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2017 Was a big year for standing up even under oppression.

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Opinion

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Demonstrators in Chicago blocked an intersection during a protest in 2015 related to the killing by the police of Laquan McDonald. Credit Credit Joshua Lott for The New York Times

CHICAGO - Why has this generation of black activists failed to produce a Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or a Malcolm X - a charismatic, messiah-like figure who can lead a major movement?

The answer is a choice, not a deficiency. The suggestion that the organizations that have emerged from the Black Lives Matter protests are somehow lacking because they have rejected the old style of leadership misses what makes this movement most powerful: its cultivation of skilled local organizers who take up many issues beyond police violence.

This is radical democracy in action. The Movement for Black Lives, a coalition that includes the Black Lives Matter Global Network and other groups, coalesced in response to high-profile police shootings of black people from 2014 to 2016. It is reinvigorating the 21st-century racial-justice movement, and by extension the anti-racist left, by offering a better model for social movements.

The idea behind that model is that when people on the ground make decisions, articulate problems and come up with answers, the results are more likely to meet real needs. And that's more sustainable in the long run: People are better prepared to carry out solutions they themselves created, instead of ones handed down by national leaders unfamiliar with realities in local communities. Such local work allows people to take ownership of the political struggles that affect their lives.

Ella Baker, a N.A.A.C.P. field secretary, executive of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and midwife of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, once said, "Strong people don't need strong leaders." Today's black organizers have taken that message to heart.

Ms. Baker considered the top-down, male-centered, charismatic model of leadership a political dead end. It disempowered ordinary people, especially women and low-income and working-class people, because it told them that they need a savior. If that person is assassinated or co-opted, the movement founders.

At the same time, local leadership is not a magic solution, since local leaders can also be dominant, hierarchical and self-aggrandizing. Group-centered leadership practices, where even celebrities in the movement are responsible to the will of rank-and-file members, help to keep organizations honest.

The lead organizers of the Movement for Black Lives have been influenced by 40 years of work by black feminist and L.G.B.T. scholars and activists. Their writings and practice emphasize collective models of leadership instead of hierarchical ones, center on society's most marginalized people and focus on how multiple systems of oppression intersect and reinforce one another.

This year, the Movement for Black Lives, with support from a team of strategists called Blackbird, coordinated three major days of action: two to commemorate Dr. King's " Beyond Vietnam " speech and a day of national protests against symbols of white supremacy after the racist attacks in Charlottesville, Va. In each case, national coordinators kept a low profile, offering support while encouraging local groups to set their own agendas.

Critics argue that the Movement for Black Lives needs to tighten control of its messaging, discipline its local affiliates and shore up its "brand." It's too bad they can't see the momentum happening at the grass-roots level. To paraphrase Ms. Baker, leaders who teach following as the only way of fighting weaken the movement in the long run.

Local organizers are not passive followers. They are leading creative campaigns in major cities. For example, the Black Youth Project 100, along with other local groups, is working to overturn the New York City Housing Authority's "permanent exclusion" policy, under which people convicted of a crime can be barred from living in or visiting public housing.

Seshat Mack, a student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a leader of the Black Youth Project 100 's New York chapter, explained to me that the campaign, called Housing Over Monitoring and Eviction, has relied heavily on local leadership - in particular, black New Yorkers who live in public housing.

In Chicago, one of the most segregated cities in the country, an "expanded sanctuary" campaign has brought together black people and Latino immigrants to demand an end to punitive practices like the city's gang database. Activists have argued that the criteria for inclusion is vague and that people often don't know they're on the list. A lead organizer in that campaign, Maxx Boykin, underscores the importance of "building trust between people and organizations," which can happen only on the local level.

The fight to end cash bail was bolstered by Mama's Bail Out Day, a campaign that is the brainchild of the Atlanta organizer Mary Hooks, a director of Southerners on New Ground, a queer social-justice organization. The organizers raised over $1 million to bail out more than 100 low-income black women on Mother's Day this year. The Movement for Black Lives umbrella group oversaw the effort by pulling in local bail-reform groups.

One of the most intense efforts within the Movement for Black Lives has been to develop an electoral strategy that can be applied locally. Recently, activists started a project to lay the groundwork for creating local black political power. According to Kayla Reed, a St. Louis organizer who helped develop the project, the goal is to transfer the clarity and radical vision brought to the protest lines to electoral campaigns. The organizers of the project are drawing lessons from the successful progressive mayoral campaigns of Chokwe Lumumba in Jackson, Miss., and Randall Woodfin in Birmingham, Ala., as well as the narrow defeat of Tishaura O. Jones in St. Louis.

Despite progress on many fronts, there is still work to do. The movement does need an easier way for people to get involved and more transparent collective decision-making, as well as space for broader ideological and policy debates.

The Movement for Black Lives is distinctive because it defers to the local wisdom of its members and affiliates, rather than trying to dictate from above. In fact, the local organizers have insisted upon it. This democratic inflection will pay off if they persevere. Brick by brick, relationship by relationship, decision by decision, the edifices of resistance are being built. The national organizations are the mortar between the bricks. That fortified space will be a necessary training ground and refuge for the political battles that lay ahead, as white supremacists inside and outside of our government seek to undermine racial and economic justice.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SR6 of the New York edition with the headline: Black Lives Matter Is Democracy in Action. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Opinion | Black Lives Matter Is Democracy in Action

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Opinion CHICAGO - Why has this generation of black activists failed to produce a Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or a Malcolm X - a charismatic, messiah-like figure who can lead a major movement? The answer is a choice, not a deficiency.

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In 2017, the Black Lives Matter movement brought the police brutality into focus. In this article, you will see the amount of people in 2017 killed by officers

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With the increasing tension, some NFL players decided to take a knee during the national anthem, which caused an uproar from generally Conservative party members

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President Trump's Twitter attacks on the NFL players who "take the knee" during the singing of the National Anthem continues unabated. At a recent political rally in Alabama, Trump said: "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out!'"

Since when did the act of kneeling come to be viewed as an act of disrespect? Throughout history, the bending of the knee has always been an act of great respect and humility. People have been kneeling and genuflecting before kings, queens, and popes for centuries as a sign of homage and respect. Every avid follower of the TV series "Game of Thrones" knows that the "bending of the knee" is a symbolic gesture of fealty and allegiance.

In the Christian tradition, kneeling has been closely intertwined with the act of prayer to the almighty. The book of Romans (14:11) teaches: "'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; ... every knee will bend to me...."

The iconic 1965 photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. shows him praying on one knee with his head bowed while leading a group of kneeling civil rights workers in Selma, Alabama. Was this just a prayerful religious moment, or was it an act of civil disobedience just before they were carted off to the local jail? Either way, Dr. King's action was an expression of the constitutionally-protected rights of the religious freedom and freedom of speech. Isn't this kind of peaceful protest an essential part of what makes American democracy so exceptionally great?

In the church where my family worships on Sundays, some parishioners prefer to stand during the core portions of the service, while others kneel or remain seated. Is one method of worship any better than another. Of course not. The sincerity of a person's devotion depends upon what is in one's head and the heart, not whether you are standing or on your knees.

Are the NFL players who take a knee or remain sitting during the singing of the National Anthem any less patriotic than those who remain standing? I think not. As far as I can tell, they are all patriotic Americans merely expressing their conscientious beliefs in different ways.

