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The Aggies will host the Hurricanes on Saturday night
Texas A&M fans will host Miami on Saturday. (Sam Craft/AP)
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — As if it weren’t vivid enough around here that Texas A&M just took a jarring, smiting home loss to a less-funded Appalachian State, next they’ve got what you might call a September bowl game — not a game of the week or year, but a game of the era.
It’s the NIL Bowl.
Happy NIL Bowl to all.
Feel free to leave your donations in that barrel over there.
Okay, that vat.
When No. 13 Miami (Fla.) visits No. 24 Texas A&M on Saturday night, it will pit two of the front-running programs in the area of NIL, the mechanism hatched in the California state legislature enabling college athletes to share in the revenue they generate by capitalizing on their name, image and likeness. A fitting halftime motif might entail a round table at the 50-yard line with boosters playing boisterous poker.
It would seem unwise to bet against John H. Ruiz.
Ruiz is the Miami-lover from Miami who made a splash when he announced details of an NIL deal on Twitter. He’s out front and upfront. He’s on his way out here with 120 winners of a ticket raffle, 30 of whom will travel by private jet. He has never been to Kyle Field, which does quake even if it quaked less last Saturday. “They say it’s absolutely amazing,” he said in a telephone interview this week.
On the other side would be the legendary donors of Texas A&M, long seen as a hushed force in college athletics and lately seen as a force in college football recruiting. They’re the ones whose debatable influence on Texas A&M’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class helped irk dynastic Alabama Coach Nick Saban, whose words last spring irked A&M Coach Jimbo Fisher, providing a nation with fine distractive fare. These donors do tend to stay Garbo about it, even if complete quiet can prove elusive when one donates $25 million to one of those normal, bizarre American college funds that fund shinier athletic facilities. That’s what April and Jay Graham, Class of 1992, sent along in midsummer, Mr. Graham having taken his petroleum-engineering degree to the heights of fuel business.
Not only does Miami vs. Texas A&M, a game arranged in 2016, pit NIL heft against NIL heft; it also pits one NIL style against another NIL style: the direct approach versus the collective approach.
“They do it differently than we do,” said Ruiz, who is both an entrepreneur and an attorney who has pledged to spend at least $10 million on athletes to promote his businesses. “Just a different structure.” He said, “Maybe I’m not being as objective as some believe, but I think we have the best NIL platform in the country.” He told of direct, business-to-player guidelines in which players learn skills such as commercial-making and business-managing: “They’re learning about the real world of business. I think the biggest part of it is they know they’re going to work for the money. If they fall behind what’s required of them we immediately put them on notice.”
He said, “The collective — I just don’t think long-term that’s beneficial,” and, “We run like a true business and have to have a return on our investment or it doesn’t work for us.” He said, “I want to teach kids they’ve got to earn money and not just we’re going to give you money.”
Just how big is college football?
Hoo boy, Ruiz says, essentially.
“At least from our vantage point, it’s been the best dollars we’ve ever spent on advertising,” he said. “I knew there was a strong reach, but the amount of people that feel college sports, and obviously football is the key one.” He noted the constant replenishing of students and thus business and said, “There’s so much value in college football,” he said.
In these early NIL days, A&M has its collective, dubbed “The Fund” in some parlance, as Andy Staples reported in The Athletic during the spring. Aggie football players have received more than $3.3 million in
NIL deals, according to information obtained by The Eagle through the Texas Open Records Act. While the free-flowing money has kindled enough national reputation to stoke fine banter between highbrow coaches, it has not yet saturated local business talk, said Bryan-College Station Chamber of Commerce chair Wade Beckman. “Lots of conversations,” Beckman said, “but those conversations seem to be about the same thing these conversations always seem to be about, and that’s whether players should or should not be paid.”
Beckman, who with wife Mary — they met as A&M students — owns three restaurants and a catering company in next-door Bryan, describes a bustling Chamber of Commerce and foresees player-business bonding down the line. One factor: This 2022 team doesn’t have (yet) an overriding star figure such as Johnny Manziel, the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner.
A company representing players for deals did solicit the Beckmans by mail early this week, a first, and while that doesn’t fit for now, he has had this thought during games when players turn up on the big screen talking. “I always thought, Man, that would be the coolest thing, to have a couple of players razzing about my restaurant,” he said.
Then: “Of course, they start at $10,000.”
“I think that’s something that a business owner can (weigh) now,” he said. “Before, you couldn’t ask a player to do anything … If five players came in and I bought them all dinners as a nice gesture, that could have been a violation.”
A donor with his name (Monty) and his wife’s name (Becky) on sports facilities, Monty Davis, Class of 1977, summarized the crucial American urge to donate in an interview in 2019 with the 12th Man Foundation: “I am the first in my family to graduate from a university and it was by the grace of God that I ended up at Texas A&M because we had no ties or connections to the school at that time. I met my wife, Becky, here and we married shortly after graduating from A&M. Both of our daughters attended A&M, as did my brother, who married an Aggie and has two sons that went to A&M. We are maroon through-and-through at this point.”
Theirs and others’ Aggie love is a love pretty much unparalleled in college football in the way it glides over all the thudding rapids. Texas A&M hasn’t won a national title since 1939 and has neither played for one nor appeared in any playoff nor won any conference title since 1998, yet the love persists, reminiscent of English Premier League fans who revel in all-weather loyalty to drought-stricken clubs.
That love got another test last Saturday — Appalachian State 17, Texas A&M 14 will make for swell T-shirts, but not here — and a slight, palpable pall lasted into the week. Beckman told of bummed-out postgame diners. Football players told reporters of some players not necessarily buying in. Fisher, the fifth-year, $95 million coach, told of having young players in key positions, always an American groaner. A listener to The Zone 1150 messaged midday host Louie Belina on Wednesday about whether Belina thought the Aggies might jump out ahead for a change this week. “No,” Belina replied gently, then pivoted to the next topic. (LOL.)
Still, the boulevards like those named for George H.W. Bush and Gene Stallings — one became U.S. president, the other went higher — do bubble with A&M love. An electronic sign discouraging texting-and-driving flashes the cherished mantra GIG ’EM NOW and then TEXT ’EM LATER. Members of the famed Corps of Cadets train near the stadium and its striking Stephen Whyte sculpture of 12 Aggie fans, and some cadets run sidewalks in their white T-shirts and fatigues and defiance of imperious heat.
At Aggieland Outfitters, with the red neon Texas Longhorn in the window — with broken horns and the mantra SAW ’EM OFF! — one still might spot in the grand mix of T-shirts a “Don’t Mess With Jimbo,” which remains unburned. One still can see an SEC pillow with 14 school logos stitched in and weep for whoever has to stitch the Longhorn logo three years hence.
All around, you can feel another Saturday coming, a “bowl game” no less, one week after things hit the throes and a Johnathan P. Manziel tweeted: “I’ve got 2 years of eligibility left, right?”
You talk about some NIL. | 2022-09-16T17:14:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Texas A&M and Miami will play for NIL bragging rights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/16/teaxas-am-miami-nil/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/16/teaxas-am-miami-nil/ |
Some models project the storm could pass ominously close to the U.S. East Coast next week.
Tropical Storm Fiona midday Friday. (NOAA)
Tropical Storm Fiona has thrown forecasters a few curveballs thus far, and it doesn’t look like that’s about to change any time soon. The storm is set to slam into Puerto Rico and the Leeward Islands with strong winds and heavy rain in the next 36 to 48 hours, but thereafter uncertainty skyrockets. There are even some indications that an intensifying Fiona could whir ominously close to the U.S. East Coast.
Tropical storm warnings are in effect for the majority of the northern Lesser Antilles — Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, Anguilla, Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Maarten, Guadeloupe, St. Barthelemy and St. Martin. Warnings had also been hoisted for Puerto Rico, including Vieques and Culebra, and the U.S. Virgin Islands as of 11 a.m. The British Virgin Islands and Dominica are under a tropical storm watch.
While the winds will be modest, gusting up to 50 mph or so near the storm’s center as it traverses the islands, the National Hurricane Center warned of “considerable flood impacts” that could be highly problematic.
“Flash and urban flooding, along with mudslides in areas of higher terrain” can be expected, they wrote.
Weather models have been very inconsistent in their simulations of Fiona’s evolution after 72 hours; some contend that the storm will curve northward, slipping harmlessly out to sea. Others paint a scenario a bit more concerning for the Southeast U.S. Others still cling to the remote possibility of a weak system entering the Gulf of Mexico, but those odds are minimal. No matter how you slice it, Fiona is one to watch.
On Friday morning, Tropical Storm Fiona was centered about 175 miles east of Guadeloupe, drifting due west at 15 mph. It’s important not to get caught up on where the center is, however. That’s because Fiona is a “naked” system. That means strong upper-level winds have blown all the thunderstorms associated with Fiona east of its low-level center of circulation, leaving the center exposed.
Fiona will continue struggling against shear, or a disruptive change of wind speed and/or direction with height, though Saturday. There’s a chance that shear could relax a bit during the latter half of the weekend, potentially allowing Fiona to flirt with low-end hurricane strength.
Impact on the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico
[ Sep 16 ] High risk of rip currents for many local beaches. | Riesgo alto de corrientes marinas para varias de las playas locales. #PRwx #USVIwx pic.twitter.com/ErsOEfBcpt
Fiona’s circulation will cross the Leeward Islands, probably near Guadeloupe, during the late afternoon hours on Friday. Remember though — since the storm is lopsided, the bulk of the wind and entirety of the rainfall will hold off until after the low-level center passes. That means it probably won’t start raining until overnight Friday into Saturday. The heaviest rains, which could total 3 to 6 inches, will only last 18 to 24 hours, but some showers should linger into early next week; the U.S. and British Virgin Islands should see a similar amount of rain.
For Puerto Rico proper, the rain arrives Saturday night, but could stick around through Monday as the system slows down its westward progress and potentially turns north up the Mona Passage — the ocean pass between Hispaniola and western Puerto Rico. Rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches with localized 12-inch amounts are possible, along with flooding, especially where the U.S. territory’s higher terrain becomes a factor. That could precipitate a few mudslides. Gusts of 35 to 50 mph are probable too.
The heaviest rains are projected in the eastern Dominican Republic, where 6 to 10 inches are possible, and even up to 16 inches in the mountains, where flash flooding and mudslides will become a threat.
Fiona’s long-term prospects
Fiona’s long-range forecast is especially murky.
As Fiona scrapes along the south side of Puerto Rico, its strength will determine how quickly it turns. At the low and mid-levels of the atmosphere, winds are out of the east — pushing Fiona west. At the upper levels, winds are southerly. As such, a weaker Fiona could continue progressing westward, but if Fiona strengthens, and therefore becomes taller, it’ll begin to “feel” southerly winds and curve to the north.
Picture a sailboat. It might be drifting in one direction, but if it hoists its sails high enough and catches a new wind direction, it’ll start changing course.
The tricky thing about Fiona is that subtleties in the storm’s trajectory will have enormous bearings on next steps. If Fiona waits to begin a northward curve, which is likely, it could encounter Hispaniola, a jagged land mass which would probably shred the storm’s inner circulation. That could prompt a messy reorganization and an almost impossible forecast.
Alternatively, Fiona could escape northward sooner into the southeast Bahamas. From there, its path would hinge on the strength of an Atlantic ridge of high pressure, which will act as a force field to suppress Fiona westward. A stronger ridge would shunt it closer to the East Coast, but a weaker high would allow it to meander out to sea.
At present, there are too many overlapping uncertainties to hatch a forecast with adequate confidence. As such, it’s temporarily a game of wait and see — but it’s too early to let one’s guard down. | 2022-09-16T17:14:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tropical storm warning issued for Puerto Rico as Fiona approaches - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/16/tropical-storm-fiona-path-puertorico/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/16/tropical-storm-fiona-path-puertorico/ |
Tricked by segregationists with promises of work and housing, Black families were dropped in Cape Cod with nothing. Sound familiar?
Victoria Bell, wearing glasses, holding infant, is greeted by Selectman E. Thomas Murphy on arrival from Little Rock., Ark, with her eleven children, May 22, 1962 in Hyannis, Mass. The trip for the family was sponsored by a white segregation group in Little Rock. (Frank C. Curtin/AP)
Eliza Davis was bewildered the day she arrived in a wealthy tourist town on Cape Cod. An agricultural worker, she had been promised work and housing if she took a free trip to another state. Days later, disembarking with her eight children, she had little idea where she was, that a president had a family compound down the road, or that she was a “pawn,” as locals told the New York Times, in a political stunt.
Davis, 36, was not among the migrants who arrived Wednesday in Martha’s Vineyard — a resort island off Cape Cod where former president Barack Obama has a home — courtesy of a flight arranged by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). She was a Black woman from Alabama, bused to and abandoned in Hyannis, Mass., in 1962, not far from the holiday home of President John F. Kennedy.
It was all part of the so-called Reverse Freedom Rides, arranged by White segregationists in 1962 in retaliation for the Freedom Rides of the previous summer, when Black and White volunteers rode buses through the South supporting desegregation.
The plot was organized by white supremacist Citizens Councils in Arkansas, who bought radio ads and made flyers advertising the “opportunity” to African Americans.
They focused on recruiting men with criminal records and single mothers with a lot of children, cynically presuming White liberals would welcome them the least.
Lela Mae Williams, an Arkansas woman who was also dropped off in Hyannis with her nine youngest children, was dressed in her finest clothes, because she had been told President Kennedy himself was going to greet them when they arrived, according to 2020 NPR report. She had packed little else, because anything she needed was going to be provided, she was told.
Along with the new arrivals, local Hyannis officials received anonymous letters, according to the Times, saying things like, “Abe Lincoln sowed the seeds and now the North can reap the harvest,” and “We have put up with millions of n------ for 100 years, so why should you squawk?”
It was a contrast to the Great Migration of the previous decades, during which White residents did everything they could to stop Black workers from leaving.
Families would often have to sneak to the train station under cover of darkness or use other subterfuge to escape, described in detail by historian Isabel Wilkerson in her book “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.”
Then, as now in Cape Cod, many residents of Hyannis met the riders with open arms. A local committee formed to provide housing, clothing and money to the new arrivals.
Davis and at least 50 others, including 33 children, were housed in the dormitory of a nearby community college; others were housed in private homes, and later, a nearby Army barracks was used until they could be placed with jobs and housing in the surrounding area.
Massachusetts Gov. John Volpe condemned the rides as “traffic in human misery.”
“The only way to meet such cruelty is by wisdom and love,” Episcopal Bishop Anson Phelps Stokes Jr told the Associated Press. He urged residents to “show understanding and compassion.”
The welcome was not universal. When the Massachusetts governor asked for federal help, the Kennedy administration declined.
Kennedy called it “a rather cheap exercise” but otherwise avoided the issue.
JFK was tested by white supremacists. Here’s what he finally did about it.
In New York, when a few dozen Black people arrived from Louisiana, city officials paid the bus fare for at least six to return to their home state, according to the Times.
Within a few years, Lela Mae Williams and her kids ended up in a Boston housing project, where the family struggled without nearby relatives, one of her daughters told NPR’s “CodeSwitch” in 2020. Racist White neighbors resented their presence in public schools and harassed them.
In the end, only about 200 people were sent on “Reverse Freedom Rides” — far fewer than the thousands of migrants who have been transported north to D.C., New York and now Massachusetts in the last few months.
On Thursday morning, two buses from Texas dropped off asylum-seeking immigrants in front of Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence in Northwest Washington.
There is one big difference between the migrant transports now and the “reverse freedom rides” 60 years ago.
In the 1960s, the buses were funded by anonymous people donating to private segregationist groups. DeSantis has not said how the flights he arranged to Martha’s Vineyard were funded, but Tex. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has used state resources and donations for the buses. And both have been eager to take credit. | 2022-09-16T17:15:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Reverse Freedom Rides’ echo DeSantis Martha’s Vineyard migrant flights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/16/reverse-freedom-rides-marthas-vineyard-desantis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/16/reverse-freedom-rides-marthas-vineyard-desantis/ |
SNL makes history with first out nonbinary cast member
Molly Kearney is joining the cast at a time of upheaval for the show, which has seen major shakeups in its lineup over the last few months.
Molly Kearney will be the first out nonbinary cast member on the famed show. (Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC; Washington Post illustration)
Kearney was one of four new additions announced by the famed comedy skit show on Thursday. They will join the cast for SNL’s 48th season, which has seen major shake-ups in its lineup over the last few months.
Kearney shared the news of their history-making casting on their Instagram account Thursday night, posting: “Head exploding!! Thanks for all the love everyone."
Marcello Hernandez, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker were also revealed to be joining the show, which premiers Oct. 1.
“SNL" has a long but patchy history of LGBTQ cast members. Terry Sweeney and Danitra Vance both made history in 1985, with Sweeney as the show’s first out gay cast member, and Vance as its first lesbian cast member, although she was not out at the time, reports the Advocate. Both departed after one season.
But, he added that it’s an “exciting" time for the show, which has been riding high in both ratings and critical acclaim in recent years. According to the Hollywood Reporter, its 2020-2021 season was the most watched entertainment program on TV for adults ages 18 to 49. On Monday, “SNL” took home its sixth consecutive Emmy for outstanding variety series. | 2022-09-16T17:15:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Molly Kearney makes SNL history as first nonbinary cast member - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/16/snl-molly-kearney-nonbinary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/16/snl-molly-kearney-nonbinary/ |
For women, running gear includes self-defense rings and pepper spray
Women runners say they are feeling vulnerable and taking extra precautions after the killing of Memphis teacher Eliza Fletcher
From left to right: Austin Morthland, Eliza Fletcher, Becky Croft (Peyton Curry; Memphis Police Department/AP; Courtesy of Becky Croft/Washington Post illustration)
Ali Feller, 38, knows what it’s like to be a working mom running alone in the early morning hours. She sets her alarm at 4 a.m. so she has time to run before her daughter wakes up.
But when she heard about the death of runner Eliza Fletcher, a Memphis schoolteacher abducted and killed on a morning run Sept. 2, Feller was so devastated and scared, she switched to the safety of running later in the day. Feller, who hosts a podcast Fletcher used to listen to, said this was the first time in 14 years that she couldn’t brave the morning darkness.
“I woke up to run today — at 4:30, in the dark, on familiar roads that I know and could probably run blindfolded by now, wearing bright, reflective gear and a headlamp, always bringing my phone ‘just in case’ — but I couldn’t do it. I was finally too scared,” Feller said in an Instagram post.
Exercising outside before dawn isn’t unusual for runners, who have found that a long run while most people are still asleep is often the best way to balance the demands of work, family and fitness.
But around the country, women runners now say they are feeling frightened and vulnerable after the death of yet another female runner. They tell stories of constant vigilance and extra precautions, including changing their running time and even purchasing self-defense rings and stun guns.
Staying aware and taking precautions
Becky Croft, a running coach in Tulsa, said she is always on guard when she’s running. If a slowly passing car makes her feel uncomfortable, she makes a mental note of the tag number, color, make and model in case she’s catcalled or needs to report it. “As a woman, I have to be concerned about my safety at all times,” she said.
Austin Morthland, 31, in Richmond said the precautions she takes before running now are second nature, including making sure the sound is low on her headphones so she can stay aware of her surroundings.
“I don’t take the same route all the time,” she said. “Whenever I leave by myself, I make sure I bring pepper spray. All these things are ingrained behaviors at a certain point, just because that’s the safest way to do what you love.”
When Dani Iannone, 27, goes for a run in Marlton, N.J., she shares her location with her friends and family. She also has an emergency alert on her watch, and carries pepper spray and a personal pull alarm.
Fletcher’s death reminded Iannone of the many women runners killed in recent years. Mollie Tibbetts was a University of Iowa student when she was murdered in 2018 by a farmworker while out for a run. In 2019, runner Wendy Martinez was fatally stabbed in D.C., just days after celebrating her engagement.
Some runners said they were looking into self-defense jewelry, including items from Go Guarded, which sells heavy duty, serrated edge self-defense rings to wear while working out. The company recently announced on its website that orders might be delayed and items sold out “due to a large increase in demand” because of the news about Fletcher.
“The Go Guarded Instagram account, which focuses on runner safety and female empowerment, has become inundated with direct messages, posts, and Reels from female runners expressing their heartbreak and outrage from yet another murder of a female runner,” wrote Go Guarded founder Jodi Fisher in an email. “I am a runner myself, so I understand all the concern and grief. We just want to run in peace.”
Claire Pagan in Longwood, Fla., said that what happened to Fletcher prompted her to buy the self-defense rings and mace for herself and friends.
“Ninety percent of the time, I’m running by myself,” Pagan said. “I’m running super early, so I can totally relate to her.”
A lot of the fears for women runners stem from personal experience. A driver swore at Keller and threatened to kill her while she was on a midday run. Jenn Cronin, Pagan’s running partner, was part of a group that started running with stun guns after women in the area were followed by a man on a bike.
Blaming the victim
Several runners said they’ve been upset by social media posts that questioned why Fletcher chose to run when it’s dark outside.
As Carmel, Ind., stay-at-home mom Kelly Halstead pointed out, early morning could have been the only time that didn’t interfere with Fletcher’s responsibilities as a mother and schoolteacher.
“When I was training for the Boston Marathon, I started training in November, December, and I was waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning, and I would go out and run at 4:30 in the morning,” Halstead said. “It really tore at my heart thinking, ‘That was me. Eliza is me.’ That’s a lot of other runners out there.”
Following the Eliza Fletcher case I’m seeing a lot of “she shouldn’t have been jogging at 4:30am” So let me ask you this men, when are we safe from you to go out? Are there certain hours you tend to lay dormant so women can do things like go jogging safely? Asking for all of us.
— Jess 🌻 (@crzydoglady4) September 6, 2022
Others scrutinized Fletcher’s outfit — a sports bra and running shorts. But it can get hot running in the summertime, Cronin said, and men aren’t reprimanded for working out shirtless.
“What happened to Eliza was not her fault,” said Barb Byrum, a former state legislator in Onondaga, Mich. “And the blame shifting on her only serves to hinder us from addressing crime and its social-economic underpinnings.”
Women runners said they hope the tragedy will spread more awareness of how women runners are regularly targeted and harassed during their workouts. Morthland said she has spoken with her husband and other men about being aware how their presence may feel threatening to women running by themselves. They discussed how men can avoid startling hyperaware women runners, and how women run in groups to feel safer.
Croft, who is Native American, noted that Indigenous women and women of color often don’t receive as much media coverage as White women when they go missing, despite a higher risk of being abducted and killed. She wants people to mourn Fletcher and also show support for the thousands of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, or MMIW, attacked every year.
What to know about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day
Supporting women runners
Most of all, women just want to keep running.
They say it’s a way to relieve stress and make lifelong friends. Pagan and Cronin discovered they went to the same college and shared many mutual friends after they met through a local runners group. Ever since then, the two haven’t run apart for more than three weeks.
What invigorates Lindsey Eaton, Halstead’s sister in Indianapolis, is how runners are united. Signs held up by strangers have often been her source of strength during marathons, for example. Thousands gathered in Memphis, Nashville and Chattanooga, Tenn., last Friday to “Finish Eliza’s Run” in her honor.
Ultimately, Eaton said she doesn’t want worries about safety to spoil the passion of women runners. Stock up on defensive gear, join running groups or workout inside, she says, but nobody should be too scared to exercise their right to run.
“We can’t live in constant fear,” Byrum said. “We need to stand together and demand to be able to go for a run without having to worry.” | 2022-09-16T17:15:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Women reconsider running gear, safety after Eliza Fletcher's death - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/16/women-running-safety/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/16/women-running-safety/ |
A California man admitted this week to threatening to attack the offices of Merriam-Webster and kill its editor in a string of violent messages targeting the inclusion of gender identity in the dictionary’s definitions of “female” and “girl.”
The 34-year-old from Rossmoor, Calif., also pleaded guilty to an identical charge in federal court in Texas for allegedly sending threats to the president of the University of North Texas and students who support transgender rights.
Prosecutors said Hanson’s threats, which prompted Merriam-Webster to shut its offices in New York City and Springfield, Mass., for nearly a week, were fueled by hate for the LGBTQ community. They are seeking an enhancement on his sentence because they said he selected his victims based on their identity. Hanson’s plea agreement says he may contest the enhancement at sentencing.
“Every member of our community has a right to live and exist authentically as themselves without fear,” U.S. Attorney Rachael S. Rollins said in a statement “Hate-motivated threats of violence that infringe upon that right are not tolerated in Massachusetts in any capacity.”
His mother told that her son had become “fixated” on transgender issues and is prone to what she described as “verbal hyperbole,” according to the document. She said she believed he would not act on his threats “because he is reclusive, she supervises him, and he has no access to weapons.”
Other high-profile institutions have faced what they said were violent anti-LGBTQ threats in recent weeks. On Thursday, FBI agents arrested a Massachusetts woman who they say called in a false bomb threat to Boston Children’s Hospital after a far-right social media campaign criticized the hospital’s transgender health program. Several other children’s hospitals, including Children’s National Hospital in Washington, say they’ve received a crush of threatening emails and phone calls related to their care for transgender children and young adults.
The dictionary’s current definition of the word “girl” includes both “a female child from birth to adulthood” and “a person whose gender identity is female.” Its definition of “female” reads, in part, “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male.”
Prosecutors said that in October 2021, Hanson sent several violent messages through the dictionary’s “Contact Us” page and made threatening remarks in the comments sections of those words.
“I am going to shoot up and bomb your offices for lying and creating fake definitions in order to pander to the tranny mafia,” he wrote in one message, according to court documents. “Boys aren’t girls, and girls aren’t boys. The only good Marxist is a dead Marxist. I will assassinate your top editor. You sickening, vile tranny freaks.”
In another message, he allegedly wrote: “It is absolutely sickening that Merriam-Webster now tells blatant lies and promotes anti-science propaganda. There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot.”
Authorities said he has also sent threats to organizations across the country, including Disney, Land O’Lakes, Hasbro and DC Comics. His guilty plea does not involve any of those alleged threats. | 2022-09-16T17:15:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man who threatened Merriam-Webster with anti-LGBTQ violence pleads guilty - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/16/merriam-webster-lgbtq-threat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/16/merriam-webster-lgbtq-threat/ |
A page from the order by U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon naming Raymond J. Dearie as special master in the Trump documents case. (Jon Elswick/AP)
For the second time in two weeks, a federal judge nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump has issued a ruling in Trump’s favor that has flabbergasted many legal experts.
U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon on Thursday night rejected the Justice Department’s request to allow it to review the documents seized from Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago that were marked classified. Cannon previously ruled that a special master review all the seized documents, at least temporarily delaying the government’s criminal probe.
The DOJ had asked to be allowed to review only the documents marked classified and for the special master’s review to exclude them. But Cannon rejected that while appointing a special master that both sides had assented to, Raymond J. Dearie.
Cannon’s original order was widely criticized as being overly deferential to Trump and his claims and for seemingly giving him preferential treatment. And there’s more grist for that mill in the latest order.
Below are some key points.
1. The ‘factual dispute’ that isn’t directly disputed
One of the most puzzling developments in this legal drama is the Trump legal team’s ongoing refusal to actually claim in court that Trump declassified the documents at issue, though Trump has said publicly that he did. Despite multiple opportunities — and despite having access to a client who would seemingly know the truth — it has conspicuously refused to do so. It has merely said that Trump had the power to do so and that whether he possessed classified documents was in dispute, without actually directly saying he declassified these documents.
It turns out this was good enough for Cannon.
In her order, she notes that the Justice Department says the records remain classified, but says, “The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion.”
She does not cite Trump’s or his team’s actual claims, but she does refer to whether the documents are actually classified as among the “ongoing factual and legal disputes.” And she even suggests Trump might not know the status of the documents: “Plaintiff has not had a meaningful ability to concretize his position with respect to the seized materials,” in part because Trump’s team wasn’t given requested information on the seized documents.
The ruling leaves the impression that Trump somehow might not truly know whether he declassified these documents. But mere hours before the order, he had reiterated on a radio show that “everything was declassified.” Cannon has shown basically no interest in squaring such public comments with what Trump’s legal team argues in court.
2. Allegations of special treatment
As in her previous order, Cannon effectively acknowledges she is treating this case differently because Trump is a former president. She reasons that, due to Trump’s former position, a search poses much greater risks to his reputation than in a situation involving an everyday citizen.
“Based on the nature of this action, the principles of equity require the Court to consider the specific context at issue, and that consideration is inherently impacted by the position formerly held by Plaintiff,” she writes.
Certainly, there occasionally can be good reason for treating a case differently; special masters are generally reserved for cases with exceptional circumstances. But critics have said she extends this too far by focusing on who Trump is.
In her earlier order, she wrote: “As a function of plaintiff’s former position as president of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own.”
3. Suggestion of the potential for leaks
Another commonality between the two orders is Cannon’s suggestive language about leaks as part of why a special master is necessary.
She briefly alluded to this prospect in a footnote of her order last week, and she expands on it in her latest. Not only did the government not convince her that Trump’s possession of the documents might lead to “imminent disclosure of classified information,” she writes, but “instead, and unfortunately, the unwarranted disclosures that float in the background have been leaks to the media after the underlying seizure.”
Importantly, though, Cannon doesn’t address where these leaks might have come from. Leaks in these kinds of cases come from lots of different places, including from those outside the government who might have insight into what is taking place. (Trump’s political operation and White House have leaked prodigiously in the past.) Nor does Cannon actually say that the risk is that classified information might leak. But that sentence comes right after she addresses the potential public disclosure of classified information, which is certainly suggestive.
A Justice Department lawyer previously said he was unaware of any leaks from his team. Cannon summarized that in her previous order as the lawyer, Jay Bratt, having “candidly acknowledged the unfortunate existence of leaks to the press.” But Bratt didn’t concede those leaks necessarily came from the government; in fact, he drew a line between leaks more broadly and those that would come from the DOJ.
“I see the same things in the press that other people do. It’s bad,” Bratt said. “People are talking. If people on the government’s side are talking about it, I’m not aware of anybody that we work with that has had contact with the press and certainly don’t condone it in any way.”
4. Giving herself a possible out
Even as Cannon rejected the Justice Department’s request, some saw her ruling as giving herself a potential exit ramp from her initial order.
She instructs Dearie to first review the approximately 100 documents marked classified and says the court will “thereafter consider prompt adjustments to the Court’s Orders as necessary.” Georgetown University law professor Heidi Li Feldman said that raised the prospect that Dearie could recommend to Cannon that the Justice Department be given access to the documents before an appeal by the government could be decided.
She also appeared to give the Justice Department some wiggle room in proceeding with the criminal case. The DOJ has argued that the criminal probe is “inextricably” tied to the national security assessment that she has allowed to proceed, and thus it must have access to the classified documents. One reason is that it says the DOJ has a role to play in tracing classified documents to empty folders with classified banners that were seized.
Cannon maintains she’s not convinced of that, but she opens the door to it.
She writes that, “to the extent that the Security Assessments truly are, in fact, inextricable from criminal investigative use of the seized materials, the Court makes clear that the September 5 Order does not enjoin the Government from taking actions necessary for the Security Assessments.” At another point, she essentially repeats this and sets the standard at when the “intelligence review becomes truly and necessarily inseparable from criminal investigative efforts.”
It’s difficult to know precisely what to make of that. What is “truly and necessarily inseparable”? But it would seem to give the Justice Department some license to explore, given many national security experts have agreed the two are indeed inseparable. | 2022-09-16T17:16:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 4 key points from Judge Cannon’s latest controversial Trump decision - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/16/cannon-special-master-dearie-ruling/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/16/cannon-special-master-dearie-ruling/ |
Blake Babies, ‘Train’: The Week In One Song
A rail strike averted.
A BNSF rail terminal worker monitors the departure of a freight train on June 15, 2021, in Galesburg, Ill. (Shafkat Anowar/AP)
Negotiators, with the help of the White House, reach an agreement to avert a national rail strike. | 2022-09-16T17:16:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Week in One Song. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/16/week-in-one-song/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/16/week-in-one-song/ |
Police officers enter the grounds of the Palace of Westminster in London on Sept. 15. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Watch live at 5:30 a.m., Sept. 19: Funeral for Queen Elizabeth II
“Officers will go knock on their door and ask them, ‘Are you taking your meds? Are you going to London this weekend?’” said Simon Morgan, a retired London police officer who served from 2007 to 2013 as personal protection officer for the queen and other members of her family, including her son, now-King Charles III.
President Biden and first lady Jill Biden will be among nearly 500 foreign dignitaries, including at least 70 heads of government confirmed as of Friday, arriving in London to pay respects to the nation’s longest-serving monarch.
Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako plan to be there, along with about two dozen kings, queens, princes and princess — from Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. French President Emmanuel Macron, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier are coming. So are New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Hundreds of thousands of people have waited 7 hours or longer to get the chance to walk past the queen’s coffin lying-in-state at Westminster Hall — a glimpse that lasts about 30 seconds.
The security costs when Queen Elizabeth’s mother died in 2002 were more than $5 million. Security cost more $7 million for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s 2011 wedding. But those events were relatively tiny in scope and did not include scores of world leaders. The funeral of Prince Philip, the queen’s husband, took place within the constraints of a coronavirus lockdown last year. | 2022-09-16T17:31:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral is U.K.’s biggest security operation since WWII - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/funeral-security-queen-elizabeth/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/funeral-security-queen-elizabeth/ |
Rebecca Mandelli, center left, dances with Ricardo Gallardo an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, on Thursday outside St. Andrews Episcopal Church on Martha’s Vineyard. (Dominic Chavez for The Washington Post)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), sitting on a narrow lead in his reelection race despite a gargantuan war chest, even as he positions himself to run for president, went on a headline-hogging adventure in anti-immigration demagoguery this week, luring some 50 migrants onto two airplanes Wednesday in Texas; lying to them about their destination; flying them to the island of Martha’s Vineyard; and then gloating about his flimflammery on Fox News.
Many politicians exploit human beings for political gain, but Mr. DeSantis’s burlesque subverts even the low standards in modern American politics. By enlisting asylum seekers as unwitting propaganda dupes, Florida’s governor demonstrates nothing more than his own callousness.
His theatrics taunted President Biden for a spike in unauthorized crossings at the southwestern border, sending migrants to a summer vacation haunt for liberal elites. Goading elites is rich coming from Mr. DeSantis, graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School. But his facile sound bites — in December he said the “border would be secure the next day” if migrants were sent to Martha’s Vineyard — is catnip for right-wing media.
First, Mr. DeSantis persuaded Florida’s legislature to authorize $12 million to transport undocumented immigrants from Florida — the apparent funding source for Wednesday’s flights. Then, apparently loath to hoodwink migrants too close to home — some Sunshine State voters, many of them immigrants themselves, might have taken offense — he reached into Texas, recruited about 50 Venezuelans from a shelter in San Antonio, and flew them to Martha’s Vineyard via Florida on false pretenses. They were told they were heading to Boston, where they would receive jobs and housing; Martha’s Vineyard, which sits off the coast of Cape Cod, is about 100 miles south of Boston.
Mr. DeSantis informed no island officials before the arrival of the group, which included at least four children under the age of 9, but he spared no stage-managing expense. A videographer was on hand to record the planes’ arrival, and footage was later distributed to Fox News and other media outlets.
None of the migrants had in mind Massachusetts as their final destination — some mentioned Colorado or New York — and most were unsure where they had landed. Their well-being was not the point. Like fellow GOP governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona, who have been busing thousands of migrants to New York and D.C., Mr. DeSantis issued sound bites about sending migrants to so-called sanctuary destinations.
But if the governor imagined that the locals, faced with Spanish-speaking newcomers, would choke on their foie gras, he was mistaken. In fact, many of the island’s year-round residents are firefighters, teachers and other middle-class individuals, including immigrants. In the event, islanders rallied to help when the migrants arrived, enlisting local teens from an AP Spanish high school class to translate. The migrants were treated humanely.
It’s possible the governor’s stunt ran afoul of federal law – fraud is one possibility; human trafficking is another. What’s not in doubt is his cruelty.
The Editorial Board on immigration | 2022-09-16T18:15:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Ron DeSantis's Martha's Vineyard immigration stunt showed his cruelty - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/desantis-marthas-vineyard-immigration-cruel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/desantis-marthas-vineyard-immigration-cruel/ |
Here’s a lesson for young student journalists
I just want to applaud Marcus Pennell for having the courage to speak out — and I greet him at the start of what will no doubt be a brilliant career [“My high school paper published a ‘pride’ issue. Then we got canceled.,” op-ed, Sept. 11].
Back in 1972, the administrators of Cranford High School in New Jersey censored an editorial I had written. In response, a group of us got together and launched Agni as a mimeographed “underground” newspaper — because, as A.J. Liebling noted in the New Yorker, in 1960, “freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.”
Thirty years later, I received the Magid Award from the writers’ organization PEN International for editing Agni, which was described as “one of America’s, and the world’s most significant literary journals.” It celebrates its 50th birthday this month.
Mr. Pennell, keep going!
Askold Melnyczuk, Medford, Mass. | 2022-09-16T18:15:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Here’s a lesson for young student journalists - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/lesson-young-students/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/lesson-young-students/ |
Loan forgiveness is already available
Ayindé Rudolph’s Sept. 10 op-ed, “Who would truly benefit from loan forgiveness? Teachers.,” failed to note that several major federal programs are already in place to lighten student borrowers’ debt burdens, especially for teachers.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program entirely forgives federal direct loans balances after 10 years of qualifying income-based payments. This important loan forgiveness program is available to any borrower who works for a governmental or nonprofit entity for 10 years.
The Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program cancels up to $17,500 of Federal Direct or Federal Family Education Loans after five years of complete and consecutive years of teaching at a low-income school as defined by the state.
The Perkins Loan Teacher Cancellation forgives up to 100 percent of a specific type of loan for five years of full-time teaching at a low-income school or in teacher-shortage subject areas as defined by the state.
Finally, the federal TEACH Grant Program provides up to $4,000 annually in grants to students planning to teach as a career. Recipients must agree to four years of full-time teaching in a low-income school in an eight-year period after graduation; otherwise the grant reverts to a federal direct loan.
A trove of information on these and other opportunities to support teachers is available from the Education Department and from colleges and universities that participate in the aid programs.
Kathleen G. Wicks, Reston
The writer is a former program manager for the Pell Grant, Campus-Based and Direct Loan Programs at Federal Student Aid in the U.S. Department of Education. | 2022-09-16T18:15:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Loan forgiveness is already available - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/loan-forgiveness-is-already-available/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/loan-forgiveness-is-already-available/ |
People walk past a Patagonia store on Greene Street on Sept. 14 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
According to a remarkable statement released by Chouinard on Wednesday, titled “Earth is now our only shareholder,” 100 percent of Patagonia’s voting stock will be transferred to a trust created to protect the company’s values, and 100 percent of its nonvoting stock has gone to a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating climate change and protecting undeveloped land around the world. The Chouinard family (his wife and two adult children were involved in and supported the decision) will end up paying $17.5 million in gift taxes on their donation.
Alexandra Petri: You would trade your elite billionaire status to save THIS planet? | 2022-09-16T18:16:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard smacks back at capitalism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/patagonia-yvon-chouinard-billions-climate-donation-capitalism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/patagonia-yvon-chouinard-billions-climate-donation-capitalism/ |
Post Elizabeth: The very British queue for the queen
Members of the public wait in an hours-long line to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II as she lies in state within Westminster Hall on Sept. 16 in London. (Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)
LONDON — For the queen who outlasted all previous queens, mourners have formed the queue to end all queues. A line nearly five miles long snakes across this city, zigzagging from Westminster Hall, where Elizabeth II lies in state, across the Thames and down to Southwark Park in southeast London. The queue is massive yet mythical; it has an official YouTube tracker, government Twitter guidance, multiple hashtags, wristbands and rules, yet every experience might differ.
The line is both a destination and a journey, a human manifestation of order and good manners. There are bag drops, portable bathrooms and water stations but no chairs allowed. Officials initially warned the wait might be up to 30 hours. The heavens opened here Tuesday night, with rain pouring down for hours. And still, the people wait.
“This is what we do,” one woman whispered to me Thursday night, as we climbed the steps of Westminster Hall after creeping forward for about eight hours. “We queue.”
The queue from this point in Bermondsey is approximately seven hours, we were just told.
“It’s definitely worth it,” said the man behind me. pic.twitter.com/Nt0HrxXE93
One woman would have been satisfied seeing the flowers at Green Park but decided to pay respects with her friend. One veteran set out with his necktie and four service medals in his (small) backpack. Outside Westminster Hall, just after midnight, he affixed his awards to his shirt to be properly attired for one final salute to The Boss. Had they known precisely how long the wait might be, some confessed, they would have begged off. But eight or nine hours, yes, they could do that for the queen.
When I got a wristband, marking my official inclusion in the line, at 6:05 p.m. Thursday (after nearly two hours' walking already), an official said we had seven hours to go. As we lurched forward in fits and starts, I asked the people around me what had brought them to the queue. Conversation ranged and waned; people discussed family vacations, school starts, work experiences. Occasionally, chats would turn to the royal family. Pauses were punctuated by snacks. Talk of Liz Truss. Boris Johnson. More and more and more Boris Johnson. And then we would come back to the queen.
One man spoke of singing the national anthem in Cub Scouts, and how this would be his final homage. Another person said passing by the coffin would make the queen’s death real — despite all the news reports, it was hard to imagine a world without this presence with which she had grown up. Another woman admired the queen’s Christian approach to life and simply sought to pay her respects.
At the entrance to Westminster Hall, the line pauses and divides, parting new friends. It took seven minutes to pass through the medieval hall, the silence pronounced as people slowly filed by the raised catafalque, some bowing heads, others closing their eyes.
On Friday, the line — now including retired soccer star David Beckham — reached capacity, with officials temporarily closing it. This raises the question, my colleague Annabelle Timsit wrote, of whether there will be a line to join the line.
Maybe that’s something only Britons can appreciate.
After hours of waiting, people described to The Post's Whitney Leaming what it was like to see Queen Elizabeth II lie in state on Sept. 15. (Video: Alexa Juliana Ard, Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)
Overnight odyssey: The queue reopened Friday evening, with waits predicted at more than 24 hours. Here, people describe their experience seeing Queen Elizabeth II lie in state.
Private burial: Further details about the queen’s internment have been released. After Monday’s state funeral, the late monarch’s coffin will be taken in a public procession to Windsor, where there will be a committal service at St. George’s Chapel on the Windsor Castle grounds. A private family service will be held Monday evening, after which the queen and her late husband, Prince Philip, will be buried in the King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor.
Watch The Post’s live coverage of the state funeral and other public proceedings here on Monday, starting at 5:30 a.m. ET.
