text stringlengths 237 126k | date_download stringdate 2022-01-01 00:32:20 2023-01-01 00:02:37 ⌀ | source_domain stringclasses 60 values | title stringlengths 4 31.5k ⌀ | url stringlengths 24 617 ⌀ | id stringlengths 24 617 ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
By Allison Salerno
Yadiska van Putten, left, prepares a dish under the direction of chef Charles Gardiner at Gallery Restaurant in Charlotte. Van Putten began working at the restaurant shortly after her graduation from Johnson & Wales. (Dillon Deaton for The Washington Post)
CHARLOTTE — Dressed in a short-sleeved chef’s shirt and black-and-white checkered chef pants, Yadiska van Putten puts a black nitrile glove on each hand as she begins her morning shift as a Level 2 prep and station cook in the kitchen of Gallery Restaurant at the Ballantyne Hotel in Charlotte. The hood vent and convection oven rumble behind her as she chops strawberries for the lunchtime salads.
Van Putten was hired for this $14-an-hour job in April, a month before she graduated from the Charlotte campus of Johnson & Wales University. She started in mid-May, one of about 30 cooks working the kitchen at the upscale restaurant, which bills itself as serving “New American fare in a refined venue.”
Drawn by the idea of “leading a team, being able to create an environment, a concept,” she wants to be an executive chef. Van Putten, a soft-spoken woman who grew up in St. Martin, says her father, Humphrey, 58, has worked various front-of-house restaurant jobs and is also a talented home cook. “I was always in the kitchen with him,” she said. “Seeing him is what inspired me to be like him.”
This particular ambition sets van Putten apart from many graduates of her four-year program, she said. When she started at Johnson & Wales in the fall of 2017, many classmates also wanted to work as executive chefs in restaurants, but by graduation most of her peers, she said, had chosen different paths — studying hospitality management, sustainable food systems or culinary nutrition to prepare for jobs in such places as assisted-living centers and hospitals, with meal-delivery companies, or in catering.
Van Putten’s enthusiasm for back-of-house restaurant work sets her apart in the job market nationwide, too.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, the need for chefs and head cooks is far outpacing the number of students interested in pursuing those careers. Observers say the reasons include relatively low pay compared with the costs of education, and a pandemic that decimated the restaurant industry and prompted a younger generation to reconsider erratic work hours at places that often do not offer paid sick time or health insurance.
The bureau projects that the need for head cooks and chefs will rise 25 percent from 2020 to 2030, far faster than the forecast 8 percent average growth rate for all occupations. Those projections were developed in the fall of 2021 and so include the start of the pandemic in March 2020, said William Lawhorn, an economist in the bureau’s Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections.
As Lawhorn explained, the dramatic need for chefs and head cooks is a result of the restaurant industry shutdown during the pandemic. “You’re starting from a really low base,” he said. “Much of the projected employment growth in this occupation is due to recovery from the covid-19 recession. We’re just trying to get back to where we were.”
Meanwhile, interest in culinary careers appears to be waning.
The Culinary Institute of America, often cited as the nation’s most revered culinary school, now accepts 97 percent of all who apply, a much higher rate than the 36 percent it accepted for the 2001-02 academic year. The number of applicants rose less than 1 percent between the 2001-02 academic year and the 2020-21 academic year, according to data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics. Over the same time frame, the school’s yield — the percentage of admitted students who ended up enrolling — dropped from 91 percent for the 2001-02 academic year to 33 percent. The institute did not respond to requests for comment.
During the same 19-year period, Johnson & Wales’s flagship campus in Providence, R.I., saw a 23 percent drop in applicants and a decrease in yield from 21 to 14 percent. The university’s Charlotte campus opened in the fall of 2004, following the consolidation of its Charleston and Norfolk locations. It closed its Denver and North Miami campuses in 2021.
Nationwide, the number of postsecondary institutions with culinary programs dropped by 20.5 percent between 2017 and 2020, from 264 to 210, according to the American Culinary Federation Education Foundation.
One factor limiting student interest in culinary school is that a four-year culinary degree isn’t cheap. A 2015 survey by Eater showed that tuition at culinary schools can be several times higher than rates charged by four-year public universities. The tuition (excluding room and board) for Johnson & Wales’s Charlotte campus, for example, rose during the 2021-22 school year to $36,274, a 4.4 percent increase from the prior academic year. That compares with in-state tuition of $7,188 per academic year at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Those statistics don’t tell the full story, said Althea Carter, a culinary instructor in the Hoover, Ala., public schools. Not all executive chefs earn undergraduate degrees at culinary schools, she said. Many want to know the business side of running a restaurant, given the high rate of failure for restaurants.
“I was an executive chef for a while,” she said. “But my bachelor’s degree was in restaurant management. … More and more people are wanting to learn the business of it, because here’s the thing: It’s a dog-eat-dog world.”
Of the 14 students who graduated from her high school’s culinary program this spring, Carter said, one went straight into the culinary workforce, and eight are beginning programs in hospitality and tourism, culinary arts, or food science.
Erika Polmar, executive director of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, agrees with Carter that enrollment in culinary programs is not an accurate way to measure career interest among young adults. “Our industry is one that allows people to start in a position as a dishwasher, as a server, as a line cook and work their way up without the need for that sort of formal education,” she said. “The data about admissions certainly tells part of the story, but you have to remember that going to an institution like CIA or Johnson & Wales is insanely expensive, right? … So why take on that debt burden when you can go to the graduate school of life and get a job in a kitchen and work your way up?”
Saru Jayaraman, founder of One Fair Wage, a national restaurant worker advocacy group, blames low wages for the lack of candidates for chefs and head cooks. The restaurant industry already faced a labor crisis before the pandemic because of low pay, she said. “The workers know it’s the wages. Employers know it’s the wages,” she said, and only raising the federal minimum wage for both front and back-of-house workers would ease the shortage.
Van Putten’s education was paid for through a grant from the government of resort-rich St. Martin, with the expectation that she will return to work on the Caribbean island. Her supervisor at Gallery, executive chef Charles Gardiner, 33, earned his degree from a community college in Asheville, N.C. “I graduated debt-free,” he said, and had earned his certification as an executive chef by age 23.
Jason Evans, dean of the College of Food Innovation and Technology at Johnson & Wales, was not surprised to hear that many of van Putten’s classmates are following career paths other than that of executive chefs. His university has reshaped its curriculums over the past decade to reflect the changing market for culinary-adjacent jobs.
“One of the reasons that they may pivot from those traditional hospitality back-of-the house or executive chef jobs is less about pay and more about work-life balance,” he said. “The hospitality and food-service industries are built on late nights and weekends. I’m not a sociologist, but … this newest generation of college students maybe don’t value that.”
The solution, Evans said, is “professionalizing the industry.” The companies that hire graduates “are going to have to add a different incentive structure … which includes not only wages but time off and benefits,” he said.
That’s the kind of package van Putten’s employer offers. Gardiner said many upscale independent Charlotte restaurants pay $17 an hour — $3 more an hour — for jobs like hers. But, he said, they tend to offer no benefits. The Ballantyne, which is operated by Denver-based Northwood Hospitality, offers all its employees health insurance, sick leave and short-term disability, he said. While younger employees might not be concerned about those benefits, the package has enabled him to retain more seasoned employees, he said.
Van Putten said it wasn’t the Ballantyne’s benefits package that prompted her to accept the job offer. It was the work culture. She said she interviewed for a similar job at a Charlotte-area country club, and the hiring manager didn’t even show her the kitchen. “When I came here, I got a tour of the entire place. I felt welcomed here, knowing I am not just the labor; I am a person who is valued,” she said.
While the growing dearth of executive chefs poses a challenge to restaurant owners and managers, Christophe Le Chatton, general manager at the Ballantyne, says it also offers opportunities for aspiring chefs. Positions that took a decade or more of dues-paying now might be available in three to five years.
“Today it’s more about showing your skill set. You can go so fast so much more quickly,” Le Chatton said. “It’s a great time to enter the industry.” | 2022-08-30T12:13:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Culinary school enrollment is dropping as restaurant staffing needs soar - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/08/30/culinary-school-enrollment-down/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/08/30/culinary-school-enrollment-down/ |
Elena Delle Donne on finding acceptance as a lesbian in the WNBA
The Washington Mystics’ Elena Delle Donne. (KK Ottesen/For The Washington Post)
Elena Delle Donne, 32, is a professional basketball player for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, who were swept in the first round of the 2022 playoffs. She helped the team win its first championship in 2019; is a three-time starting all-star, two-time MVP, and rookie of the year; and has won Olympic gold for the United States.
Stepping way back, can you talk about when you first got the bug, when you first realized that you were really good at the game and really loved it?
I first started playing because I have an older brother — three years older — and, really, whatever sport he was doing, I just wanted to do it, too, and be able to play with him and his friends. And I was able to hold my own. And then, the moment I knew I was really good was when I started playing AAU basketball and traveling. I mean, in travel ball, our team was good, and I’d been good on the team, but to go to the nationals and then see all the different 10-year-olds across the country and feel like I was one of the best, that was a little bit shocking, I think, to both me and my family.
Also, basketball helped me get a little bit more comfortable in my body because it was the only place where I felt my height was a good thing. I was definitely always much taller than the boys and the girls in my grade. And when I was young it was really hard. You deal with some mean comments from kids. Feeling like you’re different isn’t always the greatest thing as a kid. I don’t know exactly when I hit 6-5, but in high school I was definitely in the 6-foot range. So when I got to the basketball court, it was like, “Oh my goodness, this height is a good thing, actually — and there’s other really tall people.” So I think I found not just a love in basketball, but a comfort in it, too, where I could really be myself and be celebrated for being different.
You’ve spoken about the importance of visibility — both the visibility as a female athlete and visibility of being different.
I think it’s huge that we have a bunch of different role models out there for kids to be able to look up to and maybe connect with something that they are feeling. As a kid, I was obsessed with Sheryl Swoopes and Michael Jordan, being two of the greatest players to ever play the game. But I was also confused about my sexual orientation for a while, too. I never had gay role models that I could really look up to, and there weren’t really books or commercials or any of that showing gay couples. That wasn’t around when I was younger. So it was a very confusing feeling trying to figure out, “Is something wrong with me? What is this? Do I need to push this aside? This is not good.”
So for me, being tall and being gay and being a female athlete, all those things, it’s just so important that there’s more of a diverse visibility of role models. I actually didn’t feel that comfortable until college when I was able to just go and be myself and start exploring. And then when I got to the WNBA, I was like, “My goodness, this is the most incredible accepting league that I’ve ever seen!” I felt just so safe and comforted in this league, in the W. And not just with players who were out, but also fans and how pride was so celebrated. It was something I had never experienced before.
You must hear from fans all the time. Do you have stories that stay with you?
I have a lot of fans who are in the LGBTQ+ community who have thanked me for just being so open on social media about my marriage and love with my wife, Amanda. I’ve even had parents say, like, “Because you’ve shown your love with Amanda, it’s really helped me to figure out how to go about my child coming out to me.” I love to hear that. Unfortunately, I feel like with human nature, you almost just have to see more things, yourself, to understand, so I think it is very important to show our life and that our love for one another should be celebrated. Hopefully it can help others to understand or others who are struggling just to be comfortable being who they are.
Do you also get blowback?
A long time ago I decided not to read all the comments and not to get caught up in that because social media can be a great tool where you can connect with people and share your life and your story, but it can also be negative and hurtful because people get this powerful voice when they can hide behind a screen. So I’m sure, yes, I get pretty tough comments here and there, but I try just not to even pay attention to it. And the love that I receive from fans is way bigger than a couple trolls here and there.
This reminds me a little of when you were transitioning to UConn as the number one recruit out of high school and then decided [the first week of summer training] to go home for family reasons — having to make that decision as an 18-year-old, and having it be so public, with people you don’t even know commenting and criticizing.
That was really tough, especially because I was younger, and I hadn’t really developed the tough skin, so to speak, of not paying attention to what people are saying about me. But luckily, my parents, especially my mom, kind of shielded me from that when I made the decision to come back home and do something else.
People are going to say what they want to say, but it was the greatest decision I ever could have made, and my path happened the way it was supposed to happen. And I ended up back where I belong and back in this basketball journey. But I needed to take that massive step in order to find who I was outside of basketball: Who was Elena the person? For so long I defined myself as Elena the basketball player and used that to shield me from other things in life. You can never just be one thing. And I realized the importance of ways to not burn out and to develop other interests off the court and to be multifaceted. So it was crucial for me to explore all that, especially at that point in my life.
You’ve talked about the influence of your older sister, Lizzie, who is blind and deaf, and has cerebral palsy and autism, calling her the bravest person you know.
Yeah. I mean, she’s taught me more than any person in my life. And she can’t speak. So it really puts into perspective how much she’s able to communicate. I think the biggest thing for me is just seeing the things that doctors have said over the years about what she can’t do: She can’t do this, can’t do that. And then she blew [past] their expectations and did far more. At a young age they told my parents that she would never be able to lift her head, let alone walk, wouldn’t have the strength to do that. And she’s not only lifted her head, but she’s still walking. She’s just so strong, even after she’s had over 30 surgeries in her life. And a lot of times they would say, “Oh, it’s going to be a three-month recovery.” And in two weeks: Boom, she was back to her normal self. So it just has taught me a ton about not allowing self-pity and all those things to affect you from achieving what you truly can. That we’re way more capable than we even understand. A lot of times we get stuck on these expectations that are put on us. And I’ve learned from Lizzie to crush those barriers. And create your own path.
You’re now one of, I think it will be, 10 WNBA players ever with a signature shoe.
I think right now it’s only three active players with them right now: me, Stewie [Breanna Stewart] and, I believe, Candace Parker. So again, visibility and women’s sports, I think signature shoes are a huge part of that. And I’m hoping this just slams the door open for many players in the league. I feel like this is a big next step to show that these huge companies believe in us, are putting money behind it to develop these shoes, market these shoes, have them out there. And hopefully that gets other companies to come on board with the league and continue to pour in their investment. More brands are jumping on board and investing, though obviously more need to come. But I do think the league has grown tremendously and the visibility has been so much better. You see more of our games now on TV.
Why the WNBA’s first signature sneakers in 11 years mean so much
I even notice being out and about that way more people are noticing me and stopping me and asking about the Mystics. I’m like, “This is a great sign.” Because before I could be pretty incognito. My height gives me away here and there, but I just feel like there’s so many more people who know about our league and who are supporting and watching because it’s available.
You’ve talked about the fact that 50 percent of girls leave sports during puberty. How do you think about why that happens and what can be done to change it?
A large reason for it is just that helpless feeling of being, "Well, where is this going to take me? I don’t see professional sports. I don’t see the benefits of putting my time into this.” Another big reason is also period poverty. And not being able to have the access to products that they need in order to still be able to compete when they’re on their period. And then also a lack of women coaches out there, too. So I think there’s just a lot of different variables that go into it. So we have to pour into the grassroots programs that support young athletes. Because even if you don’t go on to be a professional athlete, sports develop people, develop their leadership skills, how to work with a team, how to be motivated and try to achieve a goal, or even how to deal with loss.
Speaking about the league and gender parity, you’ve said that men come up to you and just assume that they could beat you in basketball because you’re a woman. How often does it happen? And what’s your reaction?
It happens a decent amount; we’ll be in the airport or something, and it’ll be like, “Hey, you want to go one-on-one?” It’s just annoying. And it’s funny because the NBA guys respect our game so much, respect our level of play so much. So when you see a high school has-been come up to you like, “Yeah, I could beat you one-on-one.” It’s like, “All right, let’s not do this.” But it has lessened during my time in the league, and I’m hoping it’s because of opportunities to watch us and be like, “Yeah. No, I couldn’t beat her in one-on-one.” Or “I couldn’t stand a chance on that team.”
You’ve been vocal in urging the Biden administration to figure out a way to bring home fellow WNBA player Brittney Griner. How has her ordeal reverberated in the WNBA? And what is the thinking on how she’s been valued by the administration, and how much of that is a gender issue?
It’s just been heartbreaking to see this happen to such a sweet, incredible, caring, giving person. BG, if you meet her, she changes you because of how sweet and caring she is. The first thing she always asks me is, “How’s Lizzie?” For her to be going through this and for so long now, it’s hard to even wrap your head around it.
I think the part that was really frustrating to us all amongst the league was knowing that the administration waited so long to meet with Brittney’s wife. Like, why did that have to take so long? That was concerning to me that if you can’t even take that meeting, what are you doing to get her home? As a collective, we’ve just been trying to do the most we can to continue to talk about Brittney, and to hopefully give her some hope that we are trying whatever we can do to get her home. But hopefully something will come about and she’ll finally come home and be with her family.
If you can point to one thing you’ve learned, advice to live by, what would you say?
I guess I would just say run your own race. I think sometimes we get caught up in what other people think we should be doing, or we get caught up in judgment or comparison of what others are doing. And the bottom line is, you have to just run your own race and do what’s best for you. And you’re the only person who can steer that. Guide that and know that.
Jonathan Banks of ‘Better Call Saul’ explains Mike’s saving grace | 2022-08-30T12:13:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elena Delle Donne on finding acceptance as a lesbian in the WNBA - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/08/30/elena-delle-donne-wnba-womens-basketball/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/08/30/elena-delle-donne-wnba-womens-basketball/ |
A hot dog napkin led to a man’s conviction for a 1993 murder
“When you discard a thing in the trash, the Supreme Court says it is fair game,” says Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman. (Julia Nikhinson/AP)
It was during a 2019 hockey game that Jerry Westrom would unknowingly hand investigators the missing clue to an unsolved decades-old homicide case.
A napkin, used after eating a hot dog and smeared with Westrom’s saliva residue, linked the 56-year-old Minnesota man to the 1993 murder of Jeanne “Jeanie” Childs. The 35-year-old sex worker had been found stabbed to death in her Minneapolis apartment on June 13, 1993.
Westrom was found guilty Thursday of killing Childs. But for almost three decades, the case had left authorities stumped. They’d found a gruesome crime scene covered with DNA that couldn’t be traced to anyone at the time. Years had dragged on with more questions than answers — until 2018, when law enforcement enlisted the help of a genealogist and a commercial genealogy site.
“Today’s guilty verdicts show that we will pursue convictions for serious crimes, even if it takes years to gather the evidence,” Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a news release.
Westrom’s attorney, Steve Meshbesher, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post. He told CBS that “somebody sick, pathological” had killed Childs, adding that Westrom “isn’t the guy.” During the trial, he argued that Childs’s alleged pimp, who died in 2017, could’ve been the killer since some of his hairs were found in the woman’s hands.
“Very disappointed. The jury did not see all the evidence. We had presented all the evidence, the judge said no,” Meshbesher told the outlet, adding that he’d appeal the verdict. “Whatever happened was brutal, it’s a question of who did it.”
Authorities had tried to answer that question for nearly 30 years.
That day, a tenant at a Minneapolis apartment complex complained about a leak, according to a criminal complaint. The property’s supervisors saw water rushing out into the hallway from one apartment. Upon entering, they found a running shower, a body and a bloody scene.
Childs had multiple wounds across her chest, neck, back, arms, hands and buttocks, the complaint states.
Inside the apartment, evidence pointed to a prolonged attack that had moved from room to room, prosecutors said. A bloody footprint was left close to Child’s body. Several items — including bedding, a towel, a washcloth and a red T-shirt — were taken by investigators to test for DNA.
An unidentified child found dead in 1960 was dubbed ‘Little Miss Nobody.’ Authorities now know her name.
Genetic material was found, but it didn’t match anyone with a felony record. Childs being a sex worker widened the pool of possible suspects, officials said. With no witnesses and so few leads, police deemed the case “horribly difficult” to crack. For years, the DNA evidence remained in storage.
But in 2018, hope was kindled through a breakthrough in investigation techniques: DNA genealogy, or tracking family trees that are generated through public profiles. The tool is available to anyone who wants to find a DNA match or discover their ancestry. But — by allowing police to research beyond criminal databases — it’s become a powerful law enforcement technique since it led to the 2018 arrest of the “Golden State Killer.”
A similar method was used to narrow the suspect list in Childs’s murder, the Hennepin County attorney’s office said. With information derived from commercial genealogy websites, investigators found two potential suspects — one of them was Westrom.
Other clues also led police to Westrom, like the fact that he had lived in the Twin Cities between 1991 and 1993 and that he’d been convicted of soliciting a prostitute in 2016. Starting on January 2019, investigators began to home in on Westrom and eventually launched a stealth mission at a hockey game that year, according to the complaint.
The ingenious and ‘dystopian’ DNA technique police used to hunt the ‘Golden State Killer’ suspect
Investigators dug through the trash after watching Westrom throw out a used napkin and cardboard hot dog tray. Then, they compared it to the DNA samples that had been recovered at the murder scene. It was a match, officials said — and Westrom was later arrested.
When questioned by authorities, Westrom “denied having been at the apartment complex, denied having been in the apartment, denied recognizing [Childs], and denied having had sex with any women in Minneapolis in 1993,” according to the complaint. He also said he didn’t know why his DNA was found at the scene.
In June 2020, Westrom was charged with first-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence under Minnesota law. His sentencing is expected in the coming weeks, Law & Crime reported.
“I know that the law is finally going to take care of him for what he did, and I hope he can sleep at night,” Childs’s mother, Betty Eakman, told CBS. “Jeanie was a wonderful person even though she had problems. She had a big heart.”
Before Westrom’s arrest, a DJ’s tossed chewing gum and a coffee cup thrown away at an airport helped authorities crack decades-old cases. A hot dog napkin now joins the list of trashed but valuable evidence.
“When you discard a thing in the trash, the Supreme Court says it is fair game,” Freeman, the Hennepin County attorney, said. “Saliva is one of the … ways to get DNA. The best I can tell, it was legitimate.” | 2022-08-30T12:13:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DNA from a hotdog napkin led to guilty verdict for Jeanie Childs murder - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/30/hotdog-napkin-minnesota-murder-jeanie-childs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/30/hotdog-napkin-minnesota-murder-jeanie-childs/ |
Megachurch pastor steps down after messages with woman ‘crossed a line’
Matt Chandler, pastor of the Village Church in Flower Mound, Tex., delivers a sermon in 2018. (Brandon Thibodeaux for The Washington Post)
Matt Chandler, the lead pastor at the Village Church in Flower Mound, Tex., appeared to fight back tears as he told his congregation on Sunday that he was taking a leave of absence — a move prompted by what his church’s leaders saw as inappropriate messages between him and a woman who is not his wife.
The leaders determined that the messages were not “romantic or sexual,” Chandler explained. “It was that our conversations were unguarded and unwise.”
Chandler and church officials went into scant detail about the nature of the messages. He said both his wife and the husband of the woman he was messaging knew about their communications. But church leaders thought the messaging was too frequent, familiar and resulted in “coarse and foolish joking,” Chandler said.
The pastor said the messages were called into question “several months ago” when a friend of the woman approached him and voiced her concerns. Chandler, 48, said he brought the concerns to fellow church leaders, who reviewed the messages and recommended he step aside.
Chandler’s abrupt departure is the latest setback for the Village Church, about 30 minutes northwest of Dallas, and the Southern Baptist Convention denomination — the country’s second-largest faith group, of which the Village Church is a member. Earlier this month, the SBC revealed that the Justice Department was investigating several branches of its organization. The probe followed the release of an internal report that found SBC leaders mishandled sexual abuse cases for two decades.
Also this month, the Village Church announced that it had settled a lawsuit alleging that one of its ministers molested an 11-year-old and the church was negligent in handling the situation. The criminal case against the minister was dismissed. The church maintained that it “committed no wrong.”
While the church was vague about the details of Chandler’s misconduct, officials made it clear that its lead pastor was not accused of sexual abuse.
His departure is nonetheless a blow to the church where he’s preached for two decades and become a central, admired figure. The church’s attendance is around 4,500 people, the New York Times reported.
Chandler will also pause his speaking engagements on behalf of Acts 29, an organization dedicated to starting new churches. Chandler serves as Acts 29’s board president and chairman.
In a statement, the church said that Chandler’s “leave of absence is both disciplinary and developmental” and his return will be determined by the “expectations the elders have laid out for his development.”
In front of the congregation on Sunday, Chandler explained that several months ago, a woman approached him in the church’s foyer with concerns about “how I was [direct messaging] on Instagram with a friend of hers.”
He did not think he had done anything wrong, as his spouse and the woman’s spouse were aware of their chats, he said. “Yet there were a couple of things that [the woman’s friend] said that were disorienting to me,” Chandler said without detailing the friend’s comments.
So Chandler brought the issue to a pair of church leaders, who, after looking at the Instagram conversations, determined the communications were too frequent and familiar, Chandler said.
In a statement, the church said that it hired a law firm to review the direct messages, along with Chandler’s entire social media history, including text messages and emails. The lawyers concluded that the pastor had violated the church’s social media policy. They also determined that he failed to meet the church-pastor standard of being “above reproach.” The leaders found that Chandler’s behavior was “a sign of unhealth in his life.”
“In this case, while the messages were not romantic or sexual in nature, the frequency and familiarity of the messages crossed a line,” the church’s statement said. “They revealed that Matt did not use language appropriate for a pastor, and he did not model a behavior that we expect from him.”
Even as Chandler announced his leave of absence, people in the crowd shouted their praise for him. Chandler nevertheless expressed remorse.
“I’m just really embarrassed, feel stupid … feel dumb,” Chandler told the congregation Sunday, adding: “I’m held to a higher standard and fell short of that higher standard.” | 2022-08-30T12:13:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Texas pastor steps aside over messages with woman that ‘crossed a line’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/30/pastor-matt-chandler-messages-village-church/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/30/pastor-matt-chandler-messages-village-church/ |
Why pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the U.S.
Molly Long, 56, returns a serve while playing pickleball at the Floridian Club of Sarasota in Venice, Fla., in June 2021. (Zack Wittman for The Washington Post)
In a Pittsburgh suburb this June, a sizable crowd gathered to watch four individuals duking it out in a fiery doubles match. The MVP of the showdown? Sixty-four-year-old attorney Meg Burkardt, who didn’t realize that the three men she “whooped” that day were used to a different sport: They were Pittsburgh Steelers T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith and Minkah Fitzpatrick.
A “sneaky-fast amalgam of tennis, badminton, and Ping-Pong,” pickleball was created in 1965, but its popularity has skyrocketed over the past couple of years, perhaps in part because of the coronavirus pandemic’s spiking demand for socially distanced outdoor activities. The game is enthralling everyone from youngsters to seniors, everywhere from Texas community centers to California country clubs. It’s now the fastest-growing sport in the United States, with almost 5 million “picklers” and counting — a population that has nearly doubled since 2014.
It’s easy to dismiss pickleball as a silly fad; it is, after all, called pickleball. But with so many people of different backgrounds coming together to play it, at a time when such camaraderie feels increasingly rare, there might be lessons to be gleaned from the sport’s sudden ubiquity.
New Yorker magazine writer Sarah Larson understands this, posing a question I never thought I’d ask: “Can pickleball save America?” While that headline might be tongue-in-cheek — much as I wish it could, pickleball alone won’t rescue our crumbling democracy — any phenomenon that can foster community on this scale is worth checking out. After all, getting Americans out of the house, moving and talking to one another is harder than ever. In recent decades, social isolation and polarization have been on the rise, while overall physical activity has declined. All these trends have been exacerbated by the pandemic.
According to political scientist Robert Putnam, author of the seminal 2000 book “Bowling Alone,” the United States has been struggling for some time with declining “social capital.” A community’s level of social capital is determined by the strength of the relationships forged within that social network. When we fail to meaningfully connect with one another, we can’t reap the benefits of trust, reciprocity and cooperation.
And we’re paying the price. Studies have found that societies with low social capital suffer higher rates of crime, lower quality of government and worse physical health than those with deeper connections. Sure enough: Americans today have fewer friends than ever. And when we participate in public discussions, it’s often through social media platforms engineered to profit off our divisions. By many measures, we live in a lonely, cloistered, exceptionally detached nation.
Enter pickleball. (Bear with me.)
The captivating charm of the sport is its ability to connect strangers from all walks of life. It’s easy to play, affordable, casual and relatively free of age or fitness limitations. It’s the thread uniting a group of 13 women in West Hartford, Conn., who call themselves the “Bad-Ass Babes” at their nearly daily games; it’s the wedding theme for couples who fell in love on the courts. And even if your pickleball partner doesn’t become your life partner, you might walk away from a match with a new friend.
Such relationships uplift everyone involved. New research by Harvard economist Raj Chetty picks up on the conversation about social capital, finding that at the community level, cross-class connections and friendships are the greatest booster of economic mobility. In other words, society benefits when we “play ball” (literally or figuratively) with people from different backgrounds — and develop meaningful relationships with them.
But achieving this vision isn’t without its challenges; even pickleball isn’t immune to NIMBY politics. Homeowners associations and tennis loyalists alike have taken legal action against pickleballers, complaining that the games are noisy and infringe upon the sanctity of tennis courts. These sorts of conflicts might seem small-ball, but they speak to a broader truth: For public social activities such as pickleball to thrive, they need real support.
Cities from Redondo Beach, Calif., to Lincoln, Neb., are investing in public pickleball courts —and it’s vital that local governments take this sort of initiative. After all, pickleball is a “low profit per square foot” activity (as are many of life’s greatest joys), which makes it unlikely that private developers will take the lead in creating space for it. But community initiatives that center connectedness and well-being at the local level bring returns of a different kind. Publicly financing community spaces — from pickleball courts to public parks, from adult learning centers to community gardens — can go a long way toward getting people to engage with one another.
We’ve spent a great deal of our energy and resources treating the symptoms of a polarized, disconnected, burnt-out nation. But meaningful solutions can start with real connection on a local scale — whether it’s a conversation with your neighbor or a pickup game of pickleball. Pickleball might not save America, but it’s certainly worth taking a swing at. | 2022-08-30T12:14:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the U.S. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/pickleball-community-social-capital-america/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/pickleball-community-social-capital-america/ |
Looks like my Prius and I are heading for 200,000 miles. It has some scratches and chipped paint, but the body and especially the interior are otherwise in great shape. I’ve driven that car north, south, east and west, Boston to San Diego, Montreal to New Orleans, where I live now.
My mechanic said that, with regular maintenance, the car could easily last 25 years (assuming it doesn’t get swallowed by one of the Big Easy’s monster potholes that feature on Instagram).
Why did I go from leasing gas-burning vehicles to a long-term relationship with a hybrid? I went to see “An Inconvenient Truth,” the 2006 documentary made by former vice president Al Gore. With alarm bells ringing over climate change, I investigated car options and made the leap to a gas-electric hybrid two years later.
One reason people are increasingly likely to keep driving cars instead of trading them in is that vehicle quality has vastly improved over the past two decades. But the high price and limited availability of new cars is another major factor.
Thanks to the relentless popularity of SUVs and pickups, the average vehicle now costs a breathtaking $48,182 — the most ever. Yet even if you want to shell out that much, good luck finding the object of your automotive dreams. Since the pandemic began, auto production worldwide has been stymied by a lack of computer chips and by bottlenecks in supplies of other parts.
Would-be customers are frustrated — as are dealers who normally would be selling down their supplies of 2022 model vehicles and getting ready for shiny sheet metal marking the October start of the 2023 model year.
I witnessed the problem firsthand recently while sitting in the waiting area of a Toyota dealership, killing time while some work was done on my car. Nearby, an older customer seemed ready to buy a new vehicle but then learned that the model she wanted wasn’t available. The salesman worked hard to talk her into a vehicle she clearly didn’t want — but the woman soon left.
With new vehicles so scarce, used car prices have soared, first-quarter 2022 prices rising 22 percent over the same period in 2021, and 48 percent over 2020. Pre-owned vehicles have always been in demand, even though they get little attention compared with late model ones. The ratio of used-car sales to new vehicles last year was about 3 to 1 — 43 million used vehicles were sold last year, versus about 15 million new ones.
Consumer Reports said this spring that “dealers are trying to snap up as many used cars as they can to satisfy customer demand, and that means you can get top dollar if you’re looking to sell or trade in.”
My Prius isn’t for sale. I haven’t had car payments for nearly a decade. The insurance and gas are around $150 a month. In the past five years, I’ve spent less than $3,000 on maintenance and repairs, including new tires.
With only 112 horsepower, the car doesn’t offer the sense of dominating the roads that the luxury crossovers did back in my leasing days. I do sometimes get rattled by bigger vehicles. Then again, sometimes the SUVs and pickups are waylaid by those giant New Orleans potholes while my Prius darts around them — the car might be old, but it’s still nimble. | 2022-08-30T12:14:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | My dear Prius, after 163,000 miles, you and I still aren’t done - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/used-cars-prius-labor-day-driving/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/used-cars-prius-labor-day-driving/ |
Perspective by Dee Swann
Anthony Cavo
Winter fun in Massachusetts, circa 1910. (Copyright 2022 by Anthony Cavo. Reprinted courtesy of Harper Design, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.)
Antiques and dogs have always been a part of Anthony Cavo’s life. His mother, a nurse, fell in love with antiques in the 1960s and became an antiques dealer and auctioneer. Cavo has fond memories of searching through attics, basements, abandoned buildings, crawl spaces, funeral parlors and even a caretaker’s cottage at a cemetery with his parents to acquire items for his mother’s two antiques shops in New Jersey.
It was on these antiques excursions that Cavo’s family acquired many of their dogs. Their pug, Winston, whose stud services were no longer needed and who was destined to be put down, came home with them along with an 18th-century Chippendale chest of drawers.
They found their schnauzer, Schatzi, while buying antiques at an estate where the owner had died. They heard whimpers from the basement, and the estate executor explained that no one wanted the dog left behind. Cavo’s mother didn’t hesitate to scoop up the frightened, undernourished dog and take him home.
Their rescues also included cats, doves, a goose no longer able to fly, a miniature Alpine goat and a parrot named Caesar. “No pet left behind,” Cavo said in the introduction of his book “Love Immortal: Antique photographs and stories of dogs and their people.”
So when Cavo was cataloguing his collection of old photographs several years ago, he was not surprised to find that he had gathered so many portraits of people with their dogs. He was fascinated by the relationships between them in the photographs, especially since the value of a dog in the 19th and early 20th century was often based on its usefulness to the owner.
When Cavo showed the images to others, they were intrigued and often expressed wonder at how old the photographs were. They were especially delighted to see the photos with children. All of this inspired Cavo to publish these photographs in “Love Immortal.”
Cavo, a certified appraiser of art and antiques, has collected old photographs for more than 50 years. Growing up, he traversed the neighborhoods of New York with his red wagon in search of antiques he could sell, only to spend that money purchasing more photographs. Cavo recalls the moment he fell in love with them on one of his family’s antiquing trips to Pennsylvania to visit “Ann, the Duck Lady’s” shop.
“One day in 1963, among the piles of horsehair-stuffed Victorian chairs, marble-topped furniture, pier mirrors, and primitive furniture, I found a wooden box, its exterior stenciled in black: ‘From G. Cramer Dry Plate Co., St. Louis, MO.’
“I moved the box to a hazy patch of sunlight that entered the barn through a dirty, cracked window alive with fluttering cobwebs and opened it to find hundreds of people dressed like the people in my school history books. Some of the men looked like Abraham Lincoln, and all the women wore big gowns. By the time I finished digging through the box and examining every image, I was hooked, a photoholic; I had to have them. I wanted them all, but, as a kid, I had only enough money to buy a few. I carefully selected and paid for my photos, then went out to the barnyard to examine them in full sunlight.
“My excitement at discovering these images and my keen interest in them did not escape my parents’ attention. They soon joined me as I extracted each photo and conveyed to them what I had learned about them from Ann—that we were looking into the faces of people who lived more than one hundred years before. That evening, when we arrived home, my parents surprised me with the wooden box and its mysterious contents. I spread the photos out on our dining room table and began to examine each one with a magnifying glass, calling out to my parents and siblings each time I found something interesting. Finally, my older sister, who was the self-appointed spokesperson for us six children, seemed to sum up my siblings’ disinterest by asking, ‘Why are you collecting dead people, why can’t you collect baseball cards like a normal kid?’ ”
The 200-plus photographs in Cavo’s book, taken between the 1840s and 1940s, are from around the world. They include daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, carte de visite (tiny post cards), and sepia and black-and-white images. In his book, Cavo discusses the different types of photography methods that were used at the time and the challenges that photographers faced trying to capture those images.
Among the heartwarming photographs, Cavo weaves in true stories of heroic dogs and dogs lost and then found. Romey, the Newfoundland in the photo below, rescued his owners from raging floodwaters in Pennsylvania when they were thrown from the floating rooftop of their home.
Cavo reminds us of the amazing traits that dogs possess that have made them such an important part of our history. These photographs give us a glimpse not only into the special relationships these people might have had with their dogs but also into what life might have been like with them at the time. Dogs worked hard for them, sometimes saved them but, more important, provided them with companionship and unconditional love.
In Sight is The Washington Post’s photography blog for visual narrative. This platform showcases compelling and diverse imagery from staff members and freelance photographers, news agencies and archives. If you are interested in submitting a story to In Sight, please complete this form.
More on In Sight:
Never before published images of men in love between 1850 and 1950
Dogs photographed through the years by some of Magnum Photos’ most notable photographers | 2022-08-30T12:14:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Immortal Love: Nineteenth and early twentieth-century photographs of dogs and their people. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/08/30/19th-20th-century-photographs-dogs-their-people/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/08/30/19th-20th-century-photographs-dogs-their-people/ |
A new $15 million gorilla museum celebrates Fossey’s legacy, but she never wanted to share the apes with the world
A female adult mountain gorilla pictured at Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park in 2021. With hundreds of mountain gorillas in residence, the park is a conservation triumph. (Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images)
KINIGI, Rwanda — As a museum, it’s out of the way, hours from the capital and up windy jungle roads that hug a chain of active volcanoes. But as a research center, it’s perfect.
Welcome to Africa’s Albertine Rift, a geological wonder that drew legendary gorilla activist Dian Fossey over half a century ago. Today, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund continues her legacy, a little farther down the mountain from her high-altitude camp. Its new headquarters make up a $15 million cultural and research center — an ironic bookend to her own narrative.
Fossey almost single-handedly brought the near-extinction of mountain gorillas to the world’s attention. She was also fiercely territorial and despised tourism. Former colleagues remember her as complicated, driven, even obsessive in a belief that she alone could protect gorillas. What would she say if she knew tourism now funded gorilla conservation?
Back in Fossey’s day, the tracks were dirt; now they’re paved smooth, at least on this side of the famed Virunga Mountains, just outside Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, where gorilla tourism has become one of the continent’s most popular — and expensive — wildlife attractions.
Conservation’s most complicated problems have centered on who benefits from protected spaces and species — and who gets to study them. The gorilla center helps change that by providing opportunity for Rwandans. Part science center and part museum, the center can help tourists supplement their gorilla treks. However, it tells the swashbuckling side of Fossey’s story rather than examining the thornier parts leading up to her mysterious death.
The new complex housing the nonprofit opened in February. In June, it hosted a dedication ceremony for the Ellen DeGeneres Campus, named for its lead donor. Contributions also came from Leonardo DiCaprio and Sigourney Weaver, who played Fossey in the film adaptation of Fossey’s book, “Gorillas in the Mist.”
The point here, staff say, is looking toward the future and giving locals the tools to build careers. Africans writ large now have the chance to connect with a species that’s long been the purview of Western tourists and researchers. The campus isn’t so much reimagining the past as fixing its legacy.
“We will be able to accelerate both our science and our training of early-career African conservationists and scientists,” says Felix Ndagijimana, the nonprofit’s director of Rwanda programs.
The gorilla tourism experience has a familiar drawback in the world of sustainable travel: The high travel costs price out all but the wealthiest, making even modest hotels charge four-star rates. The more visitors arrive, the more they test the fragile environments they seek to protect.
In East Africa, mountain gorillas and a new paradigm for wildlife travel
The Ellen DeGeneres Campus aims to attract them across a sprawl of 12 acres. It took three years to build and provided 2,400 construction jobs to community members, many of them local women. The design includes three curvy stone-clad buildings with bio labs, classrooms, housing, a restaurant and a 360-degree theater.
Virtual and augmented reality installations help teach visually, and so do artifacts like Fossey’s never-before-seen field notes and photos. “The whole idea is education,” says Tara Stoinski, 53, the American primatologist leading the fund. While admission is free for Rwandans, international visitors are asked to pay donations starting at $20.
“In its first five months of operations, more than 11,000 people have come to the campus, and it is very fulfilling to us that over 50 percent of them have been Rwandan,” says Ndagijimana, who rose through the ranks himself, joining the group in 2004 as a research assistant before getting a master’s in primate conservation from Oxford Brookes University.
He calls educating Rwandans at the campus “essential.”
A conservation success story
According to the African Wildlife Foundation, there are only about 1,000 mountain gorillas left in the wild. They live in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and here in Rwanda, where it costs $1,500 for a permit to spend just one hour observing these rare apes in the wild.
There were far fewer gorillas in Fossey’s time. While the animals are still endangered, mostly because of habitat limitations and human competition, Fossey’s fund has been credited with helping bring this species back from the brink.
Extensive monitoring, community programs and research are its forte. For years, Stoinski says, “we had a rented office space: one lab, one room for meetings, and we didn’t have many Rwandans who came to visit.”
In Rwanda, tourism is a top source of foreign exchange, bringing in nearly half a billion dollars in 2019. Because much of that money is earmarked to support wildlife, tourism and conservation have developed a symbiotic relationship.
“They come from England, Germany, America, everywhere, for gorillas,” says Theogene Manirakiza, front office manager at Mountain Gorilla View Lodge, which runs about $200 a night in low season. “Business is good.”
Properties such as the One & Only Gorilla’s Nest start at around $5,000 and offer the kind of luxury amenities — high-end design, excellent food, attentive staff — that make you feel like you could be in Malibu or a French chateau. Two nights at Singita’s Kataza House villa cost a whopping $13,150 — but jobs created here incentivize protection, staff say, justifying the national narrative of feel-good tourism.
Last year, Singita opened a community culinary school and reforested lodge grounds to extend habitat. Those pricey gorilla trekking permits also contribute to Rwanda’s Development Board.
Some villages have been moved by the government to accommodate gorillas, but communities near national parks receive 10 percent of tourism revenue through the Rwanda Development Board, funding schools, clinics and other projects.
Central America hoped bitcoin would attract tourists. It hasn’t worked.
Threats to gorillas
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund runs on a $5.5 million annual budget, and Stoinski says she oversees just under 300 staff in Rwanda and Congo. Many individual mountain gorillas have names and detailed family trees that Fossey started.
“Six generations of animals,” Stoinski says. “That’s not only the longest study of gorillas, that’s one of the longest-running studies of any animal species.”
Even during covid lockdowns, the fund never missed a day in the field. “I spent the morning with gorillas and I can’t begin to tell you how many behaviors I observed that could have been me and my kids,” Stoinski says. “You watch them and see us, our shared humanity.”
Mountain gorillas share 98 percent of our DNA and can eat up to 75 pounds a day (researchers say they love wild celery). Because they have been forced into islands of their habitat, they face increasing health risks caused by limited genetic diversity and reduced protection from disease transmission.
A deteriorating security situation in neighboring Congo, where the United Nations says Rwanda is providing military support to the rebel group M23, poses other kinds of risks. In June, cross-border rocket strikes killed two students in Kinigi, introducing a threat to Rwanda’s sunny-safe reputation as well as to gorillas who often travel over the frontier. Some gorillas share forests with guerrilla groups, too, which not only can expose the animals to human disease — a big killer of the species — but also threatens what little habitat they have left.
Since its brutal 1994 genocide, Rwanda has reinvented itself as stable conservation leader. But in hushed tones, its citizens deride an autocratic regime that suppresses human rights, noting the prosecution of “Hotel Rwanda” hero Paul Rusesabagina and the U.N. claims of aiding rebels.
Now the international community is perking up: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned these movesin a recent visit. And now that Congo has approved oil exploration, the entire gorilla ecosystem faces yet another existential threat.
A flawed icon
David Attenborough once lamented the irony of gorillas symbolizing violence when they’re actually peaceful. Another irony is that Fossey’s name is being used to promote tourism in Rwanda.
Amy Vedder, a lecturer at the Yale School of the Environment, remembers when Fossey “shot over the heads of tourists,” referring to a 1980 incident with a group of Dutch visitors. “Dian was adamant about not having gorilla tourism,” she says.
Vedder and her husband, Bill Weber, came to Rwanda in 1978 for PhDs on ecology and conservation socioeconomics, hoping to figure how gorillas survived in limited habitats and to get Rwandans to engage. They would start the Mountain Gorilla Project and launch tourism in partnership with Rwanda’s park service, even raising their kids here for a few years.
Today, tourism and awareness are regarded as essential for habitat protection. But “Dian was not a conservationist,” Vedder maintains. “She was dedicated to gorillas and she made gorillas attractive in a way others couldn’t.” Fossey’s dedication meant only “she could be the one to save them,” Vedder says.
That dedication was legendary: Fossey arrived in Congo in the 1960s, untrained, inexperienced and dreamy. Nobody thought she’d be able to hack it alone. She almost didn’t.
“She was solitary, didn’t like visitors, discouraged them, really,” says Sandy Harcourt, an English biologist who worked with Fossey at the Karisoke Research Center in the 1970s.
Early on, Fossey was jailed by Congolese soldiers, even possibly raped (she often changed her story). She decamped to Rwanda, where she stayed for 18 years.
Almost each morning, rain or shine, she hiked muddy slopes to spend hours watching the individual gorillas that became her surrogate family. At night, she typed notes, desperate to prove she belonged, that gorillas mattered. But she eschewed local support because she was fiercely possessive about what she called her gorillas. Many scientists didn’t consider her methods scientific.
Despite her introverted nature, Fossey won over the public in National Geographic articles and TV appearances. She demystified the species — and accidentally globalized it.
She took gorilla killings personally. Former colleagues say she had a reputation for capturing and torturing poachers, even adopting voodoo-like rituals to scare locals. Colleagues have suggested that some gorilla killings were in retaliation to Fossey’s crusade against cattle herders and poachers. But playing the six-foot witch backfired. Her obsession cost her.
In 1985, Fossey was murdered in her cabin, a crime that remains unsolved. A replica of that cabin now sits in the museum, next to pictures of her in the bush.
The future of research
Today, unknowns still abound: How will increasing numbers of tourists have an impact on fragile gorilla groups? Will nearby conflicts affect those groups — and decades of work? And what happens to Rwanda’s limited habitat now that Congo has approved oil exploration?
“It’s very concerning,” fund leader Stoinski says. “The Congo basin is the second-largest tropical rainforest we have left. And this is one of the few conservation success stories we have. Dian worried gorillas would be extinct by the year 2000. Flash forward, and they’re the only great ape expanding.”
Stoinski shares Fossey’s focus — minus the hubris. While Fossey was untethered by choice, cancer took Stoinski’s husband in 2013. Despite raising two teenage girls as a single mother, she spends four months a year in the field.
“This work helped me incredibly to face the challenges in my life,” Stoinski says. “Dian was much more alone. I can’t imagine what she faced, watching the gorillas that were like her family being killed, and to be killed herself in a horrific way.”
With the rebound in the gorilla population in the decades since Fossey’s death, Stoinski is optimistic despite the challenges.
“It’s not a quick fix, but with long-term investment, leadership and good communication, we can turn the tide,” she says. “People come to see gorillas here and fall in love with the country. It can be done.” | 2022-08-30T12:15:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Gorillas are a Rwanda tourist attraction. Dian Fossey would hate that. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/08/29/rwanda-fossey-gorilla-museum/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/08/29/rwanda-fossey-gorilla-museum/ |
Alabama football will be good again, but is the Tide good enough to bet?
Barring some sort of injury outbreak or other personnel catastrophe, Alabama will not only be favored in each of its college football games this season, but favored by double digits in each of its college football games this season. (Ohio State probably is the only other team that can say the same thing.) This is hardly a new phenomenon: Last season, the Crimson Tide also was favored by double digits in all 12 scheduled regular season games. Nonetheless, Alabama Coach Nick Saban recently called 2021 a “rebuilding” year, even though it resulted in a College Football Playoff runner-up finish.