Which brings us to former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who started it all back in the summer of 2016, when he remained seated during the National Anthem during a pre-season game. He did not hold any press conference or make any statements before he made the personal decision to remain seated at a time when the country was experiencing a rash of shootings of black men by white police officers. It was when a reporter later asked him about it that he gave a very humble, dignified and articulate explanation.

Kneeling on the sidelines of a football field was nothing new. Former NFL quarterback and now ESPN commentator Tim Tebow turned it into an art form, universally known as "Tebowing," which involved the dropping to one knee and bowing of one's head in prayer. Yet no one criticized Tebow for interjection of such public displays of religious expression into a sporting event.

In contrast, Colin Kaepernick - who like Tebow had a rigorous Baptist upbringing - has been publicly castigated by the President himself and received death threats from NFL fans.

Why the disparate treatment of Tebow and Kaepernick? Does the fact that one is white and the other is black (actually biracial) explain it? Or is the public manifestation of deeply held religious beliefs OK, except when it involves an important social justice issue?

Kaepernick's silent protest has grown into a tidal wave of solidarity among both NFL players and owners, achieving the same objective that civil rights marchers sought to achieve, which is to shine democracy's spotlight on important issues involving racial discrimination and to help promote a national debate on these issues.

This debate would probably not have been so robust as it has been if Trump had decided not to weigh in on it. Apparently the North Korean threat and the devastation caused by hurricanes do not provide the President with enough to work on during day, so he has to expend his excess energy tweeting about the pre-game conduct of black NFL athletes.

Ironically, Trump's rants may also have the unexpected consequence of allowing certain NFL team owners to take a second look at Kaepernick now that there is near universal support for him, at least among NFL players and owners.

This is a good thing, since Kaepernick is probably a better player than most NFL backup QBs, and maybe even some of the starters. The law of unintended consequences sometimes works in mysterious ways. Let's hope that Trump's attempts to belittle and intimidate the NFL into "patriotic uniformity" backfires, and that something positive emerges.

Every great social justice movement in this nation's history - from the abolition of slavery to the civil rights movement and the women's suffrage movement - has involved public protests and public demonstrations. The drive for equal treatment and the end of racial bias and profiling by our police forces around the country is but one more honorable struggle in a long line of public and private efforts that have made this country truly the greatest, and can make it even greater.

McCallion is a New York-based attorney who handles cases involving civil and human rights issues both in the U.S. and internationally. He and his family attend Christ Church in Greenwich, Conn.

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What taking a knee really means: A reflection on the power of prayerful protest - NY Daily News

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President Trump's Twitter attacks on the NFL players who "take the knee" during the singing of the National Anthem continues unabated. At a recent political rally in Alabama, Trump said: "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out!'" Since when did the act of kneeling come to be viewed as an act of disrespect?

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PLANTATION, Fla. - Hurricane Irma turned its fury on Florida's Gulf Coast after making two landfalls Sunday and raking the southern half of the state with ferocious winds and torrential rains.

The center of Irma's eye passed over Cudjoe Key at 9:10 a.m. ET, the National Hurricane Center reported, and by 3:35 p.m. it made landfall again on Marco Island, 180 miles south of Tampa.

The Latest on the Storm

Irma restrengthened to a Category 4 storm early Sunday as it hit the lower Florida Keys with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph just after 7 a.m. ET. It made landfall on Cudjoe Key at 9:10 a.m.

It later weakened further to a Category 2 after making landfall on Marco Island as a Category 3.

It could reach Fort Myers by Sunday night, passing the Tampa Bay area before moving to northern Florida on Monday morning.

The Florida Keys and the southwest Florida coast are in the most danger of storm surges of around 10 feet.

The Keys could get 10 to 20 inches of rain, and the peninsula could get 8 to 15 inches. Tornadoes watches are in effect.

Irma weakened somewhat to a Category 2 strength Sunday afternoon as it closed in on the city of Naples at 5 p.m., but with maximum winds of 110 mph, it was "expected to remain a powerful hurricane while it moves near or along the west coast of Florida," the NHC warned.

In a 6 p.m. update, the center warned that the city's water levels were rapidly rising. Yet Mayor Bill Barnett offered a sliver of good news, saying on Sunday night that he'd seen no evidence of injuries.

"I would have heard of" that, he said.

Recalling Hurricane Wilma, the powerful Category 3 storm that struck Florida in 2005, killing six and causing $20 billion in damage, he described Irma as "horrendous."

"I thought Wilma was bad until Irma showed up," he said.

From Naples north to Tallahassee, the capital, residents braced for life-threatening storm surges of up to 15 feet in some places.

In Tampa and vulnerable St. Petersburg, two cities that have not been struck by a major hurricane since 1921, 6 p.m. curfews were declared.

Classic Florida attractions like the Weeki Wachee Mermaids show were shuttered until Tuesday. And at Busch Gardens in Tampa, workers herded the flamingos and other animals to shelters.

"There is a serious threat of significant storm surge flooding along the entire west coast of Florida," Gov. Rick Scott warned at a noon news conference. "And this has increased to 15 feet of impact above ground level in southwest Florida."

Tampa Bay, which is home to about 3 million Floridians, could see surges of 5 to 8 feet, the NHC warned.

Tornado warnings were in place across the state Sunday as thousands of Floridians were hunkered down in homes and shelters and howling gales rattled shuttered windows and tore trees up by their roots.

A twister was reported at Fort Lauderdale International Airport, the National Weather Service said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

At 9:30 p.m., 3.2 million Florida Power & Light customers were without power, the utility said.

In Miami, many streets were also submerged, and there were reports of at least two construction crane collapses downtown. Just north of Miami, in Fort Lauderdale, a third crane toppled at an upscale beachfront spa on Sunday afternoon, NBC Miami reported.

"There are areas of south Florida and the Keys that have already had 12 inches of rain," Scott said.

Miami International Airport sustained significant water damage and will remain closed Monday, said Emilio Gonzalez, the airport's chief executive and director of aviation.
Photos: Hurricane Irma Faces Off With Florida
In Orlando, Mayor Teresa Jacobs announced a county-wide curfew starting at 7 p.m. and said people who live in mobile homes should leave and "seek shelter immediately."

"We're continuing our door-to-door outreach, using loudspeakers through mobile home parks, to make sure we reaching everyone that we can," she said.

South of Tampa, Hardee County Sheriff Arnold Lanier confirmed that one of his deputies was killed in a car crash Sunday morning; a corrections officer was also killed. The deputy, Julie Bridges, 42, who had been on the force for 13 years, had spent the night working at a shelter and was heading home when the crash occurred.

"She was a very fine deputy, and we are grateful for her service," Lanier told NBC News. "It is a tremendous loss."
Related: Hurricane Irma: How to Help Storm Victims
State Attorney General Pat Bondi said Bridges' car collided with the corrections officer's vehicle. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida identified the dead corrections officer as Sgt. Joseph Ossman.

While weather was likely a factor, the deaths were not immediately blamed on Irma.

Looting was also a concern. Nine people were arrested after breaking into a pawn shop in Fort Lauderdale, the police there said, while Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel gave them a tongue-lashing in a message posted on Facebook.

