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Plus, the missing spark at Arizona State, five teams with the most at stake and Heisman Watch
The Bedlam series between Oklahoma State and Oklahoma is set to end when the Sooners join the SEC in 2025. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)
#OKState coach Mike Gundy’s thoughts on the end of Bedlam.
“Oklahoma State had nothing to do with (OU’s) choice to go to the SEC.” pic.twitter.com/8dMXFk2rV9
— Gabriel Trevino (@GabeCTrevino) September 20, 2022
The missing spark
That development is about the least wonky thing to happen in Edwards’s tenure, which even as it began seemed like more of a curious lab experiment whose primary benefit was that it had never been tried before than a truly logical approach.
Arizona State went 6-7, 5-7 and 7-6 over the last three seasons. It would be amusing — and plausible — if the Sun Devils ended up in that neighborhood again in Edwards’s first season.
Yes, there was a 9-3 in 2004, a 10-3 in 2007 and back-to-back 10-win seasons in 2013-2014. The Sun Devils have seldom flirted with being terrible in the last quarter-century; low tide was a 4-8 run in 2009. But they’ve rarely proven all that interesting, either.
1. Tennessee. The No. 11 Volunteers (3-0) are the only team in the SEC that plays Alabama, Florida and Georgia every season, and they’ve dropped a combined 16 in a row to those three since 2016. The first step for them toward truly being taken seriously is beating any one of that group. No. 20 Florida (2-1, 0-1 SEC) rolls into Knoxville for Tennessee’s conference opener this week.
3. Arkansas. The No. 10 Razorbacks weren’t especially sharp against old friend Bobby Petrino and Missouri State last week. But they’re still 3-0 heading into their annual date with No. 23 Texas A&M in Arlington, Texas. The Hogs play four of their next five away from Fayetteville, and deciphering the Aggies’ defense would be a welcome sign heading into a rigorous October.
1. QB C.J. Stroud, Ohio State (941 yards, 11 TDs, 0 INTs passing). Shredded Toledo for 367 yards and five touchdowns as the Buckeyes wrapped up nonconference play with a rout. (Last week: 2)
3. QB Caleb Williams, Southern California (874 yards, 8 TDs, 0 INTs passing; 73 yards, 2 TDs rushing). Wasn’t quite as efficient against Fresno State as he was in the Trojans’ first two games, but still completed 25 of 37 for 284 yards and two touchdowns. USC’s going to be fine if those are Williams’s slightly off outings. (LW: 3)
5. QB Michael Penix Jr., Washington (1,079 yards, 10 TDs, 1 INT passing; 31 yards rushing). Penix recorded his best career passing efficiency rating in 2019, when Kalen DeBoer was his offensive coordinator at Indiana. Now reunited with the new Huskies head coach in Seattle — and, more importantly, healthy — he dissected Michigan State for 397 yards and four touchdowns last week. (LW: Not ranked) | 2022-09-23T15:14:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Week 4 college football preview, Heisman watch - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/college-football-preview-heisman-watch/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/college-football-preview-heisman-watch/ |
Investigators see credibility challenges for two of the main witnesses in the probe of the congressman’s past dealings with a 17-year-old
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on April 28 in Washington, D.C. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Gaetz sought pardon related to Justice Dept. sex-trafficking probe, people familiar say
Gaetz ex-girlfriend testifies to grand jury
Gaetz associate pleads guilty in sex-trafficking case
According to people familiar with McEntee’s testimony to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, McEntee said Gaetz told him that while he had done nothing wrong, "they are trying to make his life hell, and you know, if the president could give him a pardon, that would be great.” | 2022-09-23T15:15:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rep. Matt Gaetz unlikely to be charged in sex-trafficking probe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/23/gaetz-no-charges-sex-trafficking/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/23/gaetz-no-charges-sex-trafficking/ |
Standing up to the new censorship
An author whose own books have been banned argues that censors may be using an outdated playbook, but their aims are only growing more insidious
Perspective by David Levithan
(Emiliano Ponzi for The Washington Post)
On the surface, it would appear that book censors and censored authors like myself can agree on one thing: Books are powerful. Particularly books for children and teens.
Why else would people like me spend so much time and energy writing them? Why else would censors spend so much time and energy trying to keep them out of kids’ hands?
