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National Book Festival returns in-person with a vengeance after pandemic shift
The National Book Festival was held in-person Saturday at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center for the first time since 2019, drawing thousands of attendees — many of them bespectacled or carrying tote bags — for a day of author talks, book signings and sessions that delved into civics and media literacy. (Salvador Rizzo/The Washington Post)
The National Book Festival returned to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center after a two-year coronavirus hiatus, drawing thousands of attendees and a flurry of tote bags on Saturday.
The literary festival was forced to celebrate its 20th anniversary in an online-only format in 2020, and remained a largely-virtual affair in 2021. The Library of Congress, which organizes the free annual gathering, said it had drawn up to 200,000 attendees before the pandemic. The Washington Post is a charter sponsor of the festival.
This year, more than 90 author talks and literary sessions were held in-person throughout the day, many of them also streamed online, as people bustled and buzzed inside the convention hall. Sessions were held on racism, climate change, how to invest, the Bald Eagle, women leaders of the Civil Rights movement, the Mexican revolution, and there was even a wistful reading celebrating 75 years of the bedtime classic “Goodnight Moon.”
Historians and poets were bookended by sessions that delved into civics and media literacy, including a talk called “Know Your Rights” on how to navigate an online constitution annotated with Supreme Court decisions, and a session titled “Who Do You Trust?: Conspiracies in America.” In the latter session, authors explained how conspiracy theorists have long exploited some of the most traumatic events in U.S. history, including 9/11, the Sandy Hook massacre, the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and the American Revolution itself.
The writer Geraldine Brooks, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her 2005 novel “March,” talked about her new novel “Horse,” which is set across intersecting timelines from 1850 to 2019. A reviewer for The Post called the new novel “a reminder of the simple, primal power an author can summon by creating characters readers care about.”
Actor Nick Offerman, who played the outdoorsman-slash-office manager Ron Swanson on “Parks and Recreation,” took questions onstage from a U.S. Park Ranger about his new book, “Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside.”
“We greedily destroy what we think we don’t need, only to discover we could have used that knowledge,” he said, to applause.
Offerman encouraged attendees to “invest” themselves in a patch of land, however big or small. He said he wakes up energized wondering how his potatoes and other crops are coming along; talked about the joy he gets from woodworking; and encouraged attendees to vote and to learn to make something with their hands. “It’s a superpower we all have,” Offerman said.
Afterward, Offerman autographed books and then got the C-SPAN treatment, appearing on Book-TV on a set in the middle of the festival.
Lillie Hornung, 22, who was wearing a T-shirt of a horse from “Parks and Recreation” called Li’l Sebastian, said she had been looking forward to the book festival all summer, and not just for Offerman. But she said Offerman has an appealing message because he mixes humor with important insights about the risks of climate change and the benefits of more sustainable living.
“It puts it in a different perspective,” Hornung said. “He’s not making light of it,” just reminding readers that sustainable living is joyful as well, Hornung said.
“If we don’t get depressed,” added Elisabeth Staal, 28, as she and Hornung waited in line for an autograph.
Elizabeth Eby, a volunteer at the festival from the District, said she was surprised by some attendees who showed up just as the doors opened, seemingly in withdrawal after missing the in-person festival for two years. Three elder women showed up, and one was “holding up a map and stabbing it,” Eby said. They were looking for a science fiction author’s talk, Eby said. | 2022-09-03T23:58:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | National Book Festival returns in-person with a vengeance after pandemic shift - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/03/national-book-festival-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/03/national-book-festival-dc/ |
Frances Tiafoe defeated Diego Schwartzman on Saturday to advance to the fourth round of the U.S. Open. (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
NEW YORK — If Frances Tiafoe wasn’t bowed by a heartbreaking, five-set loss in the fourth round at Wimbledon this summer, perhaps it’s because he had a sense of what was coming.
The 24-year-old from Hyattsville took that loss to David Goffin and refused to let a bump in the road become anything more. On Saturday at the U.S. Open, he continued his steady ascent and shooed the 14th-seeded Diego Schwartzman with a 7-6 (9-7), 6-4, 6-4 win that sent him through to fourth round.
This, on the heels of reaching a career-high No. 24 in the world last month (though he currently sits 26th).
This, which makes him the first American man to make the fourth round at Flushing Meadows for three straight years since Mardy Fish from 2010 to 2012.
“There’s a lot more work to be done,” Tiafoe said on court afterward. “We’ve got another week.”
Tiafoe was awaiting his next opponent — either 22-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal or Richard Gasquet, who played later Saturday.
Tiafoe will be battling for his second appearance at a major quarterfinal after reaching that stage at the 2019 Australian Open, where he lost to Nadal.
Attitude, it seems, is important for Tiafoe nowadays. He’s approaching the challenge of this year’s final major with an open mind after watching 10th-seeded Taylor Fritz, the top-ranked American man, and fourth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas exit in the third round.
Yet this openness comes with a healthy reluctance to get ahead of himself.
“There’s just a change in guard just in general,” he said earlier this week. “Who is going to be that guy, who is going to be that consistent guy that hasn’t really formed yet? Everyone is around the same level, honestly. Everyone is beatable at the same time. Even the top guys.
“It’s cool. I think tennis needs that, see some new faces, what have you. But it’s interesting. I mean, I’m not there yet. You ask me. I’m still that dark horse who can do something special. I kind of like it that I’m not like in the forefront of that, ’cause, you know, let those guys handle the pressure. I’m kind of Court 17, get some cheeky wins.”
Blame the U.S. Tennis Association for putting Tiafoe on Grandstand rather than the more intimate Court 17 then, on Saturday. His win turned out to be more disciplined than cheeky as the afternoon unfolded.
It still had elements of the usual Tiafoe.
The first set was a 73-minute carnival of long rallies and can-you-believe-that shots in which Tiafoe fell quickly to 2-5 then fended off five set points, including three in the tiebreaker. A happy crowd on Grandstand was pleased with that, even with a strong number of Schwartzman supporters among it.
Tiafoe then did what any good showman will do after priming his audience. He turned up his energy.
Tiafoe came out in the second set by jumping on Schwartzman’s serve and finally took control by earning a break point at 4-4, at which point the Argentine settled in where’s he’s most at home: on the baseline.
Tiafoe converted the break point with a 22-shot rally that brought down the house, but he wasn’t done yet. After exaggeratedly dragging his feet over to a group of dudes sitting courtside, he slapped them five, sat on the divider then tossed his hands up and fell into the crowd with drama.
It was a wonder he stood up again — the point made him 20-7 in rallies of nine shots or more.
Closing out the final two sets was straightforward after that. Tiafoe’s tired legs carried him to a double break point at 4-4 again in the third, which he converted by rushing to net. In the final game he coaxed two backhand errors from Schwartzman and sealed the matter with back-to-back aces, the second clocking 134 mph.
Next time he plays, it likely won’t be on Grandstand, much less Court 17. He may well be in Arthur Ashe Stadium, facing a champion and all the pressure that comes with it. | 2022-09-04T00:24:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Frances Tiafoe completes a feat rare for Americans at the U.S. Open - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/03/frances-tiafoe-us-open/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/03/frances-tiafoe-us-open/ |
NORMAN, Okla. — Dillon Gabriel passed for two touchdowns and ran for another and No. 9 Oklahoma rolled past UTEP 45-13 on Saturday for Brent Venables’ first career victory as a head coach.
“At the end of the day, it was going to be about Oklahoma re-establishing the soul and the spirit of this program,” Venables said. | 2022-09-04T00:25:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 9 Oklahoma beats UTEP 45-13 in Venables' coaching debut - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-9-oklahoma-beats-utep-45-13-in-venables-coaching-debut/2022/09/03/121336d4-2bdd-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-9-oklahoma-beats-utep-45-13-in-venables-coaching-debut/2022/09/03/121336d4-2bdd-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
Four shot, one fatally, in Prince George’s, police say
Gunfire broke out at a convenience store, police say
Four people were shot, one of them fatally, at a convenience store in Prince George’s County on Saturday night, police said.
Conditions of the three wounded victims could not be learned immediately. The person who was killed was described only as a man.
The gunfire broke out about 8 p.m. in the 1400 block of Ritchie Road, said Cpl. Unique Jones, a police spokeswoman.
The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately clear.
The site is in a commercial section of the District Heights area, south of Central Avenue. | 2022-09-04T01:56:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | One killed and three wounded at Prince George's store, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/03/four-shot-prince-georges-store/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/03/four-shot-prince-georges-store/ |
Georgia defensive back Christopher Smith had an interception in a 49-3 rout of Oregon. (Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)
Arizona (winner)
Arkansas (winner)
Duke (winner)
Michigan (winner)
Football itself (loser)
Virginia Tech (loser)
Charlotte (loser)
Navy (loser)
There was one, single thread running almost uninterrupted through all of last season. It started on Labor Day weekend when Georgia smothered a brand-name opponent in an NFC South stadium. It continued until January with only one hiccup along the way — against a team the Bulldogs later clubbed to win the national title.
Georgia’s defense was not just a sure thing in 2021. It was The Sure Thing. And after Saturday? Sure, things look about the same.
The Bulldogs did just about everything right in a 49-3 rout of Oregon, a team coached by former Georgia defensive coordinator Dan Lanning. If anyone was going to have a notion of what was awaiting in Atlanta, it was the guy who would have been on the Bulldogs’ sideline a year ago.
It was hardly a defense-only effort. Georgia scored touchdowns on its first seven possessions. Stetson Bennett IV threw for 368 yards and two touchdowns. The Bulldogs averaged 9.2 yards a play, and they went 9-for-10 on third down.
Still, Oregon managed a mere field goal, and padded its yardage total into semi-respectable territory (313 yards) with a 100-yard fourth quarter. And even then, even with the backups in the game during garbage time, Georgia managed a fourth-down stand inside its 5 with less than two minutes remaining.
Regardless of the numbers or the Bulldogs’ losses to the NFL (five Dawgs on D were taken in the first round), Georgia’s program is predicated on defense. It hasn’t allowed more than 20 points a game in any of the last six seasons. Its total defense rankings in the Kirby Smart era (starting in 2016): 16th, sixth, 13th, third, 12th, second.
And while it is often foolish to draw too many conclusions from an opener, it appears Georgia’s defense remains something not to be trifled with. In a sport with few sure things, it’s reassuring to have something to count on. No doubt Bulldogs fans feel the same way after that revamped unit’s striking debut.
This is not a placement the Wildcats have enjoyed much in recent seasons. They lost seven in a row to close out 2019, went 0-5 to get Kevin Sumlin fired after the truncated pandemic season and then went 1-11 in Jedd Fisch’s debut season last year.
Put another way: Expectations couldn’t be that high for a team that had lost 23 of its last 24 outings heading into its opener against San Diego State.
Instead, Arizona rolled out of Southern California with a 38-20 thumping. Washington State transfer Jayden de Laura threw for 299 yards and four touchdowns, three of them to Jacob Cowing. And the Wildcats’ defense, which quietly went from consistently poor to decent at least half the time last season, held the Aztecs to 62 passing yards and just four yards a play.
This doesn’t guarantee anything over the long haul. Mississippi State comes to town next week, followed by FCS power North Dakota State (a striking example of administrative malpractice in Tucson when the game was agreed to five years ago, since the Bison are 6-0 against FBS teams since 2010).
But it’s a start, and a whole lot better than the hopelessness that’s enveloped Arizona’s program since even before the pandemic.
The opening week of the season has more shades of gray than any other. There’s a lot everyone thinks they know, but a whole lot less that they actually know.
With only past seasons (with at least some different players populating the roster) to go with, there’s more guesswork involved. So there end up being teams who appear much better than expected, and some who wind up turning in surprisingly sloppy showings.
Only a few teams get the benefit of a simple thumbs up or thumbs down based on the result from those beyond their most fawning faithful. This year, the Razorbacks are one of those teams.
Arkansas was coming off a 9-4 season. It had honest-to-Hog-Heaven preseason buzz tied to something other than a coach’s imminent firing for the first time in at least a half-dozen years. And it had 2021 playoff participant Cincinnati coming to town.
Even if the Bearcats were down nine NFL draft picks, the barometer for Sam Pittman’s team was clear. Win, and there will be few (if any) complaints. Lose, and the college football world has at least a little reason to revisit the offseason hype.
Credit to the Razorbacks: They managed a 31-24 victory, a fairly even game that saw Arkansas play to its strengths (224 rushing yards) and convert a couple of takeaways in plus territory into quick touchdown drives. K.J. Jefferson (18 of 26, 233 yards passing, three TDs plus 62 yards and a touchdown on the ground) might not start preparing a Heisman acceptance speech this week, but he was quite, quite good.
Arkansas gets South Carolina and Missouri State (the latter bringing a reunion with former coach and noted motorcycle aficionado Bobby Petrino) before facing Texas A&M and Alabama in back-to-back weeks. The Razorbacks are going to demonstrate plenty over the next four weeks. Frankly, they already did something pretty impressive in their opener.
There’s no reason to go overboard about the Blue Devils’ 30-0 victory over Temple to begin Mike Elko’s coaching tenure in Durham. Temple was one of the most lifeless teams in the FBS in the second half of last season (hence why Stan Drayton was making his head coaching debut with the Owls), and Duke still has plenty to prove once it begins ACC play.
Still, the Blue Devils’ initial effort under Elko should be appreciated. They scored on four of their first five possessions to jump to a 24-0 lead at the break Friday, and the shutout was their first of an FBS opponent since pummeling North Carolina, 41-0, in 1989 under Steve Spurrier. Duke’s last home shutout of an FBS school? A 3-0 barnburner over Wake Forest in 1978.
There are plenty of teams that will puzzle over lackluster openers, and a few sure to be smarting from stunning losses. Duke didn’t come close to falling into either category — progress for a team whose season basically was over with an opening-week loss at Charlotte last season.
The No. 8 Wolverines weren’t supposed to have problems with Colorado State, and they didn’t. They scored on eight of their 10 possessions and didn’t give up a point until 8:59 remained in a 51-7 rout of the Rams.
Not everyone viewed as a playoff contender handles its business as methodically as Michigan did. That counts for something.
Look, the easy punching bag from Saturday’s early games is Iowa’s 7-3 victory over South Dakota State. Winning a game with exactly seven points without scoring a touchdown is extremely on-brand for the Hawkeyes, who collected a pair of second-half safeties to account for the winning margin.
But there’s a case to come down harder on North Carolina, which squandered a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter and gave up 40 points in the final 12:10 of a 63-61 victory at Appalachian State.
There’s a lot to pick at there, but perhaps the most befuddling part of the whole experience was the Tar Heels collecting an onside kick after the Mountaineers pulled within 56-55 but failed to convert a two-point conversion. Rather than just falling on the ball and running out the clock, North Carolina brought it back for a touchdown — leaving time for App State to score again before flubbing another two-point try.
Throw in some questionable clock management in Thursday’s games (looking at you, Purdue), and it seems like getting acclimated to the season isn’t simply confined to conditioning, ball security and the like.
If there were any illusions about the Hokies rapidly climbing out of the ditch they found themselves in at the tail end of the Justin Fuente era, they were promptly extinguished in a 20-17 loss at Old Dominion.
Things were largely self-inflicted for Virginia Tech, which gave the Monarchs seven points when they sailed a snap for a field goal over the holder’s head that was picked up and carried into the end zone. It was one of five Hokie turnovers, including four interceptions by Marshall transfer Grant Wells.
It was a respectable defensive showing for the Hokies, but there aren’t many places to hide in a front-loaded schedule. Virginia Tech will also see West Virginia, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Miami and N.C. State before the end of October. If there are going to be fixes to help salvage new coach Brent Pry’s season, they’ll be needed sooner rather than later.
The 49ers (0-2) absorbed a 41-24 loss at home against William & Mary that was even worse than a 17-point loss to an FCS school would normally suggest.
The Tribe rolled up 303 rushing yards, 559 total yards and averaged 8.5 yards a play. With Maryland, Georgia State and South Carolina still to come, things aren’t going to get any easier for Charlotte as it wades deeper into its nonconference schedule.
The Midshipmen really wanted to illustrate how this wasn’t going to be like the last two years, when they endured consecutive losing seasons (but at least beat Army to close out 2021). A 14-7 loss to Delaware didn’t accomplish that task.
In fairness, Navy’s defense did its part. It forced the Blue Hens into a pair of fourth-down giveaways and five three-and-outs. Delaware managed only 202 total yards, and one of its touchdowns came after it was gifted possession at the Navy 21 because of a fumble.
But if the Midshipmen are going to be good, they’ll need to muster more than 2.9 yards a carry. Navy had only four runs of at least 10 yards, and none of more than 14 yards. A little explosiveness would go a long way for a team whose remaining schedule is eight American Athletic opponents, Notre Dame and its two service academy rivals (Air Force and Army). | 2022-09-04T01:56:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgia makes a loud statement (college football winners and losers) - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/03/college-football-winners-losers-week-1/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/03/college-football-winners-losers-week-1/ |
Patrick Corbin allowed just one run on three hits in seven innings Saturday against the Mets. (Noah K. Murray/AP)
NEW YORK — Just over a month ago, Patrick Corbin looked lost on the mound. So he skipped a start in the rotation in early August to make adjustments, and since then he has steadily improved with each start.
On Saturday, he put together one of his best performances all year, giving up just one run over seven innings in Washington’s 7-1 victory over the New York Mets.
On Aug. 6 against Philadelphia, he couldn’t get out of the first inning; two starts prior he couldn’t do the same at the Los Angeles Dodgers. His ERA stood at 7.02. Now, it is a slightly more sightly 6.28.
Saturday presented his toughest test yet. The Mets entered 39.5 games ahead of Washington in the standings. And opposite of him on the mound was Max Scherzer — his former teammate and arguably the greatest pitcher in Nationals’ history — looking for his 200th career win.
Luis García didn’t waste much time against Scherzer, launching the first pitch he saw — a 94 mph fastball — into the right field seats at 108 mph to give Washington a 1-0 lead. Scherzer pitched five innings, allowing three hits before exiting with fatigue in his left side.
The Mets responded in the third inning when Eduardo Escobar hit a solo shot off Corbin to tie the game. The pitch was a sinker down in the zone that Escobar leaned over for and poked over the wall in left field.
But after allowing the home run, Corbin didn’t abandon the pitch. In fact, he relied on it more heavily the rest of his outing. Corbin threw the pitch 60 times out of his 85 total pitches, and many of the offerings were up in the zone, which typically isn’t where Corbin throws it. His slider, which has been a staple in his arsenal for most of his career, was thrown only 13 times the whole game.
This season Corbin has relied on a mix of his sinker (thrown roughly 40.5 percent of the time) and slider (30.9 percent). He mixes in a four-seam fastball (20.5 percent) and occasionally will show a changeup.
The Mets (85-49) whiffed just twice on 31 swings at his sinker; they fouled off 13 of those pitches and put another 16 in play. But the Mets weren’t able to get much solid contact off Corbin, who allowed only three hits. Four of Corbin’s strikeouts were on the sinker — all of them looking.
In his last four starts, Corbin has allowed just eight earned runs. In each of his last three starts, he has allowed two runs or fewer. Corbin might have found an answer that can help him turn around his career in Washington. For a night, he was able to silence one of the best lineups in baseball.
How did Washington score its late insurance runs? Lane Thomas hit a solo home run — his 15th of the season — in the eighth inning off Adam Ottavino to give Washington a 2-1 lead. He passed Josh Bell for second-most this season as a National. He trails only Juan Soto, who hit 21 this year while with Washington.
Washington then scored five runs in the ninth. Josh Palacios hit an RBI bloop single over the head of Jeff McNeil with the infield playing in. CJ Abrams singled with the bases loaded to drive in two and put runners on the corners. Abrams nearly got picked off at first base, but when the Mets threw the ball away, Ildemaro Vargas scored from third. Thomas singled in the ensuing at-bat to score Abrams.
Where did César Hernández played in the field? He started in left field, the first time he played in the outfield since his rookie year in 2013. He played 22 games in center field that season for the Philadelphia Phillies but has since played in the infield — until Saturday.
Hernández — who has taken a lesser role since the team acquired Abrams — had the most experience of anyone against Scherzer, entering Saturday 11 for 54 against him in his career. He finished the game 1 for 3.
What’s the latest on Nelson Cruz? Cruz didn’t start at designated hitter — he suffered a knee contusion Friday after fouling a baseball off his left knee and exited the game. Martinez said after the game that he was day-to-day and Cruz woke up feeling better, but not well enough to play. | 2022-09-04T02:48:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Patrick Corbin rediscovers himself, quiets the Mets in a 7-1 Nats win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/03/patrick-corbin-nats-mets/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/03/patrick-corbin-nats-mets/ |
MADISON, Wis. — Braelon Allen had a 96-yard touchdown scamper for the longest run from scrimmage in Wisconsin history and John Torchio had the school’s longest interception return as the 18th-ranked Badgers opened their season with a 38-0 rout of Illinois State on Saturday night.
Illinois State outgained Wisconsin 78-6 and possessed the ball for over 13 ½ minutes in the first quarter, but still trailed 7-0 because of Torchio’s takeaway. | 2022-09-04T03:27:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Allen, Torchio help No. 18 Badgers rip Illinois State 38-0 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/allen-torchio-help-no-18-badgers-rip-illinois-state-38-0/2022/09/03/92c8b7c6-2bf7-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/allen-torchio-help-no-18-badgers-rip-illinois-state-38-0/2022/09/03/92c8b7c6-2bf7-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
My sister thought this sounded odd. I then realized that she probably didn’t know what led to our tragedy, as she was in college when our brother died, while I was still living at home.
I have not yet told her. I’m worried that she will blame our parents, or even try to track down the teacher who gave our brother the zero. (I guess I could leave that part out.)
Torn: You are assuming that your brother died by suicide because he was overwhelmed with schoolwork.
I think you should train your focus outward and understand that there were probably many factors and perhaps additional triggering events that led to this tragedy.
And yes, I hope you will choose to talk about it with your sister and tell her everything that you remember — not necessarily to influence her parenting, but because this is a primary event in the life of your family, and it is extremely important to talk about it.
When you have this conversation, you may learn that she has an entirely different understanding of the event. She wasn’t living at home at the time, but she may have insight that you lack because of the difference in your ages.
Therapy would be a game changer for you. I hope you accept this prompt to pursue it.
Anonymous: The time to quit dating? Now.
It is natural for you to choose the path of least resistance, but I think you should also take this opportunity to do some soul searching to figure out what kind of life you want to lead.
In Need: Have someone else make the appointment for you, and take you there, if necessary. Promise yourself a reward afterward. | 2022-09-04T04:15:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: Should I tell my sister what led to our brother's death? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/04/ask-amy-brother-suicide-sister/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/04/ask-amy-brother-suicide-sister/ |
The script was flipped in this one on the Orange’s home turf before a raucous crowd of 37,110 as Syracuse built an early 17-7 lead behind a new-look offense, and the Orange defense never let Louisville quarterback Malik Cunningham get rolling. He was intercepted twice in the third quarter and lost a fumble early in the fourth, and the Orange converted two of the turnovers into touchdowns. Last year, he accounted for six touchdowns against Syracuse in the first half of a 41-3 victory.
“It’s hard to win with three turnovers,” Shrader said. “We’ve still got a lot of stuff to clean up, but we got the job done. I’m excited where we’re at now.” | 2022-09-04T04:59:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Syracuse's new-look offense vanquishes Louisville, 31-7 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/syracuses-new-look-offense-vanquishes-louisville-31-7/2022/09/03/0cae262e-2c03-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/syracuses-new-look-offense-vanquishes-louisville-31-7/2022/09/03/0cae262e-2c03-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
A building at St. Xavier’s University in Kolkata, India. (Obtained by The Washington Post) (Obtained by The Post)
NEW DELHI — Last summer, an Indian woman posted a photo of herself wearing a bikini on her private Instagram account. The photo was taken in her bedroom as one of a number of self-portraits in clothes she felt she would be harassed and shamed for wearing in public. She was right.
The images were found by a student at St. Xavier’s University in Kolkata, where she had recently taken a job as a professor of English. She doesn’t know how he gained access to the photos, and they were no longer on her account, but the student’s father complained to the school, calling them “sexually explicit.”
In October, administrators at St. Xavier’s summoned the professor for a meeting that she described as a “kangaroo court” — the photos were passed around and she said she was “slut-shamed.” Eventually, she felt compelled to resign, according to a legal notice she later sent to the university.
The professor spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity, fearing further backlash and harassment.
Her story has risen to national attention, seen by many as an example of how women in India, even those who are well-educated and independent, continue to be held back by conservative social attitudes, including on academic campuses that are perceived to be liberal spaces.
The professor, 31, had felt that her teaching career was just getting off the ground, and she had rented her own apartment for the first time. After leaving her job, she had to move back into her parent’s cramped home and borrow money from relatives to pay for her father’s medical treatment.
“The months following [the incident] were the darkest days of my life,” she said. “The society is telling us that women’s bodies matter more than any qualifications they can accrue.”
St. Xavier’s University did not respond to requests for comment, instead pointing to an earlier statement that said it “has not forced any teacher to resign.”
The professor sent a legal notice to the university in March — alleging violations of employment and workplace sexual harassment laws, and demanding an apology and back wages.
The response left her shaken. The university disputed her account and threatened her with a $12.5 million defamation suit. The professor’s legal notice and the university’s reply were reviewed by The Washington Post.
India’s economic strides and political reforms have transformed the lives of its women. Female literacy rates have soared in recent decades, and girls now consistently outperform boys in annual board examinations. Once largely confined to domestic labor, women have increasingly left their homes to join the workforce, including driving buses and leading global companies.
But the pace of social change has been far slower. Women’s lives remain circumscribed by moral codes that hinder their ability to live, dress and behave freely. Discrimination and the threat of sexual harassment and violence in the workplace are key factors behind India’s low female labor force participation.
The extent of the problem is evident in multiple global surveys on gender inequality. India was ranked 135 out of 146 countries in this year’s Global Gender Gap Index by the World Economic Forum.
“We thought that when women became educated, they would be valued, free and unafraid. They are not,” wrote author Deepa Narayan in her book “Chup,” or Quiet, which explored the lives of modern Indian women.
Narayan, a social science researcher, said women’s problems are seen as their own, rather than as a cultural or collective issue.
“An impossible price is paid by women who stand up to society, or who may unknowingly break old rules,” she said. “This, in effect, silences other women, while many more men may think they now have permission to punish women who seem ‘to think too much of themselves.’ ”
This dynamic can be especially pronounced at academic institutions in India, where female students are subjected to strict curfews and rigid dress codes.
In her first teaching job at a prominent college in Mumbai, Shilpa Phadke, now a cultural studies professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, recalled that the principal once walked in mid-class to berate a student about her clothes. Later, when the teachers protested, he was unwilling to listen, she said.
“As faculty, in some way, all of us have failed because we didn’t defend our students enough,” she said. “Universities had come for students’ clothing before they came for faculty.”
In the complaint against the Kolkata professor, the parent wrote, “To look at a teacher dressed in her undergarments uploading pictures on social media is utterly shameful for me as a parent, since I have tried to shield my son from this kind of gross indecency and objectification of the female body.”
The university committee, the professor said, indulged in similar “victim blaming,” dismissing concerns about her right to privacy.
In an interview with the Indian Express newspaper, Felix Raj, the university vice chancellor, said: “A teacher is a teacher and is supposed to be a mentor. We know that teachers should behave as role models.”
In India, where divorce is rare, a debate ignites over marital rape
But the professor argues that the real issue is about the policing of women’s lives and bodies by a society still dominated by men.
“I will be a role model [for students] in the classroom and encourage them to think critically with my scholarship and erudition,” she said. “I don’t want to be a role model by wearing a sari. That’s ridiculous.”
Her story has inspired other Indian women to speak out. Some have posted swimsuit photos in solidarity, thousands more have signed petitions against the university.
The outpouring of support had been a source of strength for the professor in what has often been a lonely battle. She recently moved near Delhi for a new teaching position and a fresh start.
“If anything, this has taught me that it important to stand up for your rights,” she said. While she hasn’t posted another photo in a bikini, she hopes one day she will find the courage to do so. “The day I am able to do that will be a victory.”
Anant Gupta in Delhi contributed to this report. | 2022-09-04T06:21:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A professor in India lost her job over her Instagram photos. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/03/india-women-instagram-xaviers-university/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/03/india-women-instagram-xaviers-university/ |
Venezuelans cross at a checkpoint into Colombia in February 2018. (Fernando Vergara/AP)
But while the numbers of displaced people are similar, the financial support for them has been disparate, the advocacy group Refugees International said, noting that the $1.79 billion Venezuelan regional migrant response plan was less than 14 percent funded as of Sept. 1. Meanwhile, the $1.85 billion regional response plan for Ukraine was 62 percent funded as of Aug. 25.
The “staggering and sobering” scale of the flight from Venezuela “highlights the depth of this crisis and the enormous gap in attention compared to a crisis with similar numbers, like Ukraine or Syria,” Rachel Schmidtke, senior advocate for Latin America at Refugees International, said in an email.
“Countries in Latin America urgently need funding to ensure Venezuelans can access work and protection” in the region, as well as safe transit, Schmidtke said.
In depicting Ukraine’s plight, some in media use offensive comparisons
Venezuelan migrants are new border challenge for Biden administration
For months, migrants — many of them from Venezuela — have been sent on buses from Texas and Arizona to Washington and New York. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said the ferrying of migrants out of Texas was a rebuke to President Biden’s immigration policies. The White House has derided it as a political stunt using vulnerable migrants as props.
One bus carrying 35 Venezuelan migrants left El Paso, headed for New York City, on Aug. 23, according to a report by local news publication El Paso Matters. The bus was chartered by the El Paso emergency management office, which told the publication that New York was “the preferred destination for those without any means to travel.”
In March 2021, the Biden administration declared Venezuelan refugees eligible for temporary protected status (TPS), which allows them to live and work in the United States and opens a path to U.S. citizenship. In a statement at the time, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the “living conditions in Venezuela reveal a country in turmoil, unable to protect its own citizens.” In July, the TPS designation was extended until March 2024.
Spindler said this year has seen a rise in the number of Venezuelans returning home, but also of “risky overland journeys” southward, toward countries such as Chile, and northward, “through the notoriously dangerous Darien Gap that separates Colombia and Panama.”
He said underfunding in the Americas was affecting the UNHCR’s ability to serve Venezuelan refugees and migrants.
“Currently, only 20 percent of UNHCR’s annual funding requirements for the Americas has been met, and Colombia — which, with some 2.48 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants, is the top host country for displaced Venezuelan nationals — is also among the UNHCR’s most underfunded country operations in the world,” Spindler said. | 2022-09-04T06:52:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Venezuela refugee crisis near Ukraine’s in scale but not aid, group says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/04/venezuela-refugee-crisis-ukraine-syria/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/04/venezuela-refugee-crisis-ukraine-syria/ |
Why Gaza Is Epicenter of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Analysis by Daniel Avis | Bloomberg
Since the Islamist militant group Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, the small, overcrowded enclave has been the focal point in Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. Thousands of Gazans have died in Israeli airstrikes provoked mostly by Hamas rocket attacks. Frequent power cuts, grinding poverty and the constant fear of more bombardment have left many Gazans dreaming of escape. That’s rarely an option: With movement in and out of the territory severely restricted, it’s been described by some rights activists as an open-air prison.
1. What is Gaza?
Also known as the Gaza Strip, it’s a territory about 25 miles (40 km) long and 7.5 miles wide bounded by Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. Once a part of the Ottoman and later the British empires, it became a refuge for an estimated 200,000 Palestinians uprooted by the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. Egypt ruled Gaza until it lost control of the enclave to Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967. In 2005, Israel withdrew troops from Gaza and abandoned several settlements of Israeli citizens who saw the land as rightfully theirs. Today Gaza is one of two territories, along with the West Bank, where Palestinians exercise limited self-government under the Oslo accords that the Palestine Liberation Organization signed with Israel in the 1990s. The United Nations defines both territories as occupied Palestinian land. Israel maintains effective control of Gaza’s airspace and maritime territory and also enforces a strict blockade, along with Egypt.
2. Who governs the territory?
Until 2006, Gaza was governed by the Palestinian Authority, the body established by the Oslo agreements that also administers the West Bank and is dominated by Fatah, the main faction of the PLO. That year, Hamas won legislative elections, resulting in a power struggle with Fatah. After months of fighting, Hamas prevailed and took control of Gaza. Israel responded by imposing a permanent blockade, saying it needed to protect its people from Hamas, which is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. Since then, Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza have fought four significant military confrontations. The PA still works quietly to support Gaza’s economy, wary of being seen to support Hamas. While Hamas controls security there, funding for health, power and other services comes mostly from the UN and foreign countries, either directly or through the PA.
3. What is it like to live there?
The UN estimates that more than 5,200 Gazans have been killed in the sporadic conflicts with Israel, many of them children, and most as the result of Israeli airstrikes. A report in 2021 from the advocacy group Euro-Med Monitor stated that nine out of ten children in Gaza were suffering some form of conflict-related trauma. Most Gazans live in refugee camps that were set up more than seven decades ago to house Palestinians displaced in the 1948 war. Israel’s 15-year blockade has left more than 80% of the population in poverty, with many people reliant on UN food rations. Power outages happen daily and last for several hours. Most tap water is undrinkable, forcing households to buy desalinated water from private vendors. While open criticism of Hamas’s management of the territory can be dangerous, many Gazans complain in private that the group extracts money from them with little to show in return.
4. Why don’t things improve?
Israel is unwilling to lift its blockade of Gaza while Hamas runs the enclave. Egypt often acts as a mediator between Fatah, Hamas and Israel. While it lends vocal support to Gaza’s people, its security measures have helped to wreck Gaza’s economy. It’s kept the border closed and destroyed tunnels used to smuggle goods into Gaza in order to contain the threat to Egypt from militants based there. Israel took some limited steps in recent years to ease Gaza’s plight, including issuing work permits for 14,000 Gazans to work inside Israel. But there’s little immediate hope for the kind of peace deal that would significantly improve living conditions. The situation is complicated further by the presence in Gaza of a smaller militant group, independent of Hamas, that was responsible for the most recent attacks on Israel in August.
5. What caused the latest violence?
The group, Islamic Jihad, launched around 1,000 rockets at Israel after Israeli forces killed one of its leaders. Nearly all were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, preventing any fatalities. Israel responded with airstrikes that flattened homes in Gaza. The three-day conflict left 49 people dead, including 17 children. Like Hamas, Islamic Jihad receives support from Iran. It is even more reluctant to compromise with Israel and has proven willing to act alone against their common enemy.
6. What gives Gazans hope?
The lack of local opportunities means many young Gazans see education as an escape route. Levels of literacy in the enclave are high and many people there speak a second or even a third language, often through online learning. When Egypt opened its border with Gaza temporarily in 2018, tens of thousands left and settled in countries across the Middle East and beyond. | 2022-09-04T08:01:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Gaza Is Epicenter of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-gaza-is-epicenter-of-israeli-palestinian-conflict/2022/09/04/f63b6574-2c1f-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-gaza-is-epicenter-of-israeli-palestinian-conflict/2022/09/04/f63b6574-2c1f-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
Two hurt in Va. theater scare, witnesses and authorities say
Two people were injured Saturday as patrons fled the AMC Hoffman movie theater in Alexandria after a shout was perceived as a possible threat, according to authorities and witnesses.
“Minor injuries” were reported on the 200 block of Swamp Fox Road in connection with a possible “threat to harm,” the Alexandria police said in a tweet. Two people suffered minor injuries, the fire department said.
Although there was no indication of gunfire or any weapon, the incident appeared to suggest heightened sensitivity to possible harm at public gatherings.
During a showing of a movie, a patron suddenly shouted words suggesting that harm might befall those watching, according to Twitter postings and an interview with a witness.
Someone yelled, “ ‘everybody going to die,’ ” one witness said in a tweet, adding: “We had to rush out of the theater. … Some people lost their shoes and were crying.”
Another witness at the theater said it occurred about an hour into a 4:30 p.m. showing of “The Invitation.” The witness, who declined to be identified by name, said nothing in the movie seemed to prompt the shout. But everyone left the theater, which had been full, she said.
Of the two injured people, one was taken to a hospital with a minor injury, and the other declined to go, said Alexandria fire department Capt. Randolph Woodson.
The multiscreen movie complex is west of downtown Alexandria, about a half-mile north of the Capital Beltway. | 2022-09-04T10:12:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Two hurt as patrons flee movie scare, according to authorities, witnesses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/injured-movie-theater-threat-evacuated/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/injured-movie-theater-threat-evacuated/ |
Comedian Mo Amer knows the joy and pain of life as a Palestinian refugee in Texas
Comedian Mo Amer appears in an episode of his new semi-autobiographical comedy series “Mo.” (Netflix)
Note: This interview discusses some plot points of the new Netflix series “Mo.”
Standing onstage in his hometown of Houston, comedian Mo Amer speaks matter-of-factly: If you’re living in this country and aren’t White, he says, “you’ve got something before ‘American.’ … African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans.” You’ve got that extra label, almost a disclaimer. If you’re White, it’s like “you just sprouted from the cornfields of Ohio and spread across this great land.”
“Unless it’s St. Paddy’s Day, then you’re like, ‘Oh s---, my great-granddaddy was a quarter Irish!’ ”
The crowd roars, captured in last year’s Netflix comedy special “Mohammed in Texas,” Amer’s second for the streaming service. He oscillates throughout the hour between chuckling and grimacing, an unusual but understandable response to his own sense of humor. As a Palestinian American whose family emigrated from Kuwait on refugee status when he was a child, Amer, 41, has a unique perspective on the societal functions of that extra label. The title of the special underscores the novelty of encountering an Arab Texan on television.
In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Amer described creating “Mo” as therapeutic. While his nearly 20-year journey to becoming a U.S. citizen in 2009 was too “potent” to forget, writing a fictional version of himself allowed Amer to explore all the what-ifs that lingered in his mind.
“I was very excited to pick it apart and figure out what we wanted to fictionalize to push this story forward,” he said. “There’s stand-up, where you get to address these things and play with it and do accents and share your experiences of traveling the world without a passport. And now we’re talking about, you know, what if I never did stand-up and what if I still had to work under the table? I was creating all these scenarios.”
(The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
Q: From what I’ve read, it seems like you’ve been writing this show for years — maybe on paper, but also in your head. How did you know you were finally ready to put this on screen?
A: I’ve always looked at writing like a savings account. You don’t know when you’re going to withdraw from it. And also, depending on the content — in this case, for the show — it felt like, when is the world going to be ready for it? When am I, as a Palestinian, going to be allowed to have a show that has this kind of narrative? You never know when you have the moment to do so, so you’d better be prepared.
Q: How did the process of creating “Mo” differ from your Netflix specials? How did it stretch you?
A: In a stand-up special, it’s just you. … The show, even though it’s my DNA and my story, you have so many other responsibilities — other characters, outside of yourself. You have obligations to the viewer to really understand and get to know them better. Weaving that through-line of the father as well, it’s almost like a therapeutic session. … What am I scared of the most to talk about on a television show? Usually whenever you’re worried or have a little bit of anxiety about something, you’re on the right track.