Barkingham Palace: “Historically, the dogs of great rulers are majestic beasts of the hunt: athletic, intelligent and slightly intimidating,” writes Maura Judkis. “Or, the dogs of royalty are the opposite: tiny, decorative fluffs for fancy, silky laps. ... And then there are Queen Elizabeth II’s corgis.”
#NotMyKing: Amid public mourning over the queen’s death and sympathy for her royal relatives, writes Adam Taylor, the British monarchy is facing something else uncomfortable: scrutiny.
Wales whistle-stop: King Charles III and his wife, Camilla, headed to Cardiff, Wales, on Friday for a service honoring the late queen. Wales was the last stop on Charles’s inaugural tour as sovereign — dubbed “Operation Spring Tide” — to visit each of the four countries of the United Kingdom ahead of the state funeral Monday. (Fun fact: Charles was Prince of Wales for more than 64 years, a record. The title is traditionally — but not automatically — held by male heirs to the British throne.)
Later Friday, the king and his three siblings (Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward) will participate in the Vigil of the Princes, briefly standing watch around their mother’s coffin in Westminster Hall. On Saturday, some of the late queen’s grandchildren will also participate. There had been much speculation about whether Andrew and Prince Harry, both of whom served in the British military, would wear ceremonial uniforms. Neither, after all, is a “working” royal now, undertaking duties on behalf of the family. But it was reported some days ago that Andrew would be permitted an exception as a mark of respect to the queen; now, we’re hearing that at Charles’s invitation, Harry, too, will wear a uniform. Both developments are reminders that the last thing the palace wants this week is any focus on family conflicts. (Here’s a Post backgrounder on royal family scandals.)
For many, Charles’s wife, Camilla, “would always be seen as his old mistress,” writes columnist Monica Hesse. “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,” she writes. What mythology or happily-ever-afters is it giving us? "With his romantic life, Charles always seemed like he’d botched his only real duty: to give us a damn fairy tale.” But now the botched narrative is taking another form: a love story for our time.
Queen Elizabeth II exuded continuity even as much called out for change, writes senior critic-at-large Robin Givhan. “She was a stabilizing force; she was a reminder of the racism, colonialism and violence upon which much of that stability was built.” And then, after decades of her boldly colored wardrobe, resplendent glamour and vivid imagery, she faded to gray.
President Biden and King Charles have a lot in common, argues Opinions columnist James Hohmann. Both septuagenarians in long-sought roles, “each see themselves as a bulwark against forces trying to overthrow everything they stand for.” Each has earned his reputation for gaffes. Each also grapples, he notes, “with unfavorable comparisons to his predecessor.” Among the tips the American president could give Charles? Forbearance.
“I really want to come and say goodbye to her.” London correspondent Karla Adam joined the queue of mourners to pass by the queen’s coffin on Wednesday night, shortly after Westminster Hall opened to the public. Here’s a two-minute look at her hours-long journey in the line.
Colonialism is part of the queen’s legacy for indigenous Australians, Rachel Pannett and Michael E. Miller write from Sydney. From 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.” Many were forcibly sent to boarding schools and church-run missions. A 1997 government report estimated that 1 in 3 Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families. They became known as the “stolen generations.” Debate continues about whether the queen was responsible for past wrongs and the inequities many First Nations people still face.
Opinion|Post Elizabeth: The secret to the queen’s global appeal; final procession from the palace | 2022-09-16T18:16:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Post Elizabeth newsletter: The very British queue to see the Queen's coffin - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/post-elizabeth-newsletter-queen-queue-british-tribute/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/post-elizabeth-newsletter-queen-queue-british-tribute/ |
Debates on the queen and imperialism continue
Queen Elizabeth II inspects men of the newly renamed Queen's Own Nigeria Regiment, Royal West African Frontier Force, on Feb. 2, 1956, at Kaduna Airport, Nigeria. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis via Getty Images)
It’s difficult to say whether the timing or the tone of Karen Attiah’s Sept. 12 op-ed, “We must speak the ugly truth about the queen,” was more repugnant. As an Irish American whose forebears suffered under British rule in Ireland, I fully understand the ethical and moral failings of Queen Victoria and British imperial policies there and elsewhere around the world. I fully understand the ethical and moral failings of the United States’ quasi-imperialistic policies since its founding. What Ms. Attiah should take a deep dive into is Nigeria’s imperialistic history, in particular that of the Benin Empire, from 1180 to 1897. That former West African empire had a proclivity for supporting the slave trade, depopulation and human sacrifice.
Let’s have equal-opportunity criticism of history’s empires, evil or otherwise.
William E. Fallon, Gaithersburg
After all those flattering articles and commentaries on Queen Elizabeth II, it was refreshing to read Karen Attiah’s Sept. 12 op-ed. What she mentioned was just a small sample of the evil of the British Empire. She didn’t even mention, for example, the millions of people who died of famine in India in 1943 because of the empire’s policies.
This country fought a revolution against empire; we fought the War of 1812 against the British; and the British wanted to dissolve the United States by supporting the Confederate side in the Civil War. So, congratulations for allowing the truth about the evil British Empire to at least slip out a little.
Stuart Lewis, Leesburg
With so much euphoria about the queen’s legacy, Karen Attiah’s Sept. 12 op-edserved as a reminder of the legacy of slavery established by the British colonialists who relied on slave labor to raise tobacco, sugar cane, etc.
Lucio D’Andrea, Lake Ridge, Va. | 2022-09-16T18:16:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Debates on the queen and imperialism continue - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/queen-imperialism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/queen-imperialism/ |
Ruth Marcus showed admirable restraint
A book in the Strega Nona series by children's author and illustrator Tomie dePaola on display in 2013 in New London, N.H. (Jim Cole/AP)
Whatever her motivation for responding, I cannot say how much glee I felt reading Ruth Marcus’s retort in her Sept. 4 op-ed, “Why I’m calling out the sexism and ageism,” to the flabby ad hominem attack in a piece for the Federalist. The writer was, as I recall, reacting to something Ms. Marcus had written about Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).
Relieving oneself of reticence, or an ingrained practice of observing propriety when confronted by babyish blather — such as spitting out snide remarks instead of cogent, critical thinking — might, perhaps, lead to escalated tit-for-tat rants.
Ms. Marcus’s reliance on Tomie dePaola’s story about the character Strega Nona, which was used — pitifully inaccurately, by the way — by the Federalist writer to malign Marcus’s personal appearance, said it like it is: You mess with the powers of Strega Nona, then you clean up the overflowing pot of pasta you created.
Whatever standards of comportment or interior restraint Ms. Marcus had to contend with to get her point across, the Strega Nona story was necessary — and perfect for getting that point across in a wickedly benign way.
Rosemary M. DeRosa, Washington | 2022-09-16T18:16:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Ruth Marcus showed admirable restraint - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/ruth-marcuss-admirable-restraint/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/ruth-marcuss-admirable-restraint/ |
Women’s health is important, too
Sibley Memorial Hospital in Northwest D.C. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Reading the Sept. 11 Washington Post Magazine article “What happened to the women’s center at Sibley Hospital?” made me realize how difficult it is to find adequate medical attention for women.
Most of our medical knowledge is based on the male body. Women have a different physiology than men, but this does not seem to be reflected in our medical research. Dr. Kate Young, a public health researcher at Monash University, said, “For much of documented history, women have been excluded from medical and science knowledge production, so essentially we’ve ended up with a health-care system, among other things in society, that has been made by men for men.”
A women’s health center available to all women would have been incredibly beneficial to not only local women and their health but also to the future of women’s health research. Medical professionals working with real women’s health issues and furthering research would be promising. Johns Hopkins's taking away the chance of a women’s center for the unforeseeable future is in poor taste. We should be expanding our knowledge of women’s health, not regressing.
Grace Perosky, Carrsville, Va. | 2022-09-16T18:16:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Women’s health is important, too - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/womens-health-is-important-too/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/womens-health-is-important-too/ |
Fire engulfs skyscraper in China; no deaths reported
Thick smoke billows from a skyscraper in Changsha, in China's central Hunan province, on Sept. 16, in an image taken from video. Authorities said no casualties had been reported. (AFP via Getty Images)
A fire engulfed a 42-story building in Changsha, central China, on Friday, with no reported casualties thus far.
Photos and videos from the city of 10 million show orange flames and a thick cloud of black smoke streaming out of the structure. According to state broadcaster CCTV, the building housed offices of one of the country’s largest telecommunications companies, China Telecom.
A massive fire engulfed a 42-story skyscraper occupied by China Telecom in central China on Sept. 16. (Video: AP)
In a statement on Weibo, China Telecom said that the fire was extinguished by 4:30 p.m. Friday.
“To prevent serious danger, some equipment in the building has been switched off,” another statement read. “Right now, fixed-lined communication and mobile internet service can be accessed as normal, though the voice function in some mobile phones may be affected. This is being handled urgently.”
Accidental fires are not uncommon in China, where building codes are not enforced and construction regularly occurs without authorization, the AFP reported.
In July last year, a warehouse fire in the northeastern province of Jilin killed at least 15 people and injured at least 25, according to the AFP, citing state media. In June of the same year, a fire at a martial arts school in Henan province killed 18 people, mostly children. | 2022-09-16T18:19:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fire engulfs skyscraper in China; no deaths reported - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/fire-engulfs-skyscraper-china-no-deaths-reported/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/fire-engulfs-skyscraper-china-no-deaths-reported/ |
Gas prices are displayed at a Sunoco gas station in Philadelphia on Feb. 19. (Hannah Beier/Reuters)
In the abstract, it seems like perhaps the broadest possible question one could ask about American politics: Is the country headed in the right direction or is it on the wrong track? It’s like giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down on Netflix. Do you like what America’s up to or not?
Because it’s so broad, it seems like a pretty good thermometer for the state of the nation. News stories often cite the results, particularly when they’re gloomy: Americans, you’ve heard one or two times, are pessimistic about the direction of the country.
But there are a few important things to understand about that metric generally — and one very important thing to understand about it in the moment.
The first thing to know is that Americans are almost always more likely to say the country is headed in the wrong direction than on the right track. If we look at the net results of YouGov’s asking the question since the beginning of 2009, you see that the net result — that is, the percentage saying that the country’s on the right track minus those saying it’s headed in the wrong direction — is consistently in negative territory. It’s just the depth of the pessimism that tends to change.
The second thing to notice is that the answer is heavily dependent on political party. When Barack Obama was president, Democrats were a lot more likely to say the country was headed in the right direction. Republicans assessed the nation’s path as dire. And then Donald Trump won.
Nearly instantly, partisan views changed. In YouGov’s poll just before the election, most Democrats said the country was heading in the right direction while only 1 in 12 Republicans said the same. By Trump’s inauguration, most Republicans said the country was headed in the right direction while only 1 in 10 Democrats agreed.
Then President Biden won and the whole thing flipped again. Among independents, you’ll note, the pattern is less pronounced. As is often the case, views of nonpartisans generally track with the overall numbers, since independents are the flag in the middle of the tug-of-war rope.
I highlighted a section of a Democratic graph with a gray box. That period shows how declines in partisan sentiment can affect the overall figure. In early 2011, Democrats grew more negative about the direction of the country and, as a result, the tug-of-war rope moved: The overall view of the direction of the country also sank. Among Republicans, who were already pessimistic because a Democrat was in the White House, there really wasn’t anywhere to go.
Bear that situation in mind as we look at the pattern of views of the country under Biden. As you’d expect, Democrats are more positive and Republicans more negative.
I’ve again highlighted certain parts of the Democrats’ graph. Those are three apparent inflection points in which views of the country’s direction shifted among members of Biden’s party.
The first was the beginning of a long downward slide in early- to mid-July 2021. This corresponds to a new surge in coronavirus cases nationally as a result of the emergence of the Delta variant. The pandemic seemed as though it was evaporating … and then it wasn’t.
Then there’s the trend that began in mid-April, reversing two months ago. What prompted the downward trend? What drove the turnaround?
If asked, the White House would probably tell you that new legislation Biden signed into law made the difference. But it’s probably simpler: gas prices. The average national prices per gallon increased 50 cents from mid-February to mid-April. They peaked in mid-June.
As it turns out, there was a similar spike in gas prices in early 2011, when the price jumped 50 cents between November 2010 and March 2011. Right as views of the country’s direction among Democrats dropped.
You can see the effect below. At top is the price of gas. Below, the net view of the direction of the country — with the inverted gas price overlaid for reference.
On the lower chart above, you can see gas prices rise (the gray line heading down) just as there was a big drop in views of how the country was faring. You can see the same thing at the right side of the graph — and how the quick turnaround in gas prices overlaps with a quick rise in optimism about the national direction.
It’s not only gas prices that drive sentiment, of course. In 2020, Republican confidence in the direction of the country sagged thanks to the pandemic and the emergence of protests focused on police reform.
But gas prices appear to have played a role in affecting how Democrats viewed the country during the first terms of the two most recent Democratic presidents. The other trends still exist — the partisan divide, the general pessimism — but if gas prices continue to fall? Suddenly Democrats are facing a different midterm than the one that was looming this spring. | 2022-09-16T18:41:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Is America headed in the right direction? Well, what does gas cost? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/16/electorate-right-track-gas-prices/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/16/electorate-right-track-gas-prices/ |
Women run with an additional burden
Melissa A. Sullivan’s Sept. 13 op-ed, “I can’t outrun the risks of being a female runner,” revealed an unspoken reality: Society accepts that female runners are responsible for another person’s actions, and women must anticipate these actions to protect themselves from the people around them.
Recently, an attempted kidnapping took place near my high school. News spread across my cross-country team like wildfire, and we were directed to run in groups and be situationally aware. But out of the more than 80 runners on the team, it felt as though this was enforced only with the 24 female runners. Somehow, it was our responsibility as teenage girls to protect ourselves from the people around us while we ran.
The responsibility for predicting another person’s actions should not fall upon the targeted woman; youths should not be held responsible for the actions of an adult. We didn’t ask to be targeted, harassed or demeaned — we asked to run. Let us run.
Leilani Harris, Annandale
Kudos to Melissa A. Sullivan for having the courage and confidence to share her thoughts on the tragic death of runner Eliza Fletcher.
I feel certain that 99 percent of people, when hearing of Fletcher’s missing-person report, questioned the fact that a woman was running alone at pre-dawn. However, like Ms. Sullivan, I am among the 1 percent, no doubt female runners, who reacted with anger and sympathy that a woman is unable to take time from her busy schedule, including caring for her students and her family, to care for herself by doing something she enjoyed and that was beneficial to her physical and mental health.
Call me naive, unrealistic and/or foolish, but I am reminded of something my mother repeatedly voiced to me many years ago: “It’s a man’s world.”
Kate Splendore, Reston | 2022-09-16T18:47:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Women run with an additional burden - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/running-with-an-additional-burden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/running-with-an-additional-burden/ |
Strikes in France and Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral have led to flight cancellations
A long weekend that began with hundreds of flight cancellations in France will wrap up with big crowds in London and more axed flights due to Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral on Monday.
French air traffic controllers are striking on Friday, leading authorities to ask airlines to cut their schedules from all airports in the country by 50 percent, Air France said in a statement. Some flights that were supposed to fly over France were also canceled, Reuters reported.
Air France is operating 45 percent of its short and medium-haul flights, but 90 percent of its long-haul flights.
“Delays and last minute cancellations cannot be ruled out,” the statement said.
Ryanair said it had been forced to cancel 420 flights that were mainly flying over France, disrupting 80,000 passengers. The airline said the strike does “nothing but disrupt thousands of European citizens/visitors’ weekend travel plans.”
Chaos at European airports strands travelers. Here’s why.
The disruptions in France come as travel numbers are expected to surge in London for the queen’s state funeral on Monday. Travel booking app Hopper said global search demand for flights to London airports jumped by nearly 50 percent in the hour of the announcement of her death compared with demand the day before.
Tim Hentschel, CEO of the booking site HotelPlanner, expects the funeral to be the most attended event in London “in modern history with record-breaking occupancy levels and room rates.”
On Monday, operations to and from London Heathrow Airport will be adjusted to avoid noise disruptions at certain times “as a mark of respect,” the airport said in a statement. Nonessential shops at the airport will be closed Monday, and some roads around Heathrow will be closed for the procession of the coffin.
“In order to observe these moments on Monday, airlines will need to adjust their schedules accordingly, which will mean some changes to flights,” the airport said. “Passengers who have been notified that their flight has been cancelled, and/or do not have a confirmed seat on a flight, should not turn up to the airport.”
British Airways said it had reduced its schedule and rescheduled some flights while the skies around West London would be closed. That amounted to 50 short-haul round-trip flight cancellations, Reuters reported, with Heathrow changing 15 percent of its schedule.
The queen's travels, in photos
Kristen Slizgi, lead travel designer at The Luxury Travelist, expects travel over the weekend to be disrupted and advises travelers that their plans are likely to change. She’s already had to change some train and flight plans last minute for clients currently in Europe due to the strikes. While U.K. travel has been affected, Slizgi doesn’t anticipate the queen’s funeral having much impact across the European Union.
“I also recommend to book travel insurance beforehand,” Slizgi said in an email. “And try to book the most flexible rates in case you need to change course of your travels in the next coming weeks”
James Whiteman, the product development lead at London-based tour operator Niarra Travel, said in an email that he expects Central London and any transportation around it to be “an absolute nightmare."
“We currently have a 5 mile queue of mourners snaking through central London from Westminster to Bermondsey that has just been capped so now there’s a queue for the queue because the English are mad,” he said. “It’s not even the weekend yet!”
Tourists in the U.K. should pre-book everything and give themselves plenty of time to get around, said Payton Chapley, assistant lead travel designer at luxury travel agency Travel Edge.
“Public transportation will be overwhelmed, airline strikes will cause delays, and traffic will be wild as well, with the road closures put in place for the funeral,” Chapley said in an email. “Be punctual, be prepared, and be patient!”
Airports across Europe have experienced chaos throughout the summer amid staffing shortages,strikes and a surge in demand.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport said Friday it would have to reduce the maximum number of passengers who depart locally by an average of 18 percent a day through at least Oct. 31 due to a shortage of security workers. That announcement came a day after the airport’s CEO handed in his resignation, Thursday. Schiphol has been plagued by long lines, most recently on Monday, when it asked several airlines to cancel flights.
HotelPlanner’s Hentschel said travelers to London from the Amsterdam airport could be impacted due to the decision to cut daily passengers.
“Other airports across Europe may experience larger crowds and potential disruptions as a result of Schiphol’s decision,” he said.
Justin Smith, president of The Evolved Traveler, a member of Ensemble Travel Group, said in an email that he is not advocating for clients to go to Europe at the moment.
“There is too much upheaval, and much of it is unpredictable,” he said. “And if they do go, I am suggesting we look at alternate airports such as Manchester, Brussels, or Nice. If you’re traveling for leisure, other international destinations are equal in experience and far less challenging at the moment.” | 2022-09-16T18:48:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Flights in Europe canceled over strikes in France, queen's funeral - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/09/16/france-strikes-flights-queen-funeral/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/09/16/france-strikes-flights-queen-funeral/ |
Rangers and experts share their favorite underrated parks for fall
1Wind Cave National Park, North Dakota
2Isle Royale National Park, Michigan
3Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio
4New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, West Virginia
5Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site, Colorado
6White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire
7Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico
8Congaree National Park, South Carolina
9San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, Texas
10Everglades National Park, Florida
In honor of National Public Lands Day on Sept. 24, entrance to all National Park Service sites will be free.
The holiday is one of five days in 2022 when NPS offers free admission to visitors — and comes just after the start of fall, perhaps the most underrated season for a trip.
“Schools are back in session in most places, and the summer tourism rush is waning ... fall colors are happening,” said Naaman Horn, NPS spokesperson for the Intermountain Region and former park ranger. “It’s just a wonderful time to visit.”
While many visitors will use the free day for recreation, National Public Lands Day is the largest single day of volunteering for parks and public lands in the country.
“There’s something to be said for planting a tree or doing invasive species removal or a cleanup around a river versus just going to see the sites,” said Kelly Burnett, conservation program director at the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF). “It makes you a steward of that space ... it leaves an impression."
A visitor’s guide to 63 spectacular national parks
To get involved with a volunteer project near you, visit the NEEF online portal. And don’t forget: Places you can help out go beyond national parks. There are also federal public lands, national monuments, wildlife refuges, historic sites, seashores and recreation areas you can visit without admission.
Instead of competing with the crowds at America’s most famous parks, go see lesser-known options. Here are 10 sites to visit across the country, recommended by park rangers and experts.
Wind Cave National Park, North Dakota
As its name suggests, Wind Cave National Park is famous for its cave. “It’s the seventh longest cave in the world, in fact,” said Riley Mahoney, who runs the blog The Parks Expert and has been to 256 of the country’s 423 national park sites. “It’s very, very cool.”
But the reason she recommends visiting Wind Cave National Park during the fall isn’t underground.
“There are so many trails, the wildlife is incredible, and in the fall there is really great foliage in the prairie,” she said. The park’s bison are active this time of year, and visitors may also see elk, burros and prairie dogs around.
Volunteer on the National Mall for a deeper D.C. experience
Isle Royale National Park, Michigan
The least-visited national park in the Lower 48 isn’t overlooked because it isn’t special — it’s just hard to reach. That’s part of what makes Isle Royale National Park so special, and Burnett’s top recommendation for the season.
“It is one of the best places to see fall color because it’s untouched,” Burnett said.
The park’s located on an island in Lake Superior, so getting there requires taking a private boat, ferry or seaplane from either the Minnesota shore or Michigan’s. There are no cars allowed on the island; it’s just wilderness with hiking trails, boat rentals, some campsites and a full-service lodge. If you can make the effort to get there, it’s worth it; Burnett says it’s the best park trip she’s ever done.
Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio
Despite being easily accessible — from Cleveland and Akron, Ohio — Cuyahoga Valley National Park can feel worlds away, says Supervisory Park Ranger Pamela Barnes, an NPS community engagement supervisor and public information officer.
“The forests explode with color in October and into November,” Barnes said in an email.
To fully appreciate the foliage, Mahoney and Barnes recommend taking the Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s scenic train’s Fall Flyer excursion, or you can walk, run or bike ride along the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail and catch sunset at the popular Ledges Overlook.
New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, West Virginia
Mahoney is a fan of one America’s newest national parks: New River Gorge National Park & Preserve. “Not only is it great for fall foliage, but they also have a really cool event every year called Bridge Day,” she said.
Every third Saturday in October, Bridge Day brings thousands of spectators to watch BASE jumpers fling themselves off the New River Gorge Bridge. Don’t want to run into those crowds? Skip Bridge Day.
Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site, Colorado
Travel back to the 19th century with a trip to Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site in Otero County in southeast Colorado.
“The park’s beautiful any time of the year, but especially in the fall when the cottonwoods are turning yellow,” Horn said. “The park also has a great hiking trail that goes through the wetlands and Arkansas river.”
At the reconstructed 1840s adobe fur trading post, site staff wear period clothing and host guided tours and events to showcase what life was like on the Santa Fe Trail between 1833 to 1849 for the traders, trappers, travelers and the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. Wildlife residents include oxen, horses, mules, chickens, peacocks, pigeons, goats, guinea fowl and some fort cats.
White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire
While it’s not technically a national park, Burnett said she’d be remiss if she didn’t shout out White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. Technically a U.S. Forest Service site, it can get busy on fall weekends but offers 1,200 miles of hiking trails — including 160 miles of the Appalachian Trail — in its 800,000 acres.
“You can’t have a fall park article without talking about those guys up there,” Burnett said. “It’s amazing with the small towns you can stay in, or campsites or cabins.”
Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico
The product of a volcanic eruptionmore than a million years ago, Valles Caldera National Preserve is a 13-mile wide depression with mountain meadows, aspen trees,and wildlife like elk, black bears, golden eagles and badgers. It’s also the homeland of ancestral American Indian tribes and pueblos.
“It’s a great drive from either Bandelier National Monument or the Manhattan Project National Historical Park,” Horn said.
With itsproximity to Charleston and Columbia, S.C., Congaree National Park is another Burnett pick. To get more bang for their buck, “a lot of people will tack on to a trip with Great Smoky Mountains,” she said.
The largest intact stretch of old growth bottomland hardwood forest in the southeastern United States, Burnett says the park is worth a day trip of its own particularly in the fall (for the best colors, visit closer to November). The park floods with waters from the Congaree and Wateree Rivers, but many trails are on boardwalks, Burnett said. “Like 80 percent of the park is underwater and you’ve got all these soaring trees ... it’s a really neat place.”
San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, Texas
San Antonio may be one of the biggest cities in America, “but this park is kind of on the not-so-traveled path,” Horn said of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. “And it’s an incredible historic site.”
The city’s group of five Spanish colonial missions — of which San Antonio Missions National Historical Park is included — is Texas’s only UNESCO World Heritage site. Between the park’s bike trail, hikes, the history and original fresco paintings of the missions, "it can be quite peaceful and great for beautiful fall weekends,” Horn said.
After a muggy summer and before the crowds come for dry season in the winter, fall is a quiet shoulder season at Everglades National Park, the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States.
“There’s not as many bugs, it’s not as hot as humid,” Mahoney said. “So it’s a really great time to visit.”
Mahoney says active travelers may be interested in the Tamiami Trail “Triathlon” a program hosted by Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve visitors can attempt year-round.
“It’s different than a normal triathlon because the activities are a little bit different,” she said. Participants bike a 15-mile loop, then hike a 3-mile loop and finish with canoeing or kayaking a 3.5-mile route. | 2022-09-16T18:48:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | National Parks are free on September 24. Here are 10 to visit. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/national-parks-free-days-september-24/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/national-parks-free-days-september-24/ |
Commissioner Cathy Engelbert talked about the prioritization clause during a news conference before Game 1 of the WNBA Finals. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Welcome to the age of prioritization, where the league looks to make its product the No. 1 priority for players while many of those same players say new rules attack their experience and compensation.
A number of players across the league routinely report late because their overseas teams are still wrapping up their campaigns. Players from the WNBA regularly play in Europe and elsewhere to make significantly more money than what their WNBA contracts pay.
“The owners really stepped up on the compensation side for the players in this collective bargaining cycle,” Engelbert said, “and I think the kind of quid pro quo for that was prioritization, showing up on time for our season. And quite frankly, after 36 years of working in my working world, there wasn't once where I wasn't required to show up on time.
“It's not the same thing,” said Sun center Brionna Jones, the 2022 sixth player of the year who played in with USK Praha in the Czech Republic last offseason. “Overseas, is guaranteed. If I sign a contract, it's guaranteed overseas. So it's like, yeah, we have these opportunities but not for every player. So, it's different.
“And yeah, the top people are making more money and the rookies are making more money, but then those middle people are still like in limbo. There's strides being made and it is moving in the right direction, but the conversation is not the same as overseas.”
Especially adamant about the possibility of leaving the WNBA was Storm forward Gabby Williams. A Final Four MVP playing for Sopron Basket in Hungary last season, Williams will be a free agent in the WNBA this offseason. | 2022-09-16T18:59:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | WNBA's prioritization clause reveals rift between league, players - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/16/wnba-prioritization-clause/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/16/wnba-prioritization-clause/ |
Extreme hunger on the rise in the world’s worst climate hotspots
A group of women displaced by drought rest under a tree as they walk to a camp in a southern region of Somalia in June. (Luis Tato/FTWP)
The number of people experiencing extreme hunger has more than doubled in some of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, the charity group Oxfam International said in a new report.
Some 48 million people are now suffering from acute hunger, the group said, up from 21 million in 2016. Nearly 18 million of those people — in countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and Zimbabwe — are on the brink of starvation, their lives already disrupted by war, displacement, economic insecurity and the coronavirus pandemic.
Conflict remains the primary driver of hunger, but "the onslaught of climate disasters is now outpacing poor people’s ability to cope, pushing them deeper into severe hunger,” Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International, said in a statement.
The report found a strong correlation between extreme weather and rising hunger in 10 climate hotspots, including Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Somalia and Zimbabwe. The countries were identified as hotspots because they had the highest number of United Nations humanitarian appeals for weather-related crises since 2000.
While it is difficult to measure the exact direct impact of climate change on hunger, the report said, as extreme weather “becomes more fierce and more frequent,” it is devastating the lives of millions of people, destroying homes and crops.
The majority of the countries listed are in Africa, where the worst drought in nearly half a century has ravaged communities and caused food shortages, worsened by the war in Ukraine.
Four of the ten countries — Kenya, Madagascar, Somalia and Zimbabwe — have consistently suffered poor food insecurity “primarily due to weather-related disasters,” according to the World Food Program’s Global Report for Food Crises.
Oxfam International says Somalia is facing its worst drought on record — and that famine is “expected to unfold” in at least two districts. One million people have been forced to flee their homes as a result, the report said.
“Climate change is no longer a ticking timebomb, it is exploding before our eyes," Bucher said.
The report notes that countries “least responsible” for the climate crisis are suffering the most from its impact. Together, the most vulnerable nations account for just 0.13 percent of global carbon emissions, but “sit in the bottom third of countries least ready for climate change,” the report says.
In contrast, industrialized nations, including members of the Group of 20, are responsible for nearly 80 percent of global emissions.
“We cannot fix the climate crisis without fixing the systemic inequalities in our food and energy systems," Bucher said. “Rich and most polluting nations have a moral responsibility to compensate low-income countries most impacted by the climate crisis. This is an ethical obligation, not charity." | 2022-09-16T19:51:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oxfam International says hunger rising in world’s climate hotspots - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/oxfam-somalia-hunger-climate-change/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/oxfam-somalia-hunger-climate-change/ |
Police investigating report of sexual assault at D.C. charter school
D.C. police are investigating an allegation of sexual abuse at a D.C. charter school in Southeast Washington, a department spokesman confirmed Friday.
D.C. police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said the incident involves two students. The incident took place between 2:25 p.m. and 2:55 p.m. on Wednesday, according to a police report.
Officials at the SEED School of Washington, D.C., contacted D.C. police Wednesday in response to the incident, a spokesman said in a statement. The public charter and boarding school, located in the Fort Dupont neighborhood of D.C., educates ninth- to 12th-graders.
“We are fully cooperating with their investigation,” spokesman Brian Rahaman said in a statement. “This was an isolated incident that is being managed by MPD and there is no threat to our school campus.”
Police and charter school officials did not provide additional information, citing the active investigation. | 2022-09-16T19:55:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sexual assault reported at D.C.'s SEED charter school - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/16/investigation-sexual-assault-seed-charter-school/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/16/investigation-sexual-assault-seed-charter-school/ |
Raymond J. Dearie, a federal judge in Brooklyn, is described by lawyers and colleagues as an exemplary jurist
Raymond J. Dearie, serving as a chief judge of the federal court in the Eastern District of New York in May 2008. (Gregory P. Mango)
Judge Aileen Cannon has appointed Raymond J. Dearie, a former chief federal judge in New York, to sort through more than 11,000 documents — including classified materials — that FBI agents seized from former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence last month.
It was a blow to the Justice Department, which has argued a special master is legally unnecessary and — even if appointed — should not be charged with reviewing any of the 100 or so seized documents marked as classified. Appointing a special master to review these documents, prosecutors argued in numerous court filings, would slow down a criminal investigation into the potential mishandling of classified information and could pose a national security risk.
Here’s everything you need to know about Dearie and what he will be doing in this high-profile and unusual investigation.
First, what is a special master?
How did Judge Cannon choose Dearie?
Is Dearie still working as a judge?
What will he do as special master in this case?
How long does Dearie have to complete the job? | 2022-09-16T20:04:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Who is Raymond Dearie, the special master reviewing Trump documents? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/16/raymond-dearie-special-master-trump-documents/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/16/raymond-dearie-special-master-trump-documents/ |
Why Closer Ties Between Russia and China Have Democracies Worried
Rivals for centuries, China and Russia now have a partnership that has “no limits,” Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin said in early February. The energy, military and political ties nurtured over the past decade between the world’s two most powerful authoritarian states — both of which aim to upend at least parts of the US-dominated, post-Cold War order — have aroused growing concern among democratic leaders from Washington to Tokyo. Just weeks after the joint statement, when Russia invaded Ukraine, China refused to condemn the move. Still, the support Beijing has shown its ally since has proved something short of boundless.
1. What pushed China and Russia closer?
The rapprochement was driven by a common alienation from America that deepened after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and became increasingly overt after the 2008 financial crisis, which originated in the US. Both states concluded that the meltdown would undercut faith globally in the US economic and political model. They increased ties cautiously until 2014, when Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula triggered sanctions and a definitive break between Russia and the wider West. That forced Moscow to look for new partners and especially new markets for its energy exports. China was a good fit, proving a massive and fast-growing buyer of Russian commodities and weapons. The two states also share a deep hostility toward US alliances in what they consider their own rightful spheres of influence. For Russia, that’s the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Europe; for China, it’s Washington’s network of bilateral defense treaties in the Indo-Pacific region. Though short of a formal, treaty-based alliance, the partnership between China and Russia has been enhanced by a strong personal bond between Putin and Xi.
2. Why the bromance between the two leaders?
Products of tough childhoods, both men have evinced a determination to crush dissent at home and restore their nations to greatness, ending their perceived humiliation by the US and Europe. They have met more than 30 times, making dumplings together in Tianjin and pancakes in Vladivostok. In 2019, Xi called Putin his “best friend.” In a joint statement in February, they spelled out their shared contempt for Western ideas of democracy. They defined democracy without reference to elections, independent courts or free media and said it was about economic development, with all models for public political participation equally valid.
3. What’s the history between the two states?
In the 1800s, Russia was among European powers that imposed so-called unequal treaties on China’s Qing dynasty, including one ceding the territory where the Russian city Vladivostok sits today. Relations improved dramatically for a short period after Mao Zedong led China’s Communist Party to power in 1949, finding a natural ally in Josef Stalin. But Mao opposed the political reforms known as de-Stalinization that followed the Soviet leader’s 1953 death and, in 1961, he split from Moscow. In 1969, the two countries fought a brief border war over disputed territories and, in 1972, China did the unthinkable by turning toward the US. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev took charge in the Kremlin, that relations began to thaw again.
4. What can they offer each other now?
Since 2014, Russia has sold China some of its most advanced weapons systems, including $5 billion worth of S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems and SU-35 attack jets. Within two months of Crimea’s annexation, Russia’s Gazprom PJSC signed a deal it said was worth about $400 billion to supply China with natural gas through a pipeline called the Power of Siberia. A second pipeline deal has been struck since. In addition, the two countries have increasingly coordinated their positions at the United Nations Security Council, where both wield vetoes.
5. What worries the democratic powers?
The growing cooperation between China and Russia has led some policy makers in the US to fear that the country could be forced to fight wars on two fronts, for example if Russia were to threaten an American ally in Europe to distract the US during a confrontation with China over Taiwan. US Senator Jim Inhofe argued last year that, adjusted for purchasing power parity, the two nations combined spend more on defense than the US. There’s a wider concern that the combination of economic, military and political muscle the two can muster is emboldening other world leaders with autocratic tendencies, undermining confidence in democracy as a political system, and threatening the version of the rules-based international order promoted by the US and its allies since the end of the Cold War.
6. How has the war in Ukraine played in the relationship?
China avoided criticizing the invasion, blamed the US and NATO for the conflict, and bought Russian oil that was being shunned by some other countries, indirectly funding Moscow’s war machine. But Xi proved reluctant to unequivocally back the war or help Russia cushion the financial impact of US and European Union sanctions. In September, after the first in-person meeting between the two leaders since the invasion, Putin went so far as to acknowledge that China had “questions and concerns” about it. With a gross domestic product almost eight times the size of Russia’s, China has substantially more at stake in a global economy that’s still dominated by the US and other developed democracies. | 2022-09-16T20:17:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Closer Ties Between Russia and China Have Democracies Worried - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-closer-ties-between-russia-and-china-have-democracies-worried/2022/09/16/55e64776-35f5-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-closer-ties-between-russia-and-china-have-democracies-worried/2022/09/16/55e64776-35f5-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
The 2021 assertion to the National Archives vastly misrepresented the scale and variety of documents, including classified records, later recovered from Trump’s property
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a signing ceremony on Oct. 9, 2019 in Washington, DC. Meadows later became Trump's chief of staff. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Months before National Archives officials retrieved hundreds of classified documents in 15 boxes from former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, they were told that none of the material was sensitive or classified and that Trump had only 12 boxes of “news clippings,” according to people familiar with the conversations between Trump’s team and the Archives.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon appointed Raymond J. Dearie, a former chief federal judge in New York, as a special master to sort through the documents seized by the FBI to see if any should be shielded from criminal investigators because of attorney-client or executive privileges. The Justice Department is barred from using any of those documents in its criminal probe until Dearie reviews them, significantly slowing down the inquiry. | 2022-09-16T20:18:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump team claimed boxes at Mar-a-Lago were only news clippings - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/16/trump-records-archives-clippings/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/16/trump-records-archives-clippings/ |
Ukrainian soldiers stand among graves, with some marked with numbers, near Izyum, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, on Sept. 16. (Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
When Russian forces retreated last week from most of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, they left behind tanks and a howitzer — and disturbing reports of violence. In the village of Zaliznychne, one woman described burying the bodies of two men killed after they kept on lights past curfew. In other towns, Russian shelling destroyed civilian targets, including schools and hospitals. Officials from the city of Izyum claim at least 1,000 civilians were killed and 80 percent of the city destroyed during a six-month occupation.
Grisly evidence is emerging. On Thursday, Ukraine’s chief police investigator announced the discovery of a mass burial site near Izyum, containing more than 400 bodies. An Associated Press video showed hundreds of graves lining the forest, marked with numbers and simple wooden crosses. While many of the victims were killed by shelling and airstrikes, some were reportedly found with their necks and hands tied, suggesting the execution of prisoners.
These horrifying allegations follow a sad pattern. From Chechnya to Syria, Russia has a record of waging war with a brutal disregard for human rights and civilian life. In Ukraine, perhaps the most infamous example is what happened in the city of Bucha, near Kyiv: After Russian troops retreated in late March, more than 450 bodies were found, the majority of which had been tortured, shot or bludgeoned to death. The images spurred global outrage, as did reports of systematic sexual violence and rape.
Since then, evidence has mounted suggesting Russia has committed atrocities. A database from the Associated Press and FRONTLINE has documented 430 “incidents involving potential war crimes” across Ukraine, including attacks on civilians, food and water facilities and medical infrastructure.
In the coming weeks, the world will learn more about what Ukrainian civilians in the Kharkiv area experienced. Towns such as Izyum have been cut off from the internet, phone signals and electricity for months, with little information escaping about conditions and treatment. The Ukrainian government has dispatched investigators and prosecutors to the region to gather evidence, and international investigations will no doubt follow suit. It is imperative reports of violence are quickly and carefully documented. Collecting information in real-time — crucial in such situations — will require both resources and coordination.
“Russia leaves death everywhere. And it must be held accountable for it,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address Thursday night. Every day, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s senseless war in Ukraine claims more lives and causes irreparable suffering. There must be an urgent, thorough investigation into alleged crimes against civilians, followed by sincere efforts to prosecute perpetrators and hold them accountable. Anything less would represent a grave injustice for victims and survivors — and would send an unacceptable signal to Mr. Putin that his troops can commit atrocities with impunity. | 2022-09-16T20:18:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | In Izyum, Ukraine, evidence mounts of Russian atrocities - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/izyum-kharkiv-russian-atrocities-investigation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/izyum-kharkiv-russian-atrocities-investigation/ |
The curious case of the strange man who was nearly attorney general
Jeff Clark, then-assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division, speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department on Sept. 14, 2020. (Susan Walsh/AP)
The threat of losing his law license might be the least of Jeffrey Bossert Clark’s problems. Clark is the environmental lawyer who came just one contentious Oval Office meeting away from being installed as attorney general in the waning days of the Trump administration.
In June of this year, his home was searched by armed agents of the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General and his electronic devices seized as part of a criminal investigation into false statements, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
The next month, the D.C. bar launched disciplinary proceedings against him.
Even with all that, Clark’s astonishing, over-the-top response to the D.C. bar probe, released Monday, offers jarring new evidence of how bonkers the man who almost became attorney general actually is.
Clark was assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources and who, in the final weeks of the Trump administration, was put in charge of the civil division. President Donald Trump wanted him in the top job because Clark — unlike the rest of the department’s hierarchy — was eager and willing to pursue Trump’s false claims that he had won the election.
Attorney General William P. Barr, before resigning in December 2020, asserted that there was no evidence of election fraud sufficient to affect the results. Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general, and Richard Donoghue, the acting number two, agreed with that conclusion.
This didn’t deter Clark, although it was far outside his job description. He drafted a letter to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and other state officials asserting that the department had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states,” and urging them to call the legislature into special session.
Rosen and Donoghue refused to sign, telling Clark there was no such evidence; Clark persisted to the point of telling Rosen that Trump would name Clark as attorney general in his place so the letter could be sent. The whole scheme was derailed only after Trump was confronted with threats of mass resignations at the Justice Department.
Enter, months later, D.C. bar authorities. In June, the bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel found that the Georgia letter contained numerous false statements and thereby violated ethics rules prohibiting lawyers from engaging in “conduct involving dishonesty” and “conduct that would seriously interfere with the administration of justice.”
The Clark letter, says the bar’s complaint, “stated that the Department of Justice had ‘identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.' This statement was false. The Department was aware of no allegations of election fraud in Georgia that would have affected the results of the presidential election.”
This is an unusual, even aggressive, use of the bar’s disciplinary power. For one thing, the Clark-to-Kemp letter wasn’t sent. The ethics rules cover attempts to engage in unethical conduct, and Clark’s relentless efforts to submit a document he had been told was false could fall within their ambit. Still, reaching inside the Justice Department’s internal disputes to police the conduct of lawyers is a major step.
Moreover, the criminal investigation of Clark is still unfolding, along with a probe by the Justice Department inspector general. After the Watergate scandal, some Nixon administration officials lost their law licenses, but those actions generally occurred in the aftermath of criminal prosecutions.
So, Clark may have some serious arguments to make in response to the bar complaint, which will now be reviewed by a disciplinary board. Instead, he submitted an answer, the public version of which is partly redacted, consisting of 54 “defenses,” one more outlandish than the next. It was signed by, among others, Catholic University law professor Robert A. Destro, who served as an assistant secretary of state during the Trump administration and who on Jan. 6 met at the State Department with two leading election deniers.
The document reads like something the Federalist Society would submit if it had created an artificial intelligence program to draft legal pleadings. The bar doesn’t have authority to discipline Clark because that “would intrude on the President’s exclusive and unreviewable authority over federal criminal and civil investigations occurring during his term of office.” The bar can’t act “because the President has an absolute right to seek legal and other forms of advice as to the discharge of his responsibilities under the Take Care Clause.”
