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https://www.csmonitor.com/Daily/2022/20220329/Kyiv-Odesa-and-what-s-in-a-name
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Odessa or Odesa? The Donbass or the Donbas?
Newsrooms have been busy debating the spelling of Ukrainian place names. Many of us in the media have long used Russian transliterations for some places, such as Odessa, while using Ukrainian ones for others, like Kyiv.
Starting this week, the Monitor has shifted entirely to using the renderings established by Ukraine’s government. The principle underlying this is respect for what a sovereign country has chosen. As we wrote in a 2009 article as we switched to Kyiv from Kiev, “we like to call people what they want to be called.” Not doing so can send an unintended message: The Monitor’s Scott Peterson, who reported recently from Odesa, shared some sources’ shocked reactions when they saw a dateline of “Odessa.”
Getting people to adjust to changes in familiar names, even by a letter, is hard. Ukraine launched the global #KyivnotKiev campaign in 2018 to push the point, despite having required Kyiv since 1995. The U.S. State Department and the United Nations use Ukrainian transliterations. Still, other organizations, like the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, long allowed Kiev as an alternative. That stopped in 2019.
Like us, numerous media have shifted recently, including The Associated Press, whose style we largely observe. Our staff took the issue seriously; one editor noted the 58 comments in a newsroomwide message thread about it. In the end, we established our rule based on consistency and, most important, respect.
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Three weeks ago, Ali Willis got a phone call, and knew she had to go. Russian-speaking friends had gone to a Polish border town to help humanitarian workers with refugees, and more help was needed. Ukrainians, who generally know Russian but not Polish, were pouring in. Soon Ms. Willis, a communications professional in London who speaks Russian, was at the border.
That’s where she spotted a woman and her toddler son – Alina Serbinenko and Emmanuel – and immediately took them under her wing. Ms. Willis had already seen how young women and children in such circumstances can “fall into the wrong hands,” as she says. Ms. Serbinenko and Emmanuel, both weak from illness, seemed especially vulnerable.
Ms. Willis managed to connect mother and child with a host family in Germany via ukrainetakeshelter.com, and three days later was on a plane with them to Munich. She marvels at the leaps of faith required in the massive undertaking of finding temporary homes for Ukrainian refugees.
“Who were we to those we met?” Ms. Willis writes on Facebook. “How did Alina’s parents near Kyiv know their daughter and grandson would be safe with me? How did I know Alina would be safe with the German family found on a website? We all just had to put our faith in our fellow man.”
Ms. Serbinenko’s mother and teenage brother have now joined them in Germany, and soon the Ukrainians will move into their own temporary housing. Ms. Willis has left, but remains in touch with her new friends.
To me, none of this story is surprising. I’ve known Ms. Willis and her wonderful family since she was a little girl, when her father, David Willis, was the Monitor’s correspondent in Moscow. I was there as a student.
Ms. Willis went on to study Russian at university, and has used her linguistic skill over the years in her work. And sometimes, she has shown, knowing a foreign language can be a lifeline for a family in peril.
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Two ways to read the story
On the second day of the war, Andrey Kurkov, one of Ukraine’s most celebrated authors, left Kyiv. It took 22 hours to drive 260 miles to Lviv. He was safely ensconced in western Ukraine, but couldn’t keep writing the novel he had been working on. Instead, he’s taken it upon himself to talk with the outside world about the situation unfolding in his country.
“I write only articles and essays about what is happening in Ukraine,” he tells the Monitor in a Q&A. But conflict has been affecting Mr. Kurkov’s life – and Ukrainian literature – for nearly a decade now, since pro-Russian separatists took up arms in the country’s east in 2014.
Why We Wrote This
Resistance to oppression can take many forms. For one author trapped in Ukraine, it’s describing the effects of war through the eyes of ordinary people, and corresponding with the outside world.
“In Kyiv I met many refugees from Donbas,” he says of the inspiration behind his 2018 book about the conflict, “Grey Bees.” “I realized that there are thousands of people who are in the same situation in the gray zone between the positions of the Ukrainian Army and those of pro-Russian separatists. That was the reason to write the novel. By that time there were already more than 200 books about soldiers, but none about ordinary civilians caught up in the war.”
The war has since spread. More civilians have gotten caught up in it. Mr. Kurkov hopes the world is paying attention to them.
Andrey Kurkov is one of the most acclaimed Ukrainian writers of the post-Soviet era. The author of 19 novels, as well as television scripts and books for children, he is also a frequent commentator on Ukraine for European and American media. His 2018 novel, “Grey Bees,” has just been published in the United States. Mr. Kurkov and his family left their home in Kyiv the day after Russia invaded Ukraine. He exchanged email messages with the Monitor recently from western Ukraine, where the family is sheltering.
What is life like for you now?
We left Kyiv at the beginning of the war, on the second day, and moved to our village house 60 miles to the west. From there we moved to Lviv. It took 22 hours to drive 260 miles. Then we stayed in a small tourist hotel in the Carpathian mountains. Now we are in the Transcarpathian region.
Why We Wrote This
Resistance to oppression can take many forms. For one author trapped in Ukraine, it’s describing the effects of war through the eyes of ordinary people, and corresponding with the outside world.
Are you doing any writing?
I was working on a novel but stopped after the Russian invasion. Now I write only articles and essays about what is happening in Ukraine. I am in touch with many of my friends in different cities and regions. Some of my friends and colleagues are in the occupied territories and there is no more connection with them. Russians take away computers and mobile phones from those they suspect to be an activist or intellectual.
You wrote “Grey Bees” in 2018, before the current crisis. The novel is set during the war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine in 2014. What was the impetus for writing it?
In Kyiv I met many refugees from Donbas. One of them told me that he is driving once a month back to Donbas, to a village on the frontline, to bring seven families that remained there medicines and whatever they need, because they have no shops, no pharmacies, no infrastructure at all. Then I realized that there are thousands of people who are in the same situation in the gray zone between the positions of the Ukrainian Army and those of pro-Russian separatists. That was the reason to write the novel. By that time there were already more than 200 books about soldiers, but none about ordinary civilians caught up in the war.
The two main characters in “Grey Bees,” a beekeeper and his neighbor, live in a war zone, but go about their daily lives. Have they simply adapted to war?
People in Donbas are adapted to the war and try sometimes to ignore distant explosions. They can understand when the danger is approaching and only then react. They can differentiate many military sounds and different kinds of explosions.
Since the Russian invasion, have you seen a similar attitude in Ukraine?
It takes months to adapt to living in the dangerous situation of war. It happens when you become indifferent to your own fate and to everything else and you stop making plans for the future and stop dreaming.
What do you hope readers of “Grey Bees” learn about Ukraine today?
They can see the war through the eyes of ordinary people of Donbas. They can understand the situation in Crimea after annexation. They can understand the mindsets of ordinary people for whom the war came as a great and horrible surprise.
How has war, particularly since 2014, affected the literature produced in Ukraine?
Before 2014, Ukrainian literature was about sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, but then it became very militant, very politically engaged. Now there are hundreds of books about the war, dozens of historical novels.
It has been said that Ukrainian literature is one means of defiance in the face of imperial domination. Do you agree?
Yes, I agree, Ukrainian literature was, from 1991 [when the Soviet Union collapsed], independent from both the influence of Soviet literature and from Ukrainian politics. It developed sporadically and quickly became European. Russian literature remained in the Russian/Soviet tradition under the patronage of [President Vladimir] Putin’s administration.
Why do you write your novels in Russian and not Ukrainian?
Literature in Ukraine is written in several languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz, and Hungarian. My mother tongue is Russian. I am ethnically Russian, was born in Russia and grew up in Russian-speaking Kyiv. In Ukraine, my books are published in Russian and then translated into Ukrainian. My books are not published in Russia and were banned twice. Since 2014, it has been illegal to bring my books in Russian to sell in Russia. So I am one of many Ukrainian writers who writes in Russian.
What message would you most like to convey to the world about Ukraine and the current conflict?
Ukrainians and Russians are very different. For Ukrainians, freedom is more important than stability. For Russians, it is the opposite. Ukrainians change their presidents at each election, Russians keep their czars until the czar is dead. Ukrainians and Russians are not the same people, as Putin claims.
“Death and the Penguin,” one of your best known novels, features a penguin as a main character. Most of your novels have animals as characters. Why?
Animals are excellent natural protagonists. They help me to convey what I want to say about society, about the situation, about people. And they are very symbolic. Penguins live in groups, not pairs, so they need to be part of something bigger. They are like the Soviet people, who lost themselves after the U.S.S.R. collapsed.
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One characteristic of countries with high voter confidence in the integrity of elections is public trust in the people who run elections. When that trust breaks down, as it has in much of the United States, restoring it can lead to hard questions – about the technology for ballot counting, as an example, or the role of private money in government-run elections – but also a flurry of attempts at reform.
Since the 2020 presidential election, at least 19 states have enacted nearly three dozen laws to regulate access to the ballot box and expand public monitoring at polling stations. Those measures are designed to renew public confidence either by making it easier to vote or by eliminating opportunities for fraud. Court cases and the House probe of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, meanwhile, aim to restore democracy through accountability.
But in communities across the country, local election officials are weaving a perhaps more consequential tapestry of trust. Instead of focusing on what has gone wrong with American democracy, they are engaging more vigorously in what makes it right. “One of the things that I always try to do is make sure that I’m not using triggering language, that I’m not using the language that automatically puts us on one or the other side of the aisle,” said Tammy Patrick, a senior adviser to the Democracy Fund and former county election official from Arizona, in an interview with the website Governing.
The public remains deeply divided over the results of the 2020 election. The most recent Monmouth University Poll, from last November, found that a third of Americans – including 75% of Republicans – still believe Joe Biden did not win the presidency fairly. That skepticism has helped fuel a troubling rise in threats against local election officials. In Pennsylvania, according to the Pew Research Center, a third of local election officials have left their jobs in fear for their safety. Lawmakers in at least 10 states are debating new criminal penalties to curb those threats.
But doubt about the last election also appears to be stirring a new era of civic participation. More people – including more minorities – are either running for local offices or learning how to be volunteers at polling stations. Town clerks and county election officials are banding together to produce public education videos about how elections are held and votes are counted. Some have started podcasts. Others are holding town hall meetings and hosting webinars and public tours in their offices. For some, threats of violence have deepened their resolve.
“Am I scared? Yes, I’m not going to lie. I am scared,” Linh Nguyen, a town clerk candidate in DeKalb County, Illinois, told the Iowa Capital Dispatch. “But as a minority woman, to be honest, in a room of raised hands, mine will never be picked, and I learned to look for opportunities where other people see obstacles.”
That courage underscores what makes democracy more solid and enduring than it sometimes seems. “Almost one-third of citizens vote at town halls staffed with election workers volunteering their time to help fulfill the promise of democracy,” said Mike Koles, executive director of Wisconsin Towns Association. “They are the same people we see in church, we rely on to respond to emergencies, and that cheer on the local team on Friday night. Nobody can be trusted more than these local public servants.”
As the U.S. moves toward its next elections, the renewed spirit of civic service among election managers may be the best way to restore trust in the outcomes of ballot counting.
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https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2022/0331/Quest-for-nuclear-fusion-is-advancing-powered-by-scientific-grit
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For decades, scientists have aspired to create nuclear fusion – a carbon-free, potentially limitless power source. The path has been long, winding, and full of frustration.
But with an eye on the vital role that energy plays in humanity’s future, researchers are continuing to come together to try to make it happen – with an important milestone reached just last month.
Why We Wrote This
Science often advances one slow step at a time. The goal of energy from nuclear fusion is an example. Hope is rising, but researchers need discipline, perseverance, and trust that painstaking effort can pay off.
For now, fusion power remains a dream. No fusion experiment has been able to fuel itself. Instead, researchers must use energy to make energy. They inject heat, like how steam heats milk in a cappuccino machine, to help hydrogen isotopes react and fuse. As the plasma gets hotter, it releases energy.
In February, the Joint European Torus lab in the United Kingdom generated more than twice as much heat as its last record in 1997. Scientists say that, while today’s experiments create energy for just a few seconds at a time, they are steppingstones toward the goal of sustained energy production.
Deirdre Boilson, a division head at a larger fusion feasibility project in southern France, describes the hope that’s driving researchers forward. The scientific theory combined with their research experience, she says, “allows us to have confidence in the machine we are building, and the physics behind it.”
Science is slow: It’s doing the same difficult thing over and over, observing, changing, doing it again. It’s setting up a thousand little things while waiting for the big thing to finally happen.
The quest for nuclear fusion – a carbon-free, potentially limitless power source – is exactly that. Aspirations have endured for decades. The path has been long, winding, and full of frustration.
But with an eye on the vital role that energy plays in humanity’s future, researchers are continuing to come together to try to make it happen. In the fight against climate change, they have been making headway, including with an important milestone reached just last month.
Why We Wrote This
Science often advances one slow step at a time. The goal of energy from nuclear fusion is an example. Hope is rising, but researchers need discipline, perseverance, and trust that painstaking effort can pay off.
“Climate change is endangering our world’s future,” says Deirdre Boilson, a division head at ITER, a massive fusion feasibility project in southern France. “The most important thing we must do to halt climate change is move from fossil fuels to carbon-free energy alternatives.”
Still, the estimated launch of the world’s first fully operational fusion power plant is at least three decades away. Yet after decades of dismissal as a fringe pipe dream, fusion power is starting to look like it just might happen.
A win for Earth’s climate?
Like renewables such as wind, solar, and geothermal power, fusion has the potential to be abundant and virtually inexhaustible. And backers say it wouldn’t depend on whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. In theory, one kilogram of fuel from a potential fusion plant could provide as much power as 10 million kilograms of fossil fuel.
One more thing: Where traditional nuclear power (in fission reactors) has resulted in tragic plant meltdowns, a fusion power plant would be fundamentally safer. Fusion brings atoms together, while fission forces them apart. Unlike fission, fusion is a self-limiting process, not a chain reaction: Without fuel, it quickly comes to a stop. And though a fusion power plant would generate radioactive waste, it would be classified as either “very low” or “low” activity waste and “cannot pose any serious danger,” the International Atomic Energy Agency says. Skeptics, however, counter that fusion is far from perfect: It’s expensive, to start.
For now, fusion power remains a dream. No fusion experiment has been able to fuel itself. Instead, researchers must use energy to make energy. They inject heat to help the system react and fuse, like how steam heats milk in a cappuccino machine. As the plasma gets hotter, it releases energy using hydrogen. But once it runs out of hydrogen, it can’t keep itself going. It fizzles out.
The lab that has come closest to this break-even point – make energy versus take energy – is JET, the Joint European Torus in the United Kingdom, which generated 16 megawatts of fusion power, versus 24 megawatts of power that was used to heat the plasma (a so-called Q ratio of 0.67).
In February, JET announced that its reactor experiment achieved a new milestone: It generated more than twice as much heat as its last record (59 megajoules in 2022, versus 21.7 megajoules in 1997). JET’s reactor is a tenth of the volume of the still-unfinished ITER, where Dr. Boilson works. So it loses heat faster.
“One must be open to continuous learning and growth,” she says, and try to maintain a steady “resilience in facing issues.”
Scientists say that if today’s experiments are modest in scale, creating energy for just a few seconds at a time, they are steppingstones toward the goal of sustained energy production.
“Every day brings new challenges,” says Akko Maas, a division head at ITER who like Dr. Boilson was interviewed by email. “This requires both discipline and resilience from us all.”
Collaborative, cooperative, global
Like fusion, the construction underway at ITER is an effort that brings things together, rather than pushing them apart. It’s a highly structured international blend of labor and resources.
“Working at ITER, knowing that your day job helps to address one of the biggest challenges our world is facing – climate change – is in itself an inspiration, and a good reason to get up in the morning motivated to give your best to this project,” Dr. Boilson says.
Climate change is a global issue, and therefore “needs a global response,” she adds.
The United States is working alongside six other members: China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the European Union. (The war in Ukraine’s impact on ITER is at this point unclear, but the project was built in the spirit of international collaboration, so the scientific community is hoping for peace.)
“The international aspect ... is one of the major challenges,” Dr. Maas says. “At the same time it provides opportunities through the cooperation. ... We are trying all together to make our contribution for a better world.”
Wrangling plasma, creating energy
The project is essentially cobbled together, as the members must work collaboratively. Components are constructed across the globe and shipped to France. The machine itself is built and assembled on-site, and integrating these components can take time and perseverance.
Construction is currently 75% complete toward “first plasma,” which is when experiments can begin. That milestone is slated for 2025.
“ITER is a very complex machine with more than a million components,” Dr. Maas says. “To make sure that everything will fit together requires a lot of discipline.”
He adds: “As I always say to my children, I am proud to work on something that might (and I believe it will) provide a solution to the energy problems that we have today.”
A fusion experiment is powered by the same nuclear reaction that fuels the sun. ITER runs on two isotopes of hydrogen: deuterium and tritium. A doughnut-shaped structure, known as a tokamak machine, turns gaseous hydrogen into a superhot, charged plasma that brings hydrogen atoms together to form a heavier element (helium), releasing energy (neutrons) using strategically placed magnetic coils. It’s essentially an artificial star: It runs on continuous fusion reactions fueled by plasma, a super high-energy, charged gas.
“The magnets basically keep this superhot plasma away from the walls of the vessel and therefore don’t damage it,” Dr. Boilson says. “It’s like creating a suspended sun inside a cage.”
Heat is an essential ingredient. It’s part of the recipe. So scientists find themselves acting like Goldilocks: The temperature of the plasma must be “just right” – not too hot, not too cold. That “just right” plasma temperature at ITER will reach 150 million degrees Celsius – a very, very hot “porridge.”
Discipline, faith, hope
Sometimes, the discipline of doing science can feel like hope: It’s all about working toward something, waiting for it to be revealed. There’s hope in that. There may even be faith in that.
This is not rolling a rock up a hill for eternity. The goal at ITER is to demonstrate that the machine can make more energy than the energy it takes to keep it running. Although setbacks have accompanied the progress, and years of persistence lie ahead, these researchers see the goal as achievable.
“As a scientist, it is easy to have ‘faith’ when the science is understood,” Dr. Boilson says. “The understanding of the physics of fusion is already there,” she adds. “The combination of different devices and collaborative scientific endeavors brings experience, which allows us to have confidence in the machine we are building, and the physics behind it.”
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Astronomers have discovered the farthest star yet, a super-hot, super-bright giant that formed nearly 13 billion years ago at the dawn of the cosmos.
But this luminous blue star is long gone, so massive that it almost certainly exploded into bits just a few million years after emerging. Its swift demise makes it all the more incredible that an international team spotted it with observations by the Hubble Space Telescope. It takes eons for light emitted from distant stars to reach us.
“We’re seeing the star as it was about 12.8 billion years ago, which puts it about 900 million years after the Big Bang,” said astronomer Brian Welch, a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the study appearing in Wednesday’s journal Nature.
“We definitely just got lucky.”
Mr. Welch nicknamed it Earendel, an Old English name which means morning star or rising light – “a fitting name for a star that we have observed in a time often referred to as `Cosmic Dawn.′ ”
The previous record-holder, Icarus, also a blue supergiant star spotted by Hubble, formed 9.4 billion years ago. That’s more than 4 billion years after the Big Bang.
In both instances, astronomers used a technique known as gravitational lensing to magnify the minuscule starlight. Gravity from clusters of galaxies closer to us – in the foreground – serve as a lens to magnify smaller objects in the background. If not for that, Icarus and Earendel would not have been discernible given their vast distances.
While Hubble has spied galaxies as far away as 300 million to 400 million years of the universe-forming Big Bang, their individual stars are impossible to pick out.
“Usually they’re all smooshed together. ... But here, nature has given us this one star – highly, highly magnified, magnified by factors of thousands – so that we can study it,” said NASA astrophysicist Jane Rigby, who took part in the study. “It’s such a gift really from the universe.”
Vinicius Placco of the National Science Foundation’s NOIRlab in Tucson, Arizona, described the findings as “amazing work.” He was not involved in the study.
Dr. Placco said based on the Hubble data, Earendel may well have been among the first generation of stars born after the Big Bang. Future observations by the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope should provide more details, he said, and “provide us with another piece of this cosmic puzzle that is the evolution of our universe.”
Current data indicate Earendel was more than 50 times the size of our sun and an estimated 1 million times brighter, outsizing Icarus. Earendel’s small, yet-to-mature home galaxy looked nothing like the pretty spiral galaxies photographed elsewhere by Hubble, according to Mr. Welch, but rather “kind of an awkward-looking, clumpy object.” Unlike Earendel, he said, this galaxy probably has survived, although in a different form after merging with other galaxies.
“It's like a little snapshot in amber of the past,” Dr. Rigby said.
Earendel may have been the prominent star in a two-star, or binary, system, or even a triple- or quadruple-star system, Mr. Welch said. There’s a slight chance it could be a black hole, although the observations gathered in 2016 and 2019 suggest otherwise, he noted.
Regardless of its company, the star lasted barely a few million years before exploding as a supernova that went unobserved as most do, Mr. Welch said. The most distant supernova seen by astronomers to date goes back 12 billion years.
The Webb telescope – 100 times more powerful than Hubble – should help clarify how massive and hot the star really is, and reveal more about its parent galaxy.
By studying stars, Dr. Rigby said: “We are literally understanding where we came from because we’re made up of some of that stardust.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Richard Linklater is a nostalgist in the best sense, and never more so than in his terrific new film, “Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood.” As a writer-director, he draws on his memories of the past in order to enhance his apprehension of the present. Best of all, he does so without the usual sentimentalizing that often accompanies semi-autobiographical coming-of-age yarns.
Like Linklater’s earlier “A Scanner Darkly” and, especially, “Waking Life,” “Apollo 10½” is a first-rate example of rotoscope animation, in which live-action footage is digitally painted over to create a fanciful, hyper-realistic effect. The technique perfectly suits Linklater’s subject. He wants to show what it was like for a NASA-obsessed 10-year-old suburban Houston boy to grow up in the dawn of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon launch.
The film’s narrative is bifurcated. In the beginning, we appear to be watching a tall tale featuring the young Stan (voiced by Milo Coy), who claims he was chosen by NASA for a top secret pre-Apollo 11 moon mission because he fit into the too-small capsule the engineers mistakenly designed for the adult astronauts. After a bunch of backstory involving his fifth grade antics and his large, unruly family – he’s the youngest of six kids – his rambling account abruptly halts soon after he blasts off.
Why We Wrote This
Besides offering an entertaining trip back to 1969 – the year of the first moon landing – the animated film “Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood” prompts viewers to ponder how memories form and shape us.
For much of the rest of the film, except for occasional cutaways to young Stan’s imaginings, the adult Stan (voiced by Jack Black) narrates what really happened. These scenes are fanciful in their own way: They point up how seemingly mundane events, filtered through the haze of time, can appear equally magical.
What gives the movie its considerable homegrown charm is Linklater’s affection for this late ’60s era and how it formed Stan. Although Linklater has said the film doesn’t duplicate his own Houston childhood – his father, for example, unlike Stan’s, didn’t work for NASA – what comes through seems highly personal anyway. The specificity of detail and incident in this film is lovingly rendered. The soundtrack is a melange of ‘60s pop tunes, and Linklater employs them not simply as an oldies soundtrack but also to convey how Stan and his siblings experienced them as the soundtrack to their lives.
Because of Linklater’s fond presentation, everything concerning Stan is resonant: The cheesy sci-fi films and shows like “Dark Shadows” that he watches on the family’s black-and-white, rabbit-eared television set; the overchlorinated public swimming pools; the meals of tuna casserole with potato chips; the trips with his grandmother to see “The Sound of Music”; the way he hated watching the Disney TV show on Sunday nights because it always meant he had to go to school the next day. He describes the “special comfort of falling asleep in the car” after a family outing.
Stan’s thrill ride at the AstroWorld amusement park, the morning before that evening’s Apollo 11 moon landing, represents his own flight into the unknown. (Elsewhere in the film, in a fantasy cutaway, he imagines himself in his Apollo capsule reading Mad Magazine.) When it actually comes time to watch Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon, an exhausted Stan has already fallen asleep. His mother carries him off to bed with words that could easily serve as the film’s summary: “He’ll think he saw it all. You know how memory works.”
Linklater certainly does. That’s why, even though he doesn’t downplay the Vietnam War that periodically breaks into the TV news, he recognizes that, for Stan, that conflict is background noise. “Apollo 10½” is a portrait of innocence untainted by any agenda other than the need to convey as honestly as possible what it felt like to be that particular boy at that particular moment in history. It’s a movie about how we conjure and commemorate our pasts.
Peter Rainer is the Monitor’s film critic. “Apollo 10½” is rated PG-13 for some suggestive material, injury images, and smoking. It is available on Netflix starting April 1.
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For union organizers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, the second time could be a charm – or not.
After a crushing defeat last year, when a majority of workers voted against forming a union, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) is hoping for a different outcome in a do-over election. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Monday began counting mail-in ballots that were sent to 6,100 workers in early February. Results could come as early as Thursday.
If the vote goes in favor of the union, it would be Amazon’s first one ever in the United States.
Like last time, the RWDSU is driving the union campaign in Bessemer. Vaccines have made it easier for organizers to do face-to-face meetings during the pandemic as opposed to the texts, emails, and phone calls they relied on the first time around.
“It’s been easier to spread the message this time, and we’ve had more support inside the building,” said Dale Wyatt, an Amazon worker at the Bessemer facility who’s assisting in the union push. “For example, more people are wearing T-shirts and pins and apparel, and more people are willing to come up and talk to us this time.”
Amazon has had a chance to regroup as well after the NLRB determined that the company unfairly influenced last year’s election. The country’s second-largest private employer continues to hammer the message that it invests in both pay and benefits for its workers.
Regular full-time employees in Bessemer earn at least $15.80 an hour, higher than the estimated $14.55 per hour on average in the city based on an analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau. They also get health care as well as a 401(k) with company match.
Amazon has also made some changes too but still kept a controversial U.S. Postal Service mailbox that was key in the NLRB’s decision to invalidate last year’s vote.
Labor activists say the company is still relying on consultants and managers to hold mandatory staff meetings to talk about why unions are a bad idea. Such meetings stopped right before the ballots were sent, in accordance with labor laws.
An Amazon spokesperson said the meetings give employees the opportunity to ask questions and learn what a union “could mean for them and their day-to-day life working at Amazon.”
Prior to the Bessemer union drive, Amazon hadn’t faced a major union election in the U.S. since 2014 when the majority of the 30 workers at a warehouse in Delaware voted against organizing. In many European countries like France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, where union membership is higher and there are fewer obstacles for labor groups, Amazon workers have long been unionized.
Amazon also faces two union elections in the more labor-friendly New York City, though they’re being spearheaded by a nascent independent labor group.
Amazon’s sprawling fulfillment center in Bessemer opened in 2020 just off an interstate exit where 18-wheelers painted with the Amazon logo come and go past small manufacturers, transportation companies, and the city’s high school.
Bessemer itself is located about 20 miles southwest of Birmingham. The once-vibrant manufacturing town of 26,000 people fell on hard times after the area’s steel industry began slipping in the late 1900s. Today the city is more than 70% Black, with about a quarter of its residents living in poverty.
Workers at the warehouse reflect Bessemer’s racial demographic – roughly 85% of them are Black, according to RWDSU. They drive to their jobs from as far away as metro Montgomery, nearly 100 miles to the south.
RWDSU has been working with community organizations who have helped to frame the union push in Alabama in the context of the Civil Rights movement, focusing on the dignity and treatment of Amazon workers and linking their rights with human rights.
“The community support has been essential, and it’s always been a part of the civil rights struggles in the South and other struggles in the South,” said Marc Bayard, the director of the Institute for Policy Studies’ Black Worker Initiative.
Erica Iheme, deputy director of Jobs to Move America, said her organization honed its message from last year, going beyond pay. It visited barber shops, beauty shops, and other places where Black residents frequented and distributed 6,000 flyers.
“For this election, what we have to get people to understand is it goes beyond bread and butter issues,” Ms. Iheme said. “Sometimes, your body has physical limitations. Sometimes you are tired. Sometimes you have children and you need to step away without losing your job. It’s about humanity of our community.”
While unions are historically a tough sell in the South, Dale Wyatt comes from a labor family. He began working at Amazon in August, taking items off incoming trucks and placing them into pods before they shipped to customers.
“We need better working conditions, better hours, better pay,” Mr. Wyatt said. “We need longer breaks and more attention from management and a better HR system.”
RWDSU’s first union campaign came in a year of widespread labor unrest at many corporations that has only reinvigorated the group’s cause. Workers at more than 140 Starbucks locations around the country, for instance, have requested union elections and several of them have already been successful.
The pandemic spotlighted the plight of hourly workers who felt employers didn’t do enough to protect them from the virus. But labor shortages have only given workers more power to push for higher wages and better working conditions.
Still, organizers are up against strong federal labor laws that favor corporations. Alabama itself is a right-to-work state, which means that companies and unions are prohibited from signing contracts that require workers to pay dues to the union that represents them.
Labor activists also battle high turnover at the Bessemer facility. RWDSU estimates that roughly half of the 6,100 workers eligible to vote are new, making it difficult to organize.
“It’s an uphill fight,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the RWDSU. “No matter what happens, we are not walking away. The first campaign initiated a global debate on the way Amazon operates. It has inspired workers all over the country and all over the world to stand up to their employers.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Anna D’Innocenzio and Haleluya Hadero reported from New York and Jay Reeves reported from Bessemer, Alabama.
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Republican governors in Oklahoma and Arizona both signed bills into law on Wednesday that prevent transgender girls and women from competing on female sports teams, joining more than a dozen other states with similar laws.
Flanked by more than two dozen young female athletes, including his 14-year-old daughter Piper, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed the measure, dubbed the “Save Women’s Sports Act.”
“This bill, the Save Women’s Sports Act, to us in Oklahoma is just common sense,” said Mr. Stitt, a first-term Republican who is running for reelection. “When it comes to sports and athletics, girls should compete against girls. Boys should compete against boys. And let’s be very clear: That’s all this bill says.”
Until two years ago, no state had passed a law regulating gender-designated youth sports. But the issue has become front and center in Republican-led statehouses since Idaho lawmakers passed the nation’s first sports participation law in 2020. That law is now blocked in court, along with another in West Virginia.
The Oklahoma bill, which took effect immediately with the governor’s signature, applies to female sports teams in both high school and college.
The new law was quickly panned by civil rights groups as unnecessarily targeting a group of people who already are marginalized.
“Transgender people belong everywhere, but with the swipe of a pen and a public display, Governor Stitt has sent a clear message to Oklahoma’s vulnerable transgender youth that they are not welcome or accepted in our state,” Tamya Cox-Toure, the executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “Ultimately, SB2 violates the United States Constitution and federal civil rights law, puts Oklahoma at risk of losing federal funding, and harms transgender youth, all to solve a problem that does not exist.”
Oklahoma’s governing body for high school sports, the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activity Association, has had a policy in place since 2015 addressing transgender athletes’ participation in sports, but OSSAA spokesman Van Shea Iven said no school has ever requested enforcement of the policy for a male student transitioning to female.
There are also few transgender athletes in Arizona schools. Since 2017, about 16 trans athletes have received waivers to play on teams that align with their gender identities out of about 170,000 high school athletes in the state, according to the Arizona Interscholastic Association.
Outside the room where Mr. Stitt signed the bill, 26-year-old Cara Kleber, who is transgender, held a sign that read: “How does it feel bullying kids needing support?”
“They’re not going to keep trans kids from playing sports, having fun, or living their lives,” Mx. Kleber said. “What they are going to do with this bill is tell them they’re not invited in spaces and amongst everyone else, that they’re not equal, that they’re not loved, that they’re not cared for.”
In Oklahoma, several supporters of the measure said they were convinced to vote for it after University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, a trans woman, won a title earlier this month at the national NCAA Women’s Division I championship.
Some opponents had raised concerns about the NCAA pulling sports tournaments from Oklahoma, including the Women’s College World Series held each year in Oklahoma City, but Mr. Stitt said he wasn’t concerned.
“We’re not worried about it, because we know Oklahomans are with us and the majority of Americans are with us as well,” he said.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writers Bob Christie and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.
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Maine Sen. Susan Collins said Wednesday she will vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, giving Democrats at least one Republican vote and all but ensuring that Judge Jackson will become the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
Senator Collins met with Judge Jackson a second time this week after four days of hearings last week and said Wednesday that “she possesses the experience, qualifications, and integrity to serve as an associate justice on the Supreme Court.”
“I will, therefore, vote to confirm her to this position,” Senator Collins said.
Senator Collins’ support gives Democrats at least a one-vote cushion in the 50-50 Senate and likely saves them from having to use Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote to confirm President Joe Biden’s pick. Senate Democratic leaders are pushing toward a Senate Judiciary Committee vote on the nomination Monday and a final Senate vote to confirm Judge Jackson late next week.
President Biden called Senator Collins on Wednesday to thank her after her announcement, according to the senator’s office. The president had called her at least three times before the hearings, part of a larger push to win a bipartisan vote for his historic pick.
Judge Jackson, who would replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, would be the third Black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She would also be the first former public defender on the court.
It is expected that all 50 Democrats will support her, though one notable moderate Democrat, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, hasn’t yet said how she will vote.
Senator Collins was the most likely Republican to support Judge Jackson, and she has a history of voting for Supreme Court nominees picked by presidents of both parties, as well as other judicial nominations.
The only Supreme Court nominee she’s voted against since her election in the mid-1990s is Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was nominated by then-President Donald Trump after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the weeks before Mr. Trump’s election defeat to Mr. Biden in 2020. Senator Collins, who was up for reelection that year, said she voted against Justice Barrett because of the accelerated six-week timeline. “It’s not a comment on her,” Senator Collins said of Justice Barrett at the time.
In her statement supporting Judge Jackson, the Maine senator said she doesn’t expect that she will always agree with Judge Jackson’s decisions.
“That alone, however, is not disqualifying,” Senator Collins said. “Indeed, that statement applies to all six justices, nominated by both Republican and Democratic presidents, whom I have voted to confirm.”
Senator Collins said she believes the process is “broken” as it has become increasingly divided along party lines. When Senator Collins first came to the Senate, Supreme Court confirmations were much more bipartisan. Justice Breyer, who will step down this summer, was confirmed on an 87-9 vote in 1994.
“In my view, the role the Constitution clearly assigns to the Senate is to examine the experience, qualifications, and integrity of the nominee,” Senator Collins said. “It is not to assess whether a nominee reflects the ideology of an individual senator or would rule exactly as an individual senator would want.”
In Judge Jackson’s hearings, several Republican senators interrogated her on sentencing decisions in her nine years as a federal judge and in child pornography cases in particular. The senators, several of whom are eyeing a run for president, asked the same questions repeatedly in an effort to paint her as too lenient on sex criminals.
Judge Jackson told the committee that “nothing could be further from the truth” and explained her sentencing decisions in detail. She said some of the cases have given her nightmares and were “among the worst that I have seen.”
Senator Collins told reporters after her announcement that they discussed many of the cases that were brought up at the hearings in an hourlong meeting on Tuesday and “I had no doubt that she applies a very careful approach to the facts of the case when she is judging.”
It is unclear if any other GOP senators will vote for Judge Jackson. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell set the tone for the party last week when he said he “cannot and will not” support her, citing the GOP concerns raised in the hearing about her sentencing record and her support from liberal advocacy groups.
Judge Jackson is still making the rounds in the Senate ahead of next week’s votes, doing customary meetings with Democratic and Republican senators. On Tuesday she met with Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who said afterward that he was undecided about supporting her.
Senator Romney said he had an “excellent meeting” and found Judge Jackson to be intelligent, capable, and charming. He said he probably won’t decide whether to vote for her until the day of the vote.
Senator Romney voted against Judge Jackson last year, when she was confirmed by the Senate as a federal appeals court judge. Senator Collins, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham were the only three Republicans to support her at the time.
Senator Murkowski and Senator Graham have each indicated they might not vote for her a second time. Senator Murkowski said in a statement before the hearings that “I’ve been clear that previously voting to confirm an individual to a lower court does not signal how I will vote for a Supreme Court justice.”
Senator Graham was one of several Republicans on the Judiciary panel who pressed Judge Jackson on the child pornography cases, and he has been vocal in his frustrations that President Biden chose Judge Jackson over his preferred candidate, a federal judge from South Carolina.
He also aired past grievances in the hearing, asking Judge Jackson about her religion and how often she goes to church, in heated comments that he said were fair game after unfair criticism of Justice Barrett’s Catholicism.
Also Wednesday, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he will not support Judge Jackson, further indication that the Judiciary panel will likely deadlock 11-11 at its Monday vote on whether to recommend her confirmation to the full Senate.
A deadlocked vote means Democrats will have to spend additional hours on the Senate floor next week to do a “discharge” from committee.
Still, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said this week that the Senate is “on track” to confirm her by the end of next week and before a two-week Spring recess.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writers Alan Fram, Lisa Mascaro, and Darlene Superville and video journalist Rick Gentilo in Washington and David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.
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If Democrats manage to hang on to their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives after this fall’s midterm elections, it will be because of places like Glens Falls, New York.
For years it has been a small spot of blue in a mostly red Adirondack district. But it may become part of a Democratic-tilting district under a new map passed last month by the New York legislature – a map that could take the state’s eight Republican House members down to as few as four.
Why We Wrote This
Political map-drawing is a powerful tool. While Democrats have decried Republican gerrymandering in recent years, those in some blue states say it’s unilateral disarmament if they don’t respond in kind.
Critics are calling the New York congressional map a blatant gerrymander. On Thursday evening, a Republican state court judge in Western New York agreed. The judge tossed the map, writing that it showed clear political bias.
But New York isn’t the only blue state with warped lines. After years of decrying partisan gerrymandering, Democrats in states from Illinois to Oregon have passed congressional maps that attempt to shore up their own incumbents and eliminate GOP seats.
Republicans have produced equally gerrymandered maps elsewhere. Add the work of independent commissions or courts, and the result is a national playing field that, on paper at least, increasingly looks something like a draw. In practice, polls currently suggest Republicans have a strong advantage heading into this fall’s midterm elections.
If Democrats manage to hang on to their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives after this fall’s midterm elections, it will be because of places like Glens Falls, New York.
Dubbed “hometown, U.S.A.” by Look magazine in 1944, Glens Falls has for years been a small spot of blue in a mostly red Adirondack district. But under a new map passed last month by New York Democrats, it will become part of a newly redrawn Democratic-tilting district based in Albany, which now snakes an arm up Interstate 87 to grab the quaint town of 14,000.
Critics are calling the New York congressional map, which has been signed into law by the governor, one of the most blatant gerrymanders in the country. It could potentially take the state’s eight Republican House members down to as few as four.
Why We Wrote This
Political map-drawing is a powerful tool. While Democrats have decried Republican gerrymandering in recent years, those in some blue states say it’s unilateral disarmament if they don’t respond in kind.
On Thursday evening, a Republican state court judge in Western New York agreed. The judge tossed the map, writing that it showed clear political bias, adding: “in a democracy it is rare if ever that one party has all the right answers.”
But experts say the Democrats’ New York map may well be preserved on appeal, at least for the current cycle. And New York isn’t the only blue state with warped lines. After years of decrying partisan gerrymandering and pushing for legislation to outlaw the practice, Democrats in states from Illinois to Maryland to Oregon have passed congressional maps that attempt to shore up their own incumbents and eliminate GOP seats. Having had little say in the last redistricting cycle a decade ago, thanks to the shellacking it took in the 2010 elections, the party has taken advantage of more recent electoral gains to go on offense, aggressively redrawing district lines in certain states in its own favor.
Republicans have produced equally gerrymandered maps elsewhere, in states from Texas to Florida. At the same time, a growing number of states have turned to independent commissions or courts to produce their maps. The result is a national playing field that, on paper at least, increasingly looks something like a draw. Although a few states’ maps are still being debated and court challenges are ongoing, the overall House map now appears almost evenly balanced between Democrat- and Republican-leaning districts for the first time in decades.
Some analysts say Democrats had little choice but to be aggressive where they could – unless they wanted to unilaterally disarm, since Republicans have steadfastly opposed redistricting reform proposals at the federal level.
“Do [Democrats] impose redistricting rules on themselves? Or do they try to do what Republicans are doing in some states?” asks Seth Masket, a University of Denver political scientist.
Still, Republicans are raising cries of hypocrisy.
“Anytime you accuse your opponents of doing something, and then turn around and do the exact same thing, you’re a hypocrite,” says John Feehery, a Republican strategist based in Washington.
The battle for seats
At the outset of this year’s reapportionment, Republicans had appeared poised to gain as many as 10 seats nationwide from the process. But several GOP maps, such as in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, have been overthrown by courts.
Democratic maps are also facing legal challenges – which could potentially restore Republicans’ edge. Days before New York’s map was tossed, Maryland’s map was rejected by a state court as well. Only one seat likely hangs in the balance for Democrats in Maryland; New York is a far bigger prize. But not everyone is convinced the Empire State’s map is doomed.
Courts in New York have historically been loath to intervene in political fights – and all the justices on the state’s highest court were appointed by Democratic governors, noted Shawn Donahue, a University of Buffalo redistricting expert, before the New York ruling came out. He’s skeptical Republicans can win the appeals that are sure to follow the ruling.
Many Democrats see this year’s efforts as a necessary corrective, after the last round of redistricting gave Republicans a significant structural edge. In 2012, Republican gerrymanders helped the GOP maintain control of the House by a 33-seat margin, despite receiving 1.4 million fewer votes for the House overall.
Of course, rejiggering lines can only accomplish so much. Most polls indicate Republicans will have a strong advantage heading into this fall’s midterm elections, given concerns about inflation and President Joe Biden’s weak poll numbers, which could tip swing districts as well as weaker Democratic ones to the GOP.
And some Democrats reject the idea that their party is relying on gerrymandering to try to offset the political head winds.
“Democrats are drawing maps that reflect the census and the population growth,” says John Bisognano, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which was formed after the last round of redistricting by former Attorney General Eric Holder to guide the Democrats’ efforts nationwide. In a statement to the Monitor, Mr. Bisognano points to states that lost congressional seats because of population declines in rural, Republican areas. New maps ought to reflect that shift, he says.
Others seem more conflicted, however. When a Nashville Scene reporter asked retiring Tennessee Rep. Jim Cooper, a moderate Democrat, about the New York map, he responded, “Are you asking me to be proud of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’?”
Of course, many feel the GOP is taking eyes and teeth of its own – including eliminating Mr. Cooper’s Democratic Nashville district, splitting it up between three rural Republican ones.
New York’s mapmaking was originally supposed to be handled by a bipartisan commission, approved by voters in 2014. But as in several other states, the commission deadlocked, sending the process to the state Legislature, where Democrats have gained a supermajority in recent years.
The resulting map cuts the number of congressional districts where former President Donald Trump would have won from seven out of 27 to four out of 26 – in a state where 37% of voters overall pulled the lever for the former president. That has raised eyebrows even outside the ranks of Republicans. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a nonpartisan research center, gave the New York map an F grade.
“It’s an outrageous, blatant, partisan gerrymander that is clearly contrary to our state constitution,” says former GOP Rep. John Faso, who is leading a lawsuit against the map in state court. An amendment passed by New York voters in 2014 prohibits districts drawn “to discourage competition” or to favor “particular candidates or political parties.” The state judge relied, in part, on that amendment in striking down the map on Thursday.
A coffee shop debate
Critics argue the New York map also fails a “compactness” test, prioritizing partisanship over geography – and ignoring the ways in which local concerns often unite communities more than national politics.
Sitting in SPoT Coffee, next to the old First National Bank building in Glens Falls, Michael Borgos – chairman of the Republican Party committee in Glens Falls – argues that grouping his small town with Albany will just make it “a little fish in a big pond.”
Current GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik’s district office is just a short walk away, he notes. To local townsfolk – whether they love or loathe her – she’s just “Elise.” A Democrat representing a safe, Albany-based district, Mr. Borgos predicts, won’t give Glens Falls the same kind of attention.
Moreover, the town has been historically and culturally tied to parts north, as the gateway to the Adirondacks, he says. “So to separate us, from a political standpoint, doesn’t make any sense.”
“I disagree,” Lynne Boecher cuts in from across the table. The chair of the Warren County Democratic Party, Ms. Boecher contends Glens Falls faces many of the same challenges that the state capital does, like poverty and housing affordability. The town, which voted for Mr. Biden by 23 points in 2020, has far more in common politically with Albany than with the heavily Republican Adirondacks, she says.
Ms. Boecher and Mr. Borgos, often at odds on issues, know each other well. Mr. Borgos is a high school friend of Ms. Boecher’s son.
While they disagree about the new map, there’s one thing they do agree on – they’d likely be able to hash out better lines than the powers that be in Albany.
“Michael and I could probably sit down and draw the 21st and the 20th [districts],” Ms. Boecher quips.
“There you go,” Mr. Borgos chimes in. “Call Albany, tell them we’ll figure it out.”
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect the ruling by a New York state court judge on Thursday evening throwing out the state’s new map.
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The war in Ukraine, more than any conflict before, is on the record. With 70% of the country online, anyone connected can watch the war through civilian smartphones. Anyone, including war crime investigators.
A coalition of international investigators has come to document alleged war crimes in Ukraine. And the near-ubiquitous open-source information available online, from satellite images of cluster-bomb hits to TikTok videos of Russian troop buildups, may bring a rarity for these investigations: prosecution of specific perpetrators.
Why We Wrote This
War crimes investigators – mobilized on the ground in Ukraine and at desks and laboratories around the world to gather and process evidence – inspire hope for justice, and possibly deterrence of further crimes as the war drags on.
“It’s impossible today to conduct any small-scale, let alone large-scale, military operation or to violate human rights in any way of sufficient size ... without outing yourself and who you are,” says Scott Edwards, senior adviser for crisis response at Amnesty International.
Belkis Wille, a Human Rights Watch investigator in Lviv, met a family who’d watched the bombardment of Kharkiv. The youngest, barely 2 years old, was so devastated he no longer wanted to see, and for 24 hours since the family fled had barely opened his eyes.
Ms. Wille appreciates the swift international willingness to “see” this war: “That’s given me a lot of hopefulness in the work that we were able to do, and that we’re going to continue to be doing.”
Belkis Wille met a boy who wouldn’t open his eyes at a shelter in Lviv, Ukraine. There, she was recording potential war crimes for Human Rights Watch and had started interviewing the boy’s mother, a beauty salon owner whose face wore new lines of stress and exhaustion.
The day before, the boy, his mother, and his grandmother had fled Kharkiv amid shelling. His father and grandfather stayed in case they needed to fight. Leaving on the train, all three generations of this family watched their home city being bombarded, as their own apartment had been. The youngest, barely 2 years old, had decided he no longer wanted to see.
“Look at my son,” his mother told Ms. Wille. “He hasn’t opened his eyes since we left Kharkiv.”
Why We Wrote This
War crimes investigators – mobilized on the ground in Ukraine and at desks and laboratories around the world to gather and process evidence – inspire hope for justice, and possibly deterrence of further crimes as the war drags on.
Ms. Wille listened and asked for more details, talking next to 20 or so other Ukrainians who had just reached Lviv and needed a place to rest. When they finished, she had three more pages in her notebook to archive on her laptop that night at the long kitchen table in her apartment, where she and her team worked into the late hours.
Ms. Wille, speaking to the Monitor by phone, is a senior conflict researcher for Human Rights Watch. Those pages were just three out of the hundreds her team – conducting more than 150 interviews over three weeks – compiled in Ukraine in March. From those interviews, they wrote reports on human rights abuses and war crimes that Ms. Wille hopes will help hold the Russian military accountable.
More than any conflict before, the war in Ukraine is on the record. Around 70% of the country has internet access, which means almost anyone with a smartphone can watch. And prosecutors are.
In the past five weeks nongovernmental organizations, governments, intelligence units, and international investigators have all started documenting alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Each group has a different mandate, and their work isn’t all coordinated. But the number of people investigating, combined with near-limitless open-source information – from videos of Russian strikes to satellite images of troop movements – makes it more likely that specific charges are filed, a rarity in these investigations.
“It’s impossible today to conduct any small-scale, let alone large-scale, military operation or to violate human rights ... without outing yourself and who you are,” says Scott Edwards, senior adviser for crisis response at Amnesty International.
A nationwide crime scene
Russia outed itself when it invaded Ukraine this February. Now, its soldiers, officers, and leaders have become suspects in a nationwide crime scene. Millions of civilians experiencing attacks are witnesses. Everything from missile containers to military communications is evidence.
The detectives are dozens of investigators rushing to preserve that evidence while they still can.
“There’s a lot of work to be done, and it will not be easy to do that work in circumstances where there’s shooting and shelling all over the place,” says Chile Eboe-Osuji, president of the International Criminal Court from 2018 to 2021.
That work starts with documenting the “crime base,” or the actual offense. Through witness testimony and open-source information available online, investigators build a detailed record of the war crime – or, more often in an actual case, a series of crimes.
In effect, Ms. Wille and her fellow investigators were in Lviv to do just that. Each day, she woke up around 7 a.m. and visited the train station to find witnesses fleeing Kharkiv who could confirm reports of civilian shelling and cluster-bomb attacks. Inside the station was too chaotic – too many people, moving too quickly, making too much noise. So she stood near the street out front, facing the station's columns, statues, and giant gray dome, and watched thousands of Ukrainians with pets, bags, and other personal possessions stream in and out.
She approached people who’d stopped for a break and, asking through an interpreter if they could speak and where they were from, explained the investigation. Each witness was different. Some had spent the previous week sheltering in a basement; others had taken videos of the attacks or even watched. Some had started processing the destruction; others were still in shock.
“These interviews are very difficult because you’re talking to people who are quite traumatized and obviously you don’t want to do harm when doing the interviews,” says Ms. Wille. “But getting those crucial details is really important.”
She asked what the attacks sounded like, distinguishing the rumble of cluster munitions from the singular boom of other shells. Often, she pulled up a map on her phone and confirmed precise locations.
Then she asked sources for photos and videos – shared over cables, AirDrop, or email to maintain the metadata, or digital fingerprint – which would help verify their testimony before the team used it in a report. All this she filed into a digital archive each night, so Human Rights Watch analysts could review and supplement her work.
Mr. Edwards leads a similar team of analysts at Amnesty. On Feb. 24, soon after the war began, Amnesty researchers spoke with local sources to document a hospital strike in the southeastern town of Vuhledar. They sent their notes, along with photos and videos, to Amnesty’s weapons investigator, who identified the kind of missile used and noted that it was too inaccurate a weapon to responsibly fire near civilians.
These are the components of a crime base. Once investigators establish one, they can start building their case.
A clue as tiny as a rifle serial number
That’s the easy part, says Bill Wiley, executive director of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, who’s investigated war crimes for decades in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In all, he says, establishing a crime base should take up around 10% of an investigation. The other 90% is connecting the crime base to specific perpetrators through “linkage evidence.”
“The challenge from an investigation’s perspective is it’s not enough to just show that the crimes have happened,” says Rebecca Hamilton, a professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and a former lawyer for the International Criminal Court. “You need to figure out who can you hold criminally responsible.”
More than 10 years ago, on one of his first cases, Mr. Edwards received evidence of a clear war crime: a five-minute video of a mass execution during Nigeria’s fight against the terrorist group Boko Haram.
The killers wore Nigerian military fatigues, but Mr. Edwards knew the Nigerian leaders could claim they weren’t government soldiers. He needed, somehow, to confirm their identity. Watching the video carefully, he caught just a few frames in which a serial number on a soldier’s rifle became visible. Through Nigeria’s Ministry of Defense, he confirmed that the rifle hadn’t been reported stolen and belonged to a specific unit.
“If we hadn’t noticed just in the two or three seconds that the serial number presented itself, that information would have been lost forever,” he says.
The war in Ukraine won’t offer such smoking guns, says Dr. Wiley. Unlike prosecuting an individual incident, cases built around the way a war is being fought – called a “conduct of hostilities” case – require piecing together evidence like an amorphous puzzle.
The key is looking for the right information and the right sources, says Dr. Wiley.
“You have to take a cold, practical approach to this stuff, rooted in the requirements of the law,” he says. Witnesses may have powerful stories about an attack and its effects. But they can rarely help link it to specific perpetrators. In most cases, the law demands proof of knowledge or intent. If Russians bomb a theater, investigators need to show a specific leader ordered it, that it wasn’t near a military target, and that it didn’t house military assets. Without that, they would need to show a leader was aware such abuses were occurring but didn’t stop them.
In the past, evidence like that has almost only come from the enemy, making it difficult to collect and difficult to preserve, says Dr. Wiley. He suggests Ukrainian soldiers should fleece prisoners and casualties for “pocket debris,” like notes, cellphones, encryption keys, and laptops. They should also monitor Russian military cellphone and radio communication, which so far has often been unencrypted and easy to hack.
Connecting dots from bomb back to launch
The advent of open-source investigations helps solve the linkage evidence problem. Researchers like Eliot Higgins, founder of the open-source investigative group Bellingcat, can now compensate for distance from the conflict with the volume of information available online.
Early in March, Mr. Higgins played connect-the-dots with remnants of cluster munitions dropped on Kharkiv.
These weapons hit the ground in three stages, and each piece points back toward the other. From abroad on a computer, Mr. Higgins marked the three points, drew a straight line through them, and repeated the process with nearby impacts. Altogether, he could trace the attacks to a single artillery site – geolocated on a map Bellingcat helped develop – with the right number of launchers, in the right range, pointing in the right direction.
“If we can complete that kind of chain of responsibility, it means it’s a lot easier for accountability processes to actually accuse specific units, governments, and commanders, which is often what’s missing,” he says.
Bellingcat started monitoring Russia’s military buildup this February through satellite images and later through TikTok videos of troop movements, tracking and indexing specific attacks. “We’ll dig for every single possible scrap of information that we can find,” says Mr. Higgins.
Those scraps may link all the way up Russian leadership, which is perhaps already accountable for not stopping existing attacks, says Dr. Eboe-Osuji, the former International Criminal Court president. “What everybody’s seeing on television ... I’m sure Mr. [Vladimir] Putin is seeing,” he says. “That is, Russian fire directed at apparently civilian facilities.”
Justice isn’t always enforceable
That doesn’t mean he will face consequences. Russia is already ignoring a “provisional measure” from the International Court of Justice to stop fighting. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin once quipped, “‘How many divisions has the Pope?’” says Stephen Rapp, the U.S. State Department’s ambassador-at-large for the Office of Global Criminal Justice.
In other words, justice isn’t always enforceable.
But Ambassador Rapp, who prosecuted former Liberian President Charles Taylor for war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone, has seen it enforced. Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milošević too would likely have been convicted for war crimes in Kosovo had he not died in custody.
Mr. Putin may not reach trial, but the war he began will be recorded.
After speaking for an hour with the family in Lviv, Ms. Wille could see they needed to stop. The son had started crying. His mother and grandmother looked drained. She thanked them for their time, asked if they could speak again if necessary, and left.
But the moment stuck with her. The boy was too young to understand what was happening or why he had to leave his father and home. He couldn’t understand an investigation, war crimes, or accountability. He could only feel the trauma, and show what it felt like – forcing his eyes shut in snow pants and a thick jacket on his mom’s lap.
Maybe, that feeling would help other people see.
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Two ways to read the story
In the second month of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, Russia’s social and political atmosphere – never very receptive to dissenting opinions – is rapidly chilling. For many Russians trying to feel their way through frightening political restrictions, the dangers remain the source of deep uncertainty.
The tone has been set by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who recently seemed to refer to Russians with a pro-Western point of view as “scum and traitors” that the Russian people “will simply spit ... out like an insect in their mouth.”
Why We Wrote This
The atmosphere inside Russia has turned cold to anyone critical of the country’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. But some, especially youth, are still standing up for their values.
Timur, a student in St. Petersburg, was briefly detained by police for alleged illegal protesting and let go. But he has been expelled from his university. The vice rector called Timur into his office and told him that “you are the kind of person who would stab us in the back and spit on the graves of our soldiers. ... You are not wanted here.”
“We are faced with new rules. We just don’t know where the boundaries are, or what it’s going to be like tomorrow,” says Nikita, a liberal political activist. “I am just not sure what I can say. Will I be punished or not?”
Anna Afanasyeva, a fifth-year nursing student at St. Petersburg’s Pediatric University, admits she was feeling vague anti-war emotions as she went about her business in the city center March 2. But she says she had no intention of participating in any protests.
Nevertheless, she suddenly found herself grabbed by police near the Gostiny Dvor metro station in downtown St. Petersburg, where no rally even seemed to be happening, and thrown into a police van along with several other people.
Editor’s note: This article was edited in order to conform with Russian legislation criminalizing references to Russia’s current action in Ukraine as anything other than a “special military operation.”
Why We Wrote This
The atmosphere inside Russia has turned cold to anyone critical of the country’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. But some, especially youth, are still standing up for their values.
She spent two nights in police detention before being taken to court. A sympathetic judge considered the charge of participating in an illegal assembly, noted that Ms. Afanasyeva had no previous record, and let her off with a light fine. That was just the beginning of her troubles.
“Without even waiting for the court decision, my university summarily expelled me,” she says. “There was no due process according to the rules for expelling a student. I was just told to leave. I am trying to solve this, hopefully without suing the university. If I go that way I can lose a year or more of studies. ... I am just so upset about all this. I’ve heard that there is a blanket order to expel all students who participate in anti-war activities, and I just fell victim to it.”
Welcome to Russia in the second month of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, where the social and political atmosphere – never very receptive to dissenting opinions – is rapidly chilling. Military conflict can have harsh effects on any society, proscribing criticism and tarring anti-war sentiments as treason. But for many Russians trying to find their feet and feel their way through frightening political restrictions not seen in the lifetimes of most, the dangers remain the source of deep uncertainty.
Timur, another St. Petersburg student, was briefly detained by police for alleged illegal protesting and let go. But he has been expelled from his university. The vice rector called Timur into his office and told him that “you are the kind of person who would stab us in the back and spit on the graves of our soldiers. ... You are not wanted here.” Timur has retained a lawyer to appeal the expulsion, and faces military conscription if he can’t get the decision reversed. “I really want to finish my studies,” he says.
According to the Latvia-based online news service Zerkalo, a dozen members of Russia’s National Guard from the southern region of Krasnodar refused to deploy to Ukraine in late February on the grounds that their duties were confined to Russian territory, and were immediately fired. They appealed to lawyers and sued for reinstatement.
One of the lawyers, Mikhail Banyash, says that of the original 12 guardsmen, most have quit and only 3 are still pressing the case.
“The pressure they have been subjected to testifies that their case is sound,” says Mr. Banyash. “But it’s a complicated case, and I can’t predict how it might turn out.”
“True patriots” vs. “scum and traitors”
The tone has been set by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who recently adopted rhetoric that hasn’t been heard in Russia for a very long time. Apparently referring to Russians with a pro-Western point of view as internal enemies, he said: “The collective West is trying to divide our society using, to its own advantage, combat losses and the socioeconomic consequences of the sanctions, and to provoke civil unrest in Russia and use its fifth column in an attempt to achieve this goal. ... But any nation, and even more so the Russian people, will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and will simply spit them out like an insect in their mouth, spit them onto the pavement.”
So far the police crackdown on people who allegedly express opposition to the ongoing military operation has been relatively mild by Russian standards. According to the protest-monitoring group OVD-Info, about 15,000 people have been detained by police since the operation began, the majority of them receiving administrative fines rather than prison sentences.
The main impact to date of the crisis has been the shock and emotional dislocation that has been disproportionately suffered by more youthful, educated, and professional Russians, with many thousands quitting their jobs or even leaving the country. Critical media voices, both independent and mainstream, have been effectively silenced, with Novaya Gazeta being the last independent outlet to close its doors.
Ironically, the same segment of society has also been affected most immediately and deeply by the intensifying Western-imposed sanctions regime, as a result of being cut off from family, property, work, and travel to the West.
Polls suggest popular support is actually consolidating behind Russian authorities as the conflict intensifies, though Lev Gudkov, director of the independent pollster Levada Center, says that under-30s tend to be far more skeptical of official claims than their elders.
“Russian youth are far more negative toward the military operation, those between 15 and 30,” who make up about 15% of the population, he says. “They are scared of the consequences of war, particularly young men who face the prospect of military service. ... Perhaps half of the youth are opposed to the operation, but many are also indifferent, who don’t want to notice events. But on the whole, there seems little appetite for public protest.”
“I don’t believe that I should hide”
For the moment, at least, many politically active young people seem to think that they can adapt to the situation and navigate around the increasingly draconian laws against “fake news” concerning the special military operation.
Nikita, a liberal political activist, publishes carefully calculated criticism on social media, but says he would rather his full name not appear in a U.S. newspaper “under these circumstances.” Still, he’s happy to discuss the dangerous ambiguities that regulate any sort of political speech in Russia today.
“We are faced with new rules. We just don’t know where the boundaries are, or what it’s going to be like tomorrow,” he says. “I am just not sure what I can say. Will I be punished or not? On the first day [of the operation] I posted a note on one of my social media pages that I believe in diplomacy, but not the diplomacy of the tank. It doesn’t seem to have been noticed, but who knows? ... I think we just have to wait, survive, until this operation ends. Then we will see what Russia has changed into, what is the new Russia? Then we’ll have a better idea about how to go forward.”
Egor Kotkin is a left-wing activist who has no problem with speaking plainly. He has long lived an openly gay lifestyle in Moscow, and says he finds Russians to be generally much more tolerant and open-minded than their leaders.
A promotional writer for IT companies, Mr. Kotkin says he never watches TV, has generally opposition-minded co-workers, and mainly encounters pro-Kremlin views through his partner’s family and his relationship with his mother. She is a big fan of Mr. Putin, he says.
“My mother has formed a relationship, through the media, with Putin and the regime. She sees them as part of her life; she trusts them on a personal level. I try not to touch that, because it would spoil my relations with my mom. I guess a lot of families are like that,” he says.
“I don’t believe that I should hide. But we seem to be living under something like martial law. So, anything can change.”
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A federal jury’s $14 million award to Denver protesters hit with pepper balls and a bag filled with lead during 2020 demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis could resonate nationwide as courts weigh more than two dozen similar lawsuits.
The jury found police used excessive force against protesters, violating their constitutional rights, and ordered the city of Denver to pay 12 who sued.
Nationwide, there are at least 29 pending lawsuits challenging law enforcement use of force during the 2020 protests, according to a search of the University of Michigan’s Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse.
The verdict in Denver could give cities an incentive to settle similar cases rather than risk going to trial and losing, said Michael J. Steinberg, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and director of the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. It could also prompt more protesters to sue over their treatment at the hands of police.
“There’s no doubt that the large jury verdict in Denver will influence the outcome of pending police misconduct cases brought by Black Lives Matter protesters across the country,” said Dr. Steinberg, whose law students have been working on a similar lawsuit brought by protesters in Detroit.
Lawyers for the claimants argued that police used indiscriminate force against the nonviolent protesters, including some who were filming the demonstrations, because officers did not like their message critical of law enforcement.
“To the protest of police violence they responded with brutality,” one of their attorneys, Timothy Macdonald, told jurors.
People who took part in the protests have already made similar allegations in lawsuits filed across the country.
In Washington, D.C., activists and civil liberties groups sued over the forcible removal of protesters before then-President Donald Trump walked to a church near the White House for a photo op. The claims against federal officials were dismissed last year but a judge allowed the case against local police to continue.
Several lawsuits alleging protesters were wrongfully arrested or that police used excessive force have been filed against New York City and its police department, including one brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James that claims police used excessive force and wrongfully arrested protesters. In Rochester, New York, people who protested the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who lost consciousness after being pinned to the street by officers during a mental health call in 2020, claim police used extreme force against them in a lawsuit that also alleges city officials have allowed a culture of police brutality against racial minorities to fester.
One of their attorneys, Donald Thompson, said he plans to raise the Denver award in settlement talks with the city and note that unlike most of the Denver protesters, some of his clients suffered lasting injuries including the loss of an eye and scarring from being hit in the face with a tear gas canister. Mr. Thompson also thinks the Denver verdict shows that the public, in the age of cellphone and body camera videos, is not as willing to give police the benefit of the doubt anymore.
“Now people see how this policing really works. You can’t be naïve,” he said.
A spokesperson for Rochester did not return a call and an email seeking comment. When the case was filed, the city said it had already revised the way police respond to protests.
Over the last two months, the city of Austin, Texas, has agreed to pay a total of $13 million to four people who were hit in the head with bean bag rounds fired by police.
Even before the Denver ruling last week, the police department made some changes in response to criticism that arose from the protests, including eliminating the use of 40mm foam rounds for crowd control and changing the way officers are permitted to use pepper balls.
Denver’s Department of Public Safety, which includes the police department, said in a statement that the city was not prepared for the level of sustained violence and destruction. During the trial, lawyers and witnesses said over 80 officers were injured as some in the crowds hurled rocks, water bottles, and canned food at them.
The department said it continues to evaluate its policies to “better protect peaceful protestors while addressing those who are only there to engage in violence.”
Still, the large award is not expected to lead to an overhaul of how officers respond to what experts say are inherently chaotic situations that are difficult to prepare for.
Ed Obayashi, a use-of-force consultant to law enforcement agencies and a deputy sheriff and legal adviser in Plumas County, California, said society may have to bear the cost of such settlements because innocent people can be injured during protests as outnumbered police try to react on the fly, including to people intent on violence.
“It really goes south in an instant because there are individuals out there who want to cause chaos,” he said.
Mr. Obayashi said there is not much police training for protests, which have been relatively rare. He said it would be prohibitively expensive to have officers practice deploying equipment such as tear gas canisters. Because projectiles used in crowds and considered “less lethal” by police, such as rubber bullets and pepper balls, have less velocity and less power to hurt people, it is harder to ensure they hit their intended target, he said.
Lawyers representing people who have also alleged police misconduct and violation of their constitutional right to protest can now use the Denver damage award as part of their own settlement negotiations, said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented some of the winning Denver protesters.
The decision came nearly two years after thousands of people angry about Mr. Floyd’s death took to the streets nationwide, a relatively quick result for the legal system and soon enough for others who allege misconduct by police to file a claim. In Colorado and many other states, there is a two-year statute of limitations for such lawsuits Mr. Silverstein said, leaving only a few months for others to sue.
The city attorney’s office said it has not decided whether to appeal the verdict, but appeals in such big cases are common, said Gloria Browne-Marshall, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Outside lawyers will also scrutinize the case to try to determine if there are unique circumstances that may have led to a “lightning in a bottle” verdict that is less likely to be repeated.
However, Dr. Browne-Marshall thinks the verdict sends a significant message that regular people respect the right of protest and demand change from the government, which she believes police and prosecutors have been undermining.
“It should send a message to both, but whether or not they listen is a different issue,” Dr. Browne-Marshall said.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
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Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday signed into law a bill that creates a first-in-the-nation statewide alert system for missing Indigenous people, to help address a silent crisis that has plagued Indian Country in the state and nationwide.
The law sets up a system similar to Amber Alerts and so-called silver alerts, which are used respectively for missing children and vulnerable adults in many states. It was spearheaded by Democratic Rep. Debra Lekanoff, the only Native American lawmaker currently serving in the Washington state Legislature, and championed by Indigenous leaders statewide.
“I am proud to say that the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s and People’s Alert System came from the voices of our Native American leaders,” said Ms. Lekanoff, a member of the Tlingit tribe and the bill’s chief sponsor. “It’s not just an Indian issue, it’s not just an Indian responsibility. Our sisters, our aunties, our grandmothers are going missing every day ... and it’s been going on for far too long.”
Tribal leaders, many of them women, wore traditional hats woven from cedar as they gathered around Governor Inslee for the signing on the Tulalip Reservation, north of Seattle. Afterward they gifted him with a handmade traditional ribbon shirt and several multicolored woven blankets.
The law attempts to address a crisis of missing Indigenous people – particularly women – in Washington and across the United States.
While the law includes missing men, women, and children, a summary of public testimony on the legislation notes that “the crisis began as a women’s issue, and it remains primarily a women’s issue.”
Besides notifying law enforcement when there’s a report of a missing Indigenous person, the new alert system will place messages on highway reader boards and on the radio and social media, and provide information to the news media.
