Latest news with #MarquisdeLafayette
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Now or never' to save replica of American revolutionary war vessel, say French campaigners
French maritime enthusiasts are battling to save a replica of an 18th-century warship that became a symbol of the country's historic relationship with America. The copy of L'Hermione, a three-mast, 32-gun frigate that carried the Marquis de Lafayette across the Atlantic to announce France's support for American independence from Great Britain in the revolutionary war, has been in dry dock at Anglet, near Bayonne, since its oak hull was found to be riddled with fungus four years ago. Campaigners have raised €5m (£4.3m) to replace part of the rotted structure but say they need another €5m to make the vessel seaworthy again. Despite launching an appeal two years ago, the funds have not been found. A fresh plea for the remaining funds comes as relations between France and the US enter a stormy period after Donald Trump's threat to impose a 30% tariff on goods from the European Union. Emilie Beau, the executive director of the Hermione-La Fayette Association, told the Guardian: 'We need a generous patron and we now have very little time to find one. It has been three years in dry dock and its 1,200 tonnes of wood needs to be in sea water and not dry. 'We have been dampening the hull, but this could lead to the development of even more fungus. We're hoping that if someone comes forward with the funds, we could restart work to repair the hull in September, with a view to sailing again in 2027.' The replica of L'Hermione, which took 17 years to build and cost €26m, was launched in 2015 and sailed to New York where it was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd. In 1780, the original ship made the voyage to America to help the revolutionaries led by George Washington in the war of independence. Onboard was Lafayette, Louis XVI's personal envoy to the man who would later become the first US president. Lafayette disembarked in Boston and rode to Washington's headquarters to deliver his message of French aid to the rebels. L'Hermione – nicknamed the 'Ship of Liberty' – spent two years battling the British naval blockade before returning to France. In 1793, she ran aground off western France and sank. The wreck was discovered in 1984. In 1992 a group of maritime history enthusiasts set up the Hermione-La Fayette Association to oversee the construction of a replica of the 66-metre-long ship at the former royal shipyard at Rochefort, using historic techniques but to modern standards to enable the ship to be certified to sail. The plans for L'Hermione had been lost, but her sister ship the Concorde had been captured by the British navy in the 1790s, and detailed drawings and measurements of the vessel, a jigsaw of more than 400,000 pieces of wood and iron, were found at the Admiralty in London. Unlike the original, the replica has modern navigation equipment and electric motors for manoeuvring in and out of ports. It was also fitted with showers and toilets, as opposed to a plank of wood with holes in it near the prow that the original crew would have used. The replica cannon are fake; otherwise, it would be classed as a warship and come under the control of the French navy. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion In 2021, L'Hermione was due to visit the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and the UK, including sailing up the Thames, but after going into dry dock for maintenance before setting sail, workers discovered that the wood at the bow and stern was infested with lenzites and cellar polypore, both wood-decaying fungi. 'What we know about these fungi is that they existed in the 18th century, but back then it took six months to build a ship, and if one didn't come back or rotted, they just built another. Obviously, we cannot do that,' Beau said. 'We want to build a ship that lasts longer than they did at the time.' The association has issued a new international appeal for funds, saying it is 'now or never' to save the ship. 'About 10% of the hull wood was damaged; we have replaced the wood in the rear part but now we urgently need €5m to complete the work,' Beau said. 'L'Hermione is a symbolic, historical ship. It is not only a chef-d'oeuvre of technical achievement but it was called the frigate of liberty and carried the values of freedom and solidarity between peoples. 'Today it is a symbol of peace and humanity, and in the current difficult period our countries are going through, it represents diplomatic relations and common values. We don't want to lose that.'
