hispanic in his image or straight in his image or LGBTQ in his image. It says in his image. So to me, ensuring that each person's image is seen not only by God but by each other is essential to my daily life and essential to my communal life. So when I was asked to do it, the answer was, of course. Maddie Parker called. It was, of course, I would do it. I think the process itself was a great process because we all got to meet and understand different aspects of the communities that we may not have known and thereby bring them together in order to help make a better fabric of the city. And I'm sure Bob Ray and Lily and Fernandio remember this. When we walked into the first meeting to meet each other, I said, I hope this is communal, not political. And they laughed at me. But I think in the end it was very communal and not that political because we made a decision in the beginning that we were going to drive this, we weren't going to allow outside influences to drive it. And I think it's been a good thing. Have we gotten everywhere where we need to go? Absolutely not. But a walk of a million miles of a thousand miles starts with one baby step. And we started and we've continued to going. So I think we're a better, more compassionate city. But I think we have more to go. And I'm honored that I've been part of this little step moving forward. Bob Ray? Yes. Well, as Ben suggested, I was probably the most cynical of those people who were appointed as co-chairs. In fact, they had to be a little on twisting by the mayor and the city manager and Fernando, I'll say, for me to agree, because I was skeptical. I've seen groups before, commissions and task force and committees, worked for a year or several months and come up with a report. It gets filed and nothing else is done. And I wanted to make sure that if we were going to do some serious work, and if I was going to devote my time to it along with everybody else, that what we did would actually be recognized by the city council as something that was important and would be dealt with. And I was assured of that by all of the people that I talked to. And my statement was with the warning, hey, if I find out we start doing this, and it's just for show, I'm going to be out again. Well, as it turned out, it wasn't just for show. We sometimes got signals that what we may be considering in terms of recommendations may not ever get done, maybe dead on arrival, that kind of thing. But we as a group decided that if it's dead on arrival, it won't be because we killed it, it'll be because somebody else aborted it, not us. And to be honest, I am more than pleased with the progress we made so far. The fact that we have a police monitor, the fact that we have a director of diversity and inclusion already on board, those two things alone moved us forward. And I'll just say this, I mean, in terms of George Floyd, this city, we had demonstrations for several weeks, I mean, three and four a day every week in forward to George Floyd. Our demonstrations were peaceful. They brought together a group that I didn't expect to see in forward. A lot of young people involved, a lot of young Anglos involved. And I think because we had already gone through this process with the task force, we didn't have the violence that happened in many other cities. Because we were already a step ahead. As it turned out, our deputy police chief holds a liaison with our group. He heard everything that we heard. So a lot of the things that were being implemented, he was already on board with. Fernando, I mean, the whole city manager's office, they knew what we were doing and helped facilitate where we should go in terms of dealing with the city council. So I'm pleased.  You got to understand that. I mean, I realized that about 50 years ago, I won't live to see everything that I want to see done in forward. But I'll die a little more satisfied than I would have, say, five or six years ago. Miss Lily, just need to unmute yourself. Sorry. I'm you, Lily. You're still muted. Lily, I'm you still on mute. Let me try to do it. If you don't just don't touch it. Hold on one second. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Kathy. I will not let me unmute you, ma'am. I'm sorry. We we still can't. Yeah, we cannot hear you. It's not letting me unmute you. I'm sorry. It's not. It's something on your end that I can't fix. Can she can she press the mute? Where the microphone is, if she presses there, yes, that's all she needs to do. No, she just needs to push where it says mute on your screen. A little bite the button. If you'll just push that down and unmute you. She's done several of them. Is there a number she can have to call in on? Because she's done several virtual. No, that we don't have a phone number for this. Okay. It's not one of those. It's just an unmute. Oh, this is a shame. Yeah. Miss Lily, you can use the chat function if you want to and type in anything that you want to say there. I'm so sorry. I'm not sure. I'm going to call Lily. Let's keep working on it and see if we can come back to Miss Biggins. Yeah, but she's doing that. I want to say that Lily was a person who insisted that everything we did had to be driven by data. She would ask for that. And as it turned out, to my surprise even, the city of Fort, all the data we needed, the city of Fort Worth basically had. Yes, we had, you know, the National League of Cities and all those people. But the city of Fort Worth had data that I didn't even know we had that substantiated a lot of the disparities that we were looking at. But Lily was one when every meeting said, what's the data? We've got to have the data. So I thank her for that. Thank you, Bob Ray. We are thrilled to have the Estrus Tucker connecting with us. Estrus, can you hear us? Estrus Tucker, can you hear me? Maybe not. Estrus, can you hear us? I can only, I can hear you. I heard you just then and I heard Gina earlier. Other than that, I haven't heard anything. No questions. So I don't really know where we are. A question is, Estrus, what was it that made you want to be a part of the, how did you feel about being a part of the race and culture task force? And why did you want to accept that? The briefest response is that Fort Worth is home. I'm a native Fort Worthian and home is like family for me. So I do diversity, equity and inclusion work around the country and some places beyond this country. The opportunity to engage a diversity of leaders to advance equity and inclusion and diversity in my hometown was powerfully compelling and continues to be. And I also think of James Baldwin when he's talking about his own racial equity work back when I think I was a year old and Baldwin was asked about his voice in America. And he simply says, I love America more than any other country in this world. And exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize America perpetually. And though my role wasn't about criticizing perpetually, but it was about bringing a critical eye to these issues in Fort Worth. And because Fort Worth is home and because I love it, I feel that it's imperative that I do my part to advance equity and inclusion to help us be better together than what we've been historically and what we were in 2017 when we started this. And even where we are now, there's so much work to do that requires all of us. And that was powerfully compelling to me. Thank you. Let's, let's see if Councilor Bivens wants to add any of the observations at this stage. Yeah, I thought it was appropriate that I go last. I did talk with Lily and she's going to hang in there just to see, but Lily has done many virtual meetings all the time. So she knows where that little mic is. I think there's something technical. But Fernando works with me and has worked with me long enough to know that I'm always going to be the person being painfully realistic. And so pardon me if I don't have a raw, raw response for you. I will be the first to let you all know I was not excited about a task force like this being formed because I didn't need a task force to let me know that there was a race problem in Fort Worth. And that was my position. I saw kicking the can down the road. And again, this is my realistic response to that question. When it comes to no violence in Fort Worth, Barbara, I love you dearly. But once you use tear gas, I think we had violence.  So we had back in the days the Black Panthers use the term agent provocateurs. We had many people who came to Fort Worth because they wanted to see this city burn. And when police spotted our protesters, the Fort Worth natives, they told them get off the bridge, go home and they did. But tear gas was used. And so for for practical purposes, it didn't go across completely non violent. I will tell you that there are people in this city still today who don't know some of the challenges we had in getting the public what they wanted. Every week we had what I call a verbal beatdown because people were telling the audience on cable TV they can fire the chief right now. And I know you all remember that too often what people see and perceive is not reality. That demand that that criticism came from people who did not understand the council manager form of government. Now what I can tell you is I am delighted. Please excuse me while my repairman waits for me. Do not leave. I will be there shortly. I've had no internet all day. I will be out there shortly. What what what has come from this process that is good for me is to see the data that we pushed for is to see those things that we can measure that we brag about all throughout this United States. I hate that it took the Jacqueline Craig situation to bring that about. But it is what it is as the saying goes but just know that I was not one in full support of this being formed so you can evict me from the conference at this very minute if you choose and I'll go on about my day or else I'll just hang around. You're good council. You're good. Fernanda we have a couple of questions. Yes. Fernanda we have a couple of questions that you want me to read those out or do you want to finish your questions? I have to read the questions so any of us any of us can respond. What is the racial makeup of your police department? This is coming from Ian Randolph. What percentage of the police officers live outside the Fort Worth area? Do you think any of the above statistics impact policing in your city? Anybody want to take a stab at that question? Well I don't know what the what the percentages are. We have those in our report the makeup of police and including the makeup of the incoming cadets which was very underrepresented