Excluding SEC championship games, Alabama hasn’t been a single-digit favorite in the regular season since Oct. 17, 2020, when it beat Georgia by 17 as a six-point home favorite.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Alabama will be good again in 2022, so let’s take a look at some of the futures options for the Crimson Tide this year and whether they present any betting value.
All odds taken Monday from DraftKings Sportsbook.
Season win total
Alabama over 10.5 wins -300
Alabama under 10.5 wins +235
How can you possibly consider the under here? The Crimson Tide last failed to eclipse 10 wins in 2010, and there might not be one team on this year’s 12-game schedule that should scare Alabama, much less two teams, at least until an assumed SEC championship game rematch with Georgia. You’re paying hefty juice on the over, but I’m not going anywhere near the under. Take the over or pass.
SEC championship game winner
The Crimson Tide’s closest — and only — competitor on the odds board in this category is Georgia at +155; all the other SEC teams are at least +1800. Using Bill Connelly’s preseason SP+ ratings, the Crimson Tide would be a 1.3-point favorite over the Bulldogs on a neutral field (like, say, at the SEC championship game), which should make Alabama about -115 on the moneyline. So the -145 does not present a whole lot of value, if you believe (as I do and oddsmakers do) that the Tide and the Dawgs are clearly the class of the SEC and are destined to meet in the conference championship game. Pass.
To make the playoff
The College Football Playoff is entering its ninth season, and Alabama has been involved in all of the previous versions except for one (2019). Until Saban stops luring five-star recruits and Alabama stops winning 11-plus games per season, “yes” is pretty much a bet you have to make, no matter the juice — particularly this year, with the defending Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback and the fifth-place Heisman vote-getter leading the defense (see below).
DraftKings has assigned Heisman Trophy odds to four Alabama players.
QB Bryce Young +400
Young will attempt to pull off something that’s only been done once in college football history: repeat as Heisman Trophy winner. Ohio State’s Archie Griffin is the only player to do that, in 1974 and 1975. Since then, 21 non-seniors have won the award. Slightly more than half of those players (12 of 21) left to play professional football following their Heisman win, and of the nine who returned to college, only one of them (Billy Sims in 1979) finished even second in the next season’s Heisman voting. Four of the nine defending Heisman winners finished third, one finished fifth, one finished sixth and two didn’t receive any votes at all in the voting the season after their Heisman win.
So another Heisman is a tall order, and even though Young has what could be a fantastic offensive line in front of him, his pass-catchers are unproven: Tight end Cameron Latu is the only returning Crimson Tide receiver who was targeted more than 30 times last season. At the second-best odds on the Heisman board, I’ll be passing on Young.
LB Will Anderson Jr. +1600
Now here’s an Alabama Heisman candidate I can get behind at some pretty good odds. Anderson, who finished fifth in the voting last year, had a national-best 33.5 tackles for a loss (11.5 more than his closest competitor) and 17.5 sacks. When he wasn’t terrorizing the backfield, he dropped back into pass coverage 58 times and allowed all of 16 passing yards when quarterbacks threw it toward the player he was covering. That’s sheer dominance, and the fact that three defensive players were among the top 10 Heisman vote-getters last season could be a sign that we’re ready for someone to join Charles Woodson (1997) as the only defensive players to win the award.
RB Jahmyr Gibbs +3000
Gibbs was one of the few offensive bright spots for a Georgia Tech team that finished 3-9 last season, averaging 5.2 yards per carry as the Yellow Jackets’ main running back, catching 35 passes, averaging 25.6 yards per kickoff return and scoring seven times. That kind of all-around production could garner a lot of attention now that Gibbs has transferred to the nation’s most high-profile program — he was named MVP of the Tide’s spring game — but if a Heisman voter is considering someone on Alabama’s offense, it probably is going to be Young.
RB Jase McClellan +8000
McClellan was pointed toward an impressive year in 2021 before he suffered a season-ending injury in Alabama’s fifth game. At that point, he was tied for the team lead with five touchdowns (one rushing, three receiving, one blocked punt return). But as his Heisman odds suggest, this is the ultimate long shot, with McClellan’s chances seemingly only improving if Gibbs isn’t a factor. | 2022-08-30T13:05:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to bet Alabama futures this season - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/alabama-football-odds-futures/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/alabama-football-odds-futures/ |
In this undated photo, British novelist Charles Dickens poses for a photograph. (AP)
LONDON — Handwritten letters by one of Britain’s most famous authors, Charles Dickens, will go on public display for the first time this week, giving a fresh insight into the Victorian writer’s life and mind.
Eleven letters were acquired by the Charles Dickens Museum in London from a private seller in the United States — a country Dickens visited twice on popular public reading tours.
One letter — dated Feb. 10, 1866, and written to an I.H. Newman — reveals Dickens, a celebrity in his own time, having a mild diva moment as he complains about the potential loss of Sunday postal service in his southern English town and threatens to move elsewhere.
“I beg to say that I most decidedly and strongly object to the infliction of any such inconvenience upon myself,” he writes. “There are many people in this village of Higham, probably, who do not receive or dispatch in a year, as many letters as I usually receive and dispatch in a day,” he said of his home in Kent, southern England.
“I am on the best terms with my neighbours, poor and rich, and I believe they would be sorry to lose me,” he continues. “But I should be so hampered by the proposed restriction that I think it would force me to sell my property here, and leave this part of the country.”
In another, penned on vacation in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Aug. 5, 1846, Dickens writes to his friend and lawyer Thomas Mitton, describing the town as “prodigious if ugly.” He includes details of his stay, notably a mountain hike and washing his face with snow, and he comments on the local cuisine and how his children are passing the time.
“I have no doubt you have been looking once or twice for a letter from me since I have left home. I have written to very few people indeed,” he says.
“It is not at all a cheap place — dearer than Genoa, and as dear, I should say, as Paris. The most astonishing circumstance to me, is that bread, of all things in the world, is dearer at this moment, than in London! Meat is pretty cheap, and very good. … The native wine is something between vinegar and pickled cucumbers, and makes you wink and cry when you taste it,” he adds.
Another letter is a dinner invitation with a dramatic Dickensian final flourish: “Say ‘no’ and I never forgive you. Say ‘yes’ and join us here at ten minutes past six next Thursday, and I shall always remain faithfully yours CHARLES DICKENS.”
Peter Orford, a lecturer in English literature at the University of Buckingham and a biographer of Dickens, told The Washington Post on Tuesday that he was “excited” by the new trove of letters, which would be a “major resource” for academics and enthusiasts alike.
Orford described Dickens — the author of classics such as “Oliver Twist,” “Great Expectations” and “Bleak House” — as someone who “tried to be a man of the people,” championing social causes. However, like many modern celebrities, he was also “quite precious about his privacy” and sought to strike a balance, Orford said.
“He could be a bit of a diva and hold the attention when it suited him,” he said, as there was “always interest in him as a person,” but at other times he found the public attention “intrusive.”
Dickens, like many Victorians, was a “prolific letter writer” and a man of his time, when an individual could receive mail deliveries a dozen times a day. So far, 12 volumes of Dickens’s letters have been published, some short “like text messages” confirming plans, said Orford, and other lengthier missives to friends and family.
Like other British authors including Jane Austen, Dickens destroyed many letters before his death, holding a bonfire in 1860 to stop them falling into public hands. Those that still exist were collected from recipients. In his will, Dickens also specified that he did not wish to be remembered by statues or memorials but rather for his works, Orford added.
Despite his “Bah! Humbug!” attitude, Dickens still has millions of fans around the globe. His portrait has appeared on bank notes and stamps, his books have been adapted on screen, and countless schoolchildren still study his novels and perform “A Christmas Carol” each year.
“There’s still a great deal of popular interest in Dickens,” said Catherine Waters, emeritus professor of Victorian literature at the University of Kent. Waters is also the latest president of the Dickens Fellowship, a worldwide association of people who share an interest Dickens’s life and works. The group was founded in 1902 and has active chapters in the United States, Italy, Australia and Japan.
But like many of his fictional characters, Dickens was not easy to sum up. “He shared some of the prejudices of his age,” said Waters. She noted criticism of his “stereotyped” portrayal of some female characters and his real-life affair with Ellen Ternan later in life.
However, he was also encouraging of contemporary female writers and journalists, said Waters, accepting and publishing their works in periodicals that he edited. “He was a complex man,” she said.
“The range of topics that his letters cover is immense,” she said, with letters to family, publishers and charities illustrating a broad array of topics and social acquaintances.
“Given the variety and vividness of his letter writing, I’m sure being able to read some of these new letters will be very exciting for people,” she said.
The exhibit of his handwritten letters will go on display starting Wednesday at the museum and online for international enthusiasts. Dickens died in 1870 in Higham and is buried in Poets’ Corner of London’s Westminster Abbey along with other British authors Geoffrey Chaucer and Rudyard Kipling.
“There’s no diary, so this is the best we get of what he’s thinking at the time,” Orford said. “The letters are a fantastic resource.” | 2022-08-30T13:18:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Charles Dickens's personal letters to go on display at London museum - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/30/charles-dickens-letters-london-museum/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/30/charles-dickens-letters-london-museum/ |
Ask Elaine: A friend of 20 years is ghosting me. What can I do?
Hi Elaine: What’s your advice on long-term-friendship breakups? When I say long term, I mean a 20-year friendship. Nothing happened to cause a rift in our friendship (at least, not to my knowledge). We’ve been best of friends since 5th grade until graduate school — and that’s where things took a turn. I moved to another state and she stayed home; over time, she stopped answering my calls and texts as much. I feel like it became a one-way friendship with me putting all of the effort into communicating while she barely gives anything back. I reach out all the time and try to connect with her to see if I did something wrong or if she’s going through something and has pushed me away while she processes things.
I feel like I’m mourning the death of a friendship and I hate it. I don’t know what else to do to try to figure out what’s going on with her and how to get back to how we used to be. There have been times where I really needed her and she’ll just ignore me. I’ve started to fall back since she obviously doesn’t want to talk to me and let me know what’s going on or what I did so we can try to fix things.
I am asking for your advice before I completely give up. I’d hate to let go of a 20-year friendship when I don’t even know why.
— Mourning a Friendship
Mourning a Friendship: Ugh. Grieving friend breakups is among the most under-discussed (yet equally excruciating) grief of them all. Thank you for being vulnerable enough to share the swirl of unpleasant emotions you’re stuck in — more of us have been there than we would like to admit. It hurts. It’s disorienting. And you don’t deserve to be left in limbo by someone you’ve built a friendship with for two decades.
Old friends can be like a house you haven’t renovated in a while. A house built on loyalty, shared experience, sentimentality and, all too often, the legend of what was. As life moves forward and things change, there’s something comforting about the familiarity and stability this old house provides. Not to mention the old version of you that it represents. It’s easy to romanticize the best parts of the friendship while ignoring cracks in the foundation. It’s much harder to do the maintenance required to increase its value over time. But just like neglecting that leak in the ceiling or not repairing broken pipes, the issues only get more costly over time.
As alluring as it is to live in an idealized, past-tense version of our lives, when appraising long-held friendships, like any asset, you have to ascertain its value in present-day terms.
There are three things you shared that stuck out to me:
“I don’t know what else to do to try to figure out what’s going on with her and how to get back to how we used to be.” I appreciate your desire and eagerness to fix this. But it sounds like it’s time to stop and take inventory instead. Have you already done everything in your power to let her know how much she matters to you and that this unexplained distance is painful for you? If so, and it’s gone unacknowledged, the work ahead may not be about getting back to what you used to be at all. It might be more about accepting the reality of where you two are now.
“She barely gives anything back. … I really needed her and she’ll just ignore me.” While you say you aren’t getting anything back, I would argue her radio silence and lack of reciprocity is actually offering you a lot of valuable information. She has deprioritized maintenance on your friendship. We may never know why. There could be a million reasons — many of which could have very little to do with you.
The important thing to know is that your experience of this person and the feelings coming up around this are real. Just remember this: Anyone who ghosts you and makes you work this hard to understand them probably isn’t your person. Not in this season at least.
“I’d hate to let go of a 20-year friendship when I don’t even know the reason.” While I empathize with the agony of letting go of a 20-year friendship, it sounds like she has given you ample reasons to end it. She may even be giving you all the evidence you need to know it is, in fact, already over. Releasing the need for your old friend to return will free up space for your real-time friends to find you.
While losing a lifelong friend can feel like you’re losing a piece of yourself, this might just be your wake-up call to stop building your home in other people. It’s eviction time! Stop allowing this missing person to live rent-free in your mind. Just because she isn’t making herself available to give you the closure you’re seeking doesn’t mean you can’t give it to yourself. You can energetically send your old friend love and also take back all the parts of you that were left in that house you built together. | 2022-08-30T13:18:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Elaine: My longtime friend is ghosting me - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/30/ask-elaine-welteroth-friendship-ghosting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/30/ask-elaine-welteroth-friendship-ghosting/ |
Donald Surrett Jr., an Army veteran turned grocery store employee, died Sunday trying to disarm a 20-year-old shooter in Bend, Ore.
Emergency personnel at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Forum Shopping Center in east Bend, Ore., on Aug. 28, 2022. (Ryan Brennecke/AP)
Surrett was one of two people killed Sunday evening during a shooting that erupted as the weekend waned and people tried to squeeze in some shopping before the start of the workweek. The “heinous attack” disrupted life in Bend, a small central Oregon city known for the Deschutes River, outdoor recreation and craft breweries. On Monday, Mayor Pro-Tem Anthony Broadman said he refused to become accustomed to such shootings.
“We need to guard against the cynicism of thinking of these attacks … as regular, unavoidable things,” Broadman said. “I won’t accept that. I know the community of Bend won’t accept that. We have to stand together. We will.”
Shootings at grocery stores are occurring more often, twisting an unremarkable errand into an unforgettable nightmare. Guns Down America, a nonprofit organization promoting gun control, counted 448 such incidents in which 137 people were killed during the 16½-month span between Jan. 1, 2020, and May 14, the day a gunman massacred 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo. Included in the data: 10 people were killed during a mass shooting at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colo. Three months later, one person was killed at supermarket in Decatur, Ga. Three months after that, someone was fatally shot at a Kroger market in the Memphis area.
“It’s one thing hearing about a shooting, but hearing about it happening in a place like where you work just makes it even more real,” Trish Gross, a cake decorator at a grocery store in Long Beach, Calif., told The Washington Post last year. “Now I think about it every single day I’m at work: What I would do, where I could hide. It’s something that’s on my mind constantly.”
Sunday’s attack at the Safeway in Bend started around 7 p.m. when Ethan Blair Miller left his apartment armed with the AR-style rifle and a shotgun and almost immediately started shooting, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said Monday at the news conference. Miller then went south to the Forum Shopping Center where, he continued to fire while in the parking lot of Costco and Big Lots, according to a department news release.
Miller, 20, entered the Safeway using the store’s west entrance, where he shot and killed Glenn Edward Bennett, an 84-year-old Bend resident, police said in the release. He kept firing as he roved through the store, until Surrett confronted and tried to disarm him in the produce section, police said.
Meanwhile, Bend police were responding to multiple 911 calls they had received starting at 7:04 p.m., police said. “When our officers arrived, they could hear gunshots in the Safeway, and they entered the store to confront the shooter while shots were still being fired,” Sheila Miller said.
Police said that, given the weapons Miller had and the time of day, Surrett may have saved lives by confronting the gunman. “There was a lot of people coming out of the store,” Krantz said. “That’s a busy area … with a lot of shopping areas there, a lot of stores. It was a very busy parking lot at the time.”
Bend resident Josh Caba and his family were there; they had swung by the Safeway to do some grocery shopping, KTVZ reported. Since she wasn’t feeling well, Caba’s wife stayed in the car while he and their four children went inside.
About 10 minutes into the shopping trip, Caba was heading toward the front of the store when he heard six or seven gunshots. “I just turned to my kids — I knew what it was right away — I just said, ‘Kids, run!’ ” he told KTVZ. “It was absolutely terrifying, more terrifying than you think. As a dad, you’re always playing those scenarios through your head.”
Caba and three of his children fled through the back of the store. Having heard the gunshots, his wife had driven their car around and was waiting as they exited, yelling at them to “Get in the car! Get in the car!” As they did, Caba darted back in to rescue their fourth child, who had fallen behind.
“When I got out of that store and the kids were rounded up, they are running into the store. They are wonderful people. They deserve all the praise and credit in the world. It is absolutely more terrifying than you can imagine to have someone shooting at your kids,” Caba told the station.
“We are aware that the shooter may have posted information online regarding his plan. We’re investigating this,” Sheila Miller said. “We have no evidence of previous threats or prior knowledge of the shooter. We received information about the shooter’s writings after the incident had taken place. And the shooter has no criminal history in the area.”
“While we are still gathering the facts about last night’s shooting, it’s clear that far more people could have been killed if not for the heroism of Donald Ray Surrett, Jr., who intervened to help stop the shooter, and the officers who entered while shots were still being fired,” Brown wrote in a Facebook post.
Surrett’s ex-wife, Debora, told the Oregonian that she wasn’t surprised he’d confronted the shooter, given his background. For more than 20 years, Surrett served in the U.S. Army as a combat engineer. | 2022-08-30T13:45:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Safeway employee saved lives by confronting Oregon gunman, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/30/safeway-hero-employee-saved-lives/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/30/safeway-hero-employee-saved-lives/ |
Australia’s Cameron Smith, the world’s second-ranked golfer, will join LIV Golf. (Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)
The LIV Golf Invitational Series announced Tuesday that it was adding Cameron Smith, the world’s second-ranked golfer and this year’s British Open champion, giving the Saudi-backed breakaway league its highest-ranked golfer.
Smith, a 29-year-old Australian, has three wins this season, including the British Open in July and the Players Championship in March. He also has finished in the top 10 in four of his six trips to the Masters — with a tie for third at this year’s tournament — and was 20th at the season-ending Tour Championship, which concluded Sunday.
Joaquin Niemann also will leave the PGA Tour for LIV, giving it another golfer ranked in the top 20. Niemann is ranked 19th in the world and has two career PGA Tour wins, one of them this year at the Genesis Invitational in California. LIV also announced the additions of Harold Varner III (No. 46 in the world), Cameron Tringale (55), Marc Leishman (62) and Anirban Lahiri (92).
Smith has been rumored to be jumping to LIV for weeks, with speculation that he would receive a nine-figure paycheck simply for joining the new league, which offers a somewhat shorter schedule than the PGA Tour and guaranteed tournament paydays. The next LIV event begins Friday outside Boston, and Smith will join major-championship winners such as Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson.
The PGA Tour has banned players who have defected to LIV, and on Friday, the new league attached its name to an antitrust lawsuit filed by some of its players against the PGA Tour. In the amended complaint, the LIV players say the PGA Tour is “an entrenched monopolist with a vice-grip on professional golf” and that it violated federal antitrust laws in its efforts “to crush nascent competition before it threatens the Tour’s monopoly.”
LIV also is seeking to have its tournaments recognized by the Official World Golf Ranking, which would help its players qualify for major championships (which are not run by the PGA Tour). Without OWGR sanctioning, most of LIV’s players will struggle to qualify for the four biggest tournaments on the professional golf schedule.
Smith and the other recent major winners defecting to LIV — it now features the winners of 12 of the last 24 grand slam events — will not have that problem, at least in the short term and assuming that the major championships do not alter their qualifying rules. By winning the British Open, Smith received a five-year exemption into the other majors, and he has an invitation to play in the British Open until after he turns 60.
From July: The golf ritual in 2022: Watch a major, then wonder about LIV
Last week, the PGA Tour announced sweeping changes in an attempt to keep its biggest names from jumping to LIV. The tour’s top 20 players will commit to playing in at least 20 events, including the four majors and the FedEx Cup playoffs, and the tour also beefed up the prize money for four non-major tournaments, offering $20 million in prize money at each. Plus, the tour will expand its Player Impact Program, a bonus system introduced last year as a way to reward players who help promote the game, and will give all of its players a guaranteed minimum of $500,000, mainly to smooth the way for players who might struggle to keep their tour cards (tour rookies will receive the money at the start of the season).
A number of high-level PGA Tour players, such as 2022 rookie of the year contender Cameron Young and former Masters champions Hideki Matsuyama and Adam Scott, were rumored to be mulling a move to LIV but for now are sticking with the more established tour.
“We don’t know who’s going to go after this week or next year,” Young said Sunday at the Tour Championship. “I think there’s a really nice core group of guys that are just going to stay, and a lot of them are highly ranked players in the world. I don’t think the competition on the PGA Tour is going to go downhill significantly.”
The defections of Smith and Niemann to LIV also will open up spots on the International team at the Presidents Cup, which is next month. Smith and Niemann both had earned enough qualifying points to earn places on Captain Trevor Immelman’s team, but their PGA Tour suspensions also apply to the Presidents Cup.
LIV Golf, which has held three tournaments and still has five remaining on this year’s schedule, is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. LIV’s detractors have criticized it as an attempt to “sportswash” the nation’s shaky human-rights record. | 2022-08-30T13:45:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cameron Smith defects to LIV golf after conclusion of PGA Tour season - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/cam-smith-liv-golf/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/cam-smith-liv-golf/ |
D.C. United Coach Wayne Rooney has said he is aiming to play Christian Benteke for about 20 minutes. (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Christian Benteke, D.C. United’s marquee summer signing, finally received his work visa Tuesday and is scheduled to make his MLS debut Wednesday against New York City FC, club officials said.
Benteke, a Belgian striker who played 10 years in the Premier League, flew to New York from London and planned to join his new teammates ahead of the match at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J., against the defending MLS Cup champions.
Coach Wayne Rooney has said he is aiming to play Benteke for about 20 minutes. United’s hope of pairing him with Greek star Taxi Fountas right away were dashed, though, following an injury in Sunday’s match.
United had hoped he would arrive for the Aug. 20 match against Philadelphia or, at the latest, this past Sunday’s game in Atlanta. Visa processing, though, is unpredictable, leaving Benteke and the club unsure of his timetable.
Benteke participated in Crystal Palace’s preseason before signing with United and has maintained decent fitness, Rooney said. However, he has not played in a competitive match since mid-May and only got to know D.C. players during a week of informal training before returning to London for visa processing.
His Audi Field debut will come Sunday night against the Colorado Rapids.
Benteke, 31, scored 86 goals for Aston Villa, Liverpool and Crystal Palace between August 2012 and May 2022. He is under contract with United through the 2024 season, with a club option in 2025.
Terms were not disclosed, but people familiar with the deal said that, over the course of a full season, he will be the highest-paid player in United history, surpassing Rooney’s $3.5 million pact in 2019, his second and final season as a D.C. player.
After Wednesday, last-place United (6-17-4) has six matches left. Aside from trying to boost his new club, Benteke will aim to find his scoring form before Belgium selects the World Cup roster this fall. His last chance for a national team call-up before the roster decisions is for Nations League matches against Wales and the Netherlands in late September.
Fountas, though, was listed as “out” on the injury report Tuesday. He suffered a concussion in the first half of the 3-2 defeat in Atlanta. The team will monitor his condition ahead of this Sunday’s match.
The all-star attacker has posted 11 goals and three assists in 20 matches (16 starts).
Goalkeeper Rafael Romo (13 starts) is also listed as “out” after missing the Atlanta trip with a concussion. David Ochoa is expected to make his third start Wednesday. Bill Hamid, the longtime starter, has recovered from hand surgery and resumed training. | 2022-08-30T14:49:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. United’s Christian Benteke set to MLS debut - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/christian-benteke-mls-debut-dc-united/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/christian-benteke-mls-debut-dc-united/ |
Serena Williams’s daughter Olympia basks in U.S. Open spotlight
Olympia Ohanian blew a kiss to the crowd after her mother's U.S. Open first-round win Monday. (Frank Franklin II/Associated Press)
Serena Williams brought the power to the U.S. Open Monday night, but the cuteness quotient was boosted by someone else.
Perspective: Serena Williams sheds cape, finds form and owns U.S. Open stage once again
“It was either her wear beads or me,” Williams told reporters afterward. “I wanted to do it, but I just didn’t have the time …“ was so happy when she had them on. It’s perfect on her.”
Olympia, who turns 5 on Thursday, is a prodigy in her own right. Olympia’s resume, in no particular order, includes making the cover of the September issue of Vogue (the foldout part; Mom got the cover treatment), owning an Instagram account with more than 600,000 followers and impossibly adorable photos of her antics; and becoming the youngest co-owner in pro sports when she was part of a group that acquired Los Angeles’s Angel City soccer franchise at the age of 3.
In between snapping pictures of Mom, Olympia played with her aunt Isha Price’s hair and sat applauding the action on Dad’s lap. Afterward, there was ice cream in the player’s lounge.
In the Vogue interview, Williams explained that she is weeks away from evolving into a life away from the court, a life that will include business ventures and possibly expanding her family.
“Believe me, I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family. I don’t think it’s fair. If I were a guy, I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family,” Williams told Rob Haskell. “Maybe I’d be more of a Tom Brady if I had that opportunity. Don’t get me wrong: I love being a woman, and I loved every second of being pregnant with Olympia.
“I was one of those annoying women who adored being pregnant and was working until the day I had to report to the hospital — although things got super complicated on the other side [when she nearly died]. And I almost did do the impossible: A lot of people don’t realize that I was two months pregnant when I won the Australian Open in 2017. But I’m turning 41 this month [Sept. 26], and something’s got to give.”
But not quite yet. A second-round singles match Wednesday against second-seeded Anett Kontaveit looms as does doubles play with her sister Venus, and the enthusiasm is only likely to intensity.
“The crowd was crazy,' Williams said during the post-match ceremony, with her husband and daughter standing nearby. ‘They really helped pull me through. I was really pumped up, like, ‘Yes, I got this.''’ | 2022-08-30T14:49:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Serena Williams’s daughter Olympia basks in U.S. Open spotlight - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/olympia-ohanian-serena-williams/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/olympia-ohanian-serena-williams/ |
Two arrested in Florida, California in separate D.C. killings
One is accused of shooting his ex-girlfriend in front of her children
Authorities in California and Florida have arrested two men in separate killings in D.C., including one man accused of shooting his ex-girlfriend in front of her children in an apartment in Southeast Washington, according to D.C. police.
Members of the U.S. Marshals Florida and Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Wonell A. Jones Jr., 34, on Monday in Jacksonville, Fla., on a warrant charging him with first-degree murder while armed, D.C. police said in a statement.
Jones had been sought in the July 19 shooting of Audora Williams, 33, in an apartment in the 2900 block of Knox Place SE, in Garfield Heights. Police said the killing was an apparent episode of domestic violence.
Williams’s grandmother, Norma Shorter, 69, said her granddaughter had moved several times, including into a domestic violence safe house. A D.C. police spokesman said Williams had obtained a protective order against Jones alleging domestic abuse.
Shorter, who lives in Maryland, said Williams’s five children — girls ages 1, 2 and 11, and boys ages 7 and 10 — were inside the Knox Place apartment when their mother was killed. Shorter said two of the children saw the shooting. Their mother was pronounced dead at the scene. Police confirmed that the children were in the home at the time of the killing.
Shorter said she and other relatives are caring for the children, two of whom were fathered by Jones. She said the family is seeking therapy.
“Audora really loved her children,” Shorter said Tuesday, after learning of the arrest. She said the family “was on edge the whole time he was out” on the streets. She said her granddaughter did hair styling.
Jones is to be extradited to D.C. to face the murder charge, although a date has not been set; it could not immediately be learned whether he has an attorney.
Also Monday, police in Los Angeles arrested a man in the Aug. 6, 2020, killing of Michael Brittingham, 26, who was fatally shot in the 600 block of 46th Place SE. Police said Dreaun Young, 19, of Southeast Washington, has been charged with second-degree murder while armed.
Police said that the shooting occurred about 5:45 p.m. in the Benning Terrace neighborhood and that two other people, a man and a 16-year-old boy, were wounded by the gunfire. They survived, police said.
No other details of the shooting have been made available. Police said Young was arrested in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles by members of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force.
Young also faces extradition to D.C. It could not immediately be ascertained whether he has an attorney. | 2022-08-30T15:02:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Two arrested in Florida, California in separate D.C. killings - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/arrests-california-florida-homicides-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/arrests-california-florida-homicides-dc/ |
On Oct. 29, Don and Mera Rubell plan to open the Rubell Museum DC, transforming a long-vacant school in southwest Washington
Miami-based art collectors Mera and Don Rubell stand outside the Rubell Museum DC, opening Oct. 29 in Southwest D.C. (Shuran Huang for The Washington Post)
Mera Rubell doesn’t want to sit in the new glass entry of the under-construction Rubell Museum DC, so she folds one of the metal chairs that had been set up for an interview in the sunny atrium and heads into the historic building. Followed by husband Don Rubell and a small entourage of staff, she passes through the former Randall School auditorium and into one of the original classrooms, a brick and white-walled space that will soon hold pieces from the couple’s famed collection.
“Yesterday we spent all day sitting in each room … figuring out the spirit of each room and thinking about the art,” said Mera, 78, trying to explain how she and Don are choosing the pieces that will be on view when the Rubell Museum DC opens Oct. 29.
“It was five hours,” Don, 81, corrected.
“We spent all this time sitting in these different rooms to figure out what’s going to hang in them,” Mera said, without acknowledging the interruption. “An artwork in this room is going to feel different than in another room.”
“We made permanent decisions yesterday which will be changed somewhere between Friday and Monday,” Don added with a grin.
Don and Mera Rubell will become Washington’s newest museum owners when their second museum — they have run a museum in Miami since 1993 — opens at 65 I St. SW with 24 galleries showcasing some of the 7,400 pieces of contemporary art the Miami-based couple has collected since 1965.
The $20 million renovation of a building that opened in 1906 as Cardozo Elementary School and became Randall Junior High School in 1927 features 32,000 square feet of galleries, a bookstore and cafe. It will join the Phillips Collection, the Hirshhorn, the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington’s crowded field of art museums.
A museum in the nation’s capital — not far from Arena Stage and Nationals Park — has been a dream for more than a dozen years, explains the couple, who have been married for 58 years. As owners of the Capitol Skyline Hotel one block east on I Street, the Rubells promoted their love of art with art fairs and other events.
“Contemporary art is a catalyst for serious conversation,” Don said, noting that artists grapple with the most pressing issues of the day, including race, immigration, violence and identity. Where better to have these conversations than in the shadow of the Capitol, he added.
“There are ideas that are percolating in Washington that may not have gotten to the rest of the country. We’re going to try to bring art related to those ideas,” he continued. “It’s not worth doing unless we really affect people.”
“Contemporary art is profoundly relevant to people’s lives,” Mera added. “It’s not like we’re going to teach people about art, okay? We are blown away by the art. We’ve been committed to buying it, we’re committed to caring for it. But I would say the greatest learning we get is from the public that comes to see it.”
The Rubells: Art collectors with edge make D.C. their own
On a recent, steamy summer morning, the Rubells spoke — often over each other, in the way long-married couples do — about their passion for contemporary art, their belief in its power to change hearts and minds, and their instinctive, if unusual, approach to collecting and curating.
“It’s not so much theory and scholarship as an emotional connection with the work that we’ve collected,” Mera said, elaborating on their curatorial process. “Because we have the privilege of having the work in our own [Miami] warehouse, we’ll put three pieces in here … and say ‘Ahh, it doesn’t look good. I think we need to put it over there, or you know what, I don’t think we’re going to put it in at all.’
“It’s the physicality of the work. but it's also the relationships. We create relationships based on some experimentation. We'll bring work here and see how it feels.”
They are not sweating the decision because it can always — and will always — change. “The pleasure comes in constantly changing it,” Don said.
Consulting with their son, Jason, Rubell Museum Director Juan Valadez and newly appointed Rubell Museum DC Director Caitlin Berry, the Rubells are selecting pieces from their collection that explore social and political issues, and many will be on public view for the first time. Kehinde Wiley’s monumental painting “Sleep” will be included in the opening exhibition. The 11-foot by 25-foot work, based on an 18th century painting by Jean-Bernard Restout, is one of Wiley’s series that explores Black identity by situating contemporary subjects in old settings. Wiley painted Barack Obama’s presidential portrait for the National Portrait Gallery.
On view will be “Untitled (Against All Odds),” a series of dystopian paintings by Keith Haring, a family friend they supported at a critical moment in his career. The series is in memory of Steve Rubell, Don’s brother and co-owner of the famous New York City disco Studio 54, who was 45 when he died of AIDS in 1989. “The Shell,” by D.C.-based artist Sylvia Snowden, who studied at Howard University under David Driskell, was acquired for the new museum. The series of paintings focuses on Snowden’s daughter and is the companion to “Malik, Farewell 'til We Meet Again,” pieces inspired by the 1993 shooting death of her son that were exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 2000.
The galleries will also feature Mickalene Thomas’s “Mama Bush II, Keep the Home Fires Burnin’” and works by Hank Willis Thomas, Cecily Brown, February James and Vaughn Spann.
The Rubells’ curating, like their collection, is grounded in instinct, feelings and curiosity. “You have got to stay curious, open and curious,” Mera says of their approach. Adds Don: “Our curiosity is really about the new.”
The search for “the new” has driven their choices since the beginning. The couple has always focused on early-career artists and on buying multiple works. They often used payment plans of $5 or $10 a week when they were starting out as collectors, the couple said. Artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, Haring and Thomas benefited from their early support. Don retired as a doctor years ago, and the couple now funds their purchases from their investments.
“We’re not oil barons, we’re not railroad barons, we’re a working family. We have been very fortunate, but we’re still working people,” Mera said.
The new venture isn’t going to play second fiddle to the Miami museum, which they opened in Wynwood in 1993 and moved in 2019 to Allapattah, a neighborhood that is closer to downtown and public transportation. On view in the 100,000-square-foot space are works by Yayoi Kusama, Cajsa von Zeipel and Reginald O’Neal. Another exhibition, “30 Americans,” has been on tour for more than a decade; it continues at the New Britain Museum of American Art through October.
The Rubells bought the Capitol Skyline Hotel in 2002 and worked to make it into an arts hub. A few years later, the now-defunct Corcoran Gallery of Art had purchased the former school with the idea of expanding its educational footprint, a plan the Rubells heartily endorsed. When the 2008 economic crash ended that plan, the Rubells partnered with local developer Telesis in 2010 to bid on a development deal that included renovating the school for their art collection and building apartments on the surrounding land. They added a partner, the national developer Lowe Enterprises, to complete the project, which includes Gallery 64, an adjacent 492-unit apartment building, where one-fifth of the units are affordable housing.
The Randall School’s classrooms and auditorium have been transformed into galleries featuring pristine white walls, exposed brick, arched doorways and honey-colored wood floors and ceilings.
“The shapes are extraordinary,” Mera says, gesturing to the arches, windows and massive beams in the exposed ceiling. “We wanted to expose these. They come from 200-year-old trees,” she said.
The school setting is a significant theme, Mera noted. She was a Head Start teacher in New York City and Don was in medical school when they started collecting art. She says a professor at Duke, where son Jason earned his degree in art history, played a role in their decision to share their collection with the public. Now 53, Jason had amassed his own art collection — starting at age 12 with money from his teenage job stringing tennis rackets — which he merged with his parents’ larger holdings to create the Rubell Family Collection. Daughter Jennifer, 51, is an artist based in New York who shares her eye and expertise, too.
Homeless art, lost jobs and low enrollment: Two years later, Corcoran’s breakup still stings
Berry, the former director of the Cody Gallery at Marymount University in Arlington, Va., will apply her deep knowledge of D.C.'s arts scene to tailor the museum to local audiences. She will collaborate with Valadez, the Miami museum director who has worked for the couple for 22 years, to shape the museum’s public programming.
“I bring a deeper knowledge of D.C. All of the curatorial work will be done with D.C. audiences in mind,” Berry said. “My role is to make this museum a part of the community and to help that community feel welcome.”
The Rubells have not determined whether they will replicate Miami’s artist-in-residence program, which began in 2019 and provided critical visibility to artists including Lucy Dodd, Sterling Ruby and Oscar Murillo. They are still discussing the number and type of public and educational programs, they said.
“Contemporary art can really change lives, especially teenagers’, because art has this extraordinary way of giving you a vision of possibilities,” Mera said. “Art changed our lives. If we’re successful, art might change other people’s lives.” | 2022-08-30T15:15:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A $20 million makeover turned a D.C. school into a modern art museum - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/30/rubell-museum-dc-open/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/30/rubell-museum-dc-open/ |
(Hailey Hammond/Illustration for The Washington Post )
“The Marriage Portrait” drops us into the panicked mind of a teenage girl who knows her husband is plotting to kill her. In a few months, she’ll be dead.
That certainty must have been alarming for the girl, but it’s an ongoing challenge for the author. Where, after all, is the suspense in a doomed life?
Fortunately, this author is Maggie O’Farrell, one of the most exciting novelists alive. Two years ago, she published “Hamnet,” about William Shakespeare’s only son. The novel, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction, created a devastating charge of tension and sorrow, despite the fact that almost nothing is known about little Hamnet except his death in 1596.
“The Marriage Portrait” exhumes a similarly fated youngster: Lucrezia, the daughter of Cosimo I de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Like Hamnet, Lucrezia has fallen into the footnotes of history. But she survives — “looking as if she were alive” — in Robert Browning’s grimly ironic poem, “My Last Duchess.”
The facts of this case are thin and sad. Lucrezia was born into Italy’s legendary family in 1545. One of her sisters was supposed to marry Alfonso II d’Este, the future Duke of Ferrara, but she died before the ceremony. Like some Renaissance edition of “The Bachelor,” Lucrezia took her place. At the age of 16, before celebrating her first wedding anniversary, she was buried in her husband’s mausoleum.
Maggie O’Farrell’s ‘Hamnet’ is one of the 10 best books of 2020
The records suggest that Lucrezia probably died of tuberculosis, but rumors have persisted for more than 400 years that her ambitious husband poisoned her. O’Farrell creeps into this gloomy realm of intrigue with an inkwell full of blood and a stiletto for her pen.
The events of “The Marriage Portrait” come to us out of order, a structure that reflects Lucrezia’s dislocation and heightens our dread. In the opening paragraph, we find the young Duchess sitting with her husband at a long dining table in a dark, high-walled lodge deep in the forest. Lucrezia can’t help but notice that the building feels strangely empty of people — or witnesses. “It comes to her with a peculiar clarity,” O’Farrell writes, “that he intends to kill her.” The setting and the girl’s sudden premonition feel like something from Edgar Allan Poe. “The certainty that he means her to die is like a presence beside her, as if a dark-feathered bird of prey has alighted on the arm of her chair.”
In that moment of clarifying terror, she becomes a curious observer of her own plight. “She turns her eyes on to her husband, Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, and wonders what will happen next.” Such is the power of O’Farrell’s storytelling that we do too.
Over the next 300 pages, the novel sweeps back and forth, first filling out the remarkable circumstances of Lucrezia’s adolescence in Tuscany. O’Farrell pulls out little threads of historical detail to weave this story of a precocious girl sensitive to the contradictions of her station. Her father’s palace seems to shift in the light. “Sometimes,” O’Farrell writes, “it felt to her like the safest place in the world, a stone keep with a high garrison perimeter to enclose the Grand Duke’s children like a cabinet for glass figurines; at others it felt as oppressive as a prison.”
Sign up for the free Book World newsletter
Transferred against her will to Alfonso’s household, she feels the same oppressive sense of containment — but with the added concern that her dead sister is haunting her and her new husband is planning her demise. But why?
O’Farrell’s manipulation of time and point of view keeps us vacillating between sympathy and skepticism. After all, Alfonso may be firm, even brutal with his subjects, but this is 16th-century Italy; his political and literal survival depends upon consistently projecting power. “To rule as he does, so well, so decisively,” a member of the court observes, “you need to be entirely heartless.” But in all his dealings with his teenage wife, is Alfonso not appropriately courtly and solicitous? Is there not something paranoid and delusional about Lucrezia’s obsession with “his pretense, his dissembling, his lying looks”?
“No, it is impossible,” she realizes in a happier moment. “She must be mistaken, he must love her after all, he must treasure and respect her, because no one would kiss someone like this, with passion and heat and mouth and the slash of a tongue-tip, would they?”
Oh, Lucrezia. . . .
Turn a page of this novel, and the shadows cast upon the stone walls look ominous. Suddenly, it seems possible that with all his concern and reassurances, Alfonso is gaslighting his young wife — or, I suppose, candlelighting her. Bored out of her mind, her life feels equally dire and absurd. “What is a woman supposed to do when she suspects her husband of trying to murder her?” Lucrezia wonders, as though she were confronting the challenge of making dinner plans for a picky eater.
While she scurries around her husband’s castle, we can hear echoes of “Yellow Wall-Paper,” that late 19th-century classic by Charlotte Perkins Gilman about a young mother being driven mad by her husband’s overbearing concern. But in this case, it’s the pressure to become a mother that’s warping the household, ratcheting up pressure on Lucrezia to conceive an heir for an imperiled dukedom. How long can an enterprising young ruler wait for her to provide what’s needed? (The sex scenes, with “the heat, the labour, the noise of it,” convey all the romance of a barn raising.)
Lucrezia’s only respite comes from painting, a diversion she began in her parents’ house and continues, for a time, in Alfonso’s. She’s particularly interested in the painters her husband hires to create her portrait — until, that is, she begins to suspect that the portrait, with its shocking acuity, may be intended to replace her. It doesn’t help when Alfonso admires the finished painting and sighs, “There she is . . . my first duchess.” A slip of the tongue, surely, nothing more.
You may know the history, and you may think you know what’s coming, but don’t be so sure. O’Farrell and Lucrezia, with her “crystalline, righteous anger,” will always be one step ahead of you.
On Oct. 15 at 3 p.m., Maggie O’Farrell will discuss “The Marriage Portrait” with Ron Charles at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington. | 2022-08-30T15:15:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait, a girl fears her husband - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/08/30/maggie-ofarrell-marriage-portrait/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/08/30/maggie-ofarrell-marriage-portrait/ |
STOKE ON TRENT, ENGLAND - JANUARY 07: James Shaw, an employee of Twinkl, prepares online teaching materials at his home on January 07, 2021 in Stoke on Trent, England. Twinkl Educational Publishing is an online publishing house based in Sheffield, producing teaching materials. Due to the sharp rise in Covid-19 cases across the UK, England has recently entered its third lockdown and all schools have moved to online teaching. Twinkl has increased its free resources of advice to teachers on wellbeing during the pandemic. (Photo by Nathan Stirk/Getty Images) (Photographer: Nathan Stirk/Getty Images Europe)
Since the start of the pandemic, online learning has become far more common — and so have online examinations. Typically, the examination software also proctors the test, observing with the student’s own camera. Does this process violate the Constitution?
A federal judge in Ohio decided last week that at least in some circumstances, the answer is yes. The court’s impeccable reasoning should give us pause about the project of online proctoring.
The problem of surveillance in what’s been called “the constant and expanding classroom” predates Covid-19 and is as severe in grade school as in colleges and universities. But unlike teens and toddlers, college students are adults, clothed in the full regalia of constitutional protections. And the issue isn’t going away anytime soon. The global market for examination proctoring software is expected to reach $1.5 billion by 2028. The U.S. is the biggest user and developer. So while the decision applies of course only to public universities, the outcome matters.
The plaintiff, a student named Aaron Ogletree, alleged that Cleveland State University violated the Fourth Amendment when, before sitting for a test, he was asked to allow remote proctoring software to scan his surroundings in search of “potential impermissible study aids or notes.” According to the complaint, when the email request arrived just before the test in question, Ogletree had confidential tax documents in view that there was no time to shield. The scan was recorded. A copy was kept by the vendor, and the scan was also available to his fellow students. This process, he argued, violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures.
The court agreed. In its decision, it rejected the university’s analogies to cases that have carved out exceptions for items that are in plain view from places where the public routinely goes. A computer’s cameras, the court wrote, “go where people otherwise would not, at least not without a warrant or an invitation.”
The school further argued that, in effect, everybody uses remote proctoring now. The judge was unmoved: “The ubiquity of a particular technology or its applications does not directly bear on that analysis.” In the court’s view, the “very core” of the Fourth Amendment is the right to be free of governmental intrusion in the home; the proctoring scan “occurred in Plaintiff’s house, in his bedroom, in fact.”
One might respond to all this by saying that if Ogletree didn’t like the proctoring policies, he should have enrolled somewhere else, or perhaps taken a course that didn’t require the scan. But the information necessary to make that decision was presented in a manner the court called “opaque.” And, of course, the pandemic left little choice in any case.
The court conceded that the school had a legitimate interest in the prevention of cheating, but found, on balance, that the proctoring scan was so intrusive and unreasonable that it violated the Fourth Amendment.
The outcome warms my libertarian heart. But even those who might disagree with the court’s constitutional conclusion have reason to be concerned about proctoring software.
Consider the most obvious: Apart from all the other things the artificial intelligence watches for — atypical facial movements or speaking, for instance (woe to many disabled students!), or people passing in the background (woe to students with children at home!) — the first task is to make sure that the person sitting for the test isn’t an imposter.
That’s harder than it sounds.
For example, a longstanding criticism of AI software that’s used for purposes of identification is that it often misperceives the gender of trans people. Why does that matter in practical terms? If the remote proctor identifies the student sitting at the keyboard as one gender and the school’s files record the same student as another (or as nonbinary), the mismatch might cause the software to flag the test for possible cheating or even to refuse access.
The problems go deeper. Commercially available facial recognition products tend to be far better at identifying men than women, and White subjects than Black. And, as one might suspect, there’s a deeply troubling intersection. A much-discussed 2018 study published in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research found that the error rate in identifying “darker-skinned females” runs as high as 34.7%.(1) Dark-skinned women might even be asked by the software to shine more light on their faces to aid remote identification.
None of this is new. The biases in facial recognition software have been known for two decades. One might reasonably respond that what’s needed is better algorithms. Fair enough. But consider the possibility that as the AI grows more accurate, ethical questions might grow more complex.
That’s a topic for another day. For now, the Ogletree case stands as a reminder that the rush to online learning might be making education worse. Certainly it’s making testing worse. There are crude, ugly answers — like requiring that students, as a condition of going to school, waive their Fourth Amendment rights in case of another shutdown.
Or maybe instead schools should discard online proctoring as intrusive and unjust. Put the students on their honor. And if the fear is that with nobody watching there’ll be an epidemic of cheating, then the problem is much more serious than what the camera can and can’t see.
• Online Schooling Is the Bad Idea That Refuses to Die: Andrea Gabor
• Remote Learning Can Be a Lot Better: The Editors
• Remote Schooling’s Perverse Social Divide: Justin Fox
(1) True, facial recognition software is more likely to generate false positives than false negatives. | 2022-08-30T15:16:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | That Online Test Just May Be Unconstitutional - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/that-online-test-just-may-be-unconstitutional/2022/08/30/3daec6f2-2875-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/that-online-test-just-may-be-unconstitutional/2022/08/30/3daec6f2-2875-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
Chileans will vote on Sept. 4 on a proposed new constitution to replace one imposed by the military dictatorship that ruled from 1973 to 1990. Almost 80% of voters in a 2020 referendum favored the writing of a new constitution, but now that one is on paper, the latest polls show ratification is in doubt. The proposed new constitution was composed by a left-leaning body, and critics say it will weigh on economic growth, deter investments and undercut political checks and balances.
Though the current constitution has been amended several times since Chile returned to democracy, many have long viewed the document as illegitimate because of its origins during the reign of General Augusto Pinochet, a violent dictator whose rule featured arbitrary arrests and political executions. Critics have also argued that elements of the constitution have entrenched inequality. When mass street protests began on Oct. 18, 2019, triggered by an increase in Santiago subway fares, demonstrators expanded their grievances to include problems with the pension, health care and education systems. In an effort to diffuse tensions, then-President Sebastian Pinera agreed to the 2020 referendum to determine whether Chile would rewrite its charter and what type of body would be in charge of doing so.
