Three Notch’d Road Baroque Ensemble extends the holiday season with the sounds of an Italian Christmas during performances in Staunton, Greenwood, and Keswick. Twelfth Night in Italy brings together the music of Corelli, Flecha, Monteverdi, Pandolfi, Scarlatti, and Vivaldi under guest Artistic Director Peter Walker. Hear shepherds’ carols and folk music, as well as art music in the pastoral style, with featured soprano Addy Sterrett. Each performance includes a pre-concert talk by Walker.
Friday 1/3–Sunday 1/5. $30, times and locations vary. tnrbaroque.org
It’s been a tough start to the season for UVA men’s basketball. Following the unexpected departure of longtime head coach Tony Bennett, the Cavaliers have been defeated by every ranked opponent they’ve played under interim Head Coach Ron Sanchez. The good news? Tickets to watch the team are now more widely available, and there’s still a (slim) possibility the Hoos can go dancing in the NCAA tournament come March. UVA will have an opportunity to bolster its odds of making March Madness a reality when it takes on Louisville in upcoming ACC conference play.
Saturday 1/4. Ticket prices vary, 4pm. John Paul Jones Arena, 295 Massie Rd. virginiasports.com
Take in the tale of New York City socialite Holly Golightly and her romantic escapades with a Breakfast at Tiffany’s Brunch. Revel in the swinging early-’60s styles in Truman Capote’s classic adapted for the screen, starring the often-imitated-but-never-replicated Academy Award-winner Audrey Hepburn. Choose from an array of movie-themed brunch specials and cocktails to pair with the screening, and ruminate on the mores of a bygone era: Is marrying for money or love the right move? Do pets need names? Who thought casting Mickey Rooney was a good idea?
With three series of black-and-white photographs depicting various aspects of the human form, “Holly Wright: Vanity” brings themes of corporeality, communication, and mortality into focus. Wright, who taught photography at UVA for 16 years and helped build the university’s museum collection of photo-based works, presents lyrical and contemplative images in her first solo show at The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia.
In the “Vanity” series, Wright offers tightly cropped closeups of her own hands. The photos depict fragmented forms in soft focus. Ridges of fingerprints and folds of flesh allude to the haptic—to touching and being touched. In the “Poetry” series, Wright brings forth a study of the mouth of her Pulitzer Prize-winning husband. Composed in the tradition of photographer Eadweard Muybridge to show sequential motion, more tightly cropped images create a visual rhythm within the picture plane and the installation itself. Where the “Vanity” series is installed in a straight line, creating a syncopated kind of visual rhythm, “Poetry” is installed at varying heights, in mimicry of the rise and fall of human speech. We see the shape of the mouth change, illustrating an expression of words that are absent. In place of the sonic reality of the poetry, the viewer is prompted to fill in the gaps.
Wright’s “Final Portraits” series represents the most affective and impactful works in the exhibition. Alluding to funerary scenes, the set of eight portraits asks how each sitter would face death as captured in the act of an imagined final photograph. The viewer is immediately implicated in the series through scale. Presented in life-size prints, the subjects stare out at the audience, acknowledging that death will come for us all, and asking how each of us will face it. The images are simultaneously arresting and somewhat comforting. The subjects express palpable aspects of agency, even in the face of the inevitable. Apparel, adornments, and postures all speak to how we see ourselves, and how we want to be remembered when we’re gone.
Of the eight images included in “Final Portraits,” four feature couples—including the artist and her husband—underscoring that some will greet the end alone, and others together. The youngest subject, Wright’s son, shown grasping a repeating rifle with a hunting knife and hatchet affixed to a belt at his waist, conveys a kind of subdued surprise. A young woman in cowboy boots expresses a form of defiance, arms crossed, eyeing the camera lens suspiciously. The backgrounds of the portraits include grass, asphalt, and bedding, conjuring connections to earthen soil, artificial rigidity, and the comforts of home.
The series presents ruminations on mortality, but also of time, appearance, and what it means to inhabit a body, if even for a brief time. Good art can make us think, feel, confront uncomfortable truths, or turn away—Wright’s work asks all of this from the viewer, presenting an exercise in ephemeral awareness as we enter a new year.
When my husband and I arrived at Veritas Vineyards and Winery for the final Supper Series and Harvest Celebration in mid-October, I thought I’d prepared him for the evening. But as we approached a sea of round tables set for family-style dining, he was visibly horrified—visions of passing dishes and making small talk with strangers clearly dancing in his head.
As we mingled in the tasting room, the sun dipping behind the Blue Ridge Mountains, the mood began to shift. With each bite of Chef Andy Shipman’s hors d’oeuvres—a crispy buttermilk fried-chicken slider on a Martin’s roll, slathered with Duke’s mayonnaise and tangy smoked kraut—we began to feel at home.
“Family-style is the format that not only works the best, but I think people enjoy it more,” Shipman later explained. “It forces you to talk to your neighbor, talk to someone you don’t know. The communal nature of the dinner—I think people really enjoy that.”