"Looters: your behavior is illegal, it's felonious and it won't be tolerated," he said, adding that he'd make sure his deputies examined every possible camera that could have captured the thieves. "It's unscrupulous and deplorable to loot at a time when we're battling one of the major storms of the century."

The stress from the hurricane appeared to be getting to some Floridians. After a "Shoot at Irma" event posting went up on Facebook, the sheriff in Pasco County tweeted, "DO NOT shoot weapons @ #irma."

The storm seemed to bring others closer together. South of Tampa Bay, in Sarasota, Irma had the disorienting effect of sucking shore water out into the Gulf of Mexico so fast that two manatees were left stranded in a mud flat. Several people came to their aid, lugging the massive creatures back to the water.

"We rolled them on the tarp and then dragged them" 100 yards, one of the rescuers, Marcelo Clavido, later wrote on Facebook. "Now back to reality of a hurricane coming."

Nearly 6.3 million people were ordered to evacuate before the storm. Not everyone heeded the calls.

Brian Cone, a boat captain in Tavernier in the Florida Keys, said he was staying in his cement-built home, which which he compared to "a bunker."

"Truthfully, the whole state of Florida is in trouble. I mean, there's really nowhere safe," Cone told MSNBC in a telephone interview. He said he and his neighbors have generators, batteries, food, water and other supplies. "We feel it was more dangerous to travel all over the state, run out of fuel possibly," he said. "We're going to ride it out."
Related: Ahead of Irma, One Naples Bar Staying Open Despite Evacuation Orders
In Miami-Dade County in the southeastern part of the state, police encouraged residents to stay indoors as the storm was hitting early Sunday.

"There's a lot of trees that are being knocked over. We have live wires - it's extremely volatile out there," Miami-Dade police Maj. Hector Llevat said. "Right now, we're just urging everybody to stay indoors, to seek shelter."

Scott said his chief worry was the storm surges.

"It's hard to believe anybody will survive that," he said on TODAY.
Photos: Hurricane Irma Carves Path of Destruction in Caribbean
Scott said he would not spare on resources to protect people. "We're going to take care of everybody," he said.

Scott said Saturday that Florida had been aggressive in its preparations, with more than 385 shelters open.

President Donald Trump, who declared a major disaster in the state on Sunday, monitored progress from the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland. Returning to the White House, he said the response to the crisis has "been going really well."

"The bad news is this is a monster," he told reporters on the South Lawn. "I hope there aren't too many people in the path. That's a bad path to be in."

States north of Florida prepared for Irma's arrival, with Georgia telling 540,000 residents to leave the coast and South Carolina ordering nearly 45,000 people to evacuate.

A 24th death was attributed to Irmaon Sunday in the Caribbeans, including Barbuda, St. Martin, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, where 1 million people were left without electricity.
Kalhan Rosenblatt reported from Plantation, Florida. Saphora Smith reported from London. Corky Siemaszko reported from New York. Tim Stelloh reported from Alameda, California.

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Hurricane Irma assaults Florida's Gulf Coast

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PLANTATION, Fla. - Hurricane Irma turned its fury on Florida's Gulf Coast after making two landfalls Sunday and raking the southern half of the state with ferocious winds and torrential rains. The center of Irma's eye passed over Cudjoe Key at 9:10 a.m. ET, the National Hurricane Center reported, and by 3:35 p.m.

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People had to band together to get through this fatal storm

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HOUSTON - Rescuers answered thousands of calls from people trapped in Houston on Sunday as torrential rain from deadly Hurricane Harvey caused "catastrophic flooding" in the city and across southeast Texas, officials said.

"This event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced," the National Weather Service said Sunday morning.

Heavy rain continued to pour over Houston early Sunday afternoon, with some downtown areas knee-deep in water, and shut down portions of highways flooded with as much as 10 feet of water.

At least one person has died in flooding in Houston, officials said. The storm is blamed in at least two deaths overall.

The Latest

Hurricane Harvey, currently a tropical storm, has caused "catastrophic and life-threatening flooding" in southeast Texas, according to the National Weather Service (NWS)

At least two deaths have been blamed on the storm.

Houston officials said rescuers have fielded more than 2,000 calls for help

Harvey is expected to bring 15 to 25 inches of additional rainfall to the middle and upper Texas coast through Friday, according to the NWS.

Houston police said Sunday afternoon that more than 1,200 people had been rescued, with more to come. The weather service warned that flooding victims should go to their rooftops and not their attics to avoid being trapped by the rushing waters. Police in the city of Dickinson, southeast of Houston, made an online plea for people with boats to help in rescues.

"This is a life-threatening situation," said Michael Palmer, lead meteorologist at The Weather Channel.

In parts of south Houston, there were multiple abandoned cars and manhole covers spewed rushing water. As the rain slowed Sunday afternoon, one car blocked a roadway where it had stalled when the flood waters were high.

Some parts of Houston and just west of the city could receive a Texas record of 50 inches of rain as the tropical storm continues to stall over the area, NWS meteorologist Patrick Burke told the Associated Press.

The NWS said local rainfall of 50 inches "would exceed any previous Texas rainfall record."

"The breadth and intensity of this rainfall are beyond anything experienced before," the agency's Weather Prediction Center said in a tweet.

Earlier Sunday, the National Weather Service said that the Houston and Galveston area had received 24.10 inches of rain in the last 24 hours.

GALLERY: Hurricane Harvey: Life-threatening Rain Hammers Houston

The average rain fall within the Harris County emergency management network had already exceeded that of Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 in almost half the time, the Weather Prediction Center said.

The National Hurricane Center said that Allison caused 41 deaths, with 23 in the state of Texas alone, and an estimated $5 billion in damages.

President Donald Trump will be traveling to Texas on Tuesday after coordinating with state and local officials, said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

"We continue to keep all of those affected in our thoughts and prayers," she said.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday afternoon that 3,000 national and state Guard personnel have been activated in the state.

"One thing that we are dealing with here is basically a triangle of ongoing rain that stretches one tip of which would be the Corpus Christi area, up to Travis county, over to Chamber's county and then back to Corpus Christi," he said during a news conference. "Parts of those regions will continue to receive incredibly heavy rain that will lead to even more flooding and more danger for Texans."

Abbott stressed "the importance of staying off the road" during the heavy rains and urged people to avoid going outside if possible.

"If you drive in the water, you're taking your life in your own hands," he said.

University of Houston students Kevin Ford and Jimmy Taravella, both 20, surveyed the flooding outside the college's fraternity housing on Sunday afternoon and said the storm was worse than they imagined.

"This is worse than I thought it was going to be," said Taravella

"This is the first time I'm seeing it and it's pretty bad," said Ford.

Ford said university officials said some fraternity and sorority buildings had to be evacuated. Some students had to leave behind cars that were stuck in water several feet deep and as high as their engines. In several low-lying areas on campus, multiple vehicles were engulfed in water.

There was a heavy police presence in the city on Sunday as officials continued to rescue people from the heavy flooding. At the university, campus police continuously patrolled the area, encouraging curious students to head back inland.

As responders rushed to save people from flooded homes and stranded cars, Houston city officials said emergency services were "at capacity" and warned residents to "shelter in place" and not to call 911 unless they were in "imminent danger."

