ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, has died. He was 100 years old. The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care , at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023 , spent most of their lives, The Carter Center said. “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the center said in posting about his death on the social media platform X. It added in a statement that he died peacefully, surrounded by his family. Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world — Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s. “My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Carter once said. A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia. “If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, who had lost popularity pardoning Nixon. Carter governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over racism, women’s rights and America’s global role. His most acclaimed achievement in office was a Mideast peace deal that he brokered by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the bargaining table for 13 days in 1978. That Camp David experience inspired the post-presidential center where Carter would establish so much of his legacy. Yet Carter’s electoral coalition splintered under double-digit inflation, gasoline lines and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His bleakest hour came when eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan. Carter acknowledged in his 2020 “White House Diary” that he could be “micromanaging” and “excessively autocratic,” complicating dealings with Congress and the federal bureaucracy. He also turned a cold shoulder to Washington’s news media and lobbyists, not fully appreciating their influence on his political fortunes. “It didn’t take us long to realize that the underestimation existed, but by that time we were not able to repair the mistake,” Carter told historians in 1982, suggesting that he had “an inherent incompatibility” with Washington insiders. Carter insisted his overall approach was sound and that he achieved his primary objectives — to “protect our nation’s security and interests peacefully” and “enhance human rights here and abroad” — even if he fell spectacularly short of a second term. Ignominious defeat, though, allowed for renewal. The Carters founded The Carter Center in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind base of operations, asserting themselves as international peacemakers and champions of democracy, public health and human rights. “I was not interested in just building a museum or storing my White House records and memorabilia,” Carter wrote in a memoir published after his 90th birthday. “I wanted a place where we could work.” That work included easing nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, helping to avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti and negotiating cease-fires in Bosnia and Sudan. By 2022, The Carter Center had declared at least 113 elections in Latin America, Asia and Africa to be free or fraudulent. Recently, the center began monitoring U.S. elections as well. Carter’s stubborn self-assuredness and even self-righteousness proved effective once he was unencumbered by the Washington order, sometimes to the point of frustrating his successors . He went “where others are not treading,” he said, to places like Ethiopia, Liberia and North Korea, where he secured the release of an American who had wandered across the border in 2010. “I can say what I like. I can meet whom I want. I can take on projects that please me and reject the ones that don’t,” Carter said. He announced an arms-reduction-for-aid deal with North Korea without clearing the details with Bill Clinton’s White House. He openly criticized President George W. Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also criticized America’s approach to Israel with his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” And he repeatedly countered U.S. administrations by insisting North Korea should be included in international affairs, a position that most aligned Carter with Republican President Donald Trump. Among the center’s many public health initiatives, Carter vowed to eradicate the guinea worm parasite during his lifetime, and nearly achieved it: Cases dropped from millions in the 1980s to nearly a handful. With hardhats and hammers, the Carters also built homes with Habitat for Humanity. The Nobel committee’s 2002 Peace Prize cites his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” Carter should have won it alongside Sadat and Begin in 1978, the chairman added. Carter accepted the recognition saying there was more work to be done. “The world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place,” he said. “The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect.” Carter’s globetrotting took him to remote villages where he met little “Jimmy Carters,” so named by admiring parents. But he spent most of his days in the same one-story Plains house — expanded and guarded by Secret Service agents — where they lived before he became governor. He regularly taught Sunday School lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church until his mobility declined and the coronavirus pandemic raged. Those sessions drew visitors from around the world to the small sanctuary where Carter will receive his final send-off after a state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral. The common assessment that he was a better ex-president than president rankled Carter and his allies. His prolific post-presidency gave him a brand above politics, particularly for Americans too young to witness him in