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The war in Ukraine may be entering a decisive new phase. The past week saw the stunning success of Ukrainian counteroffensive into the environs of the northeast city of Kharkiv, routing Russian forces across a vast stretch of territory extending as far as the Russian border. In addition to considerable casualties, Russian troops lost significant amounts of materiel, including dozens of tanks and armored vehicles. A resident of one liberated town described the Russian retreat to my colleagues as so hasty that “their pants were flying off.”
Not since the initial stages of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor — when dogged Ukrainian defenders repulsed Russian columns moving on the capital Kyiv — has there been this level of optimism surrounding Ukraine’s capacity for victory. On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went to the retaken city of Izyum and hailed his compatriots on the front lines. “The heroes are here,” Zelensky said at a flag-raising ceremony. “It means that the enemy is gone, ran away.”
Russia has cast its losses as part of a strategic “regroup.” But it’s clear to analysts that the latest Ukrainian offensive has exposed some of the mounting problems within the Russian war effort, hampered by organizational frailties not anticipated by many Western military experts before the Russian invasion began.
“A lot of the key elements of a strong defense are the capabilities of your soldiers, the capabilities of logistics, and command, and we’ve seen fractures in all of those elements, and they played out in many places over time in the east,” a senior U.S. defense official told my colleagues.
The recent successes have also offered another demonstration of Ukrainian prowess and daring. “It’s too early to say whether this is a turning point in the war,” a Western official told Britain’s Economist, “but it’s a moment which has power in terms of both operations, logistics and psychology. … Ukraine has demonstrated impressive operational art.”
Many of Ukraine’s supporters hope Kyiv can press its advantage. Even as Ukrainian forces consolidate their gains in the northeast, they are hoping to take further ground in the southern Kherson region. Experts believe Russia is on the back foot, reeling from recent setbacks, facing exhaustion, slumping morale and the steady deterioration of its combat effectiveness.
“What we are seeing around Kharkiv is the psychological breaking point of certain Russian forces,” said Gen. H.R. McMaster, former White House national security adviser in the Trump administration. McMaster was speaking at a Monday roundtable at Stanford University hosted by the Hoover Institution, a right-leaning think tank, where Today’s WorldView was present.
McMaster called for increase in arms and military equipment deliveries to Ukraine, including heavy armor and tanks demanded by Kyiv, to “maintain momentum and initiative.” He also suggested that Ukraine’s allies help the country “project power in greater depth across the Black Sea,” forcing the Russian fleet away from Ukraine’s coast and making Russian bases in annexed Crimea “untenable” with the threat of missile strikes.
Russia was so vulnerable, McMaster quipped, that “I think the Lithuanian army could march on St. Petersburg right now.”
That’s not happening, of course. President Biden cautioned this week that talk of victory was premature and that the war was “going to be a long haul.” Zelensky acknowledged how “extremely difficult” the fighting around Kharkiv had been for his nation’s troops and urged the soldiers he addressed Wednesday to take care of themselves as they ready for new battles to come.
Russian President Vladimir Putin now faces a narrower, more stark set of options in litigating the war of his choosing. For months, Putin has clung to fictions of inevitable triumph over Ukraine’s “artificial” state and peddled contradictory storylines to his countrymen — that the war they are waging is an existential battle for Russia’s future and yet also a mere “special operation” that the Kremlin has well at hand. The edifice of Putin’s propaganda has started to crumble, and he finds himself in a scenario where he cannot countenance defeat nor pursue a decisive victory.
Ultranationalist radicals close to the Kremlin are grousing over the defeats in Kharkiv and calling for drastic measures, including even a general mobilization of the Russian public. “In a sign of the pressure on Putin from pro-war hard-liners for tougher action, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a longtime Putin ally, on Wednesday called for martial law and mandatory military mobilization, moves so far ruled out by the Kremlin,” noted my colleague Robyn Dixon.
“Putin certainly has the will to continue this war, but he has been largely operating under the illusion that the Russian military was winning and would eventually win,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at Arlington-based Center for Naval Analyses, to my colleagues. Once that illusion is dispelled, the political costs may rise for the entrenched autocrat.
“Many Russians have been fairly lukewarm in terms of either supporting or not caring about this war, seeing their lives as largely unaffected because they believe that their kids will not be sent to fight,” Kofman said. “People’s attitudes really change if they think their kids will be sent to fight.”
Meanwhile, Putin himself seems mired in strategic confusion and increasingly isolated. “Putin is completely unclear about where we are going, what our goals are and how we’re going to win,” political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya told Robyn. “He has detached himself from the elites. And following Putin, without knowing where we are going, can’t last forever.”
One perennially looming question is whether Putin would resort to unthinkable measures, choosing to deploy a nuclear weapon as his ability to defeat Ukraine diminishes. Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, argued at the same Hoover roundtable that Putin isn’t “that crazy.” A nuclear attack would make him a “global pariah” and likely collapse relations with countries that have remained relatively cordial with Moscow, like China and India.
In invading Ukraine, McFaul sees Putin repeating the ill-fated maneuver of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who sought to conquer Afghanistan in 1980, only to end up mired in a long war that prefigured the U.S.S.R.’s dissolution.
“This is the end of Putinism,” McFaul said, though he cautioned it’s unclear when Putin will actually fall. McMaster, meanwhile, argued that no Western government should look to compel the warring parties to a compromise that could allow Putin to save face. “For Putin, any off-ramp is to look for the next on-ramp,” he said.
“A new reality has been created: The Ukrainians could win this war,” wrote the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum. She added: “We must expect that a Ukrainian victory, and certainly a victory in Ukraine’s understanding of the term, also brings about the end of Putin’s regime.” | 2022-09-15T04:39:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As Ukraine advances, Putin backs further into a corner - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/ukraine-advance-putin-counteroffensive-mcmaster/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/ukraine-advance-putin-counteroffensive-mcmaster/ |
By Tara Bahrampour
Traffic is light on K Street in Northwest Washington in March 2021. Office workers have returned downtown, but not at pre-pandemic levels. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
The portion of people working primarily from home in Washington, D.C., last year was the highest of any large city in the nation, with nearly half of workers 16 and older working remotely, about seven times more than before the pandemic.
The numbers were up everywhere, with nearly 18 percent of people across the United States working from home last year, three times the portion who were just before the pandemic, according to Census Bureau data released Thursday. But in many large urban and suburban jurisdictions the share was much higher, reflecting a massive shift in how Americans work and coming as many companies try to woo, coerce or threaten employees into returning to the office.
In the District, 48.3 percent of employees worked remotely in 2021, compared with around 6 or 7 percent between 2017 and 2019. Second on the list of the biggest 50 cities was Seattle (46.8 percent), followed by San Francisco (45.6 percent), Austin (38.8 percent) and Atlanta (38.7 percent).
Among metro areas over 1 million in population, the Washington, D.C., region ranked third in remote work, at 33.1 percent, just below the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas (35.1 percent and 34.8 percent, respectively).
The data came from the 2021 American Community Survey, which provides annual estimates based on questionnaires filled out by 3.5 million households. Last year marked the highest number and percentage of people working from home recorded since the ACS began in 2005, the bureau said.
Of the five top large counties for working from home, three were in the Washington metro area, with the District in the top slot and Fairfax and Montgomery counties fourth and fifth, at 37.2 and 37.1 percent, respectively.
All the top-ranked cities, counties and metro areas saw radical increases compared with before the pandemic, when the portion of people working from home in those places was between around 5 and 10 percent.
Between 2019 and 2021, the number of people working from home tripled from 5.7 percent (around 9 million people) to 17.9 percent (27.6 million people), according to the new data. States with the highest percentage of home-based workers were Washington (24.2 percent), Maryland (24.0 percent), Colorado (23.7 percent) and Massachusetts (also 23.7 percent).
The percentage of people working from home correlates strongly with the portion of workers who are college graduates, according to an analysis that William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, did for The Washington Post. According to the new census data, 63 percent of people 25 and older in the District have a bachelor’s degree or higher, making it the second-most-highly-educated city after Seattle, at 68.3 percent.
That number reflects a continuing increase in the District’s college-educated population in recent years; in 2016 it was 56.8 percent, up from 45.9 percent in 2006 and 33.3 percent in 1990. (Nationwide, 35 percent of people 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher, up from 33.1 percent in 2019.) The next three most highly-educated cities in the country are San Francisco, Austin and Atlanta, correlating with the highest remote-work cities.
“These are by and large magnets for younger, well-educated, computer-savvy adults often tied to the tech industry who are well positioned to work from home,” Frey said.
The share of people with college degrees varies widely by race in the District, where 93 percent of White people are college graduates, by far the highest portion for a large city (Atlanta and San Francisco are second and third, at 80.4 and 79.5 percent, respectively). Among Black residents the portion drops to 33.7 percent (seventh among the 50 biggest U.S. cities); among Hispanics it is 57.4 percent (first among the biggest cities); and among Asians it is 79.9 percent (second after Atlanta).
More than a quarter of Black people in the District, 27.7 percent, live below the poverty line, compared with 5.1 percent of Whites, 10.5 percent of Hispanics and 16.1 percent of Asians, according to the new data; the overall rate for the city is 16.5 percent. (Nationwide, the portions are 9.5 percent for Whites, 21.8 percent for Blacks, 17.5 percent for Hispanics and 10.2 percent for Asians.)
But in the greater metropolitan region, the portion of Black people living in poverty is 13.2 percent. Black people in the metro area have a median household income of $81,696, putting it second among metro areas nationwide.
The new data also reflected a slowdown in the number of foreign-born people in the United States, with the past few years reflecting the smallest gains since the 1970s. Between 2011 and 2017, the country gained between 400,000 and 1.4 million foreign-born residents per year, but from 2018 to 2021, the gains fell to around 200,000 a year or lower, a result of more restrictive immigration policies under President Donald Trump along with the pandemic, Frey said.
“Given that our population growth is almost zero, something’s going to need to change,” he said. “That’s going to continue, and it’s not just a pandemic problem.” | 2022-09-15T04:40:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | More people worked from home in D.C. in 2021 than any other large city - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/dc-work-from-home-census/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/dc-work-from-home-census/ |
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, workers carry sandbags to reinforce a riverbank to prevent the river back flow caused by the approaching typhoon Muifa in Jiashan County of Jiaxing City, east China’s Zhejiang Province, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. Typhoon Meihua has weakened to a severe tropical storm Thursday morning, after bringing heavy rains and strong winds to Shanghai and parts of Jiangsu province overnight, according to China’s National Meteorological Center. (Xu Yu/Xinhua via AP) (Anonymous/Xinhua) | 2022-09-15T04:41:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Storm moves up east China coast after blowing over Shanghai - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/storm-moves-up-east-china-coast-after-blowing-over-shanghai/2022/09/14/ec93428e-34a4-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/storm-moves-up-east-china-coast-after-blowing-over-shanghai/2022/09/14/ec93428e-34a4-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
Sammy Westfall
Mourners from the U.S. joined Britons in line at Westminster Palace to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 14. (Video: Whitney Leaming, Lindsey Sitz/The Washington Post, Photo: Sarah Voisin/The Washington Post)
Happening soon
Commemorations in and around London
The line to pay respects to Queen Elizabeth II as she lies in state at Westminster Hall ahead of Monday’s state funeral stretches for miles through central London, snaking south across the Thames River to near Blackfriars Bridge — a distance of some 2 miles, as of 6 a.m. In typical British fashion, the line is carefully managed, with stewards, wristbands and toilets along the way.
Thousands waited through the night to catch a brief glimpse of the queen’s coffin in Westminster Hall, where it was brought in a military procession led by members of the royal family on Wednesday. The line has its own YouTube channel that provides live updates. People came from all over, including the United States.
The Archbishop of Canterbury conducted a service at Westminster on Wednesday, attended by King Charles III and the rest of the royal family. Senior politicians including British Prime Minister Liz Truss were also in attendance at Westminster.
The queen’s funeral is expected to disrupt daily life in Britain on Monday. The government has declared it a public holiday, forcing some hospitals to reschedule non-urgent surgeries and major sports and cultural events to change their plans. Even McDonalds plans to shut its fast-food restaurants until 5 p.m. that day.
As the queen continues to lie in state at the Palace of Westminster, the public will be able to visit 24 hours a day until 6.30 a.m. on Monday, the government said.
Charles and Camilla, Queen Consort, will visit Wales on Friday, the latest leg in their inaugural tour to all four corners of the United Kingdom.
Players and fans stood to observe a minute of silence in the queen’s honor at soccer matches in and around the British capital on Wednesday evening.
Guns were fired in Hyde Park and Big Ben tolled regularly during the somber procession that brought the queen’s coffin from Buckingham Palace to Westminster. Princes William and Harry walked behind their grandmother’s coffin, side-by-side, with stoic, stony faces, in the latest sign of a possible royal rapprochement.
Why can’t the crown skip a generation to William? With Elizabeth’s grandson, William, the preferred royal to become monarch among many Britons surveyed, some have asked why the crown can’t leapfrog over Charles.
How do Britons view Camilla? She has long been vilified as “the other woman.” But in recent days, she appears to be easing into the affection of Britons, who see her as a no-fuss royal — free from a temper or elitist airs. When Charles became irritated by a leaky fountain pen on Tuesday, Camilla calmly completed the task.
What role is Princess Anne playing in the royal ceremonies? Often overlooked, the queen’s only daughter has been central — the only one of her siblings to accompany the queen’s coffin on a six-hour car journey through Scotland, and on the plane to London.
Who will be at the queen’s funeral? The event is expected to attract hundreds of world leaders, including presidents, prime ministers and monarchs. Security arrangements will be complex. Foreign dignitaries have reportedly been asked to take shared buses to the funeral at Westminster Abbey to avoid clogging London’s streets, although an exception may be made for President Biden to arrive in his armored presidential limousine, known as “the Beast.”
What do all the symbols in the funeral processions mean? Scepter, orb, crown — each object and location reflects some aspect of the royal family’s place in British life, whether military, administrative or religious. Here’s an illustrated guide to the meanings of these symbols.
On a U.K. tour, Charles faces a key question: Can he be the king of hearts? A king-in-waiting for 73 years, Charles is finally embarking on “Operation Spring Tide,” his inaugural tour of the United Kingdom as monarch. But he faces a central challenge, Anthony Faiola, William Booth and Amanda Ferguson report: ensuring the future of the House of Windsor, with the disadvantage that he is less popular than his mother.
“Almost no one sees the death of the queen as the end of days for the British monarchy, the heads of state of these isles and the remnants of a once vast empire. But British republicans — a minority who want to abolish the monarchy — nevertheless sense an opportunity with Charles in charge,” they write. | 2022-09-15T05:18:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Queen Elizabeth II lies in state at Westminster Hall: latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/queen-elizabeth-death-westminster-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/queen-elizabeth-death-westminster-latest-updates/ |
Analysis by Ian Buruma | Bloomberg
So far, economic sanctions on Russia have done nothing to halt Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. The ruble is still strong. Oil prices are high. Before Ukraine’s latest advances on the battlefield, polls showed that 75% of Russians still supported the war (in public at any rate).
So why continue with sanctions? Economic boycotts, of course, are one way for democratic governments to demonstrate their opposition to tyranny and military aggression without actually having to go to war.
They also represent an effort to turn people against their autocratic leaders. Some European politicians have claimed that stopping Russians from travelling to Europe will encourage them to demand an end to the war. Punishing oligarchs by seizing their yachts and freezing their foreign bank accounts is intended in part to encourage an elite backlash against Putin.
In fact, economic punishment almost never has the desired effect of bringing down a tyranny or stopping violent aggression. The Iranian theocracy, widely disliked by much of the country’s urban population, has not relaxed its grip despite years of economic isolation. Similarly, there is no sign that Vladimir Putin’s autocratic power is waning.
Anyone in need of further proof should look to the military precedent for this kind of thinking — the “strategic bombing” of whole towns and cities pioneered during World War Two.
Bombing civilians, rather like imposing sanctions, was also conceived as a way to avoid sending armies into bloody and attritional combat. The idea at first was that terrorizing people would force them into submission. The British used the method in the 1920s to put down a revolt of Iraqi tribesmen. The Japanese opted for a similar strategy in China in the 1930s. The Germans followed up in Warsaw and Rotterdam at the beginning of World War Two, then continued their bombing campaign in London and other cities.
It wasn’t until 1942 that governments started looking at intentionally punishing people in the hope that they would bring down their leaders. The charge was led by two of the same men who were involved in bombing Iraqis in the 1920s: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris, then head of the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command.
Too many British aircrews were being lost in precision bombing of military targets and Churchill decided that it would be smarter to try and shatter the morale of the German population with indiscriminate bombing. Surely, once Hamburg, Berlin and other cities went up in flames, Germans would no longer support Hitler and his gang.
Almost every Japanese city was destroyed by the Americans in 1944 and 1945 with the same object in mind. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just the last and most devastating example of strategic bombing in the war.
Yet neither the Germans nor the Japanese ever turned against their regimes. They knew that criticizing their leaders in public could mean death. People instead tried to survive as best they could.
If anything, shared hardship tends to rally people around a common enemy and strengthen support for their leaders. The US learned this lesson yet again in North Vietnam in the early 1970s, when the Pentagon tried to bomb that country into submission.
Perhaps things would have been different if the Germans, the Japanese, the Vietnamese, or indeed the Iranians and the Russians today, had been free to oppose their leaders. The one case where economic punishment has met with success is in South Africa. Economic and sporting boycotts that humiliated and isolated the country helped to bring down the apartheid regime. That was only possible because white South Africans, as opposed to blacks, were living in a democracy, where votes and public opinion mattered.
Putin is clearly counting on this distinction, hoping that cutting off energy supplies to Europe this winter will prompt citizens there to rethink support for Ukraine. He and his followers believe that people in the liberal West are decadent and soft. Russians, in Putin’s view, can take the pain. Europeans can’t.
This prejudice has been shared by many autocrats in the past. Wars in Europe and Asia were started on the assumption that free citizens lacked the stomach for a fight. And indeed, democracies may be vulnerable to pressures that don’t have the same impact in authoritarian countries. Wars are hard to sustain in democracies once the public refuses to endorse them.
At the same time, Ukrainians are certainly showing that they are prepared to fight for their freedom, just as the British did in World War Two. It is now up to other democracies to bear the consequences of helping Ukraine defend itself. If Russians can resist economic pressure in a misbegotten cause, they should do no less in a virtuous one.
• Ukraine Can Win the War. The West Should Step Up: Editorial
Ian Buruma is professor of human rights at Bard College. His latest book is “The Churchill Complex.” | 2022-09-15T06:10:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Punishing Russians Won’t End the Ukraine War - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/punishing-russians-wont-end-the-ukraine-war/2022/09/15/d2b7765c-34bb-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/punishing-russians-wont-end-the-ukraine-war/2022/09/15/d2b7765c-34bb-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
NEW YORK — Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver was likely spared even stronger sanctioning by the NBA for racist, misogynistic and hostile words and actions because of one key conclusion by investigators, Commissioner Adam Silver said.
BERLIN — Mateusz Ponitka had 26 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists and Poland upset Slovenia 90-87 to move into the EuroBasket semifinals for the first time since 1971.
JACKSON, Miss. — Newly revealed text messages show how deeply involved former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant was in directing more than $1 million in welfare money to Brett Favre to help pay for one of the retired NFL quarterback’s pet projects.
NEW YORK — The NFL’s investigation into Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder is still ongoing, and his status remains unchanged.
NEW YORK — More than 5,500 minor league baseball players formed a union, completing a lightning-fast organization campaign that launched just 17 days earlier in an effort to boost annual salaries as low as $10,400.
ST. LOUIS — Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina made history with the first pitch of the game, then the record-setting battery helped the St. Louis Cardinals extend their NL Central lead by beating Milwaukee 4-1.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NASCAR released its 2023 schedule that includes previously announced races at the new downtown Chicago street course and a return to North Wilkesboro in North Carolina.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Craig Thompson, the only commissioner the Mountain West Conference has known, is stepping down after nearly 24 years. | 2022-09-15T06:12:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wednesday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wednesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/09/15/7eed79f2-34b8-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wednesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/09/15/7eed79f2-34b8-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
FILE - Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, stands in front of Abdullah, who would later become king, with members of the Jordanian Army on her arrival for a State Visit, in Amman, Jordan, March 27 1984. Not long after Queen Elizabeth II inherited her throne, large swaths of the world broke free from British control. Yet today after her death, British-installed monarchies still reign over millions across the Middle East. (AP Photo/Saade, File) (ZOUHEIR SAADE/AP) | 2022-09-15T07:43:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Queen's reign saw British leave Mideast with a mixed legacy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/queens-reign-saw-british-leave-mideast-with-a-mixed-legacy/2022/09/15/9cede514-34bc-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/queens-reign-saw-british-leave-mideast-with-a-mixed-legacy/2022/09/15/9cede514-34bc-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
The Australian flag and the Aboriginal flag are flown at half-staff on the Sydney Harbour Bridge following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 12. (Loren Elliott/Reuters)
SYDNEY — When a young Queen Elizabeth II visited Australia on her first royal tour Down Under in 1954, one local authority erected hessian screens to shield the monarch’s motorcade from viewing Aboriginal camps along the route, according to several Indigenous elders.
Starting in the mid-1800s until 1970, about two decades into Elizabeth’s reign, government officials rounded up children — especially those of mixed White and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ethnicity. In many cases, they were forcibly sent to boarding schools and church-run missions. For decades, as many as one in three Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families nationwide, according to a later report commissioned by the Australian government, in what became known as the “stolen generations.”
The queen’s death brought the spotlight back on the complicated relationship between the monarchy and First Nations people here and around the world. Indigenous Australians have suffered greatly since the explorer James Cook first claimed part of the continent for the British crown — then held by the queen’s ancestor, George III — and debate continues on whether she was responsible for past wrongs, and the inequities many still face.
For some, the monarchy lies at the center of a vexed, often traumatic, reckoning with their colonial past.
“The queen and her family represent the colonial system, which has created havoc in this country against First Nations people,” said Lidia Thorpe, an Aboriginal senator with the left-of-center Greens, in an interview with The Washington Post. “In all the time that this queen was reigning over our country — or so-called reigning over this country — not once did that queen try to stop any injustice against First Nations people.”
Australia to pay hundreds of millions in reparations to Indigenous ‘stolen generations’
Australia is one of the few settler-colonized Commonwealth nations that doesn’t have a treaty with its First Nations people. In neighboring New Zealand, Indigenous Maori chiefs signed one with the British crown in 1840, and Elizabeth herself was involved in at least one major treaty settlement, recalled the country’s foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, in Parliament on Tuesday.
The treaty, though acknowledged as imperfect by the queen, formed a binding connection between the Maori people and the crown. Later, it helped pave the way for settlements for the wrongful confiscation of land.
In Australia, the dark legacy of British imperialism has contributed to racial disparities in education, housing and incarceration rates, experts say. More than 400 Aboriginal people have died in custody since 1991 and the life expectancy of its 800,000 Indigenous people lags behind the wider population by years, government data show.
Although some Indigenous elders recall the queen fondly — she visited the nation 16 times, venturing deep into the Outback — others have refused to mourn.
An Indigenous rugby league player this week received a one-game ban and a suspended fine from the sport’s administrators over a tweet — which was later deleted — that appeared to celebrate Elizabeth’s death. The Australian rules football league, meanwhile, decided not to mandate a minute’s silence for the queen during a round of competition celebrating Indigenous players and culture because it stirred up mixed emotions, The Age newspaper reported.
The Indigenous population is generally younger than the wider Australian population — some 31 percent were aged under 15 in 2021, according to official estimates — meaning many were probably too young to recall the queen’s last visit in 2011. Only around 5 percent were aged 65 or older, compared with about 17 percent of non-Indigenous Australians.
Thorpe — who made international headlines last month when she improvised an extra clause into her swearing-in ceremony, adding the word “colonizing” as she pledged allegiance to Elizabeth — quipped that she was “probably busy doing something a lot better” during the last royal visit.
She is among a group of Australian lawmakers calling for a treaty with First Nations people, followed by a republic that would replace King Charles III with an Australian as head of state. “That is how we will unify this nation,” Thorpe said.
Elizabeth’s death has sparked fresh debate in a number of Commonwealth realms about severing ties to the monarchy, although Australia’s leader has said he’s in no rush to address the divisive issue in his current term.
In New Zealand, where Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said a republic is probable in her lifetime — she’s 42 — Maori politicians also reflected on the monarchy’s mixed legacy.
During condolences in Parliament on Tuesday, Maori party co-leader Rawiri Waititi said the British Empire was built off stolen whenua and stolen taonga, using the Maori words for land and treasure.
Mahuta, the foreign minister, who joined Charles at a Commonwealth leaders meeting in Rwanda a few months ago, said he made a commitment then to modernize the Commonwealth.
“He noted that to unlock the power of our common future, we must also acknowledge the wrongs which have shaped our past,” she told Parliament. “He spoke of colonialism, he spoke of slavery, and he understood the challenge in front of him.” | 2022-09-15T08:47:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Colonialism is key part of queen’s legacy for Indigenous Australians - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/queen-elizabeth-australia-indigenous-colonialism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/queen-elizabeth-australia-indigenous-colonialism/ |
Central banks seek to manage economies by setting interest rates at levels that speed up or slow down things like car purchases and construction projects. But the enterprise revolves around a number that’s far more ephemeral — the rate that does nothing at all, also known as the neutral interest rate. Right now, it’s an important guide post because most monetary policy makers are trying to set rates high enough to bring down inflation — but not so high as to guarantee a recession. With the US Federal Reserve and other central banks hitting the brakes harder than they have for decades, the debate over where neutrality lies has grown more urgent.
Fed officials have been raising rates quickly this year in a bid to bring inflation — which has reached its fastest pace since the early 1980s — under control. In July, the target range for the federal funds rate reached 2.25-2.5%. That set the stage for the next phase of the tightening cycle, as officials signaled that they would go on to raise rates above that level with the hope that doing so will slow down the economy and put downward pressure on inflation.
That’s not entirely clear. Even if Fed officials think 2.5% is a neutral level for interest rates in the long run, they’re not betting the farm on it. They know they’re dealing with unusual circumstances, including the pandemic’s disruption of supply chains and the shockwaves from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As Fed Chair Jerome Powell put it in his Aug. 26 speech at Jackson Hole in Wyoming: “In current circumstances, with inflation running far above 2% and the labor market extremely tight, estimates of longer-run neutral are not a place to stop or pause.” Eventually, once inflation comes back down, the Fed may try to navigate back to the neutral rate. The idea of such a pivot raises questions about another term getting more attention recently, the so-called terminal rate.
7. What’s a terminal rate?
It’s the interest rate that marks the peak of a tightening cycle. When Fed officials published quarterly projections in June, the median FOMC participant saw the funds rate rising to 3.8% by the end of next year, before returning to 3.4% by the end of 2024. But the Fed will publish updated projections at the conclusion of the FOMC’s Sept. 20-21 policy meeting. Judging by trades being made in the futures market, investors in mid-September saw the rate peaking early next year at about 4.3%, and ending 2023 at about 3.9%. By contrast, the terminal rate during the bout of high inflation that started in the 1970s was 20% — a situation the Fed is trying mightily to avoid repeating. | 2022-09-15T09:13:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | For Fed, the ‘Neutral Rate’ Is Crucial, and Unknown - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/for-fed-the-neutral-rate-is-crucial-and-unknown/2022/09/15/122f75a0-34cb-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/for-fed-the-neutral-rate-is-crucial-and-unknown/2022/09/15/122f75a0-34cb-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez
Lisa Rein
Joseph V. Cuffari addresses the Arizona Career Exploration Summit in 2019 in Phoenix. (USMEPCOM)
PHOENIX — Joseph V. Cuffari was so enthusiastic about what he called Donald Trump’s “huge win” in the 2016 presidential election that he applied for a job with the incoming administration within days.
Cuffari, then an adviser in the Arizona governor’s office, floated the idea of serving as an undersecretary in the Defense Department or in the Air Force or as the U.S. marshal for Arizona.
Ultimately, Trump picked Cuffari as the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, a watchdog position that is considered nonpartisan and audits the department for fraud, waste and abuse. For weeks, key Democratic lawmakers have accused him of bungling the search for the Secret Service’s missing text messages from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, one of the most consequential probes in U.S. history, and have called for him to step aside. Cuffari has refused.
The public standoff has focused attention on Cuffari, 62, a military veteran and public servant whose path from a politically appointed policy adviser for two Republican governors to DHS watchdog remains unknown to many of those around him, let alone the general public.
Cuffari had been a supervisor at a small office for the Justice Department’s inspector general office for more than a decade when he retired in 2013 after federal authorities determined that he had violated ethics rules in an Arizona case.
When the Trump administration picked him to serve as DHS inspector general, one of the largest such offices in federal government, he told the Senate at his confirmation hearing that a panel of government watchdogs had endorsed him for the job.
The watchdog panel, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, did not recommend Cuffari for the DHS job, however, according to a person familiar with the recommendation memo and its contents, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive material.
A five-member candidate panel had interviewed Cuffari for the Defense Department inspector general position, the government’s largest watchdog agency, his emails show. But panel members advised Trump against nominating him for the Defense job, instead recommending that the White House consider him for a smaller agency — and did not suggest the DHS role, the person said.
Council members’ recommendations are not binding, but they can influence the White House and lawmakers, who approved Cuffari’s nomination after he told them that he had the council’s seal of approval. It is unclear whether Cuffari knew that he did not have the council’s support when he testified under oath before the Senate.
Council Executive Director Alan Boehm said the council sends such recommendations to the White House and does not share them with anyone else, including the candidates.
Cuffari did not respond to interview requests or written questions about his path to his current role. In an earlier response to questions about the ethics report, his office said in a statement, “Dr. Cuffari is extremely proud of his 31-year federal service career.”
More than two dozen people who worked with Cuffari or were involved in his confirmation process said in interviews that they did not know how his name arrived on Trump’s desk.
Cuffari’s nomination marked a high point for the South Philadelphia native who joined the military right out of high school. His investigative career began in the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, after he joined the military in 1978. He also worked as a reservist assigned to the Defense Department’s inspector general office in Washington.
His longest stretch as an investigator was in the Justice Department’s inspector general office, from 1993 to 2013, where he was selected to be part of a group that critiqued the FBI’s performance in uncovering the activities of former CIA spy Aldrich Ames, according to his resume obtained via a public records request and the report.
His last assignment was as the assistant special agent in charge of a small field office in Tucson, where friends and former colleagues say he developed a reputation as a strait-laced and thorough investigator. He probed crimes and fraud, according to his resume.
“He was capable, sincere and competent,” Paul Charlton, the U.S. attorney for Arizona from 2001 to 2007, said in an interview.
Cuffari never rose high in the agency’s ranks. In November 2012, Justice Department lawyers filed an internal complaint against him saying that he had improperly testified in a civil lawsuit that an inmate had filed against the government, according to a copy of the report on the matter which a pair of House Democrats made public in August.
In the lawsuit, the inmate alleged that a pair of prison guards had beaten him inside the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson in 2008. The inmate’s lawyers considered Cuffari a valuable witness because he had investigated the possible criminal case against the guards, court records show. Prosecutors declined to file charges, but Cuffari told internal investigators that he had found “overwhelming evidence” of crimes.
The Justice Department’s inspector general’s office concluded in 2013 that Cuffari violated ethics rules by referring the inmate and his family to law firms where his friends worked and then by testifying in the civil lawsuit without his supervisors’ permission, according to a copy of the report made public in August. Cuffari told investigators that federal law obliged him to inform the inmate of his right to file a civil suit.
Gerald Maltz, a lawyer who represented Leigh Weeden in the civil case, said in an interview the government settled the case for $500,000 in 2013. He described Cuffari as a “true Boy Scout” and said they did not discuss the case.
Cuffari retired as the assistant special agent in charge of the field office in Tucson weeks after the 2013 report.
Weeks later, he started a new job as a policy adviser in the Arizona governor’s office, first for Gov. Jan Brewer and later Gov. Doug Ducey, both Republicans. He stayed for six years and focused first on public safety issues, then on military and veterans’ affairs, state officials said.
A former aide for Brewer, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about a former colleague, said Cuffari seemed to have “a great pedigree” because he had a doctorate and had worked at the Justice Department. But Cuffari irked some staffers by encouraging them to call him “doctor.”
Cuffari’s resume says he has a Ph.D. in management from California Coast University, a college that the government in 2004 flagged as a “diploma mill.” California Coast University’s Chief Academic Officer Murl Tucker said the school disagreed with that characterization, and requires coursework and a dissertation. Tucker acknowledged that the school was not nationally accredited when Cuffari attended, from 1998 to 2002.
After Ducey was elected governor, Cuffari considered returning to investigations, according to a former Ducey aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the administration.
Cuffari supported the governor’s push for a state inspector general’s position, according to three former Ducey aides. One of the aides said Cuffari told him that he wanted the job. Lawmakers rejected the plan, handing the governor a loss at the state capital.
Cuffari job hunted in earnest — often using his governor’s office email address — after Trump’s election in 2016. In an October 2017 email to the Trump administration’s White House personnel office, also obtained by The Post through a public-records request, Cuffari suggested he be named as an assistant secretary for Homeland Security.
In another email that month to then-Congressman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), Cuffari said he had interviewed for the Defense Department’s inspector general job. He thanked Shuster for offering to speak with a White House official on his behalf. Shuster did not respond to requests for comment.
“While I am still very interested in that position, I have become aware that there are existing vacancies at the Department of Homeland Security,” Cuffari wrote, mentioning that Senate barber Mario D’Angelo was a mutual connection and that Cuffari had relatives in Philadelphia.
D’Angelo said he has known Cuffari for years, and cut his hair, but did not remember how he helped him. “I introduce a lot of people to each other,” D’Angelo said.
Trump picked Cuffari for the DHS job in November 2018. Then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Cuffari would be “an invaluable member of the Department’s leadership team,” raising concerns about his independence as a watchdog. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) temporarily put a hold on his nomination until they could meet in person, Senate aides said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations.
Cuffari assured Durbin that he would “clean up” the DHS inspector general office, Cuffari later recalled in a letter. The DHS office was riddled with problems long before he arrived — problems that the Government Accountability Office flagged would take time to address — such as difficulty meeting deadlines and quality-control failures that led to the retraction of 13 reports.
At his 2019 confirmation hearing, lawmakers from both parties praised him and he had letters of recommendation on file from the retired chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, who had been appointed by a Democrat, the state inspector general in Louisiana and retired Air Force officers.
It is unclear how much the senators knew about his record then — Cuffari disclosed the Justice Department’s internal investigation to them, but the 2013 report’s findings were not made public until August, more than nine years later.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that it vetted Cuffari for the Senate and, as part of that process, would have asked Cuffari’s former bosses at the inspector general’s office for “any potential derogatory information” about him.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s office would not say if his agency provided the FBI with a copy of the 2013 ethics report on Cuffari. The FBI declined to say if the bureau received the report from Horowitz’s office. Horowitz’s office and the FBI referred questions about the report to each other.
Cuffari told the Senate during his confirmation process that he was not punished after the ethics investigation. A Cuffari spokesperson said last month via email that he retired with a “spotless” record and “glowing written feedback” from top officials, including Horowitz.
Stephanie Logan, a spokeswoman for Horowitz’s office, said the office does not comment on personnel matters.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who was chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that held Cuffari’s confirmation hearing, did not respond to questions about the committee’s vetting.
A committee staffer for Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the committee’s top Democrat at the time, asked Cuffari about the ethics report in a meeting, according to a Democratic Senate aide who spoke the on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting. The aide said members of both parties did not press for a copy of the report.
In July 2019, the Senate unanimously confirmed Cuffari in a voice vote.
Months into the job, Cuffari and his office faced criticism for weakening oversight of DHS. Lawmakers and the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight said his office failed to report details about domestic abuse and sexual harassment inside DHS. Critics also noted that his office rebuffed requests to investigate issues such as the legality of the appointments of top DHS officials and the Secret Service’s role in the forced clearing of protesters near the White House in 2020.
Then, in July, Cuffari stunned the House and Senate Homeland Security committees with a letter that said the Secret Service had “erased” text messages from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol after he’d asked for them. Lawmakers at first demanded more information from the Secret Service.
But lawmakers soon realized that Cuffari’s office had known about the missing messages for months and never told them, and that his office also blocked efforts to retrieve the texts.
Agents shadow the president and other top officials and the texts could provide information about their communications and actions on Jan. 6, 2021, as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to overthrow the presidential election. Pence, among many in danger at the Capitol that day, did not respond to questions about Cuffari.
Three leading Democratic lawmakers, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), head of the House Oversight Committee, and Durbin, who voted to confirm Cuffari, have urged him to step aside from the Secret Service investigation.
Durbin said on the Senate floor Aug. 2 that Cuffari was not the right person to investigate what happened.
“I don’t know whether the failure to preserve these critical government texts of January 6 is a result of bad faith or stunning incompetence, but I do know that the man who has overseen this fiasco is not the right person to investigate it,” Durbin said. “This man has lost whatever credibility he may have once had on this matter.”
Cuffari told Democratic lawmakers that he would not recuse himself. He has also opened a criminal investigation into missing texts, paralyzing other agencies’ efforts to retrieve the messages. He told the Secret Service to stop trying to find the messages.
The National Archives and Records Administration asked about the missing records but said July 25 that they typically let internal investigations resolve before pursuing answers to their questions.
Durbin has urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to use his authority under federal law to remove Cuffari from the Secret Service inquiry.
President Biden has the authority to fire inspectors general, but the White House has declined to intervene so far.
Cuffari has signaled that he intends to stay.
“Thank you for the past three years,” Cuffari wrote to his staff in a July 29 email obtained by The Post. “I look forward to many more to come!”
Wingett Sanchez reported from Phoenix and Sacchetti and Rein reported from Washington. | 2022-09-15T09:14:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Homeland Security’s Cuffari stays put despite calls for his exit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/15/homeland-cuffari/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/15/homeland-cuffari/ |
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Wearing a blue suit, black hat and multi-colored socks, master keyboardist Booker T. Jones leaned away from the Hammond B3 organ, tilted back his head and worked the keys and foot pedals as he played the funky and familiar hit “Green Onions” for a head-bobbing, toe-tapping crowd at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. | 2022-09-15T09:14:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Booker T. Jones performs at Stax, ahead of milestone - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/booker-t-jones-performs-at-stax-ahead-of-milestone/2022/09/15/aab1b732-34cd-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/booker-t-jones-performs-at-stax-ahead-of-milestone/2022/09/15/aab1b732-34cd-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
FILE - Two bird watchers photograph thousands of snow geese at the Freezeout Lake Wildlife Management Area on March 24, 2017, outside Fairfield, Mont. A new online atlas of bird migration, published on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022, draws from an unprecedented number of scientific and community data sources to illustrate the routes of about 450 bird species in the Americas. (Thom Bridge/Independent Record via AP, File)/ (Thom Bridge/Independent Record) | 2022-09-15T09:14:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New atlas of bird migration shows extraordinary journeys - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-atlas-of-bird-migration-shows-extraordinary-journeys/2022/09/15/ed2ad8e2-34cc-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-atlas-of-bird-migration-shows-extraordinary-journeys/2022/09/15/ed2ad8e2-34cc-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
Game 3: Las Vegas at Connecticut, 9 p.m. (ESPN)
Former Maryland teammates Alyssa Thomas (front, left) and Brionna Jones (back, right) have helped lead the Connecticut Sun to the WNBA Finals. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS — DeWanna Bonner knew something had to change. She returned from playing overseas and flew to Maryland to see her teammate and partner Alyssa Thomas shortly after Thomas had surgery to repair a torn Achilles’ tendon. Bonner arrived at the house and didn’t like what she saw.
“She hadn’t left the room in I don’t even know how long,” Bonner said. “I’m like, okay, well, this is not going to get us jump started back to recovery. Just as her partner, I didn’t like her staying that way.”
“We just went to get Krispy Kreme doughnuts,” Bonner said. “And actually it was snowing at the time, and I’m from Alabama, so I’d never seen snow. So I’m like: ‘This is perfect. Let’s go out and ride around in the snow.’ And I put her in the back seat, and we went to go get some doughnuts.”
Aces handle Sun, move a win away from WNBA title
That was just the beginning of the road to recovery for the former Maryland star after she was injured playing for USK Praha in the Czech Republic in January 2021. After Thomas finally got moving, she built her own gym in the garage, buying weights, an exercise bike and other equipment. Shockingly, Thomas needed only nine months to get back on the court and finished fourth in the MVP voting in 2022 after averaging 13.4 points, a career-high 6.1 assists and 8.2 rebounds. She helped lead the Sun to the Finals for the fourth time in franchise history, though it faces an 0-2 deficit against the Las Vegas Aces. Game 3 is Thursday in Connecticut.
The Achilles’ is just the latest injury Thomas has overcome. She may have the most recognizable shot in the league, a one-handed push from the right-hand side that was developed after she tore the labrums in both shoulders and had to remake her game. She elected not to have surgeries, so she had to figure out a way to still be effective.
“This one was a little different for me,” Thomas said. “Just with the shoulders, I’ve just always been able to push through and figure out a way to keep going. But this one, I wasn’t able just to pick up and go back out there and play. So definitely was tough for me.
“It was a completely different experience and just my body not responding the way that I was used to and learning how to walk again and really start from ground zero.”
While Thomas went through that process, the absence allowed another former Maryland star to flourish with the Sun. Brionna Jones first moved into the starting lineup in the bubble season of 2020 when Jonquel Jones opted out and promptly averaged career highs in points (11.2) and rebounds (5.6). She remained a starter in 2021 with Thomas out, again had career highs in points (14.7) and rebounds (7.3) and was name the league’s most improved player, an all-star for the first time and second-team all-defense. Thomas returned this season, and the three-time all-star returned to the starting lineup, pushing Jones back to the bench. Jones was unbothered by the change and promptly won the league’s sixth player of the year award and was named an all-star for the second time.
“For me, it was just about whatever it takes to win,” Jones said. “Whether that was starting, coming off the bench, I just want to win. So if I had to sacrifice for the team, for the greater good. I think that’s the biggest thing for me. Being able to do that and be that spark off the bench definitely was my mind-set coming into the season.”
Sun Coach Curt Miller added: “First, she’s the greatest human I’ve ever been around. So that’s one thing. And she appreciates how she bought her time and the journey.”
Thomas and Jones haven’t been able to drag the Sun to a victory in the Finals, but Connecticut isn’t here without them. Thomas has her fingerprints all over every game as a 6-foot-2 point forward in the mold of Candace Parker. The Sun loves to grab a rebound and sprint out in transition, and typically it’s Thomas leading the charge. Jones does an incredible amount of dirty work in the paint but also has a soft touch around the rim that equates to a 56.9 perfect shooting from the field.
Aces Coach Becky Hammon said Thomas plays with a “brute force” and the competitiveness of a warrior. League MVP A’ja Wilson added that Thomas puts constant pressure on her defensively. Bonner called Jones her favorite teammate of all time.
The commonality between the two and their journey is perseverance, something Maryland Coach Brenda Frese has seen since the pair helped take the Terps to the 2014 Final Four.
“It couldn’t happen to two better people,” Frese said. “When you just talk about [being grounded], humility, work ethic, always wanting to get better, always putting their team first and just wanting to win.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I think that’s always been ‘AT.’… [Jones] is never satisfied. She’s never stopped working. All she knows is how to work.” | 2022-09-15T09:14:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sun isn't in WNBA Finals without Alyssa Thomas, Brionna Jones - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/alyssa-thomas-brionna-jones/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/alyssa-thomas-brionna-jones/ |
The Amazon Prime Video broadcast crew, including Charissa Thompson, left, and former NFL players Ryan Fitzpatrick, center, and Richard Sherman, right, prepare for a preseason NFL football game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Houston Texans Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis )
Matthew Stafford casually throwing the new Prime ball 100 yards 🤯
(via matthewstafford / IG) | #TNFonPrime pic.twitter.com/bsoG6wUwde
Amazon, one of the country’s largest tech companies and commerce giants, is paying more than $1 billion this season for a package of exclusive Thursday night games to broadcast the NFL, America’s most popular TV show. The rationale: to boost its Prime membership, which was first introduced for free shipping and now has some 200 million subscribers worldwide. Amazon says 80 million households in the United States have watched at least one piece of its video content in the last year. (Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, owns The Washington Post.)
“Everything we do here starts with the customer and works backward, and we’re trying to ask ourselves how do we make Prime better for our customers,” said Jay Marine, global head of Amazon’s sports division.
The NFL’s business model has long relied on simplicity to reach the most fans: It’s Sunday afternoon? Flip on Fox or CBS. To facilitate the Thursday transition, Amazon has set up a customer-service call center filled with thousands of representatives to field troubleshooting calls in case fans can’t find the game. The company has blanketed its ubiquitous delivery trucks and millions of packages that it sends around the country with special advertising wrapping to alert fans. And Amazon Fire TVs and voice-activated Alexa devices have been programmed to help find the games.
The power and peril of being Adam Schefter, the ultimate NFL insider
Still, Amazon wants the broadcasts to feel familiar. So it turned to veteran broadcasters Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit to call the games and Fred Gaudelli, the longtime producer of “Sunday Night Football” on NBC, to produce them. (Amazon has leased its own trucks and cameras for the broadcast but has partnered with NBC’s production crew to produce the telecasts.)
“We want to respect sports fans,” said Marie Donoghue, the vice president of global sports video at Amazon and a former ESPN executive. “It’s not meant to be gimmicky.”
“I say to people: ‘Do you have Netflix? It’s the same thing,’ ” Michaels said. “ ‘You find the app, you bring it up, and it should be right there. No problems.’ ”
The signings of the venerable (and seemingly ageless) Michaels and Herbstreit, ESPN’s well-known lead college football analyst, were part of a wild offseason of NFL-announcer musical chairs. With the names it did land but also those it didn’t, Amazon signaled its intention to be taken seriously as a sports broadcaster. The company approached Rams Coach Sean McVay, though he decided to stay with the Rams, and it spent six months courting Troy Aikman before he ended up at ESPN with longtime partner Joe Buck.
While there are viewing trends in Amazon’s favor — in July, for the first time, more minutes were streamed than consumed on cable TV — far more sports viewers are reached on TV. During the preseason for the NFL, games on the broadcast networks, Fox, NBC and CBS, brought in around 5 million viewers. Amazon’s pre-season stream drew around 500,000 on Prime Video.
Asked what Amazon sports might look like in 10 years, Marine said, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
He added: “Just kidding. What I can tell you is that I fully expect Prime sports to be a major, major top broadcaster in the world in major markets.”
Amazon certainly has size on its side compared with traditional media companies. Its market capitalization is $1.4 trillion; that of CBS and parent company Paramount is $16 billion. Entertainment behemoth Disney’s is $213 billion.
Production-wise, Amazon’s first preseason game went smoothly. Afterward, Michaels regaled the broadcast team late into the night telling stories about, among others, O.J. Simpson.
In an interview, Michaels, 77, mused about the changes to the business he has seen over his career — cable and streaming but also the demand for live sports. The most famous call of his career, the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team’s upset of the Soviet Union, was seen mostly on tape delay. Even after TV executives lobbied to push the start time back, the game was played in the early evening and then broadcast in prime time a few hours later. “It was so bizarre because most people did not know the score,” Michael said. “They watched a game at 8 that was already played.”
He added, “From such a low level like that to this, I’ve seen the whole tapestry of the business play out.” | 2022-09-15T09:14:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amazon Prime and NFL team up for Thursday Night Football - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/amazon-prime-nfl/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/amazon-prime-nfl/ |
The federal government will provide $105 million under a program bolstered by the infrastructure law to help fill in Interstate 375 and turn it into a boulevard
The Detroit skyline is shown from the Detroit River. (Paul Sancya/AP)
A woman called for a highway’s removal in a Black neighborhood. The White House singled it out in its infrastructure plan.
For many Black residents with relatives who lived in the Black Bottom area, the harm caused by the highway’s construction is still present. They community will need to be organized, Hood said, but since its original residents were dispersed, she added, that’s a tall order.
Seaplanes: Federal security concerns delay planned seaplane flights | 2022-09-15T09:14:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Detroit wins $100 million to remove I-375 that wrecked Black community - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/15/detroit-highway-removal-paradise-valley/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/15/detroit-highway-removal-paradise-valley/ |
In a statement, the president said the agreement will guarantee “better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs” for the workers.
Shipping containers at a Union Pacific rail terminal in Los Angeles, California, US on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. Railroads and unions have until Friday to resolve a labor dispute that risks a crippling shutdown of the nations freight-rail network, wreaking havoc on the US economy. Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg (Bing Guan/Bloomberg)
The White House on Thursday morning announced it had reached a “tentative” agreement to avert a national rail strike that threatened the nation’s economy.
President Biden said in a statement that the agreement would guarantee “better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs” for the workers.
A Department of Labor official confirmed that a deal “that balances the needs of workers, businesses, and our nation’s economy” was reached early Thursday morning after 20 consecutive hours of negotiations between rail companies and union negotiators.
“Secretary Walsh and the Biden administration applaud all parties for reaching this hard-fought, mutually beneficial deal,” a labor official said. “Our rail system is integral to our supply chain, and a disruption would have had catastrophic impacts on industries, travelers and families across the country.”
At issue were the rail carriers’ attendance policies, which conductors and engineers said punish them, and put them at risk of termination, for attending to routine doctor’s visits and family emergencies. Two of the largest and most politically powerful unions representing railroad workers said they strike if the carriers did not allow them to call out of work.
The tentative deal caps a frenzy of work at the highest levels of the U.S. government to prevent a strike that would have significantly disrupted the nation’s supply chains.
Biden faced pressure in recent days to ensure the strike was avoided while not undercutting the union workers who he vowed to defend as president.
White House aides had prepared contingency plans aimed at protecting the nation‘s drinking and energy systems in case of an emergency. | 2022-09-15T09:35:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden says ‘tentative’ deal reached to avert rail strike - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/15/rail-strike-deal-agreement-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/15/rail-strike-deal-agreement-biden/ |
A Prince George’s County team aims to tackle Maryland’s 40 percent recidivism rate and remove barriers to rehabilitation
Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks talks to a resident at the National Night Out community event in 2021. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
When William “BJ” Paige left jail and returned home to Prince George’s County almost two decades ago, it took him years to navigate services that would lead to a career.
