‘Strong sense of relief’: State Department staffers react to Tillerson’s ouster
Many staffers hope that Mike Pompeo’s close relationship with the president will mean more influence with Trump.
“There is strong sense of relief at State. The last year has been traumatic to put it mildly. It was as though ‘T-Rex’ stomped through Foggy Bottom devouring staff and structures,” said Brett Bruen, a former State Department official.
Several current State officials said they also hope to bid farewell to Tillerson’s top aides, including chief of staff Margaret Peterlin and policy chief Brian Hook, whom they criticize for forming a protective and secretive clique around the secretary during his nearly 14-month tenure.
Austin package explosion: 3rd Austin package linked to 2 deadly incidents, police say
AUSTIN, Texas — Police in Austin say “similarities” between three package explosions in Texas’ capital city this month, two fatal, lead them to believe the incidents are related. The latest fatal incident, reported Monday morning, killed a 17-year-old boy and wounded a woman, Austin police chief Brian Manley said.
Speaking before the third incident, Manley said investigators aren’t sure of a motive, but can’t rule out the possibility of hate crimes because the residents of both homes were African-American. He now says they aren’t ruling anything out, but they are no longer “making the connection to a hate crime.”
National Geographic’ Reckons With Its Past: “For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist”
If National Geographic‘s April issue was going to be entirely devoted to the subject of race, the magazine decided it had better take a good hard look at its own history.
Editor in Chief Susan Goldberg asked John Edwin Mason, a professor of African history and the history of photography at the University of Virginia, to dive into the magazine’s nearly 130-year archive and report back.
What Mason found was a long tradition of racism in the magazine’s coverage: in its text, its choice of subjects, and in its famed photography.