In a country where the average adult is reading fewer and fewer books, it’s a surprise to find Americans arguing so much about them. In this election year, parents and politicians — so many politicians — are jumping into the fray to say how powerful books can be. Granted, politicians often make what I do sound like witchcraft, but I take this as a compliment.
I’ll admit, one of my first thoughts about the current wildfire of attempted censorship was: How quaint. Conservatives seemed to be dusting off their playbook from 1958, when the only way our stories could get to kids was through schools and libraries. While both are still crucial sanctuaries for readers, they’re hardly the only options. Plenty of booksellers supply titles that are taken off school shelves. And words can be very widely shared free of charge on social media and the rest of the internet. If you take my book off a shelf, you keep it away from that shelf, but you hardly keep it away from readers.
As censorship wars have raged in so many communities, damaging the lives of countless teachers, librarians, parents and children, it’s begun to feel less and less quaint. This is not your father’s book censorship.
We’re no longer talking about fear of “dirty words.” Early in my career, some adults expressed discomfort with the number of f-bombs in my books. I always explained that they were used for precision — saying “I’m really angry” is different from saying “I’m really f---ing angry.” Because I don’t particularly hold the use of f-bombs as a core part of my identity, I didn’t take such disputes personally. We were arguing over words.
I really miss arguing over words.
Because now, it’s very personal. The overwhelming majority of books being challenged today are by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) and LGBTQ+ authors. Censors aren’t just going after the freedom to read; they’re trying to erase entire identities and histories. Censors claim they are protecting kids from ideology … by imposing their own ideology on whole classrooms and communities. Or at least attempting to.
Here’s something I never thought I’d be nostalgic for: sincere censors. When my first novel, “Boy Meets Boy,” was published in 2003, it was immediately the subject of many challenges, some of which kept the book from ever getting on a shelf in the first place. At the time, a challenge usually meant one parent trying to get a book pulled from a school or a library, going through a formal process. I often reminded myself to try to find some sympathy for these parents; yes, they were wrong, and their desire to control what other people in the community got to read was wrong — but more often than not, the challenge was coming from fear of a changing world, a genuine (if incorrect) belief that being gay would lead kids straight to ruination and hell, and/or the misbegotten notion that if all the books that challenged the (homophobic, racist) status quo went away, then the status quo would remain intact. It was, in some ways, as personal to them as it was to those of us on the other side of the challenge. And nine times out of 10, the book would remain on the shelf.
It’s not like that now. What I’ve come to believe, as I’ve talked to authors and librarians and teachers, is that attacks are less and less about the actual books. We’re being used as targets in a much larger proxy war. The goal of that war isn’t just to curtail intellectual freedom but to eviscerate the public education system in this country. Censors are scorching the earth, without care for how many kids get burned. Racism and homophobia are still very much present, but it’s also a power grab, a money grab. The goal for many is a for-profit, more authoritarian and much less diverse culture, one in which truth is whatever you’re told it is, your identity is determined by its acceptability and the past is a lie that the future is forced to emulate. The politicians who holler and post and draw up their lists of “harmful” books aren’t actually scared of our books. They are using our books to scare people.
There’s a reason this tactic has a chance of working, and why you don’t see people using the reading choices of adults as an argument to ban books. No one particularly cares what adults read, because the power of reading isn’t as widespread among adults (sadly).
The power of reading is, however, widespread among children. So many of us know that, because even if we don’t read much in our adulthood, odds are good that we felt the magic of reading when we were young: Whether it was a cherished someone reading us to sleep, or navigating a fantasy world all on our own and then talking to our friends about it, we understood we were in the presence of something bigger than ourselves that also, somehow, lived inside us, too.
I laugh when someone attacks one of my books (or any other LGBTQ+ book for kids) because it will “turn the reader gay.” We’re powerful, but we’re not that powerful; our books’ power comes from providing affirmation, confirmation, inspiration and the space to think, not from creating something that isn’t already there. I have heard from readers who say my books and other LGBTQ+ books saved their lives, because the recognition they discovered and the validation they felt brought them back from the brink of despair. And I have heard from far more readers that our books help them live better, truer lives, by showing what is possible, by honoring the difficult parts and by giving them characters who are often navigating situations similar to the ones they face. Rarely does a reader write to me and say, “Your book has power,” but what they say is often synonymous with that. We are not the engines of change; the readers are the engines of change. We can sometimes provide them with the fuel they need, often when they need it most.