In 2005, as he tried different websites to find job opportunities, he was stymied by new technology that he had not become familiar with during his incarceration. When he looked in person, while meeting with social services to obtain food stamps, he was told job placement resources were in a different location. He later found work at a car dealership and then a grocery store, but it would take him until 2014 — when he joined Howard University as an executive assistant — to get on the pathway to a career he desired, he said.
Now, the entrepreneur, career consultant and motivational speaker works as a liaison in the county’s new Returning Citizen Affairs division, hoping to make the transition easier for people reentering society.
“We are creating the culture of what it looks like for returning citizens to come home and get involved,” Paige said.
Though housing, employment and other resources are available through various departments and nonprofits throughout the county, the division under the office of County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) was created with the goal of strengthening the reentry strategy in Prince George’s, officials said.
People who have been incarcerated face a number of barriers as they work to reenter communities, including finding affordable housing and employment — often because landlords or rental agencies require paperwork such as identification and financial documents that are difficult for returning citizens to immediately procure.
Michael Williams, the director of the division, said it is critical that people are also provided mental health and addiction recovery support. The new division plans to create a standing “education campaign” for people even before they are released from jail or prison, so they are aware of the resources and assistance available to them and can find a “sense of hope early in the process,” he said.
Veteran who served prison time gets second chance at Md. vet cemeteries
“What we hope to do is to create an ecosystem within the county that supports returning citizens,” said Williams, who has worked on reentry issues in D.C. and recently worked as the senior manager for justice policy at the Pew Charitable Trusts. “Our office will play a critical role in getting the word out about what services currently exist and then identifying the need for additional services, partners and programs so that we can begin to look to see what gaps exist and how we might be able to fill those gaps.”
The county council’s Reentry Advisory Board issued a report in November with recommendations to improve the county’s reentry process and reduce recidivism. The board met for more than two years and included members of nonprofits, people who had been incarcerated and county government agencies.
In fiscal year 2020, 348 people returned to the county from state detention facilities, not including those who may have also returned from local or federal jails, according to Angie Rodgers, deputy chief administrative officer for economic development in the Office of the County Executive. Part of the goal of reentry initiatives is to give people tools — such as housing and job placement — to prevent them from returning to prison.
About 40 percent of people who were incarcerated in Maryland re-offend and return to jail or prison within three years of their release, many times not for committing another major crime but for parole violations or other technical violations, Vanessa Bright, executive director and founder of Maryland Reentry Resource Center, said.
Bright said that the key to reducing recidivism is intervening before release and getting resources available to people transitioning from incarceration as soon as possible. Prisons and jails could do a better job to create systems that will set people up for success, from securing identification, a social security card and birth certificate to arranging transportation from work to home, Bright said.
“There’s a high percentage of people that are returning [to prison] just because of the barriers they have to face,” Bright said.
They earned a degree in prison. Now was their time for caps and gowns.
If the government is going to get involved in helping people successfully come back to communities, divisions such as the one in Prince George’s should be empowered to make decisions and communicate with correctional facilities, agencies and nonprofits to effect real change, Bright said.
“We create new entities, and nothing’s changing their lives,” Bright said. “We the nonprofits are trying to fix that … but [the government] should be solving the problems we can’t solve.”
Rodgers said the county executive’s office’s economic development plans include increasing affordable housing in the county.
Last year, the council passed a bill to create a financial incentive program, provided through the county’s workforce development organization Employ Prince George’s, for businesses to hire residents released from incarceration in qualifying positions that pay a minimum of $15 per hour. The program reimburses employers that qualify a rate of $5 per hour for up to 40 hours per week, with a maximum of 1,000 hours for each year of employment after the hiring date of the formerly incarcerated employee, according to the legislation.
For Council Chair Calvin Hawkins (D), sponsor of the legislation that formed the Reentry Advisory Board, improving outcomes and prioritizing opportunities for people who were incarcerated is personal.
The council member served more than five years in prison in his 20s for armed robbery in 1983, he said.
‘Second chance kind of guy’: This candidate is telling voters about his criminal past
“I look at it as an opportunity to give back to some of those who have to travel the way that I traveled,” Hawkins said. “And that is to return home to the community and have as many viable opportunities and options to succeed and not to return to prison.”
Williams said that since joining the division, he and Paige have been meeting with government officials, nonprofits and returning citizens and have found “a lot of excitement” from partners about the reentry work taking place in the county.
“A good reentry strategy is a good public safety strategy,” Williams said. “I think as we work to improve the conditions for our men and women who come home from periods of incarceration, we can reduce the number that end up going back or even engage in the lifestyles that lead people back into incarceration.” | 2022-09-15T10:19:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prince George's County, Md., team offers support to former convicts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/returning-citizen-affairs-prince-georges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/returning-citizen-affairs-prince-georges/ |
People have asked Ray Ruschel if he’s a coach. Actually, no, he tells them. He’s a defensive lineman.
Ray Ruschel is a defensive lineman this season for the Wildcats at North Dakota State College of Science. He's 49. (Ray Ruschel)
“They were like, ‘Really? Are you serious? How old are you?’ ” Ruschel said.
“When I decided to get an associate’s degree and found out there was a football team, I got to thinking about it,” said Ruschel, a defensive lineman who wears number 94. “And I decided, ‘Why not?’ ”
The last time Ruschel played on a football team, he was a senior at Trinity High School in Washington, Pa. After he graduated in 1992, he said, he joined the U.S. Army, then the Army National Guard and ended up in Wahpeton, about an hour’s drive from Fargo, in 2018.
He enrolled in online classes at North Dakota State College of Science earlier this year, he said, with the goal of earning a business management degree and becoming a supervisor at his work. The school has about 3,000 students.
“When a friend of mine told me the college had a football program, I looked into it and did my research, and I found out that as a student, I could play football,” Ruschel said. “So I called Coach Issendorf.”
Issendorf, 48, said he was shocked to learn that a 49-year-old Army veteran wanted to play on his team, which competes as part of the National Junior College Athletic Association.
“He’s a year and one month older than me,” he said. “I told him, ‘Wow, I’ll have to really think about it. This is unchartered territory.’ ”
Several months later, when Ruschel dropped by his office to introduce himself and ask again about playing football, Issendorf said they discussed the pros and cons of having a player on the team who was almost 50.
“One of the things I had to weigh was Ray’s safety and the safety of our players,” he said. “Football is a young man’s game.”
“If a guy is constantly getting knocked over or falling into other guys’ legs, he probably shouldn’t be on the team,” Issendorf said. “But Ray looked like he was fit, and he really wanted to play. So we decided to evaluate him.”
Ruschel was invited to the Wildcats’ football camp in July to see if he could hold his own as a defensive lineman with players who were 30 years his junior — most of whom were in fact younger than his own children.
“Was I nervous? Of course,” he said. “I was wondering if the guys would accept me. They’re young and have a lot of talent, and here comes this old guy.”
As it turned out, he didn’t need to worry.
“On the first day of camp, we thought he was a new coach, so yeah, we were definitely surprised when he said, ‘No, I’m actually playing,’ ” said Preston Yohnke, 20.
“But when we saw what he could do, we were impressed,” he added. “To be 49 and competing pretty well on the defensive line? That’s crazy. Ray earned our respect.”
The players have taken him in as one of their own, said Will Katchmark, 19.
“Ray is a really hard-worker — he plays his heart out,” he said. “He asks us how he can do better, and he’s willing to learn. He wants to be treated the same as any other guy on the team.”
Issendorf said Ruschel has been great for the team both on and off the field.
“He’s good for our program and he’s good for our kids,” he said. “He’s able to step up and talk to the younger kids on the team about what a loss means. He teaches them that there’s more to life than winning. It’s about giving it your best.”
Ruschel has played in the Wildcats’ first three games (they won two), and he said he’s now looking forward to his first away game on Sept. 24 when his team takes on Vermilion Community College in Ely, Minn.
“I assume that I’ll be riding the bus with the team, so that should be fun,” he said.
More than anything, though, he’s looking forward to the reaction of the opposing team when they see him on the defensive line.
“I know I’ll get a lot of weird looks, and somebody will say, ‘Man, look at that — they’ve got an old dude on the team,’ ” Ruschel said.
“That always makes me laugh,” he said. “And then, I play harder.” | 2022-09-15T10:27:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ray Ruschel plays college football in North Dakota at age 49 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/15/ruschel-north-dakota-college-football/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/15/ruschel-north-dakota-college-football/ |
Chick-fil-A worker stops attempted carjacking — his 2nd on-the-job rescue
A Chick-fil-A employee outside a restaurant in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., rushed to help a woman holding a baby from being carjacked, officials said Sept. 14. (Video: Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office/Facebook)
A woman was taking her baby out of her car at a Florida Chick-fil-A on Wednesday when officials say a man approached her with a stick, grabbed her keys and got into the vehicle.
She screamed for help. A Chick-fil-A employee responded.
The worker helped subdue 43-year-old William Branch, who was later charged with battery and carjacking with a weapon, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post. As of early Thursday, Branch remained jailed. It is unclear if he has an attorney.
A one-minute video from a bystander outside the Fort Walton Beach fast-food restaurant shows the Chick-fil-A worker tackling a man and wrestling with him on the ground as a woman holding a baby screams, “Somebody help!”
Within seconds, the employee put the man in a headlock and held him down, the video shows. The employee then got on his feet and placed his hands on the man, who sat on the ground without fighting or trying to escape.
As the man sat on the ground, a second woman holding an infant screamed in his direction: “She had a baby in her hands! How dare you!”
Sheriff’s deputies said Branch punched the employee in the face during the tussle. Neither woman was injured.
“A major shout-out to this young man for his courage!” the sheriff’s office wrote.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Matthew Sexton, the operator of the Chick-fil-A location, called the incident “alarming” and said he was relieved his employees and customers were safe. He identified the employee who intervened as Mykel Gordon.
“I couldn’t be prouder of his incredible act of care,” Sexton said. A Chick-fil-A spokesperson said Gordon was not immediately available for an interview Wednesday night.
Wednesday’s incident was not the first time Gordon put himself in harm’s way to help someone while on the clock. In September 2018, while taking orders outside the Fort Walton Beach Chick-fil-A, Gordon was among the first to respond when a crane fell onto a car, the Northwest Florida Daily News reported. A teenage driver and her friend were inside.
Gordon told the paper that he dropped what he was doing and rushed to the girls’ vehicle, carrying one of them to safety. Other bystanders eventually assisted, and the group helped the other girl safely escape, the Daily News reported.
“I didn’t have any time to react,” Gordon told the paper. “It was nothing but instinct and I ran to the car.”
Originally from Alaska, Gordon told the paper that his stepfather was in the military, “and I grew up doing what he was doing.”
“I think the Lord put me outside,” Gordon added back in 2018. “As soon as this happened I had prayers in my head. I was helping her. I was on autopilot.” | 2022-09-15T10:45:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Video shows Chick-fil-A employee intervene in attempted carjacking - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/15/chickfila-employee-carjacking-video/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/15/chickfila-employee-carjacking-video/ |
Royal composer reflects on the queen’s close relationship with music
Judith Weir, the first woman to hold the post in its 396-year history, now holds a tweaked title — Master of the King’s Music
Composer Judith Weir, who has been Master of the Queen’s Music since 2014, in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. (Kate Johnson)
The death of Queen Elizabeth II set into motion a massive cascade of protocols, procedures, cultural shifts and royal changes, big and small. Overnight, we heard the British national anthem, “God Save the Queen,” updated to reflect the kingdom’s new reality, its apposite monarch tweaked in the title, its pronouns abruptly swung back to the masculine. Eagle-eyed audience members in the Royal Opera House noted that the queen’s monogram had been blacked out from the curtains before the king’s could be added.
And composer Judith Weir’s job title suddenly switched: She is now Master of the King’s Music.
Before your mind offers up the image of some dutiful squire darting between the throne and the turntable, the position of master is actually 396 years old, originating under the first King Charles in 1626 — back when music was musick.
In olde tymes, the master was charged with composing all manner of royal music, from marches and fanfares to coronation anthems and biblical settings for funerals and weddings.
Over the centuries, the function of the master as primarily a musician composing and performing for the pleasure of the sovereign has evolved into something more akin to a poet laureate — a liaison between the wide world of music and the relative vacuum of the palace.
At 68, the London-based Weir is the first woman to hold the position of master. She has only 20 predecessors, most of whom held their positions for life. John Eccles, the longest-serving master, was appointed in 1700 and worked for 35 years under four monarchs. Sir Walter Parratt’s sprawling 31-year post, for example, spanned three crowns. He was succeeded in 1924 by Edward Elgar.
Since the 2004 naming of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in 2004 (which followed the 2003 death of the brash Australian composer and master Malcolm Williamson) the position has been is a 10-year appointment.
Peter Maxwell Davies, British composer and ‘Master of the Queen’s Music,’ dies at 81
Weir seemed a natural fit for the tasks at hand when she was named master in 2014, with a rich history with the royals. She was awarded a CBE (a high order of British chivalry) in 1995 and the Queen’s Medal for Music in 2007. (Two years into her tenure as master, she was named president of the Royal Society of Musicians.)
Her voice as a composer also fits the bill. She has created exciting, kinetic works for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta. But as her choral work demonstrates, she also excels at constructing colossal columns of sound that still feel luminous and light. Her magic is her majesty.
In her primary function as master, Weir has composed a number of works for royal occasions and ceremonies. To mark the centenary of the 1918 Armistice, she composed “The True Light” premiered by the Choir of Westminster Abbey. Most recently, for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June, Weir premiered “By Wisdom” — a soaring choral setting of Proverbs 3 that seizes on those verses’ momentary detour into the feminine: “Long life is in her right hand; in her left are riches and honour.”
It’s unclear which, if any, of Weir’s works will be included in the queen’s state funeral on Monday at Westminster Abbey, for which the musical program remains under strict embargo. But we do know that the choirs of Westminster Abbey and His Majesty’s Chapel Royal, St. James’s Palace will perform under James O’Donnell, the abbey’s music director, organist and master of choristers. And Weir’s way with a chorus does tend to clear a path to the divine.
I caught up with Weir by phone a few days after the queen’s death to talk about her historic position, her memories of the queen and her hopes for what life under King Charles III might sound like.
Q: I imagine this possibility was on the horizon, but has the aftermath of the queen’s passing felt different from what you anticipated?
A: It has hit us all. We knew the queen was very old and would go one day, but the actual moment, that’s quite a thing. As you say, we knew it was coming, although you could never be completely prepared. But I was involved very regularly in big national occasions — nothing, I suppose, can beat this — but I had to write music or otherwise be involved in these big services. They are the way that the nation saw the queen on these big occasions, the last being her jubilee just two months ago, three months ago. So I have a bit of familiarity with the sort of things that we do.
Q: The particulars of the musical programs we’ll hear over the next few days — are those things that were selected in advance by you?
A: To be honest, the answer is no to that. I contribute to these occasions, but really the people who are at the sharp end of choosing are the music directors of the cathedrals involved. I think my job title makes me sound much more in charge than I am! But I am a composer and that’s mostly how I contribute.
Q: What does your role entail in particular?
A: I’m now in my ninth year of doing it, and in normal times each year we have at least one big event where there would be a large service or concert … and I would write a new music for that. I try to be a go-between between musicians and other people who might need my help, so that’s one thing. And there are some palace duties, particularly the medal that the queen gives out to a leading musician every year. That’s quite a thing: organizing a committee, getting the musicians together with the queen. She spent a lot of time herself with these presentations. … There are all sorts of other things. Every year I’m asked to invite a whole troupe of musical people to the queen’s garden parties. That’s quite a job.
Q: What were the old-school Masters of the King’s Music doing?
A: Well, not as much emailing! Many of them were performing musicians, that’s how it started off. Charles I, who founded the job, was very jealous of the French king, who had his violons du roi — the 24 violins of the king. It’s moved away from being a music director and conductor. Nowadays, it’s been composer for quite a long time.
Q: To what extent, when you’re composing for an occasion within the royal purview, are you taking into account the personal musical tastes of, say, the queen?
A: In my experience, the queen was great about music. She had a good musical upbringing with piano lessons, doing things like madrigal singing when she was young. She had an immense respect for musicians, and a lot of understanding. Plus, great experience, particularly of the things that concerned her, like military bands, of which we have many splendid ones in this country. And, of course, the church choirs, because she was the head of the Church of England and had immensely detailed knowledge of them. What particular music she would have liked to have heard was guesswork on my part, although we often discussed music. I think she must have liked the kinds of music they traditionally play, particularly the repertoire of choral music from the late 19th century, say [Charles Villiers] Stanford up to [Herbert] Howells. That’s the kind of repertoire that she knew well.
I didn’t and don’t feel when writing that it’s particularly to please the monarch, I think it’s more to make the occasion right, and in particular, expressive of what’s going on. I felt that strongly with my most recent commission, which was for the jubilee service, and I had the strong feeling that everybody wanted to thank the queen.
Q: Around the time of the jubilee, there was a big hubbub around a shortlist of the queen’s favorite songs that was published, and I recall being struck by what seemed to be her penchant for joy. Songs like “Oklahoma!,” “Cheek to Cheek” by Fred Astaire. Not something I assumed about the queen.
A: Yes, didn’t it include Vera Lynn’s “The White Cliffs of Dover”? That’s very interesting. Firstly, I have no idea how that list got compiled. I can certainly say I never particularly recall speaking to the queen about those titles. But I don’t think it’s implausible. I think she did have a potential for good cheer. One of the memories we all have of her is this incredible smile that would really light her up and light us up. And I don’t think it was phony — it would just subtly come up from some place. It’s often mentioned that she had a great sense of humor — quite a dry sense of humor — but I do think of her as a cheerful, good-humored person, at least some of the time.
Q: The passing of the queen is such a cultural shift. How are you approaching your role in this transitional time?
A: I think most of us have grown up with, as we knew him, Prince Charles. He actually is a most unusual lover of classical music. He was a cellist in his youth, played in college orchestra and really intensely loves classical music. He’s made some very touching statements when interviewed about his interests and has made it clear that it’s absolutely top of the list. I don’t expect there to be less interest in what we musicians do, and I’m sort of anticipating that there’s a chance for us to do even more, once he gets over the huge backlog of work he has to do.
Q: Is there any particular piece of music that we know — that we’re going to hear over and over in the coming days — that still touches you in an unexpected way?
A: It’s a sort of obvious thing to say, but William Byrd’s “O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth,” just because he named Elizabeth I in that anthem. There’s something about it that really touches me. I don’t know if anyone will sing it, but they obviously should. | 2022-09-15T10:45:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Royal composer reflects on the queen’s close relationship with music - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/15/queen-music-royal-composer-weir/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/15/queen-music-royal-composer-weir/ |
The German photographer, now the subject of a MoMA retrospective, placed Kate Moss and Frank Ocean on a level with poured concrete and fungus
An installation view of “Wolfgang Tillmans: To Look Without Fear” includes huge prints combined with clusters of tiny snapshots. (Emile Askey/Museum of Modern Art)
Sweat matted our armpit hair. At housewarming parties, we wrecked the kitchens. The fruit in those same kitchens looked numinous in the morning light. So did the socks draped over heaters at night. We went to raves, protests and gay pride parades, watched wars on TV. We fell in love with Kate Moss and R.E.M. and Jeffrey Eugenides’s “The Virgin Suicides” and with the way Sinéad O’Connor bent her voice just under the notes in her cover of a Prince song. People we knew, and some we observed from afar, looked dazed and inexplicably tender from certain angles, in certain lights.
I am talking, of course, about the 1990s — possibly my ’90s, but especially the German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968) and his ’90s.
Tillmans’s photographs, from the 1990s and beyond, fill a vast suite of galleries at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in a retrospective titled “To Look Without Fear” (it will travel to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, then the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2023). The show is full of humor, compassion and surprise. I love the way it is hung, with enormous prints covering huge expanses of wall beside clusters of tiny snapshots, most of them taped to the wall, but some thrown into corners or placed beside emergency-exit signs. The show made me so nostalgic that at times, I wanted to crouch down and weep.
I mean, sure. Why not? Tillmans, 54, has been around a long time, and there is something exemplary about him. But remove the halo of ’90s nostalgia and he is essentially a snapshot and fashion photographer blessed by the zeitgeist and turbocharged by ambition.
The MoMA exhibition comes with a hefty catalogue and a 352-page Wolfgang Tillmans “Reader.” The implication — that Tillmans is not only a photographer, but also some sort of heavyweight public intellectual — is stretching it a bit. I’d invoke Susan Sontag’s definition of camp as “failed seriousness,” but I see the back-cover blurb by John Waters, the “king of camp,” is a step ahead: “Can printed museum art-talk be so smart, that it becomes sexually arousing for the reader?” concludes Waters, after a sequence of comically hyperbolic effusions. “Sure it can.”
The acclaimed, exasperating sculptures of Rachel Harrison get a star turn at the Whitney Museum
If it seems odd that MoMA has devoted its entire sixth-floor exhibition space to Tillmans, it’s also instructive. MoMA is no longer the MoMA of old. For a long time it tried — how it tried — to hold back the barbarian tide. But it finally had to concede that, outside its walls, old hierarchies of cultural value had collapsed. Today, we are permitted to wonder — aloud if we like! — whether Picasso was as great as everyone claims. We can dare to suggest that a photograph or a dress might carry as much weight as a painting or a bronze sculpture.
Previous surges in this direction occurred in Paris in the 1870s (the Impressionists) and in New York in the 1950s, when avant-garde artists and poets embraced chance and collage along with the idea that commodities and everyday experience might be elevated into poetry (Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery) and fine art (Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol).
But these were skirmishes. The 1990s saw the quivering membrane still separating “high” art from the everyday completely give way. The result? A rout. Credibility drained from the idea of “elevated” culture, while previously patronized “lowly” forms, such as television, rap and fashion, became turbines of (often collective) creativity.
The 1990s was the decade in which all kinds of repressions and stigmas were lifted, but in a room, alas, from which all the old meanings had been sucked. This was at once liberating and depressing. Signals were jammed. Confusion reigned. The Berlin Wall had come down — hooray! — but no one knew who controlled the nukes anymore. One Communist empire had collapsed, while another — China — was embracing capitalism. HIV infection rates had stabilized in the United States and Europe, but in sub-Saharan Africa, the virus was exacting a terrifying toll.
It was a decade in which a British magazine could declare — in the knowledge that its readers would instantly get it — that Kate Moss was “the face of the ’90s — the face that reminds you your optimism was misplaced.” And it was a decade from which Tillmans emerged as somehow quintessential.
Early on, he embraced the snapshot aesthetic of Nan Goldin, but he shrugged off Goldin’s heavily autobiographical narratives. His vision was more disinterested, more ecumenical. Everything caught his attention — not just people. If his subjects seemed random, they were random like life, where one day you might be peering into an airplane cockpit or examining fungus on a dead tree and the next you might be staring into the eyes of a beautiful man with a shaved head and surprisingly red ears.
Tillmans’s abstractions, many of which are included in this show, are also rooted in chance. These are beautiful, dreamy images, made without a camera by exposing light-sensitive paper to different light sources. Printed on the scale of museum-ready abstract paintings, they are reminiscent of the work of fellow Germans Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter.
Richter’s endless toggling between photographs and large-scale abstract paintings showed the high-art world that an apprehension of meaninglessness and a technique dependent on chance could nonetheless produce images of ravishing beauty. Tillmans followed the same playbook. If he doesn’t seem as original or quite as compelling as Richter or Polke, that, too, feels symptomatic of the ’90s, when almost everyone labored under the illusion that everything had already been done.
Tillmans has marveled at “how in real life we find our actions to be always already one step ahead of their social and behavioral descriptions.” This idea — that we escape our descriptions — comes through powerfully at MoMA, and it is what I love most about Tillmans. He himself is more than a gay artist, or a German artist; more than a fashion photographer, a portraitist or a political activist.
And, of course, he is more than a “ ’90s photographer.” Since the end of that decade, he has continued to make strong work. More recent subjects have included Frank Ocean, June Leaf, the moon and poured concrete. His sense of beauty, fragility and singularity remains intact.
My advice, when you visit this show, is to set aside the Wolfgang Tillmans “Reader” and forget about intellectualizing the ’90s, and let the photographs simply wash over you. (The absence of wall labels really helps). You may find them banal, as in some ways they deliberately are. But you may also perceive, as another German — Herman Hesse — wrote in an earlier era, “how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was so beautiful.”
Wolfgang Tillmans: To Look Without Fear Through Jan. 1 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. | 2022-09-15T10:45:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wolfgang Tillmans’s ’90s photo tour is a blast. But is it great art? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/15/wolfgang-tillmans-moma-1990s/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/15/wolfgang-tillmans-moma-1990s/ |
A Queens College professor holds up a wastewater sample at a lab on Aug. 25 in New York City. The virus has been detected in several samples from communities near Rockland County, N.Y. (Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to test wastewater to detect the polio virus in communities at highest risk for the life-threatening and potentially disabling illness.
The federal monitoring of wastewater for polio comes amid pressure to increase efforts to fight the disease after the first U.S. polio case in nearly a decade was discovered in Rockland County, N.Y. in July. Since the unvaccinated man was diagnosed, the virus has been detected in wastewater samples from nearby communities: New York City, Orange County, Sullivan County, and most recently, Nassau County on Long Island.
Polio — once one of the most feared diseases in the United States, with annual outbreaks causing thousands of cases of paralysis — was considered to be eliminated in 1979 after widespread vaccination halted routine U.S. spread. But the virus has been brought into the country by travelers.
Evidence of expanding community spread has landed the United States on a list of more than 30 countries with active circulation of a type of polio known as vaccine-derived polio virus. It also prompted New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to declare a state of emergency Friday, authorizing paramedics, midwives and pharmacists to administer polio vaccinations, among other steps, to accelerate immunization rates. The emergency order also directs health-care providers to update the state with data on immunizations.
Polio has been found in the U.S. Here’s what to know.
Some Biden officials expressed concern that there hadn’t been more active preparation for a possible polio outbreak, and called on the federal government to expand the testing of sewage across the nation and bolster vaccination campaigns. White House leaders have largely focused on gathering data to determine the outbreak’s potential spread.
Vaccine-derived polio virus occurs in the live form of vaccine used in other countries. That vaccine uses weakened live polio virus. In rare instances, the weakened virus can mutate into a form capable of sparking new outbreaks. Transmission is most likely to occur in communities with low rates of vaccination against polio, allowing prolonged spread of the weakened live poliovirus. As the virus circulates and more genetic changes occur, the virus can revert to a form that infects the central nervous system and causes illness and paralysis if it circulates in under-immunized populations or replicates in an immunocompromised person, according to the CDC.
Health officials say this kind of polio is not caused by a child receiving the polio vaccine. Polio vaccination protects people against naturally occurring polio viruses and vaccine-induced polio viruses. The U.S. population is highly vaccinated, with 93 percent of 2-year-olds having received at least three doses of polio vaccine, according to CDC data.
But in areas with low vaccination coverage, such as the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Rockland County, unvaccinated people are at high risk. In Rockland County, only about 60 percent of children have had three doses of the polio vaccine by their second birthday.
Federal officials recommend four doses of the polio vaccine: to be given when children are 2 months old, 4 months old, 6 to 18 months old, and between 4 and 6 years old. Some states require only three doses.
The history of polio and the vaccines that eradicated it
There are two types of polio vaccines. The United States and many other countries use shots made with an inactivated version of the virus. But some countries where polio has been more of a recent threat use a weakened live virus that is given to children as drops in the mouth. Even though the oral vaccine is easier to administer and may give longer-lasting immunity, it has a key disadvantage: It can lead to vaccine-derived polio, a strain of which was identified in the unvaccinated Rockland County patient. Oral polio vaccine has not been used or licensed in the U.S. since 2000 because of that risk.
“On polio, we simply cannot roll the dice,” State Health Commissioner Mary Bassett said in a statement last week. “If you or your child are unvaccinated or not up to date with vaccinations, the risk of paralytic disease is real.”
No additional cases of polio have been reported in the United States. But sequencing of the virus detected in the wastewater samples by New York State shows those samples to be genetically linked to the virus sequenced from the stool sample of the Rockland County man, CDC officials have said.
In selecting the sites for additional wastewater testing, the CDC is weighing the community’s vaccination coverage, the extent of travel to and from countries where polio is still circulating, and whether the agency is already conducting wastewater surveillance for the coronavirus.
To find out where the covid pandemic is headed, look here: The sewer
Wastewater surveillance has been used for decades around the world to contain polio outbreaks because people with the virus shed it in their stool. But testing for the polio virus has not been a formal part of the nation’s wastewater surveillance system launched by the CDC in September 2020 to monitor the spread of the coronavirus. That system, currently monitoring for SARS-CoV-2 in 46 states, five cities and two territories, is expanding to monitor for monkeypox in multiple communities over the next four to six weeks, CDC officials said.
The CDC has a plan to conduct more widespread wastewater testing for polio, but the agency cautions that expanding the system to test for new diseases takes time and resources to make sure there is “reliable, actionable data,” CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said in a statement.
As part of a public campaign to encourage vaccination, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and New York State Health Director Mary Bassett sent letters in English, Spanish, Haitian-Creole, and Yiddish last month to residents in Rockland, Orange, and Sullivan counties, warning that paralysis from polio is typically permanent and that 5 to 10 percent of those paralyzed die when their breathing muscles become immobilized. Similar letters will be sent soon to those living in Nassau County, according to New York State Health Department spokeswoman Samantha Fuld.
The polio virus lives in the throat and intestines and is very easily spread through contact with feces or, less commonly, through droplets from a cough or sneeze. There is no treatment for polio.
Most people who contract polio don’t have any visible symptoms, according to the CDC. About 25 percent develop flu-like symptoms, including headache, fever and nausea. A few get meningitis when the virus attacks the covering of the spinal cord or brain. Paralysis or weakness in the arms, legs, or both occurs in about 1 out of 200 people to 1 in 2000 people, depending on virus type.
Dan Diamond contributed to this report. | 2022-09-15T10:46:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Community spread of polio prompts CDC wastewater surveillance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/09/15/polio-virus-wastewater-cdc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/09/15/polio-virus-wastewater-cdc/ |
As red states send migrants to blue states, sanctuary cities are crucial
A very old concept remains a key part of navigating our broken immigration system
Perspective by Domenic Vitiello
Domenic Vitiello is a professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book "The Sanctuary City: Immigrant, Refugee, and Receiving Communities in Postindustrial Philadelphia" (Cornell University Press, 2022).
A Venezuelan holds a teddy bear while waiting in line to board a bus to New York in El Paso this month. (Paul Ratje/Reuters)
The governors of Texas and Arizona have put “sanctuary cities” back at the center of our immigration debate. Since April, they have bused close to 12,000 people seeking asylum to D.C., New York and Chicago. On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joined them, by sending two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. These governors hope to send a message: sanctuary cities, those with traditions of welcoming immigrants, should shoulder the financial and political costs of doing so. By casting immigration as something overwhelming and chaotic, they hope to undermine public support for immigrants — even in places of sanctuary.
To many Americans, sanctuary cities are a product of our fractured immigration debates of the 21st century. But sanctuary cities have a much longer history than most realize. And there is reason to believe they will persist in some form long into the future.
Sanctuary cities have existed almost as long as people have built cities. “Tell the Israelites to designate the cities of refuge,” God instructed Moses in the Book of Joshua (20:2). Ancient and medieval societies from Hawaii to India to Africa used sanctuary cities to protect soldiers from defeated armies. They sheltered people who had committed involuntary manslaughter to prevent blood feuds.
In the 19th century, freedom towns in the United States offered similar protections and support for African Americans fleeing slavery and racial violence. Some cities in the north refused to return escaped enslaved people, in violation of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the 20th century, towns in Europe harbored Jews during the Spanish Civil War and World War II.
In the late 20th and early 21st century, U.S. sanctuary city policies have been chiefly about welcoming immigrants whom the federal government has refused to grant humanitarian protection. The first U.S. city to offer this form of sanctuary was Los Angeles in 1979, aimed at people escaping civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States refused to grant them asylum because it supported the brutal regimes whose extrajudicial killings, disappearances and bombings of Indigenous villages they were fleeing. Although the federal government sought to deport such people, Los Angeles’s police department issued Special Order 40, establishing that “undocumented alien status in itself” was “not a matter for police action” in the city.
By 1987, 24 cities had declared themselves sanctuaries. They included big cities like New York and Chicago; college towns such as Ann Arbor, Mich., and Ithaca, N.Y.; and the suburbs of Swarthmore, Pa., and Takoma Park, Md. New Mexico and Wisconsin also declared themselves sanctuary states.
Most copied their policies from San Francisco’s 1985 “City of Refuge” resolution, which limited police, prisons and other city employees from collaborating with federal authorities in immigration enforcement. These policies also guaranteed all city residents access to municipal services like schools and health clinics, regardless of their immigration status. Most of these sanctuary declarations were largely symbolic because few Central Americans lived in these places. But they were a way to publicize the 1980s Sanctuary Movement and its advocacy for changes in asylum and foreign policy, especially the end of U.S.-backed civil wars and genocide in Central America. And in Los Angeles and other parts of the Southwest, the practical protections of sanctuary mattered for many thousands of residents from Guatemala and El Salvador.
The Central American civil wars ended in the 1990s. Because of advocacy and litigation, the U.S. allowed asylum seekers who had been unfairly denied status to bring new claims. Legislation allowed for temporary protected status (TPS) for people from some countries who had arrived before 1991.
But for people who came afterward, often fleeing continued violence, the U.S. offered few pathways to migrate legally. As immigration from around the world grew in the 1990s and 2000s, more people crossed the border illegally, most from Mexico and Central America. More recently, people from farther away — from Venezuela to Ukraine to India — have arrived at U.S. southern borders in greater numbers.
Sanctuary cities became more important as immigration enforcement ramped up in the 21st century. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 played an outsize role in producing our contemporary landscape of sanctuary cities and anti-immigrant jurisdictions. The Act’s 287g clause allows local police to be deputized as immigration agents and help the federal government detain and deport people. Some places became sanctuary cities in reaction to federal efforts to get local authorities to sign 287g agreements, including my own city of Philadelphia, which instituted a sanctuary policy in the spring of 2001.
As immigration debates blew up in 2006 and again after Donald Trump’s election in 2016, other cities, counties and states declared themselves sanctuaries, and activists launched a New Sanctuary Movement. Others, by contrast, passed laws seeking to restrict the residence, employment and mobility of immigrants who were in the country without status, although managing immigration is typically a federal matter. At the urging of lawyers with the anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform, Hazleton, Pa., passed the first Illegal Immigration Relief Act in 2006, aiming to punish landlords and employers of undocumented immigrants. Many places copied this law, including the states of Arizona and Alabama.
The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the local anti-immigrant laws but upheld key parts of the state versions. Per the U.S. Constitution, it is the responsibility of the federal government alone to regulate immigration. This is why local immigration restrictions like those Hazleton attempted are unconstitutional and also why sanctuary cities can exist, because the Constitution is also clear that local governments are not compelled to do the federal government’s job.
As our immigration system has become more restrictive, with ever greater resources poured into detention and deportation under Republican and Democratic presidents, the need for sanctuary has become pressing. The 1996 act also made it possible to deport people who came to the U.S. as refugees — that is, people who were welcomed with legal status. Cambodians resettled after the Vietnam War have been deported in large numbers since the early 2000s. Some of the people who’ve been deported to Cambodia or Vietnam had never even set foot in those countries because they were born in refugee camps in Thailand or the Philippines.
The U.S. has increasingly granted TPS, not permanent refuge or asylum, to people fleeing wars and persecution. People on TPS from Haiti, Central America, Africa and elsewhere live with uncertainty about how long they can stay.
Sanctuary therefore matters for a wide range of people with a confusing mix of statuses. Their reasons for seeking protection include ongoing conflicts, persecution of women and ethnic and religious minorities, poverty, environmental crises and other forces that threaten their lives and livelihoods. Like Central Americans in the 1980s, many immigrants and refugees, from Iraqis and Syrians to Afghanis and Somalis, were displaced by wars or regimes in which the U.S. played a prominent role.
Today, more than 10 states and 180 cities and counties across the country have sanctuary policies. They use much the same language as the 1980s policies. Immigrant advocates have pushed for even more, and during the 2020 election, the Biden-Harris ticket promised to eliminate 287g. But, at last count, some 142 local police departments, especially but not only in the South, had active 287g agreements.
Even if the Biden administration fulfilled more of its immigration campaign promises, it is hard to imagine that sanctuary cities will cease to matter. Our immigration system is too restrictive, with too many people treated as undeserving of membership in our country or just temporary protection. Until we can see and treat all people as part of one humanity, sanctuary will remain necessary to protect and include those who are excluded from the rights and protections afforded by legal status in our country.
As sanctuary activists in the 1980s wrote, “at different times and places, under varied circumstances, the significance of sanctuary has been recovered and taken on new meanings.” Today, more people than ever are displaced from their homes around the world. As long as wealthy countries like the U.S. accept only a fraction of those seeking freedoms and legal protection, the contested protections of sanctuary will continue to matter for too many of us. | 2022-09-15T10:46:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sanctuary cities protect migrants as red states send them north and east - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/15/red-states-send-migrants-blue-states-sanctuary-cities-are-crucial/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/15/red-states-send-migrants-blue-states-sanctuary-cities-are-crucial/ |
Romania exposes how abortion bans kill women and rip society apart
Romania’s abortion ban caused maternal mortality rates to jump and left people wary of one another.
Perspective by Gail Kligman
Gail Kligman is a distinguished professor of sociology at UCLA.
The waiting room of the Women's Health Center of West Virginia in Charleston, W.Va., sits empty on June 29. On Sept. 13, West Virginia lawmakers passed a bill outlawing abortions except for in medical emergencies and for victims of rape and incest at eight weeks for adults, and 14 weeks for children. (Leah Willingham/AP)
Courtesy of the Supreme Court, an increasing number of American states — most recently West Virginia — are now in the company of the extreme antiabortion regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu, from which Romanians were liberated when the communist dictator and his wife, Elena, were executed on Dec. 25, 1989. The provisional government swiftly moved to legalize abortion to the great relief of the population. A Christian Science Monitor headline proclaimed: “Freedom Triumphs and Romania Goes Pro-Choice: Romania’s Pre-revolution Abortion Laws Should Serve as Warning to the U.S.”
Romania’s experience warns us about what happens when abortion is banned; when women cannot control their fertility, their physical and emotional well-being suffers, often with fatal consequences. Surveilling women’s reproductive lives contributes to the creation of a culture of fear that erodes not only social relationships and sexual intimacy but also the broader society itself.
Soon after Ceaușescu came to power in 1965, he embarked upon his own version of socialist nationalism, invoking the right to self-determination of the nation. This rationale kept Romania from joining the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and made him a hero — at least temporarily — at home and in the West. But national self-determination turned out not to include women’s self-determination to control their reproductive lives. Without warning, on Oct. 1, 1966, Ceaușescu’s government issued Decree 770, banning abortion in almost all cases. This was a stark departure from a 1957 law that had liberalized abortion in Romania, something that happened across the Soviet satellite countries after Stalin’s death in 1953.
The criminalization of abortion became the centerpiece of a group of laws and policies aimed at increasing the future workforce, to counter the popular trend of families reducing the number of children they had. Increasing the birthrate was part of the socialist production plan; to that end, ensuring women’s health — a popular slogan — legitimated ever greater control over women’s bodies. Contraceptives were only obtainable on the black market. Contrary to the present-day United States, where women in states with the most restrictive abortion laws are least likely to have access to services for birthing and rearing children, the Romanian state — in keeping with its pronatalist goals — also provided at least minimal pre-and postnatal maternal and infant care and support for families after birth.
The 1966 surprise decree caught the population off guard and Romania’s birthrate almost doubled in the first year as doctors and women had no time to adapt, and providers had not yet created the kind of underground access women suddenly needed. But by 1968, they had, and the birthrate began declining. The government responded by modifying the law, but the same pattern ensued. This dynamic continued until the regime’s end, with the laws becoming ever more restrictive and women taking ever greater risks to access illegal abortions.
Romania nevertheless allowed exceptions to the abortion ban for rape and incest, endangerment to the mother’s life and in limited instances to protect the health of mothers and children. But prosecutors had to authorize the procedure to ensure that doctors followed the law in determining if conditions for a legal abortion existed. By the 1980s, a secret police officer was typically present during an abortion when it was permitted, demonstrating the extent of state control over women’s bodies and lives. Women who were hospitalized for complications from an illegal abortion were often left to die on the operating table if they refused to incriminate themselves or anyone else.
Women who had unauthorized abortions and anyone who performed or helped procure one were often apprehended or incarcerated. The state also held doctors accountable for not meeting targets to increase births and lower infant mortality. As part of “ensuring women’s health” in the 1980s, the most repressive years of the regime, doctors were tasked with conducting compulsory gynecological exams, some 30-60 a day at factories where women worked. Women I interviewed said they felt terrorized by the state’s intrusiveness and even by their own bodies, having come to view their reproductive capacity as the “enemy within.” A joke that circulated widely referenced the fear women felt: “Why does a Romanian hen sing every time she lays an egg? Because she is overjoyed that she is not pregnant!’
The ever-present Romanian secret police attempted to recruit as informers those suspected of having had or assisted in an abortion. They manipulated and intimidated family members, friends and others. Romanians never knew who might inform on them. Social interactions were dominated by fear.
These draconian measures did not stop the birthrate’s decline nor did banning abortion prevent its practice. Women who needed an abortion did whatever they could to obtain one. In Romania, as in the United States, most women wanting an abortion were already mothers and an unsafe abortion risked leaving children motherless. By 1989, Ceaușescu’s brutal antiabortion policies had tragically elevated Romania’s maternal mortality rate to the highest in Europe: 87 percent of maternal deaths were attributed to complications from illegal abortion. (For perspective, in 1965, the last year abortion was legal, 20 percent of maternal deaths were due to abortion complications.) Almost 10,000 women died over the 23 years in which abortion was criminalized.
And these rates weren’t surprising. Coercive abortion bans teach a steadfast lesson: women die, especially those unable to pay for a “safe,” if illegal, abortion. Data from around the world consistently shows that when abortion is illegal, maternal mortality due to complications from unsafe practices increases.
Unlike in other eastern bloc countries, the end of the communist era in Romania was violent, including the execution by firing squad of the Ceaușescus, following a summary military trial. The day after the dictator’s demise, women’s bodies were liberated from the centralized grip of the state.
The legalization of abortion had an immediate effect on the number of legal abortions recorded and the number of abortion-related maternal deaths: in 1990, abortions outnumbered live births three to one. By summer 1990, the main hospitals in the capital reported 70-100 abortions daily. In one year, maternal mortality due to abortion complications declined 10 percent.
The chaos of everyday life as Romania tried to create a market economy and democratic rule saw rapid class differentiation and a steadily declining birthrate, in part exacerbated by emigration. Abortion remains a popular means of fertility control in the country, although the Orthodox Church and conservative forces continue to pursue the recriminalization of abortion.
Given the proliferation of near-total abortion bans in numerous states in the U.S., many of the appalling experiences of Romanian women, doctors and health care providers will probably happen here. Maternal mortality due to pregnancy complications, which the CDC estimates is already three times higher for Black women than White women, will rise. Considering racial discrimination in access to pre- and postnatal health care, this disparity will increase in the absence of legal abortion.
Many states with near-total bans also deny rape and incest exceptions, a burden even the Ceaușescu regime did not inflict. Some antiabortion advocates are even seeking prohibitions of contraceptives, Plan B pills and medication abortions. States have moved to criminalize abortion providers, and sometimes, women, and to make doctors liable for prescribing abortion pills or for performing an abortion for a woman from a state where it is illegal. Yet, as history repeatedly illustrates, abortion prohibitions are never fully enforceable.
Among the most pernicious effects of the Dobbs decision is what it portends for the future of democracy in America. As in Ceaușescu’s Romania, enforcement depends on surveillance. Today’s technological means far exceed anything available during Ceaușescu’s rule. Menstrual trackers and web searches about obtaining an abortion leave digital traces that put women at risk. In Texas (SB 8) and Oklahoma (SB 1503), individuals are offered monetary incentives to inform on anyone they suspect of having had or having facilitated an abortion.
Romania teaches us that when individuals inform on each other, fear and distrust come to govern social interactions. When that happens, our already tattered social fabric will shred. Furthermore, when women lack the freedom to control their reproductive lives, they cannot participate in society as full and equal members nor be thriving partners and mothers to the next generation.
The Supreme Court has fanned the flames of radical societal transformation that threatens democracy. The U.S. ignores lessons from Romania at its peril. | 2022-09-15T10:46:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Romania exposes how abortion bans kill women and rip society apart - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/15/romania-exposes-how-abortion-bans-kill-women-rip-society-apart/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/15/romania-exposes-how-abortion-bans-kill-women-rip-society-apart/ |
With a prime-time Sunday game, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers gets a chance to redeem himself from Week 1 disappointment. (Abbie Parr/AP)
With a shorter preseason, the first few weeks of the NFL’s regular season continue to bring games that are a little wilder, with outcomes that can be a little more surprising.
The games of Week 1 brought the first tie of the season, the sight of the Super Bowl champions stubbing their toes right out of the gate, whatever that was at the end of the Steelers-Bengals game and the reigning MVP’s team losing a division game. Six games were decided by a winning score in the final two minutes of regulation or in overtime.
Here’s a look at the Week 2 matchups and some of the chances they offer for teams to straighten things out and avoid a season-wounding 0-2 start.
Chargers (1-0) at Chiefs (1-0), 8:15 p.m., Amazon Prime: Amazon lands the Justin Herbert-Patrick Mahomes show for its premiere, and while it didn’t need any additional hype, the teams’ Week 1 performances supplied plenty of it anyway. Mahomes was blitzed on more than half of his dropbacks for the first time in his career — and passed for four touchdowns against the Cardinals’ pressure. Herbert, in his season debut against the Raiders, passed for 279 yards and three touchdowns, hitting targets with pinpoint passes all over the field.
Dolphins (1-0) at Ravens (1-0), 1 p.m.: Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa might wish he could play New England again, because at 4-0 he’s the only quarterback to go undefeated in at least that many starts against the Patriots during Bill Belichick’s reign. Tyreek Hill’s Dolphins debut yielded eight receptions on mostly short passes for 94 yards, and he added a six-yard run. In the 2022 debut of his “Just Give Me a Big Contract Now” tour, Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson completed three deep touchdown passes against the Jets.
Jets (0-1) at Browns (1-0), 1 p.m.: Let’s let Peyton Manning dissect the Jets’ Week 1 strategy: “You can’t throw [the ball] 59 times in the opener,” he said on ESPN on Monday night. “You can’t do it. ... It’s guaranteed you’re not going to win.” Indeed, the Jets did not win as Joe Flacco, who will continue to fill in for the injured Zach Wilson, completed 37 of 59 passes for 307 yards and a touchdown in the loss to the Ravens. But beware: Jets Coach Robert Saleh says the team is “taking receipts on all the people who continually mock [us] and say that we’re not going to do anything.” Cleveland hadn’t won a season opener since George W. Bush’s first term as president but did so behind Nick Chubb, who gained 141 yards on 22 carries, and Kareem Hunt, who had 11 carries for 46 yards and a touchdown, spoiling Baker Mayfield’s hopes for revenge with Carolina.
Commanders (1-0) at Lions (0-1), 1 p.m.: Washington had lost 34 straight games when it committed at least three turnovers, but a fast start and strong finish mitigated its errors in the opener. Carson Wentz passed for four touchdowns, but two interceptions led to 10 points for the Jaguars before he led the Commanders on a 13-play touchdown drive that iced the game. Detroit’s D’Andre Swift had 15 carries for 144 yards and a touchdown to go with three receptions for 31 yards in a close loss to the Eagles.
Colts (0-0-1) at Jaguars (0-1), 1 p.m.: Jonathan Taylor is apparently still Jonathan Taylor, rushing for 161 yards — second only to the Giants’ Saquon Barkley in Week 1 — and a touchdown on 31 carries as he wore down Houston’s defense. Jacksonville’s bright spots? Urban Meyer is gone and linebacker Travon Walker is the first drafted player since T.J. Watt in 2021 to have a sack and an interception in the first game of his career.
Buccaneers (1-0) at Saints (1-0), 1 p.m.: It probably shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Todd Bowles, Tampa Bay’s former defensive coordinator and new head coach, would emphasize defense while letting quarterback Tom Brady and offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich do their thing. The Bucs held Dallas to 244 yards of offense and allowed third-down conversions on only 3 of 15 attempts Sunday night. New Orleans managed a Week 1 win with a stirring 16-point comeback over Atlanta in the fourth quarter, and it is 4-0 against Brady in regular season games since he joined the Bucs.
Panthers (0-1) at Giants (1-0), 1 p.m.: Mayfield struggled in the first half against the Browns but finished a reasonably respectable 16 for 27 for 235 yards, with a touchdown and an interception. New York won behind the rejuvenated running of Barkley, who (with 164 yards) had his second career game of 150 or more yards on fewer than 20 carries. Only Tennessee’s Derrick Henry, also with two, has had multiple such games over the past five seasons.
Patriots (0-1) at Steelers (1-0), 1 p.m.: Hoo-boy. A New England offense that struggled mightily in Week 1 cannot look forward to playing a Pittsburgh defense that forced Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow into five turnovers. Matt Patricia may not be the answer as the offensive play caller, and quarterback Mac Jones suffered a back injury last week but is expected to play. Pittsburgh’s defense will, however, be without defensive player of the year T.J. Watt, who has a pectoral injury.