Wall Street Journal
6 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Al Gore Helped the U.S. Surpass Europe
In the spirit of Bastille Day on July 14, it's a good time to ask: What's wrong with Europe? In 1790, France's Marquis de Lafayette gave George Washington the key to the Bastille prison—still displayed at Mt. Vernon—symbolizing a 'token of victory by Liberty over Despotism.' Europe needs the key back. In 2008, the U.S. and Eurozone economies were about the same size. Since 2010, Europe's per capita gross domestic product has basically flatlined. Today, the U.S. nominal GDP per capita is almost twice as large as Europe's. Why? Recently, this paper ran side-by-side headlines: 'EU Moves to Extend Climate Goals' and 'Eurozone Joblessness Reached 6.3% in May.' (It's 4.1% in the U.S.) As the Romans used to say: Causae et effectus.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Now or never' to save €26m replica of historic French ship, campaigners say
French maritime enthusiasts are battling to save a replica of an 18th-century warship that became a symbol of the country's historic relationship with America. The copy of L'Hermione, a three-mast, 32-gun frigate that carried the Marquis de Lafayette across the Atlantic to announce France's support for American independence from Great Britain in the revolutionary war, has been in dry dock at Anglet, near Bayonne, since its oak hull was found to be riddled with fungus four years ago. Campaigners have raised €5m (£4.3m) to replace part of the rotted structure but say they need another €5m to make the vessel seaworthy again. Despite launching an appeal two years ago, the funds have not been found. A fresh plea for the remaining funds comes as relations between France and the US enter a stormy period after Donald Trump's threat to impose a 30% tariff on goods from the European Union. Emilie Beau, the executive director of the Hermione-La Fayette Association, told the Guardian: 'We need a generous patron and we now have very little time to find one. It has been three years in dry dock and its 1,200 tonnes of wood needs to be in sea water and not dry. 'We have been dampening the hull, but this could lead to the development of even more fungus. We're hoping that if someone comes forward with the funds, we could restart work to repair the hull in September, with a view to sailing again in 2027.' The replica of L'Hermione, which took 17 years to build and cost €26m, was launched in 2015 and sailed to New York where it was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd. In 1780, the original ship made the voyage to America to help the revolutionaries led by George Washington in the war of independence. Onboard was Lafayette, Louis XVI's personal envoy to the man who would later become the first US president. Lafayette disembarked in Boston and rode to Washington's headquarters to deliver his message of French aid to the rebels. L'Hermione – nicknamed the 'Ship of Liberty' – spent two years battling the British naval blockade before returning to France. In 1793, she ran aground off western France and sank. The wreck was discovered in 1984. In 1992 a group of maritime history enthusiasts set up the Hermione-La Fayette Association to oversee the construction of a replica of the 66-metre-long ship at the former royal shipyard at Rochefort, using historic techniques but to modern standards to enable the ship to be certified to sail. The plans for L'Hermione had been lost, but her sister ship the Concorde had been captured by the British navy in the 1790s, and detailed drawings and measurements of the vessel, a jigsaw of more than 400,000 pieces of wood and iron, were found at the Admiralty in London. Unlike the original, the replica has modern navigation equipment and electric motors for manoeuvring in and out of ports. It was also fitted with showers and toilets, as opposed to a plank of wood with holes in it near the prow that the original crew would have used. The replica cannon are fake; otherwise, it would be classed as a warship and come under the control of the French navy. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion In 2021, L'Hermione was due to visit the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and the UK, including sailing up the Thames, but after going into dry dock for maintenance before setting sail, workers discovered that the wood at the bow and stern was infested with lenzites and cellar polypore, both wood-decaying fungi. 'What we know about these fungi is that they existed in the 18th century, but back then it took six months to build a ship, and if one didn't come back or rotted, they just built another. Obviously, we cannot do that,' Beau said. 'We want to build a ship that lasts longer than they did at the time.' The association has issued a new international appeal for funds, saying it is 'now or never' to save the ship. 'About 10% of the hull wood was damaged; we have replaced the wood in the rear part but now we urgently need €5m to complete the work,' Beau said. 'L'Hermione is a symbolic, historical ship. It is not only a chef-d'oeuvre of technical achievement but it was called the frigate of liberty and carried the values of freedom and solidarity between peoples. 'Today it is a symbol of peace and humanity, and in the current difficult period our countries are going through, it represents diplomatic relations and common values. We don't want to lose that.'