Q: What were you most nervous about writing into the show?
A: The nerves were in the early writing stages because it’s so personal. My father’s torture was real. That is something that happened to my dad, and you feel very vulnerable talking about something like that. The world, do they even want to hear it? Should we talk about it? It’s just scary — I don’t know how to describe it — whenever you’re sharing something from your own history and putting it out on a global platform.
Q: You mentioned earlier that there are a lot of storylines to balance here. How involved was your family in the creative process, given that the fictional Mo’s family is such a big part of the show?
A: Well, they have no idea how to write a television show, so not involved at all. What it did afford me were these wonderful conversations I ended up having with my mother. My mom very much knew what I was doing and where I was going. She was excited for me, and she just started sharing these intimate stories I didn’t even know about — even just growing up in Palestine before she got married and moved away with my father. It was just beautiful to hear these things that I’d never really been a part of.
Q: “Mo” is set in Houston, where you’re from, and part of what I love about it is the natural interplay of different cultures. Tell me about your approach to grounding the show in reality that way.
A: It was very simple — I had to film it in Houston for it to feel that way. I have a major love for the city that embraced me, that loved me, that has made me who I am today. It was really important to do that. And then it being one of the most diverse cities in America, according to Forbes, and not having a narrative sitcom ever filmed there felt like a travesty. … If you live in Houston, that’s how your friend group is. It’s very diverse. You don’t really think about it, you’re just being. You switch from one friend to another, you could be talking to someone from Argentina and the next second you’re talking to someone from Southeast Asia. That’s how it is. There’s no zoning in Houston, so everybody’s next to each other.
Q: The other thing that strikes me most about the show is its tone. There are low-stakes jokes like with the chocolate hummus, but also surprisingly funny moments with immigration lawyers and other instances in which people might not expect humor. Did you struggle at all to write a comedy in that setting?
A: As far as finding humor in immigration, it was very easy. … There was a lot of stuff I didn’t [cover] in my special that I had notes about on the side. [Note: Spoiler ahead.] At the end of Episode 7, that’s something that really did happen to us: The judge did recuse himself because he knew my father and was wondering what happened to him. We did have bad lawyers that were taking advantage of people who were seeking asylum. This is often the case in these types of cases, which is so sad to know about.
I had my immigration attorney — who’s been at it for 40 years — consult on the show and share stories that he’s experienced or that he sees day-to-day in asylee court. Whether it be a quirky judge or a failure of the organizational system itself, it’s just a mess. Sometimes it feels like it’s a complete mess, and you’re like, how do they even know who’s here and who’s not here? How do they keep track?
Q: How has comedy helped you process experiences like that?
A: The show is about belonging. Feeling seen. The idea of statelessness. Generational displacement and trauma. What does that do to a person? That’s why it was important to showcase Kuwait as well. I didn’t want it to be a show like, “Oh, the family left Palestine. They can’t go back, and now they’re trying to figure it out.” We need to show what it does. You can feel comfortable in Kuwait and feel like, “Hey, we have a place to exist as Palestinians, where we can be a part of society.” And when Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, you realize you’re not safe and you have to start over again. Especially for my mom and my father, what does that look like? Losing everything. Going from rags to riches to rags again. How do you deal with that? How do you find the perseverance to go through that? I’m very inspired by my parents.
What my mother has been able to go through and [still] raise me and my brothers and sisters and look after us and be this pillar of strength, it’s like, wow. That’s why I dedicated Episode 2 to her, “Yamo,” which is slang for mom in Syrian. To have that song-slash-poetry-slash-prayer while she’s making olive oil in Episode 2, these are just ways to honor my history and to also inform the audience while telling a really complex story — all taking place in Houston, Texas. How cool is that? I’ve never seen that before.
Q: You mentioned hearing from viewers who could directly relate to some of the personal experiences you depict in “Mo.” What has it been like for you to be able to connect with audiences across the world?
A: It’s very special. When I first started stand-up — 24 years ago now, sheesh — it was definitely an experience where I felt like I was new to every audience member. They had never heard this perspective. Family experience or whatever I was talking about onstage, it was so new to them, whether they were Arab or not. And most of the time, I was not performing in front of any Arabs, really. It was in the South — many different states in the South — and that wasn’t the experience. I knew there was something special brewing back then and to put out a piece of art like this where it is so universal and so relatable to many, and they attach themselves to that story whether they’re immigrants or not … it’s so unique. I have a lot of gratitude and it’s going to take years, honestly, to fully process the impact and see what it does. | 2022-09-04T11:04:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Comedian Mo Amer knows the joy and pain of life as a Palestinian refugee in Texas - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/04/mo-amer-netflix-show/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/04/mo-amer-netflix-show/ |
In one of the latest trials for the investigation into last year’s attack, officers gave vivid testimony of their struggle to defend the Capitol.
A pro-Trump mob clashed with police inside an entrance to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, pinning an officer against a door and removing his mask in the process. (Video: Status Coup via Storyful)
There was no one moment when the mob overtook the police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a half-dozen officers testified in D.C federal court recently. Instead it was a gradual, inexorable collapse, culminating in an hours-long, violent standoff in a tunnel under the building.
In one of the latest trials for the investigation into last year’s attack, officers who gave vivid testimony of their struggle to defend the Capitol repeatedly said Jan. 6 was unlike the many other protests they had seen in the city. D.C. police officers arriving to the scene with the riot already underway had to fight their way through the crowd to the building. They found a “small contingent” of Capitol Police on the West Terrace “trying to hold the crowd back,” D.C. police Lt. George Donigian testified.
“There was this slow push, that was essentially constant forward movement, pushing us into the building,” he said.
Nine men are accused of joining together to battle police at that entryway, using stolen batons and riot shields, firecrackers and their own bodies. Three were found guilty last month after acknowledging the facts but reserving their right to argue over the law on appeal. Three are set to go to trial in October. And another three began a bench trial Monday — David Mehaffie, Patrick McCaughey and Tristan Stevens, who claim they were merely caught between the mob behind them and the police in front of them.
Mehaffie, McCaughey and Stevens chose to be judged not by a jury but by U.S. District Court Judge Trevor N. McFadden, a Trump appointee who has asserted that some Jan. 6 defendants are being treated too harshly compared to other protesters.
Like Donigian, D.C. Officer Chad Curtice was among several officers who recently testified against the three men, recalling police’s terrifying battle against a swarm of rioters who prosecutors say shared a common goal of getting into the Capitol to stop the congressional affirmation of President Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Curtice said that, at first, the crowd was disorganized, but then “it was like they all joined together and charged ... we ended up getting pushed all the way back” to the building.
“It’s gonna be old-school [Civil Disturbance Unit],” Commander Ramey Kyle shouted as they assembled, D.C. Officer Abdulkadir Abdi recalled. He interpreted that as, “hand to hand battle — you’re gonna hit somebody, you’re gonna get hit, it’s gonna be really hard.”
Unaware that the Capitol had already been breached from above, they believed “it was pretty much the last stand,” Abdi testified. “Officers didn’t want to let that door go. They just held that line.”
Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell — who has testified before Congress about his ordeal and has said he was hurt so badly on Jan. 6 that he faces a forced medical retirement — testified that he felt compelled to stay in the tunnel despite multiple injuries because all around him he saw only D.C. police officers fighting. “I felt like if I had left that area, they would say, ‘Capitol Police is not here, why should we defend the Capitol?’” he testified.
D.C. Police Officer Daniel Hodges testified that he was trapped between the tunnel door and a riot shield held by McCaughey. “Don’t try and use that stick on me, boy,” McCaughey can be heard saying on video as Hodges tries to repel him with a baton.
“I was very vulnerable,” he said. “Staying upright was untenable.” He was able to retreat to safety behind the police line. “I was feeling relief and a little bit of embarrassment that I had to fall back so soon,” he testified. He did not suffer brain damage, but his head hurt for over a week.
McCaughey during his testimony conceded that he could have left the tunnel at any point but that, “I wouldn’t say that I was entirely responsible for hurting” Hodges.
McCaughey testified that he meant to use the shield only to protect himself and maintain his position in the tunnel, not to assault police. “The moment that I was able to hear [Hodges] scream, I immediately turned to the crowd and asked them to allow me back,” he said.
Hodges testified earlier that even if that was true, McCaughey backed off only after achieving his goal of incapacitating a police officer: “Every one less of us defending the Capitol brought them closer.”
“All I could hear was his scream and I couldn’t do anything about it,” Gonell testified.
“If my memory serves correct, we the officers were the ones on duty that day, not him,” Gonell retorted.
“Any other day, more resources would have been called for,” Gonell said.
Mehaffie is accused of directing members of the mob to rotate themselves so they could maintain the barrage against police, telling them to “push.” He is expected to testify this week that he was trying to keep people from crushing each other.
When previous demonstrations had turned riotous, Hodges testified, it was “directionless violence, more akin to anarchy” that individuals seemed to find “cathartic.” On Jan. 6, “everyone in the crowd who was violent, and everyone else in the crowd supporting them, were of a mind, a particular objective — to make their way inside the Capitol. And they were willing to do anything to achieve that objective.” | 2022-09-04T11:04:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Officers say they were last line of defense between rioters and lawmakers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/jan6-trial-tunnel-hodges-gonell/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/jan6-trial-tunnel-hodges-gonell/ |
Tobias McCarthy peers out of his front door on Sept. 3 in Jackson, Miss. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
Alecia McCarty awakens every morning wondering whether water will flow from her tap, and if it will be drinkable.
Earlier last week, her water was tea-colored before it sputtered and shut off. On Saturday it flowed fast and clear, but McCarty still couldn’t drink it from the tap under city orders.
She and her children, age 10 and 11, have had to brush their teeth with bottled water, then spend time refilling the family supply at two water distributions at nearby churches. They have used a garden hose daily to fill four buckets of water to run the toilet.
McCarty, 35, works as a caregiver to a bedridden elderly woman in the nearby town of Madison, which like most areas surrounding Jackson was unscathed, thanks to its newer water system.
“They don’t have water problems,” she said. “They don’t have any of these problems.”
Jackson has been under a boil water notice since late July, with long-standing water system failures exacerbated by recent flooding and broken pumps at the city’s main water plant that left many in the capital city of 150,000 without water last week. It wasn’t clear how soon the system would be fixed, at what cost or by whom.
The opposing circumstances, suffering in Jackson as surrounding towns are spared, are rooted in decades of racism, historians and infrastructure experts say. But today’s divides are not starkly racial, resting on the nuance of two separate migrations out of the city.
White flight beginning in the 1970s drove onetime Jackson residents into neighboring areas. The city’s decline since then prompted better-off Black residents to escape Jackson’s failing infrastructure, not just water but also roads and schools. Both movements have eroded the city’s tax base, lessening its ability to afford repairs or apply for federal money as its infrastructure crumbled.
Gabriel Killingsworth lives in suburban Clinton with his girlfriend, a registered nurse who bought their brick house in a subdivision last year after living in Jackson. Both are Black. Since this past week, his daughter has been coming from Jackson with her 7-year-old son to shower, eat and do laundry.
“We worry for everybody, it’s bad for everybody right now. You think about it one way or another — you got family in it,” Killingsworth, 45, said as he trimmed his grass Saturday.
Last week, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) declared an emergency, triggering federal aid. The Biden administration’s infrastructure coordinator, Mitch Landrieu, and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell arrived Friday to meet with officials and tour a damaged water plant.
Criswell praised what she called “one team of local, state and federal government working together to make sure that we are addressing these needs.”
But experts say the image of unity that government leaders have attempted to project during the latest crisis belies deep-rooted political divisions that contributed to Jackson’s debilitated infrastructure and will probably block long-term fixes without federal intervention.
Zakiya Summers, a Democrat who represents Jackson in the state legislature, said state Republican leaders tried to block $47 million this year earmarked for water and sewer repairs in Jackson. Ultimately, they provided $3 million.
“We certainly have been a victim of systemic and structural racism in the city of Jackson. And I don’t think it’s unique to Jackson. I think it’s true of majority-minority cities across the South,” said Summers, 39, who lives in West Jackson, which has been hard hit by water problems.
“The city of Jackson has a lot of issues. We have seen not just White flight but Black middle class leaving the city. We don’t have the number of households to generate the revenue to fix and sustain the water-sewer system.”
Wealthier areas, she said, “tend to get more resources, more state support. West Jackson, we haven’t seen that in a while. It’s areas where poor Black people are concentrated where help is slow moving or it’s none at all.”
Robert Luckett, a Jackson State university history professor, noted that the contrast was stark this past week in places like County Line Road, which separates Jackson from neighboring Ridgeland. One side of the street had water while on the other, homes, hotels and other businesses made do without, setting up portable bathrooms outside.
“It’s crazy how you can go one block and you go from a town that has none of the issues we have to a town with no water,” Luckett said.
“This is all rooted in a politics that is based around racial attitudes and a racist history that continues to impact the city and a White leadership of the state who benefits from their suffering,” he said. “They didn’t think it was fair for the city of Jackson to get these resources when their own constituents didn’t have access to the same pot of money.”
Luckett said the city’s infrastructure problems started around 1970, when federal courts forced Jackson schools to desegregate — 16 years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. Thousands of White families moved out of the city, many sending their children to private schools run by the White Citizens’ Councils, white supremacist groups, he said.
“And with them went the support of the capital city and the resources,” said Luckett, a Jackson native.
Jackson has lost roughly 40,000 residents since the population peaked at about 200,000 in 1980, census figures show. Jackson is now about 83 percent Black, with a quarter living in poverty. All public school students receive free breakfast and lunch, so when schools went remote last week because of the water crisis, they had to scramble to ensure that children received enough to eat at home, said Luckett, who serves on the school board of trustees.
Luckett, who is White, lives in north Jackson’s tony Fondren neighborhood. He’s had sporadic water in recent days but said he feels lucky compared with low-income neighbors without transportation.
“I can afford to deal with the crisis in ways that the majority of impoverished people in Jackson don’t,” he said, including buying bottled water and driving to friends’ homes to shower. “For those who are stuck where they are, it’s a desperate situation.”
W. Craig Fugate, the FEMA administrator under President Barack Obama, said it is common after emergencies or disasters for federal aid to flow to more affluent communities, a “resiliency divide” fueled by biases toward rebuilding in more valuable areas that the Biden administration has vowed to tackle.
“My hope is FEMA and the administration are putting a lot of effort into eliminating that divide,” said Fugate, who previously served as Florida’s emergency administrator. “The reality is poorer communities have been left behind in many of our investments to rebuild infrastructure. Whether it’s Appalachia or what we’re seeing in Jackson, Miss., or in Flint, Mich., our infrastructure investments have not kept up with the changing risks. Our investments need to be looked at through the lens of where are the most vulnerable populations, not necessarily where are the most valuable properties.”
Perry said he isn’t optimistic that the Biden administration can fix the underlying problems.
“Prior to this catastrophic emergency, Jackson had multiple smaller incidents where the governor did little to nothing,” he said, adding that all but one Republican member of Mississippi’s congressional delegation voted against President Biden’s infrastructure plan.
Mississippi has required local communities to provide matching funds for federal pandemic relief money dedicated to infrastructure; Jackson’s share was limited to $25 million because that was all the city could put up in matching funds. Reeves blamed the city, while local officials note that having to pay for constantly failing infrastructure can leave cities like Jackson strapped for matching money.
“That is how places like the Gulf Coast, Madison, Clinton, the newer towns who don‘t have to spend all their money on old stuff, they have much more money to apply and get more of that one-time federal money,” said Ed Cole, who worked for state Democratic lawmakers in Jackson and for seven years led the state Democratic Party.
Cole’s water started cutting off last year. All five of his sons had moved away, two nearby to West Jackson and Raymond. They stop by to deliver food and water, or Cole visits to use their water.
Lewis is originally from Flint, where he saw the toll taken by the 2014 water crisis there — in which lead leeching from old pipes poisoned the water supply for the majority-Black city. His family drank bottled water for years.
“It’s supposedly fixed, but people still don’t drink it,” he said.
Lewis said his wife’s family in Jackson still can’t drink their water. He’s not sure how soon the city will recover.
“Everything around Jackson is growing. If Jackson can rebuild, I think people would move back,” he said. “But it’s going to take a while.” | 2022-09-04T11:04:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jackson water crisis worsened by migration of white and black residents - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/04/jackson-water-crisis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/04/jackson-water-crisis/ |
Carson Wentz will play for his third team in as many seasons this year with Washington. (Todd Olszewski/Getty Images)
Wentz arrived at the team’s facility accompanied by his wife and daughters — Hadley, now 2½, and Hudson, now 10 months. Rivera made it clear Wentz was “wanted,” and not just the latest quarterback they settled for. The Commanders agreed to take on his full salary and give up premium picks, they said, because they felt Wentz was the right fit — for their scheme, for their locker room, for their future.
“You look at the last two seasons, playing eight quarterbacks over two seasons, he has stabilized that position for us,” Mayhew said. “And we're excited about what he brings to the table in terms of his physical talent and also what he brings to the table as a person, as a leader.”
Fitting in with the Commanders
Center Chase Roullier believes he deserves credit for that last part because he introduced Wentz to Buford’s Biscuits in Leesburg. Roullier has seen up close how dedicated Wentz is to his gluten- and dairy-free diet. During dinners with the offensive linemen, Wentz is picky about which appetizers he can touch.
“He runs in an escape room like he does the offense,” Way said with a laugh. “… He doesn’t want hints. He wants to do it all by himself. … But we got out of the room every time.” | 2022-09-04T11:05:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Carson Wentz, Commanders have confidence they’ve found the one - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/carson-wentz-commanders-jaguars/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/carson-wentz-commanders-jaguars/ |
After the sudden shutdown of its ambitious telemedicine experiment, the company continues to explore options for a major expansion into the health industry
Registered nurse Rocio Ortiz administers a vaccine at an event for workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in 2021. (John Locher/AP)
Late last month, staffers at Amazon Care — the company’s in-person and virtual primary care service — were called into a meeting and given bad news: Amazon was shutting it down. Some employees were let go immediately. Others walked out. Everyone was promised paychecks through the end of December.
The news caught Amazon employees by surprise — including those who used the service as patients. The company’s human resources staff had been promoting Amazon Care as a health benefit the same week it shut down, an Amazon employee told The Washington Post.
“This is a huge shock to a lot of us,” said the employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their job.
The demise of Amazon Care also came as a shock to industry observers. After launching publicly in 2019, it expanded quickly and was touted as one of the company’s most important innovations. But there were also signs of trouble. To understand where Amazon is headed next in health care, the industry is looking for clues from a different direction: Amazon’s acquisitions.
Amazon’s health-care ambitions sometimes clashed with medical best practices
Amazon is in the process of acquiring primary care start-up One Medical for $3.9 billion, although regulators said Friday they are taking a closer look at the deal. While the e-commerce giant’s exact path into health care is unclear, Amazon has shown sustained interest in the primary care market, including providing home health care for seniors (a burgeoning opportunity as the baby-boom generation ages) and selling telehealth and mental health services to employers.
Amazon has long experimented with different models for expansion and growth. Amazon Web Services, its dominant cloud division, stemmed from its own needs but became a huge revenue center when Amazon started selling it to other companies. For years, though, it failed to break through in groceries with Amazon Fresh, and in 2017 it acquired Whole Foods to boost that side of its business.
Health care may lend itself to the latter model. The Post previously reported that former Amazon Care employees had concerns about the tech giant’s fast and frugal approach to health care and that medical professionals hired to provide care sometimes clashed with the company over its approach. And in a note to staff announcing the closure, the current executive in charge admitted that Amazon Care was failing to please its corporate customers.
Amazon will see you now: Tech giant buys health-care chain for $3.9 billion
“It must mean something went wrong in the calculus,” said health-care consultant Paddy Padmanabhan of the Amazon Care closure.
Ali Parsa, CEO of digital health company Babylon Health, said when it comes to building a primary care service from scratch, “there are no shortcuts.”
“I’m not sure somebody can replicate this overnight,” he said. "I think the acquisition of One Medical is an admission that they need to learn that knowledge.”
Some industry experts and current and former Amazon employees said Amazon will likely have to narrow and focus its health-care goals — perhaps to employer-based models, or virtual mental health care, or caring for the 65+ population. Others said Amazon’s plan is still to ultimately dominate consumer health care across the board, much like its efforts in e-commerce, logistics and cloud services.
The Post spoke with six current and former employees, as well as four industry experts, about where Amazon’s strategy for health will go post-Amazon Care. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity because they’re still employed by Amazon and aren’t authorized to speak publicly, or because they previously signed a nondisclosure agreement.
“We believe health care is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention, and Amazon is committed to advocating on issues that are important to our customers, our employees, and policymakers,” Amazon spokesperson Julia Lawless said in an email statement.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.
One way to understand where Amazon sees big opportunities in health care is to look at how it is exerting its influence in Washington, D.C.
In March 2021, Amazon Care helped found a lobbying group called Moving Health Home along with other health care companies. That included a home health company, Landmark Health, whose founder, Adam Boehler, ran Medicaid and Medicare under former president Donald Trump.
The coalition has encouraged Congress to extend waivers approved during the coronavirus pandemic that loosened federal regulations around home health care. The group’s ultimate goal is to make those waivers permanent.
It has also encouraged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid to cover treatment delivered at home at the same rate it pays for care delivered at a medical facility, a shift that could hold massive financial benefits for health and technology companies, especially if private insurers followed suit.
Moving Health Home spent $440,000 on lobbying the federal government in 2021, and an additional $220,000 in the first half of 2022, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks the influence of money in politics. How much of that funding came from Amazon is unclear.
The investment, while modest, is notable: Amazon Care was Amazon’s only at-home care operation, and One Medical doesn’t provide in-home care. Lobbyist Krista Drobac, who heads Moving Health Home, declined to be interviewed about Amazon’s intentions, but said at the time that the group had not been made aware of Amazon Care’s closure before the public announcement.
The Amazon spokesperson said that, even after Amazon Care shuts down, the company will “continue to work with industry stakeholders, including Moving Health Home, as part of this transition.”
Amazon has also signaled its intentions through potential acquisitions. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Amazon was among the bidders for an at-home risk assessment company called Signify. Signify, which is also a member of the Moving Health Home coalition, employs a staff of clinicians who visit private homes to evaluate older adults.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Signify is likely to be bought by CVS, but Amazon’s initial interest, combined with its ongoing lobbying activity, suggests it could have plans in the at-home care space.
Amazon’s other acquisition target, One Medical, in June 2021 acquired Iora Health, a primary care service aimed at adults 65 and over, a population that is growing rapidly as the baby-boom generation ages. Treating that population at home is a potentially lucrative market: Revenue in home health care grew by more than fifty percent between 2013 and 2020, according to the Census Bureau.
An Amazon spokesperson said the company can’t comment on its deal with One Medical until it’s completed, a process that could take months; the Federal Trade Commission issued a request for additional information from both parties on Friday.
Amazon’s health-care investments have been aimed at serving its own employees. As the second-largest private employer in the U.S., health care is a major cost for Amazon.
By building an internal health service, the company hoped to cut costs while creating a convenient product that could be sold to other major employers, just as its internal cloud computing operation grew into the highly profitable Amazon Web Services.
According to ratings, reviews and interviews with patients, Amazon Care succeeded in delighting patients, but the project’s real customers — corporations — didn’t feel the same way. In an email to staff, Amazon health vice president Neil Lindsay said Amazon Care “is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting.”
The One Medical deal would help Amazon acquire the workforce and physical infrastructure for primary care just as it did with Whole Foods and grocery.
“They decided this is too hard to build on their own from scratch, so they are acquiring somebody to give them a kick-start in the same way they tried to do with perishable goods by acquiring Whole Foods,” said Babylon Health’s Parsa, who does not have direct knowledge of the deal.
Amazon just bought my doctor’s office. That makes me very nervous.
It could also potentially help Amazon in its quest to lower employee health-care costs, as One Medical is largely provided to consumers as an employer benefit, former Amazon employees said. Before shutting down, Amazon Care had announced a deal with online therapy company Ginger, which also uses an employer-based business model. Though the status of that partnership is unclear and Ginger declined to comment, it’s another sign Amazon is interested in employer-based models.
Health consultant Lyndean Brick said virtual mental health “works very well, and [Amazon is] just one of many players that are doing this.”
Amazon has a long history of experimentation — and abandonment. It famously killed the Fire Phone in 2015, its would-be answer to the iPhone, after spending just one year and $170 million on the project, according to the New Yorker. More recently, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced the company was walking away from its bookstores and other brick-and-mortar retail investments in an effort to refocus on areas of growth.
Amazon’s health-care division in particular has seen high-profile projects come and go. In 2018, Amazon announced it was partnering with finance behemoths JP Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway on a health insurance project called Haven that was supposed to revolutionize the employer-based health-care model. But in January 2021, Haven announced it was shutting down, though the “learnings,” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in a letter to employees at the time, had been “invaluable.”
Haven wasn’t the end of Amazon’s lofty health ambitions. The same month it closed shop, Amazon senior vice president Dave Clark, who has since left the company, wrote a public letter to newly inaugurated President Biden offering to help organize the administration’s coronavirus vaccination operation. Having processed over a million coronavirus tests for its own employees, the company later tried to sell its own coronavirus testing kit online, only to close the lab in June.
Why Amazon is buying One Medical
In recent months, Amazon gave every indication that Amazon Care was a growing and important part of its overall health-care business.
The company was actively recruiting staff and attending industry conferences this summer, according to LinkedIn posts and Amazon’s own website. It launched its at-home, mobile services in San Francisco in June, saying it would soon expand to 20 U.S. cities. In a letter to shareholders earlier this year, Jassy called Amazon Care and Pharmacy among the company’s most exciting examples of innovation.
Amazon Care’s surprise closure left health-care providers scrambling to provide an explanation to patients who heard the news in the media, according to a current Amazon staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly.
Inpatient and primary Amazon Care services will shut down by the end of September, while urgent care via video and chat will be available until the end of the year, according to an email sent to patients this week, a copy of which was obtained by The Post.
“There was no guidance, and still isn’t any guidance, on how to advise medical patients on their ongoing care,” the current Amazon Care staffer said in a message. The company, she continued, was continuing to make “it difficult to give patients the fully rounded care experience they deserved.”
Yeganeh Torbati and Christopher Rowland contributed to this report. | 2022-09-04T11:05:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amazon Care is dead, but the tech giant’s health-care ambitions live on - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/04/amazon-care-health-one-medical/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/04/amazon-care-health-one-medical/ |
The True Reformer Building, at 12th and U Streets NW in Washington. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
It would be easy to walk past the handsome building at 1200 U Street NW and not consider its history. Each year, thousands of people surely do.
But the True Reformer Building, at the corner of 12th and U streets, has a storied past foundational to Black Washington. Built in 1903 as the headquarters of the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers, it was a landmark building and probably the first in the country that was funded, designed, built and owned by African Americans after Reconstruction, according to the Library of Congress.
The purpose of the True Reformers was clear. Founded by William Washington Browne as a Black temperance organization in the late 19th century, it later grew into an insurance, banking and newspaper enterprise that catered to Black people in need of business loans, aid and services they couldn’t obtain from White-owned businesses, according to Encyclopedia Virginia. At one point it was the largest Black-owned business in the United States.
The building was also a symbol of Black Washington’s growing political, economic and educational strength.
John Anderson Lankford, Washington’s first Black registered architect, designed the building. It “stands out to the civilized world as a sample or example of what the Negro can do and has done with his brain, skill and money,” he said at the time, according to Cultural Tourism DC.
Now the Public Welfare Foundation, owners of the building since 1999, is making efforts to inform both newer Washingtonians and lifelong residents about its importance.
In the process, the foundation wants to continue the building’s legacy as a resource for Black Americans.
“This is literally hallowed ground,” Candice C. Jones, the Public Welfare Foundation’s chief executive, said last week as she led a tour through the 119-year-old building, which was updated in 2001 and remodeled again in 2019 just before the pandemic.
“Why is this landmark significant?” Jones asked. “Because just a couple of blocks over on Vermont used to be a tent town where Black people fleeing racial terror in the South would come and set up refuge. The True Reformer society … would pool their resources and offer people services that they couldn’t get on the market.”
This week the foundation will celebrate its 75th anniversary as a nonprofit that has distributed more than $700 million to grantees doing social justice work, including pushing for reform in youth and adult criminal justice. There will be parties, music (including a performance by the Howard University marching band), panel discussions and a keynote speech by Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative.
The anniversary, Jones said, is a chance for the organization to celebrate its ongoing work: seeking “transformative justice.” That means not simply calling for “less policing, less prison, less sentencing,” she said, but also for funding approaches that will address needs at earlier stages.
“It can’t all be about dismantling. It’s about what you’re building,” Jones said. “And the only thing that we’re going to be able to build is truly more investment in communities of color.”
The True Reformer building stands as a symbol of what investment can do for a neighborhood. And what happens when that investment disappears.
Today, the most distinguishing characteristic on the outside of the building is the massive mural of Ellington, a replica of one that was once above the U Street Metro station. Approaching from the west, the mural, by Washington artist G. Byron Peck, is almost impossible to miss, a reminder in the heavily gentrified corridor of its Black beginnings.
In the early part of the 20th century, Howard University, just blocks away, was a vibrant young college whose graduates saw opportunity blossoming for them in the newly developing U Street corridor and other parts of the District. U Street expanded and grew into the District’s version of “Wall Street and Harlem’s 125th Street all at one time,” said Maurice Jackson, an assistant professor of African American history at Georgetown University.
“All of the great clubs were there,” Jackson said. “And all of the great performers would play there. Duke Ellington, Ms. Lena Horne.”
Jackson said Ellington occasionally played shows in the building’s auditorium and gymnasium between basketball games.
As U Street began to thrive, however, the fortunes of the True Reformers organization faded because of financial scandals and mismanagement. A fraternal organization and secret society bought the building in 1917, and in the middle part of the century, it served as the only Boys Club in the District to admit Black people. Other businesses and organizations would rent out the building over the years, but the 1968 riots after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. laid waste to much of U Street. The building survived intact, but the corridor’s fortunes fell away.
In 1989 the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and 10 years later it was purchased by the Public Welfare Foundation, which fully renovated and refurbished the building before opening it in 2001.
Today the building’s other tenants also address criminal justice issues. The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless and the National Reentry Network for Returning Citizens have their offices in the building. And Public Welfare, the building’s owner, has said it will make offices available at no charge to other nonprofits that are working to address crucial social concerns. It has also offered its meeting rooms to organizations that need space and installed large glass windows on the first floor to make it more appealing to passersby and give them a better sense of the work taking place there.
Like the building’s original owners, Jones says that investment in communities is essential. Especially when it comes to issues of justice and judicial reform. In successful communities, Jones said, there’s a continuum of care offered to people, including mental health services, counselors, education and a focus on well-being.
“We’ve got to start to put some investment in the things that we want to see, and we don’t want all the tactics to be suppression and incarceration,” she said. “We have to have some alternative models available for real harm reduction, because that’s what’s going to get us to healthy communities.”
Public Welfare’s work, Jones said, follows on the original purpose of the building’s first owners by serving Black Americans facing systemic discrimination. “You have all of that history that’s just bubbling up through this place,” she said. “And it is now existing to support exactly the kind of work that’s done here.” | 2022-09-04T11:26:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The True Reformer Building on U Street is foundational to Black Washington. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/true-reformer-u-street-ellington/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/true-reformer-u-street-ellington/ |
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan speaks at an event in Greensboro, N.C., on April 14. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Virtually everyone has been exposed to “forever chemicals,” human-made compounds that linger in environments — and bodies — for decades. Polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl compounds, also known as PFAS, have long been associated with a range of health issues, yet have been left largely unregulated. That makes the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent proposal to classify the two most common forms of PFAS as “hazardous” an important step forward.
PFAS are found in thousands of household items, from nonstick pans to fabrics to cosmetics. What makes them so useful is also what makes them uniquely risky: Because they contain extremely strong carbon-fluorine bonds that do not occur in nature, they are very durable — and very difficult to dispose of. PFAS chemicals have been discovered at unhealthful levels in millions of Americans’ drinking water, and have been linked to cancer, infertility and cardiovascular problems, among other conditions.
The EPA’s proposed rule would add two common types of PFAS to its list of hazardous substances under the “Superfund” law. The designation unlocks a range of additional powers. It would require companies to report a release of one pound or more of these compounds over a 24-hour span. Crucially, the rule would grant the federal government stronger authority to force polluters to pay for cleanup or — if the polluter is unknown or bankrupt — fund the restoration itself.
Many contaminated sites are located in military facilities, because PFAS are a key ingredient in firefighting foam. The proposed regulation would also require the Defense Department to consider state standards, which can be stricter than federal ones.
Industry groups have argued that the rule would impose undue burdens on manufacturers and could be used to hold companies liable for minor or historic contamination. Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have called for authorities to instead prioritize technology to break down these compounds. These objections are unconvincing. The two types of PFAS at issue, PFOA and PFOS, have largely been phased out of U.S. manufacturing, and the EPA has said it does not intend to focus on minor sources of contamination. And while scientists have made strides in destruction technology, these techniques are not ready to be launched commercially or at scale.
The EPA’s new proposal, which will now be subject to a 60-day comment period, is part of a suite of measures enacted by the Biden administration. In June, agency officials released new health advisories for PFAS, concluding that these substances can have pernicious health effects at near-zero levels over a lifetime. The agency is also working on mandatory drinking water standards for the compounds. In addition, Superfund will get a boost from the bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act, which reinstated taxes on polluters to fund cleanups.
It’s good news that the administration is beginning to take action on “forever chemicals.” But the proposed rule targets just two of approximately 12,000 types of PFAS, found in an estimated 41,000 sites across the country. The EPA has said it will seek public comment on whether to designate more of these compounds as hazardous. That process will be critical for crafting effective regulation — and for protecting hundreds of millions of Americans exposed to these toxic, enduring substances. | 2022-09-04T11:26:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | 'Forever chemicals' rule proposed by EPA is a step forward - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/forever-chemicals-epa-rule-progress/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/forever-chemicals-epa-rule-progress/ |
A person works from home in Princeton, Ill., in 2020. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg)
This Labor Day, pause to consider what it means to work. A long commute? Long hours in the presence of the same co-workers? Anxiety over striving for better assignments, compensation and the chance to clamber higher up the ladder? All of this may be familiar to those who have toiled in offices, factories and other workplaces. But it may also be, increasingly, a distant memory. More than two years of pandemic have jolted the meaning of work and the way employees think about it. The consequences are just unfolding.
The pandemic caused the biggest shake-up to the workforce in decades. Remarkably, all 22 million jobs lost have now returned, and then some, a feat worth celebrating on its own. The rapid recovery has created a lot more demand for workers than the supply, giving employees leverage they have not had in decades and leading to new, high-profile union drives. The labor market will probably cool off, but it is unlikely that workers are going to revert to the mind-set of 2019 and the usual ways of doing business.
Workers across the spectrum are looking for more — many are seeking more fulfilling lives and no longer assume they will spend a career in a traditional office, putting in long hours and pursuing ever-higher ambitions. At the top of the earning scale, we’ve seen a viral discussion of “quiet quitting,” which isn’t quitting but is when white-collar workers scale back from 60-hour weeks to something a lot closer to 40 hours. Millennials and Gen Zers are shifting ambitions from wanting to reach the top to having a meaningful effect on their communities, nation and the world. And for those making lower incomes, the tight labor market has been a boon for jumping to new jobs with higher pay and more flexible hours.
The office cubicle culture that defines work for millions is in the throes of uncertainty. At the peak of pandemic shutdowns, about two-thirds of work was done remotely. Now that number has come down but stabilized at an extraordinarily high level: about a third. Many workers who had been all-remote are shifting to a hybrid schedule. The impact is seen most vividly in large cities. According to the Wall Street Journal, less than half of pre-pandemic office workers are consistently returning to urban business districts. Many employees are resisting a full return, saying that remote or hybrid work is just as productive and valuable as being in the office full time. This tension will require companies and workers to be innovative and flexible in figuring out the path ahead.
Yet another uncertainty is the impact of long covid. It is impossible to say for sure, but companies may be struggling for years to provide treatment for employees who suffer injuries and disabilities caused by this disease. American workers proved in the pandemic to be resilient and adaptable, whether on the job in hospital wards, driving delivery trucks or attending Zoom meetings in pajamas. These qualities will be tested anew in a future of work that looks far different from the past. | 2022-09-04T11:26:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Out of office: The pandemic and the new meaning of work - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/labor-day-remote-workers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/labor-day-remote-workers/ |
Ice cream scoopers can make $17 an hour and at least one firm has recruited people from Puerto Rico, in a state with an unemployment rate of 1.8 percent.
Robbie Wright paints pieces of metal equipment at family-owned Jones Metal in Mankato, Minn., last month. (Caroline Yang for The Washington Post)
MANKATO, Minn. — A construction company needs workers so badly, they’re flying them in from Puerto Rico and Texas and paying $20 an hour to install roofs. An online Halloween costume retailer booked hundreds of hotel rooms across the city to house its seasonal workforce.
Welcome to Mankato, Minn., home to one the tightest labor markets in the nation. The unemployment rate in this metro area of 103,000 is even lower than the state average of 1.8 percent — a record low since federal labor statistics began tracking data, and far below the national average of 3.7 percent.
“When we were trying to hire last year, just like everybody else, we’d get a candidate in, make a great offer, and then their employer would counter with some ridiculous amount,” said Valerie Bentdahl, director of human resources at Jones Metal.
“This is the best job I’ve ever had,” said Tate Witty, a senior at Minnesota State University who scoops ice cream at Mom & Pop’s on Riverfront Drive in Mankato, often making more than $17 an hour with tips.
The tight labor market has created an entirely new wage floor, far above the state’s minimum of $8.42 an hour, said Ryan Vesey, economic development specialist at Greater Mankato Growth, the local chamber of commerce.
“Even in fast food. If you’re working full-time at McDonald’s, you can make $15 an hour,” Vesey said. “This is a community where if the minimum wage were to go up, I don’t think it would be noticed.”
Even before the pandemic began, Minnesota had long benefited from a red-hot labor market in which employers compete aggressively for workers despite a comparatively plentiful labor force, with a participation rate that’s far higher than the national average.
The state has a fast-growing immigrant population, particularly from Mexico, Somalia and Laos, with large numbers of workers in the labor force. Eighty percent of the state’s Hispanic residents held jobs as of July. Minnesota also boasts one of the nation’s highest high school completion rates, and the 14th-highest college graduation rate.
“Workers have an extraordinary amount of choice right now in Minnesota,” Grove said on a recent press call. “Companies are desperate for workers. Labor is such a prized asset right now in any given firm.”
Signs that employers of all stripes are itching for workers are everywhere in Mankato. Main thoroughfares are dotted with “now hiring” and “help wanted” signs at fast food joints, supermarkets, bars, manufacturing outlets, a barbershop, carwash, shoe store, and smoothie shack.
“I’m very comfortable,” Lawton said, noting that manufacturers and health-care employers began to court him and his peers in Mankato when they were teenagers. “There’s lots of opportunity here.”