Voters delivered a massive surprise in May 2021 by spurning traditional political parties and electing a Constitutional Convention marked by the presence of left-leaning independents. Rightist members failed even to secure the one-third of seats necessary to block articles. The body rushed to finish the draft after a year of work, writing and then re-writing clauses and going as far as holding weekend and late-night sessions.
It lays out a much more progressive and inclusive legal framework than currently in place and takes steps to hold the private sector more accountable while still enshrining fundamentals such as private property rights. (A controversial proposal to nationalize the mining industry was rejected.) On social issues, the charter includes measures that boost indigenous community representation, establish a national health care system, require gender parity in public institutions and toughen environmental safeguards. It broadens the central bank’s considerations in its policy decisions, authorizes expropriations with the condition that the property owner is “fairly” compensated and makes permits for the use of water temporary and revocable. The constitution would set up a parallel justice system for indigenous communities and also replace the senate with a weaker, regional chamber, thus leaving much of the legislative power in the hands of the lower house.
The proposed new constitution’s detractors include members of a range of political parties and even prominent officials from previous center-left administrations, such as former Finance Minister Rodrigo Valdes and former central bank President Jose de Gregorio. Critics say the new text gives the government too much power and risks runaway public spending. Meanwhile, support for the document has come largely from the left, including from the influential ex-President Michelle Bachelet, who said in an interview that it offers a new “social contract.” While local rules prohibit the publication of polling figures during the two weeks prior to the referendum, in general, starting in late March, surveys showed public opinion moving against ratification. According to Cadem, which carries out polls and market research, some of the public lost trust in the Constitutional Convention members and disagree with the approved articles. Supporters of the proposed constitution praise the planned national health care system and social rights. People inclined to vote for the new constitution tend to be younger and live in Santiago, while detractors are older and live in other regions around the country.
Campaigns for and against the new constitution will wrap up on Sept. 1. Analysis on its main points feature prominently in local press, volunteers hand out pamphlets with information to passers-by on city streets and television ads have been running in August. Boric’s administration, which has expressed support for the new charter, is taking steps to inform voters about the proposal, even distributing free copies nationwide. Disseminating the new constitution’s main ideas is no easy task, as it has 388 articles, 178 pages and roughly 54,000 words including the preamble and transitory rules. By comparison, the US Constitution has about 4,500 words.
Local assets should rally if the vote goes against the proposed charter. In terms of fixed income, many say that the best way to profit from a rejection of the charter would be a move into lower rated corporate debt or long-dated sovereigns, according to a Bloomberg survey of local analysts. In general, investors and top policy makers such as central bank President Rosanna Costa have said the constitutional process has weighed on assets given the uncertainty it creates. There are disagreements as to how the new constitution would play out. In early August, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA strategist Mario Castro wrote investor sentiment is “generally very pessimistic” over the political outlook and the proposed new charter. Earlier, Morgan Stanley economists wrote the draft constitution wouldn’t disrupt Chile’s macro policy framework, and the exclusion of extreme articles was initially positive for fixed-income assets. | 2022-08-30T15:16:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Chile’s Draft Constitution Has Come Under Attack: QuickTake - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-chiles-draft-constitution-has-come-under-attack-quicktake/2022/08/30/2274ad9c-286c-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-chiles-draft-constitution-has-come-under-attack-quicktake/2022/08/30/2274ad9c-286c-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
National Book Festival hosts authors with tough but vulnerable characters
Jennifer Ziegler and David Bowles share the stage at the festival, which features more than 40 kids book creators.
By Mary Quattlebaum
Middle-grade authors David Bowles and Jennifer Ziegler will appear Saturday at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., to talk about their new books. (The Washington Post illustration/David Bowles/Penguin Young Readers/Margaret Ferguson Books)
On Saturday, you can see some of your favorite authors and illustrators in person at the National Book Festival, for the first time since covid-19 forced the event to go virtual two years ago.
Kwame Alexander, Mac Barnett, Sabaa Tahir and more than 40 other children’s book creators will speak at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in D.C., with three stages for presentations and activities for tots, teens and ages in between.
“Holy smokes! I’m thrilled,” said David Bowles about joining fellow Texas author Jennifer Ziegler on a panel at the festival. They’ll be talking about their new middle-grade books and tough yet vulnerable characters.
Both authors, who are Mexican American, draw on their own awkward, sometimes funny experiences in middle school in their writing.
“The insecurities, the excitement, the terror, the mistakes — I can access that period as if it was yesterday,” Ziegler told KidsPost by phone from her home near Austin.
In her novel “Worser,” the well-ordered world of her prickly seventh-grade protagonist is upended by his professor mother’s recent stroke. One thing that helps ease Worser’s sense of loss and confusion is a passion that Ziegler shares: words and wordplay.
“As a kid, I loved word games,” she said. “Mad Libs, Scrabble, crossword puzzles. I’d even make up my own. Now, I often start the day with Wordle, or I’ll write a little poem.”
For Bowles, years in a high school rock band inform “They Call Her Fregona,” his novel in verse. His protagonist, Güero, starts a band with three friends named Bobby.
“The dynamics, the fights, how we practiced,” he said by phone from the Rio Grande Valley, where he lives. “I basically stole from life.”
Another true-life inspiration is his wife, who is the model for Güero’s brave, strong-minded girlfriend, Joanna.
“My wife is a real fregona, or tough girl,” he said, with a laugh. “That part with the bully’s arm? She actually did that when she was a kid.”
Ziegler’s husband, Chris Barton, played more of an editorial role in “Worser.” Since he, too, is a children’s book author, he’s “my best first reader,” Ziegler said. “He’d read my drafts and let me know when [the voice] sounded more Jenny than Worser.”
Bowles and Ziegler are also quick to notice and listen to the young people around them. And they try to be true to the needs and feelings they observe or learn about.
When she taught middle school, Ziegler knew students who, like Worser, were sad, lonely and overwhelmed. Though her character isn’t based on any one person and has his own “very precise, almost formal, way of talking,” he does have those same feelings, she said.
Bowles gives a big shout-out to students at Pete Gallego Elementary School for the idea for his book. His novel in verse “They Call Me Güero” had just been published several years ago, and he was talking about it at the school, which is in Eagle Pass, on the Texas-Mexico border. The kids surprised him with a dramatic reading of his poems, and then a group of girls approached. They wanted him to write a book that centered on Joanna, who had appeared only a few times in “They Call Me Güero.”
“They felt she needed her own story,” he said. “And they were right. Thanks to those girls, I got to know Joanna. I got to write about what her family is going through and how Güero tries to help. A whole new book.”
What: David Bowles and Jennifer Ziegler talk about their new books in a panel called “Tough With a Gooey Center: Kids Learn to Be Themselves.”
Where: KidLit Stage, Hall B, National Book Festival, Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Place in Northwest Washington.
When: 3 to 3:35 p.m., with book signing after in Hall C.
Other activities: Presentations by more than 40 authors and illustrators for children and teens, story times and activities, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. (doors open at 8:30 a.m.) on the Please Read Me a Story, KidLit and Young Adult stages.
For more information: For a schedule of authors and activities, visit loc.gov/events/2022-national-book-festival/schedule. | 2022-08-30T15:16:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | National Book Festival hosts authors with tough but vulnerable characters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/08/30/national-book-festival-kids-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/08/30/national-book-festival-kids-2022/ |
This image released by A24 shows Jeremy Pope in a scene from “The Inspection.” (A24 via AP) (Uncredited/A24)
That will be less of an issue as the fall season ramps up. “Wakanda Forever” (Nov. 11) and “The Way of the Water” (Dec. 16) may each vie with the summer smash “Top Gun: Maverick” ($1.36 billion worldwide and still counting) for the year’s top film. Less clear, though, is if the fall’s robust slate of adult-driven films and Oscar contenders can once again drive moviegoing. Last year's best-picture winner, “CODA,” from Apple TV+, ran the awards gauntlet without a cent of box office.
Among the most anticipated films hitting the fall festival circuit and theaters are Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical “The Fabelmans” (Nov. 23); “Blonde” (Sept. 23), starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe; Todd Fields’ “TÁR” (Oct. 7), with Cate Blanchett; Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light” (Dec. 9); “The Son” (Nov. 11), Florian Zeller’s follow-up to “The Father”; Chinonye Chukwu’s Emmett Till saga “Till” (Oct. 14); Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin” (Oct. 21); James Gray’s “Armageddon Time” (Oct. 28); and the Cannes Palme d'Or winner “The Triangle of Sadness” (Oct. 7). | 2022-08-30T15:16:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fall Preview: Is it, maybe, back to normal at the movies? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fall-preview-is-it-maybe-back-to-normal-at-the-movies/2022/08/30/22ae4e9e-286c-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fall-preview-is-it-maybe-back-to-normal-at-the-movies/2022/08/30/22ae4e9e-286c-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
James Gibson, D.C. city planner and Barry adviser, dies at 88
After leaving city government, Mr. Gibson remained involved in the District’s artistic, educational and financial welfare in high-level positions at foundations and institutes and on committees
James O. Gibson, left, and finance expert Carol O’Cleireacain in 1996. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
James O. Gibson, a city planner who was among the first generation of Black professionals to rise to power in Washington, serving as a top adviser to Mayor Marion Barry and shepherding the opening of the District’s first convention center of the modern era, died Aug. 4 at an assisted-living home in Rockville, Md. He was 88.
The cause was complications of dementia, said his son, Carl Gibson.
Early in his career, Mr. Gibson was executive secretary of the NAACP’s Atlanta chapter, a community-development and social-services consultant, and a leader of a group of social scientists, Planners for Equal Opportunity, which called for urban-renewal efforts to be more attentive to the housing and employment needs of communities of color.
He came to Washington in 1966 with the now-defunct Potomac Institute, a not-for-profit Washington agency that worked toward policies promoting racial justice and equality. As an executive associate at the organization for 13 years, he led projects focused on urban policy, municipal planning and affirmative action.
In the late 1960s and in the 1970s, he had a year-long stint on the District’s National Capital Planning Commission, as an appointee of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s; chaired the D.C. Bicentennial commission before resigning in 1975 after accusing Mayor Walter E. Washington’s administration and local business leaders of inadequately funding planning efforts; and was a longtime backer and president of the Harambee House Hotel, a short-lived minority-owned showcase hotel in the city.
All along, he was a confidant of Barry, a civil rights activist and city council member who became mayor in 1979. He counseled Barry on housing and economic development, with the middle-class in mind. “I’m a diamond in the rough,” Barry told The Washington Post at the time, “and Jim works at grooming me.”
In 1979, Barry named Mr. Gibson assistant city administrator for planning, putting him in charge of the new Office of Planning and Development. During Mr. Gibson’s nearly three-year tenure, Washington opened its first massive convention center, a nearly 800,000-square-foot, $100 million facility at the corner of 10th and H streets NW built to spur the city’s economy by filling hotel rooms and creating jobs. It was demolished in 2004, a year after the opening of the 2.3 million-square-foot Walter E. Washington Convention Center a few blocks away.
After leaving city government, Mr. Gibson remained involved in the District’s artistic, educational and financial welfare through high-level positions at foundations and institutes and on committees.
He spent two years as president of the grant-making Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, was director of the Rockefeller Foundation’s equal-opportunity program, was a senior associate at the Urban Institute, and was a senior fellow of the Center for the Study of Social Policy. From 1995 to 2000, he was director of DC Agenda, a group of business and civic leaders working to revitalize the District during the era of the D.C. Financial Control Board as the city emerged from insolvency.
In 2011, the nonprofit group Partners for Livable Communities granted Mr. Gibson an award, citing “his leading advocacy in urban revitalization, community development, and race relations, with more than three decades on issues ranging from civil rights to economic opportunity.”
James Oliver Gibson was born in Atlanta on April 1, 1934, to a hotel headwaiter and a homemaker. After being educated in private and Catholic schools, he graduated in 1956 from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. Then, with the rank of sergeant, he served in the Army’s educational advisory program while stationed in West Germany.
His wife of 45 years, Kathryn DeFrantz, died in 2009, and their daughter, Tanya Gibson-Clark, died in 2016. In addition to his son, of Queens, survivors include a daughter, Julia Gibson Howard of Washington; a brother; and five grandchildren. | 2022-08-30T15:17:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | James Gibson, D.C. city planner and Barry adviser, dies at 88 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/30/james-o-gibson-city-planner-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/30/james-o-gibson-city-planner-dead/ |
Man at center of Australian crime podcast found guilty of wife’s murder
A masked Chris Dawson arrives at court in Sydney on Aug. 30. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)
Chris Dawson, an Australian man who became the subject of a popular crime podcast that investigated the 1982 disappearance of his wife, Lynette Dawson, has been found guilty of murdering her, 40 years after her disappearance.
Justice Ian Harrison handed down the verdict at the Supreme Court of New South Wales on Tuesday, following a two-month trial that gripped Australia. The verdict, based on evidence that was wholly circumstantial, took almost five hours to be delivered.
Dawson, 74, a former teacher and rugby player, has long maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty to his wife’s murder. He was arrested in 2018 — the same year millions listened to the podcast “The Teacher’s Pet,” which examined the couple’s relationship and the final weeks of 33-year-old Lynette’s life.
The podcast, which sparked headlines around the world, received a journalism award for uncovering “long-lost statements and new witnesses” in the case and prompting Australian police to renew the search for Lynette’s body. However, Harrison noted in his Tuesday judgment, it was probable that the series affected some of the evidence in the case.
Lynette vanished from her home on Sydney’s northern beaches in January 1982, leaving behind her daughters ages 2 and 4. She did not appear to have taken any of her belongings with her. Dawson said his wife had chosen to abandon their family.
After lengthy examination of the evidence, Harrison said he was “satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Lynette Dawson died on or about 8 January, 1982, as a result of a conscious and voluntary act committed by Mr. Dawson with the intention of causing her death.”
While the evidence presented was “wholly circumstantial,” the evidence “considered as a whole is persuasive and compelling,” he said. “When regard is had to their combined force, I am left in no doubt.”
Harrison concluded Lynette “did not leave her home voluntarily” and said several “lies” told by Chris Dawson, including that Lynette had called him several times following her disappearance, saying that she needed time away from her family, demonstrated “a guilty conscience.”
“The contention that Lynette Dawson, a woman supposedly desperate to leave a relationship, would be inclined to provide telephonic updates concerning the status of her decision to leave, is simply absurd,” Harrison said Tuesday, adding that Chris Dawson’s account of their conversations, in which she merely said “she needed more time away” but did not for example ask about their children, were not convincing.
Friends and relatives of Lynette had said in the podcast’s first episode that the devoted mother would never have abandoned her children, with whom she shared a special bond.
During the trial, prosecutors said Dawson had been in a relationship with a 16-year-old student of his who was also the family’s babysitter, identified only as “JC” in the trial, at the time of Lynette’s disappearance. JC moved into the family home shortly after Lynette disappeared. Prosecutors alleged Dawson had killed his wife so he would be able to continue his relationship with JC.
It took Dawson six weeks to report Lynette missing, and her body has never been found.
“We hope that one day that we will find our sister and put her to rest,” Lynette’s brother Greg Simms said Tuesday as he spoke outside the court. He called on Dawson to reveal the location of her remains so she could finally be put to rest.
The podcast “The Teacher’s Pet” was made unavailable in Australia in 2019, after Dawson was charged, to ensure he had a fair hearing. The trial also took place without a jury — at the request of Dawson — which he was granted due to the high-profile and widely publicized nature of the case.
While true crime podcasts and documentaries have become hugely popular in recent years, with some renewing interest in unsolved murder cases or potentially uncovering new evidence, the Dawson trial has raised questions about the impact such publicity can have on a trial.
Harrison said Tuesday that “The Teacher’s Pet” may have corrupted some of the evidence in the case, “depriving some evidence of its usefulness.”
He also noted that critics had argued the podcast presented a “less than balanced view” of the case.
In remarks outside the court following Tuesday’s verdict, the journalist behind the podcast, Hedley Thomas, said his role in the podcast made him feel as though he had “got to know” Lynette. “Her story struck me as so unfair, so unjust, I did become obsessive about it,” he told reporters.
While Thomas welcomed the verdict and hailed prosecutors in the case, he noted that Dawson had been able to enjoy 40 years of his life without facing “accountability” for his actions due to flaws in the system and earlier handling of the case. He said Lynette was simply “treated as a runaway mother, when the circumstances were so gravely suspicious,” adding that it was “disgraceful.”
Greg Walsh, Dawson’s lawyer, told reporters Tuesday that his client was “in shock” and “upset” and would “certainly” be appealing the guilty verdict.
“Mr. Dawson has always asserted, and he still does, his absolute innocence of the crime of which he’s been convicted. And he will continue to assert that innocence. And he’ll certainly appeal.” | 2022-08-30T15:17:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chris Dawson, subject of crime podcast, found guilty of murdering wife Lynette - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/30/chris-dawson-lynette-podcast-trial/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/30/chris-dawson-lynette-podcast-trial/ |
John Eastman is seen on video as the House Jan. 6 select committee holds its fourth public hearing on Capitol Hill on June 21. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Even occasional “Law & Order” viewers know that the conversations between a criminal defendant and his lawyer are normally protected from prosecutors. However, when the lawyer becomes a co-conspirator, such attorney-client privilege evaporates because of what is known as the “crime-fraud exception.” If you’re participating in a crime rather than defending a criminal, you and your client don’t get the benefit of the attorney-client privilege.
In the case of former president Donald Trump, we may soon get a treatise on the crime-fraud exception, as the matter is poised to come up in a shockingly large number of instances.
Carter went on to find that whether the charge might be obstruction of an official proceeding — i.e., the joint session of Congress to count electoral college votes — or conspiracy to defraud the United States, it was “more likely than not” that Trump committed the crimes and that Eastman “dishonestly conspired” with him. With regard to an email chain that included Eastman’s “how to” memo designed to keep Trump in power, “the draft memo pushed a strategy that knowingly violated the Electoral Count Act, and Dr. Eastman’s later memos closely track its analysis and proposal,” Carter wrote.
Since the memo “likely furthered the crimes of obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States,” Carter found, “it is subject to the crime-fraud exception.” Which means Eastman must now be concerned that he will be a subject of the Justice Department’s inquiry.
Others might be in similar trouble. In Georgia, Rudy Giuliani has already gotten a target letter from the Fulton County district attorney as part of that state’s election-interference inquiry. Communications between Giuliani and Trump therefore might not be protected by the attorney-client privilege. If Giuliani does not want to talk about them, his best bet could be to take the Fifth Amendment.
Also in Georgia, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney denied former Trump campaign lawyer Kenneth Chesebro’s attempt to wriggle out of his testimony in front of a grand jury. Some of Chesebro’s work for the Trump campaign will fall within the bounds of confidentiality, McBurney found. However, there are also points of interest that are “not off-limits,” he wrote, for instance, “his interactions with the individuals in Georgia seeking to prepare a slate of ‘alternate’ electors weeks after the final vote count showed former President Trump losing by over 10,000 votes in Georgia” — in which case the crime-fraud exception might come into play.
More recently, the New York Times reported in an article about the document seizure at Mar-a-Lago that Trump attorney Evan Corcoran “drafted a statement” that another Trump attorney, Christina Bobb, “who is said to be the custodian of the documents, signed.” The statement “asserted that, to the best of her knowledge, all classified material that was there had been returned, according to two people familiar with the statement,” the Times said.
The Justice Department’s affidavit effectively says this representation was false. Were the lawyers knowingly part of a scheme to deceive the Justice Department? Did Trump lie to them? We simply don’t know. But it is mind-boggling to imagine that either attorney helped craft a letter without personally examining the documents. Here, too, lawyers might be asked to testify, refuse to do so and face the government’s assertion of the crime-fraud exception.
“If I were the lawyers advising Trump on his document negotiations with the U.S., and perhaps making statements to the government that have turned out to be false, I would be considering getting my own counsel as well,” former House impeachment co-counsel Norman Eisen told me. “But we are not privy to all the evidence in the various and expanding open matters, and so we need to wait and see how things develop.”
In sum, whenever lawyers cease to be lawyers and become participants in an allegedly illegal scheme, two things happen. First, the attorney-client privilege might be lost, resulting in their compelled testimony. Second, if lawyers are at risk of prosecution themselves, they might need to take the Fifth — and stop representing a client whose interests suddenly contrast with their own. (Trump lied to me! No, the lawyers lied!) One can understand why so many attorneys have declined the invitation to represent Trump. | 2022-08-30T16:03:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Trump lawyers could lose the benefit of attorney-client protection - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/trump-lawyers-crime-fraud-exception/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/trump-lawyers-crime-fraud-exception/ |
The new debate over ‘fascist’ becomes the old debate over victimhood
Among those labeling his opponents as fascist in broad strokes? Donald Trump.
A scene at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (John Minchillo/AP)
The president’s excoriation of the political opposition was only minimally qualified.
“Fascists. They are fascists,” he said during a speech. “Some of them, not all of them, but some of them, but they’re getting closer and closer.”
A strong assertion, certainly, but one that barely rippled the surface of the water. Because the president offering that hyperbolic assessment was Donald Trump, two years ago this month. It was one of several times that he would deride Democrats as fascists, even excluding his July 4, 2020, retweet describing a “fascist Democratic Party that wants us to … hate America.”
Trump’s use of the term was largely a function of his I’m-rubber-you’re-glue approach to criticism. Remember when Hillary Clinton called him a “puppet” of Vladimir Putin during a 2016 debate? His response was: “No puppet. You’re the puppet.” So after months of criticism that his approach to the presidency was fascistic, he began applying the term to his opponents.
He had already been calling Democrats Communists, of course, a descriptor that, like his use of “fascist,” is best understood as his using a Political Science 201 vocabulary word as a proxy for “bad people who want to control you.” Fascism is a sufficiently nebulous concept to most people (on both the left and the right) that he could get away with it — particularly since no one expected Trump either to be accurate or cautious in his attacks.
The vagueness surrounding the term also colors the more recent debate surrounding the use of the term by Trump’s successor, someone held to a different rhetorical standard.
“What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy,” President Biden said during a campaign event in Maryland last week. “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something: it’s like semi-fascism.”
The response to Biden’s comments immediately rocketed in two directions. The first was to interpret Biden’s criticism as vague and not specific. The second was to interpret it as broad and not limited.
Granted, Biden is also someone who has a habit of saying things that need to be subsequently revised or amended by his team. But what he said in Maryland was more obviously intentional. Since the beginning of his presidency, Biden has described the threat posed to democracy. He has often done so in international terms, convening meetings and engaging in discussions centered on the global tension between democracy and autocracy. But he’s obviously also focused on the threat in the United States. Earlier this month, he met with a number of historians and writers to discuss the rise of fascistic rhetoric and behavior domestically. However politically intended his comments were during that rally, it seems obvious that he intended them.
It also seems clear that his criticism was aimed not broadly at Republicans but a subset of the most fanatic supporters of Trump. In that, his comments echoed the infamous remarks made by Clinton during that 2016 campaign.
“To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” she said at a fundraising event that September. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And, unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
She later apologized for the breadth of the framing, but that was quickly lost or ignored. Clinton had declared Trump supporters to be “deplorable,” they insisted — and they embraced the idea. Her intended criticism of the way in which Trump had given political space to fringe, toxic ideologies was lost. The comments were cast as another example of how the liberal left looked down on self-identified “real Americans” who were eager to support Trump — an elite working to undercut elites like Clinton from the inside.
Appearing on Sean Hannity’s show Monday night, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway made the same rhetorical shift from the “semi-fascist” comment.
“Folks, they think they’re better than you. It’s very simple,” she said. “ … They actually look down upon you. They don’t think that you’re like them. They don’t want their kids to go to school with yours. They don’t want you to live in their neighborhoods.”
It wasn’t Biden claiming that the “extreme MAGA” supporters were “semi-fascistic.” It’s that the breadth of the political left is beholden to elites (like sniffy writers for The Washington Post) who think they’re superior people. This was wealthy D.C. resident Kellyanne Conway’s defense of supporters of the former president who is summering at his golf club in New Jersey.
Trump spent much of Tuesday morning on Truth Social, the bespoke Twitter clone he helped launch. Among the dozens of messages he shared with his followers was one addressing Biden’s comments.
“They banned a sitting president from social media, impeached him two times, jailed his supporters, and now raided his home,” it read. “And then they go on TV and call us the fascists.”
Trump almost certainly shared this largely because he likes how it summarizes a few of his key hobbyhorses. But it’s interesting in part because it attempts to offer a response to Biden on the terms of the actual charge: that Trumpism is fascistic.
Notice that the allegations against Biden are exaggerated or wrong. “They” — the elites, of course — kicked Trump off Twitter after the riot at the Capitol that he used social media to stoke. That riot is also responsible for one of the impeachments and all of those jailed supporters. An event, of course, that many academics and historians understand in the context of a fascistic effort by Trump to retain power.
“What you are seeing is a classic technique of tyrants and authoritarians where they use the methods of dictatorship while accusing their opponents of being fascist,” former Trump aide (and Jan. 6, 2021, speechwriter) Stephen Miller said during a different Fox News program on Monday night. Miller, too, was hoping to you’re-the-puppet Biden’s criticism, proving while doing so that irony is not fatal. He went on to claim that the Biden administration was “authoritarian and repressive.”
“Interesting how pretty much every person who actually studies authoritarianism and fascism around the world and throughout history is deeply, deeply worried about Trump Republicans,” University College London associate professor Brian Klaas wrote in response to Miller’s comment, “and not at all worried about Joe Biden’s completely normal center left governance.”
The Miller appearance was part of a panel including right-wing author Kurt Schlichter and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. (His group, incidentally, recently demanded that reporters attending events involving candidates for office provide access to recorded footage, among other restrictions.) Kirk, echoing host Sean Duffy’s rhetoric, claimed that Biden’s description of “traditional Americans” as fascist (which isn’t what Biden said) was intentional.
“Their language is precise for a reason,” Kirk said. “If you actually encountered a fascist, then what wouldn’t you do against that person? They’re calling half the country fascists because then that justifies a Patriot Act 2.0 type of response.” The Democrats, he insisted, were the real fascists.
Here meaning “bad people who want to control you, the hard-working average American.” Biden’s actual criticism, tailored to a portion of the right and watered down by “semi,” is simply grist for a rhetorical machine built to bolster Trump and to defend, at whatever cost, his effort to return to power. | 2022-08-30T16:42:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The new debate over ‘fascist’ becomes the old debate over victimhood - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/30/trump-biden-fascism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/30/trump-biden-fascism/ |
Darnell Coles, the Nationals' hitting coach, has a big task ahead with a number of young and talented players on the roster. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
After Darnell Coles was hired as the Washington Nationals’ hitting coach last fall, he jotted down notes for his first interview with reporters. The points he wanted to make — that teaching is key, and that contenders are built on homegrown talent — were front of mind because he was watching the playoffs from his couch. So in mid-October, he listed the final four teams and a few of their cornerstones.
The Atlanta Braves: Austin Riley, Freddie Freeman, Ozzie Albies.
The Los Angeles Dodgers: Corey Seager, Will Smith, Cody Bellinger.
The Houston Astros: Carlos Correa, José Altuve, Alex Bregman, Yuli Gurriel.
The Boston Red Sox: Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts.
“At the end of the day, there is a developmental plan that you have to have in place for the individual player so that once you get to the big leagues, you’re able to compete on a regular [basis],” Coles said then, back when the Nationals employed Juan Soto and were a slightly older version of the rebuilding club that faces the Oakland Athletics this week.
“It’s not like you’re giving at-bats away or giving pitches away. Cause at the major league level, and especially with this team, you’re trying to win. Your objective is to win. So we have to have these guys ready from day one.”
That objective, once a core philosophy for the Nationals, has looked different in the last two years. But in Coles’s offseason message was a clear challenge for himself and the club’s other coaches. As Washington has slid down the standings, and as it slogs toward a third consecutive last-place finish, much has been made about its shortcomings in player development at the minor league level. In the majors, though, there’s a impressionable core that needs critical guidance from Manager Dave Martinez and his staff.
The group includes 21-year-old shortstop CJ Abrams, 22-year-old second baseman Luis García, 24-year-old catcher Keibert Ruiz, 23-year-old lefty MacKenzie Gore, and 24-year-old righties Josiah Gray and Cade Cavalli. Down the line, if the Juan Soto-Josh Bell trade shakes out well, outfielders Robert Hassell III and James Wood could join the picture. Depending on health and progress on the field, prospects such as Brady House, Elijah Green and Cole Henry could be in the mix, too, among others.
The future is uncertain for any of the Nationals’ current coaches. Baseball lifers are used to that. The Lerner family is exploring a sale, meaning leadership could change at any point. Martinez, the manager who hired them, had his option for 2023 picked up in July, then mentioned that each of his coaches received a two-year deal before the season. He wanted them to see at least the start of the rebuild through, letting their work eventually speak when bigger decisions are made. And now they have the talent to put them on the clock.
“The days of developing in the minor leagues are almost gone,” said third base coach Gary DiSarcina, adding how, more and more, it seems as if player are debuting with raw tools in their early 20s. “So we have to almost channel our player development skills and use them up here.”
Beyond his front-facing job, DiSarcina is in charge of molding the Nationals’ young infielders. Earlier this season, that meant daily throwing and footwork drills with García, who will be much more comfortable after sliding back to second. More recently, DiSarcina has had Abrams and García, a double play pairing Washington wants to grow to grow together.
DiSarcina’s track record includes Devers, Bogaerts and José Iglesias, all of whom debuted for the Red Sox. As a player, DiSarcina was called up by the Los Angeles Angels at 21, appeared in two games, then bounced between the majors and minors for another two years before establishing himself.
Tim Bogar, the Nationals’ bench coach, also specializes with infielders and was recently training Luke Voit at first base. When Abrams was promoted in mid-August, the team put his locker next to García’s, hoping they would bond through their similar ages and the pressure on their shoulders. While on a road trip in San Diego, the whole staff arrived early so Abrams and García could take close to an hour of on-field batting practice with Coles, no other players in the cage.
“Watching those two guys was so exciting,” Coles said a day after, rubbing his hands in front of his face. “I mean, that’s a big part of our future right there. That’s it.”
Their personalities are very different. At Petco Park, for example, García took a guitar in the visitors’ clubhouse and recklessly strummed, sticking his tongue out like a rocker. Abrams then asked for the instrument and lightly picked at the strings, his fingers barely touching them. Through DiSarcina’s eyes, they’re an unlikely pair that could complement each other well. Abrams, quiet and soft-spoken, possesses an earnestness García can learn from. García plays and practices loose, a good influence for Abrams, who entered the week with just six hits in 45 plate appearances for Washington.
Before and during games, DiSarcina, Bogar, Coles, first base coach Eric Young Jr. and assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler — plus the video and analytics staff — will share pointers and data with the budding position players. Pitching coach Jim Hickey and bullpen coach Ricky Bones will do so with the pitchers. Henry Blanco, the team’s catching and strategy coach, is never far from Ruiz or backup catcher Riley Adams.
From the archives: Keibert Ruiz sees a teacher in Henry Blanco. Henry Blanco sees a star in Keibert Ruiz.
Most of them have experience coaching in the minor leagues, with Coles even starting out as a roving hitting instructor for the Nationals. The staff’s general goal is to guide these players and use the inevitable mistakes as a tool.
“I had a lot of coaches that taught me what not to do. I grew up in a time when you got yelled at, you got benched, you got sent down. If I was hitting .220 and not making plays, I was gone,” DiSarcina said, later unpacking how his relationship with his 23-year-old son helps him relate to Abrams and García.
“So I put myself in a father-son dynamic, and I’m like, ‘I’m not going to yell at him, I’m not going to scream at him, I’m not going to be disappointed in him,’ ” the coach continued. “I say, ‘Hey, let’s go, let’s come out tomorrow and we’ll work on this or work on that.’ Or … ‘Talk to me about this.’ I think the biggest thing you have to have nowadays is engagement and collaboration with a player.” | 2022-08-30T16:47:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Coaches for rebuilding Nationals focused on development - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/nationals-coaching-staff-player-development/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/nationals-coaching-staff-player-development/ |
Inside occupied Ukraine: A photographer’s first-hand account
Editor’s note: The Washington Post is not naming the photographer who took these images during two Russian-led press tours to protect them as they continue covering the war in Ukraine. They recounted their experience to Post reporter Ruby Mellen.
The call in July came on a Sunday. Pack your bags, they told me. You’re going to Russian-occupied Ukraine in two days.
As a Moscow-based photographer covering the war, I’d heard about these surreal press tours of Russian-seized Ukrainian towns run by the Defense Ministry. I knew these trips came with a healthy dose of Kremlin propaganda, but I was eager to photograph parts of the region few journalists could access. It was one of the only possibilities I had to see what life was like in places virtually cut off from the world.
The first tour lasted three long days. Russian security forces escorted me and other media — a few western journalists and many pro-Russian bloggers — from site to site. They kept the visits short and closely monitored the conversations we had with locals.
We slept in Donetsk, a city on the front line that has been controlled by Russia and Russian-backed separatists since 2014. Explosions punctuated the night. Donetsk is one of the only places in the occupied east with some infrastructure left.
Denis Pushilin, the leader of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, or DNR, walks toward the press in front of a World War II memorial on July 13.
I had been there two weeks before the war started. It was quite empty then, but in July it felt like a ghost town. All the stores were closed. There were few cars on the street. A nearby factory had been shelled, and the city smelled like ammonia.
“Russia is here forever,” one billboard said.
In the city center of Donetsk, a billboard reads “Russia is here forever,” on July 13.
In other cities, where few people remained, the destruction was more apparent. We visited Lysychansk, which Russia seized in early July. Captured Ukrainian tanks and American javelin missiles were on display. The purpose of the show?
“To prove that Ukrainian fascists have killed civilians and destroyed infrastructure,” said Capt. Ivan Filiponenko of the Luhansk People’s Republic, a separatist government recognized by Moscow. “It’s also about reassuring the population by showing that this is all long over, that those who used these weapons against them have left.”
But surrounding this display of victory was utter ruin. Lysychansk was at the center of heavy fighting for more than four months before it fell to Moscow on July 3.
Buildings were blackened and windowless. Residents — mostly elderly — lined up for food packages distributed by the Russian military.
Soldiers from the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics stand in front of a captured Ukrainian tank on July 12.
The destroyed city center of Lysychansk on July 12.
Residents of Lysychansk stand in a line for food distributed by Russian soldiers on July 12.
I managed to sneak away from my military escorts. That’s when I met Anatoly, 31.
I asked him why he thought Russia came here.
“To liberate us,” he said.
“From whom?” I pressed.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he replied cautiously. “Like you, we had a normal life before. It’s hard to look at the destruction.”
Anatoly poses for a photo in the city center of Lysychansk on July 12.
A shelled building in Severodonetsk.
Soldiers in Severodonetsk stand in front of burned cars.
A sign that says “Severodonetsk” was repainted from colors of the Ukrainian flag to colors of the Russian flag.
In Mariupol, a port city brutally besieged and bombarded before falling to Russia, the smell of death was in the air. Houses were not accessible, we were told. There were still bodies inside.
The city was cut off from running water, electricity and gas. Interviews with residents could only be conducted in front of minders.
A military uniform of a Ukrainian soldier remains on a street between Mariupol and Donetsk.
Residents from Mariupol, a city cut off from water and electricity.
Journalists talk to residents who came to see what was happening after a demining operation caused explosions.
Rubles had been in circulation for months, and about 20 Russian passports were being issued each day, officials said.
At these citizenship ceremonies, the Russian national anthem blared in the background as people recited excerpts from the Russian constitution. A portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin hung above.
The occupation administration of Melitopol where people come to get Russian passports.
For some older people in the city, the Russian passports represented a return to a bygone era.
“Russia has come, and everything will be quiet as in Soviet times,” a woman named Valentina told me. “We have been waiting for this for a long time." There is a also a strong resistance movement in areas newly occupied by Russia. From Kherson to Melitopol, many are refusing to comply with Russian rule.
People waiting outside to apply for a Russian passport on Aug. 11 in Melitopol.
A Russian soldier outside of Melitopol on Aug. 11.
But I saw glimpses of what had happened since mid-July.
Officials brought us to Olenivka, where a military strike on July 29 killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war. Both Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the attack.
Barracks of the destroyed Olenivka prison on July 29.
Guards at the barracks of the Olenivka prison.
Outside the prison in Olenivka where Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in July.
They also took us to a movie theater.
Some spectators were dressed in military fatigues. Others were in civilian clothing. They had gathered to watch a Russian film called “Match” about one of history’s most infamous soccer games. In 1942, prisoners of war in Nazi-occupied Kyiv defeated a team of German soldiers despite orders to lose.
Ukraine banned the film in 2014 amid criticisms that it portrayed Ukrainians as Nazi sympathizers.
The showing was an apt prop for the war that Putin is now waging. The Russian president has justified the invasion as an effort to “denazify” Ukraine.
But nothing inside the theater felt real. I had a sense that everyone had been brought there not for the movie, but to perform — for us.
A group gathers to watch a Russian film called “Match,” on Aug. 9 in Luhansk. | 2022-08-30T16:48:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inside occupied Ukraine: a photographer’s first-hand account - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/ukraine-occupied-life-photos/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/ukraine-occupied-life-photos/ |
“It would have been impossible to have an honest, interactive dialogue with the United States without including the issue of reparatory justice,” committee chairperson Verene Shepherd said, presenting the committee's report. “I fully believe that with the pressure in the United States now around the question of reparatory justice, that the federal government will act.” | 2022-08-30T16:48:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UN experts warn of impact of abortion bans on US minorities - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/un-experts-warn-of-impact-of-abortion-bans-on-us-minorities/2022/08/30/0533650c-2876-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/un-experts-warn-of-impact-of-abortion-bans-on-us-minorities/2022/08/30/0533650c-2876-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
What about Clinton’s emails? How Trump’s document controversy differs.
Republicans have complained that Trump could face legal jeopardy when Clinton was never charged. But applying the “Clinton standard” reveals key differences.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton appear at a presidential debate in October 2016. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
The debate over what is to be done with Donald Trump and his alleged mishandling of sensitive government documents has landed in the zone where it was inevitably headed:whataboutism. Hillary Clinton escaped prosecution for using a private email server as secretary of state in 2016, the right argues, so why should Trump ever be indicted?
In this case, we use “whataboutism” non-judgmentally. Indeed, it might be fitting and instructive to compare the two situations, especially given that their central figures occupy similar positions in our national politics — as de facto figureheads of their parties, who had access to highly sensitive information. A core principle of our justice system, after all, is that the law be applied equally.
But that doesn’t mean the two situations are the same or even particularly similar. Even as our understanding of why the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago earlier this month remains incomplete, some key differences have already emerged.
And applying the Clinton standard might not augur as well for Trump as proponents seem to believe.
As the situation has deteriorated for Trump, his allies and other conservatives have increasingly called for that standard. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) has suggestively warned there would be “riots” if Trump is charged with mishandling sensitive information after “Hillary Clinton set up a server in her basement.” Trump lawyer Jim Trusty said Monday on Fox News that he disagreed with how the Clinton standard was utilized back in 2016, saying it “may not have been the most respectful precedent” — “but I’ll take it in terms of the result.”
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, meanwhile, argued this weekend that if Garland can’t prove Trump’s conduct was worse than Clinton’s, then “the better judgment is not to prosecute and put the country through the trauma of a political trial that half of America will suspect is a case of unequal justice.”
But just how similar are the two situations? It’s worth parsing, using the actual Clinton standard set forth by then-FBI Director James B. Comey in July 2016.
In explaining his agency’s recommendation not to prosecute, Comey cited the lack of four elements he said had been present “in some combination” in previous prosecutions involving removal or mishandling of classified information:
“clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information”
“vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct”
“indications of disloyalty to the United States”
“efforts to obstruct justice”
Comey concluded: “We do not see those things here.” Thus, Clinton was not charged.
Let’s take them one by one and compare the evidence against Clinton and Trump.
1. “Clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information”
This was the portion of Comey’s decision that was most disputed in Clinton’s case.
The applicable law, the Espionage Act, states that it is a crime to remove national defense information from its “proper place of custody” through “gross negligence.” But Comey indicated Clinton’s alleged misconduct had to be “clearly intentional and willful” to bring a prosecution — a standard many critics at the time complained was higher than “gross negligence” because it required intent. Comeyeven said in the same news conference that Clinton had been “extremely careless,” which sounds a lot like “grossly negligent.”
But if we’re arguing about applying the Clinton standard, “clearly intentional and willful mishandling” is that standard.
Comey said Clinton and others should have known better than to potentially expose this information on a private server, but “we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information.”
He said at a hearing two days later that there was insufficient proof that Clinton intended to obscure her emails. “Our best information is that she set it up as a matter of convenience,” he said, echoing Clinton’s own justification. But there were reasons to doubt the arrangement arose strictly out of convenience, The Washington Post’s Fact Checker found, citing the holes in Clinton’s various explanations.
Given the disputes over Comey’s read on Clinton’s intent, it’s difficult to directly compare to Trump. But a key difference is that there is lots of evidence Trump resisted relinquishing these documents when the government repeatedly came knocking for them.
As The Post reported last week in a thorough review of the known facts:
With Clinton, the question was: Did her reasons for setting up the private email server demonstate her intent? With Trump, we’re still learning a lot. But there appears to be plenty of evidence to suggest his intent was to keep these documents, even when the alleged mishandling was flagged to him.
Indeed, it’s becoming clear that Trump’s obstinance played a role in why he was searched. Whether that search was justified or not, it’s not really analogous to Clinton.
2. “Vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct”
“Vast quantities” is, of course, a subjective term. But the quantities do differ somewhat in these two situations.
With Clinton, Comey said 113 emails were found to have contained classified information, including eight email chains that had information marked top secret at the time they were sent. (Many didn’t include classification markings at the time, because they were not official government documents.)
With Trump, we still don’t know the full extent of what he took to Mar-a-Lago. But the search warrant affidavit released last week said that Trump in January voluntarily returned 184 classified documents, including 25 that were marked top secret. The search earlier this month turned up 11 more sets of classified documents, including several that were top secret.
We don’t have the final numbers — the New York Times last week put the total number of classified documents at more than 300 — but the government has retrieved more classified and top secret documents from him than from Clinton.
From there, the question is whether the number of documents is considered “vast” and “exposed” enough to “to support an inference of intentional misconduct.”
(It’s also worth reiterating that, despite Trump’s claim that he declassified these documents, there is still no evidence that he actually did, and the laws the government has cited don’t require the documents to be classified for a violation to occur.)
3. “Indications of disloyalty to the United States”
There is no evidence that Clinton sought to obscure the information out of disloyalty to her country. Even if you think Comey too readily accepted her explanation of convenience, the most readily available alternate explanation is that she didn’t want these records to be obtainable because they could harm her political career. That’s not the same as disloyalty.
With Trump, the evidence on this front is very incomplete — and “disloyalty to the United States” is a very high bar. We do know that there was urgency to retrieve the documents for some reason, but despite plenty of speculation, we don’t know why that was.
4. “Efforts to obstruct justice”
This is likely to be the crucial difference, possibly alongside No. 1, if Trump is ever charged.
As mentioned earlier, Trump resisted returning these documents. He didn’t return them even after one of his lawyers agreed last year that they should be returned. His lawyer also signed a document in June stating that all documents marked as classified had been returned, according to the Times. And the government cited the likelihood that it would find evidence of obstruction to obtain the search warrant.
Precisely what the government believes might rise to the level of obstruction, we’ll have to see.
As for Clinton, she testified to Congress about her private email server as part of the Benghazi hearings. She sat with the FBI in a voluntary interview for more than three hours. She also turned over tens of thousands of emails.
Her critics, including Trump, have long suggested she engaged in a coverup by virtue of her and her team deleting many other emails and destroying phones. Comey said Clinton’s team turned over 30,000 emails deemed to be work-related after sorting through the documents using headers and word searches, rather than reviewing each one individually. This has long been used to suggest the effort was nefarious — often using hyperbolic language involving bleach and acid — but there’s no evidence it was. (And there are legitimate reasons to do these things.)
On this point, Comey was firm. He said that Clinton might have deleted some emails that were work-related — and that emails recovered through other means confirmed that — but that there was no evidence of a deliberate coverup.
“I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related emails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them,” he said.
He added later: “Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort.”
The evidence of obstruction, in other words — just wasn’t there in Comey’s estimation. We’ll find out whether the Justice Department determines it is in Trump’s case, and if so, how compelling it is. | 2022-08-30T17:00:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What about Clinton's emails? How Trump's document controversy differs. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/30/clinton-emails-trump-documents-comparison/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/30/clinton-emails-trump-documents-comparison/ |
What a principal architect does in a workday
Perspective by Sybil Wa
Sybil Wa on her bike to work. (Courtesy of Sybil Wa/Washington Post illustration)
Welcome to The Work Day, a series that charts a single day in various women’s working lives — from gallery owners to chief executives. In this installment, we hear from Sybil Wa, a principal architect who recorded a workday in August.
Name: Sybil Wa
Current roles: Principal architect, Diamond Schmitt; assistant adjunct professor, Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; vice chair, Toronto Community Housing Design Review Panel
Previous jobs: I first started at Diamond Schmitt as a co-op student in high school. At the firm, I went on to design performing arts venues like the Four Seasons Performing Arts Centre in Toronto and the Mariinsky II in St. Petersburg before leading the reimagining of David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, which opens Oct. 8. I’ve also had the opportunity to serve as project architect for the second largest Ronald McDonald House in North America for Montgomery Sisam Architects in Toronto.
What led me to my current role: I was introduced to the world of architectural practice at Diamond Schmitt through a co-op program at my high school. Luckily, learning and opportunities progressed together. I’ve had the chance to enjoy the best parts of people through working on civic and institutional projects.
Inspiration and mentorship has defined most of the growth in my career. I was generously mentored by my teammates and the leadership at Diamond Schmitt before becoming a principal and still benefit from the wisdom of people around me. Outside the organization, many people guided me along the way by seeing what I could do before I knew that I could. My mom worked in fashion and my dad was an interior designer, but when they immigrated, they had to reestablish their careers. Remembering how they worked to rebuild their lives reminds me of my privilege and responsibility.
How I spend the majority of my workday: Being an architect is my dream job. I spend most of my day as part of a multidisciplinary team thinking about, designing or supporting the construction of buildings and cities. The days vary widely because each client, site, list of functional requirements and design is different. I’m sometimes tired, but never bored.
As architects, we sketch, use software to model and develop designs in virtual 3D, physically mock-up key parts of buildings in warehouses, lay out material samples in the studio for deliberation and visit sites of new projects or projects under construction. Our teams include engineers, quantity surveyors, fabricators and contractors.
8:25 a.m.: By 8:25, child drop-off is complete. I have four kids in four different schools but only two of them need a bit of extra hands-on attention in the mornings. During the summer, the child-care arrangements are more chaotic and irregular, but the commute reliably feels like a daily reboot for me. I bike to the office and need to shift gears quickly from focusing on home to work.
9 a.m.: Every day starts with a brief team huddle on David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, a major renovation project that I’ve been leading from New York since 2018, which will finally reopen to the public this October. We discuss the design and construction progress, upcoming meeting agendas and share a few jokes to balance our moods.
Today, I update the team on my experience touring the New York Philharmonic musicians’ committee through the construction site. Many of us have been working on this project for years and empathize with the artists’ dedication and preparation for their performances. Even seemingly mundane details will serve to enable the artistry onstage.
11 a.m.: While one project is preparing to open after years of effort, another project is just starting! I bike over from our studio to the new site to help complete a photogrammetry scan. We move the camera device and tripod in eight-foot increments to record web-based immersive imagery that we will use to virtually revisit the site from our computer screens. It’s a powerful tool for this new design project, and we are geeking out a lot.
12:25 p.m.: At lunch, we eat the empanadas sold on the campus of our new project, feeling nostalgic as we sit in the hangout with the students.
1:05 p.m.: We briefly stop to experiment with the photogrammetry technology at David Geffen Hall. The building is nearing completion, but still covered in places with scaffold, tarps and plywood. We are excited to capture this pivotal moment of construction.