office. But Carter also lived long enough to see biographers and historians reassess his White House years more generously. His record includes the deregulation of key industries, reduction of U.S. dependence on foreign oil, cautious management of the national debt and notable legislation on the environment, education and mental health. He focused on human rights in foreign policy, pressuring dictators to release thousands of political prisoners . He acknowledged America’s historical imperialism, pardoned Vietnam War draft evaders and relinquished control of the Panama Canal. He normalized relations with China. “I am not nominating Jimmy Carter for a place on Mount Rushmore,” Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s domestic policy director, wrote in a 2018 book. “He was not a great president” but also not the “hapless and weak” caricature voters rejected in 1980, Eizenstat said. Rather, Carter was “good and productive” and “delivered results, many of which were realized only after he left office.” Madeleine Albright, a national security staffer for Carter and Clinton’s secretary of state, wrote in Eizenstat’s forward that Carter was “consequential and successful” and expressed hope that “perceptions will continue to evolve” about his presidency. “Our country was lucky to have him as our leader,” said Albright, who died in 2022. Jonathan Alter, who penned a comprehensive Carter biography published in 2020, said in an interview that Carter should be remembered for “an epic American life” spanning from a humble start in a home with no electricity or indoor plumbing through decades on the world stage across two centuries. “He will likely go down as one of the most misunderstood and underestimated figures in American history,” Alter told The Associated Press. James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains and spent his early years in nearby Archery. His family was a minority in the mostly Black community, decades before the civil rights movement played out at the dawn of Carter’s political career. Carter, who campaigned as a moderate on race relations but governed more progressively, talked often of the influence of his Black caregivers and playmates but also noted his advantages: His land-owning father sat atop Archery’s tenant-farming system and owned a main street grocery. His mother, Lillian , would become a staple of his political campaigns. Seeking to broaden his world beyond Plains and its population of fewer than 1,000 — then and now — Carter won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. That same year he married Rosalynn Smith, another Plains native, a decision he considered more important than any he made as head of state. She shared his desire to see the world, sacrificing college to support his Navy career. Carter climbed in rank to lieutenant, but then his father was diagnosed with cancer, so the submarine officer set aside his ambitions of admiralty and moved the family back to Plains. His decision angered Rosalynn, even as she dived into the peanut business alongside her husband. Carter again failed to talk with his wife before his first run for office — he later called it “inconceivable” not to have consulted her on such major life decisions — but this time, she was on board. “My wife is much more political,” Carter told the AP in 2021. He won a state Senate seat in 1962 but wasn’t long for the General Assembly and its back-slapping, deal-cutting ways. He ran for governor in 1966 — losing to arch-segregationist Lester Maddox — and then immediately focused on the next campaign. Carter had spoken out against church segregation as a Baptist deacon and opposed racist “Dixiecrats” as a state senator. Yet as a local school board leader in the 1950s he had not pushed to end school segregation even after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, despite his private support for integration. And in 1970, Carter ran for governor again as the more conservative Democrat against Carl Sanders, a wealthy businessman Carter mocked as “Cufflinks Carl.” Sanders never forgave him for anonymous, race-baiting flyers, which Carter disavowed. Ultimately, Carter won his races by attracting both Black voters and culturally conservative whites. Once in office, he was more direct. “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over,” he declared in his 1971 inaugural address, setting a new standard for Southern governors that landed him on the cover of Time magazine. His statehouse initiatives included environmental protection, boosting rural education and overhauling antiquated executive branch structures. He proclaimed Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the slain civil rights leader’s home state. And he decided, as he received presidential candidates in 1972, that they were no more talented than he was. In 1974, he ran Democrats’ national campaign arm. Then he declared his own candidacy for 1976. An Atlanta newspaper responded with the headline: “Jimmy Who?” The Carters and a “Peanut Brigade” of family members and Georgia supporters camped out in Iowa and New Hampshire, establishing both states as presidential proving grounds. His first Senate endorsement: a young first-termer from Delaware named Joe Biden. Yet it was Carter’s ability to navigate America’s complex racial and rural politics that cemented the nomination. He swept the Deep South that November, the last Democrat to do so, as many white Southerners shifted to Republicans in response to civil rights initiatives. A self-declared “born-again Christian,” Carter drew snickers by referring to Scripture in a Playboy magazine interview, saying