for minorities. And in terms I can tell you in terms of Fernanda you probably know this better than I do in terms of people who live outside the city the vast majority of our police officers do not live in the city of Fort Worth. They live outside the Fort not only outside the Fort Worth they live outside the county and that's true of most major cities in Texas and probably around around the country. But one of the things we said what we had to do we had not been doing recruiting the way I thought we should be doing recruiting before and I think that's one of the things that came out of our discussions so that we would get more minorities. We've had classes where we had no blacks at all. We may have had a couple of Hispanics but no blacks at all and Gina made those figures better than I but no that that was a problem and that was one of the things that the police monitor was supposed to do. Not only look at the external issues involved in the police department but look internally as some of the issue that we needed to be addressing and representation of minorities was one of those issues. I can add on keep in mind I didn't hear everything but you're talking recruitment. We have to give hats off to Julie Swaringen who has all but held the hands of recruits. We had a class I think two classes ago where we had three but another police related incident took place not even here in Fort Worth and we lost two and that class had one African American. That was the last graduation I went to. I remember the days back in probably the 80s when we did a lot of advertising on KHBN and Barbara that's when Elvira and D would come on the radio and say we want you to join. It's very difficult to get civilians to cross that blue line when they don't see trust coming across that blue line and so we continue to struggle counterwoman Kelly Allen Gray and I have offered our services and both done videos encouraging recruitment and so we continue to offer our support in that area but it's really not the career of choice for many people of color. Good observations anybody want to add anything? I think it's fair to say that minorities particularly African Americans have been underrepresented in the police department generally and almost totally unrepresented in many of the specialty units of the police department and we had a lot of work to do to make the police department itself more closely reflect the community that it seeks to serve and we're making progress but not as rapidly as any of us would like. Let me see we can answer here's a related question how do you assess the progress of the task forces work in the wake of Atatiana Jefferson's killing which occurred in October of 2019? What impact did that event have upon our efforts? Anybody want to take a stab at it? The Atatiana Jefferson incident. I hate to do all the talking but I can say this we had five shootings police involved shootings in five weeks what two years ago three years ago the Atatiana Jefferson was one of the most horrendous because she was a woman in her home unarmed somebody had called the police to come check on her because her front door or something was open and the police went to the back saw her silhouette in the window and shot so that hurt but what they did do in a way and I think God for this I mean we have a new police chief by then who had been with our task force as a liaison I can tell you for a fact that because I was involved in this the police chief the mayor the well and one other person the city manager met with that family at a private home and I was there and we asked the family if it would be okay if those people would also attend the funeral so we had we had a group of police officers in addition to the mayor of the council and several other city council members who attended the funeral of Atatiana Jefferson that showed the community that we were trying to make some progress even if we weren't so to me I mean to be there and witness that made me feel better and I think it made some other people of community feel better as well Fernando oh I have to be measured you know in my responses because of you know legalities now but Ray Charles can see that there are two areas of employment that that shooting sparked number one training number number two training number three training my AT&T repairman who just left here was so concerned about the issues of the day and this is an Anglo from New Orleans he talked about the mission of police that being to protect and serve versus the mentality of military personnel which is to kill or be killed I had never thought about it in that vein now back I refer a lot to the 80s because the 80s for me were were quite impressionable that's when we had John Wally Price Mary Helen it speak out a whole bunch of advocacy journalism talk shows all across this nation that was new to me being a formally trained journalist where you do one side and the other side but what what I can tell you is when you look at the training capacity of those who we train but those others who come in with additional training the AT&T repairman made me think you know what what if we take note of how we retrain those from military backgrounds bringing them into this civilian form of life of protecting and serving maybe outcomes can be better but you know the the shooting of AT&T and a Jefferson is something that we will bear as a city as we should we should do right by that family but we also need to take measures that keep that from ever happening again and in addition to training the the idea of knowing what's in a cop's jacket what's in that personnel that HR folder has this officer had trouble elsewhere has he had trouble here and so I think personnel training those are factors that spark for me about AT&T and a Jefferson I can't deal with the death emotionally I have to see what can I do as an elected official to keep this from happening again and so thanks to my repairman today that is something I'll be taking up with Jay Chapa later on this week hopefully tomorrow to talk about that military aspect because back in the 80s I digress back in the 80s the uh I think it's the SPLC Southern Poverty Law Journal Mars thesis organization uh did report on how there was this call and estrus will remember there was this this military call nationwide urging white supremacists to join police departments all across the nation that has recently made news in the past three or four years but this happened and we all know it for those who follow social justice issues and so since they heated that call and they are members of police forces around this entire nation it at least lets city staff county staff take take note maybe we need to do some deeper training and debriefing and so my head goes off to my AT&T repairman estrus thank you for nodding in agreement I know I'm not crazy and I know they did that back in the 80s well there's a rabbi rabbi bloom and then we'll go to the next question I just want to make a general comment you know I don't want to look at the necessarily the negative negative just for one thing and one thing I want to mention when we were doing the task force and Lily and Bob Ray and Rosa can attest this we kept coming up with almost hitting our heads in the wall with the police chief at that time I think what has happened with the last two chiefs Ed Kraus and Neil notes the current chief is that they learned first of all I think they have servants hearts that's the first and foremost the most important thing I think they learned the importance of showing that servant's hearts in the entirety of the community and not being the chief from an office but being the chief with the chief's feet out in the neighborhoods and I don't think that necessarily would have happened had the task force not come up and had the city not dealt with such issues so yes there's all these issues that we see we see but there's no longer a denial from the top of what's going on there's actually an embracing of the need to change and the need to be out in the community so to me those are two of the greatest things that we could have done that there's a recognition from the chiefs of what needs to be for the betterment of the community that they have that servant's heart and that they're actually following that servant's heart in being within the community so I think that's something very positive that came out of this within the police force thank you Rabbi there's a there's a related question in the box from Steve Epstein who's one of our neighborhood leaders in Fort Worth a Fort Worth neighborhood policing officer said he did not want to live inside the city of Fort Worth because he does not want his family or himself to be a target for upset people he has interacted with is this a common problem and there is a comment by the way related comment in the chat box from Mr Randolph in Memphis who says that Memphis Tennessee passed a law that says our officers have to live inside our county and preferably inside the city and that's in Memphis Tennessee I will tell you that state law in Texas prohibits us from doing that right we cannot legally require any city employee and certainly not any police officer to live in the city of Fort Worth and and so I think Mr Randolph makes an important point and many of us would want us to be able to do what Memphis has done but in Texas we're not legally permitted to do so would anybody like to respond to the question from Mr Epstein I'll give you just a little addendum to that because when I was a city department head in San Antonio as an appointed official by the city manager I did have a residency requirement and so so that people won't get confused there is a difference in being appointed I didn't have to take the job but if I were to take the job as that city's public information manager I had to live within the city limits we had the uh the same criticism of police in San Antonio and it's statewide because of the law as you described but I thought I would just add that for clarity thank you thank you ma'am also we have been had instances where we had chiefs who tried to encourage people to live in the city either if they could take their cars home with them and there was a twofold thing first of all they had transportation they didn't have to drive their own cars back and forth but having a police car in a neighborhood overnight led to some kind of assurance that hey there you've got protection here but still you I know we can't we can't make them do that uh and it's sad but to hear that that that first question was really disturbing to me because you've got a police officer saying he thought