BOSTON -- A new online campaign called #WeavingCommunity aims to confront the social crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Their website, weaving.us, gives tips on ways to connect and to show folks care about their communities. Pearce Godwin, co-director of the Listen First Project and the National Conversation Project, said the third pillar of the campaign is called "create."

"We're asking all Americans to create that world that they want on the other side of this pandemic," Godwin said. "Not the world we had before. Not returning to the same normal but creating a world that indeed is better."

The campaign aims to help the country learn from this pandemic, use this time to heal our divisions and create the social connection that democracy needs to thrive after the crisis. The site showcases online spaces that facilitate connection - such as Listen First Project and the Aspen Institute's Weave: The Social Fabric Project.

Dr. Anne Fishel, director of the family and couples therapy program at Mass General and associate professor of psychology at the Harvard Medical School, is also executive director of the Family Dinner Project. She said the stay-at-home order could have a silver lining if more kids get to have a nightly meal with their families.

"They have better vocabularies, they do better in schools, they are healthier, have lower rates of obesity, depression and anxiety, substance abuse and eating disorders," Fishel said. "So there's lots that can be gained by regular family dinners."

The Family Dinner Project has posted a virtual dinner guide - with games and conversation starters that will help family and friends use videoconferencing to reconnect during the lockdown. People can participate in the campaign by posting their COVID-19 experiences on social media using #weavingcommunity.


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COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- A last-minute change to a Maryland county's redistricting map is throwing a wrench into a restorative justice process, which aims to compensate a once-thriving Black community destroyed by urban renewal.

Maxine Gross, chair of the Lakeland Community Heritage Project, which is preserving the town's legacy, said the community in Prince George's County's College Park was mostly bulldozed in 1975 during a federal urban renewal project.

She explained a truth and reconciliation process for the town began last year after racial protests following George Floyd's killing, which involved educating her district and its county representatives on Lakeland's past, and pointed out the amended redistricting map means Lakeland will be in a new district with a new representative unfamiliar with Lakeland's history and current work.

"These new people won't know that story," Gross contended. "They won't care about the fact that we're working now to bring about restorative justice. So to change the makeup of the people who are our fellow voters and who are our leaders just puts us back."

A public hearing will be held Nov. 16 to get community feedback on the proposed map. The council will then decide to either accept the alternative map or move forward without changes.

Gross thinks Lakeland's voice will be diluted in the new district, which includes much more populous areas such as Beltsville, with different priorities. She emphasized if the amended map goes through, she will have to start all over again with the restorative-justice process to gain a new council member's ear.

"Now that we have gained some traction in that, rather than a particular leader that is concerned with Lakeland, we would have more than one individual where Lakeland would only be a very small portion of their concern," Gross worried.

She added Lakeland would join a handful of other small cities, such as Asheville, North Carolina, in seeking restorative justice for urban renewal projects. More than 300,000 families across the nation were displaced by urban renewal between 1955 and 1966, the majority of them people of color, according to the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab.

HELENA, Mont. - Republican lawmakers in Montana want to investigate the 2020 election. Some are concerned this could weaken trust in voting.

In a letter to legislative leaders, 86 of 98 state Republican lawmakers called for a special committee to examine the security of last year's election. It comes amidst a wave of Republican lawmakers across the country calling for audits of elections, which former President Donald Trump lost.

Jim Elliott is a rancher and a former Democratic state representative and state senator. He said he believes the calls are undermining democracy.

"The detrimental effect of questioning the elections, I think, is to turn Republican voters off," said Elliott. "Stop saying that their vote doesn't count."

Montana Republicans' quest to investigate the 2020 election began with allegations of fraud in Democratic-leaning Missoula County.

None of the claims have been substantiated, but became part of a push to pass several laws that Republicans say tighten security around elections. The laws include an end to election-day voter registration and changes to voter ID requirements.

Susannah Goodman is director of election security with Common Cause. She said she's concerned partisan calls for investigating and auditing the 2020 results are undermining confidence in county election officials.

She called claims elections weren't secure very concerning.

"They're not being done by election administration experts and some of them are being done very badly," said Goodman. "And we need to continue to push back on that because it can do real damage going forward."

In Arizona, state Senate Republicans initiated an audit of results for the presidency in Maricopa County conducted by private firms, led by a company from Florida. A report from auditors found no evidence of fraud and actually increased the margin of victory by which Joe Biden won the county.

Support for this reporting was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

ERIE, Pa. -- The Keystone State is seeing several barrier-breaking progressive candidates running for office in unexpected places: rural Pennsylvania.

The trend of progressive Democrats running for office is not unique to Pennsylvania. It has been increasing since the 2016 election, everywhere from Maine to Virginia to Iowa.

Tyler Titus is running for Erie County Executive. A victory would mean Titus would be the first openly transgender county executive in the country. Titus tells of experiencing rural generational poverty firsthand, growing up in a small-town southeast of Erie, and said poverty solutions need a holistic and progressive approach, whether in urban or rural America.

"When you talk on progressive values that center around people and not just profit, you can win in purple spaces, you can win in red spaces," Titus asserted. "And I think that we see a momentum shifting. And that's exciting, and it shows that I really think that the U.S. is at a time of reckoning."

Titus is running against Republican Brenton Davis, a small-business owner and military veteran, in the Nov. 2 election.

The small Rust Belt city of Beaver Falls, northwest of Pittsburgh, may elect its first Black woman mayor next week.

Kenya Johns is a lifelong resident of Beaver Falls who defeated Democrat incumbent George Quay in May and currently is unopposed in the November election. Johns said her success speaks to the importance of uplifting voices reflective of the communities they represent.

"It's going to show that although we talk about needing diversity, equity and inclusion, we're at a space now where we can't just talk about it," Johns contended. "We need to be able to put people in that can make sustainable change. That's what the future of America looks like. It looks like brothers helping brothers, sisters helping sisters, to make a better place, a better environment, for all of us."

Mayor Quay is attempting a write-in campaign to have his name on the ballot. Johns' running mates, Peggy Evans and Vanessa Taylor, who are both running for City Council, also won in the May primary.