The legislation was paired with another bill Governor Inslee signed Thursday that requires county coroners or medical examiners to take steps to identify and notify family members of murdered Indigenous people and return their remains. That new law also establishes two grant funds for Indigenous survivors of human trafficking.
This piece of the crisis is important because, in many cases, murdered Indigenous women are mistakenly recorded as white or Hispanic by coroners’ offices, never identified, or their remains never repatriated.
A 2021 report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found the true number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States is unknown due to reporting problems, distrust of law enforcement, and jurisdictional conflicts. But Native American women face murder rates almost three times those of white women overall – and up to 10 times the national average in certain locations, according to a 2021 summary of the existing research by the National Congress of American Indians. More than 80% have experienced violence.
In Washington, more than four times as many Indigenous women go missing than white women, according to research conducted by the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle, but many such cases receive little or no media attention.
The bill signing began with a traditional welcome song passed down by Harriette Shelton Dover, a cherished cultural leader and storyteller. Ms. Dover recovered and shared many traditions and songs from tribes along Washington’s northern Pacific Coast and worked with linguists before her death in 1991 to preserve her language, Lushootseed, from extinction. Women performed an honor song after the event.
Tulalip Tribes of Washington Chairwoman Teri Gobin said Washington and Montana are the two states with the most missing Indigenous people in the U.S. Nearly four dozen Native people are currently missing in Seattle alone, she said.
“What’s the most important thing is bringing them home, whether they’ve been trafficked, whether they’ve been stolen, or murdered,” she said. “It’s a wound that stays open, and it’s something that we pray with [for] each person, we can bring them home.”
Investigations into missing Indigenous people, particularly women, have been plagued by many issues for decades.
When a person goes missing on a reservation, often there are jurisdictional conflicts between tribal police and local and state law enforcement. A lack of staff and police resources, and the rural nature of many reservations, compound those problems. And many times, families of tribal members distrust non-Native law enforcement or don’t know where to report news of a missing loved one.
An alert system will help mitigate some of those problems by allowing better communication and coordination between tribal and non-tribal law enforcement and creating a way for law enforcement to flag such cases for other agencies. The law expands the definition of “missing endangered person” to include Indigenous people, as well as children and vulnerable adults with disabilities or memory or cognitive issues.
The law takes effect June 9 and some details are still being worked out. For example, it’s unclear what criteria law enforcement will use to positively identify a missing person as Native American and how the information will be disseminated in rural areas, including on some reservations, where highways lack electronic reader boards – or where there aren’t highways at all.
The measure is the latest step Washington has taken to address the issue. The Washington State Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force is working to coordinate a statewide response and had its first meeting in December. Its first report is expected in August.
Many states from Arizona to Oregon to Wisconsin have taken recent action to address the crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women. Efforts range from funding for better resources for tribal police to the creation of new databases specifically targeting missing tribal members. Tribal police agencies that use Amber Alerts for missing Indigenous children include the Hopi and Las Vegas Paiute.
In California, the Yurok Tribe and the Sovereign Bodies Institute, an Indigenous-run research and advocacy group, uncovered 18 cases of missing or slain Native American women in roughly the past year – a number they consider a vast undercount.
An estimated 62% of those cases are not listed in state or federal databases for missing persons.
The law is already drawing attention from other states, whose attorneys general have called to ask how to enact similar legislation, said state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who called the law “truly groundbreaking.”
“Any time you’re doing something for the first time in this country, that’s an extra heavy lift,” he said. “This most certainly will not be our last reform to make sure that we bring everybody back home. ... There is so much more work that needs to be done and must be done.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Gillian Flaccus reported from Portland, Oregon.
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Early one Saturday morning, the vendor hung a pair of bluejeans on his stall in a Johannesburg township. They were a pair of secondhand Levi’s 550s made in Lesotho.
Rorisang Kamoli works in the factories that produce for Levi Strauss & Co. in Lesotho. Years of quality control work has left her thumbnails split open and her fingers calloused. In 2021, a colleague was fatally shot by police as employees protested for their wages to be increased to about $160 a month.
Why We Wrote This
More than 1.25 billion pairs of bluejeans are sold worldwide every year. The round-the-world journey of a single pair of Levi’s made in a factory in Lesotho shines a light on the cost of America’s voracious appetite for fast fashion.
Due to a trade deal, nearly all of Lesotho’s Levi’s end up in the United States, so that pair of jeans had almost certainly traveled to America, where families buy nearly a new closet’s worth of items annually. The jeans were one of those purchases, selling for $70 or so.
But then came the pandemic, with people staying home, elastic waistbands gaining popularity, and clothing donations to secondhand stores spiking by more than 50% in 2020. Donated, but not purchased, the jeans headed back to Africa, where 70% of donated clothes wind up, making it difficult for the continent’s independent garment producers to compete with the influx of used clothing.
After two trips across the ocean, the secondhand jeans sold in South Africa for $10.
Early one Saturday morning, the vendor hung The Jeans on his stall on a dusty street corner in a Johannesburg township. They were a pair of secondhand Levi’s 550s. Straight leg. Relaxed fit. Waist 36, inseam 34. One hundred percent cotton, in a soft, brushed blue. The hems on the left pocket were frayed, and there was a small tear above one belt loop, but otherwise The Jeans could have been new.
People who buy secondhand clothes here see Levi’s as a luxury brand, the vendor knew. A message stamped onto the inside of one of The Jeans’ pockets explained that Levi’s are “an American tradition, symbolizing the vitality of the West to people all over the world.” He could probably sell them for $10.
But however symbolic they are of the American West, The Jeans were also global citizens. A glossy tag stitched inside the right hip read “Made in Lesotho.” Encircled entirely by South Africa, the tiny, mountainous country is about 250 miles away from the market where The Jeans now hung. But instead of a simple overland journey of five hours, these jeans had likely lapped the globe before ending up for resale back in southern Africa.
Why We Wrote This
More than 1.25 billion pairs of bluejeans are sold worldwide every year. The round-the-world journey of a single pair of Levi’s made in a factory in Lesotho shines a light on the cost of America’s voracious appetite for fast fashion.
Across the course of their life, The Jeans probably had their cotton grown in one country, spun and woven into fabric in another, were cut and sewn in a third, and were worn and donated to charity in a fourth, all before ending up here in South Africa, country number five.
That journey from one neighboring African country to another, via an 18,000 mile detour to the United States, is a parable of Africa’s role in the fast-fashion industry, and Americans’ implication in it. The clothing industry, one of the world’s most environmentally destructive, is responsible for 10% of global emissions, more than air travel and maritime shipping combined. Meanwhile the people who make the world’s clothing – mostly women in the Global South – rarely earn above their country’s minimum wage, which is less than $200 a month in many African countries. Yet the continent is increasingly shouldering the burden of both creating America’s clothes, and disposing of them after they finish with them.
Threadbare benefits for workers
Bluejeans are perhaps the modern world’s most popular garment spun from cotton, a plant fiber that has helped shape much of today’s world as we know it.
“Without cotton cloth, we would have no global economy, no staggering social inequality between the Global North and South, no work for women outside the home, and no industrialization, which was all powered by slavery on expropriated and overtaxed land,” argues Maxine Bedat, the author of “Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment,” a book about the denim supply chain.
Born in a Nevada tailor’s workshop in the 1870s, denim was popularized by Levi Strauss & Co. as workwear for lumberjacks, cowboys, and railroad workers. By the mid-20th century, jeans had become a leisure item too. Today, an American woman, on average, owns seven pairs of jeans. A whopping 1.25 billion pairs are sold worldwide every year.
Sometime in the last few years, The Jeans were among them.
First, though, they had to be sewn. Based on their “Made in” tag, this particular pair could have been stitched together in only one place, a scruffy industrial district of aluminum factory shells in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho.
Although the southern African country is a minuscule player in the global garment industry, jeans are big business for the country of 2 million. The vast majority of those who work in clothing factories here, like nearly everywhere in the world, are women. So it was almost certainly women in Lesotho who made The Jeans. About 100 of them, because that’s how many people’s hands a pair of jeans passes through, from the moment the roll of denim is unspooled on the factory floor until it’s packed in a shipping container.
What would The Jeans’ first moments of existence have looked like?
They would have been loud. The cavernous interior of a bluejeans factory buzzes like a swarm of flies. Irons hiss. Washing machines clack and clatter. The only thing that’s more or less silent are the workers, hunched over their machines assembling a single item – a belt loop, a pocket, a leg seam – with laser focus, trying to keep pace with targets that run into the hundreds or thousands of pairs daily.
Rorisang Kamoli has worked in the factories that produce for Levi Strauss in Lesotho for more than a decade. She’s slight, in her early 30s, with thick-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses and long braids. If The Jeans passed through her hands, here’s what she would have done. She would have run her fingers over the rivets, those tiny patented bronze buttons sutured to the front pockets of every pair of Levi’s, and the button on the fly. She would have twisted each one, to make sure it was secure, and felt for rough, sharp edges that would make The Jeans dangerous to wear.
Years of this quality control work has left her thumbnails split open and her fingers calloused. Her mind, too, is equally weary, thinking about the people in America who buy these jeans for $69.50 – about half her monthly wage.
“[Americans] just want to wear these products – they don’t care how we are living to make them,” she says.
Among the things she suspects Americans don’t consider: her cracked thumbnail. Whether anyone can raise two children on $150 a month. What it feels like to have a colleague killed in a protest while trying to convince the companies to raise that wage to about $160 a month. The terror of watching half the world swap jeans for sweatpants during a global pandemic, when your life depends on bluejeans.
When Ms. Kamoli was growing up, Lesotho had a different export – its men went to work in the gold, diamond, and platinum mines of neighboring South Africa. But beginning in the 1990s, the mines began to close. The men returned, and, as new garment factories opened, the women went to work.
But the new opportunities made for a bitter independence. “Sometimes I feel angry with jeans. I hate them. Why should I have to work so hard, for a wage that’s not enough, to make a thing like this?” Ms. Kamoli says.
Secondhand imports flood Africa
Lesotho’s garment industry exists in large part thanks to an American trade deal called the African Growth and Opportunities Act, which, since 2001, has allowed Lesotho and three dozen other African countries to import certain goods, including clothes, to the U.S. duty-free.
It also means that nearly all of Lesotho’s Levi’s are America-bound. So it’s fairly safe to say that’s where The Jeans went next. Americans buy clothing voraciously, purchasing dozens of clothing items per year – an average of 68, according to the clothing rental service Rent the Runway.
In the 1950s, American families were spending 10% of their income on clothing, and purchasing just a few items a year. Now that figure is 2%, but thanks to the rise of so-called fast fashion, that amount buys nearly a new closet’s worth of items annually.
For someone, somewhere, The Jeans were one of those many purchases.
Then, along came the pandemic. Around that time, The Jeans and their owner parted ways. Who needed jeans anymore, when pants with an elastic waist existed and you were never leaving your house? Clothing donations spiked by more than 50% in 2020, according to the online secondhand retailer ThredUp.
Because The Jeans were in near-perfect nick, their owner could have been forgiven for thinking they would be a great item to donate to a local Goodwill or Salvation Army. Someone would snatch them right up at a local thrift store, they might have reasoned, and the charity would earn some much-needed cash for its programs.
Except that’s not what happens to most of the clothes Americans donate to charity, and it’s not what happened to The Jeans either.
On average, American charity stores sell just 10% to 20% of the donations they receive. The rest end up in the hands of textile recyclers – companies whose entire reason for being is to make old clothes disappear. They buy charity shop donations by weight, then sort them. About 45% is considered “salable,” that is, high enough quality that it can be worn again, according to the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association. Another 50% can be made into either rags or insulation, and the worst quality stuff is simply thrown away.
“Watching the process of sorting and grading feels a little like a visit to the slaughterhouse,” wrote George Packer of visiting a textile recycler in Brooklyn.
The Jeans, it’s clear, made the cut for resale. So they were pressed, with hundreds of other pairs, into a cube about the size of a dishwasher, and loaded on another shipping container.
Globally, 70% of donated clothes end up in Africa. But it’s not, as many assume, because Africans are desperate for the rest of the world’s castoffs. In the decades after independence, many African countries had major textile industries of their own. After Western governments and global lenders began putting pressure on those countries to liberalize their economies in the 1980s, trade restrictions fell, and clothing imports from the rest of the world flooded in.
In recent years, some African countries have attempted to fight back. But when a bloc of East African countries banned the import of secondhand clothes in 2016, American textile exporters reacted predictably. They pressured lawmakers, and soon the U.S. was threatening to withdraw the African Growth and Opportunities Act, the trade deal that gives African countries duty-free access to American markets for many goods. In the end, only the central African nation of Rwanda stood its ground.
And so The Jeans probably landed in South Africa’s coastal neighbor Mozambique. Technically, it’s illegal to import any secondhand clothing into South Africa – a move to protect its own clothing factories – but the rule is flagrantly ignored. Truckloads rumble unhindered across its border every day, much of it bound for a single market in downtown Johannesburg.
There, on a four-block stretch of De Villiers Street, wedged between a minibus taxi stand and the city’s main train station, dozens of hawkers sell secondhand clothes from bed-sized bins: heaps of gauzy blouses, T-shirts from American 5K races, vintage dresses, and yes, jeans. “AmaSkinnyJean! AmaSkinnyJean!” they shout, using the Zulu prefix to pluralize words. “Cheap cheap cheap!”
The market also sells to wholesalers like the one who bought The Jeans. He then brought them 20 miles north, to a neighborhood whose name means “Olive Wood Forest” in Afrikaans, although it is a patch of prairie dotted with small houses and tin shacks, with no trees in sight. Like many South African townships – the mostly working class bedroom communities that huddle on the edge of all its cities – Olievenhoutbosch has a clothing market, where every weekend a couple dozen vendors set up shop on a corner near a dusty police station.
One weekend last November, The Jeans were among the clothes on offer.
“How much?” asked a customer.
R150, the vendor answered. $10.
She pulled the bills out of her wallet, Nelson Mandela’s face beaming up from the blue and red notes.
And just like that, The Jeans, and all the stories they carried, belonged to me.
Reporting for this story was supported by The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
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Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is facing his toughest election yet on April 3, against a united opposition led by a Christian conservative. But the war in Ukraine has pushed traditional hot-button issues into the background – and looks likely to boost Europe’s self-styled “illiberal” strongman’s chances at the ballot box.
The war changed the dynamic of the parliamentary campaign, as the opposition seized on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to present Mr. Orbán as Vladimir Putin’s lackey in Europe. It highlighted that Hungary blocked Ukraine’s accession to NATO, and that Mr. Orbán stood alongside Mr. Putin weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Why We Wrote This
For some Hungarians, Viktor Orbán’s close ties to Russia aren’t cause to vote for his opponent. They’re a reason the prime minister is best suited to keep Hungary safe from the war in Ukraine.
But the latest polls suggest Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party could win by a narrow margin. The public’s logic seems to be that Mr. Orbán puts the economic well-being of Hungarian families first and national interests above geopolitical considerations.
“Orbán gave a very smart answer, saying in wartimes the most important thing for Hungarians is not who is responsible for the war and not moral issues,” says Ágoston Mráz, a conservative think tank director. “The question is who can guarantee the freedom and peace of Hungary and through that, the prosperity of Hungary?”
For many right-wing European leaders who have wooed Russian President Vladimir Putin, the war in Ukraine has been a blow to their popularity.
Not so for Viktor Orbán.
The Hungarian prime minister is facing his toughest election yet on April 3, against a united opposition led by a Christian conservative. Before the invasion, the public fretted about COVID-19, high inflation, migration, the defense of traditional family values versus greater LGBTQ rights, and how Budapest’s conflicts with Brussels over rule of law, corruption, and media freedoms might play out. It seemed like a formula for Mr. Orbán’s ouster.
Why We Wrote This
For some Hungarians, Viktor Orbán’s close ties to Russia aren’t cause to vote for his opponent. They’re a reason the prime minister is best suited to keep Hungary safe from the war in Ukraine.
But the conflict in Ukraine has pushed traditional hot-button issues into the background – and looks likely, experts say, to boost Europe’s self-styled “illiberal” strongman’s chances at the ballot box.
The latest polls suggest Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party could win by a narrow margin. The public’s logic seems to be that Mr. Orbán puts the economic well-being of Hungarian families first and national interests above geopolitical considerations.
“We really trust in Viktor Orbán,” says Gyöngyi Bors, a redheaded hairdresser who came with her grandchildren to hear the Hungarian leader speak in Budapest. “As long as he is in power, this country is safe and the people of Hungary are safe. He is reliable. He is authentic. And whenever we go outside Budapest, we see that Hungary is developing in a great way. Everything is getting more and more beautiful. Things are built.”
While Fidesz is expected to win, it is also expected to lose the supermajority it secured in 2018 – which made constitutional changes possible.
“There is room for surprises,” says Stefano Bottoni, a teacher of Eastern European history at the University of Florence and author of a book on Mr. Orbán. “The war totally changed the situation.”
From freedom fighter to Putin’s ally
Mr. Orbán knows how to pivot and nail down messages that resonate with the majority of Hungarians, analysts say. He shot to political fame as an anti-communist freedom fighter who stood in Budapest’s Heroes’ Square in 1989 demanding that Russian troops exit Hungary. It was Mr. Orbán who oversaw Hungary’s accession to NATO in 1999. And for years, he insisted that Hungary should diversify its energy sources and lessen its dependence on Russia.
“We don’t want to be the happiest barracks of Gazprom,” Mr. Orbán declared in 2007 when his Fidesz party was in the opposition.
That fiery antagonism toward Russia ended in 2010, when Mr. Orbán traveled to Moscow and reset relations with Mr. Putin. In the summer of 2014, he declared Russia – along with China and Turkey – as political models to follow, proudly launching Hungary on the path to “illiberal democracy.” Mr. Orbán’s authoritarian tendencies and sweeping reforms are today major points of concern for the European Union.
On the economic front, Mr. Orbán signed a contract with Russia’s Rosatom to expand the Paks Nuclear Power Plant. More recently, he invited the controversial Russian-led International Investment Bank to set up its headquarters in Budapest, reportedly providing diplomatic immunity to its staff even if critics see it as a front for Russian spying. These projects are perceived to be dear to the Hungarian leader’s heart, fruits of a carefully crafted, pragmatic relationship with Mr. Putin.
They are also why he is widely perceived as Mr. Putin’s last ally in Europe.
“That’s not a viable position,” says Dr. Bottoni. “He seemed quite unsure for a couple of days [after the invasion of Ukraine began]. Then he assumed this new position of peace fighter. He has a pass for victory now because he has a new narrative as commander in chief for peace and many Hungarians want to hear this. The war scares people, and Hungary is a border country [with Ukraine].”
“There is moral risk”
The war changed the dynamic of the parliamentary campaign, as the opposition seized on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to present Mr. Orbán as Mr. Putin’s lackey in Europe. It highlighted that Hungary blocked Ukraine’s accession to NATO, and that Mr. Orbán stood alongside Mr. Putin weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, celebrating their 12th meeting since 2010.
It’s a matter of “East versus West” and democracy versus greater authoritarianism, opposition leaders say.
“Choose Europe, freedom, and growth instead of East, slavery, and deprivation,” urged Péter Márki-Zay, the joint opposition candidate for prime minister at a rally last month. As a small-town mayor and churchgoing father of seven, he embodies the conservative values that resonate with the right-wing Fidesz voter base but also has the support of liberal parties. Many believe he is the country’s best hope to unseat Mr. Orbán.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also criticized Mr. Orbán in recent days, blaming him for holding back on some sanctions, blocking weapons transfers to Ukraine via Hungary, and importing Russian oil and gas. “There can be no Russian branches in Europe that divide the EU from within, that are trying to help Russia make as much money as possible even now,” Mr. Zelenskyy said Tuesday. “Europe must stop listening to the excuses of Budapest.”
Hungary has come out looking soft relative to the other central European nations. When the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia – which, along with Hungary, form the so-called the Visegrád Group – went to Kyiv to show support for Ukraine earlier this month, Mr. Orbán stayed home. Hungary’s weaker line toward Russia also led the rest of the Visegrád Group to snub a planning meeting of defense ministers in Budapest this week.
Still, Hungary did fall into line with the EU and impose sanctions on Russia. And for all the cozying up to Mr. Putin in recent years, Mr. Orbán has never called into question Hungary’s membership in NATO or the EU per se, analysts note. “We were trying to expand our range of motion,” says Dr. Bottoni. “Until now, it didn’t seem so risky. It seemed even a smart move, playing a bit with the Russians, with the Chinese, imagining a global role for Hungary.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dramatically changed the equation. “It’s not only risky; there is moral risk,” Dr. Bottoni adds. “You are aligning with bloody dictatorships; you are aligning with isolated regimes. You are perceived as a kind of last ally [to Mr. Putin]. And Hungary has a very bad tradition, unfortunately, in the 20th century of standing on the wrong side.”
Remembering the Soviets
The majority of Hungarians are wary of being dragged into the Ukrainian conflict. Hungary was stripped of two-thirds of its territory in the aftermath of World War I. Hungary sided with Nazi Germany in World War II largely because Adolf Hitler offered to return the land. Large swaths of the population still dream of restoring Greater Hungary, a sentiment Mr. Orbán plays on.
“Hungary had to pay a high price for these wars,” says Ágoston Mráz, director of the conservative think tank Nézőpont Intézet. “That is why the sentiment to stay neutral is so strong in society.”
The stakes of a conflict with Russia are clear for the average Hungarian, even if ties between Budapest and Moscow have been at their best under Mr. Orbán, and even if Fidesz media repeats Russian tropes about the Ukrainian conflict. Hungary lived under communist rule until 1989.
“We know what it is like to fight with the Russians,” says Endre Pokasz, a press officer tasked with showing the aircraft museum, upgraded churches, and cultural venues set up under Mr. Orbán in the town of Szolnok. “If anyone thinks the Russians can be beaten easily, they are wrong. Hungary must keep the peace. What if Russia takes revenge on us? We are too small for this. If they close the gas, we will have no heating. Companies will have to stop working. Nothing will work.”
Russia supplies 80% of Hungary’s gas. Mr. Orbán signed a 15-year deal with Gazprom last year. That makes energy prices in Hungary cheaper compared with the rest of Europe. “It is a powerful weapon for Orbán,” says Dr. Bottoni. “We have to do what is good for us. You are paying less for gas and oil. Do you want to pay more? Please vote for the opposition, break down the agreements with the Russians. ... If not, we have to accept that the Russians are our partners. Whatever they do.”
“Orbán gave a very smart answer saying in wartimes, the most important thing for Hungarians is not who is responsible for the war and not moral issues. But the question is who can guarantee the freedom and peace of Hungary, and through that the prosperity of Hungary?” concurs Mr. Mráz.
Victory for the opposition would mean a complete re-orientation of Hungary’s foreign policy toward the West. That is the fervent wish of lawyer Gabor Matlak, in Budapest. Lingering by the banks of the Danube River with his family after the opposition rally, he clung to the flag of Europe.
“We are afraid we will not be part of the EU anymore if Orbán wins again,” he explains. “It is our last chance for Hungary to stay in the European Union and NATO. I think Europe will not tolerate Orbán anymore if we are not strong enough to kick him out.”
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Four times in 40 days, Fahad Shah was close to coming home. The Monitor contributor was arrested as India has clamped down on dissent in Kashmir. But each time he made bail, he was rearrested on a new charge. Now, the government has jailed him under the designation of “preventive detention,” which can last up to two years without formal charges.
Fahad’s story is a personal one – of a principled determination to continue responsible journalism even amid a crackdown. It is also a story of Kashmir – a window into a Muslim-majority state now essentially put under martial law by the Hindu nationalist government. But it is a story for the wider world, too. On the day that Fahad was returned to jail, there was only pride in the work he and his colleagues have done through their publication, The Kashmir Walla, to give people a voice and stand for rule of law.
In a globalized world where every atrocity and threat to freedom is brought to our phones with a ping and devastating clarity, the overwhelming feeling can be impotence. Though I cannot ask him, I do not think Fahad would agree. The good we do is bound only by our conviction to do it.
Fahad’s professional lifework, The Kashmir Walla, is under tremendous strain. The website, including a donation page, can be found at thekashmirwalla.com, and the entire operation can be sustainably funded for a few thousand dollars a month.
But more deeply, the need is for the free world to awake. The post-World War II era saw an unprecedented expansion of freedom. But it was dearly bought. When divisions usurp our determination to expand freedom, when they eclipse our love for our neighbor, they replace progress with the cold calculations of personal will. Fahad’s story exhorts us all to remember that freedom never lives long in ungenerous hearts.
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Arthur C. Brooks has spent years studying happiness. He teaches a class on happiness and leadership at Harvard Business School, worked closely with the Dalai Lama, and walked the Camino de Santiago – a 100-mile Roman Catholic meditation trail.
He has also turned a trove of personal journals into his new book, “From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.”
Why We Wrote This
A formula for happiness may seem too good to be true, but a new book takes the idea of happiness beyond self-help, offering simple ideas we can all explore for deeper meaning.
The New York Times bestseller suggests readers focus on the happiness that already exists in their life, and points to small daily steps people can take to cultivate happiness in the present.
“Satisfaction is not a function of what you have,” says Mr. Brooks. “It’s a function of what you have divided by what you want. ... So your satisfaction can go up, paradoxically, by wanting less. Now how do you want less? You have to make a positive affirmative decision to do that, and you absolutely can.”
His formula for happiness focuses on love. “You can boil down all of the studies of happiness to five words,” he says. “Those words are: Happiness is love. Full stop.”
Arthur C. Brooks has spent decades studying happiness. But in recent years the social scientist’s research turned into what he calls “me search.”
He found that those who are unhappiest later in life are often the strivers on a continual quest for money, power, pleasure, and prestige. Mr. Brooks turned his introspection into a bestseller, “From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.”
Formerly the president of the American Enterprise Institute, Mr. Brooks is now a columnist for The Atlantic. He also teaches a class on happiness and leadership at Harvard Business School. The Monitor recently spoke with him about his book. The discussion has been edited for length and clarity.
Why We Wrote This
A formula for happiness may seem too good to be true, but a new book takes the idea of happiness beyond self-help, offering simple ideas we can all explore for deeper meaning.
How did you embark on your quest to understand happiness – and what most surprised you about what you discovered?
My wife read it – these are just my notebooks – and she said, “You’ve got to publish this as a book.” I said, “I don’t know if anybody’s going to read it.” And it opened [shortly after its debut in February] at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list.
The most important skill that I talk about in this book is to really think about the happiness that’s occurring in your life. Why do I have these feelings that I have? What are the feelings that I wished I [had instead]? And when you do that, you can actually make some very affirmative and positive decisions in your life.
Like many people, you struggle with spending a lot of time thinking about the future. Why is that problematic?
My mentor Martin Seligman, at the University of Pennsylvania, believes that we shouldn’t be called Homo sapiens. He believes we should be called Homo prospectus. And the reason is because we’re the only species that can spend any significant cognitive energy on the future.
The average person spends, according to Seligman, between 30% and 50% of his or her time thinking about the future. To be thinking about the future, ironically, is basically to take the current present and waste it because you’re treating the current moment like drudgery so you can live in a better future. In a very real way, you’re missing your own life.
You went for a long walk in Spain to learn not to constantly chase that state of happiness on the horizon. Tell me about it.
One of the ways that you can fix that is by getting into a rhythmic activity in which your only goal is to be present. I did it on the Camino de Santiago, which is this ancient Roman Catholic walking meditation. One hundred miles. You walk all day and your job is to be fully present and pray a lot. When I notice my mind focusing on scenarios of the future, I’ll take it back to the dust on my boots. Flowers on the side of the road. The feel of the rain on my bald head. At first there’s screaming inside your head. Then after about 24 hours the screaming starts to get softer and then pretty soon you’re just in rhythm. I wouldn’t say it’s a permanent game changer because you have to keep doing it.
You write about the importance of cultivating a spiritual practice. Why?
The four habits that are most associated with the happiest people are faith, family, friendship, and work that serves others. That’s the happiness portfolio. The first of those is faith. By that I don’t mean a particular faith. One of the greatest sources of misery in our lives is that we’re obsessed with the most boring thing in the world, repetitively thinking about my job, my car, my clothes, my house, my relationships. It’s like the same TV show over and over and over again.
I’ve worked very closely with the Dalai Lama for the last 10 years. He says, “Always remember you are one in 7 billion.” Which does not mean I’m an ant or insignificant. It means I need to zoom out to find the majesty of life, to find the adventure in life.
Every year, on your birthday, you compile what you term “a reverse bucket list.” Explain that concept.
Satisfaction is not a function of what you have. It’s a function of what you have divided by what you want. Most people try to have this kind of fruitless “haves” management strategy. Which puts them on what we call the hedonic treadmill. ... You go from have, to have, to have, to have. You can defeat that by modeling it in a different way by having a “wants” management strategy. The wants are the denominator of the satisfaction equation. And when you decrease the denominator, the whole number increases. So your satisfaction can go up, paradoxically, by wanting less. Now how do you want less? You have to make a positive affirmative decision to do that, and you absolutely can.
You write that love is the epicenter of happiness. Tell me more.
The world gives you a bogus formula for happiness. No. 1: Use people. No. 2: Love things. No. 3: Worship yourself. And it actually seems right because it’s so close to the truth. It just mixes up the nouns and the verbs. The right formula, based on all of the best neuroscience, clinical, [and] social scientific research, is simply: Use things, love people, and worship the divine. You can boil down all of the studies of happiness to five words. Those words are: Happiness is love. Full stop.
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President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered the release of 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve for six months, a bid to control energy prices that have spiked after the United States and allies imposed steep sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
The president said it was not known how much gasoline prices could decline as a result of his move, but he suggested it might be “anything from 10 cents to 35 cents a gallon.” Gas is averaging about $4.23 a gallon, compared with $2.87 a year ago, according to AAA.
“The bottom line is if we want lower gas prices we need to have more oil supply right now,” Mr. Biden said. “This is a moment of consequence and peril for the world, and pain at the pump for American families.”
The president also wants Congress to impose financial penalties on oil and gas companies that lease public lands but are not producing. He said he will invoke the Defense Production Act to encourage the mining of critical minerals for batteries in electric vehicles, part of a broader push to shift toward cleaner energy sources and reduce the use of fossil fuels.
The actions show that oil remains a vulnerability for the United States. Higher prices have hurt Mr. Biden’s approval domestically and added billions of oil-export dollars to the Russian government as it wages war on Ukraine.
Tapping the stockpile would create pressures that could reduce oil prices, though Mr. Biden has twice ordered releases from the reserves without causing a meaningful shift in oil markets. Mr. Biden said Thursday he expects gasoline prices could drop “fairly significantly.”
Part of Mr. Biden’s concern is that high prices have not so far coaxed a meaningful jump in oil production. The planned release is a way to increase supplies as a bridge until oil companies ramp up their own production, with administration officials estimating that domestic production will grow by 1 million barrels daily this year and an additional 700,000 barrels daily in 2023.
The markets reacted quickly with crude oil prices dropping about 6% in Thursday trading to roughly $101 a barrel. Still, oil is up from roughly $60 a year ago, with supplies failing to keep up with demand as the world economy has begun to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. That inflationary problem was compounded by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which created new uncertainties about oil and natural gas supplies and led to retaliatory sanctions from the U.S. and its allies.
Stewart Glickman, an oil analyst for CFRA Research, said the release would bring short-term relief on prices, but that markets would ultimately look to see whether, after the releases stop, the underlying problems that led to Mr. Biden’s decisions remain.
“The root cause of the headache is probably still going to be there,” Mr. Glickman said.
Mr. Biden has been in talks with allies and partners to join in additional releases of oil, such that the world market will get more than the 180 million barrels total being pledged by the U.S.
Americans on average use about 21 million barrels of oil daily, with about 40% of that devoted to gasoline, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That total accounts for about one-fifth of total global consumption of oil.
Domestic oil production is equal to more than half of U.S. usage, but high prices have not led companies to return to their pre-pandemic levels of output. The U.S. is producing on average 11.7 million barrels daily, down from 13 million barrels in early 2020.
Republican lawmakers have said the problem results from the administration being hostile to oil permits and the construction of new pipelines such as the Keystone XL. Democrats say the country needs to move to renewable energy such as wind and solar that could reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and Mr. Putin’s leverage.
Republican Sen. Steve Daines from Montana blasted Mr. Biden’s action to tap the reserve without first taking steps to increase American energy production, calling it “a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.″
Senator Daines called Mr. Biden’s actions “desperate moves″ that avoid what he called the real solution: “investing in American energy production,″ and getting “oil and gas leases going again.”
The administration says increasing oil output is a gradual process and the release would provide time to ramp up production. It also wants to incentivize greater production by putting fees on unused leases on government lands, something that would require congressional approval.
Oil producers have been more focused on meeting the needs of investors than consumers, according to a survey released last week by the Dallas Federal Reserve. About 59% of the executives surveyed said investor pressure to preserve “capital discipline” amid high prices was the reason they weren’t pumping more, while fewer than 10% blamed government regulation.
In his remarks Thursday, Mr. Biden tried to shame oil companies that he said are focused on profits instead of putting out more barrels, saying that adding to the oil supply was a patriotic obligation.
“This is not the time to sit on record profits: It’s time to step up for the good of your country,” the president said.
The steady release from the reserves would be a meaningful sum and come near to closing the domestic production gap relative to February 2020, before the coronavirus caused a steep decline in oil output.
Still, the politics of oil are complicated with industry advocates and environmentalists both criticizing the planned release. Groups such as the American Petroleum Institute want to make drilling easier, while environmental organizations say energy companies should be forced to pay a special tax on windfall profits instead.
The administration in November announced the release of 50 million barrels from the strategic reserve in coordination with other countries. And after the Russia-Ukraine war began, the U.S. and 30 other countries agreed to an additional release of 60 million barrels from reserves, with half of the total coming from the U.S.
According to the Department of Energy, which manages it, more than 568 million barrels of oil were held in the reserve as of March 25. After the release, the government would begin to replenish the reserve once prices have sufficiently fallen.
News of the administration’s planning was first reported by Bloomberg.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
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In one of the world’s most unstable regions, the global drift toward authoritarianism has hit a wall, one draped in the red and black of judicial robes. Kenya’s Supreme Court ruled this week against President Uhuru Kenyatta, who had proposed constitutional changes that might have enabled him to remain influential in a new office.
The decision, on what was essentially a procedural question of executive power, illustrates how young societies – particularly those emerging from colonial pasts – develop the rule of law: not by inheriting systems of government, but through a deepening conviction in the moral foundations of equal liberty protected by an independent and impartial judiciary.
The decision will not only resonate in Africa, where rulers find it easy to manipulate the law to stay in power, but perhaps around the world. In its latest survey, Freedom House found that 60 countries saw a decline on key aspects of democracy. The trend has left only 20% of the global population living in what the survey calls “free” countries. In Africa, notes Leiden University law professor Nick Huls, even though all 54 countries have a written constitution, “a culture of constitutionalism is often missing.” Earlier gains in judicial independence on the continent have lately been in retreat.
During Kenya’s first 40 years of independence, as Chief Justice Martha Koome noted, the first two presidents pushed through 30 constitutional amendments to concentrate and perpetuate their power. That remains a common tactic in Africa. It is how Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni extended his 36-year grip on power last year.
Kenya has shed that tendency gradually as its citizens have demanded better governance. A three-year process culminating in the new 2010 constitution was widely inclusive. The new document rebalanced power among the branches of government and entrenched the rights of women and marginalized communities. By 2020, 88% of Kenyans agreed that government must always follow the law and 74% said presidents must respect court decisions, according to the polling group Afrobarometer.
The court’s decision on March 31 related to a presidential push for a constitutional amendment to create a new office of prime minister side by side with the presidency. Critics saw this as an attempt by Mr. Kenyatta, who cannot seek a third term later this year, to retain power and weaken political opposition. The Supreme Court ruling upheld two lower court decisions that found he had introduced the amendment unconstitutionally. The decision marked the second time the court has flexed its independence under the new constitution. In 2017 it annulled the presidential election, citing widespread discrepancies, and ordered that it be held again.
Justice Njoki Ndung’u, who dissented in the court’s interpretation of how the constitution allows for amendments, nonetheless observed, “Kenyans wanted to have a head of state who would not whimsically amend the constitution.”
Significantly, Mr. Kenyatta did not oppose the ruling in 2017. Nor has he now. At a turbulent moment globally, Kenya has reaffirmed judicial independence. More than a check on the actions of a president, it sends a timely message about democratic rule of law that restrains personal power and ensures self-governance.
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In mid-March, a New York City-size mass called the Conger ice shelf collapsed completely – the first time in recorded history that this had happened in East Antarctica. This came at the tail end of a stunning heat wave in the region with temperatures that, while still cold, reached nearly 70 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.
One key reason for these anomalies seems clear. A warming climate has created changes in Earth’s systems, such as rising ocean temperatures and shifts in the way atmospheric currents carry heat and moisture.
Why We Wrote This
Antarctica holds mysteries with big implications for Earth’s environment. Recent news of a massive ice breakup may, to borrow an apt metaphor, be just the tip of the iceberg.
But it’s also far more complicated than that – with other elements of Earth’s natural systems involved, and direct causal correlations of any event not always clear.
“It’s still an unknown place,” says Catherine Walker, an assistant scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “For the most part, it’s unexplored. You do your best [to understand it] with the measurements you can get. But events like this last week – we were all surprised.”
Scientists believe Antarctica serves as a global air conditioner. And they know it’s changing.
Says oceanographer Matt Long: “That’s something crucial for the scientific community to engage in and for the international community to address.”
In early March, analysts at the U.S. National Ice Center began to notice changes along the eastern coast of Antarctica.
First, a large piece of ice, some 13 nautical miles in length, broke off the remnants of an area known as the Glenzer ice shelf. Ice shelves are sections of glacial ice that extend off land and rest on the ocean, and occasionally “calve,” or break apart, to produce icebergs.
Although it’s less common for such an event to take place on the eastern side of Antarctica – the western side is far more dynamic and tends to be the focus of scientists who study glaciers – it is by no means unprecedented, says Christopher Readinger, the Ice Center’s lead Antarctic ice analyst.
Why We Wrote This
Antarctica holds mysteries with big implications for Earth’s environment. Recent news of a massive ice breakup may, to borrow an apt metaphor, be just the tip of the iceberg.
He quickly put out a memo, informing sailors and scientists that a newly named iceberg, C-37, was now floating in what is already considered one of Earth’s most harrowing maritime environments.
But then, a week later, something else happened.
The ice shelf adjacent to Glenzer, a New York City-size mass called the Conger ice shelf, collapsed completely – the first time this had happened in East Antarctica since scientists began using satellites to record such events.
The collapse came around the same time as a stunning heat wave in the region, which had included temperatures reaching nearly 70 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. (This pushed the temperature to a relatively balmy 11 degrees F, compared with the typical 56 below zero.) Some scientists have described it as Earth’s most extreme heat wave ever recorded.
Mr. Readinger sent out another report and named a new iceberg, C-38, made from the ice that had been the Conger ice shelf. And scientists around the world began to scramble to understand what, exactly, was going on in Antarctica – a part of the world known to be a crucial regulator of global climate, but one still filled with mystery.
“It’s a gut check for the glaciology community” says Peter Neff, a glaciologist with the University of Minnesota. “We have record low sea ice [around East Antarctica]. We have a much stronger heat wave than we ever thought was possible. And an ice shelf collapsing in a place where we didn’t expect it to collapse. ... It causes concern for us that we’re not fully appreciating the vulnerability of East Antarctica.”
That vulnerability matters – not only for the ecosystems of this remote, southern continent, but for climate and sea levels worldwide. It is a reminder of how much scientists still don’t know about Antarctica, its ecosystems, and the Southern Ocean that surrounds it. And it shows the importance of the scientific and geopolitical collaboration that takes place on this continent, even as researchers struggle to understand it.
“It’s still an unknown place,” says Catherine Walker, an assistant scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “For the most part, it’s unexplored. You do your best [to understand it] with the measurements you can get. But events like this last week – we were all surprised.”
A continent’s complexities
On the one hand, the reason for the Conger ice shelf collapse and the preceding heat wave seems clear. A warming climate has created changes in Earth’s systems, such as rising ocean temperatures and shifts in the way atmospheric currents carry heat and moisture, that in turn lead to events like city-size ice blocks dropping off a continent.
But it’s also far more complicated than that.
Scientists are generally loath to say that any one event, such as an ice shelf collapse, is the clear result of climate change. These are natural systems, after all, and direct correlation is not always clear. Dr. Neff, for instance, collects ice cores to try to understand historical climate markers – and to see, for instance, whether East Antarctica has experienced this sort of heat wave before.
(To show just how complicated this is, the weather event scientists say led to the recent Antarctic heat – a band of warm, moisture-filled air called an “atmospheric river” – also brings with it a huge amount of snow. And that snow builds glaciers. Which means it’s not even clear whether a heat wave results in net melting. As Dr. Neff says, “Add tens of gigatons of snow over a couple of days to your glacier, and it can put a wrinkle in your model.”)
Meanwhile, when it comes to polar regions, Antarctica seems – at first glance, at least – to have been less affected by global warming than the north so far.
“If you look at a map of warming over the last 50 years, Antarctica still looks pretty blue, or cold, and the North Pole is red, or warming,” says Dr. Walker. “We hear more about Greenland and shrinking sea ice in the north.”
Indeed, scientists believe that Antarctica serves as a global air conditioner. While ocean waters around the world absorb a quarter of all the carbon humans put into the atmosphere, the Southern Ocean does the most work, absorbing about half of those molecules. And the same churning that makes it so treacherous to sail – or do research – on the Southern Ocean also pushes that heat and carbon into deeper water.
In other words, without the Southern Ocean, the world would be a whole lot hotter, many scientists say. (Again, it’s not quite so simple – the churning also brings up natural carbon from organisms decaying at the ocean floor. But the dominant theory about the Southern Ocean is that it is a carbon sink.)
But researchers also know Antarctica is changing.
“We have indications of really important changes,” says Matt Long, an oceanographer with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “There are direct observations of warming. Of freshening. Of increased freshwater input. We don’t fully understand the implication of those changes for Antarctic marine ecosystems. That’s something crucial for the scientific community to engage in and for the international community to address.”
One impact of all the heat absorbed by the Southern Ocean seems to be that ice is thinning from below. Antarctica holds 90% of the world’s ice, and 70% of Earth’s freshwater volume, according to the National Science Foundation. This means that even partial melting could have a catastrophic impact on coastal communities around the world.
An international collaboration of scientists studying the Florida-size Thwaites Glacier on the western side of Antarctica, for instance, has warned of new cracks and melting in that ice.
Should that glacier fully collapse, it could raise global sea levels by feet – but again, by how much, and how fast, is up for debate.
The recent Conger collapse probably won’t have a big impact on sea levels, scientists say. Still, says Dr. Walker, they are monitoring it.
“The thing we’re all sort of interested in is the process,” she says. “What happens, what’s next. That can help us learn what to expect from the bigger ones.”
All nations have a stake
If this isolated continent is the site of mysterious – and perhaps unnerving – changes, it might also be the location of big global answers, both scientific and geopolitical.
Not owned by any one country, Antarctica is governed internationally. The first Antarctic treaty, signed in 1959, demilitarized the continent and explicitly made it a region where countries would collaborate on scientific research. Since then, other agreements have banned mining, oil and gas exploration, and required any fishing industry activity meet conservation goals.
“Internationally, people often look at this treaty system as being very enlightened,” says Claire Christian, executive director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. But there is still a need to monitor activity around the continent to ensure the goals of “peace and science” are being maintained.
Different constituents, she and others say, have conflicting opinions about the best way to do this. For some, economic benefits, such as krill fishing, outweigh conservation efforts, such as setting aside waters as protected areas. To others, scientific exploration is worth disrupting ecosystems.
How Antarctica handles these conflicting goals, in the face of global change, can be illustrative.
“It’s a bit of a microcosm for the issue overall,” says Dr. Long. “You have this global commons issue that characterizes the climate change problem. And then you have Antarctica, where various countries have different perspectives.”
And overall, Ms. Christian says, the world needs to care about what happens here – and adjust its climate policies accordingly.
“Antarctica belongs to everyone,” she says. “And everybody in the world has a stake in keeping Antarctica frozen.”
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A federal jury’s $14 million award to Denver protesters hit with pepper balls and a bag filled with lead during 2020 demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis could resonate nationwide as courts weigh more than two dozen similar lawsuits.
The jury found police used excessive force against protesters, violating their constitutional rights, and ordered the city of Denver to pay 12 who sued.
Nationwide, there are at least 29 pending lawsuits challenging law enforcement use of force during the 2020 protests, according to a search of the University of Michigan’s Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse.
The verdict in Denver could give cities an incentive to settle similar cases rather than risk going to trial and losing, said Michael J. Steinberg, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and director of the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. It could also prompt more protesters to sue over their treatment at the hands of police.
“There’s no doubt that the large jury verdict in Denver will influence the outcome of pending police misconduct cases brought by Black Lives Matter protesters across the country,” said Dr. Steinberg, whose law students have been working on a similar lawsuit brought by protesters in Detroit.
Lawyers for the claimants argued that police used indiscriminate force against the nonviolent protesters, including some who were filming the demonstrations, because officers did not like their message critical of law enforcement.
“To the protest of police violence they responded with brutality,” one of their attorneys, Timothy Macdonald, told jurors.
People who took part in the protests have already made similar allegations in lawsuits filed across the country.
In Washington, D.C., activists and civil liberties groups sued over the forcible removal of protesters before then-President Donald Trump walked to a church near the White House for a photo op. The claims against federal officials were dismissed last year but a judge allowed the case against local police to continue.
Several lawsuits alleging protesters were wrongfully arrested or that police used excessive force have been filed against New York City and its police department, including one brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James that claims police used excessive force and wrongfully arrested protesters. In Rochester, New York, people who protested the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who lost consciousness after being pinned to the street by officers during a mental health call in 2020, claim police used extreme force against them in a lawsuit that also alleges city officials have allowed a culture of police brutality against racial minorities to fester.
One of their attorneys, Donald Thompson, said he plans to raise the Denver award in settlement talks with the city and note that unlike most of the Denver protesters, some of his clients suffered lasting injuries including the loss of an eye and scarring from being hit in the face with a tear gas canister. Mr. Thompson also thinks the Denver verdict shows that the public, in the age of cellphone and body camera videos, is not as willing to give police the benefit of the doubt anymore.
“Now people see how this policing really works. You can’t be naïve,” he said.
A spokesperson for Rochester did not return a call and an email seeking comment. When the case was filed, the city said it had already revised the way police respond to protests.
Over the last two months, the city of Austin, Texas, has agreed to pay a total of $13 million to four people who were hit in the head with bean bag rounds fired by police.
Even before the Denver ruling last week, the police department made some changes in response to criticism that arose from the protests, including eliminating the use of 40mm foam rounds for crowd control and changing the way officers are permitted to use pepper balls.
Denver’s Department of Public Safety, which includes the police department, said in a statement that the city was not prepared for the level of sustained violence and destruction. During the trial, lawyers and witnesses said over 80 officers were injured as some in the crowds hurled rocks, water bottles, and canned food at them.
The department said it continues to evaluate its policies to “better protect peaceful protestors while addressing those who are only there to engage in violence.”
Still, the large award is not expected to lead to an overhaul of how officers respond to what experts say are inherently chaotic situations that are difficult to prepare for.
Ed Obayashi, a use-of-force consultant to law enforcement agencies and a deputy sheriff and legal adviser in Plumas County, California, said society may have to bear the cost of such settlements because innocent people can be injured during protests as outnumbered police try to react on the fly, including to people intent on violence.
“It really goes south in an instant because there are individuals out there who want to cause chaos,” he said.
Mr. Obayashi said there is not much police training for protests, which have been relatively rare. He said it would be prohibitively expensive to have officers practice deploying equipment such as tear gas canisters. Because projectiles used in crowds and considered “less lethal” by police, such as rubber bullets and pepper balls, have less velocity and less power to hurt people, it is harder to ensure they hit their intended target, he said.
Lawyers representing people who have also alleged police misconduct and violation of their constitutional right to protest can now use the Denver damage award as part of their own settlement negotiations, said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented some of the winning Denver protesters.
The decision came nearly two years after thousands of people angry about Mr. Floyd’s death took to the streets nationwide, a relatively quick result for the legal system and soon enough for others who allege misconduct by police to file a claim. In Colorado and many other states, there is a two-year statute of limitations for such lawsuits Mr. Silverstein said, leaving only a few months for others to sue.
The city attorney’s office said it has not decided whether to appeal the verdict, but appeals in such big cases are common, said Gloria Browne-Marshall, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Outside lawyers will also scrutinize the case to try to determine if there are unique circumstances that may have led to a “lightning in a bottle” verdict that is less likely to be repeated.
However, Dr. Browne-Marshall thinks the verdict sends a significant message that regular people respect the right of protest and demand change from the government, which she believes police and prosecutors have been undermining.
“It should send a message to both, but whether or not they listen is a different issue,” Dr. Browne-Marshall said.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
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Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday signed into law a bill that creates a first-in-the-nation statewide alert system for missing Indigenous people, to help address a silent crisis that has plagued Indian Country in the state and nationwide.
The law sets up a system similar to Amber Alerts and so-called silver alerts, which are used respectively for missing children and vulnerable adults in many states. It was spearheaded by Democratic Rep. Debra Lekanoff, the only Native American lawmaker currently serving in the Washington state Legislature, and championed by Indigenous leaders statewide.
“I am proud to say that the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s and People’s Alert System came from the voices of our Native American leaders,” said Ms. Lekanoff, a member of the Tlingit tribe and the bill’s chief sponsor. “It’s not just an Indian issue, it’s not just an Indian responsibility. Our sisters, our aunties, our grandmothers are going missing every day ... and it’s been going on for far too long.”
Tribal leaders, many of them women, wore traditional hats woven from cedar as they gathered around Governor Inslee for the signing on the Tulalip Reservation, north of Seattle. Afterward they gifted him with a handmade traditional ribbon shirt and several multicolored woven blankets.
The law attempts to address a crisis of missing Indigenous people – particularly women – in Washington and across the United States.
While the law includes missing men, women, and children, a summary of public testimony on the legislation notes that “the crisis began as a women’s issue, and it remains primarily a women’s issue.”
Besides notifying law enforcement when there’s a report of a missing Indigenous person, the new alert system will place messages on highway reader boards and on the radio and social media, and provide information to the news media.
The legislation was paired with another bill Governor Inslee signed Thursday that requires county coroners or medical examiners to take steps to identify and notify family members of murdered Indigenous people and return their remains. That new law also establishes two grant funds for Indigenous survivors of human trafficking.
This piece of the crisis is important because, in many cases, murdered Indigenous women are mistakenly recorded as white or Hispanic by coroners’ offices, never identified, or their remains never repatriated.
A 2021 report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found the true number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States is unknown due to reporting problems, distrust of law enforcement, and jurisdictional conflicts. But Native American women face murder rates almost three times those of white women overall – and up to 10 times the national average in certain locations, according to a 2021 summary of the existing research by the National Congress of American Indians. More than 80% have experienced violence.
In Washington, more than four times as many Indigenous women go missing than white women, according to research conducted by the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle, but many such cases receive little or no media attention.
The bill signing began with a traditional welcome song passed down by Harriette Shelton Dover, a cherished cultural leader and storyteller. Ms. Dover recovered and shared many traditions and songs from tribes along Washington’s northern Pacific Coast and worked with linguists before her death in 1991 to preserve her language, Lushootseed, from extinction. Women performed an honor song after the event.
Tulalip Tribes of Washington Chairwoman Teri Gobin said Washington and Montana are the two states with the most missing Indigenous people in the U.S. Nearly four dozen Native people are currently missing in Seattle alone, she said.
“What’s the most important thing is bringing them home, whether they’ve been trafficked, whether they’ve been stolen, or murdered,” she said. “It’s a wound that stays open, and it’s something that we pray with [for] each person, we can bring them home.”
Investigations into missing Indigenous people, particularly women, have been plagued by many issues for decades.
When a person goes missing on a reservation, often there are jurisdictional conflicts between tribal police and local and state law enforcement. A lack of staff and police resources, and the rural nature of many reservations, compound those problems. And many times, families of tribal members distrust non-Native law enforcement or don’t know where to report news of a missing loved one.
An alert system will help mitigate some of those problems by allowing better communication and coordination between tribal and non-tribal law enforcement and creating a way for law enforcement to flag such cases for other agencies. The law expands the definition of “missing endangered person” to include Indigenous people, as well as children and vulnerable adults with disabilities or memory or cognitive issues.
The law takes effect June 9 and some details are still being worked out. For example, it’s unclear what criteria law enforcement will use to positively identify a missing person as Native American and how the information will be disseminated in rural areas, including on some reservations, where highways lack electronic reader boards – or where there aren’t highways at all.
The measure is the latest step Washington has taken to address the issue. The Washington State Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force is working to coordinate a statewide response and had its first meeting in December. Its first report is expected in August.
Many states from Arizona to Oregon to Wisconsin have taken recent action to address the crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women. Efforts range from funding for better resources for tribal police to the creation of new databases specifically targeting missing tribal members. Tribal police agencies that use Amber Alerts for missing Indigenous children include the Hopi and Las Vegas Paiute.
In California, the Yurok Tribe and the Sovereign Bodies Institute, an Indigenous-run research and advocacy group, uncovered 18 cases of missing or slain Native American women in roughly the past year – a number they consider a vast undercount.
An estimated 62% of those cases are not listed in state or federal databases for missing persons.
The law is already drawing attention from other states, whose attorneys general have called to ask how to enact similar legislation, said state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who called the law “truly groundbreaking.”
“Any time you’re doing something for the first time in this country, that’s an extra heavy lift,” he said. “This most certainly will not be our last reform to make sure that we bring everybody back home. ... There is so much more work that needs to be done and must be done.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Gillian Flaccus reported from Portland, Oregon.
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Two ways to read the story
Early one Saturday morning, the vendor hung a pair of bluejeans on his stall in a Johannesburg township. They were a pair of secondhand Levi’s 550s made in Lesotho.
Rorisang Kamoli works in the factories that produce for Levi Strauss & Co. in Lesotho. Years of quality control work has left her thumbnails split open and her fingers calloused. In 2021, a colleague was fatally shot by police as employees protested for their wages to be increased to about $160 a month.
Why We Wrote This
More than 1.25 billion pairs of bluejeans are sold worldwide every year. The round-the-world journey of a single pair of Levi’s made in a factory in Lesotho shines a light on the cost of America’s voracious appetite for fast fashion.
Due to a trade deal, nearly all of Lesotho’s Levi’s end up in the United States, so that pair of jeans had almost certainly traveled to America, where families buy nearly a new closet’s worth of items annually. The jeans were one of those purchases, selling for $70 or so.
But then came the pandemic, with people staying home, elastic waistbands gaining popularity, and clothing donations to secondhand stores spiking by more than 50% in 2020. Donated, but not purchased, the jeans headed back to Africa, where 70% of donated clothes wind up, making it difficult for the continent’s independent garment producers to compete with the influx of used clothing.
After two trips across the ocean, the secondhand jeans sold in South Africa for $10.
Early one Saturday morning, the vendor hung The Jeans on his stall on a dusty street corner in a Johannesburg township. They were a pair of secondhand Levi’s 550s. Straight leg. Relaxed fit. Waist 36, inseam 34. One hundred percent cotton, in a soft, brushed blue. The hems on the left pocket were frayed, and there was a small tear above one belt loop, but otherwise The Jeans could have been new.
People who buy secondhand clothes here see Levi’s as a luxury brand, the vendor knew. A message stamped onto the inside of one of The Jeans’ pockets explained that Levi’s are “an American tradition, symbolizing the vitality of the West to people all over the world.” He could probably sell them for $10.
But however symbolic they are of the American West, The Jeans were also global citizens. A glossy tag stitched inside the right hip read “Made in Lesotho.” Encircled entirely by South Africa, the tiny, mountainous country is about 250 miles away from the market where The Jeans now hung. But instead of a simple overland journey of five hours, these jeans had likely lapped the globe before ending up for resale back in southern Africa.
Why We Wrote This
More than 1.25 billion pairs of bluejeans are sold worldwide every year. The round-the-world journey of a single pair of Levi’s made in a factory in Lesotho shines a light on the cost of America’s voracious appetite for fast fashion.
Across the course of their life, The Jeans probably had their cotton grown in one country, spun and woven into fabric in another, were cut and sewn in a third, and were worn and donated to charity in a fourth, all before ending up here in South Africa, country number five.
That journey from one neighboring African country to another, via an 18,000 mile detour to the United States, is a parable of Africa’s role in the fast-fashion industry, and Americans’ implication in it. The clothing industry, one of the world’s most environmentally destructive, is responsible for 10% of global emissions, more than air travel and maritime shipping combined. Meanwhile the people who make the world’s clothing – mostly women in the Global South – rarely earn above their country’s minimum wage, which is less than $200 a month in many African countries. Yet the continent is increasingly shouldering the burden of both creating America’s clothes, and disposing of them after they finish with them.
Threadbare benefits for workers
Bluejeans are perhaps the modern world’s most popular garment spun from cotton, a plant fiber that has helped shape much of today’s world as we know it.
“Without cotton cloth, we would have no global economy, no staggering social inequality between the Global North and South, no work for women outside the home, and no industrialization, which was all powered by slavery on expropriated and overtaxed land,” argues Maxine Bedat, the author of “Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment,” a book about the denim supply chain.
Born in a Nevada tailor’s workshop in the 1870s, denim was popularized by Levi Strauss & Co. as workwear for lumberjacks, cowboys, and railroad workers. By the mid-20th century, jeans had become a leisure item too. Today, an American woman, on average, owns seven pairs of jeans. A whopping 1.25 billion pairs are sold worldwide every year.
Sometime in the last few years, The Jeans were among them.
First, though, they had to be sewn. Based on their “Made in” tag, this particular pair could have been stitched together in only one place, a scruffy industrial district of aluminum factory shells in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho.
Although the southern African country is a minuscule player in the global garment industry, jeans are big business for the country of 2 million. The vast majority of those who work in clothing factories here, like nearly everywhere in the world, are women. So it was almost certainly women in Lesotho who made The Jeans. About 100 of them, because that’s how many people’s hands a pair of jeans passes through, from the moment the roll of denim is unspooled on the factory floor until it’s packed in a shipping container.
What would The Jeans’ first moments of existence have looked like?
They would have been loud. The cavernous interior of a bluejeans factory buzzes like a swarm of flies. Irons hiss. Washing machines clack and clatter. The only thing that’s more or less silent are the workers, hunched over their machines assembling a single item – a belt loop, a pocket, a leg seam – with laser focus, trying to keep pace with targets that run into the hundreds or thousands of pairs daily.
Rorisang Kamoli has worked in the factories that produce for Levi Strauss in Lesotho for more than a decade. She’s slight, in her early 30s, with thick-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses and long braids. If The Jeans passed through her hands, here’s what she would have done. She would have run her fingers over the rivets, those tiny patented bronze buttons sutured to the front pockets of every pair of Levi’s, and the button on the fly. She would have twisted each one, to make sure it was secure, and felt for rough, sharp edges that would make The Jeans dangerous to wear.
Years of this quality control work has left her thumbnails split open and her fingers calloused. Her mind, too, is equally weary, thinking about the people in America who buy these jeans for $69.50 – about half her monthly wage.
“[Americans] just want to wear these products – they don’t care how we are living to make them,” she says.
Among the things she suspects Americans don’t consider: her cracked thumbnail. Whether anyone can raise two children on $150 a month. What it feels like to have a colleague killed in a protest while trying to convince the companies to raise that wage to about $160 a month. The terror of watching half the world swap jeans for sweatpants during a global pandemic, when your life depends on bluejeans.
When Ms. Kamoli was growing up, Lesotho had a different export – its men went to work in the gold, diamond, and platinum mines of neighboring South Africa. But beginning in the 1990s, the mines began to close. The men returned, and, as new garment factories opened, the women went to work.
But the new opportunities made for a bitter independence. “Sometimes I feel angry with jeans. I hate them. Why should I have to work so hard, for a wage that’s not enough, to make a thing like this?” Ms. Kamoli says.
Secondhand imports flood Africa
Lesotho’s garment industry exists in large part thanks to an American trade deal called the African Growth and Opportunities Act, which, since 2001, has allowed Lesotho and three dozen other African countries to import certain goods, including clothes, to the U.S. duty-free.
It also means that nearly all of Lesotho’s Levi’s are America-bound. So it’s fairly safe to say that’s where The Jeans went next. Americans buy clothing voraciously, purchasing dozens of clothing items per year – an average of 68, according to the clothing rental service Rent the Runway.
In the 1950s, American families were spending 10% of their income on clothing, and purchasing just a few items a year. Now that figure is 2%, but thanks to the rise of so-called fast fashion, that amount buys nearly a new closet’s worth of items annually.
For someone, somewhere, The Jeans were one of those many purchases.
Then, along came the pandemic. Around that time, The Jeans and their owner parted ways. Who needed jeans anymore, when pants with an elastic waist existed and you were never leaving your house? Clothing donations spiked by more than 50% in 2020, according to the online secondhand retailer ThredUp.
Because The Jeans were in near-perfect nick, their owner could have been forgiven for thinking they would be a great item to donate to a local Goodwill or Salvation Army. Someone would snatch them right up at a local thrift store, they might have reasoned, and the charity would earn some much-needed cash for its programs.
Except that’s not what happens to most of the clothes Americans donate to charity, and it’s not what happened to The Jeans either.
On average, American charity stores sell just 10% to 20% of the donations they receive. The rest end up in the hands of textile recyclers – companies whose entire reason for being is to make old clothes disappear. They buy charity shop donations by weight, then sort them. About 45% is considered “salable,” that is, high enough quality that it can be worn again, according to the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association. Another 50% can be made into either rags or insulation, and the worst quality stuff is simply thrown away.
“Watching the process of sorting and grading feels a little like a visit to the slaughterhouse,” wrote George Packer of visiting a textile recycler in Brooklyn.
The Jeans, it’s clear, made the cut for resale. So they were pressed, with hundreds of other pairs, into a cube about the size of a dishwasher, and loaded on another shipping container.
Globally, 70% of donated clothes end up in Africa. But it’s not, as many assume, because Africans are desperate for the rest of the world’s castoffs. In the decades after independence, many African countries had major textile industries of their own. After Western governments and global lenders began putting pressure on those countries to liberalize their economies in the 1980s, trade restrictions fell, and clothing imports from the rest of the world flooded in.
In recent years, some African countries have attempted to fight back. But when a bloc of East African countries banned the import of secondhand clothes in 2016, American textile exporters reacted predictably. They pressured lawmakers, and soon the U.S. was threatening to withdraw the African Growth and Opportunities Act, the trade deal that gives African countries duty-free access to American markets for many goods. In the end, only the central African nation of Rwanda stood its ground.
And so The Jeans probably landed in South Africa’s coastal neighbor Mozambique. Technically, it’s illegal to import any secondhand clothing into South Africa – a move to protect its own clothing factories – but the rule is flagrantly ignored. Truckloads rumble unhindered across its border every day, much of it bound for a single market in downtown Johannesburg.
There, on a four-block stretch of De Villiers Street, wedged between a minibus taxi stand and the city’s main train station, dozens of hawkers sell secondhand clothes from bed-sized bins: heaps of gauzy blouses, T-shirts from American 5K races, vintage dresses, and yes, jeans. “AmaSkinnyJean! AmaSkinnyJean!” they shout, using the Zulu prefix to pluralize words. “Cheap cheap cheap!”
The market also sells to wholesalers like the one who bought The Jeans. He then brought them 20 miles north, to a neighborhood whose name means “Olive Wood Forest” in Afrikaans, although it is a patch of prairie dotted with small houses and tin shacks, with no trees in sight. Like many South African townships – the mostly working class bedroom communities that huddle on the edge of all its cities – Olievenhoutbosch has a clothing market, where every weekend a couple dozen vendors set up shop on a corner near a dusty police station.
One weekend last November, The Jeans were among the clothes on offer.
“How much?” asked a customer.
R150, the vendor answered. $10.
She pulled the bills out of her wallet, Nelson Mandela’s face beaming up from the blue and red notes.
And just like that, The Jeans, and all the stories they carried, belonged to me.
Reporting for this story was supported by The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
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Two ways to read the story
Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is facing his toughest election yet on April 3, against a united opposition led by a Christian conservative. But the war in Ukraine has pushed traditional hot-button issues into the background – and looks likely to boost Europe’s self-styled “illiberal” strongman’s chances at the ballot box.
The war changed the dynamic of the parliamentary campaign, as the opposition seized on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to present Mr. Orbán as Vladimir Putin’s lackey in Europe. It highlighted that Hungary blocked Ukraine’s accession to NATO, and that Mr. Orbán stood alongside Mr. Putin weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Why We Wrote This
For some Hungarians, Viktor Orbán’s close ties to Russia aren’t cause to vote for his opponent. They’re a reason the prime minister is best suited to keep Hungary safe from the war in Ukraine.
But the latest polls suggest Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party could win by a narrow margin. The public’s logic seems to be that Mr. Orbán puts the economic well-being of Hungarian families first and national interests above geopolitical considerations.
“Orbán gave a very smart answer, saying in wartimes the most important thing for Hungarians is not who is responsible for the war and not moral issues,” says Ágoston Mráz, a conservative think tank director. “The question is who can guarantee the freedom and peace of Hungary and through that, the prosperity of Hungary?”
For many right-wing European leaders who have wooed Russian President Vladimir Putin, the war in Ukraine has been a blow to their popularity.
Not so for Viktor Orbán.
The Hungarian prime minister is facing his toughest election yet on April 3, against a united opposition led by a Christian conservative. Before the invasion, the public fretted about COVID-19, high inflation, migration, the defense of traditional family values versus greater LGBTQ rights, and how Budapest’s conflicts with Brussels over rule of law, corruption, and media freedoms might play out. It seemed like a formula for Mr. Orbán’s ouster.
Why We Wrote This
For some Hungarians, Viktor Orbán’s close ties to Russia aren’t cause to vote for his opponent. They’re a reason the prime minister is best suited to keep Hungary safe from the war in Ukraine.
But the conflict in Ukraine has pushed traditional hot-button issues into the background – and looks likely, experts say, to boost Europe’s self-styled “illiberal” strongman’s chances at the ballot box.
The latest polls suggest Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party could win by a narrow margin. The public’s logic seems to be that Mr. Orbán puts the economic well-being of Hungarian families first and national interests above geopolitical considerations.
“We really trust in Viktor Orbán,” says Gyöngyi Bors, a redheaded hairdresser who came with her grandchildren to hear the Hungarian leader speak in Budapest. “As long as he is in power, this country is safe and the people of Hungary are safe. He is reliable. He is authentic. And whenever we go outside Budapest, we see that Hungary is developing in a great way. Everything is getting more and more beautiful. Things are built.”
While Fidesz is expected to win, it is also expected to lose the supermajority it secured in 2018 – which made constitutional changes possible.
“There is room for surprises,” says Stefano Bottoni, a teacher of Eastern European history at the University of Florence and author of a book on Mr. Orbán. “The war totally changed the situation.”
From freedom fighter to Putin’s ally
Mr. Orbán knows how to pivot and nail down messages that resonate with the majority of Hungarians, analysts say. He shot to political fame as an anti-communist freedom fighter who stood in Budapest’s Heroes’ Square in 1989 demanding that Russian troops exit Hungary. It was Mr. Orbán who oversaw Hungary’s accession to NATO in 1999. And for years, he insisted that Hungary should diversify its energy sources and lessen its dependence on Russia.
“We don’t want to be the happiest barracks of Gazprom,” Mr. Orbán declared in 2007 when his Fidesz party was in the opposition.
That fiery antagonism toward Russia ended in 2010, when Mr. Orbán traveled to Moscow and reset relations with Mr. Putin. In the summer of 2014, he declared Russia – along with China and Turkey – as political models to follow, proudly launching Hungary on the path to “illiberal democracy.” Mr. Orbán’s authoritarian tendencies and sweeping reforms are today major points of concern for the European Union.