1:40 p.m.: I ride my bike up to Columbia University, where I teach at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. The ride up is slightly strenuous, uphill and hot, but it is mostly next to Central Park and scenic.
2:05 p.m.: This fall, I’ll be teaching fundamentals of urban digital design and in the spring, an urban planning studio in which we’ll be working with Red Sky Performance, a contemporary Indigenous performance company based in Toronto with roots in Temagami. Our goal includes introducing the students to planning with members of the Anishinaabe Indigenous community. I’m on campus today to do some prep. It’s my fifth year here, but I still have some healthy anxiety before courses start.
3 p.m.: I have reminders set on my phone for when I need to text my kids to check in on their whereabouts. I like to make sure that they get home from their summer programs safely. Today, one kid will walk with a friend, and another will carpool. I prefer to have some assurance that everything is rolling smoothly at home so I may dive back into work fully. I am grateful for my family, babysitter and support network for making this even possible.
3:05 p.m.: I ride my bike back to Lincoln Center to hear the New York Philharmonic onstage for the first time since 2019 as they begin the process of acoustically tuning the hall. While I’m on my bike, my team calls to make sure that I’m on my way, and I get there right on time.
3:30 p.m.: I take my hard hat off inside for the first time since construction started. Hae-Young Ham, a violinist, spontaneously grabs my hand from the stage in excitement. Hearing their first notes is sublime. They perform parts of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17, selected especially to illuminate the acoustic dimensions of the new room. There is impactful, immersive beauty in the music, and I take a moment to reflect on the joy, relief, and collective and personal pride.
6:40 p.m.: After the tuning, there is a reception across the street at Alice Tully Hall, where we advised on the updated lobby furniture and layout. It’s always satisfying to see people enjoying a space that we helped bring to life.
I drop off my construction boots and hard hat at the site office, and then walk over to the party with Sharon Yamada, one of the N.Y. Phil musicians from the renovation committee. We excitedly exchange reactions to the tuning and how it will support the Philharmonic’s musical identity and Lincoln Center’s artistic mission. I learn that this musician studied architecture before becoming a professional performer, and we connect over our shared design background.
7:30 p.m.: I stay late at the reception talking to the engineers, the acousticians, theater planners, contractors, clients, musicians and teammates. I am also introduced to (and star-struck by) pianist Emanuel Ax at the party, and he indulges me in a selfie and shares a bit of his preperformance routine with me.
8:25 p.m.: An enthusiastic group of us stand talking and decompressing until the caterers have cleaned up. Our topics blend into a texture of happy chatter about David Geffen Hall, our kids, warm bass frequencies, aging parents, building inspections, hot sauces, flecking in beech wood. … I opt out of the after-party dinner invite and ride my bike home.
8:45 p.m.: Days like this are amazing, but I did miss eating dinner with the family. As a consolation, I try to be back before bedtime. Because I have a big family, there are often no leftovers, and I am too hungry to cook something, so I grab what is readily available; in this case, I eat parts of lunch that my kids didn’t eat as I empty their backpacks, accompanied by a cup of tea.
9:15 p.m.: The kids sit with me as I drink the tea and share my thrilling day. When I tell them that I am also sharing my day with readers of The Washington Post, they school me on how to keep a story short and offer tips on how to take a better selfie next time.
10 p.m.: After the younger kids are solidly tucked in bed, I have a routine of squeezing in a quick workout and then getting back onto the laptop at night to keep up with my various threads of work. Sometimes I have camp forms to complete or emails to reply to. Today I am refining my course syllabus and am hopeful about inspiring a new generation of urban planners and architects. | 2022-08-30T17:13:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What a principal architect does in a workday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/30/workday-architect/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/30/workday-architect/ |
Mildred “Millie” Russell at Creative Suitland Arts Center, where the exhibit “Doo-Wop Under the Street Lamp” is on display until Sept. 15. Russell was married to Diz Russell of the Orioles and is active in oldies music in the D.C. area. (John Kelly/The Washington Post)
“I still have my black-and-white shoes,” says Mildred “Millie” Russell as we gaze at a pair of those iconic 1950s ladies’ lace-ups in a clear plastic display case at Creative Suitland Arts Center.
Besides those saddle shoes, Russell still has her poodle skirt, too. And plenty of memories of where she wore them 60 years ago. That makes her the perfect person to show me around “Doo-Wop Under the Street Lamp,” an exhibit of photos and memorabilia at the art space on Silver Hill Road. It’s a one-room display devoted to the close-harmony singing that blossomed in the 1950s on the East Coast, including in Washington.
“That’s Don Covay,” Russell says, pointing at a framed photo of a group called the Rainbows. “He was my boyfriend for two weeks.”
That was at Randall Junior High in Southwest D.C., long before Covay wrote “Mercy, Mercy” and partied with the Rolling Stones.
“This is Donald Watts,” she says, pointing at the Rainbow who played the piano intro on their 1954 hit, “Mary Lee.”
We move along, stopping at a photo labeled “The New Moonglows/The Marquees.” Russell points to a tall guy in the middle. “I went to school with him,” she says.
It’s Marvin Gaye — or Marvin Gay as he was known back at Randall Junior High, before he added the “e.”
“Randall produced all the best singers,” Russell says. Not just Marvin Gaye and Don Covay, but Billy Stewart, too.
“Every day he had me in the principal’s office,” Russell says of the scat-singing Stewart.
The principal’s office? Why?
“He was funny,” Russell says. Stewart would say something to crack her up and both of them would be marched out of the classroom.
We get to a photo of the Orioles, one of the bird-name groups out of Baltimore.
“Look at that smile,” she says, pointing at a member named Diz Russell. “Women loved him. I called him the Devil himself.”
She also called him husband. Millie met Albert “Diz” Russell when she was 13, backstage at the Howard Theater when the Orioles shared the bill with an up-and-coming singer named Jackie Wilson.
“He had just put out ‘Reet Petite,’ ” she says of Wilson, the entertainer they called Mr. Excitement.
After the death of Orioles founder Sonny Til, the Russells held the group together, bringing in fresh singers as old ones retired, as is the way in doo-wop groups. Diz Russell died in 2016. His widow is still active in what she calls the “oldies but goodies” music scene.
The Suitland exhibit is the work of Beverly Lindsay-Johnson, a Fort Washington documentary filmmaker who diligently chronicles the District’s contributions to the musical genre. She had support from the African American Music Association, the Atlanta Doo-Wop Association and Creative Suitland.
Lindsay-Johnson told me that besides the 60 or so photographs and accompanying mini-bios, she wanted the exhibit to include some stage-worn clothes. There’s a fetching yellow, shawl-collar tuxedo jacket that was worn by Herb Cox of the Cleftones and a white fringed pantsuit loaned by Sandra Bears of Washington’s own Jewels.
Back at the exhibit, Russell is pointing to a photo of the Clovers.
“The Clovers put D.C. on the map,” she says. “They were the first. ‘One Mint Julep.’ ‘Devil or Angel.’ ”
Clover Steve Charles was another of Russell’s Randall Junior High classmates. He was in a later generation of the Clovers, joining in 1978. He’d sung at Dunbar High School in a group called the Fairlanes, around when Van McCoy was singing with the Starlighters. (McCoy would go on to win a Grammy in 1976 for “The Hustle.”)
In a phone call with Charles, I asked how he became a singer.
“It's almost accidental,” he said. “You stand at the corner with three or four of your buddies. Somebody starts to sing a song. You start chiming in.”
That’s when, he said, “you discover within yourself” whether you have what it takes.
“I have coached a few people over the years,” Charles said. “I would always start out telling them, ‘I can’t teach you to sing. You’ve got to already be able to do it. I can teach you voice control, breathing control, maybe to be a better singer. But you better be able to sing from scratch. Either you can or you can’t.’ ”
Lindsay-Johnson said it’s mainly older folks who have come to see the exhibit, people who remember the music first- or secondhand. She hopes younger people will come, too.
“They need to know the history of the music that they enjoy, because there’s a thread and the thread is gospel harmony,” she said. “Out of Black gospel came doo-wop and rhythm-and-blues. That morphs into soul music, then into contemporary R&B, where they’re taking samples from these old songs.”
Looking at these photos with Millie Russell, something stands out: Nearly everyone is smiling. This is before musical artists had to scowl in their pictures, or gaze into the distance. These were young people eager for success. It wasn’t going to be easy, but there was no reason it shouldn’t be fun — like singing on the corner with your buddies.
“Doo-Wop Under the Street Lamp” is up through Sept. 15 at Creative Suitland, 4719 Silver Hill Rd. (creativesuitland.org); open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. It’s closed this Friday through Monday for Labor Day. | 2022-08-30T18:05:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In the 1950s, doo wop swept the U.S., including Washington - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/doo-wop-singing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/doo-wop-singing/ |
Perspective by Geoffrey Bunting
(Washington Post illustration; Sony; iStock)
At the end of July, PlayStation unveiled the audio description option for the upcoming remake of “The Last of Us Part I,” which will narrate the game’s cutscenes and offer better accessibility for blind and low-vision players. It’s part of a raft of accessibility features that will be available upon release on Sept. 2. Given that the original game and its remastered edition, released in 2013 and 2014, respectively, offered next to no accessibility options, the reaction from disabled gamers was, understandably, celebratory. A decade after its initial release, “The Last of Us Part I” would finally be playable for large swaths of the video game community.
Excitement soured, however, when non-disabled gamers invaded the Twitter conversation to complain about the $70 price of the game (a complaint that has resurfaced over and over since the price was announced earlier this year). Critics claimed the remake is unnecessary as the game has already been remastered, and that the graphical improvements aren’t pronounced enough to justify a price tag equivalent to many new PlayStation 5 releases. “The Last of Us Part I” remake also doesn’t include the popular Factions multiplayer mode of previous iterations.
But for disabled players, the price is fine, reflecting the cost of what is essentially a completely new experience now that accessibility features have made it playable.
As a disabled gamer and journalist, it was hard to watch the conversation devolve into haggling over features and pricing. So, let’s take a moment to recenter the narrative — to understand the misconceptions driving so much backlash against “The Last of Us Part I” and why the game is important to both the disabled gaming community and the video game industry.
Some non-disabled gamers have labeled “The Last of Us Part I’s” price tag as a “disability tax.” The game’s new accessibility features could have been a free patch for “The Last of Us Remastered,” they argue. This belies a flawed understanding of game development, experts say.
“The [accessibility] features don’t exist in isolation,” Ian Hamilton, an accessibility specialist, told The Washington Post. “The price is for the game. The game just happens to be accessible.”
The engine behind the original “The Last of Us” is over a decade old; its remaster isn’t much younger.
“Trying to hack accessibility into existing codebases and systems later on just multiplies the cost and effort,” Hamilton said.
It’s also worth noting: “The Last of Us Part II’s” engine, built with accessibility in mind, is right there. The engine allowed “Part II” a level of accessibility unprecedented before in triple-A games, with more than 60 different features ranging from motor options to turn melee combos into holds, navigational assistance and high contrast displays, to various vibration settings and input remapping. It was considered a groundbreaking achievement for accessibility in the industry, and many of these options are being carried over into the “The Last of Us Part I” remake. Sony recently announced the full slate of accessibility options on offer in the remake. In that same blog post, the developer called “The Last of Us Part II’s” accessibility features a “baseline” on which it built the remake.
Despite a more cooperative engine, the process still takes time, effort and resources — obviously — and this is reflected in “The Last of Us Part I’s” MSRP resembling most new PlayStation 5 releases. But for some players, that price is also reflective of being able to play the game for the first time.
“I won’t be paying $70 for accessibility. I’ll be paying $70 for a new game I’ve never played,” Sherry Toh, a disabled journalist, said.
It’s also the first time audio description has been implemented in a triple-A game — despite audio description being available in some form for decades. The feature, which narrates in detail what’s happening in cutscenes to give a better idea of what is happening on screen, allows blind and low-vision players to better engage with the cinematic nature of the franchise’s narrative.
There’s room, of course, to debate whether remakes constitute new, full releases. Objectively, however, “The Last of Us Part I″ remake represents the partial satisfaction of something disabled players have been begging for since the cycle of remakes began.
“There has been a continual call from the community for developers to take the opportunity of remakes as a way to increase accessibility over the originals,” Hamilton said. However, it’s only recently, with games like “The Stanley Parable” and “Diablo II,” that remakes and remasters featuring that improved accessibility have started to emerge.
What exactly is a remake? Not even developers really agree.
If that’s not worth $70 to you, that’s okay. “But there are also people for whom it does have enough value to justify buying it,” Hamilton said. “Especially the subset of people for whom it feels like a brand new game.”
“[I] cannot understate how important it is that this remake exists,” said SightlessKombat, an accessible gaming and immersive technologies research officer at the Royal National Institute of Blind People in the U.K. who uses the moniker professionally. “Having a game go from unplayable without constant sighted assistance to (potentially) completely playable on the hardest difficulty levels is, in a word, fantastic.
It goes “from a completely unplayable experience into a fully playable one,” SightlessKombat said. “It’s basically an entirely new release.”
The remake is also coming to PC. This is important as, excellent as the PlayStation 5’s accessibility features are, the DualSense controller has proved to be a major obstacle to disabled players. More accessible hardware is unusable on PS5, and workarounds are promptly patched out by Sony. (Sony did not respond to a request for comment on the matter, but one explanation could be anti-cheating measures; removing the ability for players to use external hardware altogether prevents them from using hardware associated with cheating.) The PS4 controller may have been designed for better accessibility, but even that can’t be used on PS5 games. The move to PC offers a little more room for alternative, more accessible, input options.
The disabled gaming community isn’t exactly a minority. Roughly 15 percent of the global population lives with disability, according to the World Health Organization — that’s about 1 billion people. Attacking disabled gamers isn’t just an attack on a large proportion of gamers; it’s a narrow-minded slight aimed at a community to which we may all belong at some point.
There are a variety of scenarios in which players may find themselves suddenly dependent on these features to play their favorite games, said SightlessKombat, such as if they break their arm or suffer from vision loss. “These scenarios shouldn’t leave people unable to enjoy the pastime they love,” he said.
The Enabled Play accessibility device turns your face into a video game controller
Accessibility should be celebrated. Yet, I worry these attacks may have a lasting effect — if not on games themselves, then on the community that wants and needs them.
“I don’t think the social media shenanigans would discourage similar projects in the future,” Hamilton said. “But discouraging disabled people from celebrating accessibility publicly — yes, I think there’s an element of that.”
For SightlessKombat, it’s a warning “of the need for greater education [about] accessibility and its worth to absolutely every gamer, regardless of whether they realize it or not.”
There will always be ableists in any community; people who can look at something as groundbreaking as “The Last of Us Part I’s” accessibility options and be dissatisfied. That’s sad — and ironic — because disabled gamers are some of the most welcoming people in the gaming space.
While gatekeeping and entitlement do animate some corners of this industry, the aforementioned spirit of graciousness and welcoming is spreading. An accessible remake of a landmark narrative triple-A title — one that has spawned DLC, a sequel, an HBO show and more — is just further proof: Gaming is for everyone.
Geoffrey Bunting is a disabled freelance journalist, author and book designer. He writes on a range of subjects including entertainment, gaming, accessibility and history for WIRED, The Daily Beast, IGN, Polygon and others. | 2022-08-30T18:14:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Last of Us remake costs $70. The accessibility features are worth it. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/08/30/last-of-us-remake-price-accessibility/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/08/30/last-of-us-remake-price-accessibility/ |
Explaining Trump’s Claim That He ‘Declassified’ Material He Kept in Florida
Analysis by Gregory Korte | Bloomberg
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C. (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
Donald Trump’s latest legal jeopardy stems from the FBI’s unprecedented search of the former president’s home in which they seized about two dozen boxes of documents. The documents included 11 sets of classified material, the precise nature of which remain a secret. That’s on top of 15 boxes of documents that Trump returned to the government in January that also included classified material. The US president has broad leeway to declassify material, which Trump says he did in the case of the documents he retained. But no evidence has emerged to back up that claim.
1. What is classified information?
Federal law defines it as “information which, for reasons of national security, is specifically designated by a United States Government agency for limited or restricted dissemination or distribution.” There are three classification levels: “confidential,” “secret” and “top secret,” with access to some material further restricted by designating it “sensitive compartmented information,” available only to those with a proven need to see it.
2. Who decides what’s classified and declassified?
That authority is largely delegated to the bureaucracy. Agencies that create classified records also have the power to declassify them, generally in consultation with other agencies that might have an interest in that information. The higher the classification, the more senior the declassification authority needs to be.
3. Can the president declassify something by himself?
Generally, yes. A 1988 Supreme Court decision, Department of the Navy v. Egan, confirmed that the president, as commander-in-chief, has “authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security.”
4. What’s the problem, then?
No evidence has emerged that Trump, while president, declassified all of the material that wound up at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort where he now lives. And Trump lost the power to declassify when Joe Biden became president.
5. What is Trump’s explanation?
Trump has said he had a “standing order” as president that “documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.” A Trump ally, Kash Patel, told Breitbart.com that White House lawyers “failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified.” Some defenders of Trump go so far as to argue if the president decides something is declassified -- even in his own mind, without telling anyone -- that’s sufficient to declassify it.
6. Was there a standing order? Would it have worked?
Former Trump White House officials -- including two chiefs of staff and a national security adviser -- have said they knew of no such standing order, and some said they would have opposed it if there were. Such an order would still require the president to inform those charged with protecting the information that it’s been declassified, and the documents would have had to be physically marked to reflect their new status. A 1929 legal opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel holds that while the president doesn’t need to be burdened with personally signing off on every order, they should be in writing somehow. Precedent from the Trump years suggests that even a written announcement that something is declassified is insufficient. In 2018, a federal judge agreed with the Justice Department that a Trump press release instructing the “immediate declassification” of materials related to the investigation into his campaign’s ties with Russia was not an order and they remained classified.
7. If Trump did declassify the material, is the whole matter over?
Not necessarily. The three federal criminal laws that prosecutors cited as the basis for the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago -- laws involving removal of information related to national defense, hiding government records and obstructing a federal investigation -- do not depend on the information in question being classified.
8. Do former presidents have access to classified information?
Most modern presidents have signed an executive order early in their tenure outlining how the process should work; Trump opted to continue the order of his predecessor, Barack Obama. That order permits -- but does not require -- agencies to waive the “need to know” requirement for former presidents and vice presidents. Although Biden said he was not disposed to continue that tradition for Trump “because of his erratic behavior,” Obama’s order was never rescinded or revised so it stands. | 2022-08-30T18:18:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Explaining Trump’s Claim That He ‘Declassified’ Material He Kept in Florida - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/explaining-trumps-claim-that-he-declassified-material-he-kept-in-florida/2022/08/30/f599fefc-2885-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/explaining-trumps-claim-that-he-declassified-material-he-kept-in-florida/2022/08/30/f599fefc-2885-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
Bloomberg (via Bloomberg)
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s dream of a miraculous and pain-free labor market disinflation just faced a surprise setback. Powell wants the number of job openings to decline to cool wage pressure, but a Labor Department report Tuesday showed it’s starting to move in the wrong direction. Powell shouldn’t be betting the house on his scenario, and chances are that he will stop promoting it so enthusiastically.
Consider the latest developments, which helped send two-year Treasury yields to a 14-year high and exacerbated stock market declines.(1) Openings rose to 11.2 million in July, up from 11 million in June, the first increase in four months. Under the surface, the sources of the increase — government and lower-paying service jobs — weren’t exactly a sign of economic boom times, but the numbers were also not consistent with a cool-down of the hottest inflation in 40 years. Coupled with the upward revision in June job openings, the trend looks as if it’s flattening instead of plummeting, and there are still about two jobs for every unemployed person.
The data mark the latest chapter in a macroeconomic dogfight between Fed economists and outside researchers led by Olivier Blanchard, Alex Domash and Lawrence Summers, who have argued that Powell’s labor market miracle is too pie-in-the-sky. Beneath their public back-and-forth over the math, there’s a consequential question concerning the livelihoods of millions of Americans: Are layoffs a necessary trade-off in the fight against inflation?
Economists often assume that they are and that upward wage pressure comes from an unemployment rate that is too low. But this time around, the US started with an unprecedented number of job openings, and Powell has proposed reducing wage pressure by simply bringing that down. Everyone should obviously be rooting for that scenario, but there are clear risks in policy makers overplaying its likelihood.
The job openings data surprised a market that went in with a consensus economist forecast for vacancies to drop below 10.4 million, but it perhaps shouldn’t have been that shocking. For starters, the Conference Board’s Help Wanted OnLine Index comes out earlier and typically tracks the the Labor Department’s job openings data somewhat closely. Moreover, markets already had a taste of how tight the labor market was from the unexpectedly strong jump in nonfarm payrolls in July. Quits, another measure of labor market tightness, fell slightly to 4.2 million. The reaction to it all just goes to underscore the market’s sensitivity to anything with a whiff of inflationary pressure.
At this stage, the central bank needs to be honest with Americans about the costs of monetary policy. Powell started to do so in his speech on Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he highlighted that higher interest rates will “bring some pain to households and businesses.” He should continue to do so by making clear that the ideal scenario isn’t his base case so that Americans can prepare for challenging times. Personal savings now account for just 5% of disposable income, the lowest since 2009, and credit card balances are rising sharply, signaling most Americans aren’t sufficiently bracing for the challenges ahead.
It’s also important to acknowledge the likelihood of economic pain because the Fed bears some responsibility for it. While inflation is a global phenomenon now, the Fed played it down in 2021 and got such a late start on its inflation fight that it must now execute an exceedingly perilous late-cycle tightening that could be more agonizing than it would have been otherwise.
Ultimately, Tuesday’s job openings report is just one month of data, with plenty of caveats baked in. The most important data release of the week comes Friday, when the Labor Department will update nonfarm payrolls and average hourly earnings. In the meantime, job openings are a reminder that the miraculous labor market disinflation was never going to be easy, and Powell would do well to level with the American people about that.
(1) JOLTS wasn’t the only thing on traders’ radar. Released at the same time as JOLTS, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index rose more than forecast in August, a net negative in market where good news is bad news for the Fed. | 2022-08-30T18:18:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jerome Powell Can’t Count on a Labor Market Miracle - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/jerome-powell-cant-count-on-a-labor-market-miracle/2022/08/30/19a64e84-2888-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/jerome-powell-cant-count-on-a-labor-market-miracle/2022/08/30/19a64e84-2888-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
(Anson Chan for The Washington Post)
If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org. You can also text a crisis counselor by messaging the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
Bryan Barks is a writer and mental health advocate in Baltimore.
Despite the tireless work of mental health professionals and suicide prevention advocates, tens of thousands of Americans die by suicide each year. While suicide is a complex problem with no single solution, preventing it requires innovative tools. One of these is a bipartisan bill newly proposed in Congress that would separate those struggling with suicidal thoughts from the weapon most likely to make a suicide attempt fatal: guns.
I should know. I was 19 when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The darkness has hovered above me my entire adult life. Depression and suicidality swirl together like a rain cloud, waiting to pour. I look up, hoping my life won’t come apart. Most days, it doesn’t. Most days, I am well. Most days, I go to work and try to prevent suicide among other people. But sometimes, I am unwell. And when I am unwell, I often think about methods I could use to kill myself. When I am dangerously unwell, I research those methods in depth.
At such times, I have been lucky and have gotten help that saved my life. During periods of acute suicidality, I have received inpatient psychiatric treatment numerous times. Too many others never do. In 2020, nearly 46,000 people died by suicide.
I take precautions to prevent and cope with the dark moments. It’s easier to prepare for periods of illness ahead of time. But even after 12 years of managing this illness, I cannot always feel a mood episode coming on. Often, it feels as if I only see the signs in hindsight. It’s harder to grapple with these moments when I am not well, when I am not thinking clearly.
When I am well, I want nothing more than to preserve my peace, protect my life and fend off the suicidal urges that the unwell version of myself feels compelled to act on. For me and others like me, there is a need for tools to help us preempt suicidal crises while our minds are clear and calm.
This is where House Bill H.R. 8361 comes in. The bipartisan bill, introduced in July, is known as the Preventing Suicide Through Voluntary Firearm Purchase Delay Act. It would allow individuals to voluntarily put themselves on a federal no-buy list, preventing them from buying guns from a licensed dealer. The bill would require the attorney general to establish and maintain a secure internet-based database, separate from other databases in the national instant criminal background check system. This would be known as the “Voluntary Purchase Delay Database.”
If someone later wished to remove themselves from the database, they could do so after a 21-day waiting period — a safeguard against the impulsivity that sometimes characterizes suicide attempts. As currently written, the bill also includes a more controversial provision that would allow individuals to be removed after 24 hours with a note from a mental health professional.
The Preventing Suicide Through Voluntary Firearm Purchase Delay Act is not unprecedented. Three states — Utah, Virginia and Washington — currently have similar voluntary self-prohibition laws. Washington’s law went into effect in 2019, Utah’s and Virginia’s in 2021. As the laws are new, the data on the effectiveness of voluntary self-prohibition is limited, but the federal bill’s sponsors — Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) — represent two of the states with such laws on the books, indicating confidence in the model.
People like me, who recognize that they are prone to suicidality, need this act. Research shows that access to firearms increases the risk of suicide. By allowing individuals to preemptively put a barrier between themselves and the most lethal method, we can save lives. This bill would give people prone to suicidality the agency to make decisions about their own access to guns during periods when they are not actively suicidal.
I have mental clarity most of the time, but I know the storms will come again. I want to have the ability to preempt crises. I want to have the ability to protect myself from the version of me that is not thinking clearly. People who are prone to suicidal thoughts and behaviors need this bill, which allows us to protect ourselves from our unwell selves. We need this policy, which gives us the agency to make preemptive decisions about our own health.
Please, give us the tools to preserve our lives. | 2022-08-30T18:19:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Suicide prevention needs innovative tools like this law - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/suicide-prevention-guns-congress-bill/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/suicide-prevention-guns-congress-bill/ |
How concerns about racial disparities become allegations of voter fraud
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman campaigns for U.S. Senate at a meet and greet at Joseph A. Hardy Connellsville Airport on May 10 in Lemont Furnace, Pa. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
One of the dishonest quirks of cable television to which we’ve all become accustomed is the way in which old information is often presented as new. This extends beyond the habit of referring to everything as “breaking,” even when it “broke” hours earlier. It seeps into the coverage itself, with things that aren’t new being cast as new because that’s what happens.
Sometimes, this appears to be nefarious, as when Fox News repeatedly aired old riot footage over the summer of 2020 to suggest that violence was ongoing. At other times, it’s probably better attributed to laziness.
That would be my assumption about a claim made on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Monday night.
“Now,” Hannity said, Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee Lt. Gov. John “Fetterman says that voter I.D. laws are racist because he thinks minorities don’t have I.D.s.”
The “now” there appears to be referring to an article published at the Fox News website Monday. It walks through a number of old comments from Fetterman about voter I.D. laws, without any clear reason for doing so. As an unrelated aside, did you know that sometimes party communications teams pitch roundups of comments made by their opponents and shop them to friendly news outlets? Not sure what made me think of that.
That article came at about the same time that a December interview with Fetterman was making the rounds on the right. Here’s a clip of it.
A few months earlier, Fetterman had described voter I.D. requirements as “a solution for a nonexistent problem of voter fraud.”
His arguments are entirely defensible.
First, while voter fraud occurs, it is almost entirely a nonissue in determining the outcomes of elections, and there is no indication that fraud goes undetected or unpunished to any significant degree. Donald Trump’s machinations around 2020 are a good example of how the specter of voter fraud can be useful, but that election and the enormous amount of attention paid to it also demonstrates how rare it is that actual fraud occurs.
Fetterman says that voter fraud is a “nonexistent problem,” which isn’t technically accurate. It’s like saying that shark attacks are a nonexistent problem. Fraud does exist — but treating it as a crippling epidemic (or even a regular occurrence) instead of a rare anomaly doesn’t make sense.
His claim that poor and non-White Americans are less likely to have valid government identification is also accurate. The American National Election Study is a survey conducted around each presidential election. In 2020, the ANES determined that Black Americans were about three times as likely as Whites to have neither a valid passport nor a valid driver’s license. Hispanics were more than twice as likely not to have either.
For poorer households, the numbers were even more striking. About a quarter of Black and Hispanic Americans in households with family incomes under $50,000 reported not having valid identification of either form.
These are national figures, so I can’t speak to the numbers in Pennsylvania. But the point remains that a voting system that mandates possession of a valid driver’s license or passport is a system that will exclude more non-White people from voting. To implement that sort of restriction simply to try to whittle away the handful of fraud cases each year is like draining Long Island Sound to keep people from being bitten by a hammerhead.
To Hannity, of course, this is all just fodder for casting Fetterman as a left-wing weirdo. Hannity introduced the segment by having a reporter ask Pennsylvania voters how they felt about the lieutenant governor’s candidacy, using such objective prompts as saying that Fetterman’s “big issues are safe zones for heroin users … or dumping out the prisons.”
Hannity then invited Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to weigh in on the general election. Scott is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and, therefore, doubly invested in casting the Republican candidates for the Senate as hyperappealing juggernauts. As he touted Fetterman’s opponent, he addressed the voter I.D. question.
“He wants to commit fraud in elections by getting rid of voter I.D.,” Scott said. “I mean, this guy is a radical.”
See that flip? Fetterman doesn’t simply want to block a voter I.D. requirement, he “wants to commit fraud.” Normally this idea is left unsaid, since it’s indefensible. Republicans just wink at it or suggest that blocking voter I.D. mandates would allow fraud to happen. In the post-2020 world of Republican politics, though, Scott just draws the line.
It’s very useful here to point out that Scott is very familiar with the political utility of claiming that elections are tainted by fraud. In 2018, when he first sought election to the Senate, he found himself in a close race with the Democratic incumbent by the end of election night. So he began to allege — without evidence — that heavily Democratic counties were counting ballots tainted by voter fraud.
As it turns out — unsurprisingly — there was no significant fraud found. But Scott (with loud attaboys from then-President Donald Trump) was setting the stage to dispute new ballots that were added to the total. The idea that elections are riddled with examples of fraud was poised to come to his rhetorical aid. As it turns out, he won by a wide enough margin that this backstop wasn’t needed.
On Hannity’s show Monday night, Scott was doing something similar: suggesting that the Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania was going to ensure that fraud occurred. Making claims about fraud for his own political benefit.
(Why preach to that choir, though? Surely Hannity viewers weren’t going to vote for Fetterman anyway? The answer is simple: fundraising. Scott made several direct appeals for people to contribute, telling them the simple, text-message-based way to do so.)
The entire thing was a neat encapsulation of how fraud claims are used in politics. Eight months ago, Fetterman offered a defensible reason for opposing voter I.D. laws. Two months before the general election, his position is cast as racist (by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.)) or as an effort to foster voter fraud (by Scott).
Not that surprising, really, given Fetterman’s lead in the polls. | 2022-08-30T18:20:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How concerns about racial disparities become allegations of voter fraud - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/30/voter-id-fraud-fetterman-rick-scott/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/30/voter-id-fraud-fetterman-rick-scott/ |
Bible demands action on climate change, Evangelicals say in new report
Large Icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland, in August 2019. (Felipe Dana/AP)
The National Association of Evangelicals has unveiled a sweeping report on global climate change, laying out what its authors call the “biblical basis” for environmental activism to help spur fellow evangelicals to address the planetary crisis.
“Creation, although groaning under the fall, is still intended to bless us. However, for too many in this world, the beach isn’t about sunscreen and bodysurfing but is a daily reminder of rising tides and failed fishing,” reads the report’s introduction, penned by NAE President Walter Kim. “Instead of a gulp of fresh air from a lush forest, too many children take a deep breath only to gasp with the toxic air that has irritated their lungs.”
But the authors admit that convincing evangelicals is no small task, considering the religious group has historically been one of the demographics most resistant to action on the issue.
The nearly 50-page report, released Monday and titled “Loving the Least of These: Addressing a Changing Environment,” opens with a section that insists protecting the environment is a biblical mandate.
“The Bible does not tell us anything directly about how to evaluate scientific reports or how to respond to a changing environment, but it does give several helpful principles: Care for creation, love our neighbors and witness to the world,” the report says.
“We worship God by caring for creation,” it says.
Another section outlines the basic science behind climate change, but the report — produced in partnership with the NAE’s humanitarian arm World Relief — returns often to the real-world impacts, such as how air pollution created by fossil fuels can have negative outcomes for children’s health or disproportionately affect the poor.
“One of the things that you’ll see in this document is not simply scientific information, though that is there, or biblical argumentation, although that is there, but you also hear stories of actual impact on communities,” he said in an interview. Real-world examples help readers “understand the human dimension of the impact of climate change.”.
To fight climate despair, this Christian ecologist says science isn’t enough
“I think people of faith responded very deeply, because we’re wired to follow in the footsteps of Jesus of loving God and loving our neighbor,” Kim said.
Dorothy Boorse, a biology professor at Gordon College in Wenham, Mass., and the chief author of the report, agreed.
“One of the things that can be true for evangelicals is they have a very deep desire to care for others, and they often have a deep spirit of hospitality,” she said. Appealing to concerns about health and care for children, Boorse said, can “spark an imagination” in evangelicals that climate change is “not different from other problems in the world that we feel committed to care about, such as education, food availability or disaster relief.”
The focus on persuasion may be the result of necessity. The NAE has spoken out on environmental issues before — the new report functions as an update of a similar document published in 2011 — but while mainline Protestant Christian groups and Pope Francis have repeatedly signaled the urgency of addressing climate change, many prominent evangelical leaders have suggested the opposite. Last year, Franklin Graham, son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, dismissed climate change as “nothing new” in a Facebook post and compared it to biblical instances of extreme weather, such as the flood in Genesis or the years of famine and drought in Egypt, that are depicted as acts of God.
The result has often been a religious community resistant to acknowledging the source of the issue, much less acting to prevent it. In a Pew Research survey conducted in January, White evangelicals were the religious group least likely to agree that human activity contributes to climate change, with only 54 percent saying humanity contributed a great deal or some to the trend. By comparison, 72 percent of White nonevangelicals, 73 percent of White Catholics, 81 percent of Black Protestants and 86 percent of Hispanic Catholics said so.
But as Boorse points out in the report, there has been some movement since the 2011 report was published, particularly among young evangelicals: A year after its release, Young Evangelicals for Climate Action was founded.
“One huge pattern that I observed is that young evangelicals are very concerned about the environment,” said Boorse, who sits on YECA’s advisory board. “There’s an entrenchment of certain ways of thinking that just takes a long time to change.”
Activists say the change can’t come soon enough. In addition to ongoing droughts in various parts of the world, the NAE report was unveiled the same day news broke that, given the current pace of climate change, 3.3 percent of the Greenland ice sheet — around 110 trillion tons of ice — is slated to melt into the sea, raising global sea levels nearly a foot between now and 2100.
Asked whether she was hopeful the report and similar efforts could urge evangelicals to muster their resources and help prevent further climate calamities, Boorse acknowledged she is often frustrated by fellow faithful who espouse baseless conspiracy theories about climate change or express open hostility to science in general. | 2022-08-30T18:20:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Evangelicals release climate change report, say Bible demands action - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/08/30/evangelicals-climate-change-bible/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/08/30/evangelicals-climate-change-bible/ |
Washington Commanders rookie running back Brian Robinson Jr. made the team's initial 53-man roster after he was shot Sunday evening. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Brian Robinson Jr., the Commanders running back who was shot twice in his lower extremities during an attempted armed robbery on Sunday, was released from the hospital and included on the team’s initial 53-man roster for the regular season.
The roster decision is an indication the Commanders possibly believe Robinson could recover and return to the field sooner than expected. But it doesn’t preclude them from making another move if needed. Should the team place Robinson on the non-football injury list or injured reserve, he would have to miss at least four regular-season games before returning. By staying on the roster, he’ll count against the 53-player cap, but he’ll able to return as soon as he’s healthy and cleared by the team’s medical staff.
Two gunmen approached Robinson after he left a storefront in the 1000 block of H Street NE shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday. Robinson was able to “wrestle a firearm away” from one of the assailants before the other shot him twice, D.C. police said.
A firearm was discovered about a block away from the scene, and no property was stolen from Robinson.
D.C. police released images captured by a nearby surveillance camera of the two suspects and the car in which they fled. Detectives have asked the public’s assistance in identifying and locating them.
Robinson was taken to MedStar Washington Hospital Center after the shooting and was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. He announced on Instagram that surgery “went well.”
Coach Ron Rivera expressed optimism about the rookie’s health after visiting him in the hospital along with a sizable Commanders contingent.
“The doctors were very positive with him, and he was very positive, as well,” Rivera said Monday. “We’re very fortunate. He’s very fortunate, and it’s a very unfortunate situation, but he’s doing well. It’ll be a matter of time before he is back out here. There is no timeline.” | 2022-08-30T18:20:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brian Robinson Jr. released from hospital, makes Commanders’ 53-man roster - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/brian-robinson-commanders-roster/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/brian-robinson-commanders-roster/ |
Garland bans campaign activity by Justice Dept. political appointees
Ahead of midterm elections, Attorney General Merrick Garland says political appointees cannot attend events even on Election Day
Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in October 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Justice Department political appointees cannot participate in campaign-related activities in any capacity, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday, describing the change as a necessary step “to maintain public trust and ensure that politics — both in fact and appearance — does not compromise or affect the integrity of our work.”
The new policy underscores the intense political scrutiny Garland is facing two months before the midterm congressional elections in November, as his agency investigates former president Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office and the potential involvement of Trump and other Republican politicians in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Since the unprecedented Aug. 8 FBI search of Trump’s Florida residence in connection with the documents investigation, the former president has repeatedly accused the Justice Department as being a politicized organization that is out to hurt him.
FBI search of Mar-a-Lago lands Merrick Garland in political firestorm
The notice Garland sent to employees of the sprawling federal law enforcement agency isn’t unusual; attorneys general typically send reminders of employees’ rights — and restrictions — around political expression. But this time, Garland made a notable change to the policy, altering a previous rule that said government appointees could “passively” participate in partisan activities with permission. The new rule allows for no exceptions.
In his memo, Garland outlines how political appointees should adhere to the Hatch Act, which prohibits civil servants from running for partisan office or using their title or government resources while engaging in political activities — though most civil servants still have a First Amendment right to political expression on their own time.
Mar-a-Lago documents already examined by FBI for privilege, Justice Dept. says
Political appointees — commonly referred to as “non-career appointees” — previously were allowed to attend political events in some cases, including if they had close relatives running for office or had gotten permission from their bosses. They could also attend events in their personal capacity on Election Day. That is no longer the case.
Garland’s announcement arrives days before the Justice Department will enter its traditional 60-day “blackout” period ahead of the midterms. During this time, the department typically refrains from taking public steps in politically related cases — such as executing a search warrant or indicting someone — that could be perceived as politically motivated and potentially impact the results of the election.
Officials still respond to court deadlines during this period, and grand juries — which operate behind closed doors — can still convene in potentially high-profile political cases.
The blackout is not an official law or policy, though Justice officials generally try to adhere to the rule when investigating cases involving candidates, said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a legal advocacy organization. He said the blackout also can apply to cases affecting politicians whose influence is important in upcoming elections.
“It generally would impact people who are currently on the ballot,” Bookbinder said. “Donald Trump is a sort of weirdly special case. He’s not in office, and he’s not in the moment running for office, but some people would argue that anything that happens to Donald Trump could impact the next election.” | 2022-08-30T18:35:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Justice Dept., Garland ban political activity for appointees before midterms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/30/garland-justice-political-appointee-hatch/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/30/garland-justice-political-appointee-hatch/ |
Traffic on Highway 50 in Sacramento in March 24. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
California has long prided itself on being a national leader in climate policy. So it’s a shame that the state’s latest major climate action relies on blunt, unwieldy regulation when better tools are available.
Last week, the California Air Resources Board announced it would ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles in the state by 2035. The move would require 35 percent of new car sales to be zero-emissions by 2026, rising to 68 percent by 2030. Plug-hybrids — preferred by many because they can travel farther before needing to refuel — will be allowed but limited to a fifth of all new car sales after 2035. Currently, about 16 percent of new cars sold in California are zero-emission vehicles.
The new rule, which is awaiting approval from the Environmental Protection Agency, is expected to transform the automobile landscape in the Golden State and beyond. Because California has a massive consumer base — if it were a country, it would be the 10th largest car market in the world — the decision will accelerate many manufacturers’ transition to zero-emission vehicles. Other states will likely follow suit: Massachusetts and Washington, for example, have laws to opt into California’s standards.
But is this the right approach? There are reasons to be wary. First, the rule relies on a federal waiver that allows California to set its own emissions standards. The Trump administration rescinded that waiver in 2019, and though President Biden reinstated it this March, a future Republican administration can always decide to revoke it once again. The waiver also could be challenged in the courts.
Henry Olsen: California’s plan to ban new gas-powered cars is misguided
Furthermore, a broad ban could result in higher costs and perverse incentives for consumers. The average price of electric vehicles is $66,000. The $7,500 electric vehicle tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act could help offset expenses, but these come with complicated requirements. Though manufacturers are working on more affordable options, they have been slow to build models for non-luxury segments of the market. And since the ban only applies to new cars, it could encourage people to keep older, gas-guzzling models for longer or purchase gas-fueled vehicles from out of state.
Then there are hurdles related to infrastructure. California has 80,000 charging stations, the most in the country, but is falling behind its target of 250,000 by 2025. The bipartisan infrastructure bill allocated $7.5 billion for states to build up this infrastructure, and Californian regulators hope the promise of guaranteed market will incentivize private actors to do more. But there is a lot to be done, particularly in rural areas. There are also concerns over supply chain stability for materials such as the lithium used in batteries.
A more efficient approach would be to enact a higher and increasing tax on vehicles’ fossil fuels. This would affect all cars in the state, not just new ones, while allowing people a measure of flexibility based on individual needs. California already has the second highest gas tax in the nation. Still, an ambitious, steadily rising price on fuels would encourage the transition to electric vehicles and greener public transportation systems without the downsides of a regulatory ban.
Reducing dependence on gas-powered vehicles is crucial for a more sustainable future. But there are better ways to achieve that goal than easily reversed, clunky mandates. | 2022-08-30T18:49:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | California's gas car ban to slow climate change is clunky - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/californias-gas-car-ban-is-clunky-theres-better-way/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/californias-gas-car-ban-is-clunky-theres-better-way/ |
D.C. police Det. Sgt. Lance Andriani has died following a motorcycle crash Saturday in Anne Arundel County. (DC Police)
A veteran D.C. police sergeant has died after a motorcycle he was driving while off-duty collided with a vehicle that pulled out in front of him Saturday night in southern Anne Arundel County, authorities said Tuesday.
A D.C. police spokesman identified the officer as Det. Sgt. Lance Andriani, 53, who lived in Chesapeake Beach in Southern Maryland. He joined the force on Aug. 25, 1997, and died days after his 25th anniversary.
Officials said Andriani has worked a variety of jobs the police department, including in the Fourth District, which covers neighborhoods such as Shepherd Park and Petworth. He most recently had been a detective in the Seventh District, where Anacostia is located.
Efforts to reach Andriani’s family were not successful Tuesday morning. A police spokesman said he is survived by two sons, among other relatives, and that he had served in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was awarded the medal of valor in 2002, police records show, though details were not available. That award is given to members who save a life or make an arrest of a suspect in a serious crime.
Anne Arundel County police said the crash occurred abut 9:45 p.m. at Route 4, also known as Southern Maryland Boulevard, and Talbot Road, south of the Lothian area.
County police said the driver of a 2019 Honda Accord turned right off Talbot Road onto southbound Route 4 in front of a 2022 Harley Davidson FLHXS Street Glide motorcycle, which Andriani was driving. Andriani was also heading south.
Police said in a statement the motorcycle driver “was unable to avoid striking the Honda.” Andriani was taken to a hospital in Baltimore, where he later died.
Lt. Jacklyn Davis, a spokeswoman for Anne Arundel County police, said the investigation into the crash remains active. She said the results will be turned over to county prosecutors to determine if charges are warranted. | 2022-08-30T19:36:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Off-duty D.C. police sergeant dies after motorcycle crash in Maryland - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/dc-police-sergeant-dies-motorcyle/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/dc-police-sergeant-dies-motorcyle/ |
A person is dead following a shooting in Fairfax County on Tuesday, police said.
The shooting took place in the 7400 block of Vernon Square Drive in Hybla Valley, according to police, who tweeted about the incident shortly before 2 p.m.
Police say the victim was found with multiple gunshot wounds to the upper body, taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries and died soon after.
Police say they have a person of interest in custody. | 2022-08-30T19:37:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 1 dead following shooting in Fairfax, police said - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/fairfax-vernon-square-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/fairfax-vernon-square-shooting/ |
U.S. Navy interrupts Iranian attempt to seize vessel in Persian Gulf
The U.S. Navy kept Iran from seizing an unmanned surface vessel in the Persian Gulf overnight, in what officials are calling a “flagrant” and “unwarranted” attempt to steal U.S. government property.
According to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, sailors from the Fifth Fleet noticed a ship operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps towing a Saildrone Explorer — an unmanned vessel used primarily for data collection — late Monday night. The USS Thunderbolt — a patrol ship that was in the area — as well as a Sea Hawk helicopter based in Bahrain responded to the incident, the military said.
Eventually, the Iranian ship — a support vessel named the Shahid Baziar — disconnected its tow line and left the area, the U.S. military said.
The close encounter comes amid heightening tensions between the United States and Iran, as the two countries attempt to negotiate a deal to replace the 2015 nuclear pact to restrain Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, which the Trump administration abandoned. It also comes on the heels of U.S. strikes against groups affiliated with the IRGC in Syria in response to attacks those militias carried out on U.S. targets.
“This incident once again demonstrates Iran’s continued destabilizing, illegal, and unprofessional activity in the Middle East,” Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, said in a statement.
Since taking over CENTCOM in April, Kurilla has advocated a more stringent approach to Iran, to deter Tehran from intimidating and attacking U.S. forces and assets, according to an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. Following last week’s strikes on Iran-affiliated groups in Syria, the Pentagon spokesman said he hoped “that these groups would have received the message loud and clear, and that we will not see similar behavior in the future.”
Monday night’s incident in the Persian Gulf was carried out by Iran’s own naval forces, whom U.S. officials have previously accused of “unsafe and unprofessional” conduct at sea. Earlier this summer, CENTCOM officials excoriated Iran for buzzing two U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf at close range and “dangerously high speed.”
The U.S. military has accused Iran of taking similarly dangerous actions in recent years, including incidents in which 11 ships zipped around U.S. vessels, and another in which Iranian fast-attack craft had to be repelled with warning shots, according to reports.
U.S., Iranian military vessels have near-miss in Persian Gulf
The unmanned vessel that Iran is accused of targeting Monday night contains sensors, radars, cameras and other data collection equipment, according to the military and materials published by the manufacturer. The Saildrone Explorer “does not store sensitive or classified information,” according to military officials, who warned that the incident was nonetheless a serious provocation.
“IRGCN’s actions were flagrant, unwarranted and inconsistent with the behavior of a professional maritime force,” Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said in a statement. “U.S. naval forces remain vigilant and will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows while promoting rules-based international order throughout the region,”
Destruction with impunity: How Brazil is failing to protect the Amazon | 2022-08-30T19:50:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. Navy interrupts Iranian attempt to seize vessel in Persian Gulf - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/30/navy-drone-iran-persian-gulf/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/30/navy-drone-iran-persian-gulf/ |
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Riga, Latvia, on Aug. 10. (Roman Koksarov/AP)
Only a country indifferent to its moral standing on the world stage, or convinced it can neutralize even the most shocking offenses with a disinformation blitz, can comfortably ignore mass civilian casualties caused by its military forces. Russia’s contempt for the lives of Ukrainian noncombatants is plain for the world to see; it might take decades for the Kremlin to rehabilitate the country’s reputation. The United States can afford no such fallout from its future military engagements if it is to maintain its international stature, or live up to its own ideals.
Mindful of that, and of the toll in civilian deaths and injuries caused by U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere this century, the Pentagon last week announced sweeping new policies and procedures designed to contain civilian casualties in future military actions and, crucially, promote transparency where there has been too little in the past.
