jobs or seen a significant decrease in their incomes. the federal reserve is warning that inflation wont be stopping any time soon and we should be expecting rising prices for at least the next few months. food banks across the country have never been busier. hit with demand from desperate americans who are hit by the double whammy of rising prices amid a supply chain crisis. i would say that in our county specifically, we've seen a dramatic increase in food insecurity. we've had to make a lot of really tough choices. and so one of the things that we're always trying to reiterates is that we're still in the midst of a disaster. meanwhile, the specter of rising taxes hangs over many americans biden promises that he will only raise taxes on the altar wealthy. however, the tax policy center says that many middle class households could be effective. republicans say that biden's build back better plan for increasing spending will make things worse, joe biden, and comma le harris and the rest of the administration. they don't care,

they want you not to be able to fulfill up gas in your car. they want your electricity bill to be higher. they want your heating bill to be higher. of course it doesn't impact them. according to a recent poll, 70 percent of americans are dismayed by the current economic situation, while 50 percent blame biden for soaring inflation. not surprisingly, biden's, popularity has taken a knock. now 51 percent of voters say they favor the g o. p. giving republicans the highest lead facing the mid term in decades. biden promised to rescue the country from a crisis that he blamed on donald trump. however, over the past few months, things don't really seem to have improved with the country financially squeezed. this could mean a big turn around when it comes to the mid terms kayla martin, r t new york. and that's how are the weekly looking so far today here in our scenes national, we'll have more stories for you at the top. ah

and people it's no thing. they can't ride on police reports and all kathleen in december 2020 a group of anti fascist. fill out a film crew access for 3 months. i feel like if people organization, if an idea that fascism must be opposed to channel out the game while they may kill that. but he says, but they can say what they believe in. we believe in helping our community. we believe that fascism is one of the major threats to the united states as gotten reuben, this is a chance to see who and t for really are in order for me to extract my 1st amendment right and say that my life matter have to be on to the teacher, that's how america we can't trust the police. we can't trust the government. we can't trust anyone except ourselves to protect ourselves in.

i 1st heard about hard island when i was working on a story about a formerly homeless man. he had lived in the tunnels underneath penn station. i think there was a photographer who photographed his little,

the little house he had made himself there. and because of her work, he had been rescued. he'd been given a home and that he'd been found dead in that home. and he was going to go to heart island. and it was, there was such a sadness at the idea that this man who had finally achieved a home of his own was going to be dispossessed. it was going to be one of the multitude in these anonymous graves. mm. mm. i'm a new yorker and i believe that new york is more than you know, the old idea of the city on the hill new york is really what america is a mountain. and there is a tragedy inherent to in

a big metropolis. there are all the stories of the chance has gone by mistakes or the bad childhood, bad choices or just bad luck. and that's something that any great metropolis contends was me. but there's something more here that you could have a loving family, a career money set aside. and you could still end up in a mass grave on an island, off limits to the public buried by inmates paid $0.50 an hour. oh,

i me. ah when rises in from the sound carrying the clang of the bell bowing nearby, sidney island tolling its fitful warning, ah all around is desolate and sad. no kind hand to decorate these graves with croaking of love and remembrance. i

am even a headstone to show where in turn was once a human b i oh, my baby was already sick, so i already knew that there was a 5050 chance of him living or diane gave birth to him. i didn't have the financial to be able to bury him and stuff. so the hospital gave me a week for me to collect the money. i went to the

welfare day after day, day after day the entire week that i was given. and they said no good. and at that point i didn't know my real mother. i didn't know my real family . so i was like, i really don't have nobody. i was alone now here. living actually literally alone. i can be ungrateful because me living on the public assistance. new york city has been helping my children a lot. but when it comes to my son, they fell to me completely because i put all my trust on them. i put my child's body in their hands to bury him. you know,

is not the way i wanted, but i figure, at least he's gonna be buried. he'll be apiece. but he's, he was in, [000:00:00;00] ah, with one heart island is open, new york is on the cusp of yet another enormous rush of growth. the city's population basically doubled every 20 years. ah, new york city is the commercial capital of america. is the center which publishing industry, ah, it's the center of fashion. and, of course,