Falcons (0-1) at Rams (0-1), 4:05 p.m.: Atlanta did it again, blowing a 26-10 lead in a 27-26 Week 1 loss to New Orleans. Since 2020, the Falcons have watched three fourth-quarter leads of 15 or more points evaporate in an eventual loss. For context, the other 31 teams have blown two such leads in that span. The Rams’ 21-point loss to the Bills in their opener was the second-largest all time for a defending Super Bowl champion, only one point under the Ravens’ 22-point loss in Peyton Manning’s seven-touchdown season-opening game in Denver in 2013.
Seahawks (1-0) at 49ers (0-1), 4:05 p.m.: Seattle quarterback Geno Smith passed for 195 yards Monday night and reminded everyone after beating Denver: “They wrote me off. I ain’t write back though.” It’s tough to blame San Francisco too much for its opening loss at Chicago. Who knew players would need snorkels to play in sodden Soldier Field? Trey Lance completed only 13 of 28 passes for 164 yards and took two sacks in the rain. It’s not time to call for Jimmy Garoppolo just yet, but this was not a great start for Lance.
Bengals (0-1) at Cowboys (0-1), 4:25 p.m.: Burrow was pressured 20 times without being blitzed by the Steelers in Cincinnati’s Week 1 loss. The Cowboys struggled on offense — and that was before Dak Prescott’s injury — in a game against Tampa Bay in which they scored their fewest points (three) at home since Week 16 of 2002. Now backup Cooper Rush takes over under center for the foreseeable future.
Texans (0-0-1) at Broncos (0-1), 4:25 p.m.: For much of Houston’s season-opening tie with the Colts, Texans quarterback Davis Mills’s completions were going for more than eight yards per attempt, and he was 6 for 10 for 121 yards and two touchdowns on passes of at least 10 air yards. Russell Wilson has changed teams, but the Broncos weren’t inclined to “Let Russ cook” Monday night as their opening game in Seattle wound down, and they emerged with a one-point loss. For what it’s worth, Coach Nathaniel Hackett now admits the Broncos should have gone for it on fourth and five rather than attempting (and missing) a 64-yard field goal.
NFL best bets for Week 2: Whoever is playing the Broncos
Cardinals (0-1) at Raiders (0-1), 4:25 p.m.: It wasn’t a good start for Arizona, which could not get a first down on four of its first eight possessions en route to a throttling at the hands of the Chiefs. Las Vegas reunited Fresno State teammates Davante Adams and Derek Carr, and Adams caught 10 of 17 targets for 141 yards against the Chargers and scored a touchdown on a fingertip catch.
Bears (1-0) at Packers (0-1), 8:20 p.m., NBC: For the second straight season, the Packers looked sloppy in their opener, but last year they went on to win 13 games anyway. Still, concern would ramp up to 11 if Green Bay were to fall to 0-2 in the NFC North.
Titans (0-1) at Bills (1-0), 7:15 p.m., ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes: The Titans’ defense came up short against the Giants, allowing New York to rally from a 13-0 halftime hole and win in the final moments. The Bills look like a team on a mission, and the Rams were the opponent that got in their way in the season opener.
Vikings (1-0) at Eagles (1-0), 8:30 p.m., ABC and ESPN Deportes: The No. 1 and No. 2 wide receivers after Week 1 meet up on “Monday Night Football.” Minnesota’s Justin Jefferson had a remarkable game against Green Bay, catching nine of Kirk Cousins’s 11 targeted passes for 184 yards and two touchdowns. Philadelphia’s A.J. Brown finished with 155 yards on 10 catches in his Eagles debut. | 2022-09-15T10:47:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL Week 2 schedule and five-minute guide - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/nfl-week-2-preview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/nfl-week-2-preview/ |
Thursday briefing: ‘Tentative’ deal to avoid a railroad strike; growing U.S. hunger; R. Kelly; Patagonia; couch potatoes; and more
The U.S. may avoid a potentially devastating railroad strike.
What to know: The White House reached a “tentative” deal between workers and rail companies this morning. A strike would have started tomorrow morning.
What’s in the deal? We don’t have details yet, but sick time and penalties for missing work for things like doctor’s visits were the major issues.
Why this matters: A strike would have huge economic consequences, affecting food and energy supplies, train travel and even drinking water.
The presidents of Russia and China are expected to meet today.
The details: This will be Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping’s first face-to-face meeting since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when they declared a “no-limits” partnership.
What else to know: The E.U. is searching for solutions to its energy crisis, part of the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
A growing number of families in the U.S. are going hungry.
Why? Food, rent and fuel prices have skyrocketed, and many pandemic-era safety-net programs have ended.
What’s being done? The U.S. is sending $2 billion to help food banks and schools buy food, officials announced yesterday. Both are struggling to keep up with demand and higher costs.
The CDC will start testing more wastewater for polio.
How we got here: The U.S. discovered its first case of polio in nearly a decade in July in New York. Since then, the virus has been detected in multiple wastewater samples.
What is polio? It’s deadly, can cause paralysis and can’t be cured. Vaccinations helped eliminate it here in 1979, and wastewater testing can help contain outbreaks.
R. Kelly was found guilty of child pornography and other sex crimes.
Yesterday’s verdict in Chicago was his second conviction since the #MeToo movement. He’ll probably spend much of the rest of his life in prison.
What to know: There have been decades of allegations that the 55-year-old former R&B singer physically and sexually abused women and minors.
Patagonia’s founder is giving away his $3 billion company.
It’s an unorthodox move: Yvon Chouinard, who has tried to make the outdoor-apparel company a model sustainable business, wants to do more to protect the planet.
What he’s doing: Patagonia’s ownership has been transferred to a trust and a nonprofit organization created to fight climate change. Profits that don’t go back into the business will go to the nonprofit, the company said.
Sitting all day can erase that workout.
There’s new research: Going long stretches without moving (like at a desk or in front of the TV) can affect your blood sugar, cholesterol and fat, even if you exercise regularly.
Why this matters: The science is clear that working out 30 minutes a day benefits our health, spirits and life span, but that’s not the full picture.
The takeaway: We need to move consistently throughout the day. So, take the stairs, go get the mail or do some cleaning.
And now … what to watch tonight: Thursday Night Football, which has moved to Amazon Prime, or these episodes of “The Crown,” which reveal more about Queen Elizabeth II. | 2022-09-15T10:47:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Thursday, Sept. 15 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/09/15/what-to-know-for-september-15/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/09/15/what-to-know-for-september-15/ |
Experiencing awe is associated with lower stress and inflammation levels, and a higher sense of meaning and connection, research shows
Not many people have held a human brain in their hands, but I am among a lucky few.
I remember the weight of it, both physical and metaphorical. The brain itself was probably three pounds of flesh — firm but pliable to the touch, and smelling strongly of preservative. I cupped it in both hands for fear of dropping it.
Holding the brain, I couldn’t help but think how this was a person in my hands, and their thoughts, feelings, hopes, fears and dreams — a whole life — were embodied in its folds and creases.
At the time, I could not name exactly what I was feeling — the giddiness, the slight lightheadedness, the catching of the breath — but looking back, I know I was feeling awe.
The benefits of seeking awe
As a neuroscientist-turned-science-journalist, one of my goals in writing this weekly column is to reveal the wonder and mystery of the brain, and why it matters in our everyday lives. And there’s no better place to start than to explore our ability to experience awe, and how seeking awe-inspiring experiences can improve our well-being.
Awe has two fundamental components, say researchers who study the emotion. It is a response to encountering something more vast, complex, or mind-blowing than we had conceived of either physically or conceptually. The experience also induces a change in how we see the world, producing “little earthquakes in the mind.”
To understand the concept of awe, it helps to know how the brain responds to what we perceive as mundane. Over the course of our lives, our brains learn and encode what “normal” is and predict what we think should happen next, based on our internal understanding of the world.
Awe might be our most undervalued emotion. Here’s how to help children find it.
Research has repeatedly found that experiencing something extraordinary may make us (and our worries) feel small. And not in a bad way.
“You know, by adulthood, we move through the world pretty immersed in our own concerns, our own minutiae of the day-to-day, our own responsibilities, and it can be hard to keep a sense of perspective about how that fits into the grand scheme of things,” Shiota said.
Experiencing more awe is associated with living healthier and more meaningful lives. A 2021 study reported that feeling more awe is correlated with reporting feeling lowered levels of daily stress. Intriguingly, people who feel more awe also tend to have lower levels of inflammatory cytokines.
Positive experiences of awe have also been found to increase feelings of well-being, life satisfaction and sense of meaning.
By becoming less attuned to ourselves and more attuned to the rest of the world, awe helps us re-contextualize ourselves, said Paul Piff, an associate professor of psychological science at the University of California at Irvine. “It helps make you feel like there’s more going on in the world than just you. And it gives you that sense of being a part of something much bigger than yourself,” he said.
Emerging research shows that experiencing awe may make us more curious, creative and compassionate people. And in turn, recent studies have found, awe-prone people may be more prone to being curious, and people who experience more awe also tend to be more creative.
How gazing into the Grand Canyon and other awe-inspiring moments can make you a more generous person
In different studies, when researchers induced awe in participants in laboratories, such as by showing panoramic clips of places on Earth, people behaved more prosocially, being more likely to help out, donate more money and volunteer more time for strangers.
Eliciting awe in the every day
You don’t need to visit the Grand Canyon, witness the birth of your child or hold a brain to experience awe. The awe-inspiring is all around you.
“Awe is related to this sense of oneness with humankind,” Piff said. “I think you can have your mind blown in more mundane, minuscule ways in even everyday settings.”
While more research needs to be done on what best elicits awe, many paths lead to awe.
Piff offers these suggestions:
Viewing something giant such as a mountain range or ocean.
Discovering something tiny such as the worlds seen through a microscope.
Contemplating a piece of music or (re)discovering a piece of art.
Taking “awe walks” through your neighborhood or in nature, which is a never-ending source of awe.
His favorite suggestion, though, is to just take a walk out the door. Once you step outside, pick a random number between 1 and 100. Take that number of steps, and look beneath your feet. If you look around to find something inspiring, odds are you will, Piff said. “And I bet you, when you’ve tried to do it, you will do it,” he said.
The awe-inspiring is also within you.
Not everyone will have the experience of holding a brain in their hands, but we are blessed with a brain conveniently held in our head.
Our brains are capable of astounding mental achievements — launching spaceships to planets millions of miles away, creating effective vaccines to combat pandemics — and coordinating our bodies to perform physical feats.
But your brain is performing equally wondrous functions right this instance, perhaps without you knowing.
Your brain is perceiving squiggles on a page and transforming them into meaning, while putting them into a broader context by remembering what came before. It is filtering out extraneous sounds around you, the touch of clothing on your skin. Because of your brain, you are simultaneously maintaining the muscle tone to keep whatever posture you are in and breathing unconsciously (though perhaps now no longer).
Your brain — 80 billion-some neurons relaying electrical and chemical signals across approximately 100 trillion connections — is sensing, feeling, deciding, evaluating, planning, adjusting and keeping you alive.
And in considering all these concurrent acts and duties, you are maybe even experiencing a twinge of awe, a feeling our brain allows us to experience — and is also a source of.
Do you have a question about your brain? Email BrainMatters@washpost.com and we may answer it in a future column. | 2022-09-15T10:47:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Your brain can experience awe and that is awesome - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/09/15/awe-mental-health/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/09/15/awe-mental-health/ |
Man killed co-worker’s family over professional dispute, police say
Texas investigators make arrest more than eight years after the family of four was massacred inside home
The home in the Houston suburbs where all four members of the Sun family were found massacred on Jan. 30, 2014. More than eight years later, investigators have arrested the man they say murdered them. (KHOU) (Courtesy KHOU)
A sheriff’s deputy doing a welfare check at the Sun family’s home in the Houston suburbs on Jan. 30, 2014, noticed that the rear kitchen door was open. Inside, he discovered the bodies of Maoye Sun; his wife, Mei Xie; and their two sons, 9-year-old Timothy and 7-year-old Titus.
“Turn yourself in because it’s only a matter of time before we will arrest you,” then-Sheriff Adrian Garcia said.
In interviews with investigators after his arrest, Lu denied being inside the Suns’ home.
The Suns’ massacre shocked the neighborhood in Cypress, described as “perfectly manicured” and an “idyllic slice of suburban life.” For months after the grim discovery, the family’s Toyota Corolla and Sienna minivan stayed clean, the Houston Chronicle reported. The homeowners’ association mowed their lawn.
And for months, if not years, the deaths baffled investigators, neighbors and the Houston area’s Chinese community, which helped raise money for the reward that the sheriff offered to the public, according to the Chronicle. In a vacuum, rumors swirled.
“There just isn’t a lot of information out there,” Sgt. Felipe Rivera of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office homicide squad told the Chronicle six months after the killings.
Now, more than 8½ years later, Rivera and company believe they have cracked the case. A professional dispute between Sun and Lu, both employees at a Houston oil and gas company, was at the root of the killings, investigator Timothy Hayes said in a sworn affidavit for Lu’s arrest. During an interview, Lu told an FBI agent that he wanted to transfer to the research and development department at Cameron International and asked Sun to recommend him for a position there, according to the affidavit. When Lu heard that Sun hadn’t done so, he allegedly called him at work in the spring of 2013 to confront him. Sun assured him that he’d pushed for the transfer.
But at work the next day, Lu told the agent, he was “treated differently” by his co-workers, leading him to think that Sun had disparaged him and that “may have been the reason he did not get the promotion,” the affidavit states.
Lu’s wife would later tell investigators that her husband and Sun had a disagreement about work: Lu was trying to get ahead at Cameron, but Sun “did not agree with the promotion,” according to the affidavit.
An employee at Full Armor Firearms confirmed to the FBI agent that Lu bought a Glock 9mm handgun on Jan. 23, along with 50 rounds of ammunition, the affidavit states. An employee there said Lu returned the Glock on Feb. 4 without a barrel, citing his wife’s disapproval.
His wife would later contradict him, telling law enforcement during an interview that she had never taken the barrel and learned he’d bought a gun only after the FBI came to talk with him, the affidavit states.
Investigators also found physical evidence that connected Lu to the killings and contradicted what he told investigators, according to the affidavit. Analysts said they found Lu’s DNA on Mei Xie’s gray and black Coach purse that police found at the crime scene, even though he allegedly told investigators he’d never been to Maoye Sun’s house, didn’t even know where he lived and had never met his wife or children.
Analysts also determined that the bullet taken from 7-year-old Titus Sun’s body and two bullets recovered from bedrooms at the Suns’ house have “design features that are physically consistent with bullets” Lu purchased in January 2014, Hayes said in the affidavit.
The bullet from Titus Sun’s body was “identified as having been manufactured on the same machine” as the ammunition Lu had purchased at Full Armor, Hayes added.
Both Timothy and his younger brother, Titus, were in the local Cub Scout pack, the Chronicle reported. They also swam, played youth soccer and took lessons in karate and piano, part of what one neighbor said was an effort by their mother to expose her sons to both American culture and their Chinese heritage.
The boys’ Cub Scout packmaster and family neighbor Stephen Knight told the Chronicle six months after the massacre that people were still rattled by the “highly intentional” killings and looking for answers.
“Everybody is looking for closure,” he said, his voice catching, “but it’s difficult realizing closure may never come.” | 2022-09-15T11:41:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Feng Lu arrested, charged in 2014 killings of Houston-area family - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/15/feng-lu-arrested-family-killed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/15/feng-lu-arrested-family-killed/ |
Maryland man arrested in connection with August homicide
Prince George's County police officers respond to a crime. (Katie Mettler/TWP)
Authorities said a man has been arrested and charged in connection with the fatal shooting of a man with whom he got into a dispute late last month in Prince George’s County.
Rudis Alfaro, 29, of Laurel was charged Wednesday in the slaying of Irvin Paredes, 30, of the Langley Park area. Prince George’s County police said the homicide happened about 9:15 p.m. Aug. 24. Officers were called to the 2300 block of University Boulevard near Riggs Road near the Hyattsville area.
When officers arrived, they found Paredes in a parking lot with gunshot wounds, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. An initial investigation found that the two men knew each other and that Alfaro shot Paredes during a dispute, police said.
Alfaro was charged with first- and second-degree murder and for other alleged offenses. He is being held without bond, police said. | 2022-09-15T12:03:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man arrested and charged in fatal shooting in Prince George's County - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/rudis-alfaro-arrested-charged-prince-georges-county/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/rudis-alfaro-arrested-charged-prince-georges-county/ |
Two teenagers arrested and charged in slaying in Maryland
Two teenagers have been arrested and charged in the fatal shooting of a 27-year-old man in Beltsville.
Prince George’s County police said Wednesday that Anderson Blanco-Diaz, 19, of Greenbelt and a 17-year-old from Adelphi have been charged in connection with the fatal shooting of Antoine Dorsey, 27, of Greenbelt.
The slaying happened July 5 near Beaver Dam and Biocontrol roads in the Beltsville area. Police were called there for a report of a shooting, and when they arrived, they found Dorsey in the road with a gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital, where he died.
Police said an initial investigation found that the assailants and victim knew one another. Detectives are still trying to determine a motive, officials said.
Both teens have been charged with first- and second-degree murder and other offenses. The juvenile, police said, was charged as an adult. His name was not released. Both are in jail and being held without bond. It was not immediately known if they had lawyers. | 2022-09-15T12:03:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Two teens arrested in a fatal shooting in Beltsville - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/teens-arrested-fatal-shooting-beltsville/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/teens-arrested-fatal-shooting-beltsville/ |
Jimbo Fisher’s Texas A&M teams haven’t exactly been scoring dynamos against top competition in September. (David J. Phillip/AP)
It was another 2-2 week for this column, as Alabama and Wisconsin failed to cover as favorites (the Badgers lost outright despite dominating the stat sheet) while my underdog pick Kentucky defeated Florida and the North Carolina-Georgia State game came in under the total. I’m 4-4 on the season on these picks, which isn’t great. Hopefully we can start a winning trend in Week 3.
All spreads and totals were taken Wednesday from the consensus odds at VegasInsider.com unless noted. All times Eastern on Saturday.
Miami-Texas A&M under 45 points, 9 p.m., ESPN
The No. 24 Aggies are coming off a game in which they managed all of 14 points — they needed Devon Achane’s 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to reach that — and 180 total yards against an Appalachian State team that previously had given up 63 points and 567 yards to North Carolina. Coach Jimbo Fisher’s play-calling and his insistence on starting the ineffective Haynes King at quarterback have become giant question marks. But on the flip side, Texas A&M held the Mountaineers to only 3.8 yards per play one week after they averaged eight yards per play against the Tar Heels. The No. 13 Hurricanes are coming off a 30-7 win over Southern Mississippi in which they didn’t seem particularly explosive: They had clock-chewing scoring drives of 16, 10, 13 and 12 plays, and the Golden Eagles — whom nobody is going to confuse for the 1985 Chicago Bears — sacked Hurricanes quarterback Tyler Van Dyke four times and intercepted him once. Since Fisher took over in 2018, Texas A&M has averaged 19 points in nine September games against Power Five teams (in games from October through January, the Aggies have averaged 32.2 points in such games). The Aggies haven’t had a September game go over the total since 2019, and I say that continues here.
Mississippi (-16.5) at Georgia Tech, 3:30 p.m., ABC
I’m going to continue to fade the Yellow Jackets until they give me reason not to (they’re 0-2 against the spread this season). Georgia Tech allowed Western Carolina of the Football Championship Subdivision to score touchdowns on its first two possessions last weekend before forcing four turnovers and pulling away for a 35-17 win. Surprisingly for a Lane Kiffin-coached team, the Rebels have been getting it done with defense, allowing only 13 points through two games. And while beating Central Arkansas and Troy is to be expected, the Trojans rate out higher than Georgia Tech in terms of the SP+ efficiency metric. While Kiffin is still trying to make up his mind about whether Luke Altmyer or Jaxson Dart should be his starting quarterback, the Rebels’ running backs have been carrying the offensive load. Quinshon Judkins and Zach Evans are both averaging nearly 100 rushing yards per game and have combined to average nearly seven yards per carry, and the Yellow Jackets’ defense ranks 125th in rushing success rate. I predicted before the season that Georgia Tech would be one of the worst Power Five teams in the country, and that continues Saturday.
Fresno State (+13.5) at USC, 10:30 p.m., Fox
The Trojans have started the Lincoln Riley era with two wins, and their passing game is humming along nicely (USC is fourth nationally in passing success rate and 15th in passing explosiveness). But the Trojans also have forced eight turnovers over two games, an unsustainable pace that has masked some issues, particularly when their opponents aren’t turning over the ball and giving them a short field. USC is allowing 183.5 rushing yards per game (106th in the country) and ranks 119th nationally in rushing success rate allowed and 121st in rushing explosiveness allowed. Fresno State running back Jordan Mims is averaging nearly 100 rushing yards per game and is coming off a 122-yard, two-touchdown effort against Oregon State; change-of-pace back Malik Sherrod is averaging 7.7 yards per carry; and the Bulldogs rank 12th nationally in rushing success rate. The Bulldogs also have yet to commit a turnover this season. The SP+ efficiency metric predicts this to be around a seven-point game, another reason to like the underdog here.
Kansas State-Tulane under 47 points, 3 p.m., ESPN Plus
This total already is pretty low, which isn’t surprising considering that the Wildcats have run the ball 65.3 percent of the time (eighth in the country) and the Green Wave has run it 56.4 percent of the time (38th). Not only that, but Kansas State averages 30.5 seconds per play (only five teams have operated at a slower pace this season) and Tulane averages 26.3 seconds (tied for 76th). The Wildcats scored on a 75-yard touchdown run on the season’s first play from scrimmage against South Dakota on Sept. 3, but four of the seven touchdown drives that followed for Kansas State have taken at least 10 plays. Tulane’s rush defense has been strong, ranking fourth nationally in success rate and 18th in rushing explosiveness allowed, but its offensive rushing attack has been fairly pedestrian despite its preference to run: The Green Wave ranks just 71st in rushing success rate and 81st in rushing explosiveness after wins over FCS Alcorn State and perennially dismal Massachusetts, and Kansas State is coming off a game in which it gave up just 2.7 yards per carry against Missouri. Both defenses rank in the top 10 nationally in predicted points added per rushing play, with Kansas State third and Tulane seventh. Throw in some possibly breezy conditions that could limit the passing attacks, and we can expect a fast-moving clock and a low-total final score here. | 2022-09-15T12:16:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | College football pick: In Texas A&M vs. Miami, take the under - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/best-bets-college-football-this-week/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/best-bets-college-football-this-week/ |
This season, 12 teams will be vying for the World Series trophy. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
For the first time in a non-pandemic season since 2012, Major League Baseball has a new postseason format. As October approaches, here’s a reminder of how the playoffs will look this year and moving forward.
More teams
Each league will have six playoff teams — three division winners and three wild-card teams — up from five in previous years.
A new format
The top two division winners in each league will receive byes into the division series as the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds. The remaining division winner in each league will be the No. 3 seed and play the wild-card team with the worst record (the No. 6 seed) in a three-game series. The remaining wild-card teams — the Nos. 4 and 5 seeds in each league — will face each other in another best-of-three first-round series.
All first-round games will be hosted by the higher-seeded teams (i.e., the Nos. 3 and 4 seeds).
After the opening series, the No. 1 seed in each league will face the winner of the series between the Nos. 4 and 5 seeds, while the No. 2 seed will face the winner of the series between the Nos. 3 and 6 seeds. There is no reseeding for the division series.
The division series remain best-of-five utilizing a 2-2-1 format, with the higher seed getting home-field advantage. The championship series and the World Series are still best-of-seven affairs, with a 2-3-2 format.
A new tiebreaker
Previously, teams vying for division titles or wild-card spots that finished with identical records broke their deadlocks via a one-game tiebreaker. Beginning this year, the one-game tiebreakers have been eliminated so that the playoffs can begin promptly after the regular season ends and so that teams that receive first-round byes do not have excessive breaks. Instead, ties will be broken using a mathematical system.
The tiebreakers, in order:
1. Head-to-head record
In the case of a two-team tie, the winner of the season series wins the tiebreaker. In the case of a tie involving more than two teams, the team with the best combined winning percentage against the other teams wins the tiebreaker.
2. Intradivision record
If two teams split the head-to-head season series, the team with the better record within their division would win the tiebreaker, even if the two teams are not in the same division (in the case of a tie for a wild-card spot).
3. Interdivision record
If the first two tiebreakers fail to solve the deadlock, the team with the better record against teams within their league but outside their division wins the tiebreaker.
4. Last half of intraleague games
If head-to-head, intradivision record and interdivision record fail to break the tie, then the team with the best last-half record against teams within their league wins the tiebreaker. This involves records over the season’s mathematical final half, not from after the all-star break.
5. Last half of intraleague games plus one
Should it come to this tiebreaker, the team with the better intraleague record over the mathematical last half of the season plus the final game of the first half of the season is the winner. If that also results in a tie, then the results of the first half’s previous intraleague games are used, and the process is repeated from there until the tie is broken.
AL/NL first-round series (best of three): Oct. 7-Oct. 9.
NLDS (best of five): Oct. 11, 12, 14, with remaining games Oct. 15-16 if necessary.
ALDS (best of five): Oct. 11, 13, 15, with remaining games Oct. 16-17 if necessary.
NLCS (best of seven): Oct. 18, 19, 21, 22, with remaining games Oct. 23-25 if necessary.
ALCS (best of seven): Oct. 19, 20, 22, 23, with remaining games Oct. 24-26 if necessary.
World Series (best of seven): Oct. 28, 29, 31, Nov. 1, with remaining games Nov. 2, 4 and 5 if necessary. | 2022-09-15T12:16:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How do the MLB playoffs work? The new format, explained - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/mlb-playoffs-2022-format/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/mlb-playoffs-2022-format/ |
The impending quick reversal is mostly due to the recent surge in mortgage rates
Perspective by Mark Zandi
Housing prices are poised to correct. But even as they drift downward, they are highly unlikely to plummet. (Michelle Kondrich/Illustration for The Washington Post)
House prices have been on a tear the past decade. Since hitting bottom in the wake of the financial crisis and the housing bust in 2008-2009, prices have more than doubled nationally. But this long run of robust price gains is ending. Prices are set to fall throughout much of the country. Most places will experience only modest declines over the next couple of years, but the places where prices surged in the good times will suffer bigger declines in the tough times ahead.
This impending quick reversal in house prices is mostly due to the recent surge in mortgage rates. The rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage — the loan most home buyers get — has surged from record lows well below 3 percent a year ago to around 6 percent today. Rock-bottom rates propelled housing demand, and because there is severely limited housing supply, prices rocketed higher. Now with rates up and house prices still high, housing affordability and housing demand are getting hammered.
Most potential first-time home buyers are locked out of the market. For a sense of their affordability predicament, consider a household earning the median income of about $70,000 — half of households earn more and the other half less — and hoping to purchase a median- priced existing home of a little above $400,000. And let’s assume they can come up with a 20 percent down payment, itself a massive challenge given that it comes to around $80,000. At the 6 percent mortgage rate, this household’s monthly payment will be close to $1,900. A year ago, with rates at record lows, that monthly payment was $1,300. And this doesn’t include homeowners’ insurance and property taxes, which are also rising quickly in most places.
Homeowners who were trading up to more desirable homes when rates were low are now effectively locked into their current home. Most homeowners have refinanced their mortgages over the years when rates dropped, and the typical homeowner now has a mortgage with about a low 3.5 percent rate. If she wants to sell her current home and get a new one, she will also need to give up her existing mortgage and get a new one at 6 percent. Few homeowners can afford it.
Also hitting housing demand hard is the sudden caution among housing investors. Investors who purchase homes to rent them out have become much bigger players in the housing market since they came on the scene in the wake of the financial crisis. Back then, they mostly bought homes in foreclosure at distressed prices. More recently, they were buying all kinds of homes. Indeed, nearly one-fifth of home sales in the second quarter of this year went to investors. In the Southeast and Mountain West where they are more prevalent, investors accounted for closer to one-third of home sales.
But housing investors are opportunistic, and they now sense an opportunity with the surge in mortgage rates, the collapse in affordability and what they rightly figure will soon be lower house prices. Why buy now when prices are high and very likely to decline? They’ve moved to the sidelines in recent weeks and stopped buying. They aren’t selling, either. Their buy-to-rent business model is highly successful and here to stay. So, for now they are waiting for prices to go lower before they start buying again.
The pandemic and rapid adoption of remote work, which also contributed to the surge in house prices, now will contribute to house price declines. City dwellers from the big urban areas of the Northeast Corridor fled their homes for more space in the suburbs, exurbs and cities mostly in the South, such as Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Orlando and Tampa. West Coast big-city dwellers have moved mostly to the Mountain West, places including Boise, Idaho, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Salt Lake City. Because they are used to high house prices, they’ve been willing to pay outsize prices for homes in the lower-priced parts of these less-urbanized areas. These movements sent house prices in such places skyward. However, with the pandemic fading and many employers requiring workers to come back for at least some in-person time, housing demand and house prices in these markets are set to return to earth.
Yes, house prices are poised to correct. But they are highly unlikely to crash. While single-digit nationwide peak-to-trough price declines seem inevitable, declines of over 20 percent — like we suffered in the housing crash over a decade ago — seem improbable. A key difference is the current shortage of homes. The percent of homes for sale that are vacant is as low as it has ever been, and the vacancy rate for homes for rent is close to its lowest. Home builders have struggled to keep up with the households that formed since the financial crisis, most recently because of the disruptions to supply chains for building materials and appliances. A decade ago, housing was vastly overbuilt, and the housing vacancy rate was at a record high. The current shortage of homes puts a figurative floor under house prices.
Another big difference now is the prudence of mortgage lenders. Home buyers who took on loans in recent years have good credit scores and are signing plain-vanilla 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, not the subprime two-year adjustable-rate mortgages that were ubiquitous before the financial crisis. When rates rose back then, homeowners with already shaky finances had to come up with more cash to make higher mortgage payments. Millions couldn’t, resulting in a flood of mortgage defaults, foreclosures and distressed sales. All those foreclosed homes sold at big price discounts, and house prices crashed. None of this will happen today. Regulatory changes in the wake of the crash made risky loans to risky borrowers no longer viable for lenders.
It is also comforting that the investors who have stepped to the sidelines and stopped purchasing homes will resume buying again long before prices crash. Institutional investors — large corporations that raise funds from global investors to buy and rent homes — have become big players in the housing market and have plenty of cash to deploy. They also have good reason to put their money to work before too long, since rents are rising quickly and will continue doing so as long as mortgage rates remain high and potential first-time home buyers have no option but to remain renters. These big investors are sure to become bigger owners of single-family homes, which poses a challenge to increasing homeownership in coming years. But the near-term benefit will be a support to house prices.
While nationwide house prices are expected to experience only a modest correction, some parts of the country won’t be so fortunate. Places where prices have risen the most in recent years, like the Southeast and Mountain West, are expected to suffer the biggest declines. Not only is affordability more of a problem in these areas given the higher prices and higher rates, but housing flippers also have often shown up. These speculators buy and quickly sell homes to make a fast buck. Active flippers juice-up house prices and inflate housing bubbles, but they burst bubbles and cause big price declines when they get wrung out. Flippers are now fleeing, and bubbles are bursting in some markets in Arizona, the Carolinas, Idaho, Georgia, Florida and Nevada.
The coming correction in house prices could thus be therapeutic in some respects. Forcing flippers out of the housing market before they infect more places is a plus. And the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates in an effort to cool off the economy and quell painfully high inflation. Housing is the most rate-sensitive part of the economy, so fewer home sales and a house-price correction is a small, necessary price to pay to rein in inflation. Of course, risks are uncomfortably high that the Fed will misjudge its rate hikes and precipitate a recession and a more serious pullback in house prices. If so, the difference between a house price correction and crash may well be a distinction without a meaning.
Mark Zandi is chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. | 2022-09-15T12:17:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Home prices are expected to fall but not crash - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/15/housing-prices-dropping/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/15/housing-prices-dropping/ |
If the consumer price index report for August that showed inflation remains much hotter than forecast was not enough of a shocker, then talk that the Federal Reserve needs to raise interest rates in even bigger chunks starting with its meeting next week surely is.
The idea that the central bank must lift its target for the overnight rate between banks by 100 basis points — something it hasn’t done since the 1980s — after increasing it by 75 basis points in both June and July is not some fringe notion. Money market traders are pricing in a not insignificant 33% chance that it will happen. The thinking is that the Fed needs to get radical if it truly wants to get control of inflation, which rose 8.3% in August from a year earlier.
There are two primary reasons an increase of such magnitude would be a bad idea. The first and most obvious is that it would signal the Fed is in panic mode, which is not a good look for any central bank, let alone the most important one in the world. Risk premiums might blow out to compensate traders for the heightened risk of uncertainty around monetary policy. That would upend credit markets, the lifeblood of the financial system. This is a Fed that has long sought to ensure the smooth functioning of financial markets by preparing them for what’s coming, when it’s coming and by how much well in advance. That’s what forward guidance is all about.
And this Fed hasn’t prepared the market for anything like a full percentage-point increase in the target federal funds rate, which would push the upper bound to 3.50% from 2.50%. The best move for Chair Jerome Powell and his fellow policy makers would be to reassure the market that the central bank understands the challenge and is acting deliberately. The rates strategists at BMO Capital Markets, regularly ranked as the best in the business in Institutional Investor’s widely followed annual surveys, agree. Here’s how they put it in a note to clients on Wednesday:
Some pundits have made the case for 100 (basis points) next week, noting that it would enhance Fed credibility. It would ostensibly help, but simultaneously indicate that the Fed is still chasing inflation as opposed to confidently addressing its persistence with monetary policy. ‘No need to panic, nothing to see here’ is undoubtedly the message policymakers will seek to communicate to the market and 100 (basis points) would be counterproductive in this regard.
Let’s not forget that the CPI report is just one data point, and a lagging one at that. The Fed puts a tremendous amount of weight on inflation expectations. The worry is that if expectations for high inflation become embedded among consumers, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and much harder to tame. But the opposite is happening. Consumer expectations for inflation over the coming years declined sharply in the latest survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which was released this week. Expectations for inflation three years ahead fell to 2.8% in August from 3.2% the previous month and 3.6% in June. It’s a similar story in the derivatives market, where the outlook based on swap rates has dropped from around 6% in June to less than 3%.
The second reason the Fed might not want to get too aggressive is that it would perhaps make financing too expensive for real estate developers when a lack of supply is causing rents to soar. Shelter costs, which posted their biggest monthly gain since 1991, were a big factor in pushing up core CPI by 0.6% in August from July, double the forecast. The August increase brought shelter inflation over the last 12 months to 6.3%, the highest over any such stretch since 1986, according to Bloomberg News’s Matthew Boesler. Shelter costs are the largest component of CPI, accounting for about a third of the measure.
There are a few reasons rents are rising so fast. One is that the high cost of single-family housing has priced many potential homebuyers out of the market and kept them renting. Apartment List’s recently released September National Rent Report showed vacancy rates are a tight 5.1%, below the pre-Covid range of 6% to 7%. Another reason is that supply has been constrained relative to demand and population growth for many years, largely because of tighter lending standards used by banks coming out of the financial crisis. To be sure, some relief is on the way. Government data show 862,000 multifamily units are under construction, the most since since the early 1970s. So now would not be the time to make it harder for developers to deliver the housing that so many consumers need.
Fed policy makers are surely aware that raising rates in even bigger increments would send the message that the only way they can defeat inflation is by pushing the economy into a recession — even if that’s not their intention. In such a scenario, though, a recession would likely become a self-fulfilling prophecy as businesses fire workers and delay new investment. Developers might stop work on new projects. Renters would stay put in their current dwellings, exacerbating the supply crisis and keeping shelter costs elevated.
There’s no doubt monetary policy needs to be tighter if the Fed wants to get inflation back under control. But a panicky approach now is not worth the potential risks. | 2022-09-15T12:17:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Case Against a Mega 1% Federal Reserve Rate Increase - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-case-against-a-mega-1percent-federal-reserve-rate-increase/2022/09/15/32b92f7a-34e2-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-case-against-a-mega-1percent-federal-reserve-rate-increase/2022/09/15/32b92f7a-34e2-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
Top young NFL quarterbacks raise the excitement level this season
Mahomes, Burrow and Jackson are among pro football’s rising stars.
At only 26 years old, the Kansas City Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes (15) has played in two Super Bowls and won one. He's one of the top young quarterbacks in the National Football League. (Matt York/AP) | 2022-09-15T12:17:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Top young NFL quarterbacks bring excitement to 2022 season - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/09/15/top-young-nfl-quarterbacks-raise-excitement-level-this-season/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/09/15/top-young-nfl-quarterbacks-raise-excitement-level-this-season/ |
Their love story wasn’t divine, but it was human
King Charlies III, then the Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker Bowles enjoy a lighter moment during the tug of war at the 2004 Mey Games in Caithness, Scotland. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
If there are any lingering doubts as to King Charles III’s suitability for the throne, they might be traceable to a 1981 television interview celebrating his engagement to Diana Spencer.
A journalist asked if the couple were in love. “Of course,” replied a visibly affronted Diana, 19, while — oh God — her brand-new fiance smirked toothily at the camera. “Whatever ‘in love’ means,” he said. This was the answer of a cad, or maybe of a freshman drowning in the bong water of his Philosophy 101 class, except that Charles was, at the time, 32 years old.
More importantly, this was the not-very-bright rumination of someone you could hardly trust to be a pillar of international diplomacy, not to mention interpersonal tact. What kind of newly engaged man doesn’t realize that there is only one acceptable answer to, Do you love your fiancee? A feckless prince gives this answer. A savvy sovereign does not, and this is the moment some royal watchers began wondering whether the crown should just skip a generation.
The issue, of course, was that Charles knew what it meant to be in love, he just happened to feel it for a different person: a no-frills horse lover named Camilla Parker Bowles, whom he first met at a polo match in the 1970s and who allegedly reeled him in with this banger of a line: “My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather. I feel we have something in common.”
But she, too, married someone else, and in doing so launched a love triangle from hell.
Shortly before Diana’s wedding to Charles, the princess-to-be found engraved jewelry he’d purchased for Camilla; years later the prince was caught in a recorded phone call fantasizing about being reincarnated as one of Camilla’s tampons. “There were three of us in the marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” Diana once said in an interview. Even after their divorce in 1996, and Diana’s heartbreaking death in 1997, and Charles’s lengthy wait to formalize his relationship with Camilla — the couple didn’t marry until 2005 — Charles’s new wife would always be seen as his old mistress.
When Queen Elizabeth II died last week and Charles ascended to the throne, the development showed how little some of us had moved beyond the love triangle. “To all the sidechicks: Just Believe,” one popular meme read in all-caps lettering below a slightly sinister-looking picture of Camilla wearing a tiara.
Perspective: Queen Elizabeth II did her job
The idea was that she had bided her time, laid in wait, stuck it out, and now she had the title (“queen consort”) and the guy, even if the guy was some drip whose idea of sexy talk involved feminine hygiene products. Britain is only entangled in this particular royal bloodline because eight decades ago King Edward VII abdicated the throne. He wanted to marry a divorced American, and when forced to choose between the crown and love he chose love. And now here we have King Charles III, a divorced man who married a divorced woman after their decades-long affair, and somehow he and his queen got to choose it all.
One imagines that public opinion of Camilla might have been different if Diana had lived — if she too had been given the chance to remarry, if she’d settled into a middle-aged life of fundraising galas or guest-judging appearances on “Britain’s Got Talent.” Instead she is forever 36, winsome and deeply, deeply wronged.
I’d just entered high school when Diana died. I woke after a friend’s birthday sleepover to the news. The rest of the morning devolved into six or seven dramatic teenage girls glued to the television, wondering whether Prince William would be okay and whether he needed six or seven dramatic teenage girls to comfort him. The whole thing was Charles’s fault — we knew it even then. Charles and Camilla, breaking the heart of the people’s princess, leaving her to fend for herself against the salivating paparazzi.
Perspective: RIP Prince Philip, original Wife Guy (from 2021)
After Elizabeth died, I went back and watched some old footage of Diana and Charles, including that original 1981 interview television interview, which was taped even before I was born. It was stunning to realize that Charles — the cunning older man in my recollection of events — was, in that interview, younger than I am now.
“Whatever ‘in love’ means,” he’d said. In retrospect, maybe this youngish man was still figuring it out. He was old enough to know better, sure, but plenty of 32-year-olds don’t know better.
And now, well — now he’s unmistakably aged. Saggy-eyed, hair thinning and fully white. The crown didn’t skip a generation, but at 73 Charles is already older than most monarchs ever were.
The power of the British monarchy is not in the way it governs — for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t — but in its stories. What mythology can it give us? What archetypes, what happily-ever-afters? With his romantic life, Charles III always seemed like he’d botched his only real duty: to give us a damn fairy tale.
But as I’ve watched him this week, him and Camilla, addressing Parliament and greeting well-wishers and arriving at palaces, his whole narrative has started to take a different kind of shape.
Picture it as a Nancy Meyers movie. Picture something with fabulous scenery and post-menopausal ennui. A famous, wealthy boy meets dowdy, no-frills girl. When he leaves to join the Navy she marries someone else, and so eventually he does too — someone younger and prettier, and by all traditional measures a better match.
Years pass: children, divorces, death. Finally, with the blessings of his equally wealthy and famous sons, the famous, wealthy man reconnects with the dowdy girl and asks her to marry him. He’d never stopped loving her, you see. No matter how much grief or embarrassment it caused him, or how much he was supposed to instead want the pretty, young princess that the world wanted him to want. He’d pined after dowdy girl for decades.
Who knows whether King Charles III will be a “good king,” whatever that means. As a young husband, he was certainly no prince. But if Nancy Meyers made this movie, you’d watch it. In the world of modern fairy tales you’d know which love story you were supposed to root for. | 2022-09-15T12:17:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | King Charles III and Camilla: Their love story was all too human - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/15/king-charles-queen-consort-camilla/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/15/king-charles-queen-consort-camilla/ |
By Jessica M. Goldstein
Ben is 26 and works in trade policy. He is seeking a woman who is “nerdy, social and outdoorsy.” Paige is 24 and a barista. She is looking for someone who is creative and has “their own unique perspectives on the world.” (Daniele Seiss)
When Paige, 24, graduated from college in 2020, she worked for a while at a local coffee shop. Then she got a corporate job at an international development agency. Work was remote and “kind of miserable,” she explained. “I really missed the human interaction and creative aspects of working in a coffee shop.” So she quit and went back to barista-ing.
But in D.C., she finds, “people are like, ‘You’re a barista with a degree in international development?’ And I’m like, ‘I love this! This is what I want to be doing!’ ”
Paige, who grew up in the area, laments that the apps “have really given us, as a generation, this thing to hide behind,” preventing people from the obvious meet-cute opportunity her job presents. (She “definitely thought being the cute barista” would help her meet contenders, but so far no luck.) She applied to Date Lab with the encouragement of her roommate, over a bottle of wine.
We matched her with Ben, 26, who works in trade policy and is in D.C. for the foreseeable future after bopping back and forth between Washington and his hometown in Oregon during the pandemic. He’s gone on “a few Hinge dates here and there, but not any great ones.” He joined a running group, hoping to meet people, but hasn’t found someone he feels compatible with yet. He applied to Date Lab on a whim.
“I feel like I’m in a relatively stable place,” he said, adding that he was both “open to anything” and hopeful about finding a “serious relationship. … It just seems like it’s not a bad time for it.” His description of what he is looking for was very open-ended: “Really just somebody that I enjoy spending time with.” After much prompting, he added that he would like a partner who is “open-minded,” “outdoorsy” and “interested in learning new things.”
Paige is seeking a “good listener” who is “empathetic” and ideally shares her passion for art and culture. Also: No consultants — “I know everyone jokes about it, but I do feel like they’re the people who are least likely to be able to make any sort of commitment.” And she would like something serious. “I have pursued serious relationships, but I’ve been burned by those in the past.” She was excited to be matched but also intent on keeping her expectations low.
For the date, Ben enlisted a friend to help him pick an outfit, but wound up with what he wears on every single date: “a short-sleeve button-down shirt, jeans and boots.” He copped to being “kind of stressed out” about going into the date “completely blind.” Paige wasn’t super nervous. Plus, she was a fan of the restaurant we picked: Farmers Fishers Bakers. She tried on outfits with her roommate and selected a dress.
Paige Ubered to the restaurant, arriving right on time. Her first reaction to Ben: “Holy s---, this guy is really tall.” (Paige is 5-foot-4; standing next to 6-6 Ben she had to have her “head craned all the way back.”) Ben, who’d gotten there 10 minutes early, was pleasantly surprised by Paige. “She was a lot prettier than I was expecting!”
Over dinner, they talked about their different backgrounds — Ben’s from a cattle-ranching family — and their music tastes, “which align pretty well,” according to Paige. She’s a “huge Dolly Parton fan,” she said, “and he really enjoys Bob Dylan and Creedence Clearwater Revival.” Ben talked about the Peace Corps; Paige, who’d traveled a lot internationally, was intrigued. As they talked, Ben said, “I got a lot less stressed … seeing that she doesn’t bite.” He was charmed to discover she drives “a 2002 Buick that’s missing a window and doesn’t have a functioning air conditioner” and that they both like eating at Waffle House.
Paige “definitely wanted it to be a bit flirtier than it was,” she said. “I felt like there were times that I threw out a line and he didn’t catch it.” She added, “I felt like there was no point in the night where he felt comfortable with me, and that was kind of hard.”
After a three-hour dinner, they walked around the Georgetown waterfront and exchanged phone numbers. As they were about to part ways, Ben asked if he could kiss her. She said yes. Paige was surprised by the request; she hadn’t felt like the date was leading to a kiss. “Sparks-wise, I’m not sure they were there.”
“I’d definitely like to see her again,” Ben said. “I had a great time.”
“We’ll see what happens,” said Paige.
Ben: 5 [out of 5].
Paige: 3.
There was no second date.
Jessica M. Goldstein is a regular contributor to The Post’s Style section. | 2022-09-15T12:17:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Date Lab: She had to crane her neck to get a good look at him - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/09/15/date-lab-she-had-crane-her-neck-get-good-look-him/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/09/15/date-lab-she-had-crane-her-neck-get-good-look-him/ |
Are the aches in your kid’s legs ‘growing pains’?
Hallie Palladino’s 9-year-old-daughter had complained on and off about leg pain, which her parents treated with massage and stretching. But then came a period in the spring when the pain intensified so much that the then-second-grader’s school grew concerned. An X-ray at urgent care didn’t reveal any problems. But, one night before bed, Palladino’s daughter told her it was too painful for her to stand or walk.
"We agreed it would be wise to take her to the ER," Palladino said.
She brought her daughter to Lurie’s Children’s Hospital of Chicago, where the child was admitted for a couple of days and had a thorough examination that included a full-body scan. No medical problems were detected, and the physicians told Palladino that the aches in her daughter’s legs were likely just intense growing pains. After two days off her feet in the hospital, the pain subsided, and it hasn’t returned.
“They took my daughter’s pain incredibly seriously, and they made sure to rule out all the very serious stuff,” Palladino said. “They never made us feel like it was an overreaction.”
Growing pains are common: A 2004 survey of children ages 4 to 6 in South Australia estimated that 37 percent of them were affected. But according to a recent study published in the journal Pediatrics, there is confusion about what is meant by the phrase “growing pains,” and no consensus about their cause — in fact, growth might not even be involved at all. Therefore, the study suggests that doctors and researchers avoid using the term.
In an effort to establish agreement about what the condition entails, the authors of the Pediatrics paper, “Defining Growing Pains: A Scoping Review,” looked at 145 studies and two diagnostic systems that mentioned growing pains. “There was extremely poor consensus between studies as to the basis for a diagnosis of growing pains,” they wrote.
For example, only half of the studies mentioned lower limb pain; only 48 percent of the studies reported that the pain came in the evening; and only 42 percent said it was episodic or recurrent. Perhaps most significantly for a condition with the word growing in it, 93 percent of the studies did not refer to the relationship between growth and growing pains. In fact, more than 80 percent of the studies didn’t even specify the age of onset of the pains.
More kids are swallowing batteries. Here’s how to keep your children safe.
Just as there is no clear consensus on what constitutes growing pains, the researchers pointed out, there is no agreement on what causes them. Studies have suggested that growing pains may be the result of issues related to anatomy (hypermobility, knock knees or low-bone-mineral density, for example), psychological issues such as stress, vascular issues such as skeletal blood flow and metabolic problems such as low vitamin D levels.
“All of these causes are either unsupported by research, or underpinned by inconsistent evidence,” the authors of the study wrote. “This uncertainty means there is a lack of guidance for clinicians as to when the label growing pains might be appropriate for a patient.”
The absence of agreement on diagnostic criteria and etiology led the researchers to suggest that “growing pains” is a misnomer. Other studies have come to the same conclusion, proposing alternatives such as “recurrent limb pain in childhood,” “benign nocturnal limb pains of childhood,” “benign leg ache in children” and “idiopathic limb pain.”
Mary O’Keeffe, the lead author on the Pediatrics study, said that “the lack of evidence that growth is even related to such pains” is the most interesting aspect of the study. “If we don’t know that growth is a contributing factor,” she said, “I don’t think we should be mentioning growth as a cause to children and their parents.”
But if clinicians do choose to use this term, they shouldn’t use it in isolation, added O’Keeffe, who is a physical therapist and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sydney’s Institute for Musculoskeletal Health. “They should try to communicate what factors might be contributing to the pain, rule out serious disease, suggest some treatments, and monitor improvement.”
Matthew Oetgen, chief of Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., said that he views the term growing pains as “sort of a colloquial term for pain in younger kids that is otherwise unexplained.”
He said that growing pains affect children who are younger than 12, who have vague areas of pain, often around the knee or down into the legs. “And it can be very variable. It can be both sides. It can be one side one day and the other side the other day. It can be activity related or it can be after.” Often the pain tends to come and go, and get better without requiring medicine.
Oetgen thinks it’s possible the condition does have “some relationship to growth,” and perhaps is a result of tension in the muscles and tendons that aren’t growing at the same rate as bones.