he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” The remarks gave Ford a new foothold and television comedians pounced — including NBC’s new “Saturday Night Live” show. But voters weary of cynicism in politics found it endearing. Carter chose Minnesota Sen. Walter “Fritz” Mondale as his running mate on a “Grits and Fritz” ticket. In office, he elevated the vice presidency and the first lady’s office. Mondale’s governing partnership was a model for influential successors Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Biden. Rosalynn Carter was one of the most involved presidential spouses in history, welcomed into Cabinet meetings and huddles with lawmakers and top aides. The Carters presided with uncommon informality: He used his nickname “Jimmy” even when taking the oath of office, carried his own luggage and tried to silence the Marine Band’s “Hail to the Chief.” They bought their clothes off the rack. Carter wore a cardigan for a White House address, urging Americans to conserve energy by turning down their thermostats. Amy, the youngest of four children, attended District of Columbia public school. Washington’s social and media elite scorned their style. But the larger concern was that “he hated politics,” according to Eizenstat, leaving him nowhere to turn politically once economic turmoil and foreign policy challenges took their toll. Carter partially deregulated the airline, railroad and trucking industries and established the departments of Education and Energy, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He designated millions of acres of Alaska as national parks or wildlife refuges. He appointed a then-record number of women and nonwhite people to federal posts. He never had a Supreme Court nomination, but he elevated civil rights attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the nation’s second highest court, positioning her for a promotion in 1993. He appointed Paul Volker, the Federal Reserve chairman whose policies would help the economy boom in the 1980s — after Carter left office. He built on Nixon’s opening with China, and though he tolerated autocrats in Asia, pushed Latin America from dictatorships to democracy. But he couldn’t immediately tame inflation or the related energy crisis. And then came Iran. After he admitted the exiled Shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979 by followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Negotiations to free the hostages broke down repeatedly ahead of the failed rescue attempt. The same year, Carter signed SALT II, the new strategic arms treaty with Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, only to pull it back, impose trade sanctions and order a U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Hoping to instill optimism, he delivered what the media dubbed his “malaise” speech, although he didn’t use that word. He declared the nation was suffering “a crisis of confidence.” By then, many Americans had lost confidence in the president, not themselves. Carter campaigned sparingly for reelection because of the hostage crisis, instead sending Rosalynn as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy challenged him for the Democratic nomination. Carter famously said he’d “kick his ass,” but was hobbled by Kennedy as Reagan rallied a broad coalition with “make America great again” appeals and asking voters whether they were “better off than you were four years ago.” Reagan further capitalized on Carter’s lecturing tone, eviscerating him in their lone fall debate with the quip: “There you go again.” Carter lost all but six states and Republicans rolled to a new Senate majority. Carter successfully negotiated the hostages’ freedom after the election, but in one final, bitter turn of events, Tehran waited until hours after Carter left office to let them walk free. At 56, Carter returned to Georgia with “no idea what I would do with the rest of my life.” Four decades after launching The Carter Center, he still talked of unfinished business. “I thought when we got into politics we would have resolved everything,” Carter told the AP in 2021. “But it’s turned out to be much more long-lasting and insidious than I had thought it was. I think in general, the world itself is much more divided than in previous years.” Still, he affirmed what he said when he underwent treatment for a cancer diagnosis in his 10th decade of life. “I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said in 2015 . “I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.” Former Associated Press journalist Alex Sanz contributed to this report.CHICAGO — With a wave of her bangled brown fingertips to the melody of flutes and chimes, artist, theologian and academic Tricia Hersey enchanted a crowd into a dreamlike state of rest at Semicolon Books on North Michigan Avenue. “The systems can’t have you,” Hersey said into the microphone, reading mantras while leading the crowd in a group daydreaming exercise on a recent Tuesday night. The South Side native tackles many of society’s ills — racism, patriarchy, aggressive capitalism and ableism — through an undervalued yet impactful action: rest. Hersey, the founder of a movement called the Nap Ministry, dubs herself the Nap Bishop and spreads her message to over half a million followers on her Instagram account, @thenapministry . Her first book, “Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto,” became a New York Times bestseller in 2022, but Hersey has been talking about rest online and through her art for nearly a decade. Hersey, who has degrees in public health and divinity, originated the “rest as resistance” and “rest as reparations” frameworks after experimenting