he would have to interact with the people who may not like him because he's a police officer or whatever uh that's the opposite of what we want in a person wearing that uniform we want them to interact but positively not negatively we want them to get to know those kids in that neighborhood those elders in that neighborhood and not be afraid of them that's part of the problem with some police they come into our community already afraid it's like the people from Johannesburg coming into Soweto we we don't want that kind of attitude and we have a related comment uh in the chat box actually it's in the question box it's more of a rhetorical question from Adrian Pearson from Birmingham Alabama if that is the case and the police officer does not want to live where he works then why work there I think many of us would would agree with you was Pearson yes why do you want to work for the city of Fort Worth if you're not willing to live in the city of Fort Worth so a good point there's another question from Tina Shaw how did you get access to that data and is it open to the public yes all of our data is open to the public and we derive data from multiple sources wherever the expertise happened to be located and the whole effort as we mentioned earlier was driven by objective data I think stories can help us to understand the data better but stories alone are not enough we need to have the hard evidence in fact hard evidence is the only way which we can persuade a lot of folks about the reality that many experience every day it's simply not something that people are prepared to accept unless you can confront them with hard objective data hence the the reliance upon the data in all of our work okay well let me let me see if we've answered the questions that are in the box at the moment let me pose the next question that I wanted to be sure that we addressed what advice would you give to other communities that are interested in tackling racial equity issues based on our experience in Fort Worth well we did right well we could have done better if if someone from another community were to approach us and say we'd like to undertake another similar effort to promote racial equity what advice would you give them Estris Tucker you've done this kind of work in uh in South Africa in Northern Ireland in Mississippi and who knows how many other places what advice would you give them Estris well first of all Estris can you even hear us Estris what advice would you give to other cities who want are interested in doing this type of work okay one don't seek perfection two engage and involve early a very diverse stakeholder group don't be limited to what the usual suspects don't avoid engaging those who are critical of the city in fact they are essential their voices are essential for any viable sustainable plan and never assume that because a resident is critical of the city as it relates to diversity equity inclusion that they are that they can't be of value that they don't have good will that they don't care about the city none of those things are true so find people of good will who have a critical eye and and particularly a critical eye because of historical and current disparities and inequities and never allow of the void of not including people most impacted by disparities and inequities they should be at every table and not just because someone has the same race or same surname or same language select vocal people from the particular communities impacted by the disparities and inequities those are critical it's hard to work on the front end but it buys you leverage as you go alone it helps you demonstrate that you're sincere and that you're real it's a more lengthy process it can have more conflict but it is more viable and more credible so we you need all of your people that are willing to roll up their sleeves and engage and not just limited to people that you feel will agree with you or will have predictable messages that's a sure way of just wasting everybody's time thank you estrus and my advice if you're interested in undertaking this kind of effort is to hire estrus tucker as your facilitator again estrus didn't hear me but everybody else did so that's my advice and i'm happy to see that lily bigans is back with us this bigans can you can you speak you're still muted what a shame can can you hear us now miss lily i can hear you i've always okay perfect there you go just so you know in response to that last question i'd say don't give up don't give up because i'm so desperately wanted to be a part of this event that i went to my cell phone so that's where i'm talking about the the community was was really hurting about the time that this happened and and i'll just go back just a little bit to state my my impressions of being asked one of the things that made me want to be involved in this was because of all the pain and it wasn't just pain from one person or the other much like with mr floyd people saw that all over the world and so no one could hide from what they saw and and people saw the the uh they saw that all over the world so you couldn't hide so people were hurting in a different way a collective way where it was all of us not just black white brown it was all of us that were hurting and and the one question i asked uh fernando when he gave me the call was not only who wanted me to be a part of this but who didn't want me to be a part of it fernando you may remember that because you have to know not that it was my mind as to whether i would participate but what it would do is it would let me know who had an issue so i could address that issue with them and become their representative as well as the other people's representative uh when it comes to um how would we go about this it's already been mentioned that you have to collect data because data trumps anything else and i think our group did an outstanding job of data the city council i would agree with councilwoman bivens i don't think we had all the support we needed i think some people thought we would uh quiet it down and and keep people out of city council meetings if they wanted us and and it did happen that way but but at the end of the day i think our energy and our commitment to the council all of the members not just the ones who were for the task force formation but the ones who may have come in half heartedly i think it let them know that we were curious and they had to get on board and uh and i think it's just a matter of caring enough listening from the heart and being kind being kind to each other and and being and showing empathy that got us a lot of the traction i can't add anything that's already been said about the progress being made uh i will say though that have people sitting in the horseshoe who aren't bought in and i think those individuals it's time for them to step up and buy in uh the time that we extension was needed because we were so heartfelt about all of this and had so much support from the community uh and and i would i would be remiss if i didn't go back to the posting on the internet create a communication tool so everyone has the opportunity to see the progress and monitor it so they know something's being done so it created this uh this program i don't know what happened in the last meeting you could go to your computer look it up and see what was the system what the outputs were so congratulations to all of you who are uh on this uh conference with us apologize for having such a difficult time with my audio but you know what this is a whole new arena for us and uh we'll we just we have to stay committed and make sure that we are focused and make it happen so thank you for the opportunity to come comment thank you miss biggins for your comments and for your ability to negotiate the technology despite despite the the problems i love you call on rabbi bloom uh to share his his advice for other communities who are interested in tackling similar issues rabbi yes thank you very much and it's it's great that lily was uh able to get on i think one thing we need to mention even before i give advice or it's probably part of the device there was four of us and no matter how we argued uh our debated our voted uh within the room when we were trying we're tackling issues once we left that room we left it completely united as one because if we hadn't left united we would have shown already cracks within us which would have affected the cracks within society and we would not have been able to get where we needed to go we all understood that we were serving a greater good than our own cells and i think that's very very important i think when we're talking about race and culture we need to understand that if someone is embracing such a task sometimes we get down the pigeonhole of dealing more with the race and not with the culture and i think we needed to expand that because when you talk about culture you're not only talking about how someone looks but what religion they may be uh where they were brought up so i really think you need to put emphasis on both of them or otherwise you're not fulfilling your your goal and the third thing i would say is you know don't be afraid to take people newer to the city who haven't grown up in the city one of the things which was i think it may have uh given uh i actually think it gave councilwoman bivens a a second thought which is terrific because she cares so much about the city is i was i didn't grow up in fort worth i was new six years i had been in fort worth at this point but all my experience and my love of fort worth which is deep in the the community which is deep helped me bring another perspective to to this so i would say don't only take the people who have been in your city are grown up in your city but widen it because that that's already showing that the culture of the city is growing listen there there are bumps along the way but i would suggest to anyone who's undertaking to undertake it and to undertake it in a way to know that the work is difficult but the outcome is blessed and if i just might add one other thing i'm sorry uh go ahead just seconds if i could just add one other thing they're community leaders who are community advocates all over the place just like leadership leadership uh you know people talk about being effective leaders the one thing i learned and and had driven home to me with this with this particular effort was how do you was how to get other people's perspective on what's going on because if you if you are really an uncommon uh community advocate and you really are invited to the table to be a part of a solution you can't take the baggage that