The censors want to cut off this supply. And once upon a time, it might have worked. But because of the internet and all the support networks that queer and BIPOC and other targeted youth have set up in recent decades, it can’t work now.
The censors’ playbook might be out of date, but that doesn’t make it any less insidious.
A couple of months ago, I spoke at the American Library Association’s annual convention, at an event celebrating intellectual freedom. It was a bleak day, and I will admit I used a few f-bombs. Roe v. Wade had been overturned that morning. I was wearing a shirt that read “I Will Say Gay,” to acknowledge the bizarre and despicable attack on queer youth going on in Florida. The librarians who won awards at the event talked about how politicians had turned some (not all) people in their communities against their libraries. Protesters picketed one talk that featured a drag queen. And one librarian told us how, after she posted a statement supporting diversity in her library, the local sheriff told her to not bother calling 911 if something went wrong.
There didn’t seem to be an easy answer to any of this. But still we asked each other: What’s giving you hope?
We all had the same answer, and it’s not the power of books. It’s the next generation of readers, the very kids and teens whom censors are trying to control in the name of “protection.” The threat to intellectual freedom never comes from kids. No educator or librarian I have spoken to can recall a kid asking for a book to be banned from a classroom or a library. (There are plenty of kids who say a book sucks and shouldn’t be taught; I know, because I was definitely one of those kids.) If a kid comes across something in a book that scares them or confuses them or makes them uncomfortable, they might stop reading, but they won’t insist that everyone else should be prevented from reading it, too.
As I said to the librarians in June, the censors want us to believe that lions are at the gates. But the truth is that we who value and defend books are the ones who protect the gates. They want us to close and lock those gates, to be in a state of perpetual defense. But we’re here to keep the gates wide open, to anyone and everyone, particularly the children of color and LGBTQ+ kids who have been kept away so many times before.
We who value and defend books don’t do it because we love books and have better lives because of them, though both those things are usually true. We defend books because by doing so, we defend all the kids who are represented in those books. Censorship is the antithesis of truth-telling, and even though it is exhausting work, we must continue to tell the truth — not only about the books, but about the censors and what they are really after.
David Levithan is, according to PEN America, the 11th-most-censored author in the United States. His most recent book is “Answers in the Pages.” | 2022-09-23T15:23:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Standing up to the new censorship - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/09/23/standing-up-new-censorship/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/09/23/standing-up-new-censorship/ |
What Will Be Different About Italy’s Snap Elections
Analysis by Marco Bertacche | Bloomberg
The national flag of Italy, center left, flies alongside the European Union (EU) flag from the Palazzo Chigi, the headquarters of the Italian government, in Rome, Italy, on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. Giuseppe Conte, 55, has been tasked by Italy’s president with forming a government supported by the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party, or PD, two long-time rivals who have little more in common than the desire to avoid snap elections. Photographer: Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
Barring any surprises, Italy is on track to have its first far-right prime minister, following the collapse of Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s government. Elections are scheduled for Sunday -- the first to be held since constitutional changes were adopted that shrank the size of the two parliamentary chambers. It also comes as the euro area’s third-largest economy -- and one of its most indebted -- is contending with the fallout of soaring energy prices, rising interest rates and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
1. Who’s running?
A right-wing alliance led by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy, which also includes Matteo Salvini’s League party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, which brought down Draghi’s government. If the bloc wins, Meloni could become Italy’s first female prime minister. Former Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s Democratic Party is running with smaller center and left-wing allies, while the anti-establishment Five Star movement is running solo. A centrist coalition of former Democrats is also present.
2. When will we know the results?
Polls close at 11 p.m. local time and exit polls will be out immediately, with more precise seat projections coming in through the night. Parliament is scheduled to meet Oct. 13 to elect its speakers. After this, the process of forming a new government officially starts. Draghi will remain as caretaker prime minister until the new government is in place, probably in the second half of October.
3. What’s different about this election?
Constitutional reforms approved in a 2020 referendum cut the number of senators to 200 from 315, and deputies to 400 from 630. As a result, constituencies have been remapped and enlarged. About 37% of seats will be allocated to party candidates that win the most support in constituencies, while the rest will be allocated in proportion to the number of votes they receive nationally. The system encourages parties to form coalitions because that increases their chances of winning the first-past-the-post seats. Parties need to reach 3% of the vote to qualify for proportional representation seats, and coalitions 10%. The campaign coincided with the summer holiday season -- scheduling that had been avoided for the past century, mainly due to the need to have the annual budget passed by mid-fall. Officials have been busy preparing new forecasts for growth, debt and the deficit as part of an abridged budget that must be published within days of the vote by Draghi’s outgoing government.