Disciplining Clark “would intrude on the President’s exclusive and unreviewable authority to remove and appoint senior officials of the Department of Justice.” It would violate the separation of powers, the supremacy clause, the confrontation clause, the equal protection clause, the due process clause and the prohibition against bills of attainder.
Also, he argues, it would trample on executive privilege, law enforcement privilege, the major questions doctrine, the political question doctrine, Clark’s “official immunity” and his freedom of speech. The Senate’s acquittal of Trump at his second impeachment bars the charges. Even Hunter Biden’s laptop makes a surprise appearance.
This is the constitutional equivalent of throwing a large pot of spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. “Many of his defenses are frivolous, garbage, wacky,” said Washington University law professor Kathleen Clark, an expert on legal ethics.
This man was almost attorney general — in fact, in his pleading, he argues that he was, for a brief spell. Watch this space — and beware a second Trump administration. | 2022-09-16T20:18:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Can Jeffrey Clark keep his law license? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/jeffrey-clark-legal-trouble/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/jeffrey-clark-legal-trouble/ |
Bears players slide on a soggy football field to celebrate their win over the 49ers in Chicago; a full harvest moon looms over the Suleymaniye mosque in Istanbul; remembrances are held in New York and Virginia on the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon; a stampede occurs at Moi International Sports Centre in Nairobi ahead of incoming Kenyan President Ruto’s inauguration.
Sept. 12 | Yeoncheon, South Korea
A couple takes photos in a field of sunflowers at a park.
Sept. 11 | Sisikon, Switzerland
Xantheia Pennisi of Australia dives from a platform during the final day of competition in the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.
Red Bull/Getty Images
Sept. 11 | Chicago
Bears center Cody Whitehair, left, and quarterback Justin Fields, right, celebrate with other teammates in the rain after their win over the San Francisco 49ers at Soldier Field.
Sept. 16 | Amsterdam
The artwork "Casa Tomada" ("House Taken"), by artist Rafael Gomez Barros, is part of the exhibition "Creeps" at Rijksmuseum.
Koen Van Weel
Sept. 12 | Los Angeles
Quinta Brunson, winner of the Emmy for outstanding writing for a comedy series for “Abbott Elementary,” checks on Jimmy Kimmel as he lies onstage during the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Sept. 14 | New York
A model presents a creation from the Tom Ford Spring/Summer 2023 collection during New York Fashion Week.
Sept. 10 | Istanbul
A full moon sets behind the Suleymaniye Mosque.
Emrah Gurel/AP
The annual “Tribute in Light” is illuminated above Lower Manhattan on the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.
Sept. 11 | Arlington, Va.
First responders look as an American flag is unfurled on the side of the Pentagon to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Oliver Contreras for The Washington Post
Sept. 13 | Edinburgh, Scotland
The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II is carried by pallbearers from St Giles' Cathedral before being flown to London and taken to Buckingham Palace.
Sept. 16 | Izyum, Ukraine
Military and police investigators start the exhumation of a mass gravesite. According to officials, there are 445 single graves and at least one mass grave containing 17 bodies.
Sept. 13 | Nairobi
A woman, center, gestures for help as security forces intervene during a stampede at the entrance of Moi International Sports Centre Kasarani ahead of incoming Kenyan President William Ruto's inauguration.
Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images
Sept. 13 | Foresthill, Calif.
A home that survived the Mosquito fire is surrounded by flames and smoke. The Mosquito Fire, the state's largest blaze, has now swept through nearly 50,000 acres in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with several small nearby towns evacuated. | 2022-09-16T20:18:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pictures of what happened this week: Bears players slide on a soggy field to celebrate their win over the 49ers; remembrances are held on the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/09/16/best-photos-of-the-week/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/09/16/best-photos-of-the-week/ |
Afghan evacuees in Albania are being housed at the Rafaelo Resort, a hotel along the Adriatic coast. (Ilir Tsouko for The Washington Post)
The Afghans living at the Rafaelo Resort were evacuated from Afghanistan by nonprofits and organizations that expected Albania would be a stopover — a temporary landing pad as evacuees were processed for permanent resettlement in the United States. The Biden administration, which faced intense criticism for the way it ended the U.S. war in Afghanistan and failed to evacuate many of its Afghan allies, says it never promised to provide refuge for everyone.
This year-long bureaucratic mess is only now moving toward a resolution — for some. In the meantime, day-to-day life at the Rafaelo has become the strangest of limbos, as senior producer Ted Muldoon reports with national security reporter Abigail Hauslohner. Surrounded by tourists on the sun-drenched coast of the Adriatic Sea, they are profoundly grateful but also frustrated that they can’t yet start building a new life.
“People told us about just the monotony of the same thing over and over again,” said Hauslohner, “and the uncertainty about the future kind of destroys you.” | 2022-09-16T20:19:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Afghans stranded at a luxury resort - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-afghans-stranded-at-a-luxury-resort/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-afghans-stranded-at-a-luxury-resort/ |
Arkansas GOP gubernatorial candidate Sarah Sanders undergoes surgery for thyroid cancer
Fox News contributor Sarah Sanders makes her first appearance on the “Fox & Friends” television program in New York in 2019. She is now the Republican candidate for governor in Arkansas. (Richard Drew/AP)
Sarah Sanders, the Republican nominee for Arkansas governor and former White House press secretary in the Trump administration, said Friday that she underwent surgery to remove her thyroid gland after doctors discovered cancer earlier this month.
Sanders, 40, said she is cancer free and will be returning to the campaign trail.
“During a checkup earlier this month, my doctor ordered a biopsy on an area of concern in my neck and the test revealed that I had thyroid cancer,” Sanders said. “Today, I underwent a successful surgery to remove my thyroid and surrounding lymph nodes and by the grace of God I am now cancer-free.”
Sanders included a statement from her physician, John R. Sims, who said her cancer was “Stage 1 papillary thyroid carcinoma,” which he described as the most common type of thyroid cancer. Sims said Sanders will require “adjuvant treatment with radioactive iodine” and called her prognosis excellent.
Sanders, an Arkansas native and daughter of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R), managed her father’s unsuccessful presidential run in 2016 before joining Donald Trump’s campaign as senior communications adviser. She also served as a spokeswoman during Trump’s first presidential campaign.
She left the White House as press secretary in June 2019. At the time, Trump urged her to run for governor.
At the White House, she first worked as the top deputy to Sean Spicer, Trump’s first press secretary, until he resigned in July 2017, when she assumed his role. She was the first working mother and only the third woman to serve as White House press secretary, as reported by the Associated Press.
During her early days, some praised her calm demeanor in then-daily briefings with the press — a stark contrast to Spicer. But Sanders soon clashed with reporters, passionately defending Trump while confronting reporters — even when the information she provided was, at times, false.
One such instance earned a note in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report on Russian interference in the election. In May 2017, Sanders claimed that the White House had heard from “countless members of the FBI” supporting Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey. She doubled down on the claim the next day, insisting that supportive emails and texts had flown in.
In Mueller’s report, though, she said under oath that the claim was a “slip of the tongue.”
In announcing her candidacy for governor, Sanders said, “I took on the media, the radical left and their ‘cancel culture,’ and I won. As governor, I will be your voice, and never let them silence you.”
She is heavily favored to win in November in the Republican-leaning state against Democrat Chris Jones.
The latest: Trump’s team said Mar-a-Lago boxes contained ‘news clippings’ | 2022-09-16T21:27:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Arkansas gubernatorial candidate Sarah Sanders undergoes surgery for thyroid cancer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/16/sanders-arkansas-governor-cancer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/16/sanders-arkansas-governor-cancer/ |
Iranian woman dies after detention by ‘morality police,’ stirring outrage
Iran has been increasingly enforcing its conservative dress code for women in recent months. (Vahid Salemi/AP)
An Iranian woman who slipped into a coma earlier this week after she was detained by so-called “morality police” died Friday, state media reported, in a case that stirred outrage over the government’s increasingly strict enforcement of ultraconservative dress codes for women.
The woman, Mahsa Amini, 22, was detained on Tuesday in Tehran, the capital, by members of the guidance patrol, a special unit that enforces Iran’s obligatory Islamic dress codes, Amini’s mother, Mojhgan Amini, said in an interview with Radio Farda on Thursday. Within hours of the arrest, “we hear that she is in a coma,” her mother said.
“They killed my angel,” she said in an interview with BBC Persian on Friday.
The police said that Amini suffered a heart attack after being taken to a police “education and advice” center, state media said. Her family insisted that she had no prior health problems, and activists asserted that she may have been beaten by the police. On Friday, as scattered protests erupted in Tehran over the death, the interior ministry ordered an investigation, which it said was ordered by Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi.
Economic protests challenge Iran’s leaders as hopes for nuclear deal fade
The headscarf and other conservative dress, known as hijab, have been compulsory for woman since Iran’s 1979 revolution. Raisi, a hard line cleric who assumed office last year, has called for strict enforcement of the dress codes. The guidance patrols have become increasingly assertive of late, with their distinctive green-striped vans featured in a series of videos that have gone viral online and provoked anger — including one from last month that appeared to show a detained woman being thrown from a speeding van.
Another recent video showed a mother stepping in front of one of the vans while her daughter was inside, trying to stop it from moving by placing her hands on the hood.
Amini, a Kurdish woman from western Iran, had been visiting Tehran with her brother when she was arrested, her mother said. It was not clear what about her attire had attracted police scrutiny, but she was detained as soon as she exited a Tehran metro station.
“My son begs them not to,” the mother said. “He says, ‘we are strangers in Tehran, we don’t know anyone, don’t take her,’” the mother said. “But they beat up my son and take my daughter.”
A video carried by Iranian media outlets Friday purported to show Amini in the police station. In the video, which was edited, she can be seen in a large hall filled with women, sitting for a moment, then approaching another woman who appears to be an authority figure and gestures toward Amini’s clothes, sweeping her headscarf in her hands before walking away. Amini can then be seen putting her hands to her face, shortly before collapsing onto a chair.
Pictures of Amini in the hospital, intubated, circulated widely on social media, provoking anguished reactions from activists, celebrities and reformist political figures. In one post, Asghar Farhadi, a prominent Iranian filmmaker, wrote: “We are pretending to be asleep at the face of this never-ending oppression. We are all partners in this crime.”
Following her death, security forces clashed with people in front of Tehran’s Kasra Hospital, in the north of the capital, where Amini was treated, according to videos posted on social media. Some videos also showed protesters nearby at Argentina Square, chanting against Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Khamenei is a killer; his government is invalid,” they chanted.
Babak Dehghanpisheh in Phoenix contributed to this report. | 2022-09-16T21:36:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Iranian woman dies after detention by ‘morality police' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/iran-woman-dies-detention-police/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/iran-woman-dies-detention-police/ |
Exhausted workers in education, healthcare and the railroad industry are pushing back after months of staffing shortfalls
Striking nurses demonstrate for better working conditions on the public sidewalks outside Riverside Hospital on Sept. 13 in Minneapolis. (Annabelle Marcovici for The Washington Post)
With more than 11 million job openings and only 6 million unemployed workers, employers have struggled for more than a year to hire enough people to fill their ranks. That mismatch has left employees frustrated and burnt out, and is fueling a new round of power struggles on the job.
Everything you need to know about the averted rail strike
Too may industries are still struggling to find workers. The share of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one is at 62.4 percent, a full percentage point lower than it was in February 2020, according to Labor Department data.
The stress of working at a job that’s understaffed is playing a big role in workers’ demands, which often revolve around staffing — or lack of it. Seattle teachers wanted better special education teacher-to-student ratios. Railroad conductors and engineers were asking for sick leave. And the nurses who stopped work in Minnesota said they’re looking for more flexible schedules and protections against retaliation for reporting instances of understaffing.
“Ever since the pandemic started, we were incredibly short-staffed,” Montijo, 33, said. “I had to work off-the-clock because there was nobody there. We couldn’t find staff and if we did, we were constantly having to train someone, always having to start over.”
“When you look at the jobs that are having trouble hiring, it’s the ones with really long hours, inflexible schedules, not great pay and limited benefits,” said Paige Ouimet, a professor at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School who focuses on finance and labor economics. “Running your workers like this — asking them to do 20, 30 percent more because you’re short staffed — it’s very much a short-term strategy. You’re going to keep losing people.”
Lauren Kaori Gurley and Jeff Stein contributed to this report. | 2022-09-16T21:49:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Worker shortages in education, healthcare and rail jobs are fueling labor crises - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/16/worker-shortage-strikes-economy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/16/worker-shortage-strikes-economy/ |
Old, new and borrowed — D.C.’s 2022 ballot has it (almost) all covered
D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson campaigns outside the Marie H. Reed Elementary School voting place in Washington on June 21. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)
The District’s Nov. 8 Election Day ballot calls to mind the old wedding rhyme: “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” Whether those ballot choices collectively promise good fortune for the city is another matter.
Certainly, the principal contestants for mayor, D.C. Council chair, at-large council member, and the Ward 1 and Ward 6 council seats are solid links to the past.
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) is completing her second term. Phil Mendelson (D) is serving his third as council chair. Given the token opposition they face in the general election, Bowser and Mendelson are positioned to add more years of service to their D.C. government legacies. Let’s hope the next term won’t see a continuation of their infantile tug-of-war over who gets to have the last word on things D.C.-related. The two leaders need to act their ages and place the city’s interests above personal glory.
Two other veterans, Council members Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1) and Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), are expected to win reelection — particularly Allen, who is running unopposed.
Unfortunately, if the four incumbents behave true to form in their next term, we can also expect continued division along moderate and liberal lines, with Nadeau and Allen marching in lockstep on the left. That’s an unpleasant scenario. Past city ideological struggles have directed more energy to theatrics and point-scoring, and less to substantive achievements. If ever the District needed thoughtful, levelheaded leaders, it’s now — especially as it faces a growing cohort of anti-D.C. home rule Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Other ballot throwbacks? Three incumbent council members — Kenyan R. McDuffie (D), Elissa Silverman (I) and Anita Bonds (D) — are competing for two at-large Council seats up for grabs. These veteran lawmakers might be characterized, respectively, as liberal-lite, hard-left and squishy middle.
McDuffie, an outgoing Ward 5 Democratic Council member, was ruled ineligible to run for D.C. attorney general during the primaries. So he has switched his party affiliation to independent and is now making a bid to stay on the Council, even if it means bumping off a colleague. All three can claim legislative track records. Each has chaired a council committee. A review of their handling of government oversight responsibilities, however, presents decidedly mixed results. Silverman wins points for tenacity and persistence; McDuffie scores well for his composure and lawyerly approach. But Bonds earns a failing grade for stewardship.
They are known quantities, and not hard choices, at least not for me.
There is, however, “something new.” The at-large council race also has three other independent candidates, two of whom warrant a second glance. Karim Marshall and Graham McLaughlin bring not just new energy but genuine ideas and plans to the campaign. Each makes a good case for a place at the legislative table. But when, and at whose expense? So maybe hard choices after all.
“Something new” also comes in the Ward 3 and Ward 5 council races likely to be won by Matthew Frumin (D) and Zachary Parker (D). Do they, as the wedding rhyme suggests, represent hope and optimism? Will they bring a desire to get things done for the city, and not a taste for showboating? This city has seen too much of the latter and not enough of the former.
“Something borrowed”? That’s Initiative 82, which lets District voters decide whether to steadily raise the city’s tipped minimum wage of $5.35 per hour to match the standard minimum wage of $16.10 by 2027. Nothing new here.
A reasonable facsimile of the idea appeared on a D.C. ballot in 2018, and was endorsed by a majority of voters.
Only to be overturned by the Council months later.
The pro and con arguments are pretty much the same this time around. Proponents claim Initiative 82 would standardize pay, reduce wage theft by employers and make tipping the gratuity that it’s supposed to be, rather than a means to subsidize worker pay. The restaurant industry counters that adoption would be a financial game changer for owners who would have to raise menu prices and costs for businesses already brought low by the coronavirus pandemic.
Expect to hear a lot more about this in the run-up to Election Day.
I have an admittedly parochial question concerning Initiative 82, which I raised with both Adam Eidinger, an organizer with the pro-Initiative 82 D.C. Committee to Build a Better Restaurant Industry, and with the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington. To wit: How many of the city’s tipped wage workers are residents of the District of Columbia?
Eidinger said the answer was not readily available, but he estimated that two-thirds of tipped-wage workers in the city “are from the suburbs.” The S-3 Group, which has been retained to work with the Restaurant Association on Initiative 82, wrote in an email “RAMW does not have data on how many of the city’s tipped workers are residents of D.C.”
D.C. voters may or may not wish to bear that nugget in mind.
As for “something blue,” which stands for “love, purity, and fidelity,” and D.C. politics? Fuhgeddaboudit! | 2022-09-16T21:50:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Bowser, Mendelson and other familiar names top D.C.'s 2022 ballot - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/dc-election-day-ballot-bowser-mendelson/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/dc-election-day-ballot-bowser-mendelson/ |
Early intervention can make a big difference
Students at Meeting Street Academy in Spartanburg wear T-shirt “uniforms,” and each class has one shirt color. (Kathleen Parker/The Washington Post)
SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Two superstars recently converged in this upstate college and former mill town. One was New York Times best-selling novelist, Mary Alice Monroe; the other was Meeting Street Academy, a sparkling downtown school for underserved children, where Monroe spoke to fifth-graders about her latest children’s book, “Search for Treasure.”
"Get to know your world outside,” she told the students, who had just finished her book, the second in a series. She spoke to them of common creatures they might run into — alligators, spiders, snakes — and encouraged them to learn their names. “When you know about them, you care about them,” she said.
Academic achievement isn’t a sidebar but a headline. Data show Academy students scoring as high or higher than other schools, nationally and statewide, including some elite, private schools. During the 2020-2021 school year, students were in the 92nd percentile national ranking in both math and reading. In 2021, the academy was one of 325 schools nationally to receive a Blue Ribbon Award from the U.S. Education Department. | 2022-09-16T21:50:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why Meeting Street Academy in Spartanburg is having great success - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/early-intervention-school-spartanburg-south-carolina/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/16/early-intervention-school-spartanburg-south-carolina/ |
Farewell to Outlook, The Post’s home for essays, arguments and criticism
Perspective by Robert G. Kaiser
Steve Luxenberg
Outlook, the print section of commentary and analysis that has graced this newspaper’s Sunday edition for nearly 70 years, came into the world quietly on Dec. 19, 1954. No birth announcement appeared in that day’s paper. No explanation for curious readers as to why the section formerly called Editorials had a new name. Nothing to indicate that the change was more than cosmetic.
This is Outlook’s last edition. A few weeks ago, The Washington Post informed subscribers by email that “the essays and analysis appearing in Outlook will now be found exclusively in Opinions in the A section and online.” Befitting the mission that the section eventually embraced — to interpret and witness and seek out unheard voices, and perhaps help Post readers make a little more sense of the world — Outlook will end its run by telling its own story.
Fortunately, there’s plenty of material for a rich obituary. Outlook’s life was a full one. There were triumphs, embarrassments, hits and misses in the section’s weekly quest to provide a mix of significant reporting, opinions worth arguing about, occasional splashes of humor and tragedy, and new ideas that otherwise might never have made their way into the paper. The work of Outlook’s many editors and contributors provoked and enlightened generations of print readers.
It has fallen to the two of us, editors of Outlook from different eras, to give Outlook a proper send-off. We can’t pretend to be neutral. We loved our time running it. We’re proud of its accomplishments, humbled by its shortcomings and determined, with the help of our many Outlook colleagues, to stick with the mission, to provoke and interpret.
First, though, a pause to thank Post print readers, current and past, for letting us into your homes for more than 3,500 Sundays. It’s been a privilege. More than that, it’s been great fun.
Outlook was born in optimism and nurtured in prosperity. In early 1954, for the first time in the 20 years since Eugene Meyer had bought the failing newspaper at auction, The Post was on the verge of making money. Conditions were favorable. Washington’s postwar economy was booming. Advertising revenue was up. Circulation was steady at 200,000.
But the prospect of a modest profit wasn’t enough to satisfy the ambitions that Meyer’s son-in-law, Philip Graham, had brought to the paper when he took over as publisher. The Post still ranked third among Washington’s four newspapers. Then, in March 1954, came the “defining moment for the company,” wrote Meyer’s daughter Katharine Graham, who would later lead The Post to great heights after her husband’s death. The Post bought its only morning competitor, the Washington Times-Herald. It was a deal that Meyer and Phil Graham had been trying to make for years.
Overnight, the paper was transformed. Determined to retain as many Times-Herald readers as they could, Meyer and Graham put both names on the masthead and stuffed the combined edition with nearly every feature that had appeared in either publication. The result was a jumbled mess, but the formula worked. Times-Herald readers and advertisers moved over to the new paper. Circulation nearly doubled, to almost 400,000. Suddenly, Graham’s ambitions became something more than pipe dreams. The paper could expand. It could open its first overseas bureau. It could have a “brains section” — the term Graham used to describe the idea that became Outlook — to bring intellectual heft to the Sunday paper.
What would this new section contain? The country was changing, giving the “brains section” plenty of opportunities to showcase the work of Post journalists trying to understand those changes. After the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that said separate schools were inherently unequal, readers saw that Outlook had acquired a special interest: reportage on the South, race relations, resistance to desegregation. The July 15, 1956, issue featured “Old-New South Is a Troubled Land in Transition,” staff reporter Robert E. Baker’s impressionistic account from “nine weeks and 7000 miles in nine Southern states looking at the racial issue.”
Reading it now, one can see Baker struggling to break away from the conventions of news writing. “You hear clearly the shouts of defiance to the Supreme Court’s desegregation decision,” he wrote, “the vows that never, never will the South comply, and you see how tension has mounted…” Baker didn’t complete his thought. He didn’t make an argument. He quoted mainly White people, with the exception of one “elderly Negro minister” who said that “no white person anywhere can tell you how it feels to be a Negro.”
But Baker’s article, tentative and incomplete as it was, featured the reporter’s voice, something rarely found in news columns. Here was an early hint of how Outlook would distinguish itself — as a place where readers might find something unexpected each Sunday.
If a single word could be used to characterize Outlook and its history, that word might be “voices.” These were familiar voices at first, nearly all male and White, a mirror of the newspaper itself in the 1950s and early 1960s. Then, over the next decade, they tentatively came to include voices not previously heard.
But before the section could give voice to others, it had to establish its own. Looking through the archives, the June 10, 1962, issue stands out. On that date, Outlook went from hodgepodge to something akin to a magazine. It was a complete makeover, the first of many. Each page acquired a label. The Metropolis on Page 2, followed by The Nation, The World and A Further Outlook, suggesting new ambitions that were boundless. The editorial and op-ed pages occupied their usual positions at the back, but those weren’t Outlook’s responsibility. This hybrid structure — Outlook under the newsroom, separate from editorial — became a source of confusion for readers and contributors alike.
In the mid-1960s, civil rights and the war in Vietnam were the defining stories, and Outlook sought out voices on both. Perhaps the most important article ever published in the Outlook section — certainly one of the most closely read in official Washington — appeared on June 4, 1967. Its author was Ward Just, a brave and adventurous correspondent who was coming home after 18 months as The Post’s Saigon bureau chief.
The United States had decided that Vietnam was the front line in its anti-communism crusade, and Just had written hundreds of news stories about the mounting causalities and the chaos in the new South Vietnamese government. He had reported on an ambush in which he was seriously wounded. Now he wanted to sum up his experience, to share with Post readers what he considered the truth about a war that the Johnson administration and its military commanders insisted was going well.
His long dispatch for Outlook began powerfully: “This war is not being won, and by any reasonable estimate, it is not going to be won in the foreseeable future. It may be unwinnable.”
This was not conventional journalism. Just didn’t attribute his conclusion to “knowledgeable sources” or “senior officials.” Because he was a dogged reporter and a brilliant writer (he left The Post a few years later for a long career as a much-lauded novelist), he had the confidence to say precisely what he had concluded. Skepticism had crept into the work of other correspondents, but Just’s Outlook piece stood out for its absence of “on the other hand” qualifiers. He was exploiting the freedom that the Outlook section allowed.
Just’s article jolted colleagues at The Post, members of Congress, military officers, war planners and others in the news media. It depicted a corrupt South Vietnamese government and military, a society that did not share the Americans’ preoccupation with communism as the overriding evil, and a huge team of Americans that didn’t know what it was doing. “What is missing” among those Americans, Just wrote, “is a sense of purpose and a sense of priorities. No one can agree on what the situation in Vietnam is, except that it is surely unsatisfactory.”
After the article appeared, it wasn’t difficult to find Washington Post readers who had previously supported the war effort (as The Post’s editorial page then did) and who now said Just’s essay had changed their minds. The idea of Outlook as a venue for pieces that challenged conventional wisdom or popular belief had taken hold. Years later, one Outlook editor cheekily summed up the section’s mission: The best Outlook pieces, he said, are the ones that tell readers, “Everything you think about that issue is wrong.”
As the paper’s news, Style and sports pages opened up to more experimental writing, contributions to Outlook from staff reporters waned. By the 1990s, the section’s editors were working harder than ever to find outside contributors. Some options arrived “over the transom” — in the mail or, later, via email. Few of these unsolicited offerings made it into print. As the editors routinely explained in phone calls and rejection notes: “That’s not an Outlook piece. An Outlook piece is not just an op-ed in more words. It’s a reported essay that takes us to places we haven’t been before.”
In the constant hunt for unheard voices, Outlook editors became skilled ghostwriters. It was unrealistic to expect a polished piece from someone who had never thought of trying to write for a newspaper. Outlook’s archives abound with first-person stories crafted from in-depth conversations between editor and storyteller. Often, it was the only way to hear the voice of someone surviving nightly bombardments in a war zone, a nursing home resident describing how the coronavirus made her a prisoner in her room or a professional baseball umpire on what it’s like to call balls and strikes.
The section also thrived by dreaming up recurring features. Outlook’s contrarian impulses were embedded in Five Myths, which debuted in 2006 and evolved into a permanent and popular format for challenging received truths. Another long-running Outlook innovation, launched on a lark for the 1982 midterm elections, appeared only once every two years. It was the Outlook Crystal Ball competition, which returned for 15 more cycles. A dozen professional pundits, pollsters and campaign consultants were asked to predict how many House, Senate and governors’ seats the two parties would gain or lose that November. In a presidential year, their ballots included their guesstimates for the electoral vote.
In the early Crystal Balls, experts were eager to compete. But over time, Outlook editors found it harder to fill the field. What was supposed to be a bit of fun turned out to be serious business for prognosticators who didn’t think it was good for their reputations to whiff in such a visible contest. In 1996, the editors decided to branch out. They invited a couple of local high school classes to participate. Two years later, the 71 students from the 10th-grade communication arts classes at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md., won the Crystal Ball, garnering national news coverage as they beat the pros. Ten years later, in 2008, another crop of Blair students did it again.
Nothing delighted an Outlook editor more than discovering writers and watching their stars rise. One exceptional example was Patrick Welsh, an English teacher at what was then T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va. An Outlook editor had been looking for a teacher to write from the front lines of the classroom, and he invited Welsh to come up with a series of pieces on high school life. That led to a relationship with the section that lasted 30 years. Under the standing headline “Tales Out of School,” Welsh wrote more than 90 pieces and became an education celebrity. He appeared often on PBS and published a book that grew out of his Outlook pieces.
Outlook also remained a place where Post reporters — proscribed from expressing their opinions — could at least share first-person accounts and reported analyses. In 1992, staff writer George Lardner Jr. wrote the most difficult story of his career for Outlook. He investigated the murder of his daughter, and how the criminal justice system’s failures in Massachusetts had contributed to her death. His nearly 10,000-word account, “The Stalking of Kristin: The Law Made It Easy for My Daughter’s Killer,” won a Pulitzer Prize, the first of two for work that appeared in the section. The other went to book critic (and former Outlook editor) Carlos Lozada in 2019, for what the Pulitzer Board called his “warm emotion and careful analysis in examining a broad range of books addressing government and the American experience.”
Outlook has always been a team effort. Since the 1990s, that effort has revolved around a handful of story editors, an art director and a copy editor. Eye-catching pages have long been central to Outlook’s identity, as well as the headlines. For decades, a visitor to Outlook’s office on Friday afternoons would see the entire staff huddled around a computer, debating headline possibilities for the week’s pieces.
The decision to retire the Outlook section, and to consolidate the paper’s opinion journalism in the editorial department, is a measure of how dramatically the newspaper business has changed in its march from print to digital publication.
Twenty years ago, the Sunday edition was key to the paper’s prosperity. More than 900,000 people bought a copy every week. It was bursting with advertising — inserts, pages and pages of classifieds, and so many display ads that the main news section routinely added more pages to accommodate them. Outlook was a vital part of that Sunday package, which at its peak was delivered to more than 70 percent of households in the Washington metropolitan area. No U.S. paper anywhere could match that figure.
Today, The Post has nearly 3 million paying subscribers. Only 300,000 take the Sunday edition. This article will be read primarily by that dwindling and aging print audience, as well as online readers who might bump into the story while browsing the internet with their phones, tablets or laptops. Many of The Post’s digital readers don’t know an Outlook section ever existed. They know only the many discrete Outlook articles that went viral. And the unheard voices that Outlook editors were among the first to seek out now crowd the internet, where social media offers instant access to all.
After years of shrinking revenue and circulation, an economic transformation is again underway at The Post. The newspaper’s staff has grown by about 50 percent since Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, bought the paper in 2013. The Post has opened new bureaus all over the United States and around the world. Editing hubs in London and Seoul allow The Post to act as a global news service, constantly refreshing its stories, photos and film clips. The Post’s YouTube channel, featuring the work of the video division, has 2 million followers.
The “brains section” fulfilled its mission, a mission designed for a print audience. The Post now plays in a different league, which requires new strategies. But wherever Post journalism goes next, Outlook’s spirit of inquiry will live on.
Robert G. Kaiser, a former managing editor of The Post, edited Outlook from 1982 to 1985. Steve Luxenberg, a Post associate editor, was Outlook editor from 1996 to 2005. | 2022-09-16T21:50:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Farewell to Outlook, The Post’s home for essays and arguments - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/09/16/farewell-outlook-section/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/09/16/farewell-outlook-section/ |
LAKE OZARK, Mo. — Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Trudy Busch Valentine called for compassion for immigrants, criticized the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and pressed the need to address climate change during a candidate forum before a gathering of journalists on Friday — one notable for the absence of the race’s clear frontrunner. | 2022-09-16T21:50:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | GOP candidate Schmitt a no-show at Senate debate in Missouri - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-candidate-schmitt-a-no-show-at-senate-debate-in-missouri/2022/09/16/cf4df4b2-3602-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-candidate-schmitt-a-no-show-at-senate-debate-in-missouri/2022/09/16/cf4df4b2-3602-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
Steep fuel price hikes spark violent protests in Haiti
By Widlore Mérancourt
People ride motorcycles past burning tires in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Thursday. (Johnson Sabin/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Edris Fortuné can’t work without his motorcycle. The photographer and political activist is worried that a government plan to increase the price of fuel will make everything more expensive — while rendering it impossible for him to earn a living.
So Fortuné joined the thousands who poured into the streets of Port-au-Prince and other cities this week to demonstrate against the price hikes and the interim government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. People burned and looted businesses and government offices and gunfire rang out throughout the capital. Foreign embassies suspended operations and stores shut down.
It’s a new round of unrest in a country beset by worsening hunger, record inflation, spiraling gang violence and political instability deepened by the brazen and still-unsolved assassination last year of President Jovenel Moïse.
Haiti’s assassination probe has stalled. The U.S. one is advancing.
“Ariel Henry doesn’t have sympathy for the Haitian people,” Fortuné, 42, told The Washington Post. “The increase of the gas price is a provocation. It’s further proof of his arrogance. The misery in the country will get worse.”
Protests spread across this Caribbean nation, from the beleaguered capital to the ordinarily tranquil cities of Gonaïves in the north and Jérémie in the southwest.
The World Food Program said Friday that looters stormed a warehouse in Gonaïves and made off with enough food to feed 100,000 schoolchildren through the end of the year. Haitian police said they would temporarily suspend already-issued gun permits.
“The government raises fuel prices, the street spits its anger,” blared the newspaper Le Nouvelliste.
A year after deadly earthquake, Haitians feel ‘abandoned’
Henry said this week that the government could no longer afford to subsidize gasoline, diesel and kerosene. He said the “state needs to collect more taxes so it can answer the needs of those who are less privileged.”
“Do you find it normal that the state wants to launch social programs and is only able to collect 3 billion gourdes when we are spending more than 50 billion gourdes to subsidize fuel for people who can pay the normal rate?” he asked in a national address on Sunday. “We will have to adjust fuel prices.”
Under Henry’s plan, the cost of a gallon of gasoline would more than double from $2.10 to $4.79. A gallon of diesel would jump from $2.97 to $5.63 and kerosene from $2.96 to $5.59.
The government said the prices were “significantly lower than those on the international market.”
Critics accuse Henry of slow-waking progress toward new elections to replace Moïse so he can remain in power. He fired back.
“If it was not for the dilatory behavior of some people, the gangs spreading terror and the difficulties to give the Haitian national police the equipment they need to act with efficacy and to establish peace,” he said, “we would have already launched the consultations to … make the necessary steps to start the election process.”
Few Haitians believe him. As gangs have increased their stranglehold on the Haitian capital in the last year, they say, Henry has been largely silent.
Scores of Haitians, including entire families, have been killed in violent clashes between warring gangs in recent months. Thousands more have been displaced. Civilians have been trapped in their homes without access to food or water.
Ralph Chevry, a board member of the Haiti Center for Socio Economic Policy in Port-au-Prince, called the fuel announcement “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” He said the protests are a reflection of broader discontent with Henry and a desire for political change.
“It’s a very tenuous situation that we’re living in," he said. "We basically have to fend for ourselves.”
Luis Abinader, the president of the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, told the Organization of American States this week that the situation in its neighbor “could be defined as a low-intensity civil war.”
Chevry said Abinader’s assessment was not “far-fetched."
The situation “is degenerating,” he said. "There’s no control.”
Intermittent fuel shortages and chronic blackouts, driven in part by contract disputes and the security crisis, are not uncommon in Haiti. Many people and businesses here rely on fuel for electricity. During previous energy related crises, even hospitals have shut down because their generators run on diesel.
Haiti’s gangs use TikTok, Instagram, Twitter to recruit and terrorize
Fortuné's two-bedroom apartment had no electricity when he spoke to The Post on Thursday night.
“The current situation in this country is creating monsters,” said Fortuné. “What’s happening is a consequence of the government’s inaction.”
Marie Stéphane Lundy opened Lundy’s Beauty Study and Barbershop in Jérémie in August 2021. She opposed the planned fuel price hikes; she said she would likely have to increase the price of her services to make up for it. She worried that she would lose clients and have to lay off more than half of her 11 employees.
And she was afraid that people might loot her little business.
“People are desperate,” Lundy said. “They are frustrated. It’s really not good for us.” | 2022-09-16T21:52:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Haiti protests: Ariel Henry's fuel price increases spark violence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/haiti-protests-fuel-ariel-henry/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/haiti-protests-fuel-ariel-henry/ |
Texas denies George Floyd a pardon for 2004 drug charge
A memorial to George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
After recommending a posthumous pardon for George Floyd last year, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has “reconsidered” clearing his name in a 2004 drug conviction that involved a police officer who has since been charged with crimes related to falsifying records.
“The Members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles have reconsidered their initial decision concerning your client’s application for a Full Pardon and/or Pardon for Innocence,” states a letter the agency sent to public defender Allison Mathis.
The one-page letter, which was reported earlier by the Marshall Project and which The Washington Post obtained Friday, does not give a reason for the board’s decision. It also does not name Floyd, but Mathis told the Marshall Project that it involved her 2021 request for a pardon on his behalf.
The agency in October unanimously recommended a posthumous pardon for Floyd in his 2004 arrest for selling $10 worth of crack cocaine in a police sting. The board later withdrew its recommendation, citing “procedural errors,” after sending it to the office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R).
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment Friday afternoon.
Houston narcotics officer Gerald Goines, who made the 2004 arrest, said Floyd had given the drugs to an unnamed informant. Goines has since been charged in state court with murder, and in federal court with falsifying documents, in a deadly 2019 raid, The Post reported.
In the 2019 case, Goines got a judge to approve a no-knock warrant for a house in a low-income, mostly Latino neighborhood in southeastern Houston, saying a confidential informant had bought an unspecified amount of heroin at the property. During the raid, police fatally shot a couple in their living room and their pit bull.
An investigation later revealed that Goines, who organized the raid, had lied on the affidavit. He later admitted to investigators that there was no confidential informant, police said. Goines, who retired after the raid, has pleaded not guilty to state murder charges. He was charged in federal court with depriving the couple of their civil rights and with obstructing justice by falsifying records. Goines has also pleaded not guilty in the federal case.
Floyd was murdered in 2020 by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, a killing that was captured on video, sparking national protests and international outrage. In the video, Floyd pleads for Chauvin to let him up, saying repeatedly, “I can’t breathe.” Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter and sentenced in June 2021 to 22½ years in prison
Texas board recommends posthumous pardon for George Floyd in 2004 arrest
Mathis said the board’s move was a missed opportunity, according to the Texas Tribune.
“This was a chance for Texas to do a small, good thing: to take an apolitical stance that no matter who a person is, their rights need to be respected and an accurate record of their life is important,” Mathis told the Tribune. “Last year, the board unanimously recommended that Mr. Floyd be granted a pardon, acknowledging that what happened to him was wrong. I have given no other facts or evidence for the board to consider, and it is unclear to me what happened to completely reverse their decision.”
The board’s letter says Mathis can resubmit the application in two years.
Jenn Abelson, Holly Bailey and Nicole Dungca contributed to this report. | 2022-09-16T22:32:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Texas Board of Parole denies George Floyd pardon for 2004 conviction - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/16/george-floyd-pardon-texas/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/16/george-floyd-pardon-texas/ |
At the heart of the dispute is a routine piece of paper that businesses must have to operate
A dispute over a key license could threaten to close down concerts and other events at Nationals Park. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
The District is playing hardball in a dispute with the owner of Nationals Park, effectively threatening to shut down the stadium if Events DC fails to develop the commercial and retail space it promised before the ballpark’s 2008 opening.
Under its original agreement with the city, Events DC had pledged to build 46,000 square feet of commercial and retail space around Nats Park, located along the Anacostia River in the Navy Yard neighborhood. But the company — arguing that the “extremely unique circumstances” of the pandemic and other business factors have made those initial plans unworkable — now is seeking to be released from that responsibility.
If no deal is reached, the dispute could threaten games, concerts and other events scheduled to be held at the ballpark.
Nationals Park brings growth, worries to Southeast Washington
Instead of the original development, Events DC has proposed to finish a considerably smaller, 17,000-square-foot structure that’s already attached to the ballpark at First Street SE and Potomac Avenue SE as retail-only space.
“Events DC and the Washington Nationals are eager to move forward with the build out of the existing retail space and provide more options to the now vibrant Capitol Riverfront community,” Events DC spokeswoman Christy Goodman wrote in an email.
At the heart of the holdup is a routine piece of paper that businesses must have to operate. The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, in a maneuver upping the pressure on Events DC to follow through on its promised development, has said it will not renew the temporary certificate of occupancy the ballpark has used to operate since Opening Day in March 2008.
That certificate is set to expire Sept. 30, according to the Washington Business Journal, which first reported the snafu. The Nationals’ final home of the season game is scheduled for Oct. 2.
In the shadow of Nationals Park, longtime residents face threats beyond gunfire
DCRA spokesman Daniel Weaver said a statement from the agency was forthcoming.
The Nationals did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The dispute comes near the end of a dispiriting season for the Nationals, and amid growing uncertainty about the real estate market. Earlier this year, three seasons removed from a triumphant World Series title, the Lerner family put the team up for sale, saying they hoped to receive initial bids before the last out of the regular season. At least five interested parties, including a mortgage mogul a South Korean billionaire, have explored a purchase, The Post reported last month.
But Events DC, a company that calls itself “the premier host of conventions, entertainment, sporting and cultural events in the nation’s capital,” is the owner of Nationals Park itself, in addition to city venues such as the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and RFK Stadium. The $611 million ballpark welcomed baseball back to the District with a walk-off win on March 30, 2008.
From 2006: For the Stadium, It's Decision Time
In its public filings with the D.C. Zoning Commission, Events DC asked to be released from the agreement it made before that debut to build the full 46,000 square feet of commercial and retail space. It said reducing its prior commitment on development appears to be the only way to resolve the deadlock with the DCRA and obtain a permanent certificate of occupancy.
If the commission were to go along, the company said, it would also obtain the building permit for the project within six months of the decision. In the meantime, it would ask for yet another extension of the temporary certificate of occupancy.
The company’s vision for the 17,000 square feet of retail space is itself reduced from a grander design it submitted in August 2019. At the time, the vision included an additional 35,000 square feet as part of a destination for dining, commercial space and watching sports. The project received D.C. Council approval and a commitment from Events DC of $3.6 million, according to Events DC’s filing before the zoning commission.
But then covid-19 struck, as did difficulties lining up public financing. The dual impact, according to the filing, put that vision on hold, too. | 2022-09-16T23:07:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nationals Park dispute with DC could threaten concerts, other events - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/16/nationals-park-dc-concerts-license/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/16/nationals-park-dc-concerts-license/ |
Security guards, from left, Antonio Hammett, Enrique Galvan and Earl Lee watch over a car exhibition Sept. 10 on the National Mall. (Maansi Srivastava for The Washington Post)
In the day, the National Mall is bustling. Middle schools march around on class trips, visitors stream into the Smithsonians and intramural athletes compete on the lush-green lawn, sending the site’s visitor count to 32 million a year.
But at night is when Earl Lee was stationed there earlier this month — when the tourists were asleep in their hotels downtown, when the crunchy gravel of the Mall’s walkways sat undisturbed, when the gleaming glass case he was guarding along Seventh Street NW provided some of the only light around, fluorescent and soft white.
“You don’t get jobs like this all the time,” Lee, 52, said early one morning, as construction whirred at the National Air and Space Museum a block away. He gazed across the night sky, but his gratitude was more grounded. “You don’t have anybody on your back or all that,” he said.
The National Park Service requires organizations that host events on the Mall to ensure “that no equipment or materials are left unattended at any time,” including overnight, and so here Lee was, keeping watch over the baby-blue 1952 Hudson Hornet parked inside that big glass box. The spectacle was part of an annual “Cars at the Capital” exhibition put on by the Hagerty Drivers Foundation, an offshoot of an insurance company for classic vehicles, whose mission statement calls “America’s automotive heritage” “worth saving and celebrating.”