Houston officials have received more than 2,000 calls for rescue since the storm made landfall, Mayor Sylvester Turner said at a press conference Sunday.

"We have had an unprecedented amount of water," Turner said. "I don't think I need to tell anyone at this point that this is a very, very serious and unprecedented storm," he said.

Houston had opened up a city convention center as a shelter for people impacted by severe flooding, he added, but encouraged people to stay home if they could.

"The safest place is for you to be in your home," he said.

The south side of the city was being deluged by up to six inches of rain every hour overnight, the Office of Emergency Management said.

The U.S. Coast Guard said it was conducting urban search and rescue operations in the greater Houston area and that its local command center had received more than 300 requests.

"Currently there are five MH-65 Dolphin Helicopters conducting rescues," the statement said.

The flooding came as emergency services along the Gulf Coast scrambled to reach those in need of assistance, and many in the path of the storm began to assess the devastation.

Brock Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said on NBC News' "Meet The Press" Sunday morning that the recovery effort would take "years."

Long told host Chuck Todd that President Donald Trump was "extremely concerned" about the situation on the ground.

"He's given me all the authorities to amass the resources from the federal government down through our state and local partners," he said adding, "right now we have nearly 5,000 staff that we have coordinated across the federal government within the states of Texas and Louisiana."

At least two people have died since Harvey made landfall late Friday as a Category 4 hurricane. One was found dead in a vehicle in Houston on Saturday night in a possible drowning amid flooding in the city, a Houston fire department spokesperson said. Another died in a house fire in Aransas County that rescuers could not reach because of flooding.

The storm was about 15 miles northeast of Victoria as of 8 p.m. ET Sunday with 40-mph winds, and it is causing "unprecedented flooding," the National Hurricane Center said.

"When you get rates of over six inches of rainfall an hour it overflows the drainage systems and homes and businesses will be flooded, which is what we're seeing now in Houston," Palmer said.

He warned that the storm was likely to stay in the same area for the next few days meaning rainfall would continue to fall over southeast Texas. "The flooding is only going to get worse as we go forward," he said.

Current forecasts see total rainfall between Sunday and Thursday reaching 40-50 inches, which "would be one of the worst floods in U.S. history," Palmer said.

More than 80,000 people were without power in the Houston area, CenterPoint Energy said. City officials warned residents to stay at home as rescue operations were carried out.

Full Coverage: The Latest on Tropical Storm Harvey

A pregnant woman going into labor was among the rescued, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonsalez said early Sunday.

"There are a number of people on our streets calling 911 exhausting needed resources. You can help by staying off the streets," said Turner, Houston's mayor.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo posted a warning on Twitter, saying: "Cannot emphasize enough how much flooding there is on roadways you are endangering yourself and our first responders by being out stay put ... do not think it's safe to be driving anywhere in the city."

He added: "Have reports of people getting into attic to escape floodwater do not to do so unless you have an axe or means to break through onto your roof."

Houston's William P. Hobby Airport and Houston Bush Airport said all commercial flights are canceled until further notice.

Trump signed a disaster declaration late Friday, allowing federal funding to help stricken areas.

Trump said on Twitter Sunday: "Many people are now saying that this is the worst storm/hurricane they have ever seen. Good news is we have great talent on the ground."

Phil McCausland reported from Houston, Daniella Silva reported from New York and Saphora Smith reported from London.

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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Houston hit by "catastrophic flooding" from Hurricane Harvey

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HOUSTON - Rescuers answered thousands of calls from people trapped in Houston on Sunday as torrential rain from deadly Hurricane Harvey caused "catastrophic flooding" in the city and across southeast Texas, officials said. "This event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced," the National Weather Service said Sunday morning.

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In 2017 Trump declared the Opioid epidemic. Socially, more people are turning to numbing drugs than dealing with their problems

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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump threw the weight of the White House behind the fight against the opioid crisis Thursday and declared it a national emergency.

"The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I'm saying officially, right now, it is an emergency," Trump said at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. "It's a national emergency. We're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis."

Trump's surprise announcement came two days after he vowed the U.S. would "win" the fight against the epidemic but stopped short of acting on the recommendation of the presidential opioid commission to " declare a national emergency."

It was not immediately clear what prompted Trump's change of course. But he called the crisis "a serious problem the likes of which we have never had."

"You know when I was growing up they had the LSD and they had certain generations of drugs," Trump said. "There's never been anything like what's happened to this country over the last four or five years. And I have to say this in all fairness, this is a worldwide problem, not just a United States problem."
Related: One in Three Americans Took Prescription Opioid Painkillers in 2015, Survey Says
Experts said that the national emergency declaration would allow the executive branch to direct funds towards expanding treatment facilities and supplying police officers with the anti-overdose remedy naloxone.

It would also allow the administration to waive some federal rules, including one that restricts where Medicaid recipients can get addiction treatment.

And while the declaration could put more pressure on Congress to provide additional funding, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law professor Juliet Sorensen told NBC News earlier this week it would be a rare move for Trump that both Republicans and Democrats could agree on.

"Everybody agrees this is a crisis," she said.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who chairs the presidential opioid commission, thanked Trump "for accepting this first recommendation of our July 31 interim report."
Related: 'Mass-Casualty Event': Ohio County Now Tops U.S. in Overdose Deaths
"I am completely confident that the President will address this problem aggressively and do all he can to alleviate the suffering and loss of scores of families in every corner of our country," Christie said in a statement. "We look forward to continuing the Commission's efforts and to working with this President to address the approximately 142 deaths a day from drug overdoses in the United States."

In Ohio, which has been devastated by the nation's opioid problem, Attorney General Mike DeWine chimed-in with more applause.

"Additional resources from the federal government will help hard-hit states like Ohio," said DeWine.

DeWine in May filed a lawsuit against five of the biggest drug makers, accusing them of flooding Ohio with prescription painkillers and creating "a population of patients physically and psychologically dependent on them."

"And when those patients can no longer afford or legitimately obtain opioids, they often turn to the street to buy prescription opioids or even heroin," the suit states.

But Daniel Raymond of the Harm Reduction Coalition, an advocacy group, said Trump's words "need to be accompanied by actions."

"After 200 days into the Trump administration, we have yet to see a clear and consistent strategy emerge," Raymond said.

Among other things, Trump stridently supported Republican-backed Obamacare replacement proposals that would have drastically cut Medicaid funds for opioid addiction treatment. And Trump allies like Attorney General Jeff Sessions have proposed dealing with the epidemic by dusting-off tactics from President Ronald Reagan's 1980s so-called war on drugs.

"We need to say, as Nancy Reagan said, 'Just say no,'" Sessions said in March.

Nearly 35,000 people across America died of heroin or opioid overdoses in 2015, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. But a new University of Virginia study released on Monday concluded the mortality rates were 24 percent higher for opioids and 22 percent higher for heroin than had been previously reported.
Ali Vitali reported from Washington and Corky Siemaszko reported from New York.

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Trump "officially" declares opioid crisis a national emergency

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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump threw the weight of the White House behind the fight against the opioid crisis Thursday and declared it a national emergency. "The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I'm saying officially, right now, it is an emergency," Trump said at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

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Here is a video talking about the Mueller Investigation, which was a socially big part of 2017, that lead to a lot of tension an polarization of parties

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russian interference in 2016 us elections and ties to trump associates

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The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, will likely reach one of two conclusions about the president: Either there is evidence that he broke the law, or there is not. Mike Schmidt, a New York Times reporter, explains the possible outcomes.

