‘Freedom Convoy’ leader challenged over assertion the protest was never told to leave

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and automation that could reignite inflation and cause shortages of goods if it goes on more than a few weeks.

The contract between the ports and about 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association expired at midnight, and even though progress was reported in talks on Monday, the workers went on strike. The strike affecting 36 ports is the first by the union since 1977.

Workers began picketing at the Port of Philadelphia shortly after midnight, walking in a circle at a rail crossing outside the port and chanting “No work without a fair contract.”

The union had message boards on the side of a truck reading: “Automation Hurts Families: ILA Stands For Job Protection.”

The U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents the ports, said Monday evening that both sides had moved off of their previous wage offers, but when picket lines went up just after midnight, it was apparent that no deal had been reached.

The union’s opening offer in the talks was for a 77% pay raise over the six-year life of the contract, with President Harold Daggett saying it’s necessary to make up for inflation and years of small raises. ILA members make a base salary of about $81,000 per year, but some can pull in over $200,000 annually with large amounts of overtime.

But Monday evening, the alliance said it had increased its offer to 50% raises over six years, and it pledged to keep limits on automation in place from the old contract. The union wants a complete ban on automation. It wasn’t clear just how far apart both sides are.

“We are hopeful that this could allow us to fully resume collective bargaining around the other outstanding issues in an effort to reach an agreement,” the alliance statement said.

The union didn’t answer requests for comment on the talks Monday night, but said earlier in the day that the ports had refused demands for a fair contract and the alliance seemed intent on a strike. The two sides had not held formal negotiations since June.

The alliance said its offer tripled employer contributions to retirement plans and strengthened health care options.

During the day Monday, some ports already were preparing for a strike. The Port of Virginia, for instance, was in the process of ceasing operations. It accepted the last inbound train for delivery at 8 a.m., closed its gates to inbound trucks at noon and required ships to leave by 1 p.m. Cargo operations halted at 6 p.m.

“We are handling this just like we would during the ramp up to a possible hurricane,” Joe Harris, the port’s spokesperson, told The Associated Press. “And we will bring it back online just as we would recovering from a hurricane. We have an experienced team. We’ve done this in the past.”

Supply chain experts say consumers won’t see an immediate impact from the strike because most retailers stocked up on goods, moving ahead shipments of holiday gift items.

But if it goes more than a few weeks, a work stoppage would significantly snarl the nation’s supply chain, potentially leading to higher prices and delays in goods reaching households and businesses.

If drawn out, the strike will force businesses to pay shippers for delays and cause some goods to arrive late for peak holiday shopping season — potentially impacting delivery of anything from toys or artificial Christmas trees to cars, coffee and fruit.

The strike will likely have an almost immediate impact on supplies of perishable imports like bananas, for example. The ports affected by the strike handle 3.8 million metric tons of bananas each year, or 75% of the nation’s supply, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

It also could snarl exports from East Coast ports and create traffic jams at ports on the West Coast, where workers are represented by a different union. Railroads say they can ramp up to carry more freight from the West Coast, but analysts say they can’t make up the cargo handled to the east.

“If the strikes go ahead, they will cause enormous delays across the supply chain, a ripple effect which will no doubt roll into 2025 and cause chaos across the industry,” noted Jay Dhokia, founder of supply chain management and logistics firm Pro3PL.

J.P. Morgan estimated that a strike that shuts down East and Gulf coast ports could cost the economy $3.8 billion to $4.5 billion per day, with some of that recovered over time after normal operations resume.

The strike comes just weeks before the presidential election and could become a factor if there are shortages. Retailers, auto parts suppliers and produce importers had hoped for a settlement or that President Joe Biden would intervene and end the strike using the Taft-Hartley Act, which allows him to seek an 80-day cooling off period.

But during an exchange with reporters on Sunday, Biden, who has worked to court union votes for Democrats, said “no” when asked if he planned to intervene in the potential work stoppage.

A White House official said Monday that at Biden’s direction, the administration has been in regular communication with the ILA and the alliance to keep the negotiations moving forward. The president directed Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard to convene the alliance’s board members Monday afternoon and urge them to resolve the dispute fairly and quickly — in a way that accounts for the success of shipping companies in recent years and contributions of union workers.

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Krisher in reported from Detroit. AP Writers Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia, Mae Anderson in New York, Stephen Groves in Dover, Delaware, Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit, and Zeke Miller and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

ANNANDALE, Va. (AP) — As lawmakers voted on a budget deal at the U.S. Capitol, a different kind of balloting was taking place a dozen miles away in a sun-filled Virginia preschool classroom. At stake: which animated dog was the best character on the cartoon “PAW Patrol.”

In a heated primary, the 3-and-4-year-old students in room 14 at the ACCA Child Development Center had narrowed it down to two finalists: Chase, a German shepherd who wears a police uniform, and Skye, who wears a pink “pup pack” and is a favorite among girls in the class. The children cast votes by scrawling their names in crayon beneath pictures of the two characters. By mid-morning, it was a dead heat: five votes to five.