The undertaking to devise the new measures, at least nine months in the making, is on its own a long-delayed acknowledgment that this country has failed in recent conflicts to face up to the scale of what is antiseptically known as collateral damage. The resulting directive issued by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is, at least on paper, impressively detailed and far-reaching. It seeks to shake up the military’s decision-making mechanism and culture itself by embedding officials responsible for limiting civilian casualties within command structures. Of some 150 personnel who would be earmarked for the initiative, 30 would be detailed to a new Pentagon office focusing exclusively on training and analysis aimed at protecting civilians in both air and drone strikes against terrorist targets as well as large-scale military operations in a hypothetical war against a powerful adversary.
Those steps would add policy heft and bureaucratic muscle to the nation’s long-standing stated commitment to sparing the lives of noncombatants to the extent possible. They would advance the overarching goal of aligning the country’s conduct with its values in a context of state-sponsored violence, where it is exceptionally difficult to achieve.
The test will be in the implementation. In that regard, Mr. Austin’s rollout, notwithstanding its reams of detail describing new best practices and reporting mechanisms, leaves some crucial questions unanswered.
For example, it remains unclear how Pentagon officials and military commanders would be held to account for past or future violations of policy that result in civilian deaths that could have been avoided. Similarly, while the plan outlines condolence payments and other means by which the military can respond to unwarranted or unintentional civilian casualties, it does not address the fact that the Pentagon has balked at responding effectively in the aftermath of recent attacks that killed civilians. A prominent recent example was the botched drone strike that left 10 Afghan civilians dead, including seven children, last August amid the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Kabul. Despite detailed reporting about the unjustified casualties, not a dime has been paid by the U.S. government to survivors or relatives.
If past is prologue, the Pentagon has its work cut out. Now, at least, it will be operating from a stronger playbook. | 2022-08-30T19:50:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Civilian casualty prevention plan is noble but hard to implement - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/pentagon-civilian-casualty-prevention-plan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/pentagon-civilian-casualty-prevention-plan/ |
By Ai Weiwei
Chinese President Xi Jinping, front row center, at the closing ceremony for the 19th Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in October 2017. (Ng Han Guan/AP)
Ai Weiwei is an artist and the author of “1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir.” This column was translated from the Chinese by Perry Link.
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a major speech in Beijing late last month at a conference on United Front Work. As the state-run news agency Xinhua reported, Xi “stressed promoting the unity and hard work of Chinese people at home and abroad to pool strength for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” And he described the “united front” effort, the agency said, as one that would “truly unite all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation from different political parties, ethnic groups, social strata and groups, as well as those with different beliefs and living in different social systems.”
The speech’s unifying principle seemed vaguely to be ethnic, linguistic or cultural. But its main point, barely hidden, was to build fealty to the Chinese Communist Party.
The term “united front” has a long history with the CCP. In 1939, Mao Zedong said the party had thrived during its first 18 years thanks to three “magic weapons”: solid party-building, armed struggle and the united front. The party, an unchallengeable entity, established its dominance using force and ideological control. The word “unity” is a superficial fabric that it has spread, for eight decades now, over its bullying of people into a condition of spiritual slavery.
Despite its successes, the CCP has been plagued by a lack of confidence, for at least two reasons. One is a profound uneasiness about its right to rule. This is a long-standing problem, both unavoidable and insoluble. The CCP presents itself to the Chinese people and to the world as the legitimate representative of a nation and its people, but its leaders know that the Chinese people did not choose the party. The people have no right to vote freely or even to speak freely. Even the right not to speak — to maintain silence — has sometimes been denied. There is no free press or independent judiciary. Social order depends, ultimately, on force. This system works, but its “unity” is a veneer.
A second reason for the CCP’s insecurity, and a reflection of it, is the party’s constant need for an enemy against which to define itself — and to justify the craving for a “united front.” In 1925, Mao famously began an essay with two questions: “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?” No CCP thinker has ever put this key point more succinctly. Actual friends and enemies of the CCP have come and gone over the years, but the fundamental need for an Enemy has never changed. How can we know a friend if we don’t have an enemy?
One might think ideology could help sort out friends and enemies, but no. Over the years the party has imitated the Soviet Union and denounced it, excoriated capitalism and embraced it, attacked Confucius and praised him. The enemy might change, but the need for one does not.
The CCP seeks today to draw a line between “the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation” and the rest of humanity. But the “Chinese nation” is an artificial concept. The people who live in China or come from it are a jumble of more than 50 ethnic and linguistic groups. Much of the history of these ethnic groups are sorry tales of conflict, exclusion and forced or unforced assimilation.
The treatment today of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, who have been herded into “reeducation” camps and stripped of their native culture, then “united” with the CCP mainstream, is but an egregious example of a story that Tibetans, Mongols and other smaller and weaker ethnicities can tell as well.
But don’t people in these groups sometimes want to assimilate? Maybe some do. But to learn what they want, one would need first to give them the power of self-determination, and this is precisely what the forced concept of the “Chinese nation” denies them.
Xi’s emphasis on the “Chinese dream” of “rejuvenation” reveals the insecurity inherent in the CCP’s rule. One would not need to promote a dream over reality if one were confident that reality was doing well.
Looking at the standoff today between the CCP on one side and Hong Kong and Taiwan on the other, we can see that the terms “China” and “the Chinese” no longer refer to land or nationality. The burning question now is whether CCP culture will spread or not. Will all distinctions of language, class, religion and so on be destroyed by the CCP and buried with it when the party finally goes? That would be tragic. But we’re unlikely to see it in our lifetimes.
In the interim, there are many things — poetry, art, calligraphy, Daoism, cuisine and more — that “sons and daughters of the Chinese nation” around the world might proudly identify with. It is an odd choice to pin one’s identity to a self-serving and corrupt group that stands atop a brutal historical record. | 2022-08-30T19:50:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Xi Jinping’s ‘united front’ is vital to the idea of a ‘Chinese nation’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/xi-china-speech-artificial-concept-ccp/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/xi-china-speech-artificial-concept-ccp/ |
Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaks at an event in Lansing, Mich., on Aug. 27. (Nic Antaya/Bloomberg News)
As he has filled appointed positions in Virginia’s government, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who took office this year with one eye on a possible bid for the White House, has chosen a mixed slate of movement conservatives and moderate pragmatists. A common denominator among his most controversial picks are racial views that are retrograde and ignorant.
This summer alone, one of the governor’s appointees, historian Ann Hunter McLean, resigned from the state’s Board of Historic Resources after public scrutiny of her delusional argument that slavery was not the main cause of the Civil War — a view debunked by James McPherson, dean of Civil War scholars, among many other prominent historians.
Another of Mr. Youngkin’s choices, state Health Commissioner Colin Greene, was forced to express contrition after an uproar sparked by his repeated comments denying structural racism’s well-documented role is health disparities.
Most recently, the student council at the University of Virginia called for the resignation of Bert Ellis, a Youngkin appointee on U-Va.’s Board of Visitors who had attacked the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — even traveling there with a razor blade to cut down a sign on a student’s door that he regarded as offensive. That was before a report by the U-Va. student newspaper, the Cavalier Daily, that Mr. Ellis, as an undergraduate in the 1970s, fought to bring a noted eugenicist to campus to air his pseudoscientific views that Black people are genetically inferior to Whites.
It is undoubtedly possible to identify qualified conservatives for politically appointed boards and commissions whose beliefs are not tainted with the whiff of racism. And in fact, Mr. Youngkin has done so; a number of his choices for the state’s nine-member Board of Education, for example, are solid experts with a variety of rich backgrounds.
For whatever reason, however, Mr. Youngkin has seemed blind to the pitfalls of racially obtuse appointees, and they have become a problem for him. Amid controversy he easily could have avoided, the governor was forced to cut loose Ms. McLean; publicly scold Dr. Greene; and, so far, duck pointed questions about Mr. Ellis.
Mr. Youngkin is not Virginia’s first governor in recent memory to get tangled up in a racially clueless donnybrook of his own making. In 2010, Republican Gov. Robert F. McDonnell triggered a storm with a proclamation for Confederate History Month that omitted any mention of slavery while directing “all Virginians” to hail their “shared” history and the Confederacy’s sacrifices. He later apologized for a statement that managed to airbrush the 500,000 enslaved people who constituted more than a quarter of the state’s pre-Civil War population, who cheered the union and ran away to it when they could. More recently in 2019, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam first acknowledged, then denied that he had posed in blackface for a photograph in his medical school yearbook entry.
On taking office in January, Mr. Youngkin issued an executive order banning the teaching of “divisive” material in the state’s public schools. Yet by some of his own appointments, the governor himself has stoked Virginia’s divisions. | 2022-08-30T19:51:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Youngkin appointees find themselves in race controversies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/youngkin-appointees-ellis-greene-mclean-controversies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/youngkin-appointees-ellis-greene-mclean-controversies/ |
2018 graduates of Bergen Community College line up for commencement at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
There are many good reasons to oppose President Biden’s plan to forgive student debt.
Fifth, it’s unconstitutional. Biden’s plan is a direct assault on Congress’s power of the purse. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explained in July 2021, “People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.” Now Pelosi has flip-flopped and is backing Biden’s power grab. She was right the first time. How can the president of the United States unilaterally spend up to a trillion dollars of the taxpayers’ money?
But here is the worst part of all: Biden’s plan is an act of stolen valor. He is claiming authority for student-loan forgiveness by invoking the 2003 Heroes Act — a law passed after the 9/11 attacks to support the men and women mobilized to fight terrorists and to make sure that they did not default because of their military service. The law explicitly states that it is designed to help the “hundreds of thousands of Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, and Coast Guard reservists and members of the National Guard [who] have been called to active duty or active service” and asked to “put their lives on hold, leave their families, jobs, and postsecondary education in order to serve their country.” It authorizes the secretary of education to modify or forgive their postsecondary loans on a case-by-case basis “in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency, regardless of the location at which such active duty service is performed.” In 2007, when Congress made the Heroes Act permanent, it explicitly reiterated that it was acting to address “the unique situations that active duty military personnel and other affected individuals may face” (emphasis added). | 2022-08-30T19:51:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Biden's student debt relief misuses the Heroes Act - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/31/student-debt-forgiveness-heroes-act-unamerican/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/31/student-debt-forgiveness-heroes-act-unamerican/ |
Dutch government ‘concerned’ about U.S. gun violence after soldier’s killing
Three Dutch soldiers were shot in Indianapolis over the weekend, and one later died from his injuries.
Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren talks to media as she arrives for the European Defense Ministerial Meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, Aug. 30. (Martin Divisek/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Authorities in the Netherlands are “very concerned” about the level of gun violence in the United States, the Dutch defense minister said on Tuesday, following an incident over the weekend in which three Dutch special operations forces were shot in Indianapolis and one died of his injuries.
Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren told reporters in Prague, where she met with her European Union counterparts, that the state of affairs in the Netherlands’ “most important ally” had become troubling.
The three Dutch servicemen belonged to the Commando Corps, an elite special operations unit of the Royal Netherlands Army, and had traveled to the United States for training at a camp in southern Indiana. They were visiting Indianapolis while off duty and were shot in front of their hotel downtown at around 3:30 a.m. Saturday.
“We do many trainings of our servicemen in the United States and we really don’t expect this to happen," Ollongren said.
The Dutch reaction underscored the gulf between the realities of gun violence in the United States and in the Netherlands, two developed countries and NATO allies that cooperate on military matters but have vastly different levels of gun deaths. In the Netherlands, such a street shooting would be an anomaly. In the United States, it’s another weekend night.
The three members of the Netherlands’ Commando Corps, an elite special operations unit of the Royal Netherlands Army, had traveled to the United States for a training at a southern Indiana military camp. They were visiting Indianapolis while off duty and were shot in front of their downtown hotel. Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett told reporters Monday morning that the commandos could have been shot in a drive-by shooting after a bar-room dispute, according to the Indianapolis Star.
“I don’t know the details of how it happened and what caused it to happen,” Hogsett said. "The tragedy is that it happened. The tragedy is people got into a dispute and they ultimately resolved that dispute by pulling out a gun and shooting.”
One of the soldiers, identified by the Marion County Coroner’s Office as 26-year-old Simmie Poetsema, died two nights later from his injuries, the Dutch defense ministry said in a news release Monday.
The other two commandos have injuries that are “currently believed to be non-life-threatening,” the Indianapolis police department said in a statement Monday. The department is communicating with agencies in the United States and the Netherlands and working to bring family members to Indianapolis and return the soldiers to the Netherlands, the statement added. Dutch authorities said the commandos were “conscious and able to speak.”
Police have not identified a suspect or released any details of the investigation publicly. “The release of certain investigative information could negatively impact the ability to obtain justice in this case,” the department’s statement said.
The shooting and Poetsema’s death sent shockwaves through the Dutch military.
“Everybody is shocked that this happened,” Major Mark van de Beek, a spokesman for the Royal Netherlands Army, told the Indianapolis Star. “We are losing a great colleague and I’m sure everyone at the unit is going to miss him very much.”
Poetsema’s family flew to Indiana when they learned of the shooting and were by the soldier’s bedside in an Indianapolis hospital when he died.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Dutch counterpart on Monday to offer his “deepest condolences.”
“My thoughts are with their families and teammates,” he wrote on Twitter after the call.
Gun violence in the United States has surged in recent years. Firearms purchases hit record levels in 2020 and 2021, with more than 43 million guns estimated to have been bought during that period, according to a Washington Post analysis. More than 45,000 gun fatalities were recorded during each of the past two years, and the rate of gun deaths hit the highest level since 1995.
The United States’ “intentional homicide” rate was seven times that of the Netherlands in 2020, the last year for which the United Nations has statistics on both countries. The death rate from gun violence was nearly 18 times higher in the United States than in the Netherlands in 2019, according to the University of Washington School of Medicine’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
In July, Indiana’s Republican-controlled state government nixed the requirement that people have a permit to legally carry, conceal or transport a handgun within the state. Hoggett, the Democratic mayor of Indianapolis, said he has been working to reduce gun violence in the city, which saw record-setting violence in 2021. As of Aug 22, the city had recorded 133 criminal homicides so far this year, according to the Indianapolis Star’s tracker.
The numbers represent a 17 percent reduction from last year, Hogsett pointed out Monday. “We are making progress,” he said, according to the Indianapolis Star.
By comparison, the Netherlands recorded 121 victims of murder or manslaughter in the entire country in 2020, the latest year for which the government’s statistics bureau has released numbers.
Dutch gun laws are much stricter than those in the United States. It is illegal to own or use firearms and other weapons in the Netherlands without a special weapons permit. Only people who have been granted an exemption from the ban — for sporting, hunting or participating in historical re-enactments, for example — can acquire firearms legally, after undergoing psychological testing and background checks. | 2022-08-30T19:52:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dutch government ‘concerned’ about U.S. gun violence after soldier’s killing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/30/dutch-soldier-indianapolis-gun-violence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/30/dutch-soldier-indianapolis-gun-violence/ |
A WSSC employee in a water main project that links Montgomery and Prince George's counties in 2014. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
The Aug. 26 letter “Pay attention to WSSC billing” noted concerns from a WSSC customer. I appreciate the customer’s concerns and can provide some background and a potential path forward to further modernize our billing process and best serve our customers.
WSSC Water implemented a new billing system in 2019, replacing one that was decades old. Though the legacy system delivered consistent and accurate bills, the new system delivers a more streamlined billing process and a simplified rate structure. It also paved the way for implementation of advanced metering infrastructure technology that is the foundation of a smart utility.
Advanced metering provides customers with access to near real-time water-usage information, helping to quickly recognize potential leaks. It also allows for monthly billing. Our current quarterly schedule can exacerbate the financial impact of on-property leaks.
Unfortunately, implementation of the advanced metering was put on hold because of the economic uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic. We are hopeful the project will be renewed in the future. Our customers deserve the most accurate and timely billing possible.
Carla A. Reid, Laurel
The writer is general manager and chief executive of WSSC. | 2022-08-30T20:33:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | WSSC is working on its billing issues - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/wssc-is-working-its-billing-issues/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/wssc-is-working-its-billing-issues/ |
He embarked on a path of radical reform that propelled the communist country toward collapse
By David E. Hoffman
Mikhail Gorbachev in 1984, the year before he became the leader of the Soviet Union. (Nils Jorgensen/REX/AP)
Archie Brown, an emeritus professor of politics at the University of Oxford’s St. Antony’s College and an authority on Mr. Gorbachev, has written that openness and pluralism were among his singular achievements in a country that for hundreds of years had been shackled by authoritarian rule under the czars and Soviet leaders. Mr. Gorbachev introduced the first genuinely competitive elections for a legislature, allowed civil society to take root and encouraged open discussion of dark passages in Soviet history.
They could not.
A warning on democracy | 2022-08-30T21:21:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mikhail Gorbachev, last leader of the Soviet Union, dies at 91 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/30/mikhail-gorbachev-soviet-leader-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/30/mikhail-gorbachev-soviet-leader-dies/ |
SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk and Twitter lobbed salvos at each other in the latest round of legal filings over the billionaire Tesla CEO’s aborted plan to buy the social media platform. Musk filed more paperwork to terminate his agreement to buy Twitter. This time it’s based on information in a whistleblower complaint filed by Twitter’s former head of security. In a separate SEC filing, Twitter responded to what it called Musk’s latest “purported termination.” The company said saying it’s based solely on statements made by a third party that “are riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lack important context.”
WASHINGTON — The number of open jobs in the United States rose in July after three months of declines, a sign that employers are still urgently seeking workers despite slowing economic growth and high inflation. The increase will be a disappointment for Federal Reserve officials, who are seeking to cool hiring by raising short-term interest rates to try to slow borrowing and spending, which tend to fuel inflation. There were 11.2 million open jobs available on the last day of July — nearly two jobs, on average, for every unemployed person — up from 11 million in June. June’s figure was also revised sharply higher.
DES MOINES, Iowa — There is a limited amount of farmland, so when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last spring prompted worries that people would go hungry as wheat remained stuck in blockaded ports, there was little U.S. farmers could do to meet the new demand. But that may be changing. Earlier this summer, the U.S. Department of Agriculture instituted new policies to encourage American farmers to begin growing two crops on one piece of land, one after the other. By changing insurance rules to lessen the risk of growing two crops, the USDA hopes to increase U.S. wheat production. As fall approaches, it’s unclear how many farmers will try the new system, but some who already grow two crops say it’s something farmers should consider.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s president says his bankrupt country’s talks with the International Monetary Fund for a rescue package have successfully reached final stages as he presented an amended budget that seeks to tame inflation and hike taxes. President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is also the finance minister, said in a speech in Parliament that his government will soon start negotiating debt restructuring with countries that provide loans to Sri Lanka. Declaring that Sri Lanka is on the correct course in the short term for recovery, Wickremesinghe warned the country must prepare for at least 25 years of a national economic policy, staring with the 2023 budget. An IMF team is visiting Sri Lanka and is expected to end the current round of talks on Wednesday. | 2022-08-30T21:21:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Musk and Twitter, job vacancies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-musk-and-twitter-job-vacancies/2022/08/30/6599444a-28a6-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-musk-and-twitter-job-vacancies/2022/08/30/6599444a-28a6-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
FILE - Charlbi Dean Kriek arrives at the premiere of “Finch” on Nov. 2, 2021, at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, Calif. The South African actor and model has died at age 32. Dean had a breakout role in the movie “Triangle of Sadness,” which won this year’s top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Her representatives say she died Monday, Aug. 29, 2022 at a hospital in New York from a sudden unexpected illness. (Richard Shotwell/invision/AP, File) | 2022-08-30T21:22:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Triangle of Sadness' actor, model Charlbi Dean dies at 32 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/triangle-of-sadness-actor-model-charlbi-dean-dies-at-32/2022/08/30/348f9d6e-28a5-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/triangle-of-sadness-actor-model-charlbi-dean-dies-at-32/2022/08/30/348f9d6e-28a5-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
Patient was severely immunocompromised with various illnesses
Family nurse practitioner Carol Ramsubhag-Carela prepares a syringe with the monkeypox vaccine before inoculating a patient at a vaccinations site in Brooklyn on Aug. 30. (Jeenah Moon/AP)
Authorities are investigating the death of a person diagnosed with monkeypox in Texas to determine if it is the first known U.S. fatality in an outbreak declared a national emergency.
Health officials said the Harris County resident who died Sunday was a severely immunocompromised adult who had various serious illnesses. They cautioned the cause of death, including the role that monkeypox played, remains unknown; autopsy results will be available in the coming weeks.
“Monkeypox is a serious disease, particularly for those with weakened immune systems,” John Hellerstedt, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said in a statement Tuesday. “We continue to urge people to seek treatment if they have been exposed to monkeypox or have symptoms consistent with the disease.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported more than 18,000 monkeypox infections in the United States and no deaths. The World Health Organization has reported nearly 50,000 cases of monkeypox worldwide and 15 deaths.
“It’s important to emphasize that deaths due to monkeypox, while possible, remain very rare. In most cases, people are experiencing infection that resolves over time,” Jennifer McQuiston, incident manager for the CDC’s monkeypox response, told reporters Tuesday. “It’s serious and our hearts certainly go out to this family who have lost a loved one.”
The Texas state health agency declined to offer additional details about the death. A spokesperson for Harris County’s health department did not immediately return a request for comment.
“We are sharing this information to err on the side of transparency and to avoid potential misinformation about this case,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement. “The best way for us to fight this virus is through vaccines. Our goal is still to get as many people who qualify vaccinated as quickly as possible.”
Monkeypox causes an illness that lasts several weeks with symptoms including fever, swollen glands and a rash that can spread throughout the body. Some of the most extreme cases involve people suffering excruciating pain from lesions in the anus and urethra while going to the bathroom. In cases reported to the CDC, 44 percent involved rectal pain, 25 percent reported rectal bleeding and 23 percent involved pain when wanting to pass stool.
Inside America's monkeypox crisis - and the mistakes that made it worse
Infections have been overwhelmingly recorded in men who have sex with men and disproportionately in people with HIV. Fewer than 1 in 10 people diagnosed with monkeypox have been hospitalized in samples of cases reviewed in detail by researchers.
The current monkeypox outbreak appears to be less deadly than recent ones in parts of Africa where the virus is endemic and where the case fatality ratio had been between 3 to 6 percent. | 2022-08-30T21:22:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monkeypox death reported in Texas patient; virus link unclear - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/30/first-monkeypox-death-texas/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/30/first-monkeypox-death-texas/ |
Carl Croneberg at Gallaudet University. (Gallaudet University Archives)
In the early 1960s, a deaf scholar from Gallaudet University, Carl Croneberg, traveled from New England to the Deep South to study how sign language was used in everyday life. He expected mostly to explore how the gestures and movements were learned and passed on.
What the Swedish-born Mr. Croneberg also observed was a surprising variety in the signed language just as within spoken communication: regional phrases, idioms and even different slang among Black and White users of American Sign Language, or ASL.
“The whole thing breaks down into local and regional groups that can be mapped geographically,” Mr. Croneberg wrote.
How America developed two sign languages, one White and one Black
His work would become part of a seminal book in 1965, “A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles,” with pioneering Gallaudet linguist William Stokoe and Dorothy Casterline, a deaf colleague at Gallaudet, the only U.S. university for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. The nearly 400-page volume broke ground by cataloguing signs in a way the deaf community widely perceives them — by movement, form and gestured nuance — rather than alphabetically in spoken-word translations.
Mr. Croneberg, who died Aug. 7 at 92, built on the fresh approaches to ASL studies in the 1960s to help fundamentally change perceptions about the deaf community. In the dictionary, he coined the phrase “Deaf Culture” as having its own linguistic richness and distinctive character, including a separate dialect now known as Black American Sign Language with unique syntax, vocabulary and hand patterns.
The gradual acceptance of deaf culture opened the way for new fields of scholarly research and helped alter long-held impressions of sign language as a clumsy and imprecise form of communication. Decades later, sign language is now a common element of political events and part of many higher-education linguistic departments.
“The dictionary sparked a shift in consciousness by declaring ASL a viable language and by identifying several of the cultural characteristics of its users,” James L. Cherney, a University of Nevada at Reno associate professor of communication studies, wrote in the academic journal Argumentation and Advocacy in 1999.
“Until this time,” he continued, “ASL was mistakenly thought of as a signed version of English or a coded version of some other spoken language and was generally considered inferior to other languages.”
Boyhood ear infections
Carl Gustav Arvid Olof Croneberg was born April 26, 1930, in Norrbärke, Sweden, about 100 miles northwest of Stockholm. He had repeated bouts of ear infections as a boy and lost his hearing before he was a teenager, said his daughter, Lisa Croneberg. He was fluent in spoken Swedish and attended a school to learn Swedish sign language. Later, through correspondence courses, he became proficient in written English and German.
The president of Gallaudet, Leonard M. Elstad, met Mr. Croneberg in the early 1950s and suggested he study at the university. He graduated in 1955 with a degree in English. At the same time, Mr. Croneberg mastered ASL.
He joined the faculty of Catholic University while taking graduate classes, receiving a master’s degree in English in 1959. He was advised not to apply for Catholic’s doctoral program in anthropology, however, because the university thought the coursework was too challenging for someone with hearing loss, according to a Gallaudet honorary degree given to Mr. Croneberg earlier this year.
He returned to teach English at Gallaudet, where he would begin his long collaboration with Stokoe, a non-deaf professor whose early academic specialty was medieval Middle English but who became fascinated with the intricacies of sign language after joining Gallaudet’s faculty in the late 1950s.
While learning ASL, Stokoe noticed that the classroom signs were often different from ones he saw used by students. He suspected that ASL, like any language, had its own patois and vernacular, despite the widespread scholarly perception at the time that various sign languages used around the world for centuries were simplistic and mostly utilitarian.
“It was Stokoe’s genius to see, and prove, that it was nothing of the sort; that it satisfied every linguistic criterion of a genuine language, in its lexicon and syntax, its capacity to generate an infinite number of propositions,” neurologist and author Oliver Sacks wrote in his 1989 book, “Seeing Voices: A Journey Into the World of the Deaf.”
Stokoe turned to Mr. Croneberg and Casterline as his research emissaries into the deaf community. The main ideas then took shape for the dictionary — which set out to analyze sign languages through aspects such as dez (hand shape), tab (location) and sig (movement). In an appendix, Mr. Croneberg offered the first-known published analysis of Black American Sign Language.
Different sign languages, such as French, Japanese or others, are not mutually understandable. ASL, which is also used in some countries in Africa and elsewhere, is the most common second language in other places.
Mr. Croneberg retired from Gallaudet in 1986. In addition to his daughter, of Evanston, Ill., survivors include his wife of 61 years, Eleanor Wetzel Croneberg of Silver Spring, Md., two other children, Margaret Guthrie of Silver Spring and Eric Croneberg of Springfield, Ohio; and seven grandchildren. Mr. Croneberg died at a Rockville, Md., hospice, his family said. No cause was given.
In May, Mr. Croneberg and Casterline received honorary doctorates from Gallaudet.
The citation lauded them for “affirming that sign language as a true language, contained complexity, structure, and syntax, and was not limited to being a form of pantomime, as it was commonly regarded by linguists at that time — and many deaf people as well.”
“To skeptics who clung fast to outmoded opinions,” it added, “Mr. Croneberg has always remained a staunch defender of the native language and its variations of the global deaf community.” | 2022-08-30T21:23:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carl Croneberg, Gallaudet professor exploring 'Deaf Culture,' dies at 92 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/30/croneberg-deaf-asl-sign-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/30/croneberg-deaf-asl-sign-dies/ |
Policy is not law
The Justice Department on Aug. 16. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)
Randall D. Eliason’s Aug. 26 Friday Opinion column on the machinations within the Justice Department vis-a-vis former president Donald Trump, “Memo to Barr was just cover to let Trump off the hook,” spotlighted a problem within the agency: the blind adherence to “policy” even when policy conflicts with the law.
The ideas that the Justice Department cannot indict a sitting president or even investigate a candidate are unsupported by law and should be dropped. The ex-president has benefited from hiding behind it for years. He likely will soon announce a run for president, as the weight of damning evidence mounts. He no doubt believes he will then be protected by his status as a candidate, along with the unmerited deference given him as a former officeholder. Our democracy is at risk here, and it must not be sacrificed on the altar of “policy.”
Crime is crime, and hemming and hawing about bringing charges does our country no good. We are a nation of laws, and policy is not law. Policy is a handbook for carrying out the law, and this policy interferes with that. It is absurd and must be discarded.
Howard Schmitt, Green Tree, Pa.
The Aug. 26 front-page article “ ‘Myth’ of president’s security clearance” noted that presidents don’t go through the normal vetting process nor are they “read in” or “read out” on security protocols. Regardless, one would hope all presidents appreciate the sensitivity of the content in those documents and understand that their unauthorized disclosure can lead to real harm. That former president Donald Trump didn’t take personal responsibility for their proper protection and control is shameful. Nonetheless, the documents, classified or not, are not his personal property. And, where are the calls to “lock him up”?
Randy Bograd, Gaithersburg
All civilian employees of the federal government who need access to classified information, even politically appointed officials up through cabinet secretaries; along with all military people with the same need, require security clearance. Granting security clearances requires extensive background investigation. Some agencies, such as the CIA, require polygraph examinations.
But the 537 elected officials of our government — the president, vice president and 535 members of Congress (100 senators and 435 representatives) — require no such clearance. Their election by the people gives them the right to know the nation’s secrets. This does not mean that every senator and representative has access to all secrets. The Constitution says that the two chambers of Congress may make their own rules. They have used that constitutional power to rule that the senior leaders of each chamber (majority and minority leaders, including House speaker and Senate president pro tempore, plus their whips) and the chairs and vice chairs of the intelligence oversight committees, jointly decide which senators and representatives shall have access to which secrets.
This right of elective access ends upon the end of each official’s service. So even the president loses his right of access once he leaves office. Thus, former president Donald Trump has no current right to see and retain classified information. That information belongs to the people, who have decided through their elected members of Congress that the information shall be in the custody of the National Archives.
Kevin M. Davis, Chevy Chase
An unattributed saying applies: When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Citizen Donald Trump is finally getting a small dose of the equal treatment under the law that the rest of us would have experienced in a much larger measure if we, too, had absconded with classified documents. His claim of outrageous treatment is symptomatic of a person used to extreme entitlement and immunity. Equality for Mr. Trump.
Mark Williams, Fredericksburg, Va. | 2022-08-30T21:23:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Policy is not law - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/policy-is-not-law/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/policy-is-not-law/ |
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev makes his Nobel Peace Prize award acceptance speech in the Oslo City Hall on June 5, 1991. Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for “his leading role in the peace process which today characterises important parts of the international community.” (Olav Olsen/AFP via Getty Images)
By Natan Sharansky
Natan Sharansky, a human rights activist and former political prisoner in the Soviet Union, is chairman of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.
Mikhail Gorbachev, who died at 91, was the last leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a post he held for only a few short years, from 1985 to 1991. During his final speech, he expressed regret that the U.S.S.R. had fallen apart, but also emphasized his personal achievements, including the promotion of political and religious freedom, the introduction of democracy and a market economy, and, of course, the end of the Cold War.
All politicians boast of their achievements when they conclude their terms in office. In this case, however, what Gorbachev said was not a boast, but rather an understatement.
Just a few years earlier, the Soviet Union had been one of history’s most frightening dictatorships, sending its troops far and wide, ruling over roughly a third of the globe, and controlling hundreds of millions of its own citizens through intimidation. And while Soviet dissidents (I was among them) told the world that the regime was internally weak, our predictions of its downfall were dismissed as wishful thinking by Western experts mesmerized by the U.S.S.R.’s seemingly unshakable power.
Yet the regime did fall — and it did so without the firing of a single shot. In the eyes of the West, this outcome was the direct result of the decisions of one person: Gorbachev. It isn’t surprising that he was revered in the free world and was honored with the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize, or that terms he introduced to the political lexicon — glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) — helped define the era.
What is perhaps surprising: Gorbachev never achieved that sort of admiration at home. In a 2017 poll, only 8 percent of Russian citizens saw him in a positive light; the overwhelming majority view was negative. The obvious reason for this is that many Russians regard the end of the Soviet Union as a tragedy, in which their nation lost its status as a fearsome world power. Today, Vladimir Putin explicitly represents that sentiment.
Meanwhile, we dissidents and others in the intelligentsia — those who did not believe in the regime, who wanted change, and who had even fought for decades for the very reforms Gorbachev introduced — held a rather more complicated view of the last Soviet leader.
For one, he was a true believer in the ideas of Marx and Lenin, and the original intention behind his pioneering reforms was to rebrand communism with a more human face. Moreover, the moment it became clear that the people’s desire for greater freedom could ultimately topple the regime, he did his best to restrain the forces he had unleashed.
During his first trips to the West, before he became leader of the Politburo, Gorbachev discovered that the Soviet Union had paid a heavy diplomatic and economic price for its treatment of dissidents. As a result, within the first year of ascending to power, he began to release political prisoners and long-time refuseniks (Jews fighting for their right to emigrate to Israel). When it soon became clear, however, that such a policy could lead to mass emigration, new restrictions were introduced.
It was only after 250,000 demonstrators convened in Washington in 1987 to support Soviet Jews, greeting Gorbachev during his first visit as Russia’s leader with chants of “Let Our People Go!,” that the Iron Curtain began to come down.
Freer emigration from the U.S.S.R. quickly led to demands by religious and national groups for self-determination. This, too, Gorbachev resisted, sending troops to Georgia, Lithuania and elsewhere, killing dozens of demonstrators in the process. The dissident Andrei Sakharov, whom Gorbachev released in late 1986 and who initially appeared to be the leader’s natural ally, spent the last years of his life actively fighting against Gorbachev’s attempts to save the single-party system and to avoid competition in Soviet elections.
Very shortly before Sakharov died in 1989, he called me in Israel to say that he could not visit as he had planned, since he would not permit himself to leave Moscow for even a single day and potentially miss an opportunity to block Gorbachev’s bid for unrivaled power.
I was the first political prisoner to be released by Gorbachev, in early 1986, and upon liberation, I was immediately asked whether I wanted to thank him for my freedom. I replied that I was grateful to all those who fought for my release, including fellow Jews and foreign leaders, because I understood that without their fight, it would not have happened. At that time, I deliberately avoided thanking Gorbachev because, with so many of my fellow dissidents still in prison and emigration still not permitted, I felt it would be irresponsible and even disloyal to give him credit.
A decade after the fall of the U.S.S.R., circumstances had changed. Participating with Gorbachev at a conference in Poland, I was asked about the forces leading to the regime’s demise. In my response, I discussed three factors: Sakharov and other dissidents who fought valiantly to keep the spark of freedom alive; Western politicians such as Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.), President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who had understood the nature of the regime and were ready to link relations with Moscow to the latter’s respect for human rights; and finally, Gorbachev, who perceived the direction of history and responded accordingly.
Immediately after finishing my talk, I approached Gorbachev to thank him for releasing me. I was surprised to discover that he was almost offended by my remarks, saying, “I released you against all advice to the contrary, and you listed me in only the third place?” While I sympathized with his reaction, at that time I felt it was more important to amplify the voices of dissidents — particularly those in Asia and the Middle East, whose plight was so frequently ignored by the West — than to emphasize his role in the transition.
Yet if we look at the 20th century not through the lens of political struggles, but rather from the bird’s-eye perspective of history, we see how utterly unique Gorbachev was. In nearly every dictatorship there are dissidents, and from time to time there are also Western leaders willing to risk their political fates to promote human rights abroad. But Gorbachev was a product of the Soviet regime, a member of its ruling elite who believed its ideology and enjoyed its privileges — yet decided to destroy it nevertheless. For that, the world can be grateful. Thank you, Mikhail Gorbachev. | 2022-08-30T21:23:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Natan Sharansky: Mikhail Gorbachev played a unique role in history - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/sharansky-gorbachev-death/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/sharansky-gorbachev-death/ |
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, who embarked on a path of radical reform that brought about the end of the Cold War, reversed the direction of the nuclear arms race and relaxed Communist Party controls in hopes of rescuing the faltering Soviet state but instead propelled it toward collapse, died on Aug. 30. He was 91.
V.ARMAND/AFP/Getty Images
Mikhail Gorbachev, member of Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
New Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, center, views the funeral bier of the late Konstantin Chernenko in Moscow as a sentry stands by.
Gorbachev chats to Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko Moscow at a meeting of the Russian Republic's Supreme Soviet in Moscow.
Gorbachev, right, talks with farm equipment workers at a factory in Ramensky, Soviet Union. Gorbachev said mangement reforms were being considered to increase efficiency and productivity with five agricultural ministries combined into one agency and the relaxation of competitive controls.
RM/TASS/AP
Gorbachev is engaged in a conversation with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at a reception held at the Kremlin in Moscow during Thatcher's official visit to the Soviet Union.
President Reagan, center right, and Gorbachev sign their names on the leather-bound treaties and other documents during a signing ceremony for the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C.
Gorbachev, right, general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Yegor Ligachyov, center, secretary of the the CPSU Central Committee and member of the CPSU Politburo, and Lev Zaikov, secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and first secretary of the CPSU Moscow City Committee, vote during the 19th All-Union Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses.
Yuryi Abramochkin/Sputnik via AP
Gorbachev addresses members of the Supreme Soviet during the session where he was elected head of the Soviet state.
Cuban President Fidel Castro and Gorbachev wave to the crowd as their motorcade drives through downtown Havana during the Soviet leader's state visit.
Gorbachev, left, kisses East German leader Erich Honecker upon arriving in East Berlin.
Gorbachev, left, meets with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, second right, in Germany during its 40th anniversary.
Boris Babanov/Sputnik/AP
Former dissident playwright and Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel, left, and Gorbachev shake hands as they exchange documents on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia in Moscow.
Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, along granddaughter, Ksenya, at a polling station during local elections in Moscow.
Gorbachev poses solemnly as he takes the oath at the Congress of Deputies in Moscow.
Gorbachev takes President Bush for a ride in a golf cart at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland.
Pope John Paul II talks to Gorbachev, as Raisa Gorbachev looks on, during a private visit in Vatican City.
Gianni Foggia/AP
Gorbachev makes his long-postponed Nobel Peace Prize award acceptance speech at Oslo City Hall in Norway. Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for "his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community".
Gorbachev speaks with foreign ambassadors in Moscow about his house arrest in Crimea during the attempted coup in the Soviet Union.
Ivan Laptev, center, Chamber of the Union chairman, speaks with Gorbachev as Russian President Boris Yeltsin listens during a session of the Congress of People's Deputies in Moscow. In a speech, Yeltsin harshly criticized Gorbachev for not foreseeing last month's coup attempt.
Gorbachev, the eight and final leader of the Soviet Union, announces his resignation in a televised address from the Kremlin in Moscow.
Former President Reagan and former Soviet President Gorbachev don cowboy hats while enjoying a moment at Reagan's Rancho del Cielo north of Santa Barbara, Calif. Reagan and Gorbachev created a tight and lasting friendship during their terms in office.
Gorbachev , alongside of Speaker of the House Thomas Foley, acknowledges the applause after he addressed members of the U.S. Congress in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Gorbachev asked the U.S. to consider Russia "a good and reliable partner" for its foreign policy.
DAVID AKE/AFP/Getty Images
Gorbachev holds his book "Anti-memoire" before a French television broadcast in Paris.
Gorbachev, center right, speaks as he and other former world leaders, from left, Brian Mulroney, of Canada, left, Francois Miterrand, of France, George Bush, of the United States and Margaret Thatcher, of Britain, participate in a forum reflecting on ending the Cold War during a forum in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Gorbachev, with his daughter Irina Virganskaya by his side, wipes away tears during a ceremony to pay last respects to his late wife, Raisa, who died in Germany of acute leukemia, in Moscow.
Gorbachev pays his respects at Ronald Reagan's funeral inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C.
Robert A. Reeder/The Washington Post
Gorbachev, right, and Prime Minister of East Germany, Lothar de Maiziere, center, talk with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Dresden, Germany at the Petersburg Forum, an annual meeting meant to deepen ties between Russian and German societies.
ECKEHARD SCHULZ/AP
Gorbachev, center, the Liberty Medal winner honoring for his role in ending the Cold War, is applauded by former President George Bush, left, chairman of the National Constitution Center, and Joseph Torsella, right, president of the center, following Gorbachev's remarks in Philadelphia.
Tom Mihalek/AP
Gorbachev, the last ruling president of the Soviet Union, leaves his handprints in a plaster cast bolted onto an original Wall piece from former Checkpoint Charlie border crossing in Berlin.
Production by Stephen Cook | 2022-08-30T21:23:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In photos: The life of Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet president and general secretary of the Communist Party - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/mikhail-gorbachev-dies-91/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/mikhail-gorbachev-dies-91/ |
After just one start, Nationals’ Cade Cavalli hits the injured list
Shoulder inflammation will shelve the team’s top pitching prospect for at least two weeks
Cade Cavalli made his major league debut Friday. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Washington Nationals Manager Dave Martinez announced Tuesday afternoon that right-hander Cade Cavalli will be placed on the 15-day injured list and shut down for two weeks because of shoulder inflammation. The decision came after Cavalli made his major league debut Friday against the Cincinnati Reds.
Cavalli felt discomfort while playing catch Saturday afternoon, then had an MRI exam Sunday that showed inflammation but no structural damage. Martinez said the Nationals haven’t decided to shut him down for the season, but only about three weeks will remain when he is eligible to return from the IL.
“Cade says he feels good today, but we need to be very, very cautious,” Martinez said before Tuesday’s game against the Oakland Athletics. “We’re talking about a kid that’s part of a big future of ours. So we’re going to take it easy. And hopefully we can knock this out in a couple of weeks and then we’ll reevaluate after that.”
Cavalli, 24, is considered the Nationals’ top pitching prospect; he stands fourth among all players in the team’s farm system according to MLB Pipeline. The Nationals grabbed him with the 22nd pick of the 2020 draft out of Oklahoma. After rising quickly through the minors, he made his major league debut Friday in a 7-3 loss to the Reds at Nationals Park; he was charged with seven runs in 4⅓ innings while striking out six.
Cavalli was slated to make his second start Thursday; the Nationals haven’t announced who will pitch in his place. | 2022-08-30T21:43:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington Nationals' Cade Cavalli shut down with shoulder inflammation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/cade-cavalli-shoulder-inflammation-injured-list/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/cade-cavalli-shoulder-inflammation-injured-list/ |
Mexico needs justice and fairness, not politics, to heal from Ayotzinapa
Relatives hold images of the missing students from Ayotzinapa during a demonstration in Mexico City on Aug. 26. (Henry Romero/Reuters)
Over the past 16 years, Mexico’s struggle against organized crime and drug-related violence has seen its share of grim milestones. In 2006, thugs entered a nightclub in Uruapan, in the western state of Michoacán, and threw five human heads on the dance floor. The ghastly sight became a harbinger of further horrors. Soon, Mexicans began waking up to corpses and threatening messages hanging from bridges.
And yet, few tragedies compare with what happened during the last days of September 2014, near Iguala, Guerrero, in southern Mexico, when local police kidnapped a group of 43 students from the rural Ayotzinapa teachers college and allegedly handed them over to Guerreros Unidos, a violent gang, and the students disappeared, never to be seen again.
From the beginning, the Mexican authorities, led by then-president Enrique Peña Nieto, mishandled the case.
After days of silence, Peña Nieto entrusted Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam with the investigation. A hard-liner with a long track record within the PRI, the president’s party, Murillo Karam became a controversial figure, in a hurry to close the book on the students’ appalling disappearance. After four months of divisive inquiries, Murillo Karam produced a 26-minute video of what happened. The students, he said, were all dead, killed after they were mistaken for members of Los Rojos, another cartel. They had been burned, their charred remains thrown into a river.
That, he insisted, was the “historic truth.”
Murillo Karam’s hubris, and his choice of words, would come back to haunt him. Independent organizations criticized his investigation, while forensic experts disputed his theories. Crucially, the students’ families rejected Murillo Karam’s, and the government’s, conclusions.
The Ayotzinapa wound remained open.
After taking office in 2016, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador vowed to solve the case once and for all. “Our commitment is with truth and justice,” López Obrador said. “We will not give up.”
Last week, his administration offered its own version of events. While it acknowledged the students’ tragic demise, the López Obrador report dismantled Murillo Karam’s “historic truth” and accused him and others of dereliction of duty and a conspiracy to cover up the crime. Alejandro Encinas, the government’s point person on the case, labeled the disappearances a “crime of state” that involved police, the armed forces and civilian officials, in addition to the gang. Encinas said the students probably unwittingly took a bus loaded with drugs or money that belonged to the gang, and the military and federal and state police took no action to stop the mass kidnapping — even though they were aware of it thanks to surveillance systems and an army spy who had infiltrated the student group.
Human rights organizations welcomed the new report. “The progress shown confirms, once again, that the authorities under the government of Enrique Peña Nieto pursued a deliberate policy of concealment and obstruction of justice,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.
A day after the publication of the account, the Mexican government went one step further: It arrested Murillo Karam himself, an unprecedented step. The former AG now stands accused of torture, forced disappearance and obstruction of justice.
In a country rife with impunity, Murillo Karam’s arrest — and the government’s intention to reveal new information and pursue other key figures in the case — could be seen as a step toward justice. But this step has actually raised many red flags as well.
“The investigation that Murillo Karam led was full of irregularities (including suspicion of torture) and should be investigated,” security analyst Alejandro Hope told me. “Still, the government seems to be aiming for political gain, not pursuing justice.”
The journalist and editor Julian Andrade, who has closely followed the Ayotzinapa story, agrees. Andrade says the decision to go after Murillo Karam is “clearly political.” “While there may be prosecutorial arguments, a move like this one has severe political consequences, and the government knows it,” he told me.
I share their concerns. In Mexico, justice has long been a political tool. Previous governments have arrested political opponents whenever convenient. (Some of those arrests were carried out by Murillo Karam himself.)
“It would be a shame if propaganda and politics end up mattering more than the search for justice,” Andrade told me.
That’s what many justifiably fear. In a case of such profound importance as the Ayotzinapa atrocity, the López Obrador administration can prove that, in Mexico, power can work in the service of justice, not the other way around.
If this arrest is seen as a political ploy, then the search for justice and accountability will continue to be tarnished.
Mexico can’t afford to go down that path again.
The government has so far been transparent with both its conclusions and new findings. But it must not dismiss the skeptics who suggest that Murillo Karam is a convenient political pawn whose arrest could, for example, help López Obrador reduce what’s left of the PRI as viable opposition and consolidate his grip on power. The way to address that is guaranteeing Murillo Karam the due process he deserves. | 2022-08-30T21:47:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Mexico needs justice and fairness, not politics, to heal from Ayotzinapa - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/mexico-ayotzinapa-attorney-general-amlo-justice-fairness/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/mexico-ayotzinapa-attorney-general-amlo-justice-fairness/ |
Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow in March 1990. (V.Armand/AFP/Getty Images)
Failing upward into the world’s gratitude, Mikhail Gorbachev became a hero by precipitating the liquidation of the political system he had tried to preserve with reforms. He is remembered as a visionary because he was not clear-sighted about socialism’s incurable systemic disease: It cannot cope with the complexity of dispersed information in a developed nation. Like Christopher Columbus, who accidentally discovered the New World, Gorbachev stumbled into greatness by misunderstanding where he was going.
Two of Gorbachev’s uncles and an aunt died in Joseph Stalin’s engineered famine of 1932-1933. The tortures of the Great Terror were visited upon both grandfathers. One of them remembered: An interrogator broke his arms, beat him brutally, then wrapped him in a wet sheepskin coat and put him on a hot stove. In “Gorbachev: His Life and Times,” William Taubman, an emeritus political scientist at Amherst College, quotes Gorbachev on his experience as a boy during World War II, finding the remains of Red Army soldiers: “decaying corpses, partly devoured by animals, skulls in rusted helmets, bleached bones . . . unburied, staring at us out of black, gaping eye-sockets.”