Stacie Grossfeld is an orthopedic surgeon and sport medicine doctor in Louisville who treats children and adults. Grossfeld said that, rather being a misnomer, the term “growing pains” fits a couple of growth-related conditions she sees in young athletes.
One is Osgood-Schlatter disease, a condition that usually occurs during a growth spurt when a tendon tugs on a growth plate in the shinbone, causing pain. “We treat that regularly,” she said. “That’s a very common growing pain disease.”
Another condition, called Severs disease, involves inflammation of the heel bone’s growth plate and is often triggered by increased activity. It is commonly seen in youth soccer players. Both conditions are treated with rest, icing, stretching and pain management, but kids may be advised to take time off from sports if there is too much pain. “Once you quit growing, typically your growing pains go away,” Grossfeld said.
I’m a food writer. This is how I manage to feed a picky kid.
Oetgen said that if the pain is sporadic, moves around and doesn’t keep a child from their usual activities, you can watch and wait and use a little ibuprofen or acetaminophen for the pain. Parents should be more concerned if the pain is persistent and localized, is accompanied by a fever, prevents a child from engaging in activities they usually enjoy, results in a persistent limp, or is so sharp it wakes them at night, he said. Grossfeld added that pain after trauma that doesn’t resolve after rest, as well as swelling and discoloration, are also red flags.
If a work-up doesn’t find a problem, Oetgen says he will tell parents something along the lines of, “I think this is what people describe as growing pains,” making clear that there is no uniform way to describe the condition.
Although it lacks specificity, “I don't think it's a bad term,” he said. While papers such as the recent Pediatrics study show that no one is talking about exactly the same thing, “I think that at the more 30,000-foot view, most people are talking about the same thing. So, I think it's a good description for a pretty common phenomenon that we don't have a great technical description for.”
Palladino said she found the use of the phrase “legitimizing,” because it acknowledged that her daughter had indeed been feeling pain, but also put the pain in context of something natural. “It closed a loop on that whole experience,” she said.
Her daughter’s hospital visit was positive in another way, she added: “All her doctors believed her and took her seriously. They thoroughly examined her, and they gave her an answer that was reassuring and that legitimized her concern about her own body.” | 2022-09-15T12:18:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Growing pains are difficult to define - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/09/15/growing-pains-kids-legs-treatment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/09/15/growing-pains-kids-legs-treatment/ |
Post Politics Now Biden hosting White House summit targeting hate-fueled violence
The latest: Pelosi says Congress was prepared to act in response to rail strike
On our radar: Technology companies, former presidents, mayors to detail initiatives at Biden summit
The latest: Biden says ‘tentative’ deal reached to avert rail strike
Take a look: Rep. Pappas using abortion against new GOP opponent in N.H.
Noted: DHS watchdog criticized in Jan. 6 investigation touted support for Trump
The latest: Supreme Court reverses course on religious school’s LGBTQ club in 5-4 vote
President Biden makes his way to the Oval Office on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Wednesday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
Earlier Thursday, the White House announced it had reached a “tentative” agreement to avert a national rail strike that had threatened the nation’s economy. In a statement, Biden said the agreement would guarantee “better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs” for workers.
10 a.m. Eastern time: Vice President Harris delivers welcoming remarks at the United We Stand summit. Watch live here.
12:15 p.m. Eastern: Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and other Democrats hold a news conference on reproductive rights.
3:30 p.m. Eastern: Biden delivers the keynote speech at the United We Stand summit. Watch live here.
8:25 p.m. Eastern: Biden attends the 45th Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Gala.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that Congress was prepared to act to avert a national rail strike. In a statement, she also praised President Biden for helping broker a tentative agreement between freight rail operators and workers.
“With hope for an agreement but concern for the challenges that a strike would present, Congress stood ready to take action,” Pelosi said. She noted that under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, Congress “has the authority and responsibility to ensure the uninterrupted operation of essential transportation services and has in the past enacted legislation for such purposes.”
Seventy percent of Americans — including large majorities in both major political parties — don’t believe politicians are informed enough about abortion to craft fair policies, a new 19th News-SurveyMonkey poll finds.
The finding comes as lawmakers, particularly at the state level, are moving quickly to make new abortion policy in the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Members of Congress are also pushing new measures. This week, for example, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) unveiled legislation that would ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
They’ve got their work cut out for them, The Post’s Theodoric Meyer and Leigh Ann Caldwell write in The Early 202. Per our colleagues:
At Thursday’s White House summit seeking to combat hate-fueled violence, President Biden plans to announce several new initiatives, some of them led by outside groups, including major technology companies. Among the new actions, according to a White House fact sheet:
A group of former White House officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations is launching Dignity.us, an initiative to foster dialogue in local communities. The group is being supported by foundations and centers of former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford.
New Pluralists, a group of philanthropic leaders, is pledging $1 billion to increase support for programs “that build bridges among Americans of different backgrounds to foster unity.”
More than 140 mayors have signed a new “Compact to Combat Hate and Extremism.”
Service organizations, led by Interfaith America, the YMCA and Habitat for Humanity, are launching A Nation of Bridge Builders, a partnership to train 10,000 Americans to be “bridge builders” in their neighborhoods.
Technology companies, including YouTube, Twitch, Microsoft and Meta, are announcing new actions that their platforms are taking to prevent hate-fueled violence. Few details were provided by the White House on Thursday morning.
The White House announced Thursday morning it has reached a “tentative” agreement to avert a national rail strike that threatened the nation’s economy.
The Post’s Jeff Stein and Lauren Kaori Gurley report that President Biden said in a statement that the agreement would guarantee “better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs” for the workers.
A Labor Department official confirmed that a deal “that balances the needs of workers, businesses, and our nation’s economy” was reached early Thursday morning after 20 consecutive hours of negotiations between rail companies and union negotiators.
“Secretary Walsh and the Biden administration applaud all parties for reaching this hard-fought, mutually beneficial deal,” a Labor Department official said. “Our rail system is integral to our supply chain, and a disruption would have had catastrophic impacts on industries, travelers and families across the country.”
You can read the full developing story here.
Among the latest examples of Democrats seeking advantage on the abortion issue is an effort by Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) to highlight the views of his newly minted opponent, Karoline Leavitt, a 25-year-old former Trump White House staffer, who prevailed in the GOP primary on Tuesday in the state’s 1st Congressional District.
“Here in New Hampshire, we keep the government out of our homes and out of our doctor’s offices,” the narrator says in the 30-second spot, the first from Pappas of the general election. “But Karoline Levitt, if she gets to Congress, she’ll pass a nationwide abortion ban.”
RELATEDWho is Karoline Leavitt, GOP nominee for U.S. House in N.H.?
Joseph V. Cuffari was so enthusiastic about what he called Donald Trump’s “huge win” in the 2016 presidential election that he applied for a job with the incoming administration within days.
Cuffari, then an adviser in the Arizona governor’s office, floated the idea of serving as an undersecretary in the Defense Department or in the Air Force or as the U.S. marshal for Arizona, The Post’s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Maria Sacchetti and Lisa Rein report.
Ultimately, Trump picked Cuffari as the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, a watchdog position that is considered nonpartisan and audits the department for fraud, waste and abuse.
For weeks, key Democratic lawmakers have accused him of bungling the search for the Secret Service’s missing text messages from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, one of the most consequential probes in U.S. history, and have called for him to step aside. Cuffari has refused.
The Supreme Court reversed course Wednesday and said Yeshiva University in New York must for now comply with a state court’s order that it should recognize a campus gay rights organization.
The Post’s Robert Barnes reports that on a 5-4 vote, the justices said the religious school for the time being should comply with a New York state trial court ruling that, as a public accommodation, Yeshiva was covered under the New York City Human Rights Law and required to provide the Pride Alliance the same access to facilities as dozens of other student groups. The group said that includes a classroom, bulletin boards and a club fair booth. | 2022-09-15T12:18:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden hosting White House summit targeting hate-fueled violence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/biden-united-summit-hate-violence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/biden-united-summit-hate-violence/ |
Can Biden take credit for an ‘electric vehicle manufacturing boom’?
Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! FYI, new episodes of the climate podcast “A Matter of Degrees” will be released starting today. Season 3 includes a “three-part miniseries on the personal, professional and political ways we can act on climate,” co-host Leah Stokes tells us.
Also today, the House Oversight and Reform Committee will hold a hearing on the fossil fuel industry's efforts to mislead the public about climate change, according to internal documents. You can tune in here at 9:30 a.m. Eastern. But first:
Can Biden take credit for an ‘electric vehicle manufacturing boom’? It's complicated.
President Biden on Wednesday boasted that the Inflation Reduction Act, which he signed into law last month, would turbocharge domestic production of electric vehicles and the batteries that power them.
“U.S. auto manufacturers are in a position today to drive full speed ahead,” the president said during a speech at the Detroit Auto Show after test driving an electric Cadillac Lyriq across the showroom floor. “I believe we can own the future of the automobile market.”
Experts agree that the climate law will accelerate a race to make EVs and batteries in the United States, rather than rivals like China. But they say Biden cannot take all of the credit for recent multibillion-dollar investments in domestic EV and battery manufacturing, some of which predate the climate law or stem from other factors.
“He can take a little bit of credit. Not a lot,” said Sam Abuelsamid, head of e-mobility research at Guidehouse Insights. “A lot of this was going to happen anyway.”
Abuelsamid noted that automakers have been seeking to bolster domestic production of EVs and batteries for years, in part because of supply chain disruptions and the costs of shipping batteries overseas.
“The industry was already moving in this direction before Schumer and Manchin struck their deal for the Inflation Reduction Act,” he said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.).
Honda's interesting timing
In a fact sheet released before the auto show, the White House outlined how companies have invested nearly $85 billion in domestic manufacturing of EVs, batteries and EV chargers since Biden took office.
The fact sheet notes that on Aug. 29 — roughly two weeks after Biden signed the climate law — South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution and Japanese automaker Honda announced a $4.4 billion joint venture in the United States to produce batteries for Honda EVs in the North American market.
Corey Cantor, an electric vehicles associate at the research firm BloombergNEF, said the joint venture probably wasn't motivated by the climate law.
“From the Honda announcement, it felt like that was in the works for a while,” Cantor said. “It's not like the law was signed on August 16, and then two weeks later, they were investing in this plant.”
Marcos Frommer, a spokesman for Honda, confirmed in an email that “our discussions with LGES predate IRA.”
Still, Abuelsamid said the climate law may have accelerated those discussions. He noted that none of Honda's EV models qualify for the law's tax credit of up to $7,500 for new EVs. (To qualify for the full credit, an EV must be assembled in North America and its battery minerals must be sourced from the United States or its free trade partners, among other requirements.)
“I suspect that once the IRA was passed and Honda realized that none of their models would be eligible, that probably added some urgency to those conversations,” Abuelsamid said.
Ford's singular focus
The White House fact sheet also highlights that Ford in June announced a $3.7 billion investment in assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio and Missouri as part of a plan to sell 2 million EVs a year globally by the end of 2026.
Joe Britton, executive director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association, said he thinks Ford and General Motors have both responded to Biden's pro-EV policies by doubling down on their electrification plans.
In addition to the climate law, he said, both automakers have benefited from the bipartisan infrastructure law, which provided $7.5 billion for a national EV charging network, and the CHIPS and Science Act, which seeks to boost domestic semiconductor production.
However, Ford spokeswoman Artealia Gilliard said the $3.7 billion investment would have happened regardless of whether Biden was in the White House.
“This is the strategy that Ford is pursuing, no matter who's the president,” Gilliard said. “We're doing what we think is right for our business and what is good for the planet. And we're going to stay that course, even if the politics of it change.”
House panel probes public relations firms over work for fossil fuel companies
Public relations firms play an active role in helping oil and gas clients spread climate disinformation and delay legislative solutions to climate change, Democrats on the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations said at a hearing Wednesday, Valerie Volcovici reports for Reuters.
The panel, chaired by Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), released a report ahead of the hearing that detailed the tactics PR firms use to mislead the public about their clients' climate commitments. The groups allegedly assisted fossil fuel companies by “engineering astroturf 'citizen' groups to advocate for industry interests and defeat legislative proposals, and using unscrupulous tactics to sabotage genuine policy solutions and attack community advocates,” the report says.
The firms Singer Associates, Story Partners and Pac/West Communications were invited to testify at the hearing but declined to attend, according to Democrats on the committee.
Republicans on the panel have pushed back against the hearing, saying issues such as advertising and public relations are not within the committee’s jurisdiction.
'Tentative' deal could avert rail strike that threatened coal-heavy states
The White House on Thursday morning announced it had reached a "tentative" agreement to stave off a national rail strike that had threatened the U.S. economy, The Washington Post's Lauren Kaori Gurley and Jeff Stein report.
The tentative deal, which was confirmed by a group representing freight rail operators, must still be formally ratified and the unions must still vote on it. But the White House's blessing of the agreement suggests the worker groups have been closely involved.
No sector of the economy stands to lose as much from a potential strike as the coal industry, which is almost entirely dependent on railways to transport its product, Jake Bittle reports for Grist. A work stoppage could reduce already-thin coal stockpiles, leading to electricity shortages and soaring prices in coal-dependent states, including West Virginia and Missouri.
There are not many alternatives to rail freight when it comes to coal, which is too heavy for pipelines and takes up too much space to be moved via truck. Already, about 80 percent of utilities have said that they missed coal deliveries because of limited rail service from the labor shortage, according to a survey from the National Coal Transportation Association taken earlier this year.
The European Union on Wednesday proposed emergency measures to address the energy crisis, including a windfall tax on some fossil fuel companies and binding targets to limit electricity consumption, indicating concerns that the war in Ukraine is inching the bloc toward recession, Emily Rauhala and Beatriz Rios report for The Post.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined the plan during the annual State of the European Union address on Wednesday. The proposal would tax the profits of non-gas power producers when they sell above a certain price point and require all fossil fuel producers to pay a “solidarity contribution” from their 2022 earnings.
The plan, which still needs to be approved by the 27 E.U. member nations, also calls for at least a 5 percent reduction in gross electricity consumption during peak hours, when prices are expected to be the highest.
Biden administration awards Gulf of Mexico drilling leases to oil giants
The Biden administration on Wednesday reinstated $109 million worth of leases to fossil fuel companies looking for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico, despite concerns about locking in planet-warming emissions for decades to come, The Post’s Steven Mufson reports.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management awarded the 307 oil and gas leases as part of a compromise that won support from Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) for the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes about $369 billion in climate-related spending.
Lease Sale 257, which was held in November, had been invalidated by a federal judge in February. In a statement Wednesday, the bureau emphasized that the sales would “protect biologically sensitive resources, mitigate potential adverse effects on protected species and avoid potential ocean user conflicts.”
Top Democrats including President Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) all supported the compromise with Manchin over the oil and gas lease sales. But some residents of the Gulf of Mexico and environmental justice activists have slammed the concession to Manchin, calling it further proof that the region is being treated as a “sacrifice zone.”
Corporate commitments
Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, announced on Wednesday that he is giving away the outdoor-apparel company, which is reportedly valued at about $3 billion — an unorthodox move aimed at combating the climate crisis, The Post's Allyson Chiu reports.
In a letter published on the company’s website, Chouinard wrote that ownership of the company has been transferred to a trust that was “created to protect the company's values” as well as a nonprofit organization “dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature.”
Over Chouinard's roughly five-decade career, Patagonia has sometimes waded into political activism. In 2017, for instance, the company slammed President Donald Trump's decision to drastically reduce the size of two national monuments in Utah. Its website at the time declared: “The President Stole Your Land.”
A journey through Morocco’s vanishing oases — Ruby Mellen and M’hammed Kilito for The Post
How a Pacific typhoon could help extinguish California wildfires — Matthew Cappucci for The Post
Michelle Obama organization teams up with climate group to mobilize young voters — Rachel Frazin for the Hill | 2022-09-15T12:18:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Can Biden take credit for an ‘electric vehicle manufacturing boom’? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/can-biden-take-credit-an-electric-vehicle-manufacturing-boom/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/can-biden-take-credit-an-electric-vehicle-manufacturing-boom/ |
Allegations of political biases in law enforcement can hurt democracy
Analysis by Jan Zilinsky
Sean Kates
Jonathan Ladd
Joshua Tucker
Former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Since the FBI executed a warrant to obtain White House documents from former president Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago, Trump supporters have flooded the media with outrage. Much of that has been aimed at the FBI and at the Justice Department, which secured the warrant.
But these attacks are only the most recent. Trump has been attacking the FBI as biased since early in his presidency.
Evaluations of government branches and agencies have long been colored by citizens’ partisan affiliations. For instance, people tend to think more highly of the presidency when their party’s candidate is in office. But for the past 20 years — until before Trump’s election in 2016 — both Democrats and Republicans mostly supported the FBI. In fact, in keeping with their reputation as the party of law and order, Republicans supported the FBI more strongly than did Democrats, no matter who sat in the White House.
That support has shifted starkly since 2016 — and, as we have found, in two waves of the American Institutional Confidence Poll. In fact, our polls suggest even more political polarization toward the FBI.
The AIC Poll is a nationally representative survey of adults, administered by YouGov using its online panel. Its two survey waves were conducted in 2018 and 2021, with 5,400 individuals interviewed in the first wave, and 4,070 last year. Of this latter number, nearly 2,400 were repeat respondents from the first wave, allowing us to chart opinion shifts among this sample. For all findings discussed in this article, we reweighted the survey results to align our samples to the general population.
In each wave, we asked respondents what party they supported, if any, and how much confidence they felt in a variety of government institutions, on a scale from 1 to 4, with 1 meaning “No Confidence” and 4 indicating “A Great Deal of Confidence.” Confidence in the executive branch as a whole roughly flipped between Republicans and Democrats over the two waves, depending on which party held the White House, but confidence in most of the other institutions in the figure stayed about the same.
Republicans in both waves held the FBI in much lower esteem than either local police or the military, considering the bureau closer to the reviled “press” and President Biden’s executive branch than to the other “law-and-order” institutions.
We interpret these rankings as revealing respondents’ feelings about an institution’s competence and trustworthiness. We are interested in these numbers in part because low confidence in a government agency’s competence could erode support for democratic governance.
Presidents can't declassify documents with Green Lantern superpowers
Which Republicans believe the FBI is politically biased?
That’s even more true when these feelings are combined with beliefs or accusations of political bias — which our findings suggest is currently true for much of the Republican Party. When asked whether they believe that the FBI treats both parties equally or whether it favors a particular party, over 34 percent of identified Republicans stated that the FBI “strongly favors the Democratic Party.” Another 26 percent of Republicans believe the organization “slightly” favors Democrats. This represents a majority of surveyed Republicans, and dwarfs the 8 percent of Democrats who believe the FBI favors their own party or the 21 percent that believe that the FBI favors the Republicans, either slightly or strongly.
So which Republicans think the FBI is biased against their party? That belief is especially strong among tea party supporters, people with highly favorable views of Trump, early Trump endorsers, those who believe Trump really won the 2020 election, and those who viewed the storming of the U.S. Capitol in January 2021 as justified.
Other Republicans are less likely to see the FBI as biased. While approximately 59 percent of Republicans told us last year that the FBI favored the Democratic Party, this perception of bias was 17 percentage points lower among those Republicans who condemned the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol.
In other words, it’s the Trump wing of the Republican Party that distrusts the FBI.
Will Republican antipathy for the FBI continue?
As Trump has been campaigning for candidates he favors, he often complains that he’s a victim of a politically motivated witch hunt. Republicans generally will be looking for issues that resonate with portions of their base as they attempt to take back control of Congress. The recent ruling requiring a special master to review the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago will probably draw out the Justice Department/FBI investigation, making it likely that Trump and his supporters will continue to denigrate the bureau for the foreseeable future.
Democrats are unlikely to let the irony of an FBI-skeptical GOP slide. The White House Twitter account is already calling out specific Republican House members for demands to defund the FBI. This may further polarize attitudes toward the FBI, which would reduce confidence in the main federal institution of domestic law enforcement. At worst, that can lead to active violence, as happened in August, when an angry Trump supporter attacked an FBI office.
We expect to continue tracking this trend, alongside attitudes toward other institutions and general trends in support for democracy. All data from the 2018 wave is available on the AIC website, and the 2021 data should be similarly so this fall. In the meantime, find replication data for our analyses here.
Jan Zilinsky (@janzilinsky) is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Technical University of Munich and a research affiliate at the NYU Center for Social Media and Politics (CSMaP).
Sean Kates is the associate director of programs in data analytics at the University of Pennsylvania and a core instructor at the Fels Institute of Government.
Jonathan Ladd is an associate professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy and the department of government at Georgetown University.
Funding for the American Institutional Confidence Poll was provided by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at New York University, and by the Baker Trust, the Massive Data Institute and the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. | 2022-09-15T12:19:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Since 2016, Republicans increasingly distrust the FBI - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/fbi-trump-republicans-democrats-maga/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/fbi-trump-republicans-democrats-maga/ |
Twitter whistleblower Zatko described major data leaks at Twitter, but the problem is bigger than that
Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko is sworn in Sept. 13 for a Senate Judiciary hearing examining data security at risk. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
In a hearing in Congress on Tuesday, Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko was asked repeatedly about whether Twitter is aware of how its user data is accessed and stored.
Over and over he gave a troublesome answer: The company doesn’t know.
The problem, however, extends well beyond Twitter, according to an array of Silicon Valley engineers and experts. At a recent court hearing, for example, a senior Meta engineer also struggled to provide answers to questions about how Facebook pieces together all the information it gathers about its billions of users.
“I would be surprised if there’s even a single person that can answer that narrow question conclusively,” the engineer said, in an exchange from court testimony that was first reported by the Intercept. Facebook provided the court with a list of 55 systems and databases where user data might be stored.
Tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter were founded more than 15 years ago, and they developed freewheeling cultures in which individual engineers and teams could build databases, algorithms and other software independently of one another. Speed was prioritized over security measures that could slow things down. This was before years of privacy lawsuits and legislation pushed the companies to tighten up their data practices.
But experts said that companies are still struggling to pay off years of technical debt as regulators and consumers demand more from tech companies, such as the ability to delete data or to know what exactly is being gathered about a person. And some of those practices that prioritized speed have not changed.
Twitter whistleblower says security holes cause ‘real harm to real people’
“Many engineers at Twitter had a stance that security measures made their lives difficult and slowed people down,” said Edwin Chen, who has held engineering roles at Twitter, Google and Facebook and is now CEO of the content-moderation start-up Surge AI. “And this is definitely a bigger problem than just Twitter.”
Some of these systems are black boxes even to the people who built them, said Katie Harbath, former Facebook policy director and CEO of the consultancy Anchor Change (Facebook changed its name to Meta last year). Even if the correct policies are in place, they can be tough to implement when the underlying databases were not built to answer questions such as what are all the places where a person’s location or profile might have been stored.
“It’s hard to start from scratch, particularly the bigger you get,” she said. “The way these platforms were originally set up, every team had a huge amount of autonomy.”
In Meta’s court case, a class action in Northern California relating to the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal that the company settled last month, plaintiffs asked the company to show them the entirety of the information it collects and stores about them. That could include people’s precise locations throughout the day, health conditions they have searched for or groups that they have joined, and inferences such as how likely a person is to be married.
Facebook initially offered up data from the company’s “Download Your Information” tool, but a judge found in 2020 that the information Facebook provided was too limited. Yet Facebook’s response, recorded in a deposition this summer, was essentially that even the companies’ own engineers aren’t sure where all the data lived.
Dina El-Kassaby, a spokeswoman for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said that the deposition did not mean that the company was failing at security or data access issues. “Our systems are sophisticated and it shouldn’t be a surprise that no single company engineer can answer every question about where each piece of user information is stored,” she said. “We’ve built one of the most comprehensive privacy programs to oversee data use across our operations and to carefully manage and protect people’s data. We have made — and continue making — significant investments to meet our privacy commitments and obligations, including extensive data controls.”
In Tuesday’s Senate hearing with Zatko, the whistleblower and former security chief made similar comments about Twitter. He noted that in a recent data breach, Twitter had accidentally leaked the personal information of 50 million employees (Zatko’s lawyer later issued a correction statement saying Zatko meant to say 20,000).
Zatko noted in the hearing that Twitter doesn’t have anything approaching that many employees — the current number is 7,000 — and pointed out that Twitter is keeping too much information on former employees and contractors that it fails to delete.
He repeatedly asserted that the company had up to 4,000 engineers — more than half of all employees at the company — with broad access to internal systems, and few ways to formally track who accessed what. This was a dangerous situation, he said, because an individual employee could take over a Twitter account and impersonate it.
If that employee were secretly working for a foreign government, the risks from giving employees wide latitude to access user data are far greater. Zatko has alleged that Twitter knowingly had employees who worked for both the Indian and Chinese governments but has not provided proof to back up these allegations.
And in a separate report on the company’s ability to tackle misinformation that was included in the trove Zatko provided to Congress, an independent auditor noted that Twitter lacked a formal system to track cases of users who had broken the company’s rules.
Twitter has repeatedly pushed back against Zatko’s arguments. A spokeswoman, Rebecca Hahn, previously told The Washington Post that Twitter had tightened up security extensively since 2020, that its security practices are within industry standards and that it had specific rules about who can access company systems. In response to Tuesday’s hearing, Hahn reiterated that Zatko’s arguments were “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies” but declined to specify any details.
David Thiel, chief technical officer at the Stanford Internet Observatory at Stanford University and a former Facebook security engineer, said that after reading Zatko’s disclosures, he had the impression that Twitter’s security processes appeared to be years behind Facebook’s. He noted that Facebook tightened up access significantly in response to various controversies over the years, including the allegation that Facebook had allowed the Cambridge Analytica company access to user data, to the point that if an engineer accessed a system they didn’t have permission to access, “someone will come after you and you will get fired.”
But he said that it’s still common in Silicon Valley to give engineers broad access so that they can “build interesting products quickly.”
“The emphasis,” he said, “is still on speed and access.”
He said that sometimes companies, including Facebook, truly cannot know everything that’s inside their systems.
For example, machine learning systems and software algorithms are made up of tens of thousands of data points, often calculated instantaneously. While it’s possible to put data points into the system, one cannot then work backward to retrieve the original inputs. He drew a food analogy, noting that it would be impossible to turn soup back into its original ingredients.
But other data, he said, is merely complex, and companies are resistant to the extensive work it could take to track it all down — and would probably do so only if compelled by new laws or court rulings.
It’s not “so complicated that it’s not doable,” he said. | 2022-09-15T12:20:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mudge testimony highlights a Twitter, Facebook issue: Where's your data? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/15/mudge-twitter-facebook-data-privacy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/15/mudge-twitter-facebook-data-privacy/ |
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin talk to each other during their meeting in Beijing on Feb. 4. (Alexei Druzhinin/AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday that Moscow “understands” Beijing’s concerns regarding the war in Ukraine in a their first face-to-face meeting since the invasion, as the two countries test the boundaries of their friendship disrupted by Russia’s setbacks in the invasion.
“We highly value the balanced position of our Chinese friends regarding the Ukrainian crisis, we understand your questions and concerns on this matter, and during today’s meeting we will of course clarify all of these in detail,” Putin said in his opening remarks on in Uzbekistan, kicking off a meeting with Xi, whom he addressed as his “dear and longtime friend.”
The Russian leader added that Russia is committed to the one China principle and “condemned the provocations” of the United States in Taiwan.
When the two leaders met in February to declare the beginning of their “no limits” partnership, they were also signaling the start of a new alignment of two of the world’s most powerful authoritarian states.
Since then, Russia’s war against Ukraine has gone worse for him than anyone expected, with Russia facing repeated humiliating military setbacks, while Putin has been largely shunned by Western leaders and the Russian economy has been hammered by unprecedented sanctions.
Their first face-to-face meeting since then comes at a fragile time for both leaders, testing how boundless that friendship really is.
The meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand comes as Russian forces have suffered stunning losses on the battlefield in Ukraine. Beijing, meanwhile, finds itself increasingly at odds with Western countries over Taiwan and human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
For Putin, the meeting sends a crucial message that he remains a global player, with friends who share his authoritarian views and determination to create a new world order where the United States no longer dominates.
For Xi, his first trip abroad in almost three years marks his diplomatic reemergence before a party congress in October where he expects to secure a precedent-breaking third term.
“It’s of course a demonstration of mutual support and solidarity, a message primarily for the U.S. and the West,” said Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center.
Yet Xi is unlikely to offer Putin more concrete support. Doing so could risk Western blowback that would exacerbate a growing list of domestic challenges, including a slowing Chinese economy, property crisis and public discontent with strict “zero covid” policies.
China has maintained a delicate balance on Russia’s war against Ukraine, calling for peace while endorsing Russian complaints that NATO was to blame, because of the alliance’s expansion. Beijing has tried to lend moral support to Putin without outright backing the invasion or sending financial or military assistance that would incur secondary sanctions.
Having pledged to maintain normal trade relations with Moscow, China has continued to export goods to Russia as well as import Russian oil and gas. Bilateral trade grew 31 percent for the first eight months of 2022, according to Chinese customs data.
“Concrete support for the war in Ukraine is unlikely,” said Sun. “Military support and assistance are not in the cards. China doesn’t need to support Russia in the war, it only does not oppose it.”
In recent days, however, China has signaled stronger support of Russia. Li Zhanshu, China’s third-most-senior leader, visited Moscow last week and emphasized that Beijing had lent “support with coordinated action” to Russia as it responded to security threats “on its doorstep.”
A Russian readout of the meeting said that Li expressed support for the war, but the Chinese version was more tempered in saying that Li said China “understands and fully supports” Russia’s security interests.
Despite China’s efforts to strike a balance, Xi’s meeting with Putin will invite more questions about China’s position in the conflict.
“The trip fits with Mr. Xi’s strategic vision of close ties with Moscow, but the meeting with Russia’s leader may make it harder for Xi to claim he is not somehow enabling Russia’s aggression,” said Joseph Torigian, an assistant professor focusing on Russia and China at American University.
Going into the talks, the Kremlin described Russian-Chinese ties as being “at an unprecedented high level,” saying it “attaches great importance to China’s balanced approach to the Ukrainian crisis.”
The Kremlin claims that Moscow and Beijing’s partnership ensures “global and regional stability,” although Russia’s war on Ukraine has destabilized the region, creating particular uncertainties in Central Asia.
“The countries jointly stand for the formation of a just, democratic and multipolar world order based on international law and the central role of the United Nations,” a Kremlin statement said.
In Uzbekistan, Xi faces the added awkwardness of maintaining neutrality while attending a summit with Central Asian countries, most of which oppose the war and worry about possible Russian incursion into their territories.
Russia has shown irritation at Kazakhstan’s refusal to endorse the war or to recognize the independence of two Russian proxy “republics” in eastern Ukraine.
Like Ukraine, Kazakhstan has a sizable Russian-speaking component, some 18 percent of the population, concentrated in the north of the country. With Moscow’s often-stated historical mission to “protect” Russian speakers around the world — one of the reasons it gave for the Ukrainian invasion — they are a viewed as a source of insecurity.
Xi’s travels to Central Asia are part of long-term efforts to establish better trade routes and connectivity through the region, an increasingly urgent task as China faces the possibility of conflict in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea that could hinder access to maritime shipping lanes.
In protest of a visit to Taiwan by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China in August launched large-scale military exercises simulating a blockade of Taiwan’s main island, triggering what has become known as the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis.
“This makes this trip quite important because Xi is basically there with a mission to convince Central Asian leaders that having a strong relationship with China is still important [and to] please consider our goals and what we can give you,” said Niva Yau, senior researcher at the OSCE Academy, a foreign policy think tank in Kyrgyzstan.
In Central Asia, where countries for years have had to navigate between two giant powers locked in quiet competition, a diminished Putin could give Beijing a chance to expand its footprint.
“The saying is China has the deep pockets and Russia has the guns,” said Theresa Fallon, director of the Center for Russia Europe Asia Studies in Brussels. “The question now is, as Russia’s military footprint possibly recedes in the region, will China’s grow?” | 2022-09-15T12:20:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | China’s Xi Jinping meets with Putin amid Russian military losses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/china-xi-jinping-putin-meeting-russia-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/china-xi-jinping-putin-meeting-russia-ukraine/ |
In January 2020, people gather for a candlelight vigil to remember the victims of the Ukrainian plane crash in Tehran. (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
More than two years after Iran shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, killing all 176 people onboard, family members of the victims are asking the International Criminal Court to investigate the incident as a war crime.
Lawyers representing the families filed a formal submission with the court, which is seated in The Hague, on Wednesday, arguing that Tehran intentionally downed the airliner in January 2020 in the context of a military confrontation between the United States and Iran.
The move represents an unusual legal strategy made possible in part by Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has drawn renewed attention to the international justice system.
Analysis: The war in Ukraine has put international law in the spotlight
Iran is not an ICC member — but Ukraine has accepted the court’s jurisdiction for crimes committed on its territory since November 2013. This includes alleged crimes involving Ukrainian aircraft, which count as “territory” for legal purposes, according to Haydee Dijkstal, an international lawyer with the U.K.-based firm 33 Bedford Row, who is representing an association of 140 of the victims’ families.
The families, many of whom live in Canada, are now asking the court to examine the downed plane, Ukraine International Airlines flight 752, as part of the ICC’s wider probe in Ukraine. Global Affairs Canada did not respond to a request for comment.
Other efforts, including by Canadian authorities, to investigate and push for accountability have borne little fruit, frustrating those who lost loved ones in the crash. The families say that Ukraine was committed to finding justice for the victims — but Russia’s invasion diverted prosecutors’ attention to investigating war crimes at home.
Hamed Esmaeilion, an Iranian-born dentist who lives in Ontario, lost his wife, Parisa, and 9-year-old daughter, Reera, in the crash. The pair had traveled to Iran to attend a family wedding. Among those killed were citizens of Iran, Ukraine, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan and the United Kingdom.
“They left for 13 days, and they never came back,” said Esmaeilion, who heads the association of victims’ families. “For the last three years, I have been looking for truth — mainly for truth, to know what exactly happened that night.”
The plane, a Boeing 737-800 bound for Kyiv, was shot down near Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020, hours after Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at an Iraqi military base hosting U.S. personnel. The attack on the base was retaliation for a U.S. drone strike that killed the leader of the top Iranian military commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, in Baghdad five days earlier.
Iran initially said the airliner, which took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, crashed because of technical problems. But soon after Ukrainian authorities published photographic evidence of shrapnel damage to the plane, Iranian officials admitted that an air defense operator mistook the jet for enemy aircraft and made a split-second decision to shoot it down with Russian-made surface-to-air missiles.
Iran eventually stopped cooperating with Kyiv. It put several low-level officials on trial — but even that case was sent back to the prosecutor because of “flaws” in the probe, a judiciary spokesman said.
‘Frozen in time’: A year after Iran downed Ukrainian plane, victims’ families still hunt for justice
Families accused Iranian authorities of mishandling evidence at the crash site, mistreating some of the bodies and mixing up human remains repatriated to grieving relatives.
The text of the ICC submission is confidential, the families’ lawyers said. But more broadly, the file includes witness statements, forensic reports from national authorities and outside assessments from independent experts.
Gissou Nia, Djikstal’s partner in the endeavor and director of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project, said the submission alleges that Iranian authorities kept the country’s airspace open to civilian flights to deter retaliatory airstrikes from the United States in what was a fast-escalating conflict.
“It’s basically turning civilians into human shields,” she said, which constitutes a war crime.
“That’s not a legitimate reason to keep airspace open, because the Iranian state was purposefully putting dozens of aircraft with hundreds of civilians in harm’s way,” Nia added.
Ukrainian officials have also alleged, without evidence, that senior Iranian officials ordered the deliberate downing of the plane. Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.
Relatives including Esmaeilion say they hope the ICC will bring them some semblance of justice.
“I’m very hopeful,” he said. “I think that this falls on the prosecutor’s shoulders now to look at this as a war crime and a crime against humanity.” | 2022-09-15T13:08:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ICC should investigate Iran for downed Ukraine flight, families say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/iran-ukraine-flight-ps752-icc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/iran-ukraine-flight-ps752-icc/ |
Ask Sahaj: My boyfriend’s family speaks another language in front of me
Hi Sahaj: I have been with my boyfriend for about a year now, and everything is going great, except for interactions with his family. His mom’s first language is French, but she speaks English fluently as well. My boyfriend and his younger sister were both raised speaking French in their household since birth, yet grew up here in the U.S., so they both speak English otherwise. Meanwhile, I don’t know anything past “Bonjour.” Whenever I go over to his house and speak with his family, it’s okay at first, but then his mom inevitably makes a few side comments in French to either my boyfriend or his sister in front of me, which turns into whole conversations, and I’m stuck sitting there awkwardly.
This became even worse when I went on a family trip to France with them recently. I was overwhelmed with the amount of speaking in a language I couldn't understand, and added onto that they were constantly speaking French among themselves. I understand that French is the primary spoken language there and it may be what they're used to doing, but even in their house with me in front of them they almost always spoke French.
His mom is incredibly sweet and is generally very accommodating, but speaking French in front of me all the time was frustrating, especially when they were talking about my flight details or activities we would do that day. My boyfriend’s dad does not speak French either. He seems to be okay with them speaking in another language around him, but I’m not sure I can turn to him for advice.
How should I broach and handle this?
— Stuck in Translation
Stuck in Translation: It sounds like you are feeling excluded. It also sounds like your boyfriend and his family are not intentionally being rude.
With you being brought into the family dynamic, everyone has to shift a bit — including you. This does not mean that your boyfriend and his family should stop speaking French to each other, but it’s reasonable for you to want to be able to understand what they’re saying, especially when the conversation includes or involves you. This means that you have a frank and honest conversation with your boyfriend about what you’re feeling.
This can sound like, “I understand that speaking French is more natural for your mom and you when you’re together, but I feel like it makes it difficult for me to be involved in the discussion and it’s important to me to be able to share in some of these conversations.”
Ask Sahaj: My husband’s family stays for weeks, but he doesn’t consult me
When using I-language and broaching this with the intention of wanting to share how you are feeling, it opens the door for a bigger conversation about your boyfriend’s role, and it can also help you feel less alone in the experience and your relationship.
Keep in mind, though, that it’s not just a different language you are navigating, it’s a different culture, too. Each family has a familial culture with norms and values, and each language is rooted in a larger culture with its own norms and values. These impact communication styles as well as interpersonal expectations and behaviors.
As someone who has parents who tend to speak Punjabi at home and an American husband who doesn’t know the language, I have had to be more intentional about asking my parents to speak English when longer, or larger, conversations are being had. However, my husband has also had to accept that expecting my family to not speak Punjabi around him is unrealistic.
Someone who is bilingual or a nonnative English speaker may think in a different language; therefore, it may be natural for them to speak that language rather than translate their thoughts (no matter how well they speak English). This might be why they are inclined toward speaking French when together, and it certainly makes sense when in France.
Since there’s already a precedent of someone not speaking the language in the family, your boyfriend and his mom might believe that acting the same way around you is perfectly acceptable. While your boyfriend’s dad might be okay being more passive in these conversations, it seems like you may need to be more active. This might look like asking them directly, “Can you tell me what you’re talking about?” or “I missed that, can you translate it for me.”
Finally, you may have to build a tolerance for the discomfort of being out of the comfort of your own culture while figuring out what you can do to ease the transition. It may be worth considering how serious of a future you have with your partner, and whether it might benefit you to learn French.
Remember, being in an intercultural relationship requires both parties to be flexible in bending their own cultural understandings, norms and values to make room for their partner’s. | 2022-09-15T13:44:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Sahaj: My boyfriend’s family speaks another language in front of me - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/15/ask-sahaj-boyfriend-speaks-different-language/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/15/ask-sahaj-boyfriend-speaks-different-language/ |
Why Azerbaijan-Armenia Dispute Draws Big Powers In
Analysis by Marc Champion and Tony Halpin | Bloomberg
A short war in 2020 between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh was part of a conflict that has flared repeatedly in the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union. With backing from Turkey, Azerbaijani forces regained control of seven adjacent districts that had been occupied by Armenians since the initial conflict in the early 1990s. Azerbaijan also took over part of Nagorno-Karabakh itself, a territory largely populated by Armenians but which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. While a truce brokered by Russian President Vladimir Putin halted fighting then, energy-rich Azerbaijan and landlocked Armenia haven’t reached a final peace agreement, and deadly border clashes broke out again in September.
1. What’s the root of the conflict?
Today’s Armenia and Azerbaijan are situated in an area that for centuries had fluid borders, with both suffering partition and brutality at the hands of the much larger Russian, Ottoman and Persian empires. The two communities began to fight each other as those empires collapsed toward the end of World War I and they sought to form independent states, with Russia backing Armenia and Ottoman Turkey supporting Azerbaijan in what amounted to a proxy war. Nagorno-Karabakh was a center of tension from the start, because the mountainous region hosted a mixed community of Armenians and Azeris and was seen by both nations as central to their national histories and identities.
2. What role did the breakup of the Soviet Union play?
After the Soviet Union took control of both nascent states in 1921, its leader Josef Stalin sowed the seeds for today’s dispute. He secured Nagorno-Karabakh for Azerbaijan but then in 1923 carved it out as an autonomous region, with borders that gave it a population that was more than 90% Armenian. The first violence of the current conflict broke out in 1988, as it became clear that the days of the Soviet empire, too, might be numbered. The two Soviet republics began to press for independence, giving new meaning to what had in essence been internal administrative borders. Nagorno-Karabakh’s national assembly voted to dissolve its autonomous status and join Armenia. Pogroms against ethnic Azeris in Armenia and against ethnic Armenians in Azerbaijan occured. In all more than 30,000 people were killed in the war in the early 1990s. More than 6,000 were killed in the 44-day war in 2020, and dozens in clashes this year.
3. How has Armenia’s history contributed to this?
Although the Armenian and Azeri communities of Karabakh lived together peacefully and were relatively well integrated until 1988, Armenia’s history in particular conspired to create a tinderbox of nationalist feeling. The 1915 genocide, in which the late Ottoman regime killed as many as 1.5 million Armenians as it drove them from Anatolia, left deep scars. Fear of Turkey left Armenia feeling unusually dependent on Russia for military support after the Soviet collapse, and many Armenians came to see Azeris as proto-Turks, eliding the threat. In fact, the two are distinct. Azeris are Turkic speaking, but they are mainly Shiite Muslims, whereas Turks are mainly Sunni.
4. Why is Turkey involved and what are its goals?
Turkey long had a closed border and no diplomatic relations with Armenia, in part due to the Karabakh conflict and in part due to wider tension over the 1915 genocide. (Since the 2020 war the two sides have begun a process to normalize ties and partially reopen their border.) By contrast, Azerbaijan supplies Turkey with natural gas and crude oil via pipelines that pass within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of the Azerbaijan-Armenia border and 30 miles of the broader conflict zone. As a result, Turkey has long sided with Azerbaijan on the Karabakh dispute. That support was until recently limited to rhetoric, but Turkey’s military backing, including F-16 fighter jets and drones, proved decisive in the 2020 conflict. The two countries signed a defense pact a year later. The changes came at a time when Erdogan was using hard power to press Turkish interests across much of the former Ottoman space, including against Russia in Syria and Libya, and against Cyprus, Greece and Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean. Though not a signatory to the peace deal, it represented a strategic triumph for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was able to muscle into Russia’s Caucasus backyard.
5. What did the truce involve?
It effectively restored Azerbaijan’s control of most of the territory it lost in the 1990s, while saying nothing about the final status of the disputed enclave. Russia, which has a military base in Armenia, sent 2,000 peacekeeping troops to Nagorno-Karabakh. The accord provided for a land corridor, policed by Russian forces, through which residents of Nagorno-Karabakh could reach Armenia. It also is supposed to allow people in the Azerbaijani exclave of Naxcivan, which borders Armenia, Iran and Turkey, to travel across southern Armenia to the rest of Azerbaijan. That one had yet to open as of September 2022. A full peace agreement remains elusive, despite international efforts to promote talks.
6. What has been Russia’s role?
As a nearby nuclear superpower and former overlord, Russia has leverage with both countries. It has a defense pact with Armenia, though it doesn’t cover Nagorno-Karabakh. Still, the 2020 accord ended an anomaly in which the enclave was a so-called frozen conflict on former Soviet territory, where Russia didn’t have troops on the ground able to determine the outcome. Armenia is now more dependent than ever on the ultimate guarantee that the Russian base provides. Since 1994, Azerbaijan’s oil and gas wealth have allowed it to substantially increase its military spending -- much of which has gone to purchasing weapons from Russia, which arms both sides.
7. What about the US and France?
Russia, the US and France are members of the so-called Minsk Group of mediators that have been trying for decades to negotiate a settlement. The US used to wield considerable influence, as host to a large, wealthy and politically active Armenian diaspora and the primary backer of new Azeri oil and gas pipeline routes that skirt and compete with Russia’s transit network. While US interest in the region ebbed in recent years, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken called Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders in September to urge an end to hostilities. French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed sympathy with Armenia but his leverage with Azerbaijan appears limited. The European Union in July signed a deal to double imports of natural gas from Azerbaijan as the bloc seeks to break Putin’s grip on its energy supplies amid the confrontation over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
8. What’s the energy situation?
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline has a capacity of 1.2 million barrels per day. It normally operates at only half that level, but supplies have increased since May, when BP shut oil exports via the Western Route Export Pipeline, also known as Baku-Supsa, and diverted them to the BTC. BP cited the unavailability of tankers on the Black Sea, where shipping was disrupted by Russia’s war in Ukraine. The South Caucasus Pipeline, the first leg of a chain of pipelines known as the Southern Gas Corridor that connects Azerbaijan with Europe via Georgia and Turkey, exported 14.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the first eight months of 2022, up 23% from a year earlier. European countries were the biggest buyers of Azerbaijani gas in the period with 7.3 billion cubic meters. Turkey bought 5.4 billion cubic meters and Georgia purchased 1.7 billion cubic meters. Azerbaijan plans to double exports to Europe to 20 billion cubic meters by 2027. | 2022-09-15T13:48:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Azerbaijan-Armenia Dispute Draws Big Powers In - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/why-azerbaijan-armenia-dispute-draws-big-powers-in/2022/09/15/00d51614-34f5-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/why-azerbaijan-armenia-dispute-draws-big-powers-in/2022/09/15/00d51614-34f5-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
The H Street Festival is extending its footprint, taking over the H Street corridor between Third Street and Florida Avenue NE on Saturday. Previous editions of the festival have drawn up to 150,000 people, according to organizers. (Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post)
National Dance Day at the Kennedy Center: Multiple days of events lead up to an hours-long Saturday dance party at the Kennedy Center’s National Dance Day festivities. The center’s Millennium Stage showcases dance programs from different companies on Thursday and Friday evenings. Then starting at 1 p.m. Saturday, you can head to the Reach to take flamenco, tap, ballet and other outdoor dance classes, or view dance films featuring local artists. Log on to YouTube ahead of time to learn the official National Dance Day routine before a 6 p.m. class with “So You Think You Can Dance” winner Bailey Muñoz. Saturday evening also includes postmodern and Afro-Caribbean carnival dance performances at the Reach. Thursday through Saturday. All activities are free, but audience members are required to RSVP for the Sept. 15 and 16 Millennium Stage performances.
Annapolis Songwriters Festival: What do the Chesapeake Bay and the Florida Keys have in common? Annapolis is taking a page from Key West and launching its own version of the long-running Key West Songwriters Festival. Like the Florida concert series, the Annapolis Songwriters Festival brings together a mix of free and ticketed musical performances. Find shows happening all over downtown Annapolis, from Rams Head On Stage to outdoors at the City Dock. The inaugural festival snagged a few big-name musicians, including Lucinda Williams, Jake Owen, Josh Ritter, Amos Lee and Fantastic Negrito. Through Saturday. Free to $500.
White Ford Bronco at the Bullpen: D.C.’s favorite retro cover band is back at the Bullpen — and this time, when you’re singing along to Britney, No Doubt and Third Eye Blind, it’s for a good cause: Tickets benefit MedStar Georgetown University Hospital’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Regular tickets include a cash bar; VIP tickets add a pre-show reception catered by Buffalo and Bergen. 7 p.m. $25-$50.
Live at the Library with the Kitchen Sisters and Frances McDormand at the Library of Congress: The Library of Congress’s weekly after-hours events allow visitors to explore the magnificent Main Reading Room or tour exhibits every Thursday evening. Sometimes they bring special guests, too. This week, it’s the Kitchen Sisters, the radio and podcast producers who have been telling stories of offbeat and oft-overlooked history since 1979. The library acquired the Kitchen Sisters’ archive — “approximately 146,400 mixed material items” — earlier this year, and Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva will discuss their career with Academy Award winner Frances McDormand, followed by a Q&A. 5 to 8:30 p.m. Free; reservation required.
Oktoberfest at Atlas Brew Works: Atlas gets a jump on Oktoberfest at its Half Street brewpub, where a ticket is good for two hours of unlimited beers, spirits and wine, even if the freshly tapped Festbier is the star of the show. Beers come in a souvenir liter or half-liter glass, and German food, such as pretzels and brats, is available for purchase. 6 to 8 p.m. $30-$40.
Silver Branch Oktoberfest: Silver Branch Brewing crafts a wide variety of IPAs, but some of its most satisfying products have a distinctly German character. The Silver Spring brewery celebrates Oktoberfest with the release of a traditional amber-colored Märzen. Settle into the long biergarten-style tables on the patio this weekend for beers, live music (including the Polka Terps after work on Friday) and a menu of freshly grilled brats. Saturday afternoon features a stein-holding competition as well as a German fashion contest. Through Sunday. Free.
Julia Jacklin at 9:30 Club: Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin has been making honest and delicately heartbreaking indie pop songs for three albums now. Her latest project, “Pre Pleasure,” which was released in August, lives in that vulnerable space she’s made for herself while allowing her music to expand. There are new and bolder instrument choices, including a stunning orchestra that dramatically closes the album, allowing listeners to bask in its glory while reminiscing on the album they just finished. And her revealing pen remains: On the song “Magic,” she sings, “I feel adored tonight, ignore intrusive thoughts tonight,” as a steady guitar follows her. Jacklin’s ability to make devastating observations about herself into beautiful lyrics is one of her great talents. She moves from differing subject matter with ease on “Pre Pleasure.” Her desires for her relationship with her mother are explored on “Less of a Stranger.” She wishes they were closer, that they could see each other more clearly. “Ever since I left your body, I’ve been a pretty fast swimmer,” Jacklin sings, as succinct and brutal as ever. 7 p.m. (doors open). $20.