4. What’s the difference between the lower house and the Senate?
Under the Italian constitution, the two chambers have equal powers and the appointment of the prime minister and all legislation has to be approved by both. Party leaders typically run for a seat in the Senate, the speaker of which is the country’s second-highest ranking official. A recent constitutional change lowered the minimum age to vote for members of the Senate to 18 from 25, to bring it in line with the lower house, called the Chamber of Deputies. Candidates must be at least 40 years old to be elected as a senator and at least 25 to be chosen as a deputy.
5. How is the prime minister chosen?
The premier is appointed by the president, whose role as head of state is mostly ceremonial, following consultations with the political parties. In practice, the coalition that wins the election designates who the person should be. He or she then selects ministers (also formally appointed or rejected by the president) to form a government, which requires a vote of confidence from parliament within 10 days of its first session. If there’s no outright election winner, the president can give a conditional mandate to a person he thinks is able to muster enough support to form a unity government or a broad coalition. Should no one manage to cobble together a majority, the president can dissolve parliament and call fresh elections -- although that would be unprecedented.
6. Why has Italian politics been so unstable?
The country has been highly fragmented, with allegiances split between a multitude of parties -- more than 20 of which are represented in the outgoing legislature. Several have similar ideologies but have been at odds over who gets key leadership posts. Coalitions have often comprised three or more parties and are notoriously unstable. Party hopping is also commonplace, with more than 400 deputies and senators having switched allegiances since 2018. Five Star, once the country’s single largest political force, has seen its number of deputies in the lower house more than halve since the previous vote. | 2022-09-23T15:23:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Will Be Different About Italy’s Snap Elections - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-will-be-different-about-italys-snap-elections/2022/09/23/93b8d192-3b52-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-will-be-different-about-italys-snap-elections/2022/09/23/93b8d192-3b52-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
Migrants from Venezuela, who boarded a bus in Texas, wait to be transported to a local church by volunteers after being dropped off outside the residence of Vice President Harris on Sept. 15, Washington, D.C. (Stefani Reynolds / AFP)
Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity this week, former president Donald Trump revived one of his earliest anti-immigration lines: the people approaching the border were criminals.
“Venezuela is emptying their prison population into the United States, going right through the border like nothing,” he claimed, alluding to a report published by Breitbart. “We’re poisoning our country and it’s very hard to come back from that.”
The Breitbart report is vague, referring to a briefing purportedly offered to Border Patrol agents. But Trump was unbothered by the lack of specificity: it offered a simple pivot to describing the arrival of migrants as a national “poison.”
Over the past year or two, there has been an increase in the number of apprehensions made at the border of people from outside Mexico and Central America, including a rise in the number of Venezuelan migrants. There’s a simple reason for this: turmoil and political repression in Venezuela — unrest that Trump and his party have often used as a foil by blaming it on socialism — is driving people to seek opportunity in the U.S. But the rhetoric of a dangerous “open border” was more appealing to Trump in the moment than railing against Venezuela’s leadership. So the problem became sneaky criminals, an argument akin to his “they’re bringing crime” line about immigrants from his 2015 campaign launch.
Venezuelan immigrants have been in the news recently thanks to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) using people from that country for his stunt of sending immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. DeSantis’s effort was clearly intended to ingratiate him with Republican voters; his attempts to rationalize what happened and why don’t hold up well to scrutiny. Trump, of course, had the same intent: continue to play to his base’s anxiety about immigration.
But both Trump’s rhetoric and DeSantis’s gimmick have an obvious downside risk. Those being targeted are Hispanic immigrants, members of a demographic group to whom Republicans are feverishly trying to appeal. For DeSantis in particular, seeking reelection in a state that’s home to a large percentage of Hispanic immigrants, using members of that group as political props two months before his reelection bid is even more curious.
There is a clear correlation between the density of the foreign-born population in a county and its 2020 presidential vote. The tenth of counties with the lowest percentage of foreign-born residents backed Trump by an average 74-point margin. The tenth with the highest percentage backed Joe Biden by an average of 35 points.