UPI
28-06-2025
- General
- UPI
On This Day, June 28: Biscayne National Park established in Florida
On this date in history: In 1778, the Continental Army under command of Gen. George Washington defeated the British at Monmouth, N.J. A pair of saddle pistols used by the Marquis de Lafayette during the battle fetched nearly $2 million at a 2002 auction. In 1838, Victoria was crowned queen of England. She would rule for 63 years, 7 months. In 1914, Archduke Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, an act considered to have ignited World War I. In 1919, World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI In 1969, the clientele of a New York City gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, rioted after it was raided by police. The event is considered the start of the gay liberation movement. In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the use of public funds for parochial schools was unconstitutional. In 1972, President Richard Nixon announced that no more draftees would be sent to Vietnam unless they volunteered for service in the Asian nation. In 1980, Biscayne National Park, previously a national monument, was established by an act of Congress. The park preserves Biscayne Bay and offshore barrier reefs in South Florida. In 1997, Mike Tyson bit off a piece of one of heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield's ears during a title fight in Las Vegas. In 2007, the American bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list. Officials of the Interior Department said the eagle, which had been declared endangered in 1967, was flourishing and no longer imperiled. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI In 2009, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, rousted out of bed in the middle of the night by soldiers, was forced from office and into exile in Costa Rica in the culmination of a bitter power struggle over proposed constitutional changes. He was in exile for more than a year. In 2011, the International Monetary Fund's executive board named Christine Lagarde chairwoman, the first woman to lead the organization. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the new healthcare law known as the Affordable Care Act. In 2016, militants opened fire and set off explosions at Turkey's Ataturk Airport, killing 45 people and leaving more than 230 injured. Turkish officials blamed the Islamic State. In 2018, five people -- four journalists and a sales assistant -- died after a gunman opened fire at the Annapolis, Md., office of the Capital Gazette newspaper. In 2022, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking scheme. In 2023, South Korea scrapped its traditional age-counting system, instantly reducing the age of citizens by one or two years in a move to align with international standards and reduce clerical headaches. In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that enforcement of camping regulation laws against homeless people does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment banned by the Eighth Amendment.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The rural N.C. mayor betting big on clean energy to uplift his hometown
ENFIELD, NORTH CAROLINA — When history buffs reenacted a Revolutionary War general's visit to this tiny, rural North Carolina town in February, its top elected official was notably absent. General Marquis de Lafayette may have helped liberate America from England, but over 240 years later his story has little relevance to Mayor Mondale Robinson. 'I find it extremely hard to be celebrating the Revolutionary War when people in Enfield — households of four people — are living on $24,000 a year,' said Robinson, sitting in his windowless office, sparsely decorated with small, framed photos of Black leaders. 'I don't know what freedom looks like, because you can't tell me people in Enfield are free to live the way they want to.' Robinson, who was elected in 2022, envisions a day when Black people in his community are able to live a life of pride, freedom, and economic stability. He believes clean energy will play a central role. Alongside other community leaders and clean energy advocates, Robinson is planning a new solar farm that could meet most of Enfield's electricity needs. He wants a modern substation to replace the town's dilapidated one. And he aims to create a 'storefront' for energy efficiency that could help residents reduce energy waste and their electric bills. 'We're trying to be energy independent,' Robinson said. 'Besides green energy being good for the environment, it's also going to help our people … live a life with dignity. That includes the housing, the grid, figuring out how to do renewable energy in a way that is not just sustainable but also job-creating.' Some formidable barriers stand in the way, from the Trump administration's antipathy to clean energy and communities of color, to pockets of local opposition to the large solar farms that have become common across the region. But with money still flowing for now from Biden-era climate laws — which were intended to fund progress in historically disadvantaged communities like Enfield — Robinson and his fellow visionaries say their aspirations are within reach. '[It's] a place that has more than 260 sunny days per year on average,' said Robinson. 