Schwickert’s Tecta America, a roofing construction company based in Mankato, has flown in more than 60 laborers from Texas and Puerto Rico in recent years to keep up with the demands of the booming construction industry. It has also raised entry-level wages to $20 an hour, and pays relocation expenses and initial housing costs. The company sponsors a roofing course at Texas Southmost College in Brownsville, guaranteeing jobs in Minnesota or Kansas. Some of the Texas workers have relocated permanently, although many of the workers from Puerto Rico have since returned to the territory, citing homesickness.
Bertha Cuellar, 41, who became homeless in Brownsville during the pandemic when her remodeling business tanked, came across the Schwickert’s Tecta America roofing course. Two days after she completed the program in May, Cuellar boarded a flight to a new life in Minnesota.
“This was a big move,” Cuellar said. “It was a major change going from making $9 or $10 an hour to $22 an hour. I came over here with nothing, not even money in my pocket. But now I’m way more comfortable. I got a car now. I’m looking for an apartment.”
“The alternative [to investing in our workforce] was a downturn in sales, which would mean not marketing as much or raising prices,” said Matthew Burkett, the company’s chief financial officer. “Basically it was like, ‘We got to get people.’ And it worked. We’ve had a record year, so it was the right move to do.”
“Businesses want more workers, so they are making these renovations to their buildings,” said Mohamed Abdulkadir, refugee employment specialist for Blue Earth County, who helps match Somali workers with employers in the area, in part by serving as an interpreter.
The Black unemployment rate in Minnesota in July was 7.3 percent, more than triple the White unemployment rate, and worse than the national average for Black people in the United States.
“Sad to say, in the African American community, I don’t see a lot of people taking on new, better-paying jobs,” said Charles Moss, an employment services manager at Project for Pride in Living, a nonprofit in north Minneapolis, where most residents are African American.
“It’s easy to find work that is very low pay and high risk for covid,” said Tasha, who has hypertension and other health issues. “You can find something in fast food or gas stations, places where you deal with the general public, but I’m not willing to do that.” Tasha asked to be identified by her first name only because she feared jeopardizing her job prospects.
For over a year, she has strung together independent contractor gigs as a banquet server at the Minneapolis Convention Center and a temp worker fulfilling gift card orders for $15 to $17 an hour. Recently, she completed a course for a commercial driver’s license and is hopeful that she’ll land a full-time job in the trucking industry.
“I feel that for the African American community in Minneapolis, it’s harder,” she said. “The good paying jobs are far out and there’s a lack of transportation to get to them.” | 2022-09-04T12:36:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Record hot labor market has Minnesota scrambling for workers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/04/minnesota-jobs-unemployment-rate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/04/minnesota-jobs-unemployment-rate/ |
‘House of the Dragon’ is based on this real medieval civil war
LEFT: Emma D'Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen from "House of the Dragon," the prequel to "Game of Thrones." RIGHT: a vintage illustration of the Empress Matilda's escape from Oxford Castle during a snowstorm in 1142. Empress Matilda was one of the claimants to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. (Ollie Upton/HBO/AP/iStock)
(Note: This article may contain spoilers for HBO’s “House of the Dragon” — depending on how closely future episodes of the show track with the real history of England.)
During a Comic-Con panel this summer, author George R.R. Martin, whose books inspired the Game of Thrones TV series, spoke about his latest creation to get the HBO treatment. It’s called “House of the Dragon,” and it began airing on Aug. 21.
Like Game of Thrones, which was loosely based on the War of the Roses, Martin said the new series — a prequel to “Game of Thrones” — also derived from real medieval history.
“I get inspiration from history, and then I take elements from history, and I turn it up to 11,” he said. “['House of the Dragon'] is based on an earlier period in history called the Anarchy.”
In fact, the Anarchy was more than a loose inspiration for the series: Several of the main characters are based directly on the key figures from that conflict-ridden period. So let’s dive into the Anarchy — and what it might tell us about where the show is headed.
In 1120, King Henry I lost his only (legitimate) son and heir, William Adelin, to a shipwreck in the English Channel while William traveled from Normandy to England, both under Henry’s control at the time. Henry’s wife had died a few years earlier, so his response was twofold: 1) He named his teenage daughter, the Empress Matilda, his successor — the first woman to be so named — and 2) He married a much younger woman, perhaps hoping to produce another male heir.
King Henry died in 1135. Matilda, now in her thirties, was away from the seat of power in London, and – surprise! — not all of the nobles were as committed to her coronation as they had claimed. Her cousin, Stephen of Blois, seized the throne with the help of his brother.
How does this map onto ‘House of the Dragon’?
Fans who have watched the first two episodes will note the similarities. King Henry I is King Viserys I, and his daughter Matilda is Princess Rhaenyra. The deaths of Henry’s wife and son have been combined into one event — a doomed and bloody labor that neither mother nor son survives. By the end of the first episode, Viserys has named Rhaenyra his successor and compelled his council to swear allegiance.
Matilda’s challenger, Stephen of Blois, is presumed to have become Prince Daemon in the TV show, though the relationship is a little different; Prince Daemon is Rhaenyra’s uncle.
It also appears the character Alicent Hightower is based on Henry’s second wife, Adeliza of Louvain. It’s unknown whether Matilda and Adeliza were friends in their youth the way Rhaenyra and Alicent are in the show, but in real life they were about the same age.
In 1139, Matilda mounted an impressive invasion of England with the help of Robert of Gloucester — her half-brother and one of her dad’s many illegitimate children — while her husband stayed in Normandy. They came to control much of southwest England but still couldn’t seize the throne. Stephen of Blois had the support of many barons, but others just wanted to stay out of the whole thing.
At one point, Stephen of Blois was captured, and it seemed Matilda might be victorious. But the people of London rejected her, and she fled to Oxford, where she was surrounded and narrowly escaped in a snowstorm. When her half-brother was captured, a prisoner exchange was arranged, freeing Stephen and firing up the conflict once again.
At another point, Matilda was captured when she visited her former stepmother, Adeliza, who had married one of Stephen’s allies. Whether or not Adeliza intentionally betrayed Matilda’s location, she eventually convinced Stephen to let her go.
The Anarchy was characterized by long and brutal sieges, which had horrible consequences for the peasants caught in the middle, who mostly didn’t care who won. Fields and villages were abandoned, arbitrary taxes were imposed, and people starved. According to historian Jim Bradbury, one chronicler at the time, a monk, wrote, “There had never been greater misery in the country. ... Men said openly that Christ and his saints were asleep.”
In the end, Stephen of Blois’s son and heir died unexpectedly, Matilda wasn’t getting any getting any younger, and everyone else was sick of fighting. Peace terms were reached: Stephen would remain king, but Matilda’s now-adult son would succeed him. That happened sooner rather than later; Stephen died within a year and King Henry II was crowned. He would rule for 35 years.
So will “House of the Dragon,” however many seasons it lasts, conclude similarly, with a son of Rhaenyra ascendant? Only time will tell. “House of the Dragon” is a work of fiction — there are DRAGONS, after all — so it need not follow the “plot” of real history. Plus, at least some of that history is based on modern cliches and misperceptions about what medieval times were actually like, as Slate’s Rebecca Onion pointed out in her piece about that gruesome and nonconsensual C-section in the first episode. Contrary to what we may presume, historians told her, it’s unlikely medieval midwives or doctors would have sacrificed a mother over her infant.
A dying woman’s forced C-section launched a fight over fetal rights
Presumption is par for course when it comes to medieval history. The people who lived through the Anarchy didn’t call it “the Anarchy” — that’s a modern term created by Victorian scholars confused by the changing alliances and belligerents during the war. Historians today argue the label is inaccurate — just another misunderstanding about the so-called Dark Ages.
The joy of Juneteenth: America’s long and uneven march from slavery to freedom
He won Powerball’s $314 million jackpot. It ruined his life. | 2022-09-04T12:36:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘House of the Dragon’ is based on the Anarchy, an English civil war - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/04/house-dragon-anarchy-england/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/04/house-dragon-anarchy-england/ |
Grant, a high-ranking officer in his local Freemasonry chapter, is one of 20 individuals — most of whom are Black — charged by an elections police force created by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to pursue allegations of election fraud and improper voting. Those arrested are all accused of voting in violation of a state law that forbids those convicted or murder or felony sexual offenses from casting ballots.
“If the state is unable to determine that these people were not eligible to vote, how on earth are these individuals themselves supposed to know?” asked Daniel C. Smith, a University of Florida political science professor and expert on state and national election laws. “It’s really unconscionable. … They’re punching down and targeting the low-hanging fruit.”
— Alice Crites contributed to this report | 2022-09-04T12:36:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cracks emerge in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' election police arrests - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/04/desantis-election-police-voter-arrests/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/04/desantis-election-police-voter-arrests/ |
Unions are on a roll. And they unite a divided nation.
The Starbucks Workers United hub in Buffalo on Nov. 16. (Libby March/for The Washington Post)
Okay, it’s not like labor’s high tide in the 1940s or 1950s yet. But unions are staging a remarkable comeback in the United States that few anticipated even a decade ago.
Opinion is translating into action. Vox’s Rani Molla documented how well-publicized union victories — at Amazon, Apple, Chipotle, REI, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s — are just the most visible part of a larger trend. (Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, owns The Post.)
All of this is happening against the backdrop of an administration trying to live up to President Biden’s pledge to be “the most pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in American history.” | 2022-09-04T12:37:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | This Labor Day, unions are more popular than they have been in decades - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/labor-day-unions-resurgence-popularity/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/labor-day-unions-resurgence-popularity/ |
A document from whistleblower Peiter Zatko that details the company’s failings in policing misinformation shows what happens when a business model fails
Cat Zakrzewski
WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 22: Peiter Zatko, who is also known as Mudge poses for a portrait on Monday August 22, 2022 in Washington, DC. He has worked for Google and Twitter. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
In the weeks leading to Twitter’s launch of a new fact-checking program to combat misinformation, experts at the company warned managers that the project could be easily exploited by conspiracy theorists.
Those warnings — which went unheeded — almost came true. The night before the invitation-only project, called Birdwatch, launched, in 2021, engineers and managers learned that they had inadvertently accepted a proponent of the violent conspiracy theory QAnon into the program —which would have enabled them to publicly annotate news-related tweets to help people determine their veracity.
The details of Twitter’s near-miss with Birdwatch came to light as part of an explosive whistleblower complaint filed in July by the platform’s former head of security, Peiter Zatko. Zatko had commissioned an external audit of Twitter’s capabilities to fight misinformation and it was included in his complaint. The Post obtained the audit and the complaint from congressional staff.
While Zatko’s allegations of Twitter’s security failures, first reported last month by The Post and CNN, have received widespread attention, the audit on misinformation has gone largely unreported. Yet it underscores a fundamental conundrum for the 16-year-old social media service: in spite of its role hosting the opinions of some the world’s most important political leaders, business executives and journalists, Twitter has been unable to build safeguards commensurate with the platform’s outsized societal influence. It has never generated the level of profit needed to do so, and its leadership never demonstrated the will.
Twitter’s early executives famously referred to the platform as “the free speech wing of the free speech party.” Though that ethos has been tempered over the years, as the company contended with threats from Russian operatives and the relentless boundary-pushing tweets from former president Donald J. Trump, Twitter’s first-ever ban of any kind of misinformation didn’t take place until 2020 — when it prohibited deep fakes and falsehoods related to covid-19.
Former employees have said that privacy, security, and user safety from harmful content were long seen as afterthoughts for the company’s leadership. Then-CEO Jack Dorsey even questioned his most senior deputies’ decision to permanently suspend Trump’s account after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, calling silencing the president a mistake.
The reportdescribed severe staffing challenges that included large numbers of unfilled positions on its Site Integrity team, one of three business units responsible for policing misinformation. It also highlighted a lack of language capabilities so severe that many content moderators resorted to Google Translate to fill the gaps. In one of the most startling parts of the report, a headcount chart said Site Integrity had just two full-time people working on misinformation in 2021, and four working full-time to counter foreign influence operations from operatives based in places like Iran, Russia, and China.
“It has this outsized role in public discourse, but it’s still staffed like a midsize platform," said Graham Brookie, who tracks influence operations as head of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab. "They struggle to do more than one thing at one time.”
The result of Twitter’s chaotic organizational structure, the Alethea report found, was that the experts on disinformation had to “beg” other teams for engineering help because they largely lacked their own tools, and had little guarantee that their safety advice would be implemented in new products such as Birdwatch.
The report also exposed slapdash technological workarounds that left experts using five different types of software in order to label a single tweet as misinformation.
“Twitter is too understaffed to be able to do much other than respond to an immediate crisis,” the 24-page report concluded, noting that Twitter was consistently “behind the curve” in responding to misinformation threats.
“Organizational siloing, a lack of investment in critical resources, and reactive policies and processes have driven Twitter to operate in a constant state of crisis that does not support the company’s broader mission of protecting authentic conversation,” it found.
Twitter disputes many details in the 2021 report, arguing that it depicted a moment in time when the company had far less staff, and that by focusing on a single team, it portrayed a misleadingly narrow picture of the company’s broader efforts to combat misinformation.
A senior company official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing litigation with billionaire Elon Musk, told The Post that the report — which was based on interviews with just 12 Twitter employees — tended to blow individuals’ concerns out of proportion, including worries about the Birdwatch launch. He said the report’s staffing numbers referred only to senior policy experts — the people who set the rules — while the company currently has 2,200 people, including dozens of full-time experts and thousands of contractors, to actually enforce them.
Elon Musk wants to delay Twitter trial due to whistleblower allegations
“To successfully moderate content at scale, we believe companies — including Twitter — can’t invest in headcount alone,” Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, said in an interview. “Collaboration between people and technology is needed to address these complex challenges and effectively mitigate and prevent harms — and that’s how we’ve invested.”
Nonetheless, at the time that Twitter had just six full-time policy experts tackling foreign influence operations and misinformation, according to the report, Facebook had hundreds, according to several people familiar with internal operations at Meta, Facebook’s parent company.
Twitter is vastly smaller, in terms of revenues, users, and headcount, than the other social media services it’s compared to, and its ability to combat threats is proportionally smaller as well. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, for example, has 2.8 billion users logging in daily — more than 12 times the size of Twitter’s user base. Meta has 83,000 employees; Twitter has 7,000. Meta earned $28 billion in revenue last quarter; Twitter earned $1.2 billion.
But some of the issues confronting Twitter are worse than Facebook and YouTube, because the platform traffics in immediacy and because people on Twitter can face broad attacks from a public mob, said Leigh Honeywell, chief executive of Tall Poppy, a company that works with corporations to mitigate online abuse of their employees. She added that Twitter users can’t delete negative comments about them, while YouTube video providers and Facebook and Instagram page administrators can remove statements there.
“We see the highest volume of harassment in our day-to-day work on Twitter,” Honeywell said.
"It isn’t a sound defense to say we’re really small and we’re not making that much money,” said Paul Barrett, deputy director of the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University. “You’re as big as your impact is, and you had that obligation, while you were becoming so influential, to protect against the side effects of being so influential.”
To be sure, wealthier companies, including Facebook and YouTube, face similar problems and have made halting progress in combating them. And Twitter’s size, experts said, has also accorded it a certain nimbleness that enables it to punch above its weight. Twitter was the first company to slap labels on politicians for breaking rules, including putting a warning label on a May 2020 tweet from Trump during the George Floyd protests.
Twitter was also the first company to ban so-called “deep fakes,” the first company to ban all political ads, and, at the onset of the Ukraine war, the first to put warning labels on content that mischaracterizes a conflict as it evolves on the ground.
The company was also first to launch features that slowed the spread of news on its service in an effort to prevent misinformation from quickly spreading, such as a prompt that asked people if they’d read an article before they retweeted it. And it published a first-ever archive of state-back disinformation campaigns on its platform, a move researchers have praised for its transparency.
Frances Haugen, a Facebook whistleblower who raised the alarm about the shortcomings of Meta’s investments in content moderation and has been highly critical of technology companies, has said that other companies should copy some of Twitter’s efforts.
“Because Twitter was so much more thinly staffed and made so much less money, they were willing [to be more experimental],” Haugen said in an interview.
But nation-backed adversaries such as Russia’s Internet Research Agency could adapt quickly to such changes, while Twitter lacked tools to keep up.
“There is an enormously vulnerable landscape that is infinitely manipulatable, because it’s easy to evolve and iterate as events occur,” Brookie said.
Twitter employees made much the same point, according to the Alethea report, complaining that the company was too slow to react to crises and other threats and sometimes didn’t have the organizational structure in place to respond to them.
For example, the report said that Twitter delayed responding to the rise of QAnon and the Pizzagate conspiracy theory — which falsely alleged that a Democrat-run pedophile ring operated out of a pizza shop in Northwest Washington — because “the company could not figure out how to categorize” it.
Executives felt QAnon didn’t fall under the purview of the disinformation team because the movement wasn’t seeded by a foreign actor, and they determined that the conspiracy wasn’t a child exploitation issue because it included false instances of child trafficking. They did not deem it to be a spam issue despite the aggressive, spamlike promotion of the theory by its proponents, the report said. Many companies, including Facebook, faced similar challenges in addressing QAnon, The Post has previously reported.
Facebook and Twitter missed years of warning signs about the conspiracy theory's violent nature
It was only when events forced the company’s hand, such as the celebrity Chrissy Tiegen threatening to leave Twitter because of harassment from QAnon devotees, that executives got more serious about QAnon, the report said.
“Twitter is managed by crisis. It doesn’t manage crisis,” a former executive told The Post. The executive was not interviewed by Alethea for its report, and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive internal topics.
Twitter’s lack of language capabilities figure prominently in the Alethea report. The report said that the company was unprepared for an election in Japan in 2020 because there were “no Japanese speakers on the Site Integrity team, only one [Trust and Safety] staff member located in Tokyo, and severely limited Japanese-language coverage among senior [Twitter Services] Strategic Response staff."
In Thailand, the report said, Twitter moderators are “only able to search for trending hashtags .... because they do not have the language or country expertise on staff" to conduct actual investigations.
The Twitter executive who spoke on behalf of the company said the report painted a misleading picture about its response to threats internationally. He said Twitter maintains a large office in Japan, which is a huge market for the company, and had employees who consulted on misinformation issues during the election there. He pointed to the company’s record of taking down influence operations in Thailand, including the suspension, in 2020, of thousands of murky accounts that appeared to be tied to a campaign to mar opponents of the Thai monarchy.
Some former insiders told The Post that aspects of their experience at Twitter echoed the report. Edwin Chen, a data scientist formerly in charge of Twitter’s spam and health metrics and now CEO of the the content-moderation startup Surge AI, said that the company’s artificial intelligence technology to tackle hate speech was typically six months out of date. He said it was often difficult to get resources for projects related to creating a healthier discussion on the platform.
“You have to kind of convince this other team to do this work for you because there’s a lack of strong leadership,” he said.
He also noted that there’s always tension between those who work in safety and security and those responsible for other aspects of the business. “There’s an inevitable tradeoff between growth and security, and there’s always going to be something missing,” he said.
“Though Twitter has a miniscule number of users compared to YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok, because it is such as public platform, those who seek to spread misinformation and undermine democracy know that Twitter is one of the best places to increase the likelihood of their messages spreading widely,” she said. “The folks that they hire are good, and earnest, and really want to make a difference — but Twitter is just an under-resourced company compared to the outsized impact they have on the larger information ecosystem.” | 2022-09-04T12:37:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mudge report shows how Twitter's lack of resources shaped trouble - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/04/twitter-mudge-alethea-resources/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/04/twitter-mudge-alethea-resources/ |
Homeless People Need Homes — and Money, Too
Analysis by Francis Wilkinson | Bloomberg
Many affluent and dynamic North American cities share a great flaw: high levels of homelessness. But its prevalence in Vancouver is especially striking.
That’s partly because homelessness is both a serious and highly visible problem in Vancouver, where I’ve lived for short periods in recent years and visited last month. And it’s partly because I expect, perhaps naively in this case, to see a higher level of commitment to collective well-being (and less resort to punitive catharsis) in Canada than typically exists in the US.
Like other cities, including Toronto, Vancouver has deployed many strategies to address the problem, from a focus on health care and drug treatment to temporary modular housing and tiny shelters for the homeless. There was a foreign buyer’s tax and an empty homes tax. There was an investigation into whether money laundering and corruption were behind the persistent rise of Vancouver real-estate values.
Currently there are proposals to change the property tax structure and to grant incentives for high-density housing. And one community organization is actually handing out cash, no strings attached, to carefully screened homeless people and tracking their progress.
But the problem persists, with small encampments on downtown sidewalks and one neighborhood — Downtown Eastside — that has for years been inundated with homelessness and high incidences of mental illness and drug abuse. Other cities have more homeless people, but few have such a high concentration as Vancouver does in the Downtown Eastside, where hundreds of people, many in obvious distress, occupy sidewalk space. The area around East Hastings Street may be the most chaotic city blocks I have seen in North America.
In the US, leaders in many stereotypically liberal cities have lately made a show of frustration with their own homeless citizens and the encampments where many congregate. In December, for example, San Francisco Mayor London Breed implicitly linked homelessness and crime when, in an address about a promised anti-crime initiative, she cited rampant homelessness, including people living in tents. “We are past the point where what we see is even remotely acceptable,” Breed said.
San Francisco is more of a leading indicator than an outlier. Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle and others have also clamped down on homeless camps this year, and the political rhetoric has grown more harsh.
Vancouver has the profile of a homelessness incubator. It consistently has the highest rents in Canada (more than C$2,200, or about $1,671) for a one bedroom) and the housing supply is notoriously limited, not only by economics and development trends but by the water and mountains that encircle the city. Wealth abounds: Single-family homes, of which there are many, in nice neighborhoods, of which there are also many, go for millions.
The city seems to confirm the thesis that homelessness is driven first and foremost by the high costs and inadequate supply of housing. So I was surprised when I sat down with a longtime activist in Vancouver who wanted to focus attention on other factors.
Heather Hay is the acting CEO of Foundations for Social Change, a nonprofit organization currently running a pilot program that provides cash transfers to 200 homeless people in Vancouver. (The group is also following a control group of another 200.) The project grew out of a smaller test of cash transfers that yielded positive results.
“My background is working with marginalized populations,” said Hay, a registered nurse who led a health and safety initiative for 15 years in the Downtown Eastside. “In Vancouver, when everybody thinks of homelessness, they think of the Downtown Eastside.”
When Hay’s organization began looking for potential clients for cash transfers, they screened for a range of issues. “We were looking for individuals who had no complex mental health issues, no misuse of drugs or alcohol and no significant gambling issues,” she said. In other words, people who could “make appropriate decisions for themselves.”
Hay likened screening the homeless population to searching for a needle in a haystack. “When they did the pilot project, they interviewed over 780 people to get a sample size of 115,” she said. The vast majority of interviewees failed to meet the criteria because the Downtown Eastside, she said, is “over-representative of people with complex mental health and addiction issues.”
Vancouver’s point-in-time count in March 2020 found almost 2,100 homeless in the city, with almost half in the Downtown Eastside. Many outside the Downtown Eastside don’t exhibit the kind of behaviors that are prevalent there. Even so, Hay remains skeptical that the much-vaunted “housing first” approach can actually solve homelessness. “In the pilot project, many of our participants were working three or four jobs, and the reason they defaulted to the street was because they lost one of those jobs. Or else it was because their car didn’t work, and it was a huge expense,” she said. “For some populations, we need to give people money.”
Of course, lack of money for rent is one way a lack of money manifests itself. In an expensive city, the resulting struggle leads to people “white knuckling it on the edge,” Hay said. The more time a person spends unhoused following a financial or other setback, the more likely they are to fall prey to mental illness, drugs or alcohol. “So I think, yeah, we could throw housing at this problem,” Hay said. “But I don’t think housing is going to address the overarching issue.”
Gregg Colburn is an assistant professor of real estate at the University of Washington, a post he obtained after he made a mid-career shift from high-level finance to academia. His view of homelessness is clear from the declarative title of a book he co-authored: “Homelessness is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns.”
“When you look at regional variation and rates of homelessness, the places with high rates of homelessness don’t have more poor people. They don’t have more people who are addicted. They don’t have more people who are mentally ill,” Colburn said.
Colburn’s argument about homelessness has the same basic parameters as a familiar analysis of American exceptionalism in firearm homicide rates. Europe, for example, doesn’t have fewer people with mental illness than the US. It generally doesn’t have lower rates of nonviolent crime. What Europe has are fewer guns; that’s why it has less gun violence.
Colburn similarly points out that many troubled cities have worse problems than L.A., Seattle, Vancouver and the other cosmopolitan places with high rates of homelessness. But what those troubled cities don’t have, Colburn said, is a housing crunch.
Seattle doesn’t have a homelessness problem because we have more people who are mentally ill. Now, is mental illness a cause of homelessness? Sure it is. But there are mentally ill people in Detroit and Chicago and West Virginia and Arkansas and all these places. And they don’t have near the problem that we have.
And when you think about drugs, the places with some of the most acute drug problems in the United States, like Arkansas and West Virginia, where the opioid epidemic has just ravaged communities, they don’t have homelessness problems. And so if drugs are really the big driver here, we should see a massive homeless population in Arkansas and West Virginia. We don’t. In fact, there are really, really low rates of homelessness.
Low-income residents of Seattle have no margin for error in the relentless struggle to afford rent. If the car breaks down, or they have an extended illness, they could be sunk. Climbing back into the ranks of the housed is also more difficult.
“The other problem is the vacancy rates are just razor thin,” Colburn said. “Even if you might have some resources, if you lose your housing, finding another place is really, really hard. So it doesn’t take a lot for someone to be in an OK place, lose a job, have an unexpected expense, lose their housing, and then pretty soon they’re in the system and, you know, getting out of that system’s really hard.”
To Colburn, the distinction between Seattle and cities with high poverty rates is telling.
Detroit has the highest poverty rate in the country by far. Cleveland has very high poverty rates. St. Louis, Baltimore — all those places have really high rates of poverty, meaning the percentage of people below the federal poverty line. And they have very, very low rates of homelessness. Seattle and San Francisco are two of the most affluent cities in the country. So are there poor people in Seattle? Sure there are. But as a percentage of the total population, the percentage of people below the federal poverty line in Seattle and San Francisco is really, really low, right? In fact, we have relatively few poor people. But the consequences of being poor in a market like this are really severe. That’s fundamentally the problem.
Creating more affordable housing is difficult — at least it appears to be based on mostly meager results in all sorts of places. As my colleague Justin Fox points out, Minneapolis recently relaxed its single-family zoning laws to encourage the kind of medium-density construction that housing activists applaud. The rule change has not yet produced much in the way of actual housing, however.
Handing people cash to support themselves may be a more promising route. But if the Foundations for Social Change pilot program is any indication, it’s also highly dependent on the kind of people who receive the cash.
I asked Hay what her ideal menu of policies would be. None was very shocking. Legalize drugs in order to eliminate the criminal incentives endemic to homeless groups of people, she said. Or provide the kind of comprehensive “therapeutic community” that could help some of the regulars around the Downtown Eastside to escape their trauma.
In one previous incarnation of Vancouver policy, Hay recalled, housing was provided to homeless individuals along with varied levels of services, ranging from comprehensive “Cadillac” social services to basic housing. “The folks that were in the Cadillac, with the highest level of support, absolutely fared better, and had more sustainability to be able to move on,” she said. “Just putting the control group in place, in housing, didn’t accomplish much.”
One thing she knows from countless conversations with homeless people, she said, is that many wish to be elsewhere. “We know that a lot of people don’t want to be there. So why don’t we ask them, ‘Where do you want to be?’ and help them move where they want to be in some kind of supportive housing?”
Ultimately, Hay said, improving the situation is a matter of public will. “Why don’t we just have a policy that is zero tolerance for homelessness?” she asked. “Instead of enabling and continuing, we could just adopt a policy.”
Hay’s suggestion sounds both simplistic and impractical. But she may be articulating the only course with a chance of lasting success.
Canada does a vastly better job preventing gun violence than the US does not because it brings more financial resources to bear but because it has more social, moral and political capital devoted to making sure its people are not targets. It has, in effect, zero tolerance for gun violence. The US, by contrast, has an exceedingly high tolerance for gun violence — and eight times the per capita firearm deaths that its neighbor has. If Canada cared as much about reducing homelessness as it cares about preventing gun violence, then Americans might have something else to envy about their neighbors to the north.
• Just Giving the Homeless a Home Is What Works: Noah Smith
• Homelessness at the End of the Lincoln Highway: Frank Barry
• Fight Covid by Finding Homes for the Homeless: Tracy Walsh
Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering U.S. politics and policy. Previously, he was an editor for the Week, a writer for Rolling Stone, a communications consultant and a political media strategist. | 2022-09-04T14:07:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Homeless People Need Homes — and Money, Too - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/homeless-people-need-homes--and-money-too/2022/09/04/4b5acc8e-2c52-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/homeless-people-need-homes--and-money-too/2022/09/04/4b5acc8e-2c52-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html |
Analysis by Robert Lerman | Bloomberg
With the US unemployment rate near a five-decade low and job vacancies close to a record high, businesses say they are scrambling to find workers. Many complain that large and growing skills mismatches prevent them from getting the staff they need. While the Biden administration has pushed for large government spending increases to support college students and former college students, apprenticeship is a far lower-cost, quicker pathway to high skills and good jobs. This summer, the Labor Department announced the latest recipients of a $121 million grant to expand such programs. But more can be done — and fortunately, there are practical solutions.
Apprenticeships combine standard classroom learning with paid, on-the-job experience. They’re often seen as a win-win: Employers ensure that their workforce has the skills to succeed on the job and benefit from apprentices’ productivity; apprentices earn wages and an opportunity to directly apply those skills, which can be far more engaging than sitting in class.
Policy makers appear to agree that increasing the number of apprenticeships can build a healthier and more resilient US economy. What will it take to make that happen?
First, because getting employers on board is such a sustained and intensive effort, the Biden administration and Congress should offer more incentives for middlemen to help. Projects such as the American Apprenticeship Initiative show that nonprofits, industry associations, staffing companies and other private firms can make it easier for employers to ramp up, at a cost of about $4,000 per apprentice. South Carolina’s Apprenticeship Carolina hired and trained consultants who helped handle some of the paperwork. Along with state tax credits for employers, this led to a jump from about 90 programs in 2008 to over 613 in 2013 and 1,199 today. The gains were sharpest in health care, IT and manufacturing.
Second, the process for formally recognizing apprenticeships, which can take several months, must be improved. Some states limit registration by not approving programs that might compete with existing ones. New York’s agency is so restrictive that it has fewer apprenticeships than Indiana, despite a workforce three times the size.
Another barrier to expansion is the ratio requirements set by state agencies and the federal Office of Apprenticeship. Mandating one or more skilled workers per apprentice can be a deterrent to employers. The Biden administration should ease or eliminate ratio requirements and speed program approvals for businesses that agree to follow certain national standards. Congress also should fund a public-private body to develop and oversee compliance with such guidelines, and ultimately the performance of apprentices, expanding on the work begun by the Urban Institute in recent years.
Finally, the federal government should increase funding for “off-job” learning. Theory courses that complement skills learned on the job are critical. To become fully competent in an occupation, a health care apprentice may require anatomy; an IT worker may require programming theory; and an electrician must learn the science of electricity. Some funding for these courses is already available through high school-based career and technical education; Pell grants; and the GI Bill — but the scope is limited.
Today, about 40% of 25- to 29-year-olds have a bachelor’s degree or higher, but many of these workers lack professional skills. Apprenticeships can fill the gap and prepare a large share of young people for well-paying careers, especially those without a college education. While we are unlikely to achieve the participation levels of Germany and Switzerland — at 50% and 70% of youth, respectively — reaching 20% to 30% is a reasonable goal. But incremental grants won’t get us there.
Luckily, the success of other free-market countries points the way. Australia, Canada and the UK invest the equivalent of billions of dollars to support apprenticeships, and all create national skill standards. Special Covid-related funding in Australia and the UK that supported incentives for firms and intermediaries boosted apprenticeships for hundreds of thousands of young workers. While the programs themselves yield high-skill and good paying jobs in these countries, completion generally enhances opportunities for higher education, too. College degree apprenticeships are increasingly common in the UK.
Institutional change of this magnitude is difficult and will take time, but with such an effort, businesses can get the workers they need, while increasing earnings through added worker productivity, expanding access to rewarding careers, and improving the lives of millions of Americans.
Robert Lerman is an institute fellow at the Urban Institute and board chairman of Apprenticeships for America. | 2022-09-04T14:07:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How the US Can Make the Apprenticeship Model Work - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-the-us-can-make-the-apprenticeship-model-work/2022/09/04/4af0b880-2c52-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-the-us-can-make-the-apprenticeship-model-work/2022/09/04/4af0b880-2c52-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html |
Fear of gun violence shouldn’t be on my daughter’s back-to-school list
Perspective by Gina McMillen
This year, I am reflecting on my own childhood experiences as I prepare my daughter for her very first day of school. But something much darker looms in the back of my mind: fear of the unspeakable. School shootings pepper our headlines each year, and little seems to be done to prevent them at all. What will it take to ensure our kids can feel safe at school again? | 2022-09-04T14:08:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fear of gun violence shouldn’t be on my daughter’s back-to-school list - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/04/fear-gun-violence-shouldnt-be-my-daughters-back-to-school-list/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/04/fear-gun-violence-shouldnt-be-my-daughters-back-to-school-list/ |
From inventory list of items seized during FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. (Aaron Blake/Court documents)
Republicans are treating the investigation of defeated former president Donald Trump’s purloining of classified government documents as another opportunity to play victim and attack law enforcement. U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, a last-minute Trump nominee jammed through during the 2020 lame-duck session, seems to be contemplating a special master to review the documents one by one to see whether there is some basis for blocking them from prosecutors, even as the intelligence community feverishly conducts a national security review. (Trump is bizarrely asking the court to block the Justice Department from seeing what intelligence reviewers already are examining. One longs for the “unitary executive theory” to be applied consistently.)
Even former attorney general William P. Barr observes, “Well, I think the whole idea of a special master is a bit of a red herring ... at this stage, since they have already gone through the documents, I think it’s a waste of time.” He added, “I think the driver on this from the beginning was loads of classified information sitting in Mar-a-Lago. People say this was unprecedented, well it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club.”
Alas, Barr’s party cares not one whit about national security, only the security of their cult leader and his war on American intelligence.
The extent of the national security crisis Trump thrust upon us has not yet been fully appreciated. The more detailed inventory released on Friday is jaw-dropping. As the Associated Press reports: “Though the inventory does not describe the content of the documents, it shows the extent to which classified information — including material at the top-secret level — was stashed in boxes at the home and mixed among newspapers, magazines, clothing and other personal items.” The volume of documents is even more troubling.
Contained in the inventory taken in August (and that had not been previously returned in response to a subpoena) are “more than 100 documents with classification markings ... including 18 marked top secret, 54 secret and 31 confidential.” Most chilling: “The inventory shows that 43 empty folders with classified banners were taken from a box or container at the office, along with an additional 28 empty folders labeled as ‘Return to Staff Secretary’ or military aide. Empty folders of that nature were also found in a storage closet.”
Where did the documents there were in those folder go? Were any of them destroyed, given away, copied, hidden, sold or shared? We don’t know, and that is a national security disaster given that the documents could have contained the names of human sources and signals intelligence.
Former prosecutor Barbara McQuade tells me: “Finding empty folders marked classified must have made investigators sick to their stomachs.” She adds: “Not only does it raise the possibility that sensitive information may have landed in the wrong hands, but it also makes it almost impossible to decline to file criminal charges against Trump and the explosive sideshow that will come with it, an unenviable task for any prosecutor.”
Put differently, any delay in investigation, prosecution and hopefully recovery of documents that contain our nation’s most sensitive secrets would be a further risk to national security. Regarding empty files, Larry Pfeiffer, the director of the Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy and National Security and a former chief of staff to the director of the CIA, tells me, “It’s disturbing on its face. Investigations will try to determine if some of these folders had contained some of the documents found and cataloged.” He adds: “I’m gobsmacked that this guy apparently had squirreled away over 11,000 government documents, classified and not, between the Oval and the Residence.”
Let’s imagine that Judge Cannon is willing, contrary to previous rulings in Trump-related cases, to find that Trump enjoys some residual executive privilege consideration. Nevertheless, as U.S. v. Nixon and its progeny have held, any such privilege claim pales in comparison to the interest in criminal prosecution.
The unanimous Supreme Court found, “Without access to specific facts, a criminal prosecution may be totally frustrated. The President’s broad interest in confidentiality of communications will not be vitiated by disclosure of a limited number of conversations preliminarily shown to have some bearing on the pending criminal cases.” It therefore held that “when the ground for asserting privilege as to subpoenaed materials sought for use in a criminal trial is based only on the generalized interest in confidentiality, it cannot prevail over the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice.”
And when that prosecution involves our most closely guarded secrets, any assertion of privilege is trivial, dangerous and improper. Moreover, the only interest Trump has here (because he is not the guarantor of national security) is the vague desire to conceal confidential communications that could potentially be used in his prosecution under the Espionage Act.
From former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi’s vantage point, “It is a three alarm fire. ... I’m unclear as to whether the empty folders represent missing material, or, whether those contents were intermingled throughout the seized items.” As he tells me, “The problem, of course, is that even the FBI might not be able to determine what was supposed to be in those folders. … What a mess.”
It’s beyond time that Republicans demand not only candor from Trump — Why did he have documents? What did he do with them? — but also a full and swift investigation. And unless the court wants to rewrite decades of law, allow Trump to hold the nation hostage and deepen our national security crisis, Cannon should follow Barr’s advice, dismiss Trump’s claim and let the FBI get on with an investigation and any necessary prosecutions. | 2022-09-04T14:08:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Mar-a-Lago espionage scandal is a three-alarm national security crisis. We should act like it. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/trump-national-security-crisis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/trump-national-security-crisis/ |
Seven people shot in Norfolk, police say
The shooting occurred near a college campus, in the 5000 block of Killam Avenue, according to Norfolk police
Seven people were shot and taken to a hospital, two with life-threatening injuries, early Sunday morning in Norfolk, the Norfolk police department said in a tweet.
The shooting was reported about midnight in the 5000 block of Killam Avenue, near Old Dominion University, according to the department, which did not provide additional details.
Norfolk State University said in a tweet around 6 a.m. that “several NSU students” were victims in an “isolated off-campus” shooting near 50th Street and Hampton Boulevard, adjacent to the 5000 block of Killam Avenue. An NSU spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions. The tweet also said NSU police had secured the campus and that counseling services were available for students. | 2022-09-04T15:25:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Seven people shot in Norfolk near college campus, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/shooting-norfolk-virginia-police/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/shooting-norfolk-virginia-police/ |
The historic heat wave, expected to last another five days, has been fueling fires and endangering health
A woman tries to cool off with water from a hydrant in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles last week. (Jae Hong/Associated Press)
OAKLAND, Calif. — California and the western United States are immersed in a historically severe September heat wave that is predicted to intensify early this week. The record-breaking temperatures are stressing power grids, fueling fires and endangering health.