Natan Sharansky: Gorbachev played a complicated but unique role in world history
President Ronald Reagan, abandoning the niceties of detente, turned up the rhetorical and military temperature. In 1983, he described the Soviet Union as “the focus of evil in the modern world.” With the Strategic Defense Initiative, he launched a high-tech challenge to a Soviet Union in which 30 percent of hospitals lacked indoor plumbing. Reagan sent lethal aid to those fighting the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. When Gorbachev retreated from there, Taubman writes, it was “the first time the Soviet Union had pulled back from territories it had ‘liberated’ for Communism.”
Taubman, who judges Gorbachev “a tragic hero who deserves our understanding and admiration,” says the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster and the government’s bungled response to it caused the scales to fall from Gorbachev’s eyes regarding the comprehensive rottenness of the Soviet system. A French official reported that when Gorbachev arrived late at a Kremlin reception, Gorbachev said “he had been trying to solve some urgent problem of the agriculture sector. I asked when the problem had arisen, and he replied with a sly smile: ‘In 1917.’ ” Secretary of State George P. Shultz in 1987 explained to Gorbachev the world’s transformation from the industrial to the information age, making the foundational Marxist distinction between capital and labor obsolete because “we have entered a world in which the truly important capital is human capital — what people know, how freely they exchange information and knowledge.”
Gorbachev’s lasting legacy might be in the lessons that China’s durable tyranny has chosen to learn from his and the Soviet Union’s downfall. Political scientist Graham Allison observes that “when Xi Jinping has nightmares, the apparition he sees is Mikhail Gorbachev.” According to Allison, Xi says Gorbachev’s three ruinous errors were: He relaxed political control of society before reforming the economy, he allowed the Communist Party to become corrupt, and he “nationalized” the Soviet military by allowing commanders to swear allegiance to the nation rather than to the party and its leader.
In 1988, when the French were about to celebrate and sensible people were about to regret a bicentennial, Gorbachev impertinently lectured the United Nations: “Two great revolutions, the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917, exerted a powerful impact on the very nature of history.” Two? It was America’s revolution that unleashed the world-shaking passion for freedom grounded in respect for natural rights. The Soviet Union, hammered together by force and held together by iron hoops of bureaucracy, never achieved legitimacy as the United States has exemplified it — the consensual association of a culturally diverse population.
The Soviet Union’s brittle husk crumbled as Gorbachev struggled to preserve it. His reputation rests on the world’s amnesia about this: When elevated to general secretary of the Communist Party, Taubman says, Gorbachev claimed to have re-read all 55 volumes of Lenin’s writings, telling a friend, “If you were to read Lenin’s disputes with [the German Marxist Karl] Kautsky, you would understand that they’re far more interesting than a novel.” Of Lenin, the architect of the first totalitarian system, who let loose rivers of blood, Gorbachev said — in 2006 — “I trusted him then and I still do.” | 2022-08-30T21:47:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | George F. Will: Gorbachev's reputation rests on the world’s amnesia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/mikhail-gorbachev-reputation-george-will/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/mikhail-gorbachev-reputation-george-will/ |
Gaza aid chief found guilty of aiding Hamas
An Israeli court sentenced a former Gaza aid chief from a major international aid organization to 12 years in prison after convicting him of siphoning millions of agency dollars to Hamas, the Islamist group that rules the enclave.
Kevin Jenkins, president of World Vision International, said in a statement on the organization’s website that it was difficult to “reconcile” the allegations because the organization’s cumulative operating budget in Gaza for the past 10 years was only about $22.5 million.
— Shira Rubin and Hazem Balousha
Netanyahu warned by inquiry commission
A state commission of inquiry into one of Israel’s worst civil disasters issued a warning to former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a senior police official that they may share responsibility for an accident that killed 45 people.
In addition to the fatalities, at least 100 people were injured last year when a stampede occurred at a religious festival attended by an estimated 100,000 worshipers, on the slopes of Mount Meron in northern Israel.
The letter to Netanyahu, who leads Israel’s right-wing opposition Likud party, said he “did not act as expected of a prime minister” to correct long-standing safety concerns at the site even though “he knew or should have known” of the concerns.
Those named by the commission have the chance to respond, and a warning letter does not necessarily mean that any action will be taken against them.
The warning came just two months before an election in November that could see Netanyahu, already Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, return to office for a sixth term.
Palestinian on hunger strike remains in prison in Israel: Israel's Supreme Court has rejected a petition for the release of a Palestinian prisoner who has been on hunger strike for nearly six months and whose lawyer says is in danger of "sudden death." Khalil Awawdeh is protesting being held by Israel in what's known as administrative detention, a practice in which detainees suspected of militant activities are imprisoned for months or years without charge or trial.
Taiwan fires at Chinese aerial drone: Taiwan fired warning shots at a Chinese drone that buzzed an offshore islet, shortly after President Tsai Ing-wen said she had ordered Taiwan's military to take "strong countermeasures" against what she termed Chinese provocations. The drone headed back to China after the shots were fired, a military spokesman said. It was the first time warning shots have been fired in such an incident amid a period of heightened tension between China and Taiwan, which Beijing views as its own territory.
LGBTQ activists celebrate ruling in eastern Caribbean: The top court for nine eastern Caribbean nations and territories has struck down a colonial-era law against homosexual conduct in St. Kitts and Nevis, ruling that sexual orientation is covered by the right to privacy. LGBTQ activists celebrated the ruling issued by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, noting that gay people on the twin-island nation have tended to avoid medical care for fear of losing their job, being assaulted or being prosecuted.
Opposition party to challenge results in Angola: The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the nation's main opposition party, has submitted a legal complaint challenging the electoral commission's finding that the governing party won last week's election, a letter seen by Reuters shows. The commission reported on Monday that 51.17 percent of voters had supported the formerly Marxist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), prolonging its nearly five decades of uninterrupted rule. | 2022-08-30T21:47:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Digest: Aug. 30, 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-aug-30-2022/2022/08/30/1b64b976-287f-11ed-b16b-8271abe2ddc5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-aug-30-2022/2022/08/30/1b64b976-287f-11ed-b16b-8271abe2ddc5_story.html |
Deion Sanders: Jackson State in ‘crisis mode’ amid city’s water emergency
Jackson State football has risen to prominence since Deion Sanders took over the program in 2020. (Rogelio V. Solis/AP)
Days before its season opener this Sunday, Jackson State’s football team is relocating its players and practices as Mississippi’s capital city grapples with multiple water crises, head coach Deion Sanders said Tuesday.
“We [were] hit with a little crisis in the city of Jackson. We don’t have water,” Sanders said in a social media post. “Water means we don’t have air conditioning, we can’t use toilets, we don’t have water therefore we don’t have ice, which pretty much places a burden on the program. So right now we’re operating in crisis mode.”
Sanders said the team is making plans to relocate affected players and to ensure they have “the necessities of life for the next several days until this crisis” subsides. The Tigers are scheduled to play Florida A&M in Miami on Sunday afternoon.
Jackson State did not immediately respond to a request for further comment about its plans. In response to the city’s water pressure issues, the school said Monday that it would shift classes to virtual instruction for the remainder of the week. It also said “non-essential” employees will work remotely this week.
“Due to the City of Jackson’s ongoing water pressure issues, Jackson State University is currently experiencing low to no water pressure at all campus locations,” it said in a statement. “We are in contact with city, county, and state officials to determine a timeline for when this issue may be resolved.”
Other local high school teams reportedly have not been affected by the crisis.
Recent flooding has compounded long-standing problems with the city’s aging water system. The failure of Jackson’s largest water treatment plant left parts of the city without running water this week.
During an emergency briefing Monday, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) said the city would be without “reliable running water at scale” for the near future. Officials urged the city’s 150,000 residents not to drink the water or use it to cook or brush their teeth unless they boil it first.
Reeves on Tuesday declared a state of emergency, noting “the total or near total loss of water pressure throughout the City of Jackson and surrounding areas of Hinds County that receive water from the Plant has created a condition of disaster and extreme peril.”
That crisis comes as parts of Jackson scrambled Monday to deal with flooding around the Pearl River. In an emergency notice, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba (D) said the floods had caused “water pressure issues … resulting in low or no water pressure for many Jackson customers.”
Jackson State, which hosts its first home game Sept. 17 against Grambling State, has risen in prominence since Sanders was hired to lead the program in 2020. Since then, the former NFL and MLB star has attracted national attention and high-caliber recruits to the historically Black university, including Travis Hunter, who in December became the highest-rated prospect to commit to an HBCU or any FCS program. | 2022-08-30T22:22:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Deion Sanders: Jackson State in ‘crisis mode’ amid city’s water emergency - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/jackson-state-deion-sanders-water-crisis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/30/jackson-state-deion-sanders-water-crisis/ |
Don’Zeal Davis, 16, in the wooded area near his home in Southeast Washington. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post)
About 2,000 miles from his home in Southeast Washington, 16-year-old Don’Zeal Davis pitched a tent in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. He spent the next 24 hours alone in the wilderness, a kind of training exercise held during a recent two-week summer camp for D.C. teenagers.
Don’Zeal admits that some of the sounds he heard that night made him wary — the hoots, howls and grunts of animals near and far. After seeing flashes of lightning, he covered his head with a book bag and eventually fell asleep. Then the rains came, and his tarp sprung a leak. He woke up to find his tent sliding downhill, taking him with it.
“In the woods, by myself, it was stormy, and I was getting wet and mad,” Don’Zeal recalled.
And yet, when asked to compare his time in the wilderness with life in his hometown, there was no contest.
“I don’t hardly know how to put it into words,” he said, “except to say that Wyoming is a whole lot less stressful.”
That’s due in large part to what Don’Zeal did not hear in the woods. There were no gunshots, no screams, no sirens. None of the earsplitting, nerve-racking bloodletting that occurs daily in some parts of D.C. and urban America.
“I try not to think about it,” Don’Zeal said of the rise in shootings and assaults in the city. “Except when I’m walking alone.”
Two teens fatally shot during violent weekend in D.C.
The annual outing is a collaboration between two D.C.-based nonprofit organizations: Horton’s Kids, which empowers children in underserved neighborhoods to graduate from high school and succeed in college, and the City Kids Wilderness Project, which hosts the camp at the Broken Arrow ranch in Jackson Hole. Both help children develop life skills to broaden their career prospects.
There is also an intense focus on healing trauma, which is more pervasive than you might think.
A report in June by the D.C. Policy Center noted that just being in proximity to repeated criminal acts can have a deleterious effect on mental and physical health. The study found that 80 percent of District residents lived within a half-mile of a homicide in 2021. However, in wealthy and predominantly White Ward 3, there were only two homicides, and no one lived within a half-mile of either killing.
In predominantly Black Ward 8, which includes Don’Zeal’s neighborhood, every resident lived within a half-mile of at least six and as many as 30 homicides. There were 226 killings last year.
Citywide, 89 percent of Black children lived within a half-mile of a homicide, compared to 57 percent of White children. That’s thousands of kids coming upon bloodstained sidewalks, shell casings, yellow police tape, chalk marks outlining bodies and survivors walking around like the living dead.
“I don’t like my kids going outside,” said Donithia Davis, Don’Zeal’s mother.
She’d become especially concerned in 2015, when a woman and boy were shot and wounded in front of the apartment building where they live. Then, in 2016, a 6-year-old boy was shot in his lower leg while on a playground next to their home. Don’Zeal was 9 at the time and used to play there, too.
In 2017, a toddler who lived in their complex was shot when a gun that other children were playing with went off. In April this year, a woman was shot and wounded in the same block. And on and on it goes.
At Horton’s Kids, which operates out of the building where the Davis family lives, Don’Zeal has a tutor and a mentor. He’s learning social and emotional skills — how to identify his feelings, such as anger, though physical manifestations such as a fist or clenched jaw — and how to calm himself before doing something he might regret later.
Camping in Wyoming has given him a new perspective on life, he says.
“At night, someone would bring out a telescope and we’d do stargazing,” he said. “And I came up with the idea of going to college to study business so I could open up a family-oriented retreat in D.C. called the Midnight Palace.”
He spoke with awe and wonder about learning about the world the way some boys talk sports. He could do that, too. At camp, he’d won an award for his rock-climbing prowess and his persistence in learning to handle a kayak. A second award recognized his pleasing personality and a sense of humor that lifted the group’s spirits during a 15-mile hike.
After returning to D.C. a week ago, he began preparing for school. He’s an 11th-grader at Bell Multicultural High School in Columbia Heights.
“Actually, I’m kind of nervous,” he said about the start of school. “I’ve got to get on my game. I can’t be messing around with the same people.”
His mother said she hoped that Don’Zeal, who is the oldest of five, would finish high school, go to college and be successful in life. “I don’t want him to get with the wrong crowd and lose focus,” she said.
In the past, Don’Zeal sometimes cut class to be with his friends. They’d even come to his classroom and entice him to hang out.
“If I was bored, I’d go,” he said. “But I have to find a way to get done what I need to get done in school.”
In Wyoming he’d learned to navigate a kayak through tricky rapids. During rock climbs, he seemed to know intuitively where to get a toehold, which crevices to slip his fingers into and how to pull himself to the top.
Now, he just has to learn to do the same with his friendships — when to reach for the next rock and let go of the other. | 2022-08-30T22:35:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Horton's Kids and City Kids Wilderness: D.C. needs more like them - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/healing-trauma-jackson-hole-wilderness/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/healing-trauma-jackson-hole-wilderness/ |
Pedestrians at the Arcade building in the central business district in Singapore, on Tuesday, April 26, 2022. Singapore began allowing all workers to return to the workplace and doing away with checking peoples vaccination statuses at most places. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
While the tiny republic has always presented itself as far more open than neighbors, the most recent campaign has stepped up a few notches. The government said Monday that it’s overhauling visa rules, establishing a new five-year pass for foreigners earning at least S$30,000 ($21,431) a month that allows them to work at multiple companies and lets dependents seek employment. Requirements to advertise jobs locally before hiring expats will ease. Manpower Minister Tan See Leng depicted the changes as an opportunity: “Both businesses and talent are searching for safe and stable places to invest, live and work in. Singapore is such a place.”
Singapore’s safety and stability have never really been in doubt. There’s little violent crime or theft — it’s a great place to raise children — and the People’s Action Party has governed since independence from Malaysia in 1965. What had been in question in the past few years, accelerating during the pandemic, was how much Singapore really wanted to add more of the world’s best and brightest to its 5.5 million population. Eliminating or smoothing some barriers to immigration will be nice, but it’s going to require a change in attitude, too. The same global talent that Singapore wants to attract encountered ambivalence, at best, and what many expatriate workers regarded as punitive labor and immigration regulations during some of the toughest days of the pandemic. These were preceded by a deep recession and an electoral setback for the PAP in 2020 that was widely perceived as partly backlash against too many foreigners taking plum jobs. Expats confronted restrictions on the ability of spouses to work, an escalation in the minimum salaries for work passes, and no guarantees of getting back into Singapore if you left to care for ill folks at home. Ministers lined up to warn multinational employers against stripping local headcount when laying off staff. Firms suspected of not giving homegrown talent a fair shot were placed on a watchlist. Singapore can, of course, make what laws it wishes. It has first and last say on who comes in, on what terms. Nobody I know questioned that. But the message became very mixed. Leaders said that closing off would be the republic’s demise, but there would often be sufficient caveats that local constituencies felt their concerns were being addressed. Finance came in for some withering scrutiny, despite a long-term ambition to make the country a hinge point for money markets. Business got the message: In July last year, as parliament debated the workforce, Citigroup Inc. issued a press release trumpeting the appointment of Singaporeans to senior jobs.
Now, with more economies reopening, the message is shifting, at least in tone. This was on vivid display during Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day Rally speech, in which he announced the repeal of a controversial law criminalizing sex between men that had long been a source of bad PR. Lee didn’t draw a direct link, but devoted important parts of his address to the need to stay engaged in the world. In the hunt for talent, Lee said, “Singapore cannot afford to be creamed off, or left behind.” Singapore wants to prevail in a rough post-pandemic period characterized by the end of low levels of inflation, interest rates and wages. A scramble for human capital will be another — and more challenging — trademark of this new era. It’s not just high-flyers that Singapore needs, as vital as they are. The new visa’s floor of S$30,000 a month is comparable to the income of the top 5% of Employment Pass holders. The reopening has been accompanied by a labor shortage at most levels, from contractors to work on home renovations to engineers and technology executives. Tan stressed that the government is committed to grooming local talent and leadership. Wooing stars from abroad creates the kind of vibrant economy that gives Singaporeans opportunities, he said. The visa initiatives were unveiled hours after wearing masks against Covid became voluntary indoors, with exceptions for public transport, health care and food preparation. It had been a long wait. After more than two years, kids can see the faces of their teachers in classrooms, and each other. More pragmatically, with business travel and tourism on the rise globally, Singapore has dispensed with yet another deterrent, albeit one that wasn’t onerously enforced the past few months. (The presence of red-shirted “safe-distancing ambassadors” has been scaled back. SDAs used to be a common sight taking photos of patrons drinking lattes at tony cafes downtown, haunts for expats and Singapore’s cosmopolitan class, in their vigilance for violations of protocol.) Still, along Orchard Road malls Monday evening, there wasn’t an obvious difference. Indoors and outdoors, many people kept masks on. Attitudes and hard-learned habits can’t be turned around overnight. Is the warmer reception for foreign expertise best seen as evolution or revolution? I’ll give Singapore the benefit of the doubt. If it doesn’t work out, officials can always nudge the pendulum again. Pragmatism will still rule.
• Singapore Retreats on Gay Sex Ban. But Not Very Far: Daniel Moss | 2022-08-30T22:53:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Masks Down, Singapore Smiles on High-Earners Again - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/masksdown-singapore-smiles-on-high-earners-again/2022/08/30/e73a341a-28af-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/masksdown-singapore-smiles-on-high-earners-again/2022/08/30/e73a341a-28af-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
The coup attempt Mikhail Gorbachev barely survived in 1991
By Michael Dobbs
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev speaks during the second day of the extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow, U.S.S.R., on Aug. 27, 1991, days after an attempted coup against him. (Alain-Pierre Hovasse/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
This story was originally published on Aug. 22, 1991. It has been republished following Mikhail Gorbachev’s death on Tuesday.
President Mikhail Gorbachev returned to the seat of power in the Soviet capital today following the collapse of the three-day coup and the arrest of members of the disbanded junta.
The presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the federal parliament, formally dissolved the self-proclaimed eight-man State of Emergency Committee, which announced Monday morning that it had seized power in the country, and a parliamentary official said legal proceedings have been initiated against its members, who included the country's vice president, defense minister, interior minister and state security chief.
As news of the collapse of the coup spread throughout the country Wednesday, people here gathered on street corners to cheer the departing soldiers. A three-mile-long column of about 180 tanks and 60 trucks left Moscow in the afternoon as bystanders chanted “Yeltsin, Yeltsin” — for Russian republic President Boris Yeltsin, who had led opposition to the coup from the barricaded Russian parliament building. Troops in the Baltic republics also began pulling back to their bases.
Gorbachev, who had been placed under house arrest by coup figures at his Black Sea retreat Sunday afternoon, flew back to Moscow shortly after midnight to resume his duties, arriving here at 2:15 a.m. local time (7:15 p.m. Wednesday EDT). With him were officials of the Russian republic who had been sent to accompany him. At the airport, Gorbachev told Soviet television that the Soviet Union would have faced disaster if the State of Emergency Committee had succeeded, and hailed the collapse of the coup as a victory for perestroika.
Recounting his time in captivity, the president said he refused to deal with the coup plotters: “The world must know what they were up to and what they wanted to do with me … what they attempted to do to the president and his family in these days, when for 72 hours they surrounded him with troops on sea and on land and wanted to break his willpower. But they lost.”
Yeltsin and the independent news agency Interfax reported the arrests of most of the leaders of the coup. Interfax said one of the leaders, KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov, was brought to Moscow aboard Gorbachev's plane under arrest.
Quoting an official Russian government spokesman, Interfax said three other members of the State of Emergency Committee were arrested after they arrived at Gorbachev's residence in the Crimea Wednesday in an attempt to speak with him: Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov, Deputy Security Council Chairman Oleg Baklanov and A.I. Tizyakov, head of the industrialists' union.
Interfax said Interior Minister Boris Pugo tried to commit suicide with his wife when police came to his home to arrest him today, but the report could not be confirmed. Pugo was said to be hospitalized in serious condition. Another member of the coup, Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, also is in the hospital.
Speaking this morning before the Russian parliament, Yeltsin said Vice President Gennady Yanayev, who had made himself acting president, also was in custody but the fate of farmers' leader Vasily Starodubtsev was not immediately known. News services reported this morning that all eight plotters were in custody, but the report could not be confirmed.
“BULLETIN — GORBACHEV IN FULL CONTROL OF THE COUNTRY” announced the official Tass news agency Wednesday after one of the most dramatic days in Soviet or Russian history. Just a few hours earlier, Tass had been issuing draconian decrees from the State of Emergency Committee, threatening to intern or fire anybody who failed to carry out its orders.
The failure of the coup seems likely to accelerate the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and boost the authority of democratically elected leaders who resisted the seizure of power. Yeltsin has already begun a wholesale purge of local officials who supported the unconstitutional takeover.
The attempt to restore a hard-line Communist regime failed when it became clear that the leaders of the coup would be able to achieve their goal only through massive bloodshed, a step that could have plunged the country into civil war. Tens of thousands of demonstrators formed human chains around the Russian parliament, which also was defended by several dozen tanks and armored cars manned by Soviet troops who had allied themselves with the Yeltsin camp.
After regaining his freedom late Wednesday, Gorbachev phoned Yeltsin and leaders of other republics as well as President Bush to tell them the coup was over. In a statement read on Soviet television, Gorbachev told the nation that he was in full control and praised “the decisive actions of the democratic forces of the country” for restoring constitutional order. He added that the “adventurists” would be held fully responsible for their “unlawful actions.” When he returned to Moscow, Gorbachev thanked Yeltsin for his role in thwarting “this shady enterprise.”
For his part, Yeltsin praised Russian officials who, while holed up in the parliament building during the coup, walked the halls “not with notebooks in their hands but with machine guns,” and he praised the people of Moscow and the republic. “We have the right to say Russia has saved the Union, and we have a right to be proud of that,” he told lawmakers this morning.
Russian officials said Gorbachev denied that he had been taken ill, the reason given by the State of Emergency Committee for transferring power to Yanayev. “I was in good health all the time,” he was quoted as telling Yeltsin.
Several members of the State of Emergency Committee, including Kryuchkov and Yazov, had flown to the Crimea Wednesday in an attempt to explain their actions to Gorbachev, but he refused to see them, and they were later arrested. Yanayev was reported to have remained behind in the Kremlin.
According to Gorbachev aides, the coup began to disintegrate at 8 p.m. Tuesday night when Gen. Mikhail Moiseyev, the armed forces chief of staff — whom Gorbachev early this morning named acting defense minister — ordered a halt to the movement of troops toward the Russian parliament. But the failure of the coup was far from clear to people on the streets of Moscow, and there was a night of agonizing tension as it appeared that the building was about to be stormed. According to Radio Russia, three people were killed and four injured in spontaneous clashes between troops and demonstrators.
By Wednesday morning, the coup leaders appeared to be trying to shift the blame for the fiasco onto one another. Prime Minister Pavlov complained to his deputies that he had received misleading information on Gorbachev's state of health from Yanayev. Yanayev, for his part, tried to pin most of the responsibility on Kryuchkov in telephone calls to Russian parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, according to Russian television.
“The putschists were all too frightened to take responsibility for their actions — and that is why they failed,” said Yuri Ivanilov, a Russian legislator and supporter of Yeltsin. “There were soldiers who would have carried out an order to shoot, but nobody was willing to take the terrible responsibility of issuing such an order. This was not China or even Chile, where a Pinochet was willing to take responsibility on himself. You can't organize a coup by committee.”
An emergency session of the Russian parliament convened Wednesday morning began on a note of grim defiance, as deputies stood to honor the deaths of the demonstrators the previous night. The mood changed to jubilation when Yeltsin announced that all eight members of the junta had left Moscow for Vnukovo airport. At Yeltsin's suggestion, the parliament passed a resolution calling for the arrest of the State of Emergency Committee.
By mid-afternoon, Gorbachev aides who had previously kept a low public profile were holding press conferences to explain that they had been against the coup all along. Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh, who earlier was reported to have been ill, insisted that the country's foreign policy course remained unchanged, “just as charted by the president.”
Soviet Communist Party leaders, who had kept silent during the first two days of the coup, denounced the attempt to “establish an authoritarian regime” and create “anti-constitutional bodies” and called for Gorbachev's immediate release from house arrest. The party's deputy general secretary, Vladimir Ivashko, suddenly recovered from a two-day illness to announce that he fully supported Gorbachev.
There was a similar overnight change of heart by Gen. Nikolai Kalinin, the Moscow military commander, who Tuesday night was threatening Muscovites with 30-day prison sentences if they defied the overnight curfew. On Wednesday, he issued a statement saying that, in view of the “evolution of the socio-political situation,” he deemed it no longer “expedient” to maintain the curfew in the capital.
Radio and television stations forced off the air by the junta began broadcasting again. A commentator on Radio Russia speculated on the punishment that would be meted out to the coup leaders. Attempts to overthrow the state are punishable by sentences ranging from 20 years in prison to death. On the state-controlled channel, news readers who had read out the State of Emergency Committee's decrees over the last two days looked nervously away from the camera as they announced that Gorbachev had, in fact, never been overthrown.
The deputy chairman of the federal parliament, Ivan Laptev, went on television to announce that the parliamentary leadership had formally condemned the coup at a session this morning. Laptev said that a commission of inquiry had been set up to establish the “legal responsibility” of the members of the now defunct State of Emergency Committee.
Any punishment less than lengthy prison terms is unlikely to satisfy Yeltsin and other leaders who have criticized Gorbachev for allowing the putschists to remain in his government while publicly dissociating themselves from his policies. The Russian parliament passed a resolution insisting that all eight coup leaders be “brought to trial.”
Yeltsin also moved to punish the leaders of regional councils across the Russian republic that endorsed the coup. All have been dismissed from office. The regions will be run by direct appointees of the Russian president until new elections later this fall.
Democratic leaders made clear that they would use the failed coup to launch an all-out offensive against the Communist Party. Alexander Yakovlev, the party’s former ideologist who is widely regarded as being the intellectual father of Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms, accused the party of “keeping silent” when its leader was overthrown as president of the country.
“It is immoral for honest party members to stay in an organization which did not oppose the state coup,” Yakovlev said in a television interview, noting that all eight members of the State of Emergency Committee were Communists. | 2022-08-30T22:53:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mikhail Gorbachev survived a coup attempt in 1991 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/08/30/coup-attempt-mikhail-gorbachev/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/08/30/coup-attempt-mikhail-gorbachev/ |
FTC sues company over smartphone data that could uncover abortion clinic visits
The Federal Trade Commission building in Washington in 2015. (Alex Brandon/AP)
The Federal Trade Commission has sued data broker Kochava, claiming that it sells location information from millions of smartphones that could be used to track visits to abortion clinics and other sensitive sites.
After the Supreme Court’s June ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, privacy advocates have warned of the possibility that people’s digital trails could be used against them in abortion prosecutions. Previous cases against women have been built using text messages and online searches.
In a complaint filed Monday, the agency alleged that the Idaho-based company did not implement privacy controls that would prevent its customers from identifying device owners or tracing their movements to places including health facilities, houses of worship and domestic violence shelters. Often, federal regulators said, people are unaware that their location data is being collected and sold.
“Where consumers seek out health care, receive counseling, or celebrate their faith is private information that shouldn’t be sold to the highest bidder,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a news release. “The FTC is taking Kochava to court to protect people’s privacy and halt the sale of their sensitive geolocation information.”
Kochava, which filed a preemptive lawsuit against the FTC this month, denied the allegations.
In an executive order last month, President Biden pledged to combat digital surveillance related to reproductive health-care services. He also said he had asked the chair of the FTC to “consider taking steps to protect consumers’ privacy when seeking information about and provision of reproductive health care services.” The lawsuit against Kochava offers a window into how the agency might attempt to do so.
Kochava, launched in 2011, sells data feeds to clients to help with advertising campaigns and analyze foot traffic to retailers. The company “provides its customers massive amounts of precise geolocation data collected from consumers’ mobile devices,” the FTC said in its complaint.
Until June, Kochava offered a free sample on the Amazon Web Services marketplace. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) The sample was made “publicly available with only minimal steps and no restrictions on usage,” the complaint said, and contained data from 61 million mobile devices.
“In just the data Kochava made available in the Kochava Data Sample, it is possible to identify a mobile device that visited a women’s reproductive health clinic and trace that mobile device to a single-family residence,” it continued, adding that employees of abortion clinics could be identified, too.
The data sample also includes mobile devices located at Jewish, Christian and Islamic places of worship, as well as a device that appeared to have visited a shelter that serves at-risk pregnant young women or new mothers.
Selling such information “poses an unwarranted intrusion into the most private areas of consumers’ lives” — with consumers usually unaware, the complaint said. Information collected from smartphones “can be sold multiple times to companies that consumers have never heard of and never interacted with,” it added.
“Consumers have no insight into how this data is used — they do not, for example, typically know or understand that the information collected about them can be used to track and map their past movements and that inferences about them and their behaviors will be drawn from this information,” the complaint said.
Kochava chief executive Brian Cox said in a prepared statement that his company complies with all rules and laws and stepped up its privacy controls before the legal proceedings. The company gets its data from third-party brokers that say smartphone users have agreed to the information being gathered, he said.
Cox claimed that the suit demonstrates the FTC “has a fundamental misunderstanding” of Kochava’s business.
“We hoped to have productive conversations that led to effective solutions with the FTC about these complicated and important issues and are open to them in the future,” he said. “Unfortunately the only outcome the FTC desired was a settlement that had no clear terms or resolutions and redefined the problem into a moving target. Real progress to improve data privacy for consumers will not be reached through flamboyant press releases and frivolous litigation.” | 2022-08-30T22:53:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Federal officials sue data company, saying it could reveal abortion seekers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/30/ftc-kochava-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/30/ftc-kochava-lawsuit/ |
Storms leave at least 4 dead, knock out power
Storms leave 4 dead, knock out power
Hundreds of thousands of Michigan residents were without electricity on Tuesday after powerful storms toppled trees and downed thousands of power lines in the state a day earlier.
The storms were blamed for the deaths of at least four people, including a child in Michigan and Arkansas.
More than 340,000 customers in Michigan remained without power, utility companies said Tuesday evening.
Dozens of schools across southeastern Michigan, including nearly two dozen in Detroit alone, canceled classes Tuesday because of the outages, officials and the Detroit News said.
In Monroe, about 40 miles south of Detroit, a 14-year-old girl was electrocuted late Monday when she came in contact with an electrical line that fell during the storm outside her home, police said.
When first responders arrived, they found her still in contact with the energized wire.
In Texas’ Nolan County, one person was killed when severe winds caused a tanker truck to roll over, causing at least six crashes, officials said.
Court: State can't keep guns in ambush case
The Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit disagreed, saying in its ruling Tuesday that state authorities never used Michael and Deborah’s weapons as evidence at their son’s trial and violated the parents’ constitutional rights by holding on to the guns indefinitely.
The state seized the Freins’ property without compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment and hindered their ability to keep firearms in violation of the Second Amendment, the court ruled.
Prosecutors have said Eric Frein was hoping to start an uprising against the government when he opened fire on the Blooming Grove barracks. Cpl. Bryon Dickson II, a Marine veteran, was killed in the ambush, and trooper Alex Douglass was left with devastating injuries.
Frein was convicted and sentenced to death, though Pennsylvania has a moratorium on executions.
4 bodies found in N.D. wheat field; murder-suicide suspected: Sheriff's deputies are investigating the deaths of four people found shot in a wheat field in rural northeast North Dakota as a murder-suicide. The Towner County Sheriff's Office said deputies found the bodies in a field south of Cando, the county seat, about 6 p.m. Monday. Sheriff Andrew Hillier said Tuesday they were adults who lived in the area, but declined to release their gender, relationship or identities. A firearm was found in possession of one of the individuals, and evidence at the scene indicates it was a murder-suicide case and that there is no know threat to the public, according to the sheriff. | 2022-08-30T22:53:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Storms leave at least 4 dead, knock out power - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/storms-leave-at-least-4-dead-knock-out-power/2022/08/30/4a6710d8-1471-11ed-aba1-f2b7689c0492_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/storms-leave-at-least-4-dead-knock-out-power/2022/08/30/4a6710d8-1471-11ed-aba1-f2b7689c0492_story.html |
The problem behind all of Twitter’s other problems
Its ill-fated foray into adult content is emblematic of an unpoliceable platform —- and a broken business model
Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, shown here in 2018, said last week that he regrets that Twitter ever became a business. (Prakash SINGH / AFP) (Prakash Singh/AFP via Getty Images)
For years, Twitter’s problems were overshadowed by those of its much larger, rival social network, Facebook. Not anymore: The past year has brought a parade of bad press for the blue bird, from the ouster of its CEO to an ownership battle with Elon Musk to a federal whistleblower complaint.
And on Tuesday we learned the San Francisco-based firm tried to develop an adult-content service — only to scuttle it amid concerns over its inability to police child pornography.
For a major global tech company, one of the few things more embarrassing than being forced to turn to porn to boost revenue is proving incapable of doing so.
Sundry as Twitter’s scandals might seem, they share a common source: a broken business model that is fundamentally at odds with the freewheeling nature of its platform. And they aren’t likely to abate until it resolves that tension one way or another.
The company’s year from hell started when its co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey abruptly stepped down in November 2021 amid pressure from activist shareholders to dramatically grow the business. His successor, Parag Agrawal, embarked on a sweeping reorganization that was rudely interrupted by Musk’s out-of-nowhere takeover bid — one that promised shareholders a premium on their stock at $44 billion. Then, perhaps realizing his mistake in valuing Twitter as if it were a healthy business, Musk tried to renege on his offer, sparking a high-stakes legal battle.
The primary reason Dorsey was ousted is the same reason Musk could afford to buy Twitter, which is also the same reason Musk realized he was overpaying for Twitter. Its business simply isn’t healthy or lucrative enough to sustain a public social media platform of its global size and significance, at least without cutting a lot of corners.
Last week, Dorsey went so far as to say that his “biggest regret” is that Twitter became a company in the first place. While Dorsey may not be the most reliable analyst of Twitter’s troubles — a lot of which were his own doing — he’s not wrong that there’s a mismatch between the company’s basic product architecture and its mandate to make piles of money from advertising.
Founded in 2006, Twitter’s growth exploded in its early years, and by the 2010 Arab Spring it was being hailed as a world-changing hub for free speech. Unlike Facebook, it allowed users to remain anonymous, and flaunted an “anything goes” approach that allowed activists and dissidents to speak truth to power — while also tolerating racism, bullying, bots and pornography. In many ways, Twitter was built to be unpoliceable.
Like Facebook and YouTube, Twitter turned to advertising to make money, promising to connect businesses with users based on their interests. But its evolution into a site notorious for put-downs, pile-ons, and political arguments — not to mention the porn — made it a queasy fit for buttoned-down corporate brands. And the intensity of the Twitter experience, with its rapid-fire feed assaulting users with contextless, endlessly juxtaposed textbites, has limited its appeal beyond the chattering classes.
In recent years, the company has earnestly sought to tamp down the nastiness and build new products with mass appeal, from the short-video tool Vine to the live-streaming site Periscope to the live-audio feature Spaces. While the ideas were inspired, the execution was often lacking, and the one thing that turned out to entrench Twitter as an essential part of the public square — Donald Trump’s Twitter-fueled presidency — only exacerbated its core problems.
Over the past few years, under Dorsey, Twitter had attracted cadres of high-minded employees determined to round off its rough edges and remold it into a venue for “healthy conversations.” But the company’s shareholders lost patience with his introspection and experimentation and issued ultimatums that forced the company’s executives to prioritize growth over all else.
It’s no surprise, then, that the microscope that has been held up to the firm over the past year has revealed various forms of rot in its innards.
Twitter's top lawyer long weighed safety, free speech. Then Musk called her out.
Last week, The Washington Post and CNN first reported that Twitter’s former security chief had turned federal whistleblower, leading to Congressional inquiries into its allegedly flawed security practices, among other issues. (Twitter has denied many of the allegations, calling the report a “false narrative.”)
And on Tuesday, Twitter confirmed a report by tech site The Verge that it recently halted plans for a product that would have allowed adult performers to charge users for subscriptions to pornographic content, with Twitter taking a cut — a business model similar to the adult site OnlyFans.
According to The Verge, an internal “red team” — a group of Twitter employees tasked with finding the weaknesses or flaws in a product — found that the company was already failing to police material on its main platform that depicts the sexual exploitation or abuse of minors. As a result, Twitter abandoned the project earlier this year.
In Twitter’s euphemistic words, it was an “ongoing and reflective dialogue on the topic that brought us to the decision to pause the workstream for the right reason and prioritize elsewhere,” per a statement from spokesperson Celeste Carswell.
“Twitter has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation,” Carswell said. “We aggressively fight online child sexual abuse and have invested in technology and tools to enforce our policy.”
If there’s a bright side to this story, it’s that Twitter was at least prudent enough to pump the brakes on a bad idea after a careful internal review of the potential harms. That’s a more responsible approach than the “move fast and break things” ethos of early Facebook and many other hard-charging tech firms.
But it’s also worth pausing to note just how wild it is that one of the world’s most influential public tech companies was so strapped for new revenue streams that it was even considering a pivot to porn in the first place. Imagine Google, Facebook, or TikTok trying that.
Less shocking is the revelation that Twitter deemed its child sexual abuse material — or CSAM — problem to be insurmountable, at least in the short term. It has the same roots as Twitter’s spam problem, its fake accounts problem, its extremism problem, and its misinformation problem. That is, it’s what happens when you build a vast, global platform where anyone can post anything anonymously — and then try to police it with the perpetually limited resources of a company that’s forever falling short of its financial goals.
Of course, every big social platform struggles with these issues. Twitter just faces a more daunting task than Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and others, because it isn’t minting the money needed to finance huge content moderation investments.
At one point in Musk’s takeover bid, when it looked like the Tesla titan still wanted to acquire Twitter, Dorsey praised him as the “singular solution” to the company’s problems. By taking the firm private, Dorsey reasoned, Musk could insulate it from short-term financial pressures and make the investments needed to realize its grandest visions. (Exactly what those visions entailed has never been coherently explained; something about decentralization.)
Instead, Musk is suing the company to get out of the deal, based on the claim that it misled investors about the prevalence of spam and bots on its site. At the same time, the idealistic Twitter employees tasked with fixing its flaws have been fleeing.
By now it’s clear that Musk has only amplified Twitter’s problems. As for a solution, it’s nowhere in sight. | 2022-08-30T23:14:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Twitter's problems predate Elon Musk’s takeover blowup - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/30/twitter-onlyfans-musk-problems/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/30/twitter-onlyfans-musk-problems/ |
Md. mayor who worked at KIPP stole $2.2 million from school, prosecutors say
Kevin Ward, who had died by suicide in January, allegedly used school funds to buy cars, sports memorabilia and property in West Virginia.
A former employee of KIPP DC is accused of stealing millions from the school. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)
A Maryland mayor who died by suicide this year had been accused of embezzling millions of dollars from one of the largest charter networks in the District, according to a complaint filed by federal prosecutors.
During his tenure as senior director of technology for KIPP DC, Kevin Ward used $2.2 million of school funds to purchase cars, a camper, sports memorabilia and property in West Virginia, prosecutors alleged in a civil forfeiture complaint filed Monday. Ward worked for the charter network from 2017 until at least July 2021, according to court records, two months after he was elected mayor of Hyattsville.
The payments, approved and arranged by Ward, were supposed to go toward laptops, tablets and other technology for children, prosecutors say. However, none of the products or services for which the school system paid were ever delivered, according to court records.
Officials at KIPP DC, which enrolls about 7,000 students across eight campuses in the District, said they found irregularities with certain technology purchases during a routine internal review in December. Leaders suspected fraud and contacted the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, which launched an investigation, the school said in a statement.
The school system also conducted its own review, led by outside counsel and a team of forensics accountants, which found “this was an isolated incident conducted by a single individual who took advantage of extraordinary circumstances during the pandemic and the individual’s role as head of technology.”
School leaders said they have already recovered $1 million from its insurance provider and are “optimistic” the Justice Department’s recovery process will return more than $800,000 of the missing funds.
KIPP officials said they have taken steps to prevent future fraud by “closing any gaps in our existing systems, making organizational design changes, implementing new policies and procedures within the systems we have, and evaluating longer term systemic solutions.”
“We take our financial responsibility seriously and continue to improve our financial controls and asset management based on the findings of our internal review,” the school system said in a statement.
A beloved mayor’s suicide devastated his city and left an agonizing question: Why?
The complaint asserts KIPP DC paid companies Tenret Tech and Vast Systems for technology services and thousands of devices — including 1,000 Android tablets, 150 MacBook Air laptops and 3,400 Acer Chromebooks — between April 3, 2020 and Oct. 27, 2021. The complaint is attempting to seize the property that was acquired.
While the devices never materialized, students learning from home were able to use devices the school system had purchased from other vendors, said Adam Rupe, a spokesman for KIPP DC.
Tenret Tech was a Maryland corporation registered in April 2020, court records show. The company’s documents identify Ward as its authorized person and resident agent, and list Ward’s home address as its own, according to the complaint. Prosecutors say Vast Systems is an affiliate of Tenret Tech, and eventually purported to do business as Tenret Tech.
Ward died by suicide on Jan. 25 at the age of 44. He was found in a public park in McLean with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said. At the time of his death, Ward was serving as mayor of the city of Hyattsville in Prince George’s County.
He had been elected to the job in 2021 after serving two terms on the City Council.
Ward was beloved by many Hyattsville residents, who after his death displayed purple lights and ribbons from their homes in memory of their late mayor and his favorite color.
In a statement Tuesday, a spokesperson for the city said Hyattsville officials learned of the federal civil complaint through news reports. The statement assured community members that no elected officials have access to the city’s cash account and that the spending of taxpayer dollars goes through a “robust, multi-layered approval process.”
“We know this may be difficult news for members of the Hyattsville community,” the statement said. It encouraged anyone struggling to reach out to the 988 Crisis Lifeline for help.
Ward’s death shocked the tightknit community, his colleagues and those closest to him, including friends and family, who struggled to understand what had gone wrong.
Those who knew him spoke of his warmth, generosity, eagerness to help others and dedication as a father and husband. Ward’s family could not be reached Tuesday.
If you or someone you know needs help, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988. You can also text a crisis counselor by messaging the Crisis Text Line at 741741. | 2022-08-31T00:11:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kevin Ward, a Hyattsville mayor who killed himself, accused of stealing from KIPP DC - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/kipp-dc-stolen-funds-hyattsville-mayor/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/30/kipp-dc-stolen-funds-hyattsville-mayor/ |
Gorbachev lost his country but changed the world
Mikhail Gorbachev during a news conference in Moscow in 1996. (Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images)
The tumultuous events of the Soviet Union during the 20th century — Stalin’s Great Terror, the unimaginable losses of World War II, hardships, thaws, stagnation — all directly touched Mikhail Gorbachev. From a village boy to a party official, he saw a reality strikingly different than the Communist Party slogans. He saw a people living in poverty, disenfranchised, ruled by a distant, stuffy elite, a nation of vast wealth sucked dry by over-militarization. And most remarkably, Mr. Gorbachev kept these realizations to himself, rising through the ranks and then, at the top, embarking on an epochal quest for change. On being chosen Soviet leader in March 1985, he told his wife, Raisa, “We can’t go on living like this.”
Mr. Gorbachev, who died Tuesday at 91, never intended to destroy the Soviet system. But in a lifetime inside it, he saw its decay and the need for change. While many in the West viewed the Soviet Union as an implacable Cold War adversary and a rigid party hierarchy, Mr. Gorbachev saw cracks and failures, and drew lessons from them. In Stavropol, he had set out on a conformist career path in the Komsomol. Once, the job brought him to a rural village of low, smoke-belching huts along the River Gorkaya Balka. He was shocked at what lay before him: poverty and desolation. “On the hillside, I wondered: ‘How is it possible, how can anyone live like that?’ ” he later reflected. Another time, after Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces crushed the Prague Spring, Mr. Gorbachev visited a factory in the Czech city of Brno as part of a Soviet delegation. The workers refused even to talk to Mr. Gorbachev. “This was a shock to me,” he later said. “This visit overturned all my conceptions.” He realized that the Soviet use of force had been a mistake.
Upon becoming Soviet leader, Mr. Gorbachev’s greatest objectives were to save the country at home by unleashing the forces of openness and political pluralism, hoping they could heal the troubles he had witnessed for so long. His first objective was to make socialism work better. He wanted to save his country.
The changes he brought about were astonishing. He opened intellectual life and lifted the veil on much of the Soviet past — on the cruelty, violence and savage repression. Mr. Gorbachev brought about the first relatively free election since the Bolshevik Revolution in voting for a new Soviet legislature in 1989, the Congress of People’s Deputies. The Communist Party establishment took a shellacking. When the new legislature met for the first time, the proceedings were broadcast on television; the country was transfixed by debates that broke new ground in freedom of speech. Mr. Gorbachev, the party, the KGB and the military were lambasted with open and often trenchant criticism. The virus of freedom seemed to be spreading fast.
Mr. Gorbachev tried to wind down the arms race with the United States, which he knew was stretching the Soviet Union beyond its limits. The series of summits he conducted with President Ronald Reagan electrified the world and led to sizable reductions in the mountains of nuclear warheads.
Mr. Gorbachev often miscalculated, including a failure to foresee how his rapid opening would undermine faith in the Communist system and intensify the ambitions of even more radical reformers — as well as fire up the nationalities that yearned for independence. But his legacy was to make the world safer. He helped brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race and allowed a peaceful revolution to unfold in Europe. For these and other accomplishments, he deserved and won the Nobel Peace Prize. He also deserves thanks for being the wide-eyed village boy who paid attention to all he saw around him — and acted upon it. | 2022-08-31T00:25:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Mikhail Gorbachev lost the Soviet Union but changed the world - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/we-cant-go-living-like-this-gorbachev-lost-his-country-changed-world/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/30/we-cant-go-living-like-this-gorbachev-lost-his-country-changed-world/ |
The space agency says it believes it can overcome the technical issues that forced it to cancel Monday’s try
The Artemis I unmanned lunar rocket sits on the launchpad. (Gregg Newton/AFP/Getty Images)
NASA is going to attempt to launch its massive Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to the moon Saturday afternoon, after an attempt Monday was canceled when a series of problems marred the effort.
Honeycutt said that replacing the sensor on the pad “would be tricky.” Instead, NASA should be able to tell if the engines are at the right temperature by looking at an array of data sources instead of relying on a single sensor. Also, NASA officials said they would make a procedural change and start chilling the engines 30 to 45 minutes earlier, as they did during the successful test last year in Mississippi, to give them more time to work through any problems.
During a previous fueling test, NASA never got to the point where it flowed the liquid hydrogen in because it had a leak, forcing the agency to end the test before getting to that step.
The Artemis program is an ambitious attempt by the agency to return astronauts to the moon for the first time since the Apollo era. (In Greek mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo.) The first of the Artemis missions, Artemis I, is designed to send the Orion spacecraft in orbit around the moon without any astronauts on board. The next flight, Artemis II, would send as many as four astronauts in the capsule, again to orbit but not land on the moon. If all goes to plan, a landing would come sometime in 2025 or 2026. | 2022-08-31T00:26:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Saturday is NASA's new Artemis I launch date - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/30/nasa-sls-launch-plans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/30/nasa-sls-launch-plans/ |
“I’m honored that this organization has put the faith in me ... that I’m able to go ahead and lead this team for the rest of this year and next year,” Lovullo said. “I don’t want to let them down. This is my home. My wife and I love the Valley, and I couldn’t think of a better situation to be in with great ownership, great leadership.” | 2022-08-31T01:56:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D-backs exercise '23 option for manager Torey Lovullo - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mlb/d-backs-exercise-23-option-for-manager-torey-lovullo/2022/08/30/5f139e4a-289c-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mlb/d-backs-exercise-23-option-for-manager-torey-lovullo/2022/08/30/5f139e4a-289c-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
Justice Dept. says Trump team may have hidden or moved classified papers
Prosecutors’ filing suggests Trump advisers misled officials trying to recover sensitive papers; photo shows papers marked “Top Secret” spread out on the floor.