next to the glitz next to the glamour. next to the mansions being built by 80 steward of the vanderbilt's, you have the reality of the 5 points. the slums at the very, very difficult lives live by most new yorkers. that is to say, the working class and poor new york is forced to create a whole series of institutions to deal with the realities of tens of thousands of immigrants coming into the city. continually. there was a sense, i think that these people needed to be separated out that the people were not comfortable seeing the insane seeing the pauper, seeing an elderly alcoholics on the streets of new york. mm hm. any of these institutions, prisons, lunatic asylums, hospitals, all, were erected, created outside manhattan, on these islands in the east river. there was

well fair island. there were the quarantine islands and of course, ellis island. and these were all various processing stations. part island was the terminal island in 18. 90 s. early 19 hundreds. every spring of the police department would have to fish out scores and scores of bodies that float to the surface in the harbor or in the rivers. what do you do with these bodies? mostly, lo, totally anonymous. these folks went to hard island. this is a place that new york has to have up to service the reality of death. mm. i think new yorkers understand that there are always going to be inequalities in the city, huge inequalities and they are very sharp focus,

but in death were equal. we all die alone in, in today's world you have so many families who are a stranger or just lost to each other by distance, by misfortune. ah. and yet to know that someone you once loved or that you hoped loved you is buried in a mass grave on hard island that resonates forever. blue .

got married in 8982. and i get married at my sister's house because i never wanted a big wedding. i'm never the one to be in front of it. you know, where address and have all these people that, you know, sometimes you don't even know half of them. why would you want them? they're joining, but there were a lot of great times with, with bruce in the line. mm. when he started by spiraling down, that was in 84. we moved right next to a bar called lady. we used to go to lady else on on friday nights, got a baby sitter for kimberly. and he started hanging out with the lighted different people and started drinking heavily in the bar was right next door, which is not the greatest thing. didn't think that anything of it when we moved to the house. but it, it happened and i remember back of bottles being under the bed hit in, you know, so,

and then they would argue constantly. so i just remember my childhood, not a wonderful. mm. you know, i think that he hurt his back at work and he got addicted to pain medication. and then cocaine than alcohol. and he just spiraled down. hell. mm. ah, you would always enter my conscience. i always wonder if he is he ok, what is he doing? is he living on the streets? even when i would go to manhattan when i was younger, i would always wonder if thou is him. you know, i'd always wanna give money to those people cuz i felt like that was my dad. like i hoped switch. people don't hope that he was either in the hospital or in jail where i would get that one moment that he was sober. and i never got it. and the fact that he was in a hospital and nobody contacted any family members and then hit his body for 3 years is crazy.

ah oh, there's a patch of water around the try, a seal island that's in contention between canada and the united states, where the government has suddenly become optimal for lobster. our populations years exploded. one of the most valuable fisheries that's ever existed. suddenly you had made an canadian fisherman in these waters. at the same time jousting for position and attentions are high. violence is bound to happen. this is the last land border dispute between canada and the united states. it could be magnified to the point where there could be costs that would be significant to both countries. quarter dispute don't go away. they just ask,

or something's going to happen with ah ah ah ah

ah ah. so in the world to day, everyone knows america as the land of freedom and opportunity because you see me in front of you now. but prior to seeing me here, you didn't know of me except for one day. he is less than a man. he is not america, he is the slave that built america for this is the too soon of every man and woman of color. now we, at the point, when we stumble upon

a part of history that do encounter us as a people of color of honor, of respect, ah ha. and rack. as allan, at the time of 1860 was being conversed, and to champ astor me there was, must, in, over 200000. so just come in, america was not america at that time. it was better see in the south

noon up in the north and what brought us together was the civil war wasn't for these men, we will not be free today. if it wasn't for those united states scholar troops, we will not be as proud as we are today. mm. mm. united states college hoops. we're definitely going that out. and there still are certain little indications that there are so few bodies that still remain. mm. and it us knocking at the door who is there to open it, a correctional, depart on city agency. and what happened more recently was the department of welfare pulled out of hart island and left the department of corrections in charge of these barrels.

