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Women’s program aims to combat violence in Chicago: “The police cannot do this alone”
Inside a community center in one of most Chicago’s violent neighborhoods, there’s a surprising sense of calm and an unexpected promise of peace.
A new program, called She Ro, invites women at high risk from gun violence to come to the center four days a week for a year to learn ways to cope with trauma, anger and grief. Program developer Christa Hamilton said She Ro aims to “show (women) an exit,” and provides coaching in the life skills that can put them on a different path.
Many of the women participating have lost a loved one to gun violence, which 21-year-old participant Kayla Medina says is “contagious” on Chicago’s West Side. Medina lost both her sister and boyfriend to shootings, and said that she has found herself caught in the crossfire of gun violence “a million times.”
“Every time I walk out the door, there’s always something happening,” Medina said. “It’s always some gunshots.”
She Ro is one of multiple community violence interventions in Chicago, where $300 million has been pledged for such programs in underserved and disinvested communities. Community violence intervention aims to stop crime before it happens. Trained specialists establish relationships with people at the highest risk of being victims or perpetrators of violence. The specialists also provide support services and often respond to crime scenes, working to de-escalate tensions and derail retaliatory attacks.
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“The police cannot do this alone,” Chicago police superintendent Larry Snelling said. “This is a societal issue. I don’t want to go this alone. I don’t want my officers to go this alone.”
The University of Chicago’s Chico Tillman has studied the cost of crime and the return on investments in intervention.
“When you think about it, when a homicide takes place, there’s an investigation. The case goes to court. The case gets prosecuted. (There’s) incarceration if they are found guilty. All the medical bills,” Tillman said. “It costs society as a whole anywhere from $1.4 million to $2.5 million every time somebody is shot.”
While men make up the majority of people shot or shooting, the number of women here involved is rising. Hamilton said that last year, 90 women in the area were killed by gun violence and nearly 500 more were shot.
For those in the She Ro program, the community program is a step forward.
“It hurts me to be around all this, but She Ro helps,” one participant said.
CBS News
Mail carriers reach tentative contract with USPS that includes pay raises, air-conditioned trucks
Some 200,000 mail carriers have reached a tentative contract deal with the U.S. Postal Service that includes backdated pay raises and a promise to provide workers with air-conditioned trucks.
The new agreement, which still needs to be ratified by union members, runs through Nov. 2026. Letter deliverers have been working without a contract since May 2023.
Both the union and the Postal Service welcomed the agreement, which was announced Friday.
“Both sides didn’t get everything they wanted. But by bargaining in good faith, we ended with an agreement that meets our goals and rewards our members,” Brian Renfroe, the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, told The Associated Press. “To make that happen, the Postal Service had to recognize the contributions of members to the Postal Service and the American people.”
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Among other improvements, the deal increases the top pay and reduces the amount of time it takes new workers to reach that level, Renfroe said. He credited Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and his deputy for bargaining in good faith throughout the arduous process.
The Postal Service said the agreement supported its 10-year ‘Delivering for America’ mission to modernize operations and adapt to changing customer needs.
“This is a fair and responsible agreement that serves the best interest of our employees, our customers and the future of the Postal Service,” said Doug Tulino, the deputy postmaster general and chief human resources officer.
As part of the agreement, all city carriers will get three annual pay increases of 1.3% each by 2025, some of which will be paid retroactively from Nov. 2023. Workers will also receive retroactive and future cost-of-living adjustments.
There is also a commitment from the Postal Service to “make every effort” to provide mail trucks with air-conditioning.
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The Postal Service in summer began rolling out its new electric delivery vehicles, which come equipped with air-conditioning. While the trucks won’t win any beauty contests, they did get rave reviews from letter carriers accustomed to older vehicles that lack modern safety features and are prone to breaking down — and even catching fire.
Within a few years, the new delivery fleet will have expanded to 60,000 vehicles, most of them electric models, serving as the Postal Service’s primary delivery truck from Maine to Hawaii.