And Shipman was right. By the time we reached our table and passed the first platter of aromatic garlicky green beans, all fears had dissolved. That sense of comfort isn’t accidental; it’s integral to the Veritas experience.
“When you’re here, you’re family” may be a slogan for a familiar Italian chain, but at Veritas, it’s literal. The winery, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2024, remains a true family-run operation. Founders Andrew and Patricia Hodson planted the vineyard’s first vines, and today, their children bring that vision to life: Emily Hodson is the head winemaker, George Hodson serves as CEO, and Chloe Watkins completes the family affair as project manager.
The familial spirit even extended to the menu, crafted by Shipman with his own family memories in mind. Drawing inspiration from his mother’s classic pot roast, Shipman elevated nostalgia by marinating Seven Hills short rib in Veritas claret and RC Cola—a nod to when his dad brought home the coveted soda. For an extra layer of influence, he credited his college friends’ study abroad experience in Spain—they were all drinking kalimotxos, a blend of cola and red wine. The result? A kalimotxo pot roast that was tender, savory, and bursting with flavor, paired perfectly with Veritas’ 2013 petit verdot.
This year’s harvest, completed on the very day of our dinner, brought in 300 tons of grapes in just seven weeks—a record-breaking timeline. Winemaker Emily Hodson explained that the unusually compressed harvest was the result of a hot, dry growing season abruptly concluded by Hurricane Francine, which was followed closely by the catastrophic Hurricane Helene.
Veritas Vineyards and Winery doesn’t shy away from frank discussions about how climate change is reshaping the wine industry. In an August 2023 blog post, Andrew Hodson wrote, “Bottom line on climate change affecting our weather—it’s hot already, and it is going to get hotter and inevitably wetter.” His prediction rang true.
Such extremes have forced Veritas to adapt. Emily has been a driving force behind research initiatives to address these challenges, including a collaboration between the Virginia wine industry and the USDA. The winery’s work focuses on breeding disease-resistant grape varieties better suited to the region’s increasingly unpredictable climate.
George, who serves as president of the Virginia Wineries Association and vice chair of the Virginia Wine Board, is passionate about strengthening the regional food system. While his sister specializes in the science, George focuses on fostering collaboration among producers, chefs, and wineries.
“I would love to get to a place where the food and wine community is almost inseparable,” George shared. “It’s about making sure our food producers, our chefs, and our wineries are all talking, growing, and collaborating. My mantra is always a rising tide floats all boats.”
Veritas’ 2025 Supper Series will bring this vision to life with a foodways focus, pairing regional chefs with local producers to celebrate the interplay of Southern food and wine. “There are so many people in our region doing innovative and interesting things in Southern food,” George said. “We want to bring in folks who are exactly that.” He hinted at future collaborations with the Trainum family of Autumn Olive Farms and their heritage pork, the Walker family of Smoke in Chimneys and their spring-raised trout, the team at Seven Hills Food, and others.
Each supper will reflect the unique personality of its chef or producer, from the menu to music. George recalled a memorable September dinner featuring Canadian chef Michael Hunter, where the culinary experience was paired with Wu-Tang Clan chamber music.
This creative approach invites diners to connect more deeply with the people and stories behind their meals. “We want to give chefs and producers the freedom to make each night their own,” George emphasized. “It’s about celebrating their craft, creativity, and the connections we all share.”
Botanical Fare Restaurant 421 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Recent Landscapes in Oil,” paintings by Randy Baskerville, presented by the BozART Fine Art Collective. January 6–March 3.
Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. In the micro gallery, “Still Life with Uncertainty,” paintings by Richmond-based artist Sally Bowring. Through February. In the Great Halls of Vault Virginia, “Kinship,” a photo journalist’s documentary on the contrasts of urban culture and politics in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Through March. Both shows open January 4.
Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. Floral paintings by Saylor Swift Denney and glass marbles, beads, and sculpture by Carol Sorber. January 18–February 28.
C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. The annual studio sale, offering select works at lower prices in support of Virginia artists. January 3–31. First Fridays reception with artists 4–6pm.
The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Barbara Hammer: Evidentiary Bodies” features an immersive multichannel video installation. Through January 26, 2025. “Structures,” a selection of 20th- and 21st-century works exploring the ways that art can speak to or question the formal, physical, environmental, social, and institutional structures of our world. Through July 20, 2025. “Celebration” features works by five African American artists highlighting the ways these artists honor history, culture, and heritage through various media. “Vanity,” black and white photography by longtime UVA arts instructor Holly Wright. “Conversations in Color,” new print acquisitions curated by M. Jordan Love. All shows run through January 5, 2025 unless otherwise noted.
The Gallery at Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Journey from Grief to Art to Growth,” works by Colleen Rosenberry. January 3–February 2. Opening reception January 3, 5–7pm. Artist talk January 23, 5–6pm.
Hello Comics 211A W. Main St, Downtown Mall. “Picture Show,” a cash and carry show of original drawings and digital prints by Todd Webb. Through January 8, 2025. Additional works available at Hello Comics Uptown location.