Washington Ukrainian Festival at St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral: Silver Spring’s St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral has held a Ukrainian Festival since 2003, but it’s taken on extra meaning this year. Featured performers include former Eurovision Song Contest winner and Ukrainian MP Ruslana, singer Oksana Bilozir and violinist Vasyl Popadiuk, in addition to traditional dance troupes and musicians from the D.C. area and farther afield. The festival includes vendors; crafts and activities for children; a wide variety of Ukrainian dishes, from pierogies to holubtsi; and a Ukrainian beer garden. A portion of proceeds benefits humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. Through Sunday. $20; $10 for senior citizens; free for those younger than 21.
Perchfest at the Perch at Capital One Center: It’s been a busy first year for the Perch, the 2 ½-acre park located 11 stories above the Capital One Center in Tysons. The initial stage, with a Starr Hill beer garden, a dog park, lawn games and a terraced grassy area facing an amphitheater stage, opened last fall; this spring brought even more space, including a gorgeous 18-hole mini golf course, rum bar and food truck area. This weekend’s three-day Perchfest features eight bands and a DJ over three days, plus adoptable rescue dogs, game tournaments and family entertainment. Be warned that, since access is by elevator, lines can form at prime times. Friday through Sunday. Free.
5 reasons to go out to Tysons (and only one of them is the mall)
‘The Nightsong of Orpheus’ at Dupont Underground: The journey down the dark stairs and long echoing hallways of Dupont Underground might feel, at times, like a trip to the underworld — and even more so now that Orpheus, Eurydice and Hades are making an appearance at the subterranean venue. In a spin on the classic tale that deviates from “Hadestown,” which took over the Kennedy Center for 2 ½ weeks last October, this version by famed librettist Claudio Monteverdi is combined with influences of Japanese Noh. With direction from Theatre Nohgaku specialists, the performance features masks in the Japanese dramatic tradition and is performed in Japanese and English. Performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. $35-$55.
Oktoberfest at Wunder Garten: The NoMa beer garden is a hive of activity over the next four weekends. Fridays hum with the sound of oompah duos and DJs. Saturdays feature live bands in the afternoons, followed by DJs. Sundays bring a pet-friendly “Dogtoberfest,” with discounts for dogs in Bavarian dress. Then there are stein-holding contests (Friday and Saturday), Pridetoberfest celebrations with Capital Pride (Saturday and Oct. 6), happy hours (Tuesdays) and other activities. Seasonal beers from both Germany and the D.C. area are on tap. Through Oct. 9. Free admission.
H Street Festival: This neighborhood celebration shuts down the H Street NE corridor between Third Street and Florida Avenue, filling the pavement with pop-up beer gardens; art displays; rows of vendors; and stages hosting live music, dance demonstrations and fashion shows, among other entertainment. Hop between businesses along the route to find special events, such as a day party with DJs Jahsonic and Farrah Flosscett at Lydia on H and an Oktoberfest kickoff with beers, music and pork shanks at Biergarten Haus. More than 150,000 people were estimated to attend the festival before the pandemic, making it one of D.C.’s biggest events. Noon to 7 p.m. Free.
WalkingTown DC: No matter how long you’ve lived here or how well you think you know the city, WalkingTown DC finds new ways to surprise, educate and delight. Held since 2005, WalkingTown features dozens of free guided tours exploring various aspects of D.C. history. There are deep dives into neighborhoods such as Hillcrest, Brookland, LeDroit Park and Chevy Chase. Find out why Van Ness is the home of American viticulture, see where Frederick Douglass lived and worked on Capitol Hill, and learn about the fascinating memorials in Rock Creek Cemetery. The only problem: Organizers ask participants not to sign up for more than three tours. Good luck narrowing them down. Through Sept. 25. Free. Donations accepted.
Downtown Hyattsville Arts and Ales Festival: “Arts and Ales” says everything you need to know about Hyattsville’s annual festival, being held for the first time since 2019: Browse works by more than 100 juried artists and crafters or participate in DIY arts, such as jewelry making or a tie-dye workshop. Listen to six bands, ranging from Afro-pop to zydeco, and taste beers from Maryland breweries in the beer garden. Noon to 6 p.m. Free.
Hispanic Heritage Month Family Festival at the National Museum of American History: The National Museum of the American Latino marks Hispanic Heritage Month and the opening of the Molina Family Latino Gallery with a day-long celebration for all ages. Chef Silvana Salcido Esparza discusses the intersection of Mexican food and lowrider culture, Colorado Rockies owner Linda Alvarado talks about being the first Latina to own a Major League Baseball team, and curators share artifacts from the museum’s collections that aren’t usually on display. Hands-on activities and performances are featured all day, and the evening is capped with a 6 p.m. concert including Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles and the D.C. Cuban All Stars. 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Free.
Homecoming at President Lincoln’s Cottage: Family day at Abraham Lincoln’s favorite summer retreat starts with a 5K and fun run — including a “100-foot Tot Dash” — before shifting gears into arts and craft projects, storytelling and, in honor of the president’s horse-loving son Tad Lincoln, free pony rides. From 3 to 6 p.m., there’s live entertainment from Baba Ras D and jazz by Donvonte McCoy. 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Most activities free; 5K registration $40-$50; tours of the cottage free-$15.
Free Museum Day: When the Smithsonian museums and the National Gallery of Art are on your doorstep, it can be easy to forget that many museums don’t offer free admission. On the annual Museum Day, museums around the country open their doors to anyone with a free ticket. In the D.C. area, those include the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, the College Park Aviation Museum and multiple historic sites in Old Town Alexandria, including Gadsby’s Tavern. A searchable list of participating museums is at smithsonianmag.com/museumday. Hours vary. Free.
Fall Festival at Summers Farm: Families have visited Summers Farm for fall fun for more than 26 years, but this year, be sure to take note of the farm’s new address. “It’s all the same activities, the same ownership, just a different farm four miles down the road,” explains owner Teresa Summers. The new, larger farm near Frederick is set up for wagon rides and a Dolly Parton-themed corn maze, as well as other kid-friendly activities like zip lines, slides and tug of war. The pumpkin patch and fall festival kick off Saturday and run through Halloween, with fireworks displays on Friday and Saturday nights starting Sept. 30. Open daily through Oct. 31. $12.50-$17.50 online, $15.50-$20.50 at the gate; free for children 2 and younger.
Bluemont Fair: If you want your city-slicker kid to get the chance to ride a pony and compete in a sack race while getting a dose of fresh mountain air, make the drive out to the Bluemont Fair. This Loudoun County village in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains throws a fall festival with all sorts of wholesome activities and demonstrations, including model train collections, quilt shows, pickle and pie competitions, bake sales, antique markets and blacksmith demos. Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. $10; free for children 9 and younger.
Bluejacket Oktoberfest: How many German-style beers does Bluejacket create at its Navy Yard brewery? You might be surprised. To mark the start of Oktoberfest, seven beers are being served in traditional Franconian-style gravity kegs, which pour naturally carbonated beers without the extra carbon dioxide used to dispense beer through “normal” taps. In addition to Hill House, the annual fest beer release, selections include Change Tomorrow, a Bavarian-style Pilsener; Before Sunrise, a Märzen; and Always Wonder, a low-alcohol schankbier, or table beer. Listen to tunes from the Edelweiss Band and Polka Terps while noshing on brats and pretzels. (Also, look for limited-edition cans, including five-liter mini-kegs of Hill House, on the way out.) 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 300 Tingey St. SE. bluejacketdc.com. Free.
Oktoberfest at the Boro: The Sandlot Tysons beer garden hosts a polka show from the powerhouse TKO Band, while the nearby Boro Park hosts games, stations for making pretzel necklaces or getting a glitter tattoo, and social media backdrops. Grab a stein of something — the first 150 arrivals receive a glass with a logo — and wander among the music and activities. 2 to 5 p.m. 8350 Broad St., Tysons, Va. theborotysons.com. Free.
Even more Oktoberfest: German restaurants around the area are less focused on Oktoberfest kickoff events than Oktoberfest season. Glover Park’s venerable Old Europe — in business since 1948 — kicks off Oktoberfest on Saturday with liters of beer and platters of schnitzel in an old-world atmosphere filled with antique steins and model ships. Cafe Berlin on the Hill offers a menu of pork shank and brats in its beer garden, where each weekend includes special events, such as a “Bavarian brunch” with live music (Sunday) or a pig roast (Sept. 24). The Old Stein in Edgewater begins its party Saturday with strolling accordionist Silvia — a fixture at the now-shuttered Cafe Mozart — and Mike Surratt and the Continentals on Sunday, with live music most weekends through October.
Maryland Wine Festival at the Carroll County Farm Museum: The peaceful grounds of the Carroll County Farm Museum will be a great place to explore Maryland’s wine scene as dozens of wineries from the state set up shop with pours to sample and bottles to purchase. (You can check out a Maryland Cheese Pavilion for locally made cheddars, too). There are two tiers of tickets: The basic level provides access to the main field, where you’ll find wineries, food options, live music, and arts and crafts for sale, or you can upgrade to access an explorer village offering a different set of Maryland-grown wines and amenities like picnic tables and air-conditioned restrooms. Saturday and Sunday. Carroll County Farm Museum, 500 S. Center St., Westminster, Md. marylandwine.org/mwf. $20-$65.
Outlaw Music Festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion: As a subgenre, outlaw country emerged as a handful of iconoclasts rebelled against the prevailing winds of Nashville’s country music assembly line. Nearly five decades after the sound and spirit of outlaw country were first established, one of its best-known proponents — Willie Nelson — is still flying its flag alongside a new generation of artists whose music speaks to the breadth and depth of country music. Joining the 89-year-old on this stop of the Outlaw Music Festival are Americana superstars the Avett Brothers; Zach Bryan, touring in support of his true-to-title triple album “American Heartbreak”; sisterly roots rockers Larkin Poe; and Brittney Spencer, a Baltimore-born upstart who is among a class of Black women who are country’s latest boundary breakers. 4:30 p.m. $79.50-$109.50.
Guatemalan Cultural Celebration: Hispanic Heritage Month begins Thursday, and the Embassy of Guatemala is jumping straight into a two-day celebration. In partnership with the Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs, it’s hosting a festival on District Pier at the Wharf featuring Guatemalan dances, foods, performances and more. This celebration also kicks off Fiesta DC, a multicultural parade and performance series on Pennsylvania Avenue. Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Free.
Celebrate Petworth: This annual block party tries to have something for everyone in the neighborhood: live bands ranging from hip-hop to reggae to cumbia; a dog show; a kids’ area with skate lessons, singing, face painting and other activities; a pop-up market stocked with art, pottery, clothing and vintage records; an oral history segment featuring historians and longtime residents; and a “Taste of Petworth” featuring local restaurants. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free.
Clayfest at the Brookland Arts Walk: Potters and ceramic artists from across the D.C. region come together at the Brookland Arts Walk for Clayfest, an all-day, open-air market. Chat with visiting ceramists and purchase their work, while music from a DJ makes shopping feel like a party. Kids can get creative with free chalk and clay to play with, and dogs are welcome, too. The 27 artists’ studios located along the Brookland Arts Walk are also open, in case you want to get a jump-start on your holiday shopping. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free.
Voxtrot at the Black Cat: In the second half of the aughts, Austin-based Voxtrot garnered acclaim and accolades with jangly, twee pop songs that benefited from frontman Ramesh Srivastava’s ear for timeless, softhearted melodies and the band’s feel for danceable beats that were all the rage during the “indie dance” era. After just one album, the band disbanded in 2010, with Srivastava describing Voxtrot’s career path as “one of long, simmering build, explosion and almost instantaneous decay.” But to paraphrase the oft-mangled F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, Voxtrot will get a second act. Earlier this year, the band released its first two buzz-building EPs as “Early Music” and an album of rarities and B-sides titled “Cut From the Stone,” and will return to one of the venues where it said farewell over a decade ago. 7:30 p.m. (doors open). $25-$28.
Public Figures at Songbyrd: Van Hillard grew up dreaming of aliens. His childhood in Caddo Parish, La., was spent staring at the night sky — what he calls “imagination fodder.” Decades later, the self-described “cryptid-head” makes music for the “amplified imagination” with D.C.-based punk rock band Public Figures. Its sophomore album, “Where to Find a Werewolf,” drops at the end of September. Named for John Keel’s paranormal “The Mothman Prophecies,” the band’s first release, “Year of the Garuda,” is musically intense — crashing drums, heavy bass rig and occasional synth — and lyrically easygoing: The raw vocals of the single “Shark Song” repeat endlessly, “All hail the shark.” Hillard says he uses that repetitive framework to “tell a story.” 7 p.m. $14-$17.
Interview: Public Figures makes music to amplify the imagination
Michelle Branch at 9:30 Club: Like countless artists, Michelle Branch recorded her most recent album during early-covid lockdowns, a change in plans that forced the collaboration-friendly singer-songwriter to write songs on her own for the first time in years. As she told Billboard, “It was nice to use that muscle again, and force myself to finish things on my own.” The first taste of “The Trouble with Fever” (due out Sept. 16) is “I’m A Man,” a bluesy rocker that contrasts the struggles of men grappling with toxic masculinity (“I’m out of control / And I can’t help myself”) with those of women navigating its effects (“I’m so tired of being told by everybody / That I can’t make decisions ’bout my own d--- body”). 7 p.m. (doors open). $35.
Bomba Estéreo at the Fillmore Silver Spring: Founded in 2005 in Bogotá, Bomba Estéreo has been at the leading edge of the movement to globalize Latin American music by infusing rhythms from sounds like salsa and cumbia with elements of electronic music and hip-hop. The group scored a viral hit with 2015’s “Soy Yo,” which NPR described as “one of the most iconic anthems of Latinx identity,” and has continued to provide purpose-driven fuel for dance floor fires on the albums since. It also linked with a like-minded musician, Bad Bunny, for the sun-stroked “Ojitos Lindos” on the Puerto Rican megastar’s massive album “Un Verano Sin Ti.” 8 p.m. $30.
Battle of the Barrel-Aged Beers at Boundary Stone: Usually one of the most anticipated events of DC Beer Week, this nine-year-old battle pits seven local breweries against each other to see which can craft the most delicious and interesting beer aged in a wooden barrel. DC Brau, the returning champion, will face Atlas, Denizens, Hellbender, Other Half Brewing, Port City and Right Proper. Tickets include tastes of each of the barrel-aged beers, complementary food, a pint of DC Brau — the winner keeps its beer on tap at Boundary Stone for a year — and one vote for the champion. The Stone is once again offering a taste-at-home “virtual option” for two, which contains seven reusable crowlers, a T-shirt and merch, including a pint glass, as well as a vote. 5 to 10 p.m. $60; $80 with T-shirt and swag; $125 virtual.
NSO in your Neighborhood: The National Symphony Orchestra’s NSO in Your Neighborhood program brings world-class musicians and collaborations to unlikely places. Wednesday’s program at Fort Stanton Recreation Center, guest starring local ensemble the String Queens, features works by Mozart, Tchaikovsky and, uh, a medley of Adele and Gnarls Barkley, while Thursday’s performance at the Entertainment and Sports Arena promises a go-go band and guest musicians. Wednesday at 7 p.m., Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Free.
‘Heroes of the Fourth Turning’ at Studio Theatre: Four friends reunite under the Wyoming night sky after a celebration at their Catholic alma mater in playwright Will Arbery’s “Heroes of the Fourth Turning,” which opens Studio Theatre’s 2022-23 season. Arbery also worked as a writer for HBO’s “Succession,” and “Heroes of the Fourth Turning” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020. This play peers into the souls of present-day conservative Catholic millennials, and Arbery is writing what he knows: His father is president of Wyoming Catholic College, where his mother works as a professor of political philosophy. Through Oct. 23. $50-$95.
Hairspray! Singalong: You can’t stop the beat at Shaw’s Tavern, where the bar is bringing a bit of 1960s Baltimore to the Florida Avenue hangout. The piano bar is set to play all the fan favorites from the 2002 musical, which was later adapted into the 2007 film feature starring John Travolta, Christopher Walken and Zac Efron, while the crowd sings along. Reservations are not required for the bar, but those who need to give their dancing feet a break can reserve a table online. 8 p.m. Free. | 2022-09-15T13:49:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The best things to do in the D.C. area the week of Sept. 15-21 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/best-things-do-dc-area-week-sept-15-21/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/best-things-do-dc-area-week-sept-15-21/ |
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo on Thursday described claims by the Bosnian Serb leader that his security services are eavesdropping on the American ambassador to Sarajevo as “blustering” and added that his separatist policies are “gambling” with the future of the Serb entity in the Balkan state. | 2022-09-15T13:49:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | US scoffs as Bosnian Serb leader claims he can spy on US - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-scoffs-as-bosnian-serb-leader-claims-he-can-spy-on-us/2022/09/15/b1ecb06a-34f0-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-scoffs-as-bosnian-serb-leader-claims-he-can-spy-on-us/2022/09/15/b1ecb06a-34f0-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
Courts have given border authorities the power to search people’s devices without a warrant or suspicion of a crime. Above, JFK Airport in New York.
CBP spokesman Lawrence Payne said in a statement Thursday that the agency conducts “border searches of electronic devices in accordance with statutory and regulatory authorities” and has imposed rules to ensure the searches are “exercised judiciously, responsibly, and consistent with the public trust.” | 2022-09-15T14:09:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DHS built huge database from cellphones, computers seized at border - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/15/government-surveillance-database-dhs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/15/government-surveillance-database-dhs/ |
Roger Federer won the last of his Wimbledon titles in 2017, (Andrew Couldridge/AP)
Roger Federer, the 20-time Grand Slam singles champion whose game defined grace and elegance, announced his retirement from tennis Thursday, saying in a video posted on social media that the injuries and surgeries he has dealt with the past three years leave him no other choice at the age of 41.
“I’ve worked hard to return to full competitive form. But I also know my body’s capacities and limits, and its message to me lately has been clear,” he said. “I am 41 years old. I have played more than 1,500 matches over 24 years. Tennis has treated me more generously than I ever would have dreamt, and now I must recognize when it is time to end my competitive career. The Laver Cup next week in London will be my final ATP event. I will play more tennis in the future, of course, but just not in Grand Slams or on the Tour.”
Federer won the Wimbledon men’s singles title a record eight times, won six Australian Opens, five U.S. Opens and completed the career Grand Slam when he won his lone French Open championship in 2009. Regarded as one of the best players of all time, his matches with Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were particularly compelling as they vied for Grand Slam titles. Nadal is the leader with 22 and Djokovic has 21, with Federer finishing with 20.
“I would also like to thank my competitors on the court. I was lucky enough to play so many epic matches that I will never forget,” Federer said. “We battled fairly, with passion and intensity, and I always tried my best to respect the history of the game. I feel extremely grateful. We pushed each other, and together we took tennis to new levels.”
Federer thanked his wife and four children, his team, his business partners and his fans.
“This is a bittersweet decision,” he said, “because I will miss everything the Tour has given me. But at the same time there is so much to celebrate. I consider myself one of the most fortunate people on Earth. I was given a special talent to play tennis and I did it at a level that I never imagined, for much longer than I ever thought possible.”
His message was one of gratitude and a bit of amazement.
“The last 24 years on tour have been an incredible adventure. While it sometimes feels like it went by in 24 hours, it has also been so deep and magical that it seems as if I’ve already lived a full lifetime,” he said. “I have had the immense fortune to play in front of you in over 40 different countries. I have laughed and cried, felt joy and pain, and most of all I have felt incredibly alive.”
And Federer made one last promise to fans and to the game.
“I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart, to everyone around the world who has helped make the dreams of a young Swiss ball kid come true. Finally, to the game of tennis, I love you and will never leave you.” | 2022-09-15T14:18:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Roger Federer announces his retirement from tennis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/roger-federer-retires/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/roger-federer-retires/ |
Puppies kidnapped in D.C.
Officials said they were taken after their mother, Godiva, was rescued
A view of seven puppies that were kidnapped in Northwest D.C. Rescue officials are looking for them and asking for the public's help. (Humane Rescue Alliance)
A D.C. humane rescue group is seeking the public’s help in finding six kidnapped puppies, saying it is “desperately concerned” about welfare of the barely month-old dogs and is looking for the culprit.
The case dates to mid-July when the puppies’ mother, Godiva, was picked up by the Humane Rescue Alliance in Northwest D.C. She was malnourished and pregnant, and her rescuers were worried about her health. But with good care, she successfully bore a litter of seven puppies in early August at the rescue alliance’s facility.
Godiva — a 1-year-old believed to be a Labrador mix — and her puppies were transferred to a foster home so they could “spend their critical growth period together in a more ideal environment than the shelter,” Rescue Alliance officials said in a statement.
A cat was killed in Maryland. Two dogs were put on ‘death row.’
But in late August, rescue officials said they got a distressing call. A dog had been abandoned and was found tied to a pole. They went, got the dog and realized it was Godiva — minus her pups.
Officials obtained a search warrant for the home where they thought the puppies were but found only one of the seven. They reunited it with Godiva at their rescue facility.
Now officials are trying to figure out what happened to Godiva’s remaining six puppies. A reward of up to $7,500 is being offered for information that leads to the recovery of the puppies, which are now about 5 weeks old.
The Rescue Alliance said in the statement that the puppies were kidnapped and “separated from their mother at the extremely vulnerable age of just 3 ½-weeks-old.” It said pups “need to be with their mothers and littermates until they are 8 to 10 weeks old” and noted that the kidnapped dogs are in need of veterinary care.
D.C. police arrest seven people found with dog taken in armed robbery
Officials said they believe the pups were sold or given to buyers or adopters who did not know they had been stolen. Anyone who was given or bought one of the puppies without realizing it was kidnapped will not be held liable, officials said.
Tips can be reported anonymously, officials said. Anyone with information on the puppies’ whereabouts is asked to call rescue officials at 202-723-5730. | 2022-09-15T14:36:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Six puppies kidnapped in D.C. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/09/15/puppies-kidnapped-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/09/15/puppies-kidnapped-dc/ |
White conservative Christians ignore their real problem: A fleeing flock
President Donald Trump holds a Bible as he stands in front of St. John's Church near Lafayette Square in Washington on June 1, 2020. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
White evangelical Christians dominate the MAGA movement. Fear of civilizational decline, dire warnings of an existential crisis and howls that religion is under “attack” form the basis of much of the MAGA ideology. And the apocalyptic language deployed by the right wing bears a striking resemblance to Christian end-times imagery.
Prominent right-wingers, including former attorney general William P. Barr and current Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., cite growing secularism as a threat to our entire way of life. Barr (while still in office!) raged during a speech at the University of Notre Dame: “This is not decay. This is organized destruction. Secularists and their allies have marshaled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”
Alito’s recent rant in Rome was not his first fiery tirade against an imagined assault on religion. Back in 2020, he thundered: “It pains me to say this but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.” This summer he was at it again, denouncing “hostility to religion.”
These voices posit that White Christians are victims. But in fact, the church quite simply has failed to attract and retain believers. As Ron Brownstein explained last year in the Atlantic: “The claim that any Democratic victory will irrevocably reconfigure the nation taps into a deep fear among key components of the Republican coalition: that they will be eclipsed by the demographic and cultural changes that have made white people — especially white Christians — a steadily shrinking share of the population.”
Brownstein observed that this “vision of America will only diverge further from reality in a country where kids of color will soon represent a majority of the under-18 population, where a growing number of young people do not identify with any religious tradition, and where white Christians likely slip below 40 percent of the society.”
That process is well underway. The Pew poll tracks the rapid decline of self-identified Christians: “The projections show Christians of all ages shrinking from 64% to between a little more than half (54%) and just above one-third (35%) of all Americans by 2070. Over that same period, ‘nones’ [those affiliated with no religion] would rise from the current 30% to somewhere between 34% and 52% of the U.S. population.”
In short, the irrational panic evident in MAGA circles and the creeping openness to authoritarian theocracy appear to be a reaction to a new reality: Christians (especially White evangelical Christians) do not dominate the United States demographically, economically, socially or politically as they once did. That’s what has freaked out members of the right — from the Jan. 6 insurrectionists to Alito.
Enacting religious precepts from the bench, storming the Capitol, ushering prayer back into schools or promising to pass laws that reflect certain Christian values won’t reverse the trend. In fact, the all this tumult might accelerate the rise of the “nones.” | 2022-09-15T14:44:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Poll shows white Christians are ignoring their real numbers problem - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/religious-decline-evangelicals-white-christians-poll/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/religious-decline-evangelicals-white-christians-poll/ |
Review by Chris Klimek
Jann Wenner and Bruce Springsteen pose together backstage before discussing the Rolling Stone magazine co-founder’s new memoir, “Like a Rolling Stone,” at the 92nd Street Y in New York on Sept. 13. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
“Like a Rolling Stone” is a no-brainer title for the new memoir of Jann Wenner, who co-founded Rolling Stone magazine in 1967 and ran it (to varying degrees) for half a century. Though they’d occasionally tease each other about ownership of the appellation, both Wenner and one of the most oft-mentioned of his famous friends, Mick Jagger, cribbed it from others: Wenner and co-founder Ralph J. Gleason got the name from Bob Dylan. Jagger and his co-founder, Keith Richards, took it from Muddy Waters.
“Deeply flawed and tawdry,” was Wenner’s review. But this is the man who gave Dylan’s 1981 Christian album, “Shot of Love,” a five-star notice in Rolling Stone — an ancient error for which he chides himself on Page 246 — so his critical judgment is hardly infallible. Twenty years and 150 pages later, Wenner stands by his five-star rave of Jagger’s guest-star-packed “solo” album “Goddess in the Doorway.” That’s what we would nowadays call a hot take, or possibly just a wrong one.
The alternate universe of celebrity magazines
But as the Rolling Stone trades San Francisco (and pot) for New York (and cocaine), and its leader graduates from visionary kid to jet-setter, the book increasingly recalls Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 biopic “Elvis,” a frantically paced 160-minute film that dutifully visits the stations of Presley’s career while still feeling like a trailer for a more substantial feature to come. Wenner’s prose is similarly impatient, alighting in spurts of two or three hundred words before leaping ahead to some unrelated subject. | 2022-09-15T15:19:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jann Wenner memoir ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/09/15/jann-wenner-rolling-stone-memoir-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/09/15/jann-wenner-rolling-stone-memoir-review/ |
BEIRUT — A Lebanese activist group on Thursday vowed to organize more bank heists to help people retrieve their locked savings as the country’s years-long economic crisis continues to worsen.
The standoff and public sympathy for those taking matters into their own hands to get their savings has exposed the depths of people's despair in Lebanon’s economic crisis, which has pulled over three-quarters of the country’s population into poverty, unable to cope with skyrocketing food, electricity, and gasoline prices. | 2022-09-15T15:19:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After heist, Lebanese activists promise more bank raids - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/after-heist-lebanese-activists-promise-more-bank-raids/2022/09/15/cb931e3a-3506-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/after-heist-lebanese-activists-promise-more-bank-raids/2022/09/15/cb931e3a-3506-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
Tropical Storm Fiona forms, soon to lash Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico
The storm could eventually be one to watch for Bermuda or even the U.S. East Coast
The National Hurricane Center's forecast for Fiona. (NOAA/NHC)
Tropical Storm Fiona, which formed Wednesday evening several hundred miles east of the Lesser Antilles, is set to lash the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico with heavy rain, rough surf, coastal rip currents and strong gusty winds. That’s just the first act in what looks to be a long-lived tour of the western Atlantic, with increasing signs that Fiona could become an eventual hurricane and may be one to watch for Bermuda or the U.S. East Coast.
Tropical storm warnings have been hoisted in the northern Leeward Islands — including Saba and St. Eustatius, St. Maarten, Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat and Anguilla — and could be expanded into Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands by Thursday afternoon or evening. Existing watches will probably be upgraded to warnings as the 50 mph storm churns due west at 13 mph.
Winds up to tropical storm force will probably get there beginning Friday night and will accompany heavy rainfall on the order of 3 to 6 inches. After passing near or over Puerto Rico, Fiona looks to curve northward, at which point a jigsaw puzzle of uncertain atmospheric ingredients will play a west-vs.-east tug of war to determine where it ultimately goes.
Fiona is the sixth named storm of what, until now, has been a relatively quiet Atlantic hurricane season. The Atlantic basin is running at about 47.4 percent of average for ACE, or accumulated cyclone energy — a measure of overall storm activity.
According to hurricane researcher Philip Klotzbach, it’s the slowest start to a season since 2014, defying expert predictions of a particularly active 2022 season. By comparison, the hyperactive season of 2021 had already cranked out 20 named storms and was on the verge of dipping into the Greek alphabet.
As of 8 a.m. Eastern time Thursday, the center of Fiona was located about 545 miles east of the Leeward Islands and was moving west at a typical pace. That westward motion is expected to continue through Friday, when Fiona will deliver impacts to the islands and Puerto Rico.
Maximum sustained winds were estimated at 50 mph, and the National Hurricane Center anticipates subtle strengthening to a 55 mph storm. Thereafter, a plateau in intensity is expected as it continues west. The agency has asked ships within 300 miles of the storm’s position to record and submit weather observations every three hours, which will aid in forecasting and modeling efforts. An Air Force Hurricane Hunter plane will be dispatched to investigate the storm later Thursday.
On infrared satellite imagery, Fiona is replete with deep convection, or shower and thunderstorm activity. That’s evidenced by the darker reds and whites, indicative of high, cold cloud tops. But the majority of the storminess is displaced to the east of its low-level circulation — notice in white the low-level cloud field spiraling into the center, which is obscured by higher clouds to the east.
That lack of vertical alignment of the system is the result of westerly to northwesterly wind shear, or a change of wind speed and/or direction with altitude. It knocks the system off-kilter, and until it’s able to better stack itself vertically, Fiona will struggle to intensify. Strengthening isn’t really expected in the near-term, as shear doesn’t look to relax any time soon.
Eventually, the low-level center may become stretched if a thunderstorm and its associated updraft pass over said vortex, but whether that will happen before arrival in Puerto Rico remains to be seen.
Fiona is expected to bring impacts to the northern Leeward Islands beginning late Friday, and its core should cross the archipelago sometime early Saturday. A general 3 to 6 inches of rain, with a chance of locally higher amounts, is expected. Gusty squalls with winds approaching 50 to 60 mph are likely as well, along with dangerous coastal rip currents.
From there, the American (GFS) model hints that Fiona could track north of Puerto Rico while still sideswiping the northeastern fringe of the U.S. territory.
Conversely, the European model simulates a track south of Puerto Rico and eventually into Hispaniola. That could shred the storm’s circulation before emergence over the waters of the southeastern Bahamas. The storm’s torrential downpours over the Dominican Republic and Haiti could well lead to flooding and landslides, especially in mountainous areas where there is potential for double-digit rainfall totals.
The Hurricane Center forecast for the track of Fiona splits the difference between the American and European models, calling for a path over Puerto Rico before Fiona navigates the Mona Passage west of the island and east of Hispaniola as it begins a northward curve. The ultimate wild card, and hence the different track scenarios, is when that right turn to the north will take place, which depends on the strength and position of high pressure to the northeast. That high acts as a guardrail.
Ultimately, Fiona will be steered to the north, where, if it evades land and its inner core remains intact, it could begin intensifying in the next five to seven days.
Some computer model simulations project it will pass ominously close to the Eastern Seaboard, shunted west by the Bermuda High and further lured toward the coast by approaching low pressure seeking to capture it. Other models allow it to escape out to sea, which would pose a greater risk to Bermuda. All told, it’s simply too early to tell — but this is one you’ll want to closely watch. | 2022-09-15T15:20:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tropical Storm Fiona forms, soon to lash Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/15/tropical-storm-fiona-puerto-rico/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/15/tropical-storm-fiona-puerto-rico/ |
China is coming for video games. Companies and players should be wary.
Visitors play video games at the Tokyo Game Show in Chiba prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 15. (Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP/Getty Images)
Fans of video games should pay heed to the fate of big Hollywood studios — which first ceded creative control to Chinese censors in pursuit of box-office gold and then found themselves floundering when China largely closed its borders to Hollywood products — as China’s government-allied businesses acquire a larger stake in the global gaming industry.
It makes sense that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its business affiliates would set their sights on video games. The overall size of the gaming market dwarfs that of the global box office.
The largest player in this space is Tencent, “the world’s biggest game company.” The company’s first big purchase was Riot — best known at the time for “League of Legends” — and it has expanded steadily ever since. But as the Ringer noted last month, Tencent has been on an acquisition spree in recent years, gobbling up companies.
“In 2019, it invested in 10 game companies; in 2020, 32; and then, in 2021, the number exploded to 101,” Lewis Gordon reported. As a result of these purchases, the company generates more than a quarter of its revenue from overseas.
Consolidation is not unique to the video game industry, of course, as anyone who watched Disney’s absorption of 21st Century Fox or Amazon’s purchase of MGM will happily tell you. But there is a qualitative difference between a Swedish firm such as Embracer Group amassing a video game empire and a company under the thumb of the CCP doing the same.
Tencent is by no means a household name in the United States. Still, some Americans might recognize Tencent’s logo as one of the many labels that show up in front of movies. Titles familiar to Americans include the Milla Jovovich-starring “Monster Hunter,” the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring “Terminator: Dark Fate” and the John Cena-starring “Bumblebee.”
However, if Americans have heard of Tencent, it’s likely because of the massive controversy sparked by the company’s effort to censor American icon Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise). Tencent was a co-financier of “Top Gun: Maverick,” the legacy sequel that has earned more than $700 million at the domestic box office and more than $1.4 billion worldwide.
But that windfall was put at risk by Tencent’s involvement: When the trailer premiered, red-blooded American audience members howled with outrage that Mav’s iconic bomber jacket had been stripped of patches demonstrating America’s alliances with Taiwan and Japan. Following the hue and cry, the patches were replaced. Somewhere along the way, Tencent bailed from the partnership. This likely cost the company tens of millions in revenue, but it also allowed Tencent and its executives to avoid hassles from a Chinese government working to reassert control over cultural figures and companies that have achieved great prominence.
It was a clarifying incident for American audiences and executives alike, the moment when the frog realized the water crossed over from comfortably warm to boiling. Creeping censorship had left not only obvious topics, such as Tibet, off-limits, but also less obvious topics, such as time travel and ghost stories. The whole American studio system had reoriented itself around chasing Chinese lucre, at great creative cost.
The Chinese are trying to interfere with the artistry of video games in a similar way, as Oliver Holmes noted in the Guardian last year.
“In 2011, the designer at Riot learned of an unwritten rule that no video game can show characters emerging from the ground, as if rising from the dead,” Holmes reported. Game developers couldn’t show bones or skulls. Cults were banned as well. Blood could be black but not a realistic red.
China wants games to be viewed not as an art form to be excelled at but a product to be homogenized; hence the nation’s efforts to bring video games under the sway of the International Organization for Standardization. While the application pertained only to technical specifications, it made clear how China sees gaming as a whole — and other players in the market understood the danger of letting China have its way here. The Swedish Games Industry, a trade group, pushed back hard against this effort; as spokesperson Per Stromback told Foreign Policy: “Video games are art. Regulating them in the same manner as lightbulbs would curtail the creators’ freedom.”
Creative concerns coexist alongside a variety of other worries, from fears that China is propagandizing Western youths via history games and other educational endeavors to concerns that the anti-cheat software used by Riot Games might give Chinese authorities undue access to computers around the world, allowing them to siphon off data.
Unlike the threat to artistic freedom, the reality of which is obvious to any observer of the film industry, some of those fears might be overblown. However, I’m sympathetic to them for the same reason I have no interest in letting TikTok anywhere near my phone: The Chinese government’s commitment to privacy is as nonexistent as its commitment to artistic freedom. Better safe than sorry. | 2022-09-15T15:21:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | China is coming for American video games - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/china-video-games-tencent/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/china-video-games-tencent/ |
We once had a law to defend human attention. It’s time for an update.
The Noise Control Act of 1972 sought to give Americans the right to a reasonably quiet environment. We need something similar for our digital world.
Perspective by Justin Zorn
Leigh Marz
Our noisy digital world is increasingly full of distractions. Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz argue that we would benefit from legislation to help regulate it. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
Even if 2020’s shelter-in-place orders brought a temporary break from the cacophony, the trajectory of the modern world seems inexorable: more cars on the roads, planes in the skies, whirring drones, pinging gadgetry, buzzy open-plan offices, and squawking TVs embedded in gas pumps and taxi seats. The National Park Service estimates that noise pollution increases two-to-three-fold every 30 years. Fire engine sirens — a good proxy for the loudness of surrounding soundscapes — are up to six times louder than they were a century ago. The World Health Organization estimates that roughly 65 percent of Europeans live with noise levels that are hazardous to health.
And it’s not just auditory noise. It’s informational noise, too. The average person in the United States consumes at least five times more information on any given day than she did a generation ago. Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt speculated in 2010 that every two days, we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003. The leading experts in the science of human attention say we simply can’t process anything near the standard modern levels of mental stimulation.
Noise — of both the literal and figurative kinds — is not just an irritant. It’s a hazard to our mental and physical health. A range of peer-reviewed studies over the past decades has shown that high decibel levels have a serious impact on cognition, especially among children, and contribute to health risks including cardiovascular disease, stroke and depression. The Center for Humane Technology — a leading public-interest research and advocacy group founded by veteran Silicon Valley technologists — has catalogued academic research showing that most people switch between different online content every 19 seconds, that the average person spends a full hour every day dealing with online interruptions and that the level of social media use on a given day is linked to a significant increase in memory failure the next day.
Our devices steal our attention. We need to take it back.
There are no easy policy solutions to address the proliferation of noise. After all, the prevailing idea of economic progress — as measured by gross domestic product — depends on expanding the clangor of industrial production, Big Data and the attention economy.
Fifty years ago this fall, at a time of growing concern about rising industrial noise, President Richard Nixon signed the first — and arguably only — federal law devoted to safeguarding human attention. The Noise Control Act of 1972 aimed to give Americans the right to a reasonably quiet environment. It created the federal Office of Noise Abatement and Control (ONAC) with a mandate to coordinate research on noise control, set federal auditory emission standards for products, and provide grants and technical assistance to state and local governments to reduce noise pollution. While the office didn’t have the authority to regulate noise from most transportation infrastructure, it spearheaded a public education effort that built awareness of transport noise, eventually prompting airports, airlines and freight companies to take the issue seriously.
The Reagan administration defunded and largely dismantled the federal noise control programs as part of its anti-regulation push in 1982. Nevertheless, ONAC remains an admirable example of precautionary public policy that prioritizes human health, well-being and cognition. The Nixon-era noise-management regime was predicated on a notion that’s still largely unheard of in the U.S. government — or in most governments for that matter: There is inherent value in untroubled human attention, and society has a compelling interest in defending it.
Today, a wide range of policy ideas aims to regulate the excesses of the attention economy — from requiring transparency on algorithms, banning autoplay and infinite-scroll features, and placing “Surgeon General’s Warnings” on habit-forming products, all the way up to antitrust actions to break up the biggest players and transform the market incentives that drive companies to develop addictive technologies.
Smart takes on this absurd modern life
Across the ideological divide, there’s high interest in reining in the excesses of Big Tech and its effects on our attention. For example, recent bipartisan legislation in the Senate requiring greater transparency from Facebook and other platforms with respect to the social and psychological effects of their algorithms could help to address some informational noise. But the U.S. government would also benefit from a new attention watchdog and policy clearinghouse in the executive branch — something akin to a 21st-century Office of Noise Control and Abatement — with a mandate to address rising auditory and informational noise.
During Nixon’s day, the economist Herbert Simon, later a Nobel Prize winner, wrote: “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” Today, as Simon indicated, we’re living in a world where quiet time and focused attention are extraordinarily scarce. It’s time for government — once again — to honor peace and quiet as a public good. | 2022-09-15T15:21:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | We once had a law to defend human attention. It’s time for an update. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/09/15/attention-economy-legislation-noise/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/09/15/attention-economy-legislation-noise/ |
Ron DeSantis corrals immigrants into his effort to own the libs
By all available accounts, the immigrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are being well received. A local legislator describes a scrambling effort by the community to ensure that the arrivals had the “support they need.” One migrant told a local news outlet: “I feel good, despite everything.”
That same person said he was told that “there would be work and housing” when he arrived at the island, a curious assertion given that Vineyard residents (much less the state) do not seem to have been expecting the new arrivals. The island was chosen, of course, specifically because it’s not the sort of place where it’s easy for a low-income individual to settle down. It’s a strongly Democratic, wealthy place that, unlike large metropolises and border cities, has no significant existent capacity for handling new immigrants.
This is a point worth elevating as DeSantis and his allies high-five each other over the cleverness of the ploy. A debate over the ethics of promising jobs to people before shipping them off to a small island to score political points is precisely the debate that DeSantis wants. Because — perhaps even more than Donald Trump — DeSantis’s politics are centered around leveraging power to inflict pain on liberals. Or, more accurately, on leveraging power to make the right think that they’re inflicting such pain. And condemnation of his move is easy to depict as liberals whining.
Last weekend, DeSantis spoke at a right-wing conference in Florida, earning rave reviews. After all, it wasn’t just that DeSantis offered up the exhaustingly familiar litany of condemnations about oppressive left-wing culture, he was pushing back. Rod Dreher, a prominent voice on the right, praised DeSantis specifically for using his position as a cudgel in the culture wars, something that Trump — limited in part by the constraints of the presidency — was less effective at.
We’ve seen this over and over in the past few years. If there were a possible nexus between the articulated annoyances of Fox News hosts and executive or legislative action, DeSantis found it: scaling back voting access, reducing penalties for hitting protesters with your car, limiting discussion of same-sex relationships in schools — and that’s even before we get into his indifference to coronavirus vaccines and mask-wearing. DeSantis’s effort to implement a Fox-News-centric agenda has been obviously shaky at times, as with his declaration that he was eliminating critical race theory from math books and his dubious “election fraud” arrests. But the point is less addressing problems than it is elevating them.
By now it goes without saying that DeSantis wants to be president. We talk around this, adding qualifiers like “appears to” and the like, but, come on. DeSantis keeps playing very obviously to Republican presidential primary voters. He paid to shuttle migrants — who, it’s worth noting, may be legally allowed to remain in the United States while awaiting asylum hearings — to Martha’s Vineyard (a destination recommended by Tucker Carlson earlier this summer) to get a piece of the attention being paid to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R). The migrants weren’t even in Florida!
All of this stems from DeSantis’s accurate understanding of a fundamental component of right-wing politics at the moment: It is driven by a desire to fight back against, to inflict pain on perceived left-wing hegemony. Republicans are much more likely to see Whites, Christians and men as embattled in American society. That’s exacerbated by the emergence of more non-White voices but also heightened by rhetoric in the conservative media. The right’s complaints against “wokeism” are generally complaints that they perceive someone unlike them trying to take away what has long been theirs.
And here comes DeSantis, putting the force of civic authority behind that fight. Here’s DeSantis, making liberals cringe. Here comes DeSantis, exposing the hypocrisy of the left and everyone else who is ruining the country and inflicting a cost. Here comes a hero.
What’s remarkable about it is how obvious it is. DeSantis and his team revel in left-wing outcry. They’re unquestionably giddy that the conservative media is talking about them in the wake of the Martha’s Vineyard ploy, that their allies in the media are indifferent about questions of ethics or the exercise of his power because they’re so enamored of the teeth-gnashing from their opponents. It’s government by trolling, because that’s what the base loves and the base is whose attention DeSantis seeks.
One thing that he’s done to differentiate himself from Trump is to outsource his social media fights to his team. They’ve been busy over the past 12 hours, amplifying examples of liberal outrage and doing their best to stoke that response. Again, it’s unsubtle.
But one comment, from DeSantis’s longtime aide Christina Pushaw, is telling. She derided a call for community volunteers to help deal with the migrants as the island “freaking out” about the arrivals. Another interpretation, of course, is that the island was faced with an unexpected situation and moved to address it. But that doesn’t feed into the “Look how the libs are squirming!!” presentation that was the intent of the endeavor in the first place.
There’s no question that the number of people arriving at the border has surged. While the numbers are often overstated or misrepresented, they have forced a number of places around the country to adjust to handle the new arrivals. Which gets back to the original point: Martha’s Vineyard seems to be handling the immigrants’ arrival quite capably.
The libs aren’t really crying that much after all.
— Liz Mair (@LizMair) September 15, 2022 | 2022-09-15T15:22:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ron DeSantis corrals immigrants into his effort to own the libs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/desantis-immigrants-martha-vineyard/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/desantis-immigrants-martha-vineyard/ |
Judge subjected staff to insults, outbursts, court investigation finds
Court leaders took the unusual step of making public their findings after Carmen Garza left the bench
The Pete V. Domenici U.S. Courthouse in Albuquerque. (Handout Photo)
Federal judges voted not to reappoint a New Mexico jurist after an internal investigation showed she subjected employees to insults, outbursts and threats of termination, according to a court order published Wednesday.
A court committee that reviewed the allegations said the judge, Carmen E. Garza, created what seemed to be “an abusive and hostile work environment” in her chambers for more than a decade, behavior that included manipulating staff to undermine fellow judges and courthouse employees, and making “derogatory and egregious statements” about colleagues. There was also some evidence, the order states, that Garza “engaged in retaliatory conduct” after the vote against her reappointment.
Her actions, according to Wednesday’s order, led the committee to believe that the judge had “engaged in sanctionable misconduct.”
Garza, a magistrate judge since 2006, left the bench when her term expired in late August before a separate judicial council could act on the complaint. It was remarkable for court leaders to publicize their preliminary findings and to identify the judge by name. In the past, the retirement or departure of a federal judge under scrutiny has cut short similar investigations without any airing of the findings or closure for those who made the allegations.
Garza, 62, denied that she created a hostile work environment, according to the 16-page order, but indicated she was willing to take “appropriate corrective action.” After she was informed of the committee’s preliminary views, the order says Garza decided not to participate in an interview or seek to challenge the allegations.
In a statement, the judge said she had responded to each of the allegations, which “did not constitute a hostile work environment” and “involved incorrect perceptions on the part of the complainants.”
Garza said she tried to resolve the issues “professionally and expeditiously” by seeking mediation. Had she known the committee would make factual findings, Garza said she would have fully participated in the process.
The former judge also disputed any assertion that she retaliated against her staff and said she had no notice from the investigative committee of that specific claim. “It is shocking to me that the judicial system would skip over due process considerations in this cavalier manner,” Garza said, adding that she is “strongly considering a meaningful and thorough appeal of the characterizations.”
Judges accused of sex discrimination, bullying, internal survey shows
The order from leaders of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit coincides with efforts nationally to revamp the judiciary’s handling of workplace misconduct allegations and provide more options for employees to report harassment, discrimination and other inappropriate behavior.
The judiciary’s 30,000 employees lack the same workplace rights afforded to other government and private-sector workers. Many have said in court surveys and congressional testimony that they are reluctant to bring complaints against such powerful figures with lifetime tenure, mindful the process is overseen by fellow judges. Critics say it’s a flawed system of accountability, one that’s designed to protect those at the top at the expense of lower-level staff.
The 10th Circuit judges said they were making the committee’s findings public in part to identify barriers to reporting misconduct such as employees who told investigators they “lacked confidence in the system and its ability to protect them,” the order states. The vote to not reappoint Garza, it says, was a direct result of the investigation, guidance from the court’s workplace relations director and former employees’ “courage in reporting the alleged misconduct.”
“The most effective way to assuage employees’ fears of retaliation is to demonstrate that the Judiciary’s reporting systems are effective at addressing misconduct,” according to the order from the judicial council, which acknowledged that building confidence in those systems “will take time” and it hopes the “conclusion of this matter will be a step toward developing that trust.”
Wednesday’s order, signed by 10th Circuit Chief Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich, appears to be the first time that court leaders have tried to define and address abusive conduct by a federal judge under changes made in 2019 to expand protections for judiciary employees and specifically prohibit such harassment.
Comments on body parts. Questions about pregnancy. Court filing alleges ongoing harassment in judiciary.
Those changes came about following allegations of sexual misconduct against former appeals court judge Alex Kozinski. Judiciary leaders, however, have opposed efforts by Congress to do more, saying it would be inappropriate for lawmakers to intervene in the operations of a separate, coequal branch of government.
The 10th Circuit’s decision to publish the preliminary findings was in stark contrast to how the judiciary handled the Kozinski matter. In that case, the committee tasked with investigating the claims of 15 women closed its review after Kozinski retired. At the time, Kozinski apologized, saying he had a “broad sense of humor” and “candid way of speaking” to men and women, and adding that it “grieves me to learn that I caused any of my clerks to feel uncomfortable; this was never my intent.”
When a judge leaves the bench, court leaders no longer have jurisdiction to take any action or impose sanctions. But the 10th Circuit, in Garza’s case, decided to use the investigation’s findings to identify alleged problems and recommend solutions, including more training for judges and court employees. Investigators discovered, for instance, that many of the judges interviewed as part of Garza’s inquiry were unaware of the breadth of alleged misconduct and questioned whether the scant information they had should have triggered their reporting obligations.
Jaime Santos, an appellate attorney who helped found Law Clerks for Workplace Accountability, said Wednesday’s order underscores the importance of continuing to investigate even after a judge resigns or retires, and publicizing the findings.
Failing to do so, Santos said, offers “very little incentive for mistreated employees to come forward and submit a complaint against a judicial officer who wields an enormous amount of power and for whom there are few, if any, realistic tangible repercussions for wrongdoing. Federal judges should not be able to moot misconduct investigations by resigning — and certainly not by retiring with a pension for life paid at taxpayer expense.”