you have into that conversation you have to take in uh into the conversation a willingness to be uncommonly open uncommonly willing to to hear what others are thinking because this is a very diverse community and people live in very different situations you have to hear people from your heart and that's the thing i think that made this work is that we were uncommonly willing to hear and and to speak on behalf of those who were speaking from their hearts and then take their first their perception of what's going on and and bring legs and life to it so people could understand and hear from their hearts so i think that's something you have to do put away all the old stuff come in with some new things and and be willing to be criticized be criticized thank you miss figgins let me let me ask uh you left mine out for nando no no actually i want to ask you and bob ray a more pointed question uh because i want the two of you to comment about the dynamics between the elected officials and the widely recognized community leaders at the grassroots uh i think there are some who would say that the elected officials uh have other forces that influence their decisions and find it difficult to support all of the recommendations coming from a grassroots uh task force others would say no that's not the case at all the elected officials come from the community and they're responsive to the community yet i want to see whether miss bivens and mr sanders are willing to comment on the interactions between the task force and the city council miss bivens well from the very beginning i thought the city council had messed this up enough and it was my position never to attend any of the meetings and i did that respectfully i later learned that the task force thought that was a pretty good idea too but i thought that the task force needed to operate with it it's on realm without us you know peering from from the ceiling if you would so i'd never attended a meeting i will tell you that if you there there are i'll just get the elephant out of the room uh subpoena power civilian review subpoena power uh i mentioned the name hector santos rodriguez and uh barbara knows that name that was the young teenager in dalas who was killed and not until i mentioned that did i hear from the hispanic community here in port worth i guess those who approach we didn't know that you know we read papers but i was a reporter in dalas at the time uh that's a sticking point and there are people who have criticized us on the city council for our lack of unity i'll put it that way in recognizing what what should be addressed uh i did commend our police chief yesterday or or tuesday in council meeting he is progressive thinking and i don't know how long it will take but i do know that he has not shut the door on that i am not stating in this body whether i'm far or against but i just know that when you deal with police matters and they're not handled to to bring about peace that subpoena power comes into play and so you can talk to chief notes to see what his thoughts are the previous chief and the uh i think the chief of most chiefs this day in time are being more supportive of that than i have ever heard in my life as a journalist so i'll answer that question that way i hope that's not too wishy washy uh what what i would like to do though is back up on how to do this fernando and to this task forces defense the time we introduced the task force to nlc's real the uh national league of cities real program they didn't have the data that you guys were needing to to proceed in the professional way that you did but i would submit to any city who wants to take on an effort like this you don't have to recreate a will there are cities all around the nation now touting the benefits of the real program of the national league of cities fernando you recall councilwoman zeta and i wanted the city of full work to bring the redlining tool and so there are there are so many tangible tools and exhibits and workshops that people of all races need to see and when when i did the redlining tour in some city my response was oh i'm not crazy redlining was put in by the federal government and so education is so very important i'm sure people are are learning the importance of tulsa oklahoma black wall street not all black folk even knew about that but when you hear the saying pull yourself up by your bootstraps well hell what if your bootstraps were taken in a mob that wiped out your entire black community because of the wealth and so there's much to be stated and shared in the benefit of education and i think when we are all open to being educated with truth not fake news then we're all make the better for it that's well stated thank you the citizens we're going to let we're going to let bob ray have the last word bob ray sanders bob ray you need to unmute yourself sir there you go um when we got together for the first time the four co-chairs and we had to come up with the number of people that we were going to add to this task force and how diverse it was going to be uh and we didn't want it too large because they wanted to get work done so we came up with adding 19 more people to make it a total of 23 people uh and i thought we did a good job it was seven blacks seven whites seven hispanics uh one asian american one iranian american uh two people set identified as lgbt so i mean for a city the size of four wars that was a pretty representative group but in terms of other diversity we we got a couple of people on that task force who were down to city hall calling the mayor names every tuesday night jumping on the city so we included those people in the process now for me yes i was one who was concerned that wait a minute the council members of the council and use a police association as one group most of the council was supported by the police association i had my own doubts i mean how much would they listen to us about changes in the police department if they were going to be listening to the police association just agreeing with everything we recommended that was that that's just me you know that's the way i thought as it turned out you know we communicated well uh the mayor communicated well with us other members of the council communicated communicated well as did the uh the uh city manager so we got together with you know i can and as rab i alluded to a minute ago we talked to the police chief on more than one occasion trying to get him to understand some things that at that time he just didn't understand at least in my opinion but we worked through all of that and we still came up with a report that we were able to present to the council with the backing of the city manager and we're progressing on many of those issues and we set up a process and in motion that those things will be monitored and reported back to the council and the city as a whole every three months or every six months so it's not over we're still in this as you see we're still here and our our jobs were supposedly ended what three years ago three years ago but we're still here yeah but now why didn't you mention D on the police that chant i guess that's another topic that's that's that will be the next workshop council member givens for what has already been operating that way and it's just so much misinformation i just want to i just want to thank every one of you for being a part of this workshop i think that um well first of all based on the numbers i think so far this is the most popular and well attended workshops of the conference um mostly i would assume it's because of the honest conversation if there's one thing that um this task force is known as it's being is sharing their opinion and being open and listening to others and so i really appreciate the honest conversations sometimes it's not easy to hear or to even be a part of conversations and and i think that it is just extremely important that we continue to have them so thank you so much thank you for being a part of the conference for being a part of this workshop and just to everyone else who is moving on to the next workshop if you look up in the left hand corner it says back to lobby click on that and then you can pick your next workshop and make sure you join as a viewer so thank you all you have 15 minutes until the next workshop begins thank you so much thank you for inviting me i had fun thank you i'm glad that you guys were here really appreciate it i asked louise about you she told me you were cool


We are SPM and SPM. Wara Som asp українelsi. My name is Liz Jackson and we do this a little bit different. But before we go on, make sure you click the subscribe button. We are on the road to 100,000 subscribers. So please come subscribe. We are going to show you how to subscribe. And I have it here. So today I have a special guest with me, Jinn Trudius. Naito Leon, also known as Lumi. Palio me niwa na kwa trending videos. Naito me ni take it. The second question is, can you tell me the first two months to win a Nobel Peace Prize? Inkani? It's the shuri for the forest. The shuri for the forest, Naito? Naito shuri for the forest. Wangari, madai. Lumi, bado koshule umemaliza, aama what are you doing currently? Mi koshule, mi mi mi mi mi producer na bado mi DJ.  So have you produced two songs, Tungapi evi? Productions sayi, on the way ni kwa na anyu album na drop, Naito asylum, tune in, ita drop probably next week.  Auma na tune ni omesa mani strike a balance na ziwa, lasi mani keep up na study spear. All right. Do you also do anything social media related? Bado. So this being new to you.  