IX Art Park 522 Second St. SE. “The Looking Glass,” an immersive art space featuring a whimsical enchanted forest and kaleidoscopic cave. Ongoing.
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of UVA 400 Worrell Dr. Part two of “Shifting Ground: Prints by Indigenous Australian Artists from the Basil Hall Editions Workshop Proofs Collection,” curated by Jessyca Hutchens, featuring work by 22 Indigenous Australian artists. “Milpa: Stop-motion animation by Spinifex artists,” animated films. Both shows run through March 2.
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Pride Overcomes Prejudice,” exploring the history of peoples of African descent in Charlottesville. Ongoing.
McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Smith Gallery, “Womanhood,” photographs by Benita Mayo. In the First and Second Floor Galleries, the “New Member Show,” featuring works by 18 artists recently selected for membership. In the Associate Gallery, “New Work,” featuring artwork from associate members. First Fridays reception 5:30–7:30pm.
New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. In the Welcome Gallery, “Of the Earth,” abstract landscape paintings and works on paper by Christen Yates and wall-hung sculptures by Jacqui Stewart Lindstrom. Through January 16.
Phaeton Gallery 114 Old Preston Ave. In the Lobby Gallery, “The Living Canvas,” a new series of oil paintings that explore the human body and the dynamic movement of muscles by Julia Hebert. January 3–February 2. First Fridays reception 5–7:30pm.
The PVCC Gallery V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. “Process=Progress: Peeking Behind the Curtain of Creativity.” Through January 18.
Ruffin Gallery UVA Grounds, Ruffin Hall, 179 Culbreth Rd. “A Continuous Storyline: Four Decades of UVA Painters,” curated by Megan Marlatt. Featuring paintings and sculpture by John Arnold, David Askew, Gina Beavers, Jackson Casady, Tori Cherry, Maggie King Johns, Matt Kleberg, and Phượng Duyên Hải Nguyễn. January 6–February 14. Exhibition reception and retirement celebration for Megan Marlatt January 31, 5–7pm.
Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Main Gallery, “That Feels Good! Labor as Pleasure,” an interdisciplinary group show of local and national artists curated by Francisco Donoso. In the Dové Gallery, “Hannah Diomataris: Sticker Work,” handcut sticker compositions by Richmond-based artist Hannah Diomataris. Both shows run through January 24. Artists in Conversation talk with Hannah Diomataris and Leigh Suggs, January 18, 10:30–11:30am.
Visible Records 1740 Broadway St. “Direct Sow,” interdisciplinary works by Visible Records studio members Morgan Ashcom, Rebecca Belt, Anna Hogg, Jeremy Jean-Jacques, Sean Lopez, Will May, Kweisi Morris, Phượng-Duyên Hải Nguyễn, bryan ortiz, Peter Russell, Anik Sparman, Jackson Taylor, Maria Villanueva, Natasha Woods, and Elena Yu. Through January 25.
Waxwing Art Works 416 W. Main St., inside the Main Street Market Building. “The Drawing Show,” featuring works in graphite, ink, and charcoal by Baylor Fuller, Marni Maree, Amy Shawley Paquette, Joe Sheridan, Coleman Simmons, Dana Wheeles, and others. January 9–February 8. Opening reception January 9, 5–7pm. Free drawing media demonstration, January 24, 2–4pm.
Sandy McAdams, founder of C&O Restaurant and Daedalus Bookshop, died December 21 due to complications from multiple sclerosis. He was 82.
When McAdams arrived in Charlottesville in 1974 with 20,000 books in a railroad car, he found a permanent home for his collection on the corner of Market and Fourth streets. Many locals recognize McAdams as one of the Downtown Mall’s founding fathers, thanks to his vision for revitalizing Main Street.
From the bookstore to a brief stint running an alternative newspaper in the ’70s to his time on the Live Arts theater board in the ’90s, McAdams made his mark on Charlottesville’s arts and culture scene.
In a 2015 C-VILLE article on the creation of Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall scene, C&O Restaurant co-owner Philip Stafford recalled meeting McAdams at Daedalus: “I can picture this pretty well to this day—this sort of eccentric-looking guy walked up to me with a beard down to his waist, and sort of put his face up to me and said ‘What do you want?’ I said ‘I’m looking for this book The Art of Seeing by Aldous Huxley,’ and he said ‘It’s right over your shoulder.’”
McAdams and Stafford eventually sold the C&O in 1984, but the French restaurant has retained its place as one of Charlottesville’s most popular fine dining spots. Daedalus also remains a testament to McAdams’ impact on downtown Charlottesville, and will continue operating under Jackson Landers, who purchased the bookstore in late 2023. After McAdams’ passing, the store shared images of him working in his favorite place over the years—flipping through a book in one photo, deep in thought in another.
“Sandy always gifted a book to my children, without fail, every time we were in the shop,” one person commented on the post. “It was a treat to know him.”
