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The New York firm that helped shape the recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture will lead the exhibition design for the Obama Presidential Center's museum on Chicago's South Side, the Obama Foundation announced Tuesday.

Ralph Appelbaum Associates will head a team of several firms and individuals with expertise in media, lighting and acoustics, including several Chicago-based collaborators, according to the nonprofit that is developing the library and museum in historic Jackson Park.

The local team members will include the firms Civic Projects and Normal, and the artists and educators Amanda Williams, Andres Hernandez and Norman Teague.

Almost half of the exhibition design work for the OPC will be performed by minority- and women-owned businesses, the foundation said.

RAA, which was not made available to comment, also worked on the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

RAA's exhibit design for the national African-American museum, which opened in September, blends monumentality and minutiae. Dramatic subterranean galleries showcase massive artifacts a prison watch tower, a slave cabin, a train car in an almost cathedral like setting.

Leading into and out of these open spaces, the galleries are stuffed with the narrative, in word and object, of a people's history.

Overall, the design aims to be a metaphor: The history traces a path from the bottom of the structure upward, with the top floors becoming more celebratory, showcasing vibrant looks at the arts, sport and other culture.

The Obama museum team's Civic Projects specializes in bringing community participation to the design process, most recently working with the Bronzeville Retail Initiative and the development of the Englewood Exchange, envisioned as an incubator for food industry start-ups.

Normal has done design work for a number of local institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Foundation and the Theaster Gates Studio.

Williams, who grew up on the South Side, is a visual artist and architect, creator of the Color(ed) Theory series. Hernandez, an artist and educator, is working on a number local projects with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

Teague is a designer and educator who examines the complexities and history of communities.

The selections were based on the firms' and individuals' track records on civic projects and "their collective mission to develop interactive, state-of-the art, and dynamic spaces that help visitors connect history to action," David Simas, chief executive of the Obama Foundation, said in a written statement. "We are confident this team will contribute to our building a presidential center that is more than just a library or museum, but that will be an innovative center that inspires communities and individuals to take on our biggest challenges."

kbergen@chicagotribune.com

@kathy_bergen

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Firm that shaped national African-American museum hired for Obama museum - Chicago Tribune

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Did you know this? Not since Lincoln has there been a president as fundamentally shaped in his life, convictions and outlook on the world by reading and writing as Barack Obama.

Frankly, I did not know President Obama was so wedded to books and the printed word as to be compared to Abraham Lincoln, author of the Gettysburg Address, magisterial Second Inaugural, and devotee of Shakespeare.

To be honest, I did not think that Mr. Obama by the wildest leap of imagination could be compared even to Teddy Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson, Ph.D., or U.S. Grant, the author of until now the finest presidential autobiography of all time. That is, if Mark Twain is to be believed. Twain compared Grants memoirs to Caesars Commentaries.

Yet Michiko Kakutani, the literary critic of the famed Times of New York, has delivered up the above testimonial. Moreover, others who have had the pleasure of reading Mr. Obamas earlier writing have been equally lavish in their praise of his literary saga.

I had known him to deliver passable speeches from a teleprompter, ad lib tolerably well on contemporary life, and to watch sports on television. But to be shaped by books as Lincoln was? As these other presidents were? Michiko, baby, what have you been smoking? What has Barack been smoking?

I know that in Mr. Obamas January interview with Michiko, he mentioned a dozen or so authors and books that had caught his fancy, but so far as I know that is about the only time he ever mentioned them.

Though, of course, there is a very good reason for his artsy name-dropping. He wants to hook a big, fat literary contract from a big, fat lazy publisher of books that are bought but rarely read. Do I hear talk of a $30 million contract?

In this endeavor he has already had help from the likes of Jonathan Raban, Joe Klein and Britains Guardian. All have read or claim to have read Dreams from My Father, Mr. Obamas 1995 best-selling memoir. Supposedly after immersing himself in Dreams, Mr. Raban called Mr. Obama the best writer to occupy the White House since Lincoln.

Mr. Klein called Dreams the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician. And the Guardians reviewer esteemed the book the fifth-best nonfiction book of all time yes, of all time.

Unfortunately, others have also read Dreams along with the pathetic drivel that came from Mr. Obamas pen before Dreams. One, The New York Times best-selling author Christopher Andersen, wrote in his 2009 book that Mr. Obama, a hopelessly blocked writer facing a contract deadline, realized that he had taken on more than he could deliver.

So he turned to his Chicago neighbor, Bill Ayers, who was a proven writer, to finish what became Dreams. Bill has remained relatively reticent about his work, but then he shares Mr. Obamas politics. As for Mr. Andersen, he has sources that he has never divulged. Maybe he will when the former president snags his $30 million.

An even more interesting critic is Jack Cashill, a scholar and literary critic. He actually read Mr. Obamas literary outpouring that came before Dreams. Possibly, this is what excited Michiko Kakutani, though Mr. Obamas outpouring was limited. It consists of but two essays. In all those years just two essays.