Sikuwa na expecti blop iwa. Judging with the fact that we take your video, nili shu tsele kwa temi arema. So mi na nashanga, no jesu kwa na expecti. Oh, ito temi arema, that's like three a month ago. So mi tasmis kwa na juita blop. Mi kwa tani 2 mila kote lala. E na muka subuis kumawa aje na muka e nioan. Uko tiktok. Mika sama tiktok ni kwa iida. The next day na muka, citizen nashanga rada ni gani. Citizen. What did you feel the first time uli ame ume trend? Kwa saba bia hakoka clip? Mara kwanza nili kwa nili kwa overwhelmed na some emotions. Miki na disbelief to kikilani aya. Rada piti na nili kwa sabi niki anza 2 na. Ukin na 2 na yo. Have you received mean comments na how have you been able to handle it? Mean comments mi kwa. I've seen people chatting mad pa li kwa comment section. Aki ni I don't blame them. Miki na puni kiboodu aria. Yo na kila tapani. Ata chatu bi baya. Ki li na ju wa most of those people aria konjima eza comment section. Adu wa jui. Angarema dai. Rani mi nili sayama. For viewers who are probably seeing this for the first time, he trended because he referred to wangarema dai. Uli merifa aje. That's your report. So I would want to know did you study history in school? No I didn't. It's my geography. You did geography. Now that people took that offensively because wangarema dai is a very important figure in the Kenyan history apokwa sa idea like she was really championing for trees and all that. So do you feel that history is something that should be compulsory in school in generation yetu wana kwa na some sort of respect to the country's heroes? To the country's heroes wana sayama. History, kwa kwa kwa kwa palsari. History mi piya ni kitu piya kama. Umsi kama na chagua pata kwa na twadz history kama nantaping ya kwa government utansoma. Kama utaki silaismu sumi. Silaismu mamutua kufos na things worte ku kujwa. To si me elu kweli they are national heroes and all But kam sayama ma uesi jna jom jagani si du kam saya tagia tagia so si silaismu kufo palsari kiliama taka kwa na freedom apo isi yaku kila mi saye. Now that you did geography how did you know about the Nobel Peace Prize when did you come across it? Iulis kia premari apo tu malimaki se ma hanga. Kenya pa lehenja wana sema o you should be jail, you should be arrested, what message do you have for them? Ineza sema tu kitu mawaja, itu keza kaliya history, history paper mi mi na wewe, isu aneza kuchafuafi baasana, adisa mi katikutya mi na wewenya na sema iwa, awana naji kwa ta kwa jail. And what we are getting from people, they didn't have a problem with you knowing wangari matai, they had a problem with how you addressed her. Do you feel that was right? It wasn't right to me, I think I've been growing up, the people around me, we've been using some slangs, wuku na paletu na tupa, so I think they slingly slipped up on the mango when I was in the interview, so I know it's disrespectful na jwa, but yeah. Would you wish to apologize? Na sema paletu, I have offended wangari matai, it wasn't that deep, but nombom sama. Kamal mi kwa sensi uta puinge, so it's kwa na uba. Uka na uba, nile tu slangili? The slang just slipped. No, talking about slang, kuma kwa na slang mingizi me tokea, sheng, shen beteng, kuma kwa na zilezama doucho, what do you feel about these languages that are coming up na zinatumi wana na young people? What view do you have of them? Mi na na, isiko piti. Inu na monya kwa na language ya ke, na speak fluently, na relate na most people should be allowed, yoni kitu eni kuku, comfortable kwa ke. So mi na na, those languages, they are effective. All right, have you ever taken part in community service? Kusaf the country, kufagiya bara-bara, doing charity, have you ever participated in any of those? Gani twambi. Kama juzi KCA, I mean KCA University, nili I had a project for leadership and our project to liena kama kufagiya kwa children's home. So are you doing something leadership related ama? Ya, ya, ya. Leadership wanga remata etu na na zina ingiliya na. And do you think it's right for people to say that you should be arrested and jailed? Asdani. Yoni, just wrong. Mwa eni kwe jail ju, ya, that kind of act. Ni sawan me saaw, na shida kila mtu saaw. And do you think that this slang is causing friction between the older generation and the new generation? No, because friction is, I feel like the older generation, most of them wanna, wanna, wanna dani, as in they feel threatened na our slang. Ya. So it makes sense mwa na mtu apuja kumbeyo slang is bad. Ya. Have your parents come across the clip? And what was their reaction? Ya. Alright guys, so you've heard from him, he's made a public apology. What's the final message na za takawongena wa Kenya wambia kitu? Nia za takusia mwa, follow my Instagram. At slumidotv2. Ya. If you have an event or you want to release a track, I'm your guy, I'll make your beats, I'll DJ for events. Ya. Alright guys, this is SPM Buzz. Mme skia kutoka kwa kei. He has made a public apology. Mtu amu apu kwa comment section mtu ambia. What do you think about this whole scenario? What do you think about our generation? Mtu ambia apu kwa comment section. And don't forget to like, share, subscribe to SPM Buzz, my name is Liz Jackson.


Welcome folks, this is Tom O'Brien of TFNN. We have five days a week. We go seven hours a day. We go 24 hours a day on the internet at TFNN.com. Always remember folks, whatever you think about, you bring about whatever you focus on, Garose, hope everyone's having a great day, safe day. Make it a great night, folks. Love is the medicine that accelerates healing. Love yourself, love your neighbor, love your enemies, but begin with self-love. You cannot love others until you love yourself. You cannot share what you do not have. If you do not have, if you do not love yourself, you cannot love anyone else either. My guys, let's take a look at it out here. We have the Dow Industries down 51, Nasdaq up 76. S&P's up two and a half. Gold, gold contract trading down $19.30 at 18.46 an ounce. We have Silver down 24 cents, $21.62 an ounce.  Trading at $78.54, notes and bonds. A 10-yen dope, down nine ticks, trading $1,201, the 30-year off 23 at $126.08, and King dollar. King dollar's trading up 683 ticks at $103.916. The year is at $106.00, the end's at $120.00, and the British, the end's at $134.00, and the pound's at $120.00 to $1.00 at U.S. dollar. Our phone number's<PHONE_NUMBER>. If it's a call, folks, I know it's going on in your world, and the world of the S&Ps, let's take a look at them. What do you have? Well, you get a sideways day in the S&Ps. We're gonna bring up first, and we'll bring up the futures, so we'll see where we're gonna land here, speculate where we're gonna land for the day. So we take a look at the futures out here. And so yesterday, there was quite a consolidation yesterday, huh? So let's take a look at this. Oh, so we're going lower. Okay, so bottom line is that we got up to a price point out here this morning, just about 20, 30 minutes ago, of $4154.00. And then what you're gonna see here, right that bar right there, the acceleration on the bar, that's the sell-out, man. And then what we have, so this is gonna get interesting, man, because we have, we're at 4148. This could be at 4131 before we close, you know? And where I'm going with this, folks, I'm taking the high of the high volume bar. See the, we have a high volume bar there at 9.40 this morning, 10.10 this morning. So if it comes back down, the first price it would stop is the high of the low, but that high volume low will get tested. Doesn't have to be today, but it will get tested. Let's go right to the NQs. We'll take a look at the NQs. So we take a look at the NQs, because it's gonna make a big difference as to where we close out here today. So if we take a look at the NQs, that got over the highs of yesterday. You don't have any juice up there though, man. Nope. Hey, we'll see if this shakes up. So the NQs were $12,691. So $12,672 is what it's gonna try to get into in the next 10, 15 minutes. If it gets into it, then that, that basically says it can come all the way back down the other end. So it's gonna be kind of, it's a great trading market. That's the bottom line. We go take a look at the gold contract, wants to run down to the 1795 area. You're at 1846 right now. You're gonna get 160,000 contracts here. We'll see up where the shakes out, but this is where the gold run started the last time we were going up in October. Consolidated a bit, then we made the run all the way up, but I suspect we're making this all the way back. Notes and bonds. Now this is what's running the market, as well as the dollar. Inflation's not going away folks, okay? So bottom line, it's not even close either. It blows my mind that they, we'll talk about this in a second, but it's just, anyway. The 10 year, the 10 years wants to go hit 110. And at 110, that's gonna be how we got, came off the lows, okay? You can see yesterday, man, that was a monster of 2.4 million contracts. Forget it, you were going into 1.3. The 110 is right where we actually took off from where the strength came in last time we were down there. So I suspect it's gonna get down there. The thing that is, that this could go a lot lower, when you get a day like yesterday, going into that swing, cracking the swing, and have that type of volume, it's like, okay, game is on and that day game could be a lot lower. Price, a lot higher yield. We go to the dollar, and it's all about the dollar. The dollar bottom line, it's come off the lows. The low that we're talking about is two weeks ago. That was the 100.82, you're at 103. And where I'm going with this, I'm just saying, hey, listen then, you do a did cap bounce, it's 106 to 107. You can see that the .382 is 106, 550. The 107 is a 50% retracement, 107, 799. And that is also where ice is. That's where it dropped down. So, my take is that that's where we're going. And if that's correct in the assessment that that's where we're going, you are gonna see more damage inside the marketplace. Market hasn't done anything out here today. That's the bottom line. What is happening here now in the market is like a slow sideways to lower prices. It looks like nothing happens and then all of a sudden, another leg down. It looks like you consolidate and it's trying to get higher and you get another leg down. That's kind of where this thing is shaking out right now. You bring this back, the spy couldn't make its eyes. It certainly got over as last swing high. Last swing I was talking about in the spy was that 410 area. And the longer it stays over 410, that's a good situation. But the bottom line is that I suspect that it's the slow bleed on the way down. We take a look at the cues, the cues, same deal, the cues couldn't get to the high. I mean, six months ago you're at 330 or 308. It's certainly in a new range though. Anything over the 296 gets you the new range. And yesterday, that was a good day for the cues yesterday. The contraction and volume today is not a good day. We're gonna take a look at some of the higher volume equities out here today. You get Teslas up a buck and a half. You get Roblex is up nine bucks. They come out with numbers. Alphabet's up a buck, no big deal there. You have, there's Airbnb. Airbnb's up, that's up $17.31. That's a big number out there. Trade desk, $13. We go inside the NDX 100. The strength versus the weakness inside the NDX. Airbnb up 14%, Laverian up seven. ADI up six, taken away from it. Biogen down 4.3%, fang off 3.2. GFS 2.8 and Pindall-Dool is down 1.8. iPhone number's<PHONE_NUMBER>. Give us a call, folks. Dow, Dow Industries right now, down 48. NASX up 70, S&Ps off one and a half. We'll come right back.