with rest as an exhausted graduate student in seminary. Once she started napping, she felt happier and her grades improved. But she also felt more connected to her ancestors; her work was informed by the cultural trauma of slavery that she was studying as an archivist. Hersey described the transformation as “life-changing.” The Nap Ministry began as performance art in 2017, with a small installation where 40 people joined Hersey in a collective nap. Since then, her message has morphed into multiple mediums and forms. Hersey, who now lives in Atlanta, has hosted over 100 collective naps, given lectures and facilitated meditations across the country. She’s even led a rest ritual in the bedroom of Jane Addams , and encourages her followers to dial in at her “Rest Hotline.” At Semicolon, some of those followers and newcomers came out to see Hersey in discussion with journalist Natalie Moore on Hersey’s latest book, “We Will Rest! The Art of Escape,” released this month, and to learn what it means to take a moment to rest in community. Moore recalled a time when she was trying to get ahead of chores on a weeknight. “I was like, ‘If I do this, then I’ll have less to do tomorrow.’ But then I was really tired,” Moore said. “I thought, ‘What would my Nap Bishop say? She would say go lay down.’ Tricia is in my head a lot.” At the event, Al Kelly, 33, of Rogers Park, said some of those seated in the crowd of mostly Black women woke up in tears — possibly because, for the first time, someone permitted them to rest. “It was so emotional and allowed me to think creatively about things that I want to work on and achieve,” Kelly said. Shortly after the program, Juliette Viassy, 33, a program manager who lives in the South Loop and is new to Hersey’s work, said this was her first time meditating after never being able to do it on her own. Therapist Lyndsei Howze, 33, of Printers Row, who was also seated at the book talk, said she recommends Hersey’s work “to everybody who will listen” — from her clients to her own friends. “A lot of mental health conditions come from lack of rest,” she said. “They come from exhaustion.” Before discovering Hersey’s work this spring, Howze said she and her friends sporadically napped together in one friend’s apartment after an exhausting workweek. “It felt so good just to rest in community,” she said. On Hersey’s book tour, she is leading exercises like this across the country. “I think we need to collectively do this,” Hersey explained. “We need to learn again how to daydream because we’ve been told not to do it. I don’t think most people even have a daydreaming practice.” Daydreaming, Hersey said, allows people to imagine a new world. Hersey tells her followers that yes, you can rest, even when your agenda is packed, even between caregiving, commuting, jobs, bills, emails and other daily demands. And you don’t have to do it alone. There is a community of escape artists, she said of the people who opt out of grind and hustle culture, waiting to embrace you. The book is part pocket prayer book, part instruction manual, with art and handmade typography by San Francisco-based artist George McCalman inspired by 19th-century abolitionist pamphlets, urging readers to reclaim their divine right to rest. Hersey directs her readers like an operative with instructions for a classified mission. “Let grind culture know you are not playing around,” she wrote in her book. “This is not a game or time to shrink. Your thriving depends on the art of escape.” The reluctance to rest can be rooted in capitalist culture presenting rest as a reward for productivity instead of a physical and mental necessity. Hersey deconstructs this idea of grind culture, which she says is rooted in the combined effects of white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism that “look at the body as not human.” American culture encourages grind culture, Hersey said, but slowing down and building a ritual of rest can offset its toxicity. The author eschews the ballooning billion-dollar self-care industry that encourages people to “save enough money and time off from work to fly away to an expensive retreat,” she wrote. Instead, she says rest can happen anywhere you have a place to be comfortable: in nature, on a yoga mat, in the car between shifts, on a cozy couch after work. Resting isn’t just napping either. She praises long showers, sipping warm tea, playing music, praying or numerous other relaxing activities that slow down the body. “We’re in a crisis mode of deep sleep deprivation, deep lack of self-worth, (and) mental health,” said Hersey. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2022 , in Illinois about 37% of adults aren’t getting the rest they need at night. If ignored, the effects of sleep deprivation can have bigger implications later, Hersey said. In October, she lectured at a sleep conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, where her humanities work was featured alongside research from the world’s top neuroscientists. Jennifer Mundt, a Northwestern clinician and professor of sleep medicine, psychiatry and behavioral sciences, praises Hersey for bringing the issue of sleep and rest to the public. In a Tribune op-ed last year, Mundt argued that our culture focuses too heavily on sleep as something that must be earned rather than a vital aspect of health and that linking sleep to productivity is harmful and stigmatizing. “Linking sleep and productivity is harmful because it overshadows the bevy of other reasons to prioritize sleep as an essential component of health,” Mundt wrote. “It also stigmatizes groups that are affected by sleep disparities and certain