This week in The American Spectator, Mr. Cashill has demonstrated that the two essays are littered with risible grammatical errors, awkward sentence structure, inappropriate word choice, a weakness for cliches, and an Obama trademark continued failure to get verbs and nouns to agree.

For instance, in his 1988 essay Mr. Obama writes, The election of Harold Washington in Chicago or of Richard Hatcher in Gary were not enough to bring jobs . Mr. Obama means was.

Now we are expected to believe that a few years later, Mr. Obama was capable of writing what Mr. Cashill calls a graceful and sophisticated memoir, namely, Dreams from My Father.

Well, after a mere eight-and-a-half months in the White House he would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In Mr. Obamas world anything is possible.

Mr. Cashills point, and Mr. Andersens, and mine, is that Dreams was, almost certainly, not written exclusively by Mr. Obama.

For a publisher to claim that it was is to commit fraud. To claim that Mr. Obama alone is going to write a book on the order of U.S. Grants memoirs is a fraud and a horselaugh.

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is author of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc.

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Grammar and Obama do not agree - Washington Times

The Trump administration is working to undo an Obama-era directive that allows students to use school restrooms that correspond with their gender identity, the White House said Tuesday.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer did not go into specifics on the new set of guidelines being prepared by the Justice Department, but said Trump has long held that such matters should be left to the states -- not the federal government -- to decide.

I think that all you have to do is look at what the president's view has been for a long time, that this is not something the federal government should be involved in, this is a states' rights issue," Spicer said.

The Washington Post obtained a draft of the letter to the nations schools, which is planned to be released Wednesday.

The White House plans to say that they are rolling back the directive allowing transgender students access to restrooms and allowing them to participate in school athletics according to their gender identity and not their gender at birth.

The letter also states that the directive has given rise to significant litigation and administrators, parents and students struggled to understand and implement the Obama administrations guidance.

The White House will insist that schools must protect all students and the undoing of the directive does not diminish the protections" available to all students.

Trump was a vocal critic about the Obama administrations guidance during the 2016 campaign.

Trump said in a phoneinterview on Fox & Friends in May 2016that the directive was becoming a massive story despite it only affecting a tiny, tiny percentage of the population.

"It's a new issue and right now, I just don't have an opinion. Id like to see the states make that decision," Trump said at the time.

Trump was also outspoken about North Carolina passing a law on bathroom use by transgender people.

"I love North Carolina, and they have a law, and it's a law that, you know, unfortunately is causing them some problems," Trump toldFox News Sean Hannityin an April 2016 interview. "And I fully understand that they want to go through, but they are losing business, and they are having people come out against."

"I think that local communities and states should make the decision," he went on to say. "And I feel very strongly about that. The federal government should not be involved."

Fifteen states have explicit protections for transgender students, and many individual school districts have adopted policies that recognize students on the basis of their gender identity, said Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign.

Only one state-- North Carolina-- has enacted a law restricting students' bathroom access to their sex at birth. Other states are considering following suit.

Vanita Gupta, who was head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division under Obama, blasted the Trump administration's attempt to alter the guidelines.

"To cloak this in federalism ignores the vital and historic role that federal law plays in ensuring that all children, (including LGBT students) are able to attend school free from discrimination," Gupta said in a statement.

Even without Obama's guidelines, federal law called Title IX would still prohibit discrimination against students based on their gender or sexual orientation, the National Center for Transgender Equality said. Rescinding those directives would put children in harm's way, the group said.

"Such clear action directed at children would be a brazen and shameless attack on hundreds of thousands of young Americans who must already defend themselves against schoolyard bullies, but are ill-equipped to fight bullies on the floors of their state legislatures and in the White House," NCTE said in a statement.

But Ryan Anderson, a senior research fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said students, parents and teachers should work out "win-win" solutions at the local level, such as equipping schools with single-occupancy restrooms or locker rooms or allowing students to access the faculty lounge.

"We can find a way in which the privacy and safety of transgender students is respected while also respecting the privacy and safety of all other students," Anderson said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ryan Gaydos is a news editor for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter@Gaydosland.

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Trump administration working on new transgender bathroom directive - Fox News

Assertions from the White House that immigration-enforcement agents had their hands tied in the last administration are difficult to square with the massive deportations of Barack Obama's presidency.

President Donald Trump's press secretary made a claim about two agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection:

SEAN SPICER: "For so long, the people at ICE and CBP had their hands cuffed behind them." The Obama administration had so many exceptions for who could be adjudicated "that it made it very difficult for the customs and enforcement people to do their job and enforce the laws of this country."

THE FACTS: Whatever constraints agents might have faced, they deported more than 2 million immigrants during the eight years Obama was in office, more than in previous administrations. They sent back 409,000 in 2012 alone, a record.