Lee owns a couple cars and motorcycles, but mostly this was a job, and his own mission statement — as he sat low in his lawn chair next to the Hornet, hours into his 6 p.m.-to-6 a.m. shift — was getting through it.
The history of the National Mall, from the White House to the African American history museum
Lee was the third generation in his family to be born and raised in Prince George’s County and, like many locals, came to the Mall rarely; he had last visited, he said, when chaperoning his son’s field trip to the African American history museum. He calls himself retired, though his list of jobs, formal and informal, is long: running a catering business; renting out party equipment; crafting tombstones and headstones; running errands for neighbors, friends and relatives. A father of two and grandfather of three, he says he learned his handiness from his dad, who worked as a carpenter for Washington Gas.
Lee had been a plumber until he was packing up on the last job of the week in June 2011, tying up some cargo in the back of his car, when a bungee cord snapped back on his right eye, leaving him partially blind. He won a workers’ compensation lawsuit, but the idle time ate at him.
America’s protests are making history. Museums are documenting that in real time.
“I’m so used to taking care of your family, and it goes down to where — nothing, no money coming in. It was hard,” he said. “It was times where I got in my truck, set the cruise control for 75 and let the wheel go. It was just that bad. But I’m good now. So, that’s why I try to stay busy.”
But careful, too. In August 2021, he thought he was having heartburn, but then sweat started to pour from his body. When he stopped at his local fire department, his blood pressure and sugar levels were spiking. “They said they don’t even know how I made it there,” Lee recalled. “I was having a heart attack and didn’t even know it.”
He’s okay now, he said. “I have to take it easy, but I can’t slow down.”
Guard duty was slow enough. Lee and one of his fellow guards, Enrique Galvan, passed some of the time streaming on their phones and tablets — “Alaskan Bush People” this night for Lee, “Jurassic World Dominion” another night for Galvan — and trying to dodge the Mall’s sprinkler system. They spent other parts of the time sharing information about the Hornet with passersby. Around 11:30 p.m., an amateur photographer waved a light around the car and snapped time-lapse photos. Soft piano hymnals emanated from a pop-up church on the grass nearby, itself guarded by three more workers.
Galvan, 42 and soft-spoken, said he’s has been working security on and off for five years, including gigs at the Bullpen in Navy Yard during the Nationals’ World Series run in 2019. He was an optician for 18 years, until he lost his job during the pandemic. Now, like Lee, like many District night workers, he juggles gigs, sometimes driving his Toyota Camry to wherever orders from Lyft or DoorDash take him.
Eventually, Galvan, a Bowie native, wants to cook for a living. He thinks, on these quiet nights, about trying to perfect his jerk chicken recipe, and the shorter-term things. “What bills you got to pay, stuff to get done during the day,” he said. “ … I don’t sleep. I’m a night owl.”
And so the men sat. Around 1:30 a.m., tourists wheeled by on scooters and bicycles, peeking in at the Hornet as they passed, a symbol of a vintage, sepia-toned snapshot of Americana. According to Hagerty, the muscle cars have sold for as much as $1.2 million.
Lee and Galvan were working there for a company owned by Lee’s sister-in-law, where a recent posting lists wages starting at $20 to $24 an hour. Just a few weeks prior, the company had deployed the men to the Citi Open, at Rock Creek Tennis Center.
“I had to be there 7 o’clock in the morning,” said Lee, who drove in from Clinton, Md., in his Ford Flex. “I didn’t leave till 1, 2 o’clock in the morning, because I couldn’t leave until all the players were gone. So, I was there before the players and after the players, and I’ll take a 45-minute drive home, sleep for two hours, get back up then straight back up there.”
The time on the Mall was a shift. Galvan was left looking ahead to time with his young nieces. Lee was left thinking ahead to a farm trip, to pick up a pig for a client’s whole-hog barbecue, his retired hustle continuing.
A stream of runners trickled in around 5 a.m., the first visitors in the Mall’s clockwork wave. The sunrise would soon follow and, with it, the end of the day for Lee and Galvan, who drove home and prepared for the start of a new night. | 2022-09-16T23:20:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What’s the National Mall like at 4 a.m.? For work, they found out. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/18/national-mall-dc-cars/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/18/national-mall-dc-cars/ |
U-Va. grants one-time tuition credit to undergraduates
The rebate offsets a recent tuition increase, amid a push by Virginia’s governor to hold costs in line
Students at the University of Virginia. (Photo by Norm Shafer/ for The Washington Post). (Norm Shafer/For The Washington Post)
Undergraduates at the University of Virginia will get a break on tuition this year, with the university’s leaders approving a one-time credit that effectively zeros out a tuition increase that went into effect this fall.
The change reflects a priority of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) to hold college tuition flat this year amid concerns about inflation, and was helped along by an increase in higher education funding from the state. It echoes similar decisions at other public universities in the commonwealth to back off planned increases in tuition or other costs.
On Friday, U-Va.’s board of visitors voted to give in-state undergraduate students a 4.7 percent credit on next semester’s tuition bill, amounting to $690 per student. The credit does not alter the school’s tuition rate, and does not affect the fees students are required to pay. The change will cost the university $7.5 million.
U-Va. leaders had approved this year’s tuition — which starts at $14,878 for in-state undergraduates — in December, before Youngkin took office. The credit offers a discount for both semesters.
U-Va. officials said the decision was influenced by factors including significant additional funding for higher education — including money designated for increasing affordability for Virginia undergraduates — and Youngkin’s request for public colleges in the commonwealth to hold tuition steady.
Youngkin praised the university and its decision in a statement Friday after the vote. “I have encouraged colleges to keep tuition flat at a time when inflation is hurting Virginia families, and I appreciate that almost all of our public universities across the Commonwealth are doing so,” he said. “Today’s decision demonstrates that we can alleviate the burden on Virginia’s students by halting tuition raises to provide more opportunities for Virginia students to pursue higher education.”
George Mason University is the only public university in Virginia that has held a tuition increase in place this year. A university spokeswoman said Thursday that school officials had been talking with the governor and that they hope to reach a final decision soon.
A student member of U-Va.’s board of visitors, Lily A. Roberts, urged leaders to consider the full cost of attendance, not just tuition.
One board member, Thomas A. DePasquale, wrote in a letter to the governor that the board has worked for years to keep tuition low, but objected to the process that resulted from the gubernatorial demand.
But Whittington Clement, the rector of the board, said in a statement they had carefully considered the request and other factors to provide the credit while maintaining the school’s financial position. “This step is a positive outcome for the University and for the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
“Our highest priority is maintaining excellence, access and affordability here at UVA,” University President Jim Ryan said in a statement Friday. “By taking the time and evaluating new streams of revenue, we were able to offer this credit in a manner that protects those important priorities.” | 2022-09-16T23:20:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | University of Virginia approves tuition credit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/16/university-of-virginia-tuition-credit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/16/university-of-virginia-tuition-credit/ |
A boy cheers during an event celebrating Frances Tiafoe’s return to Prince George’s County at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md. on Sept. 16. Tiafoe lost to Carlos Alcaraz in the semifinals of the U.S. Open. (Eric Lee for The Washington Post)
As throngs gathered in College Park to celebrate the 24-year-old from Hyattsville, Md. whose heroics at the U.S. Open last week enthralled Prince George’s County and the nation, his father maneuvered away from the scrum of fans, reporters and politicians to steal a quiet moment on the back porch of the Junior Tennis Champions Center.
Still, the crowd found him. Passersby stopped to thank and congratulate him. The mayor of Greenbelt shook his hand. It was more attention than Frances Tiafoe Sr. ever wanted or expected to receive when he came to the U.S. from Sierra Leone so many years ago. But he wasn’t fazed, he explained with pride.
“Frances stands for a lot of stuff right now,” Tiafoe Sr. said. “He’s standing for where he came from. He’s standing for College Park. He’s standing for America.”
To the crowd gathered in College Park, Tiafoe stood for Prince George’s. He gave them more reason than ever to cheer on a historic run to the U.S. Open semifinals, becoming the first American man to do so since 2006. They gathered to give the county’s newest star a hero’s welcome as Tiafoe returned to the tennis club he grew up in Friday afternoon.
An improbable tennis prodigy
A line of tennis players and fans, some newly converted after the U.S. Open catapulted Tiafoe’s stardom, snaked around the JTCC’s courtyard to wait for autographs and photos on what county leaders had declared ‘Frances Tiafoe Day’. The bright greens and blues of the Sierra Leonean flag waved from the bleachers as the crowd gathered at the club’s center court to hear Tiafoe speak. When he took the microphone, the three syllable chant that just a week ago echoed through Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York broke out once more: “Ti — Ah — Foe!”
Tiafoe responded softly:
“It takes a village,” he said. “Without this place, you guys probably wouldn’t know who Frances Tiafoe is.”
Home in Prince George’s, to Tiafoe, is still Kenilworth Avenue, the leafy Hyattsville street where he grew up. His whole world used to span just Hyattsville and College Park; pickup games of baseball and basketball just across the Anacostia River at Riverdale Park, and nights spent with his father at the JTCC, where Tiafoe Sr. lived and worked as a maintenance man, earning his son a free spot in the club’s beginner lessons.
Across the county, Tiafoe knows his profile is much larger now.
“It really hits home,” Tiafoe said in an interview with The Washington Post. “A lot of people grew up in Prince George’s County in low-income areas. To do something great and change the whole mind-set of the community … I think we can do a lot of special things here.”
In the line for autographs, Ethan Massay, 9, talked excitedly with his father, Phillip, about Tiafoe’s game. He’s an inspiration for Massay, who is taking lessons with Misha Kouznetsov, Tiafoe’s former coach.
Massay and his father raved about Tiafoe’s volleys and drop shots from the net — “That’s what coach Misha tells me to do,” he said.
“I’m not even into tennis,” said Aina Horton, who was also in line. “But once I heard we have a local from Prince George’s County, and he’s also from Sierra Leone, that got me super excited.”
Tiafoe’s success electrified a tight Sierra Leonean community in Prince George’s, said Horton, now a fan of Tiafoe and tennis (though she is still picking up the rules. She connected instantly with Tiafoe.
“Humble beginnings, [his] parents came here as immigrants, focused and dedicated to tennis since he was three … that just says a lot,” Horton said.
Tiafoe was soft-spoken Friday and is still grappling, he admitted, with the surreal two weeks he’s had. As reporters reminded him, he stands at a changing of the guard in the tennis world after the retirements of Serena Williams and Roger Federer; the tennis scene is hungry for a new champion. At the U.S. Open, he seemed to carry a sense of responsibility — “I feel I let you down,” he told the New York crowd after his heartbreaking semifinal loss.
Back home he pledged to keep striving — on the court and for Prince George’s.
“I think a lot of people overlook this area,” Tiafoe said. “A lot of people [here] feel like they have something to prove.”
Everyone from athletes to congressmen called in to support him in New York — “that’s the best thing about the DMV area,” Tiafoe said, “we really get behind each other” — and it was surreal to think that he could be an example for kids in the county, like fellow Prince Georgian Kevin Durant was for him.
After helping lift his son to the top of American tennis, Tiafoe Sr. wants to turn his attention to helping Prince George’s youth, too. He’s thinking about going out and holding fundraisers, he said. But not before enjoying today. On the back porch of the JTCC, he exhaled.
“You see that window over there?” he said, pointing along the brick wall of the clubhouse. “I lived in that room for 16 years.”
“I did not work in vain,” he said. | 2022-09-16T23:50:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prince George's County celebrates Frances Tiafoe after U.S. Open - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/16/tiafoe-prince-georges-county-homecoming/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/16/tiafoe-prince-georges-county-homecoming/ |
A jersey worn by Michael Jordan in Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals sold Thursday for $10.1 million. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
A jersey worn by Michael Jordan in Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz sold Thursday for $10.1 million via Sotheby’s auction house.
After selling for more than double Sotheby’s initial estimations, the “Last Dance” jersey is the most expensive piece of game-worn sports memorabilia ever auctioned. This mark was previously set at $9.3 million in May for a jersey worn by Diego Maradona in Mexico City during thee 1986 World Cup quarterfinals, in which he scored his historic “Hand of God” goal.
The “Last Dance” jersey is now one of two sports collectibles to surpass the $10 million mark, along with a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card sold for $12.6 million in late August. This is only the second Jordan game-worn NBA Finals jersey to ever reach auction.
The 1998 season was a grueling test for Jordan and the Bulls as they navigated internal conflict and strenuous team dynamics. With Bulls’ players aware the roster could be broken up at season’s end, the campaign was branded the “Last Dance” as the team pursued its sixth ring of the decade.
Brewer: In ‘The Last Dance,’ Michael Jordan was a captivating figure but a frustrating subject
The Bulls would rally to win the 1998 Finals in six games, marking Jordan’s sixth championship in as many Finals appearances. Jordan averaged 33.5 points, 4 rebounds and 2.3 assists during the series while capturing his sixth NBA Finals MVP honor.
Before the record-setting “Last Dance” jersey sale, the most expensive NBA jersey was a game-worn Kobe Bryant jersey from his rookie season, which sold for $3.7 million in May 2021. The Jordan jersey sold for almost triple that amount, highlighting the demand for the historic souvenir and memorabilia associated with 14-time all-star.
This immense demand for Jordan memorabilia in recent years may be linked to the release of ESPN’s “The Last Dance,” which premiered in April 2020. The 10-part documentary series featured never-before-seen footage and interviews, shedding light on Jordan the person and basketball player. The record-setting red jersey was featured in Episode 10, which focused on the 1998 Finals.
“In the weeks since we announced the auction, there’s been palpable excitement from not only sports fans, but collectors alike who are eager to own a rarefied piece of history,” Wachter said. “[The] record-breaking result, with an astounding 20 bids, solidifies Michael Jordan as the undisputed GOAT, proving his name and incomparable legacy is just as relevant as it was nearly 25 years ago.” | 2022-09-17T00:47:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Last Dance’ Michael Jordan jersey auctions for a record $10.1 million - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/16/michael-jordan-last-dance-jersey/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/16/michael-jordan-last-dance-jersey/ |
Military and police investigators start the exhumation of a mass grave site in Izyum, Ukraine. (Wojciech Grzedzinski/For The Washington Post)
IZYUM, Ukraine — Russian forces terrorized residents throughout their six-month occupation of Izyum, a strategic hub in northeast Ukraine, with witnesses and victims this week recounting the torture, killings and forced disappearances that soldiers carried out. And as they bore witness, the Ukrainian officials now back in control of the city worked to unearth evidence of those potential war crimes.
Investigators on Friday started to exhume the bodies of more than 400 civilians buried in a makeshift cemetery and as many as 17 Ukrainian soldiers buried in a mass grave at the same site. The area, located in a forest just outside Izyum, had been used as a Russian military position.
Officials said they had quickly identified signs of torture on some of the corpses. At least one had a rope around his neck, they said.
“Bucha, Mariupol, now, unfortunately, Izyum,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday, naming other places where occupying Russian forces inflicted widespread violence on civilians. “Russia leaves death everywhere.”
About 100 investigators stoically dug up the graves — each marked with a simple wooden cross and number — and took notes on the condition of the decomposing bodies, measuring them and searching for identifying details. The stench of death filled the air, and booms echoed through the woods as Ukrainian forces demined a nearby area.
Several investigators in white jumpsuits and gloves stood in the large pit where the soldiers’ mass grave was discovered. They put each body in a white plastic bag, then carried the bags to flat ground nearby. One worker then unzipped each bag to closely examine its contents. The soldiers’ identities were unknown — their faces so damaged or decayed from the time underground that they were no longer recognizable.
Clothes were searched for any clues of names. In one man’s pockets, the worker found only nasal spray and medicine. Another soldier carried a silver cellphone, a wall plug, a metal spoon, headphones and two painkillers. The investigator used the man’s army fleece to wipe off the phone screen, then tried to turn it on before placing it inside a small bag for further examination.
In the next body bag, he found a man whose left leg was crumpled high under his left arm. He was shirtless and covered in sand, wearing two yellow and blue bracelets on his left wrist. Bit by bit, the investigator wiped away the sand to reveal several tattoos that might help determine the soldier’s identity, including one on his left arm: the name “Alina” with small hearts dotted around it.
Evidence uncovered at the burial site is part of a much larger story of horrors that unfolded in this city after Russian forces took control in March. Despite a sense of optimism over Ukraine’s recent wins in reclaiming territory, civilians coping with the aftermath of the Russian occupation are still reeling over what they have endured. Some are struggling to believe the peace in their city will hold.
Around 50 people are still sleeping in the basement of a kindergarten. Some are so fearful of another attack that they refuse to go home even during the day, instead cooking in the outdoor playground. In March, some 200 people sought safety there, sheltering in such a tight space that “some people would have to sleep sitting up,” said Anna Kobets, 38. One old man was killed when the courtyard was shelled. Even now, loud noises can send the children sprinting back to the basement.
Kobets’s husband, Vitaliy Kaskov, 39, was among those staying at the kindergarten at the beginning of the war. As the Russians advanced on Izyum, the former soldier buried his weapon near the school to hide it from the enemy. He feared that as they scoured the city for collaborators, his presence could put other lives at risk.
Eventually, Kaskov decided to hide elsewhere. When he returned on April 20, Kobets said, he was accompanied by Russian soldiers who had beaten him so badly he had enormous welts on his scalp and could only open his eyes by rolling back his head. The soldiers shot into the air and at the ground. Kaskov showed the troops where he had buried his weapon, and they took him away and brought his wife in for questioning, covering her head with a bag.
For five hours, she said, the Russian soldiers psychologically tormented her, saying they were holding her father in another room and would beat him if she didn’t give them information about collaborators. She was eventually returned to the kindergarten.
Her mother later walked through the city asking Russian soldiers and officials where her son-in-law had been taken. She finally heard he was alive but as a prisoner-of-war in the Belgorod region of Russia. The family has been unable to confirm this, Kobets said. Nor have they seen or heard from Kaskov since the day the troops took him from the kindergarten in mid-April.
Local residents said Friday that many people went missing in similar circumstances, just one reason they feared any interaction with the troops.
One woman, whom The Washington Post is not naming out of concerns for her safety, said three soldiers burst into her home in March and raped her for three hours. “They were drunk and had those strange [drugged] eyes,” she said. “Blood was pouring out of me afterward. I couldn’t leave my house for a week.”
She tried to protect her daughters, ages 15 and 22, from the same fate. But desperate for money, the sisters went out one day to look for work as cleaners, she said. Russian soldiers brought the younger one back home — alone.
“I don’t know where she is,” the mother said Friday, crying for her older daughter. “I don’t know!”
Another group of soldiers insisted on squatting in the same house where she and several other people were staying, forcing the Ukrainians to sleep on the floor of a single room. For three days, they were not allowed to go to the bathroom, she said. She was fed only one spoonful of porridge, she said, and was so hungry that her head was spinning.
Since Russian forces left the city around a week ago, humanitarian workers have been handing out food aid to civilians. But many are only surviving on what little they can scrape together.
Viktor Boyarintsev, 68, picked up a box of food supplies from a handout on his block on Friday — his first aid in months.
“Hurry, hurry!” his neighbors yelled as others ran down the street hoping to receive a package.
Boyarintsev wept as he described how his wife had died of treatable heart disease because they couldn’t get the medicine she needed. Fearing he would die in the shelling if he buried her himself, he handed her over to a local funeral service that sent him a picture of her body and a number on the cross they planted atop the grave.
He still tends the roses his wife planted before she died. With no heat and plummeting temperatures, he is cuddling his two cats for warmth — but worries that this winter could be as bad as the last one.
Finding creative ways to eat and stay warm is how civilians say they survived the occupation.
One older resident, who gave his name only as Mykola, has been living with an unexploded rocket lodged in his water pump well since April. At first he was afraid, he said. But it’s the only place where he can collect water. “So I just got used to it,” he said.
That rocket was among the least of his problems, though. “There were planes dropping bombs. It’s good I survived each second,” he said.
He made a wooden stove to heat his house and has since been collecting wood leftover at former Russian checkpoints, carrying enormous logs on the back of his bike. With no electricity or gas, the wood will help for cooking and staying warm as the weather grows cold in the months ahead.
On Friday, a chilly rainstorm set in several hours after the exhumation had begun. Dirt dug out of the graves started to turn to mud. Rain covered the plastic body bags, and markings written on the side started to run.
The workers paused to put on ponchos — then got back to work. There were still more bodies to find.
Whitney Shefte and Serhii Mukaieliants contributed to this report. | 2022-09-17T01:57:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russian retreat from Izyum reveals mass graves and horrors of occupation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/izyum-grave-ukraine-horrors-rape/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/16/izyum-grave-ukraine-horrors-rape/ |
Justice Dept. appeals judge’s rulings on classified material in Mar-a-Lago case
The Friday night filing asks a higher court to intercede against parts of the decision to appoint a special master to review documents seized from Trump’s club.
A photo attached as evidence to a Justice Department court filing shows documents allegedly seized at Mar-a-Lago spread over a carpet. (U.S. Department OF Justice/AFP via Getty Images) (Handout/AFP/Getty Images)
The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court Friday night to override parts of a judge’s order appointing a special master to review documents seized from former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and club, arguing that some of the terms hamper a critical national security investigation.
The appeals court filing comes a day after U.S. District Court Judge Aileen M. Cannon appointed another federal judge, Raymond J. Dearie, to serve as special master and review the almost 11,000 documents seized in the FBI’s Aug. 8 search.
The new filing from the Justice Department notes that it disagrees with that decision but for the time being is asking the appeals court to intercede on two parts of Cannon’s ruling — one barring criminal investigators from using the seized material while the special master does his work, and another allowing the special master to review the roughly 100 classified documents seized as well as the non-classified material.
It’s unclear how long the special master review, or the appeals, may take.
Dearie, 78, was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan (R) after serving as a U.S. attorney. Fellow lawyers and colleagues describe him as an exemplary jurist who is well suited to the job of special master, having previously served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees sensitive national security cases. | 2022-09-17T02:05:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Justice Dept. appeals judge’s rulings on classified material in Mar-a-Lago case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/16/justice-appeals-mar-a-lago-special-master/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/16/justice-appeals-mar-a-lago-special-master/ |
He vaulted to prominence as a sinister dope peddler called “Mother” in “A Hatful of Rain” and a malevolent North Korean houseboy in “The Manchurian Candidate”
Henry Silva in 1968. (Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images)
His son Scott Silva confirmed the death but did not provide an immediate cause.
In a career spanning five decades, Mr. Silva became one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood, with more than 130 credits in films and on television. He was of Puerto Rican heritage but, as he once quipped, was endowed with a face that allowed “great diversification.”
Mr. Silva was unconventionally handsome, capable of conveying eerie menace or rugged masculinity with his poker face, close-set eyes, blade-like cheekbones and sinuous physicality. He received his breakthrough role on Broadway in 1955 as the well-tailored but malevolent narcotics pusher in “A Hatful of Rain,” a part he reprised on-screen in 1957.
In “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962), based on Richard Condon’s novel about Cold War paranoia, Mr. Silva portrayed a communist agent. He poses as a manservant to an American veteran of the Korean War (Laurence Harvey) who has been brainwashed by communists into assassinating a U.S. presidential candidate.
“The Manchurian Candidate,” also starring Frank Sinatra, flopped at the box office on its initial release but is now regarded as a taut classic. Critic Peter Travers wrote in People magazine upon the film’s 1988 rerelease that Mr. Silva hits “a high in lowdown villainy that hasn’t been matched since.”
Mr. Silva’s other notable early films included “Viva Zapata!” (1952) as a Mexican peasant who confronts Marlon Brando’s revolutionary title character; the Gregory Peck western “The Bravados” (1958) as an American Indian who belongs to a gang of murderous outlaws; and “Green Mansions” (1959) as a Venezuelan tribal chief’s bad-seed son.
In a change of pace, Mr. Silva played one of the stepbrothers in the Jerry Lewis comedy “Cinderfella” and was part of Sinatra’s “Rat Pack” band of casino thieves in “Ocean’s Eleven” (both 1960).
Mr. Silva said he admired Humphrey Bogart and John Garfield and that he yearned to play their kind of street-smart, tough-guy leading men. He got his chance in “Johnny Cool” (1963). His portrayal of a Sicilian-born gangster who hides his killer instincts under a thin dapper veneer did not initially win over audiences or critics.
But “Johnny Cool” drew a devoted following over the years. Among its devotees was director Jim Jarmusch, who cast Mr. Silva as a cartoon-obsessed mob capo in “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai” (1999). “Henry’s face is almost like a mask,” Jarmusch told the Chicago Tribune, “but the things that do flicker across it can be very interesting.”
His leading-man opportunities were limited in Hollywood, and Mr. Silva took an extended hiatus to work in Europe, where he appeared in such fare as “The Return of Mr. Moto” (1965) as the Japanese detective hero and won top-billed gritty parts in spaghetti westerns such as “The Hills Run Red” (1966) and action films including “Assassination” (1967) and “The Boss” (1973).
He told the Chicago Sun-Times that mobsters and other criminals often complimented his work. “They say, ‘My God, where did you learn how to play us?’ I say, ‘I lived with “us.” I grew up with “us” in New York.’ I used to know the guys who used to run the whole areas, the prostitution rings. I used to shine their shoes. They’d say, ‘Kid, c’mere. I want ya to shine my shoes. You [mess] up, I’ll bust your head.’ ”
Mr. Silva, the son of Puerto Rican parents, was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 23, 1926, and grew up in Spanish Harlem. He was about six months old when his father left the family. His mother was illiterate. Mr. Silva was a shy student, often scared in grade school because he barely understood English until he was 8.
He found a much-needed release in movies, particularly the “Andy Hardy” film series starring Mickey Rooney about an all-American teenager. “It was about families — something I never had,” Mr. Silva told the Los Angeles Times. He quit school and left home in his mid-teens, working as a dishwasher and longshoreman, among other jobs, to save money for acting school.
Mr. Silva’s marriages to Mary Ramus, actress Cindy Conroy (a former Miss Canada) and actress Ruth Earl, with whom he had two children, ended in divorce. Survivors include his sons, Michael Silva and Scott Silva, both of Los Angeles.
On TV, Mr. Silva had a memorable turn on the 1960s crime drama “The Untouchables” as a ruthless mob enforcer. He also became a mainstay of action films of the 1980s and 1990s, including “Above the Law” with Steven Seagal and “Dick Tracy” (as the casino owner Influence), and he played a boxing spectator in director Steven Soderbergh’s 2001 all-star reboot of “Ocean’s Eleven.” | 2022-09-17T03:41:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Henry Silva, versatile Hollywood villain, dies at 95 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/16/henry-silva-actor-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/16/henry-silva-actor-dies/ |
The former National Security Agency analyst produced one of the most damaging intelligence breaches of the Cold War
Ronald W. Pelton leaves a detention facility in Anne Arundel County, Md., during his espionage trial in 1986. (Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
Ronald William Pelton was born in Benton Harbor, Mich., on Nov. 18, 1941. He was raised by his father, a manager in a Whirlpool electronics department and a TV repairman, and his stepmother, who was a homemaker. Mr. Pelton’s daughter said he knew little about his biological mother.
Mr. Pelton attributed his financial problems in part to the theft of building materials for a home he was building in Howard County, Md. When he filed for bankruptcy, The Post reported, he “said he had only $6.80 in cash and $8 in a checking account” and “listed his other assets as four old cars, a motorcycle, a $10 watch, a bowling ball, five pairs of shoes and a razor.”
Survivors include three daughters, Paula Strand of Brunswick, Md., Pamela Wright of Warrior, Ala., and Linda Anastasi of Edgewater, Md.; several siblings and half-siblings; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Mr. Pelton’s son, Ronald M. Pelton, died in 2021. | 2022-09-17T03:41:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ronald Pelton, NSA analyst who sold secrets to Soviets, dies at 80 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/16/ronald-pelton-nsa-spy-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/16/ronald-pelton-nsa-spy-dead/ |
Officers sent to the school onFriday night after teams fought, according to police.
A fight broke out Friday night between two high school football teams in Montgomery County, canceling the game, the county police said.
A game was underway at Gaithersburg when police were called about 8:20 p.m., the police said. The Gaithersburg schedule called for a game with Northwest High.
Police were sent in response to a report of a fight between the two teams, the police said.
One arrest was made after someone was found with a knife, police said.
The game was canceled, according to the police. | 2022-09-17T03:41:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brawls stops game at Gaithersburg High, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/16/brawl-football-gaithersburg-high-knife/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/16/brawl-football-gaithersburg-high-knife/ |
Sherwood beats rival Blake with a Hail Mary from a baseball star
Warriors 27, Bengals 21
Sherwood lineman Asa Virga hugs wide receiver Markel King after King's game-winning touchdown catch against Blake on Friday. (Kyle Melnick/TWP)
With five seconds remaining in its game Friday night, the Sherwood football team scrapped its schemes and gave quarterback Amari Allen a simple task: Heave the ball to the end zone.
Allen, who throws a 90-plus-mph fastball as a baseball pitcher, chucked the ball 46 yards to his tallest wide receiver, Eyasu Palmore. Palmore tipped the ball, and wide receiver Markel King, standing behind Palmore, grabbed it near the 3-yard line and ran into the end zone, sending Sherwood players sprinting across the sideline in celebration of their 27-21 win over Blake in Sandy Spring.
“I’m waiting for a tip,” King said. “I was shocked myself. This is beyond a dream. This is special.”
The game-winning connection came between first-year high school players. Allen, the reigning All-Met baseball player of the year who led Sherwood to the Maryland 4A championship in May, played football growing up. While the senior had focused on baseball in high school, he wanted to experience the exhilaration of football before graduating and continuing his baseball career.
King plays basketball, but the senior spends every Sunday glued to his TV watching the NFL. Inspired by Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams, King began training with the football team in the offseason.
When Sherwood (2-1) practiced a Hail Mary on Thursday, players failed to catch the ball. On Friday, after Blake (2-1) punted with 56 seconds remaining, Sherwood began its final drive near the 30-yard line. Allen’s 40-yard run placed the Warriors at the 41-yard line with 30 seconds remaining. After Blake sacked Allen on consecutive plays, he showcased his arm strength.
“We just wanted to throw it up and pray that somebody caught it,” Allen said. “I left it all up to God.”
Sherwood led 21-7 at halftime before Blake used a long run and pass to knot the score early in the fourth quarter. When the Warriors had a chance to take a lead with 2:33 remaining, the Bengals blocked their 30-yard field goal attempt.
Friday’s game held extra significance for players on both teams. Blake, four miles from Sherwood in Silver Spring, opened in August 1998 after Sherwood’s enrollment exceeded its capacity. Blake made the matchup a rivalry in September 2019, when it earned its first win over the Warriors, one of Montgomery County’s most accomplished programs, on a two-point conversion in overtime.
Friday’s game also appeared destined to enter overtime. Instead, it ended with Sherwood players raising King as they broke their postgame huddle.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Sherwood Coach Andrew Fields told his players after the game. “It was the ugliest win. But it was the most beautiful win.” | 2022-09-17T03:54:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sherwood beats rival Blake with a Hail Mary from a baseball star - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/16/sherwood-blake-football-hailmary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/16/sherwood-blake-football-hailmary/ |
Dear Carolyn: My mother- and sister-in-law are truly wonderful family whom I care about, but they’re obsessed with size as though it means health. On every occasion we’ve gathered, body talk occurs a lot. It seems to be a factor of their bond: their “too low” body fat percentages, whispering about large people seen in public, shock at big or pregnant women wearing bikinis, diagnosing family with diabetes on size alone, etc.
These women are extremely educated in the health, nutrition and medical fields. They’re also each half my weight and eight inches shorter. Up until now, I’ve ignored these comments or tried to deflect any blatantly fat-phobic talk while silently hoping they haven’t noticed I’m not like them.
But I gained 15 pounds during the pandemic and it is noticeable. I am already dealing with a lot of self-hatred over it and knowing what my mother-in-law really thinks of bodies over a size 10 is draining. What are some ways I can keep sane and defend myself and others subtly, without feeling as if I’m arguing with professionals on something I’m not doing great at myself?
— Walrus Among Otters
Walrus Among Otters: People can be educated and still be wrong, blind, obtuse or stunted. And gosh, walruses are my favorite funny animal but please don’t do that to yourself.
This may be too much to ask, but I hope that on your next encounter with their body talk, whenever it comes and at whatever weight you are when it comes, you will say your piece: “You may not realize how often you talk about body size. I do, though, and as someone who has a very different body size, shape and type from all of you, I have found it difficult to hear talk of bodies like mine as a problem. You are truly wonderful family and I care about all of you so much. I just hope you will consider what these conversations sound like to me.”
If they are indeed in “health, nutrition and medical fields,” then they are bringing attitudes to their work that aren’t healthy for an array of patients. If you don’t think you’re worth sticking up for, then stick up for those patients, though, for the record, I think you’re completely worth sticking up for, and I really hope you do it.
· I wouldn’t even mention myself or how I feel. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you talk about other people’s weight A LOT. Why do you care so much about other people’s bodies?”
· I’m sorry you’re going through that, letter-writer. If it’s any consolation, people who sit around and obsess over other people’s weight, bodies, and diet choices probably don’t have a healthy relationship with their own bodies or food. In other words, they’re the problem, not you.
And yeah, I’m a 6-foot-tall woman who was gifted with peasant birthing hips. I am of average weight. I work out 4-5 times a week and do my best to eat healthy. I could lose 80 pounds and still not be under a size 10. Your relatives, frankly, don’t sound like very educated or nice people. | 2022-09-17T05:00:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: How to deal with in-laws' constant fat-phobic comments - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/17/carolyn-hax-in-laws-fat-phobic-comments/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/17/carolyn-hax-in-laws-fat-phobic-comments/ |
My problem is that I have a son, a daughter and a grandson — all adults — living under my roof, as they had absolutely nowhere else to go. They are not contributing any money and are not keeping their areas clean and tidy.
It should not matter, but if you have disclosed the fact that the house is paid for, your family might be under the false impression that your expenses are nominal. Or if they are in the throes of a difficult time, they may be reverting back to their childish ways.
If you were the winner, you received tickets to a heavy-metal rock concert. The profit from the raffle was going to be given to the newly married couple to help with their honeymoon expenses.
There were eight guests seated at our table. When she asked if we were interested in buying a ticket, everyone turned her down. The ticket-seller actually got snippy with us before finally moving on.
Frankly, all of us were appalled. Most of the guests gave four to five hours of their day to celebrate with the newlyweds — more for those who traveled a long distance, plus additional expenses if they stayed overnight. You also give a nice gift, and you are still given the shakedown for a raffle ticket to fund the honeymoon!
When my husband and I married, we paid for our honeymoon without help from anyone else. Furthermore, this wedding’s size could have been pared down to save money, or the couple could take a honeymoon later, when their finances allowed it.
No need to feel bad that the raffle-seller got snippy. Perhaps it will prompt her to report back to the bridal couple that their plan was a bust. Then they will all realize how rude and presumptuous it was and apologize to the guests. | 2022-09-17T05:00:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: My kids and grandkid live with me but don’t help out - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/17/miss-manners-help-out-home/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/17/miss-manners-help-out-home/ |
A cheetah lies inside a transport cage at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Otjiwarongo, Namibia, on Sept. 16, 2022. (Dirk Heinrich/AP)
NEW DELHI — When a local king in central India shot dead three cheetahs in 1947, he killed what were believed to be the last of these creatures in the country, and they were declared extinct in India five years later.
The global population of cheetahs is between 6,500 to 7,100, according to a list of threatened animals from the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Africa is home to most of the cheetahs, which are extinct across Asia, except in Iran. The are disappearing in large part because of poaching, shrinking habitats and a loss of prey.
Under the elaborate plan, five female cheetahs and three males, between the ages of 2 and 6 years, were flown on a chartered Boeing 747 jet from Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, to Gwalior in central Madhya Pradesh state. (Organizers had previously said the cheetahs would be first sent to northern India.) The animals were then moved in a chopper to nearby Kuno National Park , where they will be housed, said S.P. Yadav, the head of India’s tiger conservation organization overseeing the move.
“This is the only large mammal which India has lost since independence. It is our moral and ethical responsibility to restore it,” said Yadav.
India has seen an increase in its tiger and leopard populations over the years, government data shows. The number of tigers doubled to nearly 3,000 between 2006 and 2018, despite a decline in the forest area they occupy.
Yadav said India’s goal is to develop a viable population of cheetahs in fenced-in areas. India’s plan, which costs an estimated $11 million, aims to bring in about 50 cheetahs over the next few years from South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
Ravi Chellam, a wildlife biologist and conservation scientist based in Bangalore, said the project’s scientific foundations are “weak” and its conservation claims are “unrealistic.”
“How will a self-sustaining, wild and free-ranging population of cheetahs be able to establish themselves in India when there is no suitable habitat of sufficient size for them to do so?” asked Chellam, chief executive of Metastring Foundation, a technology company working in the field of environment and public health.
While he does not oppose the relocation, he said, the project would redirect resources away from India’s more urgent conservation needs, such as the transfer of Asiatic lions from forests in the state of Gujarat, the only such population of this subspecies left in the world. But the Environment Ministry and state governments responsible have not acted on the 2013 Supreme Court order on the relocation of the lions, numbering a few hundreds, to the park in Kuno, where the cheetahs are being released.
“India’s wildlife action plan that guides conservation over a 15-year period prioritizes native species that need a high degree of protection,” said Chellam. “We are in 2022, and there are no signs of lions being translocated.”
Preparations for the cheetah’s arrival have been in full swing. On Sept. 17, his birthday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to the national park to release the animals. Hundreds of locals, who have been tapped to spread awareness about the animals, will attend. Local media reported that besides watch towers fitted with CCTV cameras, drone squads will keep an eye out for poachers.
Reviving cheetah populations can be challenging. In South Africa, for example, cheetah expert Vincent van der Merwe has worked to increase their population from 217 on 41 reserves in the country to more than 500 cheetahs on 69 reserves in four African countries. This successful approach, he said, has relied on fenced-in reserves as well as preventing people from moving into protected areas where the cheetahs live and cheetahs from coming into areas where humans predominate and attacking livestock.
Cheetahs are not the only animals that have been relocated. The Giraffe Conservation Foundation, dedicated to the conservation and management of giraffes in more than a dozen countries in Africa, has overseen successful relocations within that continent. Stephanie Fennessy, the group’s executive director, said that moving giraffes is very tricky given their size and physiology.
Anant Gupta in Delhi contributed reporting. | 2022-09-17T06:44:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | African cheetahs airlifted to India after going extinct there more than 70 years ago - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/india-cheetahs-kuno-namibia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/india-cheetahs-kuno-namibia/ |
ST. LOUIS — Albert Pujols hit his 698th home run, a two-run drive that pulled St Louis into a sixth-inning tie with Cincinnati in the Cardinals’ 6-5 victory Friday night.
DENVER — John Stearns, a four-time All-Star catcher with the New York Mets, died after a long battle with cancer. He was 71.
PHOENIX — PayPal said it will no longer sponsor the Phoenix Suns if owner Robert Sarver remains part of the franchise when his suspension ends.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden met with family members of WNBA star Brittney Griner and another American detained in Russia, Paul Whelan, the first face-to-face encounter that the president has had with the relatives.
BERLIN — Guerschon Yabusele scored 22 points and France routed Poland 95-54 to set up a showdown with Spain in the EuroBasket championship game.
COSTA MESA, Calif. — Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert fractured rib cartilage after taking a hit during the fourth quarter Thursday night in a 27-24 loss at Kansas City.
NAPA, Calif. — Max Homa moved into position to defend his title at the Fortinet Championship, shooting a 5-under 67 to share the 36-hole lead with Danny Willett in the PGA Tour’s season opener.
SUGAR GROVE, Ill. — Dustin Johnson shot a 9-under 63 at Rich Harvest Farms to take a three-shot lead after the first of three rounds in the LIV Golf Invitational-Chicago.
GUIDONIA MONTECELIO, Italy — Rory McIlroy shot a 5-under 66 at next year’s Ryder Cup course for a one-stroke lead over U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick in the Italian Open.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Esther Henseleit had 10 birdies in an 8-under 64, giving the 23-year-old German a share of the AmazingCre Portland Classic lead with Lilia Vu going into the weekend.
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Aric Almirola took the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series playoff race Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, edging Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Chase Briscoe.
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Noah Gragson held off Brandon Jones at Bristol Motor Speedway for his third consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series victory.
DETROIT — A judge signed off on a fund for more than 1,000 people who said they were sexually assaulted by a University of Michigan doctor, an order that allows victims to start collecting a portion of a $490 million settlement negotiated with the school. | 2022-09-17T06:57:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Friday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/fridays-sports-in-brief/2022/09/17/e12eb620-3649-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/fridays-sports-in-brief/2022/09/17/e12eb620-3649-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
The danger of a hard landing in the United States adds to concerns around the world
Shoppers pass a cash machine in London in April. Britain — along with other major economies, including the United States — faces a possible recession soon, as central banks around the world push to rein-in inflation. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP)
FedEx stock plunged Friday, pulling broader financial markets down as well, after the package delivery company’s chief executive Raj Subramaniam said he expected a “worldwide recession.”
Rate hikes are little help for Estonia's 22 percent inflation, Europe's worst
Central banks are engaged in the most aggressive campaign of rate increases since the late 1990s, according to Citigroup. This month, central banks in Europe, Canada, Australia and Chile have hiked rates, and the Fed is expected to do so for the fifth time since March at its meeting next week.
“I don’t really get the sense that many or any central banks are paying huge attention to how their policies are affecting the rest of the world,” said Maurice Obstfeld of the University of California, Berkeley, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.
Falling food and fuel costs offer poorer nations little relief
Pick your economy: Sizzling labor market or fizzling growth | 2022-09-17T10:13:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Global economy weakens amid inflation fight, war and pandemic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/17/global-recession-inflation-central-banks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/17/global-recession-inflation-central-banks/ |
Amid threats, W.Va.’s only Black female lawmaker stood up for abortion
Second-term legislator Danielle Walker lost her effort to persuade the Republican state to protect abortion rights. But she remains optimistic.
Democratic Del. Danielle Walker speaks to a crowd protesting a sweeping abortion ban at the state Capitol on July 27. The bill passed the legislature and Gov. Jim Justice signed the bill into law on Friday. (Leah Willingham/AP)
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Danielle Walker had the last word of the day. She stood up from her desk on the floor of the West Virginia House of Delegates to try one final time to persuade her colleagues not to pass a near-total ban on abortions in the state.
The Democratic delegate started by reading a letter from one of her constituents, Ash Orr, a 32-year-old transgender community organizer in Morgantown, W.Va. Orr’s letter detailed how they had been raped repeatedly from the age of 10, how they had to sneak pregnancy tests from their mother. How at 15 years old, they were pinned down in a car, assaulted and told they “deserved this.” And how an abortion at 21 years old saved their life. They wanted lawmakers to know that they were “attacking survivors and protecting rapists.”