But this correlates with population density; the tenth of counties with the highest number of immigrants are home to 35 times more people than the lowest tenth. You can see that below. More-heavily immigrant counties (lower on the graph) are more Democratic (further to the left) — and often more populous (larger circles). In other words: Cities.
Notice that Miami-Dade County is highlighted. It has the highest percentage of foreign-born residents. It is home, in fact, to one of the largest populations of Venezuelan immigrants in the United States. No wonder the mayor of Miami-Dade County, a Democrat, blasted DeSantis.
In Miami we know all too well why Venezuelans come to our nation fleeing oppression and seeking freedom. Today, at the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, we should be celebrating the many contributions of immigrants who built our community–not using them to score political points. https://t.co/asLhng31FA
Venezuelan advocacy groups joined in the criticism.
But, despite having such a large immigrant population, notice how close to that centerline Miami-Dade sits. In 2020, Biden won only narrowly, far less robustly than was broadly expected. The election results in more heavy Hispanic places were less divided by party. Below, you can see how many places with higher Hispanic populations were divided in their vote or backed Trump.
There are a few reasons for this. The first is that the analysis suffers from the ecological fallacy: this is an assessment of the vote in heavily Hispanic places, not Hispanic voters. The second is that many places with heavily Hispanic populations have large populations of non-citizen Hispanics who cannot vote.
In places like Florida, though, most of the foreign-born population is also Hispanic. Compare the prevalence of orange in that state (high foreign-born population, heavily Hispanic) with the purple in the Midwest (lots of foreign-born residents, low Hispanic density) or the yellow in northeastern Arizona (high Hispanic density, low foreign-born).
Trump and DeSantis may be mollified somewhat by the fact that, despite Trump’s 2015 rhetoric, Miami-Dade County did end up voting more favorably for the incumbent president in 2020 than expected. To some extent this can be attributed to the county’s large Cuban population, targeted by Trump’s anti-socialism pitch. (We don’t want the United States to turn out like Venezuela!) But there was also a national shift to the right among Hispanic voters from 2016 to 2020.
Analysis from Equis Labs published last year offered an explanation for that: the election wasn’t really focused on immigration. Candidates were more focused on the pandemic, crime and the economy, meaning that Hispanic voters were more likely to choose between the candidates on those issues than on immigration where Trump fared worse.
Last week, the New York Times published new polling conducted by Siena College focused on the views of Hispanic voters. On the economy, Hispanics are split between Democrats and Republicans. On immigration, though, Democrats retain a big advantage. Hispanics agree with Democrats’ handling of illegal immigration by a 9-point margin and legal immigration by 26 points. The boundary there gets blurry; DeSantis has claimed that the migrants shipped to Martha’s Vineyard were in the country illegally but it appears many were seeking asylum and legally allowed to remain in the country.
The point, though, is that by highlighting immigration right before the election, DeSantis and Trump might be mobilizing their voters to turn out to vote. But they are also increasing the salience of immigration, a question on which Hispanic voters are more likely to side with the political opposition.
Trump, it seems safe to say, isn’t really worried about that. DeSantis, who won election in 2018 by a remarkably narrow margin, might be a bit more cautious. Sure, he’ll get more airtime on Fox News. But at the risk of eroding the likelihood of a blowout reelection — and marching toward the 2024 primaries as a triumphant political conqueror. | 2022-09-23T15:24:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The political peril of using immigrants as props - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/political-peril-using-immigrants-political-props/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/political-peril-using-immigrants-political-props/ |
Judge Raymond J. Dearie presides over his first public hearing since his appointment as special master this week in this courtroom illustration. (Jane Rosenberg/Reuters)
A push by Donald Trump’s lawyers to appoint a special master in the Mar-a-Lago documents case has quickly lost its main utility, with an appeals court restoring the Justice Department’s access to the documents with classified markings.
Halting the Justice Department’s review of those documents — and by extension slowing its criminal probe of Trump — appeared to be its essential aim. In the end, it bought about two weeks’ worth of delay.
But special master Raymond J. Dearie is still here, as he presses forward with a less-consequential review of all of the other documents. And now Trump’s lawyers are contending with a series of very public and potentially embarrassing exchanges prompted by the special master they themselves recommended for the post.