On the economic front, Mr. Orbán signed a contract with Russia’s Rosatom to expand the Paks Nuclear Power Plant. More recently, he invited the controversial Russian-led International Investment Bank to set up its headquarters in Budapest, reportedly providing diplomatic immunity to its staff even if critics see it as a front for Russian spying. These projects are perceived to be dear to the Hungarian leader’s heart, fruits of a carefully crafted, pragmatic relationship with Mr. Putin.
They are also why he is widely perceived as Mr. Putin’s last ally in Europe.
“That’s not a viable position,” says Dr. Bottoni. “He seemed quite unsure for a couple of days [after the invasion of Ukraine began]. Then he assumed this new position of peace fighter. He has a pass for victory now because he has a new narrative as commander in chief for peace and many Hungarians want to hear this. The war scares people, and Hungary is a border country [with Ukraine].”
“There is moral risk”
The war changed the dynamic of the parliamentary campaign, as the opposition seized on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to present Mr. Orbán as Mr. Putin’s lackey in Europe. It highlighted that Hungary blocked Ukraine’s accession to NATO, and that Mr. Orbán stood alongside Mr. Putin weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, celebrating their 12th meeting since 2010.
It’s a matter of “East versus West” and democracy versus greater authoritarianism, opposition leaders say.
“Choose Europe, freedom, and growth instead of East, slavery, and deprivation,” urged Péter Márki-Zay, the joint opposition candidate for prime minister at a rally last month. As a small-town mayor and churchgoing father of seven, he embodies the conservative values that resonate with the right-wing Fidesz voter base but also has the support of liberal parties. Many believe he is the country’s best hope to unseat Mr. Orbán.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also criticized Mr. Orbán in recent days, blaming him for holding back on some sanctions, blocking weapons transfers to Ukraine via Hungary, and importing Russian oil and gas. “There can be no Russian branches in Europe that divide the EU from within, that are trying to help Russia make as much money as possible even now,” Mr. Zelenskyy said Tuesday. “Europe must stop listening to the excuses of Budapest.”
Hungary has come out looking soft relative to the other central European nations. When the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia – which, along with Hungary, form the so-called the Visegrád Group – went to Kyiv to show support for Ukraine earlier this month, Mr. Orbán stayed home. Hungary’s weaker line toward Russia also led the rest of the Visegrád Group to snub a planning meeting of defense ministers in Budapest this week.
Still, Hungary did fall into line with the EU and impose sanctions on Russia. And for all the cozying up to Mr. Putin in recent years, Mr. Orbán has never called into question Hungary’s membership in NATO or the EU per se, analysts note. “We were trying to expand our range of motion,” says Dr. Bottoni. “Until now, it didn’t seem so risky. It seemed even a smart move, playing a bit with the Russians, with the Chinese, imagining a global role for Hungary.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dramatically changed the equation. “It’s not only risky; there is moral risk,” Dr. Bottoni adds. “You are aligning with bloody dictatorships; you are aligning with isolated regimes. You are perceived as a kind of last ally [to Mr. Putin]. And Hungary has a very bad tradition, unfortunately, in the 20th century of standing on the wrong side.”
Remembering the Soviets
The majority of Hungarians are wary of being dragged into the Ukrainian conflict. Hungary was stripped of two-thirds of its territory in the aftermath of World War I. Hungary sided with Nazi Germany in World War II largely because Adolf Hitler offered to return the land. Large swaths of the population still dream of restoring Greater Hungary, a sentiment Mr. Orbán plays on.
“Hungary had to pay a high price for these wars,” says Ágoston Mráz, director of the conservative think tank Nézőpont Intézet. “That is why the sentiment to stay neutral is so strong in society.”
The stakes of a conflict with Russia are clear for the average Hungarian, even if ties between Budapest and Moscow have been at their best under Mr. Orbán, and even if Fidesz media repeats Russian tropes about the Ukrainian conflict. Hungary lived under communist rule until 1989.
“We know what it is like to fight with the Russians,” says Endre Pokasz, a press officer tasked with showing the aircraft museum, upgraded churches, and cultural venues set up under Mr. Orbán in the town of Szolnok. “If anyone thinks the Russians can be beaten easily, they are wrong. Hungary must keep the peace. What if Russia takes revenge on us? We are too small for this. If they close the gas, we will have no heating. Companies will have to stop working. Nothing will work.”
Russia supplies 80% of Hungary’s gas. Mr. Orbán signed a 15-year deal with Gazprom last year. That makes energy prices in Hungary cheaper compared with the rest of Europe. “It is a powerful weapon for Orbán,” says Dr. Bottoni. “We have to do what is good for us. You are paying less for gas and oil. Do you want to pay more? Please vote for the opposition, break down the agreements with the Russians. ... If not, we have to accept that the Russians are our partners. Whatever they do.”
“Orbán gave a very smart answer saying in wartimes, the most important thing for Hungarians is not who is responsible for the war and not moral issues. But the question is who can guarantee the freedom and peace of Hungary, and through that the prosperity of Hungary?” concurs Mr. Mráz.
Victory for the opposition would mean a complete re-orientation of Hungary’s foreign policy toward the West. That is the fervent wish of lawyer Gabor Matlak, in Budapest. Lingering by the banks of the Danube River with his family after the opposition rally, he clung to the flag of Europe.
“We are afraid we will not be part of the EU anymore if Orbán wins again,” he explains. “It is our last chance for Hungary to stay in the European Union and NATO. I think Europe will not tolerate Orbán anymore if we are not strong enough to kick him out.”
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Ukraine and its Western allies reported mounting evidence this weekend of Russia withdrawing its forces from around Kyiv. But they also saw evidence of torture and executions, sparking new calls for a war crimes investigation and sanctions against Russia.
Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a small city northwest of the capital, saw the bodies of at least nine people in civilian clothes who appeared to have been killed at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs. The AP also saw two bodies wrapped in plastic, bound with tape and thrown into a ditch.
Authorities said they were documenting evidence of alleged atrocities to add to their case for prosecuting Russian officials for war crimes. To convict, International Criminal Court prosecutors will need to show a pattern of indiscriminant deadly assaults on civilians during Russia's invasion.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said scores of residents were found slain on the streets of Bucha and the Kyiv suburbs of Irpin and Hostomel in what looked like a “scene from a horror movie.”
Some people were shot in the head and had their hands bound, and some bodies showed signs of torture, Arestovych said. There also were reports of rapes, he said.
A day earlier, AP journalists witnessed Ukrainian soldiers gingerly removing at least six bodies from a street in Bucha with cables in case the Russians had booby-trapped corpses with explosives before their withdrawal. Local residents said the dead people were civilians killed without provocation, a claim that could not be independently verified.
“What happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told German newspaper Bild. Klitschko called on other nations to immediately end Russian gas imports, saying they were funding the killings.
“Not a penny should go to Russia anymore. That’s bloody money used to slaughter people. The gas and oil embargo must come immediately,” the mayor said.
Russian troops moved into Ukraine from three sides on Feb. 24, and soldiers who entered from the north in Belarus spent weeks trying to clear a path to Kyiv. Their advance stalled in the face of resolute defiance from Ukraine’s defenders, and Moscow said this week it would concentrate the invasion elsewhere going forward.
Signs of fierce fighting were everywhere in the wake of Russian troops retreating north to back to Belarus: destroyed armored vehicles from both armies lay in streets and fields along with scattered military gear. The Ukrainian military said its troops continued to comb areas outside of the capital for mines, the dead and for any lingering Russian fighters.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, also called for tougher sanctions on Russia, including a complete energy embargo, over the discoveries north of Kyiv. Kuleba tweeted Sunday that the“Bucha massacre was deliberate,” alleging the “Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can.”
Charles Michel, president of the European Council, wrote on Twitter that he was shocked by the “haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army" in the capital region. The EU and non-governmental organizations were assisting in the effort to preserve evidence of war crimes, according to Michel, who promised “further EU sanctions” against Russia.
The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. separately condemned what was being described and said Russia would be held accountable.
“We will not allow Russia to cover up their involvement in these atrocities through cynical disinformation and will ensure that the reality of Russia’s actions are brought to light,″ British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said.
As Russia retreated from the capital, other parts of the country were under siege. Russia has said it is directing troops to eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years.
Mariupol, a southeastern port located on the Sea of Azov, remained cut off from the rest of the country as Russian ground forces fought to occupy the city. About 100,000 civilians - less than a quarter of the prewar population of 430,000 - are believed to be trapped there with little or no food, water, fuel and medicine.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it hoped a team of nine staffers and three vehicles it sent Saturday to help evacuate residents would reach Mariupol on Sunday but cautioned, "The situation on the ground is volatile and subject to rapid changes.”
Ukrainian authorities said Russia agreed days ago to allow safe passage from the city, which has been the site of some of the worst attacks and greatest suffering, but similar agreements have broken down repeatedly under continued shelling.
A supermarket parking lot in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia has become the staging ground for tens of thousands of people fleeing Mariupol.
Peycheva Olena, who made it out of the besieged city, told Britain's Sky News she was forced to leave the body of her husband unburied when he was killed in shooting.
“There was shelling, and we tried to drag him away but it was too much, we couldn’t do it,” explained her daughter, Kristina Katrikova.
While the geography of the battlefield morphed, little changed for many Ukrainians on the 39th day of a war that has sent more than 4 million people fleeing the country as refugees and displaced millions more from their homes.
The mayor of Chernihiv, which also has been under attack for weeks, said Sunday that relentless Russian shelling has destroyed 70% of the northern city. Like in Mariupol, Chernihiv has been cut off from shipments of food and other supplies.
“People think how they can live until tomorrow,” Mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko said.
On Sunday morning, Russian forces launched missiles on the Black Sea port of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, sending up clouds of dark smoke that veiled parts of the city. The Russian military said the targets were an oil processing plant and fuel depots around Odesa, which is Ukraine’s largest port and home to its navy.
“I live in that eight-floor building. At six in the morning, Russia launched an attack, and this piece of rock reached my house,” said Maiesienko Ilia, who lives near one of the targeted facilities.
The Odesa city council said Ukraine’s air defense shot down some missiles before they hit the city. Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Nazarov said there were no casualties from the attack.
The regional governor in Kharkiv, said Sunday that Russian artillery and tanks performed over 20 strikes on Ukraine’s second-largest city and its outskirts in the country's northeast over the past day.
The head of Ukraine’s delegation in talks with Russia said Moscow’s negotiators informally agreed to most of a draft proposal discussed during face-to-face talks in Istanbul this week, but no written confirmation has been provided.
The Ukrainian negotiator, Davyd Arakhamia said on Ukrainian TV that he hoped the proposal was developed enough so Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin could meet to discuss it. But the top Russian negotiator in talks with Ukraine, Vladimir Medinksy, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying it was too early to talk about a meeting between the two leaders.
As his country’s troops retook territory north of the capital from the departing Russian troops, Zelenskyy called on all Ukrainians to do whatever they could “to foil the enemy’s tactics and weaken its capabilities.”
“Peace will not be the result of any decisions the enemy makes somewhere in Moscow. There is no need to entertain empty hopes that they will simply leave our land. We can only have peace by fighting,” Zelenskyy said late Saturday.
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Yuras Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Andrea Rosa in Irpin, Ukraine, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
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Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared victory in Sunday's national elections, claiming a mandate for a fourth term as a still incomplete vote count showed a strong lead for his right-wing party.
In a 10-minute speech to Fidesz party officials and supporters at an election night event in Budapest, Orban addressed a crowd cheering “Viktor!” and declared it was a “huge victory” for his party.
“We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels,” said Orban, who has often been condemned by the European Union for overseeing democratic backsliding and alleged corruption.
While votes were still being tallied, it appeared clear that the question was not whether Orban’s Fidesz party would take the election, but by how much.
With around 91% of votes tallied, Orban’s Fidesz-led coalition had won 53%, while a pro-European opposition coalition, United for Hungary, had just over 34%, according to the National Election Office.
It appeared possible that Fidesz would win another constitutional majority, allowing it to continue making deep unilateral changes to the Central European nation.
“The whole world has seen tonight in Budapest that Christian democratic politics, conservative civic politics and patriotic politics have won. We are telling Europe that this is not the past, this is the future,” Orban said.
As Fidesz party officials gathered at an election night event on the Danube river in Budapest, state secretary Zoltan Kovacs pointed to the participation of so many parties in the election as a testament to the strength of Hungary’s democracy.
“We have heard a lot of nonsense recently about whether there is democracy in Hungary,” Kovacs said. “Hungarian democracy in the last 12 years has not weakened, but been strengthened.”
The contest had been expected to be the closest since Orban took power in 2010, thanks to Hungary’s six main opposition parties putting aside their ideological differences to form a united front against Fidesz. Voters were electing lawmakers to the country’s 199-seat parliament.
Yet even in his home district, opposition leader Peter Marki-Zay trailed the longtime Fidesz incumbent Janos Lazar by more than 12 points, with more than 98% of the votes counted there. It was a discouraging sign for the prime ministerial candidate who had promised to end to what he alleges is rampant government corruption, raise living standards by increasing funding to Hungary’s ailing health care and schools and mend frayed relations with the country's Western partners.
In a surprise performance, radical right-wing party Our Homeland Movement appeared to have garnered more than 6% of the vote, exceeding the 5% threshold needed to gain seats in parliament.
Opposition parties and international observers have noted structural impediments to defeating Orban, highlighting pervasive pro-government bias in the public media, the domination of commercial news outlets by Orban allies and a heavily gerrymandered electoral map.
Edit Zgut, a political scientist at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, predicted that a clear victory for Orban would allow him to move further in an autocratic direction, sidelining dissidents and capturing new areas of the economy.
“Hungary seems to have reached a point of no return,” she said. “The key lesson is that the playing field is tilted so much that it became almost impossible to replace Fidesz in elections.”
The opposition coalition, United For Hungary, asked voters to support a new political culture based on pluralistic governance and mended alliances with the country’s EU and NATO allies.
Speaking to supporters in Budapest late Sunday, Marki-Zay conceded defeat but argued that Fidesz had won under a system of its own making.
“We never thought this would be the result. We knew in advance that it would be an extremely unequal fight," Marki-Zay said. "We do not dispute that Fidesz won this election. That this election was democratic and free is, of course, something we continue to dispute.”
While Orban had earlier campaigned on divisive social and cultural issues, he dramatically shifted the tone of his campaign after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, and has portrayed the election since then as a choice between peace and stability or war and chaos.
While the opposition called for Hungary to support its embattled neighbor and act in lockstep with its EU and NATO partners, Orban, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has insisted that Hungary remain neutral and maintain its close economic ties with Moscow, including continuing to import Russian gas and oil on favorable terms.
At his final campaign rally Friday, Orban claimed that supplying Ukraine with weapons — something that Hungary, alone among Ukraine’s EU neighbors, has refused to do — would make the country a military target, and that sanctioning Russian energy imports would cripple Hungary's own economy.
“This isn’t our war, we have to stay out of it,” Orban said.
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Saturday depicted the Hungarian leader as out of touch with the rest of Europe, which has united to condemn Putin, support sanctions against Russia and send aid including weapons to Ukraine.
“He is virtually the only one in Europe to openly support Mr. Putin,” Zelenskyy said.
While speaking to supporters on Sunday, Orban singled out Zelenskyy as part of the “overwhelming force” that he said his party had struggled against in the election — “the left at home, the international left all around, the Brussels bureaucrats, the Soros empire with all its money, the international mainstream media, and in the end, even the Ukrainian president.”
Orban — a fierce critic of immigration, LGBTQ rights and “EU bureaucrats" — has garnered the admiration of right-wing nationalists across Europe and North America. He has taken many of Hungary’s democratic institutions under his control and depicted himself as a defender of European Christendom against Muslim migrants, progressives and the “LGBTQ lobby.”
Along with the election to parliament, a referendum on LGBTQ issues was being held Sunday. The questions pertained to sex education programs in schools and the availability to children of information about sex reassignment.
The Organization For Security and Cooperation in Europe sent a full observation mission to Hungary to monitor Sunday’s election, only the second time it has done so in a European Union country.
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Associated Press writer Vanessa Gera in Warsaw contributed to this report.
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Ukraine and its Western allies reported mounting evidence this weekend of Russia withdrawing its forces from around Kyiv. But they also saw evidence of torture and executions, sparking new calls for a war crimes investigation and sanctions against Russia.
As images of the bodies — of people whom residents said were killed indiscriminately — began to emerge from Bucha, a slew of European leaders condemned the atrocities and called for tougher sanctions against Moscow. In a sign of how the horrific reports shook many leaders, Germany's defense minister even suggested that the European Union consider banning Russian gas imports.
So far, the bodies of 410 civilians have been found in Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian forces, Ukraine’s prosecutor-general, Iryna Venediktova, said.
Associated Press journalists saw the bodies of at least 21 people in various spots around Bucha, northwest of the capital. One group of nine, all in civilian clothes, were scattered around a site that residents said Russian troops used as a base. They appeared to have been killed at close range.
Authorities said they were documenting evidence of alleged atrocities to add to their case for prosecuting Russian officials for war crimes. To convict, International Criminal Court prosecutors will need to show a pattern of indiscriminant deadly assaults on civilians during Russia's invasion.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said scores of residents were found slain on the streets of Bucha and the Kyiv suburbs of Irpin and Hostomel in what looked like a “scene from a horror movie.”
Some people were shot in the head and had their hands bound, and some bodies showed signs of torture, Arestovych said. There also were reports of rapes, he said.
A day earlier, AP journalists witnessed Ukrainian soldiers gingerly removing at least six bodies from a street in Bucha with cables in case the Russians had booby-trapped corpses with explosives before their withdrawal. Local residents said the dead people were civilians killed without provocation, a claim that could not be independently verified.
“What happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told German newspaper Bild. Klitschko called on other nations to immediately end Russian gas imports, saying they were funding the killings.
“Not a penny should go to Russia anymore. That’s bloody money used to slaughter people. The gas and oil embargo must come immediately,” the mayor said.
But Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement that the photos and videos of dead bodies “have been stage managed by the Kyiv regime for the Western media.” It noted that Bucha's mayor did not mention any abuses a day after Russian troops left.
The ministry charged said “not a single civilian has faced any violent action by the Russian military" in Bucha.
Russian troops moved into Ukraine from three sides on Feb. 24, and soldiers who entered from the north in Belarus spent weeks trying to clear a path to Kyiv. Their advance stalled in the face of resolute defiance from Ukraine’s defenders, and Moscow said this week it would concentrate the invasion elsewhere going forward.
Signs of fierce fighting were everywhere in the wake of Russian troops retreating north to back to Belarus: destroyed armored vehicles from both armies lay in streets and fields along with scattered military gear. The Ukrainian military said its troops continued to comb areas outside of the capital for mines, the dead and for any lingering Russian fighters.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, also called for tougher sanctions on Russia, including a complete energy embargo, over the discoveries north of Kyiv. Kuleba tweeted Sunday that the“Bucha massacre was deliberate,” alleging the “Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can.”
Charles Michel, president of the European Council, wrote on Twitter that he was shocked by the “haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army" in the capital region. The EU and non-governmental organizations were assisting in the effort to preserve evidence of war crimes, according to Michel, who promised “further EU sanctions” against Russia.
The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. separately condemned what was being described and said Russia would be held accountable.
“We will not allow Russia to cover up their involvement in these atrocities through cynical disinformation and will ensure that the reality of Russia’s actions are brought to light,″ British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said.
As Russia retreated from the capital, other parts of the country were under siege. Russia has said it is directing troops to eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years.
Mariupol, a southeastern port located on the Sea of Azov, remained cut off from the rest of the country as Russian ground forces fought to occupy the city. About 100,000 civilians - less than a quarter of the prewar population of 430,000 - are believed to be trapped there with little or no food, water, fuel and medicine.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it hoped a team of nine staffers and three vehicles it sent Saturday to help evacuate residents would reach Mariupol on Sunday but cautioned, "The situation on the ground is volatile and subject to rapid changes.”
Ukrainian authorities said Russia agreed days ago to allow safe passage from the city, which has been the site of some of the worst attacks and greatest suffering, but similar agreements have broken down repeatedly under continued shelling.
A supermarket parking lot in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia has become the staging ground for tens of thousands of people fleeing Mariupol.
Peycheva Olena, who made it out of the besieged city, told Britain's Sky News she was forced to leave the body of her husband unburied when he was killed in shooting.
“There was shelling, and we tried to drag him away but it was too much, we couldn’t do it,” explained her daughter, Kristina Katrikova.
While the geography of the battlefield morphed, little changed for many Ukrainians on the 39th day of a war that has sent more than 4 million people fleeing the country as refugees and displaced millions more from their homes.
The mayor of Chernihiv, which also has been under attack for weeks, said Sunday that relentless Russian shelling has destroyed 70% of the northern city. Like in Mariupol, Chernihiv has been cut off from shipments of food and other supplies.
“People think how they can live until tomorrow,” Mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko said.
On Sunday morning, Russian forces launched missiles on the Black Sea port of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, sending up clouds of dark smoke that veiled parts of the city. The Russian military said the targets were an oil processing plant and fuel depots around Odesa, which is Ukraine’s largest port and home to its navy.
“I live in that eight-floor building. At six in the morning, Russia launched an attack, and this piece of rock reached my house,” said Maiesienko Ilia, who lives near one of the targeted facilities.
The Odesa city council said Ukraine’s air defense shot down some missiles before they hit the city. Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Nazarov said there were no casualties from the attack.
The regional governor in Kharkiv, said Sunday that Russian artillery and tanks performed over 20 strikes on Ukraine’s second-largest city and its outskirts in the country's northeast over the past day.
The head of Ukraine’s delegation in talks with Russia said Moscow’s negotiators informally agreed to most of a draft proposal discussed during face-to-face talks in Istanbul this week, but no written confirmation has been provided.
The Ukrainian negotiator, Davyd Arakhamia said on Ukrainian TV that he hoped the proposal was developed enough so Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin could meet to discuss it. But the top Russian negotiator in talks with Ukraine, Vladimir Medinksy, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying it was too early to talk about a meeting between the two leaders.
As his country’s troops retook territory north of the capital from the departing Russian troops, Zelenskyy called on all Ukrainians to do whatever they could “to foil the enemy’s tactics and weaken its capabilities.”
“Peace will not be the result of any decisions the enemy makes somewhere in Moscow. There is no need to entertain empty hopes that they will simply leave our land. We can only have peace by fighting,” Zelenskyy said late Saturday.
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Yuras Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Andrea Rosa in Irpin, Ukraine, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
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Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared victory in Sunday's national elections, claiming a mandate for a fourth term as a still incomplete vote count showed a strong lead for his right-wing party.
In a 10-minute speech to Fidesz party officials and supporters at an election night event in Budapest, Orban addressed a crowd cheering “Viktor!” and declared it was a “huge victory” for his party.
“We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels,” said Orban, who has often been condemned by the European Union for overseeing democratic backsliding and alleged corruption.
While votes were still being tallied, it appeared clear that the question was not whether Orban’s Fidesz party would take the election, but by how much.
With around 91% of votes tallied, Orban’s Fidesz-led coalition had won 53%, while a pro-European opposition coalition, United for Hungary, had just over 34%, according to the National Election Office.
It appeared possible that Fidesz would win another constitutional majority, allowing it to continue making deep unilateral changes to the Central European nation.
“The whole world has seen tonight in Budapest that Christian democratic politics, conservative civic politics and patriotic politics have won. We are telling Europe that this is not the past, this is the future,” Orban said.
As Fidesz party officials gathered at an election night event on the Danube river in Budapest, state secretary Zoltan Kovacs pointed to the participation of so many parties in the election as a testament to the strength of Hungary’s democracy.
“We have heard a lot of nonsense recently about whether there is democracy in Hungary,” Kovacs said. “Hungarian democracy in the last 12 years has not weakened, but been strengthened.”
The contest had been expected to be the closest since Orban took power in 2010, thanks to Hungary’s six main opposition parties putting aside their ideological differences to form a united front against Fidesz. Voters were electing lawmakers to the country’s 199-seat parliament.
Yet even in his home district, opposition leader Peter Marki-Zay trailed the longtime Fidesz incumbent Janos Lazar by more than 12 points, with more than 98% of the votes counted there. It was a discouraging sign for the prime ministerial candidate who had promised to end to what he alleges is rampant government corruption, raise living standards by increasing funding to Hungary’s ailing health care and schools and mend frayed relations with the country's Western partners.
In a surprise performance, radical right-wing party Our Homeland Movement appeared to have garnered more than 6% of the vote, exceeding the 5% threshold needed to gain seats in parliament.
Opposition parties and international observers have noted structural impediments to defeating Orban, highlighting pervasive pro-government bias in the public media, the domination of commercial news outlets by Orban allies and a heavily gerrymandered electoral map.
Edit Zgut, a political scientist at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, predicted that a clear victory for Orban would allow him to move further in an autocratic direction, sidelining dissidents and capturing new areas of the economy.
“Hungary seems to have reached a point of no return,” she said. “The key lesson is that the playing field is tilted so much that it became almost impossible to replace Fidesz in elections.”
The opposition coalition, United For Hungary, asked voters to support a new political culture based on pluralistic governance and mended alliances with the country’s EU and NATO allies.
Speaking to supporters in Budapest late Sunday, Marki-Zay conceded defeat but argued that Fidesz had won under a system of its own making.
“We never thought this would be the result. We knew in advance that it would be an extremely unequal fight," Marki-Zay said. "We do not dispute that Fidesz won this election. That this election was democratic and free is, of course, something we continue to dispute.”
While Orban had earlier campaigned on divisive social and cultural issues, he dramatically shifted the tone of his campaign after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, and has portrayed the election since then as a choice between peace and stability or war and chaos.
While the opposition called for Hungary to support its embattled neighbor and act in lockstep with its EU and NATO partners, Orban, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has insisted that Hungary remain neutral and maintain its close economic ties with Moscow, including continuing to import Russian gas and oil on favorable terms.
At his final campaign rally Friday, Orban claimed that supplying Ukraine with weapons — something that Hungary, alone among Ukraine’s EU neighbors, has refused to do — would make the country a military target, and that sanctioning Russian energy imports would cripple Hungary's own economy.
“This isn’t our war, we have to stay out of it,” Orban said.
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Saturday depicted the Hungarian leader as out of touch with the rest of Europe, which has united to condemn Putin, support sanctions against Russia and send aid including weapons to Ukraine.
“He is virtually the only one in Europe to openly support Mr. Putin,” Zelenskyy said.
While speaking to supporters on Sunday, Orban singled out Zelenskyy as part of the “overwhelming force” that he said his party had struggled against in the election — “the left at home, the international left all around, the Brussels bureaucrats, the Soros empire with all its money, the international mainstream media, and in the end, even the Ukrainian president.”
Orban — a fierce critic of immigration, LGBTQ rights and “EU bureaucrats" — has garnered the admiration of right-wing nationalists across Europe and North America. He has taken many of Hungary’s democratic institutions under his control and depicted himself as a defender of European Christendom against Muslim migrants, progressives and the “LGBTQ lobby.”
Along with the election to parliament, a referendum on LGBTQ issues was being held Sunday. The questions pertained to sex education programs in schools and the availability to children of information about sex reassignment.
The Organization For Security and Cooperation in Europe sent a full observation mission to Hungary to monitor Sunday’s election, only the second time it has done so in a European Union country.
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Associated Press writer Vanessa Gera in Warsaw contributed to this report.
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A former finance minister who surprised many by making it into Costa Rica’s presidential runoff has easily won the election and is to become the Central American country’s new leader next month while still fending off accusations of sexual harassment when he worked at the World Bank.
With nearly all polling stations reporting late Sunday, conservative economist Rodrigo Chaves had 53% of the vote, compared to 47% for former President José Figueres Ferrer, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said.
More than 42% of eligible voters did not participate, an unusually low turnout for the country, reflecting the lack of enthusiasm Costa Ricans had for the candidates.
In his victory speech, Mr. Chaves called for unity to address problems like unemployment and a soaring budget deficit.
“For me this is not a medal nor a trophy, but rather an enormous responsibility, heaped with challenges and difficulties that we will all resolve,” he said.
“Costa Rica, the best is to come!” Mr. Chaves said before celebrating supporters. His inauguration is scheduled for May 8.
Mr. Figueres conceded defeat less than an hour after results began to come in. He had led the first round of voting Feb. 6, with Mr. Chaves in second that day. Neither had come close to the 40% of the vote needed to avoid a runoff.
Mr. Figueres congratulated Mr. Chaves and wished him the best, adding that he continues to believe that Costa Rica is in a “deep crisis” and that he is willing to help it recover.
Mr. Figueres, who was Costa Rica’s president from 1994 to 1998, represents the National Liberation Party like his father, three-time president José Figueres Ferrer. Mr. Chaves served briefly in the administration of outgoing President Carlos Alvarado and represents the Social Democratic Progress Party.
Both men waged a bruising campaign.
Mr. Chaves’ campaign is under investigation by electoral authorities for allegedly running an illegal parallel financing structure. He also has been dogged by a sexual harassment scandal that drove him out of the World Bank.
While working at the bank, he was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, was eventually demoted, and then resigned. He has denied the accusations.
The World Bank’s administrative tribunal last year criticized the way the case was initially handled internally.
The tribunal noted that an internal investigation found that from 2008 to 2013 Mr. Chaves leered at, made unwelcome comments about physical appearance, repeated sexual innuendo, and unwelcome sexual advances toward multiple bank employees. Those details were repeated by the bank’s human resources department in a letter to Mr. Chaves, but it decided to sanction him for misconduct rather than sexual harassment.
“The facts of the present case indicate that [Chaves’] conduct was sexual in nature and that he knew or should have known that his conduct was unwelcome,” the tribunal wrote. The tribunal also noted that in the proceedings, the bank’s current vice president for human resources said in testimony “that the undisputed facts legally amount to sexual harassment.”
Political analyst Francisco Barahona said Costa Ricans’ lack of enthusiasm, as shown by the low turnout, was the result of the many personal attacks that characterized the campaign.
“In the debates they only heated things up in personal confrontations, mistreatment of each other,” he said. “They didn’t add depth to their proposals to resolve the country’s problems. The debates didn’t help to motivate the electorate.”
“For a lot of people it’s embarrassing to say they voted for one or the other, and many prefer to say they won’t vote for either of the candidates or simply won’t go to vote,” Mr. Barahona added.
Mr. Figueres has been questioned over a $900,000 consulting fee he received after his presidency from the telecommunication company Alcatel while it competed for a contract with the national electricity company. He was never charged with any crime and denied any wrongdoing.
While Costa Rica has enjoyed relative democratic stability compared with other countries in the region, the public has grown frustrated with public corruption scandals and high unemployment.
In the February vote, Mr. Alvarado’s party was practically erased from the political landscape, receiving no seats in the new congress. At the time of that vote, the country was riding a wave of COVID-19 infections, but infections and hospitalizations have fallen considerably since.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said Monday she wouldn’t seek a second term after a rocky five years marked by huge protests calling for her resignation, a security crackdown that has quashed dissent, and most recently a COVID-19 wave that overwhelmed the health system.
Her successor will be picked in May, with the city’s hard-line security chief during the 2019 protests seen as a likely choice.
“I will complete my five-year term as chief executive on the 30th of June this year, and I will also call an end to my 42 years of public service,” Ms. Lam said at a news conference. The career civil servant said she plans to spend more time with her family, which is her “sole consideration.”
Speculation had swirled for months about whether she would seek another term, and she repeatedly declined to comment on the possibility. But on Monday, she said her decision had been conveyed to the central government in Beijing last year and was met with “respect and understanding.”
Her time in office will likely be remembered as a turning point during which Beijing firmly established control over the former British colony, which was returned to China in 1997. For years, the city rocked back and forth between calls for more freedom and growing signs of China extending its reach, chipping away at a promise by the mainland government to give Hong Kong the power to govern itself semi-autonomously for 50 years.
Ms. Lam’s popularity sharply declined over her five-year term, particularly over legislation that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial and her leadership during the protests that ensued in 2019. The mass demonstrations were marked at times by violent clashes between police and protesters. Authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing insisted that overseas forces were fueling the movement, rather than local activism, while protesters denounced the police crackdown as excessive and said that claims of sedition were attempts to undermine the pro-democracy cause.
Ms. Lam said she came under great pressure because of the extradition bill, “interference from foreign forces,” and the pandemic. “However, the motivation for me to press on was the very staunch support behind me by the central authorities,” she said, according to a simultaneous translation by a government interpreter.
Later, Ms. Lam strongly backed the national security law initiated by Beijing and implemented by her government that was seen as eroding the “one country, two systems” framework that promised after the handover from Britain that city residents would retain freedoms not found in mainland China, such as a free press and freedom of expression.
The security law and other police and court actions in the years since have virtually erased the city’s pro-democracy movement, with activists and the movement’s supporters either arrested or jailed. Others have fled into exile. Ms. Lam and the central government in Beijing say their actions have restored stability in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong media have reported this week that Chief Secretary John Lee, the city’s No. 2 leader, is likely to enter the race to succeed Ms. Lam. Mr. Lee rose through the ranks as a police officer to become deputy commissioner in 2010, and was the city’s secretary of security during the 2019 protests. He is known for his support for the police force during the protests and his tough stance against protesters.
Hong Kong’s leader is elected by a committee made up of lawmakers, representatives of various industries and professions, and pro-Beijing representatives such as Hong Kong deputies to China’s legislature. One of the unfulfilled demands of the 2019 protests was direct election of the city’s chief executive.
The election for the chief executive had been set for March 27 but was postponed until May 8 as the city endures its worst coronavirus outbreak.
Ms. Lam said that holding the polls as originally scheduled would pose “public health risks” even if a committee of only 1,462 people is involved.
Hong Kong has reported nearly 1.2 million cases, 99% of them during the wave driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant. It has strained the health care system, with hospitals at times placing patients on beds outdoors. More than 8,000 people have died in the latest outbreak, and mortuaries operating at capacity have used refrigerated containers to temporarily store bodies.
Ms. Lam’s government has been widely criticized for flip-flopping policies, including mixed messaging in February and March on whether a lockdown and compulsory mass-testing would be implemented. The uncertainty sparked panic among residents, who cleared out store shelves to hoard daily necessities.
The plans for compulsory mass-testing were dropped, and Ms. Lam last week urged all residents to test themselves with rapid antigen kits between April 8 to 10. She later said the exercise was voluntary as it was not possible to enforce.
Ms. Lam previously served as chief secretary and secretary for development and in other civil service positions. She earned the nickname “good fighter” for her tough stance and refusal to back down in political battles.
Ms. Lam renounced her British nationality in 2007 when she was appointed secretary for development. Her husband and two children have retained their British nationalities.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Zen Soo reported from Singapore. AP writer Ken Moritsugu contributed from Beijing.
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Pakistan’s prime minister threw the country into political limbo on Sunday, accusing the United States of attempting to oust him and cancelling a no-confidence vote he was poised to lose. He then ordered the National Assembly dissolved so new elections can be held.
The moves by Imran Khan appeared to trigger a constitutional crisis: Pakistan’s Supreme Court must rule on their legality, beginning Monday and gave no indication when the matter would be settled. In Pakistan, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan has just begun.
The dramatic episode was the latest in an escalating dispute between Mr. Khan and parliament, after defectors within his own party and a minor coalition partner joined the opposition and attempted to oust him from power. It was unclear on Sunday where the powerful military – which has directly ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 75-year history – stood in the fray.
The nuclear-armed nation of more than 220 million people lies between Afghanistan to the west, China to the northeast, and nuclear rival India to the east, making it of vital strategic importance.
Since coming to power in 2018, Mr. Khan’s rhetoric has become more anti-American and he has expressed a desire to move closer to China and, recently, Russia – including talks with President Vladimir Putin on the day the invasion of Ukraine began.
At the same time, U.S. and Asian foreign policy experts said that Pakistan’s powerful military has traditionally controlled foreign and defense policy, thereby limiting the impact of political instability.
Here is what the upheaval, which many expect to lead to Mr. Khan’s exit, means for countries closely involved in Pakistan:
Afghanistan
Ties between Pakistan’s military intelligence agency and the Islamist militant Taliban have loosened in recent years.
Now the Taliban are back in power, and facing an economic and humanitarian crisis due to a lack of money and international isolation, Qatar is arguably their most important foreign partner.
“We [the United States] don’t need Pakistan as a conduit to the Taliban. Qatar is definitely playing that role now,” said Lisa Curtis, director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security think-tank.
Tensions have risen between the Taliban and Pakistan’s military, which has lost several soldiers in attacks close to their mutual border. Pakistan wants the Taliban to do more to crack down on extremist groups and worries they will spread violence into Pakistan. That has begun to happen already.
Mr. Khan has been less critical of the Taliban over human rights than most foreign leaders.
China
Mr. Khan has consistently emphasized China’s positive role in Pakistan and in the world at large.
At the same time, the $60-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which binds the neighbors together was actually conceptualized and launched under Pakistan’s two established political parties, both of which want Mr. Khan out of power.
Opposition leader and potential successor Shehbaz Sharif struck deals with China directly as leader of the eastern province of Punjab, and his reputation for getting major infrastructure projects off the ground while avoiding political grandstanding could in fact be music to Beijing’s ears.
India
The neighbors have fought three wars since independence in 1947, two of them over the disputed Muslim-majority territory of Kashmir.
As with Afghanistan, it is Pakistan’s military that controls policy in the sensitive area, and tensions along the de facto border there are at their lowest level since 2021.
But there have been no formal diplomatic talks between the rivals for years because of deep distrust over a range of issues including Mr. Khan’s extreme criticism of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his handling of attacks on minority Muslims in India.
Karan Thapar, an Indian political commentator who has closely followed India-Pakistan ties, said the Pakistani military could put pressure on a new civilian government in Islamabad to build on the successful ceasefire in Kashmir.
On Saturday, Pakistan’s powerful army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa said his country was ready to move forward on Kashmir if India agrees.
The Sharif political dynasty has been at the forefront of several dovish overtures towards India over the years.
United States
U.S.-based South Asia experts said that Pakistan’s political crisis is unlikely to be a priority for President Joe Biden, who is grappling with the war in Ukraine, unless it led to mass unrest or rising tensions with India.
“We have so many other fish to fry,” said Robin Raphel, a former assistant secretary of State for South Asia who is a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.
With the Pakistani military maintaining its behind-the-scenes control of foreign and security policies, Mr. Khan’s political fate was not a major concern, according to some analysts.
“Since it’s the military that calls the shots on the policies that the U.S. really cares about, i.e. Afghanistan, India, and nuclear weapons, internal Pakistani political developments are largely irrelevant for the U.S.,” said Ms. Curtis, who served as former U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Security Council senior director for South Asia.
Ms. Curtis added that Mr. Khan’s visit to Moscow had been a “disaster” in terms of U.S. relations, and that a new government in Islamabad could at least help mend ties “to some degree.”
Mr. Khan has blamed the United States for the current political crisis, saying that Washington wanted him removed because of the recent Moscow trip.
This story was reported by Reuters. Sanjeev Miglani contributed to this report. Associated Press material was used in this report.
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Sri Lanka’s sports minister and the president’s nephew, Namal Rajapaksa, has resigned from his position amid growing public outrage over the country’s economic crisis and shortages of food, fuel, and medicines.
All 26 Cabinet ministers also handed in their resignations Sunday night to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa due to the economic crisis in the country, Education Minister Dinesh Gunawardena told reporters late Sunday.
“I have informed the secretary to the president of my resignation from all portfolios with immediate effect...,” Namal Rajapaksa tweeted, saying he hopes his decision helps President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, Mr. N. Rajapaksha’s father, in establishing stability for the people and the government.
Mr. N. Rajapaksha also held the portfolio of youth affairs.
Mr. Gunawardena said the president and the prime minister will take appropriate action on the Cabinet’s offer to resign.
Government coalition parties are demanding that a caretaker Cabinet be appointed to pull the country out of the crisis.
The actions appear to be efforts to pacify the people, who are protesting countrywide to hold the president and the entire Rajapaksa family responsible.
Sri Lanka’s political power is concentrated in the Rajapaksa family. In addition to brothers being president and prime minister, two other brothers are ministers of finance and irrigation. Mr. N. Rajapaksha was also a Cabinet minister until he resigned.
On Sunday, Sri Lankan professionals, students, and even mothers with small children defied an emergency decree and curfew to demand the president’s resignation.
Police fired tear gas and water canons at hundreds of university students who were trying to break through barricades near the town of Kandy in the tea growing region. Near Colombo, students demonstrated and dispersed while armed soldiers and police stopped opposition lawmakers from marching to the iconic Independence Square.
“This is unconstitutional,” opposition leader Sajith Premadasa told the troops who blocked their path. “You are violating the law. Please think of the people who are suffering. Why are you protecting a government like this?”
For several months, Sri Lankans have endured long lines to buy fuel, foods, and medicines, most of which comes from abroad and is paid for in hard currency. The first to disappear from shops was milk powder and cooking gas, followed by a fuel shortage disrupting transport and causing rolling power cuts lasting several hours a day at the end of February.
The extent of the crisis became clear when Sri Lanka couldn’t pay for imports of basic supplies because of its huge debts and dwindling foreign reserves. The country’s usable foreign reserves are said to be less that $400 million, according to experts, and it has nearly $7 billion in foreign debt obligations for this year alone.
Mr. G. Rajapaksa last month said his government was in talks with the International Monetary Fund and turned to China and India for loans while he appealed to people to limit the use of fuel and electricity, and “extend their support to the country.”
As protests grew and calls increased for him to step down, Mr. G. Rajapaksa doubled down and at midnight Friday assumed emergency powers by decree. The government also declared a countrywide curfew until Monday morning.
It did little to quell the anger of thousands, many first-time protesters, who felt fed up and exhausted by the crisis.
“In this country it is so difficult,” said Inoma Fazil, a fashion designer who brought her 18-month-old daughter to a protest in Rajagiriya, a Colombo suburb. “We don’t want to leave the country and go, and we want to give our child a good future, but everyone is stealing our money. So we came here for her and the rest of the children.”
A couple joined the same rally straight from the hospital with their newborn, and were greeted with cheers by the protesters who sang Sri Lanka’s national anthem, waved flags and placards.
While public resentment is mostly on the Rajapaksa family, anger was also directed at politicians in general, and a decades-long system that many feel has betrayed them.
At the Colombo rally, protesters turned back an opposition lawmaker, calling out “no politicians!”
“The main purpose of the curfew is to quell dissent against the government,” said Christopher Stephen, a construction businessman who held placards in the main road near his home.
Mr. Stephen said he and his circle of friends and acquaintances had protested every day since early March, and he was excited that more people were joining in.
“What the Rajapaksas have been doing all these years was to divide the people along ethnic and religious lines. But this has united all Sri Lankans – Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burghers – all want them out,” Mr. Stephen said, referring to the president and his powerful family.
Aman Ashraff, an advertising professional who was protesting in his neighborhood, said Sri Lanka has squandered the opportunity to optimize its potential after ending a decades-long civil war in 2009 because of misgovernance.
“This is the turn for the people to rise up and show that they are not going to tolerate the sort of corruption, the sort of greed and the sort of self-centered governance any further,” he said.
On Sunday, authorities blocked access for nearly 15 hours to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, and other social media platforms that were used to organize protests.
The emergency declaration by Mr. G. Rajapaksa gives him wide powers to preserve public order, suppress mutiny, riot, or civil disturbances or for the maintenance of essential supplies. Under the decree, the president can authorize detentions, seizure of property, and search of premises. He can also change or suspend any law except the constitution.
The European Union urged Sri Lanka’s government to safeguard the “democratic rights of all concerns, including right to free assembly and dissent, which has to be peaceful.”
United States Ambassador Julie Chung said “Sri Lankans have a right to protest peacefully – essential for democratic expression.”
“I am watching the situation closely and hope the coming days bring restraint from all sides, as well as much needed economic stability and relief for those suffering,” she said in a tweet on Saturday.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
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Success in bringing back populations of one species can also spawn attempts to boost others, using similar methods. Also on the environment, batteries are being recycled into fertilizer. And in human rights news, Latvia pays compensation to communities for the Holocaust, and Kuwait overturns an anti-transgender law.
1. Argentina
Two giant anteaters paved the way for other successful reintroduction programs in Argentina’s Iberá Wetlands. Scientists weren’t sure what to expect when they released a pair of giant anteaters – affectionately named Ivotí Pora and Preto – into the wilderness of the Rincón del Socorro (a reserve) in 2007. Hunting and agriculture had eradicated the species decades earlier. This pair not only survived, but also had seven cubs in the wild. “They were fighters,” says veterinarian Gustavo Solís from the Rewilding Foundation, which runs a rescue center for anteaters. Since then, the foundation has rescued over 120 anteaters and released 93 across four sites, with help from provincial governments, national parks, zoos, and universities.
Why We Wrote This
At face value, species reintroductions mean preservation of unique life. But in one case in our progress roundup, animals were also key to a comeback of the ecosystem itself.
When young anteaters are rescued and brought to the center, they’re bottle-fed until they can switch to a normal diet of worms and termites. The animals must meet certain requirements before they can leave the facility, such as weight, self-reliance in feeding and shelter, and the ability to use their tail for self-protection. They then spend a month in a pre-release pen that mimics the wild environment, where they are fitted with monitoring devices. Conservationists have organized educational events to help locals better understand the species that went extinct in the 1960s. Using this model, the foundation has also reintroduced Pampas deer, jaguars, and red-and-green macaws back to the wild.
Mongabay
2. United States
Bison helped resurrect a section of the American prairie, offering hope for similar ecosystems globally. Before settlers altered the landscape, millions of bison lived among tall perennial grasses on a tract of land that stretched from Texas to Canada. Today, less than 5% of the tallgrass prairie remains. A strategy combining bison grazing with seasonal fires has restored 40,000 acres of land on the Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in northeast Oklahoma.
Cattle ranching had destroyed the ecosystem due to cramped overgrazing before bison were reintroduced in 1993. Now the land is managed by The Nature Conservancy, which focuses on restoring the surprising amount of biodiversity native to the prairie. The team started with North America’s largest mammal since the free-ranging bison spend much of their time grazing, keeping certain plants in check and allowing others to flourish. The original herd of 300 has since grown to 2,500. “They’ve never been domesticated, and one of our policies is to respect as best we can the wildness of that species,” explained Sam Fuhlendorf, a professor at Oklahoma State University. “We’ve tried to understand the way this system would have operated historically and restore it as closely as possible.” Healthy tallgrasses now cover the land, helped by controlled fires that allow for natural regrowth. Experts say the technique could also work on cattle ranches.
PBS Terra
3. Kuwait
Kuwait’s constitutional court overturned a law that violated the right to personal freedom and was used to prosecute transgender people. Article 198 had criminalized “imitation of the opposite sex” since 2007 and gave authorities leeway to stop or arrest individuals whose appearance was deemed not to match the gender on their identification cards. Human Rights Watch interviewed 40 transgender women in Kuwait in 2011, and 39 said they had been arrested at least once under Article 198. Activists say police have been known to harass and assault transgender people after detaining them.
Maha al-Mutairi, a transgender social media influencer from Kuwait, spoke in 2019 about her experience being detained under Article 198 for seven months, then beaten and raped by officers. The videos stirred criticism of the law from around the world. “Article 198 was deeply discriminatory, overly vague and never should have been accepted into law in the first place,” said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, who is pushing for the law to be fully repealed by the National Assembly but described the decision as a “major breakthrough.”
The New York Times
4. Latvia
Latvia passed a restitution bill to compensate Jewish communities for property losses incurred during World War II. Around 90% of the nation’s Jewish population was killed during the Holocaust, and hundreds of buildings were expropriated by the state in the Soviet era. The bill pledges €40 million ($45 million) to reimburse Holocaust survivors for lost property as well as refurbish community buildings and support cultural projects. The amount was determined by calculating the current assessed value of around 250 formerly Jewish community buildings, and took nearly two decades to negotiate.
“Finalizing this process demonstrates that even 77 years after the end of the Holocaust, it is never too late for justice,” said Arkady Sukharenko, chairman of the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia, which represents the country’s 10,000 Jewish residents. Since 1952, Germany has contributed around $90 billion to support Holocaust survivors around the world, and recently agreed to contribute another €647 million ($716 million) to fund continued social services for these individuals. While the Latvian legislation affirms the state was not responsible for the atrocities committed under Nazi occupation, the government saw the step as its “moral obligation,” said Martins Bondars, chairman of the parliamentary budget committee. “Only a country that is able to deal with its past has a future.”
Deutsche Welle, The New York Times, Associated Press
World
Dead batteries are taking on new life as plant fertilizer in a step toward a more circular economy. Alkaline batteries are made in part using toxic substances, but that doesn’t mean useful materials can’t be repurposed. In fact, two micronutrients essential to plants (zinc and manganese) make up around 50% of a battery’s weight. Companies have developed methods to extract these chemicals, converting them into fertilizers.
For Finnish firm Tracegrow, the process starts by crushing alkaline batteries into “black mass.” Powerful magnets then remove ferrous metals from the mixture, but toxic metals like nickel remain. Through a patented leaching process, the mass is liquefied, microplastics and graphite are filtered out, and nickel and cadmium are removed and collected for reuse. When the process is complete, what’s left is a safe and environmentally friendly fertilizer that has shown positive results when tested on crops like wheat, barley, oats, tomato, and avocado in Finland, England, Italy, the United States, and other countries. Battery recycling company Envirostream is working on a similar process in Australia.
EuroNews
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If today is Monday, when is next Sunday? What about if today is Friday, or also a Sunday? Many appointments have been missed and many planners have been frustrated because the answer is not always the same, though theoretically, it should be. Next means “immediately adjacent (as in place, rank, or time),” as Merriam-Webster puts it, so whether it’s Monday, April 4; Friday, April 8; or Sunday, April 3, the “immediately adjacent” Sunday is April 10. That’s too easy for the English language and its speakers, though, and “next Sunday” can be April 17 as well.
The answer varies with geography. People in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and much of the United States would most likely mean April 17; in southern England, it tends to be April 10. Even if you know the trend where you are, though, the answer can vary from speaker to speaker. Why is next so hard to pin down, and are there any rules that can help?
Next is what linguists and philosophers call an indexical, “a linguistic expression whose reference can shift from context to context,” according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Indexicals are often a source of semantic ambiguity. “Tomorrow” seems like it should be perfectly clear, but if you’re in Boston on a Monday at 9 p.m. and talking to someone in Tokyo, “tomorrow” will be Tuesday for you, but Wednesday for them.
Though similar time zone issues can arise with “next + day of the week” too, the main source of confusion comes from its “implicit point of reference,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In some places, next takes the current day as its starting point: If today is Monday, April 4, then “next Saturday” refers to the Saturday most immediately following the Monday, which would be April 9. More often, though, next takes the entire, current week as its point of reference: If it’s Monday, April 4, then “next Saturday” would be the Saturday that most immediately follows once the current week (which includes Saturday, April 9) is over, or April 16.
Often speakers with the “week” point of reference will differentiate Saturday, April 9, as “this Saturday” (it’s part of “this week”) or, as in Scotland and Northern Ireland, “Saturday first.” In southern England and the U.S., where “next Saturday” is April 9, April 16 would often be “Saturday week.”
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the this/next distinction is spreading, so even if you know where a person comes from, you can’t be sure about what they mean. To avoid all possibility of confusion, there is no elegant solution – you just have to use precise dates and times.
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Jon Batiste had the most Grammy Award nominations and his five wins outpaced everyone, yet he somehow seemed the biggest surprise on a joyous night for music that washed away some of the bad taste left by the Oscars a week earlier.
Mr. Batiste’s “We Are” won the prestigious album of the year award Sunday over music heavyweights like Tony Bennett, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, and Ye, who changed his name from Kanye West. Mr. Batiste ended his dance-filled performance of “Freedom” during the show by jumping on Ms. Eilish’s table.
Silk Sonic won four Grammys, including song and record of the year for the duo’s smooth soul hit, “Leave the Door Open.” Olivia Rodrigo’s three awards included best new artist. Foo Fighters, Chris Stapleton, and CeCe Winans also won three each.
Yet Mr. Batiste captured the mood of a night where, despite some somber moments, the live performance skills of music’s best artists were on full display after COVID-19 had put much of the concert industry on pause.
“I was having such a good time,” Mr. Batiste said backstage after the show, describing the moment when Lenny Kravitz announced his best album victory. “I was hanging with my family, when my name came and the ‘We Are’ title was said by Lenny – such a full circle moment because we played together when I was 16. It was surreal.”
The versatile Mr. Batiste, music director on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show,” also won Sunday for his song “Cry,” the video for “Freedom,” and his work with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on the soundtrack for “Soul.”
Mr. Kravitz had performed “Are You Gonna Go My Way” in a duet with H.E.R., his guitar skills and wardrobe unchanged since the song came out in 1993.
H.E.R. was still on a high backstage when she relived the moment.
“I watched Lenny growing up,” she said. “I literally studied all his videos of his performances. He’s one of the reasons why I wanted to play guitar.”
While sometimes-awkward performance partnerships have become a Grammy Award signature, Sunday’s show featured mostly sparkling performances by artists on their own. BTS high-stepped their way through “Butter,” rapper Nas fronted a big band, Ms. Rodrigo and Ms. Eilish powerfully channeled youthful angst, Mr. Stapleton delivered a bluesy version of “Cold,” and Brandi Carlile, introduced by the formidable duo of Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt, lived up to the challenge.
“I think we’re all having a great time,” host Trevor Noah said.
The show was a clear contrast to the bad vibes from the Oscars a week earlier, which will forever be remembered for Will Smith smacking comedian Chris Rock after taking offense at one of his jokes.
There were a few quick references to that moment at the Grammys. Mr. Noah said that “we’ll be keeping names out people’s mouths,” a reference to Mr. Smith’s profane order to Mr. Rock not to talk about Mr. Smith’s wife. Questlove, onstage Sunday to present an award, said he trusted that people will keep their distance from him. The maker of the “Summer of Soul” film, which won a Grammy Sunday, received an Oscar last week moments after Mr. Smith slapped Mr. Rock.
In a more ham-fisted exchange during the untelevised portion of the Grammys, actor LeVar Burton told the audience to “remain in your seat and keep your hands to yourself” in introducing comic Nate Bargatze, who came onstage wearing a helmet.
The Academy Awards had also decided against giving time on its show to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week, even as some actors had advocated for it. The Grammys on Sunday played a special message from the wartime leader, who soberly reminded the audience that “our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos.”
His taped message was followed by a John Legend performance of “Free,” with accompaniment from three Ukrainian artists – a musician, singer, and poet.
The Grammys also paid tribute to Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who died a week ago while on tour. The band had been booked to play the Grammys. Ms. Eilish wore a shirt with Mr. Hawkins’ face as she performed her Grammy-nominated song, “Happier Than Ever.”
The Foo Fighters won Grammys for best rock performance, song, and album – the latter for a record-setting fifth time in the category.
Bruno Mars made history as half of Silk Sonic with Anderson .Paak. He tied Paul Simon as the only artist to win record of the year three times. Mr. Mars won with his own “24K Magic” in 2018 and in duet with Mark Ronson on “Uptown Funk” in 2016.
The victory for Mr. Mars' “Leave the Door Open” in song and record of the year was a mild upset in a year where Ms. Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” was ubiquitous and Ms. Eilish was bidding for her third straight record of the year following “bad guy” and “Everything I Wanted.”
.Paak was giddy following Silk Sonic’s fourth award of the night.
“We are really trying our hardest to remain humble at this point,” .Paak said. “But in the industry, we call that a clean sweep.”
Mr. Bennett won in the traditional pop vocal album category for a staggering 14th time, this year with duet partner Lady Gaga. Now 95 and retired from performing because of Alzheimer’s disease, he introduced a Gaga performance via taped message.
The Grammys paid tribute to behind-the-scenes concert tour employees who had been largely out of work during the pandemic, inviting four of them on to introduce performances by Ms. Eilish, Mr. Stapleton, H.E.R., and Carrie Underwood. The show also spotlighted artists in more specialized categories like gospel and bluegrass by having them perform before commercial breaks from the roof of the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. It was the first time the Grammys, which had been delayed due to rising COVID-19 cases, was held outside Los Angeles or New York.
The location change allowed rap artist Baby Keem to enjoy a hometown Grammy in best rap performance for his collaboration, “Family Ties,” with cousin Kendrick Lamar.
“This is a dream,” he said.
Ms. Rodrigo, who starred in the “High School Musical” television series, thanked her parents for letting her follow dreams that briefly included being an Olympic gymnast. Alongside song, record, and album of the year, best new artist is considered among the Grammys’ four most prestigious awards.
After some pre-show handwringing that included cancelling a planned performance by Ye due to some of his concerning online behavior, Ye wasn’t on hand to pick up either of the two Grammys he shared in on Sunday.
Ms. Mitchell won a best historical album Grammy for a project tracing her early work, while late Beatle George Harrison was honored for the 50th anniversary box of “All Things Must Pass.”
Louis C.K. won an award for best comedy album, five years after several women accused him of sexual misconduct.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP's Jonathan S. Landrum and Andrew Dalton in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
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A former finance minister who surprised many by making it into Costa Rica’s presidential runoff has easily won the election and is to become the Central American country’s new leader next month while still fending off accusations of sexual harassment when he worked at the World Bank.
With nearly all polling stations reporting late Sunday, conservative economist Rodrigo Chaves had 53% of the vote, compared to 47% for former President José Figueres Ferrer, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said.
More than 42% of eligible voters did not participate, an unusually low turnout for the country, reflecting the lack of enthusiasm Costa Ricans had for the candidates.
In his victory speech, Mr. Chaves called for unity to address problems like unemployment and a soaring budget deficit.
“For me this is not a medal nor a trophy, but rather an enormous responsibility, heaped with challenges and difficulties that we will all resolve,” he said.
“Costa Rica, the best is to come!” Mr. Chaves said before celebrating supporters. His inauguration is scheduled for May 8.
Mr. Figueres conceded defeat less than an hour after results began to come in. He had led the first round of voting Feb. 6, with Mr. Chaves in second that day. Neither had come close to the 40% of the vote needed to avoid a runoff.
Mr. Figueres congratulated Mr. Chaves and wished him the best, adding that he continues to believe that Costa Rica is in a “deep crisis” and that he is willing to help it recover.
Mr. Figueres, who was Costa Rica’s president from 1994 to 1998, represents the National Liberation Party like his father, three-time president José Figueres Ferrer. Mr. Chaves served briefly in the administration of outgoing President Carlos Alvarado and represents the Social Democratic Progress Party.
Both men waged a bruising campaign.
Mr. Chaves’ campaign is under investigation by electoral authorities for allegedly running an illegal parallel financing structure. He also has been dogged by a sexual harassment scandal that drove him out of the World Bank.
While working at the bank, he was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, was eventually demoted, and then resigned. He has denied the accusations.
The World Bank’s administrative tribunal last year criticized the way the case was initially handled internally.
The tribunal noted that an internal investigation found that from 2008 to 2013 Mr. Chaves leered at, made unwelcome comments about physical appearance, repeated sexual innuendo, and unwelcome sexual advances toward multiple bank employees. Those details were repeated by the bank’s human resources department in a letter to Mr. Chaves, but it decided to sanction him for misconduct rather than sexual harassment.
“The facts of the present case indicate that [Chaves’] conduct was sexual in nature and that he knew or should have known that his conduct was unwelcome,” the tribunal wrote. The tribunal also noted that in the proceedings, the bank’s current vice president for human resources said in testimony “that the undisputed facts legally amount to sexual harassment.”
Political analyst Francisco Barahona said Costa Ricans’ lack of enthusiasm, as shown by the low turnout, was the result of the many personal attacks that characterized the campaign.
“In the debates they only heated things up in personal confrontations, mistreatment of each other,” he said. “They didn’t add depth to their proposals to resolve the country’s problems. The debates didn’t help to motivate the electorate.”
“For a lot of people it’s embarrassing to say they voted for one or the other, and many prefer to say they won’t vote for either of the candidates or simply won’t go to vote,” Mr. Barahona added.
Mr. Figueres has been questioned over a $900,000 consulting fee he received after his presidency from the telecommunication company Alcatel while it competed for a contract with the national electricity company. He was never charged with any crime and denied any wrongdoing.
While Costa Rica has enjoyed relative democratic stability compared with other countries in the region, the public has grown frustrated with public corruption scandals and high unemployment.
In the February vote, Mr. Alvarado’s party was practically erased from the political landscape, receiving no seats in the new congress. At the time of that vote, the country was riding a wave of COVID-19 infections, but infections and hospitalizations have fallen considerably since.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said Monday she wouldn’t seek a second term after a rocky five years marked by huge protests calling for her resignation, a security crackdown that has quashed dissent, and most recently a COVID-19 wave that overwhelmed the health system.
Her successor will be picked in May, with the city’s hard-line security chief during the 2019 protests seen as a likely choice.
“I will complete my five-year term as chief executive on the 30th of June this year, and I will also call an end to my 42 years of public service,” Ms. Lam said at a news conference. The career civil servant said she plans to spend more time with her family, which is her “sole consideration.”
Speculation had swirled for months about whether she would seek another term, and she repeatedly declined to comment on the possibility. But on Monday, she said her decision had been conveyed to the central government in Beijing last year and was met with “respect and understanding.”
Her time in office will likely be remembered as a turning point during which Beijing firmly established control over the former British colony, which was returned to China in 1997. For years, the city rocked back and forth between calls for more freedom and growing signs of China extending its reach, chipping away at a promise by the mainland government to give Hong Kong the power to govern itself semi-autonomously for 50 years.
Ms. Lam’s popularity sharply declined over her five-year term, particularly over legislation that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial and her leadership during the protests that ensued in 2019. The mass demonstrations were marked at times by violent clashes between police and protesters. Authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing insisted that overseas forces were fueling the movement, rather than local activism, while protesters denounced the police crackdown as excessive and said that claims of sedition were attempts to undermine the pro-democracy cause.
Ms. Lam said she came under great pressure because of the extradition bill, “interference from foreign forces,” and the pandemic. “However, the motivation for me to press on was the very staunch support behind me by the central authorities,” she said, according to a simultaneous translation by a government interpreter.
Later, Ms. Lam strongly backed the national security law initiated by Beijing and implemented by her government that was seen as eroding the “one country, two systems” framework that promised after the handover from Britain that city residents would retain freedoms not found in mainland China, such as a free press and freedom of expression.
The security law and other police and court actions in the years since have virtually erased the city’s pro-democracy movement, with activists and the movement’s supporters either arrested or jailed. Others have fled into exile. Ms. Lam and the central government in Beijing say their actions have restored stability in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong media have reported this week that Chief Secretary John Lee, the city’s No. 2 leader, is likely to enter the race to succeed Ms. Lam. Mr. Lee rose through the ranks as a police officer to become deputy commissioner in 2010, and was the city’s secretary of security during the 2019 protests. He is known for his support for the police force during the protests and his tough stance against protesters.
Hong Kong’s leader is elected by a committee made up of lawmakers, representatives of various industries and professions, and pro-Beijing representatives such as Hong Kong deputies to China’s legislature. One of the unfulfilled demands of the 2019 protests was direct election of the city’s chief executive.
The election for the chief executive had been set for March 27 but was postponed until May 8 as the city endures its worst coronavirus outbreak.
Ms. Lam said that holding the polls as originally scheduled would pose “public health risks” even if a committee of only 1,462 people is involved.
Hong Kong has reported nearly 1.2 million cases, 99% of them during the wave driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant. It has strained the health care system, with hospitals at times placing patients on beds outdoors. More than 8,000 people have died in the latest outbreak, and mortuaries operating at capacity have used refrigerated containers to temporarily store bodies.
Ms. Lam’s government has been widely criticized for flip-flopping policies, including mixed messaging in February and March on whether a lockdown and compulsory mass-testing would be implemented. The uncertainty sparked panic among residents, who cleared out store shelves to hoard daily necessities.
The plans for compulsory mass-testing were dropped, and Ms. Lam last week urged all residents to test themselves with rapid antigen kits between April 8 to 10. She later said the exercise was voluntary as it was not possible to enforce.
Ms. Lam previously served as chief secretary and secretary for development and in other civil service positions. She earned the nickname “good fighter” for her tough stance and refusal to back down in political battles.
Ms. Lam renounced her British nationality in 2007 when she was appointed secretary for development. Her husband and two children have retained their British nationalities.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Zen Soo reported from Singapore. AP writer Ken Moritsugu contributed from Beijing.
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Pakistan’s prime minister threw the country into political limbo on Sunday, accusing the United States of attempting to oust him and cancelling a no-confidence vote he was poised to lose. He then ordered the National Assembly dissolved so new elections can be held.
The moves by Imran Khan appeared to trigger a constitutional crisis: Pakistan’s Supreme Court must rule on their legality, beginning Monday and gave no indication when the matter would be settled. In Pakistan, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan has just begun.
The dramatic episode was the latest in an escalating dispute between Mr. Khan and parliament, after defectors within his own party and a minor coalition partner joined the opposition and attempted to oust him from power. It was unclear on Sunday where the powerful military – which has directly ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 75-year history – stood in the fray.
The nuclear-armed nation of more than 220 million people lies between Afghanistan to the west, China to the northeast, and nuclear rival India to the east, making it of vital strategic importance.
Since coming to power in 2018, Mr. Khan’s rhetoric has become more anti-American and he has expressed a desire to move closer to China and, recently, Russia – including talks with President Vladimir Putin on the day the invasion of Ukraine began.
At the same time, U.S. and Asian foreign policy experts said that Pakistan’s powerful military has traditionally controlled foreign and defense policy, thereby limiting the impact of political instability.
Here is what the upheaval, which many expect to lead to Mr. Khan’s exit, means for countries closely involved in Pakistan:
Afghanistan
Ties between Pakistan’s military intelligence agency and the Islamist militant Taliban have loosened in recent years.
Now the Taliban are back in power, and facing an economic and humanitarian crisis due to a lack of money and international isolation, Qatar is arguably their most important foreign partner.
“We [the United States] don’t need Pakistan as a conduit to the Taliban. Qatar is definitely playing that role now,” said Lisa Curtis, director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security think-tank.
Tensions have risen between the Taliban and Pakistan’s military, which has lost several soldiers in attacks close to their mutual border. Pakistan wants the Taliban to do more to crack down on extremist groups and worries they will spread violence into Pakistan. That has begun to happen already.
Mr. Khan has been less critical of the Taliban over human rights than most foreign leaders.
China
Mr. Khan has consistently emphasized China’s positive role in Pakistan and in the world at large.
At the same time, the $60-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which binds the neighbors together was actually conceptualized and launched under Pakistan’s two established political parties, both of which want Mr. Khan out of power.
Opposition leader and potential successor Shehbaz Sharif struck deals with China directly as leader of the eastern province of Punjab, and his reputation for getting major infrastructure projects off the ground while avoiding political grandstanding could in fact be music to Beijing’s ears.
India
The neighbors have fought three wars since independence in 1947, two of them over the disputed Muslim-majority territory of Kashmir.
As with Afghanistan, it is Pakistan’s military that controls policy in the sensitive area, and tensions along the de facto border there are at their lowest level since 2021.
But there have been no formal diplomatic talks between the rivals for years because of deep distrust over a range of issues including Mr. Khan’s extreme criticism of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his handling of attacks on minority Muslims in India.
Karan Thapar, an Indian political commentator who has closely followed India-Pakistan ties, said the Pakistani military could put pressure on a new civilian government in Islamabad to build on the successful ceasefire in Kashmir.
On Saturday, Pakistan’s powerful army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa said his country was ready to move forward on Kashmir if India agrees.
The Sharif political dynasty has been at the forefront of several dovish overtures towards India over the years.
United States
U.S.-based South Asia experts said that Pakistan’s political crisis is unlikely to be a priority for President Joe Biden, who is grappling with the war in Ukraine, unless it led to mass unrest or rising tensions with India.
“We have so many other fish to fry,” said Robin Raphel, a former assistant secretary of State for South Asia who is a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.
With the Pakistani military maintaining its behind-the-scenes control of foreign and security policies, Mr. Khan’s political fate was not a major concern, according to some analysts.