'I'm super excited about what's possible.' In many ways, Enfield typifies Eastern North Carolina and the rural South. Once a trading post for peanuts, tobacco, and other crops, the town's commercial district, five miles east of Interstate 95, now stands nearly empty. Like much of the state, the town faces increasingly frequent natural disasters, like hurricanes. It's devastatingly poor and overwhelmingly Black, home to many descendants of those who remained enslaved long after Lafayette's victory tour. Robinson grew up in Black Bottom, Enfield's historically Black section. The neighborhood still has no sidewalks, and he says indoor plumbing wasn't a given here until the 1990s. On a walk through town, he pointed out the shotgun home he lived in for a time as a child with his parents and some of his 12 siblings. 'I'm 45 years old,' he said. 'I should not know what an outhouse is.' When Robinson looks back on his childhood, he sees clearly how the lack of infrastructure and the quality of the environment impacted the health of those around him. Many of his schoolmates had ringworm, a result, he thinks, of poor sewer systems, water contamination upstream, or a combination of the two. Severe asthma, which can be triggered by air pollution, kept one brother in the hospital for most of 4th grade. Dumpster diving for glass bottles and other recyclables as a teenager, Robinson found a copy of W.E.B. Du Bois' 'The Souls of Black Folk.' He must have read it four times cover to cover. The seminal essay collection helped Robinson draw the line between systemic racism and Black public health. 'My people suffer the most,' Robinson said. When America sneezes, he said, 'Black people get a flu.' In 1997, Robinson left 'the bleak reality of Enfield' for a stint in the Marine Corps, then Livingstone College, a historically Black university in Salisbury, North Carolina. After graduating, he ran dozens of progressive political campaigns around the country and the world, from the Congo to Illinois. In the lead-up to the 2020 elections, Robinson founded the Black Male Voter Project — aimed at communicating year-round, on- and off-season, with a demographic often taken for granted by the Democratic establishment. 'I wanted to do something for the brothers,' he said. 'Maslow would say they would be on the bottom rung,' referencing the late American psychologist who conceptualized a hierarchy of needs to explain what motivates human behavior. 'They don't have their basic needs met.' A constellation of political projects still occupies him. But he returned to North Carolina to run for mayor because he felt like a 'fraud' for not organizing his people back home. One of his first official acts: livestreaming the removal of a prominent Confederate monument in town. Any headwinds he's facing over his clean energy vision are akin to the blowback he's still experiencing over that day in 2022, Robinson said. 'I'm getting pushback because I'm loud, and I'm a Black man, and I should know my place.' About 30 miles south of the Virginia border, in Halifax County, Enfield is in a part of the state largely untouched by Duke Energy's grid and its monopoly. The town owns its electric utility, a holdover from when private electric providers couldn't foresee profiting from serving far-flung hamlets of 2,000 people. Much of the area connects to a regional transmission organization called PJM Interconnection, in which wholesale electricity has long been bought and sold on a competitive market. That means independent power producers can enlist customers besides Duke, and they've already built scores of solar farms in the area, demonstrating the economic viability of the resource. Those factors drew William Munn, regional director of the Carolinas for advocacy group Vote Solar, to Enfield. 'In late 2023, we were looking for communities to share the great news around the Inflation Reduction Act,' Munn said, referring to the 2022 climate spending law that includes incentives for historically disadvantaged towns. The fact that the town owned its own utility was especially enticing. 'If you have the political will,' Munn said, 'you can do whatever you want, and that's rare in this regulatory environment.' The town's atrocious energy burden is generating a lot of that will. Despite having small homes and even smaller incomes, Enfield households have average winter electric bills of $650 a month, according to the town finance director. That's in part because much of the housing stock is old, poorly insulated, and inefficient. 'These are [800- to 1,200-square-foot] homes that have bills this high. These aren't big homes,' said Reggie Bynum, Southeast community outreach director at the nonprofit Center for Energy Education, based up the road in Roanoke Rapids. 