An image provided by the Department of Justice shows partially redacted documents with classified markings, including colored cover sheets indicating their status, that FBI agents reported finding at Trump's office in Mar-a-Lago. (Courtesy of Department of Justice)
Former president Donald Trump and his advisers repeatedly failed to turn over highly classified government documents, even after receiving a subpoena and pledging a “diligent search” had been conducted, leading to an FBI raid of his Florida home that found more than 100 additional classified documents, according to a blistering court filing by federal prosecutors late Tuesday.
The filing traces the extraordinary saga of government officials’ repeated efforts to recover sensitive national security papers from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and club. It charges that some of the boxes held in a storage room “were not returned prior to counsel’s review” of the material — suggesting that while the government was demanding all classified material be secured in that storage room, someone was continuing to move or hide papers.
When agents conducted their court-ordered search on Aug. 8, they found material so sensitive that “even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents," the filing says.
The filing includes a photograph showing a number of files labeled “Top Secret” spread out over a carpet, and says those documents were recovered from a container in Trump’s office.
The filing also reveals, for the first time, the text of a written assurance given to the Justice Department on June 3 that says Trump’s advisers had done a thorough search for any classified material. The former president’s lawyer turned over about 50 additional classified documents, in addition to 184 others that were discovered in boxes sent to the National Archives earlier in the year, the filing says.
Yet when FBI agents searched the Trump property in August, they found more than 100 more classified papers, which, prosecutors wrote, “calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter.”
Mar-a-Lago affidavit: many witnesses interviewed, 184 classified files returned in January
The filing to U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon comes ahead of a scheduled Thursday hearing on a request by Trump’s lawyers to have a special master appointed to review the files. The Justice Department notified the court Monday that a “filter team” of law enforcement officials had already finished their examination of possibly privileged documents seized in the Aug. 8 search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Trump’s legal team filed the request for a special master two weeks after the search, calling the court-approved law enforcement action a “shockingly aggressive,” politically motivated raid. The former president’s attorneys claimed that federal authorities seized records to which they had no legal right.
But their motion centered on the assertion that much of the seized material contained presidential communications and was, therefore, shielded by executive privilege. Executive privilege is usually invoked to shield communications from Congress or the courts, not another department of the executive government, such as the Justice Department.
In their filing Tuesday night, federal prosecutors pushed back on what they called “the wide-ranging meritless accusations leveled against the government” by Trump’s lawyers. The request for a special master was pointless, the government reasoned, because their review of the documents was already complete. The judge should reject Trump’s demands to get the documents back “because those records do not belong to him,” but are rather the property of the government, the filing said.
Although Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020, said on Saturday that she was inclined to appoint a special master, she also said her order “should not be construed as a final determination on Plaintiff’s Motion.”
Federal authorities took 33 items of evidence, most of them boxes, from Mar-a-Lago during the search, according to the new filing, which said 13 of the boxes contained classified documents, some categorized as top secret. Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, told lawmakers Friday that U.S. intelligence analysts will conduct a review of the classified materials to determine the potential risk to national security if their contents were disclosed.
Trump's Mar-a-Lago documents and the 'mythe' of presidential security clearance | 2022-08-31T04:45:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Justice Dept. says Trump team may have hidden or moved classified papers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/31/trump-documents-removed-storage-room/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/31/trump-documents-removed-storage-room/ |
Helen has been in and out of rehab four times since then, and her children and others have revealed that her drinking has been an issue for about 17 years, the last 10 of which Helen has been working as a nanny and drinking on the job.
I, and other family members, have been very clear that we think this is unethical and dangerous, but she refuses to consider other options, because she can make $25 to $30 an hour instead of $15 to $17 in another job.
She will be in a sober-living house with drug testing for a few months, but is that enough? My husband and friends feel as if I shouldn’t get involved. Should I?
Worried: To clarify, parents who work from home hire child-care help in part to drive their children places and to run errands using the car.
You state that you know your sister is drinking on the job, and if so, you are ethically bound to try to warn the family she is working for of the risk she poses.
You don’t state exactly why “Helen” has been bouncing from job to job (is she quitting or getting fired?) and it’s a mystery that the parents who hire her don’t discover her job (or rehab) history. She is either supplying false information about this, or they (wrongly) assume that hiring someone off a Facebook page is the same as going through a bonded and professional nanny service.
You should tell Helen that if you learn that she is taking in-home child-care positions, you will do your best to contact the family, urge them to do their due diligence and warn them of the risk she might pose.
This might not seem fair to someone who is out of rehab and sober, but given her addiction history and the way she cycles in and out, her ability to maintain her sobriety should not be assumed.
Nanny positions might pay well, but this sort of work is very demanding, and it’s also frequently repetitive and boring. In addition to the risk she poses to the children in her care, this sort of work might not be good for maintaining her sobriety.
Sometimes these are text chains about her job (which she hates) or her mother (whom she dislikes) or just funny (?) videos she’s seen on Instagram or TikTok.
Can you suggest how to respond after the 10th or so text to nip it in the bud?
Texted: You’ve asked about how to interrupt the text stream. You could respond: “Sorry, but I’m taking a digital break. Let’s set up a time to talk?”
Otherwise, I suggest you use the “do not disturb” function on your phone and simply not reply at all.
A Will: Absolutely! Thank you. | 2022-08-31T04:49:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: My sister is a nanny. Should I tell her employers she’s an alcoholic? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/31/ask-amy-sister-nanny-alcoholic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/31/ask-amy-sister-nanny-alcoholic/ |
Dear Carolyn: I have a very dear, long-term friend who is increasingly unable to talk about anything involving negative information. She quite literally has begun having physical reactions to conversations about politics, current events and anything she deems too “deep,” such as philosophy, religion and psychology. She frequently tells me to not bring up “x,” where x is whatever constitutes the uncomfortable subject du jour.
But here’s the kicker: She feels quite free to bring up all kinds of [stuff] herself, including the aforementioned “x,” but as soon as I respond, she folds up like a cheap tent and declares she only wants to talk about happy stuff.
Is it worth challenging her on this, or should I just reframe her as someone I simply can’t have a meaningful conversation with anymore?
— Frustrated Friend
Frustrated Friend: I get the frustration, but she sounds more like a mess than a menace.
These things are on her mind and they upset her, check. Easy to sympathize with that. She doesn’t want to talk about them, check. She wisely is upfront with friends that she doesn’t want to talk about this stuff, check. She is still preoccupied by these topics so they fall out of her mouth sometimes, and when they do, that doesn’t mean she wants to talk about them, it just means she had the kind of self-discipline lapse that people tend to have when they’re upset.
Check, right?
My version uses the same set of facts as yours, but it’s an interpretation that gives her the benefit of at least some doubt that your phrasing — that she “feels quite free to bring up all kinds of [stuff] herself” — doesn’t grant.
Friendship questions come to this a lot: If she’s a very dear friend, then doesn’t she deserve that benefit, and if she doesn’t deserve it, then is she really a very dear friend?
We’re all a little worn down by “politics, current events, and anything … ‘deep.’ ” Like, laundry-soaked-in-lye-soap-and-beaten-over-river-rocks-and-cranked-through-a-wringer-daily-for-several-years worn down. So that could certainly explain why someone might develop a touch of conversational incontinence.
If you agree — or even if you don’t, what the hell, in the name of enduring friendship — then try extending her some grace instead of “challenging” her next time she talks [stuff]. “Does this mean you really want to discuss [stuff], or did that just leak out?”
I wonder if we can get, “It’s the empathy, stupid,” to catch on.
Dear Carolyn: How do I move on from my divorce? It’s been 15 months since I left the ex and nine months since the ink was dry. She seems to have moved on, but for me, it’s a slow, painful journey away from that 20-year relationship. It is better than it was, but it still hurts.
— Divorce
Divorce: You’re moving, at least, and sometimes that has to do. The “on” will happen when it’s ready.
Big wounds can take years to close.
As for your ex, maybe you’re right that she’s moved on — people just have their own pace for healing. Scouring someone’s recovery for meaningful information is basically self-torture. But it’s also possible she just looks fine from the outside. You simply can’t know.
Either way, the full extent of the significance of the progress each of you has made relative to the other is covered by this: “godspeed.” Two separate journeys from here. | 2022-08-31T04:50:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Friend demands 'happy' topics, then breaks her own rule - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/31/carolyn-hax-friend-conversation-positivity/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/31/carolyn-hax-friend-conversation-positivity/ |
You can graciously disengage yourself in any number of ways, from the “I’m sorry, but I really have to go” to the “I think I hear my mother calling.”
But all of these options require time. What you really want is a method for not stopping, for which Miss Manners recommends acquiring a mental mind-set of yourself as a ship that requires miles to stop: Wave and smile as momentum carries you out of range of your talkative neighbor.
“That sounds like information for your doctor, not me” would be better than “Ew!!!”
With a one-week invitation, half a week is more than enough time for a reasonable person to respond. If, after that time, no response has been given, Miss Manners suggests a follow-up that politely makes up their mind for them: “So sorry you can’t make it this weekend. Let’s reschedule.” | 2022-08-31T04:50:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: How do I prevent interruptions to my morning walk - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/31/miss-manners-fast-walker-neighbors/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/31/miss-manners-fast-walker-neighbors/ |
First, there was anger, then protests, then a spasm of violence that left dozens dead and hundreds wounded. Now, there’s only an uneasy and fragile calm. For the better part of two decades, Baghdad has endured strife, instability and tragedy in equal measure. But the chaos that engulfed the Iraqi capital on Monday night and Tuesday morning marked the deadliest round of violence in years.
Supporters of prominent Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr clashed with Iraqi security forces and Iran-allied militias in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone and stormed the presidential palace. The sound of machine-gun fire and the thud of rocket-propelled grenades rocked the heart of the city. The violence sprawled across the country, with Sadrists attacking the offices of factions linked to Iran in various cities. More than 30 people were killed, with the death toll expected to rise at the time of writing.
But by Tuesday afternoon, Sadr called on his followers to withdraw and lamented the loss of life. For his supposed restraint, he earned the plaudits of Iraqi President Barham Salih and Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who has been operating in a caretaker role as Iraqi politicians have failed for almost a year to form a government.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. Sadr, who in the previous decade led anti-American revolts and is a fixture in Iraqi politics, positions himself as a populist nationalist and commands significant, though by no means total, support from Iraqi Shiites. His gambit is part of an evolving intra-Shiite rivalry in the country that threatens to destabilize a frail state even further and complicates the equation for Iran’s theocratic regime, which has long exercised influence over Baghdad.
Iraq’s political dysfunction “has been a feature of civic life since the U.S. invasion nearly two decades ago entrenched a sectarian, kleptocratic order,” wrote my colleagues Mustafa Salim and Kareem Fahim.
Sadr is opposed by a rival Shiite grouping, marshaled by former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki — a figure notorious in Washington for his alleged corruption and shoddy governance that enabled the rise of the Islamic State in 2014. The maneuverings of these two camps led to a fractious summer that culminated in the explosion of open conflict this week.
There’s little evidence that Sadr and Maliki, let alone a whole constellation of other actors jostling for power, will be able to settle their differences soon. Sadr’s announcement Monday that he was “retiring” from politics triggered the rampage of his supporters; in the aftermath of the clashes, he is hardly disappearing from the scene. “Whether dialogue will now be possible in Iraq is unsure, but the very fact that the prime minister of Iraq was compelled to commend Sadr for shutting down a conflagration he was largely responsible for is arguably an indication of how much power he has,” noted the Middle East Eye.
The prospect of fresh clashes looms. “The biggest loser is the state, standing idly by while two powerful armed parties continue to struggle for control,” tweeted Sajad Jiyad, a Baghdad-based fellow for the Century Foundation, a U.S. think tank. “Unless a proper solution is reached, more protests and violence are possible.”
Hanging over the current tensions is a deeper malaise. In recent years, a protest movement fueled by a generation of frustrated youth has massed against the political status quo to which Sadr belongs, but also opportunistically opposes. There’s little prospect of significant reform to satisfy their demands and deploy the nation’s vast oil wealth to better address its people’s needs.
The system in Baghdad, of course, is a legacy of both American invasion and occupation and the overweening Iranian influence that found its way into the corridors of power after the removal of dictator Saddam Hussein. The Shiite power of the Middle East has a direct line to major factions in Iraq, including the Popular Mobilization Forces — militias that were instrumental in the fight against the Islamic State but now are resented by many Iraqis as the bullying proxies of a meddling regime. In recent months, Sadr publicly fell out with Iranian officials and has stepped up his rhetoric against Tehran. | 2022-08-31T04:59:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Iraq’s violence reflects an enduring dysfunction - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/iraq-violence-political-dysfunction/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/iraq-violence-political-dysfunction/ |
Monkeypox outbreak can be eliminated in Europe, WHO says as cases fall
A nurse vaccinates a patient against monkeypox in Montpellier, southern France, on Aug. 23. (Pascal Guyot/AFP/Getty Images)
A slowdown in monkeypox cases has boosted confidence that the outbreak can be eliminated in Europe, World Health Organization officials said Tuesday.
Despite limited vaccine supplies, many European countries — including France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom — have seen sustained week-on-week declines in new infections. Some parts of the United States also reported a slowdown.
“We believe we can eliminate sustained human-to-human transmission of monkeypox in the region,” Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, said in an online press briefing Tuesday. “To move towards elimination in our region, we need to urgently step up our efforts.”
Kluge cited the example of Portugal, where government efforts to raise awareness have prompted people “to take precautions and modify their behavior, resulting in better health outcomes and helping curb the outbreak.”
Europe, which has confirmed more than 22,000 monkeypox cases (more than a third of the global tally), has so far authorized one monkeypox vaccine, a smallpox jab made by Danish firm Bavarian Nordic and marketed in Europe as Imvanex, but the supply is limited worldwide.
E.U., British, and U.S. regulators have authorized intradermal vaccination, which uses one-fifth of the traditional vaccine dose by injecting the vaccine under the first layer of the skin, thus increasing existing stock fivefold. In some European countries, the vaccination prioritizes LGBT sex workers who are considered especially at risk.
Monkeypox broke out in Europe in early May after reports of cases in a few countries in Africa. The WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency 10 weeks later.
The recent slowdown in European cases could be due to earlier detection and isolation, said Catherine Smallwood, monkeypox incident manager at the WHO’s Europe office.
“We do have some pretty good anecdotal evidence that people — particularly men who have sex with men, who are in particular risk groups — are much more informed about the disease,” Smallwood told a briefing.
“We need to build on that … and we firmly believe that if we continue to do that, we will be able to sustain this decline,” she said.
There are early signs that rates of new infections are also slowing in some major U.S. cities gripped by outbreaks, especially New York City, Chicago and San Francisco.
The United States recorded a daily average of 337 new cases last week, down about 25 percent from two weeks earlier, according to The Washington Post’s rolling seven-day average, although officials warned against over-optimism.
“The rate of rise is lower, but we are still seeing increases, and we are of course a very diverse country and things are not even across the country,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky told reporters Friday. | 2022-08-31T06:16:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monkeypox outbreak can be stopped in Europe, WHO says as cases fall - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/monkeypox-outbreak-europe-who/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/monkeypox-outbreak-europe-who/ |
Analysis by Izabella Kaminska | Bloomberg
Despite all the innovation in the app economy for matching supply and demand for physical services (think: Uber surge pricing), there is no equivalent for balancing distortions in funding markets in real time.
The world of “intraday” funding — i.e., cash borrowed during the day as opposed to overnight — remains highly dependent on excess liquidity from central banks, even as Federal Reserve officials move to accelerate the rate at which this is to be withdrawn over September and October. Once this de facto free liquidity is retracted, funding shortages could easily appear again, potentially toppling over into overnight and longer-term markets. If they do, market participants will have to come up with their own solution — or go cap in hand to the Fed and risk stigmatization.
Believe it or not, the world of crypto — which has never had recourse to a lender of last resort — can now be looked to for inspiration on how to navigate this tighter environment.
Take, for example, the perpetual swap (or perpetual future as it’s also known). Since its creation in 2016, it has become hugely popular in the highly parochial world of crypto trading due to the way it allows speculators to take synthetic positions that avoid the risk, cost and friction associated with having to move or manage actual cryptocurrency, which can be hacked, mismanaged or inaccessible if a password is lost.
Unlike conventional derivatives, the perpetual future never deviates from the spot price of the crypto it is referencing. Usually, if you trade one-month, two-month, or three-month futures of anything, the price will reflect premiums or discounts relative to the reference price — something known as basis. The perpetual swap’s design, by creating an active price for intraday funding, prevents that.
The combination of being able to trade crypto synthetically and without basis cost has helped turn BitMEX, the derivative exchange that first introduced the contract, into a key destination for crypto trading and a billion-dollar enterprise. The perpetual swap has since been replicated at many other exchanges in response to popular demand from users.
And yet, despite becoming one of the most important financial innovations to come out of the crypto space, the perpetual swap remains largely unknown in the world of traditional finance. This is mainly because the role that the contract plays in pricing intraday crypto vs. dollar liquidity is not well understood, even by crypto traders who use the contract frequently.
This especially applies to the mechanics of the premium index, which the contract is inadvertently underpinned by. The concept for the index hails from the fact that Ben Delo, the BitMEX co-founder most responsible for the perpetual swap’s invention, realized that if he was going to remove basis risk from the equation, he would have to get traders to pay for it separately. (In February, as part of a negotiated settlement, Delo and his BitMEX co-founders plead guilty to violating the US Bank Secrecy Act.)
In Delo’s mind, if traders who wanted to be long the market were forced to pay an active funding rate to those taking the opposite view just to keep positions open, this would encourage customers to take the other side of the trade. The process would balance the system and tether the perpetual contract with the spot price of bitcoin. The premium index was the means by which the funding rate was determined, and it was drawn from the degree to which the perpetual contract was trading over or under spot at the current funding rate. Any differential would then be used to adjust the funding rate for the next eight-hour period.
It is this kind of open-source mechanism that could be applied to conventional FX swap markets (and others) to help traders navigate tightening funding conditions. Just like with Uber’s surge-pricing system, if and when an imbalance manifested, they would be paid by the market to take the other side — returning the market to balance quickly. In theory, this would reduce the risk of short-term liquidity shortfalls turning into much broader systemic liquidity issues further down the line or ones that need plugging by more formal central bank channels.
So far, JP Morgan Chase & Co.’s attempt to develop an internal “coin” to smooth the bank’s own internal funding imbalances comes closest to any serious effort to address similar issues in the financial system. The bank has been motivated to do this because it is already a de facto “second to last resort” lender to the market due to boasting excess liquidity on its balance sheet more often than not. That means before banks even think about going to the Fed’s overdraft facilities, they usually attempt to borrow from JP Morgan.
But being beholden to just two major lenders on an intraday basis is far from ideal. Adapting innovations such as the perpetual future system to dollar markets would increase options for accessing liquidity in the event of a major dollar shortfall, which becomes an ever greater possibility without the buffer of excess reserves.
It’s important to remember that all overnight funding issues originate from intraday ones that cannot be matched effectively in time. The only reason the market never engineered its own tools to better trade intraday funds is because there was little to no stigma from using Fed overdraft facilities up until the global financial crisis. Since then, quantitative easing has obscured the imbalance issue. The Fed’s tightening path, however, is likely to change that.
Luckily, thanks to the perpetual swap, we have the tools to trade intraday funding more efficiently. They should be creatively deployed as soon as possible.
• China’s Economic Caution Is a Problem For Us All: Daniel Moss
Izabella Kaminska is founder and editor of the Blind Spot. She spent 13 years at the Financial Times, most recently as the editor of FT Alphaville. | 2022-08-31T06:30:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Crypto Innovation Traditional Finance Needs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-crypto-innovation-traditional-finance-needs/2022/08/31/941a313c-28ea-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-crypto-innovation-traditional-finance-needs/2022/08/31/941a313c-28ea-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 31 before setting off with his team for the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. (Sergei Chuzavkov/AFP/Getty Images)
KYIV, UKRAINE — A team of United Nations nuclear experts packed into a convoy of armored vehicles in Ukraine’s capital on Wednesday and drove off to the embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the culmination of six months of painstaking international negotiations aimed at preventing a catastrophe at the facility.
“We are going to a war zone,” said Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose team of more than a dozen experts will inspect a Russian-occupied plant that has experienced artillery shelling and power outages, among several other challenges, in recent months.
Grossi said the goal of his multi-day inspection was to setup a permanent monitoring mission at the plant, “assess the real situation there” and to help “stabilize the situation as much as we can.” He also plans to interview the plant’s Ukrainian workers, whom Ukrainian officials say have been subject to intimidation and abuse at the hands of Russian captors who control Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
“That’s one of the most important things I want to do, and I will do,” said Grossi.
Ukrainian officials have called on Russian forces to vacate the plant and accused them of firing mortars onto the site and seeking to disconnect the facility from Ukraine’s power grid. Russian forces have refused to leave, saying they are there to ensure safety of the facility; they have, in turn, accused Ukraine of shelling the plant.
Grossi said he received explicit guarantees from the warring sides of safe passage to the facility in southeastern Ukraine, a contested area that has been the target of constant artillery barrages between the warring countries.
“We are going to occupied territory, and this requires the explicit guarantees, not only from the Russian Federation, also, from the Republic of Ukraine, and we have been able to secure that,” he said. | 2022-08-31T07:13:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | IAEA chief heads to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/ukraine-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-iaea-grossi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/ukraine-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-iaea-grossi/ |
Singapore bars its only Olympic champ from competing after cannabis use
Singapore's Joseph Schooling at the World Swimming Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, in 2019. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
SINGAPORE — Joseph Schooling, Singapore’s only Olympic gold medalist, has been effectively suspended from training and competing after the swimmer admitted to consuming cannabis overseas.
Schooling catapulted to international fame when he beat his childhood idol Michael Phelps in the men’s 100-meter butterfly race at the 2016 Rio Summer Games, clinching the Southeast Asian nation’s first ever Olympic gold medal. He is currently serving mandatory military service and will no longer be given leave to train and compete during conscription, Singapore’s Defense Ministry said.
The 27-year-old is serving in the military at an age when many elite swimmers are near peak performance, and the suspension could take him out of the running for major competitions, including the 2023 Southeast Asian Games in Cambodia. (Schooling has previously said he is considering retiring from professional swimming.) He will also be required to undergo urine tests for six months.
“I am sorry that my actions have caused hurt to everyone around me, especially to my family and the young fans who look up to me. I gave in to a moment of weakness after going through a very tough period of my life,” Schooling, who also swam for the University of Texas at Austin, said in a Tuesday night statement. “I will make amends and right what is wrong. I won’t let you down again.”
Singapore has some of the world’s strictest drug laws and punishes citizens who use drugs even when they are consumed abroad. Those charged with cannabis consumption face up to 10 years behind bars and a large fine; and anyone caught with more than 1.1 pounds of marijuana or 0.5 ounces of heroin can be hanged. Conscripts who test positive for drugs can be sentenced to a nine-month term in military detention.
Schooling was Singapore’s most beloved athlete. Known as the island’s “Golden Boy,” he returned from the Rio Olympics to the cheers of thousands of supporters in a victory tour. The local Straits Times newspaper named the Schooling family Singaporean of the Year in 2016, and he was awarded a roughly $700,000 cash prize by the country’s National Olympic Council.
But many fans turned on him when he failed to qualify for the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021, coming in last in the 100-meter butterfly heat. The swimmer was subject to so much online vitriol that Singapore’s president stepped in and urged citizens to lay off.
Schooling’s father, who supported him throughout his career, died last year of liver cancer. The swimmer has also spoken of how pressure affected his mental health.
Schooling and another Singaporean swimmer, Amanda Lim, were investigated by Singapore’s drug enforcement agency, according to Sport Singapore, the country’s national sports body. Schooling’s urine sample came back clean, but the swimmer admitted to using cannabis abroad. He had competed in this year’s Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam, where he won two gold medals and a bronze. It is not clear what prompted the initial investigation.
“Drugs have no place in our society and we take a zero-tolerance stance towards illegal drug use,” said Singapore Swimming Association President Mark Chay, according to local media reports. “This message, along with the expectations for our national athletes to uphold the highest standards of conduct, will be strongly reinforced amongst our community through our national coaches and affiliates.”
In January, Schooling enlisted for military service that’s required of all male citizens but was granted leave for training and competitions.
Studies have shown that cannabis use is generally neutral or detrimental to athletic performance, though there is evidence it can help reduce anxiety and muscle pain.
Schooling is not the only athlete to be suspended over marijuana use. In July 2021, U.S. sprinting champion Sha’Carri Richardson received a one-month suspension after urine tests showed the presence of THC, a component in marijuana. Richardson, one of the fastest runners in U.S. history, was not able to compete in the subsequent Tokyo Summer Games. And in 2009, Phelps was suspended for three months after a photo of him holding a marijuana pipe to his mouth was published by a British tabloid. | 2022-08-31T07:57:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Singapore swim champion Joseph Schooling suspended for cannabis use - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/joseph-schooling-cannabis-singapore-sea-games/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/joseph-schooling-cannabis-singapore-sea-games/ |
NEW YORK — Emma Raducanu became only the third defending U.S. Open champion to lose in the first round, eliminated by Alizé Cornet 6-3, 6-3. And yet another past champ bowed out in straight sets when Naomi Osaka, who won two of her four Grand Slam titles in New York, was eliminated by Australian Open runner-up Danielle Collins 7-6 (5), 6-3 in a match that ended after midnight. | 2022-08-31T08:01:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tuesday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tuesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/08/31/80992f7e-28f8-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tuesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/08/31/80992f7e-28f8-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
Park workers inspect a giant tortoise on the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador in January 2020. (Tui De Roy/AP)
Authorities in Ecuador are investigating the deaths of four giant tortoises in the Galápagos, a South American archipelago that is a haven for all kinds of rare wildlife, amid fears they were killed by poachers for their meat.
The State Attorney General’s Office said Tuesday that a division specializing in crimes against the environment has opened a preliminary investigation into the alleged “hunting and slaughter” of the tortoises, which occurred in the wetland complex of the Galápagos National Park.
The team includes experts in animal necropsy, and investigators will also interview park officials to help piece together what happened to the tortoises, Ecuadoran prosecutors said.
Tortoise meat was once considered a delicacy, and incidents over the past few years have raised concerns that Ecuador is becoming ensnared in the global wildlife trade.
Last September, park rangers found the remains of 15 giant tortoises on the Galápagos archipelago’s largest island, Isabela, amid signs they had been killed by hunters. In March of last year, 185 critically endangered tortoise hatchlings were found inside a suitcase during a routine inspection at an airport in the Galápagos.
Giant tortoises are endangered, and killing them is illegal under Ecuadoran law, punishable by up to three years in prison.
The Galápagos Conservancy, a U.S. nonprofit organization, condemned the latest killings, describing the poaching and eating of giant tortoises as an “environmental crime.”
Ecuador expands protections around Galápagos, creating ‘a new highway’ for sea life
Charles Darwin once described the Galápagos as “a little world within itself.” Many of the tortoises and other animals he saw there in 1835 — inspiring his ideas on evolution — are found nowhere else on Earth.
But over the years, invasive species, climate change, overfishing and the effects of human activity have dramatically altered the Galápagos ecosystems. Giant tortoises were almost wiped out there in the 18th and 19th centuries by whalers and other sailors, as well as by invasive species such as goats.
Ecuadoran President Guillermo Lasso in January expanded protections around the Galápagos, creating “a new highway” for sea life. The decree curbed fishing in more than 20,000 square miles of ocean to the northeast of the archipelago, where schools of bulbous whale sharks and trim scalloped hammerheads were previously vulnerable to being hauled up by fishers for their prized fins.
Galápagos tortoises can grow to more than five feet long and 500 pounds and live for more than 100 years. There are about a dozen species of Galápagos Island tortoise — all of which are under threat, from vulnerable to critically endangered.
In June, scientists announced they had sequenced the entire genome of a rare Galápagos species with a huge, flared shell — first spotted by conservationists and explorers in 2019 — and found that it was of the same lineage as a tortoise believed to have been extinct for more than 100 years.
Giant tortoise believed extinct confirmed alive in Galápagos Islands
“This recent poaching incident is particularly egregious as very few individuals of the subspecies Chelonoidis guntheri remain in the wild,” the Galápagos Conservancy said in a statement. “We must safeguard giant tortoises and the ecosystems they depend on.”
Dino Grandoni and Sammy Westfall contributed to this report. | 2022-08-31T08:01:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Galápagos giant tortoises being killed for meat, officials fear - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/galapagos-giant-tortoises-eaten-killed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/galapagos-giant-tortoises-eaten-killed/ |
Members of an International Atomic Energy Agency inspection team stands in front of Hyatt hotel in Kyiv on Aug. 31, 2022, before departing to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. (Sergei Chuzavkov/AFP/Getty Images)
A Ukrainian assault on Russian forces in the south is ongoing, and a team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency left the relative safety of Kyiv to head toward the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, where they’ll be assessing the potential damage caused by weeks of strikes around the sensitive facility. Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
The IAEA chief said the mission aims to establish a permanent monitoring presence at the plant. IAEA director general Rafael Grossi met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a short trip to Kyiv before setting off for the days-long mission. Grossi said he secured assurances from Moscow and Kyiv that his team will be safe as they travel behind the war’s front line. Zelensky and his advisers on Tuesday accused Russian forces of striking targets on the IAEA’s path to Zaporizhzhia; the Kremlin did not respond to the allegation, but previously said it supports the mission.
Ukraine may have succeeded in pushing Russia’s “front line back some distance in places" in the south, "exploiting relatively thinly held Russian defences,” the British Defense Ministry said Wednesday. Ukrainian officials have framed the uptick in fighting in the south, particularly around Kherson, as a counteroffensive. But the Pentagon did not describe it as such, and a Ukrainian official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said that a “counterattack” was too strong a term to describe what he said was “a normal operation.”
E.U. foreign ministers will debate whether to ban Russian tourists from the bloc during their second day of informal meetings in Prague. Countries are divided on the proposal, which has Zelensky’s backing and the support of the Baltic states, Finland, Poland and the Czech Republic. One potential compromise is the full suspension of a 2007 visa facilitation agreement with Russia, which would make it more difficult and expensive for Russian citizens to get tourist visas, according to diplomats.
Social media videos verified by The Washington Post shows smoke and gunfire in Kherson, which has been occupied by Russian forces since early in the war. Other videos posted online in recent days and verified by The Post show signs of damage to infrastructure and residential life in the region, including smoke near the strategic Antonovsky Bridge, destruction to a market, as well as bodies and burned military vehicles near the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.
Smoke was seen rising from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson in footage circulating on social media on Aug. 30. (Video: Twitter)
The U.S. Export-Import Bank will keep financing infrastructure projects in war-torn Ukraine, its chair and president Reta Jo Lewis said after meeting with representatives of the Ukrainian government, Reuters reported. “Russia’s actions will not deter EXIM from financing projects in Ukraine,” Lewis reportedly said, adding that the bank, which is part of the federal government, “will work to provide sustainable financing solutions that strengthen Ukraine’s infrastructure and prosperity.”
Inside occupied Ukraine, a photographer’s firsthand account: A Moscow-based photographer captured striking images of life in Russian-occupied towns and villages of Ukraine while on two separate press tours organized by the Kremlin. The photographer, whom The Washington Post is not naming to protect them as they continue to cover the war in Ukraine, told their story to The Post’s Ruby Mellen.
“As a Moscow-based photographer covering the war, I’d heard about these surreal press tours of Russian-seized Ukrainian towns run by the Defense Ministry,” the photographer told Mellen. “I knew these trips came with a healthy dose of Kremlin propaganda, but I was eager to photograph parts of the region few journalists could access. It was one of the only possibilities I had to see what life was like in places virtually cut off from the world.”
The photographer captured empty streets in Donetsk and utter ruin in Lysychansk, smelled death in the air in Mariupol and watched residents of Melitopol become Russian nationals as part of a process of “Russia-fication.” Together, these images and experiences offer a rare glimpse of what life is like for Ukrainians living under Russian military occupation.
Emily Rauhala and Sammy Westfall contributed to this report. | 2022-08-31T08:02:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
Former president Ronald Reagan, left, and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in California after the end of the Cold War. (Bob Galbraith/AP)
World leaders reacted to the death of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, in Moscow at the age of 91 on Tuesday, with Western leaders hailing him for opening up the Soviet Union and creating the conditions for the end of the Cold War.
President Biden, in a statement, called Gorbachev “a man of remarkable vision.” He also said that the Soviet leader’s policies of “glasnost” and “perestroika,” or openness and restructuring, were the “acts of a rare leader — one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it.”
To say he risked his career is perhaps an understatement — the dislike toward Gorbachev among many Soviet loyalists was so clear that it became the focus of a Pizza Hut commercial in which he starred. | 2022-08-31T08:27:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Putin, Biden and other leaders react to Mikhail Gorbachev death - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/mikhail-gorbachev-death-reaction-putin/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/mikhail-gorbachev-death-reaction-putin/ |
Why 70% Inflation Is Just One of Argentina’s Problems: QuickTake
Analysis by Patrick Gillespie | Bloomberg
Demonstrators with a sign “Argentina wants justice” during anti-government protests at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. Anti-Peronists took to the streets to protest the administration of President Alberto Fernandez and Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, as Kirchner faces a trial for alleged corruption during her presidency. (Bloomberg)
Argentina is facing some of the world’s highest inflation, with rates that have topped 70%. The government is on its third economy minister since July and President Alberto Fernandez’s leftist coalition looks permanently split. South America’s second-largest economy has almost no access to international capital, and it owes over $40 billion to the International Monetary Fund. Any bright spots? So far, a population hardened by decades of economic crisis has not turned to the kind of violent street protests that brought down the insolvent government of Sri Lanka. But the most likely paths forward all involve significant levels of pain.
1. How serious is Argentina’s crisis?
Argentina nosedived into an economic crisis in 2018 and it’s still far from fully recovered. Annual inflation has been above 50% about half the time since then, exacerbating three years of recession. Nearly 40% of Argentines live in poverty today, compared to about a quarter at the start of the crisis. Argentina has spent more time than almost any other nation in recession since the 1950s, according to the World Bank. Still, today’s price gains remains far from country’s last bout of hyperinflation in 1989 and 1990.
2. How did things get so bad?
A currency crisis led to the peso losing half of its value against the dollar in 2018. The IMF responded by loaning a record $57 billion to the government led by then-President Mauricio Macri, but the deal failed to stabilize the economy. Fernandez’s election in 2019 sparked a massive selloff in government bonds that his government later defaulted on. Without access to credit following the default, Fernandez printed money during the pandemic to finance cash handouts and salary programs, which set the stage for inflation to surge higher.
In March, the IMF and Fernandez negotiated a new deal with the IMF. The primary purpose from the government’s perspective is that it pushes out payments owed from the first program -- so long as Argentina complies with the deal. Although the original repayment schedule remains in place, the new deal disburses IMF money to Argentina in a timetable that refinances the original payments by at least four years. But the IMF doesn’t just give all the money at once. Argentina has to pass quarterly reviews where the government must show progress on key yardsticks, such as accumulating foreign reserves and cutting its fiscal deficit. If it doesn’t pass the so-called review, Argentina risks defaulting on the IMF loan, which would remove almost all remaining sources of international financing for the country.
4. Is Argentina at risk of running out of money?
The central bank is running low on net cash reserves, down to an estimated $2.1 billion as of last week, according to consulting firm Equilibra. Total reserves are at less than half the level they were in 2019. That’s raising the risk of a potential currency devaluation, which in the past has provoked social tension. The very expectation of a devaluation is causing more people to buy dollars, hold exports or speed up imports, exacerbating the government’s greenback drain. A gap between the official exchange rate and a smorgasbord of parallel rates has held above 100% for over a month, a level and stretch of time not seen since Argentina’s hyperinflation days. The gap creates perverse incentives, like buying stuff on a credit in dollars only to pay it down in pesos at a discount, that only put more pressure on the exchange rate.
5. What’s the government’s plan?
So far, there hasn’t really been one, besides trying to meet the goals set in the IMF deal. Fernandez said in a 2020 Financial Times interview: “Frankly, I don’t believe in economic plans.” The most consistent theme of his policies have been a reliance on piecemeal steps to limit economic pain, such as temporary price freezes and a ban on firing workers. That’s one reason markets are hoping new Economy Minister Sergio Massa will at least implement some of the tough policies built into the IMF deal. A key test will be whether Massa can address energy subsidies that have largely protected Argentines from the soaring utility prices seen around the world.
6. How does politics figure into this?
Analysts across the spectrum agree Argentina’s main issue is political, not economic. The infighting between President Fernandez and his powerful Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (who is unrelated), has created a leadership vacuum. Fernandez and Kirchner, who was president herself from 2007 to 2015, disagree over economic strategy. Kirchner’s loyalists favor measures like introducing a universal basic income and have impeded Fernandez’s policy makers from implementing unpopular measures, such as utility price hikes. Beyond that split, Fernandez is up for re-election next year, when he’s expected to have a limited appetite for unpopular moves. The increase in poverty and economic impact of inflation also make austerity measures with short-term political costs and long-term economic gains harder to push forward.
• Story on Argentines withdrawing $1 billion from banks
• IMF’s first review of Argentina’s program in June
• Argentina central bank’s latest rate hike to try to tame inflation | 2022-08-31T09:33:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why 70% Inflation Is Just One of Argentina’s Problems: QuickTake - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-70percent-inflation-is-just-one-of-argentinas-problems-quicktake/2022/08/31/2931615a-290e-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-70percent-inflation-is-just-one-of-argentinas-problems-quicktake/2022/08/31/2931615a-290e-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
D.C. police monitor a crime scene after a fatal shooting in Northwest Washington in 2021. (Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff/The Washington Post)
If last week was like most weeks in the nation’s capital, about a dozen people were rushed into its emergency rooms suffering, but alive, from gunshot wounds.
All but one would’ve been Black and male. Most would’ve been in their 20s. And you probably wouldn’t have heard about any of them because we in the media probably wouldn’t have deemed their lives, let alone survival, newsworthy. Except in the abstract talk about the ongoing plague of gun violence in this area, and this country, that is not about its disproportionate impact on Black males, but about cold statistics that makes the rest of the populous worried about dining out.
But Brian Robinson Jr., despite also being Black and male and 23, was different. His landing at MedStar Washington Hospital Center on Sunday evening with two gunshot wounds, suffered in what police said was an attempted armed robbery in the gentrified H Street Northeast entertainment corridor, made not only local news but national. Because despite fitting that all-but-dismissed tragic demographic, Robinson was expected to be a star running back with the Washington Commanders after they drafted him in April following a promising career at Alabama. He was expected to entertain. He was expected to be insulated from his congenital vagaries by his newfound economic class: that of the millionaire professional athlete. He was not expected to fall victim to his race, gender and age.
It was yet another example of how it seems we only pay attention to the afflictions of Black life when celebrity, especially athletic celebrity, is at the intersection.
Robinson became one of hundreds of patients — most like him — who MedStar Washington, as one of the city’s four Level 1 trauma centers, saves from gunshot wounds every year. Heroically. And anonymously. Robinson was released Monday from MedStar Washington following surgery.
“There’s one of the trauma surgeons in the hospital 24 hours a day,” Erin Hall, a MedStar Washington trauma surgeon, told me Tuesday of her colleagues. “Our survival rates are upwards of 95 percent of all folks that come in — that’s people who still have a heartbeat, they’re still alive when they get here.
“But … there’s long-term consequences of injury,” Hall emphasized, “ones that really can impact people, their physical injuries, but also … their mental injury of being shot, the trauma of that. And then also their economic and other impacts that come from injury. So it’s really not just a single time point injury, but it can impact somebody’s entire life and their trajectory after that, and really impacts whole communities on a day-to-day basis.”
It all reminded me of the award-winning documentary “I Am Shakespeare: The Henry Green Story,” which is about a young Black man growing up in the shadow of Yale University who suffers a shooting and the lingering effect it has on his life and the community in which he was reared. This scourge only seems to happen in a vacuum.
“While we have statistics on people’s survival, we don’t have that same kind of data about what somebody’s trajectory is outside of the hospital,” Hall said. “Are they able to return to work? Are they able to return to school? Are they able to … come back to a life full of like health and vigor and beauty?
“And it’s really our program, our Community Violence Intervention Program,” Hall said of the program she runs, “that really tries to meet people where they are, both literally and kind of philosophically, and say, ‘How could we make this point, this point of injury, that might be the worst day of your life, an inflection point to better health, actually, than even before you were shot?’ ”
There has been a lot of misinformed outrage in the wake of Robinson being wounded. Some have charged that the D.C. government is to blame for what befell Robinson and those who’ve suffered the same misfortune, or worse, before him.
“It’s human nature to try to simplify the really complicated,” said Hall, who has been working in the District for 17 years. “Gun violence didn’t just crop up. It’s been here for a long time. I really credit the city for investing in innovative strategies that are evidence-based and are trying to move the needle forward. I think there’s always more that we can do, including more coordination between all of the different community groups, including [D.C. police], to try to prevent violence. Because we really are all on the same team and it won’t be a single thing that provides the solution. It’s really going to be multidisciplinary.”
For the hire-more-police crowd, D.C. police are actively recruiting new officers. But more important, maybe, are programs like those that Hall guides.
“In general, when somebody with means is hurt or injured … there is a sense that they might have more resources at their disposal to help them through that and help them recover,” Hall said. “Well, folks with very little resources who are sort of on the brink at any given moment before injury, the gunshot wound can really be a spiral downward, can really be this sort of inflection point toward more emergency, more risk, more vulnerability. That’s what we’re really trying to avoid.”
Robinson is with resources. He isn’t like most of the gunshot patients MedStar treats, who are on the margin of living. Robinson will meet with the football team’s medical and training staff to determine his recovery as an athlete. Many in his predicament need help recovering as human beings. Maybe Robinson’s recovery can remind us of that.
“I think the other thing is really bringing a human face to gun violence,” Hall said. “I see every day mainly young men and boys, or older men, and each one of them has a story. They have hopes, they have dreams. They have goals in their life. And we see everyone, to try to help them reach that potential, to try to use what they have, problem-solve with them, support them to make their story come to fruition and have a happier ending rather than what it could.”
Robinson will get that chance. We will watch and cheer him as he does. And hopefully we will extend the same interest to the others who aren’t so famous as we try to find solutions to this damned menace of gun violence. | 2022-08-31T09:33:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brian Robinson Jr. should be okay. Don’t forget the victims who won’t. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/31/brian-robinson-gun-violence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/31/brian-robinson-gun-violence/ |
Venus Williams lost her first-round singles match Tuesday but is looking ahead to doubles with Serena later this week. (Justin Lane/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
NEW YORK — Venus Williams walked onto the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium wearing an emerald green tennis set Tuesday, no cape. It sure didn’t look like there were diamonds encrusting her shoes. Gayle King was nowhere near the post-match interview.
Williams’s first-round loss to Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck, 6-1, 7-6 (7-5), rightfully lacked all the glitz and pomp of her younger sister’s opening match of the U.S. Open the night prior. After nearly 28 years as a pro featuring seven major singles titles, Venus has offered no indication that she will move on from tennis anytime soon, unlike her sister.
But throwing a little ceremony Venus’s way is necessary as her sister’s legacy is analyzed in the coming days because of one thing: No retrospective on Serena’s career is complete without her.
“… If I hadn’t been in Venus’s shadow, I would never be who I am,” Serena wrote in this month’s Vogue article announcing her impending retirement. “When someone said I was just the little sister, that’s when I got really fired up.”
Venus, 42, and Serena, 40, have long credited a healthy portion of their success to growing up on the court together. As dictated by their 15-month age gap, Venus made her pro debut first, showing Serena the way of the WTA after she helped mold her revolutionary power game. If you were tasked with beating Venus in practice for your entire childhood, you might have a better chance to win 23 Grand Slam championships, too.
They also share credit for opening the sport to a new generation of Black and Brown players. Their success as Black women in a majority-White sport made them icons. That they were a sister act made them all the more powerful.
Teenage prodigies can age quickly under the pressure of an adult world. With Venus there to bolster Serena and vice versa — and with father Richard Williams and mother Oracene Price insulating their daughters from outsiders — the sisters got to giggle with each other, got to be young.
That left a mark for those watching.
To Angela Rye, a social commentator and political strategist, the Williams sisters were among the first women who looked like her that she saw in magazines and on TV. That they both reflected her family unit and showed the world a positive example of a Black household was extra special.
“Their posture on the court was full of swag, full of confidence, full of all of the things that we’re taught that we deserve but don’t always have the ability to implement,” Rye said. “To see that in girls, kids, my age, that was amazing. And then to always see them with their father — I know the stereotypes. … For their dad to be the one to instill that level of confidence in them, that felt relatable to me because that’s how it was in my house, with my mom and my dad.”
The sisters’ mutual support continued as they grew. Serena had no equivalent of the “Big Three” of men’s tennis, no generational rival to nudge her toward history.
Long before Margaret Court’s record of 24 major singles championships came into view, the only one who could hang with her climb up the record books was Venus. Serena not only had a ruler by which she could judge herself as a young player, she also depended on her sister emotionally, relishing in the presence of an earnest cheerleader well after she surpassed Venus’s success — all the way up to this point near retirement.
“I feel like it’s been very important for her to be a part of this,” Serena said Monday of Venus’s role in her decision to step away from tennis. “She’s my rock.”
Venus has tried hard to be objective as her sister ponders the end of her career. She wants to provide as little influence as possible, offering nothing but unconditional support and a doubles partner, when asked. The pair will play their first-round doubles match Thursday, an extra treat during Serena’s farewell tour.
“It was Serena’s idea,” Venus said, smiling. “She’s the boss, so I do whatever she tells me to do.”
When and if Venus decides to announce her retirement, she will receive a full-throated feting of her career, as Serena is getting now. Her spot on the Mount Rushmore of tennis was reserved in 2007 when she successfully led the charge for equal pay at Wimbledon, then became the first woman to collect said equal paycheck. She has continued to crusade for equality — sometimes quietly, sometimes through magazine interviews — and is the closest version of Billie Jean King this generation of women’s tennis has.
On the court, no woman in the past 30 years, Serena excepting, has surpassed her seven Grand Slam titles. Still, the final matches of her career may not look like Serena’s. Venus has always been quieter and more stoic than her fiery sister; the glitz and pomp may not be there. For now, her mind is far from the end of her own career.
With her singles tournament over, Venus said her sole focus is playing doubles with Serena on Thursday — perhaps for the last time.
“More than anything,” Venus said, “I just want to hold my side of the court up and be a good sister.” | 2022-08-31T09:33:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Venus Williams supports Serena Williams as career nears its end - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/31/venus-williams-serena-doubles-retirement/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/31/venus-williams-serena-doubles-retirement/ |
Taliban put on show of force to celebrate year in power
Taliban supporters celebrate next to Taliban fighters the first anniversary of the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops from Afghanistan, near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Aug. 31, 2022. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images)
KABUL — Bagram air base, once the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan, is where the Taliban’s senior leadership and fighters gathered Wednesday to mark one year since the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from the country.
Images released by the Taliban’s media outlet show fighters marching in Western style uniforms, followed by columns of armored vehicles bearing the group’s black and white flag moving down one of the main runways. Helicopters flew above the crowd.
“We are gathered here to celebrate the first anniversary of the withdrawal,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman told local media attending the ceremony. “I am proud that our country was liberated on this day and American troops were forced to leave Afghanistan,” he said.
The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan marked the end of over two decades of war here, but did not lead to a negotiated peace. Afghan government security forces collapsed in the face of Taliban attacks and when the group reached Kabul, President Ashraf Ghani fled, effectively handing over the capital.