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Having a President that tweets as much as Trump did in 2017 definitely changed some of the country's sharing dynamics

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The tweets that tell the story of Trump's first year in office

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As a new year inches closer, Americans reflect on the devastating events that made 2017 the deadliest year of mass shootings in modern U.S. history.

According to Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that continuously tracks gun-related death and injury reports based on official records, there have been 345 mass shootings in America in 2017 alone.

And even more daunting -- two of the five deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history occurred in the span of just 35 days.
Las Vegas massacre: October 1, 2017
On October 1, 2017, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on 22,000 people at a country music festival from his hotel suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel on the Las Vegas strip. The attack, which left 58 people dead and more than 500 injured, marked the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The death toll surpassed the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre, which took the lives of 49 people in June of 2016.

RELATED: The most devastating images from the Las Vegas shooting

Texas church shooting: November 5, 2017
Just one month after the tragic attack in Las Vegas, 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley killed at least 26 churchgoers and injured 20 others at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. It was the deadliest mass shooting in the state's history.
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport: January 6, 2017
Five people were killed and eight others were injured when 26-year-old Esteban Santiago opened fire at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida. He flew from Alaska to Florida with a gun in a checked bag, which he used to carry out the massacre in the baggage claim area of Terminal 2.

RELATED: The deadliest mass shootings in the US since 1900

Lincoln Country shooting spree, Mississippi: May 28, 2017
35-year-old Willie Corey Godbolt went on a shooting spree overnight in rural Lincoln County Mississippi, killing a sheriff's deputy and seven other people in three separate locations.
Unsettling revelations
Americans are more likely to die from gun violence than many leading causes of death combined, with around 11,000 people in the U.S. killed in gun attacks each year.

The Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot in one incident (not including the shooter), reports more than 14,000 people killed and over 29,000 injured in 2017.

These horrid acts of terror spanned the entire country -- occurring in cities, rural communities and suburbs in almost every state.

Here's a complete list of 2017's mass shootings in the U.S., compiled by Gun Violence Archive.

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Colorado girl, 10, commits suicide after alleged bullying incident was caught on camera

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2017 deemed America's deadliest year for mass shootings

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As a new year inches closer, Americans reflect on the devastating events that made 2017 the deadliest year of mass shootings in modern U.S. history. According to Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that continuously tracks gun-related death and injury reports based on official records, there have been 345 mass shootings in America in 2017 alone.

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The amount of gun violence increased the activism around gun violence

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Last year's total count of mass shootings was fewer than in 2016.

According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a total of 346 mass shooting incidents occurred in 2017.

Comparatively, 2016 saw a total of 384 mass shootings. See statistics for other years here.

There doesn't seem to be an official definition for a "mass shooting" in the United States, but according to the Gun Violence Archive, a mass shooting is described as four or more individuals being shot or killed in the same general time and location.

The F.B.I. has defined "mass killing" and "mass murderer".

The F.B.I. defines a "mass killing" as the killing of three or more people in a public place, but the federal agency also defines a "mass murderer" as someone who has killed four or more people in the same location.

The Gun Violence Archive lists itself as a not-for-profit organization that documents gun violence and gun crime nationally.

It should be noted that 5 of the 346 incidents are not shown on the map.

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Mass shootings in the U.S.: 317 mass shootings have occurred in 2017

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Last year's total count of mass shootings was fewer than in 2016. According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a total of 346 mass shooting incidents occurred in 2017. Comparatively, 2016 saw a total of 384 mass shootings. See statistics for other years here.

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This correlates with the sociological events that influenced the novel. We can see that 2017 was a time for "silence breakers"

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Movie stars are supposedly nothing like you and me. They're svelte, glamorous, self-possessed. They wear dresses we can't afford and live in houses we can only dream of. Yet it turns out that-in the most painful and personal ways-movie stars are more like you and me than we ever knew.

In 1997, just before Ashley Judd's career took off, she was invited to a meeting with Harvey Weinstein, head of the starmaking studio Miramax, at a Beverly Hills hotel. Astounded and offended by Weinstein's attempt to coerce her into bed, Judd managed to escape. But instead of keeping quiet about the kind of encounter that could easily shame a woman into silence, she began spreading the word.

"I started talking about Harvey the minute that it happened," Judd says in an interview with TIME. "Literally, I exited that hotel room at the Peninsula Hotel in 1997 and came straight downstairs to the lobby, where my dad was waiting for me, because he happened to be in Los Angeles from Kentucky, visiting me on the set. And he could tell by my face-to use his words-that something devastating had happened to me. I told him. I told everyone."

She recalls one screenwriter friend telling her that Weinstein's behavior was an open secret passed around on the whisper network that had been furrowing through Hollywood for years. It allowed for people to warn others to some degree, but there was no route to stop the abuse. "Were we supposed to call some fantasy attorney general of moviedom?" Judd asks. "There wasn't a place for us to report these experiences."

Finally, in October-when Judd went on the record about Weinstein's behavior in the New York Times, the first star to do so-the world listened. (Weinstein said he "never laid a glove" on Judd and denies having had nonconsensual sex with other accusers.)

When movie stars don't know where to go, what hope is there for the rest of us? What hope is there for the janitor who's being harassed by a co-worker but remains silent out of fear she'll lose the job she needs to support her children? For the administrative assistant who repeatedly fends off a superior who won't take no for an answer? For the hotel housekeeper who never knows, as she goes about replacing towels and cleaning toilets, if a guest is going to corner her in a room she can't escape?

Like the "problem that has no name," the disquieting malaise of frustration and repression among postwar wives and homemakers identified by Betty Friedan more than 50 years ago, this moment is born of a very real and potent sense of unrest. Yet it doesn't have a leader, or a single, unifying tenet. The hashtag #MeToo (swiftly adapted into #BalanceTonPorc, #YoTambien, #Ana_kaman and many others), which to date has provided an umbrella of solidarity for millions of people to come forward with their stories, is part of the picture, but not all of it.

This reckoning appears to have sprung up overnight. But it has actually been simmering for years, decades, centuries. Women have had it with bosses and co-workers who not only cross boundaries but don't even seem to know that boundaries exist. They've had it with the fear of retaliation, of being blackballed, of being fired from a job they can't afford to lose. They've had it with the code of going along to get along. They've had it with men who use their power to take what they want from women. These silence breakers have started a revolution of refusal, gathering strength by the day, and in the past two months alone, their collective anger has spurred immediate and shocking results: nearly every day, CEOs have been fired, moguls toppled, icons disgraced. In some cases, criminal charges have been brought.

Emboldened by Judd, Rose McGowan and a host of other prominent accusers, women everywhere have begun to speak out about the inappropriate, abusive and in some cases illegal behavior they've faced. When multiple harassment claims bring down a charmer like former Today show host Matt Lauer, women who thought they had no recourse see a new, wide-open door. When a movie star says #MeToo, it becomes easier to believe the cook who's been quietly enduring for years.