On Saturday, numerous cities in the Intermountain West endured their highest temperatures on record not only for Sept. 3 but for the entire month. Salt Lake City (which hit 103 degrees), Pocatello, Idaho, (102), and Great Falls, Mont. (102) were among them.
Death Valley in California is sizzling weeks after record rainiest day
Climate scientists have found human-caused climate change is increasing the intensity, frequency and duration of heat waves such as this one.
Energy conservation urged
With temperatures forecast to soar into the 90s and 100s over much of the state Sunday, the California Independent System Operator (ISO), which oversees the power grid, issued the fifth consecutive “Flex Alert” calling for energy conservation between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. to avoid outages. Demand on Thursday peaked at 47,357 megawatts (MW), which was the highest load since September 2017, but usage fell a bit on Friday and Saturday.
“California consumers and businesses have responded to our Flex Alert calls with helpful reductions in their electricity use during the grid’s most challenging hours,” said California ISO CEO Elliot Mainzer in a video update on Saturday. “Cooperation like this makes a real difference, so thank you everyone for that help.”
The agency is bracing for peak demand on Tuesday of more than 50,000 MW.
Fires rage
The punishing heat has fueled numerous fast-moving fires.
In far northern California, near the town of Weed, firefighters are battling the Mill and nearby Mountain Fires. The Mill Fire, which was 25 percent Saturday evening, destroyed 50 structures, prompted evacuations and injured multiple people. Both fires started on Friday.
The Route Fire, which erupted Wednesday east of Los Angeles, burned more than 5,200 acres and at least eight firefighters suffered heat-related injuries battling the flames. By Sunday morning the blaze was 87 percent contained.
Numerous fires have also erupted in Oregon, whose billowing smoke plumes could be seen from the GOES weather satellite Saturday evening. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) declared a state of emergency a week ago due to the fire threat.
Searing conditions in the Central Valley
“It shouldn’t be the workers’ job — it’s the employers’ responsibility to provide a safe working environment,” said Elizabeth Strater from the United Farm Workers union. “The higher the heat gets, the more it seems like they’re giving up.”
Beating the heat in the Bay Area
Southern California swelters
Climate change connections | 2022-09-04T15:38:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Unrelenting September heat wave grips California and western United States - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/04/western-heatwave-california-records-climate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/04/western-heatwave-california-records-climate/ |
There was no escaping the significance of Uvalde High School’s football game Friday night, the team’s first home game since the May shooting at nearby Robb Elementary School that claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers.
A moment of silence for 21 seconds, one for each of those killed in the shooting, preceded the game. Variations of “Uvalde strong” T-shirts were prevalent among fans in 5,000-seat Honey Bowl Stadium. The team sported new uniforms and equipment, donated by the Houston Texans.
And senior linebacker Justyn Rendon, whose younger brother survived the shooting, was chosen by his teammates to wear No. 21 in remembrance of those lost.
“I automatically started crying,” Rendon’s mother, Venessa Rendon, told ABC News. “I was proud. It was a very humbling moment.”
Then, what happened on the field provided a lift in a state known for its football passion. Uvalde beat C.C. Winn, 34-28, with a flourish in the final seconds.
The score was 28-28 with 36 seconds left when Uvalde senior Jonathan Jimenez took off on a 51-yard run to the C.C. Winn 10-yard line. With 17 seconds left, senior wideout Devon Franklin’s one-handed catch in the corner of the end zone gave Uvalde the win.
Friday night’s victory follows the season-opening win over Carrizo Springs in which Uvalde scored 21 points.
“It was just a sign that the 21 angels are looking down at this community, and saying that they’re here, that they’re still present, and that they will remain present,” Eluterio Rendon, Justyn’s father, told ABC News.
The Uvalde Coyotes are playing their 1st home football game of the season; over 3 months after 21 students and teachers died in a mass shooting at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School. 21 seconds of silence were observed for the victims. @ExpressNews pic.twitter.com/Ij5h9YBMFR
— Billy Calzada 🇺🇸 /Photojournalist/Love 1 Another (@BillyCalzada) September 3, 2022
Here are some photos from last night’s game. The Uvalde Coyotes defeated Eagle Pass Winn 34-28 in their first home game of the season at Honey Bowl Stadium. My colleague @mikefinger will have a story in tomorrow’s @ExpressNews featuring more photos from me & @BillyCalzada 🏈 https://t.co/dUFrxrzGS9 pic.twitter.com/RRuOCWDhbh
— Sam Owens (@SamOwensphoto) September 3, 2022
For the players, football was therapeutic. “Everybody didn’t have to feel the sadness and the sorrow [when they began to practice],” Justyn Rendon said. “They just were able to feel the comfort of the family that we have.”
Still, the situation before the first home game was anything but typical. Texans Coach Lovie Smith, along with linebackers Christian Kirksey and Kamu Grugier-Hill, surprised the team with a visit Thursday.
“We’ll always be in you corner,” Kirksey told them. “We’ll always have your back.”
The visit was “awesome” for Uvalde Coach Wade Miller. As for the Texans, they will wear “Uvalde strong” decals on their helmets when they open their season at home on Sept. 11 against the Indianapolis Colts.
“It makes us feel the love that we’re getting from around the world and especially the state of Texas.” Miller told ABC, “and to have those guys here and keeping up with us makes our kids feel really special.”
Jonathan Elizondo, a 17-year-old defensive end, told ABC he had cousins who attended Robb and he transferred to Uvalde after the tragedy to support his family.
“I just don’t want them to see this as, like, a tragic town, you know?” he said “I want there to be positivity again.” | 2022-09-04T15:39:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Uvalde football's dramatic win brings joy, relief to grieving community - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/uvalde-football/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/uvalde-football/ |
I think it was when I said to my boss, “You’re in early today,” that I realized I didn’t really understand how offices work. She’d come in at 9 a.m. and she interpreted my comment as “You usually come in late.”
So, that was one thing I had to learn when I was just starting out as an office drone: What people say isn’t always what they mean, even if those people are you. Another thing I had to understand: An office is an artificial construct with certain rituals, some obvious, others less so.
This was in 1984, after I’d been hired as an editorial assistant at an association of people who worked at associations. I was fresh out of college and this was my first “real” job. Frankly, my “unreal” jobs had all been easier. They may have been more demanding physically, but they were obvious and self-contained in a way that none of my future jobs would be.
For starters, a lot of the time in that first white-collar job, I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the job’s discrete tasks — write this; proofread that — it was that I didn’t know how to occupy myself during those stretches when I wasn’t performing those discrete tasks.
In my previous jobs — busboy, dishwasher, delivery driver — I’d always been busy. There was always something required of me and I knew when and how to do it. When a table had dirty dishes on it, I cleared them. When dishes came sliding down the metal chute in my steam-filled corner of the kitchen, I washed them. When all the packages were ready, I loaded them into a vehicle and delivered them.
Things weren’t nearly so clear in an office. Not only was there something called “office politics,” there were deadlines. Deadlines were important, but they were amorphous. Of course, a deadline is real, but it isn’t physical. A pile of dirty dishes is physical. Since two objects may not occupy the same space at the same time, that pile has to be dealt with that instant.
But if your deadline — the time by which you must have prepared for a meeting, written a news release, proofread a brochure — is in two weeks, how are you supposed to parcel out the minutes and hours leading up to that? Unlike dishes, thoughts — the raw materials of the office-bound, white-collar brainworker — occupy the same space all the time. What’s more, they’re elastic, stretching to fill that space.
And unlike with my white apron, my paper hat and my rubber gloves, thoughts couldn’t be left in my locker at work when I clocked out each evening.
An office job, I soon realized, is like an iceberg. There’s the part that’s visible above the waterline of a 9-to-5, Monday-through-Friday schedule, but there’s also the submerged part that intrudes on the rest of the week: before work, after work, on weekends. This hidden part is composed of jagged work thoughts that threatened to pierce my mental hull.
When I worked in restaurants, there were occasional lulls in our shifts, times when we could catch our breath, chill, joke, gossip. But if we looked too relaxed, the hated manager would notice and come up with some horrible task, like scrubbing the dingy wainscoting in the kitchen.
As a freshly graduated 22-year-old, I wondered: Is that how offices are supposed to work?
In my first few months working at an association of people who worked at associations, I kept waiting for someone to comment upon the strangeness of it all. We weren’t in the military, but we put on uniforms: clothes that were dressy without actually being attractive. We were a family, but one in which Mom or Dad could fire you. We were supposed to work 40 hours a week, but did that mean we owed the boss eight uninterrupted hours every weekday? And did that mean we didn’t have to think about work at all during the week’s other 128 hours?
In the 38 years since then, I’m not sure I ever answered those questions satisfactorily. Lucky for me, I eventually found a job that’s as much like busing tables or delivering packages as any I’ve had.
Anyway, happy Labor Day, however you may celebrate. | 2022-09-04T16:35:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | For Labor Day, musings on the strange world of white-collar work - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/weird-world-office-jobs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/weird-world-office-jobs/ |
Keep the wild in Western Maryland wild
The Youghiogheny River from the Kendall Trail in the Youghiogheny Wild River Scenic Corridor protected area on Aug. 8. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
The Aug. 26 Metro article “It’s a question of access” discussed proposed changes to the Youghiogheny River Scenic Corridor, a wild river in Western Maryland. People should have access to this treasure, but it should not be unlimited, and the wilderness must always be protected.
If you put in miles and miles of durable trail, how much damage will that do to this wilderness? How many trees will be cut down and how many trucks will be in the forest during construction? A durable path will be an impervious surface — the opposite of the actual forest floor. The forest is an ecosystem of interrelated organisms, bacteria, fungus and other soil microorganisms that will be damaged where the path goes. How many tree roots will be in the path’s way and have to be disturbed? How many animals will be killed or disturbed during construction?
The 2008 Eagle Creek Fire in Oregon, ignited by young people playing with fireworks, caused great damage. Florida’s Ichetucknee River was being destroyed by people stomping on the plants at the edge of the river, and there were tons of litter from parties. The state cleaned it up and managed it so people would not ruin this paradise. Access to the oldest tree on Earth in California had to be restricted so people would not kill it.
We don’t know what we have. Let’s not put up a parking lot. When it is gone, it is too late to save.
Steven C. Tuttle, Alexandria | 2022-09-04T16:57:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Keep the wild in Western Maryland wild - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/keep-wild-western-maryland-wild/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/keep-wild-western-maryland-wild/ |
Remembering ‘Old Manasseh’
A historical marker in Manassas. (Courtesy Dwayne Moyers)
I was saddened to learn of Eli N. Evans’s death, as reported in the Aug. 28 obituary “Author parsed Southern Jewish life through family lens.”
In 1988, I read in “The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South” that nearby Manassas was one of the places “named for Jews who owned the plot where the post office was built or used the crossroads as a center for their peddling.” I wrote Mr. Evans to express the importance of having this Manassas history more widely known, and he wrote me right back, supportive of my idea. With Mr. Evans’s guidance, I located the Aug. 10, 1861, edition of the Richmond Enquirer that explained the legend of “Old Manasseh.” It stated “an enthusiastic friend” explained “the mountain pass had taken its name from a caterer for the traveling public, we believe a Jew, who for a long time had his house of entertainment there. He was widely known and much esteemed for his kind heart and good cheer, and the horseman would often add many miles to his day’s journey, that he might spend the night with ‘Old Manasseh,’ as they familiarly style him. In short, he was as well known as his gap, and from him the latter caught its name of Manasseh’s Gap.” That led to the name of the Manassas Gap Railroad that formed a junction with the Orange and Alexandria Railroad in present-day Manassas.
Although there is no primary evidence of Manassas being named for “Old Manasseh,” it is an important historical legend now preserved on two Virginia historical highway markers in Manassas and Manassas Gap.
This effort was a bit of a battle as the The Post reported on July 28, 1991: “The controversy — or ‘disagreement’ as some of the city’s gentlefolk are calling it — is over how the city, 35 miles west of Washington, got its name.” In the end, the markers were erected, and an aspect of Mr. Evans’s lifelong work of showcasing Southern Jewish life lives on when the traveling public takes time to stop at these markers and read about “Old Manasseh.”
Wendy Kaufman, Bethesda | 2022-09-04T16:57:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Remembering ‘Old Manasseh’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/remembering-old-manasseh/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/remembering-old-manasseh/ |
From Saturn to Artemis, when you’re first, expect delays
The Artemis rocket awaits launch on Aug. 30 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
I am one of the few remaining members of the first Apollo Saturn V launch team from 55 years ago, and the current Artemis SLS1 launch brings back latent memories of delays, launch and aftermath. The sheer size and complexity of “firsts” and the accompanying risks are in a special class, and delays part of the process.
Apollo Saturn 501 was moved out to Pad A in August 1967 and sat there until its launch on Nov. 9, 1967. Many tests and remedies occurred. At the time, we used a mobile service structure, and we spent long days adjusting all the systems. It was like working on a scaffold next to the Washington Monument.
The firing room during the final hours of the launch witnessed many anxious people. Especially visible were Wernher von Braun and his colleagues up at the top who had conceived and helped design what was the mother of all moon rockets.
For those of us who designed the launch systems, there was an additional excitement post-launch that is rarely discussed. A rocket that size rises slowly and wreaks havoc on its way off the launcher. For Saturn 501, no one knew what was going to be left. Assessing the damage brought a certain thrill along with fixing the problems — and there were many.
Anthony M. Rutkowski, Ashburn
The writer was a lead system engineer for the Apollo Saturn 501 launch at General Electric’s Apollo Systems division, and was part of the Apollo 4 and subsequent Saturn V launch teams. | 2022-09-04T16:57:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | From Saturn to Artemis, when you’re first, expect delays - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/saturn-artemis-when-youre-first-expect-delays/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/04/saturn-artemis-when-youre-first-expect-delays/ |
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - AUGUST 30: NASA’s Artemis I rocket sits on launch pad 39-B at Kennedy Space Center on August 30, 2022 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Artemis I launch was scrubbed yesterday after an issue was found on one of the rocket’s four engines. The next launch opportunity is on September 2. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images North America)
They shouldn’t. The SLS’s path to the launch pad should never have happened. Conceived as a means to maintain US aerospace employment, and based in part on older rocket designs and parts, the project has siphoned funds and energy.
Some proponents argue that the SLS launch marks the beginning of a “renaissance” for the US space program. It’s the first mission of NASA’s Artemis program, designed to land Americans on the moon mid-decade and eventually lead to a permanent lunar base. All of that will require a working and successful SLS, and this mission - Artemis I - would stress test its capabilities and send Orion, a vehicle that will eventually hold astronauts, on a trip around the moon. It sounds groundbreaking, but the reality is that private-sector space companies have been pushing boundaries for more than a decade while the SLS lingered through delays and blown budgets.
The last humans to visit the moon’s surface arrived via the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Congress canceled an additional three missions due to cost, safety and waning public and policy-maker interest. Instead, NASA pursued the space shuttle, the International Space Station and a rich robotic exploration program of the Earth and beyond.
For example, as a cost-saving measure, Constellation’s crew launch rocket - the Ares I - would draw heavily from existing, proven Space Shuttle systems and components, including the solid rocket boosters. But the cost-saving never emerged. In 2009, NASA estimated it would cost $24.5 billion to develop Ares I. Meanwhile, in California, a scrappy startup called SpaceX was completing development of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft. NASA invested $396 million in those new craft, both of which now fly missions for the space agency.
In 2010, President Barack Obama canceled the Constellation lunar program (including the Ares I), arguing “we’ve been there before.” The plan was to visit an asteroid, then proceed to Mars. Congress wasn’t on board with canceling the jobs that the Constellation supported. So it added a provision to NASA’s 2010 authorization requiring the agency to “extend and modify” existing contracts for Constellation and the space shuttle into contracts to build the SLS and the Orion crew vehicle that’s riding atop it today. The goawas to maintain a workforce totaling in the thousands along with their skills and capabilities.
But early on, NASA made it clear that the SLS would only fly every two to four years, calling into question whether engineers could really be kept sharp and the missions safe with such a low frequency of launch. In the 2000s, the space Shuttle was launching three times per year (and as many as seven times in the 1990s). By contrast, the SLS - if it’s successful on its first mission - won’t fly again until 2024, when it launches Artemis II. SpaceX is sending up craft almost weekly in 2022; RocketLab USA Inc. has already launched six times this year. Who’s really keeping US aerospace skills sharp while advancing aerospace engineering?
Employees weren’t the SLS’s only links to NASA’s past. Rather than develop a new engine for the massive new rocket, SLS’s engineers adopted and adapted the RS-25 engine that powered the space shuttle. The first four launches use modified, surplus shuttle engines that NASA had placed in storage.
Meanwhile, overall costs are tipping $23 billion. That’s a far cry from what NASA promised Congress, and Congress promised the American people, when the program was conceived. “If we can’t do a rocket for $11.5 billion, we ought to close up shop,” said Senator Bill Nelson of Florida in 2010, when he was a major sponsor of the program. These days, he serves as NASA’s administrator.
It’s possible to do better. For example, the fully reusable engines that power SpaceX’s Falcon 9 cost around $1 million. In 2019, SpaceX Chairman and CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he hopes that the company’s Raptor engine, which will power its in-development Starship rocket, will eventually run $250,000. Even if that’s wildly optimistic (as Musk tends to be), it’s worth noting that the RS-25’s redevelopers have never promised cost reductions that approach those discounts, nor has Congress provided incentives for them to do it.
Congress appears to have learned nothing from the backward-looking failure that the SLS represents, and will continue to throw money at it for years to come. This week’s scrubbed launches are the latest reminders of that ongoing, sorry legacy.
More on Space at Bloomberg Opinion:
• Who Needs the Government to Go to Venus?: Adam Minter
• Bold and Risky, the Webb Mission Is Already a Success: Editorial
• Milky Way’s Black Hole Challenges the Laws of Physics: Faye Flam | 2022-09-04T17:10:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NASA’s Artemis Rocket Is a Gigantic Waste of Money - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/nasas-artemis-rocket-is-a-gigantic-waste-of-money/2022/09/04/8b5dc4d8-2c6d-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/nasas-artemis-rocket-is-a-gigantic-waste-of-money/2022/09/04/8b5dc4d8-2c6d-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html |
U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan attends the memorial for Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow. (Alexander Nemenov/Getty Images)
Sullivan’s departure was abrupt, and there had been no earlier indication that his retirement was imminent. He was appointed U.S. ambassador to Russia by President Donald Trump in December 2019 and served for more than 2½ years; President Biden asked him to stay on.
During Sullivan’s tenure, relations between Russia and the United States — and between Russia and most of the Western world — reached their worst point at least since the end of the Cold War. The United States warned for months that Russia was planning to invade its neighbor, but Putin was undeterred and warned of “consequences greater than any you have faced in history” should other countries interfere. The war has also raised fears that Russia could use a nuclear weapon.
On Saturday, Sullivan attended the Moscow funeral of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, whom he described as “a statesman who changed the world through his vision of peaceful coexistence and transformation in his country and the rest of the world.”
A State Department official and a Biden administration official, who both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, confirmed Sullivan’s retirement.
The White House official noted that Sullivan had served in his post for almost three years, a typical tour length for most other ambassadors to Russia. Sullivan — a seasoned, career diplomat — was nominated by Trump but was asked to stay on by Biden given the tense relationship with Russia and the difficulty of moving ambassadorial nominations through the U.S. Senate. It would take many months, and in some cases well over a year, for many of Biden’s nominees to get into place.
Elizabeth Rood, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, will assume duties as chargé d’affaires there until Sullivan’s successor arrives, the embassy said. Last month, Rood was nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to Turkmenistan and is awaiting Senate confirmation to that post.
Sullivan arrived in Russia in January 2020, a year before the end of Trump’s term in office, during a time when relations between the United States and Russia were already tense.
Though he was involved in many major policy and management decisions, Sullivan was best known to the public as the State Department official who told Marie Yovanovitch, when she was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, that she had been yanked home prematurely not because she had done anything wrong but because Trump simply “lost confidence” in her.
Carol Morello, Missy Ryan and Ashley Parker contributed to this report. | 2022-09-04T17:10:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | John Sullivan departs post as U.S. ambassador to Russia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/04/john-sullivan-russia-ambassador/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/04/john-sullivan-russia-ambassador/ |
Lebanese protesters sail near an Israeli Navy vessel during a demonstration demanding Lebanon’s right to its maritime oil and gas fields, in the southern marine border town of Naqoura, Lebanon, Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022. The protest came days before the mediating U.S. envoy is scheduled to land in Beirut to continue maritime border talks. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari) (Mohammad Zaatari/AP)
BEIRUT — Lebanese protesters on Sunday sailed down the country’s coast in dozens of fishing boats and yachts toward Israel, days before a U.S. envoy is expected in Beirut to continue mediating in a maritime border dispute between the two countries. | 2022-09-04T17:11:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lebanon flotilla rallies at Israel sea border ahead of talks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/lebanon-flotilla-rallies-at-israel-sea-border-ahead-of-talks/2022/09/04/ac166826-2c6b-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/lebanon-flotilla-rallies-at-israel-sea-border-ahead-of-talks/2022/09/04/ac166826-2c6b-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html |
In 2018, many in D.C.'s restaurant industry opposed a ballot measure for a full minimum wage for tipped workers. (Dayna Smith for The Washington Post)
Opponents of Initiative 82 — an effort to boost the minimum wage of tipped workers in the District — on Friday continued their fight to keep the measure off the November ballot.
A panel of three D.C. appellate judges has ruled that the question should come before city voters. But the opponents’ lawyers on Friday asked the entire court to rehear the case.
Their petition for an expedited rehearing before the full D.C. Court of Appeals, also known as a hearing en banc, extends a legal fight over whether Initiative 82 should have been granted ballot access. As proposed, the measure seeks to raise the city’s tipped minimum wage (about $5.05 per hour) to match D.C.'s standard minimum wage ($16.10 per hour) by 2027.
The initiative’s opponents, which include some local restaurant owners and workers who say the measure would be costly for businesses and potentially discourage patrons from tipping, have argued in court that the D.C. Board of Elections made procedural errors while determining whether supporters gathered enough valid signatures; they submitted 32,000 of them earlier this year. The opposition’s lawyers needed to decide by Friday night whether they would ask the full Court of Appeals for a rehearing.
Lawyers for Initiative 82′s proponents have until Tuesday to file a response; the court’s active judges will then likely hold a vote on a rehearing en banc. If a majority of them vote in favor, the full court will rehear the case.
A similar situation played out in April, ahead of the District’s June primary election, when D.C. Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5), then a candidate for D.C. attorney general, was fighting to remain on the ballot after he was deemed ineligible to run by the Board of Elections. A three-panel judge denied McDuffie’s first appeal of the election board’s ruling, and after his lawyers petitioned for a rehearing en banc, the judges split their vote.
The petition was denied. McDuffie, who switched his political affiliation to independent after the primary, is now running for an at-large council seat.
The D.C. Court of Appeals will need to move swiftly in its decision on Initiative 82; the Elections Board is legally required to send ballots to overseas and military voters by Sept 23. | 2022-09-04T18:11:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. I-82 opponents file last-ditch appeal to keep measure off ballot - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/dc-initiative-82-opponents-appeal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/dc-initiative-82-opponents-appeal/ |
Suspected domestic incident leaves 1 dead and 1 injured, police say
A woman died and a man was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries in a shooting that Fairfax County Police say was a domestic incident.
Police responded at 3:19 a.m. Sunday to the 7000 block of Central Park Circle in Alexandria for a reported shooting, where they found a woman and man with gunshot wounds in a home. They were taken to a hospital, where the woman was pronounced dead.
The agency did not release additional details beyond saying in a police department tweet that there was not a threat to the broader community. | 2022-09-04T18:11:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A woman died and a man was hurt in a Fairfax County shooting on Sunday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/fairfax-county-death-domestic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/fairfax-county-death-domestic/ |
Two deaths in two separate car crashes in Prince George’s County
Two crashes in Prince George’s County early Sunday morning resulted in two deaths and injuries to three other people, authorities said.
Officers responded at 2:30 a.m. to a two-car crash, which occurred on the northbound side of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway near Interstate 495, U.S. Park Police said. One adult male was pronounced dead on the scene, while an adult female was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Around 3:38 a.m., there was another collision at the 3200 block of Brown Station Road in Upper Marlboro, Prince George’s County Fire Department said. One person was declared dead and two others were transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. | 2022-09-04T18:11:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Two people die and three are injured in separate crashes in PG County - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/fatal-crashes-prince-georges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/fatal-crashes-prince-georges/ |
Washington Commanders linebacker Jamin Davis said he feels more like himself than ever. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Late in the second quarter of the Washington Commanders’ second preseason game against the Kansas City Chiefs, linebacker Jamin Davis saw a play before it unfolded. The Chiefs tried to deceive the defense by motioning a receiver left to right and faking a jet sweep handoff — the exact type of eye candy that, in the past, might’ve sown just enough doubt in Davis’s mind to make him mistrust his read. He might’ve hesitated or even taken a step toward the jet sweep, forfeiting the milliseconds and fractions of space that separate success and failure in the NFL.
While the preseason is an inherently flawed sample, and while he hasn’t made many splash plays, Davis feels like he’s made enough good reads and quick reactions to help shed the frustrations of what he called a “humbling” rookie year. He’s starting to recognize himself on tape again.
“That’s Jamin Davis,” he said of the play against the Chiefs. “You want to get consistently there and make that your foundation, who you are as a player, versus like ‘Oh, he’s showing flashes, or who he can be as a player.’ F--- that. That’s me. … That’s literally me. [I’m] just going out there to get more comfortable, and [I’m] playing ball, bro. I didn’t get this far for nothing. That’s just how I’m thinking right now.”
Rewatching some Jamin Davis plays this preseason. This one stood out. In the past, the motion/fake might’ve made him hesitate. This time, he’s on it. Stops the RB for only a yard. pic.twitter.com/NOI5IWW25M
This offseason, Washington moved Cole Holcomb to the ‘Mike’ role and Davis to off-ball, which lightens his responsibilities and should help his brain unlock his body. Davis still possesses remarkable athletic talents. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.48 seconds, vertical jumped 42 inches and has a 79⅞-inch wingspan, all 95th percentile or higher measurements for a linebacker, according to mockdraftable.com.
If Davis can sustain his faster, freer play, it would provide a big boost to a defense trying to rebound from a disappointing 2021, more specifically, in covering opposing tight ends and running backs.
Commanders running back J.D. McKissic, who’s sometimes covered by Davis in practice, complimented his performance in camp: “He like a totally different player.”
“He is playing with more certainty and more confidence,” defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio said of Davis. “When he’s locked in mentally and really understands where he belongs, he’s able to come to life. … We are going to need him to play well.”
Davis’s growth and consistency goes beyond the box score. On one running play in Washington’s preseason opener against Carolina, Davis met a lead blocker in a gap and forced the back to bounce outside, where a teammate was waiting for an easy tackle. Those subtle plays often go unnoticed, but help the defense maintain its structural integrity while avoiding explosive plays.
For a player like Davis — who was only a one-year starter in college — the lower-stakes reps he’s taken this spring and summer have been crucial in his ability feel the game slowing down. And as he’s become more consistent, his teammates have grown to trust him more.
Last year, Holcomb said, Davis sometimes shied away from being vocal before the snap because he was either lacked confidence in his read, or because, if he changed the defense, his assignment would change, too, forcing him to think through a new responsibility. But this year, Davis has been more self-assured.
“I'm proud of where Jamin’s at,” Holcomb said. “He's giving me a lot of confidence. I don't have to worry about him. I don't have to think about him. He's out there, and he knows what he’s doing.”
When Commanders Coach Ron Rivera talks about Davis, he often returns to a play from Week 3 last season at the Buffalo Bills. On fourth and 2, Davis read running back Devin Singletary running a route out of the backfield and toward the flat. Davis broke on the throw and got to Singletary at about the same time as the ball, throwing him backward to stop the conversion.
That play, Rivera noted, was in man coverage. If the Commanders let Davis use his natural skills more, he might become the player they dreamed of when they selected him 19th overall in the 2021 draft.
Davis said he hears the criticisms of fans who think he was a waste of a first-round pick, who think he’s a bust. He dismisses them and is motivated by them, saying, “Just let ‘em keep talking crazy.” But he sees himself on tape, and he wants everyone else to see it too. His play this preseason has given him confidence they will.
“Now,” he said, “it’s like, ‘Okay, let’s go show the world who I really am as a player.’” | 2022-09-04T18:42:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jamin Davis is making progress. The Commanders need that to continue. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/commanders-jamin-davis-progress/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/commanders-jamin-davis-progress/ |
D.C. police arrest second youth in shootings near National Park
The April 9 shootings took place at P and Canal Streets SW, about three blocks from Nationals Park. Four people were wounded by the gunfire, including two juveniles. Their injuries were described as non-life-threatening. The shootings occurred about 45 minutes after a Washington Nationals game ended.
On April 10, police arrested a 15-year-old male and charged him with assault with a dangerous weapon in the shootings. Their names were not released because they are charged as juveniles. Police said at the time of the first arrest that they were searching for a second person in the case. The 16-year-old arrested Saturday also was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.
In a separate incident in July 2021, three people were shot on South Capitol Street near the baseball stadium. The shots were audible from inside Nationals Park, forcing the game to be suspended as spectators at the event ducked into the dugouts for cover. | 2022-09-04T19:03:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. Police arrest 16-year-old in shooting near Nationals Park. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/dc-arrest-nationals-park-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/dc-arrest-nationals-park-shooting/ |
After brutal start, Manchester United continues surge with rout of Arsenal
Manchester United's Antony, right, scores his side's opening goal during Sunday's match against Arsenal. (Dave Thompson/AP)
Two weeks ago, Manchester United was a mess and the pressure was squarely on manager Erik ten Hag. On Sunday, that rough start continued to fade as United extended its winning streak to four by handing Arsenal its first loss of the English Premier League’s young season.
Antony, the 22-year-old Brazilian United wing signed last week from Ajax, scored in his debut at Old Trafford as United improved to 4-2 and fifth in the EPL with a 3-1 win that dropped first-place Arsenal to 5-1 with 15 points. After the Gunners’ Bukayo Saka made it 1-1 early in the second half, Marcus Rashford scored twice.
Ten Hag, the former Ajax manager, has made some big changes, including sidelining Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire as starters under the intense heat of United’s 0-2 start.
In the few months since his hiring in April, ten Hag has learned how every decision made by United’s manager is scrutinized. In a recent interview with Sky Sports, he was asked about his first 100 days on the job and whether it was everything he’d hoped it would be.
“I am not such a dreamer, I am more the reality, and I knew it was a big challenge and hard work. I have been so busy I didn’t notice it has been 100 days, but that is a good signal.
“What I am doing is a football process. I love to manage that on and also off the pitch. I really enjoy it, it excites and challenges me and it is good to have this experience.”
His team has gotten 12 out of 18 possible points this season, beating Liverpool, Southampton, Leicester City and now Arsenal after losses to Brighton & Hove Albion and Brentford.
Antony is one of five signings — along with Lisandro Martinez, Christian Eriksen, Tyrell Malacia and Casemiro — expected to reshape United’s attack. As his paycheck indicates, expectations are high.
What to know about the 2022-23 English Premier League season
“We can make speed and creativity together, he will be a threat in the Premier League,” ten Hag said (via the BBC). “We were missing a player on the right wing, [Jadon] Sancho and [Marcus] Rashford can play there, but they prefer the left so now we have the missing link who can play well on the right. He did well, but I think he can do better. He had a great goal, but all the goals were team goals.
“It’s a process — you have to lift the standards every day. That is my demand and the players in our team have that demand. We have many players in the team who have won trophies and they have to bring that standard.”
On Sunday, ten Hag praised “the spirit in this team.”
“They can deal with setbacks and we did. A team can do that. I think we’ve really improved the mentality,” he said (via NBC). “ … I know we have the right characters. Now it’s about cooperation, get the resilience in, deal with setbacks but also belief. There’s room for improvement. First 10 minutes, then goal was canceled. We lost a little bit of composure.” | 2022-09-04T20:04:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Manchester United continues surge with rout of Arsenal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/manchester-united-arsenal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/manchester-united-arsenal/ |
Saturday’s six-hour concert in London featured performances from Hawkins’s son and Grohl’s daughter
Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters performs at “The Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert” on Sept. 3 at London's Wembley Stadium. (Scarlet Page/Paramount)
An emotional six-hour tribute concert for late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins on Saturday included several emotional moments, as lead singer Dave Grohl broke down in tears at one point and Hawkins’s teenage son sat in on drums.
“The Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert,” held at London’s Wembley Stadium, was streamed live on Paramount Plus, Pluto TV and MTV’s YouTube channels; MTV and CBS also aired hour-long specials of the concert Saturday.
“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we’ve gathered here to celebrate the life, the music and the love of our dear friend, our bandmate, our brother Taylor Hawkins,” Grohl said in an opening speech. “For those of you who knew him personally, you know that no one else could make you smile or laugh or dance or sing like he could. And for those of you that admired him from afar, I’m sure you’ve all felt the same thing.”
Hawkins died at age 50 on March 25 in Bogotá, Colombia, hours before the rock band was set to perform at the Festival Estéreo Picnic as part of its South American tour. He joined the Foo Fighters in 1997 on the band’s tour for “The Colour and The Shape” and contributed to the 15 Grammys the band has won since its inception. The group, known for songs such as “Best of You” and “Learn To Fly,” was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year.
Grohl, 53, developed a close connection with Hawkins over the years they performed together, and the former Nirvana drummer wrote that Hawkins was “a man for whom I would take a bullet” in his autobiography published last year. The Foo Fighters frontman was choked up with emotion in the middle of singing the band’s classic song “Times Like These” during the tribute concert. He took a moment to wipe tears from his face as fans cheered in support.
Oliver Shane Hawkins, the late drummer’s 16-year-old son, took his father’s seat to drum for the tribute concert rendition of “My Hero.” Grohl’s 16-year-old daughter, Violet, covered Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye” and “Grace” to honor Hawkins, who she said introduced Buckley’s album to her.
The Grohls and Oliver were rounded out by a circle of musical legends who came to pay their respects to the drummer. Among them were Queen’s Roger Taylor and Brian May, AC/DC singer Brian Johnson and producer/musician Nile Rodgers. Alternative rock group Them Crooked Vultures, which included Grohl, and rock band James Gang both reunited for the concert after more than a decade apart. And Hawkins’s other bands, Chevy Metal and the Coattail Riders, called on pop star Kesha and the Darkness’s Justin Hawkins, who has no relation to Taylor Hawkins, to perform with them during the show.
British DJ Mark Ronson and Blink-182’s Travis Barker were also part of the star-studded lineup, with comedians Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock making special appearances. | 2022-09-04T20:13:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Foo Fighters and family, friends stage tribute to Taylor Hawkins - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/04/taylor-hawkins-tribute-concert/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/04/taylor-hawkins-tribute-concert/ |
FILE - Tom Holland arrives at the premiere of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” at the Regency Village Theater on Monday, Dec. 13, 2021, in Los Angeles. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has swung back on top of the box office during a holiday weekend where American theaters aimed to lure moviegoers with discounted $3 tickets. The first “National Cinema Day” nationwide promotion appeared to work with the highest-attended day of the year, drawing an estimated 8.1 million moviegoers on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, according to The Cinema Foundation. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-09-04T20:13:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Spidey tops box office while Cinema Day draws millions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/spidey-tops-box-office-while-cinema-day-draws-millions/2022/09/04/2af1e3a6-2c84-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/spidey-tops-box-office-while-cinema-day-draws-millions/2022/09/04/2af1e3a6-2c84-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html |
Chileans vote on a constitution unlike any other in the world
A person holds a child to cast a ballot during a referendum on a new Chilean constitution in Santiago, Chile, Sept. 4, 2022. (Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)
SANTIAGO, Chile — Chileans on Sunday voted on a proposed leftist constitution that would dramatically transform a country once seen as a free-market model for the region, with results expected late in the evening.
The ballot asked voters to approve or reject replacing the country’s 1980 dictatorship-era constitution — considered one of the most business-friendly in the world — with one of the most egalitarian and inclusive constitutions in the world.
The proposed constitution would be a stark shift for the South American nation, expanding the role of government and outlining an economic model designed to narrow inequalities and lift up the poor.
The document, drafted through a democratic process, originated as an attempt to unify a country in crisis. In 2019, Chile’s streets erupted in protest, powered by working and middle-class people struggling with high prices and low wages. In a society long held up as a symbol of prosperity in the region, thousands of Chileans poured out their anger at a government they felt had forgotten them.
Politicians negotiated what they saw as a way to ease the unrest: They pledged to write a new constitution, replacing the version written under the brutal military regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The following year, Chileans overwhelmingly voted in favor of drafting a new charter.
But instead of uniting the nation, the process ended up dividing it once again. Polls last month showed a plurality of voters opposed to the proposed constitution.
The 388-article document faced intense criticism that it was too long, too left-leaning, and too radical in its economic, judicial and political proposals. Like other closely-watched referendums around the world — from Colombia’s peace deal to Brexit — the debate was marred by misinformation, disinformation and confusion over the interpretation of such an exhaustive document.
Yet many of the concerns centered on a core issue of national identity. The proposal described Chile as a “plurinational” country made up of autonomous Indigenous nations and communities.
“It divides Chile, and Chile is one nation,” said María Yefe, a 65-year-old housekeeper who voted to reject the constitution in the capital of Santiago on Sunday. “We’re going to be even more divided than we are now.”
At the same poll, 42-year-old María Barros, a mother of two, captured the feelings of many across the country: “Chileans agree we need to change the constitution,” she said. “But not like this.”
The vote was also a referendum on the country’s young president, 36-year-old Gabriel Boric, Chile’s most left-leaning leader since Salvador Allende, who died by suicide during the 1973 military coup that toppled his socialist government. Boric famously pledged to voters last year that “if Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave.”
But the success of his ambitious plans relied in part on the success of the proposed constitution. And the young leader has suffered a plunge in approval ratings, amid escalating violence and rising inflation.
If the proposal fails, the 1980 charter will stand, and Boric and his country will be left to start from scratch. To write a new charter, constitutional experts say, Chileans will likely have to bring the matter to its congress, launch a new election for a new assembl, and begin the drafting process anew.
After voting on Sunday from his hometown of Punta Arenas, a city near the southern tip of Chile’s Patagonia region, Boric was asked by reporters if, in the case of a vote against the proposed constitution, he would call for a political agreement to start a rewrite. The president pledged to “convene a broad national unity … and move forward with this process.”
“This is a historic moment, for which I think it’s very important that we should all, independent of our choice, feel profoundly proud,” Boric said. “In the difficult moments we went through as a country, we chose as a path, as a way to resolve our differences, an advance in more democracy and never in less.”
The proposal would enshrine certain civil rights that have never before been included in a constitution, emphasizing many of the priorities of the leftist social movements led by younger Chileans: Gender equality, environmental protections, Indigenous and LGBTQ rights, and legal access to abortion.
It would guarantee access to high-quality education, health care and water. It would grant rights to nature and animals and require the government to address the effects of climate change. It is believed to be the first constitution that would require gender parity across government and public and public-private companies.