Republican lawmakers and some ICE officials did complain that they were directed to ignore some immigrants found living in the country illegally if they didn't have serious criminal histories or otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Spicer outlined a similar priority, saying enforcement would focus "first and foremost" on those who have a criminal record or post a risk to the public. Still there's little question that enforcement will be broadened.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has signed a pair of memos that eliminate the Obama-era enforcement rules and made clear that nearly any immigrant caught living in the country illegally not just those with a criminal record will now be a target for deportation.

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Fact check: Did immigration agents have hands tied by Obama? - Chicago Tribune

The hints of a pipeline spill are subtle: the hiss of rushing fluid, a streak of rainbow sheen. Tucked far below ground, a ruptured line can escape notice for days or even weeks, especially in the backcountry, where inspectors rarely venture.

Regulators in the waning hours of the Obama era wrote rules aimed at changing that, and the industry is looking forward to the new administration rolling them back. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has gone overboard, said Brigham McCown, a former head of thePHMSA who served on President Donald Trumps infrastructure transition team. They built a Cadillac instead of the Chevrolet that Congress told them to build.

The oversight agency, an arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is just one of many where Barack Obamas policies are in the Trump teams sights. The battle lines are predictable, with companies on one side and safety and environmental activists on the other. Whats particularly worrying the latter is timing, because the rules could be upended as new shipping routes go into service across the country.

The president, a fan of fossil fuels, has revived two controversial pipelines, TransCanada Corp.s Keystone XL and Energy Transfer Partners LPs Dakota Access. They would add 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) to the U.S. network with room to transport 1.1 million barrels a day. As it is, there are more than 200,000 miles of pipe cutting across the country carrying crude, gasoline and other hazardous liquids -- about 18 billion barrels worth annually. Many other projects are on the map; in Houston alone, planned lines are expected to increase capacity by 550,000 barrels a day in the next few years.

Im terrified about what is going to happen under Trump, said Jane Kleeb, president of the Bold Alliance, a coalition of groups opposing Keystone XL. My worry is that they will just budget-starve PHMSA.

Read More: Why Keystone counts

While Obama was president, the PHMSA budget grew by 61 percent. Then, seven days before Trumps inauguration, the agency finalized a rule toughening up inspection and repair demands, mandating, for example, that companies have leak-detection systems in populated areas and requiring they examine lines within 72 hours of flooding or another so-called extreme weather event. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industrys main trade group, characterized it all as overreaching and unnecessary.

Barack Obama at the southern site of the Keystone XL pipeline in 2012.

Photographer: Tom Pennington/Getty Images

The rule was set to take effect in July. The Trump administration slapped a freeze on all regulations written under Obama that havent yet gone into force.

Pipeline leaks are pretty much inevitable; one ruptures every day on average in the U.S., though in the majority of cases the discharge is less than 5 barrels, or 210 gallons.

But big ones can be destructive, and deadly. The 2010 failure of an Enbridge Inc. line sent more than 20,000 barrels of heavy crude into a Kalamazoo River tributary, coating birds, muskrats and other wildlife and closing the river to recreational activity for 22 months; Enbridge agreed to pay $177 million in fines and to boost safety in a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, which said it took the company 17 hours to notice the breach.

Last October, an explosion on the largest U.S. gasoline pipeline killed one person, injured several more and temporarily cut off the fuel supply along the East Coast. In December, about 150 miles from a Dakota Access protest camp, a pipeline spilled 4,200 barrels of oil and was held up by environmentalists as a harbinger of whats to come.

Government statistics show there has been recent improvement in incident rates: In 2016, the number of accidents fell for the first time in five years, to 417 from 462, with total volume spilled declining 27 percent and the cost of related property damage dropping to $183 million from $257 million. The PHMSA wouldnt speculate on the reasons and pro-regulation forces were reluctant to draw conclusions based on a single years statistics.

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Since 2010, five companies have been responsible for 44 percent of all hazardous liquid spills, according to a Bloomberg analysis of data collected by the PHMSA. The remaining were split among more than 60 companies.

Those with vast assets tend to report a higher number of incidents, of course. The biggest, Enterprise Products Partners LP, ranked first between 2010 and 2016. But the amount spilled comprised a tiny fraction of the total shipped, said Enterprise spokesman Rick Rainey.

Mileage, though, doesnt always correlate with incident rate. Energy Transfer Equity LPs system, which will include the Dakota Access if opponents dont block it, is 40 percent smaller that Enterprises and ranked No. 2 in incidents and spill amounts. The company declined to comment.

The highest priority is to get to zero incidents, said Carl Weimer, executive director of the nonprofit Pipeline Safety Trust, a watchdog group founded after a 1999 gasoline pipeline explosion in Bellingham, Washington, that killed two children, both 10, and an 18-year-old.

Congress isnt likely to move to repeal or rewrite the Obama rule until a new head of the PHMSA is in office.But the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Pennsylvania Republican Bill Shuster, said last week that easing up on the regulations was the right thing to do.

Are there some bad actors out there? Sure, he told the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. But we gotta let these industries go do their business.

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Trump Eyes Easing Obama Rules for Sprawling Pipeline Network - Bloomberg