'It's old wiring; it's old insulation. Weatherization needs are definitely there. These aren't modern homes.' Higher-than-average rates compound the problem. The town buys electricity from Halifax Electric Membership Corp., which in turn buys from the statewide association of electric cooperatives. The association owns some generating facilities but also buys wholesale power through PJM and from investor-owned utilities like Duke. In Raleigh, one of the wealthiest areas in the state, Duke charges 12 cents per kilowatt-hour. In Enfield, one of the poorest, the rate approaches 14 cents. 'We're selling our residents electricity that's third-time bought and sold,' Robinson said. A three- to five-megawatt solar farm on about 20 acres of land, backed up by a battery with a duration of four hours or more, could supply all of the town's 1,200 electric meters, most of them residential. The move would likely cut rates, especially if government grants covered all or part of the approximately $10 million solar array and backup battery. All told, experts believe the generation system could pay for itself in about 15 years. The town would remain connected to the surrounding grid during emergencies, Munn said, 'but the most important part is that for 95% of the time, they are going to be drawing on their own battery bank and solar generation, and that's going to stabilize the cost for the long term.' Replacing the town's dilapidated substation, which requires frequent repairs, is also a priority. Its wooden poles were erected in the middle of the last century, and its power lines have limited capacity — not enough to receive and transfer power from a five-megawatt solar farm, advocates say. Six of the substation's seven lines are at 2,400 volts, said Nick Jimenez, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. 'It's so low that they don't make equipment to fix that anymore.' 'It's like having an antique car,' Robinson said. 'Waiting on parts.' Replacing the substation's wooden frame with a metal one and swapping out the 2,400-volt feeder lines for 7,200-volt versions would bring Enfield into the 21st century for a price tag of about $5 million. Across the train tracks from the rundown substation are the town fairgrounds, a playing field, a basketball court, and a small windowless building labeled 'Enfield Parks and Recreation.' Here, the next piece of the clean energy vision is beginning to take shape. 'The town had for a long time been considering building a community center,' Munn said. 'We came to them and said, 'How about you make that community center a resilience center? Let's dream big.'' Called the Enfield Energy Center, the structure would replace the concrete parks building and a few others on the site. It would be powered by rooftop solar panels and battery storage, serving as a gathering place during emergencies. A commercial kitchen would help incubate food businesses and supply healthy meals during disasters. And an on-site community garden would provide food and educational opportunities. 'When people see, feel, and touch solar and renewable energy, and see that it works,' Munn said, 'see it constructed in a beautiful space, then it gets demystified.' Around the corner from the future resilience center, on the town's main commercial strip, sits a boarded-up, three-bedroom home. Built in 1925, the house is advertised on Zillow as a 'classic fixer-upper.' Robinson, who earns a pittance as mayor but has other income from his political consulting work, bought it earlier this year for $32,500, per Zillow. The plan is to transform the nearly 1,800-square-foot home into a Weatherization Hub. Like the Enfield Energy Center, the building would be topped with solar panels backed up with battery storage. There, staff could hold do-it-yourself weatherization workshops and help residents apply for free energy-efficiency improvements, potentially including from Energy Saver NC, the state's recently launched rebate program for new appliances, weather stripping, and other upgrades. 'It may take a while for that concept house to be built,' said Bynum, who's spearheading the weatherization project. 'Energy Saver is good if it's still around, but I think there's life in that house after that to do other things. We will be able to have weatherization training there. We'd be able to have weatherization supplies for people.' Since last fall, Robinson, together with advocates and organizers like Munn, Jimenez, and Bynum, has been holding town meetings to lay out their vision and get feedback and buy-in. 'I always like to overshare with my people,' Robinson said. Dozens of residents attend the monthly gathering, and most have been supportive. 'It's quirky to them,' Robinson admitted. 'But once they understand that with solar, we can lock in our rates for 30, 40 years — that, to them, is rewarding, and it brings them into the conversation.' He recognizes that clean energy is not top of mind for most of Enfield's residents. 'I don't get upset when my people are talking trash about me [for] talking so much about green energy, because I know that they're literally just surviving,' he said. For Munn of Vote Solar, energy independence is a key part of survival. 