For Nel González, a 36-year-old woman voting in the center of the city, the proposal held out the possibility of a new kind of government that prioritizes the social rights of its people.
“Today is a very hopeful day for Chile,” she said. “At stake is a constitution for a country that is much more democratic, and much more equal.”
It was written by an unusual elected assembly, that drew participants and political newcomers from across the country who had rarely felt represented in national politics. The 155-member constitutional assembly was composed equally of men and women, and 17 seats were reserved for the country’s 10 Indigenous communities.
But it was made up of mostly independent and left-leaning members, and faced criticism from those who felt the assembly failed to incorporate the views of conservatives.
The convention was also plagued with controversies that helped fuel a campaign to discredit it. One prominent delegate was elected to the assembly on promises of free, high-quality health care, citing his own experiences suffering from leukemia. But he resigned after news broke that he was faking his illness.
Still, the convention marked the first time a group of democratically-elected people sat down — in a transparent and open process — to draft a constitution for the country.
“This constitution was written by elected people, regular and common people. That gives it tremendous value,” said Mario Opazo, a 59-year-old who voted in favor of the proposal in the center of Santiago on Sunday. “It might have some imperfections, but the bulk of it was constructed with the wishes and by the people of this country.”
Alberto Lyon, a lawyer who voted in the affluent neighborhood of Las Condes, said he voted in favor of writing a new constitution. “But I thought they would write a constitution that was western,” the 66-year-old said. He described the proposed version as “indigenist,” and “in the style of Venezuela.”
“It’s a disaster,” Lyon said. “It changes the entire political system.”
For Bárbara Sepúlveda, Sunday’s ballot was a vote for a document she personally helped write. Whatever happens, the 37-year-old leftist constitutional delegate said, “I can’t help but feel like I am part of an advancement, of a triumph.”
“In a country where it seemed like nothing could change,” she said, “we now see that anything is possible.” | 2022-09-04T20:14:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chile referendum: Voters consider a new, egalitarian constitution - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/04/chile-votes-constitution-referendum/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/04/chile-votes-constitution-referendum/ |
Hamas executes five Palestinians, two accused of collaborating with Israel
View of Gaza city in May. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
Hamas authorities executed five Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday — two for “collaboration” with Israel and three for murder, the Hamas-run Ministry of International Security said in a statement Sunday.
Sunday’s executions marked the first since 2017. The ministry released the birth years, but not the names of those executed. Two were executed by hanging, and three by firing squad.
One person convicted of espionage — a resident of Gaza City born in 1978 — was arrested in 2009 for “communicating with hostile foreign parties” and providing Israel with information that “led to the targeting and martyrdom of citizens,” according to the statement.
The other — a resident of Khan Yunis born in 1968 — was arrested in 2015 for supposed links to “occupation intelligence” in 1991, giving Israel details about members of the resistance, including their homes, their jobs, and the locations of rocket launches and blacksmithing workshops, the statement said.
As Gaza’s factions vie for influence, civilians bear the cost of war
Three others were charged with murder in criminal cases.
The executions came after “all degrees of litigation have been exhausted” and the “convicts were granted their full right to defend themselves,” the statement read.
Other human rights groups have condemned the frequent issuance of death sentences in Gaza, and have called for the abolition of the death penalty altogether.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights called the practice “a form of inhuman punishment contrary to international legal standards” late last month after a 22-year old was sentenced to death by hanging for premeditated murder.
Last October, the United Nations, which views both Gaza and the West Bank as occupied Palestinian territory, issued a statement calling out “serious concerns” that death sentences handed down in that year lacked fair trial guarantees.
The last official executions in the Gaza Strip came in 2017, when authorities publicly executed three people for assassinating a Hamas military leader — an assassination that triggered a crackdown on alleged collaborators with Israel.
Nearly 3,000 were invited to watch the killings, the New York Times reported in 2017. Before his execution, one man said, “I want to apologize to my people,” according to the Times.
Hamas, a militant group, has held control over the Gaza Strip since 2007 — after winning legislative elections and fiercely clashing with forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority. Under Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority exerts limited self-rule in the West Bank. Abbas has signed international treaties aiming to ban the death penalty in 2019.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights expressed “deep concern” over Sunday’s executions in a statement, saying that they violated Palestinian law. The group said it “affirms the importance of prosecuting the collaborators with the occupation, considering them complicit in war crimes,” but added that “rule of law is above all and execution of death sentences in violation of law jeopardizes justice values.” | 2022-09-04T21:22:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hamas executes five people in Gaza including two accused of collaborating with Israel - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/04/hamas-execute-gaza-israel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/04/hamas-execute-gaza-israel/ |
César Hernández homers, at long last, and Nats take series off Mets
César Hernández hit the first homer of the 2022 season after hitting 21 a year ago. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)
NEW YORK — When César Hernández connected with the baseball in the fifth inning, he held his bat in the air for a few extra seconds and watched the ball soar toward the second deck Sunday afternoon at Citi Field. Starling Marte took a few steps and then stopped to admire the ball himself.
It took Hernández 545 plate appearances and 495 at-bats this year, but in the Washington Nationals’ 7-1 victory over the New York Mets — Washington’s 134th game of the season — he finally hit a home run. The two-run blast off Trevor Williams helped Washington (47-87) win the three-game series against the first-place Mets (85-50).
“I’m extremely happy to get the first one out of the way,” Hernández said through an interpreter. “I know last year I hit 21. … Hopefully, I find some more consistency the rest of the season and hit a few more.”
Hernández has been known as a speedy contact hitter during a 10-year major league career in which he has now hit just 71 homers. But after he hit 21 last year with Cleveland and the Chicago White Sox, the Nationals signed him to a one-year, $4 million deal, expecting more pop out of his bat.
His slugging percentage entering Sunday’s game was .309 (his career percentage was .375).
Asked earlier this season about the lack of power, Manager Dave Martinez pointed to Hernández being late on his swings and not squaring up the ball as much as he did last year. The team wanted him to focus on getting out in front of pitches.
Last season, he pulled 40 percent of his swings, hit 37 percent to center and stroked just 23.1 percent to the opposite field, according to FanGraphs. This year, just 34.4 percent of his balls have been pulled, while 31.3 percent of his swings have gone to the opposite field. Even his barrel rate — which was 6.8 percent a year ago — has dipped to 2.5 this season.
Hernández said hitting leadoff led to a different approach at the plate, but hitting lower in the order allows him to be freer.
“Now that I’m hitting sixth in the lineup, I think I just have a different mentality at the plate, trying to be more aggressive on certain pitches going up to bat,” Hernández said.
Hernández has been moved to the bench recently in favor of Luis García and CJ Abrams — the team’s middle infield of the future. Still, Martinez got Hernández involved this weekend by starting him in the outfield, where he hasn’t played since his rookie year in 2013.
In the seventh inning, he dropped a flyball with runners on first and second. Fortunately for him, the Nationals were able to turn a double play after the Mets base runners started to return to their bases. His two-run homer, which extended the lead from 5-1 to 7-1, was mere insurance.
“He’s waited all year for that [homer],” Martinez laughed. “Look, for what it’s worth, the guy’s leading our team in hits. I changed roles on him and he’s gone out there, he’s accepted it. He’s done well. He’s a veteran guy and a true professional.”
How did Washington score its other runs? The Nats attacked Carlos Carrasco, ending his afternoon after just 2⅔ innings. After just five pitches, Washington had a 1-0 lead: Lane Thomas doubled to open the game, and then García hit a line drive to through the shift to score him.
The Nats added four runs in the third inning on a pair of two-out, two-run singles by Keibert Ruiz and Ildemaro Vargas.
What was starter Erick Fedde’s line? Six innings, four hits, one run, one walk and a pair of strikeouts. For the second straight outing, Washington held the Mets to one run. Fedde didn’t get many Mets to swing and miss — seven whiffs on 48 swings — but he stifled their offense and mostly kept them off the bases.
Why was Victor Arano placed on the 15-day injured list? He experienced shoulder discomfort after his most recent appearance Sept. 1 against the Oakland Athletics and was eventually diagnosed with a right shoulder sprain. He was placed on the IL retroactive to Sept. 2, and Andrés Machado was recalled from Class AAA Rochester to take his place.
Arano will be shut down for two weeks, and Martinez wouldn’t commit to him returning this season. Martinez said he wants to see Arano throw off a mound — even if not in a live game — before the right-hander leaves for the offseason. The 27-year old reliever has a 4.50 ERA over 43 appearances for Washington this season.
How did Martinez set his starting rotation for next series? Aníbal Sánchez will start Monday, followed Paolo Espino, Cory Abbott and Josiah Gray against the St. Louis Cardinals. With Abbott starting Wednesday, Patrick Corbin will get an extra day of rest before his next start. | 2022-09-04T22:28:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | César Hernández homers, at long last, and Nats take series off Mets - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/cesar-hernndez-nats-mets/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/cesar-hernndez-nats-mets/ |
Israelis retreat on new rules for romantic relationships in West Bank
An Israeli army checkpoint controls a street leading into the West Bank city of Jenin in April. (Nasser Nasser/AP)
TEL AVIV — Israel on Sunday issued revised protocols for the entry of foreign passport holders into the West Bank, omitting some controversial clauses after outcries from human rights organizations that said the previous version codified Israel’s discriminatory restriction of Palestinian movement.
The latest version of the guidelines, published Sunday night as a 90-page document after public and private condemnation from diplomats and international organizations, dropped the requirement that foreign passport holders declare romantic relationships with Palestinians to Israeli military authorities. It also does away with an academic quota allowing only 100 foreign professors and 150 students into the disputed territory.
It dropped a question in the earlier iteration that asked applicants to declare if they held or were expecting to inherit land in the West Bank, which had caused panic among many American Palestinians who thought it signaled changes to land ownership regulations. It also added a clause allowing doctors and teachers to obtain long-term visas and foreign spouses to work or volunteer.
The regulations will be implemented Oct. 20 and will continue over a two-year pilot period.
The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, said that since February, he, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs have been “aggressively engaged with the government of Israel on these draft rules — and we will continue to do so in the 45-day lead-up to implementation and during the two-year pilot period.”
He expressed “concerns” over the Israeli military’s “role in determining whether individuals invited by Palestinian academic institutions are qualified to enter the West Bank, and the potential negative impact on family unity.” He said he expected Israel to apply “equal treatment of all U.S. citizens and other foreign nationals traveling to the West Bank.”
“We have concerns with what the overall sentiment of what this is,” said a senior U.S. Embassy official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic. The official said that since February, American officials have clearly expressed consternation over the “concept of restricting or making cumbersome travel for U.S. citizens and also all foreign nationals.”
The official added that throughout negotiations with Israeli counterparts, American officials have made clear that the protocols would affect Israel’s attempts to join the Department of Homeland Security’s visa waiver program, by which citizens of member countries do not require a visa to enter the United States.
“For Israel to enter into visa waiver, there needs to be reciprocal privileges in terms of Americans being able to travel visa-free,” said the U.S. Embassy official.
Since their original publication in February, the entry protocols have been subject to multiple legal interventions by human rights organizations, which argued that they formalize discriminatory practices against Palestinians under Israeli occupation.
Jessica Montell, the director of Hamoked, an Israeli human rights organization that petitioned the country’s high court to halt the rules, said that while some of the language has been “toned down,” it still grants the Israeli military “illegitimate” jurisdiction to interfere with public and private Palestinian life in the disputed territory.
The rules give COGAT, the Israeli military agency responsible for handling Palestinian civilian matters, the power to ban individuals coming from five countries with whom Israel has diplomatic relations: Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain and South Sudan. They effectively state that dual nationals — for example, holders of passports from Jordan, where at least 60 percent of the population is of Palestinian origin — are ineligible to enter the West Bank.
“This is blatant discrimination,” said Montell, whose organization plans to petition to prevent the rules from taking effect.
The restrictions will not apply to the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The territory’s two-tiered legal structure treats Jewish Israelis as citizens living under civilian rule while Palestinians are treated as combatants under military rule, subject to nighttime military raids, detention and bans on visiting their ancestral lands or accessing certain roads.
“If I had just fallen in love with an Israeli Jew, none of this would be a problem,” joked an American woman who is married to a Palestinian man and is a leader in the tech sector in Ramallah, the de facto Palestinian capital. She spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for her visa status, which has been threatened since moving with her husband and children to the West Bank 12 years ago.
She said that Israeli policies restricting Palestinian movement, which have for years existed in practice if not in the law, have effectively isolated Palestinian society from the economists, academics, investors and civil society leaders that experts say could help dig Palestinian society out of decades-old economic and political stagnation. On a personal level, she said, the rules have left thousands of American and foreign spouses in perpetual states of anxiety and uncertainty. The stress has triggered her own chronic illness, she said.
“I think what we’re seeing is a codifying of something that shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” she said. “And after years without permanency, we’re seeing a new level of panic.” | 2022-09-04T22:32:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Israelis retreat on new rules for romantic relationships in West Bank - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/04/israel-westbank-romances-palestinians/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/04/israel-westbank-romances-palestinians/ |
Contractor sues Arlington County over park renovation pay dispute
A Maryland landscaping company is suing the Arlington County Board, alleging that the county withheld money for renovating a park. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Arlington County withheld nearly $1 million from a contractor that renovated a popular park in the East Falls Church area, the company has alleged.
McDonnell Landscape, which filed the suit against the County Board in Arlington Circuit Court on Aug. 17, had been hired to carry out long-awaited upgrades to Benjamin Banneker Park, a 12.5-acre facility along Four Mile Run that includes a major trailhead, a dog park and athletic facilities.
The Brookeville, Md., landscaper alleged that Arlington committed four breaches of contract by severely underestimating the required quantities of soil, concrete and excavation and failing to account for traffic management needed to carry out the renovations.
“This is a demand for payment for extra work performed because of defective construction documents, including specifications and drawings provided by the county,” said Laurence Schor, an attorney representing the contractor. “The county had sole responsibility for the design and omitted or was wrong in what they provided to the contractor.”
Ryan Hudson, a spokesman for Arlington County, said in an email that he could not comment on any pending litigation.
McDonnell Landscaping had previously turned down an offer from Arlington to settle the matter for $272,000.
In accordance with Arlington’s dispute-resolution language for contractors, the company appealed to the County Board in July. But lawmakers voted unanimously in closed session to reject the contractor’s claims.
Schor, the contractor’s lawyer, said the “no” vote was “like being dragged through the mud,” he said.
“It makes me all the more surprised: When they have a contractor who they retain after careful selection, they don’t pay them for work they know is performed,” he added. “We are showing true heart and civic interest, and it’s time for the county to pay up.”
In a March letter included in court filings, county officials said that a project officer for the park renovations said the deal was a lump-sum contract, not a unit-price contract, as the landscaper had been insisting.
Deputy County Manager Shannon Flanagan-Watson added that the landscaper had missed “numerous opportunities” to ask for clarification on traffic maintenance and did not notify of additional contract time in a timely fashion.
She offered to settle the dispute for $272,600 and waive damages accrued when the contractor did not finish the renovations on schedule.
Arlington lawmakers had three years ago awarded a contract of up to $2.6 million to the landscaping firm. McDonnell Landscape submitted the lowest bid among five bidders that was “responsive to pricing requirements,” county officials wrote at the time. | 2022-09-04T22:58:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Banneker Park renovations subject of lawsuit against Arlington County - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/arlington-banneker-park-contractor-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/arlington-banneker-park-contractor-lawsuit/ |
20-year-old Fairfax native died in traffic crash in Blacksburg, Va.
John Wallace Thomasson, a 20-year-old Fairfax native, died in a traffic crash shortly after midnight on Sept. 2 in Blacksburg, Va., according to a news release from the town.
Thomasson was a pedestrian along the 2200 block of S. Main St. when a vehicle struck him, states the release. The driver remained to cooperate with local police, according to the release.
The Roanoke Times reported that Thomasson was a junior majoring in biological sciences at Virginia Tech.
No further details were available. Attempts to reach Blacksburg police and Virginia Tech officials were unsuccessful. | 2022-09-04T22:58:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Virginia Tech student was walking when a driver struck him, police said - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/fairfax-student-fatal-crash-tech/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/fairfax-student-fatal-crash-tech/ |
Woman fatally shot in Pr. George’s, police say
A woman was killed Sunday in the Temple Hills area, police said. (iStock)
A woman was slain Sunday morning in Prince George’s County, police said.
Officers responded about 10 a.m. to a reported shooting in the 5300 block of Frazier Terrace in the Temple Hills area, police said. They found a woman “suffering from trauma to the body,” police said in a tweet.
She was taken to a hospital, where she died, according to police. An investigation is ongoing. | 2022-09-04T22:58:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Woman fatally shot in Pr. George's, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/homicide-prince-georges-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/homicide-prince-georges-shooting/ |
A 1-year-old child is in stable condition after being shot inside a Prince George’s County home Sunday afternoon, police said.
The shooting occurred in Glenn Dale, in the 9900 block of Good Luck Road, county police spokeswoman Cpl. Unique Jones said. A preliminary investigation is focused on the people inside the residence at the time of the shooting, she added.
“Our main focus is what happened inside the home,” Jones said.
Jones said the child was being treated at a hospital. Additional details about the shooting and investigation were not immediately available. | 2022-09-04T22:58:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 1-year-old child shot in Prince George’s County, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/pg-child-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/pg-child-shooting/ |
Police identify teen fatally shot at convenience store in Pr. George’s
Another teen was also shot and remains in critical condition, according to police
Three were injured and one was killed in a shooting Saturday evening in the Capitol Heights area. (iStock)
A 15-year-old boy died after being wounded in a shooting at a convenience store on Saturday evening that left three others injured, including another 15-year-old, Prince George’s County police said.
Police identified the teen as De’Andre Johnson, of Washington D.C. The other 15-year-old boy is in critical condition at a hospital, police said. One adult has been released from the hospital, and another adult remains in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to police. One of the adults is a store employee, police said.
Officers found four people with gunshot wounds when they responded to a convenience store about 8 p.m. in the 1400 block of Ritchie Road in the Capitol Heights area, police said. The victims were all taken to local hospitals, according to police, where Johnson died.
According to an initial investigation, police said, two people walked into the store and began shooting before fleeing.
Investigators do not think the incident was an attempted robbery, and are working to determine whether people inside the store were targeted, police said. | 2022-09-04T22:58:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | De'Andre Johnson fatally shot in Prince George's, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/teen-fatal-shooting-prince-georges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/04/teen-fatal-shooting-prince-georges/ |
Bed Bath and Beyond executive falls to death
Bed Bath & Beyond executive falls to death
The New York City medical examiner’s office will determine the cause of the death, New York police said in a statement. The investigation is ongoing.
Bed Bath & Beyond’s board chairwoman, Harriet Edelman, said the company is “profoundly saddened” by Arnal’s death.
Last week, the Associated Press reported, the company announced that it would shutter about 150 of its stores and cut its workforce by 20 percent, estimating that the changes could save the company $250 million in its fiscal year. In August, its stock plunged more than 40 percent after a 350 percent spike that month, riding a wave of excitement from investors after billionaire Ryan Cohen took a large stake in the struggling retailer. The company’s stock went into a free fall for days when Cohen signaled that he would drop his shares. It closed Friday at $8.63, a 63 percent drop from its August peak of $23.08.
— Lateshia Beachum
Las Vegas journalist killed outside home
The body of a Las Vegas investigative reporter was found with stab wounds outside his home Saturday, and police are looking for the person who killed him, officials said.
Officers found Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German, 69, dead outside his home at about 10:30 a.m. Saturday after receiving a report from a person who said a neighbor had died, the newspaper reported.
German had an altercation with another person Friday that led to his stabbing, Capt. Dori Koren of the Las Vegas police said at a news conference.
For more than three decades, German worked in Las Vegas, first at the Las Vegas Sun, then the Review-Journal, covering courts, politics and organized crime. Colleagues remembered him as a great reporter, fiercely committed to his craft.
“He was the gold standard of the news business,” Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook said to the paper. “It’s hard to imagine what Las Vegas would be like today without his many years of shining a bright light on dark places.”
Cook said German had not told the paper’s leadership about any concerns for his safety. Police said there is no threat to the public after the stabbing, the paper reported.
— Praveena Somasundaram
September heat wave grips Western U.S.
California and the Western United States are immersed in a historically severe September heat wave that is predicted to intensify early this week. The record-breaking temperatures are stressing power grids, fueling fires and endangering health.
The prolonged heat wave began Aug. 30 and is forecast to peak on Monday and Tuesday before gradually easing during the second half of the week. Dozens of high temperature records have already been broken from California to Montana, and dozens more are forecast.
On Saturday, numerous cities in the Intermountain West endured their highest temperatures on record not only for Sept. 3 but for the entire month. Salt Lake City (103 degrees), Pocatello, Idaho, (102 degrees), and Great Falls, Mont. (102 degrees) were among them.
In Death Valley, Calif., the temperature is predicted to come close to the world record September temperature of 126 degrees Tuesday.
— Natalie Jones
and Jason Samenow
Man charged with kidnapping jogger
U.S. marshals arrested Cleotha Abston, 38, on Saturday after police found his DNA on a pair of sandals found near where Fletcher was last seen, according to the affidavit. Police also linked the vehicle they believe Fletcher was forced into to a person living at a residence where Abston was staying.
He was charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and tampering with evidence, Memphis police said Sunday. The investigation continues.
Obama wins Emmy: Barack Obama won an Emmy Award on Saturday to go with his two Grammys. The former president won the best narrator award at Saturday night's Creative Arts Emmys for his work on the Netflix documentary series "Our Great National Parks." The five-part show is produced by Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground. Barack Obama previously won Grammy Awards for his audiobook reading of two of his memoirs, "The Audacity of Hope" and "Dreams From My Father." Michelle Obama won her own Grammy for reading her audiobook in 2020.
Flash flooding strikes Georgia: Thunderstorms and heavy rain pounded parts of northwest Georgia on Sunday, sparking flash flooding in some areas. Local news reports showed roads underwater and homeowners struggling to keep water out. Gov. Brian Kemp (R) declared a state of emergency Sunday afternoon in Chattooga and Floyd counties, directing all state resources to help with "preparation, response and recovery activities." The National Weather Service said rainfall of up to 1 inch per hour was causing creeks, streams, roadways and urban areas to experience unusually high levels of water. Up to 12 inches of rain was estimated to have fallen in the area, according to Kemp's executive order. | 2022-09-04T23:11:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bed Bath and Beyond executive falls to death - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2022/09/04/ae0437fc-2b36-11ed-806e-f01a46624ddb_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2022/09/04/ae0437fc-2b36-11ed-806e-f01a46624ddb_story.html |
That’s good news, but we should take care. This solution to 2022’s energy security problems risks creating its own energy security headache down the road.
The situation results from the wrenching shifts the world’s uranium market suffered in recent decades. In the late 2000s, it was widely believed that solar and wind would remain too costly to compete with conventional generation well into the 2030s. That drove expectations of a boom in nuclear energy as the only viable large-scale source of zero-carbon power. This in turn sparked a rush of development in Kazakhstan, blessed with vast deposits of uranium close to the surface that can be cheaply extracted by pumping fluids underground in a process similar to fracking.
Kazakhstan alone now provides more than 40% of the world’s uranium. The government in Nur-Sultan has an often testy relationship with its former colonist, especially since the invasion of Ukraine underlined Moscow’s desire to keep former Soviet states under its thumb. Still, it remains dependent on the goodwill of neighbors to export its nuclear materials, which are normally transported over land. If a Ukraine-style situation unfolded that saw developed democracies pitched against authoritarian rivals and control of energy supplies used as a weapon of war, even air freight might not be enough to keep western reactors fueled, since Kazakhstan is almost entirely surrounded by Russian, Chinese, Iranian and Pakistani airspace.
There are alternative sources out there. More than a quarter of the world’s uranium resources are in Australia, with another 9% in Canada. BHP Group’s Olympic Dam northwest of Adelaide remains one of the world’s largest deposits. Its vast uranium reserves could be produced at close to zero cost since the mine’s main products would be copper and precious metals — but for nearly two decades, executives have shied away from the immense capital spending needed to unlock this resource.
“We’ve got a long way to go before uranium becomes something that people will talk about here in Australia,” said Gavin Lockyer, managing director of Arafura Resources Ltd. which is developing the site. Pre-Fukushima, flowsheets describing the processing of the Nolans ore listed uranium as a product, but it’s now so rarely thought about that he doesn’t know the price at which exploiting it would become viable. In theory, those early processing plans could be revived to tap one of the world’s larger uranium resources, he said, but “it’s not on the agenda” at the moment.
This over-dependence on one low-cost, unreliable supplier is not so different to the situations we’ve seen in other critical commodities in recent decades. Europe always had alternatives to buying piped gas from Russia. Electric battery-makers could have worked harder to reduce their dependence on cobalt, and source more of it from countries other than the Democratic Republic of Congo. Consumers of rare-earth metals might have looked at China’s growing dominance of that supply chain and sought to diversify at an earlier stage. In each case, though, developed democracies took the approach of seeking the lowest-cost resources, and hoped for the best.
That scale of growth is unlikely to encourage investors that funding marginal uranium mines is a good use of their money — and unless that changes, the world’s dependence on the former Soviet Union will only grow more entrenched. European governments who’ve watched the cost of electricity increase 10-fold over the past year as Moscow turned off the gas taps are getting a taste of what the world looks like when you take your energy security for granted. There’s no time like the present to make sure we don’t make the same mistake again.
• Rejuvenating the Reactors: Elements by Liam Denning
• Can Japan Learn to Love Nuclear Power Again?: Gearoid Reidy
• Why Germany Will Regret Its Nuclear Plant Shutdowns: Bloomberg Opinion | 2022-09-04T23:16:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Uranium Risks Becoming the Next Critical Minerals Crisis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/uranium-risks-becomingthe-next-critical-mineralscrisis/2022/09/04/bd604692-2c9d-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/uranium-risks-becomingthe-next-critical-mineralscrisis/2022/09/04/bd604692-2c9d-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html |
At least 10 dead and 15 injured in stabbings, Saskatchewan police say
Damien Sanderson, 31, and Myles Sanderson, 30, are wanted in several stabbings, according to the Saskatchewan Royal Canadian Mounted Police. (Saskatchewan Royal Canadian Mounted Police)
Some of the people were targeted, and some were “believed to be attacked randomly,” Rhonda Blackmore, assistant commissioner of the Saskatchewan Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said at a news conference Sunday evening. | 2022-09-04T23:17:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At least 10 dead in Canada and suspects on the loose, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/04/canada-stabbings-saskatchewan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/04/canada-stabbings-saskatchewan/ |
Coco Gauff hits a return to Shuai Zhang during their fourth-round match at the U.S. Open in New York on Sunday. (Justin Lane/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
NEW YORK — The crowds at Billie Jean King National Tennis Center thinned only slightly in the days following what might have been Serena Williams’s final match.
It was possible to walk the site’s stone thoroughfares without circumnavigating mile-long lines at the Grey Goose and Heineken stands, but throngs still moved like molasses. Anyone interested in buying a T-shirt sized small, medium or large at the biggest gift shop on the grounds was likely out of luck.
Officially, the U.S. Open kept on trucking as it rode the contrails of a Williams-inducted ticket rush. It set a single-day attendance record Saturday with 72,065 fans pouring through the center’s turnstiles, which beat the previous day’s record-setting number by 26.
Yet the clouds that rolled in Friday and Saturday in the early afternoon contributed to a sort of hangover feeling at Flushing Meadows. The energy started to seep, and throughout Friday players were asked for their thoughts on the potential end of Williams’s career.
“I just can’t believe the era of Serena is kind of, on the tennis court, is over. I mean, it’s just hard to picture tennis without her.”
Women’s tennis has cycled through eras nearly without pause for the past few decades. When Chris Evert retired at the U.S. Open in 1989, Steffi Graf was already eight Grand Slam wins into her 22-trophy haul. Monica Seles won the first of her nine major titles at the French Open a year later.
Graf won the final major of her career in 1999, but it was a resurgent effort after going Slam-less in 1997 and 1998. The lag left room for a couple years between her dominance and Williams’s first Grand Slam win at the U.S. Open in 1999.
Yet Williams has no heir apparent, no player or two who have proven they can dominate on court for a sustained period and command a mainstream audience. If Williams is actually finished with tennis, the active player with the most Grand Slam titles is her 42-year-old sister, Venus.
On court, she hasn’t made it past the third round in a major since collecting her most recent Grand Slam title in Australia in February 2021.
No. 1 Iga Swiatek is a name that other players bring up as a potential world beater. The Polish 21-year-old won 37 consecutive matches earlier this year, a streak that included six consecutive WTA titles and a French Open crown.
“I don’t know, It’s open for someone to step up. As women’s tennis has shown, it’s been hard to be dominant,” Pegula said, referring to the 14 winners in the 21 major tournaments contested since Williams won her last in 2017. “That’s why you look at someone like Serena, dominant over several eras. It’s pretty crazy.”
Coco Gauff made an argument for herself Sunday.
The 18-year-old defeated two-time major doubles champion Shuai Zhang of China 7-5, 7-5, to reach her first career quarterfinal at the U.S. Open.
It was a thrilling follow-up to her French Open finals appearance in June, when she lost to Swiatek. Sunday’s win was the first match to replicate some of the crowd energy and general frenzy Williams brought to Arthur Ashe Stadium.
The 12th-seeded Gauff was brilliant in the match’s tightest moments. She trailed 5-3 in the first set and 5-4 in the second, a hole she dug herself out of with a 105 mph serve and an ace. She riled up the crowd by wagging her finger after winning big points and generated an atmosphere that was so loud — with the roof over Ashe closed to keep away light rain — that Zhang clasped her hands over her ears at one point.
“The first couple times on Ashe, I was very nervous,” Gauff said of playing on tennis’s biggest stage, usually reserved for major winners or whichever player the U.S. Tennis Association thinks will draw the biggest crowds.
“I don’t know, I was really shocked. My first round I was shocked that I was being put on Ashe. Then it happened again the second round. At that point I figured maybe it would keep happening, especially when Serena was playing. This must be like a perfect lineup for viewers. You have me playing first, closing out with the GOAT. That’s crazy.”
Even if Gauff succeeds, approaching Williams’s status would take time.
The 23-time Grand Slam winner set the bar astronomically high for stars in women’s tennis — both on and off the court. On Wednesday, ESPN’s broadcast of her second-round win peaked at 5 million viewers. The peak of last year’s tournament for ESPN was the 3.4 million viewers who tuned in to watch Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez in the final (the men’s final peaked at 2.7 million viewers the next day).
“I thought ‘Where the heck is tennis going to go — men’s tennis, especially?’ ” Evert said.
“I thought it was doomed. And it just bounced back in one or two years. And John [McEnroe] was there and Jimmy [Connors] was there and [Ivan] Lendl was there and [Boris] Becker was there. And it just bounced back.” | 2022-09-05T00:21:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After Serena, Coco Gauff and others see who's next in women's tennis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/coco-gauff-serena-williams-tennis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/coco-gauff-serena-williams-tennis/ |
Las Vegas investigative journalist killed outside his home
Jeff German in 2021. The investigative reporter uncovered high-impact stories in Las Vegas for the Review-Journal. (K.M. Cannon/AP)
A Las Vegas investigative reporter was found dead with stab wounds outside his home Saturday, and police are looking for the person who killed him, officials said.
Officers found Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German, 69, dead outside his home about 10:30 a.m. Saturday after receiving a report from a person who said a neighbor had died, the newspaper reported.
German had an altercation with another person Friday that led to his stabbing, Capt. Dori Koren of the Las Vegas police said at a news conference Saturday.
“He was the gold standard of the news business,” Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook told the paper. “It’s hard to imagine what Las Vegas would be like today without his many years of shining a bright light on dark places.”
Cook said German had not told the paper’s leadership about any concerns for his safety. Police said there is no threat to the public after the stabbing, the Review-Journal reported.
Over the course of his career, German became known for his wide-ranging investigative work and coverage of high-profile stories on politics and organized crime. He wrote the 2001 true crime book “Murder in Sin City: The Death of a Las Vegas Casino Boss,” and he led the paper’s investigation of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the deadliest in modern U.S. history.
“He was a fearless reporter and never shied away from tough stories no matter who was involved,” Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) tweeted. “Many exposed need for reform which made our city better.”
Cook said in a statement to The Washington Post that Review-Journal staff members have one question: “Why would someone kill Jeff?” He hopes an arrest will provide an answer.
“He will be terribly missed by his family and colleagues, and we are all in shock over his senseless killing,” Cook’s statement said.
Rhonda Prast, the Review-Journal’s assistant managing editor for investigations and engagement, tweeted Sunday that German had been proud of his work last year on the paper’s true-crime podcast “Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Vegas.”
German wrote and hosted the podcast’s second season, an eight-episode deep dive into organized crime in Las Vegas in the 1970s and 80s.
“Take a listen as you think of Jeff today,” Prast tweeted. | 2022-09-05T00:47:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Las Vegas investigative reporter Jeff German found dead - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/09/04/las-vegas-investigative-reporter-stabbed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/09/04/las-vegas-investigative-reporter-stabbed/ |
SAN FRANCISCO — Wilmer Flores hit a two-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning and the San Francisco Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies 5-3 on Sunday for a three-game sweep.
Giants: 1B Brandon Belt was transferred to the 60-day injured list a day after undergoing arthroscopic surgery to repair cartilage in his right knee. The procedure was performed by Dr. Ken Akizuki. Belt, who hit a career-high 29 home runs in San Francisco’s 107-win 2021 season that ended with an NL West title, is expected to be sidelined for 8 to 10 weeks. ... OF Austin Slater, who dislocated his left pinkie finger Tuesday night, . “This is ultimately going to be a pain tolerance thing,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “He’s not at risk.” | 2022-09-05T00:47:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Flores hits game-ending, 2-run homer, Giants sweep Phillies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mlb/flores-hits-game-ending-2-run-homer-giants-sweep-phillies/2022/09/04/2a8243fc-2cac-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mlb/flores-hits-game-ending-2-run-homer-giants-sweep-phillies/2022/09/04/2a8243fc-2cac-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html |
Why Chile’s Draft Constitution Has Come Under Attack
Analysis by Matthew Malinowski and Valentina Fuentes | Bloomberg
Demonstrators wave Chilean flags during protests against the government of President Sebastian Piñera who turns 70 on this day at Plaza Italia on Dec. 1, 2019 in Santiago. (Photographer: Jonnathan Oyarzun Jara/Getty Images)
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.
1. Why are Chileans writing a new constitution?
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.
2. What happened then?
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.
3. What’s in the proposed constitution?
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.
On Sept. 4, all eligible residents will cast ballots in a mandatory vote where a simple majority will be needed to either approve or reject the document. If it is shot down, the current constitution will remain in force. Boric has said his administration will push for another constitutional re-write if the proposal is rejected. At the same time, a bill lowering the legislative majorities needed to reform the current constitution was approved by congress.
7. How have investors reacted?
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. | 2022-09-05T02:18:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Chile’s Draft Constitution Has Come Under Attack - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-chiles-draft-constitution-has-come-under-attack/2022/08/30/2274ad9c-286c-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-chiles-draft-constitution-has-come-under-attack/2022/08/30/2274ad9c-286c-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
Christian Benteke makes D.C. United dangerous, but it still draws, 0-0
D.C. United forward Christian Benteke goes low for a header during Sunday's match against the Colorado Rapids at Audi Field. (Tony Quinn for the Washington Post)
Christian Benteke’s Audi Field debut Sunday was notable for a diving bid from close range, a penalty kick attempt and a powerful header. It was also momentous for the Belgian striker — fresh off 10 years in the Premier League and the intended solution to D.C. United’s scoring issues — failing to finish his chances.
Benteke was influential and dangerous. He made United better. Coach Wayne Rooney called him “a handful.” But in the biggest moments, Benteke came up empty during a 0-0 draw with the Colorado Rapids.
The biggest opportunity came in the 66th minute, when he failed to convert a penalty kick.
“It’s been a good night until I missed my penalty,” said Benteke, who made his MLS debut as a substitute Wednesday against New York City FC. “I was just missing that goal to have the perfect night.”
Rooney, a former Manchester United and English national team striker, empathized.
“I’ve missed a few penalties,” he said. “Messi and Ronaldo have missed penalties as well.”
Assessing the attempt, Rooney said, “It’s not the best penalty; it’s a good save as well.”
The inability to score — for the 13th time this season — pierced United’s chances of winning consecutive matches for the first time since the first two games of the campaign. United (7-17-5) has won once at home in the past 3½ months.
The goal-less effort, before an announced 16,502, came against a Colorado team (8-12-9) that had conceded 10 goals in the previous two matches.
Benteke did change D.C.’s look and approach, serving as a strong target man and drawing constant attention. With his back to the goal, he allowed the attack to build around him. Facing the target, he took on defenders and provided United with a menacing quality in the box.
“He showed a lot in what he can bring to the team,” Rooney said.
United dominated most of the first half, utilizing Martín Rodríguez’s prowess and Benteke’s presence to create danger in and around the penalty area. Goalkeeper William Yarbrough wasn’t tested, though.
Benteke missed a wonderful opportunity six minutes into the match, failing to put a diving header on target after Rodríguez expertly floated the ball into the box.
The second half was laborious for United, which couldn’t play at the same pace or with the same midfield effectiveness. Captain Steven Birnbaum crossed the yellow card threshold, resulting in a one-game suspension next weekend.
Then the madness started. In an aerial battle with Benteke in the box, Colorado defender Keegan Rosenberry (Georgetown) got his arm up and was whistled for a handball.
While the Rapids griped, pausing the game for about two minutes, Benteke waited. By the time he struck the penalty kick, Yarbrough seemed ready for it. He dived to his right and made a hand save.
A moment later, Benteke’s powerful six-yard header, off Rodríguez’s corner kick, streaked toward the top of the net. Felipe Gutíerrez, standing on the goal line, headed it away.
Other things weren’t going United’s way. Rodríguez left with a lower leg injury and goalkeeper David Ochoa spilled a rebound in the six-yard box. Later, Colorado’s Gyasi Zardes redirected the ball narrowly wide.
In one harrowing sequence, United blocked three shots and survived another scare.
“We hung on in the end, which is a positive that we didn’t lose the game,” Rooney said. “A point in the end, you take it, but I’m still disappointed that we didn’t take all three.”
Fountas remains out
All-star attacker Taxi Fountas, United’s leading scorer with 11 goals, missed his second consecutive match with a concussion, suffered Aug. 28 in Atlanta.
Goalkeeper Rafael Romo (13 starts, 2.45 goals against average) was upgraded to questionable late in the week after recovering from a concussion but was not selected for the game day roster. Jon Kempin backed up Ochoa.
Bill Hamid (hand surgery June 30) is no longer on the injury list and is continuing to work on fitness and sharpness. He has not played since May 28.
Another Benteke in town
Jonathan Benteke, Christian’s younger brother, signed with second-division Loudoun United. He made his debut Sunday, converting a late penalty kick during a 2-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Riverhounds in Leesburg.
Loudoun is his seventh club since 2013; he has spent time with England’s Crystal Palace (where he and his brother were teammates) and Oldham. Last season, he scored seven goals for Wegberg-Beeck in the German fourth division.