It's definitely cold and scary in space, but it's also apparently plot conveniences. Hey guys, this is my review for Alien, I mean life, and I just saw it and I will say this at first. I enjoyed it, but I do have a few issues. First off, this is a pretty interesting space movie. This is the idea of what would happen if a modular went to Mars, gathered some samples, and came back to the International Space Station. What I really enjoyed right off the bat out of this movie is it actually showed what the International Space Station is. In other movies, we've never really seen them use it other than, oh they're installing something just before something goes terribly wrong. This movie actually used the International Space Station for what it is for a lab center that they can do stuff on that they cannot do on Earth, or in the case of this, do it isolated from Earth without contracting any sort of viruses or some sort of alien parasite that can eat you alive, which is what happens in this movie. Obviously things don't work out very well soon on and this parasite starts to kill off members of the crew, and they are fighting to survive as well to figure out how to defeat it as well as ensure their own safety. Some things I will say, this movie does do a few things that kind of come out of nowhere, there's a few deaths that appear, they're like whoa I didn't expect that. Admittedly there are some smart aspects to this script and that's because it's written by the guys who wrote the Deadpool script. There is some humor but this is a dark movie in the sense that even the characters themselves are all these kind of dark and really guilty, not a guilty but like they got the world on their shoulders sort of characters.  These characters are depressing, they are and the shooting of this film I will give two thoughts. One it's dark, yes it's space but I just mean in terms of mood. The other thing is the camera is fluid especially in the opening sequence. How it takes us on this ride of this continuous trip and you don't really even realize that it told about halfway through that the camera itself is actually upside down but everything is still flowing correctly and I will admit that was really well shot. I liked how it starts and I liked how it got to the first plot convenience. There is an issue that happens that damages their means of communication with Earth, it is literally a plot convenient oh no situation. And there's no other way around it, they kind of just do a sentence that says oh maybe it might have been this but literally it doesn't make sense.


Boreda, a diwch am ymuno gyda fi borema, heddiw bydda i yn aml yn allu fel ymlaenoriaethau ar gyfer y tamor ysgol hwn, ydw i gongol fain llythrenedd ar gyfer, ddyn nhw'n gysyllt ar gwaith ydyn ni'n neud i fynd i'r afael gyda'r prif roestre i gyda'r hefydiad fel presyn oldeb. Gallwn ymgyrchau, mae'n gweithio'n cyfnodau yma ar gyfer y llythren i ymlaenoriaethau a gwahaniaeth a gweithio'r prif roestre i gyda'r hefyd. mae'n gael i'r cyfnod o'r holl o'r gweithio'r hefyd o'r cyfnod o'r holl o'r hefyd. Yn ymlaeniaethau ar y Cymru, mae'n gweithio'r hefyd i gyda'r hefyd, ac yn ymlaeniaethau ar gyfer y dyfodol pwysigol, Before the pandemic Wales was making good and steady progress in both literacy and numeracy. I'm certain that our scores will rise again, thanks to the programme of reforms that we are making, including our new curriculum. But the impact of the pandemic is long-lasting, and it continues to be felt all across the education system, particularly by learners. I will host and chair an education leaders summit tomorrow. Together we will discuss how we will drive up numeracy and literacy standards across Wales. That call to action will be at the heart of the work of the summit. We will also discuss funding and how a fresh round of austerity imposed by the UK government has left us facing the most stark and painful budget decisions of the devolution era. Our overall budget in 2024-2025 will be worth 1.3 billion pounds less in real terms than when it was set in 2021. However, despite the enormous challenges in making the draft budget, we've been able to re-prioritise our spending plans to not just protect but increase the funding that goes directly to schools. I spoke earlier about the long-lasting impact of the pandemic. We had been due to begin reducing funding for our successful COVID recovery programme. But because of the pandemic-related challenges still facing schools, I've decided to increase this funding. This will mean more money for our schools and I'm also pleased to announce further support for the provision of free school meals to all primary children in Wales, part of our cooperation agreement. We've provided more than 15 million extra free school meals to primary school children of all ages, since the policy was rolled out. We're now making a further £3.3 million available to support councils and insulate them as much as possible from rising food costs by raising the unit rate per meal. Even with this additional funding, I am under no illusions that the coming year will be an incredibly difficult one for local authorities and schools because of the financial climate that we are all operating in. I will work with all organisations to find the best way possible for learners of all ages in Wales, recognising the enormous contribution the whole sector is making and continuing to forge the best way forward for all. I want to turn now to the work we are doing to improve attainment and to tackle the barriers to it. Attendance remains an issue in all parts of the UK following the pandemic. Improving attendance and getting our children and young people into full-time education is our national priority. I've taken a number of measures to tackle this issue, including setting up a national task force to provide strategic direction to improving school attendance and learner engagement. I was pleased to see recent figures showing an improvement in attendance, but there is no room for complacency. The task force is providing advice to me about how we build on these recent improvements, ensuring that this priority is seen through and providing the best education possible for all. But we won't stand still whilst we wait for the task force's recommendations. This week, we'll be launching a consultation about plans to set up a database of children who are not registered at school, not in receipt of education other than at school, or who are not known to the local authority as being suitably home educated. Missing education is itself a welfare issue, and the database proposals aim to support our commitment to the success and wellbeing of every learner, whatever their circumstance or setting. This is all, of course, in addition to the introduction of the new curriculum, a change which I'm pleased has been embraced by the schools and teachers I've been fortunate enough to meet over recent weeks. I hope this provides a flavour of the important work which we are taking forward over the coming weeks and months to help improve education in Wales and to ensure our children reach their full potential. Diolch yn fawr. Fynau gymryd cwestiwn nai nawr, I'll take questions now, starting with Gareth Lewis from BBC Wales. Bwyr y da, minister. Good morning. If we can have the answers in English and Welsh, we'd be really grateful. I just wanted to ask you about Gilesden Farm. What do you think the Welsh Government should do with it, and would you be able to be involved in that decision given previous decisions that have been made on that? Well, I have no role in that as education minister in any event. So, Gilesden Farm, we've seen the return of ospreys to the farm for the first time, I think, in over two centuries. Having taken expert advice that set recommendations has told us that there needs to be a zone of protection around the nest which has been discovered, which means that the original purposes for which the farm was purchased are more challenging. So, the next steps now will be to look at the farm like any other Welsh Government asset in the context of the guidance and the frameworks that we have, and the economy minister will be making more announcements about that in due course. Mae'r ddatblygiad yma o radar yn dod yn ôl i fferm Jallstone yma, tro cyntaf mewn dros 2 gangrif fel o'i'n deall. Wedi gael ag i bod ni wedi cael cangor arbennigol ar sut i felio gyda'r ddatblygiad hwn, yma'n wedi rhoi cangor i ni bod angen sicrhau ardal o amgylchyneth sydd yn gwarchod ac yn diogelu'r radar. Felly, mae hyn yn golygu na fydd y fferm ymbwr passol o'r gyfer ar hyn a fwriadwyd ar i cyfer hyn. Felly, byddwn i'n edrych ar y fferm fel unrhyw rhan arall o ayddo Llywodraeth Cymru, fewn o'r canllawu'r a'r rheoliadau sydd gyda ni wedi gwneud o greg o'r economi yn eiddo ganiad pysach am hwnnw maes o law. Diolch i'n rhaid i'n rhaid i'n cymraeg o saith yn edrych o'r canllaw i'r canllaw. Senedd y byddai Senedd yng Nghymru wedi'i gwneud o'r canllawu'r rhannu'r rhannu'r rhannu'r rhannu'r rhannu'r rhannu. Ysgol 111, gan y pwylethau Cymru yw ddweud eich bod yn ffasidio i dweud i ddiwrnod. Rwy'n dod â'r gweithio pan hyn yn dddangos korcynal yma yn ddylchio rhoifyrd hon nid o'r Senedd y byddai Senedd, ac yn gymryd i'w ddweud i ddweud o'r gweithio. Efallai, fe'n ddweud i ddweud i'r Senedd eu mwy o ddweud yn bod yn ddweud i'n ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i'n ddweud i ddweud i ddweud Minister's, which I think is a very good thing. Diolch yn fawr, Gareth. Next, Richard Morgan from ITV Wales. Minister, as well please. Indeed, indeed, forgive me.  