First, Dearie did something that Trump-nominated U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, for some reason, hadn’t: actually pressing Trump’s legal team on its suggestions that Trump might have declassified the documents. That’s now irrelevant to Dearie’s review, with those documents no longer under his purview. But their failure to provide any real evidence that declassification took place (or to echo Trump’s public assurances that he had declassified all of the documents) was rebuked first by Dearie and then, shortly thereafter, by the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
The three-judge panel, which included two other Trump nominees to the bench, repeatedly noted that Trump’s lawyers had furnished no such evidence and added, in a rebuke to Cannon’s legal reasoning, that it was irrelevant. The documents’ classification status has no bearing on whether Trump has a personal interest in them, the judges ruled, rendering that question a red herring anyway. (The three potential crimes the DOJ has said it is investigating also don’t require the documents to have been declassified.)
The judges prominently cited the special master’s inquiries on this subject and ruled in such a way that could render any appeal to the Supreme Court more difficult.
And now comes another headache for the Trump legal team, courtesy of Dearie.
In an order Thursday, Dearie pressed Trump’s lawyers on another of Trump’s repeated suggestions about what really went down: the still-baseless theory that the FBI might have planted evidence.
That speculation was lodged very shortly after the search of Mar-a-Lago, not just by Trump, but also by some of his lawyers. It often wasn’t stated as directly as the declassification claim — merely raising the possibility — and died down for a while before Trump pointed in that direction again Wednesday. In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump asked, “Did they drop anything into those piles” of materials taken from Mar-a-Lago, “or did they do it later?”
But Dearie apparently isn’t going to let it fester. In his new order, he says Trump’s lawyers must submit by Sept. 30 whether there was anything on the government’s inventory list that was “not seized from the Premises” on that Aug. 8 search, or is incorrectly described. Dearie adds that this will be the Trump legal team’s “final opportunity” to raise such disputes.
It’s the first time Trump’s lawyers have been directly charged with accounting for Trump’s out-of-court claims — given there was ultimately no need for Dearie to force a response on the declassification issue.
In both cases, it was clear there was no actual evidence to back this up. If it existed, there was ample opportunity to present it, even if Cannon proved conspicuously incurious.
Trump’s legal team could conceivably wriggle out of this for now. One of their suggestions for why they didn’t pony up on the declassification issue was that they hadn’t had sufficient opportunity to actually review the documents seized. (That shouldn’t have stopped them from claiming declassification more broadly, of course.) They might say that they can’t conclude based on the inventory list, and without access to the documents, whether there are any discrepancies.
But if they don’t at least offer a broad assertion that something might have been planted, that will again speak volumes about the veracity of their client’s and even some of his lawyers’ baseless public innuendo.
Trump himself has seemingly backed off the idea that he could prove the suggestion that something had been “planted” during the search. He long ago floated the idea of releasing security camera footage from Mar-a-Lago of the search. But on Wednesday, when Hannity asked about that footage, and Trump suggested that he didn’t actually have footage of the relevant rooms.
(In another part of the interview broadcast Thursday night, Trump demurred when asked about releasing the footage, claiming the FBI asked him not to to protect the agents involved. But when Hannity noted that he could pixelate the agents’ faces, Trump responded as if he hadn’t even considered it.)
If he doesn’t even have the footage of the specific rooms, that would sure seem to undercut the idea that Trump has really anything to base this on. He lodged the suggestion very shortly after the Mar-a-Lago search and before we even had an inventory list. And his lawyers weren’t allowed to watch the agents as they conducted the search. They’ve also attested that they conducted a thorough review of the documents before the search, meaning they should probably know how what was there compares to the inventory list.
As with Trump’s claims on declassification, Trump’s lawyers are forced to choose between bad options. They can try to echo their client’s claims but could open themselves up to legal problems — and even personal ones — if they can’t back it up. (They could already be in trouble for falsely representing, before the search, that they had turned over all documents responsive to an subpoena.) Or they can continue to not actually back their client up.
If past is precedent, they’ll do the latter. And their client’s credibility would again be significantly undercut by his own legal team — as would the strategic wisdom of a special master post that has now lost its luster.
This just in: Career prosecutors recommend no charges for Gaetz in sex-trafficking probe | 2022-09-23T15:24:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump’s special master pick, Raymond J. Dearie, turns into a headache - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/trumps-special-master-pick-turns-into-headache/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/trumps-special-master-pick-turns-into-headache/ |
Fueled by Netflix and patches, ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ gets a ‘second chance’
Analysis by Gene Park
(Washington Post illustration; CD Projekt RED)
Each day this week, more than a million people have signed in to play “Cyberpunk 2077” — and for good reason. There’s no better time than now to try or revisit 2020’s most infamous video game.