McAdams is survived by his wife, Donna, two daughters, and two granddaughters. Instead of flowers, the family has requested donations be made to Live Arts.
Spending time
In a belated Christmas gift, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced December 26 that eight Charlottesville-area events and festivals would receive more than $70,000 in grants. Over $800,000 in funds statewide, and roughly $4.8 million in matching public-private donations, were awarded as part of the Virginia Tourism Corporation’s special events and festivals sponsorship program.
Among those receiving funds are the Tom Tom Festival, Foxfield Spring Races, Crozet Arts & Crafts Festival, IX Art Foundation’s Fae Festival, and Winter Wander at the Boar’s Head Resort. The program is part of a larger effort to increase overnight tourism and visitor spending in the commonwealth.
“This year’s grant recipients have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to growing their event footprint, increasing visitation, and enhancing the visitor experience in 2025,” said Youngkin in a press release announcing the grants. “By leveraging these funds, we aim to attract even more visitors, showcase the unique charm of our communities, and reinforce Virginia’s reputation as a premier destination for memorable events and festivals.”
Visitor spending in Charlottesville and Albemarle County for 2023 totaled just under $1 billion, an increase of almost 6 percent compared to 2022.
Lace up
After the Main Street Arena closed in 2018, ice hockey and skating fans wondered when central Virginia would get another ice rink. This winter, Charlottesville-based Project Phoenix announced plans to request a permit for an indoor rink in Ruckersville. Its grand opening is years in the future, but the team has already acquired land off 29 North and hopes to see zoning approved.
Shelter loading
Plans surrounding a low-barrier shelter in Fifeville are still up in the air, City Manager Sam Sanders confirmed at City Council’s final meeting of the year. The proposal to convert Cherry Avenue’s Salvation Army store elicited pushback from some residents who suggested the shelter should instead open on Ridge Street. Sanders will take questions at a January 9 neighborhood meeting.
Suit and tied
Eljo’s Traditional Clothes, a menswear store founded by two UVA students in 1950 and currently owned by Myles Thurston, will soon change hands. While Thurston has not yet announced who purchased the business, ownership will officially switch over February 15. In the meantime, shoppers in search of a discount can enjoy up to 50 percent off Eljo’s inventory.
Just six weeks after winning election to the Albemarle County School Board, lifelong local educator Charles “Chuck” Pace died at the University of Virginia Medical Center on December 18 at the age of 64 following complications from kidney disease.
A graduate of Charlottesville High School, Pace returned to the area to teach science at Albemarle High School in 1986. He met his wife, Anne Marie Belair, when she was a student teacher at AHS.
After more than 30 years as an educator, Pace retired as chair of the science department at the Blue Ridge School in 2022. A year into his retirement, he resumed his work in education when he was appointed to the Rio District school board seat vacated by now-Del. Katrina Callsen.
First appointed to the board in December 2023, Pace was sworn in as the Rio District’s elected representative a week before he died.
“In his last year, he embarked upon one of the proudest accomplishments of his life. Everything he had learned from teaching, coaching, and parenting came together to guide him through his time on the Albemarle County School Board,” reads Pace’s obituary. “Visiting schools, meeting with teachers and students, and even digging deeply into policy and budgeting brought him tremendous joy.”
On the memory wall associated with Pace’s obituary, a former student wrote that he shared a sandwich with her when she didn’t have lunch, and that he inspired her own 33-year career in health care.
In a social media post announcing Pace’s passing, ACPS Superintendent Matthew Haas and members of the school board shared memories and celebrated the former teacher. “A week and a half before he died, he and I were discussing possibly scheduling a meeting during the holiday break,” said board Chair Judy Le. “I grumbled at it; he said, ‘I’ll be there, and I’ll be happy to be there with all of you.’ … His purpose in serving is, and will always be, inspiring.”
Numerous colleagues celebrated Pace’s dedication to education and the community, with school board Vice Chair Kate Acuff describing him as “an exceptional person” and “one of the hardest-working school board members” despite his health challenges.
Pace was first diagnosed with kidney disease in 1995, and received a successful kidney transplant in 2002.
Following his death, the school board is expected to appoint a representative to serve until the November 2025 election. Applications for the position had not been opened at press time.
In an emailed comment, former school board opponent and friend Jim Dillenbeck told C-VILLE, “I was saddened to hear of Chuck’s passing a few weeks ago. He was a good man and a hard-working educator and advocate for public schools.”
Dillenbeck did not specify if he would apply for the position or run for the seat again in 2025.
The developers of a proposed six-story building at the corner of Wertland and 10th streets returned to the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review in December to get additional feedback.
“A development team consisting of Preservation of Affordable Housing, National Housing Trust, and Wickliffe Development Consulting was chosen by the UVA Foundation to be the developer of affordable housing on this two-acre site,” said J.T. Engelhardt of the National Housing Trust.
This is one of three affordable housing projects proposed for land donated by the University of Virginia and the only one in Charlottesville. The others are in Albemarle County on 12 acres off of Fontaine Avenue and at the North Fork Discovery Park near Charlottesville Albemarle Airport.