so it used to be that there was a dead house at the end of 26th street and a dock. and in the dead house, the bodies which were unclaimed were put in these boxes and then put on to a boat. there were 2 steam ships, one was called hope and the other was called fidelity. mm mm. both backs up to the dead house and takes the coffins with their ghastly freight. and they are shoved rudely down. a slide like is merchandise. and as they strike the dagger, we hear the thud of the body in its rude receptacle. businesses good to day. the sharon of the stick says, as we count the coffins,

heaped up promiscuously. we think so too. we steam away and soon touched blackwell's island. oh, dear, the bodies of those who died of smallpox and other contagious diseases are taken on board charity hospital is also visited and contributes its quota. the coffins are bundled out to men who cart them away into a field, handling them as rudely as baggage masters trucks at a depot. trenches are about 15 feet deep and 6 feet wide. the coffins are piled up like wood and corridor fuel and cold pit. 13 d as soon as the coffin is placed at the bottom of the trench, a barrow, a dirge thrown over it, and another coffin placed above children's coffins or chucked in at the feet of the others and helped to form

a solid mass. the foot of earth is then thrown upon the upper one until the work is completed. thus all nationalities rest close together. the murderer is a close companion of the thief and the suicide has just beneath the popper. there is no aristocracy with her i 1st heard of hart, i led into a problem, a physician who was at harlem hospital. and she was talking about infants that were born addicted to crack.

and that they were buried in shoe boxes a 1000 at a time on hard island. and at that time, hard island was open to journalists and to academics. and so i decided that i was just going to get there. and it just so happened that that day was the very 1st day that these inmates had ever been on hard athletics. and these were a young man convicted of misdemeanors like turnstile jumping graffiti. so you know, they're not felons or anything like that. they're young men that couldn't afford a good lawyer. or i used to live in ringo that was one of the bad neighborhoods about about

a return only brooklyn new york city in who's crazy in 89. it was cracked and stuff like that. and we used to, so we'd in drugs and stuff like done in our one of getting caught with possession and i wouldn't have going on right on him for a little bit of time in those days it was, it was a, do you get anything you get a knife robe, anything these one great, one term there guy had a gun in there. it was like like, like gladiator school every day. so when i got short, short means are you going home? you don't have a lot of time left in your servant. they gave me a job in the house, ireland. ah, ah, do you know the shackles on you did? he did a little boss and didn't take you on a boat. i'm a little scared. could i'm in hand cos. i'm on the boat to get the boat is going to go down. i think the worries or whatever. and they take you to hard. charlene and i

still didn't know that hodge. i was protest. feel. i heard a policy in the movies and stuff like that, but i didn't. i didn't even know what, what he meant. and there's only 2 offices, no french, no, nothing. and they will just smell. i don't know what the snow was. so the next morning is raining and they told you we're going to go, we're going to go to work in we will just be home, but it was great. and then they will have mass graves, we would in boxes, and we're going to move them to put more boxes in there. and the people, though, there are john doe's or people that nobody wants to pay for people who get lost in the system. the difficulty in government, especially when you are the mayor and you are managing a very large city,

the priorities of the public take shape and become the most important issue addressed and not many people bring hard island to elected officials, attention is out of sight and out of mind to so many new yorkers, people just don't care that much unless they have a personal connection. o h a forgotten and you has, you know, a situation you couldn't make up in which you have the poor and forgotten people who are alive and are in jail who are bearing the poor and forgotten people who are dead.

ah ah, we'll sing high levels, one certain keep creeping in economic life and i think we're all aware of the disruption of global supply chains with spike in the cost of energy. we're seeing a reappearance of inflation and i think all of these constitute on the economy. scroll down to sign risks, which could mean the to weather is still ahead of us despite the moderation of the severity of the timing juice crisis. join me every thursday on the alex simon. sure. i'll be speaking to guess in the world of politics. sport, business,

i'm show business. i'll see you then. ah, ah. protests in europe, the titans coded restrictions with violence erupting in the netherlands from d'orsay. vienna. on the we can decide what we discussed, the issue with a panel of guess. my response to the politicians is where well, you, why your case number's was slightly high, high pi a still as we get used one set of new role with a new policy. something else comes out there was a lot of let the politicians do what they want. they didn't follow some of the mandates they weren't wearing mass. i mean while in the