Walker, 46, then spoke of her own experience seeking an abortion, one that gave her a second chance at life by letting her leave what she called a toxic relationship. Walker, the only Black woman in the legislature, and Orr may not look like the average West Virginian, she said, but they too were entitled to the freedoms that state lawmakers so often say are core of the identity of the state.
“Are Mountaineers always free?” Walker asked. “I am shaken to my core, and I will definitely be a red vote on this bill, because I definitely respect the choices of the Mountaineers who I know are capable of making decisions on their health care.”
On Tuesday, shortly after she spoke, the West Virginia legislature passed a near total ban on abortions in the state, with abortions allowed for victims of rape and incest only if reported to law enforcement and occurring in a narrow window. The House of Delegates voted 78-17, with a handful of Democrats joining Republicans, to pass the new law. On Friday, Gov. Jim Justice (R) signed it into law.
It was the close of a drama that made Walker, who has recently become vice chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party, the face of the abortion rights movement in the predominantly Republican state where fewer than 4 percent of residents are Black. That position has thrust her into the center of politics in a state legislature dominated by conservative White men, and led to threats on her life.
On the first day of Black History Month this year, Walker received an email with the subject line, “Your Plan.” Walker, expecting that the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court would soon overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed access to abortion nationwide, had co-sponsored a bill that would enshrine abortion rights in state law — the plan to which the email referred.
The email included an image of a Ku Klux Klansman giving a Nazi salute. It was captioned: “What do you think the coward hiding under his dunce cap and face mask thinks every time he hears about a black child has been aborted? Be Pro-Life as if your race depended on it! It’s the America thing to do!”
At first, Walker stayed quiet about the email. But when antiabortion protesters arrived at the Capitol later in February, she took to Facebook Live to explain why she no longer felt safe there.
“For some of you who have only seen a white sheet and that hat on movies but not up close and personal, you are privileged,” said Walker, who has often advocated for policies by highlighting her personal story, be it the abortion she received or the death of her son last year from leukemia.
“But some of us who had to see the remnants in our photo album of Black churches being burned down, of Black men and Black children, sons, being hanged in trees or drug behind vehicles or beaten to death or poured with gasoline and set on fire, raping their wives, or even throwing bombs in their homes — how dare you send that to me,” she said through tears.
A week later the organization behind the email, the Berkeley County West Virginians for Life, issued an apology for using what it called “a clearly racist image.” The intent was to “point out that racists would likely support the eugenic abortion of Black people,” Richard Desmoske of Berkeley County West Virginians for Life wrote. “In an effort to oppose racism, I composed a poorly designed and easily misunderstood meme that unintentionally conveyed racism.”
In a lawsuit that Walker filed against the organization alleging emotional distress and intimidation, she called the email “the modern-day digital equivalent of burning a cross in Delegate Walker’s front yard. Everyone knows that burning a cross in the front yard means ‘do what we white supremacists want, or we are coming back, and it will be worse when we do.’”
The court in Charleston threw out her lawsuit, concluding it wasn’t the appropriate venue. Last week, Walker refiled her case at a circuit court in Morgantown, where she lives. Berkeley County West Virginians for Life did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Walker has had a bodyguard since 2020, when she said she received an assassination threat after appearing at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kingwood, W.Va., where she and other protesters were approached by armed counterprotesters and white nationalist groups. She reported the threat to federal, state and local officials, but Walker said no one would provide her with additional security, so she hired her own, paid for by her campaign.
“I didn’t want to be another hashtag,” she said. “I didn’t want to go down as a martyr.”
After the vote on Tuesday, Walker spoke to the crowd of abortion rights protesters who had stuck around the Capitol Rotunda after the vote, to jeer lawmakers who voted for the bill and cheer on those like her, who hadn’t.
“We will organize, we will strategize, and we will mobilize,” Walker told the crowd of about three dozen, many of whom she knows personally. “It ain’t over until November 9th. Because November 8th we will stroll to the polls with confidence knowing that democracy will prevail in West Virginia. We will stroll to the polls because we know justice and liberty for all includes each and every one of us with a vagina, with a uterus, and with ovaries … what you saw today was not us going back, it was them going back because we won’t go back.”
Walker said she hopes to elect more Democrats and scare Republicans into reversing course on abortion — even in West Virginia, a state where Republicans hold supermajorities in the House of Delegates and state Senate. She declared, confidently, that this November would be “Roevember,” reprising a familiar line by abortion rights supporters.
Rita Ray, an 81-year-old who said she received a back-alley abortion before Roe, said she expected the vote but was still in shock.
“Women are trying to be responsible and do the best they can,” said Ray, a White woman who was among the crowd that Walker addressed at the end of the day. “I just can’t believe we are going back 50 years with women treated like second-class citizens with no bodily autonomy. I can’t believe it.”
Ray moved to West Virginia almost 60 years ago when she got a job in the coal fields and the political identity of the state was vastly different.
“This was a very progressive state for years and years,” she said. “We had a strong women’s movement. All of that has been lost over the years. For someone of my age it’s hard to see us go back instead of forward.”
Her two sons have left the state, like so many young people. But in Walker she said she sees hope for West Virginia.
“I would follow Delegate Walker to hell and back,” she said. “That is the most committed, inspiring, powerful, energetic woman. She is one of our biggest assets. She is the future of West Virginia.”
Orr, the 32-year-old community organizer whose letter Walker read on the House floor on Tuesday, met Walker at a rally Orr organized in the wake of the violent protests in Charlottesville, in 2017, in which a woman protesting a march of white nationalists was killed when a man drove his car through a crowd. They later volunteered on Walker’s first campaign for a seat in the House of Delegates in 2018.
Orr testified on the House floor earlier this year about being an abortion patient and a rape survivor. Orr said that they have been inspired by Walker’s continued willingness to persevere in the face of threats.
“Danielle gave me the confidence and just the stamina to get involved in organizing and to get involved in politics,” Orr said. “As an older trans person I want to make West Virginia better for younger queer folks, but it's difficult some days.”
Walker was born in New Iberia, La. She married young, she said, but her first husband died. She remarried at 29 and moved to Morgantown, with her new husband. The two later divorced, but Walker decided to stay in Morgantown to raise their two boys. In 2021, she came out as queer.
Walker became a staple at protests in Morgantown, the home of West Virginia University, for Black Lives Matter and other liberal causes. She decided to jump into elective politics in 2018, she said, because she felt that queer folks, college students and people of color were being ignored and that most lawmakers were governing as if those people simply didn’t exist.
Her proudest legislative accomplishment has been passing a law named after her son that established the Demetry Walker bone marrow and peripheral blood stem donation awareness program, which requires the state’s public health department to create and post information about bone marrow and peripheral blood stem donations. Most of Walker’s bills have failed to gain traction in the Republican-dominated legislature, but she says that’s not her only metric for success.
“I see the change that we are making by getting more people involved,” she said.
Tuesday’s vote showed just how hard it can be for Walker to challenge the status quo in Charleston. But she insisted that she wasn’t going to give up.
“I’m feeling motivated and energized,” Walker told The Post as she reflected on Tuesday’s vote. “I’m feeling that we don’t currently have the freedoms that we deserve, but life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is our birthright and we will take it back. We’re going to rally, we’re going to protest, we’re going to have town halls and candidate debates.”
Tiara Brown, the only Black face in the crowd that Walker addressed, on Tuesday said she was struggling to summon the same hope that Walker had and couldn’t see a political path forward on the issues she most cares about.
“People do not want change in this state,” said Brown, who works as a community organizer in Charleston. “Danielle has to walk around with security because there are a lot of people in this state who are afraid of change, and when people are afraid they do crazy things.”
But, Brown said, as a 24-year-old Black woman who grew up in a small West Virginia town where she was almost always the only Black face in the room, just seeing Walker on the floor of the House of Delegates gives her hope.
“It’s important to have individuals like Danielle Walker,” she said. “We usually don’t have a voice, but when Delegate Walker comes out, it lets everybody know that their vote matters, that their voice matters. That we can still make change regardless of how small our population is.” | 2022-09-17T10:18:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Danielle Walker, Black W.V. legislator, stands up for abortion rights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/17/abortion-rights-walker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/17/abortion-rights-walker/ |
Illustrator Steve Brodner felt lives were overlooked amid the pandemic’s toll. In his new book, ‘Living & Dying in America,’ he illuminates what we’ve lost.
Chronicling the pandemic through art was “a day-to-day reaction,” says Steve Brodner, pictured in his New York studio. Nearly two years of illustrations are collected in his new book, “Living & Dying in America.” (Leo Sorel)
Kelly, 48, was a nurse at Manhattan’s Mount Sinai West hospital who contracted the virus in March 2020. He is believed to be the first New York health-care worker to die of covid.
Opinion by Steven Brodner: The winged monkeys of the Wizard of Trump
Yet Brodner, 67, says much of his half-century-long career has involved imbuing his art with his pointed outlook. So, increasingly, he drew other voices and news stories that also reflected the pandemic era, particularly as he realized that the U.S. covid response exposed ways in which “we are not all in this together.” | 2022-09-17T11:32:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Steve Brodner drew daily portraits of covid victims for nearly two years - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/comics/2022/09/17/steve-brodner-living-dying-america/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/comics/2022/09/17/steve-brodner-living-dying-america/ |
Food waste is high. So is inflation. These app users tackle both.
Some consumers are turning to apps intended to prevent food from getting thrown out to cope with high food prices
By Susan Doyle
We, the Pizza manager Joe Manley gives Alexandra Turley, 26, of Eastern Market, her “surprise bag” on Sept. 16. Turley bought it through Too Good To Go, an app that aims to curtail food waste by connecting users with deeply discounted unsold food that would otherwise be thrown out. (Annys Shin/The Washington Post)
When Susan Teaford thinks about food, she turns to an app on her cellphone to check out what’s nearing its best-by date at her nearby grocery store.
But her favorite score so far with the Flashfood app — which gives users access to groceries nearing their best-by date and deeply discounted — has been a leg of lamb. Slashed from $29 to $16, it was a bargain she couldn’t resist. She dined on it with potatoes and some mint.
“I’m trying new stuff. I’m keeping it out of landfills, and I’m saving money, so what’s not to love,” said Teaford, a retired business analyst in systems and programming, who learned about the Flashfood app a few months ago at a Giant Food in Falls Church, Va., and downloaded it on the spot. Teaford, who recycles and drives an electric car, uses Flashfood because its mission aligns with her values, but has also saved $240 on groceries.
What a pepper’s journey from farm to pantry says about American hunger
Chuck Waterhouse shops with the Flashfood app at a Food Lion outside of Wilmington, Del., and said he finds the best deals with meat “offered at terrific prices compared to what’s going on with inflation.”
“You always check the app late at night, in case you missed items added during the day,” Waterhouse said. “And you always check it in the morning because they add stuff in the morning. You have to make a plan to check it.”
Waterhouse, a biometric technician, travels locally for work and pulls out the app based on where he’s headed that day to hunt for the best food bargains. With a cooler packed in his car and some gel packs to keep his food chilled, he’s good to go. At home, he uses a vacuum sealer on the food to store it and then tosses it in the freezer until he wants to cook it.
“We took the discount food rack and put it on your phone,” said Josh Domingues, CEO of Flashfood, a Toronto-based company he founded in 2016, which says it has diverted nearly 50 million pounds of food from landfills and saved shoppers over $120 million through partnerships with more than 1,400 grocery stores in Canada and the United States.
Through the app, shoppers browse through images of pasta, yogurt, imitation crab meat and whatever else is closing in on its best-by date at participating grocery stores. The item’s original price is crossed out and the new price is listed along with its best-by date. Consumers add their products to their virtual cart, pay through the app and then pick up them up at the store. All items are made available before their expiration date, and the average discount is over 50 percent off.
Selling food through the apps can also help stores and restaurants recover some of the billions of dollars lost with food waste every year. Retailers contribute unsold and soon-to-be expired goods to food pantries and food banks, too, but many of the items they sell on the food waste apps aren’t suitable for donations because they’re perishable or just too small in size, such as six sandwiches, which could end up in the trash, said Dana Gunders, executive director of ReFED, a nonprofit group focused on ending food loss and food waste.
We, the Pizza is among the 400 restaurants, bakeries and coffee shops in the D.C. area on Too Good To Go, another food waste app, selling surplus food in “surprise bags” for about one-third of its retail value. The app came to the D.C. region in March 2021 after launching in Copenhagen five years earlier. It’s now in 17 countries and has 3 million users in the United States.
1 out of 3 people in D.C. region face food insecurity, survey finds
Its surprise bags typically have three slices of pizza and an order of garlic knots — an $18 value for $5.99, he said. The company has also worked for the past few years with Food Rescue, another app-based group that moves food surpluses from local businesses to nearby nonprofit groups.
“Between the two, we don’t have food waste,” Earley said of the U Street and Capitol Hill locations.
“If we did not offer the surprise bags, the food would have to be wasted, so we took the initiative to research how we could save those meals and help our community at the same time,” Koch said in an email.
“I almost don’t even think of it as leftover food,” said Fox Pfund Pulliam, a graduate student studying geography at George Washington University who uses the Too Good to Go app regularly. “It seems like anything else you’d get.”
“You get to try new food at a discounted rate and ensure that the food isn’t getting thrown out, which is a good feeling,” she said.
Buying food closer to its expiration date may also help prevent food waste at home because consumers know they need to eat it before it spoils, said Steve Hamilton, a professor of economics at California Polytechnic State University. But he questioned whether surprise bags were going to “move the needle on food waste.”
A lot of food waste is due to poor meal planning, he said. “You need to know what you’re getting.”
“The more ways we can get food to people, that frees up resources at food banks,” Gundersen said. “So that frees it up for other people.”
“There are a lot of lower-income people benefiting from the ability to purchase food at a deep discount,” Gunders said. “I think in that sense the app can serve to address food insecurity simply by the pricing that it’s offering.” | 2022-09-17T11:32:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Flashfood and Too Good To Go apps help to tackle inflation, food waste - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/17/apps-flashfood-inflation-food-waste/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/17/apps-flashfood-inflation-food-waste/ |
To study ancient seafarers, researcher built a replica ship — and sailed it
By Dave Kindy
The replica boat that David Gal and his team used to sail across part of the Mediterranean. (Courtesy of David Gal)
In 48 B.C.E., Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great were locked in desperate combat. The two generals led huge armies against each other in a civil war to decide the fate of the Roman Republic.
At Dyrrhachium in what is now Albania, Caesar attacked Pompey’s supply base on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Because of the vagaries of the wind, Caesar sent supply ships to several destinations across the Mediterranean Sea to ensure his own troops could be fed and outfitted in the coming campaign.
“For every day a large number of ships was gathering from every quarter to bring up stores, nor could any wind blow without their having a favorable course from some direction,” Caesar later wrote in his book “The Civil War.”
The reason for all this redundant planning had to do with a problem that has plagued Mediterranean mariners for at least 3,000 years. In the summer, prevailing westerly winds severely hampered the movement of sailing ships loaded with crops and other goods from the east back to Rome.
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Yet the flow of food and supplies to the Italian peninsula continued unabated. Historians have wondered for decades how ancient mariners pulled it off.
An Israeli researcher wanted an answer. So first, he did what any academic might: He studied wind patterns and ancient texts about the weather. And then he did something more unusual. He and a team of experts built a replica of a 5th century B.C. boat and sailed it across part of the Mediterranean to test his theory.
The researcher, David Gal, a PhD candidate at the University of Haifa, published the results of his study this summer in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.
“We started with a trivial question: How did Roman ships visiting the Levant return to Rome?” Gal said. “One would simply say, ‘Oh, they turned them around and sailed the other direction.’ However, a windward journey was not practical in the kind of ships they used. So how did they accomplish these voyages?”
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Gal believes these superannuated seafarers took advantage of brief reverses in wind patterns to sail to Rome and other western destinations. In addition, by examining Roman and Greek texts about the weather, he discovered that those breeze cycles are virtually unchanged over the past three millennia.
Gal said the sailors’ lives depended on anticipating weather patterns, so they knew when to begin a journey and when to find a safe port. They often waited days before catching the right winds to begin or resume travel.
“There’s an ancient story of two friends who are departing and going in opposite directions,” Gal said. “The blessing they give each other is, ‘May the Gods grant us both favorable winds,’ which is a contradiction. Waiting for favorable winds was a big part of ancient seafaring.”
To understand how mariners managed to make their way across the Mediterranean, Gal and other researchers undertook a two-step process. First, they built a replica of a typical boat that sailed the sea between Europe and Africa three millennia ago, which they named Ma’agan Mikhael II. Its design was based on a shipwreck discovered off the coast of Israel in 1983. Rigged with a square sail, the new version was built by a team of experts led by Yaacov Kahanov, professor emeritus at the Department of Maritime Civilizations of the University of Haifa.
“It’s an exact replica of a 2,400-year-old ship,” Gal said. “We’ve learned a lot from sailing it, including the difficulties of windward sailing.” They sailed from Israel to Cyprus with a crew of six over the course of 74 hours in 2018.
The second phase of the study involved understanding the weather. In addition to reading 3,000-year-old texts, Gal reviewed modern records of the winds and waves around the Mediterranean. He collected data points from 7,000 different locations, taken every hour over the past 15 years. He compared these findings with the ancient data and made a surprising discovery.
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“The wind and wave oscillations are the same as they were 3,000 years ago,” he said. “Once we could establish that modern winds equal ancient winds, we could use the data to analyze sailing mobility. We were able to look at routes the ships took with grain from Alexandria in Egypt, and found that in July and August they had to first sail northeast toward Turkey instead of west toward Rome.”
Gal found that ancient vessels were able to locate brief breezes blowing to the west that usually occurred in the early mornings and late evenings. Those light airflows would enable the ships to sail for a short time toward Rome. Once the winds stalled, the crews would drop anchor and wait until they started again.
Gal cited the biblical example of Paul the Apostle. The New Testament records how he was transported from the town of Caesarea in Judea to Rome for trial by Emperor Nero on charges of sedition. The Acts of the Apostles records a protracted trip that involved several vessels.
“It could take weeks to make the journey from the Levant to Rome,” Gal said. “Mariners did a lot of waiting in those days.”
Using computers, Gal crunched all the numbers — old and new — to run cruise simulations. He discovered hundreds of possible trade routes ancient seafarers may have used to crisscross the eastern Mediterranean during the summer months when winds were unfavorable.
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Modern mariners can tack against the wind by setting the sails at sharp angles. That wasn’t feasible 2,400 years ago because sails were fixed then.
Gal spent 20 years as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force before taking an interest in sailing and meteorology. He said this research offers new insight into the complexities of sailing in ancient times and the impressive knowledge base of the sailors who plied those waters.
“In the summer, they had no option but to crawl their way across the Mediterranean and then start moving westward very slowly,” he said. “Coastal sailing was difficult and dangerous. You might sit for 10 days waiting for a favorable breeze. It took tremendous expertise to do what they did back then.” | 2022-09-17T11:32:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How did ancient seafarers sail against the wind? Here's an answer. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/17/seafarers-mediterranean-wind-david-gal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/17/seafarers-mediterranean-wind-david-gal/ |
Coronavirus vaccines in Cloverdale, Calif., on May 22, 2021. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
The Lancet Commission on the coronavirus pandemic has delivered a harsh verdict on how the world responded — it was “a massive global failure,” the prestigious journal declared. Governments were too slow and cautious, faced deep public mistrust, were undermined by misinformation and failed to serve the most vulnerable. “The result was millions of preventable deaths,” the Lancet said. This sorry record must provide impetus to do better in the future.
The Lancet convened 28 experts under Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs for a two-year examination of pandemic preparedness, response and recovery, delving into public health, virology, social policy, economics, finance and geopolitics. The report is but one of several worthy efforts to draw lessons from the most grave public health disaster in a century. The authoritative new findings deserve attention, though we wish Congress and the White House had ordered up a comprehensive, 9/11 Commission-like national panel in the United States. They did not.
A major lesson is that when a highly infectious disease breaks out in a vulnerable population, rapid response is essential, and even more so when many infections are asymptomatic, as was the case with covid-19. A single new case became thousands within a month. “The ability of the public health system to identify cases, trace contacts, and isolate infected individuals can be overwhelmed in just a few weeks of uncontrolled community transmission,” the report says. That’s what happened, over and over. “National responses were often improvisational, occasionally bordering on the absurd,” the commission states. “Several national leaders made highly irresponsible statements in the first few months of the outbreak, neglecting scientific evidence and needlessly risking lives with a view to keeping the economy open.” Governments “showed themselves to be untrustworthy and ineffective,” and “rancor among the major powers” then “gravely weakened the capacity of international institutions” to respond, especially the World Health Organization, which comes in for sharp criticism for repeatedly erring “on the side of reserve rather than boldness.” The panel calls for strengthening the WHO and giving it stronger powers and more solid financing.
Another lesson is that a failure to grasp the viral transmission route led to cascading — and costly — miscalculations. Early in the outbreak, the commission states, “health authorities concentrated almost exclusively on spray transmission,” the idea that the virus was disseminated when people exhale droplets that fall by gravity after a distance of one or two meters. This led to emphasis on six feet of social distancing, extensive cleaning of surfaces and hand-washing. In fact, the virus was spreading in respiratory aerosols, microscopic particles that stay suspended in the air, not unlike cigarette smoke. Failure to focus more on this airborne route at the outset had serious consequences: “The use of face coverings, ventilation, and air filtration as effective risk reduction measures were not adequately encouraged,” the report says. The incorrect assumptions enabled the virus to spread “almost unabated, for months.”
A third lesson, uncomfortable but true, is that a pandemic demands cooperation, but individuals, governments and organizations often looked out for their own narrow interests. Rich countries, including the United States, bought up lifesaving vaccine doses while poorer nations waited in the back of the line. As of January, the report says, the share of fully vaccinated populations was 71 percent in the European Union, 63 percent in the United States and 10 percent in Africa.
The commission notes that Chinese scientists early on possessed the virus’s genomic sequence and in January 2020 “knew that Wuhan was facing a coronavirus epidemic.” Oddly, the commission report skims over that China’s leadership hid from the public the virus’s human-to-human transmissibility in the first three weeks of January 2020 — a dire mistake that allowed it to spread.
The panel did not resolve the ongoing dispute about the virus’s origins in China, whether it came from a zoonotic spillover or an inadvertent laboratory leak, saying both are “still plausible.” The report properly calls for “unbiased, independent, transparent, and rigorous work” to investigate the origins, including at laboratories in Wuhan that were engaged in risky research known as “gain of function,” in which viruses similar to the pandemic strain were being genetically manipulated. Mr. Sachs correctly called on the U.S. National Institutes of Health to be more open about its role in funding research in China. But he and others should also be just as insistent that China open its doors. It has slammed them shut on further inquiry.
Two and a half years after it began, the pandemic catastrophe has led to 6.9 million reported deaths. The actual toll might be three times as high. It is absolutely essential to apply the knowledge and lessons of this experience to prevent it from happening again. | 2022-09-17T11:32:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Lancet Commission on coronavirus pandemic says response was a failure - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/17/lancet-covid-pandemic-failure-reforms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/17/lancet-covid-pandemic-failure-reforms/ |
A view of the U.S. Supreme Court building in May in D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
As the Supreme Court prepares for a new term, it is in new and perilous territory. Polls show Americans’ faith in the court collapsing after the justices’ decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June.. This loss of confidence has fueled calls for action, and there is danger that drastic measures — even as extreme as packing the court — will fall on more receptive ears.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. tried to deflect blame recently, criticizing the court’s critics. “Simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for criticizing the legitimacy of the court,” Mr. Roberts said. The chief justice’s efforts to defend his institution are wrongly directed, as Mr. Roberts himself made clear in June.
At that time, Mr. Roberts implored his fellow justices to avoid tossing Roe. Doing so defied core “principles of judicial restraint,” he wrote. The conservative majority’s decision to ignore Mr. Roberts’s warning was rash and gratuitous. The public saw the court’s makeup change — and, suddenly, so did what had been long-settled law on a question of extreme social importance.
Americans should rely on the principle that “changes in personnel don’t send the entire legal system up for grabs,” Justice Elena Kagan said in a Monday speech, in a subtle rejoinder to the chief justice. Indeed, though overturning Roe was the single greatest act of self-sabotage the court has committed in modern times, it is not the only way in which the court has damaged itself. Its conservatives claim to be textualists and originalists, but they abandon these principles when it suits them, such as in a major gun law case this year. They have used unusual procedures to, for example, quash lower-court voting rights rulings that would have helped Democrats. They have delivered speeches in questionable venues or with intemperate political content. Some of the signals they have sent on cases they have agreed to hear — such as on state judges’ powers to prevent partisan manipulation of the election system — are ominous harbingers of what is to come.
Waning legitimacy imperils the court and the country, and not just because Americans’ acceptance of the court’s rulings depends on their trust in its integrity. Senators who favor expanding the court beyond the traditional nine members have leapt on the Roe ruling to advance the concept, which featured in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race. “We need the Democratic Party to recognize the existential threat posed by this Court and embrace calls for reform,” declared left-wing pressure group Demand Justice in the wake of the court’s recent term. The group has pressed candidates in this year’s Democratic primaries to embrace court expansion, predicting that Democratic voters would begin to expect their candidates to take a stand.
So far, senior Democrats have thankfully declined to embrace court-packing. The idea should gain no more momentum. Acting on it would initiate a cycle of partisan retribution that would see the court repeatedly packed. Doing so would represent more of the same partisan hardball that brought the court to its current state of politicization.
This is not to say that Americans must simply accept the status quo. There are better reforms that would reduce the partisan rancor surrounding Supreme Court nominations and encourage Americans to once again view the court as a dignified body insulated from politics. Reformers should press Congress to impose court term limits, an idea that Justice Stephen G. Breyer endorsed before leaving the court.
Supreme Court terms would be long — perhaps 18 years — so that justices would not use brief stints as waystations to lucrative jobs. The terms would also be staggered so that each president could expect to fill the same number of court vacancies every four years. Elections would still matter, but the element of luck determining which presidents get to fill the court would be minimized. Presidents would feel less pressure to pick young ideologues; more moderate candidates would have a chance.
Justices’ individual preoccupations and idiosyncrasies would have less influence on the law’s shape. More justices would be able to serve, which would enable presidents to elevate people of more varied backgrounds. The public would have to worry less about justices experiencing mental decline in the later years of their service. The stakes attached to each court selection would be lower, and each party would have confidence it would have a fair chance to add its own picks in time, so senators would be less inclined to go to war every time a vacancy came up.
Court term limits would not be a panacea. The reform would take a long time to work. Justices selected in this manner might still sometimes rule imprudently. But it would be harder for one political party, through luck, shamelessness or both, to stack the court, leading to sharp and sudden ideological lurches. And Americans could have confidence that the selection process for one of the nation’s most powerful institutions was no longer as chaotic and arbitrary as it has become.
Court-packing is appealing to some because the results would be immediate. But reformers must avoid doing more harm than good. The goal should be to build institutional legitimacy and public trust. Making the nomination process fairer and more orderly would help do that. | 2022-09-17T11:32:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | After Dobbs, Roberts defends the Supreme Court. But it needs fixing. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/17/roberts-kagan-supreme-court-term-limits/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/17/roberts-kagan-supreme-court-term-limits/ |
By Ruby Mellen and James Forde | Sep 17, 2022
In northeast London, inside a building with an unassuming concrete facade, dozens of people are hard at work cutting, stitching and redesigning the royal uniforms of a new era.
Kashket & Partners, a garment factory in Tottenham, has been making uniforms for the royal family for about as long as Queen Elizabeth II was on the throne. The company made the ensembles Prince Harry and William wore on their wedding day. It’s responsible for the crisp scarlet tunics guards wear outside Buckingham Palace and the Yeoman Warders’ costumes at the Tower of London.
With the queen’s death — and all the pomp and ceremony that comes with it — there is much to be done. Uniforms must be made for the pallbearers tasked with carrying the coffin during her funeral Monday. Royal insignia must eventually be changed, from E II R, signifying Elizabeth II, to C III R, signifying the new king, Charles III.
It’s meticulous work: Uniforms are individually tailored and require 26 different measurements for a proper fit. Workers weave real gold into some of the finery.
Workers inside the Kashket & Partners factory on Sept. 15.
Workers sew the intricate details of royal uniforms at the Kashket & Partners factory in Tottenham.
A worker at Kashket & Partners measures.
Uniforms are on display inside the factory.
The company has a long history of manufacturing royal garments. Before moving to England in the 1920s, Alfred Kashket, a Russian Jew, made felt hats for czar Nicholas II. In London he carried on the family tailoring trade, swiftly building a reputation for quality and the close royal and military links that would come to define Kashket & Partners. The name Kashket derives from a hat that became closely identified with the Russian Jewish community.
Much like the British monarchy, tradition and family are central to Kashket’s craft and identity. Today Alfred’s descendants run the place. His sons, Marlon and Russel Kashket, have been working there for more than 40 years; Russel’s son Nathan, 24, oversees the operations.
Nathan Kashket is part of the third generation involved in the family business of Kashket & Partners.
Letters sent from the royal family are on display inside the factory.
Inside the Kashket & Partners factory in Tottenham.
They employ more than 30 people, many of them immigrants.
Albert Adusei, originally from Ghana, has worked at the factory for 30 years. He is the head of trouser production and a master tailor.
Timmy Ha, originally from Vietnam, came to Britain when he was a teenager and has worked at the factory for 20 years. He’s now the company’s head cutter.
Timmy Ha, a Vietnamese immigrant, has worked at this factory for 20 years.
Albert Adusei, an immigrant from Ghana, has worked for Kashket & Partners for 30 years.
A factory worker at the Kashket & Partners factory in Tottenham.
At a time of change for Britain, and the death of the only monarch Kashket & Partners has ever known, Nathan believes there will be stability in his company’s future.
“I see the family business running on for many more generations,” he said.
Photos by James Forde. Writing by Ruby Mellen. Production by Chloe Coleman and Reem Akkad. | 2022-09-17T11:32:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inside the factory that makes the royal uniforms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/inside-factory-that-makes-royal-uniforms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/inside-factory-that-makes-royal-uniforms/ |
Justin Jefferson strafed the Packers’ well-regarded defense for 184 receiving yards and two touchdowns in Week 1. (Bruce Kluckhohn/AP)
Every NFL season, a huge Week 1 performance will lead to tongue-in-cheek proclamations that the player is on pace to destroy a league record.
So just for the record: No, Justin Jefferson’s 184-yard outing Sunday against the Green Bay Packers does not mean the Minnesota Vikings wide receiver will have over 3,000 receiving yards by the end of Week 18.
But could Jefferson become the first NFL pass catcher to top 2,000? A variety of factors might be combining to make that a very plausible outcome.
It’s certainly a goal for which the third-year star is aiming.
“Hopefully everything goes right and I can get that 2,000,” Jefferson told reporters in July.
After setting a league rookie record in 2020 with 1,400 receiving yards and bumping that number up to 1,616 last year, Jefferson has established himself as one of the very best at his position. The fact that he’s still just 23 suggests he has room for improvement.
In what could be a crucial development, he now has an offensive-minded head coach in Kevin O’Connell who just helped the Los Angeles Rams’ Cooper Kupp get to 1,947 yards last season and appears set on making Jefferson a similar focal point of Minnesota’s attack. Jefferson may also have a supporting cast that hits the sweet spot of being good enough to merit defensive attention but not to the point of eating into his shares of pass targets and air yards.
Add it all up, and Jefferson has the potential for a pass-catching season the likes of which have yet to be seen in the NFL.
Of course, that season could also come from another wide receiver, with Kupp — whose 2021 total is second only to the 1,964 Calvin Johnson posted with the 2012 Detroit Lions — and the Las Vegas Raiders’ Davante Adams the most likely candidates. Kupp and Adams are both 29, though, and thus are on different career trajectories, and each has other concerns that Jefferson does not. Kupp tends to run shallower routes than Jefferson and needs more receptions to get to an equivalent amount of yardage, plus there are some questions about the long-term health of Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford’s elbow. Adams has arguably greater competition for targets in teammates Darren Waller and Hunter Renfrow, and even while catching passes from Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay, Adams never racked up as many receiving yards as Jefferson did last year.
Another possible contender, former Jefferson teammate at LSU turned Bengals phenom Ja’Marr Chase, also has major target competition in fellow Cincinnati wide receivers Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd.
Matt Harmon, an NFL analyst who created Reception Perception, a wide receiver-focused analysis platform, cited Adams and Stefon Diggs of the Buffalo Bills as the best wide receivers in the NFL right now, at least in terms of pure route-running. He acknowledged, though, that as far as the quest for 2,000 yards is concerned, Jefferson is “pretty much going to be within striking distance all year if he stays healthy.”
Harmon explained in a phone interview that Jefferson’s 90-plus-percentile placement in defeating zone, man and press coverages put him in the most elite of company. Harmon added that in O’Connell, Jefferson has someone willing to make him the “engine of the offense” and able to scheme him into open territory.
Having looked at film of Minnesota’s 23-7 Week 1 win over Rodgers and the Packers, Harmon was struck by how much presnap movement he saw from the Vikings. Jefferson himself was also impressed with that. He told reporters after the game that he liked all the motioning the offense was doing, because it helped him see whether the defense was playing zone or man-to-man.
Hired by the Vikings this year after Jim Harbaugh spoke with them but decided to remain at the University of Michigan, O’Connell is a former NFL quarterback who spent the past two seasons as the Rams’ offensive coordinator under Sean McVay. O’Connell is replacing Mike Zimmer, a former defensive coordinator whose preference was for the Vikings to play a run-first, risk-averse style.
The presumption that O’Connell’s Vikings might be inclined to take a more aggressive approach was bolstered by the team’s top-12 finish last week in pass rate over expectation, despite the fact that Minnesota held a 17-point lead at halftime and mostly throttled a Green Bay attack that looked disorganized in the wake of Adams’s offseason departure.
Other notable advanced stats to emerge included Jefferson’s NFL-leading mark of 5.58 in yards per route run, and his second-place showing (behind the Philadelphia Eagles’ A.J. Brown) with a 72.3 percent share of his team’s intended air yards. That combination bodes well for Jefferson’s chances of maintaining the sort of efficiency and downfield-target dominance he’ll need to top 2,000 yards.
If Jefferson plays all 17 games, his 2021 per-game receiving average of 95.1 must take a leap to at least 117.7. Only six NFL players have ever reached that figure in a requisite number of games, including Johnson and just two others since the 1970 merger and since the league moved to a 16-game schedule in 1978.
It should help that even if O’Connell’s version of the McVay offense doesn’t exactly replicate Kupp’s “big slot” role, as Harmon described it, Jefferson won’t “just be tethered to the line [of scrimmage]” as an X receiver and asked to run a steady stream of sideline routes.
“We can make it hard for defenses to know where he’s going to be,” O’Connell told PFT Live in March. “[Jefferson] doesn’t have to line up in the same spot all the time. He doesn’t have to run the same type of routes all the time. He’s dynamic with the ball in his hands. He’s willing in the run game. This guy’s a special, special player.”
After Sunday’s win, O’Connell told reporters: “I credit Justin for being able to handle a lot. We move him around a lot, we ask him to play multiple spots, and he’s not just an X receiver that lines up over here and dictates coverage. We’re not going to allow that to happen.”
What the Packers, thought to have one of the league’s better defenses, allowed to happen was a scoring play on which Jefferson was so wide open downfield, it left game announcers and other observers stunned.
How do you leave Justin Jefferson this open?😯
🎥: @NFL pic.twitter.com/e4Xu3dsS5M
In a video shared Wednesday by Minnesota, O’Connell explained how Jefferson’s teammates helped spring him free for a 36-yard touchdown. The 37-year-old coach went over replays to highlight tight end Irv Smith crossing the field from left to right in parallel with Jefferson but at a shallower distance. That put the Packers’ Quay Walker “in a bind,” as O’Connell put it, because the rookie linebacker was tasked with defending the short and middle zones of the right side but couldn’t cover both Smith and Jefferson, who were both heading in his general direction. At the same time, wide receivers Adam Thielen and KJ Osborn were running right-to-left patterns at different depths and taking with them cornerbacks who had to respect their abilities to make plays. With Walker “in no man’s land” and Green Bay safeties struggling to process all of what was happening in front of them, the result was a remarkably empty area on the deep right side of the field, where Jefferson hauled in a pass and was able to evade defenders closer to the end zone for a touchdown.
“We talked a lot to our team this week about wanting to be efficient and explosive,” the coach said.
O’Connell also praised quarterback Kirk Cousins’s “innate feel” for pressure on the play and willingness to “stand in there and deliver” a well-placed ball.
In his 11th NFL season and fifth with the Vikings, Cousins may not be in the same quarterback tier as Rodgers or the likes of Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, but he ranks third all-time in completion percentage. That accuracy can only aid Jefferson’s quest, as does the presence of Pro Bowl running back Dalvin Cook, who can make defenses pay for focusing too much on stopping the pass. That the Vikings play home games in a dome, preventing weather from becoming the late-season factor it can be in places such as Cleveland and Buffalo, also helps. Then, of course, there’s the fact that the NFL lengthened its schedule last year to 17 games.
After his 2022 campaign began with a promisingly huge amount of yards, Jefferson reaffirmed with reporters that his goal is to reach 2,000.
“No better way to start it off than with 180, right?” he said with a smile. | 2022-09-17T12:15:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Justin Jefferson has a 2,000-yard season in his sights for the Vikings - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/justin-jefferson-2000-yards/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/justin-jefferson-2000-yards/ |
Amy Manford (R) performs the role of Christine Daae, whilst Josh Piterman (L) performs the role of the Phantom during a media preview of the Phantom of the Opera at the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, 25 August 2022. (Bianca De Marchi/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Broadway’s longest running show is set to take its final bow. “The Phantom of the Opera” musical theater spectacle will be finishing next year, the production said.
According to reports, the show was struggling to bounce back from the ticket slump facing much of Broadway following the coronavirus pandemic.
The romantic thriller is based on a novel by French author Gaston Leroux, and tells the tale of a disfigured masked man, the Phantom, who haunts the Paris Opera and becomes obsessed with dancer Christine Daaé. He teaches her to sing, making her an unwilling muse for his genius, and later kidnaps her to his lair.
Like other creative industries, Broadway was hit hard by the pandemic, with theaters closing to audiences in 2020. Shows returned in the fall of 2021 with theater critics predicting a rebound of New York’s cultural life. But the final closure of Phantom highlights the difficulties still facing the costly entertainment industry. Since July, vaccine requirements for audience members were lifted and mask-wearing became optional.
In all, the show will conclude after a hefty 13,925 performances. It has won over 70 major theater awards and been viewed by more than 140 million people worldwide.
In its 35 years, acting stars have included Michael Crawford, George Lee Andrews, Howard McGillin, Judy Kaye and Sarah Brightman, among many others. In 2021 Emilie Kouatchou made history as the first Black actress to be cast as Christine on Broadway. The show was also adapted into a movie in 2004, with Gerard Butler in the title role.
Webber has reigned over the musical theater world for more than 50 years and written smash hit shows including “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” “The Woman in White” and “Cats,” which ran on Broadway for 18 years, ending in 2000. He is also one of the few artists to achieved “EGOT status” having received Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards.
With Phantom retiring its Broadway crown, the next longest-running show is “Chicago,” which began in 1996, followed by the “Lion King” a year later in 1997.
However, in theater, as in life, endings can lead to new beginnings and Phantom is set to be performed for the first time in Mandarin in 2023 as it arrives in China. It also made its debut at the Sydney Opera house last month.
Fans in New York can still buy tickets for the show — tickets are currently on sale for performances up to Jan. 22, and tickets for the final shows should be going on sale “shortly,” according to the theater company. | 2022-09-17T12:24:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'The Phantom of the Opera' to end on Broadway after 35 years - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/17/phantom-of-the-opera-broadway-end-date/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/17/phantom-of-the-opera-broadway-end-date/ |
A migrant landed on Martha’s Vineyard. A resident jumped in to help.
By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
Joanna Slater
An underage migrant boards a bus to the ferry that will take her and dozens of others from Martha’s Vineyard to Cape Cod. (Dominic Chavez for The Washington Post)
EDGARTOWN, Mass. — Earlier this month, Eliomar Aguero swam across the border separating the United States and Mexico with seven other people. The 30-year-old had been traveling for two months from Venezuela through 11 other countries by foot, bus and train.
Earlier this week, these two lives intersected in an improbable chapter in America’s bitter debate over immigration. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) chartered two planes to fly a group of migrants from Texas to this small island in Massachusetts, which serves as a summer retreat for the liberal elite.
The point, he and other Republican officials have said, was to draw attention to rising numbers of migrant arrivals and make Democratic-led states share the burden of caring for them. Democrats decried the flights as a stunt that used human beings as political pawns.
But for Aguero and Lima, the political fights were far away. He never imagined he might end up in a place like Martha’s Vineyard. Lima never expected that such desperate journeys would lead to her island, but when they did, she jumped in to help.
Later, some of the migrants would tell her it turned out to be un golpe de buena suerte — a stroke of good luck — that they had landed there.
Scrutiny mounts over DeSantis’s use of state funds for migrant flights
Aguero made a peace sign with his fingers as he boarded the bus. “Thank you all,” he said in Spanish. “Without these people here, I don’t know where we’d be.”
He had awakened before 7 that morning, his second full night of sleep after weeks of getting little. After the initial shock of landing not in Boston, Washington, D.C., or New York, as most of the migrants had expected, Aguero began to relax. The island was beautiful, he was safe and so was his wife, Maria. After two months of danger, he could breathe.
There was one, but it was dangerous. Aguero and his wife left Venezuela in July hoping to reach the United States. For weeks, they had nowhere to sleep. At one point, they were sent from Chile back to Colombia. From there, they traveled through all of Central America. Finally, after riding a notoriously dangerous train through Mexico, they reached the Rio Grande.
He and Maria knew how to swim and believed they would make it across. They tied themselves together with others in the group, entered the murky waters and made it safely to land. They were now in the United States, but didn’t have money, clothes or a phone.
A blond-haired woman approached the trio on the streets of San Antonio and introduced herself as “Perla.” She asked if they needed help. She offered them a hotel room while she made plans to take them elsewhere. Days later, Aguero, Maria and Rafael boarded a plane to an unknown destination.
He only found out where they were going when the pilot came over the loudspeaker announcing they would soon arrive on Martha’s Vineyard.
When Aguero’s plane was landing, Lima was in front of her computer for an afternoon full of email correspondence, followed by a Zoom meeting. When the meeting was over, she dashed out the door to meet a group of friends for dinner at 19 Raw, an oyster bar in nearby Edgartown.