Garza joined the federal bench in New Mexico in 2006 and was elevated to chief magistrate judge in 2018. Magistrate judges conduct preliminary hearings in criminal cases and handle some trials in misdemeanor and civil cases. Unlike Senate-confirmed District Court judges, magistrates are appointed to eight-year terms.
Garza had practiced in Las Cruces and Albuquerque for two decades and was a founding member of the New Mexico Women’s Bar Association. A local newspaper editorial described Garza as hard-working, and the daughter of a former prosecutor and state court judge. She was quoted after the conviction of a client as saying, “I believe in justice; I believe in people’s rights.” At a meeting of the New Mexico Hispanic Bar Association in 2015, Garza presented on the topic of “Civility Matters.”
In their joint formal complaint last year, four of Garza’s former employees described a different experience. The filing included the names of nearly a dozen former law clerks and court staff who they said were willing to share their experiences. The chief circuit judge appointed a special committee, made up of five judges, to look into the allegations, and investigators interviewed all of the judge’s former employees and four of fellow judges.
“The damage that this ongoing harassment causes affects not only those who experience or observe it, but harms the integrity of our judicial system as a whole,” wrote one of the former law clerks, who resisted reporting Garza until after finding another job because of concerns about retaliation and future employment.
While the anecdotes may seem “trivial or inconsequential on their own, the overall effect is a hostile workplace,” the clerk wrote. “I believe that this ‘low hum of harassment,’ fostered by consistent insults and degrading comments, runs afoul” of the code of conduct for federal judges.
Federal judiciary leaders approve new rules to protect court employees from workplace harassment
In interviews with The Washington Post, three of her former law clerks who also spoke to court investigators described what they said was a pattern of belittling, humiliating remarks. The former employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity citing concerns about their legal careers, agreed to talk about their experience in part to let other court employees know that judiciary leaders took their concerns seriously.
One alleged Garza threatened to take away vacation time, engaged in destructive conversations about other judges and court employees, most often about weight and appearance, and shopped on the internet while presiding over court proceedings.
“She complained that my co-worker was ‘too dumb’ to understand a simple concept. She made comments about a bad haircut, whether my co-clerk came from an affluent family, or what the sexual orientation was of a friend. She asked me if a member of the cleaning crew was ‘retarded.’ She had me draft a letter addressed from her firing my co-clerk,” according to the formal complaint. “Any time I pushed back on her criticisms of others, she questioned my loyalty.”
Each described a toxic, unpredictable environment, with the judge erupting over seeming trivialities such as the spacing of margins in a draft court order or minor typos, and providing hypercritical feedback on writing they said the judge had previously praised.
“She thrived with shifting expectations and criticisms for things I didn’t know were wrong: using a green pen, changing the voice mail password, adding something to her electronic calendar without first removing the setting for a 15-minute reminder notification. Any perceived inconvenience could send her storming in a fit of rage, leaving me questioning whether I lost my job,” the formal complaint says.
The former law clerks said the alleged treatment affected their physical and emotional health. One described vomiting before work due to stress. Another routinely cried in the bathroom. A third sought therapy for help coping with the constant fear of being fired, they said in interviews.
In her statement, Garza said the employees never raised their concerns before filing the formal complaint, which Garza said she has reviewed. As a Hispanic woman, lawyer and judge, she said she has worked to help overcome the “significant obstacles that females and minorities face in the legal profession. I have strived to advance the same on behalf of my clerks over the years.”
She remains “puzzled,” she said, because the former employees “have continued to have relations with me over the years, thanked me for their clerkships, and shared personal details of their lives with me,” Garza said. “I remain at a loss as to how complainants could continue to compliment, then allege what they did.”
Former employees said in interviews that they never considered reporting the judge’s behavior because they were afraid she would ruin their careers.
“It didn’t occur to me that I had protections of any kind,” one said.
Another assumed that court leaders would be dismissive and say, “These clerks are wimps, there’s no abuse of power. I really thought this would just be a complaint in her file,” the former clerk said.
In response to the court’s order, one former clerk who filed a formal complaint praised the committee for its thorough report and said, “I hope this decision illustrates that even when abuse is hidden or hard to articulate, actionable recourse is available.”
Even so, the former clerk added, “I hope that we can move towards a collective recognition that the onus should not fall on law clerks and chambers staff to police the conduct of our federal judiciary.” | 2022-09-15T15:22:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judge Carmen Garza subjected staff to insults, outbursts, court finds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/judge-carmen-garza-complaint/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/judge-carmen-garza-complaint/ |
People queue to pay their respect to the late Queen Elizabeth II during the Lying-in State, at Westminster Hall in London, Thursday, Sept. 15. (Markus Schreiber/AP)
LONDON — It is the queue to end all queues.
The mourners in the line — or queue as it is known here — on the first night to see Queen Elizabeth II lying in state were ready. They had heard rumors of a 30-hour wait time and were undeterred.
Their beloved monarch was lying-in-state and they would pay their respects. 2 a.m.? 4 a.m.? They would prefer earlier rather than later but they were in.
Plus, this is what British do. People from all over were queueing — the first three ladies were from Sri Lanka, Wales and Ghana — but they were here and, well, when in Rome...
Americans of course like to call it a “line,” but that word doesn’t quite encompass the almost holy rule-bound nature the British have developed of waiting patiently behind someone to achieve a goal.
And so it was that great symbols of Britain — the queen, the queue — are on vivid display as hundreds of thousands lined up to pay their final respects to Elizabeth for the next four days.
The queue quickly became a thing of its own.
“I don’t particularly care either way about the Queen. But the queue? The Queue is a triumph of Britishness. It’s incredible,” wrote one social media user in a post that went viral. #QueueForTheQueen was trending on social media.
Another pointed out that queue is a beautiful word: “The actual important letter, and then four more silently waiting behind it in a line.”
The British government launched a “queue tracker” on YouTube, with up-to-date news on the state of the line, which by Thursday lunchtime, was approximately four miles long.
This reporter joined the queue around 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening, meeting people who were planning to stay up all night if they had to in order to see the queen’s coffin.
People waited in queues with a more than seven-hour wait overnight to see Queen Elizabeth II lie in state at Westminster Hall on Sept. 14. (Video: Alexa Juliana Ard, Karla Adam/The Washington Post)
I was quickly educated in queue decorum. Get a wrist band, with a number and obey that number. Stay in the queue. Do not push or shove in the queue. Do not cut the queue. If someone does cut the queue, breathe heavily, but absolutely do not say anything out loud. It is okay to give people dirty or scowling looks, however.
There was a rumor that someone, six lines in front of us, tried to jump the queue but then someone else pointed out that this was unverified, as if to suggest the very notion was slightly scandalous.
People quickly made little queuing families. They may have started out as strangers, but as the hours dragged on, they knew each other’s life stories. They looked out for each other. Strangers who would normally never talk to each other in public situations were suddenly fiercely loyal. If you needed to leave to use the toilet — there were portable “loos,” this was a well planned queue after all — then your queuing family held your place in line. Some fetched tea for each other.
Asked to explain the concept of British queuing, Robin Wright, 78, launched into an impassioned speech, describing the queue as a “magical moment we are all sharing together.”
Thousands around him broke into (polite) applause when he finished.
It’s 1am and I asked this British man to explain “The Queue” to me. After this impassioned speech, the crowd broke into applause. #Queue pic.twitter.com/SVAhr3pDGz
The night started out well enough, the queue moving at a decent clip, offering up a false sense of optimism about how it would all unfold, while taking mourners past the city’s landmarks like the London Eye Ferris wheel and then the covid wall memorial of hearts marking those lost — a shuddering reminder of the deaths over the last two years.
But about four or five hours on, it started looking bleak as the mourners hit the home stretch and reached the labyrinthine zig-zag section, reminiscent of a bad day at the airport that foretold of much more waiting to come.
People banded together, offered comfort and swapped stories — many about the times they had met the queen, or seen the queen, or had a medal pinned on them by the queen, or had the queen as their boss. Polls show that about a third of Britons have met or seen queen during her 70-year-reign.
“The queen personally put this around my neck, it was a magic moment,” said Wright, the philosopher of queues, about his Royal Victorian Order medal for raising millions for charity. “I really want to come and say goodbye to her, with all these people here… I’d stay here for 30 hours if I had to.”
Queen Elizabeth II is lying in state in Westminster Hall, with thousands queuing to catch a brief glimpse of her coffin. Her funeral is expected to attract hundreds of world leaders to London on Sept. 19. Follow our live coverage.
“We met through the royal family. We have been married for 31 one years,” said Hilary Beckley, 61. She worked as a chef for Princess Margaret, the queen’s sister, and her husband, Gary, worked as the carpenter. “We couldn’t not come.”
Joyce Skeete, 74, a retired nurse, has lived her adult life in London, but was born and raised in Barbados, where she was a star net ball player. As a 14-year-old she was invited to have a meal with the queen, who was visiting one of her realms. “We had a chance to eat with her, but we couldn’t actually eat,” she said.
“I think for her it is worth queuing.”
The queen is not just head of state for United Kingdom, but for 14 other countries — and head of the Commonwealth, which covers a third of the planet. During her long reign, she made a point to regularly visit these countries.
For some, the queue on Wednesday night lasted just over seven hours. And then it was over. The scene inside Westminster Hall was very different. In the endless world of the queue, it had been chatty and upbeat as we supported each other through the ordeal, but inside the hall, with the coffin, it was quiet, solemn, and over quickly.
When mourners entered Westminster Hall, a cavernous, historic building with a hammer-beam roof, they were met with silence. The queen’s coffin is raised on a platform and draped with a royal standard flag and a crown and orb. As people passed by the queen’s coffin, guarded by soldiers wearing bearskin hats, some bowed and curtsied or nodded or whispered “thank you.”
After leaving the hall, Megan Foy, 35, together with her husband and 9-month-old daughter, said they had “only” queued for six hours, reaching the hall around 2 a.m. “We got to skirt around a little bit because of the buggy situation,” she said referring to her stroller.
“It’s a whole other atmosphere in there, the world around you stops and you’re in the moment,” she said.
But it wasn’t over.
The funeral preparations and rehearsals taking place in the early hours of the morning all around Westminster meant no one was allowed to leave as the soldiers practiced their marching.
And so together with everyone else who had just exited the hall, we were back in another queue. | 2022-09-15T15:23:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The queue for Queen Elizabeth II’s viewing is very long - and very British - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/queen-queue-coffin-westminster/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/queen-queue-coffin-westminster/ |
New movies to stream this week: ‘Medusa’ and more
A scene featuring masked female vigilantes from the film “Medusa.” (Music Box Films)
Described in marketing material as a feminist horror fantasy — whatever that means — the strange and unsettling Brazilian drama “Medusa” centers on Mariana (Mariana Oliveira), a seemingly devout young woman studying at a strict religious school, where she runs with a squad of like-minded students whose Barbie-doll-like leader Michele (Lara Tremouroux) indoctrinates her social media followers in such lessons as “how to take the perfect Christian selfie.” Michele’s posse, known by the name they perform pop songs under, the Treasures of the Lord, also happen to prowl the streets at night wearing white, Michael Myers-esque masks, accosting — and often brutally beating — any solitary woman they encounter who is deemed insufficiently modest and chaste. (Maybe “feminist nightmare” is more like it.) As Mariana evolves over the course of the film — after being slashed in the face, losing her job at a plastic surgery center and beginning a sexual relationship with a co-worker at the creepy hospital where she takes a job (Felipe Frazão) — the cohesion of the Treasures begins to disintegrate. Mariana is revealed to be a victim of partner abuse by her boyfriend (João Oliveira), and the patriarchal restraints exerted upon the Treasures by their male classmates, who also have a vigilante group known as the Watchmen of Zion, begin to fray. Directed by Anita Rocha da Silveira (“Kill Me Please”), and boasting a mythologically inspired title that evokes a fierce, maybe even monstrous woman, “Medusa” is impossible to sum up neatly, with themes of nature vs. socialization percolating throughout it, along with elements of magical realism. It’s a raw, pulsating thing: disturbing, un-beautiful and painful. Unrated. Contains violence, disturbing images, strong language and sexual dialogue. In Portuguese with subtitles. Available on demand. 129 minutes.
Inspired by the mystery-comedy novels of Gregory Mcdonald, whose most famous character is the sleuth Irwin M. “Fletch” Fletcher — played by Chevy Chase in the movies “Fletch” and “Fletch Lives” — “Confess, Fletch” stars Jon Hamm in the title role: an affable investigator who becomes the prime suspect in a murder case while searching for a stolen art collection. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film, which also stars Marcia Gay Harden, Kyle MacLachlan, John Slattery, Annie Mumolo and Eugene Mirman, plays like “a feature-length pilot for an ’80s TV detective series — or, in the present tense, a much less ambitious American counterpart to the BBC’s string of long-form Sherlock Holmes mysteries starring Benedict Cumberbatch.” R. Available on demand; also in theaters. Contains strong language, some sexuality and drug use. 98 minutes.
Inspired by the plot of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train,” “Do Revenge” stars Camila Mendes as a dethroned high school queen bee who conspires with a new student (Maya Hawke, daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman) to enact revenge on each other’s enemies. Unrated. Available on Netflix. TV-MA. 118 minutes.
An American remake of the masterful 2015 Austrian horror film of the same name, “Goodnight Mommy” stars Naomi Watts as the mother of twin sons (twins Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti) who, after their mother mysteriously appears with her face swaddled in bandages, come to doubt that she is really their parent. R. Available on Amazon. Contains some strong language. 91 minutes. | 2022-09-15T15:32:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New movies to stream from home this week - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/09/15/september-16-new-streaming-movie-roundup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/09/15/september-16-new-streaming-movie-roundup/ |
Former Washington Wizards star Caron Butler is the co-author of the new young adult book, “Shot Clock.” (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
In his 2015 biography, Caron Butler details his rise to NBA stardom from a childhood surrounded by gangs and violence in Racine, Wis., where he served nine months in jail because of a drug and weapons conviction and was raised by a single mother who worked as many as 80 hours a week. Butler said sharing his life story was therapeutic, and when he got the urge to write again, he wanted to reach a younger audience that might be living through the same type of adversity he managed to overcome.
Earlier this month, in collaboration with young adult author Justin A. Reynolds, Butler released “Shot Clock,” the first book in a fictional series about an AAU basketball team. Some of the characters and storylines are based loosely on Butler’s own upbringing, and others are derived from the lives of the kids he’s met and mentored through the Butler Elite travel basketball program he established in Racine.
From 2015: Caron Butler takes readers inside a life filled with guns, guts and grit
“As adults, we learn to deal with trauma, and it becomes very, very normal,” said Butler, who played five seasons with the Washington Wizards and won an NBA championship with the Dallas Mavericks in 2011 as part of his 14-year NBA career. “But what happens with that trauma with kids? I wanted to shine light on that.”
Butler also wanted to tell an authentic story that kids would be drawn to. He said teachers thought he had a learning disability, when the truth was the curriculum consisted of books he wasn’t interested in reading.
In “Shot Clock,” the main protagonist tries out for the AAU team shortly after his best friend is shot and killed by a police officer. He doesn’t make the cut, but the coach offers him a position as the team’s statistician because he’s good with numbers. The book is a story of hope and possibility, revealing the power of community and the many ways kids can find purpose and meaning in their lives. The coach character is largely based on Butler, who is entering his third season as an assistant with the Miami Heat.
Kobe Bryant, a teammate of Butler’s with the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2004-05 season, wrote the foreword to Butler’s biography, “Tuff Juice: My Journey from the Streets to the NBA.” Bryant also co-authored a posthumously released, basketball-themed young adult series. Butler said one of his last conversations with Bryant before the five-time NBA champion died in a helicopter crash in 2020 has continued to inspire him.
“He made me promise him that my second act would be far greater than my first act, and that’s something that I don’t take lightly,” Butler said. “My first act, I feel like I was a hell of a basketball player, did some amazing things and made millions of dollars doing them, but my second act is all about trying different things and finding different ways to influence and impact and leave a legacy that I will be extremely proud of, and that my kids can inherit and love and appreciate.”
Since retiring as a player in 2018, Butler has advocated against mass incarceration with the Vera Institute of Justice and served on the board of directors for the NBA’s Retired Players Association. His TV work with TNT and as a Wizards analyst for NBC Sports Washington convinced him to give coaching a shot.
“I’d be like, ‘Damn, why did that coach do that?'” Butler said. “And then I’m breaking it down and I’m just like, ‘I could see myself on the sidelines.' … I’m enjoying every bit of it.”
“Shot Clock” by Racine's own Caron Butler and Justin A. Reynolds was among Amazon’s top-10 best-selling new books in the children’s sports category.
Seeing Is Believing. pic.twitter.com/5iSPBFi6MT
— Caron Butler (@realtuffjuice) September 11, 2022
Butler wrote “Shot Clock” with Reynolds over the last two years, sometimes working into the night after Heat games. When it came time to plan the tour to promote the book, there was no question Butler would make a stop in D.C., where he spent more years with the Wizards than any other team. Butler, who finished the second book in the series two weeks ago, spoke to students at Takoma Park Middle School last Friday.
“It’s my second home,” he said. | 2022-09-15T16:16:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Caron Butler co-authors young adult novel with Justin A. Reynolds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/caron-butler-ya-novel-shot-clock/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/caron-butler-ya-novel-shot-clock/ |
In this April 2022 file photo, a senior member of Hungary’s far-right opposition party, Our Homeland Movement, holds a news conference following a national referendum on the child protection law in Budapest. (Tamas Kovacs/AP)
Pregnant people seeking abortions in Hungary will now be required to observe fetal vital signs, under a new decree passed by the right-wing government that took effect Thursday.
Under the decree, issued Monday, health care providers must present women with “fetal vital signs presented in a clearly identifiable manner” before going ahead with an abortion. Doctors must sign a report saying they have done so.
“Nearly two-thirds of Hungarians associate the beginning of a child’s life with the first heartbeat,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Monday, the Associated Press reported.
The move marks the latest effort by Hungary’s far-right to promote conservative social values. Abortion was legalized in Hungary in 1953, and pregnant people can obtain the procedure during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy for social or medical reasons. That time limit can be extended under certain circumstances, including if there is more than a 50 percent likelihood of fetal defects.
Hungary’s abortion law is relatively liberal compared to many other countries. But abortion rights groups say mandatory counseling sessions and other administrative barriers seek to dissuade women from obtaining abortions, even when it is legal for them to do so.
The latest amendment to the abortion rules, passed in 1992, enshrined the necessity of protecting “fetal life that begins with conception” — a stance codified in Hungary’s 2012 constitution. Medication abortion, via pills, has been illegal since 2012.
The right-wing government of Viktor Orban, who has served as prime minister since 2010, has offered financial incentives to encourage couples to have more children. But the new decree marks its first significant change to abortion rules.
Hungary is so desperate for kids that mothers of four won’t need to pay income tax
Duro Dora, a member of parliament from the far-right Our Home Movement who campaigned for the measure, hailed the decree as a victory on Monday.
“A chance at life: from now on mothers will listen to the heartbeat of the fetus!” she wrote in a Facebook post, adding: “Let’s make it clear: our lives begin at the moment of conception and are equivalent to anyone else’s, it’s important for everyone to realize this.”
Medical experts take issue with the use of the term “fetal heartbeat” early on in a pregnancy. Cardiac activity can be detected around six weeks into pregnancy. But the sound that can be observed on an ultrasound is in fact produced by the ultrasound machine, experts say — and signs of flickering reflect electrical activity produced by the embryo, not a functional heart.
Opposition politicians in Hungary and abortion rights advocates condemned the decree this week. Timea Szabo, a left-wing member of parliament, called the new requirement “unacceptable” in a statement Wednesday.
“Aborting a pregnancy is a terribly difficult and complex decision for every woman," she said. “It is highly insensitive to aggravate this process with further traumatizing measures, and it puts a significant additional burden on the health system that is struggling to survive from the foundation.”
The International Planned Parenthood Federation said the requirement “has no medical purpose and serves only to humiliate women.”
“It will make accessing abortion more burdensome,” the organization said in a statement. “The new legislation was issued as a fait accompli by the government in Hungary without any expert or public consultation and without hearing from women.”
The Hungarian Medical Chamber, the leading doctors’ association in Hungary, said the decree does not conflict with its code of ethics, describing the rule in a statement Wednesday as essentially an administrative change. But the group voiced disappointment at the lack of consultation with experts and societal stakeholders before the government published the new rule.
Patent, a Hungarian women’s rights group, plans to protest the new decree on Sept. 28.
The Hungarian decree mirrors “heartbeat bills” passed in U.S. states including Georgia, Texas, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee, which the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade enabled to take effect. Republican lawmakers in the United States have backed away from a push for a national “heartbeat ban” that would have outlawed abortion as soon as cardiac activity is detected. | 2022-09-15T16:33:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hungary decree says abortion-seekers must listen to fetal vital signs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/hungary-abortion-viktor-orban/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/hungary-abortion-viktor-orban/ |
Need cool-weather plants to amp up fall curb appeal? We have tips.
Debra Prinzing is a Seattle-based writer and speaker who coined the phrase “slow flowers” and directed attention to this cause — which advocates for the use of local, seasonal and sustainable flowers — with the publication of her 2013 book “Slow Flowers.” She has written 12 books, including “The 50 Mile Bouquet” and “Where we Bloom.” Ask her about what to plant in your window boxes this fall, how long you can leave out a hibiscus or a myrtle topiary, and how to use plants to make your front porch cozy as the temperatures plummet.
Recent Q & have covered whether it’s okay to replace a tub with a stand-alone shower, how to keep mice out of your house, what to do with a collection of costume jewelry and how to use the steam settings on your washer and dryer.
Looking for more? Read some of our stories about cold weather plants:
The Rise — and Beauty — of the Native Plant
How to protect your potted plants from winter’s chill
Fresh vegetables in the middle of winter? It’s possible, even in colder climes.
Tips for caring for houseplants during winter
The winter garden is full of promise and productivity. Don’t let it go to waste. | 2022-09-15T16:46:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Need cool-weather plants to amp up fall curb appeal? We have tips. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/09/22/tips-cool-weather-outdoor-plants/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/09/22/tips-cool-weather-outdoor-plants/ |
Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins will host the revamped morning show, which has trailed its cable-news peers in ratings
Don Lemon, seen here in New Hampshire in February 2020, will move from his prime-time spot to host a revamped CNN morning show. (Edward M. Pio Roda/CNN)
CNN’s morning show is undergoing a major shake-up — one that leaves another conspicuous gap in its prime time block.
Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins will host a new morning program, the cable network announced Thursday. It’s the one of the biggest moves by new CNN boss Chris Licht since he assumed the role earlier this year.
“This is not an incremental change. Our morning news program will debut with a new name, new set, and a totally new format,” Licht wrote in a note to staff. “The show will lean into the strength of CNN’s global brand, and I am confident America will soon see how genuine the chemistry is among these three remarkable anchors.”
The shake-up means there will be another open slot in the network’s high-profile prime-time hours. Lemon has been hosting the 10 p.m. hour since 2014, and his program, “Don Lemon Tonight,” will go off the air once he makes the transition.
Meanwhile, CNN hasn’t yet determined what to do with its 9 p.m. hour since Chris Cuomo was fired in December. Licht promised that details on when the new morning format will debut and plans for the network’s 9 p.m. to midnight hours “will be shared in the weeks ahead.”
Harlow has most recently anchored “CNN Newsroom” from 9 to 11 a.m., while Collins has served as CNN’s chief White House correspondent. “New Day’s” current hosts, John Berman and Brianna Keilar, will take on new roles at the network that will be announced later this year, Licht wrote.
Morning shows represent valuable airtime, particularly for the top broadcast networks, in large part due to the lucrative advertising real estate they offer.
CNN’s “New Day” regularly ranks in last place in ratings against competitors on Fox News and MSNBC. It ranked third in key Nielsen categories, behind “Fox & Friends” and “Morning Joe,” during the second quarter of 2022.
Licht — who had previously promised a “reimagining” of the morning show format — came to CNN from CBS, where he helped launch “CBS Mornings.” Before that, he co-created and served as the original executive producer of the well-rated “Morning Joe” on MSNBC.
He also joined the network during a particularly tumultuous time, replacing President Jeff Zucker who resigned in February, citing an undisclosed romantic relationship with a longtime colleague. Months later, Discovery Inc. completed its acquisition of CNN parent company WarnerMedia, and the newly formed entity, Warner Bros. Discovery, abruptly shut down the new streaming service CNN Plus after months of planning and $100 million of investment.
But there have been questions about the editorial direction of the network with all of the changes, particularly after a prominent Discovery shareholder said last year that he “would like to see CNN evolve back to the journalism it started with.”
When Licht joined, he was expected to move CNN into a less opinionated, and more hard-news driven, direction, after years of Donald Trump as president, during which Zucker allowed CNN’s on-air personalities to express more emotion.
Last month, CNN canceled “Reliable Sources,” a 30-year-old weekly show that explored the role of media in society. Its host, Brian Stelter, departed the network after a nine-year run.
Weeks later, CNN suddenly parted ways with White House correspondent John Harwood, who regularly provided political analysis on air. The move was perceived by several network insiders as part of a strategy to shift CNN’s tone into more politically neutral territory.
Jeremy Barr contributed to this report. | 2022-09-15T16:46:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | CNN shakes up morning show — leaving a major vacancy in prime time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/09/15/cnn-morning-don-lemon-chris-licht/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/09/15/cnn-morning-don-lemon-chris-licht/ |
James O'Keefe, founder of Project Veritas, speaks in Dallas in July 2021. (Emil Lippe for The Washington Post)
Project Veritas is in federal court this week defending its 2016 undercover video sting of a progressive political consulting operation. Job No. 1 for the court is seating an impartial jury to hear all the testimony.
Which is why prospective jurors have been asked whether they have an opinion on undercover journalism and secret recordings.
“I don’t think it’s fair to record anyone without their consent,” said one prospective juror who was interviewed Wednesday in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, where a nine-person jury will hear opening arguments on Thursday morning.
Project Veritas, which was founded by James O’Keefe, is a video-sting operation popular among conservatives for its much-hyped attempts to highlight liberal bias in American institutions. It used false names and other tactics during the 2016 presidential campaign to plant one of its staffers in the offices of Democracy Partners, an umbrella group of political consultants who assisted the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. Democracy Partners subsequently sued Project Veritas over a number of alleged offenses, including fraudulent misrepresentation and unlawful wiretapping. (Read more about the case here.)
The opposing parties earlier this month filed a joint juror questionnaire containing 56 questions designed to sniff out conflicts of interest, biases, covid concerns and other possible roadblocks to a fair trial. There were four questions about interns, most likely because the Project Veritas infiltrator secured an internship at Democracy Partners.
O’Keefe has said he runs the “nation’s premier, perhaps the nation’s only, undercover investigative journalism organization,” so it makes sense that his attorneys want to know which folks in the jury pool dislike this sort of work. One of the prospective jurors, for example, said she studies mass communications and regards undercover journalism as “kind of wrong,” adding that journalists “should do it in an honest way.”
Paul Calli, a Miami-based lawyer representing Project Veritas, asked the woman how she had arrived at her opinion. She cited the often aggressive reporting tactics of TMZ and said that if people don’t want to answer questions about their lives, then they should be left alone. Calli asked if she would change her viewpoint if the issues related to political malfeasance and not people’s personal lives.
“I guess it would change my views a little,” responded the prospective juror, who paused before adding, “No, actually, I don’t think it would. I still feel like it’s a bit dishonest.” Calli responded, “I appreciate your candor, and the court does as well.” Friedman excused the woman from serving on the jury.
This being D.C., a veteran political operative was in the jury pool — a man who had worked on several Democratic campaigns and now works for the political action committee of a trade association. He told the court that he was previously a political tracker, essentially an ambulant recording machine who monitors the events of opposing candidates. Asked about the highest rung he had reached on the political-operative career ladder, he responded that it was “field director.”
He also claimed that he’d “vaguely heard about” Project Veritas. On the matter of undercover news videos, he said that they make him “uncomfortable” and “itchy.”
Calli petitioned Friedman to remove the man from eligibility, arguing that his profession lies in the “wheelhouse” of Project Veritas’s critics — and that his claim to be “vaguely” familiar with it strains credulity. He also noted that the man had done fieldwork for Democratic candidates, which is precisely the activity at issue in the Project Veritas videos on Democracy Partners.
Friedman denied Calli’s attempt to have the man stricken from the jury pool.
Another item on the prospective jurors’ questionnaire related to news diet. One prospective juror reported that she read The Post, particularly the front page, Style and Sports sections. Calli asked her about the Erik Wemple Blog, which has published many articles on Project Veritas. “Do you read his stuff?”
“No,” she responded. Strike that prospective juror forthwith! | 2022-09-15T16:46:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Prospective jurors in Project Veritas trial get grilled on undercover tactics - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/project-veritas-jury-selection-trial/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/project-veritas-jury-selection-trial/ |
Nevada’s tight Senate race may turn on abortion
Adam Laxalt, the Republican nominee in Nevada’s U.S. Senate race, speaks at a news conference in Las Vegas on Aug. 4. (John Locher/AP)
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) is in a dead heat against Republican Adam Laxalt. But thanks to Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and his proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban, her path to reelection just got a bit easier.
Nevada is certainly a pro-choice state. Cortez Masto in a brief phone interview emphasized that in 1990, about two-thirds of Nevadans voted to codify Roe in state law. “If you were to poll today,” she says, “you’d still see two-thirds. They don’t want Roe repealed.” Last year, 69 percent of Nevada voters identify as pro-choice, an OH Predictive Insights poll found.
Cortez Masto’s opponent, by contrast, has been a strong proponent of forced birth. Laxalt celebrated the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision as a “historic victory.” He also has said he would support a state referendum for a 13-week ban on abortion, more restrictive than even Graham’s proposal (although Graham’s bill would allow states to impose even stricter limits).
Cortez Masto is quick to point out that when the Dobbs ruling came down, “Republicans said, ‘Let’s send it back to the states.’ ” Nevada has made such a decision, yet Republicans are scheming to supersede it with a national ban. “They don’t support states’ rights,” she says. She adds that there is “no doubt in my mind” that Laxalt would be another Republican to vote for a nationwide ban. “This is the tragedy. They don’t respect women,” she said.
Though Laxalt previously said he wouldn’t support a national ban, when asked about Graham’s proposal, Laxalt passed up the chance to object to it. Instead, all his spokesman would say is “This proposal has no chance to pass Congress and receive President Biden’s signature. The law in Nevada was settled by voters decades ago and isn’t going to change.” But of course, if Republicans had their way, a new ban would supersede Nevada law.
Moreover, Laxalt’s credibility problems aren’t confined to abortion. Biden won Nevada by more than 33,000 votes (2.39 percent) in 2020, but that did not stop Laxalt from peddling the “big lie” that the election was stolen and doing his best to reverse the will of voters. Local media even recognized him as “the face of Trump’s baseless election fraud lawsuits.”
The Nevada Independent recently reported, “In a press conference two days after Election Day in 2020, Laxalt and other Trump allies alleged that ‘illegal votes’ had been cast, including from voters who were deceased. However, it was ultimately a Republican man and vocal critic of the state’s election laws, Donald Kirk Hartle, who was charged with voting with his deceased wife’s ballot.” Laxalt didn’t stop there. The Nevada Independent reported, “Laxalt spearheaded a lawsuit in state court alleging that Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske’s office failed to keep non-citizens off Nevada voter rolls.” The suit was dismissed, and no evidence of fraud was uncovered.
Still, Laxalt continued to cast doubt on the election. As late as last September, he “urged a rural county election official to pursue an audit of the 2020 presidential election results, according to an email from that election official sent at the time,” the Nevada Independent reported. Cortez Masto points out that shortly after he announced his candidacy, he was saying he would challenge the results if he lost. In March, the New York Times reported, he was “already laying detailed groundwork to fight election fraud in his race — long before a single vote has been cast or counted.”
It’s no wonder Laxalt has been ducking a debate. Cortez Masto tells me, “I think it’s important for Nevada voters to hear from us.” She has offered three debates; Laxalt has been mum. The race might depend on Cortez Masto’s success in revealing that Laxalt is just another MAGA extremist favoring forced-birth laws. That might explain why she is running ads on abortion — both in English and in Spanish. | 2022-09-15T16:51:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Abortion is critical issue in Nevada Senate race - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/nevada-senate-midterms-laxalt-cortez-masto-abortion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/nevada-senate-midterms-laxalt-cortez-masto-abortion/ |
Post Elizabeth: Charles’s challenge: Can he win hearts?
Members of the public stand in line, opposite St. Paul's Cathedral and the skyscrapers of London, waiting to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 15. (Marco Bertorello/AFP via Getty Images)
LONDON — Can Charles be the king of hearts? That’s the question posed by The Post’s Anthony Faiola, William Booth and Amanda Ferguson. “Almost no one sees the death of the queen as the end of days for the British monarchy,” they write. “But British republicans — a minority who want to abolish the monarchy — nevertheless sense an opportunity with Charles in charge.”
The new king is on a charm offensive — dubbed “Operation Spring Tide” — across the four countries of the United Kingdom. Charles has generally been praised for interacting with the public, made up mostly of well-wishers. But he has also been tagged for less princely behavior. My view? These publicized appearances by Charles in proceedings marking the end of his mother’s reign are strengthening the idea that his kingship is the natural next step. We won’t see him try to make waves in the short term. Whether he does so unintentionally is a different story.
Queue crazy: The line to pay respects to the late queen is growing — no surprise. Lengths on Thursday afternoon reached nearly 4.5 miles, up from two to three miles Wednesday night, the Telegraph reports. My colleague Karla Adam tweeted about her experience waiting overnight. “This is not a queue; this is a magical moment we’re all sharing together,” one man told her, to applause from others nearby. “The Queue is a triumph of Britishness,” proclaimed one viral Twitter thread.
We understand a British willingness to, say, wait out rain. But we have questions about what queueing means to people at this moment. We plan to join the shuffle and will report back. For now, you can track the line here. (And no, we’re not happy that members of Parliament can skip the queue and bring along four guests.)
Check out our gallery from the top of the queue and other London spots on Wednesday.
Not lovin’ it: The cancellations and other downstream effects of the British government declaring the day of the queen’s state funeral a holiday have sparked a backlash, Annabelle Timsit reports. Monday will be what’s known here as a bank holiday; typically, businesses are not required to close and employees do not automatically get the day off. But at this “unique national moment” — the government’s words — many businesses are shuttering. Including all 1,300 McDonald’s outlets across the U.K. (They’ll reopen after 5 p.m. Monday.) Employers are scrambling over last-minute changes, Timsit writes, as the government encouraged businesses “to respond sensitively” if workers seek time off. Some sports events were immediately postponed after the queen’s death; now the focus is on rescheduled surgeries and other medical appointments, hotel closures, fallout on funeral arrangements and more.
Diana evoked: Princes William and Harry walked side by side behind their grandmother’s coffin (“with stoic, stony faces,” notes London correspondent William Booth), evoking for many the brothers’ walk behind their mother’s coffin in 1997. But Wednesday’s events differed from the funeral of Princess Diana, Booth writes. Then, people worried about the young brothers’ grief. “Now, there is sorrow for their strained relationship.” Another difference: “The funeral for Diana was raw emotion. The crowds of British people revealed themselves sobbing, a few almost overcome, in a kind of tabloid fever dream. Wednesday’s mourning was far more restrained.”
Photos: The queen’s life through the years.
Read: Our obituary of the queen, who died last week at age 96, and her husband, Prince Philip, who died last year at age 99.
Fanning out: The new Prince and Princess of Wales viewed tributes in Norfolk, England, on Thursday. (To my eye, the pearl and diamond earrings Catherine wore look like the queen’s.) Princess Anne and her husband have gone to Scotland, where they viewed tributes in Glasgow. (Here’s more from The Post on Princess Anne, the lone daughter of Elizabeth and Philip, who was prominent in recent events escorting her mother’s coffin. According to one royal aide-turned-commentator, Anne has not been “overshadowed” by her brothers so much as she has been overlooked and “ignored by the media.”)
From the “other woman” to queen consort, there has been a sea change in public perceptions of Camilla, write Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan (both former London-based correspondents for The Post). They recount animosity over Camilla’s affair with Charles when he was married to Diana, Princess of Wales, and the years-long campaign to improve her image. “Many see her as the no-fuss royal, with neither a temper nor elitist airs, the steady calm at Charles’s side,” they write. Note this 2005 quote from Prince Harry: “Everyone has to understand that it’s very hard for her. … We are very grateful for her. She’s made our father very happy.” Royal-followers are watching to see whether Harry has harsh comments about Camilla in his forthcoming memoir. Big picture: Camilla is praised for her common sense and her practice of staying out of the limelight. She keeps the focus on Charles. She’s also the first queen of England who used to regularly do her own grocery shopping.
The crown won’t skip to Prince William, even if some people want it to, writes London correspondent Karla Adam. It’s not just that Charles is off to a good start as king (even if he’s not as beloved as his mother or his eldest son). There are rules around these things — specifically, the 1701 Act of Settlement, which requires the monarch’s heir to be direct successor.
“ ‘What are we doing with this British, distant, White monarch as our head of state?’ ” The death of the queen, “a unifying figure more beloved than her son, King Charles III, comes as several Commonwealth realms are reassessing their relationships with the crown,” write Amanda Coletta and Michael E. Miller. Quick context: The Commonwealth is an association of 56 nations. Many are independent republics, though others retain the British monarch as head of state. Some “former outposts of the empire” — think Jamaica — have “been engaged in a public reckoning over the legacies of colonialism, including calls for atonement, reparations and independence.”
Hear ye, hear ye! Sympathy from the royal apiary! “Thank you for informing us, the royal beehive, about the loss of your queen,” writes Opinions humor columnist Alexandra Petri. “No one knows better than we bees do exactly what you are going through right now.”
Not so fast with that “climate king” label, cautions reporter Shannon Osaka. Charles has spoken for years about climate change and issues such as organic farming, she writes. But there are shades of green: The new king is both “a classic environmentalist who loves nature, trees and wild animals, and a traditionalist who has battled against wind energy on his estate, flown around the world in a private jet and once critiqued the growth of population in the developing world.” In other words, these are nuanced issues. And this is a man “with extreme wealth and a significant carbon footprint speaking out against global warming; a political figurehead with very little real political clout.”
The official palace account (@theroyalfamily) posted some background on the late queen’s relationship with the armed forces. | 2022-09-15T16:51:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Post Elizabeth newsletter: Can King Charles III win hearts? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/post-elizabeth-newsletter-charles-challenge-win-hearts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/post-elizabeth-newsletter-charles-challenge-win-hearts/ |
Biden’s no stranger to damaging rail disruptions
Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. On this day in 1959, Nikita Khrushchev’s plane touched down at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, becoming the first Soviet head of state to visit the United States.
He stayed for nearly two weeks, stopping in Washington, New York, Los Angeles (where he got very mad that his visit to Disneyland got canceled), San Francisco, San Jose, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.
To get a sense of what President Biden may have felt about the (apparently averted) rail strike, consider what he said the last time the country faced a severe disruption of this kind. It was 1992, Congress forced workers back on the job. But the senator from Delaware voted “no.”
In a Senate-floor stemwinder, Biden denounced the dispute-resolution process, shaped as it is now by a presidential emergency board (PEB), as “a reasonable system in theory that has turned insidious in practice,” one where executives know “in the end, the odds were stacked in their favor.”
“The presidentially appointed board has often given great weight. That is what the workers fear and the railroad companies are counting on,” said Biden, who was one of just six “no” votes on a bill banning strikes and lockouts and creating an arbitration system to settle the dispute.
Fast-forward 30 years. Biden regularly promises to be “the most pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in American history.”
And he has tried to energize organized labor support for Democrats, including on a Labor Day swing through Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
“As you might guess, I am very pleased to announce a tentative labor agreement has been reached,” Biden said in the Rose Garden this morning, praising the negotiators on both sides. “This is a win for tens of thousands of rail workers, and for their dignity, and for the dignity of their work.”
“This agreement is validation, validation of what I’ve always believed: Unions and management can work together, can work together for the benefit of everyone,” Biden said, underlining that the agreement would avert “significant damage” to the economy.
My colleagues Lauren Kaori Gurley and Jeff Stein report on what has to happen now to avoid a strike.
“The tentative deal — confirmed by a group representing freight rail operators — still faces several steps before it is formally ratified. The unions must still vote on it, but the White House’s blessing of the new terms suggests that the worker groups have been closely involved. Often, the next step of the process can take several weeks, but during that time, union members agree not to strike.”
The arrangement would grant workers voluntary assigned days off, according to a union official. It would also provide a 24-percent wage increase by 2024, starting with an immediate 13.5-percent raise; $1,000 annual bonuses over five years; and changes to how out-of-pocket health care contributions are calculated, Lauren and Jeff reported.
Leave policy
My colleagues Hamza Shaban, Lauren, and Jaclyn Peiser have a handy explainer on why the leave policies are such an issue.
“A crucial issue preventing an agreement is some of the largest carriers’ points-based attendance policies that penalize workers, up to termination, for going to routine doctor’s visits or attending to family emergencies. Conductors and engineers say that they can be on call for 14 consecutive days without a break and that they do not receive a single sick day, paid or unpaid.”
That resonated with the president, Lauren and Jeff reported.
If organized labor signs off, the tentative deal would be a significant achievement for Biden, sparing the country a hugely damaging blow to supply chains already strained by the coronavirus pandemic, fueling inflation and shortages. With the midterm elections looming, it would also be a source of tremendous relief for Democrats.
The talks faced a 12:01 a.m. Eastern deadline.
As that grew close, “negotiations shifted to Washington, where rail executives and labor leaders met at the Labor Department with Secretary Marty Walsh. Biden remained closely involved in the talks, and phoned Walsh and the negotiators at 9 p.m. Wednesday to encourage them to secure the tentative pact, said a person briefed on the discussions who was not authorized to talk to the media,” Lauren and Jeff reported.
“A strike would have had enormous implications because large parts of the nation’s economy move through the rail system. It could have snarled the movement of goods and potentially led to massive layoffs. And the disruption on commuter trains would have been felt across the country. Picket lines had been planned in several cities, including Stockton, Calif.; Cleveland; and Baltimore. The disruption could have further driven up prices on a range of goods during a period of high inflation.”
The deal isn’t public, and isn’t fully done. Labor could decide that, with Biden in the White House, and the private sector hungry for workers, it could get a better arrangement. But for now, the years-long dispute appears to be near an end.
If the unions sign off, that’s something the Biden of 1992 would likely have cheered.
“In a rare admission, Putin said he was aware of China’s ‘questions and concerns’ about the war, but assured Xi he would address them all in their first face-to-face meeting since the Feb. 24 invasion,” Lily Kuo and Robyn Dixon report.
“Mortgage rates surpassed 6 percent for the first time in 14 years as inflation proved resistant so far to the Federal Reserve’s efforts to tamp it down. The dramatically swift escalation has chilled what had been a hot U.S. housing market, increasing pressure on an economy plagued by unremitting inflation,” Kathy Orton reports.
“The federal monitoring of wastewater for polio comes amid pressure to increase efforts to fight the disease after the first U.S. polio case in nearly a decade was discovered in Rockland County, N.Y. in July. Since the unvaccinated man was diagnosed, the virus has been detected in wastewater samples from nearby communities: New York City, Orange County, Sullivan County, and most recently, Nassau County on Long Island,” Lena H. Sun reports.
“A global panel of experts Wednesday blamed the World Health Organization, the U.S. government and others for serious failures in coordinating an international response to covid-19, while laying out recommendations to protect against future pandemics and reviving disputed claims about the virus’s origins,” Dan Diamond reports.
How four private groups used their clout to control the global covid response — with little oversight
“When Covid-19 struck, the governments of the world weren’t prepared. From America to Europe to Asia, they veered from minimizing the threat to closing their borders in ill-fated attempts to quell a viral spread that soon enveloped the world. While the most powerful nations looked inward, four non-governmental global health organizations began making plans for a life-or-death struggle against a virus that would know no boundaries,” Politico's Erin Banco and Ashleigh Furlong and WELT's Lennart Pfahler report.
Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, the 19th and SurveyMonkey conducted a poll on what women, particularly women of color, and LGBTQ+ people think about politics, politicians and policy. Here are some of their key findings:
70 percent of American adults do not think politicians are informed enough about abortion to create fair policies.
Women who are caregivers have a more difficult time balancing work and life than men who are.
LGBTQ+ people are more likely to report facing discrimination when visiting a health care provider.
Women and LGBTQ+ workers are more likely to experience sexual assault or harassment at work.
The top two issues motivating people to vote are 'jobs and the economy' and 'preserving democracy.'
Most Americans say the news media is a critical component of our democracy.
Read more about the survey's findings here and explore the full data here.
“Support for Biden recovered from a low of 36% in July to 45%, driven in large part by a rebound in support from Democrats just two months before the November midterm elections. During a few bleak summer months when gasoline prices peaked and lawmakers appeared deadlocked, the Democrats faced the possibility of blowout losses against Republicans,” the Associated Press's Josh Boak and Hannah Fingerhut report.
“The Biden administration will withhold $130 million in security aid from Egypt for the second consecutive year over its human rights record but will release a separate tranche of $75 million because of Cairo’s steps to free political prisoners,” Missy Ryan reports.
“After a robust and sometimes heated debate … the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the Taiwan Policy Act by a vote of 17-5. The bill, which complements the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, is aimed at boosting Taiwan’s ability to defend itself militarily against a potential Chinese invasion of the island while deepening symbolic U.S.-Taiwan ties that Beijing has blasted as a reversal of the status quo,” Politico's Andrew Desiderio reports.
“The sanctions under consideration include restricting the access of these entities to the global financial system, according to these people. Some of them have offered rewards to kill Mr. Rushdie, which the U.S. believes motivates such attacks,” people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal's Benoit Faucon and Ian Talley report.
The queen's family tree, visualized
“[Utah County Prosecutor David Leavitt's] experience is one of a spate of recent examples in which individuals have been targeted with accusations of Satanism or so-called ritualistic abuse, marking what some see as a modern day version of the moral panic of the 1980s, when hysteria and hypervigilance over protecting children led to false allegations, wrongful imprisonments, decimated communities and wasted resources to the neglect of actual cases of abuse,” NBC News's Brandy Zadrozny reports.
“President Trump once offered what he considered ‘a great deal’ to Jordan’s King Abdullah II: control of the West Bank, whose Palestinian population long sought to topple the monarchy,” Azi Paybarah reports.
“I thought I was having a heart attack,” Abdullah II recalled to an American friend in 2018, according to a forthcoming book on the Trump presidency, “The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021” by Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, and Susan Glasser, staff writer for the New Yorker. “I couldn’t breathe. I was bent doubled-over.”
More Trump scoops from the book:
NYT: Cosmetics billionaire convinced Trump that the U.S. should buy Greenland
The Guardian: Trump tells authors of ‘The Divider’ book he won’t pick Pence for 2024
CNN: ‘You’re blowing this’: New book reveals Melania Trump criticized her husband’s handling of covid
Biden will speak at the United We Stand Summit at the White House at 3:30 p.m.
At 7:50 p.m., he will leave the White House for the Walter E. Washington Convention Center for the Congressional Caucus Institute Gala, where he will speak at 8:25 p.m.
Biden will arrive back at the White House at 9:05 p.m.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s no good, very bad Hardee’s run
ICYMI: FBI seizes Mike Lindell’s phone in probe of Colo. voting machine breach
The latest: Biden praises rail labor deal as win for workers ‘and for their dignity’ | 2022-09-15T16:52:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden’s no stranger to damaging rail disruptions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/bidens-no-stranger-damaging-rail-disruptions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/bidens-no-stranger-damaging-rail-disruptions/ |
California’s Newsom rents billboards in red states to tout abortion access
Democratic governor’s re-election campaign advertises abortion in states where it’s limited or illegal
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s re-election campaign has rented billboards in six states with abortion bans, escalating the Democrat’s battle with conservative Republican governors and courting a First Amendment fight with Mississippi.
“We want women to know that we have their backs,” Newsom said in an interview about the billboard campaign. “We care, they matter, and we’re not going to turn our backs on them because they’re from another state.”
The ads on the billboards, viewed first by the Washington Post, direct women to a California state website that tells users how and where to get an abortion in the state, emphasizing that “you do not need to be a California resident to receive abortion services.”
One ad portrays a woman with her hands chained behind her back. “Texas doesn’t own your body. You do,” it reads. Another ad says that “California is ready to help” anyone who needs an abortion, adding a verse from Gospel of Mark: “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.”
The ads began appearing in Indiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas on Thursday. Each state dramatically limited abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s June decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The governors of Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas are up for re-election in November. Reached for comment, none immediately responded to the billboard campaign.
Mississippi, South Dakota, and Texas have banned most abortions, with Indiana joining them Thursday after the passage of a ban goes into effect. In Ohio and South Carolina, abortion is banned after six weeks of pregnancy, although both laws have been temporarily blocked in the courts.
Between 1973 and this summer, when the Court’s previous rulings on abortion rights were in effect, states were prohibited from enforcing bans prior to the viability of the fetus, typically interpreted as 24 weeks.
Newsom, whose own position in California was strengthened when he defeated a 2021 recall campaign, has been critical of Republican governors in several policy areas. He’s accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and other Republicans who have approved legislation to restrict discussions of gender and sexual orientation in public schools and to limit transgender health care access, of being “bullies,” and targeting vulnerable residents for political clout.
Newsom’s actions have sparked speculation about a potential run for president, which he has rebuffed, saying he supports President Biden for re-election.
The California governor faces Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle in November’s election, and despite voter worries about crime and high housing prices, Newsom has led overwhelmingly in polls. At the start of this month, Newsom had raised more than $24 million for re-election, while Dahle had raised less than $500,000.
The funding billboard campaign come from Newsom’s re-election war chest, a sign of confidence in his own race.
“I'm doing this because I'm privileged to be able to do it,” Newsom told the Washington Post. “I'm doing this because I care. I'm doing it because the people that support my candidacy support this. And when many heard about this, they wanted to support additional efforts like it, to be fully transparent with you.”