The project is within an architectural design control district, thus the BAR has to grant a certificate of appropriateness before the project can proceed.
The city also has to approve a site plan by March 20 in order for the project to be eligible to apply for the low-income housing tax credits required to subsidize the rent for 180 units. Neighborhood Development Services staff denied approval in December, but that is a routine step in the application process. Site plans must be granted if all of the technical requirements have been met.
The Wertland building will include a range of affordability levels from 30 percent of the area median income to 80 percent, but the exact mix is not yet known. Under the new zoning, the project could be as high as 11 stories, but Liz Chapman, an architect with Grimm + Parker, said that would require steel construction, which is much more expensive.
“We’re trying to stick with wood construction because that’s what the tax credits will bear,” said Chapman.
The square building would include an interior courtyard built above an 83-space parking garage. One BAR member likened the design to a donut.
“The donut feels very, you know, monolithic, very fortress-like,” said David Timmerman. He suggested finding a way to allow people to be able to see inside the courtyard.
Another member of the panel said the long stretches of buildings on 10th and Wertland streets were repetitive and looked too much like a nearby structure on West Main Street.
“I think we all can recognize that [student housing center The Standard at Charlottesville] is pretty unsuccessful as a streetscape experience,” said Carl Schwarz, a planning commissioner who also sits on the BAR. “I’m traumatized from the Standard. It’s done so badly.”
Other BAR members had specific comments about what kinds of street trees they wanted to see.
Engelhardt said he would incorporate the feedback and return with an updated design, but pointed out there are a lot of requirements that present many challenges.
“We’re struggling with trying to manage the constraints and really try[ing] to design a building that we can all be proud of and that you guys would approve, and it is a struggle,” Engelhardt said.
Another struggle may be securing the low-income housing tax credits from a state agency called Virginia Housing. There will be several other applications this year and the process is competitive.
With any list, there’s a natural tendency to look first at No. 1, and neither I nor Project Censored would discourage you from doing that, when it comes to its annual list of the top-censored stories of the year. This year, the top story is about workplace deaths and injuries—with striking racial disparities, particularly for much-maligned foreign-born workers. Injury rates for Southern service workers—predominantly Black—are especially alarming, 87 percent in one year, according to one poll. Sensationalized deaths and injuries make the news all the time, but workplace deaths and injuries (nearly 6,000, and 2.8 million respectively in a year) are another matter altogether. They’re a non-story, even when advocates strive to shine a light on them.
But this pattern of what’s deemed newsworthy and what isn’t leads to a deep point. In the introduction to the list, Project Censored Associate Director Andy Lee Roth wrote that “readers can only appreciate the full significance of the Project’s annual listing of important but underreported stories by stepping back to perceive deeper, less obvious patterns of omission in corporate news coverage.” And I couldn’t agree more. This has always been a theme of mine as long as I’ve been reviewing its lists, because the patterns of what’s being blocked out of the public conversation are the clearest way of seeing the censoring process at work—the process that Project Censored founder Carl Jensen described as “the suppression of information, whether purposeful or not, by any method … that prevents the public from fully knowing what is happening in its society.”
It’s not just that somehow all the news assignment editors in America overlooked this or that story. Where there are patterns of omission so consistently, year after year, they can only be explained by systemic biases rooted in the interests of particularly powerful special interests. What’s more, in addition to patterns of omission in the stories as a whole, one can also find intersecting patterns within individual stories. The above description of the top story is an example: race, class, region, citizenship status, and more are all involved.
The point is, as you do more than just simply read these stories—as you reflect on them, on why they’re censored, whose stories they are, what harms are being suffered, whose humanity is being denied—you will find yourself seeing the world more from the point of view of those being excluded from the news, and from the point of view that you’re interconnected with them at the least, if not one of them too.
Many more minorities killed and injured on the job
Working in America is becoming more dangerous, especially for minorities, according to recent studies reported on by Truthout and Peoples Dispatch, while the same isn’t true for other developed nations.
Workplace fatalities increased 5.7 percent in the 2021-2022 period covered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics or BLS’s Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, Tyler Walicek reported for Truthout. “Nearly 6,000 U.S. workers died on the job,” he wrote—a 10-year high—while “a startling total of 2.8 million were injured or sickened” according to another BLS report.
The racial disparities were sharp. The average workplace death rate was 3.7 deaths per hundred thousand full-time workers, but it was 24.3 percent higher (4.6 deaths) for Latinx workers and 13.5 percent higher (4.2 deaths) for Black workers. The majority of Latinx deaths (63.5 percent) were of foreign-born workers, and 40 percent of those were in construction. “It’s not hard to imagine that communication lapses between workers on an active construction site could feasibly create dangerous situations,” Walicek said.