'Once you're able to control your own destiny, you essentially control your own quality of life,' he said, 'and that's something that has been elusive in communities of color throughout the Black Belt.' The concept of personal control over private property helped solar advocates notch a win earlier this year. Halifax County had placed a temporary pause on new solar farms in October after pushback from some residents. As the expiration date for the moratorium neared, officials were weighing a new ordinance that would require a mile between each new project. The result would be an economic 'dead zone' where panels might have otherwise gone, said Enfield Commissioner Kenneth Ward and others at a public hearing in February. The buffer would dash the town's plans for self-generation. 'Responsible solar development can bring jobs, lower energy costs, and strengthen our local economy without harming local agriculture at all,' Ward said, responding at the hearing to misinformation about the impact of renewables on farming. The one-mile limitation would also harm private landowners who rely on lease income from solar developers, several speakers at the hearing said. 'I think that really carried the day,' said Munn. 'It showed folk [that] Enfield had a vision, had intention, and had allies.' In the end, county commissioners voted four to one to reject the one-mile buffer and allow the moratorium to expire. Money remains the biggest barrier to carrying out these ambitious plans. One of the poorest towns in the nation, with an annual budget of around $6 million, Enfield and its residents can't float the up-front cost of its clean energy projects, even though they may ultimately pay for themselves in the form of lower utility bills. That's part of why town leaders decided to formally retain the Southern Environmental Law Center to help access government grants intended for communities exactly like theirs. Despite blows from the Trump administration's funding freeze and continued mass layoffs at the agencies responsible for distributing funds, three big pots of money created during the Biden administration still appear available. First, there's the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, set up and administered by the U.S. Department of Energy as required by the 2021 infrastructure law. Last October, officials announced a funding opportunity of $400 million for 'energy improvements in rural or remote areas.' A not-yet-scrubbed government webpage explains that the program 'gives communities with 10,000 or fewer people the tools and resources they need to improve the resilience, reliability, and affordability of their local energy systems.' Another outgrowth of the infrastructure law is a federally funded state program for grid resilience and improvement that is distributing $9.2 million annually over five years. Both programs, Enfield advocates say, appear custom-made to enable the town's clean energy blueprint. 'We're very, very confident that we are going to be able to convince folks to give us money and get this built,' Munn said. 'I don't know that there's any community in the Black Belt who is trying to get this done. If you can do it in the Black Belt in North Carolina, in the South, I think it shows [it can be done] anywhere.' The large solar farm could be built with help from the Solar for All initiative, created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. While the resulting $156 million state program is largely intended to help low-income households purchase rooftop panels, it can also be tapped to support 'community solar pilot programs, many with municipal utilities and electric co-ops, which will lower energy costs for participating households,' according to the program's website. Though early Trump edicts froze Solar for All funds, they began flowing again early last month. However, the White House has made clear its animus to clean energy and to any effort to right a history of systemic wrongs against Black Americans. Press reports say the Trump administration is moving to eliminate the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations entirely. So, while these funding sources appear safe for now, nothing is guaranteed. 'Elections have consequences,' Munn said. 'We recognize that. Big fossil-fuel interests helped Donald Trump get elected, and now we are at the crossroads of where we want to be as a society.' If these federal and state funds don't pan out, there are 'B and C' plans afoot, Jimenez said, mostly in the form of enlisting private donations. 'The plan is to keep forging ahead regardless,' he said. Robinson, for his part, will also keep forging. The mayoral job takes an emotional toll, he said, and he had waffled about whether to run for another term this fall. He ultimately decided to go for it. 'I'm determined to do this work. I'm passionate about it,' he said. 'I am convinced I have more work to do with my town.' He used an urban-planning metaphor to explain how he sees his role. 'They talk about skylarks and moles,' he said. 'Skylarks are the people with the vision. But the moles are the ones that get it done. At this moment, I feel like I'm a sky-mole.' 'Hopefully it won't be that long until people say, 'Here, we got this, step aside.' That's what I'm excited about.' Love Canary Media and find our reporting valuable? 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