Lima was born in New York to Bolivian immigrant parents. When she was growing up, her family sometimes spent vacations on Martha’s Vineyard. Lima’s elder sister, a chef, later settled there, as did Lima, joining a community of about 20,000 year-round residents. Seven years ago, she began volunteering with the local homeless shelter.
As dinner wrapped up, Lima finally checked her phone. She saw text messages asking if she was able to help interpret for a group of migrants who had arrived at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, which was just around the corner from the restaurant.
She went straight over. The volunteer effort was in full swing. The first man she spoke with began telling her his story. He had walked most of the way through Central America. He rode a freight train infamous for danger and violence — known as La Bestia — through Mexico. He faced hunger and corrupt officials and gangs.
Another journey
Friday morning began with breakfast provided by a nearby golf course. Meanwhile, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) had arranged for voluntary transportation to Joint Base Cape Cod, a military base that is designated as an emergency shelter. The state has said it will provide the migrants with food as well as access to health care and legal help.
Lima had spoken only briefly to Aguero and his family. On Friday, she noted his name as he approached the bus and hugged him. She spent the rest of the morning helping to clean up the church — stripping beds, emptying the fridge, picking up bottles of water. By early afternoon she was back home and opening her laptop.
Aguero stepped on to the bus. Clutched tightly in his hand was a new cellphone provided by a local social services organization. Less than a half-hour later, the buses arrived at the Vineyard Haven port. The sky was a clear blue and the water was dotted with sailboats. “This is beautiful,” Aguero said, pointing to the harbor.
On the ferry to the mainland, Aguero and his brother were in high spirits, making videos as the boat skimmed across the water. The two brothers stood side-by-side and looked out to the sea.
Rosenzweig-Ziff reported from Edgartown, Mass. Slater reported from Williamstown, Mass. | 2022-09-17T12:24:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | On Martha's Vineyard, a migrant and a resident are thrown together - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/17/marthas-vineyard-migrant-crisis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/17/marthas-vineyard-migrant-crisis/ |
Vanessa Guinan-Bank
Firewood is stacked last month at Hans Engelke Energy, a heating products business in Berlin. (CARSTEN KOALL/AFP via Getty Images)
BERLIN — Jörg Mertens knew the West’s standoff with Russia had sent energy prices soaring across Europe. But his August bills left him gobsmacked.
“I’m afraid,” said the 60-year-old Munich man, his voice breaking. After rent, the increased costs — about $190 a month for electricity and heat, compared to $112 before — will leave him with $366 a month for food, medicines and transit during Germany’s worst bout of inflation since the 1970s.
“I’ll have to buy less food, said Mertens, who has a spinal disease and survives off a fixed early pension. “In winter, how will I pay the rent?”
Across Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s weaponization of natural gas exports — withholding shipments, the Europeans say, to punish the West for imposing sanctions on Russia — is dropping a bomb on consumers in some of the richest countries on earth. The nations that have been hit hardest — including Germany, Britain, Italy and the Netherlands — have seen ratepayers slapped with year-over-year surges as high as 210 percent, even as officials and analysts warn of the prospect of rationing and blackouts in winter.
“Firewood is the new gold,” said Franz Lüninghake, 62, a systems administrator in Bremen, Germany, who has a wood-burning furnace on back order. His estimated energy bill for the next year? $4,500 — up from $1,500 for the 12 months to May.
Norbert Skrobek, a Berlin chimney sweep — a licensed technician who dons a vintage uniform to inspect and consult on wood- and coal-burning furnaces — said he’s seen a surge in demand as Berliners refurbish old heaters and install new ones. A stampede of locals buying portable heaters, he fears, could trigger dangerous carbon monoxide leaks if improperly installed or used.
“I’m convinced we’re going to have to carry some people out horizontally this winter,” he said.
Cuts in shipments of Russian natural gas, used to power electricity grids and heat homes in many parts of Europe, is the biggest factor driving prices higher. But that’s been exacerbated by other setbacks, including scheduled shutdowns of French nuclear power plants to fix corrosion. French authorities have warned the public to prepare for the possibility of rolling blackouts later this year. To save energy, the Eiffel Tower — a towering lantern that ordinarily illuminates the City of Lights until 1 a.m. — is to be turned off by 11:45 p.m.
“Putin has played everything to the hilt. So every cut in Russian gas supplies has brought us price jumps,” Klaus Müller, head of Germany’s energy regulator, told The Washington Post. “That is the price of this war.”
Europeans were already funding a transition to renewable energy sources through taxes and tariffs on their power bills, paying more on average than their American counterparts. Now, that gap has widened. As winter approaches, the economic pain could test the continent’s resolve on sanctions to punish Russia for invading Ukraine.
Soaring prices have become a key issue for European parties known for cozy relationships with Moscow, sowing doubt in inflation-weary countries over the wisdom of the sanctions. Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s right-wing League party, part of a coalition favored to win national elections this month — suggested Italians were paying too high a price. The generally pro-Russian far right in Germany, meanwhile, is mobilizing a “winter of rage,” calling on ratepayers to take the streets against crippling energy costs.
“Enemies of democracy are just waiting to abuse the crisis to spread doomsday fantasies, fear and uncertainty,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told the Rheinische Post last week. “It is irresponsible to fuel the fears of people who are being hit particularly hard by soaring prices.”
In Britain, a recent survey showed, nearly one in four people were planning to keep the heat off this winter. The country, unlike some European neighbors, isn’t dependent on Russia for its natural gas — it makes up less than 4 percent of its supply. But its energy market has been upended by the high prices driven by shortages elsewhere. Domestic gas prices rose by 96 percent and electricity prices by 54 percent in the year to July.
Ed Trewhitt, 55, owner of Brickyard Bakery in Guisborough, England, said it won’t be enough to save his business. If energy prices stay this high, he said, he’ll be forced to close next year. The cost to run his bread oven has doubled over the last year to $2,300 a month. That spike comes on top of Britain’s soaring inflation, which is at a 40-year high.
“The energy prices are crippling, but it’s everything. My flour costs alone have gone up by 80 percent in the last year,” Trewhitt said. “It’s just not sustainable.”
‘The Russians are in trouble,’ U.S. official says
In the rural village of Ag, Hungary, two hours southwest of Budapest, Nikoletta Kelemen said the price of firewood — used almost exclusively as winter fuel — has nearly doubled. A single tree’s worth of kindling, the 35-year-old nongovernmental organization worker said, now costs roughly half the average village salary of $249 a month.
“I imagine it will come down to burning furniture,” Kelemen said.
“They drive in with a trailer or a tractor and a loading truck and a crane, have professional equipment, saw the stuff together and drive it out,” he said. “Audacity prevails.”
On the last day of August, Russia shut off the Nord Stream 1 pipeline — the main link of gas into Germany — claiming a need for maintenance. This month, Putin blamed Western sanctions for delays and warned he would cut off the energy supply altogether if the West followed through with vows to impose price caps on Russian energy exports.
“We will not supply gas, oil, coal, heating oil — we will not supply anything,” Putin said during an economic forum in the Pacific city of Vladivostok, Russia.
The German government this month also rolled out a 65 billion euro aid package to help struggling households — its third in seven months — while vowing to claw back excessive profits from providers.
But analysts say the package may prove of limited help for millions. Aid checks won’t go out until December, leaving Germans to foot the increases now. And for many, poverty researcher Christoph Butterwegge said, the one-time checks won’t fully cover the price hikes.
“There will be poor people who will face the alternative of either starving or freezing,” Butterwegge said.
Mertens should receive roughly $300 from the new package in December, not enough to offset the $390 in extra energy costs he’ll pay between now and then. Unless prices come down, or the government steps in again, he’ll be billed at least an extra $78 a month starting in January. More, if prices climb further.
It’s money he doesn’t have. Wealthier households might manage, but he lives on the margins, where every euro counts. It comes to down to choices like cutting down on food and soap, or skipping the replacement of his ragged winter boots.
“Such thoughts,” he said. “They come at you like a hot wave and leave you struggling for air.”
“That what scares us the most, that the power supply is no longer stable,” he said.
It reminded him, he said, of growing up in East Germany, where citizens were more prepared for occasional blackouts. “The last time I experienced this [uncertainty] was as a child in the 80s.”
The sanctions “haven’t ended the war, and they haven’t weakened Russia substantially,” he said. “At the same time, they have really hurt Germany enormously.”
Adam reported from London. Meg Kelly in Berlin contributed to this report. | 2022-09-17T12:37:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Europe suffers fuel prices soar as Russia cuts natural gas supply - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/europe-russian-natural-gas-prices-firewood/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/europe-russian-natural-gas-prices-firewood/ |
4 witchy books from the world of science fiction and fantasy
Megan Giddings, Emily Lloyd-Jones, Sangu Mandanna and Desideria Mesa add new twists to a popular subgenre
Review by Charlie Jane Anders
(Harper Voyager; Little Brown Books for Young Readers; Berkley)
When Megan Giddings told her agent she wanted to write a novel about witches, he told her: “If anybody can make them feel new, it’s you.” In the acknowledgments of her new novel, “The Women Could Fly” (Amistad), Giddings says she didn’t entirely agree with him that witches feel like a tired subgenre; to her, there’s always room for another take.
Luckily for anyone who feels the same way, a wealth of novels about witches has come out recently — and many of them do feel brand new.
Science fiction, fantasy, thriller? Books we love but can’t define.
To be sure, many recent witch novels explore timeworn themes: Witches are distrusted and feared and must conceal themselves from the world. But Giddings and other authors also uncover fresh layers to the classic witch tales, exploring the complexity of anti-witch attitudes in an enriching and timely way.
“The Women Could Fly” is an absolute triumph. It takes place in a world like ours, but where laws against witchcraft are still routinely used to police women. Any unmarried woman over age 30 is suspected of witchcraft and placed under surveillance and may no longer be able to hold down a job. Nobody seems entirely sure whether witchcraft is real, and the laws are applied inconsistently, which feels all too believable.
Giddings conjures up a world that feels familiar, despite the increasingly creepy hints of dystopia. And along the way, she shows what the anti-witch crusaders really fear most: our ability to create a better world if we work together.
The theme of community is also strong in “The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches” (Berkley), by Sangu Mandanna. At the center of the story is Mika Moon, who was raised under one unshakable law: Witches must live apart from each other. Mika has never put down roots, moving constantly to avoid anyone learning about her magical powers. But when she’s hired to teach three young witches living in a secluded house, she discovers how much better it is to be part of a witch family.
The story is full of romance and chosen family, with just the right amount of whimsy. Mika is an engaging protagonist, full of snark and fire, yet constantly startled whenever anybody actually cares about her. Reading about Mika’s slow healing from the wounds of her lonesome is a healing experience for the reader, too.
“The Drowned Woods,” by Emily Lloyd-Jones (Little, Brown) is a magical caper set about Mer, the last living “water witch,” who can both sense and control water. She has been living on the run for years, an escapee from forced labor by the ruthless Prince Garanhir. Then the prince’s former spymaster approaches Mer with a plan to steal the prince’s treasure, with a team of rogues that includes a corgi that might be a spy for the faeries. Lloyd-Jones uses her Welsh setting and its faerie mythos to great effect. But her keenly observed descriptions of water, from the sewers to the ocean, are what make “The Drowned Woods” — a young-adult book perfectly suitable for an older audience — something to savor.
Desideria Mesa’s “Bindle Punk Bruja” (Harper Collins) expands on the theme of characters hiding their true identities. Luna is the only member of her Mexican-immigrant family who can pass for White. She changes her name to Rose and moves among the elite of Prohibition-era Kansas City. By day, she works as a newspaper reporter, and by night she runs a speakeasy — but she constantly has to hide who she is.
When gangsters and the Ku Klux Klan target her, she has to find a way to access the magical powers she inherited from her grandmother. The story takes a while to get going, and the Prohibition gangster-speak feels broad at times, but Luna’s identity crisis, and the magical awakening that comes with it, are fascinating and exciting.
We can’t possibly have too many witch books. Witches provide a powerful metaphor for stigmatized people being forced to live underground. These four new books show us how powerful it can be when these people find each other.
Charlie Jane Anders is the author of “Victories Greater Than Death” and “Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak,” the first two books in a young-adult trilogy. Her other books include “The City in the Middle of the Night” and “All the Birds in the Sky.” She’s won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Lambda Literary, Crawford and Locus awards. | 2022-09-17T13:03:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Charlie Jane Anders picks the best science fiction of the month - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/09/17/science-fiction-fantasy-witches/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/09/17/science-fiction-fantasy-witches/ |
People with face blindness deal with major practical and social difficulties. But they develop strategies to compensate.
By Anthea Rowan
(Elizabeth von Oehsen/The Washington Post)
When Brad Pitt told an interviewer this year that he suffered from face blindness, the actor shared the loneliness of the condition: “Nobody believes me,” he said. But if you were in a room of 50 people, chances are that one of them might suffer from this rarely discussed condition. Not just Pitt but also primatologist Jane Goodall, and even the late neurologist and author Oliver Sacks.
“Prosopagnosia,” from the Greek prosōpon “face” + agnōsia “ignorance” — or “face blindness” — is “a very specific neurological symptom … [in which] a person loses the ability to recognize people’s faces but retains the ability to recognize that person by the sound of their voice” or other means, says Karen Postal, a clinical instructor in neuropsychology at Harvard Medical School.
Studies suggest up to 2.5 percent of the population has “developmental prosopagnosia” — that is, they’ve had it since birth, Postal says. Acquired prosopagnosia is rarer and “can arise in a variety of neurological conditions, including stroke, tumor, and degenerative dementia.”
Face recognition is a highly complex cognitive process involving a dedicated network of brain regions. Prosopagnosia may present as degrees of impairment — some people are mildly affected, others might not recognize their own reflection.
My Life With Face Blindness
The onset of prosopagnosia, Postal says, depends on what caused it. With a stroke, it’s sudden: A patient wakes up in the hospital and recognizes the person keeping vigil at their bedside only when they speak. For those with dementia, there might be a slow decline in the ability to recognize faces.
Some days the symptoms might be more prominent, “the next less so, but the trajectory is for increasing problems over time,” Postal says. “In the case of developmental prosopagnosia, it is usually a parent’s dawning realization that a child cannot distinguish one face from another.”
“Most physicians and many neurologists will not have experience with it,” says Duchaine, whose laboratory explores the mechanisms underlying prosopagnosia and the different forms in which it presents. There are tests, but older ones (the Warrington Recognition Memory for Faces and the Benton Facial Recognition Test) aren’t perfect, he adds.
“Impaired scores on these tests are good evidence of difficulties with face recognition, but scores in the normal range should be treated cautiously; some participants are able to score in the normal range on these when facial features are covered,” Duchaine says. “The hair and clothing provides an alternative way to recognize the people in the tests.”
They never forget a face. Research delves into how ‘super-recognizers’ can do this.
Duchaine created the Cambridge Face Memory Test, the newest and now most commonly used assessment. The best way to get a diagnosis, he says, “is to register with a lab that does research on prosopagnosia and participate in their studies.” Faceblind.org is recruiting for such a study, he adds.
He say his lab and others have “focused on improving face perception abilities, for example, by enhancing matching internal facial features or improving holistic processing abilities: the ability to integrate all the parts of the face into a single representation.”
The lab has developed a training approach focused on memory to improve “face encoding strategies to enhance face recollection,” DeGutis says, because those with prosopagnosia typically lack “the ability to automatically recall semantic and contextual details when they see a face, although they may have a vague feeling of knowing.”
Jean Gilbert, whose memoir, “The Picasso Mirror,” describes her experience of the condition, doesn’t recognize herself in the mirror. She was born with prosopagnosia but didn’t know anything was wrong with her until she watched a TV program about face blindness in her 20s.
“It was shocking for me to learn I had a brain disorder, and at the same time, a relief. It explained much about my behavior,” Gilbert says.
Gilbert, who doesn’t recognize her family members’ faces, focuses on visual cues and looks for distinguishing features, a tattoo, a scar, a mole. “But what’s more important,” she says, “is a person’s posture, the inflection in their voice, their smile. That’s how I function. It is as natural to me as breathing. I don’t need to ‘see’ a face.”
“Logic dictates the face looking back belongs to me. But I feel no connection to it. It’s just a face, forgotten as soon as I look away. I know I have hazel eyes and auburn hair, so I expect to see those. It doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s like asking a blind person what they see when they look at a colorful painting.
“I wear makeup and do my hair because I understand that my face represents me, and I want to present a normal appearance to the world even though I’m far from feeling normal on the inside,” she says.
Prosopagnosia sufferers deal with significant practical and social difficulties. Some are dismissed as “snobs” or unfriendly, and Gilbert says the condition means she sometimes struggles to understand deep emotion.
“It’s not that I don’t care about the people in my life, but when I’m not with them, they are no longer in my head. I have no face to remember, nothing to attach an emotion to,” she said. “Imagine going on vacation by yourself. You can recall the places you visited, the food you ate and the things you did, but there are no people in the memories. That’s been my life from the time I was born. It can be lonely.”
Says Postal: “Whenever we visually process an object or a face, there are two pathways being processed simultaneously. One involves the visual aspect, and the other involves an emotional sense of familiarity.”
Gilbert says she is upfront about her condition now: “I come right out and say, ‘Have we met before? I have face blindness and can’t recognize people, not even myself.’ My real friends come up to me and say their names and remind me what we last did together. I call those my memory prompts. I may not have the person in my memory, but I can recall an event or conversation.” | 2022-09-17T13:03:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | When a face means nothing: What prosopagnosia looks like - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/09/17/what-face-blindness-means/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/09/17/what-face-blindness-means/ |
FILE - A Heath High School student screams at seeing the scene of a shooting at the school where fellow student Michael Carneal opened fire, leaving three students dead and five wounded Dec. 1, 1997, near Paducah, Ky. In the quarter century that has passed, school shootings have become a depressingly regular occurrence in the U.S. Carneal’s upcoming parole hearing in September 2022, raises questions about the appropriate punishment for children who commit heinous crimes. Even if they can be rehabilitated, many wonder if it is fair to the victims for them to be released. (Steve Nagy/The Paducah Sun via AP, File) | 2022-09-17T13:03:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 25 years after Kentucky school shooting, a chance at parole - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/25-years-after-kentucky-school-shooting-a-chance-at-parole/2022/09/17/2183be12-367e-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/25-years-after-kentucky-school-shooting-a-chance-at-parole/2022/09/17/2183be12-367e-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
Mike McDaniel, one of four rookie head coaches who won their debuts this season, talks with backup quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. (Eric Espada/Getty Images)
Intentional or not — and in the opinion of executives and individuals involved in this hiring cycle, the trend was not happenstance — there were commonalities in the five new coaches landing where they did, when they did. Several teams that were ushering out an overbearing, defensive-minded or special teams-oriented head coach brought in a novice replacement with opposite characteristics. As a group, the new coaches differ from their predecessors not merely in football philosophy and dogma, but in approach and leadership style, with demeanors completely counter to those of the men they replaced.
The relationship between Zimmer and Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins was shattered by the 2020 season, according to multiple individuals associated with the team at the time, to say nothing of 2021, when the Vikings finished 8-9. “Beyond toxic,” one person close to several players on the Vikings, who is not free to reveal private conversations, put it to me on several occasions.
If the Broncos had not hired an offensive-minded, approachable coach, then Russell Wilson would not be their quarterback. “If Fangio is still the coach there, the trade does not happen,” said one person with direct knowledge of the situation who spoke to many individuals involved in the blockbuster trade. “The Broncos aren’t on the list [of teams Wilson would go to] if Hackett isn’t there, or someone like him.”
While Daboll was not above challenging beleaguered QB Daniel Jones on the sideline during New York’s comeback upset of the Titans — in what may have looked Judge-ian — he also empowered his offense with a decision to attempt a two-point conversion to win the game on the road. (Such bold decisions bond this group). And the unbridled joy between the coach and his players dancing in the postgame locker room, as captured on social media, was unlike anything you would see in New England.
“What are hell are they doing?” said the GM, who is not permitted to speak on the record about other team’s personnel decisions. “I’m watching the film [of James in the first two preseason games], and he can’t play left tackle. What are they watching? Do you really believe they’re going to start the season with him? Will he still be there when we play them?”
Turns out, that will not be the case.
Stanley is still working his way back from another major surgery after Week 1 a year ago — a repeat of what he underwent in 2020, when his season was cut short that November — and is practicing sporadically. It’s far from certain Stanley will return to form, or how much football he will be able to play this year. Jack-of-all trades lineman Patrick Mekari is the starting left tackle for now, with almost no depth behind him.
The Raiders called nine passes to just one run on their 10 drive-opening plays; there was one sack allowed, and of the other eight plays, six went to Adams. Of Carr’s 37 passes, nearly half (17) went to his former Fresno State teammate, while no other Raider had more than six targets or four catches. “It got to be a little predictable,” the former exec said. While Adams grabbed 10 of those targets for 141 yards, it wasn’t all great; Carr also threw an interception directed to him and had a lowly 80.8 rating when throwing to his pal.
Yes, the Dolphins featured Tyreek Hill early and often and the Eagles did the same with A.J. Brown. But their quarterbacks had far higher ratings when going to them, and, well, both teams won. With so many talented pieces who can win for them in the passing game — tight end Darren Waller, receiver Hunter Renfrow, running back Josh Jacobs — we’ll see if Carr is quite as Adams-centric this week against the Cardinals.
Early buzz in NFL executive circles about options for the Bears to replace longtime team president Ted Phillips includes agent Trace Armstrong, a former Bear, and Rod Graves, the head of the Fritz Pollard Alliance and a former NFL GM and Bears exec. The Bears’ new coach and general manager are Armstrong clients, and though he denied it last winter, several individuals with direct knowledge of the situation told me in early 2022 that Bears officials had conversations with the agent about a potential role with the franchise. …
The Packers have been notorious for slow starts and Week 1 pratfalls. But Aaron Rodgers — with a weak line and shortage of proven playmakers — looked a little indifferent at times to some who watched the film of last week’s loss to the Vikings. His passer rating (67.6) was unbecoming of the back-to-back MVP winner, and while he was actually worse in the opener a year ago (36.9), one can’t help but wonder about his supporting cast. Only 5.9 percent of Rodgers’s attempts went 20 yards or more in the air (the same as, gulp, Jacoby Brissett) and he was 28th in air yards per attempt (5.59). That’s not him. Since the start of 2016, Rodgers has started and finished 87 games, and only twice did he register a worse rating than he did Sunday. | 2022-09-17T13:04:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rookie NFL head coaches had impressive Week 1 debuts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/kevin-oconnell-brian-daboll-mike-mcdaniel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/kevin-oconnell-brian-daboll-mike-mcdaniel/ |
Although party strategists voice confidence Vance will still prevail, they say they fear he wasted precious time, requiring a financial bailout that limited resources for GOP candidates in other states
J.D. Vance, Ohio's Republican nominee for Senate, speaks during an Aug. 19 rally in Girard, Ohio. (Dustin Franz/Bloomberg)
OTTAWA, Ohio — Standing before about 300 of the party faithful at the Putnam County Republican Party’s annual dinner, J.D. Vance brought up a concern he had heard from voters as he runs for the Senate in a crucial battleground.
“One criticism I’ve heard is, ‘Yeah, we see you at events like these, we see at the state fairs and all that, but we don’t see you on TV,’” Vance said before voicing hope that the audience had noticed his recent attempt to forge a bigger presence on the airwaves.
Indeed, an attendee had pressed Vance on that very issue hours earlier at a campaign stop 70 miles to the south, in the small town of Russia, putting in blunter terms how many more commercials this person had seen from Democratic nominee Tim Ryan.
“I’ve seen a lot of his, and I’ve seen one from you,” the person said, according to a recording of the event made by the Sidney Daily News and shared with The Washington Post. This person also suggested that Vance push harder for more financial support from tech billionaire and benefactor Peter Thiel, urging, “Twist his arm.”
For Vance, it was yet another encounter with frustration over his campaign, which many Republicans had hoped would be in a stronger position in the final sprint to November. After winning the Republican nomination in May, Vance spent months running what many in the party say they saw as an ineffective campaign that lacked urgency and has forced him and outside allies to scramble, in a state that former president Donald Trump carried twice and has trended red in recent years. Trump will campaign with Vance on Saturday night in Youngstown, as Vance seeks to jump-start a candidacy that polls show has left him in a competitive race.
Nonpartisan analysts still give Vance an edge, and Republican strategists voiced confidence that the state’s shift to the right will help Vance prevail in November. But some say they fear Vance wasted precious time, putting himself in the unnecessarily precarious position of requiring a financial bailout that limited resources for GOP candidates in other states that will help determine control of the Senate next year.
After a recent call during which GOP donors discussed midterm spending, one participant and another person familiar with the conversation were said to have felt that Vance had run a “lazy” campaign, with shifting views akin to a “chameleon.” One major donor on the call indicated an unwillingness to give any money to the Vance campaign, according to a person familiar with that donor’s response. People describing the reactions spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
That came after the Senate Leadership Fund, a political organization aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), poured $28 million into the Ohio race, which Steven Law, a close McConnell ally and the group’s president, called “an unexpected expense.” His comment, first reported by Politico, underlined months of frustration among Republicans in Ohio and Washington over his floundering campaign.
In a brief interview with The Washington Post shortly before speaking in Ottawa on Sept. 6, Vance has said he was stepping up his campaign activity.
“We’re in the phase of the campaign where more and more people are paying attention so intensity dials up a little bit,” Vance said. He described his strategy as “the standard plan and the standard execution,” which is “to try to reach people when they’re paying the most attention.”
Vance is running as an economic populist who wants to revive American manufacturing and bolster security at the U.S. border. He frequently connects President Biden’s immigration policies with increased fentanyl trafficking in the state and says aid to Ukraine should also include increased funds for Border Patrol.
Law, the president of the Senate Leadership Fund, said he is under the impression that Vance is now “hitting the donor community hard.”
Vance, who worked his way out of poverty to Yale Law School and glided from the world of Silicon Valley venture capital to the New York Times bestseller list for his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” is now in an unfamiliar position, as an underperformer trying to right his operation.
To regain his footing, Vance has bulked up his fundraising shop with staff who worked for his former GOP rivals, planned more public outings, including tent-pole events like the Trump rally, and according to a person familiar with the scheduling, a day of campaigning with Donald Trump Jr. in early October. Vance has also attended a series of party dinners over the past few weeks and campaigned with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), according to party leaders who have seen him out. Like others interviewed for this story, the person familiar with his schedule spoke on the condition of anonymity to more openly discuss strategy.
And Vance’s campaign is finally on TV. Ryan had the airwaves to himself over the summer, with his campaign running 4,300 ads in May; 5,900 spots in June and, along with a supportive group, 3,600 in July. Vance and his allies were completely dark during those months, according to data from AdImpact, which tracks commercials on network TV.
Vance’s latest ad — his second during the campaign — features the candidate in his childhood Middleton, Ohio, neighborhood and compares the safety he felt then with unease from rising violent crime today. “We had something then that Ohio kids don’t have today: safety,” Vance says. He added: “Streets are exploding with drugs and violence, while liberals like Tim Ryan attack and defund our police.”
Still, some fear it is too little too late. “It’s not enough to say ‘Hi, see my ads.’ It’s the personal contact. It’s showing up in the counties and saying: I need your vote,” said Robert Radway, the chairman of the Hardin County Republican Party in Ohio. “I personally wish he had ramped up faster.”
Radway said there were times over the summer when he thought to himself, “Where are you?” But he said he detects the shift in Vance’s campaigning, and said he now hears from the Vance campaign at least once a week. “He is coming out full speed,” Radway said. “He has to have that fire in the belly, and he has to show it to voters.”
In August, Ryan’s TV advantage began to dissipate: There were 6,500 ads backing his candidacy on network air while Vance’s backers put about 4,000 ads on TV that month, the data show. So far this month, Ryan has benefited from about 3,500 ads compared with about 2,800 boosting Vance’s candidacy.
Ryan is running as a champion of the working class and stressing areas where he departs from his own party, creating the impression among some voters that he’s a Republican. In one of Ryan’s early ads, which shows him walking in the Youngstown, Ohio, neighborhood where he grew up, the Democrat says he stood up to President Barack Obama. “When Obama’s trade deal threatened jobs here, I voted against it,” Ryan says in the spot. “And I voted with Trump on trade.”
For Vance, after prevailing in the GOP Senate primary in May here with financial help from Thiel — a former boss, who hasn’t pledged money toward the general election phase of the contest — plus a last-minute endorsement from Trump, who Vance repeatedly disparaged in 2016 before reinventing himself as a MAGA candidate, many felt he was well-positioned to hold an important GOP seat. The seat was vacated by retiring Sen. Rob Portman.
Instead, the first-time candidate is trying to overcome a stretch of lackluster fundraising and a widespread impression that he’s not campaigning vigorously enough for such a high-profile race. Vance is starting the final weeks of campaigning before early voting starts Oct. 12, trying as much at times to assure supporters his campaign strategy is headed in the right direction as he is trying to convince voters to support him on the merits of his platform.
In the interview, Vance denied that his campaign lacked energy over the summer. “If you look at how much we were traveling around the state, I think that criticism was a media creation more than anything,” Vance said.
But a tally of campaign events provided by each campaign reflects the disparity many Republicans have complained about in recent months. Vance’s campaign provided The Post a list of 43 public events he’s held since the May 3 primary, which it said were open to the news media. They included a ride-along with Marion County law enforcement and three stops at one fair.
During the same period, Ryan participated in 66 public events, which they said were advised to the news media in advance. They included parades and rallies along with tours of factories, community organizations and farms, according to Ryan’s campaign.
Vance is also seeking to consolidate support after a divisive and bruising primary. Former Ohio treasurer Josh Mandel, who came in second in that race, said in an interview that he’s been “helping to talk him up with a lot of grass-roots conservatives.” Mandel said he plans to host a fundraiser for Vance in the coming weeks and is also connecting him with donors. But the former Vance rival hasn’t appeared at any public events for Vance so far and said he won’t be able to attend Saturday’s Trump rally due to family commitments.
In a sign of how potent Ryan’s ads have been, one Vance event attendee wanted to understand the truth behind a Ryan-funded TV commercial that casts a nonprofit that Vance created to combat opioid-addiction in the state as a “charade” that’s done little to help addicts.
“I’d like to hear it from you,” the person said.
Vance sought to dispel any notion that the organization, Our Ohio Renewal, did anything untoward. “The one problem with the nonprofit is it didn’t do nearly as much as I hoped,” Vance said. The person he hired to run it received a cancer diagnosis shortly after starting, Vance said. “We were basically carrying this guy, and I wasn’t going to fire him,” Vance said.
Last month, Vance explained to some backers that he was not on TV because he wanted to be sure to have enough money to stay on air once he began his advertising, according to David Johnson, chairman of Columbiana County Republicans. “He’s not the typical politician, he’s not out glad-handing everyone maybe to the degree that he should have,” Johnson said.
From April to June, Ryan raised $8.6 million and Vance just took in $1 million.
Despite the criticism he has received, Vance’s campaign advisers also point to the strong structural advantage they see in the state: Ohio backed Trump by eight percentage points in 2016 and by a similar margin in 2020.
But relying on the state’s GOP tilt doesn’t calm everyone hoping to keep the Senate seat in GOP hands. One, who attended the Vance event in Russia, Ohio, lectured Vance about the state’s political history, pointing out that Sen. Sherrod Brown — a Democrat — won reelection to the Senate by nearly seven percentage points just two years after Trump won the state.
“Ohio will elect a Democrat senator,” said the participant, urging Vance not to take anything for granted.
Vance agreed, signaling he understands the state’s willingness to elect senators in both parties.
Vance’s fundraising has picked up, according to two people familiar with it, but just as with the TV battles, he is trying to make up ground. Through the end of June, Ryan raised $21.5 million while Vance raised just $3.6 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
On the stump, Vance offers up a variety of reasons for the financial deficit. In Ottawa, at the Putnam County GOP dinner, Vance said big tech companies are sending 80 to 90 percent of his fundraising appeals to spam folders, piggybacking on a complaint that some other Republicans have made this cycle. Vance also argued that the Democratic small-dollar fundraising platform is far superior to the GOP version.
In a populous state where building name recognition is key to success, local Republicans say, Vance has his work cut out for him in the weeks ahead.
“There used to be a saying in Ohio that you had to run statewide once to get elected the next time,” said Rep. Robert E. Latta (R-Ohio). “Not having been on the ballot anywhere is tough. But he’s out doing what he’s got to do.” | 2022-09-17T13:51:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Ohio, Vance scrambles to ramp up campaign after mounting GOP criticism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/17/vance-ohio-senate-ryan-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/17/vance-ohio-senate-ryan-trump/ |
Albert Pujols entered Saturday with 698 career home runs. (Joe Puetz/AP Photo)
ST. LOUIS — Anyone who knows baseball knows better than to expect a perfect ending. Baseball is too wily for that.
When Albert Pujols ambled back into the St. Louis Cardinals dugout this spring to join Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright for one last Cardinals ride — well, what more could anyone ask for? After all, decades in the daily baseball habits had whittled even the mighty Pujols into something less than what he once was. Just being there, surviving long enough to come home with anything left to give, was something.
But those daily baseball habits also include nightly alignments of the baseball stars, which have conspired to tug Pujols into consequential moments with regularity. They have done so enough that one September afternoon, in what would be Pujols’s final game against the rival Chicago Cubs, Ricky Horton, of the Cardinals’ radio broadcast, couldn’t help but wonder.
“If you were writing a script for this game, for Albert’s final game against the Cubs, I think the script would be him hitting a home run in a nothing-nothing game late,” Horton said, and Pujols, who was heading to the cages to take a few swings in case the Cubs brought in a lefty for the eighth, heard him.
“He said he stopped and listened to it and was like ‘yeah, that would be cool’, ” Cardinals Manager Oliver Marmol recalled. A few minutes later, after a standing ovation when he emerged in the dugout and another when he stepped into the on-deck circle, Pujols hit that homer.
“That’s why I was smiling all the way when I hit first base all the way to home plate,” Pujols said then. “That was the last thing that was playing in my mind. I couldn’t believe it happened.”
What is happening for Pujols now, as he entered Saturday two homers away from 700 in a season he began with seemingly no chance to get there, is as unbelievable as it is in line with exactly who Albert Pujols used to be. In the first half of the season, Pujols hit .215 with a .676 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. In the second half, he entered Saturday hitting .328 with a 1.109 OPS. If he had enough at-bats to qualify, he would have the second-highest second-half OPS in the majors — second only to Aaron Judge.
Pujols does not have enough at-bats to qualify because until recently, the Cardinals were not using him regularly. They planned to win the National League Central and do so without vintage Albert Pujols. He hasn’t been that kind of hitter in quite some time, and Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt were one of the sport’s most potent one-two punches in the middle of their order. The Cardinals didn’t need vintage Albert Pujols.
“When we originally signed him, we were going to have him face as many left-handers as possible and that’s it,” Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak said. “But the fact that he’s had some really impactful at-bats of late against right-handers, I think that has us all rethinking a little bit. And obviously, fans are coming and want to see him hit. Luckily, I don’t have to make the lineups. But maybe Oli [Marmol] has a little more pressure on him than he did two or three months ago.”
Marmol, 35, is younger than Pujols, 42. He is a first-year manager in a city that doesn’t exactly allow anyone to ease into its baseball business. And he has spent his first year on the job building a reputation for being remarkably straightforward, bordering on blunt. So when he says he is building his lineups to win games not hearts — to give the Cardinals the best chance to chase down the NL East leaders for the second overall seed in the NL playoffs and the bye that comes with it — he is convincing.
“The pieces have just fallen in a way where Albert is swinging a really good bat regardless,” Marmol said. “When I sit here and do the lineup, my main focus is how do we win tonight, but that’s not to say I don’t pay attention to what’s going on. But my first filter is how can we win.”
Through that filter, playing Pujols against right-handed pitching as opposed to holding him to face a good lefty late wasn’t always the right choice this season. But lately, Marmol thinks, it has been.
Although Pujols hadn’t been in the lineup against Milwaukee Brewers ace Corbin Burnes the other three times the Cardinals faced him this year, Marmol put him there this week. He noted that he could have used strikeout-prone Tyler O’Neill against strikeout wizard Burnes, but that Pujols strikes out far less frequently.
But no one at Busch Stadium would have needed much explanation. Cardinals fans, picky and meticulous with their baseball as they are, aren’t exactly clamoring for Marmol to pick his spots and sit Pujols more often.
“Yeah,” Marmol agreed. “I don’t think I’ve seen a Facebook page for that one.”
But while they didn’t plan for it, no one around the Cardinals is surprised at what Pujols is doing — at least, not any more than he is.
“If you watch his batting practice, you’re like, this guy can still hit bombs,” Tommy Edman said, just moments before Pujols hit a handful of batting practice fastballs into the third deck Thursday afternoon. That has been true of Pujols for years, even as his numbers slowed.
He showed off that power in the Home Run Derby at Dodger Stadium, where he advanced to the second round with a controversial win over Kyle Schwarber, though Schwarber wasn’t worried about scoring controversies as he raised and lowered his arms in praise of Pujols when the veteran moved on.
Because when young stars like Juan Soto and Julio Rodríguez electrified the Los Angeles night, they did so while showing reverence to Pujols, the most prolific Dominican power hitter in history. Soto and Rodriguez were there because of what they bring now, and what they may bring to the sport in the future. The commissioner’s office named Pujols to the roster to honor his past.
And to that point, Pujols’s on-field performance mattered far less than his mere presence. Hitting .215 didn’t stop teams from showering him in memorabilia and playing tributes on video boards along the way. He didn’t need to be great again to feel appreciated. He didn’t need to carry the Cardinals to be treasured.
But in the weeks since that point, even as a pile of No. 5 jerseys that need signing accumulates near his locker, with the names of eager big leaguers who requested them taped on top, even as stadiums stand every time he steps into the box, Pujols’s season became less about his legacy, and more about his present.
“When he was named to the all-star team, I feel like that energized him,” Mozeliak said. “If you look back to that point in time to where we are today, success on the field is something that just started organically happening. I think with that comes confidence. Now I think he sort of believes it.”
Belief that Pujols could get to 700 came slowly and steadily for those in the Cardinals clubhouse, who never saw Pujols treat this season as a victory lap. His routines are the stuff of legend, the infrared sauna, his willingness to incorporate coaching into his analysis of his swing, even though he was so trusted here in his earlier years that he called his own hit-and-runs.
Pujols tells teammates to practice in ways that make them feel confident when they play, and for him, that often means doing his work against high velocity — practicing at game speed or faster, rather than tweaking things against a batting practice fastball.
“It’s something you would just expect a good major league hitter to be doing to prepare. Not something you think of for someone at 42. I think about that all the time because we were born in the same year,” Cardinals hitting coach Jeff Albert said. “I’m like watching this thinking, ‘man, this is so amazing. This is impressive.’ ”
Albert and others around the Cardinals all point to the same few Pujols swings when they realized something special might be on the way. The Alberts (Jeff and Pujols) knew on a sacrifice fly in Atlanta just before the all-star break that the adjustments they were making to help him stay through the ball better were settling in, that his timing was back where he needed it to be.
Edman and Albert both recalled the low line drive Pujols hit against Kevin Gausman in Toronto in late July, which flew more than 400 feet to dead center — the kind of righty-righty swing he wasn’t supposed to be delivering these days.
There was the two-homer day against the Brewers in Milwaukee, and the game-tying homer against the Pittsburgh Pirates this past weekend. And there was that swing against the Cubs, the one that left Pujols almost laughing as he rounded the bases, as his manager and his teammates watched the man who has done some much for the game and franchise realize that this may end the way he wanted after all.
“That was a different emotion to him after that home run,” Marmol remembered. “You could see it was like, ‘holy cow, that just happened.’ And he just smiled and laughed as he rounded the bases like I can’t believe that just took place.” | 2022-09-17T14:17:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Albert Pujols closes in on 700 home runs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/albert-pujols-700-home-runs-chase-st-louis-cardinals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/albert-pujols-700-home-runs-chase-st-louis-cardinals/ |
WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 2: (L-R) Sen. Patty Murray (D-OR) looks on as Dr. Nisha Virma of Physicians for Reproductive Health speaks about reproductive rights during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol August 2, 2022 in Washington, DC. Murray, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, recently issued a report on the state of abortion policy and impacts following the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs case. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) (Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images North America)
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina surprised us all on Tuesday by proposing a federal ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy with almost no exceptions. The pro-choice side was understandably outraged, while Republicans recoiled at having a federal ban back in the spotlight after their efforts to avoid the issue before the midterm elections.
Graham’s pitch was likely just a political ploy aimed at shifting the conversation away from where it had been focused since Roe fell: on miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and rape, leaving Republicans playing defense. He knows his bill isn’t likely to come to a vote. And the absence of exceptions for the health of pregnant women make it a non-starter with the majority of Americans.
But the clamor over Graham’s bill also creates an opportunity for abortion-rights supporters to make a proposal of their own, one that expands access to first-trimester abortions so that fewer women ever reach the stage of needing an abortion after 15 weeks.
Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of second-trimester abortion even as they remain wary of limiting women’s health options. Only 36% of Americans think abortion in the second three months of pregnancy should be legal in most circumstances, which is why Republicans have often had success campaigning against it, even though it is a rare occurrence. Some 93% of abortions happen at or before 15 weeks, and less than 2% happen after 18 weeks. A pro-choice proposal could start by suggesting legislation that would make first-trimester abortions much easier to obtain across the country.
Most women who have second-trimester abortions would have preferred to end their pregnancies earlier, but had a difficult time saving money for the procedure or the travel needed to obtain it. Around two-thirds of Americans believe first-trimester abortion should be legal.
Women seeking later abortions tend to be younger and poorer; more likely to be victims of domestic abuse or single mothers; and live further away from an abortion provider. Telling their stories might make more Americans realize that if first-trimester abortion become more accessible, second-trimester abortion will become that much rarer, while women in difficult circumstances will get the health care they need.
No amount of improving first-trimester abortion access can cover every medical eventuality, and some level of second-trimester abortion will always be necessary. One in 13 women don’t discover they are pregnant until the end of their first trimester. Late discovery is especially likely when the pregnancy occurred despite the use of birth control — about half of women seeking abortions used birth control the month they got pregnant, and 1 in 10 women on the pill get pregnant every year. And there will always be women who face heartbreaking medical complications that either didn’t exist earlier in the pregnancy or couldn’t be diagnosed without prenatal screening tests (which generally take place between 12 weeks and 20 weeks).