“Since it’s the military that calls the shots on the policies that the U.S. really cares about, i.e. Afghanistan, India, and nuclear weapons, internal Pakistani political developments are largely irrelevant for the U.S.,” said Ms. Curtis, who served as former U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Security Council senior director for South Asia.
Ms. Curtis added that Mr. Khan’s visit to Moscow had been a “disaster” in terms of U.S. relations, and that a new government in Islamabad could at least help mend ties “to some degree.”
Mr. Khan has blamed the United States for the current political crisis, saying that Washington wanted him removed because of the recent Moscow trip.
This story was reported by Reuters. Sanjeev Miglani contributed to this report. Associated Press material was used in this report.
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Sri Lanka’s sports minister and the president’s nephew, Namal Rajapaksa, has resigned from his position amid growing public outrage over the country’s economic crisis and shortages of food, fuel, and medicines.
All 26 Cabinet ministers also handed in their resignations Sunday night to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa due to the economic crisis in the country, Education Minister Dinesh Gunawardena told reporters late Sunday.
“I have informed the secretary to the president of my resignation from all portfolios with immediate effect...,” Namal Rajapaksa tweeted, saying he hopes his decision helps President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, Mr. N. Rajapaksha’s father, in establishing stability for the people and the government.
Mr. N. Rajapaksha also held the portfolio of youth affairs.
Mr. Gunawardena said the president and the prime minister will take appropriate action on the Cabinet’s offer to resign.
Government coalition parties are demanding that a caretaker Cabinet be appointed to pull the country out of the crisis.
The actions appear to be efforts to pacify the people, who are protesting countrywide to hold the president and the entire Rajapaksa family responsible.
Sri Lanka’s political power is concentrated in the Rajapaksa family. In addition to brothers being president and prime minister, two other brothers are ministers of finance and irrigation. Mr. N. Rajapaksha was also a Cabinet minister until he resigned.
On Sunday, Sri Lankan professionals, students, and even mothers with small children defied an emergency decree and curfew to demand the president’s resignation.
Police fired tear gas and water canons at hundreds of university students who were trying to break through barricades near the town of Kandy in the tea growing region. Near Colombo, students demonstrated and dispersed while armed soldiers and police stopped opposition lawmakers from marching to the iconic Independence Square.
“This is unconstitutional,” opposition leader Sajith Premadasa told the troops who blocked their path. “You are violating the law. Please think of the people who are suffering. Why are you protecting a government like this?”
For several months, Sri Lankans have endured long lines to buy fuel, foods, and medicines, most of which comes from abroad and is paid for in hard currency. The first to disappear from shops was milk powder and cooking gas, followed by a fuel shortage disrupting transport and causing rolling power cuts lasting several hours a day at the end of February.
The extent of the crisis became clear when Sri Lanka couldn’t pay for imports of basic supplies because of its huge debts and dwindling foreign reserves. The country’s usable foreign reserves are said to be less that $400 million, according to experts, and it has nearly $7 billion in foreign debt obligations for this year alone.
Mr. G. Rajapaksa last month said his government was in talks with the International Monetary Fund and turned to China and India for loans while he appealed to people to limit the use of fuel and electricity, and “extend their support to the country.”
As protests grew and calls increased for him to step down, Mr. G. Rajapaksa doubled down and at midnight Friday assumed emergency powers by decree. The government also declared a countrywide curfew until Monday morning.
It did little to quell the anger of thousands, many first-time protesters, who felt fed up and exhausted by the crisis.
“In this country it is so difficult,” said Inoma Fazil, a fashion designer who brought her 18-month-old daughter to a protest in Rajagiriya, a Colombo suburb. “We don’t want to leave the country and go, and we want to give our child a good future, but everyone is stealing our money. So we came here for her and the rest of the children.”
A couple joined the same rally straight from the hospital with their newborn, and were greeted with cheers by the protesters who sang Sri Lanka’s national anthem, waved flags and placards.
While public resentment is mostly on the Rajapaksa family, anger was also directed at politicians in general, and a decades-long system that many feel has betrayed them.
At the Colombo rally, protesters turned back an opposition lawmaker, calling out “no politicians!”
“The main purpose of the curfew is to quell dissent against the government,” said Christopher Stephen, a construction businessman who held placards in the main road near his home.
Mr. Stephen said he and his circle of friends and acquaintances had protested every day since early March, and he was excited that more people were joining in.
“What the Rajapaksas have been doing all these years was to divide the people along ethnic and religious lines. But this has united all Sri Lankans – Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burghers – all want them out,” Mr. Stephen said, referring to the president and his powerful family.
Aman Ashraff, an advertising professional who was protesting in his neighborhood, said Sri Lanka has squandered the opportunity to optimize its potential after ending a decades-long civil war in 2009 because of misgovernance.
“This is the turn for the people to rise up and show that they are not going to tolerate the sort of corruption, the sort of greed and the sort of self-centered governance any further,” he said.
On Sunday, authorities blocked access for nearly 15 hours to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, and other social media platforms that were used to organize protests.
The emergency declaration by Mr. G. Rajapaksa gives him wide powers to preserve public order, suppress mutiny, riot, or civil disturbances or for the maintenance of essential supplies. Under the decree, the president can authorize detentions, seizure of property, and search of premises. He can also change or suspend any law except the constitution.
The European Union urged Sri Lanka’s government to safeguard the “democratic rights of all concerns, including right to free assembly and dissent, which has to be peaceful.”
United States Ambassador Julie Chung said “Sri Lankans have a right to protest peacefully – essential for democratic expression.”
“I am watching the situation closely and hope the coming days bring restraint from all sides, as well as much needed economic stability and relief for those suffering,” she said in a tweet on Saturday.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
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Success in bringing back populations of one species can also spawn attempts to boost others, using similar methods. Also on the environment, batteries are being recycled into fertilizer. And in human rights news, Latvia pays compensation to communities for the Holocaust, and Kuwait overturns an anti-transgender law.
1. Argentina
Two giant anteaters paved the way for other successful reintroduction programs in Argentina’s Iberá Wetlands. Scientists weren’t sure what to expect when they released a pair of giant anteaters – affectionately named Ivotí Pora and Preto – into the wilderness of the Rincón del Socorro reserve in 2007. Hunting and agriculture had eradicated the species in the wild decades earlier. This pair not only survived, but also had seven cubs. “They were fighters,” says veterinarian Gustavo Solís from the Rewilding Foundation, which runs a rescue center for anteaters. Since then, the foundation has rescued over 120 anteaters and released 93 across four sites, with help from provincial governments, national parks, zoos, and universities.
Why We Wrote This
At face value, species reintroductions mean preservation of unique life. But in one case in our progress roundup, animals were also key to a comeback of the ecosystem itself.
When young anteaters are rescued and brought to the center, they’re bottle-fed until they can switch to a normal diet of worms and termites. The animals must meet certain requirements before they can leave the facility, such as weight, self-reliance in feeding and shelter, and the ability to use their tail for self-protection. They then spend a month in a pre-release pen that mimics the wild environment, where they are fitted with monitoring devices. Conservationists have organized educational events to help locals better understand the species that went extinct in the 1960s. Using this model, the foundation has also reintroduced Pampas deer, jaguars, and red-and-green macaws back to the wild.
Mongabay
2. United States
Bison helped resurrect a section of the American prairie, offering hope for similar ecosystems globally. Before settlers altered the landscape, millions of bison lived among tall perennial grasses on a tract of land that stretched from Texas to Canada. Today, less than 5% of the tallgrass prairie remains. A strategy combining bison grazing with seasonal fires has restored 40,000 acres of land on the Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in northeast Oklahoma.
Cattle ranching had destroyed the ecosystem due to cramped overgrazing before bison were reintroduced in 1993. Now the land is managed by The Nature Conservancy, which focuses on restoring the surprising amount of biodiversity native to the prairie. The team started with North America’s largest mammal since the free-ranging bison spend much of their time grazing, keeping certain plants in check and allowing others to flourish. The original herd of 300 has since grown to 2,500. “They’ve never been domesticated, and one of our policies is to respect as best we can the wildness of that species,” explained Sam Fuhlendorf, a professor at Oklahoma State University. “We’ve tried to understand the way this system would have operated historically and restore it as closely as possible.” Healthy tallgrasses now cover the land, helped by controlled fires that allow for natural regrowth. Experts say the technique could also work on cattle ranches.
PBS Terra
3. Kuwait
Kuwait’s constitutional court overturned a law that violated the right to personal freedom and was used to prosecute transgender people. Article 198 had criminalized “imitation of the opposite sex” since 2007 and gave authorities leeway to stop or arrest individuals whose appearance was deemed not to match the gender on their identification cards. Human Rights Watch interviewed 40 transgender women in Kuwait in 2011, and 39 said they had been arrested at least once under Article 198. Activists say police have been known to harass and assault transgender people after detaining them.
Maha al-Mutairi, a transgender social media influencer from Kuwait, spoke in 2019 about her experience being detained under Article 198 for seven months, then beaten and raped by officers. The videos stirred criticism of the law from around the world. “Article 198 was deeply discriminatory, overly vague and never should have been accepted into law in the first place,” said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, who is pushing for the law to be fully repealed by the National Assembly but described the decision as a “major breakthrough.”
The New York Times
4. Latvia
Latvia passed a restitution bill to compensate Jewish communities for property losses incurred during World War II. Around 90% of the nation’s Jewish population was killed during the Holocaust, and hundreds of buildings were expropriated by the state in the Soviet era. The bill pledges €40 million ($45 million) to reimburse Holocaust survivors for lost property as well as refurbish community buildings and support cultural projects. The amount was determined by calculating the current assessed value of around 250 formerly Jewish community buildings, and took nearly two decades to negotiate.
“Finalizing this process demonstrates that even 77 years after the end of the Holocaust, it is never too late for justice,” said Arkady Sukharenko, chairman of the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia, which represents the country’s 10,000 Jewish residents. Since 1952, Germany has contributed around $90 billion to support Holocaust survivors around the world, and recently agreed to contribute another €647 million ($716 million) to fund continued social services for these individuals. While the Latvian legislation affirms the state was not responsible for the atrocities committed under Nazi occupation, the government saw the step as its “moral obligation,” said Martins Bondars, chairman of the parliamentary budget committee. “Only a country that is able to deal with its past has a future.”
Deutsche Welle, The New York Times, Associated Press
World
Dead batteries are taking on new life as plant fertilizer in a step toward a more circular economy. Alkaline batteries are made in part using toxic substances, but that doesn’t mean useful materials can’t be repurposed. In fact, two micronutrients essential to plants (zinc and manganese) make up around 50% of a battery’s weight. Companies have developed methods to extract these chemicals, converting them into fertilizers.
For Finnish firm Tracegrow, the process starts by crushing alkaline batteries into “black mass.” Powerful magnets then remove ferrous metals from the mixture, but toxic metals like nickel remain. Through a patented leaching process, the mass is liquefied, microplastics and graphite are filtered out, and nickel and cadmium are removed and collected for reuse. When the process is complete, what’s left is a safe and environmentally friendly fertilizer that has shown positive results when tested on crops like wheat, barley, oats, tomato, and avocado in Finland, England, Italy, the United States, and other countries. Battery recycling company Envirostream is working on a similar process in Australia.
EuroNews
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Threats of violence against U.S. lawmakers hit a new high in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat and his subsequent impeachment over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The number of threats doubled last year to roughly 9,600, according to the Capitol Police, which has said its investigators are struggling to keep up with the workload.
The targets range across the political spectrum, but a shift is visible in a data analysis by the Prosecution Project, for the Monitor. Since the 1990s, the majority of felony prosecutions involved death threats by right-wing extremists against Democratic politicians.
Why We Wrote This
Most death threats against members of Congress come from the political right. But in a shift amplified by Jan. 6 and the Trump impeachment, they’re as likely to target Republicans as Democrats.
By contrast, the recent wave of indictments shows that pro-Trump individuals may be as likely to level death threats against Republicans as Democrats. No similar pattern has emerged on the political left.
Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of only two Republicans serving on the House select committee on Jan. 6, which earned him the wrath of Trump loyalists, says by email that his office in Washington has seen “a large uptick” in violent calls and messages over the past year.
“I’ve noticed a decline in our civil discourse over the last 5 years, and it’s devolved to a scary point,” he says.
Threats of violence against U.S. lawmakers hit a new high in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat and his subsequent impeachment over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The number of threats doubled last year to roughly 9,600, according to the Capitol Police, which has said its investigators are struggling to keep up with the workload.
Not all threats lead to arrests or prosecutions. When individuals do face criminal charges for making written or verbal threats, it can take years for their cases to be prosecuted. Courts must weigh the alleged crimes against free speech protections.
The menacing calls, voicemails, and other messages sent to Congress range across the political spectrum.
Why We Wrote This
Most death threats against members of Congress come from the political right. But in a shift amplified by Jan. 6 and the Trump impeachment, they’re as likely to target Republicans as Democrats.
A New York Times review of indictments since 2016 found that more than a third of cases involved threats by Republican or pro-Trump individuals. The targets included both Democrats and Republicans seen as disloyal to Mr. Trump. Nearly a quarter of cases were threats by Democrats against Republican lawmakers, the review found.
While it’s too early to know how many of these indictments will lead to convictions, this targeting suggests a shift from past decades.
A data analysis by the Prosecution Project for the Monitor found that since the 1990s, the majority of felony prosecutions involved death threats by right-wing extremists against Democratic politicians. A similar analysis in 2018 that included felony and misdemeanor prosecutions – a larger data set – also found that Democrats were far more likely to be targeted.
By contrast, the recent wave of indictments shows that pro-Trump individuals may be as likely to level death threats against Republicans as Democrats. No similar pattern has emerged on the political left.
Threats were reportedly made last year to Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach the president; others have since said they were targeted for voting with Democrats to pass an infrastructure bill.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, posted online the names and phone numbers of 13 GOP lawmakers who supported the bill and called them “traitors” on Twitter (her account has since been suspended.)
Earlier this year, a retired railroad worker pleaded guilty to making a death threat against Rep. Andrew Garbarino, a New York Republican who voted for the infrastructure bill. The defendant, who was ordered to take anger management classes, was upset that the congressman he voted for had “switched sides,” his attorney told the court.
Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger is one of only two Republicans serving on the House select committee on Jan. 6, which earned him the wrath of Trump loyalists and censure by the Republican National Committee. He also voted to impeach President Trump, and has announced he won’t run for reelection.
He told the Monitor his office in Washington has seen “a large uptick” in violent calls and messages over the past year, without giving specifics.
“I’ve noticed a decline in our civil discourse over the last 5 years, and it’s devolved to a scary point, where anger and vitriol are reflexive and the art of disagreeing without being disagreeable is all but lost,” he said by email.
The Prosecution Project analysis shows that felony prosecutions for threats against federal lawmakers and other elected officials remain rare, but have increased in recent years.
What remains broadly true is that white men of all ages are the most likely perpetrators. And felony convictions for threatening violence against federal officials end in long prison sentences, averaging more than 13 years.
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As the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 continues to interview key witnesses, the Department of Justice is prosecuting individuals who participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. More than 775 defendants have been arrested so far; 244 have pleaded guilty, while two have been convicted by trial. The rest are still waiting.
Thomas “T.J.” Robertson, whose trial begins this week, is one of them. For much of the past year, Mr. Robertson has been in jail. Facing mostly misdemeanor charges, he was remanded in July after violating his conditions of release, with the judge citing posts on social media as evidence that he’d been “further radicalized by his pending prosecution.”
Why We Wrote This
He was initially charged with the equivalent of trespassing, but T.J. Robertson has spent nine months in solitary confinement. His trial, scheduled to begin April 5, shows how the Jan. 6 Capitol assault reverberates among families and throughout America.
Mr. Robertson, who has been terminated from the Rocky Mount Police Department in southwest Virginia, strongly rejects the idea that he has been “radicalized.” The prosecution has not linked him with any extremist groups, and he has not been charged with seditious conspiracy – the most serious offense reserved for members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, whom the government accuses of planning the assault on Congress.
But as a former police officer who “hasn’t had even a speeding ticket since the late 1990s,” he can envision ripple effects from the Jan. 6 prosecutions – especially among those who are veterans, police officers, or both, like himself.
“I am going to turn 50 and I have been shot on multiple continents and here I am, in my opinion, being politically persecuted,” says Mr. Robertson, in a Skype interview at the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange, where for the past nine months he has spent 23 hours a day in solitary confinement for his own protection.
Samantha Robertson spots a broken railing on the front porch, and mentally adds it to an ever-growing list of chores for her husband to tackle when he comes home. Beneath the cracked rail is a neat line of men’s combat boots, unworn for the past nine months.
For much of the past year, Ms. Robertson’s husband, T.J., has been in jail, charged with two felonies related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She’s been living alone in their single story house at the end of a mile-long gravel road at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A menagerie of goats, chickens, and German shepherds roams around the backyard.
Ms. Robertson is relieved the waiting will finally be over when his trial begins this week – but she’s not really expecting closure. Because regardless of when her husband returns, she knows their lives won’t be the same.
Why We Wrote This
He was initially charged with the equivalent of trespassing, but T.J. Robertson has spent nine months in solitary confinement. His trial, scheduled to begin April 5, shows how the Jan. 6 Capitol assault reverberates among families and throughout America.
Thomas “T.J.” Robertson – along with fellow police officer Jacob Fracker, who went with him to the Capitol that day – was terminated from the Rocky Mount Police Department in southwest Virginia a few days after he got home. If convicted of a felony, he will never be allowed to own a gun again. He will also lose his Veterans Affairs benefits, which have been helping pay their home mortgage. Already, Ms. Robertson has been working several odd jobs over the past year to make ends meet amid the family’s accumulating legal fees.
But in some ways, it’s the personal impact she’s most worried about. Mr. Fracker used to jokingly call T.J. “Dad” – but last month he incriminated Mr. Robertson in a plea agreement with the government. Married for less than three years, Ms. Robertson doesn’t know when she and her husband will be able to resume the fertility treatments they’d started before he went to the Capitol. And she wonders how long reporters and curious folk will continue coming down their drive to see the home of one of the most publicized Jan. 6 cases.
“There’s always going to be a stigma associated with it,” says Ms. Robertson, feeding the couple’s goats as a half-dozen dogs whine for her attention. “Even the people who didn’t do anything. ... You’re just going to be looked at as an individual that went [to the Capitol], and therefore you’re an immoral individual.”
As the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 continues to hold hearings and interview key witnesses, the Department of Justice is simultaneously prosecuting individuals who participated in the attack. More than 775 defendants have been arrested in almost all 50 states so far, with the list continuing to grow. According to a database maintained by George Washington University, 244 defendants have pleaded guilty, while so far two have been convicted by trial. The rest, like Mr. Robertson, are still waiting.
Most, however, are waiting at home. Mr. Robertson is one of around 65 who are currently in jail, having been remanded by a judge last July after violating his terms of release.
Which means that for scores of families like the Robertsons – and communities like Rocky Mount – the full fallout from that unprecedented day is yet to come. What took place at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was, for many participants, the culmination of years of frustrations. But it may also turn out to be the catalyst for an even deeper set of grievances.
“I am going to turn 50 and I have been shot on multiple continents and here I am, in my opinion, being politically persecuted,” says Mr. Robertson in a Skype interview. For the past nine months, he has been incarcerated at the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange, where he spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement for his own protection, because of his decades as a police officer.
“It’s so ridiculous to think that I served my whole life on behalf of the government,” he says, before trailing off.
Jan. 6 still reverberates
On a national scale, the events of Jan. 6 are still sowing divides within the Republican Party. In early February, the Republican National Committee censured the two GOP lawmakers serving on the House Jan. 6 committee for “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” Across the country, rallies and fundraisers have been organized for the “political prisoners” of Jan. 6. Former President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election was stolen continues to shape GOP primary races ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
Mr. Robertson, who voted for Mr. Trump twice, now professes himself somewhat disillusioned with the former president, calling him a “loudmouth.” But to this day, he harbors doubts about the 2020 election.
On Jan. 6, 2021, those doubts brought Mr. Robertson, who has a framed copy of the Constitution hanging in his living room, to Washington.
“I went there because I genuinely believe that there were election irregularities that needed to be fixed,” says Mr. Robertson, wearing an orange-and-white striped jumpsuit. “You have 19 bellwether counties that every president has won, for all of history, and Trump won 18 of those,” he says, repeating a point made by the former president himself – which experts say is accurate but has no bearing on claims of fraud, which were rejected by numerous courts.
Mr. Robertson says he walked into the Capitol peacefully on Jan 6. Before entering, he says, he asked an officer if it was all right – and was told it was fine, as long as he avoided restricted areas. He says that’s what he did: He walked in, took a selfie with Mr. Fracker in the crypt, and walked out. He was inside, he says, for less than 30 minutes.
The criminal complaint filed just days after the Capitol attack includes the now-infamous selfie, in which Mr. Fracker is making an obscene gesture, and Mr. Robertson’s Facebook posts about the event. Initially, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which declined to comment for this article, charged Mr. Robertson with four counts: three misdemeanors and one felony – obstruction of an official proceeding.
David Alan Sklansky, a criminal justice expert at Stanford University, calls those initial counts “about the lowest level, most basic charges you can imagine for conduct on Jan. 6.” Three of them, he says, “are literally trespassing.”
“The more serious cases are the ones who brought guns to the Capitol or who are charged with assaulting the police,” says Stephen Saltzburg, a professor at George Washington University Law School. “There is none of that here. Don’t get me wrong, there are some judges on the court who are going to say, ‘Anyone who was involved in the attack on the Capitol, that’s serious.’ But there are others who will say, ‘Come on, these charges don’t amount to more than serious trespassing.’”
Then, in the days following his arrest and termination from the Rocky Mount Police Department, Mr. Robertson posted a slew of violent threats online. The “next revolution” started on Jan. 6, he wrote, warning that “peace is done” and now is the time to “buckle armor or just stay at home.” Over the course of one month, Mr. Robertson ordered more than a dozen firearms online, totaling more than $12,000 – a violation of the conditions of his release.
“They are trying to teach us a lesson,” wrote Mr. Robertson on a Gunbroker.com chat forum. “They have. But its definitely not the intended lesson. I have learned that if you peacefully protest than you will be arrested, fired, be put on a no fly list, have your name smeared. ... I have learned very well that if you dip your toe into the Rubicon ... cross it. Cross it hard and violent and play for all the marbles.” (Editor’s note: The original spelling has been left intact.)
The FBI got a warrant to search the Robertsons’ home in Ferrum and found what agents said “appears to be a partially assembled pipe bomb” in a box with a label that “included the words ‘Booby Trap.’”
“His recent social media posts may contain elements of bravado and hyperbole, but they provide evidence that Robertson is sympathetic to calls for a violent ‘revolution,’ and has been further radicalized by his pending prosecution,” wrote Judge Christopher Cooper in a July order revoking Mr. Robertson’s release and sending him to jail until his trial.
Experts on far-right extremism say that a sense of martyrdom can sometimes become a catalyst for further violence, both for the individual who feels wronged as well as others who feel inspired by them. Perceived martyrs often “become a sort of rallying cry,” says Don Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas.
Timothy McVeigh’s anger over the Waco standoff in 1993, which resulted in the deaths of 76 people including 25 children, spurred him to carry out the Oklahoma City bombing two years later – the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. One year after the bombing, the number of militia groups in the U.S. spiked to an all-time high.
“Of course law enforcement has to intervene when people are engaged in criminal activity, but what that tends to do is the people who are loosely affiliated tend to drift off and drift away, while those who are committed tend to go even deeper underground,” says Mr. Haider-Markel. “That’s what we worry about.”
“That’s the Facebook guy”
Mr. Robertson says he was in a dark place when he got home from the Capitol. He had lost his job. Every time he logged onto Facebook there were messages from strangers telling him to “rot in hell.”
“That’s the Facebook guy, not the real guy,” says Mr. Robertson of his angry social media posts. “I talked myself into this. But the person who talked himself into this was upset and getting messages and drinking.”
He says he decided to bide his time by filling out his World War II gun collection and had them delivered to another FFL (federal firearms license) owner in Roanoke where he planned to pick them up when legally able. Court documents show his online purchases included rifles from the 1940s and ’50s; according to one gun shop proprietor, none of the guns on the list would count as modern.
As for the partially assembled pipe bomb, the FBI’s photos show that the full label on the box reads “ALERRT kit, props and boobytrap sims.” ALERRT is a law enforcement training program for which Mr. Robertson is listed as a certified instructor. Mr. Robertson says what the FBI found was actually a prop for training (“sims” being short for “simulations”).
The components of the box are “very consistent” with pipe bomb props that an ALERRT instructor would use, says ALERRT Assistant Director John Curnutt. “We want props to be as realistic as they can sound, look, and feel to thoroughly teach how to manage the stress and fear of an active shooter event,” says Mr. Curnutt.
Mr. Robertson strongly rejects the idea that he has been “further radicalized” by the events of the past year, as the judge suggested. But as a former police officer who “hasn’t had even a speeding ticket since the late 1990s,” he can envision ripple effects from the Jan. 6 prosecutions – especially among those who are veterans, police officers, or both, like himself.
“You’re taking people who have lived their whole life under the law and were part of protecting society, and you are ripping that identity away from them ... making them pariahs in their community,” he says. “You are going to eventually release them – and you are counting on the least stable of them not to be radicalized?”
At least 100 individuals charged in the Capitol attack have military experience, according to the George Washington University database, about 13%. That’s “statistically higher than what you would expect,” says Andrew Mines of GW’s Program on Extremism, given that roughly 7% of all Americans are veterans. According to Mr. Mines, almost 30% of those military arrestees had some affiliation to domestic violent extremist groups like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers.
Veterans are “prized recruits” for extremist groups because of their combat and weapons training, says an October 2021 report by the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. For some veterans, experts say, these groups offer a sense of brotherhood like they had in the military. “The camaraderie of having a small group of people who you depend on for your life – militia groups help re-create that,” says Mr. Haider-Markel.
Mr. Robertson joined the U.S. Army in 1990. Over the next several years, he graduated from Ranger and sniper school while earning his civil engineering degree from Virginia Tech, taking some of his classes at Fort Bragg. Around 2000, he joined the Army Reserves and began a more than two-decade career with the Rocky Mount Police Department – spending 18 months between 2007 and 2008 in Iraq as a sniper.
During this time, he married his first wife and had two children: a daughter and a son. Mr. Robertson says his children, now young adults, are handling his detention all right, having grown accustomed to his absence during the years he spent abroad in the military when they were young.
Two years after his tours in Iraq, Mr. Robertson went to Afghanistan as a Department of Defense contractor, serving as an embedded tactical trainer for the Afghan army. In September 2011, he was seriously wounded from being shot in the leg and hit with shrapnel from surrounding mortars. Back in Virginia, he underwent almost a dozen surgeries before rejoining the Rocky Mount P.D.
The prosecution has not linked Mr. Robertson with any far-right extremist groups in court documents, and Mr. Robertson says he has no connection with any. Nor has he been charged with seditious conspiracy – the most serious offense the Department of Justice has reserved for members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys whom the government accuses of planning the assault on Congress.
And the same personal history that prosecutors point to as cause to take his online threats seriously makes Mr. Robertson’s friends incredulous at the notion that he would ever do anything at the Capitol other than protest.
“The guy has spent his entire adult life serving his country,” says Mark Whitefleet, who worked with Mr. Robertson as a fellow Rocky Mount police officer before he left the field a decade ago, speaking from his kitchen. Service flags and medals hang on the wall behind his head; a rolled up Blue Lives Matter flag leans against his doorway.
Many are equally incredulous that America won’t listen to their claims of election fraud – despite the fact that those claims have been refuted by numerous recounts, audits, and court rulings.
“I’ve got over 15 ribbons and badges from Iraq and so does T.J. You’re telling me we’re all wrong?” says George Bobbouine, a fellow veteran who worked alongside Mr. Robertson at the Rocky Mount Police Department for over a decade before he retired in 2018.
Mr. Bobbouine had initially planned to go to Washington on Jan. 6 with Mr. Robertson and Mr. Fracker but wound up having to cancel for emergency dental surgery.
“Because I’m a cop”
Last month, Mr. Fracker, who declined to be interviewed, accepted a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy and promised to cooperate with the government’s investigation.
His statement of offense says Mr. Robertson brought gas masks to the Capitol and “a large wooden stick or club,” which he used to impede officers’ paths – adding a fifth charge. After the men were served arrest warrants in Rocky Mount, Mr. Fracker says Mr. Robertson destroyed both of their phones – a claim that has added a sixth charge, and another felony, to Mr. Robertson’s case.
Mr. Robertson says he brought gas masks because of scenes of pepper spray he had seen during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. The stick, he says, was his walking stick – which several friends say he often carries when walking long distances due to his combat injuries. As for the phones and destruction of evidence, he says it was Mr. Fracker who did that.
Mr. Robertson and his supporters believe the government and the media are treating many Jan. 6 defendants unfairly – but none more so than him. When asked why, he looks left and right before putting his hand over the receiver to cover his mouth so other inmates can’t read his lips.
“Because I’m a cop,” he whispers.
“If you want to hold me to a higher standard, you can,” he says. “Hold me to trespassing – I did that. I will do my time. But they are really, really trying to paint me into being something I’m not.”
Dennis Deacon, who recently retired after serving as police chief in nearby Boones Mill for almost a decade, has known Mr. Robertson for 30 years and served as best man at his first wedding. He says Mr. Robertson often enjoyed talking politics with friends at Bojangles over biscuits and coffee – but he never got riled up about it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him mad. He’s been in the middle of fights and shootings, and he don’t get mad,” says Mr. Deacon at his home in Callaway, his dog Roxy chewing a bone at his feet. “So I don’t think ‘radicalized’ has anything to do with T.J. I think [it’s more] ‘disappointed in the system and watching our country.’”
“You can’t deny that there are major shifts,” he adds. “Just look at what happened in Portland.”
They seemed like “the nicest people”
Many allies of Jan. 6 defendants point to the riots and looting in places like Portland, Oregon, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd as an example of how offenders on the left and right are treated differently.
To local hairdressers Bridgette Craighead and Faatimah Ziegler, the difference between the summer of 2020 and the violence at the Capitol comes down to what the groups were protesting: centuries of racism versus a free and fair election in which one candidate refused to concede. Speaking while conditioning and combing the hair of two young Black women sitting in styling chairs, Ms. Craighead and Ms. Ziegler say Mr. Robertson’s status as a law enforcement officer – and their own history with him – makes the whole episode seem more hypocritical.
In June 2020, a few weeks after Mr. Floyd was killed by a police officer, Ms. Craighead organized a Black Lives Matter rally in downtown Rocky Mount – the first that this rural Virginia county had ever had. There was dancing and pizza, and Mr. Robertson and Mr. Fracker were there with her, holding up signs. At the time, she says, they seemed like “the nicest people.”
“It just felt so good,” says Ms. Craighead from her salon El3ven11 Beauty Lounge, a small shop with purple and yellow walls just down the street from where the rally took place. “Like, this is what a small community should be.”
But shortly after Jan. 6, she saw a photo circulating in group chats of Mr. Robertson and Mr. Fracker in the Capitol. Ms. Craighead posted the selfie online, which parties on both sides cite as the start of the officers’ legal troubles. She was angry that after the officers had cautioned her about keeping her Black Lives Matter rally nonviolent, they turned around and participated in the assault on the Capitol less than a year later.
“The way that you presented yourself to us last year, you made me feel like you know, that we don’t have to be aggressive and angry to get our message across,” says Ms. Craighead. “But for you to police us the way you did, and then do it yourself?”
The events inspired Ms. Craighead to run for the Virginia House of Delegates last November. She lost, but she hasn’t ruled out running again.
Mr. Robertson says the whole experience has made him not want to even vote again. When he gets out, he plans to only “leave the mountain” when he needs to go into town to get things.
Still, when asked if he would go to the Capitol again if he knew all that would follow, Mr. Robertson says “absolutely.” He probably wouldn’t go inside, he says, and he definitely wouldn’t post anything online.
“But I would go again.”
For his wife, it’s a harder call.
“I would never ask him to plead to a felony that I know would hurt his integrity as a person,” Ms. Robertson says, after a long pause. “So it’s kind of the same thing as asking him not to go to the Capitol.”
She adds: “I want him to be able to live with himself and what he thinks is right.”
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On Saturday, China seemed to adopt a set of values that has kept the global economy humming. Its top securities watchdog proposed to modify secrecy rules and grant foreign regulators access to the auditing reports of Chinese firms listed on overseas exchanges.
This could be a big win for more honesty and transparency in world stock markets. The ruling Communist Party has long forbidden Chinese firms from sharing sensitive information with foreign regulators, even at the expense of investors who want to assess the integrity of a firm’s financials and avoid fraud.
The party’s top-down control of commercial enterprises often forces it to demand secrecy. Major firms have party members as executives while the military has a strong hand in many high-tech firms. These are the kinds of secrets that Beijing wants to guard.
Yet more than 200 Chinese companies are listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, giving them much-needed capital and an ability to compete as global players. They could soon face possible expulsion under a 2020 U.S. law aimed at ensuring foreign firms abide by the same accounting rules as publicly traded American companies.
This threat of delisting Chinese companies on U.S. exchanges could be the reason China is rethinking its model of opaqueness on audit access. Many countries have had to learn the hard way that honesty and openness are vital to a free market economy. The United States itself tightened its accounting standards two decades ago in the wake of two major companies, Enron and WorldCom, collapsing after being caught cooking their books.
Dozens of countries allow U.S. regulators to monitor the audits of their companies listed on U.S. exchanges. The values inherent in honest accounting lift a country’s capital markets in the eyes of international investors. “High-quality financial statements enable the investor to determine whether she should invest her money in a company and on what terms,” says Hester Peirce, a member of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
China’s drive for global preeminence of its governing model keeps running into values at the heart of the international system. If it finally makes good on its proposal to allow foreign regulators to inspect audit reports of Chinese companies, it will recognize that values that sustain prosperity are not specific to a country but rather universal, helping all countries.
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Threats of violence against U.S. lawmakers hit a new high in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat and his subsequent impeachment over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The number of threats doubled last year to roughly 9,600, according to the Capitol Police, which has said its investigators are struggling to keep up with the workload.
The targets range across the political spectrum, but a shift is visible in a data analysis by the Prosecution Project, for the Monitor. Since the 1990s, the majority of felony prosecutions involved death threats by right-wing extremists against Democratic politicians.
Why We Wrote This
Most death threats against members of Congress come from the political right. But in a shift amplified by Jan. 6 and the Trump impeachment, they’re as likely to target Republicans as Democrats.
By contrast, the recent wave of indictments shows that pro-Trump individuals may be as likely to level death threats against Republicans as Democrats. No similar pattern has emerged on the political left.
Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of only two Republicans serving on the House select committee on Jan. 6, which earned him the wrath of Trump loyalists, says by email that his office in Washington has seen “a large uptick” in violent calls and messages over the past year.
“I’ve noticed a decline in our civil discourse over the last 5 years, and it’s devolved to a scary point,” he says.
Threats of violence against U.S. lawmakers hit a new high in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat and his subsequent impeachment over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The number of threats doubled last year to roughly 9,600, according to the Capitol Police, which has said its investigators are struggling to keep up with the workload.
Not all threats lead to arrests or prosecutions. When individuals do face criminal charges for making written or verbal threats, it can take years for their cases to be prosecuted. Courts must weigh the alleged crimes against free speech protections.
The menacing calls, voicemails, and other messages sent to Congress range across the political spectrum.
Why We Wrote This
Most death threats against members of Congress come from the political right. But in a shift amplified by Jan. 6 and the Trump impeachment, they’re as likely to target Republicans as Democrats.
A New York Times review of indictments since 2016 found that more than a third of cases involved threats by Republican or pro-Trump individuals. The targets included both Democrats and Republicans seen as disloyal to Mr. Trump. Nearly a quarter of cases were threats by Democrats against Republican lawmakers, the review found.
While it’s too early to know how many of these indictments will lead to convictions, this targeting suggests a shift from past decades.
A data analysis by the Prosecution Project for the Monitor found that since the 1990s, the majority of felony prosecutions involved death threats by right-wing extremists against Democratic politicians. A similar analysis in 2018 that included felony and misdemeanor prosecutions – a larger data set – also found that Democrats were far more likely to be targeted.
By contrast, the recent wave of indictments shows that pro-Trump individuals may be as likely to level death threats against Republicans as Democrats. No similar pattern has emerged on the political left.
Threats were reportedly made last year to Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach the president; others have since said they were targeted for voting with Democrats to pass an infrastructure bill.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, posted online the names and phone numbers of 13 GOP lawmakers who supported the bill and called them “traitors” on Twitter (her account has since been suspended.)
Earlier this year, a retired railroad worker pleaded guilty to making a death threat against Rep. Andrew Garbarino, a New York Republican who voted for the infrastructure bill. The defendant, who was ordered to take anger management classes, was upset that the congressman he voted for had “switched sides,” his attorney told the court.
Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger is one of only two Republicans serving on the House select committee on Jan. 6, which earned him the wrath of Trump loyalists and censure by the Republican National Committee. He also voted to impeach President Trump, and has announced he won’t run for reelection.
He told the Monitor his office in Washington has seen “a large uptick” in violent calls and messages over the past year, without giving specifics.
“I’ve noticed a decline in our civil discourse over the last 5 years, and it’s devolved to a scary point, where anger and vitriol are reflexive and the art of disagreeing without being disagreeable is all but lost,” he said by email.
The Prosecution Project analysis shows that felony prosecutions for threats against federal lawmakers and other elected officials remain rare, but have increased in recent years.
What remains broadly true is that white men of all ages are the most likely perpetrators. And felony convictions for threatening violence against federal officials end in long prison sentences, averaging more than 13 years.
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As the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 continues to interview key witnesses, the Department of Justice is prosecuting individuals who participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. More than 775 defendants have been arrested so far; 244 have pleaded guilty, while two have been convicted by trial. The rest are still waiting.
Thomas “T.J.” Robertson, whose trial begins this week, is one of them. For much of the past year, Mr. Robertson has been in jail. Facing mostly misdemeanor charges, he was remanded in July after violating his conditions of release, with the judge citing posts on social media as evidence that he’d been “further radicalized by his pending prosecution.”
Why We Wrote This
He was initially charged with the equivalent of trespassing, but T.J. Robertson has spent nine months in solitary confinement. His trial, scheduled to begin April 5, shows how the Jan. 6 Capitol assault reverberates among families and throughout America.
Mr. Robertson, who has been terminated from the Rocky Mount Police Department in southwest Virginia, strongly rejects the idea that he has been “radicalized.” The prosecution has not linked him with any extremist groups, and he has not been charged with seditious conspiracy – the most serious offense reserved for members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, whom the government accuses of planning the assault on Congress.
But as a former police officer who “hasn’t had even a speeding ticket since the late 1990s,” he can envision ripple effects from the Jan. 6 prosecutions – especially among those who are veterans, police officers, or both, like himself.
“I am going to turn 50 and I have been shot on multiple continents and here I am, in my opinion, being politically persecuted,” says Mr. Robertson, in a Skype interview at the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange, where for the past nine months he has spent 23 hours a day in solitary confinement for his own protection.
Samantha Robertson spots a broken railing on the front porch, and mentally adds it to an ever-growing list of chores for her husband to tackle when he comes home. Beneath the cracked rail is a neat line of men’s combat boots, unworn for the past nine months.
For much of the past year, Ms. Robertson’s husband, T.J., has been in jail, charged with two felonies related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She’s been living alone in their single story house at the end of a mile-long gravel road at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A menagerie of goats, chickens, and German shepherds roams around the backyard.
Ms. Robertson is relieved the waiting will finally be over when his trial begins this week – but she’s not really expecting closure. Because regardless of when her husband returns, she knows their lives won’t be the same.
Why We Wrote This
He was initially charged with the equivalent of trespassing, but T.J. Robertson has spent nine months in solitary confinement. His trial, scheduled to begin April 5, shows how the Jan. 6 Capitol assault reverberates among families and throughout America.
Thomas “T.J.” Robertson – along with fellow police officer Jacob Fracker, who went with him to the Capitol that day – was terminated from the Rocky Mount Police Department in southwest Virginia a few days after he got home. If convicted of a felony, he will never be allowed to own a gun again. He will also lose his Veterans Affairs benefits, which have been helping pay their home mortgage. Already, Ms. Robertson has been working several odd jobs over the past year to make ends meet amid the family’s accumulating legal fees.
But in some ways, it’s the personal impact she’s most worried about. Mr. Fracker used to jokingly call T.J. “Dad” – but last month he incriminated Mr. Robertson in a plea agreement with the government. Married for less than three years, Ms. Robertson doesn’t know when she and her husband will be able to resume the fertility treatments they’d started before he went to the Capitol. And she wonders how long reporters and curious folk will continue coming down their drive to see the home of one of the most publicized Jan. 6 cases.
“There’s always going to be a stigma associated with it,” says Ms. Robertson, feeding the couple’s goats as a half-dozen dogs whine for her attention. “Even the people who didn’t do anything. ... You’re just going to be looked at as an individual that went [to the Capitol], and therefore you’re an immoral individual.”
As the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 continues to hold hearings and interview key witnesses, the Department of Justice is simultaneously prosecuting individuals who participated in the attack. More than 775 defendants have been arrested in almost all 50 states so far, with the list continuing to grow. According to a database maintained by George Washington University, 244 defendants have pleaded guilty, while so far two have been convicted by trial. The rest, like Mr. Robertson, are still waiting.
Most, however, are waiting at home. Mr. Robertson is one of around 65 who are currently in jail, having been remanded by a judge last July after violating his terms of release.
Which means that for scores of families like the Robertsons – and communities like Rocky Mount – the full fallout from that unprecedented day is yet to come. What took place at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was, for many participants, the culmination of years of frustrations. But it may also turn out to be the catalyst for an even deeper set of grievances.
“I am going to turn 50 and I have been shot on multiple continents and here I am, in my opinion, being politically persecuted,” says Mr. Robertson in a Skype interview. For the past nine months, he has been incarcerated at the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange, where he spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement for his own protection, because of his decades as a police officer.
“It’s so ridiculous to think that I served my whole life on behalf of the government,” he says, before trailing off.
Jan. 6 still reverberates
On a national scale, the events of Jan. 6 are still sowing divides within the Republican Party. In early February, the Republican National Committee censured the two GOP lawmakers serving on the House Jan. 6 committee for “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” Across the country, rallies and fundraisers have been organized for the “political prisoners” of Jan. 6. Former President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election was stolen continues to shape GOP primary races ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
Mr. Robertson, who voted for Mr. Trump twice, now professes himself somewhat disillusioned with the former president, calling him a “loudmouth.” But to this day, he harbors doubts about the 2020 election.
On Jan. 6, 2021, those doubts brought Mr. Robertson, who has a framed copy of the Constitution hanging in his living room, to Washington.
“I went there because I genuinely believe that there were election irregularities that needed to be fixed,” says Mr. Robertson, wearing an orange-and-white striped jumpsuit. “You have 19 bellwether counties that every president has won, for all of history, and Trump won 18 of those,” he says, repeating a point made by the former president himself – which experts say is accurate but has no bearing on claims of fraud, which were rejected by numerous courts.
Mr. Robertson says he walked into the Capitol peacefully on Jan 6. Before entering, he says, he asked an officer if it was all right – and was told it was fine, as long as he avoided restricted areas. He says that’s what he did: He walked in, took a selfie with Mr. Fracker in the crypt, and walked out. He was inside, he says, for less than 30 minutes.
The criminal complaint filed just days after the Capitol attack includes the now-infamous selfie, in which Mr. Fracker is making an obscene gesture, and Mr. Robertson’s Facebook posts about the event. Initially, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which declined to comment for this article, charged Mr. Robertson with four counts: three misdemeanors and one felony – obstruction of an official proceeding.
David Alan Sklansky, a criminal justice expert at Stanford University, calls those initial counts “about the lowest level, most basic charges you can imagine for conduct on Jan. 6.” Three of them, he says, “are literally trespassing.”
“The more serious cases are the ones who brought guns to the Capitol or who are charged with assaulting the police,” says Stephen Saltzburg, a professor at George Washington University Law School. “There is none of that here. Don’t get me wrong, there are some judges on the court who are going to say, ‘Anyone who was involved in the attack on the Capitol, that’s serious.’ But there are others who will say, ‘Come on, these charges don’t amount to more than serious trespassing.’”
Then, in the days following his arrest and termination from the Rocky Mount Police Department, Mr. Robertson posted a slew of violent threats online. The “next revolution” started on Jan. 6, he wrote, warning that “peace is done” and now is the time to “buckle armor or just stay at home.” Over the course of one month, Mr. Robertson ordered more than a dozen firearms online, totaling more than $12,000 – a violation of the conditions of his release.
“They are trying to teach us a lesson,” wrote Mr. Robertson on a Gunbroker.com chat forum. “They have. But its definitely not the intended lesson. I have learned that if you peacefully protest than you will be arrested, fired, be put on a no fly list, have your name smeared. ... I have learned very well that if you dip your toe into the Rubicon ... cross it. Cross it hard and violent and play for all the marbles.” (Editor’s note: The original spelling has been left intact.)
The FBI got a warrant to search the Robertsons’ home in Ferrum and found what agents said “appears to be a partially assembled pipe bomb” in a box with a label that “included the words ‘Booby Trap.’”
“His recent social media posts may contain elements of bravado and hyperbole, but they provide evidence that Robertson is sympathetic to calls for a violent ‘revolution,’ and has been further radicalized by his pending prosecution,” wrote Judge Christopher Cooper in a July order revoking Mr. Robertson’s release and sending him to jail until his trial.
Experts on far-right extremism say that a sense of martyrdom can sometimes become a catalyst for further violence, both for the individual who feels wronged as well as others who feel inspired by them. Perceived martyrs often “become a sort of rallying cry,” says Don Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas.
Timothy McVeigh’s anger over the Waco standoff in 1993, which resulted in the deaths of 76 people including 25 children, spurred him to carry out the Oklahoma City bombing two years later – the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. One year after the bombing, the number of militia groups in the U.S. spiked to an all-time high.
“Of course law enforcement has to intervene when people are engaged in criminal activity, but what that tends to do is the people who are loosely affiliated tend to drift off and drift away, while those who are committed tend to go even deeper underground,” says Mr. Haider-Markel. “That’s what we worry about.”
“That’s the Facebook guy”
Mr. Robertson says he was in a dark place when he got home from the Capitol. He had lost his job. Every time he logged onto Facebook there were messages from strangers telling him to “rot in hell.”
“That’s the Facebook guy, not the real guy,” says Mr. Robertson of his angry social media posts. “I talked myself into this. But the person who talked himself into this was upset and getting messages and drinking.”
He says he decided to bide his time by filling out his World War II gun collection and had them delivered to another FFL (federal firearms license) owner in Roanoke where he planned to pick them up when legally able. Court documents show his online purchases included rifles from the 1940s and ’50s; according to one gun shop proprietor, none of the guns on the list would count as modern.
As for the partially assembled pipe bomb, the FBI’s photos show that the full label on the box reads “ALERRT kit, props and boobytrap sims.” ALERRT is a law enforcement training program for which Mr. Robertson is listed as a certified instructor. Mr. Robertson says what the FBI found was actually a prop for training (“sims” being short for “simulations”).
The components of the box are “very consistent” with pipe bomb props that an ALERRT instructor would use, says ALERRT Assistant Director John Curnutt. “We want props to be as realistic as they can sound, look, and feel to thoroughly teach how to manage the stress and fear of an active shooter event,” says Mr. Curnutt.
Mr. Robertson strongly rejects the idea that he has been “further radicalized” by the events of the past year, as the judge suggested. But as a former police officer who “hasn’t had even a speeding ticket since the late 1990s,” he can envision ripple effects from the Jan. 6 prosecutions – especially among those who are veterans, police officers, or both, like himself.
“You’re taking people who have lived their whole life under the law and were part of protecting society, and you are ripping that identity away from them ... making them pariahs in their community,” he says. “You are going to eventually release them – and you are counting on the least stable of them not to be radicalized?”
At least 100 individuals charged in the Capitol attack have military experience, according to the George Washington University database, about 13%. That’s “statistically higher than what you would expect,” says Andrew Mines of GW’s Program on Extremism, given that roughly 7% of all Americans are veterans. According to Mr. Mines, almost 30% of those military arrestees had some affiliation to domestic violent extremist groups like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers.
Veterans are “prized recruits” for extremist groups because of their combat and weapons training, says an October 2021 report by the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. For some veterans, experts say, these groups offer a sense of brotherhood like they had in the military. “The camaraderie of having a small group of people who you depend on for your life – militia groups help re-create that,” says Mr. Haider-Markel.
Mr. Robertson joined the U.S. Army in 1990. Over the next several years, he graduated from Ranger and sniper school while earning his civil engineering degree from Virginia Tech, taking some of his classes at Fort Bragg. Around 2000, he joined the Army Reserves and began a more than two-decade career with the Rocky Mount Police Department – spending 18 months between 2007 and 2008 in Iraq as a sniper.
During this time, he married his first wife and had two children: a daughter and a son. Mr. Robertson says his children, now young adults, are handling his detention all right, having grown accustomed to his absence during the years he spent abroad in the military when they were young.
Two years after his tours in Iraq, Mr. Robertson went to Afghanistan as a Department of Defense contractor, serving as an embedded tactical trainer for the Afghan army. In September 2011, he was seriously wounded from being shot in the leg and hit with shrapnel from surrounding mortars. Back in Virginia, he underwent almost a dozen surgeries before rejoining the Rocky Mount P.D.
The prosecution has not linked Mr. Robertson with any far-right extremist groups in court documents, and Mr. Robertson says he has no connection with any. Nor has he been charged with seditious conspiracy – the most serious offense the Department of Justice has reserved for members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys whom the government accuses of planning the assault on Congress.
And the same personal history that prosecutors point to as cause to take his online threats seriously makes Mr. Robertson’s friends incredulous at the notion that he would ever do anything at the Capitol other than protest.
“The guy has spent his entire adult life serving his country,” says Mark Whitefleet, who worked with Mr. Robertson as a fellow Rocky Mount police officer before he left the field a decade ago, speaking from his kitchen. Service flags and medals hang on the wall behind his head; a rolled up Blue Lives Matter flag leans against his doorway.
Many are equally incredulous that America won’t listen to their claims of election fraud – despite the fact that those claims have been refuted by numerous recounts, audits, and court rulings.
“I’ve got over 15 ribbons and badges from Iraq and so does T.J. You’re telling me we’re all wrong?” says George Bobbouine, a fellow veteran who worked alongside Mr. Robertson at the Rocky Mount Police Department for over a decade before he retired in 2018.
Mr. Bobbouine had initially planned to go to Washington on Jan. 6 with Mr. Robertson and Mr. Fracker but wound up having to cancel for emergency dental surgery.
“Because I’m a cop”
Last month, Mr. Fracker, who declined to be interviewed, accepted a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy and promised to cooperate with the government’s investigation.
His statement of offense says Mr. Robertson brought gas masks to the Capitol and “a large wooden stick or club,” which he used to impede officers’ paths – adding a fifth charge. After the men were served arrest warrants in Rocky Mount, Mr. Fracker says Mr. Robertson destroyed both of their phones – a claim that has added a sixth charge, and another felony, to Mr. Robertson’s case.
Mr. Robertson says he brought gas masks because of scenes of pepper spray he had seen during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. The stick, he says, was his walking stick – which several friends say he often carries when walking long distances due to his combat injuries. As for the phones and destruction of evidence, he says it was Mr. Fracker who did that.
Mr. Robertson and his supporters believe the government and the media are treating many Jan. 6 defendants unfairly – but none more so than him. When asked why, he looks left and right before putting his hand over the receiver to cover his mouth so other inmates can’t read his lips.
“Because I’m a cop,” he whispers.
“If you want to hold me to a higher standard, you can,” he says. “Hold me to trespassing – I did that. I will do my time. But they are really, really trying to paint me into being something I’m not.”
Dennis Deacon, who recently retired after serving as police chief in nearby Boones Mill for almost a decade, has known Mr. Robertson for 30 years and served as best man at his first wedding. He says Mr. Robertson often enjoyed talking politics with friends at Bojangles over biscuits and coffee – but he never got riled up about it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him mad. He’s been in the middle of fights and shootings, and he don’t get mad,” says Mr. Deacon at his home in Callaway, his dog Roxy chewing a bone at his feet. “So I don’t think ‘radicalized’ has anything to do with T.J. I think [it’s more] ‘disappointed in the system and watching our country.’”
“You can’t deny that there are major shifts,” he adds. “Just look at what happened in Portland.”
They seemed like “the nicest people”
Many allies of Jan. 6 defendants point to the riots and looting in places like Portland, Oregon, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd as an example of how offenders on the left and right are treated differently.
To local hairdressers Bridgette Craighead and Faatimah Ziegler, the difference between the summer of 2020 and the violence at the Capitol comes down to what the groups were protesting: centuries of racism versus a free and fair election in which one candidate refused to concede. Speaking while conditioning and combing the hair of two young Black women sitting in styling chairs, Ms. Craighead and Ms. Ziegler say Mr. Robertson’s status as a law enforcement officer – and their own history with him – makes the whole episode seem more hypocritical.
In June 2020, a few weeks after Mr. Floyd was killed by a police officer, Ms. Craighead organized a Black Lives Matter rally in downtown Rocky Mount – the first that this rural Virginia county had ever had. There was dancing and pizza, and Mr. Robertson and Mr. Fracker were there with her, holding up signs. At the time, she says, they seemed like “the nicest people.”
“It just felt so good,” says Ms. Craighead from her salon El3ven11 Beauty Lounge, a small shop with purple and yellow walls just down the street from where the rally took place. “Like, this is what a small community should be.”
But shortly after Jan. 6, she saw a photo circulating in group chats of Mr. Robertson and Mr. Fracker in the Capitol. Ms. Craighead posted the selfie online, which parties on both sides cite as the start of the officers’ legal troubles. She was angry that after the officers had cautioned her about keeping her Black Lives Matter rally nonviolent, they turned around and participated in the assault on the Capitol less than a year later.
“The way that you presented yourself to us last year, you made me feel like you know, that we don’t have to be aggressive and angry to get our message across,” says Ms. Craighead. “But for you to police us the way you did, and then do it yourself?”
The events inspired Ms. Craighead to run for the Virginia House of Delegates last November. She lost, but she hasn’t ruled out running again.
Mr. Robertson says the whole experience has made him not want to even vote again. When he gets out, he plans to only “leave the mountain” when he needs to go into town to get things.
Still, when asked if he would go to the Capitol again if he knew all that would follow, Mr. Robertson says “absolutely.” He probably wouldn’t go inside, he says, and he definitely wouldn’t post anything online.
“But I would go again.”
For his wife, it’s a harder call.
“I would never ask him to plead to a felony that I know would hurt his integrity as a person,” Ms. Robertson says, after a long pause. “So it’s kind of the same thing as asking him not to go to the Capitol.”
She adds: “I want him to be able to live with himself and what he thinks is right.”
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Ukraine has resisted Russia’s invasion more successfully than most people had expected. But now its future hinges on a simple question: how long Kyiv’s Western allies can maintain their unity.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hoping to defeat the assault as quickly as possible. But Russian president Vladimir Putin is betting that that the longer the war goes on, the harder Mr. Zelenskyy’s democratic supporters will find it to withstand the effects of economic sanctions in their own countries, and that their alliance will fracture.
Why We Wrote This
Western solidarity with Ukraine will last as long as public sympathy holds. Vladimir Putin is betting democracies cannot withstand hardship. Can Europe and the U.S. prove him wrong?
For now, the allies’ motivation to stand firm remains strong, not least because of the evidence discovered over the weekend suggesting that Russian soldiers summarily executed or raped several hundred Ukrainian civilians before they pulled out of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.
Russian strikes against civilians have horrified European public opinion. But if European governments expand sanctions and stop buying Russian gas or oil, they will impose sacrifices on their own citizens that will be hard to make.
Opinion polls suggest that popular anger over what’s happening in Ukraine, and a sense of solidarity with its people, have so far remained strong. The dreadful scenes in Bucha will likely reinforce such sentiment.
It feels jarring – almost disrespectful – to write these words as civilian corpses are cleared from the streets of Bucha, Ukraine, after Russian troops retreated from the Kyiv suburb. But Ukraine’s fate may well now hinge on a crude question of international politics.
It is this: How long can Washington and its European partners – governments and citizens – maintain their unity in support of Ukraine?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with his Western backers, is hoping to beat back the Russian assault as quickly and effectively as possible.
Why We Wrote This
Western solidarity with Ukraine will last as long as public sympathy holds. Vladimir Putin is betting democracies cannot withstand hardship. Can Europe and the U.S. prove him wrong?
But Vladimir Putin seems to be betting that the longer the war goes on, the harder Mr. Zelenskyy’s democratic supporters will find it to withstand the knock-on effects of economic sanctions in their own countries, and that their alliance will fracture.
Which side prevails will likely become clear only in the months ahead. Yet high-level allied discussions over the next few days may well give us some clues about the degree of Western determination.
For now, the allies’ motivation to stand firm remains strong, not least because of the evidence discovered over the weekend in Bucha and elsewhere suggesting that Russian soldiers summarily executed or raped several hundred Ukrainian civilians before they pulled out of the Kyiv region.
That has been a shocking exclamation point to a lengthening list of Russian strikes against civilians, including the entrapment of tens of thousands in the battered and besieged port city of Mariupol, that have horrified European public opinion.
American and European leaders, outraged by the latest reports of civilian deaths, have denounced the alleged war crimes and threatened further sanctions in response.
Washington is reportedly coming round to the idea that its European NATO partners should provide Ukraine with urgently needed additional weaponry that could include Soviet-era battle tanks and more powerful anti-aircraft batteries.
Mr. Zelenskyy has been increasingly forthright in calling on European governments to stop buying Russian oil and gas, and thus stop paying for Mr. Putin’s war machine. Germany, the European Union’s main economic power and a major Russian gas importer, has until now refused to go so far. In response to the gruesome reports from Bucha, however, Berlin has hinted it may reconsider its stance.
Yet the question of a gas embargo is part of a wider long-term challenge to the allied pressure campaign against Mr. Putin. Sanctions that undermine the Russian economy also impose knock-on costs in European countries that are still dealing with the economic after-effects of the pandemic.
Rising energy prices, initially boosted by revived demand as pandemic restrictions eased, have been spurred even higher by market jitters over Ukraine. The mere possibility of interruptions to Russian energy exports to western Europe has made things worse.
As Germany knows only too well, since it relies on Russian gas for more than half its needs, the economic impact of a full-scale boycott would be dramatic, reducing supplies to both homes and industry.
Those Ukraine-related economic costs carry political costs as well for Western governments.
In France, where President Emmanuel Macron faces a reelection vote this month, his main right-wing challenger, Marine Le Pen, has been narrowing his opinion-poll lead. She has done so not by focusing on the war – uncomfortable territory given her past chumminess with Mr. Putin – but on the cost of living and inflation.
Protests over rising prices have also broken out in other European countries, including Spain, Italy, and Greece.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who has sought to control gasoline price rises by drawing on his country’s strategic oil reserves, is also clearly aware of the dangers of inflation ahead of November’s mid-term congressional elections.
The key question is how great a sacrifice Western countries will be prepared to make, and for how long, in order to help Ukraine turn back Mr. Putin’s invasion and terror campaign.
If the allies do stay the course, it will be – ironically – because of the strength and cohesion of an element that Mr. Putin is likely to have figured as a source of weakness in the democracies aligned against his attack.
Not allied presidents or prime ministers, but the voters on whom they depend.
Grassroots outrage, as much as politicians’ calculations, has helped forge the Western response to the invasion.
So far, opinion polls suggest that popular anger over what’s happening in Ukraine and a sense of solidarity with its people have remained strong. The dreadful scenes in Bucha will likely reinforce such sentiment.
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Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney say they will vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic elevation to the Supreme Court, giving President Joe Biden’s nominee a burst of bipartisan support and all but assuring she’ll become the first Black female justice.
The senators from Alaska and Utah announced their decisions Monday night ahead of a procedural vote to advance the nomination and as Democrats pressed to confirm Judge Jackson by the end of the week. GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announced last week that she would back Judge Jackson, noting her “stellar qualifications” as a federal judge, public defender, and member of the United States Sentencing Commission.
All three Republicans said they did not expect to agree with all of Judge Jackson’s decisions, but they found her extremely well qualified.
Senator Romney said Judge Jackson “more than meets the standard of excellence and integrity.” Senator Murkowski said she will “bring to the Supreme Court a range of experience from the courtroom that few can match given her background in litigation.”
With three Republicans supporting her in the 50-50 split Senate, Judge Jackson is on a glide path to confirmation and on the brink of making history as the third Black justice and only the sixth woman in the court’s more than 200-year history. Beyond the historic element, Democrats have cited her deep experience in nine years on the federal bench and the chance for her to become the first former public defender on the court.
Both Senator Collins and Senator Murkowski said they believed that the Senate nomination process has become broken as it has become more partisan in the past several decades.
Senator Murkowski, who is up for reelection this year, said her decision partly rests “on my rejection of the corrosive politicization of the review process for Supreme Court nominees, which, on both sides of the aisle, is growing worse and more detached from reality by the year.”
After the vote, Senator Murkowski said she had “assumed a level of risk” but “there’s three of us that found ourselves in this place where I believe the strength, qualifications of the candidate are such that are appropriate for the court.”
Mr. Biden nominated Judge Jackson to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, who will step down after the court’s session ends this summer. Mr. Biden has sought bipartisan backing for his pick, making repeated calls to senators and inviting Republicans to the White House. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that administration officials would work the phones until the last minute to maximize support.
“Judge Jackson will bring extraordinary qualifications, deep experience and intellect, and a rigorous judicial record to the Supreme Court,” Mr. Biden tweeted earlier Monday. “She deserves to be confirmed as the next justice.”
The Senate’s 53-47 vote Monday evening was to “discharge” Judge Jackson’s nomination from the Senate Judiciary Committee after the panel deadlocked, 11-11, on whether to send the nomination to the Senate floor.
The committee vote, split along party lines, was the first deadlock on a Supreme Court nomination in three decades.
The Judiciary committee’s top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, said he opposed Judge Jackson’s nomination because “she and I have fundamental, different views on the role of judges and the role that they should play in our system of government.”
The committee hadn’t deadlocked since 1991, when Mr. Biden was chairman and a motion to send the nomination of current Justice Clarence Thomas to the floor with a “favorable” recommendation failed on a 7-7 vote. The committee then voted to send the nomination to the floor without a recommendation, meaning it could still be brought up for a vote.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky set the tone for most of his party last week when he said he “cannot and will not” support Judge Jackson, citing GOP concerns raised in hearings about her sentencing record and her backing from liberal advocacy groups.
Republicans on the Judiciary panel continued their push Monday to paint Judge Jackson as soft on crime, defending their repeated questions about her sentencing on sex crimes.
“Questions are not attacks,” said Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, one of several GOP senators on the panel who hammered the point in the hearings two weeks ago.
Judge Jackson pushed back on the GOP narrative, declaring that “nothing could be further from the truth” and explaining her reasoning in detail. Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions. And on Monday they criticized their GOP counterparts’ questioning.
“You could try and create a straw man here, but it does not hold,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.
The questioning was filled with “absurdities of disrespect,” said Senator Booker, who also is Black. He said he will “rejoice” when Judge Jackson is confirmed.
Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, expressed disappointment with the committee tie, even as he noted that Judge Jackson had cleared an important hurdle. He said “history will be watching” during the full Senate vote later this week.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Becky Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska. AP writers Zeke Miller, Farnoush Amiri, Lisa Mascaro, and Josh Boak in Washington contributed.
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When you think about the basic needs of Ukrainian refugee children, books would seem to occupy a place much farther down the list than food, clothing, and shelter. But for Maria Deskur, CEO of Poland’s Universal Reading Foundation, the idea of giving books to children is nearly as urgent.
“The help for kids here is crucial,” Ms. Deskur explains in a video chat from Warsaw. “Reading to a child creates a sense of safety, the feeling that ‘If we have time to read a book, that means we are OK,’” she says.
Her foundation aims to get as many Ukrainian-language books into the hands of refugees as possible. With 20,000 books still in transit out of Ukraine, her group has distributed about 30,000 printed by Polish publishers. Ms. Deskur would love to see the overall number rise to 200,000 or even 500,000 books, including those for teens and adults. The Universal Reading Foundation has so far raised $170,000 toward its goal.
The organization, whose purpose is to increase literacy rates in Poland, has another motive behind its efforts – encouraging reading as a civic good. At the end of World War II, Poland’s libraries and publishing industry lay in ruins.
“After 70 years, we are still behind the other societies where that didn’t happen,” Ms. Deskur says. “We have to help Ukraine so this doesn’t happen there.”
The challenge is vast. One million Ukrainian children have arrived in Poland and more are coming every day. The consequences of low literacy rates “are terrible. A society that reads is more open; it’s a society that can enter into a dialogue and understand each other better,” Ms. Deskur says.
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Oksana Markarova became Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States just a year ago. Her job, an already challenging one amid rising concern about Russian aggression, soon took on monumental proportions. Russia invaded Ukraine – and Ambassador Markarova was charged with managing one of her country’s most crucial relationships.
But to hear her talk about her role in this pivotal moment is not to hear about its weight. “It is no longer work,” she told a group of Monitor writers and editors Saturday at the annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, where she was the Monitor’s guest. It is “everything” – a mission, and one in which she and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with whom she talks frequently, inspire each other. “He cheers us up,” she said, referring to embassy staff.
Ambassador Markarova (pronounced Mar-KAR-ova) has felt the war’s pressures on all fronts. In Washington, she is ubiquitous, meeting officials, doing interviews, rallying support. Her four daughters are in the U.S.; one is a new mother. The ambassador’s husband is in Ukraine, as are her in-laws. On a day when grim reports emerged about the destruction left by retreating Russian forces north of Kyiv, she told us her in-laws’ house had been destroyed.
The annual Gridiron dinner, hosted by journalists, brings together hundreds of prominent politicians, diplomats, and business leaders for good-natured political humor and skits. Ambassador Markarova gracefully navigated the many people eager to talk with her, be it about the war or her striking (Ukrainian) turquoise necklace. She received a standing ovation as the dinner began, and held her hand over her heart in appreciation. At a time of strain in many democracies, she heard Gridiron’s president remind the assembly of their shared belief in “the transcendental promise of this country,” and his exhortation to journalists to “keep telling the story of democracy.”
We hoped she felt a touch of the inspiration President Zelenskyy has offered his country. Amid deep global uncertainty, the importance of foundational values was front and center. So too was the club’s mission of good fellowship – and humor. So we were delighted that as she left, Ambassador Markarova told my colleague Linda Feldmann that she loved the evening: “It was the first time I’ve laughed” since the invasion.
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High up the hill road leading to Malaysia’s Penang National Park, cars and motorbikes zip by the forest at great speeds. Some 40 feet above a particularly busy turn, almost invisible to the casual observer, hangs an aerial bridge made of rope and recycled fire hoses. It’s easy to miss, but this humble crossing has the power to save lives.
Dusky langur lives, that is.
Why We Wrote This
In Malaysia’s Penang forests and beyond, novel road crossings are helping humans and wildlife coexist peacefully.
Once abundant on Peninsular Malaysia, these endangered primates – also known as dusky leaf monkeys – have wide, white-circled eyes that make them look serious and spectacled, and they are critical to the local ecosystem. The Langur Project Penang, a citizen science project founded by wildlife researcher Jo Leen Yap, has seen thousands of animals cross the road safely using its bridge.
This aerial crossing – the first of its kind in Malaysia – is part of a global trend of conservationists using bridges, tunnels, and other passageways to address habitat fragmentation caused by human development. “As we humans encroach more and more into the natural world, we also need to step up and take responsibility for the welfare of our wildlife,” says Allen Tan of the conservation group Habitat Penang Hill. “Jo Leen’s bridge is a great step in that direction.”
High up on the hill road leading to Malaysia’s Penang National Park, cars and motorbikes zip by the forest at great speeds. Some 40 feet above a particularly busy turn, almost invisible to the casual observer, hangs an aerial bridge made of rope and recycled fire hoses. It’s easy to miss, but this humble crossing has the power to save lives.