Newsom was also anticipating a possible First Amendment challenge on some of the billboards. In Mississippi, the online magazine Slate and the nonprofit MayDay Health have rented out billboards which, respectively, advertise a podcast about abortion rights and a way to access at-home abortion medication. Last month, MayDay Health received a subpoena from Mississippi’s Republican attorney general, suggesting that the nonprofit could be prosecuted for encouraging now-illegal conduct.
Preventing advertising like this, said Newsom, would be a “gross violation of the Constitution.” If the campaign or billboard company were asked to take down the signs, he added, “we look forward to that fight.”
In a statement, a spokesman for Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) did not discuss the legality of the ad campaign, but dismissed Newsom’s strategy.
“It is very interesting to see Governor Newsom’s 2024 primary campaign extend to Mississippi,” said Cory Custer, Reeve’s deputy chief of staff for external affairs. “But we do suspect that most Mississippians will not be interested in what he is selling.” | 2022-09-15T16:52:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Gavin Newsome takes on GOP rivals with billboards touting abortion access in California - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/gavin-newsome-abortion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/gavin-newsome-abortion/ |
The Commanders could start 6-1? The Commanders could start 6-1!
Ron Rivera and the Washington Commanders left the field smiling after Week 1. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
At the risk of getting completely, irresponsibly ahead of ourselves — which is never, ever wise when it comes to the denizens of Ashburn — let’s get completely, irresponsibly ahead of ourselves.
“I don’t want to get ahead of it …” Ron Rivera said.
But it’s hard not to, right? After what happened against Jacksonville?
“It puts us in a position, in the next game,” Rivera said, “we go into it with momentum.”
It’s amazing the difference between a razor’s edge, could’ve-been-a-loss Washington Commanders’ victory over the Jaguars — owners of the league’s worst record two years running — and the alternative. It shouldn’t color how you view the rest of the season. It kinda colors how you view the rest of the season.
Hop on this mental slide, and enjoy the ride. What’s possible for this rebranded team now? It’s foolish and dangerous to put too much weight and emotion behind one week’s result.
But come on. Look at the schedule!
“You cannot look ahead,” new quarterback Carson Wentz said, “and things happen so fast.”
But it’s a teensy-weensy bit tempting, right? Let’s do it.
Sunday’s game is at Detroit. Detroit! Washington has been a lousy franchise since the Clinton administration. The Lions? The Lions are worse! Since 2000, Washington has just one playoff victory. Detroit has zero! Since 2000, Washington has a regular season winning percentage of .417, 28th in a 32-team league. Dreadful. The Lions’ winning percentage is .347 — 31st!
It’s a winnable game? It’s a winnable game.
“We’re concerned about Detroit,” tight end Logan Thomas said.
Concerned? Please. The Lions are a living, breathing tomato can. On to Week 3!
Okay, well, Week 3 brings the Philadelphia Eagles to FedEx Field, and the Philadelphia Eagles just hung 38 points on the Lions in Detroit, where they ran for 216 yards. The Eagles made the playoffs last year. They’ll be favored in this game, rightfully so.
So … coin toss?
Week 4: At Dallas. The last time Washington visited Dallas, the Cowboys delivered an embarrassing 56-14 pasting and outgained Washington by 240 yards. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott completed whatever passes he liked, throwing for four touchdowns and no picks and …
Wait. Prescott’s not going to play in this game because of a thumb injury? The Commanders will draw … Cooper Rush?
“You think about it, of course,” defensive back Bobby McCain said. “I watch ESPN, and I watch ‘First Take’ and all those guys, and they always talk about what’s coming. ‘Oh he’s on IR, he’s not on IR.’ You hear all that. But in this league, man, you got to take it one week at a time. We have a big division game next week …”
Uh, Bobby. Detroit is this week. Philadelphia is next week.
“The only game that matters right now is Detroit,” McCain said.
Right, right. So it would be irresponsible to look at that Week 5 game at home against Tennessee, and think about how the Titans lost their opener at home to the New York Giants, and remember how Washington beat the Giants twice last year not with the strong-armed Wentz but with plucky Taylor Heinicke behind center. The Transitive Property of the NFL means beating the Titans is decidedly possible. If not probable.
Next! A Thursday night tilt at Chicago. Chicago? Yeah, the Bears opened with a come-from-behind victory over San Francisco. Things happen. It’s the NFL. But they did it by gaining all of 204 yards — the lowest Week 1 total in the league. Plus, before the season began, the Westgate SuperBook had the Commanders favored by 2½ in this game, and all the Vegas sites had Washington’s over-under win total higher than Chicago’s.
Sounds like that rare weekend off will be spent smoking a victory cigar.
Now we’re getting out there, deep into October. So much will happen between now and then — injuries, interceptions, touchdowns, turmoil. Who knows? It would be beyond irresponsible to get that far ahead of ourselves. So it’s not even worth pointing out that the Week 7 opponent, Green Bay, managed seven points in an opening loss to Minnesota in which Aaron Rodgers was sacked four times. Rodgers is 38 and has no reliable receivers.
Maybe he’s done?
That win against Jacksonville has opened up preposterous possibilities. Hasn’t it?
“You have no time to think about next week or the next week or the next week, you know?” Wentz said, taking the decidedly unfun track. “We take it one game at a time” — [insert eyeroll emoji here] — “and I think all that stuff is fun for everybody else.
“But we don’t have time, quite frankly, or the emotional energy to spend on those things because we’re trying to find a way to win right now.”
Fine. Welcome to town, Mr. Wet Towel. Sure, you’re not going to win them all. Seems like 6-1, right?
“I think it is good for us to see that we can have confidence,” Wentz said.
That’s more like it. I mean, it’s not like Washington has lost, say, its last four trips to Detroit, including two years ago in Rivera’s first season, including 2010 when Mike Shanahan benched Donovan McNabb for Rex Grossman for the failed final drive, including 2009 when the Lions broke a 19-game losing streak.
Hold on. I’m being told that … all of those things are true?
And, um, now I’m being told that the Lions are favored in this game, and that it’s the first time the Lions have been favored in a game since November 2020. Vegas has apparently not been notified that Washington is now a juggernaut.
“I didn’t really hear anything about that,” right tackle Sam Cosmi said. “I could honestly care less about that.”
Right answer, Sam. We’re picking and choosing what we care about around here. I mean, it’s not as if Washington hasn’t started 2-0 in more than a decade.
/Checks notes/
Oh, dear. Washington’s last 2-0 start came in 2011. What happened that year? It lost six in a row in midseason and finished 5-11, last in the NFC East.
Maybe this Week 1-win-colors-everything theory needs more investigating. Let’s see. Before this season, Washington won its first game 11 times this century. Only three times did that victory lead to a winning record. The last start of 5-1 or better: 1996.
It’s almost as if there’s a baked-in incompetence around here, like the franchise has been hot garbage for more than two decades. Come to think of it, every opponent on the Commanders’ schedule is looking at their game and saying, “We can win that one.”
Sigh. Why does it suddenly feel like the Commanders will lose at Detroit? And when they do, look at how hard the schedule seems. Where in the world will they find a win? | 2022-09-15T16:53:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The case for Washington Commanders optimism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/commanders-schedule-optimism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/commanders-schedule-optimism/ |
“Warzone 2” will take place in the fictional in-game region of Al Mazrah in West Asia. The game, which will be available for both last generation (PlayStation 4, Xbox One) and current generation consoles (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S), as well as PCs, will add new experiences beyond “Warzone’s” traditional battle royale settings, such as the “sandbox” DMZ mode for up to 100 players. It will also see a new squad matchmaking platform, more realistic, refined vehicles that react to enhanced physics (depleting gas tanks, veering off course following a flat tire), a new endgame dynamic with multiple closing circles instead of the usual one, the ability to revive players on other teams and, perhaps most interestingly, the introduction of proximity chat to allow real-time communication between different squads.
“Warzone 2” will also shed layers of content accumulated over two-plus years of infusions into the original “Warzone,” which Activision has said will live on as its own experience. While characters, player skins and weapons — some purchased by players for additional money through Call of Duty’s in-game store — will not be portable to “Warzone 2,” it will allow developers to slim down the game’s size and make sure all of the new elements introduced sync a bit more cleanly. | 2022-09-15T17:56:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Warzone 2: 'The most ambitious release in Call of Duty history' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/09/15/call-of-duty-warzone-2-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/09/15/call-of-duty-warzone-2-updates/ |
Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver applauds the team's 107-99 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves during an NBA basketball game in 2018 in Phoenix. (Ralph Freso/AP)
The NBA suspended and fined Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver $10 million this week, which happens to be the same punishment the NFL meted out to Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder last year. In both cases, the discipline has been reasonably criticized as too lenient. But the comparisons end there. The sex-related and other allegations against Mr. Sarver, while contemptible, are mild compared with what has been alleged against Mr. Snyder and his organization. And the way the NBA handled its investigation of Mr. Sarver — laying out for the public exactly what it had discovered — puts the NFL to shame for the secrecy with which it has shrouded its investigation of Mr. Snyder.
The Tuesday announcement that Mr. Sarver, who also owns the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, “engaged in conduct that clearly violated common workplace standards” was accompanied by the release of a 43-page report documenting the misconduct. Among the report’s findings: Mr. Sarver used demeaning language toward female employees, including telling a pregnant woman she would not be able to do her job after having her baby; he made off-color comments and jokes; he, on at least five occasions, repeated the N-word when recounting the statements of others, even when he was admonished not to do so; and he engaged in demeaning treatment of employees, including yelling and cursing at them. Still, investigators concluded that Mr. Sarver’s use of slurs was not motivated “by racial or gender-based animus.” The NBA launched its investigation after ESPN published a story last November about Mr. Sarver’s behavior; the league hired an outside law firm, which interviewed more than 100 people.
The Commanders also hired an outside law firm to probe workplace practices after The Post in July 2020 published a report detailing allegations of discrimination, sexual harassment and exploitation by 15 former female team employees. The NFL took over the investigation a month later, after The Post published more damning allegations. Over the course of a year, investigators lead by attorney Beth Wilkinson interviewed more than 100 people. But unlike the NBA’s investigation of Mr. Sarver, no report and no public information on exactly what investigators discovered, including details about a $1.6 million confidential settlement paid to a female ex-employee, were released. In fact, no report was even prepared; NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell expressly instructed Ms. Wilkinson not to put anything in writing but instead to deliver her findings orally.
If Mr. Goodell thought that this secrecy would help the disturbing allegations against Mr. Snyder blow over, he badly miscalculated. The NFL’s stonewalling got Congress’s attention; the House Committee on Oversight and Reform held a roundtable in which a female former employee accused Mr. Snyder of unwanted physical contact and advances. Mr. Snyder called the charges “outright lies,” but the NFL hired another outside lawyer — this time Mary Jo White, former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the first woman to be the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York — to investigate the matter.
Ms. White’s inquiry is ongoing. She should refuse to make herself party to another cover-up, putting her findings in writing and insisting that they be published. Meanwhile, Mr. Goodell should realize by now that he can’t bury the Snyder controversy. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver shows what Mr. Goodell should have done in the first place.
The Editorial Board on the Washington Commanders
Opinion|From the Archives: Change the name of the Washington NFL team. Now.
Opinion|Dan Snyder seems to think he won’t be held accountable. Congress should prove him wrong. | 2022-09-15T18:05:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Robert Sarver punishment shows how NFL missed on Daniel Snyder - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/robert-sarver-daniel-snyder-misconduct-punishment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/robert-sarver-daniel-snyder-misconduct-punishment/ |
Roger Federer, shown playing at Wimbledon in 2021, won the event eight times. (Alastair Grant/AP)
1981: A star is born
1992, 1993: A modest start
1998: Hello, Wimbledon and America
1998: ATP debut
1999: First appearance in the top 100
2000: A life-changing meeting off the court
2001: Major movement
2003: A major breakthrough
2004: The dominance begins
2005: Two more titles
2006: One singular sensation
2007: A repeat performance
2008: Health and striking doubles gold
2009: A year for the record books
2010: One title down under
2011: A year with no majors
2012: Nadal, Djokovic and Berdych have Grand Slam answers
2013-2014: A back injury and the arrival of another set of twins
2015: No answers for Djokovic
2016: Knee surgery and a back injury
2017: Rebirth in Australia and England
2018: 20 and another injury
2019: A classic match against an archrival
2020-2021: Injuries take their toll
2022: Federer bows out
Even Roger Federer had to admit to some amazement as he looked back at his career upon announcing his retirement from tennis Thursday.
Ultimately, for the 20-time Grand Slam singles champion, injuries and age were too much to overcome at 41. “As many of you know, the past three years have presented me with challenges in the form of injuries and surgeries. I’ve worked hard to return to full competitive form,” Federer said in a video posted on social media. “But I also know my body’s capacities and limits, and its message to me lately has been clear.”
Here’s a look back at one of the great tennis careers.
Federer was born Aug. 8 in Basel, Switzerland, to his Swiss-German father, Robert, and Afrikaner mother, Lynette, joining older sister Diana. Because of his mother, Federer holds Swiss and South African citizenship. He grew up in towns close to the French and German borders and is fluent in Swiss German (his native language), standard German, English and French and has functional knowledge of Italian and Swedish.
Federer served as a ballboy during the Swiss Indoors tournament held in his hometown. As he recalled in his retirement announcement: “I used to watch the players with a sense of wonder. They were like giants to me, and I began to dream. My dreams led me to work harder, and I started to believe in myself. Some success brought me confidence, and I was on my way to the most amazing journey that has led to this day.”
Federer found his first success at Wimbledon as a juniors player, winning both the boys’ singles and doubles (with Olivier Rochus) titles. That same year, he reached the final of the U.S. Open junior tournament, losing to David Nalbandian, and won the Orange Bowl. He finished with four ITF junior singles titles and reached the No. 1 ranking in singles before his junior career ended at the end of the year. At the time he had a reputation for being a temperamental player, a contrast to the professional career that followed.
Federer made his first appearance on the ATP Tour at the Swiss Open Gstaad, losing in the first round. Later that year, he won his first ATP match, beating Guillaume Raoux in Toulouse, France.
Federer made his debut in the top 100 on Sept. 20 and beat Carlos Moya, the French Open champion, in the Marseille Open. He made his first appearance in a final in the tournament the following year, losing to Switzerland’s Marc Rosset.
Competing for Switzerland, Federer was beaten in the bronze medal match at the Sydney Olympics by France’s Arnaud Di Pasquale. However, his life was about to undergo a major change with the appearance of a fellow competitor, Miroslava “Mirka” Vavrinec, whom he met at the Games and who later became his wife.
Federer vaulted into the top 15 with his first Grand Slam quarterfinal appearance, losing to Alex Corretja in the French Open. At Wimbledon, the 19-year-old beat top-seeded Pete Sampras, the four-time defending champion and the leader in Grand Slam singles titles at that point, in five sets in the fourth round. He lost in a fourth-set tiebreaker to Tim Henman in the quarterfinals.
Federer won his first Grand Slam singles title, beating Mark Philippoussis in the Wimbledon final. He fell short, though, of rising to the No. 1 ranking.
By winning the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, Federer became the first man to win three Grand Slam singles titles in the same year since Mats Wilander in 1988. He won 11 singles titles and his 74-6 record was the best since Ivan Lendl in 1986. And, for the first time, he was No. 1 in the world at the end of the year.
Federer lost in the semifinals in the Australian Open and French Open, but he reestablished his dominance on grass, beating Andy Roddick for his third Wimbledon title. He then beat Andre Agassi in Agassi’s last major final to win the U.S. Open.
Federer won three Grand Slam titles, losing only in the French Open final to pesky Rafael Nadal in their first meeting in a major final. He became the first man to reach all four Grand Slam finals in a calendar year since Rod Laver in 1969.
Federer reached all four Grand Slam singles finals again, winning the same three. He beat Fernando Gonzales without dropping a set in Australia, lost to Nadal in the French, beat Nadal for his fifth Wimbledon title and, called “Darth Federer,” beat Novak Djokovic in the U.S. Open.
Federer battled mononucleosis and a back injury, winning only one Grand Slam, the U.S. Open, over Andy Murray, and losing the French Open and Wimbledon finals to Nadal. The Wimbledon final that year is regarded as one of the all-time great tennis matches, with Federer rallying from a two-set deficit to force a fifth. He fell two points shy of victory.
Federer and Stan Wawrinka won doubles gold in the Beijing Olympics, but James Blake beat Federer in a singles quarterfinal. Federer ended the year ranked No. 2 to Nadal after 237 consecutive weeks at No. 1.
Federer trailed Sampras’s all-time Slams singles record of 14 by only one and failed to tie it by losing to Nadal in the Australian final. After Nadal’s loss to Robin Soderling in the French, Federer beat Soderling in the final, completing his career Grand Slam and tying Sampras. He passed Sampras by winning Wimbledon, beating Roddick in the fifth set by a 16-14 score. Federer married Vavrinec on April 11, and their identical twin girls were born July 23.
Federer claimed his fourth Australian Open singles title but did not reach any more Grand Slam finals, making it the first year since 2005 he didn’t advance to at least three.
For the first time since 2002, Federer won none of the four major titles, although he did end Djokovic’s 43-match winning streak in a French Open semifinal. Djokovic responded beat him in a five-set semifinal win at the U.S. Open.
A semifinal loss to Nadal in Australia, a semifinal loss to Djokovic in the French, a Wimbledon championship and a U.S. Open quarterfinal loss to Tomas Berdych comprised Federer’s Grand Slam appearances. Federer also won a silver medal in the London Olympics, falling to Murray on Murray’s home turf.
Federer’s 2013 was marred by back problems. In 2014, there was better news with the arrival of fraternal twins. In Grand Slam meetings of what had become the sport’s big three, he lost to Nadal in Australia and Djokovic at Wimbledon.
Seeded second at Wimbledon, Federer lost a four-set final to Djokovic and, although he advanced to his first U.S. Open final since 2009 without losing a set, he lost another four-setter to Djokovic.
Federer had arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus after a semifinal loss in Australia to Djokovic and then was sidelined by a stomach bug. He reinjured his knee in a Wimbledon loss and missed the rest of the season, as well as the 2016 Olympics, to recover. For the first time in 14 years, he dropped out of the top 10 of the rankings.
Federer beat Nadal in five sets in the Australian Open final for his first Grand Slam win since 2012, but he skipped the clay-court season because of his balky knee. He returned at Wimbledon and beat Marin Cilic in straight sets for his eighth title.
Federer won his sixth Australian Open title — and his 20th and final Grand Slam singles title — by beating Cilic in five sets in a season subsequently derailed by a hand injury.
Federer reached the Wimbledon final for the 12th and final time by beating Nadal, but he lost a five-set nail-biter to Djokovic in a 4-hour 57-minute final in which he had two championship points on his serve in the final set.
Federer advanced to an Australian Open semifinal in the pre-coronavirus days of 2020, but he lost to Djokovic and began to make headlines more for injuries than wins. He underwent a knee procedure again and shut down his season in June. In 2021, he became the oldest Wimbledon quarterfinalist in the Open Era at 39 but was upset by 14th-seeded Hubert Hurkacz. The loss marked his first straight-sets loss at Wimbledon in 19 years and soon afterward he announced that he was having another knee surgery that would sideline him “for many months.” It would turn out to be his final Grand Slam appearance.
On Sept. 15, Federer announced that he no longer will play in Grand Slam or ATP Tour events, concluding his career at the upcoming Laver Cup in London. | 2022-09-15T18:09:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A timeline of Roger Federer's illustrious tennis career - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/roger-federer-career-timeline/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/roger-federer-career-timeline/ |
Hot weather baked the globe, with Europe and China both recording their warmest meteorological summers
A general view of a drought-stricken Shasta lake, while extreme weather conditions including record-breaking heat waves are the latest sign of climate change in the western United States, where wildfires and severe drought have emerged as a growing threat, California, U.S., August 18, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Barria REFILE - CORRECTING LOCATION (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
Summer 2022 — a season marked again by historic heat waves, widespread drought and torrential rains — ranks among the hottest on record, according to data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
NASA data indicate June through August tied 2020 for the warmest summer worldwide in records dating back to 1880. Summer in the Northern Hemisphere also tied 2019 for the warmest on record.
NOAA data indicated the meteorological summer tied for the fifth warmest worldwide in 143 years of records, while the Northern Hemisphere experienced its second-warmest summer on record.
Regardless, both sets of data show that this summer was abnormally warm and that the world has warmed dramatically over the past century, especially since 1980. Summers have warmed by 0.47 degrees Fahrenheit (0.26 degrees Celsius) per decade since 1980.
“This is a remarkable testament to the persistence of ongoing global warming,” tweeted climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, who said August ranked as the warmest on record in the North America.
Both NASA and NOAA affirm 2022 will almost assuredly rank in the top 10 warmest years on record. 2022 will also likely be the eighth year in a row to be 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) warmer than above the late 19th century.
Highlights from June and July
The summer started out hot and hardly abated. NASA data indicated June 2022 tied for the hottest June on record, July tied for the third warmest and August ranked as the second warmest globally. NOAA said June, July and August, individually and coincidentally, were the sixth warmest on record.
All five of the warmest worldwide June-August periods have occurred since 2015, a sign of how the world’s warming continues to accelerate.
A heat wave swept across Japan in the middle of its rainy season, marking the worst streak of hot weather in June since 1875. Meanwhile, record rainfall fell across southern China and caused severe flooding and evacuations. The Norwegian city of Tromsø, located above the Arctic Circle, set a new temperature record for the month.
An unusually warm August
August 2022 was the hottest August recorded in North America and Europe and the second warmest August globally.
By August, around half of Europe was under drought warnings — the continent’s worst drought in at least 500 years. August also brought more intense heat to parts of the United States, especially in parts of the West.
The heat was widespread across the globe. New Zealand saw its second warmest August on record, while Belgium recorded its hottest August ever, with the European nation’s data going back to 1833.
The heat also made August a bad month for sea ice — with the world seeing its fifth-lowest August sea ice extent on record.
In Antarctica, the sea ice extent fell to 4.2 percent below the August average, a record for the month. This is the third month in a row that Antarctica has seen its monthly record fall. In the Arctic, the August 2022 sea ice extent was a whopping 16.2 percent below the 1981-2010 average — the 13th-smallest on record.
Across the globe, precipitation totals varied widely. Wetter-than-normal weather was observed not only in Pakistan but also parts of the southwest United States, northern Japan and western India.
Drier than normal weather was seen in the western United States, western Europe and southeast Asia. These dry conditions caused farmers to struggle to grow crops, led to difficulties in generating hydropower and fueled rapidly growing wildfires.
The summer fits in with a generally warmer year overall. So far, the world has seen above-average temperatures year-to-date. Per NOAA’s data, 2022 has been the sixth warmest year on record from January through August, with a global average temperature 1.55 degrees higher than the 20th-century average.
Yet, all of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2010. If the heat keeps up, 2022 will likely enter the top 10 as well. | 2022-09-15T18:22:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Summer 2022 tied for the hottest on record, according to NASA - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/15/hottest-summer-august-world/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/15/hottest-summer-august-world/ |
Malvo and John Allen Muhammad killed 10 people in the D.C. area in 2002. Virginia now allows parole consideration for juvenile offenders serving at least 20 years.
Lee Boyd Malvo, then 17, emerges from a hearing at Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in 2002. (Rich Lipski/The Washington Post)
Sniper Lee Boyd Malvo withdraws Supreme Court case after Va. passes parole for juveniles
Malvo had just turned 17 when he accompanied Muhammad on a cross-country journey in which authorities allege they killed people in five states before arriving in the D.C. area, where they shot 16 people, 10 fatally, before being captured in Maryland in October 2002. Of the 10 people slain, three were in Virginia, which in 2002 still allowed the death penalty for juveniles. So Malvo and Muhammad were tried first, and separately, in Virginia.
Malvo was convicted at trial in 2003 of the Fairfax County slaying of Linda Franklin, and then pleaded guilty to two more slayings in Spotsylvania County. He received three life sentences. Virginia did not have parole at the time. Malvo later pleaded guilty to six more slayings in Montgomery County and received six more life sentences.
Muhammad was convicted at trial in 2003 of the Prince William County slaying of Dean Meyers and sentenced to death. He was executed in 2009.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that juveniles may not be sentenced to life without parole unless a judge considers whether they are “the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects … permanent incorrigibility.” Malvo had been granted a resentencing, but when Gov. Ralph Northam (D) in 2020 signed into law a bill creating the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders serving 20 years or more, Malvo agreed to drop his request for resentencing.
Court orders Beltway sniper Lee Boyd Malvo resentenced in Maryland killings | 2022-09-15T18:22:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sniper Lee Boyd Malvo denied parole in Virginia after 20 years - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/malvo-denied-parole-virginia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/malvo-denied-parole-virginia/ |
Fulton County district attorney says her team has received allegations that serious crimes were committed
Tom Hamburger
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis watches as potential jurors are excused during proceedings to seat a special purpose grand jury on May 2 to look into the actions of former president Donald Trump and his supporters accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. (Ben Gray/AP)
ATLANTA — The prosecutor investigating efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to challenge the 2020 election results in Georgia said this week that her team has heard credible allegations that serious crimes have been committed and that she believes some individuals may see jail time.
So far, the group of known targets includes former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the state’s 16 would-be Trump electors who created unofficial documents proclaiming Trump as the winner of Georgia’s electoral votes, even though he lost the state. Lawyers for Giuliani and the electors have denied any wrongdoing. Lawyers for the electors say their clients followed the law and made clear they met as a contingency measure as they waited for a court to rule on a challenge to the Georgia vote.
Trump said during a Thursday interview with conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt that he hasn’t received any target letters “at all” in ongoing criminal investigations. He denied involvement in the multistate plan by Republicans to send the names of Trump electors to Washington, but said such alternate elector slates were “very common.”
The Fulton County investigation is far from the only inquiry into Trump’s conduct around the 2020 election. The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 has looked extensively at the electors scheme and other matters. The Justice Department is investigating Trump’s actions related to the election as part of a federal grand jury probe.
In addition to investigating the Trump electors’ actions, Willis is looking at potential criminal wrongdoing in calls Trump and his allies made to Georgia officials, false statements made to lawmakers, harassment of election officials and the tampering of election systems in one county in southern Georgia.
Willis said she anticipates wrapping up the fact-finding stage of the inquiry before the end of the year, even as she continues to expand its reach. She said the probe will stop public activities, such as calling witnesses, for the month leading to the general election. When the special grand jury has finished hearing from witnesses, it is expected to provide Willis with a report that could include recommendations for indictments. She will then decide which individuals, if any, to charge.
Willis’s open and frank assessment is unusual for a prosecutor, as such high-profile investigations are often shrouded in secrecy. Her approach in this inquiry has drawn criticism from some in the legal community, but she said such transparency is a requirement of her job.
Her latest comments come as Republicans in Georgia — including the state’s governor — have complained that her investigation is politically motivated, a claim Willis, a Democrat, denies.
She noted that there was no grand jury activity during the period of the state’s primary election this spring and that she plans a similar quiet period starting Oct. 7 in advance of the November midterms.
“I didn’t want people to claim that this was some political stunt that we were doing to impact the election,” she said.
Willis said that the special grand jury has interviewed about 65 percent of the dozens of witnesses whose testimony has been sought by prosecutors.
“I’m pleased with where it is. I think we’re moving along at a really good speed,” Willis said, adding she was not concerned that some witnesses, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), have resisted appearing before the grand jury.
“We are going to be done calling witnesses by the end of this year. Period,” she said.
The probe has already seen appearances from many high-profile witnesses, including Giuliani, who was informed last month that he is a target.
Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, declined to comment on Willis’s latest remarks.
In addition to Giuliani, Willis has notified 16 would-be Trump electors from Georgia that they, too, are targets of the probe. In the past, lawyers for some of the electors suggested their clients would have cooperated with the inquiry had Willis not identified them as targets. The lawyers declined to comment on Willis’s latest remarks.
In the interview, Willis said she fleetingly hoped she would not have to open the 2020 election inquiry at all. She had been in office only a couple of days in early January 2021 when news reports from The Post and others described Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) urging him to “find” additional votes to overcome Joe Biden’s lead in Georgia.
‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor
Willis said she quickly realized she would have to investigate the alleged election interference. “I understood that if this occurred in Fulton County, it is serious enough that it needed to be looked at,” she said.
Since then, Willis’s probe has grown and represents — along with a ramped up federal inquiry — a serious threat that criminal charges could be brought against Trump and his allies.
Trump has criticized Willis on social media as a “young, ambitious, Radical Left Democrat … who is presiding over one of the most Crime Ridden and Corrupt places in the USA.”
Willis says she is undeterred by such criticism and by the regular threats directed against her.
Court filings and interviews indicate her team continues to examine several key themes. First, they are pursuing whether there were violations of Georgia law prohibiting false statements to government officials. Those statutes could apply to Giuliani and other Trump campaign advisers who cited evidence — later debunked — of widespread election fraud when speaking to Georgia legislative committees.
Second, Willis is examining the calls made by Trump and others to Georgia officials after the election. In court filings, Willis has cited a Georgia statute prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud.
Third, prosecutors have been pursuing the effort to send the names of would-be Trump electors from Georgia to Washington. Prosecutors are interested in whether sending official Trump electors from battleground states was part of an organized effort to give Vice President Mike Pence a reason to declare that the outcome of the election was in doubt when he presided over the congressional counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021.
Pence’s Jan. 6 tightrope: Owning his role while courting Trump voters
Two weeks ago, Willis filed a petition seeking testimony from Boris Epshteyn, a lawyer who worked closely with Giuliani during the post- election period. The petition said Epshteyn “possesses unique knowledge” of “efforts by the Trump Campaign to submit false certificates of vote to former vice president Michael Pence and others.”
Last week, Epshteyn and Giuliani were among those named in a federal subpoena seeking information about the plan to submit slates of would-be Trump electors from Georgia and other states.
Willis in recent weeks has added new items to her investigative agenda, including seeking detailed information about threats made to an election worker.
In December 2020, according to her court filings, Trump allies pressured and threatened Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County elections worker. Willis declined to comment on recent filings related to pressure on Freeman except to say: “I hate a bully. Obviously, I think we would find it offensive to bully an election official to influence an election.”
Finally, Willis has expanded her probe to investigate whether election systems were improperly breached in Coffee County, Ga. That interest was initially disclosed in documents seeking testimony from Sidney Powell, a lawyer who worked for the Trump campaign after the 2020 election.
The Post was the first to report on the effort by Powell and other Trump allies to copy Coffee County’s restricted election systems data. The effort occurred as Trump allies focused publicly on voting machines, making the case that they were part of a plot to rig the election for Biden.
Willis’s petition for an appearance by Powell noted that, in addition to Coffee County, there is evidence indicating that Powell was “involved in similar efforts in Michigan and Nevada” during the same time that the Coffee County elections systems were supposedly breached. Powell did not respond to a request for comment.
Willis has suggested that this complex of activity — from organizing Trump electors to making false statements to applying pressure on local election officials could be prosecuted under Georgia’s conspiracy and anti-racketeering laws.
State anti-racketeering laws, known as Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO, were enacted decades ago as a legal tool to fight organized crime. Georgia’s RICO statute has been used by Willis and others to prosecute an array of high-profile cases. In 2014, Willis was one of the lead prosecutors securing convictions and guilty pleas from 30 Atlanta public school teachers and administrators implicated in a scandal to cheat on student tests.
“The RICO statute allows you to tell jurors the full story” of a complex conspiracy, Willis said Tuesday, noting that Georgia law permits investigation of seemingly disparate acts even those that happen outside of a prosecutor’s home county. “It’s a great statute for prosecutors,” she said.
Alice Crites, Jon Swain and Emma Brown contributed to this report. | 2022-09-15T18:23:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgia investigation into 2020 election interference may lead to prison sentences, prosecutor says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/15/fani-willis-georgia-prison/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/15/fani-willis-georgia-prison/ |
Biden helped avert one labor crisis. But the deeper challenge remains.
President Biden shakes hands with Secretary of Labor Mary Walsh during an announcement of a tentative agreement to avoid a railroad strike in the Rose Garden of the White House on September 15, 2022. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
The Biden administration appears to have averted the economic and political disaster of a railroad strike that could have crippled the movement of goods and supplies around the country. With Labor Secretary Marty Walsh conducting intense negotiations with railroad companies and labor unions, and President Biden weighing in by phone to push for a resolution, a tentative agreement to keep freight and passenger rail moving has been reached.
That’s the big-picture story: a crisis avoided. But an equally important story is getting less notice. Biden called the deal “a win for tens of thousands of rail workers and their dignity,” but whether he can make lasting change is another question. Should American workers actually expect more dignity on the job and fairer treatment going forward?
This conflict was not about pay; the unions threatening to strike had already negotiated a pay increase, and their wages are quite good. Instead, they wanted more flexibility in their demanding schedules; among other things, they could be punished for taking a day off for a medical emergency.
Biden campaigned on a promise to be the most pro-labor president in history, and he has certainly expressed plenty of sympathy for workers seeking to organize and demand better pay and conditions. This part of The Post’s report on the railroad negotiations stood out:
As he pressed for a deal, Biden became personally animated about the lack of leave, and he brought up repeatedly that he did not understand why workers could not be granted more flexible schedules.
The railroad companies have been making enormous profits of late, and the pandemic has been excellent for them. According to their annual reports, in 2021, BNSF Railway had operating income (profits before taxes and interest expenses) of $8.8 billion. Union Pacific’s operating income was $9.3 billion, and CSX’s income was $5.6 billion.
Like many industries, the railroads have become increasingly sophisticated in how they cut costs through logistical efficiency. According to the unions, that has meant treating workers like one more piece of equipment that can be manipulated with little concern for their lives, their families, and their psychological well-being.
While the full details haven’t been released, the concessions the unions achieved seem rather modest. It’s hard to believe the railroads’ profits will be affected much by letting conductors and engineers go to the doctor when they need to.
One wonders how it would have played out if this potential strike had occurred when Donald Trump or any other Republican was president. We can’t say for sure — but we do know that destroying collective bargaining has long been a core GOP goal.
At least at the federal level, that project will remain on hold as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House (though the Supreme Court will continue to wage war on labor rights). In the meantime, look at what’s unfolding on the ground.
Though only a small portion of American workers are represented by a union, there has been a wave of organizing in the last couple of years, including at high-profile companies like Starbucks and Amazon. According to a recent Gallup survey, 71 percent of Americans approve of labor unions, the highest figure since the 1960s.
Critically, the debate is only partly about wages. It’s also about people demanding that their employers treat them with respect.
But it’s an uphill battle. Not only have Republicans and their corporate allies made tremendous progress in undermining the ability of unions to organize, but one of their greatest successes has been convincing us all that we don’t deserve to be treated well. We shouldn’t take vacations, we shouldn’t demand the benefits workers in our peer countries get, and we should generally be thankful to have a job at all and act like our employers are doing us a favor by benefiting from our labor.
Think of all the trend stories you’ve seen about the supposed epidemic of “quiet quitting,” which has nothing to do with quitting at all, but is actually just people deciding to do what’s required of them in their jobs but not much more. This has been framed as an insidious wave of slacking, as though you have a moral obligation to answer work emails on weekends or stay late in the office rather than spend time with your family.
Biden can’t change that in one fell swoop; no labor deal he negotiates will have the effect of Ronald Reagan firing the air-traffic controllers, a message to corporate America that they should join a war on unions (which they enthusiastically did). The major legislative goals Biden set out have not been achieved, including an increase in the minimum wage and passage of a long-sought bill to protect and facilitate labor organizing.
But at least Biden is using his bully pulpit. Whenever he talks about these issues, he makes sure to mention the dignity everyone deserves on the job. We’re just still a long way from guaranteeing it. | 2022-09-15T18:23:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Biden helped avert the railroad strike. But a labor crisis remains. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/biden-railroad-strike-labor-dignity/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/biden-railroad-strike-labor-dignity/ |
Customs agents unload a truck containing 3,200 pounds of cocaine in 60 packages, seized at the Port of New York/Newark in Newark in 2019. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection via AP)
For decades after Congress passed the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, one ratio illustrated the unfairness of the criminal justice system: 100 to 1. This ratio denoted the amount of powder cocaine that triggered mandatory minimum sentences, relative to crack cocaine. Distributing 500 grams of powder resulted in a five-year sentence — the same sentence for distributing a mere 5 grams of crack. This fueled racial disparities in sentencing, because Black Americans were disproportionately likely to be convicted of crack-related crimes.
The 2010 Fair Sentencing Act reduced this disparity to 18 to 1, and the 2018 First Step Act made the change retroactive. This was an improvement, but the ratio still remained highly, and unreasonably, lopsided. Congress should finally bring the law into a sensible balance.
Crack and powder cocaine are essentially two forms of the same substance. Crack, a version of the drug that has been mixed with water and often baking soda, is smoked rather than snorted or injected. Though studies suggest White and Hispanic people have historically made up a majority of crack users, the drug has stereotypically been associated with Black communities, likely contributing to uneven enforcement: In 2019, 81 percent of those convicted on crack trafficking charges were Black and just 5.3 percent were White.
These facts inspired Congress’s previous reform efforts — and a new bill, the Equal Act, which was originally sponsored by Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) in the Senate and Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.), Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.) in the House. The bill — which is backed by a number of law enforcement groups — would eliminate the powder-crack disparity, and it would apply retroactively, meaning currently incarcerated people would be eligible for reduced sentencing. It passed the House last year by 361 votes to 66, a massive bipartisan victory in a deeply divided body. It is now being considered in the Senate, where it has 21 co-sponsors — including 11 Republicans.
But the measure has stalled over concerns that Republicans could push for divisive amendments. Meanwhile, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, has sponsored a separate bill that would reduce the disparity to 2.5 to 1. Proponents of this ratio argue that, if used as intended, crack is faster-acting and results in more intense, albeit shorter, highs. Not only would Mr. Grassley’s proposal preserve a powder vs. crack cocaine disparity, it would achieve its 2.5-to-1 ratio in part by becoming more punitive on powder — something there is little appetite for, both in Congress and among the public.
As the Senate juggles a number of measures ahead of November’s midterm elections, advocates worry that the window for action is closing. Democrats should continue to push for the Equal Act — but also be open to compromise if necessary. A possible middle ground might involve a 2.5-to-1 ratio, achieved entirely by increasing the quantities of crack that trigger mandatory minimums. This ratio could be further reduced or brought to parity in the future, and a deal could be supplemented with funding for research on the addictiveness and deadliness of these substances, as Mr. Grassley has pushed for.
With thousands of people currently serving manifestly unjust sentences, lawmakers must not squander this opportunity for popular, common-sense and humane reform. | 2022-09-15T18:24:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Congress should tackle the federal powder vs. crack cocaine disparity - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/equal-act-crack-powder-cocaine-disparity/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/equal-act-crack-powder-cocaine-disparity/ |
Members of the National Guard and the D.C. police keep a small group of demonstrators away from the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Donald Trump’s post-election effort to retain power — an effort that is still motoring along, despite President Biden having been in office for 20 months — was as explicit a rejection of a democratic election as this country has seen. Trump denied (denies) that he lost and engaged in a multi-tentacled effort to retain power despite being rejected by voters. He stoked a demand for skepticism of electoral outcomes that built on long-standing doubts about election systems, demand that has carried over into the midterm election.
It’s not surprising then that a quarter of the country identified “preserving democracy” as their strongest motivation for casting a ballot in November, according to new polling from the 19th and SurveyMonkey. What may be surprising, though, is how squarely centered that concern is on the left. Once you consider who thinks the American system is working as is, though, that divide seems more understandable.
The pollsters offered respondents a few options to select from when identifying a primary motivation to vote. “Preserving democracy” and “jobs and the economy” accounted for about half of the responses overall. But while 3 in 10 Republicans and independents identified the economy as their main motivation, Democrats were half as likely to. (In this poll, “Democrats” and “Republicans” include independents who tend to vote with either of those parties.) A third of Democrats chose democracy, compared with a fifth of Republicans and 1 in 9 independents.
There’s some obvious complexity here. That a fifth of Republicans identify “preserving democracy” as a central goal probably reflects precisely the argument Trump has been making: that the democratic process is tainted by rampant fraud. (It isn’t.) What’s more, part of the “preserving democracy” response from Democrats is a function of manifesting opposition to what Trump is doing. That Democrats are three times more likely to identify “preserving democracy” as their primary motivation than abortion is noteworthy on its own, of course, and suggests an earnest concern about the issue.
But then consider that Democrats are also more likely to see the results of democracy working well for them. The 19th poll asked explicitly about how people viewed both democracy and the economic system, with most Americans saying that these systems aren’t working well. Democrats, though, say they are.
That views of democracy and the economic system move in correlation (as indicated by how close each dot is to the diagonal line below) suggests that respondents are reacting less to specific consideration of either system and, instead, to a general sense of how things are going. Democrats — whose party controls Congress and the White House — think that things are going pretty well. Republicans don’t.
In another question, the pollsters questioned how people viewed the work of Congress over the previous year. Three-quarters of Democrats said either that Congress had helped them personally or that there had been no effect. Three-quarters of Republicans said that Congress’s work had hurt them.
Again, it’s tricky to extricate partisanship here. Do Republicans actually have a concrete sense of being harmed by Congress? Or do they largely not like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)?
New polling from Fox News, released Wednesday, adds an interesting component to consider. Most Americans think that government should be doing more to help Americans than it is. That includes more than a third of Republicans, members of a party that traditionally objects to government intervention.
Note that the group that sees democracy working well also thinks Congress has not hurt them over the past year and that government should be doing even more. That’s a lot of confidence in the system, certainly, even if it is conflated with partisan support for political leadership.
If democracy is working well for you, it stands to reason that you’d seek to preserve it as a priority. If things aren’t going well for you, it similarly stands to reason that ensuring the system keeps working as it has been isn’t going to be at the top of your to-do list.
But all of this sidesteps an important consideration: What if democracy actually is under threat? What if the rejection of election results that Trump encouraged spreads? What if preserving the system in the most literal sense is actually something that voters might be asked to do? In that case, entanglement with partisanship is more than simply a consideration.
In that case, it’s a serious problem. | 2022-09-15T18:24:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | There is not a bipartisan urgency among voters for preserving democracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/elections-democracy-bipartisan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/elections-democracy-bipartisan/ |
FILE - Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino speaks during a news conference at a Fayetteville, Ark., on April 3, 2012, after being released from a hospital from a motorcycle accident on April 1. Petrino will return to Fayetteville on Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022, when he will lead Missouri State against his former program in a much-anticipated game for an FCS program that he’s quickly turned into a juggernaut. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson, File) | 2022-09-15T18:25:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 10 Arkansas to face Missouri State, former coach Petrino - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-10-arkansas-to-face-missouri-state-former-coach-petrino/2022/09/15/a39a8d5e-351b-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-10-arkansas-to-face-missouri-state-former-coach-petrino/2022/09/15/a39a8d5e-351b-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
The Respect for Marriage Act would enshrine federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages and repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act
Supporters of same-sex marriage, including Zachary Nessel, 12, of Plymouth, Mich., hold up a giant flag in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington on April 28, 2015. (Allison Shelley for The Washington Post)
This just in: Senate delays same-sex marriage vote until after midterms | 2022-09-15T18:40:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Senate delays same sex marriage vote until after midterms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/senate-delays-same-sex-marriage-vote/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/senate-delays-same-sex-marriage-vote/ |
Brittney Griner in Russian court in Moscow on July 27. (For The Washington Post)
President Biden on Friday will meet with the families of WNBA star Brittney Griner and security consultant Paul Whelan, both of whom remain detained in Russia despite ongoing negotiations for their release, the White House said Thursday.
Jean-Pierre said Griner and Whelan were being wrongfully detained “under intolerable circumstances” and said the Biden administration had followed up on its offer repeatedly.
“As we have said, the Russians should accept our offer. They should accept our offer today,” Jean-Pierre said. “We will keep working diligently until the day we get to share that good news.
One family member was already scheduled to be in town and the president wanted to meet with both of the families on the same day.
In early July, Griner wrote a letter to Biden to implore him to continue working for her and others’ release.
“As I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner wrote in an excerpt of the letter shared by Wasserman, a talent agency that represents the Phoenix Mercury center.
“I realize you are dealing with so much, but please don’t forget about me and the other American Detainees,” she added. “Please do all you can to bring us home. I voted for the first time in 2020 and I voted for you. I believe in you. I still have so much good to do with my freedom that you can help restore. I miss my wife! I miss my family! I miss my teammates! It kills me to know they are suffering so much right now. I am grateful for whatever you can do at this moment to get me home.”
Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson (D) was reported in July to have plans to travel to Russia to help negotiate the release of Griner and Whelan. Richardson is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations with a history of trying to negotiate the release of U.S. prisoners from other countries, including that of Otto Warmbier from North Korea.
On Thursday, Jean-Pierre would not confirm Richardson’s reported plans, only saying the White House had been in contact with the Richardson Center, a nonprofit organization founded by the former New Mexico governor that specializes in negotiating the release of political prisoners across the world.
“Private citizens attempting to broker a deal do not and cannot speak for the U.S. government,” Jean-Pierre said.
Jake Russell and Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report. | 2022-09-15T19:19:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | President Biden to meet with families of Brittney Griner, Paul Whelan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/brittney-griner-paul-whalen-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/brittney-griner-paul-whalen-biden/ |
Roger Federer waves to the crowd after losing a Wimbledon quarterfinal to Hubert Hurkacz of Poland in 2021. (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
“For me, they picked the wrong year to have a fifth set tiebreak,” Federer said in the post-match on-court interview.
During his dominant period, Federer won both the U.S. Open and Wimbledon five years in a row — he has eight Wimbledon titles in all. He also won the Australian Open six times. The only major he didn’t win at least five times was the French Open, which he only won once in large part because Nadal was — and is — almost impossible to beat on clay. | 2022-09-15T19:23:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | With Roger Federer's retirement, tennis loses another golden star - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/roger-federer-nadal-djokovic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/roger-federer-nadal-djokovic/ |
Viral videos of little girls reacting to the trailer of the live action Disney film is a marketing bonanza
Anne Branigin
From left, McKenzie Fleming, Khloe Coulson, Rylie Fleming. (Dariana Fleming/The Washington Post)
Precious Avery remembers just how rare it was to see Black characters on television growing up, so she started recording as her 3-year-old, Emery, absorbed the trailer for the new “Little Mermaid” film.
As turtles swam through coral reefs, an image of a mermaid appears, then Halle Bailey, a Black actress and singer, was revealed as Ariel. “I think she’s Brown,” Emery said with a grin. “Brown Ariel!”
Emery said she loves Bailey’s long hair and mermaid tail. It reminds her of her swim lessons and how she practices holding her breath underwater. She knows all the Disney princesses and wants to live in a castle one day.
But her mother sees something bigger. It always made her “feel good” to see Black characters on television, Avery, 33, said, and now her daughter was getting the experience.
Black parents across the country are capturing their daughters responding to the new Disney trailer. Videos of children squealing with delight, dancing, tearing up or proclaiming, “She’s Brown like me,” have gone viral, garnering millions of views and sparking a marketing bonanza for Disney.
Parents say the videos highlight why it is important for kids to see people who look like them in movies and television shows. But for some Black moms, the moment was powerful in another way, allowing them to relive a piece of their childhood through a new lens.
Bailey is the newest iteration of the fairy tale mermaid, replacing the redheaded cartoon from the 1989 Disney movie. The original rebellious underwater princess had enormous blue eyes and wore a purple bikini top made of seashells. Instead of legs, she had a green fish tail. For Bailey, “seeing these little babies reactions makes me so emotional,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “Thank you all for your unwavering support.”
“The Little Mermaid” live action film, set to release May 2023, will not be the first Disney movie with a Black princess. Princess Tiana in “The Princess and the Frog” made history as the first Black Disney princess in 2009, and the 1997 remake of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Cinderella,” in which singer Brandy Norwood took on the titular role, began streaming on Disney Plus last year.
Parents are taking to TikTok to share videos of their young daughters' reactions to Halle Bailey, who will star as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid,” out May 2023. (Video: Allie Caren/The Washington Post)
Dariana Fleming, 26, remembers how important it was to her to see Cinderella played by a Black woman as a child. Inspired by the videos of Black girls reacting to the “Little Mermaid” teaser, she decided to make her own. Her daughters Rylie, 2, and McKenzie, 4, smiled as they watched the first few seconds of the trailer. Their smiles turned to gasps and giggles as Bailey appeared on screen.
Rylie was wowed. McKenzie says she was impressed that Ariel’s hair had dreads like her dad. The video documenting their response to the new Black Ariel has been viewed on TikTok more than 2 million times. “For me, I didn’t really have them growing up, so it’s good to have that representation for their generation to see,” said Fleming.
Ashley Potts, 26, says she doesn’t talk about skin color with her 5-year-old daughter, London, but that it was clear that she was shocked to see an Ariel that looked like her. London already loved “The Little Mermaid,” and has an ever-growing collection of mermaid dolls, including a prized Ariel doll from Disneyland that she received for her birthday.
As she watched the trailer, she pointed to the mermaid princess several times as her mom recorded, but once the toddler saw Ariel’s face, she fell silent. “It was a natural reaction for her,” Potts said. “I wanted to cry.”
“It’s so surreal that the mermaid I grew up with is going to grow up with my children in a whole other way,” said Dariyan Bell, a 30-year-old mother of five. In a video, which Bell posted on her TikTok account, Zavae, 3, suddenly stopped playing once she heard Bailey singing “Part of Your World.” Her back to her mother, Zavae is seemingly entranced by the image of Bailey on the screen.
The outpouring of reactions from little Black girls has been a huge marketing boost for the film. But those feelings of delight and awe were not universal. The announcement of Bailey’s casting in 2019 was initially met with some backlash. Some critics on Twitter used #NotMyAriel and #NotMyMermaid hashtags to argue that the person chosen to play Ariel should have been White, like the story’s Danish author and in the original animation.
Many of her fans used the same Twitter hashtags, along with #MyAriel, to come to Bailey’s defense. They noted that mermaids are mythical creatures that have appeared in legends and folk tales across the world, including in the African diaspora. The Disney network Freeform also supported Bailey on social media with “An open letter to the Poor, Unfortunate Souls.”