Under Taliban rule Afghanistan is more secure for most Afghans, but civil liberties and the rights of women are severely restricted. Lacking formal international recognition, the country remains politically isolated and a growing economic crisis has plunged millions deeper into poverty.
In a video broadcast by the Taliban’s media wing, Mohammad Hassan Akhund, the group’s acting prime minister said the Taliban was left with nothing after the previous government collapsed.
“The foreigners took everything with them when they left, and imposed sanctions on Afghanistan which have resulted in poverty and hunger,” he said. But much of the military equipment flaunted at Bagram appeared to be what U.S. and NATO forces left behind in the last days of what became a hasty withdrawal.
Foreign media outlets were banned from the gathering in Bagram by Taliban leadership citing security concerns.
Akhund warned that “pressures” such as sanctions and other economic restrictions “will not give any result,” calling instead for greater understanding and engagement with the Taliban.
In central Kabul, hundreds of other Taliban fighters gathered to fly flags and spray glittery foam into the air as they cheered the country’s “independence day.”
Abdul Hakim Saih brought his five grand children to watch the festivities. Originally from Logar province, the family only moved to Kabul after the Taliban takeover when Salih’s son — a Taliban fighter — was given a position with the group’s intelligence forces.
“In Logar we were always on the run, moving from place to place to escape night raids and bombings,” he said, explaining the violence was particularly hard on the children. Under Taliban rule he said his family no longer has to fear for their safety, “it’s a better life now.”
The complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan began under the Trump administration and the policy decision was upheld by President Biden, who stated that the exit would be conducted “responsibly, deliberately, and safely.”
But after a series of swift Taliban gains suddenly left the Afghan capital surrounded, diplomats, Afghan officials and aid workers scrambled to flee the country. When the Taliban entered Kabul faster than predicted, chaos engulfed Kabul airport for weeks as tens of thousands rushed to escape.
Since then some Afghans who attempted to flee on the U.S. airlift say they now feel secure under the Taliban. Others who fear for their lives because of connections to U.S. and NATO forces or activist groups remain in hiding, hoping over a year on they may still have a chance to get out. | 2022-08-31T10:33:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taliban celebrate year since U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/afghanistan-taliban-anniversary-us-withdrawal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/afghanistan-taliban-anniversary-us-withdrawal/ |
Chinese senior leader Deng Xiaoping shakes hands with Mikhail Gorbachev on May 16, 1989 in Beijing as former Chinese president Li Xiannian looks on. (Afp Contributor#afp/AFP/Getty Images)
State media on Wednesday only briefly reported Gorbachev’s death in short articles and brief biographies noting just his date of birth and titles, and alluding to his legacy as the “first and last president of the Soviet Union.” The Foreign Ministry expressed its condolences to his family and noted he had made “active contributions toward the normalization” of relations, in its regular news briefing Wednesday.
On social media, however, the response was more extreme and internet users labeled the former leader a “villain of history.”
“Gorbachev brought disaster not only to the people of the Soviet Union, but the entire world,” Xiang Ligang, a commentator on current events and politics posted on Weibo, blaming Russia’s war in Ukraine on the economic and security implications in the aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. “This disaster continues today,” he wrote.
Hu Xijin, former editor of the Global Times and an influential commentator, called Gorbachev “one of the most controversial leaders in the world,” in a post on Twitter, which is banned in China but used by state media and diplomats to target Western audiences. “He won widespread acclaim in the West by selling out the interests of his homeland.”
The denigration of Gorbachev underlines the lengths the party and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have gone to forge a different path from the one taken by the reformist Soviet leader. Xi — who is expected to take on an unprecedented third term as head of the party in a congress in October — has reasserted state control over the economy, established personal control over the military, ordered renewed commitment to communist ideology and sought to root out foreign influence.
“The Chinese Communist Party is very critical of [Gorbachev], believing that he betrayed the Soviet Union,” said Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University of China.
Within China, historians have long debated whether structural issues or the individual decisions of leaders like Gorbachev caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. Shortly after coming to power in 2012, Xi appeared to side with blaming Gorbachev in a speech circulated among officials but not carried in state media.
“All it took was one word from Gorbachev to declare the dissolution of the Soviet Union and a great party was gone just like that,” he said, according to leaked summaries of his remarks at the time. “In the end, nobody was man enough to stand up and resist.”
Cadres were ordered to watch a six-part documentary on the collapse of the Soviet Union, with a focus on the “bitter lessons” of Gorbachev’s leadership — which was released again in July.
Another documentary about Gorbachev was being reposted to social media on Wednesday with commentators adding to criticism of the former leader. “A historical public figure who has finally become history himself,” one commented. “Ruler of a destroyed nation,” another concluded.
Ahead of the pivotal party congress, there are few signs that Xi’s position as China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong is in question. Though Gorbachev’s death poses little risk to the reputation of the party ahead of the meeting, it comes at an inconvenient time.
The Chinese leadership faces challenges in the form of rising unemployment, a weakening property market, drought and a severe “zero covid” policy that continues to put cities and districts under sudden lockdown, hurting the economy.
Meanwhile, Xi’s burgeoning partnership with Russia and Beijing’s refusal to condemn the invasion of Ukraine has invited international criticism. Chinese military forces will join Russian troops for a series of military exercises this week.
“There is a chance that people who are feeling particularly brazen use this commemoration of his death as a way of criticizing Xi Jinping either directly or indirectly,” said Joseph Torigian, an assistant professor focusing on Russia and China at American University.
For some in China,Gorbachev was a leader whose life and achievements should be respected. Others may remember his visit in 1989 where he was idolized by student protesters gathering in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. “Go in peace,” internet users wrote under search results for Gorbachev’s name on the Baidu engine Wednesday.
Still, the vast majority of people were likely to be unmoved by his death. “From the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s until now, many people probably don’t even know who he is,” Shi said. | 2022-08-31T10:34:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | China reacts to Gorbachev death, denounces Soviet Union fall - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/china-gorbachev-death-soviet-union-communism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/china-gorbachev-death-soviet-union-communism/ |
Ships sit offshore in Honiara, capital of the Solomon Islands, in November 2018. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
The Solomon Islands will bar all foreign military ships from docking at its ports, the country’s government said late Tuesday, more than a week after requests from a U.S. Coast Guard ship and a British naval vessel went unanswered and months after the Pacific nation signed a defense pact with China.
The Solomon Islands acknowledged that it had received the requests from the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Oliver Henry and Britain’s HMS Spey to dock and said the delay in responding demonstrated “the need for the government to review and refine its approval requirements and procedures,” according to a statement. The ships eventually canceled their plans to visit the archipelago.
“We have requested our partners to give us time to review and put in place our new processes before sending further requests for military vessels to enter,” the Solomons said in the statement.
State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel expressed disappointment that the Oliver Henry was not provided clearance to enter the harbor. The United States received notification of the Solomon Islands’ moratorium on “all naval visits” Monday, Patel said in a news conference the following day.
“Beijing seeks to weaken U.S. partnerships in the Pacific” that provide the American military advantages it could leverage against China, Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp., said in testimony to Congress’s U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission this month.
The Solomon Islands has inched toward China’s orbit in recent years. In 2019, it cut ties with Taiwan, the U.S.-backed self-governing island that China claims as its own. In March, the Solomons indicated it would sign a security deal with Beijing that could be used to justify a Chinese military presence there. It finalized that deal the next month.
China’s growing clout is alarming some of the Solomons’ neighbors. Papua New Guinea, which lies directly next to the island chain, is negotiating a security treaty with Australia, both countries’ officials told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio service this week.
“We want to see Australia be the natural partner of choice for the countries of the Pacific,” Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said on the “RN Breakfast” show Wednesday.
Papua New Guinea Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko, who appeared later on the same show, was blunt about the Solomon Islands’ decision to halt foreign naval visits: “You keep on pushing away a friendly ally, in times of need, they may not be there for you.”
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who visited the island this month to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the World War II battle’s beginning, pledged more U.S. support to the Solomons, in remarks aimed at drawing the country closer to Washington. Sherman’s father was one of the American Marines who fought and was wounded in the battle, she said.
“Today we are once again engaged in a different kind of struggle,” she said without mentioning China.
“It is up to us to decide if we want to continue having societies where people are free to speak their minds. If we want to have governments that are transparent and accountable to their people. If we want an international system that is fair and orderly,” she said. “It is a daunting task.” | 2022-08-31T10:34:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Solomon Islands bans foreign navy ships, in blow to U.S., U.K. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/solomon-islands-navy-ship-moratorium/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/solomon-islands-navy-ship-moratorium/ |
Library of Congress launches internal probe of controversial remodel
A whistleblower complaint challenges proposed changes to the historic Main Reading Room, and the library takes issue with its critics
The Library of Congress's Main Reading Room, seen in 2015. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)
The inspector general at the Library of Congress is reviewing a whistleblower complaint that the library lacks the authority to advance a controversial proposal that will alter the ornate Main Reading Room in its historical Thomas Jefferson Building.
The library is proposing to remove the 16-foot-tall tower portion of the reading room’s center desk and replace it with a window in the floor — what the library is calling an “oculus” — that will offer a view of the room’s decorative dome to visitors looking up from a new orientation gallery on the floor below. The proposal is part of a $60 million makeover of the library, introduced in 2019, that they say would modernize and improve the visitor experience by increasing public access, displaying more of the library’s treasures, and adding a learning center and orientation gallery. Pre-pandemic, the library attracted about 1.8 million visitors a year.
Special investigator Johnny Rivera interviewed Thomas Mann, the retired librarian who filed the complaint in April to halt the library’s plan, Mann confirmed this week. The library’s Office of the Inspector General did not respond to requests for comment.
Preservationists say Library of Congress makeover plan is ‘vandalism’
The interview came on the heels of the D.C. Preservation League (DCPL) adding the Main Reading Room of the library’s 1897 Beaux-Arts building to its list of Most Endangered Places. In its listing, the DCPL described the proposal as ill-advised and found it would “radically alter its original architecture in terms of its view, its function and its spatial relationships.” The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
Brett Zongker, the library’s chief of media relations, described the DCPL’s Most Endangered Places listing as full of inaccuracies and hyperbole, and criticized The Washington Post’s interest in it. “We object to the limited focus on ginned up ‘controversy’ here and allowing a disgruntled former employee to drive misinformation through DCPL and define the Library’s functions today,” Zongker wrote in an email.
The D.C. Preservation League encouraged the public to contact Congress to voice their opinions of the plan; more than 300 emails were sent as a result, DCPL officials said. The listing prompted the union representing more 1,350 library employees to renew its opposition to a proposal that its leaders said would “mutilate” the national treasure.
“When we first encountered the proposed plan to remove the Center Desk in 2019, many staff members, including many within the Guild, assumed that the Architect of the Capitol would never approve this alteration because it so obviously disregards the ethics of historic preservation, as well as the specific laws they have voluntarily committed to uphold,” the leaders of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 2910 wrote on its website, under the headline “A National Treasure at Risk?”
Principal Deputy Librarian of Congress Mark Sweeney said the larger project includes a 9,000-square-foot orientation center to display more of the library’s collection, glass doors offering views of the reading room and the stacks, and an education center. The design phase is expected to conclude within months, with construction starting next year.
The oculus element is a compromise between increasing public access and maintaining its research function, he said.
“We want to provide a glimpse of what is above, a visual connection. I don’t want a museum in the Main Reading Room. The oculus is the solution. It creates a stunning view into the Main Reading Room and would preserve the quiet research nature of the room,” Sweeney said.
The Library of Congress wants to attract more visitors. Will that undermine its mission?
Most of the criticism of the project is the result of misrepresentation, Sweeney said, including in the DCPL listing. In a July 22 letter the library shared with The Post, Sweeney wrote to the preservation organization to correct the record. The library’s plan does not put the needs of visitors ahead those of researchers, and the plan leaves the outer circulation desk in place, he wrote. The proposal will not damage the library’s researcher services, nor will it affect the room’s function because the delivery of materials no longer requires a central control room, Sweeney wrote.
The library plans to put the central tower, cabinet and staircase in storage “so it could be reinstalled in the future, if needed,” officials said, adding that such an action “is a central tenant of preservation.”
Sweeney noted the room has changed over the decades. The inner tower has been adapted as technology changed. The card catalogue was once located where desks are now. In the past, visitors were allowed to walk around the upper balconies. The removal of the inner desk and addition of the window is another example of change. The only “historic fabric” that will be lost is a 16-foot circle of cement flooring “that no one has seen since 1897,” he said. “I don’t think we are taking anything away. I think it’s additive.”
Visitors who have attended this summer’s Thursday evening open houses in the Main Reading Room have been enthusiastic, Zongker added. “Awe-inspiring,” “truly spectacular” and “marvelous” are some of the adjectives the library reports hearing from visitors who have been able to walk around the room. “Having the opportunity to enter the reading room was amazing. A bucket list moment,” they say one visitor commented last month. This year about 9,500 people have visited the Main Reading Room when it was open on nine Thursday evenings, Presidents’ Day and Memorial Day.
The DCPL and Mann say legal authority to alter the reading room rests with the architect of the Capitol and not with Librarian of Congress Carla D. Hayden. In a letter it sent to the library last week, DCPL quotes two 2019 memos from the architect’s office that reveal the office withheld its approval of the oculus.
“There is still one component of the [library’s plan], the oculus, which, despite our collaboration, does not adhere to the historic preservation standards,” acting architect of the Capitol Christine A. Merdon wrote to Hayden on June 26, 2019. “I do not feel it appropriate to offer Architect of the Capitol approval for the oculus component.”
However, Merdon wrote that she “will defer to the Congress concerning the inclusion or omission of the oculus.”
“This is important. The AOC wanted Congress to decide, and that is how we have proceeded,” Zongker said, referring to the architect of the Capitol.
“For more than three years, the Library has worked with the Architect of the Capitol and Congress on all components of the Visitor Experience Master Plan, which includes the oculus,” the library’s Aug. 29 statement says. “As with any project of this magnitude, there have been issues that required resolution in order to move the project forward. Congress has approved and funded the oculus design. Oversight hearings have been open to the public, along with budget hearings. This is the process the Library must follow. The Architect of the Capitol’s design team has worked closely with the Library and will take the lead on the contracting process required to implement the Jefferson Building construction components of the Visitor Engagement Master Plan.”
Questions to J. Brett Blanton, the current architect of the Capitol, were directed to the library. The office declined to confirm that it has sole authority over the library’s buildings, saying “2 U.S.C. §141 outlines the AOC’s general responsibilities at the Library (the law was last amended in 2003 but the framework for the AOC’s involvement goes back to at least 1922). There are also other governing statues and requirements that the agency follows.”
The Committee on House Administration, which has oversight of the library, said the design and approval process is ongoing.
“We have long been supportive of the Library of Congress’ goal to make the Main Reading Room, and the entire Library, more accessible to the American public,” an aide to the committee wrote in an email to The Post on Aug. 29. “Congressional approval by the appropriate committees, including House Administration, is required for major changes at the Library. Improved accessibility may take many forms, and we look forward to continuing this conversation and reviewing the Library’s latest draft plans.” | 2022-08-31T11:00:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Library of Congress launches internal probe of controversial remodel - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/31/library-of-congress-remodel-whistleblower/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/31/library-of-congress-remodel-whistleblower/ |
Imagine being Danny DeVito’s daughter. Now imagine if he were Satan.
In ‘Little Demon,’ Lucy DeVito and Danny DeVito portray a father-daughter duo from hell -- literally
Lucy DeVito, and her father, Danny DeVito, star together in FXX's new comedy “Little Demon.” (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
For Lucy and Danny DeVito, going to work is a family affair.
The father-daughter pair have worked together on many sets before (“The Good Night,” “Curmudgeons,” “The Comedian” and “Dumbo” among them), and found their chemistry on-screen was enhanced by the bond they shared behind the scenes. In some cases, that connection was played to purposely hilarious but disturbing effect, such as when Lucy appeared on “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” Danny’s long-running irreverent FX series, as a waitress who catches the eye of his ogling Frank Reynolds.
Their latest project, though, required that familial spark to find its footing through voice alone. The animated FXX series “Little Demon,” which airs Thursdays, follows Chrissy (Lucy DeVito) as she navigates the perils of puberty as the daughter of Laura, a normal woman (voiced by Aubrey Plaza), and Satan (Danny DeVito). While Laura does her best to protect Chrissy from her demonic ex, Satan tries to build a relationship with his estranged daughter and use her Antichrist potential to take over the world. The series boasts all-star cameos from Mel Brooks, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lucy’s mom, Rhea Perlman.
Lucy, 39, and Danny, 77, spoke with The Washington Post about their on- and off-screen dynamics, their approach to roles and how an attempt at a fun family excursion turned into a not-so-kid-friendly trip to Las Vegas.
Q: What about “Little Demon” made you both want to be a part of the show?
Danny: I was offered the part of Satan by Lucy and her friends, [the creators of “Little Demon”], a few years ago. I jumped at the chance because I’m always looking for some kind of characters that have an edge to them and have a little flair and fun.
Lucy: What better part for Danny to play than Satan?
Danny: Yeah, I always felt that. As soon as you called me, I felt, “Wow, this is really cool and ambitious and great.” And then Lucy and [executive producer] Jake — Jake is her brother and my son, another DeVito — they took the ball with the demons.
Lucy: Yeah. [Show creators] Darcy [Fowler], Seth [Kirschner] and Kieran [Valla], we refer to them as the demons. We jumped at the opportunity to work as a family in this sort of very out-there format for us. And we teamed up with Aubrey Plaza very early on and she’s basically like family now. And then we got Dan Harmon and his team on.
8 twisty miniseries to squeeze in before summer's end
Q: Did your experience as actual father and daughter help you get into character for this more outlandish take on a father-daughter relationship? If so, how?
Lucy: What was so great about doing this and actually playing father and daughter, is that the relationship is already so cooked between us, and my upbringing was the opposite of what we’re depicting in “Little Demon.” But there is something really cool just as an actor [about] being thrown into a scenario where so many of those gaps are filled from actual real life.
Danny: We've been connecting the dots for many years.
Lucy: You know, we can finish each other’s sentences and we can read each other very well and get to these heightened emotional points in that way that only family members can. And so it was really cool to be able to just bring that into the work.
Danny: Even though we are offering up extreme situations in “Little Demon,” there’s an ease. There is a connection. It’s more like an emotional connection to the person that you’re working with.
Q: Lucy, you’ve primarily done live-action acting in the past. How did you prepare for a role where most of your part of the performance was going to be entirely auditory?
Lucy: I think I initially approached it as I would a live-action character. I tried to find the reality in her and how I’m similar to her. And then, technically, I think that I really caught on quick to what it was like to act in a booth, and there’s some really great things about it — one being that you can just show up in your sweatpants and do the thing. You get so many tries, you can do it as much as you want. But then there’s the sidebar of being in a room alone, acting. There’s a bit of a learning curve. I think it was really helpful for me that I did a lot of theater and that has taught me to use my voice and be sensitive to that part of my instrument.
Q: Danny, a lot of your projects have focused on complex parental relationships. You directed and acted in “Throw Momma from the Train” and “Matilda,” and have worked on “Always Sunny” and “Hercules” and now this. Is there something about exploring those relationships on screen that you find particularly interesting or rewarding?
Danny: Whether it’s the movies you mentioned or “War of the Roses” — where there’s something amiss, something’s not exactly clicking — all those stories have a mechanism that makes you wonder how they’re going to navigate the situation. And I think in “Little Demon” it’s similar. I, [as Satan], feel like even though I am a really strong, powerful being, I have great feelings about my nuclear family. Which is surprising to me because I don’t usually, as the devil, get caught up in that.
Q: Do you have a favorite performance of each other’s?
Danny: I remember seeing Lucy in a play that was written by — well, who wrote “The Shape of Things?”
Lucy: That was Neil LaBute.
Danny: Neil LaBute. Lucy did that onstage and she was amazing in that. I mean, I’ve seen her do a lot of great stuff, but that was a kicker.
Lucy: There’s so many to choose from. I love you in “The Price,” which was the Arthur Miller play that was on Broadway a couple of years ago. And I love Owen in “Throw Momma from the Train” because there’s just something so vulnerable and nutso at the same time.
Danny: That's what I am, vulnerable and nutso.
Q: “Little Demon” deals a lot with the uncomfortableness of middle school. Do either of you have a favorite memory of Lucy in middle school? Either like a father-daughter moment or just a fun thing that happened?
Lucy: When we were young, I think I was a little bit younger than middle school, my dad took me and my sister, who was younger than me, to Las Vegas to see Siegfried and Roy. It was just a trip with Dad, but everyone knew who he was.
We had two nights there. One night was going to be Siegfried and Roy, and the first night we didn’t know what to do. So we decided to go to a show that was advertised as being about mermaids because — girls and mermaids. We love mermaids, you know? I remember just sitting at one of those banquette booths.
Danny: Big leather booths, center stage.
Lucy: Just from the minute it started, you knew it wasn't children-appropriate, lots of naked ladies.
Danny: There were mermaids in it! All I knew was there was mermaids and we didn't know what to do that night.
Lucy: But then the kicker is that the production knew that Danny was in the audience with his two daughters, and they like, at a moment, stopped the show and were like, “And please welcome Danny DeVito and his two daughters!” And it was like the spotlight came on us.
Danny: I still have that picture somewhere of us in that booth. They did the whole Vegas thing — you know, the person comes over with a big camera and takes a shot of us and gave it to us.
Lucy: I think we snuck out during intermission.
Danny: Yeah, we did. I think it was it was even going to get a little bit more racy in the second act. But there were a lot of mermaids in it, that’s for sure.
Q: How do you both feel about this meme-culture cloud that now surrounds Danny that the younger generation has kind of created?
Lucy: I think it’s awesome.
Danny: Yeah, it’s cool, right? I dig the fact that I’ve done “The Price” and I’ve done also, you know, David Mamet movies, “Heist,” “L.A. Confidential.” But I’ve also done “Matilda” and “Hercules” and “Dumbo.” And “It’s Always Sunny.” I really like it when the little kids like the 9-year-olds talk about “Are you Mr. Wormwood?” [his character in “Matilda”]. How do you feel, Lucy? I think it’s cool.
Lucy: I love it. I’m happy everyone adores you. It’s awesome news to hear there are Danny DeVito dress-up parties. It’s hysterical. I get a kick out of it. And I love that you’re my dad, but then you’re also all these other people’s dads at the same time. | 2022-08-31T11:00:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Little Demon's' Lucy and Danny DeVito on playing a family from hell - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/31/little-demon-lucy-danny-devito/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/31/little-demon-lucy-danny-devito/ |
Stephanie Port works in an almost-empty corner at Wpromote's office. Port is one of the employees choosing to return to in-person work. (Linnea Bullion for The Washington Post)
‘Quiet quitting’ isn’t really about quitting. Here's what managers should know.
As of Aug. 22, occupancy in 10 of the country’s top business centers, including D.C., New York City and Los Angeles, was 43.5 percent of what it was before the pandemic.
With kids heading back to school and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ending social distancing, isolation and masking policies, even clients who were initially cautious about pressing employees back to the office are saying, “Okay, that’s it. Just come back,” Kacher said.
Now 90 percent or more of the company is in office Tuesday to Friday. | 2022-08-31T11:00:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Battle over return to offices heats up as bosses lose patience - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/31/remote-work-return-to-office-flexible-work/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/31/remote-work-return-to-office-flexible-work/ |
The Fed Is About to Go Full Throttle on QT. Fear Not.
Analysis by Kevin Muir | Bloomberg
The Federal Reserve’s quantitative tightening program will ramp up to its full potential in September, increasing from $47.5 billion to $95 billion per month. Some market participants are concerned this additional monetary tightening will have negative consequences on risk assets and the economy. Given that quantitative easing — buying US Treasuries and mortgage-related securities — helped firm the economic recovery and provided a lift for the stock market and other so-called risk assets, it seems quantitative tightening could have the opposite effect. But these are unusual times, and such an assumption could prove costly.
Critics of QE may downplay its effect on the economy, but it is generally accepted that the policy provided a boost to financial asset prices, especially during times of market stress. Unfortunately, forecasting stock prices is not as simple as overlaying a graph of the size of the Fed’s balance sheet assets over the S&P 500 Index.
Other factors apart from QE and QT directly affect economic liquidity. Incorporating inputs such as the Fed’s reverse repurchase agreement facility, which allows financial institutions to park excess cash with the central bank, and the Treasury General Account, which operates like the government’s checking account at the central bank. These items create a more robust liquidity gauge that better explains recent stock market movements, while also providing an improved framework to forecast the effects of QT.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the Fed engaged in an unprecedented QE program, buying about $120 billion of bonds every month. At the same time, the government enacted the largest fiscal stimulus in decades, which pushed trillions of dollars into the economy. The liquidity created from QE and fiscal stimulus was so great that commercial banks no longer wanted deposits from large institutional clients because there were not enough safe assets available to purchase.
To amend the situation, the Fed expanded its reverse repo program, which consisted of the Fed delivering high-quality collateral with the promise to buy it back in a certain number of days at a higher price. Reverse repos are a liquidity draining operation, much like QT. They both involve the Fed decreasing the amount of cash in the system by increasing the amount of bonds. Usually, the Fed would only engage in repo operations with primary dealers, but the need to soak up extra liquidity was so great that it widened the list of eligible counter parties to include mutual funds and other non-traditional accounts.
The overabundance of liquidity is evident from the reverse repo operation’s growth to its present $2.18 trillion size from virtually nothing before the pandemic.
Reverse repos are only one example of a Fed operation that affects liquidity, but there are others, including those from other branches of government. One that has gained considerable importance over the past decade is the Treasury General Account. In the past, when the government issued fixed-income securities and took in taxes, they almost immediately distributed the funds from those endeavors. As a result, the TGA rarely had a balance.
In the Covid era, however, there have been times when the TGA has increased to previously unimagined levels, reaching almost $1.8 trillion in mid-2020. Increases in the TGA have the same effect as QT. Bonds are issued and cash withdrawn from the financial system, but the money is not distributed into the economy. It is a liquidity draining operation.
By combining the size of the Fed’s balance sheet with the amount of reverse repos outstanding and the TGA balance, we can create a liquidity indicator that better explains movements in stock prices than just the Fed’s balance sheet alone.
There is worry about the scheduled increase in QT could have on stock prices, but the unique situation with the large reverse repo balance could mute any potential affect. If the Fed had securities on its balance sheet that matched the maturity profile demanded by the institutions engaging in reverse repos, it could sell an amount equal to the total reverse repo balance to these institutions, reducing the need for reverse repos and elicit no change in the financial or real economy. Though there might be a duration mismatch in the type of assets demanded, an actual withdrawal of liquidity is not the problem.
On top of that, the actual amount of monthly QT is not that large. Given that the reverse repo balance is $2.18 trillion, and the Fed is scheduled to reduce its balance sheet by $95 billion per month, it would take almost two years to work off reverse repos solely though QT. Plus, the variability of the TGA balance shows that the economy can handle the scheduled liquidity withdrawal. From the end of November 2021 to April 2022, the TGA increased by $816 billion. That was equivalent to a QT of $163 billion per month, far below the scheduled and well-telegraphed increase next month.
Although throughout history there have been a few times when central banks had successfully reduced their balance sheets assets, this is an unusual time. The extraordinarily large reverse repo balance shows the true extent of the extra liquidity in the financial system. So as QT unfolds, it will be important to watch whether the reverse repo balance declines and how fast. The QT numbers appear large, but when compared to the fluctuations from the TGA account and the reverse repos, the scheduled increase is rather tame.
• Powell Can’t Count on a Labor Market Miracle: Jonathan Levin
Kevin Muir is a former institutional equity derivative trader who now writes the MacroTourist newsletter. | 2022-08-31T11:00:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Fed Is About to Go Full Throttle on QT. Fear Not. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-fed-is-about-to-go-full-throttle-on-qt-fear-not/2022/08/31/7f1cdf94-2914-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-fed-is-about-to-go-full-throttle-on-qt-fear-not/2022/08/31/7f1cdf94-2914-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
Our monkeypox vaccine plan is an experiment. That requires better care.
The history of experimental public health campaigns reveals the importance of care and access.
Perspective by Harris Solomon
Harris Solomon is the Fred W. Shaffer associate professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University and author of “Lifelines: The Traffic of Trauma.”
Nurse practitioner Carol Ramsubhag-Carela prepares a syringe with the monkeypox vaccine before inoculating a patient at a vaccination site on Aug. 30 in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (Jeenah Moon/AP)
After initially fumbling its monkeypox response, the U.S. government is making vaccines more widely available for people in gay men’s sexual networks, who remain the most affected by the disease.
Yet a deeper uncertainty persists. We know the Jynneos vaccine produces an antibody response that can protect against smallpox and may provide similar protection against monkeypox. But precisely how effective this vaccine will be against this current outbreak of monkeypox remains unclear.
To address both the uncertain efficacy and scarce supply of the vaccine, federal health authorities have introduced a plan to maximize the number of people with some level of protection. Instead of being injected into fatty tissue, the Jynneos smallpox vaccine will now be injected intradermally — under the top layers of the skin — and in a much smaller amount, allowing one dose to be stretched into five doses. This technique, called “fractional dosing” or “dose sparing,” has been used in other vaccine campaigns, including influenza.
The Biden administration’s fractional dosing monkeypox vaccination plan is based on results from a single study and remains subject to scientific and clinical debate. It may produce useful data about how intradermal vaccination produces an immune response. However, it also adds to the experimental nature of the vaccine rollout.
Past health crises help illustrate how medical scarcity and government neglect can induce people to participate in medical and public health projects with uncertain outcomes. Monkeypox vaccination is the latest chapter of this history of experiments in health — a history that ties biomedical uncertainty to social marginalization.
The growing influence of bioethics in the mid-20th century, particularly after the horrors of Nazi medicine and the Tuskegee syphilis study, normalized informed consent in research. Consenting to participate in medical research sometimes brought access to treatments. Yet such research didn’t always address unequal health-care access.
This was the case in tuberculosis treatment experiments among Navajo people in the 1950s. White researchers learned of an outbreak of tuberculosis at the Many Farms community within the Navajo Nation in Northeastern Arizona (Dá’ák’eh Halani). The researchers hoped to test the efficacy of treating TB with the antibiotic isoniazid. But to understand isoniazid’s unique efficacy, they needed to test it on a population that did not have access to additional antibiotics for TB. If other antibiotics were in use, it would be difficult to show isoniazid’s individual effects. Due to years of U.S. government neglect, the people living at Many Farms fit this criteria, and therefore seemed ideal for studying isoniazid. The community agreed to the research.
The drug helped address the TB outbreak, but the focus on the efficiency of isoniazid meant the intervention did not address underlying health-care inequalities. Without investments in the broader health of the community, mortality remained high, and the medical researchers undermined community trust in health-care workers. The experiment was extractive. It built knowledge but denied care.
By the 1960s and 1970s, conversations about addressing root causes of disease and disparities in health-care access through research design were increasingly common. Activists became more involved in debates about who could participate in novel medical and public health research, particularly in areas of women’s health and cancer.
For example, women’s health groups such as the Boston Women’s Health Collective sought to change the long-held reluctance of clinical trials to enroll women.
Drug trials for HIV/AIDS in the 1980s marked another major turning point when activists called out the links between research and health-care access. The impact of AIDS on gay men in the 1980s in the United States meant that gay activists built movements that demanded access to experimental antiretroviral drugs. When scientists conducted a clinical trial of AZT (azidothymidine) and concluded that it could reduce HIV transmission and death in people with AIDS, the drug quickly became a rallying point for some AIDS activists. Being part of testing the drug’s efficacy became a desperately desired chance for many HIV-positive people to live on.
But some activists and physicians questioned disparities among participants in the AZT trial. They noted that trial participants who had higher rates of survival and fewer adverse reactions were also more likely to have health insurance and access to their own physicians. Regular medical support and monitoring was critically important for preventing death. At trial sites where participants didn’t have consistent health-care access, more deaths occurred. The AZT trials illustrated the stakes of overlooking potentially meaningful differences in participants’ access to health care.
Clinical trials for HIV drugs also often under-enrolled Black and Latino participants, and overrepresented White gay men.
Activists pointed out that efficacy actually had two pieces — the effectiveness of the drug and access to care.
Coalitions of AIDS activists in the 1990s made the latter issue the foundation for their demands of public health officials and medical professionals. This was especially the case for groups of African American activists focused on improving HIV care in Black communities.
By connecting to global campaigns on issues such as drug pricing, patents and the availability of cheaper generic medicines, these groups connected biomedical innovation to the reduction of health-care access inequalities. Activists also challenged the pharmaceutical industry, questioning how its profit motives shaped experimental priorities. Bodies could evidence far more than biological truths; they were staging grounds for social and economic dilemmas.
The efficacy of preventive measures took a different turn in the 2010s, during debates about the development of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which helps prevent HIV transmission. The drug known as Truvada, taken once daily and now available as a generic, can reduce the possibility of HIV transmission up to 99 percent. It was approved by the FDA in 2004 as a treatment for people living with HIV and in 2012 as pre-exposure prophylaxis in people who are HIV-negative.
Despite the drug’s efficacy, some early public reactions to the drug nonetheless described it in terms of uncertainty. Instead of asking whether the drug worked, discussions often centered on how people would behave if they had access to the drug. While PrEP’s efficacy was clear, some health authorities expressed concerns that the drug would lead to increased sex without condoms, and the risk of higher STI prevalence.
Arguments about morality obstructed the rollout of the drug, leaving some of those most at risk for acquiring HIV less able to access the drug. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical marketing tended to target White gay men. Indeed, this has resulted in uneven access to PrEP among Black men and women.
These histories show that beyond the critical question of “does this medicine work?” an additional question is crucial: how to ensure care for people participating in uncertain biomedical projects, especially when due to government failure?
Monkeypox illustrates the stakes of both these questions. Activists argue that the new fractional dosing plan may expand the sheer number of doses, but does not necessarily ensure access for Black and Latino men at a time when test positivity is increasingly concentrated in communities of color.
There are also global inequities. To date, not a single Jynneos vaccine has been made available in West and Central Africa, where monkeypox has resulted in far more deaths than in those countries with vaccine access.
Still, in places where vaccines have been distributed, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic about the sprint to contain and treat monkeypox. Data published recently from Great Britain, Canada, Germany and New York suggest that the incidence of new monkeypox cases may be decreasing. It is likely that alongside vaccines, both shifting sex practices and the work of community-led research by health advocates are contributing to this decline.
The past teaches us that efficacy is a problem that is always both scientific and social. As experiments in health continue, it is crucial to remember whose bodies make certainty possible — and at what costs. | 2022-08-31T11:01:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Our monkeypox vaccine plan is an experiment. That requires better care. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/31/our-monkeypox-vaccine-plan-is-an-experiment-that-requires-better-care/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/31/our-monkeypox-vaccine-plan-is-an-experiment-that-requires-better-care/ |
The White Christian understanding of the U.S. has a global history
Missionaries spread the idea of Christianity accounting for American success throughout the world.
Perspective by Chanhee Heo
Chanhee Heo is a PhD candidate in religious studies at Stanford University, studying 20th-century U.S. religious history with a focus on race and immigration.
A group of anti-gay activists protests a parade during a Pride event in support of LGBTQ rights in Seoul on July 16. (Anthony Wallace/AFP/ Getty Images)
During the 23rd Seoul Queer Culture Festival in July, thousands of attendees waved rainbow flags and cheered on glamorous drag queens while surrounded on all sides by unscalable fences. These barriers were intended to prevent possible conflicts between attendees of the festival and those protesting it, a group largely consisting of Korean Christians. During a worship service held on the other side of the fence, protesters sang “Stand Up for Jesus” and mourned for their nation, which they perceive to be confronting divine punishment “like Sodom.” Holding banners with messages like “Return to Jesus” and “No Antidiscrimination Law,” the protesters readied themselves for what many of them were calling their “spiritual battle” against homosexuality.
Amid the dissonant voices, one symbol appeared on both sides of the fence: the U.S. flag.
In the hands of the festival attendees, U.S. flags represented liberal America, an ally of LGBTQ communities. Philip Goldberg, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Korea, gave a speech during the festival and referred to his participation as part of “the strong commitment of the United States to ending discrimination, wherever it occurs, and to ensuring that everyone is treated with respect and humanity.”
In the hands of the protesters, however, American flags took on a different meaning. The protesters’ embrace of militaristic language, calling themselves “people of faith under attack,” and their doomsday warnings against a “dying South Korea” echoed talking points from a thoroughly American Christian nationalist movement.
While these Korean Christian protesters share parallels with American Christian nationalists, this event in South Korea betrays a much longer history. In fact, understanding today’s White-Christian-centered narrative of the United States requires considering its long history as a global phenomenon.
The global expansion of American evangelism contributed to Koreans’ association of Christianity with the United States and White supremacy. In the late-19th century, waves of American missionaries settled in Korea as part of a larger movement of American imperial expansionism through philanthropic missions. They aimed to extend salvation to “uncivilized heathens” and create a global Christian family while furthering their country’s military, cultural and economic influence. For Koreans who struggled with corruption at the local and national levels of government, missionaries from America who provided social services appeared to offer a solution.
Many missionaries also described to Koreans the freedom to practice Christianity in America as protected by the U.S. Constitution, a striking counterpoint to life under increasing Japanese control. Japan’s power in the region was growing after its victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Wielding enormous military influence in East Asia, the Japanese government forced Korean Christians to turn against both their country and religion by participating in State Shinto, a religious and national ritual system that included shrine worship practices. The idea that they could worship freely as Christians in the United States made America seem especially appealing.
The first Korean Methodist bishop, the Rev. Ryang Ju-sam, who was pastor of the San Francisco Korean Methodist Church from 1906, when he immigrated to the United States, believed that Christianity was the basis for the intellectually and materially “advanced” United States. In the Korean Evangel, a monthly magazine broadly shared among Korean immigrants, Ryang wrote that “the Bible governs this prosperous America … and the constitution was faithfully enacted through the inspiration of the Bible.”
Believing Protestant Christianity was deeply connected to America’s national stability and the contentment of its citizens, Ryang highlighted U.S. presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and William Howard Taft as faith leaders who “solemnly committed [their] official obligations in front of God.”
Ryang’s conception of Christian America was particularly rooted in ideas of Whiteness tied to popular discussions of eugenics and social Darwinism in the late-19th century. In an 1897 issue of the Korean newspaper Tongnip sinmun, Korean writers illustrated distinct hierarchies of each racial type. For instance, the “Oriental race” was the second-tier race below the White race, “the most clever, diligent, and brave among all the races in the world,” but above the “Black and Red humans.”
When the global “civilizing project” approached a Korea that was struggling to survive, often in competition with neighboring countries, these ideas gained adherents. Intellectuals like Ryang believed that if Koreans embraced Christianity, it would better equip them with the necessary morality and knowledge to overcome this perceived inferiority. As Korean scholar Vladimir Tikhonov (Park No-ja) notes, Koreans’ belief in achieving superiority through “nurturing” beyond “nature” provided a form of hope.
This White-Christian-centered narrative of American success worked in multiple ways at the turn-of-the-20th-century. It enhanced an idealized vision of what a powerful nation looked like, in which Christianity was the foundation for nation-building. For many Korean Christians, U.S. imperial power was largely represented by Christian missionaries. The Japanese imperial power, on the other hand, was non-Christian and tied to the violence Koreans experienced in their daily lives. Simultaneously, many viewed the White American brand of Christianity as the “true” form of Christianity, evidenced by American prosperity and the country’s globally recognized power.
This was how many Koreans interpreted the messages brought by missionaries to their country. At a time of encroaching Japanese imperialism, the White-Christian-centered narrative of America offered these Koreans an avenue for national and individual survival.
In the United States, however, many Korean immigrants found that their purportedly privileged status as “Christians” did not protect them from racial antagonism. In the early-20th century, Californians sought to make their state White and to prevent it from being “Mongolianized, Orientalized, or Mongrelized,” as noted in a 1906 Oakland Tribune editorial. Many nativist groups, including the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League, supported the segregation of “Asiatic” students in schools. Their antagonism gradually expanded to policy, from California’s Alien Land Laws of 1913 to the U.S. Immigration Act of 1924.
Korean immigrants’ experience of racial hostility in the United States pushed many of them to reject the idea of Christianity as an American principle. Nevertheless, the myth of the United States as a White rescuer persisted through American intervention and occupation in the Korean War of the early 1950s and the military bases the United States held in Korea afterward. Along with growing numbers of Americans adopting Korean War orphans through Christian organizations, these events solidified the idea of a White-Christian-centered America for another group of Korean Christians.
Many Korean Christians, including the protesters at this summer’s festival, still hold onto that narrative of America. While Goldberg’s public support for LGBTQ communities in Korea resulted in fewer protesters holding U.S. flags than in the previous years, many protesters also reaffirmed their belief in a “true Christianity” predicated on conventional and biblical Protestant Christian values. As Choi Kyung-sik, a journalist in Kukmin Ilbo, argued, the Biden administration, led by a Catholic president, was rupturing the Puritan founding principles of America. Another Korean Christian coalition including Anti-Homosexuality Christian Solidarity firmly maintained in its open statement, “America should return to the Bible, not violating its forefathers’ inheritance of Christian faith.”
The pernicious effects of the myth of a White-Christian-centered America are becoming obvious within the United States, from the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, to Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Instagram posts. This ideology, however, has long transcended U.S. borders and has traveled to countries like South Korea, whose history is inextricably tied with White American Christianity. The resurgence of Christian nationalism now threatens American democracy and human rights. Understanding this story in a global context only magnifies its power. | 2022-08-31T11:01:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The White Christian understanding of the U.S. has a global history - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/31/white-christian-understanding-us-has-global-history/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/31/white-christian-understanding-us-has-global-history/ |
Atlanta's Jared Bernhardt (83) celebrates with teammates after his touchdown catch against Detroit. (Paul Sancya/AP)
Because this season of HBO’s “Hard Knocks” focuses on the Lions, when viewers saw Atlanta’s Jared Bernhardt make a game-winning catch against Detroit in a preseason game, they heard his name but learned no further information about him. If the popular program were instead shining a spotlight on the Falcons, Bernhardt almost certainly would have been a central character, given the remarkable nature of his journey to the team.
On Tuesday, that story arc got even better when the 24-year-old wide receiver earned a spot on the Falcons’ initial 53-man roster as an undrafted free agent.
It was the latest unlikely accomplishment for Bernhardt, whose one season of college football came last year as a quarterback for Division II Ferris State, which he helped to a 14-0 record and its first national championship.
Jared Bernhardt was a lacrosse star at Maryland. Now he’s a championship quarterback.
Before that, Bernhardt authored a legendary career as a lacrosse player at Maryland, where in 2017 he helped the Terrapins win their first national title in 42 years. In 2021, after leading the nation in scoring and breaking school records, Bernhardt won the Tewaaraton Award — lacrosse’s version of the Heisman Trophy.
Less than 15 months later, he is on the verge of starting an NFL season with one of its 32 teams, at a position whose nuances he’s only beginning to master.
Bernhardt was not available for comment Tuesday, but his brother said the nascent wide receiver’s reaction to the roster news was in keeping with his even-keeled, businesslike demeanor.
“He’s not one to be too high; he’s never too low,” Jesse Bernhardt, an assistant men’s lacrosse coach at Maryland and a former standout player in his own right, said when reached by phone. Noting with a chuckle that it can sometimes be “hard to tell” how his younger brother is feeling, he asserted: “I think that’s kind of what makes him him, and also is what has made him successful in a lot of his endeavors so far. He just has that calmness, that poise to him, regardless of the situation.”
Of the expectations that Bernhardt could turn his opportunity with the Falcons into an NFL job, Jesse said: “Most people who know him well in our family thought he could do it, but it’s a jump. … To sit here and say that I thought it was a reality, I’d probably be lying.”
Family members knew Bernhardt would give his all to the football dream and, given his past achievements, were not inclined to underestimate his chances of making it happen. Still, Jesse acknowledged, a spot on an NFL team’s practice squad seemed to be a far more plausible goal when his brother followed his season at Ferris State by returning to Maryland this spring to participate in the Terrapins’ pro day in front of scouts and NFL executives.
Former Maryland men’s lacrosse star Jared Bernhardt said that he’s been practicing receiver, but he’s open to playing any position.
Said it would be a “great feeling” for a team to take a chance on him. pic.twitter.com/7nKFk7T6U2
— Dylan Spilko (@DylanSpilko) March 30, 2022
Not surprisingly, Bernhardt went undrafted, but he caught the attention of several teams and eventually agreed to join the Falcons. Atlanta Coach Arthur Smith, who attended high school at D.C.-area lacrosse power Georgetown Prep, said in June that he had “a bunch of buddies telling me about [Bernhardt].”
Following Bernhardt’s heroics against Detroit, Smith said: “You can see his spatial awareness as he went to box a guy up to get to the top of the route. So, I’m excited to keep working with him.”
“I’ll say it’s been pretty eye-opening,” the coach added, “to see how quickly he’s made the transition.”
While noting that his brother had played plenty of football from kindergarten through high school in Florida, Jesse said it also helped to have played top-tier college lacrosse. He echoed Smith’s assessment of his brother’s “spatial awareness” and said he was also skilled at “getting open and playing off some contact.”
“It’s a very fluid sport,” Jesse, whose other brother Jake is also on the Terrapins’ coaching staff, said of lacrosse, “so decision-making and things of that nature happen extremely fast. I’m sure he was able to fall back on some of those traits.”
Another assist of sorts from his former sport came by way of Chris Hogan, a former Penn State lacrosse star who played one season of college football at Monmouth. Hogan then went from being an undrafted free agent wide receiver to enjoying a nine-season career in the NFL that included two Super Bowl championships with the New England Patriots.
Hogan “has been great” to Bernhardt, who was “able to utilize him as a resource to expedite that process [of transitioning to wide receiver],” Jesse said.
Bernhardt followed his game-winning catch in Detroit with a performance against the New York Jets in which he led all players with 67 receiving yards on three catches. Jesse and several other members of his family, which he said has roots on Long Island, were at the Jets’ MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., to cheer him on.
Tragically unable to join them was the brothers’ father, Jim, a former assistant coach with the Houston Texans who died in 2019. “He would have definitely been proud,” Jesse said of his father, who played football and lacrosse at Hofstra before starting his coaching career there and moving on to stints at Brown, Central Florida and Penn State.
After growing up around football, the Bernhardt brothers understand better than most that “it still is a business and things could change on a dime,” Jesse said. That has played into the relatively tempered reaction to Tuesday’s news by his brother, who is not guaranteed to still be on the 53-man roster when the Falcons’ season kicks off Sept. 11 against rival New Orleans.
If Bernhardt’s NFL trajectory starts to falter, or if he just has a change of heart about his preferred professional sport, Jesse said he would not be surprised to see his brother in the Premier Lacrosse League.
“I’m sure if he wanted to,” Jesse said, “I think like everything else he’s probably proven that he could.”
“It’s probably not a whole lot on his brain right now, though,” the older sibling added with a laugh. “I think he’s just trying to figure out where the heck he’s going to live.” | 2022-08-31T11:01:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Former Maryland lacrosse star Jared Bernhardt makes Falcons' roster - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/31/jared-bernhardt-atlanta-falcons-roster-maryland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/31/jared-bernhardt-atlanta-falcons-roster-maryland/ |
FILE - Singapore’s Joseph Schooling looks at the scoreboard after a semifinal of the men’s 100-meter butterfly during the swimming competitions at the 2016 Summer Olympics, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Olympic gold medal swimmer Joseph Schooling has apologized for using cannabis in Vietnam while competing there on leave from military service in his native Singapore. Schooling achieved superstar status in Singapore when he won his country’s first and only Olympic title at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. He won the 100 meters butterfly beating Michael Phelps in the American great’s last Olympic race. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File) | 2022-08-31T11:01:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Olympic swimmer Joseph Schooling admits cannabis use - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympic-swimmer-joseph-schooling-admits-cannabis-use/2022/08/31/cd88fb16-2911-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympic-swimmer-joseph-schooling-admits-cannabis-use/2022/08/31/cd88fb16-2911-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.