Benejas Abeselome, 4, put his name down for Chase.

“Police take bad guys,” Benejas said. “I wanted police because I like policing.”

It will be years before these youngsters vote in a real election, but ACCA is one of many preschools around the country that have been starting students early on civics education. The goal is nothing short of raising good citizens and strengthening democracy.

At this age, children are not learning about the three branches of government or how a bill becomes a law. Teachers are working with them on how to solve problems with classmates, how to deal with anger or disappointment without being hurtful and how to think about others’ needs. These are lessons, teachers say, that can be difficult to draw from grown-up politicians — especially during a vitriolic campaign season.

“We’re all here to help develop these children to become better citizens … to be better problem-solvers and to be better equipped socially, emotionally,” said Mary Folks, a teacher at the school. “Because once they have a handle on that, I feel like things they accomplish and things they do will have a better impact on this world.”

The most important civics lesson preschools can impart is “social democracy,” said Dan Gartrell, an early education expert. His book on teaching preschoolers about democracy, “Education for a Civil Society,” is used by ACCA and other preschools.

It “starts with appreciating each member of the group as a worthy member and worthy of expressing thoughts and ideas,” Gartrell said. From there, he said, children can learn to treat their peers with kindness, resolve conflicts and negotiate difficult situations without using hurtful words.

Engaging with toddlers in ways that make them feel their voice matters is important groundwork, said Rachel Robertson, the chief academic officer for Bright Horizons, which runs more than 1,000 preschool centers globally and embraces democratic ideals in its early education approach.

Around ages 3 or 4, a child is “starting to be a real community member and contributing to the classroom community and thinking a little bit broader about the world,” Robertson said.

At ACCA, like many preschools, youngsters are given a lot of autonomy. There are hours dedicated to free play. Children get to vote on what they study and eat: A classroom had just finished studying sand because children were curious about it after summer beach trips. And students get to sample apples and vote on which variety the school will order.

It’s all intended to affirm to children that their thoughts are valuable — along with those of their classmates. On this Thursday, they all were thinking about “PAW Patrol.”

In Room 11, 3-year-old Jade, who donned pink sneakers that lit up when she stepped, explained why she was backing Skye.

“I like her helicopter,” Jade said. “I like that she saves everybody.”

In Room 13, teachers created ballots in English and Spanish. When they asked the class who had won the election, one boy confidently piped up: “Me!”

Many of the preschool’s students represent the first generation of their families born in the United States. María-Isabel Ballivian, the preschool’s executive director, said she looks for ways to remind them they are American, even if their families don’t speak English and only recently arrived from other countries. For one, she throws a large Fourth of July gathering.

“If we give them now that sense of belonging, that’s going to be a tool that they will have to become resilient once they face discrimination,” Ballivian said.

Ballivian said many politicians could learn something from coming back to preschool — things like how to weather disappointment and how to think about the well-being of people who are unlike them.

“I don’t see how we can change the adults,” Ballivian said. “But I do know, if we work hard, we can prepare our children for a better future.”

Back in room 14, there was an important development. Another student named Janet had cast her ballot, writing her name under Skye’s photo with a backwards ‘J.’ The students counted the votes aloud. Skye emerged victorious.

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Associated Press journalists Nathan Ellgren and Almaz Abedje contributed to this article.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

LONDON (AP) — Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will make his first public statements since he was released from prison when he addresses the Council of Europe on Tuesday.

Assange, 53, is expected to give evidence to the legal affairs and human rights committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France.

The Parliamentary Assembly, which includes parliamentarians from 46 European countries, said the hearing will discuss Assange’s detention and conviction “and their chilling effect on human rights” ahead of a debate on the topic on Wednesday.

WikiLeaks said in a statement that Assange will attend the hearing in person “due to the exceptional nature of the invitation.”

Assange was released in June after five years in a British prison after he pleaded guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that concluded a drawn-out legal saga. Prior to his time in prison, he had spent seven years in self-imposed exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he claimed asylum on the grounds of political persecution.

The Australian internet publisher was accused of receiving and publishing hundreds of thousands of war logs and diplomatic cables that included details of U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. His activities were celebrated by press freedom advocates, who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed.

Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.

But critics say his conduct put American national security and innocent lives — such as people who provided information to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan — at risk, and strayed far beyond the bounds of traditional journalism duties.

The years-long case ended with Assange entering his plea in a U.S. district court on the Northern Mariana Islands, an American commonwealth in the Pacific.

Assange pleaded guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information. A judge sentenced him to the five years he had already spent behind bars in the U.K. fighting extradition to the United States.

Assange returned to Australia a free man in late June. At the time his wife, Stella, said he needed time to recuperate before speaking publicly.

His appearance on Tuesday comes after the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly published a report on Assange’s detention in a high-security U.K. prison for five years.

The assembly’s human rights committee said Assange qualified as a political prisoner and issued a draft resolution expressing deep concern at his harsh treatment.

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