Disney network defends casting black actress in remake of classic film
Bailey isn’t the only actor of color to be harassed for playing characters originally cast by White actors or in predominantly White film franchises. John Boyega faced so much racist abuse from fans when he was cast as Finn in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in 2015 that he told SiriusXM he was not interested in returning to the “Star Wars” franchise. Leslie Jones and Kelly Marie Tran received similar hate for their roles in the “Ghostbusters” reboot and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” respectively.
While Disney has included more diverse characters like Princess Tiana in recent years, the changes were long overdue, said Kaila Story, an associate professor in the departments of Pan-African studies and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Louisville.
Shows with White casts have historically been presented as appropriate for all audiences, Story said, while movies with Black actors and filmmakers were only targeted toward Black people. Yet showcasing more characters of color in television and films is more reflective of what the world looks like, she said.
What sets Ariel in the new “Little Mermaid” apart from some of the other non-White Disney protagonists, such as Pocahontas, is that “the crux of her story is not going to have to be her unpacking her racial identity simultaneously,” Story said.
For Devyn Coulson, 33, sharing Disney films with her 3-year-old daughter Khloe has always been full-circle moment and a chance to relive her childhood. “It makes me feel like I can get a glimpse of how my mom felt when I was finding so much joy in the Disney movies,” she says.
But Khloe’s reaction to the new “Little Mermaid” trailer was special. In the video, Khloe fixes her gaze on the screen, her eyes appearing to well up with tears. “Are you crying?” Coulson asked Khloe, who immediately denied it. “Oh, sweet girl,” her mom cooed.
Adelia Chaiyakul, 31, said she also felt as though she was returning to her own childhood after viewing the “Little Mermaid” video with her 9-year-old daughter, Ava, who told her mother she was famous at school after her reaction video, in which she smiles and covers her mouth in shock upon seeing the new Ariel, went viral on TikTok.
Chaiyakul said that because she didn’t see herself reflected in characters growing up, she simply had to imagine. But in the comments of the viral TikTok video, she realized how reaction videos like her daughter’s allowed many White women to understand how much they took for granted seeing themselves in White princesses and other characters.
This dynamic will change with the next generation, said Chaiyakul. “I kind of made it up in my mind that I was princess,” she said. “She actually gets to see that she’s a princess.” | 2022-09-15T19:27:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In the new ‘Little Mermaid,’ Black girls and moms see themselves - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/15/little-mermaid-halle-bailey-black-girls/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/15/little-mermaid-halle-bailey-black-girls/ |
D.C. street closures for the half marathon on Sunday
Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
The D.C. Half Marathon will be held Sunday, and parking restrictions will begin early. The following streets will be closed to vehicular traffic from approximately 6 a.m. to 12 p.m., according to a D.C. police traffic advisory:
Southbound Potomac River Freeway Split to Route 66
The following streets will be closed to vehicle traffic from approximately 6 a.m. to 12 a.m.:
Rock Creek Parkway from Ohio Drive NW to Shoreham Hill
All street closures and listed times are subject to change, police said.
With Metro struggling, the D.C. region will not recover | 2022-09-15T19:36:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. Half Marathon street closures - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/15/dc-half-marathon-street-closures/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/15/dc-half-marathon-street-closures/ |
ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — Pope Francis said Thursday the Vatican was in contact with the Nicaraguan government about its crackdown on the Catholic Church and hoped “at the very least” that nuns from Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity religious order would be allowed to return to operations in the country. | 2022-09-15T19:56:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pope: Vatican seeks talks on Nicaragua's Catholic crackdown - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pope-vatican-seeks-talks-on-nicaraguas-catholic-crackdown/2022/09/15/ed9eba5c-3529-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pope-vatican-seeks-talks-on-nicaraguas-catholic-crackdown/2022/09/15/ed9eba5c-3529-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
A conservative think tank turns away from Reagan and toward Trump
Ukrainian troops prepare to fire at Russian positions from a U.S.-supplied M777 howitzer in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine on July 14. (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP)
In the battle for the soul of GOP foreign policy between establishment Republicans and Trump-style national conservatives, the former still hold the levers of official power but the latter are gaining ground. The Heritage Foundation’s turn toward the “new right” is the clearest symbol yet that the MAGA movement’s foreign policy is becoming institutionalized but moving further away from the Republican leadership.
The Heritage Foundation has been an influential brain trust for GOP administrations since the Reagan years — and still claims to stand for Ronald Reagan’s doctrine of “peace through strength.” But beginning in the Trump era, and even more so now under its new president, Kevin Roberts, Heritage is moving away from that tradition, according to several foreign policy staffers who recently left the foundation.
Half a dozen foreign policy analysts have left the foundation this year, while several other former employees are publicly accusing Roberts and Heritage of abandoning the national security principles and policies that it (and the Republican Party) once stood for.
“This pivot on foreign policy is ignorant, reckless, and it is clearly elevating partisan opportunism over literally decades of principle,” former Heritage foreign policy analyst Klon Kitchen, who left last year, told me. “It’s sad to see, and that’s why Heritage is hemorrhaging foreign policy expertise.”
After Heritage Action, the organization’s political wing, opposed the $40 billion Ukraine aid bill in May, two of the foundation’s top Russia analysts resigned. Since then, three senior members of Heritage’s Asia team, a top defense budget analyst and a top trade analyst have all departed. Their replacements include several senior Trump administration National Security Council and State Department officials.
Some former staffers told me Roberts has prioritized political messaging over policy formation. As Heritage becomes beholden to the MAGA movement’s political whims, these analysts allege, the organization is now following the mob rather than leading it, rendering serious policy work irrelevant. But the mixing of politics and policy at think tanks is nothing new.
What’s more interesting is the result. On Ukraine, Heritage has broken with center-right think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson Institute and is now aligned with the Center for Renewing America (run by Donald Trump’s former budget director Russ Vought), the Koch Institute, and conservatives at the Quincy Institute, who all argue for “restraint,” meaning the opposite of the long-standing internationalist bipartisan D.C. foreign policy consensus.
In an interview, Roberts told me he is trying to position Heritage to be relevant to both sides of the conservative foreign policy world. Calling himself a “recovering neocon,” he said Washington is caught in a false dichotomy between interventionism and isolationism.
“Heritage is moving toward an explicit embrace of restraint, that’s true,” he said. “But we’ve always talked about restraint.”
He said Heritage’s opposition to the Ukraine bill passed by Congress in May was based on a lack of accountability in the text. Eleven GOP senators and 57 GOP House members voted against it. This week, as weapons provided under that bill are helping Ukraine to liberate areas from Russian occupation, center-right conservatives are attacking Heritage and others opposed to a new Ukraine aid package pending in Congress as “useful idiots.”
Roberts claimed the next batch of Ukraine legislation would fund “social justice programs being spent through USAID” and “nefarious things the State Department wants to do.” He has personally talked with several GOP lawmakers about the issue and predicts more no votes this time around: “That’s where the conservative movement is going on foreign policy.”
While Roberts tells mainstream newspaper columnists he wants Heritage to be a big ideological tent, he sometimes strikes a different tone when talking to the Trump base. This week at the National Conservatism Conference, Roberts said, “I come not to invite national conservatives to join our conservative movement, but to acknowledge the plain truth that Heritage is already part of yours.”
After being criticized for Heritage’s stance on Ukraine aid in May, Roberts praised Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for his “leadership” in opposing aid, a not-so-subtle jab at the GOP’s actual leadership, which he called “swampy” for supporting the assistance package.
Last year, when he was still chief executive of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Roberts said “nation-building advocates within the Trump administration became part of the deep state” and were “treasonous.” In July on Fox News, Roberts said it’s time for the United States to declare independence from the “liberal world order.”
There are certainly important lessons to be learned from past failed U.S. interventions abroad. And no foreign policy can be successful without the support of the American people. The “new right” foreign policy vision touches on some legitimate grievances, and there’s no doubt that adherents have the enthusiasm within the Republican Party. But they don’t have the majority or the power — yet.
Heritage is positioned well for success among the conservative base — while the GOP is in opposition. But when Republicans eventually return to power, Roberts and Heritage will no longer be able to straddle the fence. Will the party of Reagan really become the party of foreign policy “restraint”? For the sake of the country and the world, let’s hope not. | 2022-09-15T20:24:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | A conservative think tank turns away from Reagan and toward Trump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/heritage-foundation-republican-foreign-policy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/heritage-foundation-republican-foreign-policy/ |
Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban during an election night rally in Budapest on April 3. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
A swath of American conservatives have lionized Viktor Orban, but on Thursday, Europe’s elected parliament shined a clarifying light on the Hungarian tyrant, voting overwhelmingly to denounce the “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” he has built through bigotry, corruption and contempt for democratic norms. That condemnation was too long in the coming and is unlikely to faze Mr. Orban. But the European Union’s executive arm has a better way to get his attention: cutting off Hungary from the billions of dollars in aid on which his regime depends. It is now preparing to do just that. Better late than never.
For a second-rate strongman, Mr. Orban, prime minister of a landlocked country with a population on par with that of Honduras, has punched way above his weight. Though Hungary is a member of the E.U. as well as NATO, he has stood apart as a stalwart ally of Vladimir Putin, the Russian dictator. And when he appeared last month before the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas, he received a rousing welcome despite having warned days earlier that immigration threatened to remake Hungary into a “mixed-race” country — a remark that prompted the resignation of one of his top aides, who said correctly that it evoked Nazi dogma.
Better to have rogue regimes inside the tent of civilized nations — or so goes the argument according to which Europe has tolerated Mr. Orban’s transgressions since he assumed office in 2010, in his second run as prime minister. In fact, evidence for the civilizing influence of E.U. membership has been scant in Mr. Orban’s case. Over the past dozen years, he has established a regime, rooted in intolerance, intimidation and authoritarianism, that little resembles most of Europe. Posing as a self-styled enemy of “globalists,” he has forced through a new constitution and laws that marginalize opposition views, rig elections in his favor and put state-owned media outlets effectively under his control. In the name of “Christian values,” he regularly attacks LGBTQ people and immigrants.
Despite its descent into what amounts to a Potemkin democracy, Hungary has managed until now to forestall serious disciplinary consequences from the E.U., which wields a formidable power of the purse. Now the jig is up, or nearly so. Furious that E.U. funds have been used corruptly for years to fatten the wallets of Mr. Orban’s friends and political allies — which officials in Brussels delicately refer to as “rule-of-law problems” — the European Commission is preparing to withhold some $4.6 billion in already frozen pandemic recovery funds for Hungary, an unprecedented move. Beyond that, the commission could block billions more in covid-19 relief money by the end of the year, as well as a six-year, 22-billion-euro package intended mainly to modernize Hungary’s antiquated infrastructure.
Predictably, Mr. Orban has dispatched envoys to Brussels who have promised a strict new anti-corruption regime. But such pledges have turned out to be trickery in the past, with little effect on Mr. Orban’s deepening autocracy. Some European officials, notwithstanding previous hoodwinking, propose giving Hungary more leeway. That would be a mistake. For Mr. Orban, time should be up. | 2022-09-15T20:25:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The EU must withhold funds from Viktor Orban’s Hungary - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/viktor-orban-hungary-eu-funds/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/viktor-orban-hungary-eu-funds/ |
NOVA Parks adds 44-acre preserve to its network of green spaces
NOVA Parks recently acquired the 44-acre Winkler Botanic Preserve, including the Catherine Lodge, in Alexandria, Va. (NOVA Parks)
Northern Virginia’s regional park authority has a new addition to its network of green spaces: a 44-acre preserve in Alexandria, which is meant to provide an oasis for native plants and fauna amid this sprawling suburb.
Created in the 1970s, the Winkler Botanical Preserve was a particularly prescient idea for its time. Catherine Winkler Herman, an environmentalist and philanthropist, established the once-private property to honor her real estate developer husband as Alexandria was rapidly urbanizing.
Nearly half a century later, the preserve protects native flora and fauna like swamp rose mallow, ospreys and hawks — right next to Interstate 395 in the city’s West End, in what is believed to be one of the largest of parcels of land inside the Beltway meant for public use.
“The enormity of this gift cannot be overstated,” Cate Magennis Wyatt, the chair of NOVA Parks, said in an interview. “To have this park continue to serve as an educational oasis for the students of Alexandria and elsewhere as well as open space for the benefit all is astonishing.”
The preserve was already open to the public and used as a resource for Alexandria schools while it was managed by the Winklers and its charity in recent decades.
But as part of the preserve’s transfer, the family is also donating $4 million to NOVA Parks to maintain and improve the preserve and ramp up programming for area residents, including new environmental education programs for school groups and a once-popular series of summer camps.
The preserve was designed by Winkler Herman’s daughter, Tori Winkler Thomas, a landscape architect who designed and ran ecological education programs out of the preserve’s log cabin headquarters.
The Winkler family’s charity is also donating $100,000 to ALIVE!, an Alexandria anti-poverty nonprofit, to supply food and other supplies to low-income families that live in the city’s West End near the preserve.
The Winkler preserve is one of several recent large acquisitions for NOVA Parks, which represents Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun Counties and the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church and Fairfax.
The founder of North America’s largest independent moving company and his wife donated 128 acres in June, doubling the size of Springdale Regional Park, which is located along the Potomac River in northeast Loudoun County.
The regional agency now manages 35 parks across Northern Virginia, including 12,380 acres of parkland. | 2022-09-15T20:28:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NOVA Parks adds 44-acre preserve to its network of green spaces - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/nova-parks-winkler-botanic-preserve/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/nova-parks-winkler-botanic-preserve/ |
Destroyed Russian military equipment in the center of Izyum, Ukraine, which was liberated after months of occupation. (Wojciech Grzedzinski for The Washington Post)
IZYUM, Ukraine — About 10 days before Ukrainian forces retook the city of Izyum last weekend, Russian troops stationed here were so demoralized that they drafted letters begging their superiors to dismiss them from their roles.
The 10 handwritten letters, dated Aug. 30, were left behind in a two-story residential house where Russians were squatting and later found by Ukrainian soldiers who provided the letters to The Washington Post for review. They paint a portrait of dejected troops desperate for rest and concerned about their health and morale after months of fighting.
Another soldier asked to be released citing “the worsening of my health and not receiving the necessary medical aid.” Still another said he was experiencing “physical and moral exhaustion.”
Others wrote complaining that they were denied vacation time for family obligations, including to get married and to witness the birth of a child.
The similar style in which the 10 letters were written suggests the troops, weary and disheartened, banded together to draft them. The letters caught the attention of Ukrainian soldiers when they first arrived in Izyum, which the Russians abandoned hastily in retreat, and some were shared on social media.
The authenticity of the letters has not been confirmed by independent forensic experts, but the original documents provided to The Post for review were among the heaps of belongings — from boots and uniforms to colorful letters of support from Russian schoolchildren — that were abandoned as the Russians fled from a remarkably rapid Ukrainian advance that put nearly all of Kharkiv region back in Ukrainian control in a matter of days.
An Aug. 23 report addressed to the commander of Russia’s 2nd Motorized Rifle Division labeled “TOP SECRET” and “extremely urgent” was also left in the same house, describing how four Russian troops were killed and one was wounded by Ukrainian artillery fire in the village of Kamyanka, about 75 miles north of Izyum near the Russian border.
Altogether, the contents of the house help to reconstruct the remarkable turn of events that led to the swift Russian withdrawal from Kharkiv region, where in many cases troops fled barely putting up a fight.
Once the Ukrainians began their push toward Izyum, the Russians who had been based here for months had just enough warning time to destroy what they could on their way out.
They set fire to the city council building where they had installed a puppet government, ignited explosives on some of the military hardware they planned to abandon and blew up a strategic bridge. In the process, civilians said, they left some of their own forces stranded on the other side with no choice but to walk or run across the damaged bridge to leave.
Shortly before the Ukrainians reclaimed the city, residents said, the Russian troops imposed a 24-hour curfew, then entered civilian homes and raided closets for mismatched clothing to avoid being seen in their uniforms. Some then fled on foot or by bike, the residents recounted.
Before stealing locals’ clothes “they didn’t even pay attention to who was living there or if it was someone their age, they just opened their closets,” said Tanya Lukianinka, 32, who crossed the broken bridge and walked downtown with her daughter and friends on Wednesday carrying Ukrainian flags in an act of celebration.
Lukianinka’s daughter, Henrietta, 14, said she learned about the curfew on Russian radio stations — but by tuning to Ukrainian channels began to understand why Russian forces were suddenly so worried.
“We heard that somewhere on the outskirts of Izyum they’d raised a Ukrainian flag,” she said. “We were very happy.”
Vasil Tuskaniuk, 23, who joined the group on their walk downtown, said it was his first time visiting the area since before the Russians took control of the city. Born in western Ukraine, he feared he would be detained and deemed a threat to Russian forces if they searched his documents. To avoid interacting with Russians, he did not leave his property for the entirety of the invasion.
“It’s possible I wouldn’t have returned home,” Tuskaniuk said.
Over the months of occupation, Henrietta said she heard stories of people being killed or detained in Russian basements and subjected to electrical shocks. Russian newspapers advertised camps for children in Russia, she said. One of her friend’s sisters, who was around 15 years old, left for such a camp and still has not returned, she said.
The Russians intended to open schools in Izyum just before the Ukrainian advance thwarted their plans. “We didn’t put our kids on the enrollment list,” Lukianinka said. “They were just trying to spread propaganda.”
Russian propaganda was omnipresent, Lukianinka said, but it did not change hearts or mind. Rather, she said, the messaging appealed mainly to the people who were already Russian sympathizers. Some of those people remain in the city, she said, adding that she hoped they would change their views now that Ukraine has retaken control.
The letters describing the soldiers’ lack of will to fight stand in stark contrast to the pile of schoolchildren’s letters from a city near Moscow encouraging the troops — a clear example of how the Kremlin’s narrative over the war is being portrayed in Russian schools. Still, even children in Russia seemed aware that soldiers fighting in Ukraine were facing difficult circumstances.
“Hello, I don’t know who will receive this letter but I know you’re having a really hard time right now,” a girl named Nastya wrote. “That’s why I want to support you. It’s possible you’re hungry, you’re cold, you want to go to home to your family or maybe you want to go back to your friends from your childhood.”
A boy named Leonid wrote: “You’re protecting peaceful civilians, you’re fulfilling the main duty of every man. I think that war is something very bad and scary. There is death of innocent people, destruction, when you can’t live a normal life, when you’re left without a home, without work, and you lose your close ones. I hope you hang in there and manage to achieve complete victory! Good luck! I believe in you!”
“I very much appreciate the hardship you’re going through,” a boy, Pasha, wrote, noting he is in the fourth grade in the city of Mytishchi just north of the Russian capital in the Moscow region. “I’m grateful to you that we live under a bright and clear sky.”
Another boy, Geydar, wrote: “I see how you are battling in Ukraine. I wish for your family to be very proud of you. I hope you’ll end up winning and if you have kids you’ll be a hero in their eyes.” The child added, “I see everything that is happening there. Russian people are dying. Win the war, see you.” Beneath the words, he drew stick figures facing each other holding Russian and Ukrainian flags.
At the entrance to the recently liberated city on Wednesday, under the sign for Izyum, a dirty Russian flag lay crumpled on the soggy ground.
One elderly woman walking near the broken bridge on Wednesday said her husband had died in a rocket attack on June 9. She declined to elaborate on her experience, saying she had suffered too much already.
The area around the city’s main square now looks apocalyptic.
Nearly every building is damaged if not destroyed. Shops are completely looted. One shop owner painted “No beer or vodka” on the outside of his store. Someone else painted a “Z” on top of the message. Ukrainian troops were positioned throughout the city, some directing traffic away from roads blocked by abandoned equipment and others helping move traffic across a pontoon bridge hastily set up to allow traffic to move between two sides of town.
On a surprise visit to Izyum on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared that Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow flag would fly “in every Ukrainian city and village.”
Hours after his visit, a woman in a red coat walking downtown appeared apprehensive about the jubilance over Ukraine’s rapid success. “Are you sure the Russians aren’t coming back?” she asked.
The area around the city remains treacherous as Ukrainian forces work to clear the roads of mines and of the many damaged tanks and other equipment abandoned on the outskirts.
Post reporters were turned away on one road leading into Izyum, where soldiers warned the roads were still heavily mined. An unexploded antitank mine could be seen on the side of that road, a field of yellow sunflowers growing just behind it.
As civilians emerged cautiously from their basements and homes, there were some small moments of joy that had been denied over so many months of occupation.
Neighbors greeted each other across their fences. Some rode their bicycles through the city’s central square. Lukianinka’s group gathered around an “I LOVE IZYUM” sign downtown, beaming as they held up their flags.
A driver for The Post, who is from Izyum and had not seen his parents since before the invasion, knocked on their gate on Wednesday afternoon. Their house was damaged by shelling, and Russian troops had even tried to sleep there, until his mother told them off.
When his 60-year-old father pulled the door open, the son scooped him up in a hug — his father beaming over his shoulder. Then his mother came running outside, weeping with joy as she threw herself into his arms.
Wojciech Grzedzinski contributed to this report. | 2022-09-15T20:50:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The letters left behind by demoralized Russian soldiers as they fled - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/letters-left-behind-by-demoralized-russian-soldiers-they-fled/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/letters-left-behind-by-demoralized-russian-soldiers-they-fled/ |
Man who called 911 after crash in Colorado shot to death by responding police
Christian Glass, right, sits with his father, Simon Glass, in Colorado on March 11, 2021. (Sally Glass)
Body-camera footage released this week brought new details in the death of Christian Glass after a Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Deputy fired five rounds at him in Silver Plume, a mountain town roughly 45 miles west of Denver. Glass’s parents, Sally and Simon Glass, are calling for prosecutors to bring criminal charges against the deputy.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday after the body-camera footage’s release, the family sought to clear Christian’s name after they said law enforcement’s initial statement on the incident inaccurately portrayed him. The family accused responding officers of needlessly escalating the situation.
“Omissions are as bad as outright lies,” said Siddhartha H. Rathod, the family’s attorney. “The police release failed to convey the entire narrative [ …] that they were the ones acting aggressive and they attacked Christian.”
The Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office contends Glass “immediately became argumentative and uncooperative with the Deputies and had armed himself with a knife,” according to a June 11 statement on the incident. The release states Glass tried to stab officers after they were unable to remove him from his car by firing beanbag rounds and a Taser at him.
Heidi McCollum, the district attorney for Colorado’s 5th Judicial District, said her office will announce what, if any action it will take once it completes a probe of the fatal incident, with the assistance of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
“While we understand that public sentiment may desire this process to move at a more rapid pace, it is not in the interest of justice and fairness to the family of the victim for this matter to be rushed to a conclusion,” McCollum said in a statement.
McCollum’s office has contacted federal prosecutors and investigators, including the FBI’s Civil Rights Division, but a spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions as to the nature of their involvement. Glass, who is White, is an American citizen who also holds British and New Zealand citizenship, according to the family’s attorneys.
The Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office did not respond to request for comment.
Glass’s death is the latest fatal police encounter to draw scrutiny to use-of-force and de-escalation tactics by law enforcement as well as the question of whether police are equipped to respond to mental health crises — or if they should be the ones to respond to them at all.
“Police talk about training, but really, training is not enough. It’s in the recruitment,” Sally Glass told reporters Tuesday. “You know an aggressive bully is always going to be an aggressive bully, and I don’t know how you train that characteristic out.” Instead, she urged that police be paid better to elevate the status of the profession and called for departments to “root out the rot, and hire people with a moral compass and a kind heart.”
Body-camera footage showed officers responding to Christian Glass’s call and spent more than an hour speaking to him — aggressively and soothingly at varying times — as he sat in the driver’s seat. They tried to coax him out of the vehicle by offering him food, soda and cigarettes.
“I see you’re doing the heart thing with your hands,” an officer said after Glass curled his fingers into a heart shape from behind his driver’s side window when police had been on the scene for more than 20 minutes. “We love you too, we just want you to be safe.”
Glass called 911 on the night of July 11 requesting help after he told the dispatcher his car became stuck in what he said was a “trap.”
“I’m sorry, I’m stuck in a dangerous place and I will be killed,” he told the dispatcher, repeatedly saying he was scared.
When asked if he had weapons, he replied he had two knives, a hammer and a rubber mallet along with some stones he had gathered on a recent excursion and that he would throw them out the window when police arrived. Glass’s family said he was an amateur geologist who had typical field tools with him in the car.
“I’m not dangerous. I will keep my hands completely visible. I understand that this is a dodgy situation for you guys as well,” he told the dispatcher.
Glass, increasingly distressed, yells “Lord hear me” before an officer fires five shots through the windshield.
Glass’s parents said they are especially aggrieved that officers told their son not to throw his knives and hammers out the window when he first offered to disarm.
“I wish he’d ignored him and chucked them out the window, absolutely,” Shelly Glass said.
Use-of-force experts said they were similarly confused by the officers’ decision, with one telling the Associated Press that even though knives can pose a threat, the officers had chances to move far enough away to where they weren’t at risk.
“I am kind of astonished that they did not take advantage of what looked like a very clear opportunity to have him separate himself from the weapons,” Seth Stoughton, a use-of-force expert who reviewed portions of the footage for the AP.
Rathod, the Glasses’ attorney, said police are heard on body camera acknowledging that Christian Glass had not committed any crime, so there was no reason for police to continue to try to force him from his car.
An autopsy report is pending, but Rathod said the family does not believe Glass’s state at the time was a drug-related issue. | 2022-09-15T20:55:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Christian Glass shooting: Police who responded to 911 call should be charged, Colorado family says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/15/christian-glass-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/15/christian-glass-shooting/ |
Passengers wearing face masks wait Sept. 8 at a bus stop in Manila. (Aaron Favila/AP)
I commend two recent editorials on the coronavirus pandemic and what should be done going forward, “The coming storm” [Aug. 28] and “Beyond the virus” [Sept. 11].
If we have learned anything from this pandemic, it is that the globalization of illness is a fact. Therefore, a third editorial should focus on the need for the globalization of efforts to maintain public health. Many believe that this critical necessity should include a significant expansion and revitalization of the World Health Organization with hubs worldwide, on all inhabited continents, coordinating with our own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and similar organizations and employing the most effective analysis and prevention that science and hard work can provide.
I recently read in the Stanford alumni magazine that the annual budget for the World Health Organization is less than the annual budget for Stanford Hospital. This is indefensible. The security and health of our nation’s population depend on the health of the world’s population. And all families and communities on Earth deserve to benefit from the outstanding current advances achieved by the health sciences and health industries.
Chuck Kleymeyer, Arlington | 2022-09-15T21:03:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The coronavirus proves that disease is a global threat - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/coronavirus-proves-that-disease-is-global-threat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/coronavirus-proves-that-disease-is-global-threat/ |
The shortest path to better school outcomes is a parent
Regarding the Sept. 6 editorial “Students’ pandemic plummet”:
As we bemoan the shortfall in math skills, as the decline in National Assessment of Educational Progress math scores made clear, no one’s talking about how this problem existed pre-pandemic. A third of American adults can’t do two-step math problems with whole numbers or handle common fractions or percentages, such as ¾ and 50 percent.
Unfortunately, this grew out of decades of a system that moved kids through material whether they’d mastered it or not. The pandemic made it worse, and the end of the pandemic won’t make it better.
The real issue: There are too few adults to help kids get back on track. Each child gets about 1/25 of the overworked teacher’s bandwidth.
The shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. And the adult most able to empower kids is the closest one: their own parent. Studies show that children whose parents spend a few minutes a day doing math together can achieve a three-month advantage over their peers during the school year.
The real power is having parents feel comfortable with their kids’ math homework. It doesn’t mean asking them to do more. It means equipping parents to make more of the time they already spend together.
Laura Overdeck, Short Hills, N.J.
The writer is founder and president of Bedtime Math. | 2022-09-15T21:04:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The shortest path to better school outcomes is a parent - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/shortest-path-better-school-outcomes-is-parent/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/15/shortest-path-better-school-outcomes-is-parent/ |
The Hokies will host Wofford at 11 a.m. Eastern on Saturday (ACC Network)
Virginia Tech first-year coach Brent Pry has his defense, including linebacker Jaden Keller (24), on an upswing heading into the third game of the season. (Matt Gentry/The Roanoke Times/AP)
When Brent Pry took over as coach of the Virginia Tech football team, he vowed to restore the tradition and swagger former longtime defensive coordinator Bud Foster had helped to establish during the program’s most prosperous seasons.
Through the first two games of Pry’s tenure in Blacksburg, Va., the rebuilding Hokies have been thriving defensively, inspired in part by Pry electing to bring back to the sideline the battered lunch pail that came to symbolize Foster’s workmanlike defenses.
Most recently, Virginia Tech (1-1) permitted just 155 yards of total offense in a 27-10 victory over Boston College in last weekend’s ACC opener and owns the sixth-rated scoring defense (15 points allowed per game) in the 14-team conference heading into Saturday morning’s game against Wofford of the Football Championship Subdivision at Lane Stadium.
“We obviously have a high standard, high expectation,” said Pry, who served as a graduate assistant at Virginia Tech from 1995 through 1997, working closely with Foster. “Me personally I do for what that unit needs to look like, and we’re not certainly there yet, but I’m proud of the progress. I’m proud of the performance and the things we’re emphasizing.”
Apart from the elevated effort Pry and his staff have been repeatedly conveying to their players, another component to Virginia Tech’s early uprising has been keeping defenders fresh at all positions courtesy of liberal substitution patterns.
Against the Eagles, Pry and defensive coordinator Chris Marve deployed 18 players who were on the field for at least 20 snaps, providing valuable in-game experience and taking another step in Pry’s long-term plan to expand depth within the defense.
It’s partly how Pry rose to be one of the top defensive coordinators in the country at Penn State, where in his final season in 2021 the Nittany Lions ranked third nationally in red zone defense (66.7 percent) and sixth in scoring (17.3 points allowed per game).
“The more guys that you can have in your rotation, the healthier, the better, guys that are more invested every week because they know they’re going to see the field,” Pry said. “But those guys have to earn the right to play, and we have to trust to put them out there.”
The result last week was nine players who recorded at least half a tackle for loss and six with at least a half a sack. Nine players also had at least three total tackles, with linebacker Dax Hollifield leading the way with eight. Linebacker Jaden Keller and cornerback Chamarri Conner were tied for second, each with five tackles.
Hollifield and Conner are both fifth-year seniors and among the most respected leaders throughout the locker room, having counseled younger players on and off the field through multiple coaching administrations.
Pry has leaned as well on other seasoned defensive players to help expedite the development of reserves, some of whom received more playing time than anticipated against Boston College given the relatively lopsided result.
“We’ve got some veterans on that side of the ball,” Pry said. “We’ve got some guys that have been in a bunch of battles, and that certainly helps a lot, and we were able to do a little more with our package than maybe you normally would in year one because there are some old heads. There’s just a bunch of guys that have played a lot of football.”
One such player is defensive end TyJuan Garbutt. The redshirt senior was named ACC defensive lineman of the week for the first time following his performance against the Eagles featuring three tackles for loss, matching a career high, one sack, one forced fumble, one pass breakup and four quarterback hurries.
Garbutt (6 feet 1, 255 pounds) started 11 of 13 games last year, nine at defensive end and two at defensive tackle, and finished tied for second on the team with 3½ sacks. Two of those came in one game.
“Just having the mentality that if I trust in the system, if I trust what the coaches are telling me to do, I know it’ll bring the results,” Garbutt said. “Just being able to be one of the veterans and step up and kind of be a leader in a more intense way, if that makes sense.”
The Hokies were 10th in the ACC last season in sacks with 25, and a point of emphasis coming into this year, with defensive line coach J.C. Price leading the charge, has been applying pressure on the quarterback with far greater vigor and consistency.
Price was a standout defensive lineman for Virginia Tech under legendary coach Frank Beamer and Foster and last year served as interim coach for three games, including a rousing victory over Virginia in the regular season finale, after the school parted ways with former coach Justin Fuente.
“Technical and fundamentals-wise having a full year of coach Price being able to coach the whole line, like that helps,” Garbutt said. “He really knows what he’s talking about. He knows what he’s doing. His résumé speaks for itself, and I’ve been one of the guys that’s been trying to help other guys come along.” | 2022-09-15T21:16:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Virginia Tech, in early stages of rebuild, leans on inspired defense - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/virginia-tech-early-stages-rebuild-leans-inspired-defense/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/15/virginia-tech-early-stages-rebuild-leans-inspired-defense/ |
Members of the US Congress have proposed legislation codifying the federal government’s embrace of same-sex marriage. The right to such unions is the law of the land throughout the US today but only because of a 2015 Supreme Court decision. And civil rights advocates fear that ruling is in danger of being reversed by today’s more conservative panel of justices. Should that happen, the proposed new law in Congress would maintain some of the rights of same-sex couples but would fall short of preserving the status quo.
The House of Representatives in mid-July easily passed the legislation on a 267-157 vote, with 47 Republicans voting with every Democrat in support. In the Senate, which is split 50-50 between the two political parties, every Democrat backs it, but it will need 10 Republican votes to prevent the bill’s opponents from killing it using the filibuster, a prerogative to demand never-ending debate on legislation. Two Republicans -- Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio -- are cosponsoring the bill in the Senate, and bipartisan talks produced an amendment that could bring more Republicans on board. The language clarifies that the legislation does not take away religious liberty or conscience protections that individuals and organizations currently have. In mid-September, the bill’s backers said they needed more time to round up enough Republican backing, and Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, agreed to delay further consideration of it until after November elections. | 2022-09-15T21:26:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What the Same-Sex Marriage Bill in Congress Would and Wouldn’t Do - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-the-same-sex-marriage-bill-in-congress-would-and-wouldnt-do/2022/09/15/730ddd32-3532-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-the-same-sex-marriage-bill-in-congress-would-and-wouldnt-do/2022/09/15/730ddd32-3532-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
The analysis found climate change likely increased rainfall intensity by 50 to 75 percent during monsoon season
People push a rickshaw through a flooded road after a heavy rainfall in Karachi, Pakistan on July 7. (Fareed Khan/AP)
Record rainfall spurred Pakistan’s worst flooding in more than a decade, destroying more than a million homes, killing nearly 1,500 people and affecting another 33 million people. Now, an analysis released Thursday showed climate change likely intensified the rain by 50 to 75 percent.
Since June, national rainfall amounts have been well above average. Pakistan experienced its wettest July and August months on record since 1961. The hardest hit regions were the southern provinces of Sindh and Balochistan. In August alone, Balochistan and Sindh received seven to eight times more rain than normal.
Otto and more than two dozen scientists with the World Weather Attribution project quantified the influence of climate change on the heavy rainfall. The group analyzed weather data and ran computer models to simulate the rainfall in a world without climate change compared to today’s climate, which has warmed about 1.2 degrees Celsius since the 1800s. The findings, which are not yet peer-reviewed, use well-established methodologies that have been peer-reviewed and used in past analyses.
The researchers looked at rainfall for 60 days across the entire summer nationwide as well as the 5-day heaviest period over Balochistan and Sindh. They found that climate change likely intensified the 5-day total by up to 75 percent and increased the intensity of the 60-day rain by 50 percent.
Why Pakistan’s record-breaking monsoon season is so devastating | 2022-09-15T21:26:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Climate change intensified rainfall of Pakistan’s record monsoon season - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/15/pakistan-flooding-climate-change-monsoon/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/15/pakistan-flooding-climate-change-monsoon/ |
Man who wore ‘Camp Auschwitz’ shirt to Jan. 6 riot gets 75 days in jail
A Virginia man who joined the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 wearing a sweatshirt bearing a Nazi slogan and a reference to a concentration camp was sentenced to 75 days in jail Thursday.
Robert Keith Packer, 57, of Newport News, Va., did not speak at a hearing in federal court in D.C. Through an attorney, he expressed regret for joining the riot but did not explain why he did so wearing two layers of clothing bearing Nazi slogans.
“There has to be, I would think, some inappropriate reason for him to have worn such a truly offensive sweatshirt,” Judge Carl J. Nichols said. He said the punishment — which is severe for someone pleading guilty only to illegally demonstrating — was also based on Packer’s criminal history, lack of compliance with court orders, behavior inside the Capitol and meager apology.
Packer’s sweatshirt said “Camp Auschwitz” on the front, with a skull and a Nazi slogan; on the back, it said “Staff.” The shirt quickly became an infamous symbol of the riot, emblematic of how people bearing hateful symbols had invaded a hub of American democracy.
“Wearing this attire, with his beliefs on his back, he then attacked the very government that gave him the freedom to express those beliefs no matter how abhorrent or evil they may be,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mona Furst said. “He wanted to put … a dictatorial leader in place by force and violence.”
Furst had asked a judge to sentence Packer to 75 days behind bars and three years supervision, saying he “was pretty much at the forefront of several breaches, several violent actions by the rioters.” Packer went into the U.S. Capitol just after it was breached and made his way to the door to the Speaker’s Lobby when Ashli Babbitt was shot.
“Mr. Packer was everywhere where violence happened,” the prosecutor said, except the tunnel into the building.
Furst also emphasized that when interviewed by the FBI, Packer was evasive. She said he was less interested in helping the investigation than he was complaining about the hate mail and media attention he had received.
“He has not expressed any remorse, other than remorse for getting caught and what happened to him. Not what happened to the officers, the families of those who died, the families of those who were injured, and those who were injured,” she said. “It’s all about what happened to him.”
Packer’s attorney, Stephen Brennwald, said in a filing that the “harassment” his client faced “was quite significant,” and he already had faced significant consequences. Packer’s son no longer speaks to him because of his political views, according to Brennwald. He lost his job as a pipe fitter.
Brennwald said Packer was “offended by being called a white supremacist,” and wanted to sue House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for describing him as one. “He doesn’t see himself that way at all,” he said. But he said he could not explain the “very offensive” attire his client wore to the Capitol, beyond that Packer acknowledges that Nazi concentration camps existed. Underneath the “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt, he was wearing a shirt with a symbol for Nazi S.S. paramilitary troops, Furst said
“I viewed it as a free-speech issue,” Brennwald said. “I just don’t think it’s appropriate to give him extra time because of that, because he’s allowed to wear it.”
When asked by FBI agents why he wore the sweatshirt, Packer reportedly replied, “Because I was cold.” | 2022-09-15T21:26:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man who wore ‘Camp Auschwitz’ shirt to Jan. 6 riot gets 75 days in jail - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/camp-auschwitz-shirt-riot-sentence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/15/camp-auschwitz-shirt-riot-sentence/ |
The 2020 election was neither stolen nor rigged: A primer
A person in a stop the steal cowboy hat at the “Protect Our Elections Rally” at the Arizona Federal Theater in Phoenix on July 24, 2021. (Cassidy Araiza/The Washington Post)
A professor at a university in Utah issued an appeal this week: Is there a resource that he can present to students to dispel them of the idea that the 2020 election was stolen?
Why people believe that the presidential contest was tainted by fraud is often complex and fundamentally detached from the available evidence. It must necessarily be; there is no good evidence that anything more than a scattered handful of fraudulent votes were cast. But the point is well-taken. As someone who has tracked scores of claims over the past 22 months, I am not aware of any compendium explaining that lack of evidence.
So allow this article to serve as one.
I’ve broken this out into three sections: Why claims of fraud emerged, why we can be confident that the election wasn’t stolen and why we can be confident that the election wasn’t “rigged.”
Why claims of fraud emerged
It’s useful to begin by explaining how this all started.
In spring 2020, the coronavirus shutdowns began just as political primaries were gearing up. States concerned about causing outbreaks of infections began bolstering mail-in voting systems, immediately triggering a backlash from Donald Trump. If the country were to increase mail-in voting, he said in late March, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
This began a months-long effort to undercut and disparage mail ballots as inherently suspect, lest more Democrats cast ballots. Numerous articles and analyses debunked the idea, but Trump — trailing in the polls — amplified it repeatedly.
As Election Day neared, Trump’s complaints crystallized into a quiet plan. Having helped widen a partisan divide in how people voted — Democrats by mail and Republicans at polling places — Trump and his allies recognized that Republican votes would be counted more quickly in many states and reported first. That would give the impression that he had a big lead that was only later eroded by votes for Joe Biden, allowing Trump to claim (as Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) had in 2018) that the election was being stolen. So if things were close, he’d just announce his victory at the outset.
The election was relatively close. Trump and his allies tried to claim that vote-counting should stop, according to the plan, but it didn’t work. As it turned out, though, his incessant claims about fraud had made it easy to convince his base that the election was stolen anyway — facilitating his multipronged effort to retain power despite his loss.
His argument about rampant fraud was so successful that, in polling conducted by Fox News this month, half of Republicans say that they have no confidence at all that votes were cast legitimately and counted accurately in 2020. Republican primary candidates found it useful to echo the idea that the election was stolen both because it often earned a Trump endorsement and because it’s what the Republican primary electorate wanted to hear.
In other words, a lot of the claims of fraud are inherently self-serving and cynical. Consider Don Bolduc, the Republican nominee for Senate in New Hampshire. During the primary he was adamant in arguing that the election was stolen. Then he won the primary and moved to the general election. In short order, he repented.
Claims of fraud, seemingly propagated in this case for political utility, had served their purpose.
Why we can be confident that the election wasn’t stolen
Let’s now assess those claims more broadly.
The best starting point is to note that there has been no — zero, nada, none — demonstrated, credible example of even a small-scale systematic effort to illegally cast votes. There have been a few dozen isolated arrests, generally of people illegally casting ballots for themselves or family members. In fact, the Associated Press reached out to elections administrators in each swing state more than a year after the election, learning that, at most, there were a few hundred questionable ballots cast. In total. Across all of the states. Out of millions cast.
There are few better examples of the proper use of Occam’s razor than to therefore dismiss any idea that rampant fraud occurred. The idea that some systemic, multistate effort to rig the election occurred without detection nearly two years later — in an environment where there’s millions to be made exposing one — is simply noncredible in the face of the alternative: There was no such effort.
Of course, there is no shortage of claims about alleged fraud floating out there. These fall into one of three categories: claims that depend on vague statistical analyses, claims that depend on unseen evidence and claims that have already been debunked or explained.
Before presenting examples of each variety, it’s worth pointing to one of the most robust assessments of fraud claims. In July, a group of Republican officials released a lengthy report documenting and debunking each of the lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies in the wake of the election. It covers a lot of ground. The odds are good that if you’ve heard some claim about fraud or “rigging” (see below), it’s addressed in that document.
Now, instead of debunking each of the common allegations about fraud, I’ll simply list them and link to places where you can read more detailed analyses of why each is inaccurate.
Claims that depend on vague statistical analyses
There was no secret “key” discovered by Douglas Frank that proves voting machines were used to guide vote totals.
There was nothing odd or unexplained about how votes were counted in Wisconsin or other states on election night. These analyses often depend on willfully ignoring the day-of-vs.-mail-in partisan patterns mentioned above.
The odds were not “1 in 1 quadrillion” that Biden could win as more votes were counted. (This one also ignored the partisan pattern.)
There was no sketchy “drop and roll” process that led to Biden gaining more votes.
Claims that depend on unseen evidence
There is no evidence that foreign actors somehow changed votes over the internet, as MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has repeatedly claimed.
There is no evidence that nonprofits collected illegal ballots that were then distributed to drop boxes by paid staffers, as alleged in the film “2000 Mules.” The purported evidence that was presented in that film is either false, contrived or misleading.
Various audits of electronic voting machines have found no evidence of improprieties. In fact, swing-state counties in which Dominion Voting Systems machines were used mostly voted for Trump.
Claims that have already been debunked or explained
Inaccurate vote totals in Antrim County, Mich., were a function of improperly configured voting machines.
There were no rampant irregularities in Maricopa County, Ariz., just a pattern of observers not understanding voting systems and tools.
Vote totals in states such as Pennsylvania or Wisconsin were not dependent on more people voting than were registered.
There was no uncaught double-counting of mail-in ballots in Georgia.
There are probably examples I’m forgetting. If so, please email.
One common response to delineations like this is that of course the media/the government/the FBI are going to claim that their analysis showed no fraud. After all, you can’t have a healthy conspiracy without a gaggle of conspirators.
So we back up a step. To assume that I’m in on the con along with all of the other sources linked above is to postulate a system involving thousands or tens of thousands of people, all of whom have agreed to stay silent simply to protect Biden. Or, at least, that hundreds of people in the government have all kept quiet about agreeing to mislead the public, despite the obvious financial and moral rewards for revealing a part in such a scheme.
Occam’s razor. Who has more reason to make dishonest claims about the election, the guy trying to get people to watch his movie claiming fraud or the guy who works for a privately owned newspaper? Who is more credible on the likelihood of fraud, independent researchers or a former president eager to maintain his grip on his base?
Why we can be confident that the election wasn’t ‘rigged’
Because Donald Trump’s claims about fraud were so hard to defend, a different narrative emerged among those wishing to appeal both to Trump voters and to reality. The election may not have been stolen, exactly, but it was rigged.
The argument has two prongs. The first is that states intentionally loosened voting rules and encouraged turnout in ways that hurt Trump. The second is that the whole system — technology companies, the media, the left — arrayed against Trump to hurt his reelection chances.
It is obviously true that states made it easier to vote remotely in 2020. We’ve been over this; there was a new virus spreading and state leaders wanted to limit the number of crowded polling places. The argument, though, is that the virus was used as a pretext for making it easier to vote.
This, by itself, is revealing. There have been various arguments made about how states or counties or outside groups created opportunities for more people to vote. Sometimes, the intent is explicitly to poison perceptions of the election, as with the insistence on calling funding for expanded voting access from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg “Zuckerbucks,” as though Facebook itself was trying to influence the outcome. But at their heart, these arguments depend on the idea that having more legal voters cast ballots in good faith is bad. That putting a drop box that hadn’t been approved by the legislature in a place where fewer people tend to vote — and where most voters are Democrats — is a grotesque effort to steal an election. Instead, of course, one might see it as an effort to unrig a system in which barriers to voting are removed and democracy bolstered.
In some cases, state officials instituted new processes for voting that were challenged by Republicans or the Trump campaign as being in conflict with state constitutions or legislative authority. This was often cited as a reason to reject the election results. But as the chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court put it when such a case was presented to him: “there has been too much good-faith reliance, by the electorate, on the no-excuse mail-in voting regime” to warrant tossing out the ballots. In other words, it’s silly to suggest that people told they could legally vote using mail-in ballots should see those votes thrown out and the overall results overturned because the loser of the election later raised an objection.
Then there’s the claim that the system worked against Trump. At times, this is argued with specifics, like that the decision by social media companies to limit sharing of a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop affected the results. (This claim is often tied to a partisan, loaded survey.) But often it’s just offered generally; how could Trump win with the entire political and media culture arrayed against him? This is essentially unfalsifiable, so there’s not much more to say about it other than that this perceived bias itself often crumbles on close consideration.
There are various other after-the-fact claims about impropriety that have been debunked (there were no secret illegal ballots stashed under a table in Georgia) or dismissed (covering windows as votes were counted in Michigan was a function of a law barring videotaping the process). This was obviously part of Trump’s post-election plan, too: generate enough reports of smoke that people assumed there must be a fire. It was long the case that Trump would make contradictory claims about a situation, throwing out a large number of assertions with the understanding that he only needed people to believe one to take his side. The post-election period had thousands.
Those should not distract from the simple truth at play.
Donald Trump had reason to claim that the election was going to be stolen and later that it was.
There’s been no evidence of any large-scale effort to steal votes. There have been no rampant arrests; no one has come forward to expose such a system. This is true despite the enormous amount of scrutiny paid to the election results in nearly every state.
At the same time, there’s an obvious explanation for why Trump lost: People turned out in record numbers to vote and often did so to express approval or disapproval of Trump himself. How did Biden get 18 percent more votes in 2020 than Barack Obama did in 2008? In part because the population grew by 9 percent. But in part because Donald Trump was deeply polarizing and, as in 2018, voters wanted to send him a message.
The message was not received. | 2022-09-15T21:27:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 2020 election was neither stolen nor rigged: A primer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/2020-election-trump-false-fraud-claims/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/2020-election-trump-false-fraud-claims/ |
A group of nearly 50 migrants from Venezuela who were flown to the island of Martha's Vineyard off Cape Cod, Mass., on Wednesday speak with volunteers at the parish house at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Edgartown, Mass. on Thursday. (CJ Gunter/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock) (Cj Gunther/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) are turning migrants into political pawns — quite literally — by moving them to liberal areas to try making a point about border security. DeSantis on Wednesday flew dozens of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, while Abbott on Thursday announced that he had bused yet more of them to the Washington, D.C. residence of Vice President Harris.
These issues have now also been raised amid DeSantis flying migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. Some said a woman identified as “Perla” told them they were headed to Boston for expedited work papers. Massachusetts state Sen. Julian Cyr (D) also told The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that he had been told that a “woman approached them outside the shelter and essentially lured them into taking the plane.”
Very little is known at this point. But some critics have compared the situations to human trafficking or smuggling and pointed to definitions of those words and criminal statutes. One smuggling statute, 8 U.S. Code § 1324, makes it illegal if someone:
“knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, transports, or moves or attempts to transport or move such alien within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise, in furtherance of such violation of law”
Sarah Sherman-Stokes, who teaches immigration law at Boston University School of Law and is helping set up legal clinics for the migrants now in Martha’s Vineyard, said, “It’s possible that this [statute] fits.”
She noted that human trafficking requires force, fraud of coercion and for the people to have been exploited — though it’s not clear political exploitation would qualify: “Clearly, DeSantis is exploiting them for political gain, but I’m not sure that rises to the level of human trafficking.”
A Twitter account tied to DeSantis’s 2022 reelection campaign fought back against the human trafficking rhetoric Thursday, comparing what DeSantis had done to the Biden administration flying migrants around the country. (The federal government, as noted above, is responsible for enforcing immigration law.) | 2022-09-15T21:27:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Could DeSantis, Abbott sending migrants to blue states break the law? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/desantis-abbott-migrants-legality/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/desantis-abbott-migrants-legality/ |
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