United will play three of the next four on the road, beginning Saturday against Real Salt Lake and continuing three days later in Kansas City, Kan. After a home date with Inter Miami on Sept. 18, D.C. will make its final trip of the season Oct. 1 to Montreal before closing Oct. 9 at home against Cincinnati.
Busy at Buzzard Point
Sunday began a stretch of three matches over three days at Audi Field. Monday will feature an NCAA men’s game between Maryland (1-1-1) and Virginia (2-1-0), starting at 6 p.m. On Tuesday, the U.S. women’s national team will make its Audi Field debut against Nigeria. Kickoff is set for 6:08 p.m. | 2022-09-05T03:19:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Christian Benteke makes D.C. United dangerous, but it still draws, 0-0 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/christian-benteke-united-colorado/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/04/christian-benteke-united-colorado/ |
Hi Carolyn: I’m Black. Every time there is police violence in the news — which feels like daily — I wonder whether the next victim might be a relative. I moved from my hometown, which has a large Black population and a history of police violence, about 10 years ago and now live in an area that is almost entirely White.
I don’t know what to do about the overwhelming grief and worry I feel over the news. I don’t want to share it with family when their city is in the news a lot. (Per ring theory, I don’t want to “dump in.”) I’ve found solace in online communities, but it also increases exposure to every new update, so I have to limit my time and turn off the news. And friends here are supportive, but I feel as if I’m wearing out my welcome on this topic.
I have a therapist, but at some point this is fundamentally something I don’t have control over. Because of where I live, I have the “luxury” of pretending it’s not happening, but this feels like selling out or becoming part of the problem. How do I manage doing what I can and staying engaged while working through this grief and worry?
— Overwhelmed
Overwhelmed: I am sorry you have to carry this psychic weight. It’s just so wrong.
You might be adding to it needlessly with your guilt, though; that’s a weight you can drop. You say about your friends, for example, “I feel as if I’m wearing out my welcome on this topic.” Is that even true? Have you asked your friends that? Maybe these otherwise heavily insulated people want to do something, don’t want to be part of the problem themselves and are happy to do this for you. Maybe they can do more than that, too.
And viewing your location as selling out: That seems overly self-critical, too. There is a role to be played by people close to the problem, yes, but as a Black person in an “almost entirely White” area, you are important. That there are still “almost entirely White” areas is depressing at this point, and helps both explain and perpetuate injustice. Just being there processing this where people can see you is the opposite of selling out. It’s brave.
As for the balance of staying engaged vs. the grief and worry, my only advice is to listen to and respect your own needs and the cumulative weight of this stress. Courage is not the same thing as responsibility. You do what you need to be well.
I am White, and 35 years ago I moved from a very diverse, urban location to a small city in a neighboring state, one that was/is hugely conservative and almost exclusively White. Only in the past few years have I begun seeing a small increase in racial diversity. Each and every non-White face I see gives my heart hope for the kind of world I want to live in.
You are NOT wearing out your welcome. I have come to realize that beyond marching and phone calls to politicians, the single biggest thing I do is simply listen to my Black and Brown friends, without inserting myself or making it about me. I feel enormously grateful when a friend trusts me enough to vent. And I know I’m not alone in that. Please find your friends who can listen, and know that you’re actually giving the gift of trust, not overdrawing some fake friendship bank account. | 2022-09-05T05:21:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Feeling alone in grief and worry over police violence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/05/carolyn-hax-grief-worry-police-violence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/05/carolyn-hax-grief-worry-police-violence/ |
The most popular one, in fact. The deal expired last week, and everybody’s already talking about how and when to bring it back. So the question — for Germany and other countries — is whether and under what circumstances it’s a good idea to subsidize public transport enough to make it extremely cheap or even free.
The numbers are intriguing. People bought some 52 million 9-euro tickets, and another 10 million who had previously bought an annual subscription got them automatically. I almost wonder about the Germans who didn’t avail themselves of the offer. Presumably, they include babies and people living in deep forests with no bus stops.
This comes as a shock. Cities from Santiago, Chile, to Salt Lake City, Utah, and Tallinn, Estonia, have also experimented with making public transport free. So has the entire small nation of Luxembourg. But they all found that their subsidies didn’t noticeably reduce car trips — either because the people who took more trams, buses and trains were too poor to own cars and would otherwise have walked or cycled; or because public transport was still too inconvenient relative to driving for price to make much difference.
Operators of bus and rail lines, whether they’re in the private or public sector, can’t easily add capacity. In Germany, too, many frustrated 9-euro passengers were left on the platforms as their overcrowded trains departed without them. Nor were people much better off who live in places where the bus comes once a week, if at all.
In reality, therefore, public-transport subsidies are usually an answer to the problem of inequality, not climate change. The well-off keep driving, no matter how much gasoline costs. And they pay more in taxes to enable the cash-strapped to ride at little or no charge. In this case, a lot more: Germany’s subsidy, just for these three summer months, is estimated to cost the federal government — and thus the taxpayer — 2.5 billion euros.
The 9-euro ticket, however, suggests that a well-designed subsidy could yet make more people leave their car at home at least some of the time, thereby mitigating greenhouse-gas emissions as well as inequality. But for that, the subsidy would have to be combined with other policies.
For now, even classical liberals like me must admit that transportation is an area of the economy that’s jammed by market failures, and bears much of the blame for climate change. This suggests that government should intervene with better policies. The 9-euro ticket doesn’t offer the whole answer — but a first glimpse. | 2022-09-05T05:22:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Should Your Buses, Trams and Trains Be Free? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/should-your-buses-trams-and-trains-be-free/2022/09/05/6989fa64-2cd8-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/should-your-buses-trams-and-trains-be-free/2022/09/05/6989fa64-2cd8-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html |
FILE - Olivia Wilde, director of the upcoming film “Don’t Worry Darling,” discusses the film during the Warner Bros. Pictures presentation at CinemaCon 2022 in Las Vegas on April 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
VENICE, Italy — The Venice Film Festival is buzzing with anticipation for Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling,” which is having its world premiere Monday night on the Lido. | 2022-09-05T05:23:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Excitement rises as ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ arrives in Venice - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/excitement-rises-as-dont-worry-darling-arrives-in-venice/2022/09/05/71c00652-2cd7-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/excitement-rises-as-dont-worry-darling-arrives-in-venice/2022/09/05/71c00652-2cd7-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html |
Mill Fire kills 2 in California, sheriff says
A plane drops retardant over the Mill Fire on the outskirts of Weed, Calif., on Sept. 2. (Michael Gaio/Reuters)
Two people have died in the Mill Fire in Northern California, the Siskiyou County sheriff said Sunday.
The sheriff, Jeremiah LaRue, told a community meeting that “we have lost two people to this fire. There’s no easy way of putting that.”
In addition to the two deaths, three people have been injured, according to Cal Fire. A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the timing of the deaths or the identities of those killed.
The Mill Fire was first detected Friday afternoon in Weed, Calif., about 40 miles south of the Oregon border, before it quickly swelled to more than 4,200 acres in size by Saturday evening.
Cal Fire said in an incident update that firefighters on Sunday “held and improved containment lines,” and that “the fire is not anticipated to spread.”
The blaze was 40 percent contained as of Sunday evening and was the same size as the previous evening. A stretch of Highway 97 that was closed because of the fire was reopened Sunday morning.
Still, the fire has proved to be fatal and destructive, with 50 structures destroyed, three others damaged and six outbuildings — structures like sheds or separated garages — destroyed in the blaze.
“It’s one thing to come up here and tell you things, but to look at your faces, it almost brings me to tears,” LaRue said at the community briefing before telling residents of the deaths. “Again, I have the job of sharing some sad news.”
LaRue said wildfires in the area “have progressively gotten worse over the years.” Four people died in the McKinney Fire in Siskiyou County this summer.
Woman killed in McKinney Fire was fire lookout for nearly five decades
Firefighters are also battling another fast-moving wildfire, the Mountain Fire, which had nearly doubled in size by Sunday evening to 8,896 acres, according to Cal Fire. The blaze, near Gazelle, Calif., 10 miles northwest of Weed, was 10 percent contained Sunday evening. It was also found Friday afternoon.
No deaths, injuries or destroyed structures had been reported in that fire, but Cal Fire warned that the fire would “remain active throughout the night … due to above-average temperatures, poor relative humidity recovery, and down canyon winds.”
California firefighters on Sept. 3 battled a fast-moving fire that erupted 230 miles north of Sacramento, injuring several people and prompting evacuation. (Video: Storyful)
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) declared a state of emergency on Friday for Siskiyou County, where the towns of Weed and Gazelle are located. More than 2,400 fire personnel have been deployed to fight the blazes, according to Cal Fire, and thousands of people ordered to evacuate.
One in 6 Americans lives in an area with significant wildfire risk, according to a Washington Post analysis of data by the nonprofit First Street Foundation. In Weed’s Zip code, 84 percent of properties are at risk. | 2022-09-05T06:36:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | California’s Mill Fire kills 2, Siskiyou County sheriff says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/05/california-mill-fire-siskiyou-county-calfire/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/05/california-mill-fire-siskiyou-county-calfire/ |
Waves crashed on the eastern coast of Jeju Island, South Korea, as Typhoon Hinnamnor traveled toward the Korean Peninsula on Sunday. (Han Sang-Kyun/AP)
SEOUL — After developing last week into the strongest tropical storm of the year, Typhoon Hinnamnor barreled toward South Korea on Monday, with officials raising the typhoon alert to the highest level ahead of expected landfall on Tuesday.
The powerhouse storm has already unleashed damaging wind and rain, prompting evacuation orders and disrupting transportation in the country’s south, including Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city.
Hinnamnor was packing maximum sustained winds of 127 mph and gusts of up to 155 mph, according to the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center. The Korea Meteorological Administration said strong winds and heavy rain are expected across the country through Tuesday.
No casualties have been reported so far but at least 11 facilities have been flooded, according to Seoul’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol held an emergency meeting over the weekend to discuss the typhoon response. “We are yet to fully recover from damage of the recent downpour and Typhoon Hinnamnor is making its way up, provoking big public concerns,” Yoon told the meeting on Sunday.
Last month, a record downpour over the country killed more than a dozen people and displaced thousands, many of them in the Seoul area. Recovery efforts are still underway in severely hit areas, where authorities called for extra precautionary measures ahead of the typhoon’s arrival.
As Hinnamnor neared, North Korea’s weather agency also issued bad weather warnings, with reports of heavy rain in the capital, Pyongyang, and other parts of the country on Sunday. The regime’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Monday urged damage prevention works to minimize the typhoon’s impact on the economy.
North Korea’s poor infrastructure and widespread poverty make its people particularly vulnerable to climate-induced disasters. The super typhoon could deal a blow to the ailing economy of the isolated country, which is grappling with international sanctions and stalled trade with China due to coronavirus curbs.
Typhoons regularly churn across the Pacific between June and November each year. But climate scientists have warned that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and damaging as a result of global warming. Typhoon Hinnamnor, which formed in the western Pacific earlier this month, has also affected Japan. | 2022-09-05T06:53:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | S. Korea braces for Typhoon Hinnamnor as storm brings violent winds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/05/south-korea-typhoon-hinnamnor-storm/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/05/south-korea-typhoon-hinnamnor-storm/ |
Eliza Fletcher, 34, was abducted and forced into a vehicle while she was jogging near the University of Memphis campus. (Memphis Police Department/AP)
Police suspect Fletcher, a mother of two, suffered “serious injury” during the abduction. “There appeared to be a struggle,” the affidavit said, citing the surveillance footage.
A pair of sandals — alongside Fletcher’s cellphone and water bottle — was recovered near the site of her disappearance. DNA on the sandals matched that of a 38-year-old man named Cleotha Abston, Memphis police said in a statement on Twitter. Investigators also tracked Abston’s cellphone number and location history, which placed Abston in the vicinity at about the same time the abduction happened.
Abston has been charged with “especially aggravated kidnapping and tampering with evidence,” police said. He was “behaving oddly” and “cleaning the interior of the GMC Terrain with floor cleaner,” the affidavit said, citing statements from a witness and Abston’s brother.
During questioning, Abston refused to tell investigators anything about Fletcher’s whereabouts, according to the affidavit.
“We look forward to Eliza’s safe return and hope that this award will help the police capture those who committed this crime,” Fletcher’s uncle Mike Keeney said in a video statement released Friday night. The family could not be immediately reached late Sunday.
The investigation into the abduction is “active and ongoing,” police said. There have been 68 reported kidnappings or abductions in Memphis this year, according to Memphis public safety data.
St. Mary’s Episcopal School in Memphis, an all-girls prep school where Fletcher is employed, said in a statement on Twitter that Fletcher is a “beloved” junior kindergarten teacher. | 2022-09-05T08:24:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Eliza Fletcher missing after violent Memphis abduction; suspect charged - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/05/eliza-fletcher-missing-memphis-kidnapping/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/05/eliza-fletcher-missing-memphis-kidnapping/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Kyiv claims counteroffensive is working, with areas ...
Colleagues in the pediatric department at a clinic in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, at their office after a Russian strike on Sunday. (Umit Bektas/Reuters)
Ukrainian officials have suggested their long-promised counteroffensive in the south is making progress. Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
“The Ukrainian counteroffensive is making verifiable progress in the south and the east,” according to the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank. ISW analysts said “Ukrainian forces are advancing along several axes” to the west of the Kherson region and “have secured territory” in Donetsk, one of two eastern regions that make up the Donbas area. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday after a meeting of Ukraine’s defense, military and intelligence chiefs that “Ukrainian flags are returning to the places where they should be by right.”
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency left the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant Monday, Russian state-owned news outlets reported, citing Russian nuclear power plant operator Rosenergoatom and an expert who traveled with the group. Two representatives of the U.N. nuclear safety agency will remain to monitor the plant, the outlets said.
Ukraine says it has retaken two villages in the south. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president’s office, said on social media that a widely shared image of a soldier hoisting the Ukrainian flag atop a building was taken Sunday in the village of Vysokopillya in the Kherson region. Zelensky said late Sunday that “two settlements in the south of our country were liberated” by the 42nd separate motorized infantry battalion. The Washington Post could not independently verify the claims.
Russia’s main goal “almost certainly” remains to retake Donbas, the British Defense Ministry said Monday in its daily assessment of wartime intelligence. Russia is probably focusing on securing Donetsk, “which would enable the Kremlin to announce the ‘liberation’ of the Donbas.” The ministry said Russian forces are making the most gains north of Donetsk city, around Avdiivka and Bakhmut. But progress has been incremental even there, the ministry added, with Russian forces “only … advancing around 1km per week towards Bakhmut.”
John Sullivan departs post as U.S. ambassador to Russia: Amy B Wang explains the significance of the departure of Sullivan, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, who leaves his post at a time of severe tension between Washington and Moscow over the war in Ukraine.
Sullivan’s exit was abrupt, and there had been no earlier public indication that his retirement was imminent, Wang writes. A State Department official and a Biden administration official, who both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said Sullivan’s retirement had been expected, but the White House official said his departure was accelerated because of a family issue. | 2022-09-05T08:25:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/05/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/05/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
Next U.K. prime minister to be announced. Liz Truss leads in polls.
LONDON — She wasn’t the top choice of Conservative Party lawmakers, and a majority of Brits tell pollsters she would be a “poor” or “terrible” prime minister, but opinion surveys suggest Liz Truss is far and away the favorite among the Tory activists who are selecting the leader of their party and the next leader of Britain in vote results to be announced on Monday.
Truss, Britain’s foreign secretary, won the support of her party’s grass-roots with promises of tax cuts and with her loyalty to Prime Minister Boris Johnson — who was booted from Downing Street by Conservative lawmakers, but is already missed by rank-and-file party members.
Challenger Rishi Sunak — though the preferred choice among Conservative members of Parliament — appeared to have a tough time convincing his party’s voters that tackling inflation should come before tax cuts. And Sunak’s leading role in Johnson’s ouster — angry Tories called him a “Brutus” — seemed to hurt him with the grass-roots.
It was Sunak’s fiery departure as chancellor of the exchequer, or treasury secretary, in July that launched the revolt against Johnson. An avalanche of resignations followed. Conservative Party lawmakers said they could no longer trust a prime minister who prevaricated his way through scandal after scandal (and could no longer be counted on to help win elections).
Because this was not a general election, most of Britain has been sitting on the sidelines while a “selectorate” of about 150,000-200,000 dues-paying Conservative Party members — about 0.3 percent of the population — determine the country’s political future.
According to a YouGov poll, 12 percent of the general public say Truss will be a good or great prime minister compared to 52 percent who say she will be poor or terrible.
It’s hard to know what to expect, because Truss, 47, is a shapeshifter politician. She was a centrist Liberal Democrat in her youth before joining the Conservative Party, she argued for abolishing the monarchy before affirming her support for it, and she voted for Britain to remain in the European Union before becoming a hardcore Brexiteer.
As foreign secretary, she was a reliable NATO ally and Ukraine supporter, talking tough on Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. She led the charge on sanctioning oligarchs — many who had been living the high life in London.
But E.U. leaders see her as an agitator, an anti-Europe opportunist who could make matters even worse in the rocky post-divorce relationship between Britain and the 27-nation bloc.
In addition to the war in Ukraine and the fallout of Brexit, the new prime minister will inherit a vast range of economic and political problems, including high energy prices, soaring inflation and a looming recession.
The announcement of the Conservative Party leader will be followed with Britain’s version of Inauguration Day on Tuesday.
Both Johnson and his successor will travel to Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where Queen Elizabeth II is staying.
Queen’s first meeting with U.K. prime minister to happen in Scotland, not Buckingham Palace
In a private audience, Johnson will bow to the queen and tender his resignation. Soon after, in a ceremony known as “kissing hands,” his successor will bow or curtsy and ask the queen for permission to form a new government.
The new prime minister would be expected to address the British public back in London later in the day.
This will be the 96-year-old queen’s 15th prime minister.
If Truss does emerge victorious, she would be Britain’s third female prime minister — following Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. And the United Kingdom would join a small club of countries that has had at least three female heads of government.
In Britain’s case, all of its female leaders have come from the Conservative Party, even though the Tories have fewer female lawmakers than do the other main political parties.
Both Truss and Sunak have ruled out calling a general election to cement their mandate from the British public — as opposed to just Tory party activists, who represent a tiny sliver of the population.
Johnson won a big majority in a general election in December 2019, six months after being installed as party leader. His predecessor, May, also called an early election, which lost her a parliamentary majority.
In one of his final acts as prime minister, Johnson flew in a Typhoon fighter jet and proclaimed that after “three happy years in the cockpit” he was happy to hand over the “controls seamlessly to someone else.”
Many think Johnson will attempt a comeback.
What next for Boris Johnson? Books, columns, speeches, comeback? | 2022-09-05T08:25:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak to be announced as U.K. PM, Conservative leader - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/05/uk-new-prime-minister-liz-truss/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/05/uk-new-prime-minister-liz-truss/ |
FILE Two West German border police helicopters that carried armed terrorists and their nine Israeli Olympian hostages, stand at Fuerstenfeldbruck air force base, twenty miles west of Munich, Germany, on Sept. 7, 1972. Shaul Ladany survived a Nazi concentration camp and narrowly escaped the massacre of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Both attempts to murder him happened on German soil in the last century. Many decades later, the 86-year-year old Jew has returned to visit the two places where he narrowly escaped death. (AP Photo, File) (Uncredited/AP) | 2022-09-05T08:25:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Germany, Israel mark 50th anniversary of 1972 Olympic attack - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/germany-israel-mark-50th-anniversary-of-1972-olympic-attack/2022/09/05/8fff8da2-2cf2-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/germany-israel-mark-50th-anniversary-of-1972-olympic-attack/2022/09/05/8fff8da2-2cf2-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html |
This photo released by the U.S. Air Force, shows a B-52H Stratofortress assigned to the 5th Bomb Wing, Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, approaching a KC-10 Extender for refueling over the Middle East on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022. The United States military said Monday it flew a pair of nuclear-capable B-52 long-distance bombers over the Middle East in a show of force, the latest such mission in the region as tensions remain high between Washington and Tehran. (Staff Sgt. Shannon Bowman/U.S. Air Force via AP) (Staff Sgt. Collette Brooks/U.S. Air Force) | 2022-09-05T08:25:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | US B-52 bombers fly over Middle East amid tensions with Iran - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-b-52-bombers-fly-over-middle-east-amid-tensions-with-iran/2022/09/05/23afd19a-2ceb-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-b-52-bombers-fly-over-middle-east-amid-tensions-with-iran/2022/09/05/23afd19a-2ceb-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html |
Puget Sound plane crash kills at least 1, with 9 missing
A Coast Guard helicopter searches the area where a floatplane crashed near Whidbey Island, Wash., on Sept. 4. (Courtney Riffkin/AP)
One person is dead and nine others are missing after a float plane crashed Sunday in a bay northwest of Seattle, the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard’s Puget Sound Command Center received a report shortly after 3 p.m. local time that a float plane — a small seaplane equipped with pontoons for landing on the water — had crashed with nine adults and a child onboard.
One person was found dead, the Coast Guard said. The South Whidbey Fire Department described that person as a passenger in a Facebook post and referred further questions to the Coast Guard, which took command of the response to the crash.
The plane was heading to Renton Municipal Airport, the Coast Guard said in a statement, about 10 miles southeast of Seattle. It had departed from Friday Harbor, on an archipelago about 70 miles northwest of Seattle, and crashed in Mutiny Bay, west of Whidbey Island, about halfway between its take off and intended arrival points.
The aircraft was a DHC-3 Turbine Otter, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
The Coast Guard said it had deployed a helicopter crew, two 87-foot vessels, two 45-foot vessels and a C-27 aircraft to search for the missing people.
The Coast Guard said Sunday shortly before midnight local time that the two 87-foot cutter vessels would “continue to search throughout the night,” with aircraft joining the search at the break of dawn. | 2022-09-05T08:50:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Whidbey Island plane crash in Washington leaves 1 dead, 9 missing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/05/whidbey-plane-crash-washington-seaplane/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/05/whidbey-plane-crash-washington-seaplane/ |
St. Louis Cardinals designated hitter Albert Pujols acknowledges fans during an August road game in Denver. (David Zalubowski/AP)
Like Mays, Pujols returned to the city where he began his career for a sentimental finale. In Pujols’s case, that meant a St. Louis encore after a 10-year hiatus in California. Mays, who started his major league career with the New York Giants, also left for the Golden State but under different circumstances — his team moved to San Francisco in 1958. He made a celebrated homecoming with the New York Mets 14 years later.
Mays was one of the greatest players of all time, but his final season of 1973, at age 42, was a textbook case of an athlete staying on too long. A lifetime .302 hitter who played a peerless center field, Mays hit just .211 with a .647 on-base-plus-slugging percentage that year and famously misplayed a flyball in the World Series.
When the St. Louis Cardinals and Pujols announced in March that the future Hall of Famer had signed as a free agent to finish his career with his original team, some worried he might be repeating Mays’s mistake. Pujols, also 42, stressed this was a baseball decision, not a nostalgic one.
Then it changed. Since the all-star break, Pujols has been one of the game’s best hitters, batting .366 with a .756 slugging percentage through Saturday’s games. Pujols is also chasing 700 home runs — he is just five away — which seemed an impossibility earlier this season. Last month, his 1.224 OPS topped all major leaguers with at least 65 plate appearances, as the Athletic’s Jayson Stark noted.
Longtime St. Louis sports columnist Bernie Miklasz recently wrote that Pujols “isn’t embarrassing himself. Pujols isn’t the old, sad, worn-down and out-of-shape Elvis. Pujols is performing like the 1968 Elvis — the one that made a stunningly successful comeback on a nationally televised NBC special.”
‘Like coming back to paradise’
In a recent interview with USA Today, Pujols sounded a similar note.
“It’s been awesome having the opportunity to come back to St. Louis where everything started for me 21 years ago,” said Pujols, who like Mays has been welcomed back by adoring fans. “This organization believed I can help. It wasn’t just come back to celebrate my last year. It was knowing I can help”
‘I can’t even mention the word “retire” to him’
When people think of Mays’s Mets’ days, they naturally think of his last over-the-hill ’73 season. Mostly forgotten is his decent first year with the Mets, when he hit .267 with an .848 OPS in that down year of 1972, when the sport’s batting average was just .244.
In the second game of the World Series against the Oakland Athletics, he displayed both his talent and ebbing skills. Mays misplayed a flyball in the bottom of the ninth inning, helping the A’s tie the game, then singled in the go-ahead run in the 12th inning, pacing the Mets’ series-tying win. Oakland wound up winning the series in seven games. | 2022-09-05T09:29:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Albert Pujols has defied age — and the specter of Willie Mays in twilight - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/05/albert-pujols-career-retirement/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/05/albert-pujols-career-retirement/ |
Man fatally shot in Bladensburg, police say
Prince George’s will investigate, according to police
A man was shot and killed Sunday night in Bladensburg, police said.
He was found about 9:15 p.m. in an apartment house in the 4200 block of 58th Avenue, said Bladensburg police chief Tyrone Collington Sr.
Police went there in response to a call about gunshots.
The man was partially responsive when he was found, police said. He had been wounded in the upper body and died at a hospital, police said.
No name was available immediately. The homicide will be investigated by Prince George’s County police, Collington said.
Bladensburg is a town of about 10,000 people that borders Northeast Washington in Prince George’s. | 2022-09-05T09:42:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man is found fatally shot in Bladensburg, Md., police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/05/man-shot-killed-bladensburg-police/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/05/man-shot-killed-bladensburg-police/ |
D.C.-area forecast: Rain chances rise into tonight, but we dry out for week’s second half
Locally heavy rain possible late tonight into Tuesday, with 1 to 2 inches or more possible in some areas
5/10: Be prepared for a shower, but the best chance of rain holds off until dark.
Today: Mostly cloudy with a possible shower, especially west of the District. Highs: 81 to 86.
Tonight: Showers and storms with possible heavy rain. Lows: 66 to 71.
Tomorrow: Morning rain, drying out in the afternoon. Highs: 75 to 80.
Downpours threaten the area tonight, but we may be able to get through much of the holiday before significant rainfall arrives. Most of the rain moves off by Tuesday afternoon, but we may have to dodge a few more showers Wednesday. Then we should mostly dry out Thursday into the weekend with comfortably warm temperatures but some mugginess.
Today (Monday): Skies are mostly cloudy and a shower or two can’t be ruled out, especially west of the Beltway during the afternoon. But for most of us, it’s dry for most of the day. I’m cautiously optimistic Labor Day grilling should be possible as long you don’t wait until too late. It is on the humid side (dew points 65 to 70) with highs in the low to mid-80s. Winds are from the south at 5 to 10 mph. Confidence: Medium-High
Tonight: Showers increase in coverage and intensity after sunset, and there could be some embedded thunderstorms with heavy rainfall. Models project the heaviest rain in our northern suburbs (north of the Beltway), and some areas of flooding can’t be ruled out, especially late at night and toward morning. Lows range from the mid-60s to around 70. Confidence: Medium-High
Tomorrow (Tuesday): Showers and even some heavy downpours linger in the morning, especially near and east of Interstate 95. The morning commute could be a slow one after the long weekend, especially if there is any flooding. Rain should mostly conclude from west to east as the morning progresses, with mainly dry conditions across the region during the afternoon. Highs are in the upper 70s to near 80, with light winds from the south (around 5 mph). Rainfall totals could reach 1 to 2 inches north of the Beltway (locally heavier amounts of 2 to 4 inches aren’t out of the question), with about 0.5 to 1.0 inches elsewhere. Confidence: Medium
Tomorrow night: Skies remain mostly cloudy and there be could be some patchy fog. Lows range from the mid- to upper 60s. Confidence: Medium-High
Wednesday is mostly cloudy, but the sun may try to sneak through at times. A couple pop-up showers can’t be ruled out as highs hover in the upper 70s thanks to a cooling breeze from the east. Partly to mostly cloudy Wednesday night with lows in the mid- to upper 60s. Confidence: Medium
Our drying trend starts Thursday, which features a mix of sun and clouds. Temperatures may be held in check by light winds from the east and northeast (5 to 10 mph), but highs should still manage 75 to 80, maybe a little higher with enough sun. Decreasing clouds at night with lows in the 60s. Confidence: Medium-High
Summery weather returns Friday through the weekend, but nothing at all extreme. While it’s somewhat humid (dew points in the 60s), highs are in the comfortably warm low to mid-80s with lows in the 60s. It’s mostly dry through this stretch, but a shower or storm can’t be ruled out over the weekend, especially by late Sunday. Confidence: Medium | 2022-09-05T09:42:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C.-area forecast: Rain chances rise into tonight, but we dry out for week’s second half - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/09/05/dc-forecast-rainy-monday-night-tuesday/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/09/05/dc-forecast-rainy-monday-night-tuesday/ |
New affordable apartments coming to D.C.'s Randle Heights
Updated September 5, 2022 at 5:30 a.m. EDT|Published August 30, 2022 at 5:30 a.m. EDT
All 130 apartments at Terrace Manor will be reserved for residents earning 60 percent or less of the area's median income. (Stoiber & Associates)
WC Smith and the Anacostia Economic Development Corp. are constructing 130 apartments at Terrace Manor at 3301 23rd St. SE in the Randle Heights neighborhood of Ward 8. Every unit at Terrace Manor, a site previously occupied by 12 vacant buildings with 61 apartments, will be designated as affordable housing.
All 130 apartments at Terrace Manor will be reserved for residents earning 60 percent or less of the area’s median income. The median family income estimate by HUD for the D.C. region is $142,300 for 2022. Eligibility for affordable housing is based on a sliding scale according to family size and household income.
New apartments open at the Wharf
Terrace Manor will include 75 one-bedroom apartments, 47 two-bedroom apartments and eight three-bedroom apartments. Fourteen of the units will be designated as permanent supportive housing (PSH) and reserved for residents earning 30 percent or less of area median income. The residents in those 14 units will receive Local Rent Supplement Program vouchers through the D.C. Housing Authority and will have access to support services from the D.C. Department of Human Services and Community Connections D.C.
Resident services available to all Terrace Manor residents will include the Skyland Workforce Center, midnight basketball at THEARC and shuttles to the Village of Parkland Splash Park, which is owned by WC Smith.
Terrace Manor will also have onsite amenities, including a community room, a business center, a fitness center, a 24-hour front desk, free garage parking, bike storage and security. The community is anticipated to be complete in September 2024.
The District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency issued $36.99 million in tax exempt bonds and underwrote $33.8 million in Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) equity for the construction of the new apartments.
The D.C. LIHTC funding is from Sugar Creek Capital. Federal LIHTC funding and a HUD-insured construction loan was secured from Wells Fargo. Additional financing includes a $24.5 million loan from the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development.
For updates on Terrace Manor, click here. | 2022-09-05T09:51:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New affordable apartments coming to D.C.'s Randle Heights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/30/new-affordable-apartments-coming-dc-randle-heights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/30/new-affordable-apartments-coming-dc-randle-heights/ |
Corn, wheat and other agricultural products withered in a year of glaring climate change impacts
Corn grows in Leland, Miss. American corn is on track to produce its lowest yield since the drought of 2012, analysts say. (Rory Doyle/Bloomberg News)
American corn is on track to produce its lowest yield since the drought of 2012, according to analysts at Rabobank, which collects data about commodity markets. This year’s hard red winter wheat crop was the smallest since 1963, the bank’s analysts said. In Texas, cotton farmers have walked away from nearly 70 percent of their crop because the harvest is so paltry, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The California rice harvest is half what it would be in a normal year, an industry group said.
Drought has consumed 40 percent of the country for the past 101 weeks, USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey said. But precisely where that 40 percent is has shifted over time, meaning different swaths of the country’s agricultural land have been affected at different times, spreading pain and difficult choices geographically and by crop.
Based on last month’s numbers, he said, it looks like abandonment of the Texas cotton crop will be the highest on record, around 69 percent: “That’s when farmers just walk away.”
California’s ‘Cantaloupe Center’ struggles to reign supreme as drought pummels agriculture across the West
Inflation gobbles up fresh produce, driving up price of Super Bowl guacamole
Harvest of the new potato crop is underway and Rabobank analysts say the harvested area is projected to drop 4 percent from last year (and last year’s crop was a decade’s low). Its analysts also said year-to-date shipments of carrots are down 45 percent, sweet corn down 20 percent, sweet potatoes down 13 percent, and celery down 11 percent, all an indication of short supply. And according to the USDA, total peach production was down 15 percent from 2021, mostly because of California’s small crop.
A recent Farm Bureau survey found that the largest herd decline is in Texas (reported down 50 percent), followed by New Mexico (down 43 percent) and Oregon (down 41 percent), largely due to scarce forage and water, which cuts into operational income for ranchers. | 2022-09-05T10:26:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The summer drought took a toll on corn, wheat, tomatoes and a lot of other American crops - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/05/crops-climate-drought-food/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/05/crops-climate-drought-food/ |
When she sought answers about an officer, this Maryland police union sued
Case is a test of new transparency law named for Anton Black, who died in an encounter with police
Police cars are parked outside of Public Safety Headquarters, where the Montgomery County Police Department's 1st District is based, in Gaithersburg, Md.
When the law passed, Alexa Renehan decided to find out what happened to the police officer she had complained about all those years ago.
That was, after all, the point of transparency legislation named for Anton Black, who died in 2018 after an encounter with police in Greensboro, Md. It was supposed to take no more than a month to obtain the officer’s disciplinary records. After negotiating down a five-figure price tag in April, Renehan settled in to wait.
She was still waiting this summer, long after Montgomery County’s legal deadline to release the records. A day before the county pledged to turn them over, the officer and local police union sued the county to stop the disclosure, arguing that officer privacy concerns outweigh the public’s right to know.
The litigation is an early test of Anton’s Law, which Maryland lawmakers passed last year to ensure the public has access to police internal affairs records amid the nationwide clamor for increased accountability following the murder of George Floyd. Supporters of the measure say disclosure ultimately bolsters trust between officers and those they police, but unions like the Fraternal Order of Police, or FOP, have long asserted that disclosure would harm officers’ reputations, hurt their employment opportunities, and invite unfair smears or harassment.
“This is supposed to bring transparency,” Renehan said, so that complaints about officers don’t “stay hidden behind the FOP curtain.”
Appeals court upholds D.C. law that strips police union of power in disciplinary process
Whatever the litigation’s outcome, it has stalled the disclosure of records the county had prepared for release, thanks in part to an uncommon arrangement that allows the union to review internal affairs files before their disclosure. And it has left Renehan wondering whether to intervene in the case at her own expense or leave it to county and union officials to hash out what information the public should be able to access.
“You have a process now where the adversaries aren’t exactly adversarial,” said Kevin Goldberg, a veteran freedom-of-information lawyer and First Amendment specialist for the Freedom Forum, referring to the county, officer and union, which are so far the only parties to the case.
“That’s troubling,” Goldberg said.
Acting Montgomery County Attorney John P. Markovs declined to comment on the case, but said in an email that “all litigation is adversarial.”
Under Anton’s Law, police disciplinary records are no longer prohibited from release as “personnel” records. But the Maryland Public Information Act, or MPIA, contains other exceptions under which at least portions of such records might be withheld.
Privacy concerns are common in public records disputes. The question is not only whether information might be private, legal experts say, but whether any harm from releasing it would outweigh the public interest in disclosure.
Renehan, who practiced family law in Montgomery County for more than a decade and now volunteers for African animal conservation and female empowerment groups, first requested the disciplinary records of Montgomery County police officer John J. Gloss in January. More than a decade earlier, she had made a complaint to the department about Gloss after a traffic stop she felt he had handled inappropriately.
“I got a letter, which I didn’t save, but it said your complaint was found to be valid — he will be, or he is being, sanctioned,” Renehan recalled. But before Anton’s Law, there was no way for a member of the public to learn about the investigation of a complaint or what discipline, if any, may have occurred.
Now, Renehan wanted to know exactly what became of her complaint, along with any others against Gloss. A few weeks after her request, she received from the police department an estimated fee of $63,030, which she learned through later correspondence was based on the size of Gloss’s disciplinary file, which spanned five cases, 2,711 pages, and dozens of hours of audio and video, according to correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post. It’s not unusual for individual internal affairs cases, which sometimes include allegations against multiple officers, to run hundreds of pages.
The county estimated it would take 1,315 hours to review and redact the material. Maryland law allows agencies to charge for costs incurred in releasing records.
The hidden billion-dollar cost of repeated police misconduct
In April, after some back and forth with the department, Renehan agreed to reduce the scope of her request. She paid $270 to receive only the investigative reports and dispositions of the five cases, amounting to 174 pages of records. Then she waited.
The MPIA requires officials to release public records “promptly,” without unnecessary delay, and within 30 days unless the requester agrees to an extension.
“It’s been 8+ weeks since I paid you and this is outrageous!” Renehan wrote to the department in early June.
A department clerk replied that the records were in “a final legal and officer review prior to release.” Two weeks later, the clerk notified Renehan that the department needed an additional 10 business days while the Fraternal Order of Police looked over the file, records reviewed by The Post show.
The Post reported last month that the union representing Montgomery County officers, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 35, secured an agreement early this year with County Executive Marc Elrich (D) allowing it time to inspect internal affairs files and object to their release before a member of the public can see them.
During separate interviews for that article, the union’s president, Lee Holland, and Montgomery County Assistant Police Chief Darren Francke told The Post that the agreement gives union members a chance to correct any mistakes the department might make in preparing records for release. They said the union had reviewed about 10 sets of records and raised only one issue — over whether an alleged violation by an officer amounted to a technical infraction. Neither Holland nor Francke mentioned the lawsuit.
On Thursday, Francke said the lawsuit involves a separate issue than the one he disclosed earlier. “It fell off my radar. I had completely forgotten. I was asked to call you at the last minute, so I apologize for that. I wasn’t trying to hoodwink you or anything,” he said.
Holland did not respond to an email and phone message requesting comment about the lawsuit.
The union filed its complaint in Montgomery County Circuit Court on July 5, a day before Renehan was to receive the records. The county notified Renehan and later sent her a copy of the union’s complaint, which does not name Gloss and instead refers to him as “Officer John Doe.”
The lawsuit seeks to block the release of records documenting internal affairs investigations into allegations against Gloss dating back “almost two decades.” They include sustained allegations of “Conformance to Law,” and “Conduct Unbecoming,” along with other allegations that were not sustained, according to a summary the department released to Renehan, who contacted The Post after reading a recent article. The summary, which was reviewed by The Post and is called a “Concise Employee History,” includes five cases, some of which include multiple alleged policy violations.
The records also include a sustained “Courtesy” allegation dated Dec. 3, 2010, the summary shows. Renehan said she thinks that was the date of her complaint. Court records show that Gloss issued her a speeding citation on Nov. 27, 2010.
Goldberg, of the Freedom Forum, said the lawsuit seems to be more than an attempt to ensure proper administration of the new law. “I think they’re actually trying to undercut it at the first turn,” he said.
Court filings in the case refer to Gloss anonymously per an order signed by Montgomery County Circuit Court Associate Judge Bibi M. Berry, which was proposed in a motion by the union that it said was necessary to protect his privacy and that the county agreed to. The union’s complaint describes “Officer John Doe” as “a decorated sworn police officer” and a “medal of valor award recipient.” Gloss did not return an email or phone message requesting comment.
The Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce gave Gloss a “Silver Medal of Valor Award” for confronting a group of gun-shop burglars in 2019. As the getaway SUV sped toward and past him, Gloss fired five shots, one of which entered the back of the SUV above its brake light and struck a 17-year-old in the rear cargo area, killing him, investigators said. The Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office, which investigated on behalf of Montgomery County, found the shooting justified.
Md. opened police IA files to the public. But here the union looks first.
The union’s lawsuit gives various reasons Gloss’s disciplinary records, or at least portions of them, should be withheld from public view, including asserting that releasing them would be “an unwarranted invasion of privacy” and would disclose “protected personnel records.”
The complaint said it would be “contrary to the public interest” to release records of allegations that were not sustained. The same argument was made to lawmakers as they debated Anton’s Law, but its proponents disagreed. The legislature declined to adopt a narrower version of the law that would have excluded non-sustained complaints from disclosure.
“That was a big, big, big, big point for me, and that was what Anton’s Law was pushing for — sustained as well as unsustained complaints,” said Del. Gabriel Acevero (D-Montgomery), who sponsored the Maryland House’s version of the bill. The public cannot assess whether the police are appropriately policing themselves if they can’t see the complaints that were not sustained, he said.
Under a schedule approved Aug. 16 by Berry, the union had 30 days to submit a sealed memorandum furthering its arguments to withhold the records, and the county will then have 30 days to file a sealed response. | 2022-09-05T10:35:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Md police union sues to stop release of IA records lawmakers made public - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/05/when-she-sought-answers-about-an-officer-this-md-police-union-sued/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/05/when-she-sought-answers-about-an-officer-this-md-police-union-sued/ |
Johnny T’s Bistro & Blues dishwasher Anthony Caviness pours boiled water into a sink to wash dishes on Sept. 4. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
JACKSON, Miss. — Opening a restaurant in the capital city eight years ago was John Tierre’s way of investing in the renewal of the Farish Street Historic District, a deteriorated former enclave for Black businesses.
A graduate of Jackson State, a historically Black university, Tierre felt a responsibility to revive the area, which he said was “once known as a mecca for Black commerce second only to Harlem.”
His restaurant, Johnny T’s Bistro & Blues, thrived when it opened, hiring 25 employees and drawing loyal crowds who recognized portraits on the brick walls of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne, all of whom took the stage at the restaurant when it was the Crystal Palace Ballroom in the 1930s and 1940s, Tierre said.
Then the pandemic hit. Jackson city officials, like Democrats elsewhere, shut down local restaurants’ indoor dining, weeks before Gov. Tate Reeves (R) issued a statewide order to close. Restaurants in surrounding towns initially remained open, drawing Tierre’s customers and staff away. The Farish Street revival Tierre had banked on failed to materialize, leaving his establishment surrounded by derelict buildings. And conditions soon worsened.
“Now there’s supply chain issues, rising labor costs and shortages and here comes this water crisis,” Tierre, 45, said Sunday as he prepared to open amid a citywide boil-water order that’s forcing him to spend more than $300 a day on bottled water and bagged ice.
State and local officials have vowed to find at least a temporary fix for the city’s failing water system, which serves 150,000 residents as well as businesses like Tierre’s. Federal Emergency Management Agency officials arrived last week to provide assistance to state and local leaders, and water pressure was restored over the weekend in many areas. But the city’s tap water must still be boiled before use, and none of the officials could provide a timeline for restoring clean water service.
Many restaurant owners said they saw Jackson’s water crisis coming, but felt powerless to stop it. Last month, in a letter to Reeves, Mississippi restaurants appealed to state and local officials to address the capital’s water problems. Now some fear they may have to close permanently if they can’t restore consumers’ confidence and shoulder the added costs required to meet health requirements, including a steady supply of bagged ice and bottled water.
Pat Fontaine, executive director of the Mississippi Hospitality & Restaurant Association, said some Jackson restaurant owners told him their sales dropped 30% last week, as restaurants in surrounding towns without water issues reported an increase in business.
Volunteers were donating and distributing bottled water to some restaurants and setting up GoFundMe fundraisers for servers who have lost money, he said.
But some restaurants are spending $500 to $600 a day on bottled water, bagged ice, canned drinks and added garbage service, plus portable toilets, which cost $2,100 to $5,000 a week, Fontaine said.
“Those are costs they cannot recoup,” Fontaine said. “A small restaurant does not have the resources to withstand these kind of pressures for much longer.”
eZra Brown, another Jackson State graduate, returned from Florence, S.C., to open Soulé coffee + bubbletea two weeks ago. He had planned to add another location in coming weeks, plus two food trucks. But then he was forced to close the new cafe’s bathroom for two days last week due to water problems. Now he’s facing the surprise costs of buying hundreds of $3 bags of ice a day, plus bottled water. And he’s worried about losing customers.
“People are staying home. I’m talking to a lot of other business owners, it’s abbreviated hours because people are not coming out,” Brown, 47, said as he sat outside his cafe Sunday, where a dozen patrons lounged and picked up online orders.
Brown still plans to expand, and is training a staffer to help. But he said officials need to do more to fix the water system quickly.
“We need an immediate solution, because we can’t live in a boil-water order for the next year,” he said.
Jeff Good has been running restaurants in Jackson since 1994, but had to temporarily close his three eateries last week due to the water shutdown. He was able to reopen one site last Wednesday, the other two Friday. But he said business has been “devastated.” He has had to spend $2,000 a week on bottled water alone.
He worries that if he has to close for too long, he may lose some of his 210 employees, as he did during the pandemic.
Good said he’s been dealing with temporary shutdowns due to water problems for the past 15 years, from broken water mains to water contamination and a freeze that ruptured pipes last year.
“If you can’t wash hands or wash dishes, you can’t open. That’s a death knell for restaurants,” Good said. “I don’t know how we got here. It’s unconscionable.”
Traffic was lower than usual at his Broad Street Baking Company & Cafe Sunday afternoon, staff said, with about a dozen people outside and twice as many inside.
Out on the patio, Bob and Kathy Barnes shared lunch with their 4-year-old great-granddaughter after church. The couple live in the surrounding neighborhood, Fondren, a tony area of sprawling lawns and stately homes that’s also suffered this week, their water unreliable.
Kathy, 81, a retired consignment store owner, said they came to the restaurant because, “we want them to stay open. It’s a nightmare for them.”
“It is for us, too,” said her husband Bob, 82, a part-time civil engineer who said he believes the governor will work with city and federal officials to find money to repair the troubled water system.
“We’ll fix this thing,” he said.
Inside, signs warned patrons not to use the soda machine, except for ice, which workers poured into the machine from bags.
Susan Goss filled her tea with ice from the machine, saying she trusted the restaurant to be safe. Goss, 40, a stay-at-home mom who lives in the suburb of Flowood, came to lunch with her husband and 15-month-old daughter to support the restaurant. She’d seen the restaurant association’s letter to the governor and realized their plight. She appreciated the note on the machine and being able to see workers unload ice and bottled water.
“That makes a big difference. Character goes a long way in the restaurant business,” she said.
Patrons at Johnny T’s agreed, and hoped to do their part to help save the restaurant.
“A lot of people still want to support the businesses. We saw the pandemic situation — a lot of people got real hurt,” said James Lee, a Jackson native now living in Miami who was dining with his wife, sister and brother-in-law after returning to town to attend a wedding.
Sitting at the bar with her sister, regular Jasmine McWillie said the water crisis wouldn’t stop her from dining out on salmon and shrimp almandine.
McWillie, 28, a Nissan assembly plant worker, said she’s grown accustomed to Jackson’s water problems.
“This has been going on since I was in middle school,” she said. “I didn’t think it would get to this point.”
Tierre sat at the back, surveying the room. With Jackson State’s football team playing their season opener in Florida, he wasn’t expecting the usual weekend crowd. But by late afternoon, several dozen people had arrived to watch the game, filling the bar and temporarily easing Tierre’s mind.
As Tierre watched the game on television, the ESPN announcer — a regular when he’s in town — offered prayers for Jackson, then gave a shout out to folks at Johnny T’s. Tierre said he felt “blessed” to still be open.
He was hopeful the water crisis would be resolved soon, as national attention forces officials to take swift action.
“They don’t have a choice now. If they don’t do anything, shame on them,” he said. “There’s a lot of restaurants may not make it out of this. There’s always been a dream for Farish to return to what it was. Who knows how long that will be?” | 2022-09-05T10:56:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jackson's restaurants suffered in pandemic, and now water crisis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/05/jackson-water-crisis-restaurants/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/05/jackson-water-crisis-restaurants/ |
The tech giant is known for its free lunches for employees. The people who make those lunches have joined unions en masse.
By Gerrit De Vynck
Google’s newest campus in Mountain View, Calif. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
Google is famous for its cafeterias, which serve its legions of programmers and product managers everything from vegan poke to gourmet tacos — free.
But the cooks and servers behind those meals are generally contractors who work for other companies, and do not get the generous perks and benefits reserved for Google employees. So over the past few years, thousands of them have unionized, securing higher wages, retirement benefits and free platinum health care coverage.
Unite Here, a 300,000-member union hotel and food service workers, has been steadily working to unionize Silicon Valley cafeteria workers since 2018, experiencing the most success at Google. Employed by the contract companies Compass and Guckenheimer, those unionized now make up about 90 percent of total food services workers at Google, according to the union. Workers have unionized at 23 Google offices nationwide, including in Seattle and San Jose.
Now, the union is tackling new territory: the South. On Wednesday, Google workers in Atlanta employed by a different cafeteria company — Sodexo — presented their manager with a list of demands and said they plan to unionize.
The labor market is still red-hot — and it’s helping union organizers
Unionizing workers outside of major coastal cities and in the South may be a tougher sell, where union membership is the lowest in the United States and labor laws are generally weaker. Around 6 percent of workers in Georgia are unionized, compared with 18 percent in California and 24 percent in New York, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although inflation and housing prices have pushed up the cost of living nationwide, prices are still generally lower in the South than in large coastal cities.
On Friday, Sodexo and the union reached an agreement: Should a majority of workers choose to unionize, Sodexo would not try to block it.
Sodexo has many unionized workplaces across the country, said Jane Dollinger, a spokeswoman for the company. “We believe there is a path forward through negotiations to address the differences in wages and benefits.”
“We have many contracts with both unionized and nonunion suppliers, and respect their employees’ right to choose whether or not to join a union. The decision of these contractors to join Unite Here is a matter between the workers and their employers,” Google spokeswoman Courtenay Mencini said.
“Our company has a heritage of fairness, equality, and inclusion. We recognize protected labor rights and maintain a neutral position with respect to union participation,” said Guckenheimer spokesman Peter Mikol. “We honor and respect the decision that many employees made to be represented by the union, and look forward to continuing to work productively together,” said Lisa Claybon, a spokeswoman for Compass.
The average unionized worker at a Google cafeteria makes $24 an hour, pays little to nothing for health insurance and has access to a pension plan. At Sodexo-run Google cafeterias, workers make $15 an hour and pay premiums in the hundreds of dollars, Taylor said.
“It’s a cool place to work at. The downside of that is the wages we’re getting, the amount of work they are requesting,” said Aaron Henderson, a 40-year-old cafeteria worker at Google’s Atlanta office who performs a variety of tasks including cleaning the kitchen, making fresh pizza dough and prepping the salad bar. He supports a family of three, including a daughter who is about to head to college.
“I love the job,” he said. “We all get along. It’s too bad that we’re just underpaid and overworked.”
Housing prices in Atlanta have risen around 18 percent in the past year, according to the real estate platform Zillow, although prices in the city remain lower than in New York or the San Francisco Bay area.
Tens of thousands of the workers who make their living at Google are employed by contract companies. They’re known internally as “TVCs” — temporary, vendor or contractors, and their ranks encompass all sorts of jobs, including cafeteria workers, content moderators, designers, programmers and security guards. Similar dynamics play out at other tech companies, including Facebook and Twitter.
Google lowered its salaries in North Carolina. Now workers are protesting.
Tech companies have brought enormous wealth to the cities in which they’re based, especially the San Francisco Bay area. Housing prices have shot up over the past decade, pushing many people out and causing security guards, cafeteria workers and shuttle bus drivers to make long commutes to work in jobs that serve tech workers.
“We wanted to focus in on the tech companies because they clearly have been very beneficial to certain workers,” Taylor said. “We didn’t think that should be confined to white collar workers.”
Other groups also have worked on that goal. The Alphabet Workers Union, a group of full-time Google employees and TVCs, officially formed in 2021 to try to make wages and benefits more equal between the two groups. The AWU is not an official union that has gone through the government certification process.
Silicon Valley Rising, a group of union and worker advocacy organizations, also campaigns for better wages and cheaper housing in the San Francisco Bay area.
Starbucks illegally withheld raises from union workers, labor board says
A tight labor market combined with soaring inflation and pandemic-related safety concerns among front line workers triggered a surge in filings this year to hold workplace union elections. Tens of thousands more workers voted to join unions in the first half of this year than in the first six months of 2021, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Law. Workers also have voted to unionize for the first time at Chipotle, Trader Joe’s and the recreation equipment maker REI — citing concerns related to safety and low wages.
More than 230 Starbucks locations have voted to unionize since last year, triggering tough opposition from the company, which recently was accused by the National Labor Relations Board of illegally withholding raises and benefits from union workers. And this year, the first Amazon warehouse and Apple Store voted to unionize.
Richard Ramirez, 33, who works at a Google office in Seattle receiving food shipments and making sure they’re stored safely, says he was skeptical when union representatives began approaching his colleagues.
Google CEO says company will slow hiring amid economic conditions
“We had it relatively good,” Ramirez said. The $20 he made at Google was better than the $11 he made in a previous job that left him without enough money even to afford rent. Still, he was commuting over three hours a day because of the high cost of living in Seattle. He decided to support the union.
Now, he is paid $27 an hour, and the free health-care plan means he doesn’t think twice about getting the best care for his family, Ramirez said. The money has made a real difference for him.
“Since we unionized, I have bought a home and that was basically only possible because we unionized,” he said. | 2022-09-05T11:14:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 4,000 Google cafeteria workers quietly unionized during the pandemic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/05/google-union-pandemic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/05/google-union-pandemic/ |
A collection of original texts are designed to improve early literacy
Students at C.W. Harris Elementary School read books from a new series of texts designed to improve literacy among young readers. (Lauren Lumpkin/The Washington Post)
D.C. public schools kicked off a new school year last week, and with it a reading curriculum resource designed to improve literacy among the city’s youngest readers.
The program — called DCPS Readers Next Door — includes a collection of 120 books largely written and illustrated by educators in the District, and is an expansion of a years-long effort to align literacy instruction with what experts say are the best practices for teaching children how to read.
It also comes as the results of the District’s standardized Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test — widely known as PARCC — illustrate how much learning loss occurred during the pandemic. Thirty-six percent of students in the traditional public school system passed the reading exam this year, a four percentage point drop from the last time the test was administered, in 2019. Students in grades three through eight and high school took the online exam in the spring.
National data released this week painted a similarly sobering picture of the rest of the country, showing reading and math scores among young students dropping to the lowest levels in decades.
The new series of books are “decodable texts,” which emphasize phonics skills, officials said, and will be used in kindergarten through second-grade classrooms. The books mark a departure from “leveled texts,” books that are categorized by the level of difficulty and tend to focus on “whole language” — a philosophy that says children learn to read best by being exposed to words and not by breaking them down into individuals sounds as is done in phonics.
“What data’s revealed, what research and science has revealed, is that teaching students word-recognition skills using leveled text is ineffective,” said Shareen Cruz, the district’s director of early literacy strategy. “It’s not developing students’ automaticity and fluency with recognizing and decoding words, which is really a huge hindrance in the ultimate goal of reading, which is reading comprehension.”
Children need opportunities practice phonics skills — which emphasize the relationship between sounds and letters — to be successful readers. Otherwise, said Alison Williams, deputy chief of content and curriculum, “there’s a lot of guesswork that happens. They’re looking at pictures, they’re thinking about what would make sense as opposed to really paying attention to the letter sounds, relationships and word parts.”
Students in the district would often be considered able to read on grade level until they reached fourth and fifth grades, then “fall backward,” because the books they were reading no longer had pictures, Williams said.
The school system, in an effort to prevent that, has adopted more decodable texts in recent years. Each book focuses on a specific phonetic pattern or word family. This year, every building will use that type of text.
In addition to improving literacy, the new books have been designed to reflect the experiences of the children reading them, officials said. The public school system partnered with reading experts and outside consultants to write a series that follows 10 characters living in the District.
Dakota King, 8, a student at C.W. Harris Elementary School in Southeast Washington said she was a fan of the character, Lex, who is shorter than her peers and has to confront her classmates about a hurtful nickname. Dakota and her mother were present at a read-along last month, during which Lewis Ferebee, the school system’s chancellor, debuted some of the new books.
The books follow characters including Kayden, Amanuel, Jenna, Jacob and Lex, who each attend school in the District. In one title, the iconic Ben’s Chili Bowl makes an appearance, said Yolanda Henson, a visual arts teacher at McKinley Technology High School and an illustrator for the project. Students will also read about a pet shop in Anacostia.
“What sets these texts apart … is that they are meaningful, they’re interesting, they’re rooted in community and identity and things that are resonant for kids,” said Celestina Lee, a first-grade teacher at Garrison Elementary School who helped write the series. She said she looks forward to seeing kids students spot places they’ve visited or foods they’ve eaten in the books. “That’s the secret sauce of what makes kids feel happy and joyful at school.”
The push to improve literacy comes amid widening gaps in reading proficiency between students of color and their White peers. In 2018, about 23 percent of Black students, 32 percent of Hispanic students, and 83 percent of White students in D.C.'s traditional public schools passed the PARCC reading exam. By 2019, each group had shown improvement, with Hispanic students making the biggest gains: nearly 40 percent were reading at or above grade level. Eighty-eight percent of White kids and 27 percent of Black kids met that benchmark.
Now, students across racial groups are back at 2018 levels, wiping out years of progress.
But, there are bright spots. The city’s youngest students have already been making improvements, based on the results of an exam administered to students in kindergarten through second grade called DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills). At the beginning of last school year, 41 percent of children tested met early literacy benchmarks. That figure shot up 25 percentage points, to 66 percent by the end of the year.
“We saw some of the highest gains DCPS has realized in a year, from beginning of year to end of year” said Ferebee.
It’s a number well below what was achieved during the 2018-19 school year, when 71 percent of kids met early benchmarks, but a sign that kids are getting back on track, officials said. | 2022-09-05T11:14:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DCPS Readers Next Door program helps D.C. students become better readers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/05/dc-schools-students-reading-literacy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/05/dc-schools-students-reading-literacy/ |
By the time President Biden unveiled plans to cancel up to $20,000 in student loans last week, Price, 57, had $5,600 of the debt left — less than a quarter of what she originally borrowed. Biden’s plan would easily wipe away her balance.
“I celebrated,” said Price, a writer in Sarasota, Fla. That is until she looked up her loans on studentaid.gov, where Price learned she had a type of federal debt owned by private companies that did not qualify for cancellation.
“I was really disappointed,” Price said. “I kept checking Twitter for news to see if there are any options for someone like me.”
Some federal student loan borrowers, locked out of the bailout, consider a risky move for relief
But borrowers with those commercially held FFEL loans can consolidate their debt into the Direct Loan program — where loans are made and held directly by the federal government — to become eligible for forgiveness.
Since the president’s announcement, there has been a spike in consolidations among commercial FFEL borrowers. While Biden’s plan applies to loans made on or before June 30, consolidation loans disbursed after that date are still covered as long as the underlying debt was originated on or before June 30, according to the Education Department.
Questions and answers about Biden's student loan forgiveness plan
The department said it will work with private lenders to ensure commercially held federal borrowers can benefit from the cancellation plan. Borrowers, according to the department, will have more than a year to apply once the application is available this fall and don’t need to take any action now.
“People feel like they have to do something now or they’re going to miss out on the opportunity,” said Betsy Mayotte, president of the nonprofit Institute of Student Loan Advisors. But “anybody who’s not a PSLF candidate or not going to have a zero balance with the IDR waiver or [Biden’s] forgiveness plan could face real harm” in consolidating.
“It’s not that big a chunk of money,” Price said of her student loans, “but it’s a weight I’ve been carrying for 30 years, and it’s still hanging around at 8 percent interest.”
Still, he worried that aside from news reports, there was no confirmation on the Education Department’s website that borrowers like him could consolidate to be eligible for cancellation.
“It’s not something I took lightly,” said Grimaldi, a radio producer and father of two in Buffalo. “I mean, if I made the wrong decision, I just cost my family a few thousand dollars. But if I did nothing, we’d have three times as much to pay back.”
Like Price, Grimaldi knew he took out federal loans, so how did they end up in the hands of private companies? It’s a bit of a fluke that’s rooted in the design of the FFEL program. | 2022-09-05T11:27:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | People with student loans from defunct federal program seek relief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/05/people-with-student-loans-defunct-federal-program-seek-relief/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/05/people-with-student-loans-defunct-federal-program-seek-relief/ |
Interest in and use of the drug is growing, but much is unknown
Fresh and dried psilocybin mushrooms, a digital pocket scale and gelcaps. (iStock)
A few weeks ago, I mentioned to a friend that I was interested in learning more about psychedelics, especially how they might help me with depression and anxiety. That’s a broad category of plant medicines including psilocybin (“magic”) mushrooms, MDMA (ecstasy), DMT (Dimitri or the Businessman’s Trip), ketamine (“special K”) and some others.
I’d been hesitant to be open about my search, because I’m old enough to remember the warnings about “bad trips” that scramble your brain. Imagine my surprise when my friend told me he’d recently taken his first “trip,” which he described as life-changing.
I asked him — a real estate developer living in Northern California, married with kids — why he decided to try a psychedelic substance. “My work felt increasingly stale and meaningless,” he explained to me over a beer. “Despite a massive amount of reflection and coaching around how to break the rut, I felt as though I was still off track.”
He and the others who have used these medicines spoke on the condition of anonymity because most of these psychedelics are Schedule I substances, meaning they are illegal to manufacture, buy, possess or distribute.
When I confided my interest in psychedelics to a few other friends, several said they had tried the drugs and experienced several benefits: from easing anxiety to finding spiritual insights to combating depression and, among some with cancer, helping to reduce the fear of dying.
They are hardly outliers. According to a new YouGovAmerica study, “one in four Americans say they’ve tried at least one psychedelic drug,” amounting to some 72 million U.S. adults. (The study included the medicines mentioned earlier, plus LSD, mescaline and salvia.) Was I missing a beat by not getting onboard?
When I queried my psychiatrist about participating to help improve my mental health, he was supportive, with two caveats: Do it with a trained therapist or guide, and do your best to ensure that the substance is what it’s said to be.
These days, it’s hard not to see, hear or read about the use of psychedelics, whether it’s Michael Pollan’s best-selling book (and accompanying Netflix documentary) “How to Change Your Mind,” online advertisements for psychedelic spa “trips,” underground therapists (also referred to as “sitters” or “guides”) with websites promising consciousness-expanding journeys, and a DIY online ketamine program — with a medical professional tethered by videoconferencing — that you can do at home. (Ketamine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1970 as an anesthetic/analgesic, which makes it legal to prescribe. For over 20 years, it has been prescribed off-label for depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. A derivative of ketamine, called esketamine — sold as Spravato — was approved by the FDA in 2019 specifically for depression.)
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Recent clinical trials and studies, which have garnered big headlines, have shown efficacy in treating a variety of conditions, such as depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. And an increasing number of studies are underway.
Intrigued but cautious, I wanted to know: How should I approach this in a smart and safe way? I started by interviewing Rick Doblin, founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). He reminded me that, other than ketamine, none of these generally illegal psychedelics are approved by the FDA, so he would talk only about “minimizing risks.”
“I don’t want people to think that this is like going on a carnival ride,” he said. “There’s always a risk.”
Matthew Johnson, a psychiatry professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research who has conducted numerous studies on psychedelics, also spoke to the issue of safety. To that point, Hopkins’s clinical trials screen out those with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or severe heart disease.
I mentioned that, like millions of Americans, I’m taking an antidepressant (an SSRI or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor), which he explained would probably mute the effect of psilocybin or MDMA. To partake of psychedelics, he told me I’d want to taper off the SSRI first, which is best done with medical supervision (and which I’ve had trouble with in the past).
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I also have heart disease, so he cautioned me to speak with my cardiologist (who texted me that he knows nothing about the use of psychedelics). In other words, these drugs are not for everyone.
Johnson reiterated that despite public testimonials about the positive therapeutic effects of psychedelic usage, “there are dangers, and it is illegal.” Was he trying to discourage me? “I’m don’t encourage anyone to do this on their own,” he said
After researching this column, I’m not interested in taking this journey on my own. But assuming I’d have a guide or therapist, where would I start?
Doblin suggested that anyone with a “clinical indication” (such as depression, PTSD or anxiety), should go to ClinicalTrials.gov to find and possibly participate in nearby studies. Recently, when I checked the database for “psilocybin” studies in the United States, 67 trials came up. All are being conducted at well-known academic medical centers, which means the studies are done with pure drugs, approved by the FDA and licensed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which means the trials have regulatory approval.
What about people without a clinical indication, but who are on a spiritual quest? Here are the considerations I gleaned:
Set and setting: Over and over I heard this phrase, which refers to finding a healthy mind-set and a relatively safe environment. For obvious reasons, Johnson called the rooftop of a tall building a bad idea, as is being around cars or sharp objects. Robert Mitchell, who has practiced psychedelic therapy and administered plant medicines for 30 years and has treated “hundreds of clients,” said “the most important thing is that you feel safe, comfortable and will not be disturbed.” Based in Los Angeles, he said he often has clients rent a cabin in the Santa Monica mountains, which serves as a “sacred space.”
Find an experienced, trusted therapist: If you’re seeking a psychedelic guide, word of mouth may be helpful. My friend, the real estate developer, said “for a first timer, I feel resolute in advising that others find a guide, ideally referred by someone you trust.” Hopkins’s Johnson urges people not to take one of these psychedelic medications alone; although there are still risks, it’s less risky when someone is there who has knowledge of the identity of the substance and the dose. (He said this can be especially critical for psilocybin mushrooms, which are known to have a great variation in their potency.) New programs are available, such as the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research Certificate Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, intended to serve the growing need for skilled psychedelic therapists to meet demand.
Ask questions ahead of time: Many therapists include a preparation session before any journey or treatment begins. Questions to discuss in the prep session include a discussion of the therapist’s background and expertise, your intention in taking a psychedelic medicine (and which one), your personal health history, how they might handle a problem that arises (such as a medical side effect or a “bad” trip), the sourcing of the medicine, and, of course, the fee. A Colorado woman gave me this advice, “I would make sure to work with a therapist who has experience and a clear protocol for using psychedelics, including pre-journey discussions and post-journey integration appointments.”
Know what you’re ingesting: Doblin said there’s one DEA-licensed facility in the United States: Drug Detection Laboratories. It accepts anonymous samples of illegal drugs and will analyze them and post the results online. (You send it in with a specific code and pay a fee for the analysis.) Barring that, you’ll want to talk with potential guides about the source of their substances. Mitchell told me he knows where his psilocybin mushrooms are farmed and can vouch for their purity. In the end, one friend who had two psilocybin sessions said he “had to rely on the guide and the trust engendered.” That’s always going to be imperfect.
Do your homework: MAPS is an educational nonprofit group whose first phase 3 study — on the effective use of psilocybin for severe cases of PTSD — was published last year in Nature Medicine, a top peer-reviewed journal. The organization publishes information about the functions, uses and legality of psychedelics. It offers an introductory course, Psychedelic Fundamentals. Another resource is the “MAPS Code of Ethics for Psychedelic Psychotherapy,” which discusses psychological and physical risks.
So will I be taking a psychedelic journey?
I’m reading everything I can get my hands on and talking to everyone I can about their experiences. I’m also remembering the legal issues. Yes, Pollan and others are trying psychedelics and writing about their experiences — and not being arrested or having their careers derailed or apparently suffering ill effects — but that shouldn’t be taken as carte blanche for the rest of us.
I’ll check back in here in a few months, so stay tuned. | 2022-09-05T11:28:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Psilocybin as a mental health therapy? Some things to know. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/09/05/psilocybin-mental-health-psychedelics/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/09/05/psilocybin-mental-health-psychedelics/ |
President Grover Cleveland during his first term at the White House in 1888. (Prints and Photographs Division/Library of Congress)
The first Columbus Day was born of violence and political calculation
Afterward, marchers went to a picnic at Wendel’s Elm Park, a private park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There were even more people and more unions there at the picnic. There were 15 daily newspapers in the city at the time, and their coverage of the event was mostly glowing. It went so well that organizers decided they would do it again the next September. Within a few years, it had spread to other states and cities and was moved to the first Monday in September.
Now about May Day. There was already a holiday on the first of May with ancient origins — think flower crowns and maypoles — but national labor organizers did not have that in mind in 1884 when they set May 1, 1886, as a deadline for businesses to grant their workers an eight-hour workday. As the day approached, unions across the country prepared for a general strike. That day, somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 workers struck nationwide.
The next year, unions held a commemoration of the Haymarket events on May 1, and by 1889, the Second International — a worldwide conference of socialists — declared it International Workers Day, though it is mostly called May Day.
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Making it a federal holiday was not high on the list for President Grover Cleveland. In 1894, he was focused on the recession and kicking around the idea of running for a third term. And then there was the headache of the Pullman Strike, a long and bitter strike centered in Chicago and threatening the nation’s already battered economy.
Read more Retropolis
Jim Limber and the myth of the Confederate president’s adopted Black son | 2022-09-05T11:28:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why do we celebrate Labor Day and not May Day? Grover Cleveland. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/05/labor-day-may-grover-cleveland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/05/labor-day-may-grover-cleveland/ |
Sadie Pearson, 84, in her front yard on a recent Sunday, moved to Madison in the 1960s to escape Jim Crow in the South. (Sara Stathas/For The Washington Post)
A Wisconsin matriarch and her granddaughter take seriously their role in American democracy
“I was just crying in that little booth, thinking, ‘Oh God, thank you, you brought me out of the South so I could vote here,’” said Pearson, 84. “I just prayed and cried. I didn’t know what to vote for, except for the president, but I said to myself, ‘I’m still going to vote for everything.’ ”
Nada Elmikashfi, one of just a handful of Black staffers in the Wisconsin state legislature, is frustrated that Democrats in Washington, despite controlling the White House and Congress, have struggled to deliver have struggled to address the issues most concerning to Black Americans, including confronting racism and addressing police use of excessive force.
After the 2020 election, a phrase started going around on social media: Thank A Black Woman. National exit polls showed that 90 percent of Black women voted for President Biden. For instance, in Georgia, where a Democrat had not won a statewide contest in nearly three decades, 92 percent of Black women voted for Biden, boosting his margin against Trump, who lost by fewer than 12,000 votes. Democratic activists, and even some Republicans, praised Black women for saving American democracy from what some saw as the existential threat of another four years of Trump.
Black women like Elmikashi and her friend Maia Pearson, Sadie’s granddaughter, are feeling the pressure again this year to save democracy from election deniers now running for office, even though the system hasn’t always delivered for them.
Nearly 60 years after the Voting Rights Act led to suffrage for the vast majority of Black America, some Black women who pride themse
lves on their sparkling voter turnout records, said they were struggling to see the fruits of their participation. They described an America where racism is on the rise, voting rights and the electoral process are under attack, and politicians seem unable or unwilling to protect Black Americans.
Sadie Pearson was born in a barn outside the tiny town of Doerun in southern Georgia. Her mother recorded her birth in her Bible. After her father died when she was 2 years old, Pearson’s mother moved to Jacksonville, Fla., where she found work as a fry cook at Naval Air Station Jacksonville. Sadie started working at the base in the day-care center after she was forced to drop out of eighth grade when she got pregnant. She was married at 16 and by 25 had seven children.
“I was asked if I wanted to work the polls in South Madison, because all the poll workers were White, and more and more Black people were moving into the neighborhood,” she recalled in a recent interview. “I ended up working the polls for 25 years. I wanted to be there for people like that person I was, Black people showing up to vote for the first time. I wanted to be there to tell them that their votes really count.”
Maia Pearson, Sadie’s granddaughter, who was elected to the Madison school board in 2020, said that her interest in politics really began on the days when she’d sit at the precinct with her grandmother, watching her do the nitty-gritty, unglamorous work of keeping American democracy functioning.
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Sadie Pearson, like most Black women, is a loyal Democratic Party voter. But the relationship is complicated. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted earlier this year found that the percentage of Black Americans who say the Democratic Party represents their views and interests is down from 82 percent in 2020 to 73 percent in 2022, while three-quarters of Black Americans wrote off the Republican Party as racist.
“The Democratic Party takes communities of color for granted, where it’s like, ‘Oh, these people are going to vote for us anyway, so we’re not going to go to their doorstep. We’re not going to ask them what they need exactly,’ ” Elmikashfi said. “That is exhausting. And I can’t imagine what it’s like for the Black organizers that did so much for Joe Biden.”
“All my kids graduated and they all went to college, and so did my grandkids, and I know my great-grandkids will go to college,” Pearson Sadie said. “So they got up here and they finally got to be a little free.”
That’s when her granddaughter Maia broke into the conversation.
Maia’s friend and political ally Nada Elmikashfi says she feels the weight of that history every day at the Wisconsin Capitol.
“It exemplified for me as an immigrant, America and the American promise of equity and structure and law and order,” said Elmikashfi, who arrived in Madison at age 6. Twenty years later, Elmikashfi is working at the Capitol. Walking its gilded halls, she is still awed by the grandeur of the building, but even after three years, she said, she often feels like an uninvited guest.
Elmikashfi and Maia, despite their frustrations, will again take on the task of trying to save democracy this November. Being on the front line of that fight is exhausting, Maia says, but like her grandmother, Sadie Pearson, she doesn’t really feel as if she has a choice.
“My grandma always said as a Black woman you have two strikes against you at all times, you are Black and you are a woman, and I think as Black women we are constantly having to fight to get what we need,” Maia Pearson said. “But we’re tired, so even with this election coming up, we know the stakes. We know how important it is. So we’re going to fight, but … we’re not superheroes. Black women can’t come and save the day all the time. I have two daughters, and I legitimately want them to be able to rest one day.” | 2022-09-05T11:28:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | For a grandmother and granddaughter in Madison, Wisc. talk about why voting still matters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/29/black-women-vote-democracy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/29/black-women-vote-democracy/ |
White racism brought down a Black community. Will there be reparations?
Juneteenth started in Texas. So did this Black town. Whites destroyed it.
For Labor Day, we look at how she forged career paths and jobs for Black girls during the Jim Crow era.
Analysis by Danielle Phillips-Cunningham
Nannie Helen Burroughs, circa 1920s. (Courtesy of the Southern Baptist Convention Historical Library and Archives)
This Labor Day comes during a year of a historic upturn in labor organizing — including, just this month, a teacher strike in Columbus, Ohio. My research has delved into some of the long history of teachers’ community investment and institution-building that can strengthen our democracy.
In a forthcoming labor history, I explore the life of Nannie Helen Burroughs, founder of the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington, D.C., in 1909. Burroughs was one of several trailblazing Black women educators and labor leaders. When Burroughs founded the NTS in 1909, Black women and girls were among the most exploited workers in the country. The Jim Crow South relegated Black youths to often-underfunded schools. Black women and girls were barred from jobs other than sharecropping and domestic service, the lowest-paying occupations in the U.S. economy. No laws protected them from rampant racial and gender violence.
Teaching was the only profession available to educated women like Burroughs. As with her pioneering friends Mary McLeod Bethune and Lucy Craft Laney, for Burroughs, teaching was never solely about lesson plans. Burroughs used her position as corresponding secretary of the Woman’s Convention (WC), the women’s auxiliary group to the National Baptist Convention (NBC), to democratize education by building her own school.
While teaching and presiding over the NTS, Burroughs worked at holding the country accountable to the citizenship promises of the Fourteenth Amendment. Through her curriculum and community organizing, she operationalized her philosophy that every young person deserved a quality education that opened access to any profession, living wages, safe and comfortable housing, clean water and nutritious food, and personal enjoyments. She often sacrificed her livelihood, personal comforts, and sometimes her physical health to meet the needs of her students and communities.
Challenging inequalities through curriculum building
Influenced by her high school teachers Anna Julia Cooper and Mary Church Terrell, Burroughs made the politically and financially risky decision to create a blended curriculum of trade and academic programs for her students. As she declared, the mission of the NTS was to “prepare the army of colored women breadwinners” to “think and work.”
She could find no investors among White philanthropists who believed that Black girls were intellectually incapable of learning academic subjects or Baptist leaders who argued that a girls trades program would disrupt the “natural” order in which men were breadwinners. Instead, she found smaller donors from the Woman’s Convention, Black educators, White women educators, and other supporters. For 30 years, Burroughs took no salary to allocate those funds to building and repairing dormitories, classrooms, a dining hall, and providing student scholarships and teacher salaries.
Burroughs built the NTS as a laboratory where she and faculty experimented with how to challenge the hierarchies of occupations, while meeting the material needs, aspirations, and intellectual curiosities of their students. Knowing that Black women could most easily find jobs in household employment, they created a rigorous domestic science curriculum to provide students with the certification enabling them to demand living wages and safe working conditions.
They designed trade courses in printing, stenography, millinery and power machine operation, training students to assert their right to jobs in fields dominated by men and White women. Students also took courses in African American history, English, ancient and general history, sociology, Latin and Spanish.
On Labor Day, we remember Black women who helped win labor rights
Community organizing through the NTS
Burroughs knew that her curriculum alone would not change society for young people. As a creative writer, she wrote plays to inspire community conversations and collective action against systemic inequalities. In 1929, NTS students performed her play “When Truth Gets a Hearing” — about racial and labor injustices in the United States, Haiti, Liberia and Ethiopia — in churches and theaters along the East Coast and in California.
After attending the performance at Dunbar Theater in Philadelphia, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote to her: “I was astonished and gratified to note the way in which it gripped and interested the audience. … We have lots to learn from you.” Alice Dunbar Nelson, Harlem Renaissance writer and Burroughs’s close friend, wrote that the “audience voiced their approval so vigorously and whole-heartedly that some of the lines were lost.”
During the Depression, Burroughs turned her attention to organizing students and the local D.C. community. In 1934, she established the Cooperative Industries (initially called the Northeast Self-Help Cooperative) on the NTS campus. Through its medical clinic, broom factory, grocery store, furniture (barrel-chair) manufacturing, and 106-acre farm, the cooperative provided jobs, affordable resources, and business shares for NTS students and over 6,000 Black people.
Burroughs developed a stress-induced illness from the hard work of keeping her school and cooperative open during that national financial crisis. Even then, she wrote countless letters from her sick bed requesting donations from friends and organizations for building repairs, student scholarships, and teacher salaries. With supporters’ help, NTS enrollment increased by the late 1930s. Burroughs and NTS faculty continued serving students and communities until she passed away in 1961. In 1964, the NTS was renamed the Nannie Helen Burroughs School in her honor and was eventually turned into a private elementary school that closed in 2006.