But many of the 7% of abortions that happen after 15 weeks could be avoided if medication abortion (which is only meant to be used in the first 12 weeks) were cheaper and easier to obtain. Offering universal coverage for first-trimester abortion, making abortion services far more widely available and getting rid of patronizing mandatory waiting periods also would reduce the incidence of second-trimester abortion.
And most importantly, making first-trimester abortions easier to get would mean there are fewer women in the grim position of saving for an abortion and trying to find a provider while feeling more pregnant with each passing week.
Republicans have spent so much time talking about things like “partial-birth abortions” (a political coinage, not a medical term) because later abortions are politically unpopular. Advocates for reproductive rights should keep the focus on the people who need abortions, and how the best way to help them is to make early termination easier to get.
New Hampshire Shows GOP Isn’t Learning the Right Lessons: Jonathan Bernstein
Bernie Sanders Is Wrong About Natural Gas: Karl W. Smith | 2022-09-17T14:35:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Don’t Want Later Abortions? Make Early Ones More Accessible - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/dont-wantlater-abortions-make-early-ones-more-accessible/2022/09/17/730e8a7c-3689-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/dont-wantlater-abortions-make-early-ones-more-accessible/2022/09/17/730e8a7c-3689-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
Analysis by Julianna Goldman | Bloomberg
If 80 is the new 50 in politics, then Maxwell Frost is basically in utero. Frost, 25, is poised to become the first (and only) Gen Z member of Congress — and he is hungry for change.
Frost, who won the primary last month in Florida’s safely Democratic 10th District in Orlando, represents a cultural and generational shift. An Afro-Cuban, he has been driving an Uber to help pay his bills during his campaign. Unlike the majority of lawmakers, he wasn’t shaped by World War II, Vietnam or 9/11.
His defining issue, as he describes it to me, seems to be anxiety: about the economy (he says he remembers watching Occupy Wall Street protests during elementary school, and talks about student debt); about racism and violence (he cites the shooting of 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin as a formative event, and says his school had more active-shooter drills than fire drills); and about the climate.
“There’s almost no light at the end of the tunnel,” he tells me over Zoom. “Our generation and young people have just collective righteous anger and frustrations,” he says. “We’ve had a lot of time to fix these problems.”
What would he do differently? He tells me he would have responded with “political hell rain fire” to 75-year-old Senator Joe Manchin’s torpedoing of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill last year. It’s a lesson Democrats can learn from the MAGA movement, he says. “They’re fascists, but one thing they’re doing that we should look at is they’re being very aggressive about whipping people into shape and getting people to really align, and if they don’t, that hell rain fire comes down.”
Regardless of what you think of that strategy, at least Frost would bring a refreshingly youthful perspective to Congress, which is evolving too slowly when it comes to diversity of age — especially in its leadership. A CBS News poll shows that many Americans believe having more young people in elected office would make politics better.
America’s elected branches of government have yet to get the memo. Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012) may represent 31% of the electorate, but there are 33 millennials in the House, making up only 8% of the body. The youngest serving Republican representative is 27-year old Madison Cawthorne of North Carolina, followed by 32-year-old New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Things are even grayer in the Senate, which has one millennial, 35-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff of Georgia, 20 Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1980) and a whopping 80 members who are either baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1965) or members of the Silent Generation (born before 1965). Eleven senators were born before the end of World War II.
The poll also found that Democrats and Republicans are united in favoring maximum age limits for elected officials, with 70 as the top answer. That would disqualify not only the president (79 years old) and the speaker of the House (82), but most of the leadership of both parties, as well as about a third of the Senate.
For his part, Frost is against age caps and thinks it’s important for septuagenarians and even octogenarians to be represented in Congress. But his generation “barely makes up any government at any level anywhere,” he says.
Frost may benefit from a generational shift in voting behavior, says John Della Volpe, polling director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School and author of “Fight: How Gen Z Is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America.” Gen Z will vote for members of Congress “even if the candidates offered are not perfect,” he says. “That’s a distinction that separates them from previous generations.”
Their influence will come into sharper focus this November. The Harvard Youth Poll last spring found that turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds for the 2022 midterms was on track to match the record set in 2018. At the time of the survey, the composition of that group was more favorable to Republicans, Della Volpe says.
The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade has created something “more powerful” than in 2018, he says. There is “the shock of a couple of generations of rights being peeled away overnight,” combined with “youth friendly and future friendly” executive actions and legislative accomplishments on guns, climate and student debt relief.
“For young people to participate,” Della Volpe says, “they need to see their vote matters.” Soon enough, they may also see that their generation is represented. In the meantime, Frost may bring down the average age of Congress by a few years.
• A Very Old Senate Could Get a Tiny Bit Younger: Jonathan Bernstein
• Democratic Candidates Shouldn’t All Be Fresh Faces: Albert Hunt
• AOC’s Old-Fashioned Machine Politics: Francis Wilkinson
Julianna Goldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist who was formerly a Washington-based correspondent for CBS News and White House correspondent for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Television. | 2022-09-17T14:35:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Gen Z Looks to Bring Its Impatience to Congress - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/gen-z-looks-tobring-itsimpatience-to-congress/2022/09/17/736adb92-3689-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/gen-z-looks-tobring-itsimpatience-to-congress/2022/09/17/736adb92-3689-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
By Adele Uphaus, The Free Lance-Star | AP
This fall there are only two students in the career switcher course at James Monroe High School on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022 in Fredericksburg, Va. (Tristan Lorei/The Free Lance-Star via AP)
FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — If you ask little kids what they want to be when they grow up, many of them will answer “a teacher.” | 2022-09-17T14:35:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Career-switcher program gets teachers into the classroom - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/career-switcher-program-gets-teachers-into-the-classroom/2022/09/17/e5eafbc6-3688-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/career-switcher-program-gets-teachers-into-the-classroom/2022/09/17/e5eafbc6-3688-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
By Ben Benton, Chattanooga Times Free Press | AP
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SATURDAY, SEPT. 17, AND THEREAFTER - Tennessee Valley Authority’s Roy Rogers, center, drives the boat as Jimmy Nelson, left, and Paul Avery stand by, on Sept. 9, 2022, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Tennessee Valley Authority’s cultural team and police gathered at the Taylor Boat Ramp at the Chickamauga Day-Use Area, to bring awareness to the area’s rich history and what to do if artifacts are found. Looting cultural resources is an issue that TVA would like to call attention toward. (Olivia Ross/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP) | 2022-09-17T14:35:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | TVA seeks help combating looters of cultural resources - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/tva-seeks-help-combating-looters-of-cultural-resources/2022/09/17/bd53816e-3693-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/tva-seeks-help-combating-looters-of-cultural-resources/2022/09/17/bd53816e-3693-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
Two ex-governors test whether civil discourse is possible — or productive
Republican Bill Haslam and Democrat Phil Bredesen served back-to-back in Tennessee. Now they are teaming up in the hope of offering debate without discord about some of the serious issues of the day.
Former Tennessee governors Phil Bredesen (D), left, Bill Haslam (R) talk with audience members before a discussion on bipartisanship at Vanderbilt University on Nov. 5, 2019, in Nashville. (Mark Humphrey/AP)
Watching television news after 7 p.m. on almost any night, Bill Haslam says, is “unbearable, or at least it is for me. Because it’s just totally, ‘I’m trying to get you to be as outraged as you can about the things that I already know that you’re outraged about.’”
Haslam is like many Americans who are exhausted after half a dozen years of nonstop political conflict and news cycles that bleed from one into another and another. Unlike most Americans, Haslam and his friend Phil Bredesen are trying to offer some counterprogramming.
Haslam is a Republican who served as governor of Tennessee from 2011 to 2019. Bredesen is a Democrat who served for the eight years preceding Haslam’s tenure. Both are also former mayors in Tennessee — Haslam in Knoxville and Bredesen in Nashville — and both come from a business background.
Their politics are different, though as a conservative Democrat, Bredesen isn’t always all that far away from the moderately conservative (in today’s GOP) Haslam. By temperament they are temperate; their political style is oriented toward finding solutions rather than scoring points for cable television. Each has had some difficulty adjusting to the current state of their respective parties.
Neither Haslam nor Bredesen is a shouter, so they have come together not to shout but to talk — to talk not about the latest outrage that has caused the Twittesrphere to light up but about some real issues and whether it’s possible to find real common ground in this divided nation.
They have launched a podcast, youmightberight.org; that’s a reference to something another Tennessee politician, former Republican senator Howard Baker said to remind his fellow partisans that the other person might be right some of the time. The podcast is housed at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee.
The world is awash in podcasts, and the Haslam-Bredesen experiment in civil discourse echoes discussions that can be found in many places around the country, though often in places where people tend to agree with one another and less often across the barricades of what constitutes daily political life.
Their expectations are understandably modest. They are beginning with what they call a test flight, a series of conversations with pairs of guests, after which they will review and tweak. They have put off conversations about some of the most difficult topics — abortion or the teaching of America’s history of slavery and racism — until a second season.
A bigger challenge, perhaps, is whether these kinds of forums and formats are capable of producing more than just civil discussion. Generating understanding of opposing viewpoints is one thing. Reaching beyond easy compromise or lowest-common-denominator agreement, to generate fresh and unorthodox thinking about issues that have been debated forever is another.
Right now they are hoping simply to create both a model for civilized debate aimed at finding some agreement for solving public policy problems and some encouragement for others in the public arena to turn conversation into, say, legislation.
“There are certainly plenty of people in politics for whom it’s all about. ‘I just need to keep exciting my base and stay elected,’” Bredesen said. “I also believe there’s a lot of people in politics today who genuinely want to find some common ground and give some progress on some of these difficult issues. It’s more a matter of getting the camel’s nose under the tent here.”
The two governors talked with The Post about their hopes for the project, a day after they had recorded a session that featured two former Republican senators from Tennessee, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, who debated (or at least discussed) their opposing views about the Senate filibuster. Alexander remains a defender but Corker now sees a need to reform it, believing, Haslam said, that the Senate is so hamstrung that even decisions made on 51-49 votes are better than doing nothing.
Bredesen has been out of office now for almost more than a decade. He said one change he has seen, drawing from his experience both as a mayor and governor, is that state and local issues that once were seen as just that and therefore more disconnected from national debates, have become increasingly nationalized. Whether issues of education or even local election campaigns, he said, “those issues have gotten much more tied up with this national positioning” by the two major parties.
For Haslam the biggest differences between when he was first running for governor and today is the pernicious influence of social media’s growth and influence, a common diagnosis. “We all know you don’t get likes and retweets by saying something that’s not critical or not that inflammatory,” he said. “People figured out the more inflammatory I am, the more I get retweeted, the more I get liked. And I honestly think that is dramatically changed politics.” Few would disagree.
Bredesen, who governed as a Democrat in a region of the country that was becoming even more conservative and staunchly Republican, was often at odds with his own party while in office. He said the Democrats have “moved so far to the left” nationally that “you have to just carefully insulate yourself” to survive. He tried to do just that when he ran for the Senate in 2018. It didn’t work. He lost by double digits to now-Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R).
Haslam was the first Republican governor to have Republican majorities in the legislature. However, it wasn’t always an easy relationship, with legislators sometimes farther to the right than the governor. “We’ve lost some of the benefit in Tennessee that we had when you had two strong parties that were debating and arguing with each other and when you had to win two elections, not just one,” he said. “Ultimately, I’m a proud Republican, but it does change when the only thing you have to worry about is your primary.”
Bredesen has long lived in Tennessee but grew up in Upstate New York. Both places today, he said, are part of Trump country. “I just know a lot of people who find that attractive,” he said. “And when you when you peel it back, it is almost a cultural phenomenon of people feeling that government has not served them and hasn’t solved problems. And their response to it is — it’s almost a bomb-throwing response. But I think there’s enormous frustration among reasonable people that problems are not being solved in a way that benefits them.”
The podcast that Bredesen and Haslam are starting could easily be drowned out by that which draws the most attention in politics today, the noise of a divided electorate, the hostility that is now in the open, as well as genuine concerns about the turmoil caused by former president Donald Trump and related threats to democracy. The two ex-governors want to focus on issues that divide people but that still might be subject to broader consensus than cable TV debates might suggest.
But they are realists. “I guess we’re under no illusions that we’re going to solve all the country’s problems in our podcast,” Haslam said. “But I’d say this, and I think at the heart of a lot of the issues you talked about, is this incredible passion really on both sides of the country. And I think that passion is ignited a lot by folks who feel like, you know, I have to fight about this, and don’t really understand what’s the other side of the argument.” | 2022-09-17T14:35:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tenn. Republican and Democrat try to find common ground in new podcast - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/17/haslam-bredesen-podcast-sundaytake/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/17/haslam-bredesen-podcast-sundaytake/ |
By Kevin Schembri Orland | AP
VALLETTA, Malta — A dilapidated villa outside Malta’s capital where a young Princess Elizabeth and her husband lived for a fondly recalled period before she became queen has become a focal point of Malta’s remembrance of the late monarch and her ties to the former British colony in the Mediterranean. | 2022-09-17T14:36:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Once home to a princess, Malta remembers the queen - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/once-home-to-a-princess-malta-remembers-the-queen/2022/09/17/258338f4-368c-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/once-home-to-a-princess-malta-remembers-the-queen/2022/09/17/258338f4-368c-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
Inside Westminster Hall at 2 a.m., as Queen Elizabeth II lies in state
The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II lies in state inside Westminster Hall. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
LONDON — The courtyards of the Palace of Westminster were echo quiet below a half-moon. You could hear a mouse rustle by the bins and smell the River Thames just steps away.
I don’t work at Westminster, strictly speaking. But as a correspondent for The Washington Post, I am fortunate to have a lobby pass, which allows me to freely enter the estate to cover the debates — high and low — at the Houses of Commons and Lords.
Even lobby passes do not allow entrance into Westminster these days, however, not with the queen’s coffin lying in state. One could join the miles-long queue and wait for hours, as soccer star David Beckham did along with hundreds of thousands of other people. “I thought by coming at 2 a.m. it was going to be a little bit quieter,” he told ITV News. “I was wrong.”
I applied for a press time slot. I got 2 a.m. on Saturday. A taxi dropped me off near MI5, the counterintelligence and domestic security service, a short walk to the media gate at Victoria Tower Gardens.
I’ve been on the grounds many times. This was different.
Westminster Hall is the oldest structure on the estate, the scene of royal banquets and the trials of King Charles I (beheaded), Guy Fawkes (hanged) and Sir Thomas More (beheaded). It was built in 1097 by the son of William the Conqueror, and those stones still stand. The hammer-beam roof, commissioned in 1393, has been called “the greatest creation of medieval timber architecture.” It spans a width of 67 feet, without support pillars.
The trees of those beams were cut from royal woods, ferried to London by barge and cart. They’re now adorned by angels with wings and shields. At the top of the stone walls are carved deer, with chains around their necks.
It is an amazement of engineering, history, design, art. And there, under that roof, I watched.
The people kept coming. Government and palace officials have been stunned by the numbers, a 24/7 procession expected to last until the queen’s funeral on Monday morning at Westminster Abbey.
They entered, walked down the steps and paused before the closed coffin of the queen, which rests on a raised platform, known as a catafalque.
Atop the coffin, on a purple pillow, rests the crown.
Candles were burning, but the hall was not candlelit. It was bright as a train station. The most remarkable thing: the quiet and the solemnity.
The public is allowed no photography, and so there were no hands held aloft with smartphones. No selfies, no Instagram snaps, no Facebook Live.
People came wrapped in scarves, swaddled in puffer coats because of the nighttime chill. Some were dressed in funereal black and a few men in formal morning coats with vests. One woman wore what appeared to be an evening dress with pearls.
At the coffin, they paused. For a few seconds, but not longer. Some made the sign of the cross. I watched mourners move their lips, in prayer or thanks or memories. Others bowed, a dip of the head, or very deeply, from the waist.
Two people snapped to a smart military salute.
There were older men, with regimental berets and medals on their chests from past service. There were people with canes or in wheelchairs. One couple embraced, after passing the coffin, to comfort each other. Some mourners dabbed their eyes with tissues. One could be heard, faintly but audibly, weeping.
Every 20 minutes brought a changing of the guard. A staff struck the stone, and 10 bodyguards were refreshed by their counterparts, mirror images in their uniforms and bearing.
Surrounding the coffin, they stood like wax works: the Gentlemen at Arms with plumed headdresses and cavalry swords, the King’s Guard in bearskin hats, the Yeomen of the Guard in scarlet tunics with staffs.
On Saturday evening, Princes William and Harry will come for a “grandchildren’s vigil.” | 2022-09-17T15:14:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A reporter visits the Queen with thousands in Westminster Hall - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/queen-coffin-lying-in-state/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/queen-coffin-lying-in-state/ |
After waiting hours to pay respect to the queen, they got a royal surprise
The Prince of Wales meets members of the public in the queue along the South Bank, near to Lambeth Bridge, London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of Monday's funeral. (Pool/Via Reuters)
LONDON — Britons who had lined up for hours in the cold to pay their final respects to Queen Elizabeth II were greeted by two surprise visitors on Saturday: The new monarch, King Charles III, and his son William, the latest Prince of Wales.
The new sovereign, exhibiting a common touch, shook hands and offered encouragement to those waiting to see his mother lie in state.
“You’re not far off getting there,” Charles told those close to Lambeth Bridge in south London. “Hope you didn’t get frozen last night,” he added, according to a BBC report.
Hardy Brits have been braving dropping temperatures and standing huddled through the night — with wait times up to 20 hours — to pay their last respects to the queen, shocking the world with their commitment.
Hundreds in the queue have been treated by paramedics — with cold nighttime temperatures being the “main challenge,” according to St John Ambulance, a medical group.
King Charles III and his son Prince William on Sept. 17 greeted mourners waiting in long lines for hours to see the queen’s coffin. (Video: The Washington Post)
William stayed with the crowds longer than his father, pausing to chat to a young boy who said he’d been there with his family since 10:30 the night before. “You’re doing an amazing job,” the heir-to-the-throne told him, adding that he was “nearly there.”
The crowds were heard chanting “William, William,” as he spoke of how impressed he was with the public outpouring and commitment to their longest-reigning monarch. “She [the Queen] would never believe this, honestly. It’s amazing,” he said, according to Britain’s Sky News.
Members of the public looked elated as they took photos and chanted “God save the King.” Charles accepted gifts and notes as one individual shouted out: “It’s worth the wait.”
Soccer star David Beckham made headlines when he joined the line earlier in the week, while others including Olympic champion Kelly Holmes have also taken part in what has become a national spectacle — complete with its own Twitter handle and dozens of online parodies — affectionately dubbed “The Queue.”
As of Saturday afternoon the wait time was 16.5 hours, according to the official government tracker, snaking from Westminster along the River Thames to Southwark Park, an over 60-acre public space in southeast London. A day earlier the line had to be temporarily closed due to overwhelming numbers.
Toilet and tea breaks are permitted further along the queue, once numbered wristbands have been issued. First aid and faith services are also on-hand as well as safety volunteers overseeing the mammoth line.
The Washington Post’s Karla Adam joined the queue for more than seven hours on Wednesday into Thursday. As she wrote, waiting patiently in long lines is a uniquely British cultural skill with its own set of rules.
The queen is currently lying in state in Westminster Hall, where the public have until 6:30 a.m. local time Monday to file past — those that cannot attend (or face the long lines) can watch a 24-hour live stream. An online book of condolence is also available for personal messages.
King Charles and his siblings, all clad in military uniform, briefly stood vigil by their mother’s coffin late Friday. William and Harry are expected to do so later Saturday.
Elizabeth’s closed coffin rests on a raised platform, which is called a catafalque, and it is draped with the Royal Standard, along with the Imperial State Crown, orb and scepter.
At 11 a.m. Monday, her state funeral attended by the royal family and world figures and watched by millions globally, will begin. | 2022-09-17T15:14:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | King Charles, Prince William visit public in the queue for the queen - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/queen-queue-charles-william-surprise/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/queen-queue-charles-william-surprise/ |
Clinton Lacey, the former head of the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, is working to create credible messengers nationwide
Clinton Lacey, the former director of D.C.'s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, founded the Credible Messenger Mentoring Movement. (Taylor Turner /TWP)
Musa Mahdi could have chosen any success story to share. The one he wanted to talk about on a recent afternoon happened on the day he picked up a young man from a D.C. school.
It had taken convincing to get the teenager to start attending school again, and even after he agreed, he often skipped classes and roamed the halls. But when Mahdi showed up that day, the teenager told him he was tired.
“Today was the first day I attended every class,” Mahdi recalled him saying.
Another adult might not have seen that accomplishment as worth noting. But Mahdi drove the teenager that day to get his favorite dish, Wings Inferno, at Busboys and Poets.
“I was so happy,” Mahdi recalled. “He doesn’t know how much joy he gave me. To me, that felt like the ultimate success.”
For the past five years, young people who have ended up in D.C.’s criminal justice system have encountered Mahdi as a “credible messenger,” a title that tells them he understands the life they’re living because he has lived it. The D.C. native grew up on the same streets they’ve walked. He has been locked up in the same type of cells they’ve occupied. He understands the pressures they’re up against because he’s been up against them, too.
Children keep seeing grown-ups killed in the nation’s capital. They’re victims, too.
Mahdi served time in D.C. jail and six federal prisons before getting released in 2017. He was in custody when he turned 18. On that day, guards pulled him from the juvenile block and tossed him into the adult section.
“That was your birthday gift,” he said. “They take you upstairs and throw you in with the wolves. That statement — ‘It can make you or break you’ — is true. It broke a lot of people.”
In some District neighborhoods, the term “credible messengers” doesn’t need to be explained. But in the last year, the mentorship movement has expanded from D.C. to cities across the nation where the concept is new, and people in those places might find themselves wondering what it is all about.
Mahdi, who works for D.C.’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, said they should know this: “We celebrate every success.”
By “every” he means the big and the small, the life-altering and the habit-changing, the ones that come from decisions made in heated moments and the ones that take repeated, purposeful action.
One young man he mentors is now attending college, and Mahdi still worries about him. “The work is never done,” he said. “It is never done.”
As U.S. cities grapple with how to address juvenile crime, there has been much debate about youth curfews, such as the one that Prince George’s County started to enforce this month. But curfews don’t change lives. They empower the police to force a young person off the street for a few hours. They don’t empower young people in ways that make them not want to be on the street the next night or the night after that.
Forget curfews. We should be spending more of our collective energy examining long-term solutions to addressing juvenile crime and dedicating more resources to the ones that show the most promise.
Any organization that works with vulnerable youth warrants close and consistent scrutiny. The stakes are too high to simply trust that good intentions equal good outcomes. But the concept of credible messengers is rooted in redemption, and it’s easy to see how if recruitment, training and oversight is done right, it could keep some juvenile offenders from becoming adult offenders.
Clinton Lacey, the former director of D.C.’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, describes credible messenger initiatives as offering communities a way to employ returning citizens and reduce recidivism among young people. Systems and services often lack cultural understanding of the communities they serve, he said. Credible messengers bring that understanding.
“You’ve got to know communities,” he said. “You have to know families. You have to care about them. I always say you have to love them. You have to have this core belief that they are not the sum total of their problems.”
Lacey developed the District’s credible messenger initiative after establishing a program in New York, where he worked as deputy commissioner of the city’s probation department. The goal in the District was to offer young people who were being released from the detention facility New Beginnings Youth Development Center someone who could help them transition back into the community.
Lacey said DYRS was hosting a summit in 2018 that was attended by people from across the country when he started thinking about expanding the initiative to other cities. In March 2021, he resigned from DYRS and founded the not-for-profit organization Credible Messenger Mentoring Movement (CM3). In the last year, the organization has helped launch initiatives in more than a half dozen places, including cities in Texas, Mississippi and New Jersey.
That more cities are seeking to train and deploy credible messengers shows a growing desire by government officials to do more for young people than lock them up.
D.C. has seen one concerning case after another in recent years involving juveniles. It is also a place with credible messengers. I asked Lacey whether that shows a lack of the program’s effectiveness. He said it shows a need to expand the credible messenger program to youth who aren’t yet in DYRS custody.
An 11-year-old boy’s killing isn’t proof black lives don’t matter to black people. It’s proof of our collective failure.
Credible messengers provide “crisis intervention” but they also do more than that, he said: “It’s coming with them to a graduation, going with them to a cookout, teaching them how to tie a tie, walking them to school if need be. It’s checking in on their parents or caregiver.”
It’s giving them someone who will remain in their life for a long while. That commitment is built into the organization’s goals for credible messengers, but it is also the nature of connecting with someone who understands you and is rooting for you.
“Once you build a relationship with them, you can’t let them go,” Raequan McIver said.
McIver was not yet a teenager when he first ended up in D.C.'s criminal justice system. At 19, he was assigned two credible messengers. Now, at 25, he serves as one.
McIver said he went to live in a group home after getting released from custody and his credible messengers came into his life when he had little support. He credited them with helping him get a job and anger management therapy “when I was embarrassed to go to a counselor.”
“They never gave up on me,” he said.
On the night we spoke, he received a phone call. It was from one of his credible messengers.
“He is still mentoring me,” McIver said. | 2022-09-17T15:53:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The mentoring movement that is expanding from D.C. to other cities - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/17/credible-messengers-juvenile-crime/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/17/credible-messengers-juvenile-crime/ |
Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.) sponsored legislation to assist people with joint consolidation loans. (Andrew Harnik/Associated Press)
Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.) have introduced the bill three times since 2017. While they have garnered bipartisan support over the years, some Republicans were concerned about allowing the Education Department to break a contract based on the word of one spouse without any legal documents to back their claims of abuse or neglect.
“We have some opposition, but this is basically a bipartisan, bicameral bill and it is satisfying to work it out on that basis,” Price said Friday. “This is kind of an object lesson in how hard it is to get things done that seem pretty obvious, and this one always seemed obvious to me.”
Who qualifies for the new federal student loan forgiveness plan?
For Price, the issue became a priority around 2014 after hearing from people who were also stuck in loans with abusive or irresponsible partners without any recourse. “We heard about cases of domestic violence that not only made reconciliation impossible but joint responsibility for these obligations impossible,” Price said. “The consequences were severe, with people’s credit being ruined, wages being garnished.”
More than 14,700 people combined their debt through the spousal consolidation program between 1993 and 2006, according to federal data obtained by the Student Borrower Protection Center. Couples agreed to be held equally liable for each other’s education debt in exchange for a single payment and a lower interest rate.
“There is not enough of us to impact an election, so there has not been a lot of political motivation to do anything,” said Lori Klein, 58, a single mother of two in Raleigh, N.C., who added, “anyone can see how crazy this situation is.” She has struggled to repay a spousal loan since she said her husband abandoned the family and moved to Turkey in 2006.
“It was a blessing to get out of the relationship and not have my children grow up with someone like my ex-husband, but this debt has been a dark cloud hanging over me for years,” she said. “If I can get a handle on it, I could aggressively save for retirement.” | 2022-09-17T16:06:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House to vote on bill to split joint spousal student loans - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/17/spousal-consolidation-student-loan-legislation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/17/spousal-consolidation-student-loan-legislation/ |
Armani Rogers a standout college quarterback, has found a new role at tight end with the Commanders, and he thrived in the opener against Andre Cisco and the Jaguars. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Armani Rogers had roughly two weeks to let go of a career as a quarterback, start anew as a tight end and appear just decent enough at the new position to win over NFL scouts and executives.
Two weeks.
The 6-foot-5, 225-pound athlete spent his entire career tossing the ball, be it in baseball as a highly touted first baseman, or football as a dual-threat quarterback at UNLV and then Ohio University.
But when the 2021 college season ended and the NFL draft neared, Rogers was encouraged to make an abrupt switch, leaving him little time to learn the basics before the pre-draft whirlwind began, starting with the East-West Shrine Bowl.
“I knew I had a lot to gain and not much to really lose in the situation,” he said. “These people I’m playing against are great college athletes that have been playing the position all their life. If I can go out there and just show a little potential, I know some teams will be willing to take a chance on you.”
A five-minute guide to Week 2 in the NFL
Just 10 months into his NFL career, Rogers has shown more than just “a little potential.” The 24-year-old has emerged as a valuable contributor for the Commanders. His coaches view his transition to tight end as nothing short of exceptional, but his promise has the Commanders even more intrigued.
“To predict that he would end up being a tight end, I can’t tell you that I would’ve seen that, because really you have to give that to Armani,” Eric Stokes, Washington’s senior director of player personnel, said. “What he did is quite frankly remarkable.”
‘An opportunity’
The Commanders have made a habit of transforming talented players into multiskilled weapons. Take Antonio Gibson, Washington’s leading running back who was a wide receiver at the University of Memphis. Or Logan Thomas, a former quarterback who, like Rogers, switched to tight end. Or J.D. McKissic, another back who converted from receiver at the pro level.
Rogers’s blocking skills remain raw, but his speed and strength could be a boon in the pass game — especially considering new quarterback Carson Wentz’s fondness for his tight ends. Since 2017, when he helped lead the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl, Wentz has targeted tight ends the second-most among qualified quarterbacks, behind only the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson.
The Commanders' offense isn't all new. Sometimes, it just looks that way.
In Washington’s Week 1 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, Wentz targeted Rogers only once, but the catch offered a glimpse at what could be.
On a screen play, Rogers slid into the flat, caught a short pass, then spun off a defender to see nothing but an open field. He picked up 23 yards before being pushed out of bounds.
Four plays later, the Commanders were in the end zone.
“You watch Armani and his athleticism, and I think it is a skill set that’s going to go ahead and continue to develop well for us in terms of his ability to run and catch the ball,” Coach Ron Rivera said. “He’s a try-hard blocker, he really is. He’s a little light, but he tries very hard, and sometimes all you need to do is get in the way.”
Washington’s staff took notice of Rogers well before he arrived in Washington. He appeared on the radar of executive vice president Marty Hurney when he was GM of the Carolina Panthers.
Rogers, a standout at UNLV at the time, reminded Hurney of a familiar player: Cam Newton. Tall and lanky, Rogers didn’t yet have the frame for a career as an NFL quarterback, and his two seasons at Ohio would all but end his chance of gaining enough notice to break in.
In Las Vegas, Rogers set multiple school records, including UNLV’s career mark for net rushing yards by a quarterback with 1,549. He is the only quarterback in UNLV history to rush for at least 100 net yards in six games and, in 2017, was one of just five players nationwide to average at least 140 passing yards and 75 rushing yards per game.
At Ohio, he set the FBS record for the longest run by a quarterback at 99 yards. But he didn’t start a single game, and his hoped-for future as an NFL quarterback faded. So his agents, Frank Bauer and Kenny Chapman, urged a position switch.
“I knew I wanted to be in the NFL, and not playing quarterback my last year and not having any film the last two years or whatever the case may be, I just know this is an opportunity for me to get to the next level,” Rogers said. “I have to do what I have to do long be on an NFL team.”
Svrluga: The Commanders could start 6-1? Seriously, you must be joking...
Rogers’s father, Sam Rogers, was a linebacker for 10 years in the league, with three different teams. Sam was hesitant for his son to switch positions. But eventually he supported the move.
“He had a rough two years at Ohio University,” Sam Rogers said. “And when you got a kid like Armani who loves to compete, loves to be on the field, not saying anything bad about other kids, but he just knew he was better than the kid they were putting in front of him. Sometimes it does take the air out of you.”
Tight end offered Armani a second chance. Once he decided, he called his longtime trainer Travelle Gaines and asked for his help.
“I thought he was crazy,” Gaines recalled. “But he worked so hard, it just all made sense that he is where he is now.”
For two weeks in January, Rogers ran through three-a-days, with early morning workouts that focused on strength followed by recovery sessions, midday workouts that focused on speed and agility, and then afternoon sessions to work on the nuances of the tight end position — the blocking, pass-catching and route running. The latter seemed to come almost naturally, perhaps because of Rogers’s years watching and working with wideouts as a quarterback.
“The first time he actually ran routes was at the East-West Shrine Game,” Gaines said. “But he just wanted to get better and perfect his craft.”
Rogers also worked with Steve Calhoun, a private quarterbacks coach in California who was one of the Commanders’ 2022 Bill Walsh NFL Diversity Coaching Fellows. Rogers also had the help of his father, who made a living covering tight ends and shared all the things that made his job difficult.
“It was hard. At first I took him out on the field just to see if he could catch,” Sam Rogers said. “I knew he could catch basically in the shotgun, but not knowing he could catch over his shoulder, behind his back and all this stuff, twist his body around. So I took him out on the field and said, ‘Oh wow. You really have decent hands.’ ”
Though Rogers was one of the lesser-known invites to the East-West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galko, the director of football operations and player personnel for the game, had followed him for years.
“He’s a good case study for how to properly have perspective when scouting, because just the fact that he was able to be an adequate route runner and knew what he was doing was impressive,” Galko said. “The really impressive thing that he showed was the subtle stuff — using his hands against linebackers in one-on-ones to get that late-breaking separation that’s so important for a tight end, the slight shoulder adjustments against nickel corners when he’s doing a corner route.
“In isolation, none of those things are like, ‘Oh, I’m an NFL guy.’ But I think probably everybody he played against was either drafted or made a roster at linebacker or cornerback in practice. And the fact that he won consistently … and knowing that he has just learned this position weeks ago, all raised the question: What’s he going to be like in three months or, for the Commanders, in three years?
“Is he the next Logan Thomas?”
It all clicks
Before the East-West game, Galko said, no NFL teams recommended Rogers. They weren’t against him playing, but they also didn’t advocate to see him there.
“But post-event, yes, he was quite the talk of a lot of NFL personnel,” Galko said.
Especially Washington. Hurney and a contingent of Washington scouts attended the full week of practice and the game in Las Vegas. Their interest in Rogers only increased after his pro day at UCLA, where he recorded a 4.58 40-yard dash and jumped 34 inches on his vertical. Rogers wasn’t drafted, and he chose to sign with Washington knowing, in part, how much the Commanders had invested in him over the years.
It helped that Rogers’s agents also represented Hurney, Commanders coach Ron Rivera and general manager Martin Mayhew. They also represented former Pro Bowl tight end Julius Thomas, a basketball player at Portland State who played one season of football before going pro.
“Same type of model for Armani. We thought he’d get recognized for his athleticism, and sure enough,” said Chapman, one of Rogers’s agents. “We call him Julius Thomas 2.0.”
If Rogers needs an example of what’s possible, he need look no further than the guy starting in front of him. Logan Thomas, a former standout at Virginia Tech, transitioned from quarterback two years after the Cardinals drafted him. By the time he arrived in Washington in 2020, he had three seasons of learning the position on his résumé, though none as a full-time starter. Once he got the extra reps that season, he said he finally felt comfortable at the position.
“Probably Week 3, Week 4,” Thomas said. “I really knew what I could do. I was understanding our offense and how I fit in our offense.”
For Rogers, it all clicked during organized team activities, he said. He had been a tight end for all of five months. Following his first NFL game last week, Rogers laughed when he thought back to January.
“I feel like a totally different person,” he said. “I feel like I play tight end now.” | 2022-09-17T16:06:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Armani Rogers hit a ceiling as a college QB — but not yet as a Commanders TE - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/commanders-armani-rogers-tight-end/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/commanders-armani-rogers-tight-end/ |
Winning a tossup House race was about more than just defending abortion rights and delivering on many of the party’s promises, Pat Ryan told his new colleagues.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) administers the oath of office to Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) on Sept. 13. (Jose Luis Magana/AP)
Pat Ryan received a standing ovation Wednesday from House Democrats, the morning after being formally sworn in to Congress following his upset victory in a highly competitive special election.
Democrats remain the underdogs in keeping the House majority in the November midterms, as Republicans need just a five-seat swing and are defending far fewer seats in races considered toss-ups. But Ryan’s victory, coupled with Rep. Mary Peltola’s win in Alaska’s special election last month, gave Democrats a clear signal the political environment has shifted and opened a narrow path to maintain power next year.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), dean of the state’s Democratic delegation, introduced Ryan at the first caucus meeting since those victories. Peltola had a scheduling conflict, so Ryan got the task of explaining to Democrats about the lessons learned.
It was about more than just defending abortion rights and delivering on many of the party’s promises, he told his new colleagues.
“This was about showing the fight, and I think people get that and that’s going to be a big part of what we’re going to see coming into November,” Ryan recalled in an interview later Wednesday in the Rayburn Room, just off the House floor.
His race, in a district that President Biden narrowly carried, more closely approximates what many endangered Democrats face, unlike Alaska’s unusual ranked-choice system.
“So what worked in Pat Ryan’s district is a playbook for anybody running in a swing district,” Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Wednesday, noting that 222 other districts have a more favorable lean for his party.
Most instant analysis credits Ryan’s campaign, which he launched days after a leaked draft showed the Supreme Court intended to overturn Roe v. Wade, with capturing the lightning of that moment, especially after the late June ruling confirmed what was in that draft.
But, according to Ryan and other seasoned Democrats, his victory came because he anchored the race in demonstrating to voters how much he would fight for the cause.
In the days after the late June ruling by the Supreme Court, liberal activists grew despondent as they perceived Biden, Pelosi and other senior Democrats responding to the landmark decision with a lack of urgency.
On June 30, Ryan released an ad that began with stirring images of him in the Army, as a female narrator talked about how he fought “for our freedom.” The ad then made a hard pivot to Ryan today in a park.
“And freedom includes a woman’s right to choose,” he said. He then walked through a medical setting talking about government “trying to control women’s bodies … That’s not the country I fought to defend.”
His message applies to other issues. For years or even decades, voters have told pollsters they side with the Democrats on lowering prescription drug costs, restricting gun rights, giving better health care to veterans, making the wealthy pay higher taxes, shifting toward green energy, and returning manufacturing jobs to American shores.
In the span of just seven weeks, Democrats passed legislation that they contend will do all of those things. But it’s not enough to just tout the benefits of these collective bills, on some higher intellectual level. Instead, Democrats have to talk about who they fought to get these votes passed: the National Rifle Association, PhRMA, big energy companies, big corporations.
“There’s the issues level, there’s the values level,” Ryan said in the interview. “And then there’s the [level of] ‘do I trust you to actually fight for those issues and values?’ ”
By signaling how they overcame powerful special interests to shepherd these proposals into law, Democrats can prove to voters that they are about more than just winning an argument.
“If it’s not authentic, it’s not going to work,” Ryan said.
To be sure, Ryan, 40, is a unique figure whose win will not be replicable for many Democrats. First, the special election was held on the same day as primaries in a state where more Democrats vote than Republicans, so his advisers could focus on driving up base turnout.
In addition, his family goes back five generations in the region, where the Ryans have been prominent leaders in the health-care industry for decades in Ulster County, home to more than 1 in 4 voters in his district.
His military background also gives him a personal story many candidates lack: The 2001 terrorist attacks happened during Ryan’s sophomore year at the U.S. Military Academy. He served two tours in Iraq and then spent time in Afghanistan as a private contractor.
Republicans believe that this race was an outlier and that November will turn heavily on inflation, which public polls show remains the top concern among voters. They think that was confirmed with Wednesday’s report showing still-high price hikes — just as Biden hosted Democrats for a victory party after their August legislative wins.
“He looks like a fool celebrating his reckless spending spree while prices continue to rise and the stock market is tanking,” Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told Fox News.
Ryan doesn’t dismiss inflation. If candidates sidestep that painful economic issue and just run on protecting abortion rights, he says, those Democrats will fail.
“You can’t ask people to trust you on sort of a big defense of democracy and rights issue, if you’re not meeting them on the immediate pain that they’re feeling,” Ryan said.
Ryan’s second campaign ad showed him high up in a crane next to a telephone poll talking about how, as county executive, he took on “greedy corporations” and big utility companies for price gouging. He put as much focus on that populist theme as he did the first ad about fighting for abortion rights.
And those Democratic policy wins this summer gave him something to tout in the final two weeks of the race, a marked contrast to how party infighting last fall left Biden’s agenda languishing just before Democrats got stomped in off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
“I was able to campaign in the home stretch not just on defending fundamental rights, but to talk about real relief,” he said.
Ryan’s career could have ended four years ago when, as the DCCC favorite, he lost the primary to Antonio Delgado, who went on to flip this Hudson Valley seat from Republicans in November 2018.
Instead, in early 2019, he ran in another special election and won the county executive race and, once Delgado got appointed lieutenant governor in the spring, he jumped into the House race.
With a court-imposed map scrambling congressional lines, he could have easily passed on last month’s race. His home will be in a more Biden-friendly district next year, for which he’s now running in the November election.
But his first days of the special-election campaign showed the ground shift at rallies and protests the weekend after the Supreme Court draft leaked. And the campaign eschewed the language agitators on both sides of the issue have deployed for 50 years — choice, life, back-alley abortion, murder.
Having been raised Catholic, Ryan used other terms in his appeal. “Talking about what is a difficult, complicated, deeply personal issue in a way that I felt would be broadly unifying and trying to really remind people the shared American value of freedom,” he said.
Ultimately, however, he had to pass a credibility test that many Democrats have failed, convincing voters of the ability to pack a punch to back up one’s beliefs.
“Really to me, the takeaway is showing a fight, really saying we are going to stand up and fight and not triangulate and poll test and pull our punches,” Ryan said. “I think that can’t be underappreciated.” | 2022-09-17T16:41:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pat Ryan has a message for his House colleagues: Show voters your fight - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/17/pat-ryan-democratic-house-message/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/17/pat-ryan-democratic-house-message/ |
One engineer put off a doctor’s visit, his family said, and died of a heart attack weeks later
Aaron Hiles and his father in an undated photo in Eureka Springs, Ark. (Family photo)
Aaron Hiles, a locomotive engineer, told his wife he “felt different,” though he couldn’t say exactly how. He made an appointment to see a doctor, his family said. But then his employer, BNSF, one of the largest freight rail carriers in the nation, unexpectedly called him into work.
Failing to show up would invite penalties under a new attendance system BNSF had adopted just a few months earlier, a policy that unions have decried as the strictest in the nation. So Hiles, 51, delayed his doctor’s visit, his family said, and went into work.
A few weeks later, on June 16, Hiles suffered a heart attack and died in an engine room on a BNSF freight train somewhere between Kansas City, Mo., and Fort Madison, Iowa — a tragedy that helped fuel a labor standoff that last week nearly shut down the U.S. economy.
Railroad attendance policies were at the heart of the dramatic showdown between the nation’s largest rail carriers and railroad workers, who agreed not to strike after President Biden and other top administration officials brokered a last-minute agreement early Thursday. The deal includes a 24 percent pay increase by 2024 — the largest for railroad workers in more than four decades — and new flexibility for workers to take time off when they are hospitalized or to attend routine doctor’s appointments without penalty.
But discontent among rail workers is still brewing. They say few details have been made available about the agreement, which leaves the points-based attendance policy in place for other types of emergencies. And some say they doubt the deal will address their fundamental concerns about quality of life amid painful labor shortages and the continued spread of covid-19.