Dusky langur lives, that is.
Once abundant all over Peninsular Malaysia, these endangered primates – also known as dusky leaf monkeys – have wide, white-circled eyes that make them look serious and spectacled, and they are critical to the local ecosystem. Their numbers are decreasing partly because of their own movements; dusky langurs travel between treetops by jumping from branch to branch with total abandon, but when tree coverage is thin, they resort to using electrical cables or scurrying across the ground, often leading to electrocution and fatal collisions with motorists. The Langur Project Penang (LPP), a citizen science project founded by wildlife researcher Jo Leen Yap, counted seven instances of roadkill on this half-mile stretch of Teluk Bahang road before the bridge went up. Since then, thousands of animals have crossed the road without incident.
Why We Wrote This
In Malaysia’s Penang forests and beyond, novel road crossings are helping humans and wildlife coexist peacefully.
This aerial crossing – the first of its kind in Malaysia – is part of a global trend of conservationists using bridges, tunnels, and other passageways to address habitat fragmentation caused by human development.
“As we humans encroach more and more into the natural world, we also need to step up and take responsibility for the welfare of our wildlife,” says Allen Tan, managing director of The Habitat Penang Hill, a rainforest conservation center that has awarded research grants to Ms. Yap through its charitable foundation. “Jo Leen’s bridge is a great step in that direction.”
Langur love
As a Penang local, Ms. Yap considers dusky langurs an important part of her natural heritage. Cute looks aside, the shy species serves as an important agent of seed dispersal, helping regenerate forests.
She founded LPP in 2016 with the goal of ensuring future generations will get to see and enjoy the dusky langurs, just as she does. Her team of volunteers – mainly local community members and undergraduate students from the Universiti Sains Malaysia, where Ms. Yap is getting her Ph.D. – focuses on researching dusky langur behavior, as well as public outreach and education. Locals are encouraged to report dusky langur sightings, including any signs of distress or road accidents, through LPP’s social media channels.
The group named its urban canopy bridge Ah Lai’s Crossing, after the first alpha male langur that LPP tracked for an extended period of time. Ms. Yap says it took months of patience to get close to him. “Once he was comfortable with me, he took me into his habitat and introduced me to his wife and children,” she says with a delighted laugh. “Thanks to Ah Lai, I was able to study multiple generations of this langur family.”
According to Ms. Yap, Ah Lai is now expanding his family in another forest. But his local legacy lives on in Ah Lai’s Crossing, which LPP built in February 2019 and reinforced in August 2020. The now double-layered bridge is made of discarded fire hoses, collected and donated by the animal welfare organization Ape Malaysia. Ms. Yap says she chose fire hoses because they “have great tensile strength and are easy to maintain.”
LPP’s camera trap captured over 2,100 crossings in its first two years. “It took a few weeks for the first dusky langur to get used to the crossing, but when we saw it captured on the camera, all the time and effort was worth it,” says Hoon Cheng Teo, a citizen volunteer.
Apart from dusky langurs, long-tailed macaques, black giant squirrels, civet cats, and other nocturnal rodents have all been spotted using Ah Lai’s Crossing.
The case for animal infrastructure
In designing Ah Lai’s Crossing, Ms. Yap drew inspiration from similar projects around the world, such as bamboo bridges for primates and slow lorises in Indonesia and the famed wildlife overpass in Canada’s Banff National Park. More recent initiatives include a massive cougar bridge in Los Angeles and a beaver tunnel in Scotland. Studies in North America and Australia show there’s a significant benefit to humans, too, with wildlife crossings helping motorists avoid dangerous and costly collisions.
Margaret Lowman, or “Canopy Meg” as she is known, is a pioneer in forest canopy ecology. She says wildlife crossings are absolutely essential to allow animals to roam freely and find new habitats when old ones get destroyed by humans, as is increasingly common, but they must be designed with species behavior in mind. “Canopy crossings are probably the most effective for monkeys because they exist at the treetop level, where the animals already live. They ensure the continuity of travel where humans may have cut down tree cover to clear space for construction,” she says.
Dr. Lowman adds that the engineering for animal canopy crossings is fairly simple. Yet the crossings do come with challenges.
Ah Lai’s Crossing took many months of patiently tracking the animals’ behavior, mapping the most critical crossing zones, acquiring government permissions, and raising funds. Ms. Yap and her team are once again working on research and permits in the hopes of replicating this initiative elsewhere in Penang and beyond.
Seeing the success of Ah Lai’s Crossing, the Habitat Foundation is considering grants to help build LPP’s future bridges, says Mr. Tan. “Dusky langurs are lovely, docile, and charismatic creatures, and we need to do our best for them.”
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Dozens of countries around the world have relocated their capitals over the past century, often to new cities designed specifically to serve as capitals, and established in relatively undeveloped areas. Just this year, Indonesia’s parliament greenlighted the move to ditch bustling Jakarta for more bucolic digs.
Publicly, Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s government has attributed the switch to Jakarta’s epic traffic jams and the fact that the metropolis of 10 million is sinking into the sea at a rate of about 1 to 6 inches a year. But governments looking to build new capitals have often cited environmental concerns as cover for more complex motives like nation building. Experts argue the capital relocation is actually part of the president’s vision to redistribute political and economic power across the archipelago.
Why We Wrote This
Many countries in recent history have moved capital cities or built new ones. Such projects protect government institutions not only from rising seas and traffic, but also from aggrieved citizens.
But at what cost? Indonesia’s new city comes with a $32 billion price tag, and researchers say its construction will release tons of CO2 into the atmosphere and displace thousands of Indigenous people.
Johns Hopkins University Professor Filipe Campante has found people also think less about politics in remote capitals where large protests are harder to muster and robust press coverage is less likely. Watchdogs, he says, will need to “bark louder, because they’re going to be barking from farther out.”
In December 2019, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo stood atop a hill overlooking rugged terrain on the eastern side of the island of Borneo. It looked like the middle of nowhere. But he planned to make that isolated spot hundreds of miles from Jakarta part of his country’s glittering new capital by 2024.
Indonesia’s parliament greenlighted the move in January, making Indonesia the latest in a long line of countries that have decided to ditch bustling capitals for more bucolic digs.
However, some worry that these brand-new, often far-flung, capitals might create more problems than they solve.
Why We Wrote This
Many countries in recent history have moved capital cities or built new ones. Such projects protect government institutions not only from rising seas and traffic, but also from aggrieved citizens.
Which countries have moved capitals?
Dozens of countries around the world have relocated their capitals over the past century. Many of these moves have been like Indonesia’s: to new cities designed specifically to serve as capitals, and established in relatively undeveloped areas. Nigeria, for example, left coastal Lagos for Abuja in 1991, escaping Lagos’ overcrowding and seeking a neutral, central location in a country riven by ethnic and religious divisions.
Egypt’s military dictator is currently building a new capital in the desert outside Cairo.
Why is Indonesia relocating its capital?
Publicly, Jokowi’s government has often attributed the move to Jakarta’s epic traffic jams and the fact that the metropolis of 10 million is sinking into the sea at a rate of about 1 to 6 inches a year.
But those problems are used as “more acceptable” justifications that the relocation won’t actually solve, says Edbert Suryahudaya, a researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta.
Instead, the capital relocation is part of the president’s vision to modernize the country and redistribute political and economic power across the archipelago away from Jakarta, Mr. Suryahudaya says.
This is not unique to Indonesia. Governments looking to build new capitals have often cited environmental concerns as cover for more complex motives like nation building, says Ed Schatz, a Central Asia specialist at the University of Toronto.
Former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev used his country’s 1997 capital relocation from Almaty to Nur-Sultan – ostensibly due to earthquakes and smog – to shut out rivals, curry favor with separatism-inclined ethnic Russians in the country’s north, and create “a giant money laundering opportunity,” Professor Schatz says.
New capitals often do reduce the threat of rising seas, earthquakes, and hurricanes, at least to the government. They can also temporarily boost the national psyche as symbols of modernity and pride.
“But I think the charm has to wear off,” Professor Schatz says.
What are the costs?
New capitals are expensive. Indonesia’s comes with a $32 billion price tag.
Though the government contends investors and state-owned enterprises will bankroll 85% of the project, Mr. Suryahudaya says spending on a glitzy new capital as the country still struggles to recover from the pandemic just “isn’t ethical.”
“We have a lot of more pressing issues,” he says.
Beyond the budget, researchers say the construction of the new capital will release tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, threaten endangered orangutans, and displace 20,000 Indigenous people who already live in the area.
Add political concerns to that list, says Johns Hopkins University Professor Filipe Campante. In isolated capitals, autocrats rarely have to fear the wrath of street uprisings far from the madding crowd, so measures of corruption climb while measures of democracy fall, his research shows.
For example, during the recent unrest against Kazakhstan’s authoritarian regime, protesters in opposition-minded Almaty torched the presidential palace – the old one, that is. The new palace, located hundreds of miles northwest, was safe.
Even in democracies like Indonesia, Professor Campante’s research shows people think less about politics in remote capitals where large protests are harder to muster and robust press coverage is less likely.
Watchdogs, Professor Campante says, will need to “bark louder, because they’re going to be barking from farther out.”
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Last month, President Joe Biden designated Amache, a World War II Japanese American internment camp, as a national park. For years, camp survivors and descendants have visited the site, welcomed by a local educator in nearby Granada, Colorado.
Over almost 30 years, John Hopper, dean of students for the Granada school district, and hundreds of his pupils have helped preserve the rural site and run a museum in Granada. Their sense of civic responsibility has built bonds across cultures and generations, transcending a dark chapter of American history.
Why We Wrote This
Who’s responsible for preserving regrettable parts of United States history? For years, Colorado students have answered the call.
“It’s taught me a lot about empathy,” says Bailey Hernandez, a junior. “You start to think, well, how would I have reacted if my family was forced into one of these camps?”
Over the years, students have divided their time between physical preservation of the site and interpretive efforts, giving tours of the museum and presenting to other schools and groups.
Carlene Tanigoshi Tinker, who was a toddler when her family was forced to relocate to Amache, has visited several times.
“These kids are really, really amazing to be so dedicated,” she says. “They know how important it is and they want to preserve this story.”
The wind sings a wordless song across the Colorado plains, making acres sway. Out of the brush rise concrete remains of a camp that imprisoned over 10,000 people.
Carlene Tanigoshi Tinker, a toddler during World War II, lived at this Japanese American internment camp, called Amache. She sat atop her father’s shoulders with a scarf around her face – a shield against wind-whipped sand – as they lined up outside for food. Her parents were United States citizens.
After their release, stigma followed her to Denver, she says, where kids would pelt her with rocks after school. For the rest of her childhood, Amache was “a topic that we never discussed,” remembers Ms. Tinker, a retired biology teacher living in California. “I think it was a painful experience.”
Why We Wrote This
Who’s responsible for preserving regrettable parts of United States history? For years, Colorado students have answered the call.
Last month, President Joe Biden designated Amache as a national park, but for some it was, in essence, already serving as one. For years, camp survivors and descendants have visited the site that once confined their families, welcomed by a local educator in the nearby town of Granada.
Over almost 30 years, John Hopper, dean of students at Granada School District RE-1, and hundreds of his pupils have helped preserve the rural site and run a museum in Granada. Their sense of civic responsibility has built bonds across cultures and generations, transcending a dark chapter of American history.
“It’s taught me a lot about empathy,” says Bailey Hernandez, a junior. “You start to think, well, how would I have reacted if my family was forced into one of these camps?”
One of his predecessors toured Ms. Tinker around Amache in 2004, her first trip back. She remembers feeling uplifted.
“These kids are really, really amazing to be so dedicated,” says Ms. Tinker. “They know how important it is and they want to preserve this story.”
Civilian suspects
Two months after the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. That led to the forced removal of more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their homes into internment camps. Amache, one of 10 such sites, was originally called the Granada Relocation Center and ran between 1942 and 1945.
On the rattlesnake-ridden plains of southeast Colorado, Amache mostly held American citizens – who were seen as potential enemies and subjected to loyalty questionnaires. In spite of these conditions, internees beautified their arid captivity by planting trees and gardens, even creating a pond.
The U.S. government under Ronald Reagan formally apologized in 1988; reparations checks followed. And now with last month’s signing of the Amache National Historic Site Act, oversight of the property will transition to the National Park Service.
That’s welcome news to Mr. Hopper, for whom all things Amache are a daily responsibility.
For the students
Despite being recognized for his work – including praise from the consul general of Japan in Denver – Mr. Hopper says he prefers to “be on the sidelines” and center his students.
“It is a heavy, heavy topic, especially when you talk about civil liberties,” he says. “But that’s part of my job I enjoy talking about – needs to be talked about.”
Mr. Hopper, who does not have Japanese ancestry, first visited Amache as a new Granada high school social studies teacher in 1990.
“It just looked like a sagebrush cactus hill with cattle on it,” he recalls.
In 1993, some “really bright and willing students” wanted to pursue an Amache project and began interviewing a survivor whom Mr. Hopper’s family knew. That year the teacher established the nonprofit Amache Preservation Society (APS). What began as extracurricular activities eventually formalized into a class. Collaboration with survivors, descendants, and the town, and partnership with groups like the Amache Club and Amache Historical Society, have been key to building trust.
Over the years, students have divided their time between physical preservation of the site – mowing or renovating a cemetery or other landmarks – and interpretive efforts. APS students present to other schools and groups, and help keep up the Amache Museum, where they double as docents.
“I can’t think of any group that does more for Amache,” says Calvin Taro Hada, an Amache descendant and president of the Nikkeijin Kai of Colorado, a Japanese American organization.
Amache, whose land is owned by the town, became a national historic landmark in 2006. Two years later, APS students began working on-site with the University of Denver, which leads archaeology projects through summer field schools there and teaches high schoolers conservation skills like object handling.
“The first time I ever saw John’s kids give a presentation, ... I thought, OK, this is what this is all about,” says Bonnie Clark, an anthropology professor at the University of Denver and leader of the DU Amache Project. “They are super engaged,” she adds.
When Mr. Hopper retires, he plans to pass the mantle of APS leadership to social studies teacher Tanner Grasmick, who joined APS as a high schooler.
The teacher credits his experience as one of Mr. Hopper’s students as the reason he became an educator himself.
“You hear what they had to go through, the adversities that they had to face, and for them to come back and just be so grateful [for the preservation efforts], ... it’s amazing,” says Mr. Grasmick.
The teacher from a farming family says he still corresponds with his Japanese host mother, years after a trip abroad where he and peers gave presentations. Before the pandemic, APS members would travel to Japan every other year and often stay with host families.
No longer the enemy
On a March morning in Granada, Bailey wears a gray-black varsity jacket for some high school sports team – or so it seems. A closer look reveals a stitched image of an internment camp barrack. It’s part of his APS tour guide outfit at the Amache Museum.
He passes through exhibits of the staged interior of a barrack, a carved gourd decorated with seeds, a military uniform.
“Out of all the camps, we actually have the highest volunteer rate” for internees joining the U.S. military, says Bailey.
His eyes widen as he speaks, as if each retelling of facts fascinates him afresh. By the tour’s end, Bailey has impressed guest Gene Bonventre.
“He seemed to really know his stuff and be enthusiastic about it, too,” says Dr. Bonventre, retired from the Air Force. “That made the museum visit a lot more special.”
The visitor says he’s headed to Amache next, about a mile and a half away. Ms. Tinker plans to return there soon to participate in the DU Amache Project field school – her seventh summer.
How might her parents react to her digging in the dirt, alongside students, excavating memories that many families spent years trying to repress?
“We are no longer seen as the enemy,” she says. “They would see that as gratifying.”
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About 1 in 3 residents of the arid expanse of the Navajo Nation – larger than the state of West Virginia – lack running water in their homes. When the pandemic hit, and health experts advised people to thoroughly wash their hands, the lack of that basic service began to receive widespread attention.
The Navajo suffered the loss of 1,700 tribe members, and at one point had the highest per capita infection rate in the United States. But the tragedy had one silver lining: The great need for running water on the reservation became crystal clear to everyone from locals to members of Congress.
Why We Wrote This
The Navajo Nation suffered some of North America’s severest pandemic losses. But the pandemic also highlighted the huge number of residents who lack running water – and is helping spur ingenuity-based solutions.
Amid the pandemic new coalitions have formed, funding has increased, and innovations from organizations like the nonprofit DigDeep have helped expand water access here more than ever before.
At a remote home on a cold afternoon in late February, a DigDeep crew comes to install an indoor sink system, linked to a refillable underground tank, for Ida Joe and her family.
“It will be really helpful, especially for cooking,” says Ms. Joe, who for the first time in her life will have running water for her family.
Ida Joe flinches a little as the tap sputters, then spurts water into the sink. Cautiously, tentatively, she pushes her hand under the faucet. She feels the water soak her skin and run through her fingers – first cold, then hot. After a few seconds, she starts to laugh.
Outside the one-room house she shares with her two daughters and granddaughter, a cold breeze rolls across the dusty, arid plains of the Navajo Nation. A few hundred yards away, wild horses drink from a small, briny lake.
Ms. Joe has lived on the Navajo Nation for all of her nearly 50 years. This late February day is her first with running water in her home. Until now, her family would drive to Thoreau, 10 minutes away, or Gallup, 45 minutes away, to buy gallon jugs of water. They would drive to town to do laundry, and rent a hotel room for the day to use the shower.
Why We Wrote This
The Navajo Nation suffered some of North America’s severest pandemic losses. But the pandemic also highlighted the huge number of residents who lack running water – and is helping spur ingenuity-based solutions.
“It will be really helpful, especially for cooking,” she says.
Water is sacred on the Navajo Nation, and scarce. About 30% of the roughly 173,000 population lack running water, according to a report from the U.S. Water Alliance and DigDeep, an international nonprofit with Navajo employees who have been installing running water systems in homes on the reservation since 2014. The size of the reservation, the large distances between homes, scarce natural water sources, jurisdictional issues, and contamination from industries like uranium mines have all contributed to restricting access to running water here for generations.
But according to those working to improve water access on the reservation, the COVID-19 pandemic has heralded a bittersweet turning point.
Almost 1,700 people have died from the virus, according to the tribe, and in mid-2020 the reservation had the highest per capita infection rate in the country. At the same time, the pandemic drew widespread attention to the fact that many Navajo didn’t have enough water to thoroughly wash their hands, which was core advice of health experts at the time. From locals who had accepted they would need to live without running water, to members of Congress, the need to improve water access became crystal clear.
And the pandemic has spurred progress. New coalitions have formed, funding has increased, and innovations from organizations like DigDeep have helped expand water access here more than ever before.
“This has been a silver lining for us,” says Crystal Tulley-Cordova, principal hydrologist for the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources.
“I’m hopeful for the future,” she adds. The pandemic “has brought different partnerships, and one of the things that I know is that we can do more together.”
A pickup, a backhoe, and “Big Ernie”
A pickup truck, a trailer towing a backhoe, and a gleaming white water truck nicknamed “Big Ernie” make up the DigDeep convoy.
Driving north from Thoreau on Route 371 on that crisp late February morning, the five-man convoy passes through a rugged, beautiful landscape of snow-pocketed mountainsides and dusty flatlands. Arroyos and creeks slash through the terrain – all dry, except for some that hold patches of snow.
At over 27,000 square miles, the Navajo Nation is larger than the state of West Virginia, extending into the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. Like much of the Southwest, the reservation has always had an arid climate, but water has become increasingly scarce.
The region has been in various forms of drought for over 20 years, and is currently experiencing severe and extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Most of the local water supply is in groundwater, and that has been dwindling. In Gallup, groundwater levels dropped about 200 feet in the 2010s, the city reported in 2018. Snowfall levels have consistently decreased since the 1930s, according to Indian Country Today.
There are also problems with water quality. Arsenic and uranium, both left over from a century of mining on the reservation, are found at dangerously high concentrations in local water sources. (Some arsenic is naturally occurring in the region’s geology.)
Legal barriers and bureaucracy are another challenge. In many areas of the country, tribes have robust water rights through the federal government’s trust obligation toward them. But it’s only in the past few years that the Navajo Nation has gained rights to major nearby water sources such as the Colorado and San Juan rivers. Meanwhile, piping water onto the reservation is challenging because of how spread out the population is. Some areas are a checkerboard of public and private land, presenting right-of-way issues.
On top of that, funding has typically been limited, according to Capt. David Harvey, deputy director of the Division of Sanitation Facilities Construction at the federal government’s Indian Health Service.
“These conditions result in a high unit cost to construct and to operate [sanitation] facilities to serve these remote home locations,” says Captain Harvey. “Historically the funds that have been appropriated have not met the total need.”
In the 2020 fiscal year, for example, the Indian Health Service identified over $3 billion in sanitation facility needs on Native American lands. Congress that year appropriated $197 million. But the response during the pandemic has begun to close that gap.
Through the CARES Act – a pandemic relief funding package passed by Congress in March 2020 – the Navajo Nation received over $5 million specifically for increasing water access on the reservation. Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and Martin Heinrich, of Colorado and New Mexico respectively, also introduced a bill last year that would provide about $6.7 billion for tribal water infrastructure.
And as federal money has begun to flow toward the problem, new partnerships have formed to identify how those funds should be spent. The pandemic also saw the creation of the Navajo Nation COVID-19 Water Access Coordination Group, a coalition of almost two dozen Navajo Nation and federal government agencies, universities, and nongovernmental organizations.
In the eyes of Dr. Tulley-Cordova, it’s a shift from centuries of hostile and paternalistic attitudes that the U.S. government displayed toward the Diné, as many members of the Navajo Nation prefer to be known.
From their forced relocation in the 1860s, to their attempted assimilation through Native American boarding schools, to the recent, relative indifference toward poor conditions on the reservation, there’s long been a mentality of “we know what’s best for you ... and we don’t really care what you have to say,” she says.
“Now, fast forward a couple of decades. We have the opportunity to be able to say what’s best for us, and be a part of that process,” she adds.
A “suitcase” packed with water tech
The DigDeep convoy has one scheduled stop before Ida Joe’s home. The trucks and trailers roll onto a dusty property just off Route 371, 25 miles north of Thoreau. Bikes, toys, trash, and a basketball hoop sit outside the hogan – a traditional one-room Navajo home, the door facing the rising sun to the east.
The crew were here 18 months ago to install one of their foremost pandemic-era innovations: a “suitcase” – a 4-cubic-foot box filled with a water pump, heater, filter, expansion tank, and battery installed outside homes to provide tap water from a 1,200-gallon underground tank. (DigDeep periodically refills these tanks throughout the year.) The group had been providing the indoor water systems for years, and this invention allowed installation of the systems outside, without workers entering homes.
During the pandemic, 100 of these suitcase systems have been installed by DigDeep crews on Navajo lands, at no cost to residents.
“People [were being told], ‘Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and water.’ But how can they do that if they don’t have running water?” says Cindy Howe, the project manager for DigDeep’s New Mexico office.
“We had to put our brains into gear.”
Today the crew is replacing the suitcase with an indoor sink. The system will be protected from the elements, and the family won’t have to go outside to get running water.
But the homeowner isn’t here this morning. A crew member calls, but there’s no answer. So they top off the 1,200-gallon tank, replace the filter in the suitcase, which had cracked after freezing during a frigid desert night, and head for Ms. Joe’s home back down Route 371.
There, the crew members work with practiced ease and efficiency, talking interchangeably in English and Navajo. Ms. Joe and her family wait in their car while Kenneth Chavez and Brian Johnson assemble the sink and Erving Spencer maneuvers the backhoe.
The backhoe work is delicate. First, Mr. Spencer has to dig out the suitcase system, bringing the metal teeth of the digger precariously close to the house itself. It looks like trying to perform a Mozart sonata wearing mittens, but he does it expertly.
But after a couple of hours they hit a snag. Specifically, they hit a thick layer of ice. The trench Mr. Spencer is digging – to lay a leach line that will pipe wastewater from the sink out and into the earth – needs to be 3 feet deep, below the freezing level. But he’s hit the freezing level.
So while Mr. Spencer pries blocks of mud-covered ice from the ground, Mr. Chavez installs the sink inside. A small table just inside the door holds an even smaller plastic tub, along with shampoo and conditioner. A towel and a small mirror hang on the wall above it, and four 3-liter water jugs – all empty – sit on a nearby bed. A wood stove in the middle of the room pipes smoke through a chimney into the blue sky overhead.
Ms. Joe likes living here, she says. She feels safe, and she wants to raise her kids and grandkids here.
“It’s one of the most important things that I would probably want to do before I go,” she says, “teaching them the foundation of our culture.”
But living and working on the Navajo Nation has come at an especially high risk in the past two years.
Ms. Joe lost two of her sisters to illnesses complicated by COVID-19, she says. Dr. Tulley-Cordova lost six family members to the virus between December 2020 and January 2021. “Big Ernie,” the DigDeep water truck, is named after Ernest Largo, an employee who died early in the pandemic.
As they finish their work at Ms. Joe’s house, “Big Ernie” refills the 1,200-gallon tank that now supplies her indoor sink. Though he’s gone, it feels to the DigDeep crew like Mr. Largo is still bringing water to homes across the reservation.
Lacking water “is just normal for a lot of people,” says Ms. Howe of DigDeep. Her grandparents would melt snow for water. Her parents hauled water throughout her childhood as well – always on Sundays, so she could have a bath before school on Monday.
“It was really heartbreaking to see,” she says. “Fifty-five years later, it’s still happening.”
“We’re all helping each other,” she adds. But “there’s still a lot of people that don’t have any water.”
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When a scrappy group of former and current warehouse workers on Staten Island, New York went head-to-head with Amazon in a union election, many compared it to a David and Goliath battle.
David won. And the stunning upset on Friday brought sudden exposure to the organizers and worker advocates who realized victory for the nascent Amazon Labor Union (ALU) when so many other more established labor groups had failed before them, including most recently in Bessemer, Alabama.
Initial results in that election show the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) down by 118 votes, with the majority of Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer rejecting a bid to form a union. The final outcome is still up in the air with 416 outstanding challenged ballots hanging in the balance. A hearing to review the ballots is expected to begin in the coming weeks.
Chris Smalls, a fired Amazon worker who heads the ALU, has been critical of the RWDSU’s campaign, saying it didn’t have enough local support. Instead, Mr. Smalls chose an independent path, believing workers organizing themselves would be more effective and undercut Amazon’s narrative that “third party” groups were driving union efforts.
“They were not perceived as outsiders, so that’s important,” said Ruth Milkman, a sociologist of labor and labor movements at the City University of New York.
While the odds were stacked against both union drives, with organizers facing off against a deep-pocketed retailer with an uninterrupted track record of keeping unions out of its U.S. operations, ALU was decidedly underfunded and understaffed compared with the RWDSU. Mr. Smalls said as of early March, ALU had raised and spent about $100,000 and was operating on a week-to-week budget. The group doesn’t have its own office space, and was relying on community groups and two unions to lend a hand. Legal help came from a lawyer offering pro-bono assistance.
Meanwhile, Amazon exercised all its might to fend off the organizing efforts, routinely holding mandatory meetings with workers to argue why unions are a bad idea. In a filing released last week, the company disclosed it spent about $4.2 million last year on labor consultants, who organizers say Amazon hired to persuade workers not to unionize.
Outmatched financially, Mr. Smalls and others relied on their ability to reach workers more personally by making TikTok videos, giving out free marijuana, and holding barbecues and cookouts. A few weeks before the election, Mr. Smalls’ aunt cooked up soul food for a union potluck, including macaroni and cheese, collard greens, ham, and baked chicken. Another pro-union worker got her neighbor to prepare Jollof rice, a West African dish organizer believed would help them make inroads with immigrant employees at the warehouse.
Kate Andrias, professor of law at Columbia University and an expert in labor law, noted a successful union – whether it is local or national – always has to be built by the workers themselves.
“This was a clearer illustration of this,” Dr. Andrias said. “The workers did this on their own.”
Amazon’s own missteps may have also contributed to the election outcome on Staten Island. Bert Flickinger III, a managing director at the consulting firm Strategic Resource Group, said derogatory comments by a company executive leaked from an internal meeting calling Mr. Smalls “not smart or articulate” and wanting to make him “the face of the entire union/organizing movement” backfired.
“It came out as condescending and it helped to galvanize workers,” said Mr. Flickinger, who consults with big labor unions.
In another example, Mr. Smalls and two organizers were arrested in February after authorities got a complaint about him trespassing at the Staten Island warehouse. The ALU used the arrests to its advantage days before the union election, teaming up with an art collective to project “THEY ARRESTED YOUR CO-WORKERS” in white letters on top of the warehouse. “THEY FIRED SOMEONE YOU KNOW,” another projection said.
“A lot of workers that were on the fence, or even against the union, flipped because of that situation,” Mr. Smalls said.
Experts note it’s difficult to know how much of ALU’s grassroots nature contributed to its victory when compared with the RWDSU. Unlike New York, Alabama is a right-to-work state that prohibits a company and a union from signing a contract that requires workers to pay dues to the union that represents them.
There was also a grassroots element to the union drive in Bessemer, which began when a group of Amazon workers there approached the RWDSU about organizing.
At a virtual press conference Thursday held by the RWDSU following the preliminary results in Alabama, president Stuart Appelbaum said he believed the election in New York benefited because it was held in a union-friendly state and Amazon workers on Staten Island voted in person, not by mail as was done in Alabama.
Despite some friction between the two labor groups in the leadup to the elections, both have adopted a friendlier public relationship in the past few days. Mr. Appelbaum praised Mr. Smalls during Thursday’s press conference, calling him a “charismatic, smart, dedicated leader.” Likewise, Mr. Smalls offered the RWDSU words of encouragement after their initial election loss.
For now, ALU is focusing on its win. Organizers say Amazon workers from more than 20 states have reached out to them to ask about organizing their warehouses. But they have their hands full with their own warehouse, and a neighboring facility slated to have a separate union election later this month.
Organizers are also preparing for a challenging negotiation process for a labor contract. The group has demanded Amazon officials to come to the table in early May. But experts say the retail giant, which has signaled plans to challenge the election results, will likely drag its feet.
“The number one thing is going to be fighting for the contract,” Mr. Smalls said. “We have to start that process right away because we know the longer drawn out the contract is, workers will lose hope and interest.”
Meanwhile, some workers are waiting to see what happens.
Tinea Greenway, a warehouse worker from Brooklyn, said before the election, she felt pressured by the messages she kept hearing both from Amazon and ALU organizers, and just wanted to make the decision herself. When the time came, Ms. Greenway voted against the union because of a bad experience she’s had in the past with another union who she says didn’t fight for her.
“They won,” she said of the ALU. “So let’s see if they live up to the agreement of what they said they were going to do.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
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There is a broad consensus among global observers that the pandemic has harmed democracy. Yet as the face masks come off and normal life resumes, another trend is emerging: By exacerbating the impact of corruption and economic mismanagement, the pandemic has sharpened a yearning for better governance, from Cuba to Pakistan and Argentina to Israel.
In Sri Lanka, massive street protests in recent weeks have revealed an additional dimension: a demand for an end to the incompetent rule of a family dynasty, one that has exploited ethnic and religious divisions to stay in power. The main reason for the country’s current crises, says Medagoda Abayathissa Thero, a prominent Buddhist monk, is “family rule.”
The turmoil in this island nation on the southern tip of India may mark a turning point in the public’s demand for merit-based rule. That holds lessons for other societies striving to build durable democracies, especially ones seeking to be free of family rule. One study published in 2018 found 1 in 10 world leaders come from households with political ties.
For most of the past two decades, Sri Lanka has been dominated by the Rajapaksa family. Two brothers have served as president for all but five years since 2005, creating an impression they are entitled to rule. One brother, Mahinda, is credited with ending the 26-year civil war with the separatist Tamil minority.
Yet this dynastic rule has bred a sense of social inequality and the country’s worst economic crisis since independence in 1948. Since the family first held the presidency, the country has dropped 24 places in a global ranking of countries for corruption by Transparency International. Acute shortages of food, electricity, and gas have exhausted the public’s patience with the family’s quixotic economic policies and rule by force. Gotabaya, the other brother and current president, faces pressure to resign.
“What the Rajapaksas have been doing all these years was to divide the people along ethnic and religious lines,” Christopher Stephen, a construction businessman in Colombo, the capital, told NPR. “But this has united all Sri Lankans – Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burghers – all want them out.”
In recent days, scores of lawmakers have withdrawn from Gotabaya’s ruling coalition. Negotiations for a rescue loan from the International Monetary Fund hang in the balance. Yet amid the political uncertainty, Sri Lankans may be showing a way out of family rule, giving hope to other nations now more closely scrutinizing their leaders.
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It’s not the end of the world. It only seems that way.
Climate change is going to get worse, but as gloomy as the latest scientific reports are, including Monday’s from the United Nations, scientist after scientist stresses that curbing global warming is not hopeless. The science says it is not game over for planet Earth or humanity. Action can prevent some of the worst if done soon, they say.
After decades of trying to get the public’s attention, spur action by governments, and fight against organized movements denying the science, climate researchers say they have a new fight on their hands: doomism. It’s the feeling that nothing can be done, so why bother. It’s young people publicly swearing off having children because of climate change.
University of Maine climate scientist Jacquelyn Gill noticed in 2018 fewer people telling her climate change isn’t real and more “people that we now call doomers that you know believe that nothing can be done.” Professor Gill says it is just not true.
“I refuse to write off or write an obituary for something that’s still alive,” Professor Gill told The Associated Press, referring to the Earth. “We are not through a threshold or past the threshold. There’s no such thing as pass-fail when it comes to the climate crisis.”
“It’s really, really, really hard to walk people back from that ledge,” Professor Gill said.
Doomism “is definitely a thing,” said College of Wooster psychology professor Susan Clayton, who studies climate change anxiety and spoke at a conference in Norway last week that addressed the issue. “It’s a way of saying ‘I don’t have to go to the effort of making changes because there’s nothing I can do anyway.’”
Professor Gill and six other scientists who talked with The Associated Press about doomism aren’t sugarcoating the escalating harm to the climate from accumulating emissions. But that doesn’t make it hopeless, they said.
“Everybody knows it’s going to get worse,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis. “We can do a lot to make it less bad than the worst case scenario.”
The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just issued its third report in six months. The first two were on how bad warming is and how it will hurt people and ecosystems, with yesterday’s report focusing on how the extent of disruption depends on how much fossil fuels are burned. It shows the world is still heading in the wrong direction in its fight to curb climate change, with new investments in fossil fuel infrastructure and forests falling to make way for agriculture.
“It’s not that they’re saying you are condemned to a future of destruction and increasing misery,” said Christiana Figueres, the former U.N. climate secretary who helped forge the 2015 Paris climate agreement and now runs an organization called Global Optimism. “What they’re saying is ‘the business-as-usual path ... is an atlas of misery ’ or a future of increasing destruction. But we don’t have to choose that. And that’s the piece, the second piece, that sort of always gets dropped out of the conversation.”
United Nations Environment Program Director Inger Andersen said with reports like these, officials are walking a tightrope. They are trying to spur the world to action because scientists are calling this a crisis. But they also don’t want to send people spiraling into paralysis because it is too gloomy.
“We are not doomed, but rapid action is absolutely essential,” Ms. Andersen said. “With every month or year that we delay action, climate change becomes more complex, expensive and difficult to overcome.”
“The big message we’ve got [is that] human activities got us into this problem and human agency can actually get us out of it again,” James Skea, co-chair of Monday’s report, said. “It’s not all lost. We really have the chance to do something.”
Monday’s report details that it is unlikely, without immediate and drastic carbon pollution cuts, that the world will limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, which is the world’s agreed upon goal. The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit). And earlier IPCC reports have shown that after 1.5 degrees, more people die, more ecosystems are in trouble, and climate change worsens rapidly.
“We don’t fall over the cliff at 1.5 degrees,” Professor Skea said. “Even if we were to go beyond 1.5 it doesn’t mean we throw up our hands in despair.”
IPCC reports showed that depending on how much coal, oil, and natural gas is burned, warming by 2100 could be anywhere from 1.4 to 4.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, which can mean large differences in sickness, death, and weather disasters.
While he sees the increase in doom talk as inevitable, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said he knows first-hand that people are wrong when they say nothing can be done: “I work with people and I’m watching other people and I’m seeing the administration. And people are doing things and they’re doing the right things for the most part as best they can. So I’m seeing people do things.”
Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann said scientists used to think Earth would be committed to decades of future warming even after people stopped pumping more carbon dioxide into the air than nature takes out. But newer analyses in recent years show it will only take a few years after net zero emissions for carbon levels in the air to start to go down because of carbon being sucked up by the oceans and forests, Professor Mann said.
Scientists’ legitimate worries get repeated and amplified like in the kids’ game of telephone and “by the time you’re done, it’s ‘we’re doomed’ when what the scientist actually said was we need to reduce our carbon emissions 50% within this decade to avoid 1.5 [degrees of] warming, which would be really bad. Two degrees of warming would be far worse than 1.5 warming, but not the end of civilization,” Professor Mann said.
Professor Mann said doomism has become far more of a threat than denialism and he believes that some of the same people, trade associations, and companies that denied climate change are encouraging people who say it is too late. Professor Mann is battling publicly with a retired University of Arizona ecologist, Guy McPherson, an intellectual leader of the doom movement.
Dr. McPherson said he’s not part of the monetary system, hasn’t had a paycheck in 13 years, doesn’t vote, and lived off the grid for a decade. He said all species go extinct and humans are no exception. He publicly predicted humanity will go extinct in 2026, but in an interview with The Associated Press said, “I’m not nearly as stuck on 2026,” and mentioned 2030 and changes to human habitat from the loss of Arctic summer sea ice.
Woodwell’s Dr. Francis, a pioneer in the study of Arctic sea ice whom Dr. McPherson said he admires, said while the Arctic will be ice free by the summer of 2050, Dr. McPherson exaggerates the bad effects. Local Arctic residents will be hit hard, “the rest of us will experience accelerated warming and sea-level rise, disrupted weather patterns, and more frequent extreme weather. Most communities will adapt to varying degrees,” Dr. Francis said.
Humans probably can no longer prevent Arctic sea ice from disappearing in the summer, but with new technology and emissions cuts, Dr. Francis said, “we stand a real chance of preventing those [other] catastrophic scenarios out there.”
The College of Wooster’s Professor Clayton said “no matter how bad things are, they can always be worse. You can make a difference between bad and worse. ... That’s very powerful, very self-affirming.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Associated Press writer Frank Jordans contributed from Berlin.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has acquired a 9% stake in Twitter to become its largest shareholder while joining other critics in questioning the social media platform’s dedication to free speech and the First Amendment.
Mr. Musk’s ultimate aim in acquiring 73.5 million shares, worth about $3 billion, isn’t clear. Yet in late March Mr. Musk, who has 80 million Twitter followers and is active on the site, questioned free speech on Twitter and whether the platform is undermining democracy.
In years past, Twitter and other social platforms have taken fire for allowing harmful speech ranging from incitement to violence to coordinated harassment and racial abuse. More recently, these platforms have made concerted efforts to rein in such behavior, often drawing criticism similar to Mr. Musk’s from the political right. Both Twitter and Facebook faced blowback after suspending the accounts run by former President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection last year.
It’s unclear just when Mr. Musk bought the stake. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing made public on Monday says the event triggering the filing happened March 14. Mr. Musk has also raised the possibility with his massive and loyal Twitter following, that he could create a rival social media network.
Industry analysts and legal experts say Mr. Musk could begin advocating for changes at Twitter immediately if he chooses. In a note to investors, CFRA Analyst Angelo Zino wrote that Twitter could be viewed as an acquisition target because the value of its shares has been falling since early last year.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO in November. Mr. Musk’s stake in Twitter is now more than four times the size of Mr. Dorsey’s, who had been the largest individual shareholder.
“Musk’s actual investment is a very small percentage of his wealth, and an all-out buyout should not be ruled out,” wrote Mr. Zino, who covers Twitter and social media.
Mr. Musk could see Twitter as an investment with big growth ahead, or he could have noninvestment reasons for the purchase, such as buying to make sure the platform doesn’t restrain his speech, said Erik Gordon, a law and business professor at the University of Michigan.
“What he could be worried about is if enough of his tweets start to look like disinformation, that Twitter says ‘we’re doing our job against disinformation,’” Mr. Gordon said. No CEO would refuse to take a call from the company’s top shareholder, so the purchase gives Mr. Musk access to Twitter’s top management, he said.
Mr. Musk has not spoken specifically about any Twitter rule changes he might push, but the social media platform’s history of suspensions and bans is well documented.
Mr. Trump’s suspension from both Twitter and Facebook has raised difficult questions about free speech in a social media industry dominated by a few tech giants – an issue that Mr. Trump and conservative media have seized upon. There was broad praise for Mr. Musk from those circles Monday.
Michael Flynn, the retired general who served briefly as Donald Trump’s national security adviser, and who was suspended from Twitter in January 2021, sent Mr. Musk some free advice via Telegram.
“Hey Elon, how about letting all of those dropped from twitter for being America First and Pro-Trump back on Twitter!!!,” Mr. Flynn wrote.
Twitter earlier this year banned the personal account of far-right U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for multiple violations of the platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy. Other people banned in recent years include Steve Bannon, for suggesting the beheading of Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke for breaking the social media site’s rules forbidding hate speech, and right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars show for abusive behavior.
Mr. Musk recently described himself on Twitter as a “free speech absolutist” in explaining why the Starlink satellite internet service – part of his aerospace company SpaceX – would not block Russian state media outlets, which have spread propaganda and misinformation in line with the Kremlin’s narrative on its war in Ukraine.
But such absolutism would not be welcomed by advertisers who are Twitter’s chief revenue source, said Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at GroupM. Brands that advertise on Twitter strongly prefer some content standards because a toxic platform can drive many other users away.
“Certain kinds of speech, such as advocating an insurrection or advocating hurting people, are not the kinds of things most advertisers want to support,” said Mr. Wieser, who analyzes the media industry for advertisers.
Twitter’s stock surged nearly 30% Monday. Since March 14, the date listed on filing by Twitter, its shares are up nearly 50%, meaning that Mr. Musk’s investment has paid handsomely – so far.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In March, Mr. Musk told his millions of followers on Twitter that he was “giving serious thought” to creating his own social media platform, and has clashed repeatedly with financial regulators about his use of Twitter.
Mr. Musk is locked into a bitter dispute with the SEC over his ability to post on Twitter. His lawyer has contended in court motions that the SEC is infringing on the Tesla CEO’s First Amendment rights.
In October of 2018, Mr. Musk and Tesla agreed to pay $40 million in civil fines and for Mr. Musk to have his tweets approved by a corporate lawyer after he tweeted about having the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share.
The funding was far from secured and the electric vehicle company remains public, but Tesla’s stock price jumped. The settlement came after the SEC brought a securities fraud charge. It specified governance changes, including Mr. Musk’s ouster as board chairman, as well as pre-approval of his tweets.
Mr. Musk’s lawyer is now asking a U.S. District Court judge in Manhattan to throw out the settlement, contending that the SEC is harassing him and infringing on his First Amendment rights.
The SEC says it has legal authority to subpoena Tesla and Mr. Musk about his tweets, and that Mr. Musk’s move to throw out the settlement is not valid.
The SEC also disclosed that it is investigating Mr. Musk’s Nov. 6, 2021 tweets that asked followers whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stake. The commission said it issued administrative subpoenas while investigating whether Mr. Musk and Tesla are complying with disclosure controls in the 2018 agreement.
Mr. Musk ended up selling more than 15 million shares worth roughly $16.4 billion. With some sales in late December, Mr. Musk is close to selling 10%.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Matt O’Brien and Michelle R. Smith contributed from Providence, Rhode Island. Tom Krisher reported from Detroit.
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Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney say they will vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic elevation to the Supreme Court, giving President Joe Biden’s nominee a burst of bipartisan support and all but assuring she’ll become the first Black female justice.
The senators from Alaska and Utah announced their decisions Monday night ahead of a procedural vote to advance the nomination and as Democrats pressed to confirm Judge Jackson by the end of the week. GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announced last week that she would back Judge Jackson, noting her “stellar qualifications” as a federal judge, public defender, and member of the United States Sentencing Commission.
All three Republicans said they did not expect to agree with all of Judge Jackson’s decisions, but they found her extremely well qualified.
Senator Romney said Judge Jackson “more than meets the standard of excellence and integrity.” Senator Murkowski said she will “bring to the Supreme Court a range of experience from the courtroom that few can match given her background in litigation.”
With three Republicans supporting her in the 50-50 split Senate, Judge Jackson is on a glide path to confirmation and on the brink of making history as the third Black justice and only the sixth woman in the court’s more than 200-year history. Beyond the historic element, Democrats have cited her deep experience in nine years on the federal bench and the chance for her to become the first former public defender on the court.
Both Senator Collins and Senator Murkowski said they believed that the Senate nomination process has become broken as it has become more partisan in the past several decades.
Senator Murkowski, who is up for reelection this year, said her decision partly rests “on my rejection of the corrosive politicization of the review process for Supreme Court nominees, which, on both sides of the aisle, is growing worse and more detached from reality by the year.”
After the vote, Senator Murkowski said she had “assumed a level of risk” but “there’s three of us that found ourselves in this place where I believe the strength, qualifications of the candidate are such that are appropriate for the court.”
Mr. Biden nominated Judge Jackson to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, who will step down after the court’s session ends this summer. Mr. Biden has sought bipartisan backing for his pick, making repeated calls to senators and inviting Republicans to the White House. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that administration officials would work the phones until the last minute to maximize support.
“Judge Jackson will bring extraordinary qualifications, deep experience and intellect, and a rigorous judicial record to the Supreme Court,” Mr. Biden tweeted earlier Monday. “She deserves to be confirmed as the next justice.”
The Senate’s 53-47 vote Monday evening was to “discharge” Judge Jackson’s nomination from the Senate Judiciary Committee after the panel deadlocked, 11-11, on whether to send the nomination to the Senate floor.
The committee vote, split along party lines, was the first deadlock on a Supreme Court nomination in three decades.
The Judiciary committee’s top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, said he opposed Judge Jackson’s nomination because “she and I have fundamental, different views on the role of judges and the role that they should play in our system of government.”
The committee hadn’t deadlocked since 1991, when Mr. Biden was chairman and a motion to send the nomination of current Justice Clarence Thomas to the floor with a “favorable” recommendation failed on a 7-7 vote. The committee then voted to send the nomination to the floor without a recommendation, meaning it could still be brought up for a vote.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky set the tone for most of his party last week when he said he “cannot and will not” support Judge Jackson, citing GOP concerns raised in hearings about her sentencing record and her backing from liberal advocacy groups.
Republicans on the Judiciary panel continued their push Monday to paint Judge Jackson as soft on crime, defending their repeated questions about her sentencing on sex crimes.
“Questions are not attacks,” said Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, one of several GOP senators on the panel who hammered the point in the hearings two weeks ago.
Judge Jackson pushed back on the GOP narrative, declaring that “nothing could be further from the truth” and explaining her reasoning in detail. Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions. And on Monday they criticized their GOP counterparts’ questioning.
“You could try and create a straw man here, but it does not hold,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.
The questioning was filled with “absurdities of disrespect,” said Senator Booker, who also is Black. He said he will “rejoice” when Judge Jackson is confirmed.
Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, expressed disappointment with the committee tie, even as he noted that Judge Jackson had cleared an important hurdle. He said “history will be watching” during the full Senate vote later this week.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Becky Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska. AP writers Zeke Miller, Farnoush Amiri, Lisa Mascaro, and Josh Boak in Washington contributed.
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About 1 in 3 residents of the arid expanse of the Navajo Nation – larger than the state of West Virginia – lack running water in their homes. When the pandemic hit, and health experts advised people to thoroughly wash their hands, the lack of that basic service began to receive widespread attention.
The Navajo suffered the loss of 1,700 tribe members, and at one point had the highest per capita infection rate in the United States. But the tragedy had one silver lining: The great need for running water on the reservation became crystal clear to everyone from locals to members of Congress.
Why We Wrote This
The Navajo Nation suffered some of North America’s severest pandemic losses. But the pandemic also highlighted the huge number of residents who lack running water – and is helping spur ingenuity-based solutions.
Amid the pandemic new coalitions have formed, funding has increased, and innovations from organizations like the nonprofit DigDeep have helped expand water access here more than ever before.
At a remote home on a cold afternoon in late February, a DigDeep crew comes to install an indoor sink system, linked to a refillable underground tank, for Ida Joe and her family.
“It will be really helpful, especially for cooking,” says Ms. Joe, who for the first time in her life will have running water for her family.
Ida Joe flinches a little as the tap sputters, then spurts water into the sink. Cautiously, tentatively, she pushes her hand under the faucet. She feels the water soak her skin and run through her fingers – first cold, then hot. After a few seconds, she starts to laugh.
Outside the one-room house she shares with her two daughters and granddaughter, a cold breeze rolls across the dusty, arid plains of the Navajo Nation. A few hundred yards away, wild horses drink from a small, briny lake.
Ms. Joe has lived on the Navajo Nation for all of her nearly 50 years. This late February day is her first with running water in her home. Until now, her family would drive to Thoreau, 10 minutes away, or Gallup, 45 minutes away, to buy gallon jugs of water. They would drive to town to do laundry, and rent a hotel room for the day to use the shower.
Why We Wrote This
The Navajo Nation suffered some of North America’s severest pandemic losses. But the pandemic also highlighted the huge number of residents who lack running water – and is helping spur ingenuity-based solutions.
“It will be really helpful, especially for cooking,” she says.
Water is sacred on the Navajo Nation, and scarce. About 30% of the roughly 173,000 population lack running water, according to a report from the U.S. Water Alliance and DigDeep, an international nonprofit with Navajo employees who have been installing running water systems in homes on the reservation since 2014. The size of the reservation, the large distances between homes, scarce natural water sources, jurisdictional issues, and contamination from industries like uranium mines have all contributed to restricting access to running water here for generations.
But according to those working to improve water access on the reservation, the COVID-19 pandemic has heralded a bittersweet turning point.
Almost 1,700 people have died from the virus, according to the tribe, and in mid-2020 the reservation had the highest per capita infection rate in the country. At the same time, the pandemic drew widespread attention to the fact that many Navajo didn’t have enough water to thoroughly wash their hands, which was core advice of health experts at the time. From locals who had accepted they would need to live without running water, to members of Congress, the need to improve water access became crystal clear.
And the pandemic has spurred progress. New coalitions have formed, funding has increased, and innovations from organizations like DigDeep have helped expand water access here more than ever before.
“This has been a silver lining for us,” says Crystal Tulley-Cordova, principal hydrologist for the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources.
“I’m hopeful for the future,” she adds. The pandemic “has brought different partnerships, and one of the things that I know is that we can do more together.”
A pickup, a backhoe, and “Big Ernie”
A pickup truck, a trailer towing a backhoe, and a gleaming white water truck nicknamed “Big Ernie” make up the DigDeep convoy.
Driving north from Thoreau on Route 371 on that crisp late February morning, the five-man convoy passes through a rugged, beautiful landscape of snow-pocketed mountainsides and dusty flatlands. Arroyos and creeks slash through the terrain – all dry, except for some that hold patches of snow.
At over 27,000 square miles, the Navajo Nation is larger than the state of West Virginia, extending into the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. Like much of the Southwest, the reservation has always had an arid climate, but water has become increasingly scarce.
The region has been in various forms of drought for over 20 years, and is currently experiencing severe and extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Most of the local water supply is in groundwater, and that has been dwindling. In Gallup, groundwater levels dropped about 200 feet in the 2010s, the city reported in 2018. Snowfall levels have consistently decreased since the 1930s, according to Indian Country Today.
There are also problems with water quality. Arsenic and uranium, both left over from a century of mining on the reservation, are found at dangerously high concentrations in local water sources. (Some arsenic is naturally occurring in the region’s geology.)
Legal barriers and bureaucracy are another challenge. In many areas of the country, tribes have robust water rights through the federal government’s trust obligation toward them. But it’s only in the past few years that the Navajo Nation has gained rights to major nearby water sources such as the Colorado and San Juan rivers. Meanwhile, piping water onto the reservation is challenging because of how spread out the population is. Some areas are a checkerboard of public and private land, presenting right-of-way issues.
On top of that, funding has typically been limited, according to Capt. David Harvey, deputy director of the Division of Sanitation Facilities Construction at the federal government’s Indian Health Service.
“These conditions result in a high unit cost to construct and to operate [sanitation] facilities to serve these remote home locations,” says Captain Harvey. “Historically the funds that have been appropriated have not met the total need.”
In the 2020 fiscal year, for example, the Indian Health Service identified over $3 billion in sanitation facility needs on Native American lands. Congress that year appropriated $197 million. But the response during the pandemic has begun to close that gap.
Through the CARES Act – a pandemic relief funding package passed by Congress in March 2020 – the Navajo Nation received over $5 million specifically for increasing water access on the reservation. Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and Martin Heinrich, of Colorado and New Mexico respectively, also introduced a bill last year that would provide about $6.7 billion for tribal water infrastructure.
And as federal money has begun to flow toward the problem, new partnerships have formed to identify how those funds should be spent. The pandemic also saw the creation of the Navajo Nation COVID-19 Water Access Coordination Group, a coalition of almost two dozen Navajo Nation and federal government agencies, universities, and nongovernmental organizations.
In the eyes of Dr. Tulley-Cordova, it’s a shift from centuries of hostile and paternalistic attitudes that the U.S. government displayed toward the Diné, as many members of the Navajo Nation prefer to be known.
From their forced relocation in the 1860s, to their attempted assimilation through Native American boarding schools, to the recent, relative indifference toward poor conditions on the reservation, there’s long been a mentality of “we know what’s best for you ... and we don’t really care what you have to say,” she says.
“Now, fast forward a couple of decades. We have the opportunity to be able to say what’s best for us, and be a part of that process,” she adds.
A “suitcase” packed with water tech
The DigDeep convoy has one scheduled stop before Ida Joe’s home. The trucks and trailers roll onto a dusty property just off Route 371, 25 miles north of Thoreau. Bikes, toys, trash, and a basketball hoop sit outside the hogan – a traditional one-room Navajo home, the door facing the rising sun to the east.
The crew were here 18 months ago to install one of their foremost pandemic-era innovations: a “suitcase” – a 4-cubic-foot box filled with a water pump, heater, filter, expansion tank, and battery installed outside homes to provide tap water from a 1,200-gallon underground tank. (DigDeep periodically refills these tanks throughout the year.) The group had been providing the indoor water systems for years, and this invention allowed installation of the systems outside, without workers entering homes.
During the pandemic, 100 of these suitcase systems have been installed by DigDeep crews on Navajo lands, at no cost to residents.
“People [were being told], ‘Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and water.’ But how can they do that if they don’t have running water?” says Cindy Howe, the project manager for DigDeep’s New Mexico office.
“We had to put our brains into gear.”
Today the crew is replacing the suitcase with an indoor sink. The system will be protected from the elements, and the family won’t have to go outside to get running water.
But the homeowner isn’t here this morning. A crew member calls, but there’s no answer. So they top off the 1,200-gallon tank, replace the filter in the suitcase, which had cracked after freezing during a frigid desert night, and head for Ms. Joe’s home back down Route 371.
There, the crew members work with practiced ease and efficiency, talking interchangeably in English and Navajo. Ms. Joe and her family wait in their car while Kenneth Chavez and Brian Johnson assemble the sink and Erving Spencer maneuvers the backhoe.
The backhoe work is delicate. First, Mr. Spencer has to dig out the suitcase system, bringing the metal teeth of the digger precariously close to the house itself. It looks like trying to perform a Mozart sonata wearing mittens, but he does it expertly.
But after a couple of hours they hit a snag. Specifically, they hit a thick layer of ice. The trench Mr. Spencer is digging – to lay a leach line that will pipe wastewater from the sink out and into the earth – needs to be 3 feet deep, below the freezing level. But he’s hit the freezing level.
So while Mr. Spencer pries blocks of mud-covered ice from the ground, Mr. Chavez installs the sink inside. A small table just inside the door holds an even smaller plastic tub, along with shampoo and conditioner. A towel and a small mirror hang on the wall above it, and four 3-liter water jugs – all empty – sit on a nearby bed. A wood stove in the middle of the room pipes smoke through a chimney into the blue sky overhead.
Ms. Joe likes living here, she says. She feels safe, and she wants to raise her kids and grandkids here.
“It’s one of the most important things that I would probably want to do before I go,” she says, “teaching them the foundation of our culture.”
But living and working on the Navajo Nation has come at an especially high risk in the past two years.
Ms. Joe lost two of her sisters to illnesses complicated by COVID-19, she says. Dr. Tulley-Cordova lost six family members to the virus between December 2020 and January 2021. “Big Ernie,” the DigDeep water truck, is named after Ernest Largo, an employee who died early in the pandemic.
As they finish their work at Ms. Joe’s house, “Big Ernie” refills the 1,200-gallon tank that now supplies her indoor sink. Though he’s gone, it feels to the DigDeep crew like Mr. Largo is still bringing water to homes across the reservation.
Lacking water “is just normal for a lot of people,” says Ms. Howe of DigDeep. Her grandparents would melt snow for water. Her parents hauled water throughout her childhood as well – always on Sundays, so she could have a bath before school on Monday.
“It was really heartbreaking to see,” she says. “Fifty-five years later, it’s still happening.”
“We’re all helping each other,” she adds. But “there’s still a lot of people that don’t have any water.”
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Ukraine has resisted Russia’s invasion more successfully than most people had expected. But now its future hinges on a simple question: how long Kyiv’s Western allies can maintain their unity.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hoping to defeat the assault as quickly as possible. But Russian President Vladimir Putin is betting that the longer the war goes on, the harder Mr. Zelenskyy’s democratic supporters will find it to withstand the effects of economic sanctions in their own countries, and that their alliance will fracture.
Why We Wrote This
Western solidarity with Ukraine will last as long as public sympathy holds. Vladimir Putin is betting democracies cannot withstand hardship. Can Europe and the U.S. prove him wrong?
For now, the allies’ motivation to stand firm remains strong, not least because of the evidence discovered over the weekend suggesting that Russian soldiers summarily executed or raped several hundred Ukrainian civilians before they pulled out of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.
Russian strikes against civilians have horrified European public opinion. But if European governments expand sanctions and stop buying Russian gas or oil, they will impose sacrifices on their own citizens that will be hard to make.
Opinion polls suggest that popular anger over what’s happening in Ukraine, and a sense of solidarity with its people, have so far remained strong. The dreadful scenes in Bucha will likely reinforce such sentiment.
It feels jarring – almost disrespectful – to write these words as civilian corpses are cleared from the streets of Bucha, Ukraine, after Russian troops retreated from the Kyiv suburb. But Ukraine’s fate may well now hinge on a crude question of international politics.
It is this: How long can Washington and its European partners – governments and citizens – maintain their unity in support of Ukraine?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with his Western backers, is hoping to beat back the Russian assault as quickly and effectively as possible.
Why We Wrote This
Western solidarity with Ukraine will last as long as public sympathy holds. Vladimir Putin is betting democracies cannot withstand hardship. Can Europe and the U.S. prove him wrong?
But Vladimir Putin seems to be betting that the longer the war goes on, the harder Mr. Zelenskyy’s democratic supporters will find it to withstand the knock-on effects of economic sanctions in their own countries, and that their alliance will fracture.
Which side prevails will likely become clear only in the months ahead. Yet high-level allied discussions over the next few days may well give us some clues about the degree of Western determination.
For now, the allies’ motivation to stand firm remains strong, not least because of the evidence discovered over the weekend in Bucha and elsewhere suggesting that Russian soldiers summarily executed or raped several hundred Ukrainian civilians before they pulled out of the Kyiv region.
That has been a shocking exclamation point to a lengthening list of Russian strikes against civilians, including the entrapment of tens of thousands in the battered and besieged port city of Mariupol, that have horrified European public opinion.
American and European leaders, outraged by the latest reports of civilian deaths, have denounced the alleged war crimes and threatened further sanctions in response.
Washington is reportedly coming round to the idea that its European NATO partners should provide Ukraine with urgently needed additional weaponry that could include Soviet-era battle tanks and more powerful anti-aircraft batteries.
Mr. Zelenskyy has been increasingly forthright in calling on European governments to stop buying Russian oil and gas, and thus stop paying for Mr. Putin’s war machine. Germany, the European Union’s main economic power and a major Russian gas importer, has until now refused to go so far. In response to the gruesome reports from Bucha, however, Berlin has hinted it may reconsider its stance.
Yet the question of a gas embargo is part of a wider long-term challenge to the allied pressure campaign against Mr. Putin. Sanctions that undermine the Russian economy also impose knock-on costs in European countries that are still dealing with the economic after-effects of the pandemic.
Rising energy prices, initially boosted by revived demand as pandemic restrictions eased, have been spurred even higher by market jitters over Ukraine. The mere possibility of interruptions to Russian energy exports to western Europe has made things worse.
As Germany knows only too well, since it relies on Russian gas for more than half its needs, the economic impact of a full-scale boycott would be dramatic, reducing supplies to both homes and industry.
Those Ukraine-related economic costs carry political costs as well for Western governments.
In France, where President Emmanuel Macron faces a reelection vote this month, his main right-wing challenger, Marine Le Pen, has been narrowing his opinion-poll lead. She has done so not by focusing on the war – uncomfortable territory given her past chumminess with Mr. Putin – but on the cost of living and inflation.
Protests over rising prices have also broken out in other European countries, including Spain, Italy, and Greece.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who has sought to control gasoline price rises by drawing on his country’s strategic oil reserves, is also clearly aware of the dangers of inflation ahead of November’s mid-term congressional elections.
The key question is how great a sacrifice Western countries will be prepared to make, and for how long, in order to help Ukraine turn back Mr. Putin’s invasion and terror campaign.
If the allies do stay the course, it will be – ironically – because of the strength and cohesion of an element that Mr. Putin is likely to have figured as a source of weakness in the democracies aligned against his attack.
Not allied presidents or prime ministers, but the voters on whom they depend.
Grassroots outrage, as much as politicians’ calculations, has helped forge the Western response to the invasion.
So far, opinion polls suggest that popular anger over what’s happening in Ukraine and a sense of solidarity with its people have remained strong. The dreadful scenes in Bucha will likely reinforce such sentiment.
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High up the hill road leading to Malaysia’s Penang National Park, cars and motorbikes zip by the forest at great speeds. Some 40 feet above a particularly busy turn, almost invisible to the casual observer, hangs an aerial bridge made of rope and recycled fire hoses. It’s easy to miss, but this humble crossing has the power to save lives.
Dusky langur lives, that is.
Why We Wrote This
In Malaysia’s Penang forests and beyond, novel road crossings are helping humans and wildlife coexist peacefully.
Once abundant on Peninsular Malaysia, these endangered primates – also known as dusky leaf monkeys – have wide, white-circled eyes that make them look serious and spectacled, and they are critical to the local ecosystem. The Langur Project Penang, a citizen science project founded by wildlife researcher Jo Leen Yap, has seen thousands of animals cross the road safely using its bridge.
This aerial crossing – the first of its kind in Malaysia – is part of a global trend of conservationists using bridges, tunnels, and other passageways to address habitat fragmentation caused by human development. “As we humans encroach more and more into the natural world, we also need to step up and take responsibility for the welfare of our wildlife,” says Allen Tan of the conservation group Habitat Penang Hill. “Jo Leen’s bridge is a great step in that direction.”
High up on the hill road leading to Malaysia’s Penang National Park, cars and motorbikes zip by the forest at great speeds. Some 40 feet above a particularly busy turn, almost invisible to the casual observer, hangs an aerial bridge made of rope and recycled fire hoses. It’s easy to miss, but this humble crossing has the power to save lives.
Dusky langur lives, that is.
Once abundant all over Peninsular Malaysia, these endangered primates – also known as dusky leaf monkeys – have wide, white-circled eyes that make them look serious and spectacled, and they are critical to the local ecosystem. Their numbers are decreasing partly because of their own movements; dusky langurs travel between treetops by jumping from branch to branch with total abandon, but when tree coverage is thin, they resort to using electrical cables or scurrying across the ground, often leading to electrocution and fatal collisions with motorists. The Langur Project Penang (LPP), a citizen science project founded by wildlife researcher Jo Leen Yap, counted seven instances of roadkill on this half-mile stretch of Teluk Bahang road before the bridge went up. Since then, thousands of animals have crossed the road without incident.
Why We Wrote This
In Malaysia’s Penang forests and beyond, novel road crossings are helping humans and wildlife coexist peacefully.
This aerial crossing – the first of its kind in Malaysia – is part of a global trend of conservationists using bridges, tunnels, and other passageways to address habitat fragmentation caused by human development.
“As we humans encroach more and more into the natural world, we also need to step up and take responsibility for the welfare of our wildlife,” says Allen Tan, managing director of The Habitat Penang Hill, a rainforest conservation center that has awarded research grants to Ms. Yap through its charitable foundation. “Jo Leen’s bridge is a great step in that direction.”
Langur love
As a Penang local, Ms. Yap considers dusky langurs an important part of her natural heritage. Cute looks aside, the shy species serves as an important agent of seed dispersal, helping regenerate forests.
She founded LPP in 2016 with the goal of ensuring future generations will get to see and enjoy the dusky langurs, just as she does. Her team of volunteers – mainly local community members and undergraduate students from the Universiti Sains Malaysia, where Ms. Yap is getting her Ph.D. – focuses on researching dusky langur behavior, as well as public outreach and education. Locals are encouraged to report dusky langur sightings, including any signs of distress or road accidents, through LPP’s social media channels.
The group named its urban canopy bridge Ah Lai’s Crossing, after the first alpha male langur that LPP tracked for an extended period of time. Ms. Yap says it took months of patience to get close to him. “Once he was comfortable with me, he took me into his habitat and introduced me to his wife and children,” she says with a delighted laugh. “Thanks to Ah Lai, I was able to study multiple generations of this langur family.”
According to Ms. Yap, Ah Lai is now expanding his family in another forest. But his local legacy lives on in Ah Lai’s Crossing, which LPP built in February 2019 and reinforced in August 2020. The now double-layered bridge is made of discarded fire hoses, collected and donated by the animal welfare organization Ape Malaysia. Ms. Yap says she chose fire hoses because they “have great tensile strength and are easy to maintain.”
LPP’s camera trap captured over 2,100 crossings in its first two years. “It took a few weeks for the first dusky langur to get used to the crossing, but when we saw it captured on the camera, all the time and effort was worth it,” says Hoon Cheng Teo, a citizen volunteer.
Apart from dusky langurs, long-tailed macaques, black giant squirrels, civet cats, and other nocturnal rodents have all been spotted using Ah Lai’s Crossing.
The case for animal infrastructure
In designing Ah Lai’s Crossing, Ms. Yap drew inspiration from similar projects around the world, such as bamboo bridges for primates and slow lorises in Indonesia and the famed wildlife overpass in Canada’s Banff National Park. More recent initiatives include a massive cougar bridge in Los Angeles and a beaver tunnel in Scotland. Studies in North America and Australia show there’s a significant benefit to humans, too, with wildlife crossings helping motorists avoid dangerous and costly collisions.
Margaret Lowman, or “Canopy Meg” as she is known, is a pioneer in forest canopy ecology. She says wildlife crossings are absolutely essential to allow animals to roam freely and find new habitats when old ones get destroyed by humans, as is increasingly common, but they must be designed with species behavior in mind. “Canopy crossings are probably the most effective for monkeys because they exist at the treetop level, where the animals already live. They ensure the continuity of travel where humans may have cut down tree cover to clear space for construction,” she says.
Dr. Lowman adds that the engineering for animal canopy crossings is fairly simple. Yet the crossings do come with challenges.
Ah Lai’s Crossing took many months of patiently tracking the animals’ behavior, mapping the most critical crossing zones, acquiring government permissions, and raising funds. Ms. Yap and her team are once again working on research and permits in the hopes of replicating this initiative elsewhere in Penang and beyond.
Seeing the success of Ah Lai’s Crossing, the Habitat Foundation is considering grants to help build LPP’s future bridges, says Mr. Tan. “Dusky langurs are lovely, docile, and charismatic creatures, and we need to do our best for them.”