Valuing teachers and the work they do
If Burroughs were still with us, she would join teachers at picket lines across the country. Her concerns, challenges, sacrifices, and community influences echo in the stories of teachers more than 100 years later. Her example reminds us that teachers’ labor is essential to the health and future of the country, supporting young people’s and communities’ everyday needs and aspirations.
Professors: Check out TMC's newly indexed and reorganized classroom topic guides.
Danielle Phillips-Cunningham (@Phillips3D) is program director and associate professor of women’s and gender studies at Texas Woman’s University and author of the forthcoming “ ‘A Tower of Strength in the Labor World’: Nannie Helen Burroughs and Her National Training School for Women and Girls” (Georgetown University Press) | 2022-09-05T11:28:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | On Labor Day, we honor a trailblazing Black educator and organizer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/05/labor-day-black-women/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/05/labor-day-black-women/ |
Why labor unions are more popular than they’ve been in six decades
Today’s record-low unemployment makes workers more aware of the benefits unions offer
Analysis by Jake Rosenfeld
Buttons show support for a Starbucks union. (Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters)
Gallup polls have been surveying Americans’ attitudes toward labor unions for nearly 90 years. Last week, the most recent Gallup survey found that union support was higher than it has been since the mid-1960s. Nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of respondents said they approved of labor unions.
In 1965, nearly 1 in 3 U.S. workers were union members. Past surveys found overwhelming approval for unions among union members, suggesting that the popularity of unions back then was boosted by their mass membership. But today, only 1 in 10 workers are union members. So why have unions become so popular, when they have so few members left?
Clearly, the popularity of U.S. labor unions must have increased dramatically among unorganized workers. There isn’t much research on what drives union approval. Still, the little that exists and polling evidence suggest that a few key factors are making unions more popular.
The economy is doing well
Nearly three decades ago, a pair of researchers used statistical techniques to analyze decades of union approval polling. They wanted to find out why union support changed over time. Like previous research, they discovered that the state of the economy mattered. Specifically, Americans soured on unions when there was high unemployment — and were more supportive of unions when labor markets were tight.
The survey evidence suggests that this may still be true. Gallup surveys show a dramatic dip in union support between 2009 and 2012 — the last sustained period of high unemployment in the United States. Indeed, in 2009 support for organized labor fell below 50 percent for the first and only time in the Gallup series.
Unions provide workers with greater job security and higher pay than they’d otherwise enjoy. Paradoxically, support for unions increases when unorganized workers feel economically secure — not when they would actually benefit most from joining a union.
The explanation for the relationship is twofold: First, some scholarship suggests workers will blame a poor economy on union overreach. More fundamentally, economic insecurity, especially an erosion in one’s material circumstances, makes people begrudge those who they think are better off. Nonunion workers who face hard times may resent the benefits that their unionized peers have. This feeling was evident during the Great Recession debates about the federal government bailout of the domestic auto industry. Many autoworkers in the South — mostly unorganized — blamed the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the generous collective bargaining agreements enjoyed by UAW members for the industry’s woes.
Conversely, today’s record-low unemployment redirects workers’ attention from the benefits that go to union members alone to the general benefits unions provide for unionized and nonunionized workers alike.
Inequality is high
People are more likely to think unions are valuable when inequality seems high. Even in 2012, when overall support for organized labor was much lower than today, a strong majority agreed that “labor unions are necessary to protect the working person,” according to a Pew poll. People see unions as a counterweight to corporate power, fighting on behalf of average workers. Recent scholarship suggests local context matters: Rising economic inequality in one’s Zip code corresponds with greater support for labor unions. As the percentage of wealthy residents in one neighborhood climbs, so too does support for strengthening unions.
The labor movement has consistently highlighted runaway inequality and pressed against it. Unions provided financial and organizing muscle to the successful Fight for $15 movement, which raised the pay of millions of workers at the bottom of the economic ladder. A strong union presence in local labor markets leads to higher pay for both union and nonunion workers, as nonunion employers match union pay scales to appease their employees.
Unions also fight in the financial arena, focusing their efforts as prominent shareholders to rein in executive pay. And unions have always been a political force, lobbying for policies that redistribute economic gains from the haves to the have-nots.
This multifaceted effort to improve the economic outcomes of the working and middle classes appeals to those concerned about the power of big business. In general, we should expect union approval to be high when workers feel relatively secure themselves but worry the economy disproportionately benefits the privileged.
Unions are more popular — but they are still weak
Research on falling union memberships in the United States is extensive. We know that unionization hasn’t declined because there is less support for unions. Indeed, if the unionization rate matched the union approval rate, millions more U.S. workers would be union members today.
Research points to the interrelated forces of automation, offshoring, and employer and political opposition as the key reasons the labor movement is weaker than it has been for a century. These underlying factors suggest rising popularity alone will not transform the fortunes of organized labor.
Still, the recent successes of organizing drives at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s and elsewhere suggest unions are capitalizing on worker support and finding ways to overcome the barriers that have diminished their ranks in recent decades. The rising popularity of unions will probably bolster these efforts. After all, labor organizing is impossible if there is no support for unions.
Jake Rosenfeld is a professor of sociology at Washington University-St. Louis, where he focuses on the political and economic determinants of inequality in advanced democracies. He is the author of “You’re Paid What You’re Worth — And Other Myths of the Modern Economy” (Harvard University Press, 2021) and “What Unions No Longer Do” (Harvard University Press, 2014). | 2022-09-05T11:28:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What makes labor unions popular? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/05/labor-unions-unionization-us/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/05/labor-unions-unionization-us/ |
Monday briefing: Why a fall coronavirus surge is less likely; mass stabbing in Canada; Jackson water crisis; and more
A big coronavirus surge this fall and winter is looking unlikely.
Why? New booster shots (rolling out now) and widespread immunity against the latest virus strains should put us in a better position than in the past two years, experts said.
But there’s a caveat: Pandemic predictions rarely age well. A new variant could change the rosier forecast, and a majority of Americans haven’t gotten booster shots.
Ten people were killed in a mass stabbing in Canada yesterday.
What we know: At least 15 more were injured in the James Smith Cree Nation and the village of Weldon in Saskatchewan. Authorities are still searching for two suspects.
This is unusual: Mass killings in Canada are relatively rare compared with the U.S. This is one of the deadliest since a mass shooting in Nova Scotia in 2020 left 22 dead.
Mississippi’s capital still doesn’t have clean drinking water.
What to know: Last week, in part because of severe flooding, a treatment plant failed, leaving many of Jackson’s more than 150,000 residents completely without water.
The latest: People should have running water in their homes again, the city said yesterday, but it’s still not safe to drink or use without boiling.
This crisis has been building for years: Jackson’s infrastructure started to decline in the 1970s, after its schools were forced to desegregate and thousands of White families moved away.
The next U.K. prime minister will be announced this morning.
Who are the options? Former finance secretary Rishi Sunak, who helped launch the revolt against outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who is favored in the polls.
How we got here: Johnson resigned in July after a series of scandals. Only dues-paying members of his Conservative Party got to vote on his replacement.
Chilean voters rejected a dramatic new constitution.
What to know: It would have replaced the country’s 1980s dictatorship-era constitution with one that called for an economic model to narrow inequalities.
Why this matters: The new constitution was an experiment that started as an attempt to unify the country after protests in 2019 — but ended up dividing it further.
NASA postponed the launch of its new moon rocket again.
What happened? A large fuel leak forced it to cancel a second uncrewed launch attempt on Saturday, after last Monday’s launch was also scrubbed.
What happens now? The rocket, which NASA hopes will return astronauts to the moon, needs repairs. It may not launch until October, at the earliest.
Serena Williams may have played her final tennis match.
The 40-year-old legend lost Friday night to Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic at the U.S. Open.
Why this matters: Williams revolutionized women’s tennis and holds more Grand Slam singles titles than any player in the sport’s modern era.
What else to know: The tournament continues this week, with women’s and men’s quarterfinals starting tomorrow.
And now … if you’re flying today, here’s a guide to canceled and delayed flights. Plus, 10 last-minute recipe ideas for your Labor Day picnic or barbecue.
Jamie Ross contributed to this briefing. | 2022-09-05T11:28:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Monday, September 5 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/09/05/what-to-know-for-september-5/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/09/05/what-to-know-for-september-5/ |
Kenya Supreme Court backs presidential election results, affirms Ruto’s win
Kenya's Supreme Court delivers judgment in the electoral petition in Nairobi Monday, Sept. 5, 2022. (Ben Curtis/AP)
NAIROBI — Kenya’s Supreme Court on Monday upheld the election of William Ruto as the country’s president-elect in a ruling that sharply rejected arguments made by opposition candidate Raila Odinga and his supporters, who had sought to overturn the results.
The verdict likely marks a final blow to the presidential ambitions of Odinga, a 77-year-old veteran opposition leader who was on his fifth bid for Kenya’s presidency. Odinga and his legal team had contested Ruto’s Aug. 9 victory on a variety of grounds, including that result sheets in polling stations were altered, that the election commission chair, Wafula Chebukati, allowed the electronic voting system to be infiltrated and that he overstepped his authority by announcing the results without the consensus of the commission.
The Supreme Court unanimously found there was little or no evidence to back up the claims. Chebukati had worked closely with his fellow commissioners to conduct a transparent process, the court found, until the four commissioners announced minutes before Chebukati read the results they could not support the results because of the “opaque” nature of the process.
“Are we to nullify an election on the basis of a last-minute board room rupture, the details of which remain scanty and contradictory?” said Martha Koome, the court’s chief justice.
Koome also criticized the Kenya’s election body for its dysfunctionality, saying the commission needs “far-reaching reforms.”
Although this election has generally been peaceful, some feared that a ruling against Odinga could trigger unrest among his supporters, since the campaign was largely viewed as his last shot at the presidency. The deadliest election cycle in Kenya was in 2007 where Odinga lost to then-President Mwai Kibaki. Post-election violence left more than 1,000 dead and 600,000 displaced.
The period following the 2017 election, when Odinga successfully challenged his loss to then-incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta in court, was also characterized by violent street protests and human rights violations.
This year, there was more skepticism about some of the claims leveled by Odinga’s team, including allegations of vote rigging by Venezuelans, with many noting that the election had been heralded as Kenya’s most transparent and that independent observers said the official results were in line with their own.
Ahead of the ruling, Kenyan police heightened security in parts of the country with histories of post-election violence. In Nairobi on Monday, some schools announced they would be closing early.
Chason reported from Dakar. | 2022-09-05T11:28:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kenya Supreme Court affirms William Ruto's presidential victory - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/05/kenya-supreme-court-ruto/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/05/kenya-supreme-court-ruto/ |
Spread the word: The Philadelphia Eagles appear to offer value as a potential Super Bowl winner. (Doug Murray/AP)
The NFL regular season hasn’t started yet, but that shouldn’t stop of us from fast forwarding to the end of the playoffs and looking at a few intriguing choices to win Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Ariz. The projections below aren’t a rock-solid prognostication of the eventual winner, or even the most likely participants. Instead, they are a side-by-side comparison of current championship odds with my projection of each team’s chances to claim the Lombardi Trophy.
Remember, we are considering future odds for the title game, so there can be only one winning ticket. But the goal is to identify as many teams as possible with positive expected value, with the hope of turning a profit at the end of the postseason. The most efficient way to do that is by wagering on teams whose future odds appear to be more lucrative than they should be. Sometimes, that means backing a team not because it has a high chance to win, but because it offers a good risk/reward proposition.
For example, let’s say you have a choice between two wagers. One is on Team A, which we estimate has a 50 percent chance to win the championship at -110 odds — wager $110 to win $100. The other is on Team B, which has a 5 percent chance to win it all at odds of +3000 — wager $100 to win $3,000. The latter is the “better” bet, with a positive expectation of $0.55 per every dollar wagered, assuming our estimates are accurate. (The first bet has a negative expectation of $0.05 lost per $1 risked.) Team A has 10 times the chance to win the Super Bowl as Team B, but the odds make it a poor bet; the long shot is much better value over the long term, even if the ticket won’t cash nearly as often.
To get a sense of how well all 32 NFL teams should perform this year we start with each team’s preseason power ranking, derived from preseason point spreads released earlier this summer. Those rankings are then adjusted for injuries, roster changes and quarterback situations: the three most impactful circumstances that can alter a team’s outlook.
The resulting projected Super Bowl chances are what you would expect: the Buffalo Bills, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs are near the top and the Atlanta Falcons, Pittsburgh Steelers and Houston Texans are near the bottom.
But that doesn’t mean there is no value on the board. Here are three teams that appear to be worth holding in your Super Bowl futures portfolio.
San Francisco 49ers, +1600
Trey Lance, the third pick in the 2021 draft, is the new starting quarterback for the 49ers, who have played in two of the last three NFC championship games. A dual-threat, Lance has shown he can extend plays with his legs and get the ball out quickly to his playmakers, a cadre which includes wide receivers Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk and tight end George Kittle.
San Francisco’s defensive collapse during the fourth quarter of its NFC title game loss to the Rams is still lingering in many minds, but don’t forget that unit saved 2.5 points per game during the second half of the regular season according to TruMedia data, ranking a more-than-respectable 11th during that stretch. The defense boasts pass rusher Nick Bosa (the fifth-best edge rusher of 2021, according to Pro Football Focus); defensive lineman Arik Armstead (seventh best at the position in 2021, per PFF), linebacker Fred Warner (eighth among linebackers in 2021) and safety Jimmie Ward (who ranked in the top third at his position).
The NFC appears fairly wide open, with question marks and letdown scenarios hovering around several would-be contenders.
Tom Brady, quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has defied the aging curve, but no one should be surprised if he declines at age 45. Plus, Pro Bowl center Ryan Jensen was placed on injured reserve and will be out until at least November, thinning Brady’s protection. The Green Bay Packers said goodbye to Davante Adams, one of the most prolific wide receivers in the game, with no clear replacement. The defending champion Los Angeles Rams might have some worry about quarterback Matt Stafford, who did not did not participate in any preseason games due to what Coach Sean McVay called “abnormal” right elbow soreness. Receiver Van Jefferson suffered a left knee injury that required surgery during training camp, while running backs Cam Akers and Darrell Henderson Jr. have been dealing with “soft-tissue injuries,” per McVay. Finally, the Dallas Cowboys got lucky last year and should regress, possibly winning less than 10 games, all of which could open the door for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Philadelphia, coming off a 9-8 season that was good for a wild-card berth, made a sneaky smart addition to its secondary when it acquired defensive back Chauncey Gardner-Johnson from the New Orleans Saints (another under-the-radar NFC contender). Gardner-Johnson, who is expected to be converted to safety full-time with the Eagles, is credited with 161 combined tackles, three sacks, 28 defended passes and five interceptions since he was drafted in the fourth round in 2019.
The Raiders were a fairly quiet 10-7 last year before a solid offseason. The team added star wide receiver Davante Adams, giving quarterback Derek Carr an elite target to throw to and a trio of capable pass catchers in Adams, Hunter Renfrow and tight end Darren Waller. Adams should certainly help improve a Raiders offense that converted just 52 percent of its red-zone opportunities, the sixth-worst rate in 2021. Adams caught 18 of 27 red-zone targets for Green Bay last season and accounted for nine more points than expected based on the down, distance and field position of each red-zone throw. That’s more than any receiver on last year’s Raiders roster save Renfrow (12 more points than expected).
On defense, Chandler Jones, another offseason acquisition, is an exceptional pass rusher who will help take some of the pressure off the secondary. Pro Football Focus ranked him the eighth-best pass rusher of 2021 after he tallied 10½ sacks (his seventh season with double-digit sacks) and 47 total pressures. | 2022-09-05T11:44:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Super Bowl odds and best bets entering the NFL regular season - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/05/odds-to-win-the-super-bowl/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/05/odds-to-win-the-super-bowl/ |
American sociologist C. Wright Mills in 1960. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)
One of the disorienting features of modern American politics is the sense that the parties’ identities have turned upside down. Since when are Republicans the chief critics of the FBI, the national security state and military leaders? And since when are Democrats the ones who warn against domestic ideological subversion and coordinate with big corporations to control expression?
The two parties’ relationship to traditional sources of authority is changing. As Yuval Levin of the American Enterprise Institute has observed: “Today’s Right implicitly understands itself as the outside party, oppressed by the powerful and banging on the windows of the institutions. Today’s Left implicitly understands itself as the insider, enforcing norms and demanding conformity.”
President Biden’s speech Thursday denouncing political opponents who threaten “the very foundations of our republic,” as Marines stood in the background, was a clear illustration of this insider-outsider dynamic.
To understand how the populist right sees the world, it helps to go back to the last time the left was “banging on the windows of the institutions.” The period after World War II was a time of strong political consensus in America, which a “new left” rose up to challenge. There are clear parallels between today’s populist right and the new left movement that exploded in the 1960s and 1970s.
C. Wright Mills, a sociologist at Columbia University, was that movement’s intellectual godfather. Consider a passage from his 1956 bestseller, “The Power Elite,” a polemical attack on the structure of America’s institutions that would inspire a generation of new left activists:
“[The power elite] are in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society. They rule the big corporations. They run the machinery of the state and claim its prerogatives. They direct the military establishment. They occupy the strategic command posts of the social structure, in which are now centered the effective means of the power and the wealth and the celebrity which they enjoy.”
Today, that passage could easily appear in a populist-right publication such as the Claremont Institute’s the American Mind, which denounces the liberal “regime.” If uttered on Fox News or Newsmax, it might be condemned as an example of conspiracism or misinformation that sows discord and undermines confidence in institutions.
Mills, who died in 1962, didn’t use the term “deep state,” but an unaccountable bureaucracy was a major concern of the new left philosopher. “It is in the executive chambers, and in the agencies and authorities and commissions and departments that stretch out beneath them” where much policy is made, he argued, “rather than in the open arena of politics.”
Those making decisions were not chosen by ordinary voters: “Once, most of the men who reached the political top got there because people elected them up the hierarchy of offices,” Mills observed. “But of late, in a more administrative age, men become big politically because small groups of men, themselves elected, appoint them.”
That critique should sound familiar to anyone who has followed conservative attacks on the administrative state or the public health establishment during the covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, it has become alien to modern liberalism, which increasingly relies on deference to credentialed experts.
The threat to “democracy,” for Mills, was not that election outcomes wouldn’t be respected — it was that on the most important matters, elections wouldn’t influence governance. Americans “feel that they live in a time of big decisions; they know that they are not making any,” he wrote. That was the purview of a ruling class in corporate America and in the executive branch.
Whether Mills’s satisfying diagnosis reflected reality is debatable, just as the nature of elite power is contested today. Political movements can alternate between claiming insider and outsider status as expediency demands (and have done so throughout American history).
What matters is that today’s new right, like the new left before it, is self-consciously animated by a sense of exclusion from what Mills called “the higher circles” — including in universities, professional organizations and the national security state.
In his 1960 “Letter to the New Left,” Mills rejected a complacent view of American life that he said prevailed among intellectuals: “That in the West there are not more real issues or even problems of great seriousness. The mixed economy plus the welfare state plus prosperity — that is the formula. … In the meantime, things everywhere are very complex, let us not be careless, there are great risks.”
Mills saw this consensus as stultifying and undemocratic, much as populists on the right this century have rebelled against the program of trade and globalization that prevailed in both parties after the Cold War. The pathologies of populism have been well documented, and its threats to subvert elections require vigilance and repudiation.
But is the high-minded defense of “democracy” now advanced by the Democratic Party and its powerful allies really a plea for greater participation in governance? Mills’s account of institutional hierarchies in America is a reminder of why many voters might wonder whether liberals aren’t at least as interested in ensuring their continued dominance of the contemporary power elite. | 2022-09-05T12:32:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Republicans and Democrats have swapped roles. A 1950s new left manifesto helps explain that. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/05/biden-speech-republicans-democrats-swap-roles/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/05/biden-speech-republicans-democrats-swap-roles/ |
Members of the National Guard keep watch at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 4, 2021. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
Thomas E. Ricks’s latest book, “Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968,” will be published in October.
Five years ago I began to worry about a new American civil war breaking out. Despite a recent spate of books and columns that warn such a conflict may be approaching, I am less concerned by that prospect now.
Specifically, I worried that there would be a spate of assassination attempts against politicians and judges. I thought we might see courthouses and other federal buildings bombed. I also expected that in some states, right-wing organizations, heavily influenced by white nationalism, would hold conventions to discuss how to defy enforcement of federal laws they disliked, such as those dealing with voting rights. Some governors might vow to fire any state employee complying with unwanted federal orders. And I thought it likely that “nullification juries” would start cropping up, refusing to convict right-wingers committing mayhem, such as attacking election officials, no matter what evidence there was.
We still may see such catastrophes, of course. Our country remains deeply divided. We have a Supreme Court packed with reactionaries. Many right-wingers appear comfortable with threatening violence if things don’t go their way, and a large minority of the members of Congress seems unconcerned with such talk. I continue to worry especially about political assassinations, because all that takes is one deranged person and a gun — and our country unfortunately has many of both.
And yet, for all that, I am less pessimistic than I was back then.
Oddly enough, the main things that give me hope arise from former president Donald Trump’s attack on the electoral process, culminating in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. At the time I feared that the unprecedented insurrection was the beginning of a sustained war on American democracy.
Yet nothing much happened. Rather, with the executive branch crippled and the legislative branch divided, the judicial branch of the federal government held the line. Again and again, both federal and state courts rejected claims of election fraud. Now those who alleged fraud without substantial evidence are themselves being investigated. Hundreds of people who invaded the Capitol, attacked police and threatened lawmakers were tracked down and charged with crimes. It was as if the American system had been subjected to a stress test and, albeit a bit wobbly, passed.
Moreover, the Capitol invaders turned out to lack the courage of their convictions. Having broken the law, they shied away from the consequences. Unlike the civil rights activists of the 1960s, they did not proudly march into jails, certain of the rightness of their cause, eager to use the moment to explain what they had done and why. They lacked the essentials that gave the civil rights movement and others sustainability: training, discipline and a strategy for the long term.
More recently, the House select committee examining how Jan. 6 came to pass has established a factual record that cannot be denied. While unfortunately not truly bipartisan, it also shows part of the legislative branch of the federal government finally awakening and responding to the attack that branch suffered. The Justice Department’s slow but steady pursuit of Jan. 6 perpetrators “at any level” targets those who thought they could speak or act without repercussions. And the American people are paying attention. A recent NBC News poll found that “threats to democracy” topped the list of pressing issues facing the nation.
Yes, we still have a long way to go. There are no signs of a national reconciliation in the offing. Some Trump followers no doubt will be elected to Congress and to state offices this fall, and control of both houses of Congress is uncertain.
But it is beginning to feel to me like the wave of hard right — not “conservative” — reaction has crested. As we saw in the recent vote in Kansas, the Supreme Court’s ruling against abortion has awakened many women, and some men, to the dangers of letting that court go wildly out of step with the American people.
In addition, the events of the past few years, most notably the pandemic and some natural disasters, have reminded many Americans that there is a place for good and effective government, especially in providing the basic societal needs of public health, public safety, air and water quality, and roads and other forms of transportation. That revived appreciation is one more reason why I think the danger of civil war is receding.
So, while the patient is not yet healthy, I see some signs that the fever is breaking and the prognosis is improving. | 2022-09-05T12:32:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why I’ve stopped fearing America is headed for civil war - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/05/why-ive-stopped-fearing-america-is-headed-civil-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/05/why-ive-stopped-fearing-america-is-headed-civil-war/ |
If so, you’re not alone. A new study says a majority of Americans experienced time distortions at the beginning of the pandemic, which are common during traumatic times.
When the participants were asked about their perception of time, over 65 percent reported distortions, even six months after the pandemic began. Over half said they felt time was speeding up or slowing down. About 46 percent reported that they were uncertain about what time or day it was, and 35 percent reported short-term memory problems.
Pandemic exposed mental health divide among college students, study says
The pandemic was “an unprecedented, protracted collective trauma,” the researchers write. Though more research is needed, they conclude that time distortion is probably associated with mental health symptoms in the pandemic.
“There are relatively new therapies that can be used to help people regain a more balanced sense of time,” E. Alison Holman, a professor of nursing at the University of California at Irvine and a co-author of the study, says in a news release. “But if we don’t know who is in need of those services, we can’t provide that support.”
With a better sense of who’s at risk, providers can get treatment to those who need them — and know what to look for in future traumatic moments. | 2022-09-05T12:59:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pandemic trauma caused many to lose their sense of time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/09/05/covid-mental-health-time-distortion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/09/05/covid-mental-health-time-distortion/ |
50 years after Munich Olympics attack, victims’ families are compensated
Two West German police officers, armed with submachine guns and wearing athletes tracksuits, get into position on the roof of the building where armed Palestinian terrorists are holding Israel Olympic team members hostage in 1972. (AP)
Fifty years ago Monday, on Sept. 5, 1972, Palestinian extremists infiltrated athletes’ dorms at the Munich Summer Olympics, an attack that resulted in the murder of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches and a German police officer and set off an international crisis.
It also led to five decades of complaints from the athletes’ families that German authorities had botched the response to the attack and concealed key details from them.
Now, after years of legal wrangling, Germany has agreed to give 28 million euros to the families of the murdered Israeli athletes, the Israeli and German governments announced on Wednesday.
“We are pleased and relieved that an agreement on historical clarification, recognition and compensation has been reached shortly before the 50th anniversary,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a joint statement with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
The agreement came just days before a 50th-anniversary commemoration that the families had planned to boycott unless the German government offered what they deemed just compensation.
Just a few weeks ago, the families had turned down an offer from Germany that would have amounted to about 200,000 euros for each family, according to Ankie Spitzer, whose husband, Andre, an Olympic fencing coach, was murdered during the hostage standoff.
‘A Japanese Schindler’: The remarkable diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during WWII
Calling the initial offer “an insult,” Spitzer told German officials they could keep the money “because it is not a dignified offer,” Spitzer said in a phone interview from her home outside Tel Aviv. She noted that compensation for international acts of terrorism usually ranges from $3.5 million to $22 million per victim, according to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Families of passengers on the Pan Am Flight 103 that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 each received $10 million, for example.
The new agreement provides 1.2 million euros for each of the 23 eligible family members, Spitzer said.
Billed as “the Happy Olympics,” the 1972 Munich games were the first to be broadcast internationally on television. Looking to shed its Nazi past, West Germany aimed to project a harmonious image to the world, to erase memories of the 1936 games in Berlin that were used as a platform for Hitler’s propaganda.
Swimmer Mark Spitz won a record-breaking seven gold medals, a feat that remained unsurpassed until Michael Phelps won eight in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The USSR’s Olga Korbut, dubbed “the sparrow from Minsk,” became an international celebrity after stunning performances on the balance beam, floor exercises and uneven bars.
But in the early morning on Sept. 5, the image of unity was shattered when Palestinian militants with submachine guns stormed the apartment where 11 Israeli athletes were housed. The activists were members of the Black September group, which sought to bring attention to the Palestinian cause.
Black September leaders thought the Olympics, with an international TV audience, would put their politics on the map.
The eight guerrillas immediately killed two athletes, and nine others were taken hostage, handcuffed and beaten. The Palestinians demanded Israel, West Germany and other nations release more than 200 political prisoners. If the demands weren’t met by a certain time, the terrorists would kill one hostage per hour until all the prisoners were released.
“The Olympics of serenity have become the one thing the Germans didn’t want them to be: the Olympics of terror,” ABC-TV announcer Jim McKay told his audience, according to the 1999 documentary “One Day in September.”
The image of a hooded Palestinian holding a machine gun on the balcony of the Olympic apartment became a worldwide symbol of lawlessness. West Germany contacted Israeli officials, experienced at negotiating with terrorists, but in the end turned down their offers to help.
German officials had been warned of a potential action by Palestinian militants. But more concerned about maintaining a peaceful appearance, officials decided not to have armed police officers at venues, instead using unarmed security officers.
For the next 20 hours, Germany tried to rescue the hostages but were consistently foiled, including when cameras captured undercover police maneuvers, which the Palestinians saw on TV in the Israeli team’s apartment.
Meanwhile, the United States hustled Jewish American Mark Spitz out of the Olympic Village for fear he’d be targeted.
With talks stalled, that night, the Palestinians requested an airplane to fly the remaining nine hostages to an Arab nation to continue negotiations. German officials hatched a plan: They would send five snipers to Fürstenfeldbruck, a German Air Force base outside Munich, and put police officers on the airplane to overtake the terrorists. Under West German law, the army couldn’t get involved in what was called a civil matter, so Bavarian police with no counterterrorism experience had to lead the operation.
Munich police officer Guido Schlosser was 21 and had just finished training when he was called to join 13 other officers to pre-board the Lufthansa plane and overtake the Black September leaders, he said in an email interview.
The police officer in charge “saw no chance of success in overpowering the terrorists in the confines of the airplane and said it was a suicide mission,” said Schlosser, 71, who is retired after 42 years as an officer and detective.
The officer proposed a vote to abort the mission, and the young, inexperienced lawmen agreed to abandon the plane.
When two helicopters holding the Palestinian terrorists and Israeli team members landed at Fürstenfeldbruck, chaos broke out. Two Palestinians boarded the Lufthansa plane, saw it had no crew or fuel, and realized it was a setup. As the German snipers opened fire, the Palestinians responded by firing back and hurling grenades at the helicopters, killing all the Israelis and one German police officer. Five Palestinians were killed in the shootout; three survived and were arrested.
Families of the 11 murdered Israelis have decried how German authorities handled the episode. When searching for answers, family members said they were met with obstruction and sometimes hostility.
“After it first happened in 1972, one official told me, ‘You Jews brought the terror on yourselves,’ and refused to release any documents,” Spitzer said.
Finally, in 1992, documents and photos were anonymously sent to Spitzer’s lawyers, “and then we saw the horror,” she said. Photos showed the hostages brutally beaten, chained together and covered in blood and feces.
Before last week’s agreement, families of the Israeli victims had received small humanitarian payments from the German Red Cross and later the German government, which never formally accepted responsibility until now, Spitzer said.
‘White Christmas’ was the song America needed to fight fascism
Wracked with guilt, Guido Schlosser made a bold move last year: He reached out to Spitzer and her daughter, Anouk, to finally apologize for his role in the aborted rescue attempt.
“I saw the dead Israeli athletes shot and tied up in their blood sitting in the helicopter,” he said. “I saw the Palestinians shredded by their own hand grenades — all terrible images I couldn’t get out of my head.”
“When he said he was sorry for not being able to help save my husband and Anouk’s father, we all cried,” Spitzer said.
“Afterwards, I felt relieved as if a heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders,” Schlosser said. “I was able to make my inner peace.” | 2022-09-05T12:59:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Terrorist attack on 1972 Munich Olympics killed 11 Israeli athletes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/05/munich-olympics-terrorism-1972/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/05/munich-olympics-terrorism-1972/ |
Time, they say, is a flat circle. And space? Space is the inside of an old golf ball: a jumble of rubber bands twisted together tightly, the random segments touching each other in the confines of the tightly packed orb.
How else to explain the small-world coincidences readers keep sending me? For example, just this past June, the District’s Dorsey Davidge was among dozens of people waiting for the ferry to a tiny island off the coast of Portsmouth, N.H., called Star. She’d never been to the island and had no idea how long the ride would be. She asked the person next to her. He had no idea either.
“We started chatting,” Dorsey wrote. “He said he was a professor at Penn State. I said, very randomly, ‘Oh, a close friend of mine’s ex-brother-in-law is a professor there. Do you know Eduardo?’
“He replied, astonished, ‘I am Eduardo.’ ”
Let us now travel from New Hampshire to Egypt, which Patricia and Joe Howard visited 40 years ago. One day they dutifully trooped to the Great Pyramid and joined the line to get in. But once they had entered the dim, narrow — and crowded — passageway, they changed their minds and turned around.
“We couldn’t buck the flow of people coming in so we moved to the side, where an alcove offered a place to wait for a chance to go outside,” wrote Patricia, of Mitchellville, Md.
Two other people had sought refuge in the same alcove.
“We couldn’t see one another in the dim light, but the other woman said she was from Seattle,” Pat wrote. “I said I used to live there.”
They continued with the back and forth until the woman said she had managed a city recreation area in West Seattle called Camp Long.
“I was floored,” Pat wrote. “I used to work there during my senior year in high school in 1954.”
They exchanged names in the sepulchral darkness and realized they had worked together.
“Once we got out into daylight, although it had been many years and we might not have recognized each other in a lineup, we knew we were friends and we hugged in amazement!” Pat wrote.
Suzanne Beerthuis grew up in Cowles, Neb., a small village outside of Red Cloud. On Saturday nights, her family would drive to Red Cloud to shop, socialize and visit a produce vendor to get paid for the eggs and cream his truck had picked up from them during the week.
At the desk would be someone Suzanne held in total awe: the owner’s daughter, a beautiful redhead who was a majorette in the band.
“I always looked forward to the encounter but was too shy to start a conversation,” wrote Suzanne, who lives in Alexandria now.
Years later, at the University of Nebraska, Suzanne dated a dental student whose roommate was from Tempe, Ariz. “Once I broke up with the dental student, I never saw him or his roommate again,” wrote Suzanne.
Why did I bother to mention the dental student’s roommate? Because a decade later, while teaching in a Department of Defense school in France, Suzanne took a trip to Berlin. On New Year’s Eve, she checked out the scene at the Officers Club, which was adjacent to Tempelhof air base.
“As I walked through the lobby of the base, I couldn’t believe it: the redhead from the produce station in Red Cloud!” Suzanne wrote.
The woman recognized Suzanne. A split second later, Suzanne saw that Tempe roommate rushing up. What were the odds of these two disparate people popping up at the same place at the same time?
Then the man said: “Hello, Suzanne! We’re celebrating our fifth anniversary! But we are about to miss our plane!”
And off they ran, leaving Suzanne to wonder how they met.
In 1987, Keith Bickel and his girlfriend, Suzan Onel, had just finished a vacation on Cape Cod before heading off to their separate graduate schools.
“While waiting for the train to D.C. we struck up a conversation with a wonderful couple who turned out to be no less than the parents of Peter Wolf, lead singer of the J. Geils Band,” wrote Keith, of McLean.
Three years later, Suzan and Keith were at a tiny trattoria in Florence, where they were celebrating their honeymoon.
“We were sitting at a communal table and got to talking with the woman across from us, only to discover that she was the mother of Danny Klein, the bassist for the J. Geils band!” Keith wrote. “To this day, we talk to any stranger while on travel in the hopes that we meet yet more band members’ parents.”
A few years back, Noell Sottile went to the Toronto International Film Festival. On the flight back, she exchanged pleasantries with the woman seated next to her. Wrote Noell: “When she asked me where I lived and I replied Silver Spring, she said, ‘So do I! Where?’ ”
When Noell described the location of her house, the woman asked, “Are you Bilbo’s owner?!”
It turned out the woman knew Noell’s dog, an amiable rescue from Kosovo who loves hanging out in the backyard, watching the passing scene and greeting people through the fence.
Wrote Noell: “I frequently find folks greeting him when we are out walking — people I have never met but who know my dog from walking past our yard! My dog has more friends than I do.” | 2022-09-05T13:38:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | You can travel the world and still run into people from home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/05/chance-encounters/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/05/chance-encounters/ |
Luke Voit has hit five home runs since joining the Nationals in a trade from the Padres last month. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
When the Washington Nationals were on the road this weekend in New York, the front of the visitors’ clubhouse at Citi Field was flanked with veterans and team leaders along each side. Among the experienced pitchers on the right side were Patrick Corbin, Jake McGee and Steve Cishek. On the left sat Nelson Cruz and César Hernández. And sandwiched between the two was Luke Voit, a new face who has already made his presence felt.
“Yeah, I’m used to being on that side of the clubhouse,” Voit said, laughing as he looked toward the back of the room where the younger players were located. “It’s different, but I’ve always tried to think of myself as a leader."
At 31 years old, the first baseman/designated hitter is now one of the veterans. It’s a new role for Voit. His first stop was with the St. Louis Cardinals, with whom he made his major league debut in 2017 and spent a year and a half before being traded to the New York Yankees.
He played in New York from the end of 2018 through the end of 2021, surrounded by experienced players with more service time than he had. He was traded this past offseason to the San Diego Padres, where he played with veterans such as Manny Machado and Eric Hosmer.
When the Nationals completed the blockbuster trade last month that sent Juan Soto and Josh Bell to the Padres for six players in return, Washington received a handful of prospects with potential. The five young prospects — CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, James Wood, Robert Hassell III and Jarlin Susana — were set, but the sixth and final piece was in question. Hosmer was initially going to be sent to the Nationals in the package, but only if he waived his no-trade clause. When he didn’t, Washington received Voit instead.
How a future without Juan Soto became a reality for the Nats
Voit had no inkling he was going to be traded. He found out about 15 minutes before the Padres were set to face the Colorado Rockies on the day of the trade deadline. Now, on his fourth team following the third trade of his career, he’s part of one of the youngest teams in baseball.
“I’ve just got to make the best of this opportunity,” Voit said. “And everyone’s been great here so far. So just go out there, have fun, be myself and try to make this team better.”
The transition to Washington was difficult. He had gotten comfortable in his role and routine as a designated hitter in San Diego. Then all of that was upended. He had to move across the country again, now with his wife and their 15-month-old daughter.
But Voit said the relationships with his new teammates have helped him acclimate. He wants to encourage guys to be themselves in the clubhouse. Manager Dave Martinez and many of Voit’s teammates have spoken about his ability to lead by example.
From each of his stops, he’s taken lessons about accountability and respect. He especially learned them in New York, where he balanced being himself with trying not to draw too much attention. He hopes to impart that wisdom to some of the younger players on the Nationals’ roster.
“He’s just very intense, and I think that’s a good thing,” outfielder Lane Thomas said. “You watch how serious he takes a lot of this stuff. It’s a long season. You can definitely let off the gas sometimes. And you don’t have much time to do that or you find yourself down a rabbit hole. ... I think he’s intense and goes about his work the right way.”
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Voit has been working to fix his swing this year — he has referred to it as the worst of his career. He’s hitting .225 for the season, a career low, including .226 since joining the Nationals. He can’t point to why he has struggled this year, but he said he has been slowly finding his rhythm after starting .143 in April.
With two more arbitration years left, he’d have to be tendered a contract with the Nationals for next season. He said he believes, even with the possibility of new ownership, that Washington is an attractive destination because of the young talent on the roster. It’s been a long season full of surprises for Voit, but he hopes that a positive September can propel him into a better campaign next year.
“It’s been a whirlwind. I’ve been traded twice. I’ve never gone through this before in my career,” Voit said. “I’ve still got 30 games left. I’m just going to try to be positive, be strong and put this team in a good spot to try to win some games.” | 2022-09-05T13:51:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Luke Voit embraces being a veteran voice in young Nationals clubhouse - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/05/luke-voit-nationals-soto-trade/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/05/luke-voit-nationals-soto-trade/ |
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