Transportation incidents were the highest cause of fatalities within both groups. Violence and other injuries by persons or animals were second highest for Black workers, for Hispanic or Latiné workers it was falls, slips, or trips. Black people and women were particularly likely to be homicide victims. Black people represented 13.4 percent of all fatalities, but 33.4 percent of homicide fatalities—more than twice the base rate. Women represented 8.1 percent of all fatalities, but 15.3 percent of homicide fatalities—a little less than twice the base rate.
The non-fatal injury rate for service workers in the South, particularly workers of color, is also alarmingly high, according to an April 5, 2023 report by Peoples Dispatch summarizing findings from a March 2023 survey by the Strategic Organizing Center or SOC. The poll of 347 workers, most of whom were Black, “found that a shocking 87 percent were injured on the job in the last year,” they reported. In addition, “More than half of survey respondents reported observing serious health and safety standard [violations] at work,” and “most workers worried about their personal safety on the job, most believe that their employer prioritizes profit over safety, most do not raise safety issues for fear of retaliation, and the vast majority (72 percent) believe that their employer’s attitude ‘places customer satisfaction above worker safety.’”
“Compared to other developed countries, the United States consistently underperforms in providing workers with on-the-job safety,” Project Censored said. “Walicek argued that this is a direct consequence of ‘the diminution of worker power and regulatory oversight’ in the United States.” U.S. workplace fatality rates exceeded those in the U.K., Canada, Australia and much of Europe, according to a 2021 assessment by the consulting firm Arinite Health and Safety, Walicek reported.
“Workers are increasingly organizing to fight back against hazardous working conditions,” Project Censored noted, citing a civil rights complaint against South Carolina’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration or S.C. OSHA filed by members of the recently formed Union of Southern Service Workers “for failing to protect Black workers from hazardous working conditions,” as reported by the Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina. The USSW complaint alleged that “from 2018 to 2022, S.C. OSHA conducted no programmed inspections in the food/beverage and general merchandise industries, and only one such inspection in the food services and warehousing industries.” On April 4, 2023, when it filed the complaint, USSW went on a one-day strike in Georgia and the Carolinas, to expose unsafe working conditions in the service industry. It marked the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination while supporting a sanitation workers strike in Memphis, Tennessee. Then on December 7, USSW sent a petition to federal OSHA requesting that it revoke South Carolina’s state OSHA plan “because the Plan has failed to maintain an effective enforcement program.”
Neither the BLS findings nor the conflict between the USSW and S.C. OSHA has received much corporate media coverage. The BLS fatalities report was released in December 2023, with no U.S. daily newspaper coverage when Project Censored’s analysis was done. There was a story on the Minnesota findings by FOX in Minneapolis-St. Paul the month the report was released. And a full story on Green Bay ABC affiliate WBAY on April 12, 2024, “as part of its coverage of ‘Work Zone Safety Awareness Week,’” Project Censored reported.
“Corporate coverage of the conflict between the USSW and S.C. OSHA has also been scant,” it noted. While independent, nonprofits like D.C. Report, “have consistently paid more attention,” there were but two corporate examples cited covering the second action: Associated Press and Bloomberg Law, but neither addressed the issue of racial disparities.
In conclusion, according to Project Censored, “The corporate media’s refusal to cover the harsh realities of workplace deaths and injuries—and the obvious racial disparities in who is hurt and killed on the job—makes the task of organizing to address occupational safety at a national level that much more difficult.”
‘Vicious circle’ of climate debt traps world’s most vulnerable nations
Low-income countries that contributed virtually nothing to the climate crisis are caught in a pattern described as a “climate debt trap” in a September 2023 World Resources Institute report authored by Natalia Alayza, Valerie Laxton, and Carolyn Neunuebel.
“After years of pandemic, a global recession, and intensifying droughts, floods, and other climate change impacts, many developing countries are operating on increasingly tight budgets and at risk of defaulting on loans,” they wrote. “High interest rates, short repayment periods, and … the coexistence of multiple crises (like a pandemic paired with natural disasters) can all make it difficult for governments to meet their debt servicing obligations.”
“Global standards for climate resilience require immense national budgets,” Project Censored noted. “Developing countries borrow from international creditors, and as debt piles up, governments are unable to pay for essential needs, including public health programs, food security, and climate protections.”
In fact, The Guardian ran a story describing how global south nations are “forced to invest in fossil fuel projects to repay debts,” a process critics have characterized as a “new form of colonialism.” They cited a report from anti-debt campaigners Debt Justice and partners that found “the debt owed by global south countries has increased by 150 percent since 2011 and 54 countries are in a debt crisis, having to spend five times more on repayments than on addressing the climate crisis.”
Like the climate crisis itself, the climate debt trap was foreseeable in advance. “A prescient report published by Dissent in 2013, Andrew Ross’s Climate Debt Denial, provides a stark reminder that the climate debt trap now highlighted by the World Resources Institute and others was predictable more than a decade ago,” Project Censored said. But that report highlighted much earlier warnings and efforts to address the problem.