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Dozens of countries around the world have relocated their capitals over the past century, often to new cities designed specifically to serve as capitals, and established in relatively undeveloped areas. Just this year, Indonesia’s parliament greenlighted the move to ditch bustling Jakarta for more bucolic digs.
Publicly, Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s government has attributed the switch to Jakarta’s epic traffic jams and the fact that the metropolis of 10 million is sinking into the sea at a rate of about 1 to 6 inches a year. But governments looking to build new capitals have often cited environmental concerns as cover for more complex motives like nation building. Experts argue the capital relocation is actually part of the president’s vision to redistribute political and economic power across the archipelago.
Why We Wrote This
Many countries in recent history have moved capital cities or built new ones. Such projects protect government institutions not only from rising seas and traffic, but also from aggrieved citizens.
But at what cost? Indonesia’s new city comes with a $32 billion price tag, and researchers say its construction will release tons of CO2 into the atmosphere and displace thousands of Indigenous people.
Johns Hopkins University Professor Filipe Campante has found people also think less about politics in remote capitals where large protests are harder to muster and robust press coverage is less likely. Watchdogs, he says, will need to “bark louder, because they’re going to be barking from farther out.”
In December 2019, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo stood atop a hill overlooking rugged terrain on the eastern side of the island of Borneo. It looked like the middle of nowhere. But he planned to make that isolated spot hundreds of miles from Jakarta part of his country’s glittering new capital by 2024.
Indonesia’s parliament greenlighted the move in January, making Indonesia the latest in a long line of countries that have decided to ditch bustling capitals for more bucolic digs.
However, some worry that these brand-new, often far-flung, capitals might create more problems than they solve.
Why We Wrote This
Many countries in recent history have moved capital cities or built new ones. Such projects protect government institutions not only from rising seas and traffic, but also from aggrieved citizens.
Which countries have moved capitals?
Dozens of countries around the world have relocated their capitals over the past century. Many of these moves have been like Indonesia’s: to new cities designed specifically to serve as capitals, and established in relatively undeveloped areas. Nigeria, for example, left coastal Lagos for Abuja in 1991, escaping Lagos’ overcrowding and seeking a neutral, central location in a country riven by ethnic and religious divisions.
Egypt’s military dictator is currently building a new capital in the desert outside Cairo.
Why is Indonesia relocating its capital?
Publicly, Jokowi’s government has often attributed the move to Jakarta’s epic traffic jams and the fact that the metropolis of 10 million is sinking into the sea at a rate of about 1 to 6 inches a year.
But those problems are used as “more acceptable” justifications that the relocation won’t actually solve, says Edbert Suryahudaya, a researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta.
Instead, the capital relocation is part of the president’s vision to modernize the country and redistribute political and economic power across the archipelago away from Jakarta, Mr. Suryahudaya says.
This is not unique to Indonesia. Governments looking to build new capitals have often cited environmental concerns as cover for more complex motives like nation building, says Ed Schatz, a Central Asia specialist at the University of Toronto.
Former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev used his country’s 1997 capital relocation from Almaty to Nur-Sultan – ostensibly due to earthquakes and smog – to shut out rivals, curry favor with separatism-inclined ethnic Russians in the country’s north, and create “a giant money laundering opportunity,” Professor Schatz says.
New capitals often do reduce the threat of rising seas, earthquakes, and hurricanes, at least to the government. They can also temporarily boost the national psyche as symbols of modernity and pride.
“But I think the charm has to wear off,” Professor Schatz says.
What are the costs?
New capitals are expensive. Indonesia’s comes with a $32 billion price tag.
Though the government contends investors and state-owned enterprises will bankroll 85% of the project, Mr. Suryahudaya says spending on a glitzy new capital as the country still struggles to recover from the pandemic just “isn’t ethical.”
“We have a lot of more pressing issues,” he says.
Beyond the budget, researchers say the construction of the new capital will release tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, threaten endangered orangutans, and displace 20,000 Indigenous people who already live in the area.
Add political concerns to that list, says Johns Hopkins University Professor Filipe Campante. In isolated capitals, autocrats rarely have to fear the wrath of street uprisings far from the madding crowd, so measures of corruption climb while measures of democracy fall, his research shows.
For example, during the recent unrest against Kazakhstan’s authoritarian regime, protesters in opposition-minded Almaty torched the presidential palace – the old one, that is. The new palace, located hundreds of miles northwest, was safe.
Even in democracies like Indonesia, Professor Campante’s research shows people think less about politics in remote capitals where large protests are harder to muster and robust press coverage is less likely.
Watchdogs, Professor Campante says, will need to “bark louder, because they’re going to be barking from farther out.”
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Last month, President Joe Biden designated Amache, a World War II Japanese American internment camp, as a national park. For years, camp survivors and descendants have visited the site, welcomed by a local educator in nearby Granada, Colorado.
Over almost 30 years, John Hopper, dean of students for the Granada school district, and hundreds of his pupils have helped preserve the rural site and run a museum in Granada. Their sense of civic responsibility has built bonds across cultures and generations, transcending a dark chapter of American history.
Why We Wrote This
Who’s responsible for preserving regrettable parts of United States history? For years, Colorado students have answered the call.
“It’s taught me a lot about empathy,” says Bailey Hernandez, a junior. “You start to think, well, how would I have reacted if my family was forced into one of these camps?”
Over the years, students have divided their time between physical preservation of the site and interpretive efforts, giving tours of the museum and presenting to other schools and groups.
Carlene Tanigoshi Tinker, who was a toddler when her family was forced to relocate to Amache, has visited several times.
“These kids are really, really amazing to be so dedicated,” she says. “They know how important it is and they want to preserve this story.”
The wind sings a wordless song across the Colorado plains, making acres sway. Out of the brush rise concrete remains of a camp that imprisoned over 10,000 people.
Carlene Tanigoshi Tinker, a toddler during World War II, lived at this Japanese American internment camp, called Amache. She sat atop her father’s shoulders with a scarf around her face – a shield against wind-whipped sand – as they lined up outside for food. Her parents were United States citizens.
After their release, stigma followed her to Denver, she says, where kids would pelt her with rocks after school. For the rest of her childhood, Amache was “a topic that we never discussed,” remembers Ms. Tinker, a retired biology teacher living in California. “I think it was a painful experience.”
Why We Wrote This
Who’s responsible for preserving regrettable parts of United States history? For years, Colorado students have answered the call.
Last month, President Joe Biden designated Amache as a national park, but for some it was, in essence, already serving as one. For years, camp survivors and descendants have visited the site that once confined their families, welcomed by a local educator in the nearby town of Granada.
Over almost 30 years, John Hopper, dean of students at Granada School District RE-1, and hundreds of his pupils have helped preserve the rural site and run a museum in Granada. Their sense of civic responsibility has built bonds across cultures and generations, transcending a dark chapter of American history.
“It’s taught me a lot about empathy,” says Bailey Hernandez, a junior. “You start to think, well, how would I have reacted if my family was forced into one of these camps?”
One of his predecessors toured Ms. Tinker around Amache in 2004, her first trip back. She remembers feeling uplifted.
“These kids are really, really amazing to be so dedicated,” says Ms. Tinker. “They know how important it is and they want to preserve this story.”
Civilian suspects
Two months after the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. That led to the forced removal of more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their homes into internment camps. Amache, one of 10 such sites, was originally called the Granada Relocation Center and ran between 1942 and 1945.
On the rattlesnake-ridden plains of southeast Colorado, Amache mostly held American citizens – who were seen as potential enemies and subjected to loyalty questionnaires. In spite of these conditions, internees beautified their arid captivity by planting trees and gardens, even creating a pond.
The U.S. government under Ronald Reagan formally apologized in 1988; reparations checks followed. And now with last month’s signing of the Amache National Historic Site Act, oversight of the property will transition to the National Park Service.
That’s welcome news to Mr. Hopper, for whom all things Amache are a daily responsibility.
For the students
Despite being recognized for his work – including praise from the consul general of Japan in Denver – Mr. Hopper says he prefers to “be on the sidelines” and center his students.
“It is a heavy, heavy topic, especially when you talk about civil liberties,” he says. “But that’s part of my job I enjoy talking about – needs to be talked about.”
Mr. Hopper, who does not have Japanese ancestry, first visited Amache as a new Granada high school social studies teacher in 1990.
“It just looked like a sagebrush cactus hill with cattle on it,” he recalls.
In 1993, some “really bright and willing students” wanted to pursue an Amache project and began interviewing a survivor whom Mr. Hopper’s family knew. That year the teacher established the nonprofit Amache Preservation Society (APS). What began as extracurricular activities eventually formalized into a class. Collaboration with survivors, descendants, and the town, and partnership with groups like the Amache Club and Amache Historical Society, have been key to building trust.
Over the years, students have divided their time between physical preservation of the site – mowing or renovating a cemetery or other landmarks – and interpretive efforts. APS students present to other schools and groups, and help keep up the Amache Museum, where they double as docents.
“I can’t think of any group that does more for Amache,” says Calvin Taro Hada, an Amache descendant and president of the Nikkeijin Kai of Colorado, a Japanese American organization.
Amache, whose land is owned by the town, became a national historic landmark in 2006. Two years later, APS students began working on-site with the University of Denver, which leads archaeology projects through summer field schools there and teaches high schoolers conservation skills like object handling.
“The first time I ever saw John’s kids give a presentation, ... I thought, OK, this is what this is all about,” says Bonnie Clark, an anthropology professor at the University of Denver and leader of the DU Amache Project. “They are super engaged,” she adds.
When Mr. Hopper retires, he plans to pass the mantle of APS leadership to social studies teacher Tanner Grasmick, who joined APS as a high schooler.
The teacher credits his experience as one of Mr. Hopper’s students as the reason he became an educator himself.
“You hear what they had to go through, the adversities that they had to face, and for them to come back and just be so grateful [for the preservation efforts], ... it’s amazing,” says Mr. Grasmick.
The teacher from a farming family says he still corresponds with his Japanese host mother, years after a trip abroad where he and peers gave presentations. Before the pandemic, APS members would travel to Japan every other year and often stay with host families.
No longer the enemy
On a March morning in Granada, Bailey wears a gray-black varsity jacket for some high school sports team – or so it seems. A closer look reveals a stitched image of an internment camp barrack. It’s part of his APS tour guide outfit at the Amache Museum.
He passes through exhibits of the staged interior of a barrack, a carved gourd decorated with seeds, a military uniform.
“Out of all the camps, we actually have the highest volunteer rate” for internees joining the U.S. military, says Bailey.
His eyes widen as he speaks, as if each retelling of facts fascinates him afresh. By the tour’s end, Bailey has impressed guest Gene Bonventre.
“He seemed to really know his stuff and be enthusiastic about it, too,” says Dr. Bonventre, retired from the Air Force. “That made the museum visit a lot more special.”
The visitor says he’s headed to Amache next, about a mile and a half away. Ms. Tinker plans to return there soon to participate in the DU Amache Project field school – her seventh summer.
How might her parents react to her digging in the dirt, alongside students, excavating memories that many families spent years trying to repress?
“We are no longer seen as the enemy,” she says. “They would see that as gratifying.”
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Derek Baxter says that Thomas Jefferson has long been his hero, and he has the proof: He began visiting the Founding Father’s home, Monticello, as a child; starred as Jefferson in a fourth-grade play; took his prom date to the Jefferson Memorial; and majored in history at the Jefferson-founded University of Virginia.
So it makes sense that when Baxter was in the throes of a midlife crisis – dissatisfied with his predictable job as an attorney for a government agency, exhausted by the demands of parenting two young children – he looked to his idol for direction. His discovery of “Hints to Americans Traveling in Europe,” an obscure, unpublished travel guide Jefferson wrote in 1788 for two young men planning their grand tour of the Continent, captured his imagination. In his debut book, “In Pursuit of Jefferson: Traveling Through Europe With the Most Perplexing Founding Father,” Baxter winningly details his experiences following Jefferson’s itinerary while also grappling with his complicated legacy.
Jefferson’s “Hints” starts in Amsterdam and ends in Paris, with stops in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Because Baxter isn’t in financial shape for a grand tour himself, he plans shorter trips over a period of several years, accompanied at various points by his exceedingly supportive wife, his children, and his parents, all of whom come to life through his warm and witty anecdotes.
Baxter describes the guide Jefferson wrote for his young protégés as “a sober travel regime with themes to explore and questions to answer, designed to keep them on the straight and narrow.” Jefferson asked them to focus on eight “Objects of Attention for an American,” and Baxter, naturally, does the same. Among these are agriculture, manufacturing, architecture, landscape gardening, and government policies.
The author’s admiration for Jefferson had always been dampened by the fact that he was a slaveholder. Baxter, who is white, is relieved, then, to sidestep the issue of slavery while following Jefferson’s travels in Europe, which he reasons is a world away from the Virginia plantation where enslaved men and women cultivated Jefferson’s tobacco fields. While he avoids it for a time, however, Baxter slowly comes to realize that practically everything Jefferson did was tied up with slavery.
Take architecture: With Jefferson, a self-taught architect, as their guide, Baxter and his family visit the ancient Roman amphitheaters and temples of Provence, France. They learn that Jefferson favored classical and neoclassical designs over ornate Gothic and Rococo structures. “He believed that buildings should express a nation’s core values,” Baxter notes. Jefferson intended Monticello, the Virginia State Capitol, and the University of Virginia – all of which he designed – to evoke Roman architecture, with simple white-columned buildings reflecting pure and honest republican virtues.
Back home in Virginia, however, Baxter learns that the architectural plans Jefferson drew up for the University of Virginia pointedly omitted the cottage that housed enslaved laborers. The author begins to learn more about the enslaved men and women who not only built Jefferson’s structures but kept them running. While the Founder opposed the institution of slavery in theory, he consistently relied on and benefited from it, in contradiction to the “core values” he wished his buildings to express.
“In Pursuit of Jefferson” packs a lot in – the book blends travel writing, memoir, and American and French history with mini lessons on topics ranging from wine and horticulture to the 2018 political protests in France. While the structure is at times hard to get a handle on, the earnest Baxter will likely win readers over.
“The more I’m able to learn about the enslaved people essential to Jefferson’s projects ... the more uncomfortable I feel on this journey – which I’d intended, perhaps naively, to be a joyous, uplifting one, filled with personal growth,” the author reflects. Disillusioned in his hero, he jettisons the project for a time. We’re fortunate that he picked it back up, working toward an understanding of Jefferson’s profound failures along with his towering achievements.
Baxter delivers on the personal growth, too. As travel and research expands his perspective, his outlook on his own history and privilege changes. He spent his early years in a trailer in Arkansas and thought of his family as “self-made” for rising to the middle class. He rethinks that assessment as he considers, for instance, that Black men would have been barred from the union jobs his grandfathers held in the Jim Crow South. “Only now ... do I see how my family benefited from a thumb on the scale,” he writes. The progression of his thinking is moving and sincere – and relevant. At a time when cultural battles over everything from monuments to school curricula often turn ugly, Baxter provides a hopeful model for an honest reckoning with history.
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Microsoft Corp’s LinkedIn boosted subscription revenue by 8% after arming its sales team with artificial intelligence software that not only predicts clients at risk of canceling, but also explains how it arrived at its conclusion.
The system, introduced last July and to be described in a LinkedIn blog post on Wednesday, marks a breakthrough in getting AI to “show its work” in a helpful way.
While AI scientists have no problem designing systems that make accurate predictions on all sorts of business outcomes, they are discovering that to make those tools more effective for human operators, the AI may need to explain itself through another algorithm.
The emerging field of “Explainable AI,” or XAI, has spurred big investment in Silicon Valley as startups and cloud giants compete to make opaque software more understandable and has stoked discussion in Washington and Brussels where regulators want to ensure automated decision-making is done fairly and transparently.
AI technology can perpetuate societal biases like those around race, gender, and culture. Some AI scientists view explanations as a crucial part of mitigating those problematic outcomes.
United States’ consumer protection regulators including the Federal Trade Commission have warned over the past two years that AI that is not explainable could be investigated. The European Union next year could pass the Artificial Intelligence Act, a set of comprehensive requirements including that users be able to interpret automated predictions.
Proponents of explainable AI say it has helped increase the effectiveness of AI’s application in fields such as health care and sales. Google Cloud sells explainable AI services that, for instance, tell clients trying to sharpen their systems which pixels and soon which training examples mattered most in predicting the subject of a photo.
But critics say the explanations of why AI predicted what it did are too unreliable because the AI technology to interpret the machines is not good enough.
LinkedIn and others developing explainable AI acknowledge that each step in the process – analyzing predictions, generating explanations, confirming their accuracy, and making them actionable for users – still has room for improvement.
But after two years of trial and error in a relatively low-stakes application, LinkedIn says its technology has yielded practical value. Its proof is the 8% increase in renewal bookings during the current fiscal year above normally expected growth. LinkedIn declined to specify the benefit in dollars, but described it as sizeable.
Before, LinkedIn salespeople relied on their own intuition and some spotty automated alerts about clients’ adoption of services.
Now, the AI quickly handles research and analysis. Dubbed CrystalCandle by LinkedIn, it calls out unnoticed trends and its reasoning helps salespeople hone their tactics to keep at-risk customers on board and pitch others on upgrades.
LinkedIn says explanation-based recommendations have expanded to more than 5,000 of its sales employees spanning recruiting, advertising, marketing, and education offerings.
“It has helped experienced salespeople by arming them with specific insights to navigate conversations with prospects. It’s also helped new salespeople dive in right away,” said Parvez Ahammad, LinkedIn’s director of machine learning and head of data science applied research.
To explain or not to explain?
In 2020, LinkedIn had first provided predictions without explanations. A score with about 80% accuracy indicates the likelihood a client soon due for renewal will upgrade, hold steady or cancel.
Salespeople were not fully won over. The team selling LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions recruiting and hiring software were unclear on how to adapt their strategy, especially when the odds of a client not renewing were no better than a coin toss.
Last July, they started seeing a short, auto-generated paragraph that highlights the factors influencing the score.
For instance, the AI decided a customer was likely to upgrade because it grew by 240 workers over the past year and candidates had become 146% more responsive in the last month.
In addition, an index that measures a client’s overall success with LinkedIn recruiting tools surged 25% in the last three months.
Lekha Doshi, LinkedIn’s vice president of global operations, said that based on the explanations sales representatives now direct clients to training, support, and services that improve their experience and keep them spending.
But some AI experts question whether explanations are necessary. They could even do harm, engendering a false sense of security in AI or prompting design sacrifices that make predictions less accurate, researchers say.
Fei-Fei Li, co-director of Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, said people use products such as Tylenol and Google Maps whose inner workings are not neatly understood. In such cases, rigorous testing and monitoring have dispelled most doubts about their efficacy.
Similarly, AI systems overall could be deemed fair even if individual decisions are inscrutable, said Daniel Roy, an associate professor of statistics at University of Toronto.
LinkedIn says an algorithm’s integrity cannot be evaluated without understanding its thinking.
It also maintains that tools like its CrystalCandle could help AI users in other fields. Doctors could learn why AI predicts someone is more at risk of a disease, or people could be told why AI recommended they be denied a credit card.
The hope is that explanations reveal whether a system aligns with concepts and values one wants to promote, said Been Kim, an AI researcher at Google.
“I view interpretability as ultimately enabling a conversation between machines and humans,” she said. “If we truly want to enable human-machine collaboration, we need that.”
This story was reported by Reuters.
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Two ways to read the story
As I watch tragic scenes in Ukraine, I cannot help reflecting on the light they throw on my family. I am the father of two adopted boys, one from Russia and the other from Ukraine.
Young men now, they still carry a strong sense of their origins, although Alyosha less so than Anton. Where Alyosha regards Russia almost academically, Anton’s feelings for Ukraine run deep.
Why We Wrote This
There is no natural enmity between peoples at war. My sons are proof of that.
When the war began, elder brother Alyosha reached out to Anton. They spoke on the phone for a good hour. Afterward, Anton seemed less beset, more collected after the brotherly embrace.
I’m grateful that the war has not altered my sons’ fraternal sensibilities. I am grateful they are here with me in a land at peace.
I shudder when I consider that my sons might be fighting each other, had they stayed. But they’re not. They are here, and they’re safe.
In this age, when it is easy to take sides, events have instead pushed my sons closer together. Alyosha and Anton talk like the brothers they are. I am not looking at a Russian and a Ukrainian; I am looking at two people who love each other.
As I watch the tragic scenes in Ukraine unfold, day by day, I cannot help being mindful of the light this has thrown on my unique family situation. You see, I am the father of two adopted boys, one from Russia and the other from Ukraine.
Young men now, each making his way in life, they still carry a strong sense of their origins, although Alyosha less so than Anton. Where Alyosha regards Russia almost academically, and does not often think about the land of his birth, Anton’s feelings for Ukraine run deep: When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, Anton was 17. He wrapped himself in a Ukrainian flag and trudged to school through the snow.
When the current conflagration began, Alyosha, as the older brother, reached out to Anton. They spoke on the phone for a good hour. I don’t know what exactly was said, but when Anton came away from the call, he seemed less beset, more collected from the brotherly embrace. Whatever Alyosha said, his words had tempered Anton’s emotions.
Why We Wrote This
There is no natural enmity between peoples at war. My sons are proof of that.
I am grateful. I’m grateful that the war has not altered my sons’ fraternal sensibilities, and that they behave as though their bond is one of blood, rather than circumstance. And not least, I am grateful that they are here with me in a land at peace, where they can step outside with every expectation of making it through the day unharmed.
These are not small graces, and if I have learned anything lately, it is to not take these things for granted.
But beyond gratitude, another word comes to mind: absence. Let me explain.
I recall, when Alyosha was 10, watching the TV news with him. It was the height of the war in Chechnya, and the scenes of devastation were heartbreaking. Alyosha was old enough to understand the situation. As we watched, he drew close to me and said, “Dad, I’m so happy you got me out of there.”
Alyosha isn’t from Chechnya, but he was making a broader statement about his sense of security and well-being: I am not there, I’m here, and I am safe.
I see dense gatherings of Ukrainian mothers and children, huddled in dark, vulnerable spaces on the news now. But my boys aren’t there. They’re here.
I see children crying as they cling to fathers who must separate themselves to defend their soil. But my sons are here, and I am available to them.
Most chillingly, when I see Russian and Ukrainian soldiers doing battle, I shudder when I consider that, had my sons stayed in their birth countries, they might be fighting each other. But they’re not. They are here, and they’re safe.
My sons’ well-being, their good fortune, was not entirely my doing. I owe a great deal to my family and friends, who supported my adoption efforts, as well as the many dear Russians and Ukrainians who labored so enthusiastically, competently, and empathetically on my behalf, so that I could take two little boys across a vast expanse of ocean and give them their hearts’ desire: a family.
And so, in these troubled times, when it is easy to draw battle lines and take sides, events have, instead, pushed my sons closer together. I hear Alyosha and Anton talking like the brothers they are, showing concern for each other, and I realize that I am not looking at a Russian and a Ukrainian; I am looking at two people who so love each other that doing the other harm is unthinkable.
From what I see of the news, there are many others like them, striving, in Abraham Lincoln’s hallowed words, to honor the better angels of their nature.
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Sitting cross-legged on the floor as his wife and six children laid plates of fruit on a red cloth in front of him, Wolayat Khan Samadzoi watched through the open balcony door for the sliver of new moon to appear in the cloudless New Mexico sky, where the sun had set beyond a desert mountain.
Then, munching on a date, the bushy-bearded former Afghan soldier broke his first Ramadan fast in the United States – far from the Taliban threat, but also the three dozen relatives he would be marking the start of the Muslim holy month with if he was still home in Khost, Afghanistan.
A few minutes after naan was dipped into bowls of stewed okra and beans, Mr. Samadzoi, his wife, and the two oldest children retired to worship on their prayer rugs. On Saturday evening, the two-bedroom apartment filled with the murmurs of their invocations.
“I pray for them, and they pray for me, they miss me,” he said of his relatives back home. His cousin Noor Rahman Faqir, who is also now in Las Cruces, translated from Pashto to the simple English he learned working with American forces in Afghanistan.
As they adjust to their new communities, Afghan families evacuated to the United States as the Taliban regained power last summer are celebrating Ramadan with gratitude for their safety. Yet there’s also the agony of being away from loved ones who they fear are in danger under a Taliban leadership crafting increasingly repressive orders.
From metropolitan areas with flourishing Afghan diasporas to this desert university community less than 40 miles from the Mexican border, tens of thousands of newly arrived Afghans share one predominant concern that’s amplified in what should be a celebratory time: With only temporary immigration status and low-paying jobs, they feel helpless to take care of their families here and back home.
Abdul Amir Qarizada repeats several times the exact moment, 4:30 p.m., when he was ordered to take off from Kabul’s airport during the chaos of the evacuation – with no time to get his wife and five children, who are still in Afghanistan more than seven months later.
“My concern is the aircraft is safe, but my family is not safe,” the former flight engineer says after Friday prayer at Las Cruces’ only mosque, where he goes by bike to find some “peace.”
So does Qais Sharifi, who says he can’t sleep with worry for his kids left behind, including a daughter born two months after he fled Afghanistan alone.
Both men break into smiles when the mosque’s education director, Rajaa Shindi, an Iraqi-born professor at nearby New Mexico State University, invites them to register for the free iftar dinners held nightly in the meeting hall decorated with gold balloons spelling “Ramadan kareem” – an Arabic greeting often used to wish people a happy Ramadan.
Local congregations like the mosque and El Calvario United Methodist Church in Las Cruces, as well as the Jewish and Christian-based organizations that resettle refugees across their national networks, have been helping Afghans find housing, jobs, English-language classes, and schools for their children.
They decry the fact that most displaced Afghan families don’t have permanent legal status in the United States, despite their services for the U.S. government, military, or their Afghan allies during the post-9/11 Afghanistan war. That would give them access to many government benefits and an easier path to work and family reunification.
While Afghanistan’s decades of war and current food shortage mean far less extravagant feasts than in many countries where Ramadan is celebrated, the familiar tastes of home are top of mind for many displaced this year. Mr. Qarizada recalls his mother’s signature festive dish of bolani, a stuffed fried bread like a giant samosa.
The mother of Shirkhan Nejat still cries every time he makes a WhatsApp video call home from Oklahoma City, where he was resettled with his wife and the couple’s baby was born. Missing his close-knit extended family at Ramadan brings “bad emotions,” Mr. Nejat said, despite his gratitude for being safe.
It’s such bonds, the warmth of large family gatherings around the iftar meal and the cacophony of familiar sights, sounds and smells marking the end of a day’s fast that many are yearning for in America.
In Texas, Dawood Formuli misses his family’s typical pre-iftar routine: His hungry father irritably asking for his food. His mother asking her husband to calm down, and Mr. Formuli telling a joke to lighten the mood and make his father laugh. His children, in another room with their many cousins, sometimes playing, sometimes fighting. “Allahu akbar,” the call to prayer, spilling over from the mosque down the street.
“Every day, it’s like Christmas,” the former translator at the U.S. embassy in Kabul said of past Ramadans in the three-story house his family used to share with his parents, siblings, and their families.
In his new apartment in Fort Worth, the call to prayer now comes from an app, not a minaret.
The transition has been especially hard for his pregnant wife, who is still learning English. Yet there are traces of the familiar in their new community: Muslim neighbors, mosques for the special Ramadan prayers, known as “taraweeh,” and halal food markets.
Khial Mohammad Sultani, who the day before Ramadan was still living in an extended stay motel on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, had to ride nearly 80 miles round trip into New Mexico in a taxi to go buy and slaughter a lamb for Ramadan.
The former soldier, his wife Noor Bibi, and their six children broke the second day’s fast with pieces of that lamb stewed in an aromatic sauce around the one table in their duplex, newly built on a barren foothills lot unlike their house in Gardez, with its apple and pomegranate trees.
Right after iftar, four of the children got ready for their first day of school ever the next morning, another new thrill for their parents who never received a formal education.
But when it comes to faith, Mr. Sultani will continue to teach his children at home, as his father did for him.
The three oldest children – a boy, 11, and two girls, 9 and 8, with red headscarves loosely arranged over their long braids – pray in turn on a green rug that is among the family’s most treasured possessions.
The family’s Quran came from the military base in New Jersey where they first landed in the United States. But Mr. Sultani’s father brought this rug from his pilgrimage at Mecca after another son was killed by the Taliban, a possible fate they escaped, crossing many checkpoints as they fled Afghanistan last summer.
“We are Muslim, and a part of our faith is to thank Allah for everything,” Mr. Sultani says in Dari through a volunteer translator. “As appreciation for him, we’re doing this.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Mariam Fam reported from Cairo. Bobby Ross Jr. contributed from Oklahoma City.
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The Biden administration plans to freeze federal student loan payments through Aug. 31, extending a moratorium that has allowed millions of Americans to postpone payments during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an administration official familiar with the White House’s decision-making.
Student loan payments were scheduled to resume May 1 after being halted since early in the pandemic. But following calls from Democrats in Congress, the White House plans to give borrowers additional time to prepare for payments.
The action applies to more than 43 million Americans who owe a combined $1.6 trillion in student debt held by the federal government, according to the latest data from the Education Department. That includes more than 7 million borrowers who have defaulted on student loans, meaning they are at least 270 days late on payments.
Borrowers will not be asked to make payments until after Aug. 31, and interest rates are expected to remain at 0% during that period.
The extension was first reported Tuesday by Bloomberg.
Democrats on education panels in the House and Senate recently urged President Joe Biden to extend the moratorium through the end of the year, citing continued economic upheaval.
Sen. Patty Murray said more time is needed to help Americans prepare for repayment and to rethink the government’s existing system for repaying student debt.
“It is ruining lives and holding people back,” she said in a statement last month. “Borrowers are struggling with rising costs, struggling to get their feet back under them after public health and economic crises, and struggling with a broken student loan system – and all this is felt especially hard by borrowers of color.”
Ms. Murray called on the Biden administration to lift all borrowers out of default to provide a “fresh start” following the pandemic.
The decision is being made amid rising concern that large numbers of Americans would quickly fall behind if payments restarted in May.
In March, the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank warned that resuming loan payments could place a heavy burden on borrowers who faced financial hardship during the pandemic. It said the impact would be hardest on Black families, who are more likely to rely on student loans to pay for college.
“Serious delinquency rates for student debt could snap back from historic lows to their previous highs in which 10% or more of the debt was past due,” the bank said.
The Trump administration initially gave Americans the option to suspend loan payments in March 2020, and Congress made it automatic soon after. The pause was extended twice by the Trump administration and twice more under Mr. Biden.
It remains in question whether Mr. Biden will pursue widespread debt forgiveness to reduce the nation’s student debt. Some Democrats in Congress have pressed Mr. Biden to use executive action to cancel $50,000 for all student loan borrowers, saying it would jumpstart the economy and help Black Americans who on average face higher levels of student debt.
Last year, Mr. Biden asked the Education and Justice departments to review the legality of widespread debt cancellation, but no decision has been announced. Mr. Biden previously said he supports canceling up to $10,000, but he argued it should be done through congressional action.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Collin Binkley reported from Boston.
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Health worker Josiane Comtesse is almost certain she will vote for President Emmanuel Macron in Sunday’s presidential election, but then she reflects on his plan to make the French work longer and her perception that he is arrogant, and she thinks again.
Like many in the rural Normandy town of Vire, for decades a center-right stronghold, Ms. Comtesse, who works at the local hospital and nearby schools, is swinging from one political offering to another.
“I was telling my sisters that I’m hesitating,” she said outside her flat in a low-income estate on the outskirts of Vire. “I’m 87% sure it’s Macron ... well it’s him or this man,” she continued, pointing to a campaign flyer for far-left veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Ms. Comtesse acknowledged that the two candidates are diametrically opposed. Mr. Macron is a liberal who embraces globalization and wants in a second term to raise the retirement age to 65. Mr. Mélenchon is an ardent socialist who talks of guaranteed jobs for the long-term unemployed and restoring a wealth tax.
Vire, a town of some 11,000 people, is the sort of place that Mr. Macron might hope to win comfortably. Historically, the center-right or conservatives have won roughly half the votes here.
However, Mr. Macron’s 2017 dynamiting of a post-war political landscape dominated by the two mainstream parties on the center-right and center-left created a void for populists to fill, analysts say.
The last week has been tough for Mr. Macron. His comfortable lead in polls has eroded as far-right challenger Marine Le Pen and Mr. Mélenchon both make gains, raising the prospect of a strong anti-Macron vote in the runoff.
A poll this week by Harris Interactive showed Ms. Le Pen, who has softened her rhetoric and tapped into the day-to-day grievances of average voters, notably their purchasing power, within three points of Mr. Macron in the second round.
Even so, Mélenchon activists like retired professor Olivier Gaussens sense that voter indecision may yet allow their third-placed candidate to cause a first-round upset on Sunday.
Going door-to-door with fellow activists, they spoke to some 30 people. All were undecided, ready to change their minds, or planning to abstain. Many were angered by Mr. Macron’s plans to push the retirement age back three years.
“We hope to leverage some of the indecision on issues like retirement, the minimum wage, and higher salaries,” Mr. Gaussens said.
An Elabe poll at the weekend indicated more than 1 in every 4 voters were uncertain about how they would vote.
Voter discontent
Vire’s mayor Marc Andreu Sabater, is a Macron loyalist. He said Mr. Macron was the best-placed candidate to guide France through the current tumult but conceded the president had not done enough to convince some on issues such as the cost of living.
“There are a lot of people hesitating between whether they express their anger because they can’t fill up the cars or pay their electricity bills or, given the context, keep continuity to not knock everything down,” he said.
Surveys show nearly half of all voters intend to shun the center-ground and cast a ballot for a candidate on the far right or hard left as the tussle between liberal globalists and the forces of nationalism that brought Donald Trump to the White House and Brexit to Britain continue to play out in France.
Marie-Therese Hennebel, a retired nuclear factory worker, who lives in the same apartment block as Ms. Comtesse, said she admired Ms. Le Pen’s folksy charm and straight talking.
“When [Le Pen] talks she is fair and tells the truth,” Ms. Hennebel said, bemoaning her low pension and rising food costs. “Things are too expensive now. You have nothing left out of 20 euros.”
Inflation in France passed 5% in March. In a region where economic activity centers on industry, agriculture, metals, and automobiles, Vire’s residents worry the cost of living will only get more expensive if the war in Ukraine carries on.
Remnants of the anti-government “yellow vest” movement that shook Mr. Macron’s leadership during 2018-2019 are again coming together in Vire, revealing the underlying discontent in rural France that persists.
They met at a roundabout for the first time in months in late March, the group – a mix of leftists, far-right sympathizers, and those fed up with France’s democratic system – and discussed the need to dislodge Mr. Macron.
Some are ready to vote for Ms. Le Pen in a second round to block Mr. Macron from power, even if they voted Mr. Mélenchon in round one.
“Five years of Macron, after five years of quasi-socialism, after five years of [conservative Nicolas] Sarkozy, that’s enough,” Jean-Marie Thomine, who joined the “yellow vest” movement in 2018, later said.
This story was reported by Reuters.
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Sitting cross-legged on the floor as his wife and six children laid plates of fruit on a red cloth in front of him, Wolayat Khan Samadzoi watched through the open balcony door for the sliver of new moon to appear in the cloudless New Mexico sky, where the sun had set beyond a desert mountain.
Then, munching on a date, the bushy-bearded former Afghan soldier broke his first Ramadan fast in the United States – far from the Taliban threat, but also the three dozen relatives he would be marking the start of the Muslim holy month with if he was still home in Khost, Afghanistan.
A few minutes after naan was dipped into bowls of stewed okra and beans, Mr. Samadzoi, his wife, and the two oldest children retired to worship on their prayer rugs. On Saturday evening, the two-bedroom apartment filled with the murmurs of their invocations.
“I pray for them, and they pray for me, they miss me,” he said of his relatives back home. His cousin Noor Rahman Faqir, who is also now in Las Cruces, translated from Pashto to the simple English he learned working with American forces in Afghanistan.
As they adjust to their new communities, Afghan families evacuated to the United States as the Taliban regained power last summer are celebrating Ramadan with gratitude for their safety. Yet there’s also the agony of being away from loved ones who they fear are in danger under a Taliban leadership crafting increasingly repressive orders.
From metropolitan areas with flourishing Afghan diasporas to this desert university community less than 40 miles from the Mexican border, tens of thousands of newly arrived Afghans share one predominant concern that’s amplified in what should be a celebratory time: With only temporary immigration status and low-paying jobs, they feel helpless to take care of their families here and back home.
Abdul Amir Qarizada repeats several times the exact moment, 4:30 p.m., when he was ordered to take off from Kabul’s airport during the chaos of the evacuation – with no time to get his wife and five children, who are still in Afghanistan more than seven months later.
“My concern is the aircraft is safe, but my family is not safe,” the former flight engineer says after Friday prayer at Las Cruces’ only mosque, where he goes by bike to find some “peace.”
So does Qais Sharifi, who says he can’t sleep with worry for his kids left behind, including a daughter born two months after he fled Afghanistan alone.
Both men break into smiles when the mosque’s education director, Rajaa Shindi, an Iraqi-born professor at nearby New Mexico State University, invites them to register for the free iftar dinners held nightly in the meeting hall decorated with gold balloons spelling “Ramadan kareem” – an Arabic greeting often used to wish people a happy Ramadan.
Local congregations like the mosque and El Calvario United Methodist Church in Las Cruces, as well as the Jewish and Christian-based organizations that resettle refugees across their national networks, have been helping Afghans find housing, jobs, English-language classes, and schools for their children.
They decry the fact that most displaced Afghan families don’t have permanent legal status in the United States, despite their services for the U.S. government, military, or their Afghan allies during the post-9/11 Afghanistan war. That would give them access to many government benefits and an easier path to work and family reunification.
While Afghanistan’s decades of war and current food shortage mean far less extravagant feasts than in many countries where Ramadan is celebrated, the familiar tastes of home are top of mind for many displaced this year. Mr. Qarizada recalls his mother’s signature festive dish of bolani, a stuffed fried bread like a giant samosa.
The mother of Shirkhan Nejat still cries every time he makes a WhatsApp video call home from Oklahoma City, where he was resettled with his wife and the couple’s baby was born. Missing his close-knit extended family at Ramadan brings “bad emotions,” Mr. Nejat said, despite his gratitude for being safe.
It’s such bonds, the warmth of large family gatherings around the iftar meal and the cacophony of familiar sights, sounds and smells marking the end of a day’s fast that many are yearning for in America.
In Texas, Dawood Formuli misses his family’s typical pre-iftar routine: His hungry father irritably asking for his food. His mother asking her husband to calm down, and Mr. Formuli telling a joke to lighten the mood and make his father laugh. His children, in another room with their many cousins, sometimes playing, sometimes fighting. “Allahu akbar,” the call to prayer, spilling over from the mosque down the street.
“Every day, it’s like Christmas,” the former translator at the U.S. embassy in Kabul said of past Ramadans in the three-story house his family used to share with his parents, siblings, and their families.
In his new apartment in Fort Worth, the call to prayer now comes from an app, not a minaret.
The transition has been especially hard for his pregnant wife, who is still learning English. Yet there are traces of the familiar in their new community: Muslim neighbors, mosques for the special Ramadan prayers, known as “taraweeh,” and halal food markets.
Khial Mohammad Sultani, who the day before Ramadan was still living in an extended stay motel on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, had to ride nearly 80 miles round trip into New Mexico in a taxi to go buy and slaughter a lamb for Ramadan.
The former soldier, his wife Noor Bibi, and their six children broke the second day’s fast with pieces of that lamb stewed in an aromatic sauce around the one table in their duplex, newly built on a barren foothills lot unlike their house in Gardez, with its apple and pomegranate trees.
Right after iftar, four of the children got ready for their first day of school ever the next morning, another new thrill for their parents who never received a formal education.
But when it comes to faith, Mr. Sultani will continue to teach his children at home, as his father did for him.
The three oldest children – a boy, 11, and two girls, 9 and 8, with red headscarves loosely arranged over their long braids – pray in turn on a green rug that is among the family’s most treasured possessions.
The family’s Quran came from the military base in New Jersey where they first landed in the United States. But Mr. Sultani’s father brought this rug from his pilgrimage at Mecca after another son was killed by the Taliban, a possible fate they escaped, crossing many checkpoints as they fled Afghanistan last summer.
“We are Muslim, and a part of our faith is to thank Allah for everything,” Mr. Sultani says in Dari through a volunteer translator. “As appreciation for him, we’re doing this.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Mariam Fam reported from Cairo. Bobby Ross Jr. contributed from Oklahoma City.
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The Biden administration plans to freeze federal student loan payments through Aug. 31, extending a moratorium that has allowed millions of Americans to postpone payments during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an administration official familiar with the White House’s decision-making.
Student loan payments were scheduled to resume May 1 after being halted since early in the pandemic. But following calls from Democrats in Congress, the White House plans to give borrowers additional time to prepare for payments.
The action applies to more than 43 million Americans who owe a combined $1.6 trillion in student debt held by the federal government, according to the latest data from the Education Department. That includes more than 7 million borrowers who have defaulted on student loans, meaning they are at least 270 days late on payments.
Borrowers will not be asked to make payments until after Aug. 31, and interest rates are expected to remain at 0% during that period.
The extension was first reported Tuesday by Bloomberg.
Democrats on education panels in the House and Senate recently urged President Joe Biden to extend the moratorium through the end of the year, citing continued economic upheaval.
Sen. Patty Murray said more time is needed to help Americans prepare for repayment and to rethink the government’s existing system for repaying student debt.
“It is ruining lives and holding people back,” she said in a statement last month. “Borrowers are struggling with rising costs, struggling to get their feet back under them after public health and economic crises, and struggling with a broken student loan system – and all this is felt especially hard by borrowers of color.”
Ms. Murray called on the Biden administration to lift all borrowers out of default to provide a “fresh start” following the pandemic.
The decision is being made amid rising concern that large numbers of Americans would quickly fall behind if payments restarted in May.
In March, the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank warned that resuming loan payments could place a heavy burden on borrowers who faced financial hardship during the pandemic. It said the impact would be hardest on Black families, who are more likely to rely on student loans to pay for college.
“Serious delinquency rates for student debt could snap back from historic lows to their previous highs in which 10% or more of the debt was past due,” the bank said.
The Trump administration initially gave Americans the option to suspend loan payments in March 2020, and Congress made it automatic soon after. The pause was extended twice by the Trump administration and twice more under Mr. Biden.
It remains in question whether Mr. Biden will pursue widespread debt forgiveness to reduce the nation’s student debt. Some Democrats in Congress have pressed Mr. Biden to use executive action to cancel $50,000 for all student loan borrowers, saying it would jumpstart the economy and help Black Americans who on average face higher levels of student debt.
Last year, Mr. Biden asked the Education and Justice departments to review the legality of widespread debt cancellation, but no decision has been announced. Mr. Biden previously said he supports canceling up to $10,000, but he argued it should be done through congressional action.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Collin Binkley reported from Boston.
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Health worker Josiane Comtesse is almost certain she will vote for President Emmanuel Macron in Sunday’s presidential election, but then she reflects on his plan to make the French work longer and her perception that he is arrogant, and she thinks again.
Like many in the rural Normandy town of Vire, for decades a center-right stronghold, Ms. Comtesse, who works at the local hospital and nearby schools, is swinging from one political offering to another.
“I was telling my sisters that I’m hesitating,” she said outside her flat in a low-income estate on the outskirts of Vire. “I’m 87% sure it’s Macron ... well it’s him or this man,” she continued, pointing to a campaign flyer for far-left veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Ms. Comtesse acknowledged that the two candidates are diametrically opposed. Mr. Macron is a liberal who embraces globalization and wants in a second term to raise the retirement age to 65. Mr. Mélenchon is an ardent socialist who talks of guaranteed jobs for the long-term unemployed and restoring a wealth tax.
Vire, a town of some 11,000 people, is the sort of place that Mr. Macron might hope to win comfortably. Historically, the center-right or conservatives have won roughly half the votes here.
However, Mr. Macron’s 2017 dynamiting of a post-war political landscape dominated by the two mainstream parties on the center-right and center-left created a void for populists to fill, analysts say.
The last week has been tough for Mr. Macron. His comfortable lead in polls has eroded as far-right challenger Marine Le Pen and Mr. Mélenchon both make gains, raising the prospect of a strong anti-Macron vote in the runoff.
A poll this week by Harris Interactive showed Ms. Le Pen, who has softened her rhetoric and tapped into the day-to-day grievances of average voters, notably their purchasing power, within three points of Mr. Macron in the second round.
Even so, Mélenchon activists like retired professor Olivier Gaussens sense that voter indecision may yet allow their third-placed candidate to cause a first-round upset on Sunday.
Going door-to-door with fellow activists, they spoke to some 30 people. All were undecided, ready to change their minds, or planning to abstain. Many were angered by Mr. Macron’s plans to push the retirement age back three years.
“We hope to leverage some of the indecision on issues like retirement, the minimum wage, and higher salaries,” Mr. Gaussens said.
An Elabe poll at the weekend indicated more than 1 in every 4 voters were uncertain about how they would vote.
Voter discontent
Vire’s mayor Marc Andreu Sabater, is a Macron loyalist. He said Mr. Macron was the best-placed candidate to guide France through the current tumult but conceded the president had not done enough to convince some on issues such as the cost of living.
“There are a lot of people hesitating between whether they express their anger because they can’t fill up the cars or pay their electricity bills or, given the context, keep continuity to not knock everything down,” he said.
Surveys show nearly half of all voters intend to shun the center-ground and cast a ballot for a candidate on the far right or hard left as the tussle between liberal globalists and the forces of nationalism that brought Donald Trump to the White House and Brexit to Britain continue to play out in France.
Marie-Therese Hennebel, a retired nuclear factory worker, who lives in the same apartment block as Ms. Comtesse, said she admired Ms. Le Pen’s folksy charm and straight talking.
“When [Le Pen] talks she is fair and tells the truth,” Ms. Hennebel said, bemoaning her low pension and rising food costs. “Things are too expensive now. You have nothing left out of 20 euros.”
Inflation in France passed 5% in March. In a region where economic activity centers on industry, agriculture, metals, and automobiles, Vire’s residents worry the cost of living will only get more expensive if the war in Ukraine carries on.
Remnants of the anti-government “yellow vest” movement that shook Mr. Macron’s leadership during 2018-2019 are again coming together in Vire, revealing the underlying discontent in rural France that persists.
They met at a roundabout for the first time in months in late March, the group – a mix of leftists, far-right sympathizers, and those fed up with France’s democratic system – and discussed the need to dislodge Mr. Macron.
Some are ready to vote for Ms. Le Pen in a second round to block Mr. Macron from power, even if they voted Mr. Mélenchon in round one.
“Five years of Macron, after five years of quasi-socialism, after five years of [conservative Nicolas] Sarkozy, that’s enough,” Jean-Marie Thomine, who joined the “yellow vest” movement in 2018, later said.
This story was reported by Reuters.
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In one of Mumbai’s sprawling informal settlements, Amina faced emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from her spouse for nearly 20 years. “I always felt like what was happening to me was wrong,” says Amina, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, “but then I’d think, he’s my husband.”
Although Indian women are 17 times more likely to experience sexual violence from their own husband than anyone else, India remains one of the few democratic countries that doesn’t consider nonconsensual sex within marriage to be rape.
Why We Wrote This
India is one of the few countries that does not recognize marital rape as a crime. Recent petitions to change that – and the backlash they’ve sparked – shine a light on how the Indian government and society continue to view women’s right to bodily autonomy.
A two-judge bench of the Delhi high court is currently mulling over petitions to strike down the marital rape exception. Judgment was reserved in late February, and a verdict could come any day. Many, including the government, have argued that expanding the definition of rape “may destabilize the institution of marriage.” It is this view, petitioners and experts say, that shrouds the issue in shame and keeps women from seeking support.
The country’s rape laws stem from “patriarchal thinking that once a woman is married, she has no agency,” says Mariam Dhawale, general secretary of All India Democratic Women’s Association, adding that closing the marital rape loophole “opens up a door for women to ask for justice.”
In Mumbai’s informal settlement of Dharavi, women know they can turn to Amina. As a volunteer with the Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action (SNEHA), a nonprofit that works on issues of women’s health and safety, she’s always out and about, checking in with women in her neighborhood and supporting those facing violence at home. She urges them to call the police help line or visit the crisis center, but as a survivor herself, she understands why many don’t.
For almost 20 years, Amina – whose name has been changed to protect her identity – faced relentless abuse from her husband. He controlled her movements and finances. If she were even 10 minutes late dropping their children off at school, she was beaten and locked outside their home. Her neighbors knew about some of the abuse, but what they couldn’t know, she says, was that “he forced himself on” her as well. At the time, Amina didn’t even understand that this was rape. “I always felt like what was happening to me was wrong, but then I’d think, he’s my husband,” Amina says about the sexual violence. “Even today, things are the same way. Women can’t easily open up about it.”
One in 3 Indian women between the ages of 18 and 59 say they’ve experienced some form of spousal violence, according to government data, and further analysis shows Indian women are 17 times more likely to experience sexual violence from their own husband than anyone else. Yet India remains one of the few democratic countries that doesn’t consider nonconsensual sex within marriage to be rape.
Why We Wrote This
India is one of the few countries that does not recognize marital rape as a crime. Recent petitions to change that – and the backlash they’ve sparked – shine a light on how the Indian government and society continue to view women’s right to bodily autonomy.
A two-judge bench of the Delhi high court is currently mulling over petitions to strike down the marital rape exception. But many, including government representatives, argue that expanding the definition of rape is antithetical to the institution of marriage in India. It is this view, petitioners and experts say, that shrouds the issue in shame and keeps women from seeking support.
“We have seen that the husband uses sexual violence as a means to exert power over his wife,” says Mariam Dhawale, general secretary of All India Democratic Women’s Association, one of the petitioners. She attributes this behavior to a “patriarchal thinking that once a woman is married, she has no agency, she has no right to refuse her husband.”
Judgment was reserved in late February, and a verdict is expected any day. Yet no matter what the court decides, advocates say the road to justice will be long.
Legal and cultural battles
In India, the push to criminalize marital rape goes back decades. In 1983, following the rise of a women’s movement set on tackling India’s complacency toward sexual violence, lawmakers amended India’s rape laws for the first time in 100 years. Victories included amendments acknowledging custodial rape and rape by authority figures, and new measures to protect survivors’ identities. India also established a section of law against cruelty by husbands and husband’s relatives, including dowry-related harassment. But they weren’t able to close the marital rape loophole.
In 2013, following the brutal rape of a young woman in the capital, New Delhi, a committee instituted by the government to reassess sexual assault laws recommended the marital rape exception be removed. Yet Indian parliamentarians did not act on the recommendation.
“How can an offense not be an offense only because the perpetrator is different?” asks Saumya Uma, law professor and director of the Centre for Women’s Rights at Jindal Global Law School, via email. “In the face of fundamental right to life, dignity, privacy, and equality, the marital rape exemption is bad in law and must go.”
The case currently before the high court dates back to 2015, and in a 2017 affidavit, the government strongly opposed the petitions, stating that “what may appear to be marital rape to an individual wife may not appear so to others.” It also held that removing the exception “may destabilize the institution of marriage” and would offer women “an easy tool for harassing the husbands.”
Hearings held earlier this year caused an uproar among self-described men’s rights activists, who called for a marriage strike on Twitter. They also echoed the government’s concerns about wives filing false cases, fears that do not match the reality on the ground.
In fact, both data and experts highlight that most cases of domestic violence, especially sexual abuse, go unreported.
This is in part due to powerful cultural norms about women’s role within families. At their wedding, many women are told to maintain the family’s pride and conceal its shame, says Renu Mishra, executive director of the Lucknow-based nonprofit Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives Trust. In India, where only 20% of women are part of the labor force and an even smaller percentage own land or property, lack of economic independence also plays a huge role in married women not reporting sexual violence, she adds. Ms. Mishra says she has seen firsthand that most laws meant to prevent gender-based violence are seldom effectively implemented because the society and justice system continue to be patriarchal.
Those who do report domestic violence are likely to encounter apathy from police or harassment from their husband or family members, says Nayreen Daruwalla, program director of prevention of violence against women and children at SNEHA. “The change has to be systemic,” she says.
Path forward
In the face of rape and violence, Indian wives have few options. In a country with a divorce rate of 1.1%, most women feel unable to walk out of an abusive marriage. In 2016, over one-third of global female deaths by suicide were Indian women, with married women making up the largest proportion.
In Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh, Usha Agrawal, a caseworker for Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives Trust, has counseled many women dealing with domestic abuse. She says the violence often starts with wives refusing to fulfill husbands’ demands in the bedroom, and even after years of abuse, many feel they’d have nowhere to turn if they filed a complaint. “They struggle to arrive at a decision quickly, and end up bearing this kind of violence and torture every day,” she says.
This is what happened with Amina, who today regrets not walking away from her marriage earlier or seeing her legal case through. She lives alone with her children now. “Generations are passing by; so many years have been lost. But women are still facing the same difficulties,” she says. “The afflicted are still afflicted.”
The path forward requires vast social, cultural, and legal change, but there is reason for hope, experts say. Despite barriers, data shows that some women do report violence at home – nationally, about 30% of the cases categorized as crime against women in 2020 were registered under “cruelty by husband or his relatives.”
That’s at least in part due to advocates like Ms. Agrawal and Amina offering women the language and resources to confront what’s happening to them. Moving forward, experts say, India must acknowledge that all women are entitled to full bodily autonomy – regardless of their marital status – and they agree that striking out the marital rape exception would be a step in the right direction.
“It opens up a door for women to ask for justice,” says Ms. Dhawale of the All India Democratic Women’s Association.
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When the United Nations General Assembly voted by an overwhelming majority last month to call for an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, half of the 35 countries that abstained – refusing to condemn Moscow – were from Africa, and another seven African representatives did not show up for the vote.
Russia has been quietly strengthening its ties with Africa in recent years, building on residual gratitude for the help that the Soviet Union once gave to anti-colonial movements across the continent. And Moscow has found fertile ground in a number of countries in the region.
Why We Wrote This
A significant number of African countries have refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Their reservations have roots in the colonial era – and in contemporary arms deals.
“There’s an element of supporting Russia as a counterbalance to what is seen as American hegemony or hypocrisy on a range of issues,” says a former Nigerian government adviser.
On top of that, many African rulers depend on Moscow for their weapons: Russia is the largest supplier of arms to the continent, and specializes in deals with governments that Western manufacturers boycott on human rights grounds.
Old loyalties can run deep. Linda John Selepe, a former South African freedom fighter, learned to fly military jets in the Soviet Union. More than 30 years later, he says, nothing that has happened has “changed my attitude and belief in the Russian people.”
When Linda John Selepe, a 68-year-old South African veteran, first saw images of Russian aircraft flying over Ukraine, he was immediately taken back to a time when he, too, had lived with Soviet-era bomber jets roaring overhead.
In the 1980s, barely out of his teens, Mr. Selepe took up arms in the struggle to overthrow South Africa’s white-minority government, spending years in bare-bones bush camps. There, he received training, weapons, and financial support from Moscow, which supported dozens of independence movements in Africa as part of their Cold War rivalry with the West.
“The only way we could survive – the only way we did survive – was the Russian aircraft coming to bomb” enemy positions, Mr. Selepe says of his years as a guerrilla fighter operating from neighboring Angola, his voice still emotional four decades later.
Why We Wrote This
A significant number of African countries have refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Their reservations have roots in the colonial era – and in contemporary arms deals.
“I feel pity and sympathy for the civilians of Ukraine. But I fully support Putin’s actions in Ukraine, based on my history.”
Such legacies are still playing out across the continent today, and help explain why many African states have been reluctant to publicly criticize Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
African ambivalence was on show at a U.N. General Assembly meeting on March 2. An overwhelming majority of 141 nations voted in favor of a resolution demanding the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine. But of the 35 countries that abstained from condemning Russia, 17 were from Africa. A further seven African representatives did not record a vote at all. Eritrea, a secretive rogue state in east Africa, joined Belarus, North Korea, Syria, and Russia in voting against the resolution.
“Many African countries are sitting on the fence for a number of reasons,” says Steven Gruzd, an expert on African governance and diplomacy at the South African Institute of International Affairs. They include “not wanting to become embroiled in a new Cold War, empathy with Russia and antipathy towards the West, and diplomatic and political calculations.”
A counterbalance
U.N. General Assembly resolutions aren’t legally binding, but they do carry political weight – and the March 2 vote sent important signals about a shifting international order.
Russia has been quietly strengthening ties with African states in recent years, particularly on the military front. Military leaders from the Central African Republic, Mali, Guinea, and Sudan, among others, have invited Russian mercenaries to tackle unrest, often despite already receiving military or economic aid from the West.
The Central African Republic has said it planned to make Russian language classes compulsory for all undergraduates. Supporters of a military coup in Burkina Faso earlier this year brandished Russian flags.
And, on the day Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, South Africa’s minister of defense attended an official cocktail party at the Russian embassy celebrating Russian Motherland Defenders’ Day.
“There’s an element of supporting Russia as a counterbalance to what is seen as American hegemony or hypocrisy on a range of issues,” says a former Nigerian government adviser.
Such issues range from a lack of U.S. accountability over its invasion of Iraq to meddling in local politics, the adviser says. “America has taken on a caricature of decadence, immorality, hypocrisy, an international bully. Russia, by contrast, through savvy media manipulation, appears as the underdog.”
That view is also popular in southern Africa. “Zimbabweans have been victims of unilateral sanctions for over 20 years and would not wish this on anyone,” Zimbabwe’s foreign minister said, in a statement explaining why the country had abstained from criticizing Russia.
Guns and nukes
But some of the fence-sitting is down to hard-nosed realpolitik.
Russia’s strategy on the continent involves pursuing deals with elites, rather than states, points out Joseph Siegle, director of research at the U.S. Defense Department’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies. “By helping these often illegitimate and unpopular leaders to retain power, Russia is cementing Africa’s indebtedness to Moscow,” he notes.
And although Russia’s overall trade with Africa is minuscule, Moscow is the continent’s biggest arms supplier, in a market where Western manufacturers are constrained by human rights concerns. Russia is threatening “unfriendly countries” with sanctions, and African leaders “don’t want to cut off that access to Russian armaments,” says the Nigerian official, who asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
Russia’s attempt to leverage the legacy of Soviet-era ties played out in a particularly unusual way in South Africa, the continent’s most developed nation.
“Russia has always seen South Africa as a gateway to expand influence in the West more broadly,” says David Fig, an environmental sociologist at the University of Cape Town who has written about Russian energy geopolitics. “One of the ways it seeks to do that is through clandestine relationships supporting [South Africa’s] energy infrastructure.”
That came to a head under Jacob Zuma, the outspoken former president who reportedly received training in the Soviet Union during the apartheid years. In 2015, Mr. Zuma attempted to sign an unconstitutional $76 billion deal with Rosatom, the nuclear power company controlled by a Kremlin oversight board, to build a number of nuclear power stations.
The proposal made no economic sense to technocrats at Rosatom, but Mr. Putin lobbied for it on geopolitical grounds, a report released by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace later concluded. Mr. Zuma himself fired three finance ministers in four days because they refused to sign off on the highly secretive pact. The deal was eventually scuppered by South African courts in April 2017.
Understanding Putin
As Ukrainian civilian casualties mount, and evidence suggesting Russian war crimes comes to light, will hesitant African states speak out more forcefully against Russia?
That is unlikely, predicts Linda Chisholm, a professor at the University of Johannesburg, who has written about how the Cold War is taught and interpreted in South Africa. “If anything, I think positions are hardening,” she says. “I think sides are chosen in terms of local politics, so positions on Russia and Ukraine become a tool in local politics to define where you stand.”
Russia is not the Soviet Union, nor does it offer any ideological message today. But among some people, such as Mr. Selepe, old loyalties die hard.
For Mr. Selepe, the former guerrilla fighter, the bombed out ruins of apartment blocks in Ukraine tell only one side of the story.
Still affectionately referred to by his guerrilla alias, “Sporo,” meaning “railway,” in Zulu, Mr. Selepe was born in 1963, at a time when the Soviet Union was almost the only country willing to offer extended support to those fighting in the anti-apartheid struggle.
Mr. Selepe spent four years in bush camps, transporting supplies to cadres, carrying out cross-border raids and escaping ambushes launched by proxy militias. In 1987, he was flown to the Soviet republic of Kirghizia, where he spent another four years learning how to fly jets in preparation for an existential battle back home.
“For me personally, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, it is Russia, and Moscow is the head,” Mr. Selepe says. “Whatever happened with all these countries that got their independence, it didn’t change my attitude and belief in the Russian people.”
Shortly after he returned to Africa, apartheid collapsed, in 1994. Mr. Selepe was integrated into a South African air force that was racially mixed for the first time. His training abroad, he says, meant he had more knowledge and skills than many of the white officers who had once been his sworn enemies.
Almost every Sunday morning since the war broke out, Mr. Selepe has left his home in a tidy Johannesburg suburb, turned a corner, then walked a few hundred yards until he reaches a gold-domed Russian Orthodox church. There, he says, he nods along to the liturgy, delivered entirely in Russian, and offers prayers for both Russian and Ukrainian citizens.
Returning home, he settles down to watch the relentless news from Ukraine. “When Putin is speaking on television,” he says, “I don’t read the captions. I just follow what he’s saying. I understand all of it.”
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Two ways to read the story
Sometimes, it seems, Americans are living in two economies. There’s the one that’s undergoing an extraordinary recovery from the pandemic shock, with 11 straight months of job gains topping 400,000, unemployment down to 3.6%, and rising wages.
Then there’s the economy of high energy costs and 7.9% overall inflation, a 40-year high affecting everyday staples.
Why We Wrote This
At a time of big economic concerns – from inflation to sanctions against Russia – the Monitor hosted Biden economic adviser Brian Deese for a breakfast with reporters. He counseled “patience and perspective.”
Asked about this, and polls showing President Joe Biden getting little credit for the positives, Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, acknowledges the frustration.
But he quickly follows up: “Our view is not, the economy’s great, why isn’t anybody noticing? It’s that we need to recognize and build on the uniquely strong aspects of this economic recovery in addressing the clear, ongoing challenges, particularly around inflation and costs for families.”
Mr. Deese also discussed new sanctions on Russia announced Wednesday by the Biden administration with other Western economies. He advised “patience and perspective” in allowing the sanctions to take effect.
“Anyone who looks at the Russian economy right now and thinks they’re bouncing back or showing some signs of life is I think missing the forest for the trees,” Mr. Deese said, citing forecasts that Russia’s economy will contract by 10% to 15% this year.
Sometimes, it seems, Americans are living in two economies. There’s the one that’s undergoing an extraordinary recovery from the pandemic shock, with 11 straight months of job gains topping 400,000, unemployment down to 3.6%, and rising wages.
Then there’s the economy of high energy costs and 7.9% overall inflation, a 40-year-high, affecting everyday staples such as food and household items.
Polls show President Joe Biden gets little credit for the positives – some voters even deny any job gains – and plenty of blame for the negatives. On top of that, the November midterm elections are fast approaching. Ask the president’s top economic policy adviser, Brian Deese, whether there’s a sense of frustration, and he chuckles ruefully.
Why We Wrote This
At a time of big economic concerns – from inflation to sanctions against Russia – the Monitor hosted Biden economic adviser Brian Deese for a breakfast with reporters. He counseled “patience and perspective.”
“I’ll hesitate to provide commentary on my feelings,” said Mr. Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, at a breakfast for reporters hosted Wednesday by The Christian Science Monitor.
But he quickly follows up with a serious response, calling this dichotomy of public perception a “false debate.”
“Our view is not, ‘The economy’s great; why isn’t anybody noticing?’” Mr. Deese says. “It’s that we need to recognize and build on the uniquely strong aspects of this economic recovery in addressing the clear, ongoing challenges, particularly around inflation and costs for families.”
Mr. Deese also addressed new sanctions on Russia related to its invasion of Ukraine, announced Wednesday by the Biden administration in conjunction with the Group of Seven top industrialized Western economies and the European Union. The sanctions target two of the country’s largest banks, Sberbank and Alfa Bank; several state-owned Russian enterprises, including an aircraft and shipbuilding corporation; the adult daughters of President Vladimir Putin; and family members of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Also included is a ban on inbound investment by Americans in Russia.
The key to effective sanctions, Mr. Deese said, is international coordination. He advised “patience and perspective” in allowing the sanctions to take effect.
“Anyone who looks at the Russian economy right now and thinks they’re bouncing back or showing some signs of life is I think missing the forest for the trees,” Mr. Deese said, describing Russia as “completely ostracized.”
He said the Russian currency, the ruble, is rebounding principally as a function of the “contorted capital control regime that the Russian Central Bank or the Russian government are having to put in place, which is in and of itself bleeding them of resources.”
He added, “Most estimates are the Russian economy is now on track to contract by 10% to 15% over the course of this year, which would be historic and on the order of what they experienced in 1998.”
At the Monitor Breakfast, Mr. Deese also discussed the shortage of semiconductors in the United States, the long-term economic challenge from China, energy production, and climate change.
Following are additional excerpts of Mr. Deese’s comments, lightly edited for clarity.
On the impact of the U.S. shortage of semiconductors, essential for the electronics behind everything from cars to smartphones:
The best estimates are that the lack of available semiconductors probably took a full percentage point off of GDP in 2021.
Today we produce 12% of global semiconductors in the United States. But we produce none of the advanced leading-edge semiconductors. So we are 100% vulnerable on foreign supply chains for those advanced semiconductors. And what we are seeing is increasingly aggressive efforts by China and other countries to try to build their own resilience in semiconductor manufacturing, which, if not addressed effectively by the United States, would increase our vulnerability and our economic risk.
On geopolitical tensions, particularly between China and Taiwan, accelerating the need for “reshoring” initiatives to bolster manufacturing in the U.S.:
Ten, 11 months ago, I went out and explained a core part of President Biden’s economic strategy as having an affirmative industrial strategy for the country. And at the time, the question was, is, that actually, why should we have an industrial strategy? Does that bring up echoes of failed industrial policy in the past?
And I would say over the course of the last 10, 11 months, that question has now gone decidedly from why to how – that the debate around, do we need to be more deliberate and explicit and have more direct and proactive public investment and public-private partnership to build industrial strength in key sectors of our economy, is now much more broadly understood and a broadly shared goal across the aisle, Republicans and Democrats.
On the apparent lack of increased energy production in the U.S.:
We’ve been having conversations with oil and gas producers. ... Our takeaway from the data is that in the immediate term – over the next, call it, six to 12 months – there is no constraint to companies ramping up production. And the price in the market environment provides a lot of reason and rationale for them to do so.
A number of companies have now explicitly made decisions, are increasing “cap ex” [capital expenditures], and the result of that is why we’ve now seen projections of U.S. domestic production increase, such that by the third quarter of this year, the expectation is we’ll be up by about a million barrels a day.
That is the result of people responding to market forces.
On the Biden administration’s year-two strategy on private-sector engagement on climate change:
The war in Ukraine and the geopolitical consequences of energy that we are seeing play out now really do provide as stark a reminder as anything of the need to accelerate our transition to ultimate energy independence, which ultimately means reducing and eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels altogether.
That is a process that will only happen if the American private sector, including the incumbent energy producers in the United States, utilities and otherwise, are an inextricable part of that process. And that’s defined our approach from the get-go.
For example, the clean energy tax-credit package that we have been working on is designed explicitly with the understanding that what we will do on the government side is provide long-term technology-neutral incentives that the private sector then will drive and innovate off.
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Two ways to read the story
Evidence of the cruelty the Russian military is capable of inflicting upon civilians is being revealed now in Bucha, Ukraine, northwest of the capital, Kyiv. Yet even in Kherson, near the Black Sea, where Russia may want to win over citizens to create a pro-Russian statelet, the occupation has its own brutality.
Ukrainians mounting frequent protests there have been shot at, hunted down in their homes, and kidnapped, residents say.
Why We Wrote This
Evidence of Russian brutality in Bucha has reverberated around the world. In southern Ukraine, residents of Kherson have their own stories to tell about the callous arrogance of the occupiers.