Under the tentative contract agreement, the Postal Service must discuss with the union any plans to buy new mail trucks that don’t have air-conditioning.
This is the second contract negotiated since DeJoy was appointed postmaster general in 2020. It is expected to take several weeks for union members to ratify the contract. Rural mail deliverers aren’t covered by the contract because they are represented by a different union.
Three people were killed and eight were injured during a shooting at a trail ride in Holmes County, Mississippi.
The shooting occurred around midnight on Saturday on Highway 17 North, according to CBS affiliate WJTV.
Holmes County Sheriff Willie March said several people went on a trail ride after homecoming for Holmes County Consolidated Schools, WJTV reported. March said an argument took place between young men before the shooting occurred.
Suspects are being sought in the shooting, the sheriff said.
The three victims were identified as Martel Gibson, 25, of Durant; Shundra Chestnut, 19, of Kosciusko; and John Jenkins, 19, of Durant.
Holmes County is about 70 miles north of Jackson, the state capital.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is assisting in this case, a spokesperson confirmed to CBS News on Saturday.
CBS News was told that no further updates will be provided until Monday.
It’s usually a serene two-and-a-half-hour ride on Japan’s famously efficient bullet train. But the journey quickly descended into a zombie apocalypse, with passengers screaming in terror.
Organizers of Saturday’s adrenaline-filled trip, less than two weeks before Halloween, touted it as the “world’s first haunted house experience on a running shinkansen.”
Aboard a chartered car of the shinkansen — the Japanese word for bullet train — were around 40 thrill-seekers, ready to brave an encounter with the living dead between Tokyo and the western metropolis of Osaka.
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The eerie experience was inspired by the hit 2016 South Korean action-horror movie “Train to Busan”, in which a father and daughter trapped on a moving train battle zombies hungry for human flesh.
All seemed normal at first as the bullet train made a peaceful departure Saturday evening, but it wasn’t long until the first gory attack.
The victims — actors planted in seats by the organizers — jerked in agony and then underwent a terrifying transformation before starting a rampage against their fellow passengers.
Event organizer Kenta Iwana of the group Kowagarasetai, which translates to the “scare squad”, said they wanted to “depict the normally safe, peaceful shinkansen — something we take for granted — collapsing in the blink of an eye”.
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Sitting next to one of the actors was Joshua Payne, one of many foreign tourists on board.
“I literally felt like I was in the film, just sitting here watching it take place in front of me,” the 31-year-old American told AFP.
“The fact that we can physically go from Tokyo to Osaka right now and have this whole performance at the same time… I think is really cool and maybe a little bit groundbreaking,” he said.
It was far from Central Japan Railway Company’s first experiment with the usually dazzlingly clean, accident-free shinkansen, a Japanese institution that turned 60 this year.
After demand for long-distance travel plunged during the COVID-19 pandemic, the railway operator started renting out bullet train compartments for special events to diversify its business.
A sushi restaurant, a bar and even a wrestling match have been hosted on the high-speed train, and carriages can also be reserved for private parties.
PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images
Marie Izumi of JR Central’s tourism subsidiary told AFP that she was surprised by the idea for a zombie-themed commute when Kowagarasetai approached her, thinking it would be “almost impossible to pull off”.
But the event has convinced her of “new possibilities” for the bullet train, Izumi said, adding that concerts and comedy shows might be a good fit in the future.
On Saturday, toy chainsaws and guns were used as props, but depictions of extreme violence and gore that could tarnish the shinkansen’s squeaky-clean reputation were avoided.
To counterbalance the subdued horror, the two-and-a-half-hour tour was peppered with light-hearted performances by zombie cheerleaders, magicians and comedians, including a choreographed dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.
“Nobody wants to sit tight for such a long time being constantly exposed to horror,” said Ayaka Imaide from Kowagarasetai.
Many aboard the zombie-infested train said the experience alone was worth the ticket price of up to 50,000 yen ($335).
“It was very immersive,” Naohiko Nozawa, 30, told AFP. “And the appearance of so many different kinds of zombies kept me entertained all the way.”