The women and men who have broken their silence span all races, all income classes, all occupations and virtually all corners of the globe. They might labor in California fields, or behind the front desk at New York City's regal Plaza Hotel, or in the European Parliament. They're part of a movement that has no formal name. But now they have a voice.

II

In a windowless room at a two-story soundstage in San Francisco's Mission District, a group of women from different worlds met for the first time. Judd, every bit the movie star in towering heels, leaned in to shake hands with Isabel Pascual, a woman from Mexico who works picking strawberries and asked to use a pseudonym to protect her family. Beside her, Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer, eight months pregnant, spoke softly with Adama Iwu, a corporate lobbyist in Sacramento. A young hospital worker who had flown in from Texas completed the circle. She too is a victim of sexual harassment but was there anonymously, she said, as an act of solidarity to represent all those who could not speak out.

From a distance, these women could not have looked more different. Their ages, their families, their religions and their ethnicities were all a world apart. Their incomes differed not by degree but by universe: Iwu pays more in rent each month than Pascual makes in two months.

But on that November morning, what separated them was less important than what brought them together: a shared experience. Over the course of six weeks, TIME interviewed dozens of people representing at least as many industries, all of whom had summoned extraordinary personal courage to speak out about sexual harassment at their jobs. They often had eerily similar stories to share.

In almost every case, they described not only the vulgarity of the harassment itself-years of lewd comments, forced kisses, opportunistic gropes-but also the emotional and psychological fallout from those advances. Almost everybody described wrestling with a palpable sense of shame. Had she somehow asked for it? Could she have deflected it? Was she making a big deal out of nothing?

"I thought, What just happened? Why didn't I react?" says the anonymous hospital worker who fears for her family's livelihood should her story come out in her small community. "I kept thinking, Did I do something, did I say something, did I look a certain way to make him think that was O.K.?" It's a poisonous, useless thought, she adds, but how do you avoid it? She remembers the shirt she was wearing that day. She can still feel the heat of her harasser's hands on her body.

Nearly all of the people TIME interviewed about their experiences expressed a crushing fear of what would happen to them personally, to their families or to their jobs if they spoke up.

For some, the fear was born of a threat of physical violence. Pascual felt trapped and terrified when her harasser began to stalk her at home, but felt she was powerless to stop him. If she told anyone, the abuser warned her, he would come after her or her children.

Those who are often most vulnerable in society-immigrants, people of color, people with disabilities, low-income workers and LGBTQ people-described many types of dread. If they raised their voices, would they be fired? Would their communities turn against them? Would they be killed? According to a 2015 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, 47% of transgender people report being sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, both in and out of the workplace.

Juana Melara, who has worked as a hotel housekeeper for decades, says she and her fellow housekeepers didn't complain about guests who exposed themselves or masturbated in front of them for fear of losing the paycheck they needed to support their families. Melara recalls "feeling the pressure of someone's eyes" on her as she cleaned a guest's room. When she turned around, she remembers, a man was standing in the doorway, blocked by the cleaning cart, with his erect penis exposed. She yelled at the top of her lungs and scared him into leaving, then locked the door behind him. "Nothing happened to me that time, thank God," she recalls.

While guests come and go, some employees must continue to work side by side with their harassers. Crystal Washington was thrilled when she was hired as a hospitality coordinator at the Plaza, a storied hotel whose allure is as strong for people who want to work there as it is for those who can afford a suite. "Walking in, it's breathtaking," she says.

But then, she says, a co-worker began making crude remarks to her like "I can tell you had sex last night" and groping her. One of those encounters was even caught on camera, but the management did not properly respond, her lawyers say.

Washington has joined with six other female employees to file a sexual-harassment suit against the hotel. But she cannot afford to leave the job and says she must force herself out of bed every day to face the man she's accused. "It's a dream to be an employee there," Washington says. "And then you find out what it really is, and it's a nightmare." (Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, which owns the Plaza, said in a statement to TIME that it takes remedial action against harassment when warranted.)

Other women, like the actor Selma Blair, weathered excruciating threats. Blair says she arrived at a hotel restaurant for a meeting with the independent film director James Toback in 1999 only to be told that he would like to see her in his room. There, she says, Toback told her that she had to learn to be more vulnerable in her craft and asked her to strip down. She took her top off. She says he then propositioned her for sex, and when she refused, he blocked the door and forced her to watch him masturbate against her leg. Afterward, she recalls him telling her that if she said anything, he would stab her eyes out with a Bic pen and throw her in the Hudson River.

Blair says Toback lorded the encounter over her for decades. "I had heard from others that he was slandering me, saying these sexual things about me, and it just made me even more afraid of him," Blair says in an interview with TIME. "I genuinely thought for almost 20 years, He's going to kill me." ( Toback has denied the allegations, saying he never met his accusers or doesn't remember them.)

Many of the people who have come forward also mentioned a different fear, one less visceral but no less real, as a reason for not speaking out: if you do, your complaint becomes your identity. "'Susan Fowler, the famous victim of sexual harassment,'" says the woman whose blog post ultimately led Uber CEO Travis Kalanick to resign and the multibillion-dollar startup to oust at least 20 other employees. "Nobody wants to be the buzzkill," adds Lindsey Reynolds, one of the women who blew the whistle on a culture of harassment at the restaurant group run by the celebrity chef John Besh. (The Besh Group says it is implementing new policies to create a culture of respect. Besh apologized for "unacceptable behavior" and "moral failings," and resigned from the company. )

Iwu, the lobbyist, says she considered the same risks after she was groped in front of several colleagues at an event. She was shocked when none of her male co-workers stepped in to stop the assault. The next week, she organized 147 women to sign an open letter exposing harassment in California government. When she told people about the campaign, she says they were wary. "Are you sure you want to do this?" they warned her. "Remember Anita Hill."

Taylor Swift says she was made to feel bad about the consequences that her harasser faced. After she complained about a Denver radio DJ named David Mueller, who reached under her skirt and grabbed her rear end, Mueller was fired. He sued Swift for millions in damages. She countersued for a symbolic $1 and then testified about the incident in August. Mueller's lawyer asked her, on the witness stand, whether she felt bad that she'd gotten him fired.

"I'm not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault," she told the lawyer. "I'm being blamed for the unfortunate events of his life that are a product of his decisions. Not mine." (Mueller said he would appeal.)

In an interview with TIME, Swift says that moment on the stand fueled her indignation. "I figured that if he would be brazen enough to assault me under these risky circumstances," she says, "imagine what he might do to a vulnerable, young artist if given the chance." Like the five women gathered at that echoing soundstage in San Francisco, and like all of the dozens, then hundreds, then millions of women who came forward with their own stories of harassment, she was done feeling intimidated. Actors and writers and journalists and dishwashers and fruit pickers alike: they'd had enough. What had manifested as shame exploded into outrage. Fear became fury.

This was the great unleashing that turned the #MeToo hashtag into a rallying cry. The phrase was first used more than a decade ago by social activist Tarana Burke as part of her work building solidarity among young survivors of harassment and assault. A friend of the actor Alyssa Milano sent her a screenshot of the phrase, and Milano, almost on a whim, tweeted it out on Oct. 15. "If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet," she wrote, and then went to sleep. She woke up the next day to find that more than 30,000 people had used #MeToo. Milano burst into tears.