Aliona, a homemaker who asked that only her first name be used, describes a recent encounter with a Russian patrol whose members asked her: “How do you feel about us?” She gave them an earful.
“I told them, ‘How can I relate to you when we are lying on the floor and the neighbors’ house is being shelled? When civilians die? When a grandmother and her grandson died when you shot at their car?’” she recalls.
The son of a neighbor was recently caught at a checkpoint with videos of Russian vehicles he had posted to TikTok, she says. His captors tortured him before releasing him with a warning he would be watched.
“We worry that Kherson is not talked about in the world news, though people regularly disappear here,” says Aliona. “They interrogate people, rob people, and in every way suppress any resistance. But we hold on.”
She knew it wasn’t wise to argue with Russian troops occupying her home city of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, but Aliona says she was beyond caring, angry at the arrogance, ignorance, and wanton violence she was witnessing.
When a Russian patrol stopped her in a park and asked if she could add money to their Ukrainian SIM cards – they would pay her, they said – the homemaker refused and lied, saying she could not do it.
Then the Russians asked: “How do you feel about us?”
Why We Wrote This
Evidence of Russian brutality in Bucha has reverberated around the world. In southern Ukraine, residents of Kherson have their own stories to tell about the callous arrogance of the occupiers.
Here the truth came out, in the first and only major city occupied by Russian forces, where Ukrainians mounting frequent protests against the Russian presence have been shot at, hunted down in their homes, and kidnapped, residents say.
Aliona, who like others in this article asked that only her first name be used, says she gave the Russian patrol an earful.
“I told them, ‘How can I relate to you when we are lying on the floor and the neighbors’ house is being shelled? When civilians die? When a grandmother and her grandson died when you shot at their car?’” she recalls.
The Russians answered: “But we told them to stop, they did not stop.”
“You just turned their car into a coffin,” Aliona says she admonished. “You didn’t even fire a warning shot.”
The cruel brutality of what the Russian military is capable of inflicting upon civilians is being revealed now in Bucha, northwest of the capital, Kyiv. There, scores if not hundreds of bodies – many with their hands tied behind their backs, and shot execution-style at close range – were left in the streets, basements, and mass graves by Russian forces as they withdrew last week, according to Western journalist eyewitnesses.
U.S. President Joe Biden has called for a war crimes case to be assembled against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia denies that a single civilian was harmed in Bucha, and calls reports of atrocities by its troops “fake news” staged by Ukraine.
Yet even in Kherson, 45 miles southeast of Mykolaiv near the Black Sea, where Russia may want to win over citizens to create a pro-Russian statelet called the “Kherson People’s Republic,” the occupation has been brutal, if less so than in Bucha, where streets are littered with incinerated Russian armor and evidence of abundant shelling.
Images of wholesale destruction in Bucha and further northwest in Borodyanka, as well as a host of other districts that Russian troops have now withdrawn from, are resulting in the increased departure of citizens from Kherson the past three days, says Mayor Igor Kolykhaev.
“Every single person living in Kherson and in the Kherson region cannot wait until the entire region will be freed, but ... as of now, this is surely not an easy task,” Mr. Kolykhaev told CNN Wednesday. “And obviously, given the recent news ... I can see that there is panic growing in the city of Kherson,” he said, citing the “threat of bombardment.”
Under the Russian yoke
The exchange between Aliona and the Russian troops – these soldiers were “experienced fighters with new weapons and in new uniforms, not boys” in “old Soviet helmets,” she says – illustrates the challenge of living under the Russian yoke in Ukraine.
It reveals, too, the disconnect between the occupier and the occupied, and Russian troops’ inconsistent treatment of Ukrainians in Kherson, at least, which veers from following apparent, occasional orders to “be polite,” to actions of lethal cruelty.
Residents of Kherson spoke to The Christian Science Monitor by phone even as the Ukrainian Army mounts a counter-offensive to recapture the port city of some 280,000 residents, which Ukrainian officials say faces a “humanitarian catastrophe” of food and medicine shortages due to a Russian blockade.
It is just one of several fronts where Ukrainian forces are beginning to reverse Russian gains after six weeks of war.
In her exchange with the Russian patrol, Aliona says she was “too depressed by my emotional state” to fear their reaction.
Falling back on one Moscow justification for Russia’s invasion, the soldiers said they would soon “expel the Nazis” – especially from Mykolaiv, which has so far blocked the Russian advance across southern Ukraine – and “everything will be fine.”
Aliona said she is a Kherson native, and this is the “first time I hear about Nazis.”
Then the Russians asked if she was aware that Ukraine had planned to attack Russia with biological weapons on March 1 – another unsubstantiated Moscow claim.
“I only know that, on March 1, I was going to take my child to school, and you took that from me,” Aliona replied, angrily. “You took everything from me: My friends who immigrated who knows where, the peace of mind of my child who is afraid to go to the windows ... afraid to walk down the street.”
Kidnapping campaign
Video posted online by Kherson residents shows anti-Russian street protests broken up by Russian soldiers firing live rounds, tear gas, and stun grenades. Residents describe a campaign to kidnap local activists.
“Many of us are now conducting a quiet guerrilla war,” says Aliona.
The son of a neighbor was recently caught at a checkpoint with videos of Russian vehicles he had posted to TikTok, she says. His Russian captors pulled out four teeth, all his fingernails, and broke his ribs before releasing him with a warning he would be watched.
“We worry that Kherson is not talked about in the world news, though people regularly disappear here,” says Aliona. “They interrogate people, rob people, and in every way suppress any resistance. But we hold on.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week disciplined two Security Service of Ukraine generals who had been in charge in the Kherson region, stripping them of their rank for “violating their oath to Ukraine.” Residents believe that was for leaking addresses of civil society activists and the families of those serving in the Ukrainian military and intelligence – lists the Russians have used in door-to-door efforts to erase anti-Russian sentiment.
That is not the only result of occupation that grates on the people of Kherson, who describe intrusive checkpoints, abductions, Russian looting of shops, and food and cash shortages.
“For us it is difficult, mentally,” says Raisa, a social worker in her mid-fifties. Especially irritating are vehicles marked with the letter “Z,” which has been adopted by Russians, on the battlefield and in their homeland, to show support for the war.
“We constantly see cars marked with ‘Z’ in the city, big and small,” says Raisa. “When they entered the city, they plundered our car dealerships and now they are driving around in new cars with ‘Z’ stickers. To say this is unpleasant is to say nothing.”
Cash is in short supply, after “our guests” – says Raisa, referring to the Russians – pulled several ATMs from walls, causing banks to stop resupplying them.
“I admire these people who go to protests because it takes courage, and courageous they are,” says Raisa, whose social work has prevented her from going. Caught near one protest, where locals regularly chant, “Kherson is Ukraine!” and “Shame on you!” she experienced herself the percussion of flash-bang grenades and the taste of tear gas.
In another incident, she says, she was stopped by a man in civilian clothes, who covered his face with a balaclava and asked her for directions to a specific address.
“They detain people and push them for cooperation ... and since our people are not in the mood for cooperation, they let them go – but some still cannot be found,” says Raisa.
“Waiting for our army”
Even if the Russian presence in Kherson has had a lighter touch than front lines near Kyiv, or in cities devastated by constant bombardment like Mariupol or Kharkiv, the occupation has upended Ukrainian lives.
“I have not yet met those people who would support Russia,” says Lena, a 30-something graphic designer in Kherson. “Many of my friends, even those who used to be pro-Russian, have now changed their point of view.
“They were infuriated by everything Ukrainian,” she says, “and said the Ukrainian language is the language of villagers. Now they hang Ukrainian flags and began to speak Ukrainian.”
Lena says she is “too emotional” about the Russian presence, and describes taking risks by swearing at and making rude gestures toward passing convoys of Russian “orcs” – an increasingly used term for Russian troops among Ukrainians, based on the evil, subhuman creatures from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
“Everyone is very hopeful and waiting for our army to return,” says Lena. “At the same time, I sometimes meet people in lines in stores who sound like they have lost faith. They say Kherson was abandoned, but I think this is the work of Russian propaganda in order to induce panic.”
Joy has been in short supply, says Lena, as Russian troops have searched neighboring houses, and placed snipers on rooftops.
Happiness comes in glimmers, though, at news of another village “liberated” by Ukrainian soldiers, as they advance from Mykolaiv toward Kherson.
“The most joyful day will be when our forces are in the city,” says Lena. “I will meet them with flowers.”
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On her first visit to Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, author Victoria Kastner heard the tour guide explain that “an architect named Julia Morgan built this entire estate” – complete with interior design and landscaping – “but we don’t know anything about her.” Kastner’s curiosity was piqued, and she eventually became the official historian at Hearst Castle, the grand estate of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.
Now Kastner has written “Julia Morgan: An Intimate Biography of the Trailblazing Architect,” which draws back the curtain on the first woman to study architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1898 and the first female licensed architect in California in 1904. Lovers of art, history, and women’s studies alike will thoroughly enjoy this comprehensive account of a figure who not only overcame incredible obstacles to pursue her craft, but did so with considerable grace and inner strength.
Drawing upon firsthand recollections from Morgan’s family members, colleagues, and even recently discovered diary entries from Morgan herself (1872-1957), Kastner paints a well-rounded, engaging picture of her subject from both a deeply personal and professional lens.
While Morgan’s father, Charles, was a pie-in-the-sky businessman, chasing one unsuccessful venture after the next, she most likely inherited a sense of joyous persistence from his example, Kastner argues. Likewise, Morgan’s mother, Eliza, was a powerful role model, since Eliza had to pick up the pieces after Charles’ latest flop. She was the pragmatic, intellectual one in the relationship. It was the combination of these qualities that held Morgan in good stead when she traveled to Paris after college to study architecture.
The journey overseas was at the encouragement of her teacher and mentor Bernard Maybeck. He was an alumnus of the École des Beaux-Arts himself, having studied there in the 1880s. When Maybeck met Morgan at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Fine Art in San Francisco, he quickly took notice of her superior talent among his students. Morgan even helped design a few homes under Maybeck’s supervision before making the trip.
Morgan faced one difficulty after another in Paris. She had to jockey for entrance into a highly competitive program that (initially) did not allow women. Once admitted, she endured sexist taunting from her classmates. Expenses were tight and she slept little. While many male students took six years to finish the program, Morgan did it in three, and became the first woman to earn a certificate of completion. In all these instances, her quiet sense of purpose gave her the strength to forge ahead without bitterness, without diversion, and without telling her family that she was homesick.
When she returned home in triumph, Morgan carved out a prolific career, designing and overseeing the construction of approximately 700 structures. The impressive list not only includes private residences and women’s clubs – as was the primary focus for female architects of her time – but also a grand hotel, houses of worship, municipal buildings, school campuses, commercial centers, a theater, and a mausoleum. Visitors can still explore sites like the Grace H. Dodge Chapel and the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum in California, as well as some of the dormitories of Principia College in Illinois, which Morgan took on for Maybeck after site changes and labor unrest became an issue.
As the biography also makes clear, part of what made Morgan so adept at her craft was that she could create something livable and satisfactory even for clients with the most outlandish ideas. One memorable anecdote tells of a couple who commissioned a house with the stipulation that it possess no right angles. Even more extraordinary was the work she undertook for Hearst, with whom Morgan enjoyed several decades of creative partnership. Their most notable project together, Hearst Castle, is a testament to Morgan’s steadfast character and artistic vision, given Hearst’s tendency to change his mind, overextend his finances, and import more pieces of art from Europe than he could house or knew what to do with. Throughout their time together, Morgan relished the opportunity to “play at work.”
Regardless of the size or notoriety of a project, Morgan consistently displayed a solid commitment to meeting the needs of the client and their budget, blending classic beaux arts style with modern energy, and utilizing materials that were so durable they could withstand even the region’s biggest earthquakes.
As her fame grew across the United States, she maintained a humble spirit that led her to turn down press interviews in favor of keeping busy with the work at hand. (Incidentally, one of the few interviews she gave in her lifetime was for The Christian Science Monitor in 1931.) In Morgan’s mind, no job was too small, and no publicity was necessary.
Perhaps this is why Morgan’s achievements have gone largely uncelebrated. The author explains that it was only after several individuals lobbied the American Institute of Architects on Morgan’s behalf that she was posthumously awarded a Gold Medal in 2014. She was the institute’s first female recipient.
As her longtime engineer and friend, Walter Steilberg, wrote in Morgan’s obituary for the American Institute of Architects: “Julia Morgan’s long and useful life is evidence that even in these frantic times an architect with real ability and dedicated purpose can – without resorting to either publicity tricks or displays of egotism – contribute much to the advancement of the profession and leave a beloved and honored memory.”
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The latest United Nations climate report, released Monday at some 3,000 pages, came with at least one surprise. It agreed with a few big oil exporters, such as Saudi Arabia, that the goal of halting global heating will require the capture of carbon pollutants and either burying or reusing them. Carbon removal for certain “hard-to-abate” uses of fossil fuels is “unavoidable” and “essential” to achieve net-zero emissions, the report stated.
This shift by the U.N. panel reflects more than recent advances in carbon removal technologies or a rapid increase of investments in them over the past five years. It also represents a more mature listening by policymakers to weigh the arguments of those offering alternative pathways to curb climate change.
Environmental groups have long been divided over whether to work with those seen as destroying nature. Treat them as enemies or potential collaborators? Are your opponents open to new ideas and compromise, or are they set to win?
Since its founding in 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has steadily perfected the art of negotiating its policy recommendations, based on both scientific advice and inclusive deliberation. That has required less shaming and demonizing while learning to listen with respect and even empathy to others. One of the IPCC’s most contentious issues is whether endorsing technologies that might quickly fix global warming would lessen the drive to end the use of fossil fuels.
The report takes a cautious approach to that argument, emphasizing that carbon capture is not yet commercially viable or at a scale to greatly reduce atmosphere warming. Nations must still cut oil and gas use by 60% to 70% by 2050. Yet it also accepts arguments that certain products made only from petroleum, such as plastics, might be needed in the far future, or that many underdeveloped countries may be slow to end their reliance on oil.
The report reflects a shift toward “carbon management” rather than decarbonizing the world economy. Much of Europe and North America, as well as Saudi Arabia, are already investing in carbon removal technologies. While these methods are still not yet as feasible a solution to global warming as renewable sources of energy, the U.N. panel’s serious consideration of them shows a better convergence of thinking on how to deal with climate change. Both urgency and understanding are needed to meet difficult climate goals.
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Two ways to read the story
Sometimes, it seems, Americans are living in two economies. There’s the one that’s undergoing an extraordinary recovery from the pandemic shock, with 11 straight months of job gains topping 400,000, unemployment down to 3.6%, and rising wages.
Then there’s the economy of high energy costs and 7.9% overall inflation, a 40-year high affecting everyday staples.
Why We Wrote This
At a time of big economic concerns – from inflation to sanctions against Russia – the Monitor hosted Biden economic adviser Brian Deese for a breakfast with reporters. He counseled “patience and perspective.”
Asked about this, and polls showing President Joe Biden getting little credit for the positives, Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, acknowledges the frustration.
But he quickly follows up: “Our view is not, the economy’s great, why isn’t anybody noticing? It’s that we need to recognize and build on the uniquely strong aspects of this economic recovery in addressing the clear, ongoing challenges, particularly around inflation and costs for families.”
Mr. Deese also discussed new sanctions on Russia announced Wednesday by the Biden administration with other Western economies. He advised “patience and perspective” in allowing the sanctions to take effect.
“Anyone who looks at the Russian economy right now and thinks they’re bouncing back or showing some signs of life is I think missing the forest for the trees,” Mr. Deese said, citing forecasts that Russia’s economy will contract by 10% to 15% this year.
Sometimes, it seems, Americans are living in two economies. There’s the one that’s undergoing an extraordinary recovery from the pandemic shock, with 11 straight months of job gains topping 400,000, unemployment down to 3.6%, and rising wages.
Then there’s the economy of high energy costs and 7.9% overall inflation, a 40-year-high, affecting everyday staples such as food and household items.
Polls show President Joe Biden gets little credit for the positives – some voters even deny any job gains – and plenty of blame for the negatives. On top of that, the November midterm elections are fast approaching. Ask the president’s top economic policy adviser, Brian Deese, whether there’s a sense of frustration, and he chuckles ruefully.
Why We Wrote This
At a time of big economic concerns – from inflation to sanctions against Russia – the Monitor hosted Biden economic adviser Brian Deese for a breakfast with reporters. He counseled “patience and perspective.”
“I’ll hesitate to provide commentary on my feelings,” said Mr. Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, at a breakfast for reporters hosted Wednesday by The Christian Science Monitor.
But he quickly follows up with a serious response, calling this dichotomy of public perception a “false debate.”
“Our view is not, ‘The economy’s great; why isn’t anybody noticing?’” Mr. Deese says. “It’s that we need to recognize and build on the uniquely strong aspects of this economic recovery in addressing the clear, ongoing challenges, particularly around inflation and costs for families.”
Mr. Deese also addressed new sanctions on Russia related to its invasion of Ukraine, announced Wednesday by the Biden administration in conjunction with the Group of Seven top industrialized Western economies and the European Union. The sanctions target two of the country’s largest banks, Sberbank and Alfa Bank; several state-owned Russian enterprises, including an aircraft and shipbuilding corporation; the adult daughters of President Vladimir Putin; and family members of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Also included is a ban on inbound investment by Americans in Russia.
The key to effective sanctions, Mr. Deese said, is international coordination. He advised “patience and perspective” in allowing the sanctions to take effect.
“Anyone who looks at the Russian economy right now and thinks they’re bouncing back or showing some signs of life is I think missing the forest for the trees,” Mr. Deese said, describing Russia as “completely ostracized.”
He said the Russian currency, the ruble, is rebounding principally as a function of the “contorted capital control regime that the Russian Central Bank or the Russian government are having to put in place, which is in and of itself bleeding them of resources.”
He added, “Most estimates are the Russian economy is now on track to contract by 10% to 15% over the course of this year, which would be historic and on the order of what they experienced in 1998.”
At the Monitor Breakfast, Mr. Deese also discussed the shortage of semiconductors in the United States, the long-term economic challenge from China, energy production, and climate change.
Following are additional excerpts of Mr. Deese’s comments, lightly edited for clarity.
On the impact of the U.S. shortage of semiconductors, essential for the electronics behind everything from cars to smartphones:
The best estimates are that the lack of available semiconductors probably took a full percentage point off of GDP in 2021.
Today we produce 12% of global semiconductors in the United States. But we produce none of the advanced leading-edge semiconductors. So we are 100% vulnerable on foreign supply chains for those advanced semiconductors. And what we are seeing is increasingly aggressive efforts by China and other countries to try to build their own resilience in semiconductor manufacturing, which, if not addressed effectively by the United States, would increase our vulnerability and our economic risk.
On geopolitical tensions, particularly between China and Taiwan, accelerating the need for “reshoring” initiatives to bolster manufacturing in the U.S.:
Ten, 11 months ago, I went out and explained a core part of President Biden’s economic strategy as having an affirmative industrial strategy for the country. And at the time, the question was, is, that actually, why should we have an industrial strategy? Does that bring up echoes of failed industrial policy in the past?
And I would say over the course of the last 10, 11 months, that question has now gone decidedly from why to how – that the debate around, do we need to be more deliberate and explicit and have more direct and proactive public investment and public-private partnership to build industrial strength in key sectors of our economy, is now much more broadly understood and a broadly shared goal across the aisle, Republicans and Democrats.
On the apparent lack of increased energy production in the U.S.:
We’ve been having conversations with oil and gas producers. ... Our takeaway from the data is that in the immediate term – over the next, call it, six to 12 months – there is no constraint to companies ramping up production. And the price in the market environment provides a lot of reason and rationale for them to do so.
A number of companies have now explicitly made decisions, are increasing “cap ex” [capital expenditures], and the result of that is why we’ve now seen projections of U.S. domestic production increase, such that by the third quarter of this year, the expectation is we’ll be up by about a million barrels a day.
That is the result of people responding to market forces.
On the Biden administration’s year-two strategy on private-sector engagement on climate change:
The war in Ukraine and the geopolitical consequences of energy that we are seeing play out now really do provide as stark a reminder as anything of the need to accelerate our transition to ultimate energy independence, which ultimately means reducing and eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels altogether.
That is a process that will only happen if the American private sector, including the incumbent energy producers in the United States, utilities and otherwise, are an inextricable part of that process. And that’s defined our approach from the get-go.
For example, the clean energy tax-credit package that we have been working on is designed explicitly with the understanding that what we will do on the government side is provide long-term technology-neutral incentives that the private sector then will drive and innovate off.
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When the United Nations General Assembly voted by an overwhelming majority last month to call for an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, half of the 35 countries that abstained – refusing to condemn Moscow – were from Africa, and another seven African representatives did not show up for the vote.
Russia has been quietly strengthening its ties with Africa in recent years, building on residual gratitude for the help that the Soviet Union once gave to anti-colonial movements across the continent. And Moscow has found fertile ground in a number of countries in the region.
Why We Wrote This
A significant number of African countries have refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Their reservations have roots in the colonial era – and in contemporary arms deals.
“There’s an element of supporting Russia as a counterbalance to what is seen as American hegemony or hypocrisy on a range of issues,” says a former Nigerian government adviser.
On top of that, many African rulers depend on Moscow for their weapons: Russia is the largest supplier of arms to the continent, and specializes in deals with governments that Western manufacturers boycott on human rights grounds.
Old loyalties can run deep. Linda John Selepe, a former South African freedom fighter, learned to fly military jets in the Soviet Union. More than 30 years later, he says, nothing that has happened has “changed my attitude and belief in the Russian people.”
When Linda John Selepe, a 68-year-old South African veteran, first saw images of Russian aircraft flying over Ukraine, he was immediately taken back to a time when he, too, had lived with Soviet-era bomber jets roaring overhead.
In the 1980s, barely out of his teens, Mr. Selepe took up arms in the struggle to overthrow South Africa’s white-minority government, spending years in bare-bones bush camps. There, he received training, weapons, and financial support from Moscow, which supported dozens of independence movements in Africa as part of their Cold War rivalry with the West.
“The only way we could survive – the only way we did survive – was the Russian aircraft coming to bomb” enemy positions, Mr. Selepe says of his years as a guerrilla fighter operating from neighboring Angola, his voice still emotional four decades later.
Why We Wrote This
A significant number of African countries have refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Their reservations have roots in the colonial era – and in contemporary arms deals.
“I feel pity and sympathy for the civilians of Ukraine. But I fully support Putin’s actions in Ukraine, based on my history.”
Such legacies are still playing out across the continent today, and help explain why many African states have been reluctant to publicly criticize Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
African ambivalence was on show at a U.N. General Assembly meeting on March 2. An overwhelming majority of 141 nations voted in favor of a resolution demanding the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine. But of the 35 countries that abstained from condemning Russia, 17 were from Africa. A further seven African representatives did not record a vote at all. Eritrea, a secretive rogue state in east Africa, joined Belarus, North Korea, Syria, and Russia in voting against the resolution.
“Many African countries are sitting on the fence for a number of reasons,” says Steven Gruzd, an expert on African governance and diplomacy at the South African Institute of International Affairs. They include “not wanting to become embroiled in a new Cold War, empathy with Russia and antipathy towards the West, and diplomatic and political calculations.”
A counterbalance
U.N. General Assembly resolutions aren’t legally binding, but they do carry political weight – and the March 2 vote sent important signals about a shifting international order.
Russia has been quietly strengthening ties with African states in recent years, particularly on the military front. Military leaders from the Central African Republic, Mali, Guinea, and Sudan, among others, have invited Russian mercenaries to tackle unrest, often despite already receiving military or economic aid from the West.
The Central African Republic has said it planned to make Russian language classes compulsory for all undergraduates. Supporters of a military coup in Burkina Faso earlier this year brandished Russian flags.
And, on the day Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, South Africa’s minister of defense attended an official cocktail party at the Russian embassy celebrating Russian Motherland Defenders’ Day.
“There’s an element of supporting Russia as a counterbalance to what is seen as American hegemony or hypocrisy on a range of issues,” says a former Nigerian government adviser.
Such issues range from a lack of U.S. accountability over its invasion of Iraq to meddling in local politics, the adviser says. “America has taken on a caricature of decadence, immorality, hypocrisy, an international bully. Russia, by contrast, through savvy media manipulation, appears as the underdog.”
That view is also popular in southern Africa. “Zimbabweans have been victims of unilateral sanctions for over 20 years and would not wish this on anyone,” Zimbabwe’s foreign minister said, in a statement explaining why the country had abstained from criticizing Russia.
Guns and nukes
But some of the fence-sitting is down to hard-nosed realpolitik.
Russia’s strategy on the continent involves pursuing deals with elites, rather than states, points out Joseph Siegle, director of research at the U.S. Defense Department’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies. “By helping these often illegitimate and unpopular leaders to retain power, Russia is cementing Africa’s indebtedness to Moscow,” he notes.
And although Russia’s overall trade with Africa is minuscule, Moscow is the continent’s biggest arms supplier, in a market where Western manufacturers are constrained by human rights concerns. Russia is threatening “unfriendly countries” with sanctions, and African leaders “don’t want to cut off that access to Russian armaments,” says the Nigerian official, who asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
Russia’s attempt to leverage the legacy of Soviet-era ties played out in a particularly unusual way in South Africa, the continent’s most developed nation.
“Russia has always seen South Africa as a gateway to expand influence in the West more broadly,” says David Fig, an environmental sociologist at the University of Cape Town who has written about Russian energy geopolitics. “One of the ways it seeks to do that is through clandestine relationships supporting [South Africa’s] energy infrastructure.”
That came to a head under Jacob Zuma, the outspoken former president who reportedly received training in the Soviet Union during the apartheid years. In 2015, Mr. Zuma attempted to sign an unconstitutional $76 billion deal with Rosatom, the nuclear power company controlled by a Kremlin oversight board, to build a number of nuclear power stations.
The proposal made no economic sense to technocrats at Rosatom, but Mr. Putin lobbied for it on geopolitical grounds, a report released by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace later concluded. Mr. Zuma himself fired three finance ministers in four days because they refused to sign off on the highly secretive pact. The deal was eventually scuppered by South African courts in April 2017.
Understanding Putin
As Ukrainian civilian casualties mount, and evidence suggesting Russian war crimes comes to light, will hesitant African states speak out more forcefully against Russia?
That is unlikely, predicts Linda Chisholm, a professor at the University of Johannesburg, who has written about how the Cold War is taught and interpreted in South Africa. “If anything, I think positions are hardening,” she says. “I think sides are chosen in terms of local politics, so positions on Russia and Ukraine become a tool in local politics to define where you stand.”
Russia is not the Soviet Union, nor does it offer any ideological message today. But among some people, such as Mr. Selepe, old loyalties die hard.
For Mr. Selepe, the former guerrilla fighter, the bombed out ruins of apartment blocks in Ukraine tell only one side of the story.
Still affectionately referred to by his guerrilla alias, “Sporo,” meaning “railway,” in Zulu, Mr. Selepe was born in 1963, at a time when the Soviet Union was almost the only country willing to offer extended support to those fighting in the anti-apartheid struggle.
Mr. Selepe spent four years in bush camps, transporting supplies to cadres, carrying out cross-border raids and escaping ambushes launched by proxy militias. In 1987, he was flown to the Soviet republic of Kirghizia, where he spent another four years learning how to fly jets in preparation for an existential battle back home.
“For me personally, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, it is Russia, and Moscow is the head,” Mr. Selepe says. “Whatever happened with all these countries that got their independence, it didn’t change my attitude and belief in the Russian people.”
Shortly after he returned to Africa, apartheid collapsed, in 1994. Mr. Selepe was integrated into a South African air force that was racially mixed for the first time. His training abroad, he says, meant he had more knowledge and skills than many of the white officers who had once been his sworn enemies.
Almost every Sunday morning since the war broke out, Mr. Selepe has left his home in a tidy Johannesburg suburb, turned a corner, then walked a few hundred yards until he reaches a gold-domed Russian Orthodox church. There, he says, he nods along to the liturgy, delivered entirely in Russian, and offers prayers for both Russian and Ukrainian citizens.
Returning home, he settles down to watch the relentless news from Ukraine. “When Putin is speaking on television,” he says, “I don’t read the captions. I just follow what he’s saying. I understand all of it.”
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In one of Mumbai’s sprawling informal settlements, Amina faced emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from her spouse for nearly 20 years. “I always felt like what was happening to me was wrong,” says Amina, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, “but then I’d think, he’s my husband.”
Although Indian women are 17 times more likely to experience sexual violence from their own husband than anyone else, India remains one of the few democratic countries that doesn’t consider nonconsensual sex within marriage to be rape.
Why We Wrote This
India is one of the few countries that does not recognize marital rape as a crime. Recent petitions to change that – and the backlash they’ve sparked – shine a light on how the Indian government and society continue to view women’s right to bodily autonomy.
A two-judge bench of the Delhi high court is currently mulling over petitions to strike down the marital rape exception. Judgment was reserved in late February, and a verdict could come any day. Many, including the government, have argued that expanding the definition of rape “may destabilize the institution of marriage.” It is this view, petitioners and experts say, that shrouds the issue in shame and keeps women from seeking support.
The country’s rape laws stem from “patriarchal thinking that once a woman is married, she has no agency,” says Mariam Dhawale, general secretary of All India Democratic Women’s Association, adding that closing the marital rape loophole “opens up a door for women to ask for justice.”
In Mumbai’s informal settlement of Dharavi, women know they can turn to Amina. As a volunteer with the Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action (SNEHA), a nonprofit that works on issues of women’s health and safety, she’s always out and about, checking in with women in her neighborhood and supporting those facing violence at home. She urges them to call the police help line or visit the crisis center, but as a survivor herself, she understands why many don’t.
For almost 20 years, Amina – whose name has been changed to protect her identity – faced relentless abuse from her husband. He controlled her movements and finances. If she were even 10 minutes late dropping their children off at school, she was beaten and locked outside their home. Her neighbors knew about some of the abuse, but what they couldn’t know, she says, was that “he forced himself on” her as well. At the time, Amina didn’t even understand that this was rape. “I always felt like what was happening to me was wrong, but then I’d think, he’s my husband,” Amina says about the sexual violence. “Even today, things are the same way. Women can’t easily open up about it.”
One in 3 Indian women between the ages of 18 and 59 say they’ve experienced some form of spousal violence, according to government data, and further analysis shows Indian women are 17 times more likely to experience sexual violence from their own husband than anyone else. Yet India remains one of the few democratic countries that doesn’t consider nonconsensual sex within marriage to be rape.
Why We Wrote This
India is one of the few countries that does not recognize marital rape as a crime. Recent petitions to change that – and the backlash they’ve sparked – shine a light on how the Indian government and society continue to view women’s right to bodily autonomy.
A two-judge bench of the Delhi high court is currently mulling over petitions to strike down the marital rape exception. But many, including government representatives, argue that expanding the definition of rape is antithetical to the institution of marriage in India. It is this view, petitioners and experts say, that shrouds the issue in shame and keeps women from seeking support.
“We have seen that the husband uses sexual violence as a means to exert power over his wife,” says Mariam Dhawale, general secretary of All India Democratic Women’s Association, one of the petitioners. She attributes this behavior to a “patriarchal thinking that once a woman is married, she has no agency, she has no right to refuse her husband.”
Judgment was reserved in late February, and a verdict is expected any day. Yet no matter what the court decides, advocates say the road to justice will be long.
Legal and cultural battles
In India, the push to criminalize marital rape goes back decades. In 1983, following the rise of a women’s movement set on tackling India’s complacency toward sexual violence, lawmakers amended India’s rape laws for the first time in 100 years. Victories included amendments acknowledging custodial rape and rape by authority figures, and new measures to protect survivors’ identities. India also established a section of law against cruelty by husbands and husband’s relatives, including dowry-related harassment. But they weren’t able to close the marital rape loophole.
In 2013, following the brutal rape of a young woman in the capital, New Delhi, a committee instituted by the government to reassess sexual assault laws recommended the marital rape exception be removed. Yet Indian parliamentarians did not act on the recommendation.
“How can an offense not be an offense only because the perpetrator is different?” asks Saumya Uma, law professor and director of the Centre for Women’s Rights at Jindal Global Law School, via email. “In the face of fundamental right to life, dignity, privacy, and equality, the marital rape exemption is bad in law and must go.”
The case currently before the high court dates back to 2015, and in a 2017 affidavit, the government strongly opposed the petitions, stating that “what may appear to be marital rape to an individual wife may not appear so to others.” It also held that removing the exception “may destabilize the institution of marriage” and would offer women “an easy tool for harassing the husbands.”
Hearings held earlier this year caused an uproar among self-described men’s rights activists, who called for a marriage strike on Twitter. They also echoed the government’s concerns about wives filing false cases, fears that do not match the reality on the ground.
In fact, both data and experts highlight that most cases of domestic violence, especially sexual abuse, go unreported.
This is in part due to powerful cultural norms about women’s role within families. At their wedding, many women are told to maintain the family’s pride and conceal its shame, says Renu Mishra, executive director of the Lucknow-based nonprofit Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives Trust. In India, where only 20% of women are part of the labor force and an even smaller percentage own land or property, lack of economic independence also plays a huge role in married women not reporting sexual violence, she adds. Ms. Mishra says she has seen firsthand that most laws meant to prevent gender-based violence are seldom effectively implemented because the society and justice system continue to be patriarchal.
Those who do report domestic violence are likely to encounter apathy from police or harassment from their husband or family members, says Nayreen Daruwalla, program director of prevention of violence against women and children at SNEHA. “The change has to be systemic,” she says.
Path forward
In the face of rape and violence, Indian wives have few options. In a country with a divorce rate of 1.1%, most women feel unable to walk out of an abusive marriage. In 2016, over one-third of global female deaths by suicide were Indian women, with married women making up the largest proportion.
In Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh, Usha Agrawal, a caseworker for Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives Trust, has counseled many women dealing with domestic abuse. She says the violence often starts with wives refusing to fulfill husbands’ demands in the bedroom, and even after years of abuse, many feel they’d have nowhere to turn if they filed a complaint. “They struggle to arrive at a decision quickly, and end up bearing this kind of violence and torture every day,” she says.
This is what happened with Amina, who today regrets not walking away from her marriage earlier or seeing her legal case through. She lives alone with her children now. “Generations are passing by; so many years have been lost. But women are still facing the same difficulties,” she says. “The afflicted are still afflicted.”
The path forward requires vast social, cultural, and legal change, but there is reason for hope, experts say. Despite barriers, data shows that some women do report violence at home – nationally, about 30% of the cases categorized as crime against women in 2020 were registered under “cruelty by husband or his relatives.”
That’s at least in part due to advocates like Ms. Agrawal and Amina offering women the language and resources to confront what’s happening to them. Moving forward, experts say, India must acknowledge that all women are entitled to full bodily autonomy – regardless of their marital status – and they agree that striking out the marital rape exception would be a step in the right direction.
“It opens up a door for women to ask for justice,” says Ms. Dhawale of the All India Democratic Women’s Association.
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Evidence of the cruelty the Russian military is capable of inflicting upon civilians is being revealed now in Bucha, Ukraine, northwest of the capital, Kyiv. Yet even in Kherson, near the Black Sea, where Russia may want to win over citizens to create a pro-Russian statelet, the occupation has its own brutality.
Ukrainians mounting frequent protests there have been shot at, hunted down in their homes, and kidnapped, residents say.
Why We Wrote This
Evidence of Russian brutality in Bucha has reverberated around the world. In southern Ukraine, residents of Kherson have their own stories to tell about the callous arrogance of the occupiers.
Aliona, a homemaker who asked that only her first name be used, describes a recent encounter with a Russian patrol whose members asked her: “How do you feel about us?” She gave them an earful.
“I told them, ‘How can I relate to you when we are lying on the floor and the neighbors’ house is being shelled? When civilians die? When a grandmother and her grandson died when you shot at their car?’” she recalls.
The son of a neighbor was recently caught at a checkpoint with videos of Russian vehicles he had posted to TikTok, she says. His captors tortured him before releasing him with a warning he would be watched.
“We worry that Kherson is not talked about in the world news, though people regularly disappear here,” says Aliona. “They interrogate people, rob people, and in every way suppress any resistance. But we hold on.”
She knew it wasn’t wise to argue with Russian troops occupying her home city of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, but Aliona says she was beyond caring, angry at the arrogance, ignorance, and wanton violence she was witnessing.
When a Russian patrol stopped her in a park and asked if she could add money to their Ukrainian SIM cards – they would pay her, they said – the homemaker refused and lied, saying she could not do it.
Then the Russians asked: “How do you feel about us?”
Why We Wrote This
Evidence of Russian brutality in Bucha has reverberated around the world. In southern Ukraine, residents of Kherson have their own stories to tell about the callous arrogance of the occupiers.
Here the truth came out, in the first and only major city occupied by Russian forces, where Ukrainians mounting frequent protests against the Russian presence have been shot at, hunted down in their homes, and kidnapped, residents say.
Aliona, who like others in this article asked that only her first name be used, says she gave the Russian patrol an earful.
“I told them, ‘How can I relate to you when we are lying on the floor and the neighbors’ house is being shelled? When civilians die? When a grandmother and her grandson died when you shot at their car?’” she recalls.
The Russians answered: “But we told them to stop, they did not stop.”
“You just turned their car into a coffin,” Aliona says she admonished. “You didn’t even fire a warning shot.”
The cruel brutality of what the Russian military is capable of inflicting upon civilians is being revealed now in Bucha, northwest of the capital, Kyiv. There, scores if not hundreds of bodies – many with their hands tied behind their backs, and shot execution-style at close range – were left in the streets, basements, and mass graves by Russian forces as they withdrew last week, according to Western journalist eyewitnesses.
U.S. President Joe Biden has called for a war crimes case to be assembled against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia denies that a single civilian was harmed in Bucha, and calls reports of atrocities by its troops “fake news” staged by Ukraine.
Yet even in Kherson, 45 miles southeast of Mykolaiv near the Black Sea, where Russia may want to win over citizens to create a pro-Russian statelet called the “Kherson People’s Republic,” the occupation has been brutal, if less so than in Bucha, where streets are littered with incinerated Russian armor and evidence of abundant shelling.
Images of wholesale destruction in Bucha and further northwest in Borodyanka, as well as a host of other districts that Russian troops have now withdrawn from, are resulting in the increased departure of citizens from Kherson the past three days, says Mayor Igor Kolykhaev.
“Every single person living in Kherson and in the Kherson region cannot wait until the entire region will be freed, but ... as of now, this is surely not an easy task,” Mr. Kolykhaev told CNN Wednesday. “And obviously, given the recent news ... I can see that there is panic growing in the city of Kherson,” he said, citing the “threat of bombardment.”
Under the Russian yoke
The exchange between Aliona and the Russian troops – these soldiers were “experienced fighters with new weapons and in new uniforms, not boys” in “old Soviet helmets,” she says – illustrates the challenge of living under the Russian yoke in Ukraine.
It reveals, too, the disconnect between the occupier and the occupied, and Russian troops’ inconsistent treatment of Ukrainians in Kherson, at least, which veers from following apparent, occasional orders to “be polite,” to actions of lethal cruelty.
Residents of Kherson spoke to The Christian Science Monitor by phone even as the Ukrainian Army mounts a counter-offensive to recapture the port city of some 280,000 residents, which Ukrainian officials say faces a “humanitarian catastrophe” of food and medicine shortages due to a Russian blockade.
It is just one of several fronts where Ukrainian forces are beginning to reverse Russian gains after six weeks of war.
In her exchange with the Russian patrol, Aliona says she was “too depressed by my emotional state” to fear their reaction.
Falling back on one Moscow justification for Russia’s invasion, the soldiers said they would soon “expel the Nazis” – especially from Mykolaiv, which has so far blocked the Russian advance across southern Ukraine – and “everything will be fine.”
Aliona said she is a Kherson native, and this is the “first time I hear about Nazis.”
Then the Russians asked if she was aware that Ukraine had planned to attack Russia with biological weapons on March 1 – another unsubstantiated Moscow claim.
“I only know that, on March 1, I was going to take my child to school, and you took that from me,” Aliona replied, angrily. “You took everything from me: My friends who immigrated who knows where, the peace of mind of my child who is afraid to go to the windows ... afraid to walk down the street.”
Kidnapping campaign
Video posted online by Kherson residents shows anti-Russian street protests broken up by Russian soldiers firing live rounds, tear gas, and stun grenades. Residents describe a campaign to kidnap local activists.
“Many of us are now conducting a quiet guerrilla war,” says Aliona.
The son of a neighbor was recently caught at a checkpoint with videos of Russian vehicles he had posted to TikTok, she says. His Russian captors pulled out four teeth, all his fingernails, and broke his ribs before releasing him with a warning he would be watched.
“We worry that Kherson is not talked about in the world news, though people regularly disappear here,” says Aliona. “They interrogate people, rob people, and in every way suppress any resistance. But we hold on.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week disciplined two Security Service of Ukraine generals who had been in charge in the Kherson region, stripping them of their rank for “violating their oath to Ukraine.” Residents believe that was for leaking addresses of civil society activists and the families of those serving in the Ukrainian military and intelligence – lists the Russians have used in door-to-door efforts to erase anti-Russian sentiment.
That is not the only result of occupation that grates on the people of Kherson, who describe intrusive checkpoints, abductions, Russian looting of shops, and food and cash shortages.
“For us it is difficult, mentally,” says Raisa, a social worker in her mid-fifties. Especially irritating are vehicles marked with the letter “Z,” which has been adopted by Russians, on the battlefield and in their homeland, to show support for the war.
“We constantly see cars marked with ‘Z’ in the city, big and small,” says Raisa. “When they entered the city, they plundered our car dealerships and now they are driving around in new cars with ‘Z’ stickers. To say this is unpleasant is to say nothing.”
Cash is in short supply, after “our guests” – says Raisa, referring to the Russians – pulled several ATMs from walls, causing banks to stop resupplying them.
“I admire these people who go to protests because it takes courage, and courageous they are,” says Raisa, whose social work has prevented her from going. Caught near one protest, where locals regularly chant, “Kherson is Ukraine!” and “Shame on you!” she experienced herself the percussion of flash-bang grenades and the taste of tear gas.
In another incident, she says, she was stopped by a man in civilian clothes, who covered his face with a balaclava and asked her for directions to a specific address.
“They detain people and push them for cooperation ... and since our people are not in the mood for cooperation, they let them go – but some still cannot be found,” says Raisa.
“Waiting for our army”
Even if the Russian presence in Kherson has had a lighter touch than front lines near Kyiv, or in cities devastated by constant bombardment like Mariupol or Kharkiv, the occupation has upended Ukrainian lives.
“I have not yet met those people who would support Russia,” says Lena, a 30-something graphic designer in Kherson. “Many of my friends, even those who used to be pro-Russian, have now changed their point of view.
“They were infuriated by everything Ukrainian,” she says, “and said the Ukrainian language is the language of villagers. Now they hang Ukrainian flags and began to speak Ukrainian.”
Lena says she is “too emotional” about the Russian presence, and describes taking risks by swearing at and making rude gestures toward passing convoys of Russian “orcs” – an increasingly used term for Russian troops among Ukrainians, based on the evil, subhuman creatures from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
“Everyone is very hopeful and waiting for our army to return,” says Lena. “At the same time, I sometimes meet people in lines in stores who sound like they have lost faith. They say Kherson was abandoned, but I think this is the work of Russian propaganda in order to induce panic.”
Joy has been in short supply, says Lena, as Russian troops have searched neighboring houses, and placed snipers on rooftops.
Happiness comes in glimmers, though, at news of another village “liberated” by Ukrainian soldiers, as they advance from Mykolaiv toward Kherson.
“The most joyful day will be when our forces are in the city,” says Lena. “I will meet them with flowers.”
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I didn’t expect laughter.
But then, having spent my life surrounded by people with running water at home (including my home), I had no idea how a person would react to getting it for the first time.
This wasn’t my first time interviewing someone without this basic service. In South Texas in 2018, I’d been struck by how residents of colonias effectively shrugged their shoulders at the lack of running water. Context can be everything, and when you’ve never had something, why would you miss it? Or be angry over not having it?
Generations of Diné, as some members of the Navajo Nation refer to themselves, had grown used to living without. Ida Joe and her family had been buying drinking water from Walmart and renting hotel rooms so they could shower. They wanted to live on the reservation, where it’s remote and safe, and where they are close to their culture, she told me. A home with running water was just something you have to give up to do that.
Our conversation had, like many of my conversations on the reservation, bounced between moments of strength, moments of humor, and moments of sadness.
Two of her sisters died due to COVID-19 complications, she told me quietly. Her surviving sister is her twin, and they get mistaken for each other in town sometimes. When describing the Walmart trips, the hotel showers, her life without running water, she laughed – but a kind of soft, stop-start laugh that says, “No, but seriously.”
When she turned the tap on, she laughed again. It was a long, rippling, unbroken laugh; a laugh, almost, of disbelief. I didn’t know how she would react, but laughter seemed as logical as tears. I will never forget it.
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The Navajo, who refer to themselves as Diné, have long been a pastoral society. Sheep are prominent in their creation myths, and after Spanish colonists first brought the churro sheep to the Southwest, the hardy, adaptable breed became, over centuries, the heart of a self-sufficient economy and vibrant Diné culture.
But the days of sheep camps and flocks roaming the arid plains and valleys here are long gone. On two separate occasions the churro came close to full extermination. From over 1 million head at one time, by 1977 there were fewer than 500 left in the world. After decades of efforts to repopulate the breed, scientists believe there are now over 8,000.
Why We Wrote This
In the Navajo Nation, a connection to the land is a connection to heritage and identity – ties that were lost when the U.S. government nearly exterminated Navajo-Churro sheep in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, churro flocks are on the rebound, signaling hope and resilience on the reservation.
As the sheep rebound, they are filling a cultural and economic void that was left by a massive “livestock reduction” in the 1930s, when the U.S. government ordered nearly all of the sheep killed.
“That connection to the sheep is the connection to the land, which is the connection to the culture, which is the connection to the spirituality of the Diné people,” says Alta Piechowski, a career psychologist for reservation schools. “This is another beginning for us.”
Irene Bennalley steps out into the fierce afternoon sunlight wearing jeans and a maroon sweater, her long gray hair knotted in a braid.
Brandishing a long white stick as her crook, she picks her way across her parched desert farm toward the sheep pen. Answering their bleats with firm instructions in Navajo, she shepherds them out onto the dry, dusty range.
She doesn’t know exactly how many Navajo-Churro sheep she has, but she ballparks it at around 100 head. It’s bad luck to keep exact counts of your livestock, her father taught her. Don’t boast about your animals, he would say, or they’ll start dropping.
Why We Wrote This
In the Navajo Nation, a connection to the land is a connection to heritage and identity – ties that were lost when the U.S. government nearly exterminated Navajo-Churro sheep in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, churro flocks are on the rebound, signaling hope and resilience on the reservation.
Out here, ranchers like Ms. Bennalley can’t afford to lose animals. The winters are cold and hard, and the summers are hot and relentless. Water is scarce and feed is expensive. It’s the main reason she has come to love the breed, known colloquially as churros, that she’d grown up only hearing about in stories.
The Navajo, who refer to themselves as Diné, have long been a pastoral society. Sheep are prominent in their creation myths, and after Spanish colonists first brought the churro sheep to the Southwest, the hardy, adaptable breed became, over centuries, the heart of a self-sufficient economy and vibrant Diné culture.
But the days of sheep camps and flocks roaming the arid plains and valleys here are long gone. On two separate occasions the churro came close to full extermination. From over 1 million head at one time, by 1977 there were fewer than 500 left in the world.
Efforts have been gaining momentum in recent years to rebuild the breed and return flocks to the Navajo Nation. Decades of painstaking, sometimes dangerous, work by a handful of committed ranchers and animal scientists have helped restore the population to over 8,000.
Now, people on the Navajo Nation are working to bring flocks back to the reservation, to try and fill the economic and cultural void left by their near extinction.
“We’re back in a place of reevaluating how we live,” says Alta Piechowski, whose family has been involved in restoring the Navajo-Churro for decades.
“When you’re walking the land [with the sheep], there’s a different kind of healing,” she adds. “It heals your heart, and when it heals your heart you’re going to want other people’s hearts to be healed too.”
Ties to identity
The Navajo-Churro is a striking breed, almost perfectly designed for the dry, rugged Navajo Nation.
An “unimproved” breed – meaning one that hasn’t been selectively bred for market – churros are long and lean, with thick, double-coated fleece (coarse outercoat and a fine undercoat) that comes in a range of natural colors. Rams and ewes can both grow horns – as many as four at once. They are resistant to most diseases, and have adapted over the centuries to thrive in the dry, low-forage climate of the Southwest.
For the Navajo people, the churro were something of a panacea. They provided a healthy and sustainable source of food and income; their many-colored fleece are ideal for weaving iconic Navajo blankets. And culturally, sheep have always been prominent in Navajo spiritual traditions. One of the six sacred mountains that bound the Navajo Nation, Dibé Nitsaa, translates to Big Sheep Mountain.
But for the best part of a century, Navajo-Churro have been hard to find on the reservation.
The official term used by the U.S. government in the 1930s was “livestock reduction.” The Midwest was in the grips of the Dust Bowl, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, led by commissioner John Collier, concluded that too many livestock were causing land to erode and deteriorate.
The policy resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of churros, often on the reservation, and sometimes on the properties of their owners.
And it came after the Navajo people had spent over 70 years steadily rebuilding their churro herds. The U.S. Army killed swaths of livestock as part of a scorched-earth campaign against the Navajo in the 1860s. In 1868, part of a treaty that saw the Navajo people return to their sacred lands gave each family two sheep to start breeding herds again.
Nearly a century since the stock reduction, the collective memory is still raw. Ms. Bennalley speaks mournfully of what she calls “the John Collier days.” For a long time no one spoke of it at all.
“Some people never really got out of losing their sheep that way,” says Ms. Bennalley. “My family, my dad, nobody really talked about it, because it wasn’t something to be proud of.”
While there is evidence that Mr. Collier and others genuinely thought they were helping the tribe, many Navajo people see little difference in what the U.S. government did in the 1930s and what the U.S. Army did in the 1860s: attempted forced assimilation.
“That connection to the sheep is the connection to the land, which is the connection to the culture, which is the connection to the spirituality of the Diné people,” says Dr. Piechowski, a career psychologist for reservation schools.
“If you exterminate the sheep, you’re pretty much eliminating [those] connections,” she adds. “In that way, we were an easy target.”
Flocks for the future
The churro never disappeared from the reservation, but the few that remained stayed hidden in some of the reservation’s most remote corners – so remote that the man who first led efforts to bring the churro from the brink of extinction almost died trying.
In the early 1970s, Lyle McNeal saw his first churro: some stunning four-horned rams on a ranch in the Salinas Valley. He convinced the rancher to give him six breeding ewes and two four-horn rams (one black and one white). Thus, the Navajo Sheep Project was born. Dr. McNeal and his students formed and tended a “nucleus flock” of churros in California, and beginning in 1977, he began visiting the Navajo Nation to search for more. He estimates there were just a few hundred remaining on a reservation the size of West Virginia.
With the help of Navajo students, they would track down families with churros. To build trust, he would offer to buy one sheep, then bring back two after they’d bred – surviving perilous snowy mesas and flash floods to deliver them. Dr. McNeal now believes there are as many as 9,000 Navajo-Churro around the country.
Many of them are on the Navajo Nation itself, but they are still far from the economic and cultural presence they used to be. In a time when there are easier ways to make a living on the reservation than keeping livestock, it’s possible the churro will never be such a core feature of Navajo society again.
Ms. Bennalley grew up on her ranch with Dibé Nitsaa a fixture on the northern horizon. Her father taught her to raise and care for their animals, and to not cry when you lost one, because you always gain some soon after. (That was a difficult lesson for her at first.)
And he taught her about the churro, after she saw her first one – a striking four-horn – on the side of a road. She got her own a few years later: a ram she leased from the Navajo Sheep Project, named Dibé Nitsaa, for the sacred mountain.
It relaxes her to be out here on the range with the sheep. Spinning and weaving with their wool calms her as well. But more than anything, she says, the churro have given her a livelihood.
“I don’t have to depend on the government or handouts or any kind of assistance,” she says.
“The sheep have helped me,” she adds. “The sheep is the one that’s providing for me.”
Dr. Piechowski says rebuilding the churro population can do that, and more, for the Navajo.
Her father grew up with churros, and now she is helping to establish the Hozho Center, a nonprofit organization that will be based on 2,000 acres of private land with the broad goal of revitalizing the traditional Diné economy and culture. The center will house a permanent flock of Navajo-Churros, to help repopulate the breed on the reservation and restore the culture around them.
Physical and psychological benefits could also pair the economic and cultural benefits, Dr. Piechowski believes. More churro meat in the Navajo diet could help tackle the high rates of diabetes and food insecurity on the reservation, for example. The churro can be “a healing tool,” she says.
The Hozho Center is something of a retirement project for her, after 35 years of working with schoolchildren.
“We’ve been traumatized over and over. … You see it in the schools. You see young people carry a lot of trauma,” she says. “We don’t know how to live with each other anymore.”
“We can’t totally go back to how it was, but we can attempt to have more of a positive relationship with our Earth and a more positive relationship with other people,” she adds. “This is another beginning for us.”
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As Native Americans cautiously welcome Pope Francis’ historic apology for abuses at Catholic-run boarding schools for Indigenous children in Canada, U.S. churches are bracing for an unprecedented reckoning with their own legacies of operating such schools.
Church schools are likely to feature prominently in a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior, led by the first-ever Native American cabinet secretary, Deb Haaland, due to be released later this month. The report, prompted by last year’s discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential school sites in Canada, will focus on the loss of life and the enduring traumas the U.S. system inflicted on Indigenous children from the 19th to mid-20th centuries.
From Episcopalians to Quakers to Catholic dioceses in Oklahoma, faith groups have either started or intensified efforts in the past year to research and atone for their prior roles in the boarding school system, which Native children were forced to attend – cutting them off from their families, tribes, and traditions.
While the pontiff’s April 1 apology was addressed to Indigenous groups from Canada, people were listening south of the border.
“An apology is the best way to start any conversation,” said Roy Callison, a Catholic deacon and Cherokee Nation member helping coordinate the Oklahoma Catholic Native Schools Project, which includes listening sessions for those affected by the boarding school legacy. “That’s the first step to trying to get healing.”
In Mr. Callison’s meeting with Canada’s Indigenous delegations, Pope Francis asked forgiveness “for the role that a number of Catholics ... had in all these things that wounded you, in the abuses you suffered and in the lack of respect shown for your identity, your culture, and even your spiritual values.”
Pope Francis “did something really important, which is name the importance of being indignant at this history,” said Maka Black Elk, executive director of truth and healing for Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
That history “is shameful, and it is not something we should accept,” said Mr. Black Elk, who is Oglala Lakota.
Red Cloud, affiliated with the Catholic Jesuit order, was for generations a boarding school for Lakota children. It’s now a day school incorporating Lakota leadership, language, and traditions. Mr. Black Elk is guiding a reckoning process that includes archival research and hearing the stories of former students.
Canada underwent a much-publicized Truth and Reconciliation process in recent years. The issue gained unprecedented attention last year after a researcher using ground-penetrating radar reported finding about 200 unmarked probable burial sites at a former school in British Columbia.
That discovery, followed by others across Canada, prompted Ms. Haaland to commission her department’s report.
“This history in the United States has not been addressed in the same way it has been addressed in Canada,” Mr. Black Elk said. The Interior report “will be an important first step about the work that needs to happen in this country.”
Church leaders are getting ready. The report “will likely bring to light some very troubling information,” said a letter circulated last fall to members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from two colleagues who chaired committees related to the issue. The letter urged bishops to build relationships with local Indigenous communities and engage “in a real and honest dialogue about reactions to the report and what steps are needed to go forward together.”
Conditions varied at boarding schools in the United States, with some described as unsafe, unsanitary, and scenes of physical or sexual abuse. Other former students recall their school years as positive times of learning, friendship, and extracurricular activities.
Indigenous groups note that even the better schools were part of a project to assimilate children into a predominately white, Christian society and break down their tribal identities, customs, and languages – what many Indigenous groups call a cultural genocide.
“The very process of boarding schools is violent and damaging,” said Bryan Rindfleisch, an expert in Native American history at Marquette University who is helping Catholics in Oklahoma research their school legacy.
There were at least 367 boarding schools across the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, a Minneapolis-based advocacy group.
Most were government-run; many others were run by Catholic and Protestant churches.
The national healing coalition called Pope Francis’ comments a historic first step, but urged the Vatican to repatriate Indigenous artifacts in its museum collections and called on religious organizations to open their school archives.
In listening sessions held through the Oklahoma Catholic Native Schools Project, many participants told positive stories of school experiences, Mr. Callison said, though the church is committed to documenting the traumatic ones too. “You’re going to hear things you don’t want to hear,” he said.
The project will also include archival research and individual interviews with those affected. At least 11 Catholic boarding schools operated in Oklahoma.
“We need to get to the truth before we can deal with whatever hurt or celebrate whatever success” the schools achieved, Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley said.
Several church groups – including Quakers, Methodists, and some Catholic religious orders – are backing pending legislation in Congress that would go beyond the Interior report. It would create a truth and healing commission, modeled on Canada’s, to investigate the boarding school legacy.
The New England Yearly Meeting of Friends – a regional group of congregations – issued an apology last year for Quakers’ historic sponsorship of such schools, acknowledging they were undertaken with “spiritual and cultural arrogance.”
“We are deeply sorry for our part in the vast suffering caused by this system and the continuing effects,” the New England group said.
It’s important for Quakers to accept such responsibility, said Paula Palmer, a Quaker from Colorado whose research has identified about 30 Native American boarding and day schools that were run by Quakers.
“The yearly meetings voted to support, operate, and finance” the schools, she said. “So it’s really the yearly meetings who have the responsibility to respond. They were the ones who also participated in the whole project of forced assimilation of Indigenous children.”
The Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States has hired an archival researcher to document its own boarding school history.
The order is “committed to examining and sharing the truth of our history, even where that is difficult,” said the Rev. Ted Penton, secretary of the Jesuit conference’s Office of Justice and Ecology.
The Episcopal Church’s General Convention in July is expected to vote on a statement that would “acknowledge the intergenerational trauma caused by genocide, colonialism” the operation of boarding schools, and “other systems based on white supremacy.”
The convention will also consider authorizing a “comprehensive and complete investigation” of the church’s operation of such schools. The proposals came from a group appointed by denominational leaders.
Such measures are strong, but local dioceses also need to research their own histories and advocate for Indigenous peoples, said the Rev. Rachel Taber-Hamilton, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Everett, Washington. Ms. Taber-Hamilton, whose heritage includes the Shackan First Nation of Canada, is an Episcopal Church representative to the worldwide Anglican Indigenous Network.
“It’s not enough to say, ‘I’m sorry, and here’s some money,’” she said. “We first have to do some very hard work of listening to the pain.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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In Tunisia, as the economy falters, unemployment soars, and the ranks of vulnerable people swell, activists are seeking to give new life to a centuries-old social safety net.
Seven decades after the country cast off the vestiges of the traditional Islamic welfare system known regionally as waqf, and popularly in Tunisia as habous, advocates are urging Tunisians and the debt-riddled government to give it another chance.
Why We Wrote This
In Tunisia, an ancient Islamic social welfare system of charitable trusts, underutilized for decades, is seen by some as a way to lighten the burden on a cash-strapped government.
While only a handful of individual Tunisians carry on the tradition today, the creation of charitable trusts – the word waqf refers to an endowment – was once a dominant practice in Tunisia. Under this system, citizens would donate a portion of their salary, profit, or agricultural production to a trust, which would be managed in perpetuity to support poor people and the community.
Mohammed Bennani, a historian and archivist, provides weekly lunches as part of the habous his grandfather started in 1909 that put three shops and a piece of farmland in a trust. Most weeks his guests include university students, writers, and artists.
He vows to carry on the tradition to honor his grandfather’s will and pass on the spirit of giving. “Systems of governance and laws may change,” he says, “but the need to support one another is timeless.”
Mohammed Bennani carefully balances a platter of steaming couscous in his hands, carrying it to a table in the courtyard of his family home in Tunis’ old Medina on a brisk January Wednesday.
The guests? Whoever shows up.
The free weekly meal is open to all, but Mr. Bennani is not running a charity kitchen. This is his inheritance.
Why We Wrote This
In Tunisia, an ancient Islamic social welfare system of charitable trusts, underutilized for decades, is seen by some as a way to lighten the burden on a cash-strapped government.
“My grandfather donated a portion of his fortune to help others, and it is up to us to continue this tradition until the end of time,” Mr. Bennani says. “This is how we were raised: You respect the waqf.”
In Tunisia, as the country’s economy continues to falter, unemployment soars, and the ranks of vulnerable people swell, activists are seeking to breathe new life into a centuries-old Islamic social safety net.
Seven decades after the country cast off the last vestiges of the traditional social welfare system, advocates’ message to Tunisians and the debt-riddled government alike is the same: Give waqf a chance.
Not just the wealthy
Although only a handful of individual Tunisians carry on the tradition today, the creation of charitable trusts – the word waqf refers to an endowment – was once a widespread practice in Tunisia. Under this Islamic system, citizens would donate a portion of their salary, profit, or agricultural production to a trust, which would be managed in perpetuity to support poor people and the community.
While elsewhere in the Islamic world waqf saw wealthy individuals bequeath lands or establish trust funds to support mosques and schools, in Tunisia the practice, known colloquially also as habous, relied on a much broader base.
Between the 10th and 19th centuries, donations from middle-class and working-class Tunisians, artisans, business owners, bakers, and baristas were used to fund public works as Tunisia grew into a center of learning, trade, and culture.
“Waqf was designed to support the community,” says Mohsen Ettamimi, an imam and former member of Parliament who has researched and documented hundreds of waqf charitable trusts in the holy city of Kairouan. “It was a social support network that was derived from the people but organized, audited, and managed by the authorities.”
Cafes, hammam baths, hotels, and even grocery shops were donated, and then run by trusts, their profits used to build and support hospitals, schools, and housing. By the 19th century, one-third of all land in Tunisia was reserved as waqf trusts.
In his efforts to build a modern state in the 1950s, Tunisia’s post-independence leader President Habib Bourguiba did away with the waqf system, which by then had become entangled in inheritance disputes.
In his new, socialist state, the government would provide for the people and citizens would pay their taxes directly to the state.
Government struggles
Yet today, with unemployment at 14.9%, the national debt at 94% of gross domestic product, and inflation and poverty on the rise, that socialist system too is outdated. The Tunisian government is struggling to provide basic services, pay public sector workers, and provide health care to a population reliant on public services.
Social entrepreneur Leila Ben Gacem, whose Blue Fish organization helps create opportunities for dozens of struggling Tunisian artisans, is championing habous as a solution, both conceptually and as an untapped resource.
“Social entrepreneurship is not an American or European concept; it is a Tunisian concept developed right here several centuries ago in the form of habous,” says Ms. Ben Gacem. “And unlike other forms of charity or government safety nets, it is self-generating and sustainable.”
Ms. Ben Gacem promotes waqf as a solution that would break down the rigid separation between the private sector and charities in modern Tunisia that many believe has placed the social support burden too heavily on the shoulders of government.
“When it comes to capitalism and charity, it is not ‘either/or.’ Waqf proves you can both have a profitable business and help others,” says Ms. Ben Gacem. “We need to educate Tunisians that there is a third way developed from our own culture and experience.”
A resource in limbo
Today, Tunisia’s cities and countryside are scarred by crumbling shops, disused and overgrown farmland, and decrepit buildings – all unclaimed waqf properties left in limbo by the Bourguiba government’s 1957 decree ending the system.
Families with historical claims but no documentation cannot reclaim or utilize their ancestors’ habous properties.
Historic schools and student housing under the government’s control alternate between being shuttered for vague, decadelong renovation projects and lying empty.
Religious sites, too, are just scraping by.
Today, shrines and historic mosques rely on the modern, 21st-century concept of waqf: donation boxes placed at the entrance.
Curators say this “spare-change charity” is no substitute for self-generating endowments.
At Kairouan’s Sidi Sahib Zawiya and Madrassa, the brilliant-tiled 17th-century shrine and tomb of Abu Zama al Balawi, a companion to the Prophet Muhammad, staff walk around literally with their palms opened, hoping visitors can spare a few dinars to help pay for upkeep and staff salaries.
“Habous used to pay for the schooling of students across the Islamic world from as far away as Pakistan who would come here to Kairouan to study,” Zuhair Haddad, keeper of the shrine, says as he leads a tour through its vibrant turquoise ceramic-tiled courtyard. “Now the occasional donations barely pay for cleaning supplies.”
Political hurdle
Since their 2011 democratic revolution, Tunisia’s leaders have tried their hand at reviving the system.
Less than a year after shaking off the yoke of dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, a review of the habous system was atop their agenda in 2012. A government-formed committee examined hundreds of frozen or unclaimed waqf properties and concluded they were an untapped resource that could help fund the country’s post-revolution transition.
But the committee’s recommendation to reform the system was met with liberal and secular opposition amid suspicions that waqf advocates were scheming to use the proceeds from the trusts to support the powerful Islamist Ennahda Party.
“Anybody who spoke of religious affairs was seen as Islamist or part of Ennahda. Waqf became a polarizing issue and unfortunately remains so until today,” says Mounir Tilil, a former religious affairs minister and chair of the waqf committee. “When in fact this is a legal, socioeconomic issue, not a religious one.”
“We have closed one important door for our society rather than fix it. It has become a nonstarter.”
Yet individual Tunisians continue to carry on the tradition themselves, insisting that waqf is above the dividing lines of politics and religion.
Mr. Bennani, a historian and archivist, continues the weekly lunches as part of the habous his grandfather started in 1909 that placed three shops and a piece of farmland in waqf.
Mr. Bennani has made his own alterations along the way, moving the meal from post-Friday noon prayers to Wednesday to make it “less religious and more inclusive.” He has replaced lamb with vegetables on the couscous.
Most weeks his guests are university students, researchers, writers, artists, and poets – the hearty home-cooked meal a balm for those far away from home, much like the waqfs in Kairouan that supported students from far-flung towns a millennium ago.
On this rainy and cold Wednesday, only two people show up.
But Mr. Bennani vows to carry on the tradition no matter the turnout to honor his grandfather’s will – and to pass on the spirit of giving.
“Systems of governance and laws may change, but the need to support one another is timeless,” he says. “Giving back is a universal form of faith.”
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A Turkish court decided Thursday to transfer the trial of 26 Saudis accused in the gruesome killing of Jamal Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia, raising fears that those responsible for the death of the Washington Post columnist won’t be brought to justice for a crime that drew international outrage.
The decision, which comes as Ankara is trying to repair relations with Saudi Arabia, was denounced as “scandalous” by a human rights group. It marked an abrupt reversal for Turkey, which had vowed to shed light on the killing and began prosecuting the defendants in absentia in 2020.
Mr. Khashoggi, a United States resident who wrote critically about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed on Oct. 2, 2018, at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He had gone into the consulate for an appointment to collect documents required for him to marry his Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, and never came out.
Turkish officials alleged that Mr. Khashoggi was killed and then dismembered with a bone saw inside the consulate by a team of Saudi agents sent to Istanbul. The group included a forensic doctor, intelligence and security officers, and individuals who worked for the crown prince’s office. His remains have not been found.
The Istanbul court’s decision comes despite warnings from human rights groups that turning the case over to the kingdom would lead to a cover-up of the killing, which has cast suspicion on the crown prince.
Last week, the prosecutor in the case recommended its transfer to the kingdom, arguing that the trial in Turkey would remain inconclusive. Turkey’s justice minister supported the recommendation, adding that the trial in Turkey would resume if the Istanbul court is not satisfied with the outcome in Saudi Arabia.
It was not clear if the kingdom, which has already put some of the defendants on trial behind closed doors, would open a new trial, and there was no immediate reaction from Riyadh to the decision.
At Thursday’s hearing, lawyers representing Ms. Cengiz asked the court not to move the proceedings to Saudi Arabia, the private DHA news agency reported.