The concept of an ecological debt owed to the global south for the resource exploitation that fueled the global north’s development was first introduced “in the lead-up to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro,” Ross reported. Subsequently, “The Kyoto Protocol laid the groundwork for such claims in 1997 by including the idea of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ among nations, but climate activists did not fully take up the call for debt justice until the Copenhagen summit in 2009.” Prior to that summit, in 2008, NASA climatologist James Hansen estimated the U.S. historical carbon debt at 27.5 percent of the world total, $31,035 per capita.
While a “loss and damage” fund “to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change” was established at the 2022 Climate Summit, its current commitments ($800 million) fall far short of the $100 billion more each year by 2030 that the 14 developing countries on the fund’s board have argued for. Some estimates place the figure much higher, “at around $400 billion,” according to a Euronews story last June.
The climate debt trap “has received limited news coverage,” Project Censored noted. Aside from The Guardian,“independent news coverage has been limited to outlets that specialize in climate news.” Neither of the two corporate media examples it cited approached it from debtor countries’ point of view. In May 2023, Bloomberg’s “analysis catered to the financial interests of international investors,” while a December 2023 New York Times report “focused primarily on defaults to the United States and China, with less focus on how poorer countries will combat deficits, especially as climate change escalates.”
Saltwater intrusion threatens U.S. freshwater supplies
Sea-level rise is an easy-to-grasp consequence of global warming, but the most immediate threat it poses—saltwater intrusion into freshwater systems—has only received sporadic localized treatment in the corporate press. “In fall 2023, saltwater traveling from the Gulf of Mexico up the Mississippi River infiltrated the freshwater systems of the Delta region, contaminating drinking and agricultural water supplies as well as inland ecosystems,” according to Project Censored. “This crisis prompted a scramble to supply potable water to the region and motivated local and federal officials to issue emergency declarations.”
While outlets like Time, CNN, and CBS News covered the saltwater intrusion at the time, they “focused almost exclusively on the threat to coastal Louisiana,” but “a pair of articles published in October 2023 by Delaney Nolan for The Guardian and [hydrogeologist] Holly Michael for The Conversation highlighted the escalating threat of saltwater intrusion across the United States and beyond.”
“Deep below our feet, along every coast, runs the salt line: the zone where fresh inland water meets salty seawater,” Nolan wrote. “That line naturally shifts back and forth all the time, and weather events like floods and storms can push it further out. But rising seas are gradually drawing the salt line in,” he warned. “In Miami, the salt line is creeping inland by about 330 feet per year. Severe droughts—as the Gulf Coast and Midwest have been experiencing this year—draw the salt line even further in.”
“Seawater intrusion into groundwater is happening all over the world, but perhaps the most threatened places are communities on low-lying islands,” such as the Marshall Islands, which are “predicted to be uninhabitable by the end of the century,” Michael wrote. Here in the U.S., “Experts said the threat was widespread but they were especially concerned about cities in Louisiana, Florida, the Northeast, and California,” Nolan reported.
“Fresh water is essential for drinking, irrigation, and healthy ecosystems,” Michael wrote. “When seawater moves inland, the salt it contains can wreak havoc on farmlands, ecosystems, lives, and livelihoods.” For example, “Drinking water that contains even 2 percent seawater can increase blood pressure and stress kidneys. If saltwater gets into supply lines, it can corrode pipes and produce toxic disinfection by-products in water treatment plants. Seawater intrusion reduces the life span of roads, bridges and other infrastructure.”
While Time, CNN, and CBS News focused narrowly on coastal Louisiana, Project Censored noted that some news outlets, “including FOX Weather and Axios” misreported the threat as “only temporary rather than a long-term problem.” More generally, “corporate media typically treat saltwater intrusion as a localized issue affecting specific coastal regions,” they wrote. “Aside from a brief article in Forbes acknowledging the growing problem for coastal regions in the U.S. and around the world, corporate media have largely resisted portraying saltwater intrusion as a more widespread and escalating consequence of climate change.”
Natural gas industry hid health and climate risks of gas stoves
While gas stoves erupted as a culture war issue in 2023, reporting by Vox and NPR (in partnership with the Climate Investigations Center) revealed a multi-decade campaign by the natural gas industry using tobacco industry’s tactics to discredit evidence of harm, thwart regulation, and promote the use of gas stoves. While gas stoves are a health hazard, the amount of gas used isn’t that much, but “house builders and real estate agents say many buyers demand a gas stove,” which makes it more likely they’ll use more high-volume appliances, “such as a furnace, water heater, and clothes dryer,” NPR explained. “That’s why some in the industry consider the stove a ‘gateway appliance.’”
In a series of articles for Vox, environmental journalist Rebecca Leber “documented how the gas utility industry used strategies previously employed by the tobacco industry to avoid regulation and undermine scientific evidence establishing the harmful health and climate effects of gas stoves,” Project Censored reported.
“The basic scientific understanding of why gas stoves are a problem for health and the climate is on solid footing,” she reported. “It’s also common sense. When you have a fire in the house, you need somewhere for all that smoke to go. Combust natural gas, and it’s not just smoke you need to worry about. There are dozens of other pollutants, including the greenhouse gas methane, that also fill the air.”