At first, those speaking out were mostly from the worlds of media and entertainment, but the hashtag quickly spread. "We have to keep our focus on people of different class and race and gender," says Burke, who has developed a friendship with Milano via text messages. By November, California farmworkers, Pascual among them, were marching on the streets of Hollywood to express their solidarity with the stars.

Women were no longer alone. "There's something really empowering about standing up for what's right," says Fowler, who has grown comfortable with her new reputation as a whistle-blower. "It's a badge of honor."

III

Discussions of sexual harassment in polite company tend to rely on euphemisms: harassment becomes "inappropriate behavior," assault becomes "misconduct," rape becomes "abuse." We're accustomed to hearing those softened words, which downplay the pain of the experience. That's one of the reasons why the Access Hollywood tape that surfaced in October 2016 was such a jolt. The language used by the man who would become America's 45th President, captured on a 2005 recording, was, by any standard, vulgar. He didn't just say that he'd made a pass; he "moved on her like a bitch." He didn't just talk about fondling women; he bragged that he could "grab 'em by the pussy."

That Donald Trump could express himself that way and still be elected President is part of what stoked the rage that fueled the Women's March the day after his Inauguration. It's why women seized on that crude word as the emblem of the protest that dwarfed Trump's Inauguration crowd size. "All social movements have highly visible precipitating factors," says Aldon Morris, a professor of sociology at Northwestern University. "In this case, you had Harvey Weinstein, and before that you had Trump."

Megyn Kelly, the NBC anchor who revealed in October that she had complained to Fox News executives about Bill O'Reilly's treatment of women, and who was a target of Trump's ire during the campaign, says the tape as well as the tenor of the election turned the political into the personal. "I have real doubts about whether we'd be going through this if Hillary Clinton had won, because I think that President Trump's election in many ways was a setback for women," says Kelly, who noted that not all women at the march were Clinton supporters. "But the overall message to us was that we don't really matter."

So it was not entirely surprising that 2017 began with women donning "pussy hats" and marching on the nation's capital in a show of unity and fury. What was startling was the size of the protest. It was one of the largest in U.S. history and spawned satellite marches in all 50 states and more than 50 other countries.

Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice, was one of roughly 20 women to accuse the President of sexual harassment. She filed a defamation suit against Trump days before his Inauguration after he disputed her claims by calling her a liar. A New York judge is expected to decide soon if the President is immune to civil suits while in office. No matter the outcome, the allegations added fuel to a growing fire.

By February, the movement had made its way to the billionaire dream factories of Silicon Valley, when Fowler spoke out about her "weird year" as an engineer at Uber. "I remember feeling powerless and like there was no one looking out for us because we had an admitted harasser in the White House," Fowler says. "I felt like I had to take action."

Barely two months later, Fox News cut ties with O'Reilly after the New York Times reported that he and the company had spent $13 million to settle claims against him from five women. In October, the Times revealed a sixth settlement, bringing that total to more than $45 million. Wendy Walsh, a psychologist and former guest on the network, was one of the first women to share her story about the star anchor-but she was initially reluctant to go on the record. "I was afraid for my kids, I was afraid of the retaliation," she says. "I know what men can do when they're angry."

Eventually she allowed her name to be used. "I felt it was my duty," Walsh says, "as a mother of daughters, as an act of love for women everywhere and the women who are silenced, to be brave."

The downfall of O'Reilly, who has denied all allegations of harassment, would prove to be just the beginning of the reckoning in media and entertainment. In June, Bill Cosby was brought to trial on charges that he had drugged and sexually assaulted a woman named Andrea Constand, one of nearly 50 women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault over several decades. Although the case ended in a mistrial-it is scheduled to be retried in April-the fact that it happened at all signaled a shift in the culture, a willingness to hold even beloved and powerful men accountable for past misdeeds.

Complaints at the University of Rochester helped expose harassment in academia. The chief executive of SoFi, the $4 billion lending firm, resigned following a lawsuit over claims of sexual harassment. Then, in early October, the dam finally broke.

On Oct. 5, the New York Times published the first story to expose Weinstein, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood and a leading Democratic political fundraiser, as a serial sexual predator. The revelation was quickly followed by New Yorker investigations that widened Weinstein's list of accusers and showed the incredible lengths he went to cover his tracks. Weinstein denied the allegations, but the levers that he had long pulled to exert his influence suddenly were jammed. Fellow chieftains refused to defend him. Politicians who once courted him gave away his donations. His company's board fired him.

Within days, the head of Amazon Studios, an influential art publisher and employees at the financial-services firm Fidelity had all left their jobs over harassment claims. By the end of the month, the list of the accused had grown to include political analyst Mark Halperin, a former TIME employee; opinion-shaping literary critic Leon Wieseltier; and numerous politicians and journalists. The Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey was scrubbed from a completed movie.

The response to the Weinstein allegations has shaped the way people view women who come forward. In a TIME/SurveyMonkey online poll of American adults conducted Nov. 28-30, 82% of respondents said women are more likely to speak out about harassment since the Weinstein allegations. Meanwhile, 85% say they believe the women making allegations of sexual harassment.

The movement-and fallout-quickly spread around the world. Michael Fallon, Britain's Defense Secretary, quit the Cabinet after journalist Jane Merrick revealed that he had "lunged" at her in 2003, when she was a 29-year-old reporter. In France, women took to the streets chanting not only "Me too" but also " Balance ton porc," which translates roughly to "Expose your pig," a hashtag conceived by French journalist Sandra Muller. In the week after #MeToo first surfaced, versions of it swept through 85 countries, from India, where the struggle against harassment and assault had already become a national debate in recent years, to the Middle East, Asia and parts in between.

"Suddenly," says Terry Reintke, a German member of the European Parliament, who discussed her own harassment in a speech on Oct. 25, "friends from primary school or women that I know from completely different surroundings that would never call themselves feminists were starting to share their stories."

By November, the spotlight was back on American politicians. A woman named Leigh Corfman told the Washington Post that Roy Moore, the Alabama Republican nominee for the Senate, abused her when she was 14 and he was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. Nine women have come forward to describe inappropriate encounters with Roy Moore, including several who say he pursued them when they were teenagers. Moore has called the allegations "false" and "malicious." "Specifically, I do not know any of these women nor have I ever engaged in sexual misconduct with any woman," he said in late November.

The following week, radio host Leeann Tweeden wrote that Minnesota Democratic Senator Al Franken groped her on a USO tour in 2006, before he was in office. Several other women have since come forward with similar harassment allegations against Franken, who has called on the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate his own behavior. On Dec. 5, Michigan Democratic Representative John Conyers resigned amid allegations that he had made sexual advances toward the women on his staff. He has said that the allegations "are not accurate; they are not true."

Texas Republican Representative Blake Farenthold has also found himself in the crosshairs after media reports that he used $84,000 in taxpayer dollars to settle a sexual-harassment lawsuit with a former aide in 2014. Farenthold denies that he engaged in any wrongdoing and has vowed to repay the settlement.

The accused were both Democrats and Republicans, but the consequences thus far have been limited-and often filtered through a partisan lens. In politics, at least, what constitutes disqualifying behavior seemed to depend not on your actions but on the allegiance of your tribe. In the 1990s, feminists stood up for accused abuser Bill Clinton instead of his accusers-a move many are belatedly regretting as the national conversation prompts a re-evaluation of the claims against the former President. And despite the allegations against Moore, both President Trump and the Republican National Committee support him.