chronic sleep disorders.” In a 30-year longitudinal study released in the spring by the New York University School of Social Work, people who worked long hours and late shifts reported the lowest sleep quality and lowest physical and mental functions, and the highest likelihood of reporting poor health and depression at age 50. The study also showed that Black men and women with limited education “were more likely than others to shoulder the harmful links between nonstandard work schedules and sleep and health, worsening their probability of maintaining and nurturing their health as they approach middle adulthood.” The CDC links sleeping fewer than seven hours a day to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and more. Although the Nap Ministry movement is new for her followers, Hersey’s written about her family’s practice of prioritizing rest, which informs her work. Her dad was a community organizer, a yardmaster for the Union Pacific Railroad Co. and an assistant pastor. Before long hours of work, he would dedicate hours each day to self-care. Hersey also grew up observing her grandma meditate for 30 minutes daily. Through rest, Hersey said she honors her ancestors who were enslaved and confronts generational trauma. When “Rest Is Resistance” was released in 2022, Americans were navigating a pandemic and conversations on glaring racial disparities. “We Will Rest!” comes on the heels of a historic presidential election where Black women fundraised for Vice President Kamala Harris and registered voters in a dizzying three-month campaign. Following Harris’ defeat, many of those women are finding self-care and preservation even more important. “There are a lot of Black women announcing how exhausted they are,” Moore said. “This could be their entry point to get to know (Hersey’s) work, which is bigger than whatever political wind is blowing right now.” Hersey said Chicagoans can meet kindred spirits in her environment of rest. Haji Healing Salon, a wellness center, and the social justice-focused Free Street Theater are sites where Hersey honed her craft and found community. In the fall, the theater put on “Rest/Reposo,” a performance featuring a community naptime outdoors in McKinley Park and in its Back of the Yards space. Haji is also an apothecary and hosts community healing activities, sound meditations and yoga classes. “It is in Bronzeville; it’s a beautiful space owned by my friend Aya,” Hersey said, explaining how her community has helped her build the Nap Ministry. “When I first started the Nap Ministry, before I was even understanding what it was, she was like, come do your work here.” “We Will Rest!” is a collection of poems, drawings and short passages. In contrast to her first book, Hersey said she leaned more into her artistic background; the art process alone took 18 months to complete. After a tough year for many, she considers it medicine for a “sick and exhausted” world. “It’s its own sacred document,” Hersey said. “It’s something that, if you have it in your library and you have it with you, you may feel more human.” lazu@chicagotribune.com
WHIPPANY, N.J. , Nov. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Suburban Propane Partners, L.P. (NYSE:SPH), today announced that it has filed its Annual Report on Form 10-K for its fiscal year ended September 28, 2024 with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). A link to the fiscal 2024 Annual Report on Form 10-K, as filed with the SEC, is available on the Partnership's website at www.suburbanpropane.com . Upon written request, the Partnership will provide to any unitholder or noteholder, without charge, a hard copy of its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 28, 2024 . Requests should be directed to: Suburban Propane Partners, L.P., Investor Relations, P.O. Box 206, Whippany, New Jersey 07981-0206. About Suburban Propane Partners, L.P. Suburban Propane Partners, L.P. ("Suburban Propane") is a publicly traded master limited partnership listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Headquartered in Whippany, New Jersey , Suburban Propane has been in the customer service business since 1928 and is a nationwide distributor of propane, renewable propane, renewable natural gas ("RNG"), fuel oil and related products and services, as well as a marketer of natural gas and electricity and producer of and investor in low carbon fuel alternatives, servicing the energy needs of approximately 1 million residential, commercial, governmental, industrial and agricultural customers through approximately 700 locations across 42 states. Suburban Propane is supported by three core pillars: (1) Suburban Commitment – showcasing Suburban Propane's over 95-year legacy, and ongoing commitment to the highest standards for dependability, flexibility, and reliability that underscores Suburban Propane's commitment to excellence in customer service; (2) SuburbanCares – highlighting continued dedication to giving back to local communities across Suburban Propane's national footprint; and (3) Go Green with Suburban Propane – promoting the clean burning and versatile nature of propane and renewable propane as a bridge to a green energy future and investing in the next generation of innovative, renewable energy alternatives. For additional information on Suburban Propane, please visit www.suburbanpropane.com . View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/suburban-propane-partners-lp-annual-report-available-online-302317708.html SOURCE Suburban Propane Partners, L.P.NDP will not support Liberal GST holiday bill unless rebate expanded: Singh
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