Richard Morgan, next from ITV Wales. Thanks Minister. Yes, can I ask a question please about the vocational certificate of secondary education that is coming in in 2027. Sounds all well and good, but there's quite a lot to it, a number of courses on offer. Is it likely to be another burden and expense for already hard pressed staff and budgets in schools? Well Richard, I think this is a real opportunity because what the new VCSEs do in fact is to streamline and rationalise the provision which already exists and there are many, many qualifications in the vocational space at the moment and I think it can be challenging for learners to navigate their way through that and what we see in these sets of proposals by qualifications Wales is a more focused set of qualifications which I think will make it easier for learners to engage with. I also think it will make it easier for schools to teach but I think there's a real opportunity here for schools and colleges to work together and I really welcome the commitment qualifications Wales has made to work with colleges to make sure these qualifications are both well designed and well delivered. On the same theme, can I ask if you think they'll travel well? Obviously it's a Welsh idea. Do you think they'll have any value beyond Wales' borders? Yes, certainly. One of the key things which exam regulators in all countries are required to do and our regulators in Wales are obviously no different is to ensure that qualifications both meet the needs of learners in the country for which they're responsible but are also recognised and are portable and I'm confident that is the case with this set of reforms as indeed with all reforms that qualifications Wales has brought in in Wales. Nesaf, Rhys williams of ITN. Finland, Australia, New Zealand and Scotland have all seen significant drops in their PISA scores since they adopted curriculum remarkably similar to Wales's new curriculum. Is any of this giving you pause for thought that this is really the answer to Wales's educational problems? Well, the challenges which we saw in PISA and by the way this reflected data which we have from our own school system which is much richer and much broader in fact than the PISA scores and I think it's important to see that broader context incidentally but the reform programme that we have is yes about the curriculum but about a range of other reforms as well including around school improvement and teaching and those reforms have actually been designed together with the OECD which is the organisation which runs the PISA tests. Your question really is what comparison do we have internationally to know that these reforms are likely to succeed and I suppose the two countries I would point to as being consistently high performing not just in PISA but in terms of outcomes which is the most important aspect are New Zealand and Canada and they remain in this set of PISA results a very high performing systems and the reforms which they've brought in to their curricula very much reflect the same principles that we've introduced with the curriculum for Wales so that's why I'm confident that the role of the new curriculum as part of that broader suite of reforms is the answer to some of the challenges that we have and to make sure that our school system is future focused and fit for the modern world as well. You spoke about the attainment gap when this curriculum was first rolled out experts at Cardiff University wrote a report warning they feared it would widen the gap between the richer and poorest pupils and the authors say the government's effectively ignored this and changed nothing. Why is that? I don't accept that actually and if you look at the PISA results incidentally they will show you that the attainment gap in Wales has narrowed. That's still far worse than it is in England. Well actually the attainment gap in Wales is narrower. The point I'm making is this though that if you speak to heads who are focused on the work of closing that attainment gap in schools they will say to you that the curriculum offers an opportunity to deliver that bespoke approach to learning which can really excite and fire up those learners some of whom may have found you know engagement challenging in the past so I'm confident that the curriculum enables that to happen however it is absolutely important that we make sure that all schools in rolling out the curriculum are also delivering on that challenge of stretching all learners to reach their fullest potential and we will obviously as a government keep that very much on the at the heart of our agenda as we work with schools and the other organizations in our school system. Next question from Abby Birtic. Morning Minister, can you give some more detail on the extra money for COVID recovery that you say you're increasing instead of decreasing? You mentioned that some of that's been used for the free primary school meals. Can you give some more information on how much extra money where that money is coming from and is that money going on those free meals? Yes, so it's not going on those free meals. There are two sources of funding. So what I've done is increased the triple RS funding, the fund which enables us to recruit and retain temporary teachers in schools and that has been the program which has enabled us to enable schools to provide bespoke support for learners to respond to the challenges of COVID which are still in our schools. So that that was intended to be reduced this year but it's been maintained at the level it was previously and separately to that. What we have done is increased the unit rate for local authorities providing free school meals from £2.90, which is already higher than other parts of the UK to £3.20. That is a separate source of funding that isn't coming out from the post COVID funding. Money, this post COVID, how much money is coming? It's the same level as last year plus the 3.3 million from free school meals. Second question, you mentioned this summit tomorrow and you'll also know that the very critical chief inspector schools report is also out tomorrow that paints a very gloomy picture generally, you know, attainment in Welsh literacy, almost everything across secondary schools, attendance, behaviour. You say that the report says that there's a problem recruiting teachers. You've said that yourself as well with all the problems in schools and with all the behaviour, the attendance, the lack of money and the low morale. What would you say to somebody to encourage them to actually, if they are a bright graduate, come and be a teacher in Wales? What is working here that would make them come? What would you say to them? Well, I'd encourage them to read the report, Tramestyn, which will also explain to them some of the successes in our school systems. It's always important, I think, to see the complete picture in these, not least because of the hard work of heads and staff every day in schools who are having a fantastic impact on the lives of our young people, changing their lives and setting up for life. And I thank them for all the work that they are doing. The report does set out a number of the challenges which we face in schools and the purpose of the summit which I'm holding this week is to work with school and education leaders on the priorities in our school system, which are around attendance, they're around literacy and numeracy, our additional learning needs reform, curriculum design and fundamentally excellent teaching. And what I know is that teaching provides, I think almost uniquely the opportunity of giving thousands, hundreds and thousands of young people the very best start in life. And I know whenever I go to schools, I talk to teachers who are motivated despite the challenges that schools face to do that work. It is incredible work that they do. And I think any young person who wants to make a significant contribution to the lives of people in Wales would do well to consider teaching as a means of doing that. Next question is from Claire Board. So when the PISA results came out, Wales was bottom of the four UK nations and in fact Wales has been bottom of the four UK nations since at least 2006. What isn't clicking in Wales that's working for all the other countries in the United Kingdom? Well actually, the picture is slightly more nuanced than that. If you look at the figures in 2018, you'll have seen that Wales was the only part of the UK that was improving in all three domains of PISA. We've seen in the last set of PISA results right across the world the impact of Covid which is variable across different countries. What we have been embarked on in Wales for a number of years is a programme of reform working together with the OECD in relation to our school system and how we can make sure it's fit for the future. And so that is partly about the curriculum, but as I was saying earlier, only partly about that. It's also about an approach to inspection. It's about an approach to school improvement, to the professional learning of teachers. So there's a holistic vision which underpins the suite of reforms which we are introducing, some of which instantly will not have yet impacted on the learners who took the PISA tests last year. So those reforms are in the system. They haven't yet been tested as it were through PISA and I'm confident that coupled with the focus I'm bringing on literacy and numeracy, that they will mean that our results increase into the future and set us on that path to better outcomes overall. You mentioned budget issues from the UK government have been an issue when it's come to educational results in Wales, but what do you think the Welsh Government could improve on? Yes, the UK government are providing the money, but it's still you making the decisions. Yes, and I've just outlined to you what we are doing with that. I think it's, you know, one shouldn't just set aside the funding challenges because they're very real and what they have meant is incredibly difficult decisions, which ministers right across the government have had to make in their budgets, which no minister wants to make and doesn't reflect our long term preferences for the budget, but that is the reality. Our budget is worth £1.3 billion less and in that context, every minister has had to make reductions in the budget. What I've been able to do, recognising the points which a number of colleagues have made this morning is to protect and indeed increase the funding available to schools. I absolutely recognise that local authorities and schools and cells will still be under incredible pressure as indeed is the Welsh Government's budget, but our commitment is to make sure that we provide the level of protection we can to schools and we've been able to increase the funding in my budget, which supports that wide range of reforms that I've just been talking about today. Bronwyn, whether it be from LBC, please. Boredar, good morning. You mentioned absenteeism. I believe the latest figures show that one in five pupils in England are persistently absent. I wondered how does Wales's