That political divide was revealed in the TIME/SurveyMonkey poll, which found that Republicans were significantly more likely to excuse sexual misdeeds in their own party. The survey found that while a majority of Republicans and Democrats agree that a Democratic Congressman accused of sexual harassment should resign (71% and 74% respectively), when the accused offender was in the GOP, only 54% of Republicans would demand a resignation (compared to 82% of Democrats).

As another election cycle approaches, Americans find themselves trying to weigh one ugly act against another in a painful calculus of transgression. Is a grope caught on camera more disqualifying than a years-ago assault that was credibly reported? What are we willing to forgive or ignore or deny if the violator shares our politics?

IV

It wasn't so long ago that the boss chasing his secretary around the desk was a comic trope, a staple from vaudeville to prime-time sitcoms. There wasn't even a name for sexual harassment until just over 40 years ago; the term was coined in 1975 by a group of women at Cornell University after an employee there, Carmita Wood, filed for unemployment benefits after she had resigned because a supervisor touched her. The university denied her claim, arguing that she left the job for "personal reasons."

Wood, joined by activists from the university's human-affairs program, formed a group called Working Women United that hosted an event for workers from various fields, from mail-room clerks and servers to factory workers and administrative assistants, to talk about their own harassment experiences.

It was a proto-version of the social-media explosion we're seeing today, encouraging unity and reminding women that they were not alone. But even as public awareness about the problem of sexual harassment began to grow, legal and policy protections were almost nonexistent. In the 1970s, most businesses and institutions had no policies on sexual harassment whatsoever, and even egregious complaints were regularly dismissed.

In 1980 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency tasked with enforcing civil rights laws in the workplace, issued guidelines declaring sexual harassment a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. It was a victory, but with caveats: even after sexual harassment became explicitly illegal, it remained difficult to lodge a complaint that stuck-in part because acts of harassment are often difficult to define. What separates an illegal act of sexual harassment from a merely annoying interaction between a boss and his subordinate? When does a boss stop just being a jerk and become a criminal? Because the Civil Rights Act offered no solid legal definition, interpretation has evolved slowly, shaped by judges and the EEOC over the past 37 years.

In 1991, Anita Hill testified before the Senate committee confirming Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, accusing him of sexual harassment and bringing national attention to the issue. But, she says, "The conversation was not about the problems in the workplace. It was about the fallout in politics."

Even now, the contours of what constitutes sexual harassment remain murky. Some of the recent stories clearly cross the line, like a boss exposing himself to a subordinate or requiring that his researcher sit on his lap. But others feel more ambiguous. Under what circumstances can you ask a colleague about their marriage? When is an invite to drinks alone a bridge too far?

Jonathan Segal, a partner at the Philadelphia law firm Duane Morris, who specializes in workplace training, says he hears that confusion in the conversations men are now having among themselves. "It's more like, 'I wonder if I should tell someone they look nice, I wonder when it's O.K. to give a hug, I wonder when I should be alone with someone in a room,'" he says.

This uncertainty can be corrosive. While everyone wants to smoke out the serial predators and rapists, there is a risk that the net may be cast too far. What happens when someone who makes a sexist joke winds up lumped into the same bucket as a boss who gropes an employee? Neither should be encouraged, but nor should they be equated.

Companies, meanwhile, are scrambling to keep up. Most large U.S.-based corporations now have fairly complete policies on sexual harassment, and many have anti-sexual harassment training programs and claim to be "zero-tolerance workplaces." A 2016 EEOC report found that a company's willingness to protect so-called rainmakers-high-performing men like Kalanick, Weinstein and O'Reilly-to be one of the most pernicious reasons C-suites and corporate boards overlooked harassment. It doesn't matter how good a company's policy is if its systems are ignored or don't work. "So much harassment training is like an episode of The Office," says Victoria Lipnic, the acting chair of the EEOC.

In some instances, sexual-harassment training has even been shown to backfire. In a 2001 study, Lisa Scherer, an associate professor of industrial-organizational psychology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, found that while training increased knowledge about what constituted sexual harassment, it also sometimes had a corrosive effect on workplace culture. "What was disturbing was that the males who had gone through training showed a backlash effect," she says. "They said they were less willing to report sexual harassment than the males who had not gone through the training."

Employers are also girding for future allegations and lawsuits. The insurance company Nationwide reported a 15% increase in sales of employment practices liability insurances between 2016 and 2017. And Advisen, which tracks insurance trends, says that EPLI insurance price has increased 30% since 2011, which indicates that more companies are reporting losses.

Corporate boards, wary of alienating female employees and customers and of drawing bad press, have been among the quickest to make changes. Uber, for example, which built its reputation on a willingness to flout norms, used to be a guiding light for small startups. Now nobody is pitching their company as the next Uber, says Fowler. "There's a shift to, 'We're not disrupting anymore. We're trying to build something that's good for consumers and treats employees fairly.'" It's a start.

State and local governments have also taken some concrete steps. In October, the Chicago city council passed an ordinance requiring hotels to provide panic buttons to employees who work alone in hotel rooms. In Springfield, Ill., lawmakers passed a measure that will allow an investigation into a backlog of sexual-harassment complaints in the statehouse. In Arizona, pending legislation would void nondisclosure agreements signed by victims of harassment to keep them silent.

At the federal level, the House and Senate have passed new rules requiring members of Congress and their staff to complete mandatory sexual-harassment training. A handful of Senators have also introduced legislation to rein in what are known as mandatory arbitration agreements-legal clauses that can appear in employee contracts that prevent workers from suing their employers in court for any reason, including sexual harassment. Some 60 million American workers are currently bound by them.

V

We're still at the bomb-throwing point of this revolution, a reactive stage at which nuance can go into hiding. But while anger can start a revolution, in its most raw and feral form it can't negotiate the more delicate dance steps needed for true social change. Private conversations, which can't be legislated or enforced, are essential.

Norms evolve, and it's long past time for any culture to view harassment as acceptable. But there's a great deal at stake in how we assess these new boundaries-for women and men together. We can and should police criminal acts and discourage inappropriate, destructive behavior.

At least we've started asking the right questions. Ones that seem alarmingly basic in hindsight: "What if we did complain?" proposes Megyn Kelly. "What if we didn't whine, but we spoke our truth in our strongest voices and insisted that those around us did better? What if that worked to change reality right now?" Kelly acknowledges that this still feels more like a promise than a certainty. But for the moment, the world is listening.
-With reporting by Charlotte Alter and Susanna Schrobsdorff/New York, Sam Lansky/Los Angeles, Kate Samuelson/London, Maya Rhodan/Washington and Katy Steinmetz/San Francisco
Correction: The original version of this story misstated when the claims settled by Bill O'Reilly and Fox News were first disclosed. The New York Times reported in April that Fox and O'Reilly had settled five claims against him. O'Reilly left the network later that month.

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TIME Person of the Year 2017: The Silence Breakers

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Movie stars are supposedly nothing like you and me. They're svelte, glamorous, self-­possessed. They wear dresses we can't afford and live in houses we can only dream of. Yet it turns out that-in the most painful and personal ways-movie stars are more like you and me than we ever knew.