“This policy is pretty cruel. Everybody is worried about points,” said Joel Dixon, a BNSF conductor and Hiles’s best friend of more than two decades. “It’s always a question whether Aaron would still be around if he made that doctor’s appointment. Him and I talked everyday. We were brothers.”
BNSF would not discuss the details of Hiles’s death but pointed out that employees receive generous vacation packages and are able to take time off when needed without fear of retribution. The company said that it is committed to working with employees when “extenuating circumstances” arise but that the points-based policies are necessary to keep the trains running during a challenging worker crunch.
Still, reaction on social media has been outraged since union leaders walked away with a deal that guarantees rail workers only a single additional paid day off. Some workers said they weren’t sure how the negotiators arrived at these policies, in their tug-of-war of proposals in closed-door talks over some 20 hours at the Department of Labor offices.
More specific contract language will be distributed to workers in the coming weeks and explained in educational sessions intended to persuade workers to ratify the agreements, union leaders say.
The stakes are high. Unless union leaders persuade 115,000 workers across 12 unions to vote to ratify contracts, a nationwide rail strike is still possible — and could snarl much of the nation’s supply-chain just ahead of the midterm elections.
Points-based attendance policies date to 2020, when Union Pacific, one of the country’s largest carriers, rolled out new rules to help ensure staffing during the pandemic. Under these policies, employees are granted a certain number of points, which are deducted when they miss a request to come into work or call out of work unexpectedly. They can gain points by agreeing to be on call for 14 days straight. If their point totals fall too low, penalties can apply up to and including termination.
BNSF adopted its own points-based attendance policy in February 2022. Unions called BNSF’s policy “the worst and most egregious attendance policy ever adopted by any rail carrier.”
BNSF said that the policy was implemented to “incentivize consistent and reliable attendance” amid increased demand for smooth-running services.
Rail carriers have been dealing with high turnover and labor shortages over the past two years. Rail transportation is down 12,500 jobs since the pandemic began, according to the Labor Department.
Under these policies, union leaders say workers have lost points or faced penalties for calling out sick with covid, suffering a heart attack, and getting into a severe car accident. Another employee lost points after missing work when his mother died.
BNSF spokesman Benjamin Wilemon denied those claims, saying that the system may automatically assign points for absences but that employees can explain the situation to their supervisor and regain their points.
Wilemon said that BNSF’s attendance policy is designed so that “employees can take time off when needed” and that “employees are encouraged to use their points without fear of retribution.” He noted that points are available to use for doctor’s visits and that employees have at least three weeks of vacation and 10 personal days available to them.
“It is unfortunate that some would use the death of Mr. Hiles to further their agenda while ignoring the facts of this tragic situation,” Wilemon said. “Out of respect for his family, BNSF will not discuss the circumstances around his passing.”
Wilemon also noted that workers received a 25 percent increase in personal days this year and that employees cannot work more than six days in a row under federal law.
Union leaders say the federal law allowance is misleading, because time spent stranded in a hotel, after working a long shift, waiting to be called back to work, does not count as a work day.
Just missing a phone call from BNSF to come into work results in a 15-point deduction, BNSF confirmed. Many conductors and engineers live in rural parts of the country with limited cell service. Once called, workers have 90 minutes to two hours to report to work, regardless of the time of day and how far they live from their station. Failing to show up for work on weekends, holidays and other ‘high impact’ days, such as Super Bowl Sunday and Mother’s Day, result in the largest deductions. Although employees can win back points by being available to work 14 days in a row.
More than 700 BNSF employees have quit their jobs since the policy was rolled out in February, union officials say, exacerbating the workload for those who remain.
BNSF’s Wilemon said the company has seen more workers taking planned vacation days since rolling out its attendance-based policy. He said that workers take off 24 hours, on average, between each shift and that that number has increased since the attendance policy kicked in. He added that the policy has resulted in fewer attendance-based discipline actions.
BNSF employees say the points-based attendance system has worsened a difficult occupation that already weighs on their mental and physical health. Many railway workers suffer chronic health conditions, such as obesity and sleep apnea, according to union officials. Workers regularly stay in motels for days on end, unsure when they’ll be able to return home, exacerbating tensions in already strained marriages and relationships with their children.
Jordan Boone, 41, a BNSF conductor in Galesburg, Ill., has five kids at home. Since the policy went into effect in February, Boone said, he misses most sports games, birthdays, recitals and vacations. If he is lucky, he can squeeze in a few hours with his family a week.
“BNSF came up with this policy, because of all the cuts they’ve made, and they’re trying to do all they can to get us to pick up the slack. They haven’t hired enough,” Boone said. “The time away from family has a big impact on our mental health. I know people that have missed doctor’s appointments for months and months because of this policy.”
Aaron Hiles signed up for a rail job at BNSF in Galesburg after serving in the Marines in Desert Storm and Somalia. The job was prestigious, but life on the railroad was tough. Hiles spent weeks away from home, living out of motels, working through Christmas and other holidays, and collecting coins and reading about current events to pass the time.
But things took a turn for the worse when BNSF adopted its updated points policy in February, Hiles’s parents said. They noticed Aaron looked “tired and really run down.”
“When he told us about the mandate, I said, ‘Someone’s going to have a heart attack and die,’ and he said, ‘Yes, they will,’” recalled Donna Hiles, his mother.
On the day Hiles died, two BNSF representatives traveled to his home in Lee Summit, Mo., to inform his wife. She called his parents to let them know their son had passed.
BNSF paid for Hiles’s funeral expenses, but his parents never heard directly from them.
“It’s devastating,” Donna Hiles said. “He was larger than life. He was kindhearted. I dare you to find one person who disliked him. He had hundreds of friends.” | 2022-09-17T17:37:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rail strike averted over rail deal that gives workers more time off - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/17/railroad-strike-attendance-workers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/17/railroad-strike-attendance-workers/ |
Torrential rain and damaging winds will probably cause flooding and power outages through Sunday night
Satellite view of Tropical Storm Fiona, midday Saturday. (NOAA)
Tropical storm Fiona is gradually gaining strengthen as it sweeps into the eastern Caribbean, prompting a hurricane warning for Puerto Rico. Over 12 inches of rain and damaging winds are forecast to batter the island between Saturday night and Sunday night, probably leading to flooding and power outages.
The storm’s peak winds increased from 50 to 60 mph between Friday and Saturday and are expected to approach 75 mph by Sunday — which is hurricane strength — when its center will be passing just to Puerto Rico’s south.
“Hurricane conditions are expected across portions of Puerto Rico Sunday and Sunday night, and are possible across the U.S. Virgin Islands tonight and Sunday,” the Hurricane Center wrote Saturday morning.
Virgin Islands: 4 to 6 inches, with localized totals up to 10 inches.
Puerto Rico: 12 to 16 inches, with localized totals up to 20 inches in eastern and southeastern areas.
Dominican Republic: 4 to 8 inches, with localized totals up to 12 inches along the far eastern coast.
Haiti: 1 to 3 inches, with localized totals up to 4 inches.
Through the weekend, environmental conditions are favorable for more strengthening. “[I]ntensification is anticipated, and Fiona is likely to be near or at hurricane strength while it moves near Puerto Rico on Sunday,” the Hurricane Center wrote. | 2022-09-17T17:37:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hurricane warning issued for Puerto Rico as Tropical Storm Fiona strengthens - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/17/hurricane-warning-fiona-puerto-rico/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/17/hurricane-warning-fiona-puerto-rico/ |
Police look for second plane after midair collision kills three people
Authorities were searching for one of two planes that crashed midair in Colorado on Saturday, killing three people.
Joshua Bonafede, a Boulder County sheriff’s deputy, said two planes collided on Saturday morning. One plane was found about 30 miles northwest of downtown Denver.
Mountain View Fire Rescue, which serves the area, confirmed the three deaths and asked people to avoid the Niwot area, northeast of Boulder, as authorities searched for the other plane. | 2022-09-17T17:38:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Colorado plane crash: Three people killed after midair collision - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/17/colorado-planes-crash/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/17/colorado-planes-crash/ |
Yeshiva University halts clubs while seeking to bar LGBTQ group
People walk by the campus of Yeshiva University in New York last month. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Yeshiva University on Friday abruptly halted the activities of all its undergraduate clubs while it considers how to respond to a U.S. Supreme Court order compelling the private New York school to recognize an LGBTQ student group.
The move is the latest attempt by the Modern Orthodox Jewish university to avoid giving the Y.U. Pride Alliance the same access to campus facilities as other clubs, including a classroom, bulletin boards and a club-fair booth.
In an email to students, Yeshiva officials said that in light of upcoming Jewish holidays the school would “hold off on all undergraduate club activities while it immediately takes steps to follow the roadmap provided by the US Supreme Court to protect YU’s religious freedom.”
The announcement came two days after a five-justice majority told Yeshiva that it must at least temporarily comply with a state judge’s order instructing it to recognize the Pride Alliance while it pursues a potential appeal in the case in the state court system.
The judge said the university was subject to the New York City Human Rights Law, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Yeshiva University, which describes itself as the “world’s premier Torah-based institution of higher education,” argued that the ruling violated its religious beliefs and would interfere with its instruction in Torah values.
A lawyer for the students, Katie Rosenfeld, called the university’s decision to cancel club activities rather than accept the group “a throwback to 50 years ago when the city of Jackson, Miss., closed all public swimming pools rather than comply with court orders to desegregate.”
“The Pride Alliance seeks a safe space on campus, nothing more,” she said in an email Saturday. “By shutting down all club activities, the YU administration attempts to divide the student body, and pit students against their LGBT peers. We are confident that YU students will see through this shameful tactic and stand together in community.”
A representative from Yeshiva University did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday morning. (Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath, when Orthodox Jews are forbidden from working.)
In a statement responding to the Supreme Court decision earlier in the week, university president Rabbi Ari Berman said Yeshiva would follow the court’s instructions and seek “expedited relief.”
“Every faith-based university in the country has the right to work with its students, including its LGBTQ students, to establish the clubs, places and spaces that fit within its faith tradition,” Berman said.
The school did not say in its announcement Friday what specific measures it would take to try to reverse the state court’s order that it must recognize the Pride Alliance.
In a June ruling, New York Supreme Court Judge Lynn Kotler (D) wrote that Yeshiva’s refusal to accommodate the group violated the city’s anti-discrimination law. She rejected arguments that Yeshiva was a religious corporation and therefore exempt under the law, finding instead that it was an educational institution “first and foremost.” The school was free to recognize the club without endorsing its mission, she said.
Kolter ordered the university to grant the Pride Alliance “full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges afforded to all other student groups.”
Yeshiva asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene this month. It was represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit law firm with a history of backing conservative institutions. The university called Kolter’s ruling an “unprecedented” violation of Yeshiva’s First Amendment rights.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor initially put a temporary hold on the New York judge’s ruling pending the Supreme Court’s review. In an unsigned order Wednesday, the majority reversed course, saying the university needed to pursue other legal options before the court would step in.
A dissent written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett said it was “disappointing that a majority of this Court refuses to provide relief.” Alito wrote that the court would probably agree to hear the case if Yeshiva loses its appeal at the state level, adding that the university “would likely win if its case came before us.”
Robert Barnes contributed to this report. | 2022-09-17T17:38:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Yeshiva University halts clubs after SCOTUS ruling on LGBTQ group - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/17/yeshiva-university-lgbtq-club/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/17/yeshiva-university-lgbtq-club/ |
She challenged the boys club of underground comics with a character who endured sleazy men, bad hookups and hangovers but loved gossip and cocktails and decorated excessively
“I Enjoy Being a Girl” by Diane Noomin. (Fantagraphics)
Diane Noomin, a feminist cartoonist who challenged the boys club of underground comics and created DiDi Glitz, a big-haired, hard-drinking single mom obsessed with interior decorating, died Sept. 1 at her home in Hadlyme, Conn. She was 75.
“One of the [San Francisco] cartoonists, Jay Kinney, made a map of all the places where each of us lived,” said Griffith. “There were 16 of us, and we all lived within 10 blocks. We were a very close-knit group at first. There were only two publishers, Last Gasp and Rip Off Press, and whenever a comic came out there would be a party with a keg and weed, celebrating the premiere.”
“I grew up on Long Island in the 1950s, and my parents were communists,” Ms. Noomin told the Library of Congress in 2015. “They basically were operating a safe house for people who were trying to leave the country, running from [the anti-communist Sen. Joseph] McCarthy, didn’t want to testify [or] didn’t want to go to jail. My sister and I knew nothing of this. We were just going to Republican Party picnics and trying to fit in.” | 2022-09-17T17:46:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Diane Noomin, underground cartoonist behind DiDi Glitz, dies at 75 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/17/diane-noomin-cartoonist-didi-glitz-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/17/diane-noomin-cartoonist-didi-glitz-dead/ |
India’s women have been betrayed — by violence and shameless politics
By Barkha Dutt
Women take part in an Aug. 27 demonstration in New Delhi protesting the early release of 11 men serving life sentences for a 2002 gang rape and murder. (Altaf Qadri/AP)
In the United States — where reproductive rights are under attack and there has never been a female president — people routinely make assumptions about India’s women. For years, I have argued with foreign correspondents who have looked at us through the prism of subjugation and stereotypes, pointing out that our complex realities defy orientalist tropes.
But now, I am speaking out as an enraged Indian woman. We have been betrayed, not just by the unsparing use of rape as a weapon of intimidation and violence, but also by the way our bodies have been turned into political battlefields.
This week, two teenage Dalit girls were raped, strangled with their scarves and hung from a tree in a village in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. I wish the ensuing outcry reflected collective, public fury at such crimes. Unfortunately, all I heard was the cynical cacophony of politics.
For the opposition, this was a chance to criticize the administration of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the rabble-rousing Hindu nationalist monk who is a rising star in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Meanwhile, his far-right supporters online felt no shame in claiming some coarse victory because five of the six men arrested are Muslim.
No one cared about the girls. And, depressingly, this case is just one of many recent examples in which victims and survivors are cast as headlines but treated as afterthoughts.
Ironically, it all started on Aug. 15, India’s Independence Day. Eleven men who had been convicted of gang-raping Bilkis Bano, a pregnant 19-year-old woman, in the state of Gujarat in 2002 walked out of jail to garlands and sweets. Their early release was made possible after one of the convicts petitioned the court, and a panel set up by the Gujarat government made the recommendation. A BJP state legislator on the panel told Mojo Story, the digital platform I run, that he believed the men “were Brahmins” — referring to caste — and “men of good values.”
His words of praise were for men who had also gang-raped Bano’s mother and sisters, forcing them to witness each other’s assaults. While Bilkis lay on the floor bleeding, her arm broken by the mob, they took a stone and smashed the head of her 3-year-old daughter. The Bombay High Court called what happened a “massacre.” In 2019, India’s Supreme Court awarded Bano compensation, reminding the Indian public that she had been raped 22 times.
As a young reporter, I met Bano in a relief camp hours after she had been assaulted. Her arm was in a cast, and she spoke softly under a makeshift tarpaulin sheet, illuminated by the low flicker of a kerosene lamp. The rapists, the men who killed her daughter, were her neighbors. They used to buy milk from her. It took her 17 years to get a measure of justice. Her husband Yakub told me they had “just about started living again” when the men walked free.
As new petitions were filed in court demanding the men be sent back to jail, Mojo Story revealed that the convicts are already untraceable. Yet only a handful of BJP figures spoke up for Bano.
Then, a few days later, a teenager in the state of Jharkhand was doused with gasoline and burned alive while she slept. The accused assailant even smiled for the cameras as the police took him away. But because the state is governed by another party, this time it was the BJP leading the charge, while those who had been voluble in demanding justice for Bano were more muted. That lasted until another horrific account emerged from Jharkhand about the torture of a tribal woman, who was allegedly beaten with hot pans by a now-suspended BJP state leader.
India’s politicians — both men and women — tend to speak out about the abuse of women based on the governing party in that jurisdiction, the religion or caste of the perpetrator and, sometimes, the religion or caste of the victim. Of course, religion and caste must be considered alongside gender for a deeper understanding of structural inequities. Yet fights over dead women and traumatized girls should not become a gladiatorial sport linked to politics and ideology. All women deserve justice; every assault is worthy of our rage.
The government’s own data demonstrates that all states are sullied when it comes to women’s safety. While BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh reports the highest number of crimes against women, Rajasthan — governed by the opposition Congress Party — reports the highest number of rape cases.
On issues such as rape and violence, Indian women cannot afford to remain divided by party affiliation, religion and caste identity, or ideological loyalties. This should be a moment of unity — and reckoning. | 2022-09-17T18:17:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Barkha Dutt: Bilkis Bano, Lakhimpur Kheri cases show Indian women have been betrayed - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/17/india-women-violence-bilkis-bano-lakhimpur-kheri/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/17/india-women-violence-bilkis-bano-lakhimpur-kheri/ |
Las Vegas Aces President Nikki Fargas chats with WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert and Aces owner Mark Davis before a WNBA playoff game on Aug. 31. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Seven of the league’s teams are coached by women, though that tends to be a more natural transition for former players interested in staying involved in the game. Those are leadership positions on the court, but there’s a different level of impact that can be made from the executive side. Team presidents typically lead the business side of things and are in charge of everything from arena issues to marketing to community relations and beyond. | 2022-09-17T19:09:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Life after basketball in WNBA can go further than coaching - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/life-after-basketball-wnba-can-go-further-than-coaching/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/life-after-basketball-wnba-can-go-further-than-coaching/ |
‘Look, these are our boys': Ukrainian troops drive Russian tanks on new front line
Vehicles are seen on and around a damaged bridge in Kupyansk. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
KUPIANSK, Ukraine – The front line is now a river, the Oskil, that runs through the middle of the eastern Ukrainian town of Kupiansk. On one side are the charging Ukrainian forces who have pushed their Russian enemies almost entirely out of the northeastern Kharkiv region during a sweeping counteroffensive this month.
From her bedroom window, Liza Udovik, 26, has a view of the other side, to where the Russians have retreated. The sound of outgoing fire from the Ukrainians rocked her apartment these past few days, when the Ukrainian military moved into Kupiansk and the town became a battleground. Russian tanks and armored vehicles still patrol the streets, but it’s the Ukrainians driving them, using the Russians’ own abandoned weapons against them.
Udovik started counting the seconds between hearing the deafening boom of artillery launched and the appearance of smoke in the distance. From just Tuesday to Wednesday, the gap got longer, stretching from 9 seconds to 13.
“They’re getting pushed back,” she said with a smile.
The Oskil became a shield for the Russians on Sept. 9. As the Ukrainians closed in, the invading forces crossed the bridge and blew it up behind them to slow Kyiv’s advance. And Kupiansk was suddenly cut off from its second half. The next morning, 55-year-old Lena Danilova stared in confusion at the Ukrainian vehicles driving down the town’s streets. A man next to her tugged on her sleeve, pointing out the different uniforms on the soldiers now patrolling the area.
“Look, these are our boys,” he whispered to her. Danilova said she wiped away tears of joy.
“Finally,” she said. But then she had a sick realization. Two of her children were stuck on the other side of the river. They had gone to attend a school there just days before. Now it’s where the line where the Russians are desperate to stop Ukraine’s hard-charging advance further south, into the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
After Kupiansk was captured without a fight just three days into the war, the town was at least spared Russian bombardment. Now people here are confronting some of the horrors of war that other Ukrainians lived through months ago. They waited and hoped for Ukrainian liberation, many said, but they didn’t imagine it would be like this: the threat of Russian shelling, no power in the city and no way to get basic medicines. Locals packed their most essential belongings quickly and evacuated in a rush with volunteers this week, evoking images of the first days of the war.
Valya, 58, left behind her cats. Bowls with water with them lined the floor of her apartment, and she left a key with her friend to feed them.
With only Russian state television channels, a Kremlin propaganda tool, available in Kupiansk for the past six months, people were cut off from independent news about what was happening in Ukraine. The Russian government prohibits media from even naming this a war, preferring to call it a “special military operation” and information is tightly controlled.
While evacuating with her mother, Udovik was asked if she knew about the atrocities Russian soldiers committed against civilians in Bucha, including torture and killings – what had been major international news in April. Udovik shook her head.
“Bucha?” Udovik said. “I think I heard something about it, but I’m not sure.” The Russian channels she sometimes watched focused instead on how Europe might be facing an energy crisis this winter with Russian natural gas flows cut, she said.
People spoke in hushed voices about what transpired during occupation because they say a portion of the population is sympathetic to Moscow, and if the Russian soldiers return, then neighbors could inform on neighbors. Udovik’s own family was torn apart by it. Her grandmother stopped speaking to her sister after she hung a Russian flag outside her home.
On Feb. 27, just three days after Russia launched its unprovoked full-scale invasion, Kupiansk’s mayor, Gennady Matsegora, posted a video on Facebook admitting that he surrendered the city over to the Russian military. Matsegora was a member of Ukraine’s pro-Russian party.
“Today at 7:30 a.m. the commander of a Russian battalion called to propose negotiations,” he said. “If declined, the city would be stormed ‘with all the consequences.’ I decided to take part in the talks to avoid casualties and destruction in the city.”
Udovik, who considers herself a Ukrainian patriot, acknowledged that Matsegora will almost certainly be considered a traitor. But her own feelings are complicated.
“For citizens of course, that decision probably did save lives,” she said. “We didn’t hear these explosions we hear now. In the beginning it was quiet, but we knew that eventually, this would all start.”
The Russians used Kupiansk as the seat of their occupation government. A propaganda radio station, called “Kharkiv-Z” – the letter “Z” has become a symbol of the Russian military – blared through local shops. Residents could only make calls to Russia. Even without formal annexation, the town became so integrated into Russia that Udovik even had a relative visit from Vladivostok, the Far East Russian city near the North Korean border. The Moscow-established authorities advertised that people could receive Russian passports.
Danilova said she was forced to send her children to school, even though she knew Russian curriculum would be taught. People were threatened that if they didn’t, their parental rights could be revoked. Others said they feared the strict 8 p.m. curfew because there were rumors of people disappearing if they were caught outside past time.
The Russians had used Kupiansk as a transport hub, moving hundreds of tanks and armored personnel vehicles through it and toward what was then the front line. Some of those same vehicles are back – trophies of the Ukrainian military using the equipment Russians left behind during their retreat.
On Thursday, as the sounds of outgoing fire reverberated through the town, shells crashing on the liberated side of the river were scarcely heard – a sign that Russians’ ammunition depots could be depleted after Ukrainian strikes and a quick withdrawal that forced them to abandon or destroy much of it.
On the road into Kupiansk, the Ukrainians were transporting pontoon bridges, preparing to cross the river and continue their advance. The sign announcing the town, painted white, red and blue — the colors of the Russian flag — was torn down and in ruins. | 2022-09-17T20:40:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Look, these are our boys': Ukrainian troops drive Russian tanks on new front line - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/look-these-are-our-boys-ukrainian-troops-drive-russian-tanks-new-front-line/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/look-these-are-our-boys-ukrainian-troops-drive-russian-tanks-new-front-line/ |
Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako prepare to leave for Britain, at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Saturday, Sept. 17. (Kyodo News/AP)
LONDON — The Japanese emperor, who lives in luxury in Tokyo’s Imperial Palace, will ride a crowded shuttle bus to Queen Elizabeth’s funeral on Monday.
But while Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako have been cheerful about the communal transport, some others world leaders have not, especially because President Biden and a few select others will arrive in their own armored vehicles.
“They all would prefer to have their own car,” said an exhausted British government official, one of the hundreds working on the queen’s funeral.
Laying to rest the best-known woman in the world has turned into a gigantic diplomatic challenge. Members of the 23 royal families will be seated in the first rows of Westminster Abbey, in front of President Biden and about 90 other presidents and prime ministers, as dictated by protocol.
Leaders of nearly 200 countries and territories flying into London were strongly encouraged to take commercial flights because of the complexity of scheduling landing slots all around the same time at airports still short-staffed from the coronavirus pandemic. But many private jets are coming anyway.
Intense negotiations are going on behind the scenes in an area called the “the Hangar” at the U.K. foreign office. Hundreds of people are working on requests from the nearly 500 foreign dignitaries who will attend the funeral.
There have already been diplomatic spats. Lindsay Hoyle, speaker of the House of Commons, blocked a Chinese delegation from attending this week’s public viewing of the queen’s coffin in Westminster Hall.
Hoyle cited China’s decision to refuse to allow some British politicians to travel to China because they have criticized Beijing’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman responded sharply: “As the host, the British side should uphold diplomatic etiquette and hospitality.”
Vice President Wang Qishan is leading the Chinese delegation. President Xi Jinping was invited but declined.
Almost every country or territory with diplomatic relations with Britain was invited. Some didn’t make the list, including Russia, Belarus and Myanmar, over the Ukraine war and human rights abuses. A few nations, including Iran, North Korea and Nicaragua, were invited to send an ambassador, but not their head of state.
The invitation includes a reception at Buckingham Palace hosted by King Charles III on Sunday night and another reception immediately after the funeral.
Olena Zelenska, wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is attending, but her husband is expected not to.
British officials said they were not sure if Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was attending. U.S. intelligence officials have said MBS, as he is known, was behind the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing writer.
Khashoggi’s fiance said that his presence would be a “stain” on the queen’s memory.
Queen Elizabeth II had personally met many of those who will attend her funeral. She traveled to more than 100 countries. In many cases she met several generations of leaders.
Many guests will be in their 80s and even their 90s, and how to seat them quickly and comfortably has also been planned extensively.
For example, Spain’s King Felipe VI, 54, and Queen Letizia, 50, are coming. So are the king’s parents, former King Juan Carlos I, 84, and his wife, former Queen Sofía, 83, who also knew Elizabeth.
The VIP guests have made a constant stream of special requests. Some have asked to bring their doctor, some a personal assistant. Some have requested a private room where they can rest.
“You can’t just issue a blanket ‘no,’ but nine times out of ten it is a ‘no,’” the official said. “But we want everyone to leave with a good impression.”
One exception: interpreters. Vice President Wang of China, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and a handful of others asked for an interpreter because they speak no English. Fewer than ten of those requests were granted, but for the receptions only — not for the funeral itself, where space will be severely limited.
Having so many world leaders in one place offers rare opportunities for them to talk without aides and notetakers, said Capricia Marshall, former chief of protocol for the United States in the Obama administration.
“They don’t have anyone else to talk to but each other, and they take advantage of that,” said Marshall.
Usually countries send lower-ranking officials to funerals and other events, Marshall said.
Karen Pierce, Britain’s ambassador to the United States, said she believes Biden is the first U.S. president to attend a British state funeral. The last state funeral was in 1965 for Winston Churchill and Lyndon B. Johnson had been hospitalized around that time.
Former British ambassador to the United States Peter Westmacott noted that there is always the possibility of things going badly between leaders who have strong personal or national differences. But, he said, the Queen’s death has caused “an outbreak of civility.”
He cited Macron, the French president who has many differences with Britain over Brexit, the U.K.’s departure from Europe, and personal disagreements with new prime minister Liz Truss and her predecessor, Boris Johnson.
“He’s pretty hopping mad with Liz Truss and Boris Johnson,” Westmacott said. “But look at the nice things he’s been saying about the queen and the relationship between Britain and France.”
In the end, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declined to come after being told he couldn’t being his own presidential car — an exception to the rules granted only to Biden, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and a couple of others.
“That call was made based on security concerns. It has nothing to do with special relationship or politics,” said the British official.
When the British refused Erdogan’s request, he decided to send his foreign minister in his place.
To many Britons, the idea of pampered princesses and world leaders hopping on a bus is just amusing.
“All the world leaders are on a field trip,” said British comedian Jimmy Carr, when asked for his thoughts by The Washington Post. “And you know who is actually in charge? For that 45 minutes, the leader of the world is the bus driver. ‘My bus, my rules! Sit down in the back. North Korea, get along with South Korea. Sit down! China, what are you doing in the back? Sit down!’”
Carr agreed with the protocol experts that the bus time presented opportunities.
“I think more could get done on that bus in 40 minutes than has been done in the U.N. in the last 40 years. Maybe Israel and Palestine sit next to each other on the bus and go, ‘You know what, we’ve got a lot in common. What did you bring for lunch, Palestine? Hummus? Well, I’ve got some pitas. Let’s do this.’”
Michael Birnbaum in Washington and Lily Kuo in Taipei contributed to this report. | 2022-09-17T20:40:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden, world leaders, head to Queen's funeral - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/queen-funeral-biden-leaders/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/queen-funeral-biden-leaders/ |
PM Update: Loads of sunshine and warmth on Sunday.
Just a couple of pandas licking a fruitsicle. (Angela N/Flickr/For The Washington Post)
The weather around these parts could not have been more agreeable today. A large area of high pressure is in control over much of the East Coast, which is not such a bad thing for the last official weekend of the summer. Tomorrow will feature lots of sunshine and some borderline hot temperatures. But with little humidity to speak of and the sun strength in late September mode, we think most, if not all, will be quite comfortable.
Through tonight: Skies will clear out overnight, and we will be left with some pretty comfortable weather. Low temperatures will range from the upper 50s to low 60s, with manageable levels of humidity and light winds from the south at 5 mph.
Tomorrow (Sunday): It will be mostly sunny skies from the jump tomorrow. Winds will become a bit more southwesterly, which should help temperatures reach the mid 80s, but with continued manageable levels of humidity. It will be clear and mild tomorrow night with temperatures in the low to mid 60s. | 2022-09-17T21:59:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | PM Update: Loads of sunshine and warmth on Sunday. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/09/17/pm-update-load-sunshine-warmth-sunday/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/09/17/pm-update-load-sunshine-warmth-sunday/ |
HARWOOD, Md. — Police in Maryland responding to a domestic violence incident fatally shot a man early Saturday after he pointed a firearm at officers, authorities said.
No officers were injured during the incident in Harwood, according to a news release from the office of Attorney General Brian Frosh. The office’s Independent Investigations Division is handling the probe.
The officers’ body cameras were active during the incident, according to the news release. The footage was not immediately released. | 2022-09-17T22:12:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Officers fatally shoot man in domestic violence incident - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/officers-fatally-shoot-man-in-domestic-violence-incident/2022/09/17/596ec37e-36cb-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/officers-fatally-shoot-man-in-domestic-violence-incident/2022/09/17/596ec37e-36cb-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html |
Matthew Bergeron (60) lifts Oronde Gadsden II of Syracuse after Gadsden II scored a touchdown during the final minute to beat Purdue. (Bryan M. Bennett/Getty Images)
Oklahoma (winner)
Nebraska (loser)
South Alabama (loser)
Indiana (winner)
Northwestern (loser)
The Orange’s game against Purdue was like a late-night bowl game featuring teams hovering around .500 after largely forgettable seasons, only it was transported to mid-September.
It didn’t make any sense at all, no one beyond the two fan bases involved really cared and it was nearly impossible to turn away from (particularly in a bonkers fourth quarter).
Syracuse came away with a 32-29 victory, a score that seemed unlikely when the Boilermakers limped into halftime with a 9-3 lead and Syracuse held a 10-9 edge after three quarters. And it definitely wasn’t in the cards when Syracuse defensive tackle Caleb Okechukwu brought back an interception for a touchdown to make it 25-15 with 8:08 to play.
But that discounted the possibility of Syracuse’s defense melting away. And Purdue kicking off from the 10 with 51 seconds to go thanks to a pair of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties after it took the lead on Payne Durham’s 12-yard touchdown catch. Not to mention Garrett Shrader’s 25-yard strike to Oronde Gadsden II with 7 seconds remaining to win it.
And just like that, the Orange is 3-0 with victories over Louisville, Connecticut and Purdue. With Virginia and Wagner coming up at home the next two weekends, Syracuse could well find itself unbeaten in mid-October heading into the guts of its schedule.
The first alleged test of the Brent Venables era didn’t prove to be much of one as the Sooners clocked Nebraska, 49-14, to improve to 3-0.
Oklahoma scored touchdowns on seven of its first 10 possessions, and recorded its largest margin of victory over the Cornhuskers since a 45-10 rout in 1990.
That’s not what matters in the here and now. The Sooners head into Big 12 play having outscored UTEP, Kent State and Nebraska by a combined 127-30. It doesn’t ensure Oklahoma will run roughshod over its conference rivals, but it is an encouraging sign.
Lost by 35 at home to Oklahoma, which isn’t really a surprise considering the Cornhuskers (1-3) appear well on their way to a sixth consecutive losing season and the Sooners are a perennial playoff contender.
But considering Nebraska (or, more specifically, its various donors) ponied up last weekend to pay a buyout to coach Scott Frost that would have shrunk by about $8 million on Oct. 1, it really is worth asking: Aside from the deafening clamor to make a change, would things really have been worse Saturday had some patience and/or financial restraint been exercised?
There’s playing to win, and then there’s whatever the heck this is.
Look, good on the Jaguars for deciding that going for a first down on fourth-and-2 from the UCLA 22 with a two-point lead was a bright idea. With about three minutes to go, South Alabama could have milked the clock and/or forced the Bruins to exhaust their timeouts if it converted.
And a run of some kind would have made sense. To that point, the Jaguars were averaging a robust 5.2 yards a carry (173 yards on 33 attempts). Even setting aside an outlier — La’Damian Webb’s 47-yard rumble early in the game — and South Alabama was still at a solid 3.9 yards a pop.
Instead, the Jaguars not only ran a fake field goal but made it clear well before the snap it was a fake field goal. UCLA snuffed it out for a loss of 11, cruised downfield and had plenty of time to set up Nicholas Barr-Mira’s 24-yard field goal to escape with a 32-31 victory before an announced crowd of 29,344 at the cavernous Rose Bowl.
All of which prompts a philosophical thought experiment: If a game happens in a two-thirds empty stadium and airs on the Pac-12 Network, did it really happen? Thanks to South Alabama’s lamentable play call late in the contest, it became one of the week’s most memorable contests.
No one is going to confuse the Hoosiers for a juggernaut. They’ve edged Illinois in a game that would have come and gone largely unnoticed had it not been played on the Friday night of the opening week (rather than amid a bunch of games the following day), dispatched Football Championship Subdivision school Idaho and now rallied past Western Kentucky, 33-30, in overtime.
Nonetheless, Indiana is 3-0, which means something for a team that went 2-10 a year ago. Well, sort of, since those two victories came against … Idaho and Western Kentucky.
Look at things from the right angle (preferably one that emphasizes things like Charles Campbell’s 51-yard field goal to win it and overlooks the 11-point deficit Indiana took into the fourth quarter) and it isn’t impossible to imagine the Hoosiers being 5-0 with Michigan coming to town or 7-1 heading into a late October open date.
Tom Allen’s team gets Cincinnati and Nebraska on the road, then Michigan and Maryland in Bloomington before a trip to Rutgers. That could be a 4-1 stretch if things break right. It could also end up the reverse — which would still be better than how last season went.
The Hoosiers are halfway to bowl eligibility after a harrowing escape. For the moment, that’s what counts the most.
Well, the Wildcats will always have Dublin. Since rallying past Nebraska last month in Ireland, Northwestern enjoyed an open date, lost to Duke, 31-23, and then nearly matched the score to the point with a 31-24 loss to Southern Illinois.
The Salukis, two weeks removed from yielding 64 points to Incarnate Word, largely bottled up the Wildcats (1-2) after a pair of early touchdown drives. They also went 3 for 3 on fourth-down attempts and scored quick touchdowns after beginning a pair of drives in the red zone after forcing turnovers.
In other words, they played to win and exploited mistakes, two of the biggest elements in the blueprint of most FCS-over-FBS victories.
Southern Illinois improved to 2-7 all-time against Big Ten teams, earning its first victory against the former realm of Legends and Leaders since 2006 — when current coach Nick Hill, who engineered that victory 16 years ago against Indiana while making his second college start.
As for Northwestern, it’s becoming fair to wonder whether 3-9 — the Wildcats’ final record in both 2019 and 2021 — is about where things will wind up this fall. | 2022-09-17T22:12:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | College football winners and losers for Week 3 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/college-football-winners-losers-week-3/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/17/college-football-winners-losers-week-3/ |
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he speaks to the media after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Sept. 16. (Sergei Bobylev/Kremlin Pool via AP)
On Saturday, a new round of strikes hit the Belgorod region in Western Russia, killing at least one person and wounding two.
On Friday, Ukraine reportedly struck the base of the Russian 3rd Motorized Rifle Division near Valuyki, just nine miles north of the Russia—Ukraine border. Russian officials did not acknowledge that a military target was hit but said one civilian died, and the local electrical grid experienced a temporary disruption.
Kyiv has assured U.S. officials that donated weapons would not be used to strike targets inside Russia proper. But Ukrainian forces are now so close to the border that they can hit targets using their own less-advanced weaponry.
That Russian citizens are starting to seriously feel the impact of the war directly is another new source of pressure on Putin, who returned home this weekend from a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Uzbekistan where he faced a remarkable public rebuke by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and questions about the war from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In a stunning public rebuke, Modi told Putin that “today’s era is not an era of war, and I have spoken to you on the phone about this.” That followed an acknowledgment by Putin that he had heard “concerns and questions” about the war from the Chinese president.
Ukraine has made stunning advances in the Kharkiv region, in the northeast of the country, in the past two weeks. During its advances, it has also uncovered hundreds of mass graves and stories of Russian forces terrorizing residents in the liberated city of Izyum.
Ukrainian officials have cited the gains and the evidence of torture and killings to reiterate pleas for modern battle tanks and other heavily armored vehicles which NATO allies have been slow to send.
Valuyki and Krasny Khutor are among dozens of small settlements in Russia that the Russian military uses as a staging ground, putting them in the middle of Moscow’s faltering invasion and Kyiv’s mounting counteroffensive.
“I’m asking once again, where is our army, the one that must be protecting us?” Belgorod resident Tatyana Bogacheva wrote on Gladkov’s VKontakte social media page. “We are on the border; they are shooting at us, so we need an army and protection. Who will wake up the President?”
Russian soldiers who had been conscripted to serve in the 1st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment of the Taman Division as part of this year’s spring draft are reportedly being transferred from the Moscow region to “protect the state border.”
The BBC Russian Service, citing the families of troops, reported that many conscripts in the Taman Division had died at the beginning of the invasion and those who survived were returned to the Russian territory. But instead of returning to headquarters in Naro-Fominsk near Moscow, they were stationed in Valuyki. The new group of conscripts is supposed to replace those who are due to be demobilized in October, the BBC said.
According to Russian laws, conscripts can’t be sent into battle unless they have at least four months of training. Putin has repeatedly denied that Russia is using conscripts in Ukraine. But the country’s defense ministry acknowledged as early as March that some had been mistakenly sent to fight.
Russia’s problems along the border are drawing criticism from staunch pro-Kremlin quarters inside Ukraine as well. “I am curious whether the Russian leadership is going to somehow react to the constant shelling of Russian territory?” Igor Girkin, a hard-line former commander of separatists in Ukraine, lamented in his Telegram blog. “Or do I understand correctly that the Kremlin no longer considers the Belgorod region to be the territory of Russia?”
The war also appears to be weakening Russia’s capacity to put out fires to the south, in the region the Kremlin has long considered its backyard.
This week, for example, Armenia sought Russia’s help amid a renewed Azerbaijani attack on its border towns, according to the country’s prime minister Nikol Pashinyan, who formally appealed to the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a regional security alliance of post-Soviet states, including Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
But the response so far has been slow and tepid, perhaps undermining Armenia’s trust in Moscow as an ally and in the CSTO as a reliable security broker.
Azerbaijan is not part of the CSTO but is backed by Turkey, an essential mediator in the Ukrainian war. Azerbaijan accused Armenia of “provocations” in the border area, something Yerevan denies.
On Friday, in a face-to-face meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan, Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev said the border conflict had “stabilized,” and a cease fire had been in place for the last three days.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she plans to make a weekend visit to Armenia. | 2022-09-17T22:14:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ukrainian strikes on Russian towns puts pressure on Putin - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/ukraine-belgorod-putin/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/17/ukraine-belgorod-putin/ |
Montgomery official apologizes for keeping alcohol in his government office
Casey Anderson, chairman of the Montgomery Planning Commission, could face disciplinary action stemming from the incident
Casey Anderson, chair of the Montgomery County Planning Board, in a 2018 photo. (John Kelly/The Washington Post)
The chairman of the Montgomery County Planning Board and the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission is apologizing for keeping, sharing and drinking alcohol in his government office.
In a statement, Casey Anderson, took responsibility for his actions.
“Until recently I kept alcohol in the office and from time to time shared a drink with colleagues — at the end of the workday, after regular business hours,” he said. “I should not have done this in a Commission office building, even after work. I take full responsibility, I have removed the alcohol, and I apologize.”
Anderson’s statement came in response to a report by the M-NCPPC’s Inspector General that substantiated allegations Anderson kept a significant amount of alcohol in his commission office and shared it with others. The inspector general launched a review of the matter last month after receiving an anonymous email last month.
The Montgomery County Council met in closed session on Tuesday to discuss the report.
Reached on Saturday, Montgomery County Council President Gabe Albornoz, (D-At Large), said he could not comment on the matter because it is a personnel issue. He said the council has launched its own investigation and is treating the matter very seriously.
Montgomery council asks planning board to ‘encourage transparency’
Anderson, who has been chair of the Montgomery County Planning Board since 2014, also serves as chair of the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which includes members of both Montgomery and Prince George’s County planning boards.
A photo sent by the tipster, authenticated by the IG and included as part of the report, shows two shelves in a cabinet stocked with approximately 20 bottles of alcohol and mixers. A second photo, provided by Anderson to the IG, showed the cabinet was later emptied.
Details of the inspector general’s findings were first reported by ABC7, which obtained a copy of the confidential report.
The report, a copy of which also was obtained by The Washington Post, concluded that “alcohol was stored and served from Chair Anderson’s office(s)” and that it was “reasonable to conclude, most of Chair Anderson’s senior staff and Montgomery County Planning Board members were aware of these activities.” The report said, however, there was no evidence alcohol was consumed during working hours and while there was no evidence of “direct coercion to participate,” one person told the IG that there was “self-pressure to participate to fit in.”
Casey Anderson is named new chair of the Montgomery County Planning Board
Anderson told the IG he was aware of the commission’s policy, which prohibits the “manufacture, distribution, sale, presence or use of controlled substances and alcohol in the workplace, M-NCPPC vehicles, and other agency property.”
Anderson has one year left on his term as planning board chairman and is term limited so cannot be reappointed. | 2022-09-17T23:30:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Montgomery official apologizes for keeping alcohol in his government office - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/17/montgomery-official-kept-alcohol-in-government-office/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/17/montgomery-official-kept-alcohol-in-government-office/ |
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