figure compare with that and what is believed to be behind such high levels of absence? Thank you, Bronwyn. The basis on which the governments in the UK compile data for absence is different, so a direct comparison is not straightforward. What we know in Wales is that the figures compared to the year before have increased, but let's be clear. I don't take much comfort from that. It's a positive trend, but it certainly isn't sufficient and that's why the work of the attendance task force is absolutely critical and what we have as part of that is a range of professionals and from a range of agencies. Of course we have education represented in a number of different ways, but we also have representation from health, from social services and from parents and beyond and what we are learning is that the underlying reasons for absence for an awful lot of young people are complex. Now, alongside the work of a task force, you'll know that I've changed the guidance in this area so that the support available is deeper and faster if you like, so for those who have followed this discussion previously in order to get that support, a young person had to be persistently absent, which is absent for 20% of the time. We've reduced that now to 10% of the time so that the support is available sooner. But that work of that multi agency approach is a really important way for us to tackle what is a very, very worrying situation. Thank you and secondly then in your opinion as a government minister, how concerned are you that unions may be using undemocratic means to back a candidate for the next first minister when whoever is chosen as you know will make decisions that affect the entire country and are you confident that that process of electing the next first minister is transparent and fair? Well Bronwyn, that isn't a question for a Welsh government press conference and I've already made a statement and I have nothing to add to that statement. Emma Seith from TES. Thank you. I was just wondering about the creation of this database of children missing from education. I was just wondering if you could maybe explain why we don't already know who these children are and do we have any sense of how many children are missing and when we do know who they are you just sort of maybe talk us through what will happen, what will happen? Certainly Emma, this is part of a suite of reforms which we've introduced in relation to children who are educated at home. So part of that has been around the database. We've also introduced new guidance but also we have in Wales a package of funding which local authorities are able to use to support those who learn at home. Some of that is around access to exam centres. Some of it is around the more direct support and we've also designed a handbook to support those who choose to educate at home. So this is one part of a broader set of set of policies in relation to home education and the purpose of the database proposal is to make sure that local authorities are able to identify those who are educated at home and then to be able to make sure that they're receiving a suitable education which is part of their statutory duty. Just another question just about the announcement today about the full range of qualifications for 14 to 16 year olds. How is the government going to ensure that people's access to a good range of those qualifications given the budgetary problems that schools are facing? Well they replace qualifications that are currently being taught in schools and what I was saying earlier what they do is provide a more streamlined updated set of qualifications which reflect are the changes to our curriculum in Wales. So in that sense there are more more focus and streamline version of what's currently being taught. Obviously there's a period now of design the first teaching of the new curriculums of the new qualifications have been 2027 first awarding rather. So that is the that's the timescale that we're looking at. David Nicholson morning star. Morning minister. On the vocational qualifications. Is a lane not likely to be undermined by the cuts to the apprenticeship budget that's just happened as part of the Welsh government budget cuts? No David we don't expect that to happen from 2027. This is part of a suite of an offer which young people will be able to choose from in the vocational space so they'll be able to choose from VCSC's which are the qualifications being discussed today but also foundation qualifications skills for life and skills for work qualifications and personal project qualifications. So there's a range of options for young people and what's being announced today is part of that. And on the work you were just talking about around attendance and attainment and joining up health and social services with local authorities. I mean surely part of the issue here is the conservative party local management of schools and wouldn't it make more sense in Wales for the Welsh government to bring schools back into local authorities so that they can coordinate all these things across the different statutory functions they perform in supporting children. If an approach in Wales to the approach in England schools are delivered by education is delivered by local authorities in Wales and that is exactly what enables us to have that more joined up approach. There are interventions which the government will do in England which suit the arrangements they have there ours are much more joined up here in Wales because of the nature of our school system. So there are opportunities to connect the support that we provide to families and in the discussion we've had so far in the task force. There's been a real appetite for that but also recognising the perspective of parents in this and I think one of the challenges that we are facing is that the approach and the appreciation of the importance of attendance in school has in fact changed as a consequence of learners being at home for periods during COVID and you know that is a challenging change for us to grapple with but there are other aspects as well and so that multi agency approach I absolutely think is the solution to to this challenge. So is that known to bringing schools out of local management by themselves into local authority control? Well they are already in local authority they provide schools are our system in Wales David is very different from the system in England as you know decisions are taken at a school level but within a very clear framework of local authority control and I think that is the best way for us to make sure that our young people in Wales get the best schooling. Diolch yn fawr.


Whether it's the loss of a relationship, a friendship, or a loved one, grieving is never easy. However, it's always part of the process. Psych2Go's mission is to make psychology and self-care topics more accessible to everyone. We may think we've already moved on from something or someone, but that may not always be the case. In today's video, we'll be discussing the unexpected signs that you're still grieving. If you have experienced significant loss but a long time has passed and you still experience some of the following symptoms, you may be experiencing complicated grief, also known as unresolved grief. Research shows that emotional pain activates the same regions of the brain as physical pain, so it's important not to take these symptoms lightly. Okay, let's start the video. One, your chest might feel tight, painful, or sinking into your stomach. A physical symptom of grief is an increase in blood pressure. It also increases the risk of blood clots. According to Harvard Health Publishing, intense grief can alter the heart muscle so much it can even cause broken heart syndrome, also known as stress-induced cardiomyopathy. The main symptoms are chest pain and shortness of breath, as if when we're experiencing a heart attack. Experts think that surging stress hormones can essentially stun the heart, preventing the left ventricle from contracting effectively. This occurs more often in women than men. Two, you may be extremely focused on reminders of your loss or be excessively avoidant towards them. While these are opposite behaviors, obsessing over details and reminders or avoiding them excessively may be signs that you're still grieving. It's normal to feel pain upon being reminded of your loss, but if you find yourself constantly focused on reminders, it may be hard to move through the grieving stages. But why is constantly avoiding reminders also problematic? Do you find yourself pushing away painful or uncomfortable memories when you're reminded of them? Excessive avoidance can have long-term health consequences. Efforts to avoid the reality of loss demand energy and block the natural abilities of the body and mind to heal. Research by Strobee and others shows that avoidance makes depression, complicated grief, and the physical health problems associated with them more likely to occur. Three, you feel like you're getting sick more easily or taking longer to recover from your sicknesses. Grief increases inflammation and disrupts the immune system. This means that it can worsen existing health problems or cause new ones and leave you vulnerable to infection. Essentially, grief causes you stress not only on an emotional level but on a physical level too. It can leave you feeling fatigued and can give you headaches, stomach pain, nausea, and less appetite too. And four, you're still showing signs of stress. Your body may be showing you signs of stress, even if you may not realize it. Adding on to the previous point, feeling uncomfortable physical symptoms and recovering slower from illnesses are signs of stress. Are you experiencing a range of unpleasant feelings? Do you have cravings to misuse substances more than normal? You may be showing residue signs from stress. If you want to know more about stress, check out our video Six Signs of Stress You Shouldn't Ignore for more details on signs of stress. Are you grieving? If so, how are you handling it? Also, if you know someone who may benefit from online counseling, we've actually partnered up with BetterHelp. It's an affordable online counseling platform that you could utilize. They're constantly striving to improve their services in terms and conditions. The link will be in the description box below.