The concerns aren’t new. “Even in the early 1900s, the natural gas industry knew it had a problem with the gas stove,” Leber recounts. It was cleaner than coal or wood—it’s main competition at the time, “but new competition was on the horizon from electric stoves.” They avoided scrutiny for generations, but, “Forty years ago, the federal government seemed to be on the brink of regulating the gas stove,” she wrote. “Everything was on the table, from an outright ban to a modification of the Clean Air Act to address indoor air pollution.” The gas industry fought back with a successful multiprong attack, that’s being mounting again today, and “Some of the defenders of the gas stove are the same consultants who have defended tobacco and chemicals industries in litigation over health problems.”
Documents obtained by NPR and CIC tell a similar story. The industry “focused on convincing consumers and regulators that cooking with gas is as risk-free as cooking with electricity,” they reported. “As the scientific evidence grew over time about the health effects from gas stoves, the industry used a playbook echoing the one that tobacco companies employed for decades to fend off regulation. The gas utility industry relied on some of the same strategies, researchers, and public relations firms.”
“I think it’s way past the time that we were doing something about gas stoves,” said Dr. Bernard Goldstein, who began researching the subject in the 1970s. “It has taken almost 50 years since the discovery of negative effects on children of nitrogen dioxide from gas stoves to begin preventive action. We should not wait any longer,” he told NPR.
“By covering gas stoves as a culture war controversy, corporate media have ignored the outsize role of the natural gas industry in influencing science, regulation, and consumer choice,” Project Censored noted. Instead, they’ve focused on individual actions, local moves to phase out gas hookups for new buildings and rightwing culture war opposition to improving home appliance safety and efficiency, including the GOP House-passed Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act.
Abortion services censored on social platforms globally
On the first national Election Day after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, PlanC, a nonprofit that provides information about access to the abortion pill, posted a TikTok video encouraging people to vote to protect reproductive rights. Almost immediately, its account was banned. This was but one example of a worldwide cross-platform pattern.
“Access to online information about abortion is increasingly under threat both in the United States and around the world,” the Women’s Media Center reported in November 2023. “Both domestic and international reproductive health rights and justice organizations have reported facing censorship of their websites on social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok as well as on Google.” The governments of South Korea, Turkey, and Spain have also blocked the website of Women on Web, which provides online abortion services and information in over 200 countries. At the same time abortion disinformation, for fake abortion clinics, remains widespread.
“Women’s rights advocacy groups are calling the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade the catalyst for the suppression of reproductive health information on social media,” Project Censored said. “Hashtags for #mifepristone and #misoprostol, two drugs used in medical abortions, were hidden on Instagram after the Dobbs decision, the WMC reported,” as part of a wider pattern.
Within weeks of the decision, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) wrote to Meta, Ars Technica reported, questioning what the company was doing to stop abortion censorship on their platforms. “The senators also took issue with censorship of health care workers, Ars Technica wrote, “including a temporary account suspension of an ‘organization dedicated to informing people in the United States about their abortion rights.’”
“U.S. state legislatures are currently considering banning access to telehealth abortion care,” according to Project Censored. “Furthermore, CNN reported that ‘at the end of 2023, nine states where abortion remained legal still had restricted telehealth abortions in some way.’”
There are similar censorship problems with Meta and Google worldwide, according to a March 2024 report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate and MSI Reproductive Choices, which provides contraception and abortion services in 37 countries. This sparked a Guardian article by Weronika Strzyżyńska. “In Africa, Facebook is the go-to place for reproductive health information for many women,” MSI’s global marketing manager, Whitney Chinogwenya, told The Guardian. “We deal with everything from menopause to menstruation but we find that all our content is censored.” She explained that “Meta viewed reproductive health content through ‘an American lens,’” The Guardian reported, “applying socially conservative U.S. values to posts published in countries with progressive policies such as South Africa, where abortion on request is legal in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.”
Abortion disinformation is also a threat—particularly the promotion of crisis pregnancy centers that masquerade as reproductive health-care clinics but discourage rather than provide abortion services. WMC reported on June 2023 CCDH report which “found that CPCs spent over $10 million on Google Search ads for their clinics over the past two years.” Google claimed to have “removed particular ads,” said Callum Hood, CCDH’s head of research, “but they did not take action on the systemic issues with fake clinic ads.”
“Women’s rights organizations and reproductive health advocates have been forced to squander scarce resources fighting this sort of disinformation online,” Project Censored noted. This has gotten some coverage, but “As of June 2024, corporate coverage of abortion censorship has been limited.” The sole CNN story it cited ran immediately after the Dobbs decision, before most of the problems fully emerged. “There appeared to be more corporate media focus on abortion disinformation rather than censorship,” Project Censorship added. “Independent reporting from Jezebel, and Reproaction via Medium, have done more to draw attention to this issue.”
Paul Rosenberg is a California-based writer/activist, senior editor for Random Lengths News, and a columnist for Al Jazeera English and Salon.