“Let’s not entrust the lamb to the wolf,” the agency quoted lawyer Ali Ceylan as telling the court. “Let’s protect the honor and dignity of the Turkish nation.”
But the court halted the trial in line with the Justice Ministry’s “positive opinion,” DHA reported. It also decided to lift arrest warrants issued against the defendants and gave the sides seven days to lodge any opposition.
Saudi Arabia had rejected Turkey’s requests to extradite the defendants, who included two former aides of the prince.
Some of the men were put on trial in Riyadh behind closed doors. A Saudi court issued a final verdict in 2020 that sentenced five midlevel officials and operatives to 20-year jail terms. The court had originally ordered the death penalty, but reduced the punishment after Mr. Khashoggi’s son, Salah, who lives in Saudi Arabia, announced he forgave them. Three others were sentenced to lesser jail terms.
At the time of the killing, Turkey apparently had the Saudi Consulate bugged and shared audio of the killing with the CIA, among others.
The slaying sparked international condemnation. Western intelligence agencies, as well as the U.S. Congress, said an operation of such magnitude could not have happened without the knowledge of the crown prince.
Human rights advocates had also urged Turkey not to transfer the case to Saudi Arabia, arguing that justice for Mr. Khashoggi would not be delivered by Saudi courts.
“It’s a scandalous decision,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey director for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, asserting that the court had “rubber stamped” a political decision that would allow the Turkish government to repair its ties with Saudi Arabia.
“In the interest of realpolitik, Turkey is ready to sacrifice justice for an egregious crime on its own soil,” she told The Associated Press. “[The decision] opens the way for other countries to commit assassinations on Turkish territory and get away with it.”
Ms. Cengiz said she would continue to seek justice.
“We will continue this [judicial] process with all the power given to me, as a Turkish citizen,” she told reporters outside the courthouse.
“The two countries may be making an agreement, the two countries may be opening a new chapter ... but the crime is still the same crime,” she said. “The people who committed the crime haven’t changed. Governments and states must have a principled stance.”
Turkey, which is in a deep economic downturn, has been trying to improve its strained relationship with Saudi Arabia and an array of other countries in the region. Some media reports have claimed that Riyadh has made improved relations conditional on Turkey dropping the case, which had inflamed tensions between two countries.
The move would pave the way to a resolution of disputes between the two regional heavyweights since the 2011 Arab Spring, including Turkey’s support for Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, which Riyadh considers a terrorist group. Turkey also sided with Qatar in a diplomatic dispute that saw Doha boycotted by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.
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Two ways to read the story
Members of the global higher education community are rallying to help scholars who have left Ukraine or who are internally displaced after Russia invaded six weeks ago. Their assistance offers a lifeline to fleeing residents, but also promises less interruption to Ukrainian scholarship.
The endeavors showcase an upwelling of humanitarian spirit and, in some cases, are leading to efforts to create better institutional processes to help students and scholars from Ukraine and other conflict zones like Afghanistan and Yemen.
Why We Wrote This
Culture makes a country, but so do scholarly contributions. How are universities and organizations around the world helping Ukrainians stay engaged in research and learning?
“The level of need is unprecedented,” says Chelsea Blackburn Cohen, acting director of network and university relations at New York-based Scholars at Risk.
Efforts to help Ukrainians range from securing academic jobs to assisting with enrollment in universities.
After spending two weeks in a bomb shelter, academic Svetlana Tarasova made her way to the Polish border. A professor in London she knew contacted her and helped her apply, while on the road, for a position in Poland, to give her stability once she arrived.
“Thanks to [the] people around [me], it is going on well,” she writes in an email from Warsaw, where she is now employed. “Still my mind is always thinking about Ukraine, Kharkiv and other cities.”
Svetlana Tarasova had planned on lecturing to her students at a university in Kharkiv and celebrating a friend’s birthday on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. Instead she awoke to explosions and howling car alarms.
After spending two weeks in a bomb shelter, she started making her way in jammed traffic to the Polish border. Dr. Tarasova explains that by “a lucky chance or part of a miracle,” a professor in London, whom she knew from a scholarly association, contacted her and helped her apply, while on the road, for a position in Poland to give her stability once she arrived.
“Thanks to [the] people around [me], it is going on well. Still my mind is always thinking about Ukraine, Kharkiv and other cities,” writes Dr. Tarasova in an email from Warsaw, where she is working at the Polish Academy of Sciences conducting research. “How to return to normal life? How to return to joy, happiness, learn to smile. Now I am trying to find out how to do it again.”
Why We Wrote This
Culture makes a country, but so do scholarly contributions. How are universities and organizations around the world helping Ukrainians stay engaged in research and learning?
Members of the global higher education community are rallying to help scholars who have left Ukraine or who are internally displaced after Russia invaded six weeks ago. Their assistance offers a lifeline to fleeing residents, but also promises less interruption to Ukrainian scholarship. The endeavors – which range from securing jobs and housing to assisting with enrollment in universities – showcase an upwelling of humanitarian spirit and, in some cases, are leading to efforts to create better institutional processes to help students and scholars from Ukraine and other conflict zones like Afghanistan and Yemen.
“It’s something we thought was just the right thing,” says Maciej Maryl, outreach coordinator for one of the initiatives, #ScienceforUkraine, and director of the Digital Humanities Centre at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He helped start the project with other European scholars soon after the invasion. “We feel we had some contacts in Ukraine before, we feel they are part of the European scholarly community, and we want to show that these networks are strong. We’re doing what we can to stand with them.”
At #ScienceforUkraine, over 80 volunteers in 32 countries share information about paid positions, transfer opportunities, or accommodation offers. Elsewhere, a separate Google document started by a researcher has gathered more than 2,000 opportunities worldwide for academic support for Ukrainian scientists.
Efforts to assist students are also underway. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology started a program called Yulia’s Dream to train Ukrainian high school students in honor of a young Ukrainian mathematician recently killed in the war. The University of Chicago announced full-tuition scholarships for Ukrainian undergraduates affected by the invasion.
At Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, the president’s office recently convened meetings of faculty and staff members interested in creating systems to help people from Ukraine and other conflict zones.
“It’s looking at structures and our expertise and what WPI has to offer to help,” says Renata Konrad, an associate professor of operations and industrial engineering at WPI, who returned in January from serving as a Fulbright scholar in Lviv, Ukraine.
Dr. Konrad informally recruited colleagues at WPI to remotely advise 11 students at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv on their capstone projects after hearing from contacts that the university still offered remote learning but lacked sufficient instructors due to professors joining the military. Twice a week, Dr. Konrad meets via video call with her advisee, who is sometimes in a bomb shelter. The student’s capstone is on inventory management study based on her volunteer work at her university helping to sort and disperse donations flooding in from abroad.
Olga Polotska, executive director of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine, emphasizes the importance to the country of Ukrainian scientists continuing to work. “Researchers are the ones who develop new knowledge,” she says, speaking from the outskirts of Kyiv on a darkened Zoom call, to obey evening blackout orders. “This is the most important thing. New knowledge is the basis for development.”
Dr. Polotska and her staff are calling on international institutions to make efforts to help not only Ukrainians forced to leave, but those who remain. They compile assistance offers on their website.
“Since not all Ukrainian scientists are able to leave or willing to leave Ukraine … remote fellowships would be a very good solution,” she says. “Every day we receive more offers with remote positions.”
An “unprecedented” need
Scholars at Risk, a network that links scholars in need with institutions globally, has received roughly 200 applications from Ukrainian scholars since the war started, along with another 200 applications from Russian scholars, and expects more to come. That’s nearly as many applications as the organization received in the entire past academic year, but not as many as they’ve received from scholars in Afghanistan – nearly 1,500 – since the Taliban gained control in August.
“The level of need is unprecedented,” says Chelsea Blackburn Cohen, acting director of network and university relations at Scholars at Risk, housed at New York University.
Threats to academics have been rising for years with conflicts in Afghanistan, Yemen, Myanmar, and Cameroon, among others, says James King, director of the Scholar Rescue Fund at the Institute for International Education in New York. Between 2016 and 2021, applications to the fund more than doubled.
“The world and the international higher education community, we’ve all turned our focus on the war in Ukraine, with very good reason, but I do think it’s really important that we don’t forget or neglect our colleagues from across the globe,” says Mr. King. “There are more threatened and displaced scholars today than ever before.”
Some institutions are working on expanding their ability to help people in need. At the University of Pittsburgh, a small, three-person team at the Global Studies Center started the Pittsburgh Network for Threatened Scholars in 2019, a partnership between university departments, city nonprofits, and private businesses. The network grew from two scholars to 11 currently on campus, with plans for at least four more scholars from Afghanistan to arrive this fall.
Veronica Dristas, associate director of the Global Studies Center, is working with other regional colleges and universities to start an expanded network to collaborate on hosting scholars.
Schools need to be prepared to offer holistic support like housing and health care, she says. In return, scholars aid their host campuses by bringing their expertise and worldview.
“It’s a goodwill gesture, but it’s also beneficial to the university to have renowned scholars coming and staying some time with us and giving them the opportunity to build a curriculum here in the U.S.,” she says.
Plans to return
Some scholars who have left Ukraine are already thinking about when they’ll return. Maryana Sytar was working on her doctoral studies at the Koretsky Institute of State and Law of the National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv when the war started. Her advisor urged her to apply for a new emergency fellowship fund offered to Ukrainian graduate students by Tel Aviv University in Israel.
Ms. Sytar applied and received an offer including full tuition and a living stipend for a six-month stay on campus. She arrived in Tel Aviv on March 17.
“I hope I will gain a positive experience that can be effectively applied in my country,” Ms. Sytar writes in an email. At the end of the Russian invasion, she adds, “the priority tasks will be not only the development of our country in terms of rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure facilities ... but also the enrichment of Ukraine’s intellectual resources.”
Dr. Tarasova, who keeps busy with her job and exploring Warsaw, doesn’t know how long she’ll be out of Ukraine. “I do not want to set any certain plans or limit myself by time. Life has taught me that it is impossible to plan something,” she writes over email. “I dream of seeing my Ukraine modern, stable and prosperous, united and friendly, in which all the best is in the near future.”
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sued Thursday to protect abortion rights, asking a Michigan court to recognize a right to abortion under the state constitution and to overturn a 176-year-old ban in the state that may take effect if the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling is vacated.
The Democratic governor’s preemptive lawsuit, which was filed in Oakland County against prosecutors in 13 counties with an abortion clinic, came as the United States Supreme Court’s conservative majority considers allowing states to ban abortion much earlier in pregnancy and potentially overturning the right.
The governor, who is up for reelection this year, was expected to request that the Michigan Supreme Court quickly take the case rather than let it wind through lower trial and appellate courts. A favorable decision could enable abortions to continue in Michigan after the federal high court rules.
“It was important for us to take action now, to ensure that women and providers across the state of Michigan know whether abortions will still be available in the state because it impacts their lives and our health care providers’ practices. It’s crucial that we take this action now to secure and ensure that the Michigan Constitution protects this right that we have had available for 49 years,” Governor Whitmer told The Associated Press, saying nearly 2.2 million women may lose access to a safe, legal medical procedure.
Michigan is among eight states with an unenforced abortion ban that was enacted before the 1973 Roe decision legalized abortion nationwide. States on both sides of the abortion issue have been taking a variety of steps to prepare for Roe being eroded or rescinded.
Michigan’s 1931 law, which dates to an 1846 ban, makes it a felony to use an instrument or administer any substance with the intent “to procure the miscarriage” of a woman unless necessary to preserve her life.
Governor Whitmer wants the Michigan Supreme Court to declare a state constitutional right to abortion and to strike down the 1931 law, which could go back into effect if Roe is overturned or weakened. The lawsuit argues that the law is invalid under the due process and equal protection clauses of the state constitution.
Michigan could soon be left with a near-total ban without even exceptions for rape and incest – “one of the most extreme laws in the country,” Governor Whitmer said. Her call to repeal the law has gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled Legislature.
The state high court has four Democratic and three Republican justices.
Governor Whitmer will ask that the court intervene in part to avoid legal uncertainty when the federal high court issues its ruling on Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The complaint says that while the Michigan Supreme Court in 1973 ruled that Roe limited the effect of the state ban, the right to abortion has been undermined over 50 years of litigation in federal courts. The state’s high court has not said whether the state constitution protects the right. The Michigan Court of Appeals, in 1997, ruled there is no state constitutional right to abortion – a reason the Michigan Supreme Court should step in immediately, according to her office.
The lawsuit points to “substantial ambiguity” about what the state ban prohibits.
Abortion rights advocates have launched a ballot drive to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution but need about 425,000 voter signatures to put the initiative on the November ballot.
Also Thursday, seven Democratic county prosecutors who were named in the lawsuit pledged to not enforce the anti-abortion law.
“We cannot and will not support criminalizing reproductive freedom or creating unsafe, untenable situations for health care providers and those who seek abortions in our communities,” said the elected prosecutors in Wayne, Oakland, Genesee, Washtenaw, Ingham, Kalamazoo, and Marquette counties. “Instead, we will continue to dedicate our limited resources towards the prosecution of serious crimes and the pursuit of justice for all.”
The other six elected prosecutors who were sued are Republicans.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writer Corey Williams in West Bloomfield, Michigan, contributed to this report.
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After a tense five-day political standoff that left Pakistan without a government, the Supreme Court ruled on April 7 that Prime Minister Imran Khan “was not within his rights” when he dissolved Parliament to thwart a vote to remove him from power.
The high court’s decision did more than affirm the constitutional separation of powers and the principle of rule of law. It demonstrated that judicial independence can thrive in a country that defines its national identity on the basis of Islam. The political fallout of the ruling may also deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of a key ally at a pivotal moment in the war in Ukraine.
The unanimous decision immediately reinstated the National Assembly and spells a political end for a leader who rose to power on his popularity as Pakistan’s most beloved sports hero. A former captain of the national cricket team, Mr. Khan has overseen a disastrous economic record since being elected in 2018, as well as a sharp diplomatic shift away from the West. He lost his parliamentary majority last Sunday. The legislature will now vote Saturday on whether to replace the prime minister.
“It’s a bold but much welcome move by the Supreme Court, especially for constitutional supremacy,” Marva Khan, a law professor at Lahore University of Management Science, told Bloomberg. “Having a unanimous judgment on the matter further strengthens the value of this precedent.”
A fragile democracy since independence in 1947, Pakistan has yet to see a single prime minister serve a complete five-year term. The military is notorious for meddling in the country’s political affairs. Significantly, however, a 2010 constitutional amendment transferred the power to appoint judges from the president – an office that combines ceremonial political functions and commander in chief of the armed forces – to a panel of judicial peers. That contrasts sharply with other Islamic countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, where Islamic law predominates and judges are subordinate to influential religious leaders.
The reform 12 years ago has had a measurable effect. A 2020 study found a decrease in the appointment of judges with past political careers. Courts have better restrained the government’s misuse of eminent domain in taking private property. In general, judges have displayed greater impartiality in rulings against the government. That corresponds with international studies that show a strong link between judicial independence and overall development.
Mr. Khan himself provided another measure of the reform’s effect. The embattled prime minister emerged from a meeting with legal advisers ahead of the court ruling and vowed to accept whatever decision it made.
The court effectively quashed an allegation by Mr. Khan that the bid to oust him was a “foreign conspiracy” orchestrated by Washington. The person most likely to benefit from its decision is Shehbaz Sharif, an opposition leader and brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The military has already signaled its interest in re-prioritizing ties with the West after Mr. Khan’s drift toward China and Russia. A first order of business for a new caretaker government will be setting a course for elections and resetting dialogue with lenders like the International Monetary Fund.
For the moment, however, a constitutional crisis has been averted and a key democratic norm reaffirmed.
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Two ways to read the story
Members of the global higher education community are rallying to help scholars who have left Ukraine or who are internally displaced after Russia invaded six weeks ago. Their assistance offers a lifeline to fleeing residents, but also promises less interruption to Ukrainian scholarship.
The endeavors showcase an upwelling of humanitarian spirit and, in some cases, are leading to efforts to create better institutional processes to help students and scholars from Ukraine and other conflict zones like Afghanistan and Yemen.
Why We Wrote This
Culture makes a country, but so do scholarly contributions. How are universities and organizations around the world helping Ukrainians stay engaged in research and learning?
“The level of need is unprecedented,” says Chelsea Blackburn Cohen, acting director of network and university relations at New York-based Scholars at Risk.
Efforts to help Ukrainians range from securing academic jobs to assisting with enrollment in universities.
After spending two weeks in a bomb shelter, academic Svetlana Tarasova made her way to the Polish border. A professor in London she knew contacted her and helped her apply, while on the road, for a position in Poland, to give her stability once she arrived.
“Thanks to [the] people around [me], it is going on well,” she writes in an email from Warsaw, where she is now employed. “Still my mind is always thinking about Ukraine, Kharkiv and other cities.”
Svetlana Tarasova had planned on lecturing to her students at a university in Kharkiv and celebrating a friend’s birthday on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. Instead she awoke to explosions and howling car alarms.
After spending two weeks in a bomb shelter, she started making her way in jammed traffic to the Polish border. Dr. Tarasova explains that by “a lucky chance or part of a miracle,” a professor in London, whom she knew from a scholarly association, contacted her and helped her apply, while on the road, for a position in Poland to give her stability once she arrived.
“Thanks to [the] people around [me], it is going on well. Still my mind is always thinking about Ukraine, Kharkiv and other cities,” writes Dr. Tarasova in an email from Warsaw, where she is working at the Polish Academy of Sciences conducting research. “How to return to normal life? How to return to joy, happiness, learn to smile. Now I am trying to find out how to do it again.”
Why We Wrote This
Culture makes a country, but so do scholarly contributions. How are universities and organizations around the world helping Ukrainians stay engaged in research and learning?
Members of the global higher education community are rallying to help scholars who have left Ukraine or who are internally displaced after Russia invaded six weeks ago. Their assistance offers a lifeline to fleeing residents, but also promises less interruption to Ukrainian scholarship. The endeavors – which range from securing jobs and housing to assisting with enrollment in universities – showcase an upwelling of humanitarian spirit and, in some cases, are leading to efforts to create better institutional processes to help students and scholars from Ukraine and other conflict zones like Afghanistan and Yemen.
“It’s something we thought was just the right thing,” says Maciej Maryl, outreach coordinator for one of the initiatives, #ScienceforUkraine, and director of the Digital Humanities Centre at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He helped start the project with other European scholars soon after the invasion. “We feel we had some contacts in Ukraine before, we feel they are part of the European scholarly community, and we want to show that these networks are strong. We’re doing what we can to stand with them.”
At #ScienceforUkraine, over 80 volunteers in 32 countries share information about paid positions, transfer opportunities, or accommodation offers. Elsewhere, a separate Google document started by a researcher has gathered more than 2,000 opportunities worldwide for academic support for Ukrainian scientists.
Efforts to assist students are also underway. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology started a program called Yulia’s Dream to train Ukrainian high school students in honor of a young Ukrainian mathematician recently killed in the war. The University of Chicago announced full-tuition scholarships for Ukrainian undergraduates affected by the invasion.
At Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, the president’s office recently convened meetings of faculty and staff members interested in creating systems to help people from Ukraine and other conflict zones.
“It’s looking at structures and our expertise and what WPI has to offer to help,” says Renata Konrad, an associate professor of operations and industrial engineering at WPI, who returned in January from serving as a Fulbright scholar in Lviv, Ukraine.
Dr. Konrad informally recruited colleagues at WPI to remotely advise 11 students at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv on their capstone projects after hearing from contacts that the university still offered remote learning but lacked sufficient instructors due to professors joining the military. Twice a week, Dr. Konrad meets via video call with her advisee, who is sometimes in a bomb shelter. The student’s capstone is on inventory management study based on her volunteer work at her university helping to sort and disperse donations flooding in from abroad.
Olga Polotska, executive director of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine, emphasizes the importance to the country of Ukrainian scientists continuing to work. “Researchers are the ones who develop new knowledge,” she says, speaking from the outskirts of Kyiv on a darkened Zoom call, to obey evening blackout orders. “This is the most important thing. New knowledge is the basis for development.”
Dr. Polotska and her staff are calling on international institutions to make efforts to help not only Ukrainians forced to leave, but those who remain. They compile assistance offers on their website.
“Since not all Ukrainian scientists are able to leave or willing to leave Ukraine … remote fellowships would be a very good solution,” she says. “Every day we receive more offers with remote positions.”
An “unprecedented” need
Scholars at Risk, a network that links scholars in need with institutions globally, has received roughly 200 applications from Ukrainian scholars since the war started, along with another 200 applications from Russian scholars, and expects more to come. That’s nearly as many applications as the organization received in the entire past academic year, but not as many as they’ve received from scholars in Afghanistan – nearly 1,500 – since the Taliban gained control in August.
“The level of need is unprecedented,” says Chelsea Blackburn Cohen, acting director of network and university relations at Scholars at Risk, housed at New York University.
Threats to academics have been rising for years with conflicts in Afghanistan, Yemen, Myanmar, and Cameroon, among others, says James King, director of the Scholar Rescue Fund at the Institute for International Education in New York. Between 2016 and 2021, applications to the fund more than doubled.
“The world and the international higher education community, we’ve all turned our focus on the war in Ukraine, with very good reason, but I do think it’s really important that we don’t forget or neglect our colleagues from across the globe,” says Mr. King. “There are more threatened and displaced scholars today than ever before.”
Some institutions are working on expanding their ability to help people in need. At the University of Pittsburgh, a small, three-person team at the Global Studies Center started the Pittsburgh Network for Threatened Scholars in 2019, a partnership between university departments, city nonprofits, and private businesses. The network grew from two scholars to 11 currently on campus, with plans for at least four more scholars from Afghanistan to arrive this fall.
Veronica Dristas, associate director of the Global Studies Center, is working with other regional colleges and universities to start an expanded network to collaborate on hosting scholars.
Schools need to be prepared to offer holistic support like housing and health care, she says. In return, scholars aid their host campuses by bringing their expertise and worldview.
“It’s a goodwill gesture, but it’s also beneficial to the university to have renowned scholars coming and staying some time with us and giving them the opportunity to build a curriculum here in the U.S.,” she says.
Plans to return
Some scholars who have left Ukraine are already thinking about when they’ll return. Maryana Sytar was working on her doctoral studies at the Koretsky Institute of State and Law of the National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv when the war started. Her advisor urged her to apply for a new emergency fellowship fund offered to Ukrainian graduate students by Tel Aviv University in Israel.
Ms. Sytar applied and received an offer including full tuition and a living stipend for a six-month stay on campus. She arrived in Tel Aviv on March 17.
“I hope I will gain a positive experience that can be effectively applied in my country,” Ms. Sytar writes in an email. At the end of the Russian invasion, she adds, “the priority tasks will be not only the development of our country in terms of rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure facilities ... but also the enrichment of Ukraine’s intellectual resources.”
Dr. Tarasova, who keeps busy with her job and exploring Warsaw, doesn’t know how long she’ll be out of Ukraine. “I do not want to set any certain plans or limit myself by time. Life has taught me that it is impossible to plan something,” she writes over email. “I dream of seeing my Ukraine modern, stable and prosperous, united and friendly, in which all the best is in the near future.”
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In a historic vote today, the U.S. Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to join the U.S. Supreme Court. The 53-47 vote was split largely along party lines, with three Republicans supporting her.
Over the past several decades, the Senate has gone from approving most Supreme Court nominees by generous, bipartisan margins to nearly deadlocking over them. Is this just a reflection of an increasingly polarized Congress – and country? Or are there other dynamics driving the shift?
Why We Wrote This
Was the 53-47 vote Thursday to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson another symptom of congressional gridlock? Yes, but other dynamics are at work, too.
The answer is both. All the forces deepening the partisan divide have contributed to a more politicized confirmation process. As the court is seen as increasingly powerful, and directly influencing everyday life in America, it’s raised the political stakes. That has led to the removal of guardrails like the filibuster, which once effectively required bipartisan support for nominees. Senators see their role as vetting not only the qualifications and character of nominees but also their judicial philosophy.
“The court increasingly is seen as just another branch of government, rather than above politics,” says Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “There’s no question that the more political the court becomes, the more seems to be at stake.”
In a historic vote today, the U.S. Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to join the U.S. Supreme Court.
“What a great day it is for the United States of America, for our system of government, and the grand march of the fulfillment of the sacred covenant we have as an American people: e pluribus unum – out of many, one,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, a pastor of Martin Luther King’s church in Georgia, on the Senate floor. “Ketanji Brown Jackson’s improbable journey to the nation’s highest court is a reflection of our own journey, through fits and starts, toward the nation’s ideals.”
The 53-47 vote was split largely along party lines, with three Republicans supporting her.
Why We Wrote This
Was the 53-47 vote Thursday to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson another symptom of congressional gridlock? Yes, but other dynamics are at work, too.
Over the past several decades, the Senate has gone from approving most Supreme Court nominees by generous, bipartisan margins to nearly deadlocking over them. Is this just a reflection of an increasingly polarized Congress – and country? Or are there other dynamics unique to the Supreme Court driving the shift?
The answer is both. All the forces deepening the partisan divide have contributed to a more politicized confirmation process for the country’s most powerful court. At the same time, the court is increasingly seen as directly influencing everyday life in America, putting more at stake politically. That has led to the removal of certain guardrails, such as the filibuster, which effectively required bipartisan support for nominees. Senators see their role as vetting not only the qualifications, character, and integrity of nominees but also their judicial philosophy or ideology. And if they don’t, they know they could be punished in the next election – in part because of the growing influence of outside groups advocating for or against nominees.
“The court increasingly is seen as just another branch of government, rather than above politics,” says Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a former Supreme Court clerk and U.S. attorney for Connecticut who now serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “There’s no question that the more political the court becomes, the more seems to be at stake.”
From the Bork hearings to today
In 1987, then-Sen. Joe Biden invited constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe to help him prepare for the confirmation hearings of President Ronald Reagan’s controversial Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.
They spent hours together, with the liberal Harvard professor playing the role of Judge Bork in mock murder boards. “It was kind of an awkward fit,” admits Professor Tribe, now a professor emeritus at Harvard.
But there was a bigger question Senator Biden was wrestling with as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee: What criteria should they use to evaluate Judge Bork? Republicans were focusing more and more on judicial philosophy, Professor Tribe recalls Mr. Biden saying. Should Democrats do the same?
The proceedings showed where he came down on that question. Chairman Biden led a charged confirmation hearing in which he and other senators interrogated Judge Bork on his originalist interpretation of the Constitution. They ultimately rejected his nomination, and gave the English language a new verb: to bork someone.
While many Republicans see the Bork nomination as a turning point, the Supreme Court confirmation process didn’t immediately turn into an all-out partisan war. The next year, Anthony Kennedy was unanimously confirmed. And Clarence Thomas – whose controversial hearings were dominated by Anita Hill’s charges of sexual harassment – ultimately got the support of 11 Democrats in his 1991 confirmation. Likewise, Republicans overwhelmingly supported Ruth Bader Ginsburg, confirming her with a 96-3 vote.
Republicans and Democrats disagree about when things started really going downhill.
One of the Senate’s longest-serving Republicans says he believes much of the trouble began at a Democratic retreat held in Farmington, Pennsylvania, in 2001 – the year after the Supreme Court had decided the presidential election in favor of Republican George W. Bush.
“[Sen. Charles Schumer, then chairman of the Judiciary Committee,] said that we’re going to now start thinking about judicial philosophy and holding people up that we don’t like,” says Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa. “It’s been downhill ever since.”
Professor Tribe, whom Senator Schumer brought in to speak to that group in Farmington, along with his Harvard colleague Cass Sunstein, disputes that interpretation.
“That makes it look like we were springing some new approach of an ideological veto – that wasn’t the case,” he says. From the country’s earliest days, he adds, it had been common to consider judicial philosophy. “We were simply saying that the Democratic Party should wake up.”
Over the past two decades, Supreme Court nominees from both parties have been confirmed with steadily decreasing margins, from John John Roberts (78-22) in 2005 to Justice Elena Kagan (63-37) in 2010 to Amy Coney Barrett (52-48) in 2020.
While the hearings for Justice Roberts were at times contentious, there was an underlying sense then that many Democrats would ultimately cross the aisle – and 22 of them did. That’s no longer the case, says Professor Maxwell Mak of John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, who researches judicial confirmations.
In 2016, Republicans wouldn’t even hold hearings for Merrick Garland, whom President Barack Obama had nominated in March, saying it was too close to the November election. Four years later, President Donald Trump nominated then-Judge Barrett in late September and Republicans rushed through her confirmation by Oct. 27, about a week before Election Day.
Republicans also scrapped the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees in 2017, after Democrats had gotten rid of it for lower judicial appointments four years earlier. That effectively meant that whichever party controlled the Senate could confirm a nominee without any support from the other party.
“The stakes have gotten higher and the votes have gotten lower and lower and lower,” says Professor Mak.
In his nearly 20-year tenure, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina had never voted against a Supreme Court nominee – until today. He supported Obama nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. And in 2021, he was one of three Republicans to vote for Judge Jackson’s appointment to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, regarded as the second-most powerful court in the U.S.
But Justice Jackson? “That was a bridge too far for me,” he told the Monitor on the way back from a vote earlier this week.
“When you just require confirmation within the party, then you’re going to have more ideologically driven people,” says Senator Graham, who adds that he believes President Biden could have gotten more GOP support for one of his other top contenders, Michelle Childs of South Carolina, another Black woman judge who was one of Mr. Biden’s finalists. “When you have to reach across the aisle and pick up some votes from the other side, you have a more consensus pick.”
Many supporters of Judge Jackson took issue with the way Senator Graham and other Republicans treated her during the hearings, aggressively questioning her and using the proceedings to air grievances about Democratic treatment of the last GOP nominee, Justice Barrett.
“I am hearing from people, not just Black women, who are relating to me their stories about having to come into a room where you’re more qualified than the people who are sitting in judgment of you and having to endure the absurdities of disrespect that we saw Judge Jackson endure,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat and one of the chamber’s three Black members.
More pressure from voters, outside groups
To be sure, part of that is due to the growing polarization in the country – and Congress.
“The confirmation process is going to have the same kind of mood as the country,” says Lori Ringhand, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law and co-author of “Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings and Constitutional Change.”
Supreme Court picks have also become a bigger voting issue within each party’s base, putting pressure on senators.
“These nominations have very much become rallying cries for core voters in each party,” says Professor Ringhand. When opposition senators can’t block a confirmation, they will signal to their voters that they’re doing everything they can to stop the nominee by aggressively questioning them or putting up procedural hurdles.
And outside groups are increasingly pushing senators to apply litmus tests to nominees, says GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who faced a tough 2020 reelection campaign after her vote helped Justice Brett Kavanaugh squeak through 50-48 in 2018. The advocacy group Demand Justice ran ads against her, saying her vote went against her campaign pledges to support abortion rights.
“These outside groups ... are increasingly driving the process,” says Senator Collins, one of the three Republicans to vote in favor of Judge Jackson’s confirmation Thursday. “Think of the fact that Demand Justice hired a truck with a billboard on it demanding that Justice Breyer retire,” she says. “That would have been considered unseemly, inappropriate, a compromising of the court’s integrity and independence, even a decade ago. Now, no one’s surprised.”
This time around, Senator Collins was sharply criticized by a member of her own party, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for her support of Judge Jackson.
One key reason for the increased pressure from all sides is a changing perception of the court’s role within the broader system of American government. With Congress often gridlocked, the Court has been increasingly thrust into the position of making policy rather than just upholding it. In coming months, the court is expected to rule on key issues affecting Americans’ lives, including abortion rights, guns, voting, and affirmative action.
“The court has occupied an even more prominent place in everyday life than people recognized it as occupying in the past,” says Professor Tribe. “That is leading to a reexamination of whether the court has become too powerful and occupied too large a role.”
Staff writer Noah Robertson contributed to this report.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sued Thursday to protect abortion rights, asking a Michigan court to recognize a right to abortion under the state constitution and to overturn a 176-year-old ban in the state that may take effect if the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling is vacated.
The Democratic governor’s preemptive lawsuit, which was filed in Oakland County against prosecutors in 13 counties with an abortion clinic, came as the United States Supreme Court’s conservative majority considers allowing states to ban abortion much earlier in pregnancy and potentially overturning the right.
The governor, who is up for reelection this year, was expected to request that the Michigan Supreme Court quickly take the case rather than let it wind through lower trial and appellate courts. A favorable decision could enable abortions to continue in Michigan after the federal high court rules.
“It was important for us to take action now, to ensure that women and providers across the state of Michigan know whether abortions will still be available in the state because it impacts their lives and our health care providers’ practices. It’s crucial that we take this action now to secure and ensure that the Michigan Constitution protects this right that we have had available for 49 years,” Governor Whitmer told The Associated Press, saying nearly 2.2 million women may lose access to a safe, legal medical procedure.
Michigan is among eight states with an unenforced abortion ban that was enacted before the 1973 Roe decision legalized abortion nationwide. States on both sides of the abortion issue have been taking a variety of steps to prepare for Roe being eroded or rescinded.
Michigan’s 1931 law, which dates to an 1846 ban, makes it a felony to use an instrument or administer any substance with the intent “to procure the miscarriage” of a woman unless necessary to preserve her life.
Governor Whitmer wants the Michigan Supreme Court to declare a state constitutional right to abortion and to strike down the 1931 law, which could go back into effect if Roe is overturned or weakened. The lawsuit argues that the law is invalid under the due process and equal protection clauses of the state constitution.
Michigan could soon be left with a near-total ban without even exceptions for rape and incest – “one of the most extreme laws in the country,” Governor Whitmer said. Her call to repeal the law has gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled Legislature.
The state high court has four Democratic and three Republican justices.
Governor Whitmer will ask that the court intervene in part to avoid legal uncertainty when the federal high court issues its ruling on Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The complaint says that while the Michigan Supreme Court in 1973 ruled that Roe limited the effect of the state ban, the right to abortion has been undermined over 50 years of litigation in federal courts. The state’s high court has not said whether the state constitution protects the right. The Michigan Court of Appeals, in 1997, ruled there is no state constitutional right to abortion – a reason the Michigan Supreme Court should step in immediately, according to her office.
The lawsuit points to “substantial ambiguity” about what the state ban prohibits.
Abortion rights advocates have launched a ballot drive to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution but need about 425,000 voter signatures to put the initiative on the November ballot.
Also Thursday, seven Democratic county prosecutors who were named in the lawsuit pledged to not enforce the anti-abortion law.
“We cannot and will not support criminalizing reproductive freedom or creating unsafe, untenable situations for health care providers and those who seek abortions in our communities,” said the elected prosecutors in Wayne, Oakland, Genesee, Washtenaw, Ingham, Kalamazoo, and Marquette counties. “Instead, we will continue to dedicate our limited resources towards the prosecution of serious crimes and the pursuit of justice for all.”
The other six elected prosecutors who were sued are Republicans.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writer Corey Williams in West Bloomfield, Michigan, contributed to this report.
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The Navajo, who refer to themselves as Diné, have long been a pastoral society. Sheep are prominent in their creation myths, and after Spanish colonists first brought the churro sheep to the Southwest, the hardy, adaptable breed became, over centuries, the heart of a self-sufficient economy and vibrant Diné culture.
But the days of sheep camps and flocks roaming the arid plains and valleys here are long gone. On two separate occasions the churro came close to full extermination. From over 1 million head at one time, by 1977 there were fewer than 500 left in the world. After decades of efforts to repopulate the breed, scientists believe there are now over 8,000.
Why We Wrote This
In the Navajo Nation, a connection to the land is a connection to heritage and identity – ties that were lost when the U.S. government nearly exterminated Navajo-Churro sheep in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, churro flocks are on the rebound, signaling hope and resilience on the reservation.
As the sheep rebound, they are filling a cultural and economic void that was left by a massive “livestock reduction” in the 1930s, when the U.S. government ordered nearly all of the sheep killed.
“That connection to the sheep is the connection to the land, which is the connection to the culture, which is the connection to the spirituality of the Diné people,” says Alta Piechowski, a career psychologist for reservation schools. “This is another beginning for us.”
Irene Bennalley steps out into the fierce afternoon sunlight wearing jeans and a maroon sweater, her long gray hair knotted in a braid.
Brandishing a long white stick as her crook, she picks her way across her parched desert farm toward the sheep pen. Answering their bleats with firm instructions in Navajo, she shepherds them out onto the dry, dusty range.
She doesn’t know exactly how many Navajo-Churro sheep she has, but she ballparks it at around 100 head. It’s bad luck to keep exact counts of your livestock, her father taught her. Don’t boast about your animals, he would say, or they’ll start dropping.
Why We Wrote This
In the Navajo Nation, a connection to the land is a connection to heritage and identity – ties that were lost when the U.S. government nearly exterminated Navajo-Churro sheep in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, churro flocks are on the rebound, signaling hope and resilience on the reservation.
Out here, ranchers like Ms. Bennalley can’t afford to lose animals. The winters are cold and hard, and the summers are hot and relentless. Water is scarce and feed is expensive. It’s the main reason she has come to love the breed, known colloquially as churros, that she’d grown up only hearing about in stories.
The Navajo, who refer to themselves as Diné, have long been a pastoral society. Sheep are prominent in their creation myths, and after Spanish colonists first brought the churro sheep to the Southwest, the hardy, adaptable breed became, over centuries, the heart of a self-sufficient economy and vibrant Diné culture.
But the days of sheep camps and flocks roaming the arid plains and valleys here are long gone. On two separate occasions the churro came close to full extermination. From over 1 million head at one time, by 1977 there were fewer than 500 left in the world.
Efforts have been gaining momentum in recent years to rebuild the breed and return flocks to the Navajo Nation. Decades of painstaking, sometimes dangerous, work by a handful of committed ranchers and animal scientists have helped restore the population to over 8,000.
Now, people on the Navajo Nation are working to bring flocks back to the reservation, to try and fill the economic and cultural void left by their near extinction.
“We’re back in a place of reevaluating how we live,” says Alta Piechowski, whose family has been involved in restoring the Navajo-Churro for decades.
“When you’re walking the land [with the sheep], there’s a different kind of healing,” she adds. “It heals your heart, and when it heals your heart you’re going to want other people’s hearts to be healed too.”
Ties to identity
The Navajo-Churro is a striking breed, almost perfectly designed for the dry, rugged Navajo Nation.
An “unimproved” breed – meaning one that hasn’t been selectively bred for market – churros are long and lean, with thick, double-coated fleece (coarse outercoat and a fine undercoat) that comes in a range of natural colors. Rams and ewes can both grow horns – as many as four at once. They are resistant to most diseases, and have adapted over the centuries to thrive in the dry, low-forage climate of the Southwest.
For the Navajo people, the churro were something of a panacea. They provided a healthy and sustainable source of food and income; their many-colored fleece are ideal for weaving iconic Navajo blankets. And culturally, sheep have always been prominent in Navajo spiritual traditions. One of the six sacred mountains that bound the Navajo Nation, Dibé Nitsaa, translates to Big Sheep Mountain.
But for the best part of a century, Navajo-Churro have been hard to find on the reservation.
The official term used by the U.S. government in the 1930s was “livestock reduction.” The Midwest was in the grips of the Dust Bowl, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, led by commissioner John Collier, concluded that too many livestock were causing land to erode and deteriorate.
The policy resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of churros, often on the reservation, and sometimes on the properties of their owners.
And it came after the Navajo people had spent over 70 years steadily rebuilding their churro herds. The U.S. Army killed swaths of livestock as part of a scorched-earth campaign against the Navajo in the 1860s. In 1868, part of a treaty that saw the Navajo people return to their sacred lands gave each family two sheep to start breeding herds again.
Nearly a century since the stock reduction, the collective memory is still raw. Ms. Bennalley speaks mournfully of what she calls “the John Collier days.” For a long time no one spoke of it at all.
“Some people never really got out of losing their sheep that way,” says Ms. Bennalley. “My family, my dad, nobody really talked about it, because it wasn’t something to be proud of.”
While there is evidence that Mr. Collier and others genuinely thought they were helping the tribe, many Navajo people see little difference in what the U.S. government did in the 1930s and what the U.S. Army did in the 1860s: attempted forced assimilation.
“That connection to the sheep is the connection to the land, which is the connection to the culture, which is the connection to the spirituality of the Diné people,” says Dr. Piechowski, a career psychologist for reservation schools.
“If you exterminate the sheep, you’re pretty much eliminating [those] connections,” she adds. “In that way, we were an easy target.”
Flocks for the future
The churro never disappeared from the reservation, but the few that remained stayed hidden in some of the reservation’s most remote corners – so remote that the man who first led efforts to bring the churro from the brink of extinction almost died trying.
In the early 1970s, Lyle McNeal saw his first churro: some stunning four-horned rams on a ranch in the Salinas Valley. He convinced the rancher to give him six breeding ewes and two four-horn rams (one black and one white). Thus, the Navajo Sheep Project was born. Dr. McNeal and his students formed and tended a “nucleus flock” of churros in California, and beginning in 1977, he began visiting the Navajo Nation to search for more. He estimates there were just a few hundred remaining on a reservation the size of West Virginia.
With the help of Navajo students, they would track down families with churros. To build trust, he would offer to buy one sheep, then bring back two after they’d bred – surviving perilous snowy mesas and flash floods to deliver them. Dr. McNeal now believes there are as many as 9,000 Navajo-Churro around the country.
Many of them are on the Navajo Nation itself, but they are still far from the economic and cultural presence they used to be. In a time when there are easier ways to make a living on the reservation than keeping livestock, it’s possible the churro will never be such a core feature of Navajo society again.
Ms. Bennalley grew up on her ranch with Dibé Nitsaa a fixture on the northern horizon. Her father taught her to raise and care for their animals, and to not cry when you lost one, because you always gain some soon after. (That was a difficult lesson for her at first.)
And he taught her about the churro, after she saw her first one – a striking four-horn – on the side of a road. She got her own a few years later: a ram she leased from the Navajo Sheep Project, named Dibé Nitsaa, for the sacred mountain.
It relaxes her to be out here on the range with the sheep. Spinning and weaving with their wool calms her as well. But more than anything, she says, the churro have given her a livelihood.
“I don’t have to depend on the government or handouts or any kind of assistance,” she says.
“The sheep have helped me,” she adds. “The sheep is the one that’s providing for me.”
Dr. Piechowski says rebuilding the churro population can do that, and more, for the Navajo.
Her father grew up with churros, and now she is helping to establish the Hozho Center, a nonprofit organization that will be based on 2,000 acres of private land with the broad goal of revitalizing the traditional Diné economy and culture. The center will house a permanent flock of Navajo-Churros, to help repopulate the breed on the reservation and restore the culture around them.
Physical and psychological benefits could also pair the economic and cultural benefits, Dr. Piechowski believes. More churro meat in the Navajo diet could help tackle the high rates of diabetes and food insecurity on the reservation, for example. The churro can be “a healing tool,” she says.
The Hozho Center is something of a retirement project for her, after 35 years of working with schoolchildren.
“We’ve been traumatized over and over. … You see it in the schools. You see young people carry a lot of trauma,” she says. “We don’t know how to live with each other anymore.”
“We can’t totally go back to how it was, but we can attempt to have more of a positive relationship with our Earth and a more positive relationship with other people,” she adds. “This is another beginning for us.”
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As Native Americans cautiously welcome Pope Francis’ historic apology for abuses at Catholic-run boarding schools for Indigenous children in Canada, U.S. churches are bracing for an unprecedented reckoning with their own legacies of operating such schools.
Church schools are likely to feature prominently in a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior, led by the first-ever Native American cabinet secretary, Deb Haaland, due to be released later this month. The report, prompted by last year’s discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential school sites in Canada, will focus on the loss of life and the enduring traumas the U.S. system inflicted on Indigenous children from the 19th to mid-20th centuries.
From Episcopalians to Quakers to Catholic dioceses in Oklahoma, faith groups have either started or intensified efforts in the past year to research and atone for their prior roles in the boarding school system, which Native children were forced to attend – cutting them off from their families, tribes, and traditions.
While the pontiff’s April 1 apology was addressed to Indigenous groups from Canada, people were listening south of the border.
“An apology is the best way to start any conversation,” said Roy Callison, a Catholic deacon and Cherokee Nation member helping coordinate the Oklahoma Catholic Native Schools Project, which includes listening sessions for those affected by the boarding school legacy. “That’s the first step to trying to get healing.”
In Mr. Callison’s meeting with Canada’s Indigenous delegations, Pope Francis asked forgiveness “for the role that a number of Catholics ... had in all these things that wounded you, in the abuses you suffered and in the lack of respect shown for your identity, your culture, and even your spiritual values.”
Pope Francis “did something really important, which is name the importance of being indignant at this history,” said Maka Black Elk, executive director of truth and healing for Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
That history “is shameful, and it is not something we should accept,” said Mr. Black Elk, who is Oglala Lakota.
Red Cloud, affiliated with the Catholic Jesuit order, was for generations a boarding school for Lakota children. It’s now a day school incorporating Lakota leadership, language, and traditions. Mr. Black Elk is guiding a reckoning process that includes archival research and hearing the stories of former students.
Canada underwent a much-publicized Truth and Reconciliation process in recent years. The issue gained unprecedented attention last year after a researcher using ground-penetrating radar reported finding about 200 unmarked probable burial sites at a former school in British Columbia.
That discovery, followed by others across Canada, prompted Ms. Haaland to commission her department’s report.
“This history in the United States has not been addressed in the same way it has been addressed in Canada,” Mr. Black Elk said. The Interior report “will be an important first step about the work that needs to happen in this country.”
Church leaders are getting ready. The report “will likely bring to light some very troubling information,” said a letter circulated last fall to members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from two colleagues who chaired committees related to the issue. The letter urged bishops to build relationships with local Indigenous communities and engage “in a real and honest dialogue about reactions to the report and what steps are needed to go forward together.”
Conditions varied at boarding schools in the United States, with some described as unsafe, unsanitary, and scenes of physical or sexual abuse. Other former students recall their school years as positive times of learning, friendship, and extracurricular activities.
Indigenous groups note that even the better schools were part of a project to assimilate children into a predominately white, Christian society and break down their tribal identities, customs, and languages – what many Indigenous groups call a cultural genocide.
“The very process of boarding schools is violent and damaging,” said Bryan Rindfleisch, an expert in Native American history at Marquette University who is helping Catholics in Oklahoma research their school legacy.
There were at least 367 boarding schools across the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, a Minneapolis-based advocacy group.
Most were government-run; many others were run by Catholic and Protestant churches.
The national healing coalition called Pope Francis’ comments a historic first step, but urged the Vatican to repatriate Indigenous artifacts in its museum collections and called on religious organizations to open their school archives.
In listening sessions held through the Oklahoma Catholic Native Schools Project, many participants told positive stories of school experiences, Mr. Callison said, though the church is committed to documenting the traumatic ones too. “You’re going to hear things you don’t want to hear,” he said.
The project will also include archival research and individual interviews with those affected. At least 11 Catholic boarding schools operated in Oklahoma.
“We need to get to the truth before we can deal with whatever hurt or celebrate whatever success” the schools achieved, Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley said.
Several church groups – including Quakers, Methodists, and some Catholic religious orders – are backing pending legislation in Congress that would go beyond the Interior report. It would create a truth and healing commission, modeled on Canada’s, to investigate the boarding school legacy.
The New England Yearly Meeting of Friends – a regional group of congregations – issued an apology last year for Quakers’ historic sponsorship of such schools, acknowledging they were undertaken with “spiritual and cultural arrogance.”
“We are deeply sorry for our part in the vast suffering caused by this system and the continuing effects,” the New England group said.
It’s important for Quakers to accept such responsibility, said Paula Palmer, a Quaker from Colorado whose research has identified about 30 Native American boarding and day schools that were run by Quakers.
“The yearly meetings voted to support, operate, and finance” the schools, she said. “So it’s really the yearly meetings who have the responsibility to respond. They were the ones who also participated in the whole project of forced assimilation of Indigenous children.”
The Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States has hired an archival researcher to document its own boarding school history.
The order is “committed to examining and sharing the truth of our history, even where that is difficult,” said the Rev. Ted Penton, secretary of the Jesuit conference’s Office of Justice and Ecology.
The Episcopal Church’s General Convention in July is expected to vote on a statement that would “acknowledge the intergenerational trauma caused by genocide, colonialism” the operation of boarding schools, and “other systems based on white supremacy.”
The convention will also consider authorizing a “comprehensive and complete investigation” of the church’s operation of such schools. The proposals came from a group appointed by denominational leaders.
Such measures are strong, but local dioceses also need to research their own histories and advocate for Indigenous peoples, said the Rev. Rachel Taber-Hamilton, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Everett, Washington. Ms. Taber-Hamilton, whose heritage includes the Shackan First Nation of Canada, is an Episcopal Church representative to the worldwide Anglican Indigenous Network.
“It’s not enough to say, ‘I’m sorry, and here’s some money,’” she said. “We first have to do some very hard work of listening to the pain.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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Russian consumers of luxury European goods and American fast food are learning the lessons of what economists describe as the “deglobalizing” effects of the Ukraine war. So are families in developing countries dependent on Ukrainian wheat, and even German automakers whose supply chains for parts run through Ukraine.
But do the war and Western efforts to punish Russia portend the end of heightened globalization?
Why We Wrote This
The globalized economy was an outgrowth of the Western-led global order. The Ukraine war is threatening to redivide the world into camps, yet China’s own needs may keep globalization afloat.
Some analysts point to Europe’s newfound determination to wean itself from Russian energy, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to forge an alternative to the Western-led global economy, and conclude that indeed globalization is down for the count. But many others caution that no one should expect its full demise.
Michael Desch, a Notre Dame professor of international relations, notes, “There are elements of globalization that ... are going to be hard to undo, no matter who wants to move beyond them.”
And Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says China will be the economic behemoth to monitor for clues to globalization’s prospects.
“The Chinese are going to double down on making sure they are not going to be as vulnerable as Russia to Western pressures,” she says, “while at the same time acting to protect their position in the global economy.”
Fans of Britain’s Chelsea football club were shocked to discover early last month that Russia’s war in Ukraine meant they could no longer buy tickets to the team’s matches or purchase Chelsea gear.
The reason: Chelsea’s owner, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was slapped with Western sanctions barring him from profiting from his properties. The issue was soon resolved with an agreement that redirects team profits to victims of the Ukraine war.
Still, the disruption gave Chelsea fans the smallest of tastes of how Russia’s invasion of a neighboring country in violation of international law is having an impact on globalization.
Why We Wrote This
The globalized economy was an outgrowth of the Western-led global order. The Ukraine war is threatening to redivide the world into camps, yet China’s own needs may keep globalization afloat.
In similar ways, Russian consumers of luxury European goods and American fast-food offerings are learning the lessons of what a growing number of international economists describe as the “deglobalizing” effects of the Ukraine war and Western efforts to punish Russia for launching it. So are families in developing countries dependent on Ukrainian wheat, and even German automakers whose supply chains for parts run through Ukraine.
But does the war portend the end of the post-Cold War era of heightened globalization? The decadeslong trend creating more interdependent economies has streamlined the production of goods even as it extended supply chains, shifted production to developing countries while extending prosperity to hundreds of millions, and created vast fortunes for businesses able to navigate the new global topography.
Some economists and historians point to proliferating news items – Moscow’s shuttered McDonald’s restaurants, rising bread prices in Tunisia and Bangladesh because of undelivered Ukrainian wheat, Europe’s newfound determination to wean itself from Russian energy sources, and Mr. Putin’s accelerated efforts to forge an alternative to the Western-led global economy – and conclude that indeed, globalization is down for the count.
But many others caution that while an era of globalization already in retreat is likely to retreat further as a result of the war, no one should expect the full demise of the globalized economy or the international liberal order that fostered it.
Realignment
Instead, some look at the “new world order” of “like-minded nations” that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov touted in Beijing last week and see the Ukraine war prompting an economic realignment to a world that is less global, more ideological, and increasingly characterized by division into camps.
The Ukraine war may be exposing the limits of a hyper-interconnected world, some say, but it is not likely to spell the end of globalization.
“I see two contradictory trends operating simultaneously, where on the one hand the larger economic conflict around the Ukraine war has accelerated the existing trend away from globalization in a significant way,” says Michael Desch, a professor of international relations at the University of Notre Dame and founding director of the university’s International Security Center.
“But on the other hand,” he adds, “we are realizing there are elements of globalization that have turned out to be quite durable – or at least are going to be hard to undo, no matter who wants to move beyond them.”
Two examples of the not-easily-undone side of globalization: China’s extensive integration into global supply chains, and Europe’s dependence on Russian energy supplies.
Indeed, the European Union moved forward this week with a proposal to ban all Russian coal imports, even as it struggles with the more difficult goal of weaning Europe off Russian oil and natural gas.
What the Ukraine war has provided, Dr. Desch says, is a “fresh lesson” in the limits of globalization.
“In case anyone needed a reminder,” he says, “we’re seeing that the grand liberal vision of globalization unifying the planet under a single economic and eventually single political system has turned out to be a chimera.”
Embracing nationalist policies
What seems clear is that globalization was already in a gradual retreat from its heyday over a decade ago – well before Russia launched the first invasion on European soil in nearly 80 years.
International trade as a percentage of world gross domestic product peaked in 2008 and shows no signs of recovering its zenith, according to the World Bank. The World Trade Organization hasn’t begun any global trade initiatives in over a decade, while even subglobal trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership or the U.S.-European Union Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership have foundered.
Moreover, even many of the world’s major beneficiaries of international trade and a globalized system have turned away from globalization and inward to embrace nationalist policies. Those range from the United States’ lurch to the “America First” policies and trade wars of Donald Trump, to China’s “Made in China 2025” initiative that aims to replace China’s dependence on foreign cutting-edge technology with domestic high-tech developers.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the fragilities it revealed in global supply chains of everything from vaccines to protective equipment have provided renewed impetus for what some are calling the “post-globalization” trends, from “near-shoring” and regionalization of supply chains to repatriating of production.
Now enter Russia’s war in Ukraine, which adds urgency to some “deglobalizing” efforts, some experts say, while potentially birthing new, more ideologically tinged initiatives as well.
“We’ve seen the splintering and bifurcating of the globalized system and post-Cold War international order for quite some time, but the war in Ukraine already appears to be accelerating and deepening that splintering and bifurcating,” says Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington.
“The countries leading the charge against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine may indeed be responsible for a significant portion of the global economy, but China and Russia have only accelerated their quest to build an alternative architecture to the Western-led system,” he says.
“And contrary to popular belief, Russia and China are not nearly as isolated internationally as we would like to believe,” adds Mr. Singleton, who specializes in international organizations and technology innovation.
He notes that India is working to establish a rupee/ruble exchange mechanism that would use nationalized Indian banks to bypass international sanctions on trade with Russia.
At the same time, Brazil, which imports 85% of its fertilizer needs and is largely dependent on Russia for potash and other key fertilizer components, is reportedly considering upping Chinese fertilizer imports or implementing a yuan payment system to keep the fertilizer imports flowing.
What China needs
Indeed, China is likely to be a key factor in determining how significantly the Ukraine war affects globalization, some experts say.
“China has been looking for ways to protect itself from Western sanctions since well before this war, but this crisis will just quicken their movement in that direction,” says Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
The problem for China is that while it rejects Western sanctions and is fully on board ideologically with Russia’s vision of a “new” economic order free of U.S. and Western domination, it remains the world’s largest exporter with an economic model still dependent on a globalized world.
“The Russia-China partnership is rooted more in mutual loathing of the U.S. than in similar thinking on this new ‘order,’ and Beijing will remain wary of any actions that damage its economic performance,” says Mr. Singleton. “But we’re going to see a growing focus on ways Russia and China can establish leverage over Western countries and weaken their influence in other markets,” he adds.
Two examples of sectors he says both countries can use to “fight back”: Russia’s role in global energy markets, and China’s dominance of the so-called rare earths – lithium, cobalt, terbium, and other related elements – essential to high-tech products including computers, cellphones, electric vehicles, and many armaments.
The Peterson Institute’s Dr. Lovely says China will be the economic behemoth to monitor for clues to globalization’s prospects, while the U.S.-China relationship and continued efforts by both great powers toward economic “decoupling” will also bear watching.
“The Chinese are going to double down on making sure they are not going to be as vulnerable as Russia to Western pressures, while at the same time acting to protect their position in the global economy,” she says.
“They’ll continue to try to straddle those two priorities,” Dr. Lovely says – noting the Chinese used the word “invasion” to describe Russia’s war when meeting recently with European leaders, even as they fill state media with Russian propaganda and blame the West for the war.
“The question now,” she says, “is how long China will be able to keep up that straddling.”
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Two ways to read the story
In Tunisia, as the economy falters, unemployment soars, and the ranks of vulnerable people swell, activists are seeking to give new life to a centuries-old social safety net.
Seven decades after the country cast off the vestiges of the traditional Islamic welfare system known regionally as waqf, and popularly in Tunisia as habous, advocates are urging Tunisians and the debt-riddled government to give it another chance.
Why We Wrote This
In Tunisia, an ancient Islamic social welfare system of charitable trusts, underutilized for decades, is seen by some as a way to lighten the burden on a cash-strapped government.
While only a handful of individual Tunisians carry on the tradition today, the creation of charitable trusts – the word waqf refers to an endowment – was once a dominant practice in Tunisia. Under this system, citizens would donate a portion of their salary, profit, or agricultural production to a trust, which would be managed in perpetuity to support poor people and the community.
Mohammed Bennani, a historian and archivist, provides weekly lunches as part of the habous his grandfather started in 1909 that put three shops and a piece of farmland in a trust. Most weeks his guests include university students, writers, and artists.
He vows to carry on the tradition to honor his grandfather’s will and pass on the spirit of giving. “Systems of governance and laws may change,” he says, “but the need to support one another is timeless.”
Mohammed Bennani carefully balances a platter of steaming couscous in his hands, carrying it to a table in the courtyard of his family home in Tunis’ old Medina on a brisk January Wednesday.
The guests? Whoever shows up.
The free weekly meal is open to all, but Mr. Bennani is not running a charity kitchen. This is his inheritance.
Why We Wrote This
In Tunisia, an ancient Islamic social welfare system of charitable trusts, underutilized for decades, is seen by some as a way to lighten the burden on a cash-strapped government.
“My grandfather donated a portion of his fortune to help others, and it is up to us to continue this tradition until the end of time,” Mr. Bennani says. “This is how we were raised: You respect the waqf.”
In Tunisia, as the country’s economy continues to falter, unemployment soars, and the ranks of vulnerable people swell, activists are seeking to breathe new life into a centuries-old Islamic social safety net.
Seven decades after the country cast off the last vestiges of the traditional social welfare system, advocates’ message to Tunisians and the debt-riddled government alike is the same: Give waqf a chance.
Not just the wealthy
Although only a handful of individual Tunisians carry on the tradition today, the creation of charitable trusts – the word waqf refers to an endowment – was once a widespread practice in Tunisia. Under this Islamic system, citizens would donate a portion of their salary, profit, or agricultural production to a trust, which would be managed in perpetuity to support poor people and the community.
While elsewhere in the Islamic world waqf saw wealthy individuals bequeath lands or establish trust funds to support mosques and schools, in Tunisia the practice, known colloquially also as habous, relied on a much broader base.
Between the 10th and 19th centuries, donations from middle-class and working-class Tunisians, artisans, business owners, bakers, and baristas were used to fund public works as Tunisia grew into a center of learning, trade, and culture.
“Waqf was designed to support the community,” says Mohsen Ettamimi, an imam and former member of Parliament who has researched and documented hundreds of waqf charitable trusts in the holy city of Kairouan. “It was a social support network that was derived from the people but organized, audited, and managed by the authorities.”
Cafes, hammam baths, hotels, and even grocery shops were donated, and then run by trusts, their profits used to build and support hospitals, schools, and housing. By the 19th century, one-third of all land in Tunisia was reserved as waqf trusts.
In his efforts to build a modern state in the 1950s, Tunisia’s post-independence leader President Habib Bourguiba did away with the waqf system, which by then had become entangled in inheritance disputes.
In his new, socialist state, the government would provide for the people and citizens would pay their taxes directly to the state.
Government struggles
Yet today, with unemployment at 14.9%, the national debt at 94% of gross domestic product, and inflation and poverty on the rise, that socialist system too is outdated. The Tunisian government is struggling to provide basic services, pay public sector workers, and provide health care to a population reliant on public services.
Social entrepreneur Leila Ben Gacem, whose Blue Fish organization helps create opportunities for dozens of struggling Tunisian artisans, is championing habous as a solution, both conceptually and as an untapped resource.
“Social entrepreneurship is not an American or European concept; it is a Tunisian concept developed right here several centuries ago in the form of habous,” says Ms. Ben Gacem. “And unlike other forms of charity or government safety nets, it is self-generating and sustainable.”
Ms. Ben Gacem promotes waqf as a solution that would break down the rigid separation between the private sector and charities in modern Tunisia that many believe has placed the social support burden too heavily on the shoulders of government.
“When it comes to capitalism and charity, it is not ‘either/or.’ Waqf proves you can both have a profitable business and help others,” says Ms. Ben Gacem. “We need to educate Tunisians that there is a third way developed from our own culture and experience.”
A resource in limbo
Today, Tunisia’s cities and countryside are scarred by crumbling shops, disused and overgrown farmland, and decrepit buildings – all unclaimed waqf properties left in limbo by the Bourguiba government’s 1957 decree ending the system.
Families with historical claims but no documentation cannot reclaim or utilize their ancestors’ habous properties.
Historic schools and student housing under the government’s control alternate between being shuttered for vague, decadelong renovation projects and lying empty.
Religious sites, too, are just scraping by.
Today, shrines and historic mosques rely on the modern, 21st-century concept of waqf: donation boxes placed at the entrance.
Curators say this “spare-change charity” is no substitute for self-generating endowments.
At Kairouan’s Sidi Sahib Zawiya and Madrassa, the brilliant-tiled 17th-century shrine and tomb of Abu Zama al Balawi, a companion to the Prophet Muhammad, staff walk around literally with their palms opened, hoping visitors can spare a few dinars to help pay for upkeep and staff salaries.
“Habous used to pay for the schooling of students across the Islamic world from as far away as Pakistan who would come here to Kairouan to study,” Zuhair Haddad, keeper of the shrine, says as he leads a tour through its vibrant turquoise ceramic-tiled courtyard. “Now the occasional donations barely pay for cleaning supplies.”
Political hurdle
Since their 2011 democratic revolution, Tunisia’s leaders have tried their hand at reviving the system.
Less than a year after shaking off the yoke of dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, a review of the habous system was atop their agenda in 2012. A government-formed committee examined hundreds of frozen or unclaimed waqf properties and concluded they were an untapped resource that could help fund the country’s post-revolution transition.
But the committee’s recommendation to reform the system was met with liberal and secular opposition amid suspicions that waqf advocates were scheming to use the proceeds from the trusts to support the powerful Islamist Ennahda Party.
“Anybody who spoke of religious affairs was seen as Islamist or part of Ennahda. Waqf became a polarizing issue and unfortunately remains so until today,” says Mounir Tilil, a former religious affairs minister and chair of the waqf committee. “When in fact this is a legal, socioeconomic issue, not a religious one.”
“We have closed one important door for our society rather than fix it. It has become a nonstarter.”
Yet individual Tunisians continue to carry on the tradition themselves, insisting that waqf is above the dividing lines of politics and religion.
Mr. Bennani, a historian and archivist, continues the weekly lunches as part of the habous his grandfather started in 1909 that placed three shops and a piece of farmland in waqf.
Mr. Bennani has made his own alterations along the way, moving the meal from post-Friday noon prayers to Wednesday to make it “less religious and more inclusive.” He has replaced lamb with vegetables on the couscous.
Most weeks his guests are university students, researchers, writers, artists, and poets – the hearty home-cooked meal a balm for those far away from home, much like the waqfs in Kairouan that supported students from far-flung towns a millennium ago.
On this rainy and cold Wednesday, only two people show up.
But Mr. Bennani vows to carry on the tradition no matter the turnout to honor his grandfather’s will – and to pass on the spirit of giving.
“Systems of governance and laws may change, but the need to support one another is timeless,” he says. “Giving back is a universal form of faith.”
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A Turkish court decided Thursday to transfer the trial of 26 Saudis accused in the gruesome killing of Jamal Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia, raising fears that those responsible for the death of the Washington Post columnist won’t be brought to justice for a crime that drew international outrage.
The decision, which comes as Ankara is trying to repair relations with Saudi Arabia, was denounced as “scandalous” by a human rights group. It marked an abrupt reversal for Turkey, which had vowed to shed light on the killing and began prosecuting the defendants in absentia in 2020.
Mr. Khashoggi, a United States resident who wrote critically about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed on Oct. 2, 2018, at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He had gone into the consulate for an appointment to collect documents required for him to marry his Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, and never came out.
Turkish officials alleged that Mr. Khashoggi was killed and then dismembered with a bone saw inside the consulate by a team of Saudi agents sent to Istanbul. The group included a forensic doctor, intelligence and security officers, and individuals who worked for the crown prince’s office. His remains have not been found.
The Istanbul court’s decision comes despite warnings from human rights groups that turning the case over to the kingdom would lead to a cover-up of the killing, which has cast suspicion on the crown prince.
Last week, the prosecutor in the case recommended its transfer to the kingdom, arguing that the trial in Turkey would remain inconclusive. Turkey’s justice minister supported the recommendation, adding that the trial in Turkey would resume if the Istanbul court is not satisfied with the outcome in Saudi Arabia.
It was not clear if the kingdom, which has already put some of the defendants on trial behind closed doors, would open a new trial, and there was no immediate reaction from Riyadh to the decision.
At Thursday’s hearing, lawyers representing Ms. Cengiz asked the court not to move the proceedings to Saudi Arabia, the private DHA news agency reported.
“Let’s not entrust the lamb to the wolf,” the agency quoted lawyer Ali Ceylan as telling the court. “Let’s protect the honor and dignity of the Turkish nation.”
But the court halted the trial in line with the Justice Ministry’s “positive opinion,” DHA reported. It also decided to lift arrest warrants issued against the defendants and gave the sides seven days to lodge any opposition.
Saudi Arabia had rejected Turkey’s requests to extradite the defendants, who included two former aides of the prince.
Some of the men were put on trial in Riyadh behind closed doors. A Saudi court issued a final verdict in 2020 that sentenced five midlevel officials and operatives to 20-year jail terms. The court had originally ordered the death penalty, but reduced the punishment after Mr. Khashoggi’s son, Salah, who lives in Saudi Arabia, announced he forgave them. Three others were sentenced to lesser jail terms.
At the time of the killing, Turkey apparently had the Saudi Consulate bugged and shared audio of the killing with the CIA, among others.
The slaying sparked international condemnation. Western intelligence agencies, as well as the U.S. Congress, said an operation of such magnitude could not have happened without the knowledge of the crown prince.
Human rights advocates had also urged Turkey not to transfer the case to Saudi Arabia, arguing that justice for Mr. Khashoggi would not be delivered by Saudi courts.
“It’s a scandalous decision,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey director for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, asserting that the court had “rubber stamped” a political decision that would allow the Turkish government to repair its ties with Saudi Arabia.
“In the interest of realpolitik, Turkey is ready to sacrifice justice for an egregious crime on its own soil,” she told The Associated Press. “[The decision] opens the way for other countries to commit assassinations on Turkish territory and get away with it.”
Ms. Cengiz said she would continue to seek justice.
“We will continue this [judicial] process with all the power given to me, as a Turkish citizen,” she told reporters outside the courthouse.
“The two countries may be making an agreement, the two countries may be opening a new chapter ... but the crime is still the same crime,” she said. “The people who committed the crime haven’t changed. Governments and states must have a principled stance.”
Turkey, which is in a deep economic downturn, has been trying to improve its strained relationship with Saudi Arabia and an array of other countries in the region. Some media reports have claimed that Riyadh has made improved relations conditional on Turkey dropping the case, which had inflamed tensions between two countries.
The move would pave the way to a resolution of disputes between the two regional heavyweights since the 2011 Arab Spring, including Turkey’s support for Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, which Riyadh considers a terrorist group. Turkey also sided with Qatar in a diplomatic dispute that saw Doha boycotted by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.
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