CD Projekt Red, the game’s developer, announced the stunning statistic Wednesday, a week after the debut of Netflix’s “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners,” an anime show based on the game that’s received rave reviews from critics and fans alike. Since the Netflix show dropped, “Cyberpunk 2077” has seen tens of thousands of people on Steam play it, the largest concurrent player base since the game’s December 2020 launch window.
It’s a reversal of fortunes for “Cyberpunk 2077.” Two years ago, the title suffered a disastrous and buggy launch after revelations that it performed poorly on consoles and didn’t deliver on the many promises implied by its years-long marketing campaign. In 2020, the game was a joke. Today, “it’s good now” is a common refrain from many players.
“Thank you so much chooms for this second chance,” tweeted Pawel Sasko, CD Projekt Red’s quest director, using a term that loosely translates to “friend” in the world of Cyberpunk. Sasko has been a jovial, reassuring presence through the studio’s streams about updates to the game.
It’s been a long road to recovery. The game was so buggy at launch, PlayStation took the unprecedented step of delisting it from its digital stores for several months. Even through 2021, CD Projekt Red updated the game to little fanfare with small updates and additions.
“Now is a really special moment for Cyberpunk 2077 — a moment we have been striving for years to attain,” Jeremiah Cohn, a member of CD Projekt Red’s board and chief marketing officer, told The Washington Post. “The current resurgence in players is the direct result of many months of hard work from our amazing developers and others here at CD Projekt Red.”
Cohn points to the game’s 1.5 patch in February as the beginning of this resurgence, an update that not only brought PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S versions up to performance standards of the current generation, but introduced a host of changes that restructured the game, how it unfolds and how its setting, Night City, feels. The game at launch encouraged unbalanced builds, but by adding and removing certain abilities while rebalancing how weapons are used, CD Projekt Red made building a character of special abilities feel consequential and engaging. Traffic and pedestrian behavior was fixed to bring Night City’s bustle up to standards of other open-world games.
The game also saw updates to how its side quests are doled out. Fixers, who offer jobs to Cyberpunk’s mercenaries, were given a linear structure with powerful, meaningful rewards at the ends of quest lines. Notes and environmental details were scattered throughout the world to give additional context to these gigs, adding more flavor and context to the player’s actions. And other side quests are marked clearly on the map so players don’t miss them. This was important, since the game’s side stories were easily missable, but also often praised as the game’s best-written content, reminders of CD Projekt Red’s exemplary strength in video game narrative.
As a cancer patient, ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ frees me from my mental prison
And finally, Netflix’s debut of “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners” has people clamoring to visit or revisit Night City. The show has been a powerful statement of how transmedia storytelling can be successful. Paramount’s “Halo” TV series was blasted by many core fans for how it differed from the original product. “Edgerunners” not only embraces its video game roots — it bakes the architecture and layout of the game directly into the anime. The entire Night City video game world was used as the show’s stage and setting, rewarding players familiar with the game.
“By timing the game update with the incredible anime, we were able to connect ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ gamers with ‘Edgerunners’ viewers and build excitement for both at the same time,” Cohn said.
Playing the game after watching the show, in turn, feels like a continuation of the adventure. The show’s story may have ended, but Night City persists in the virtual world of “Cyberpunk 2077.” This is transmedia convergence at its most powerful, coherent and cohesive in design, theme and intention — a feat that challenges even behemoths like Disney and Marvel.
“Edgerunners” succeeds because of its adherence to the spirit of the game and its design choices. The show uses the same soundtrack, and brings to the forefront several of the game’s radio tracks. The song “I really want to stay at your house” may have been a sad but bouncy city pop track, but “Edgerunners” recontextualizes it forever as a hymn of mourning. Nondescript city blocks in the game now hold a certain nostalgia as memories of the “Edgerunners” characters flood into the player’s mind.
The show, which is canon to the game’s story, also offers some emotional closure. No doubt, many players are revisiting “Cyberpunk 2077” after the show reframed certain characters, igniting new feelings for old faces. Anyone who’s beaten the game and finished the show knows exactly who I’m talking about.
This phenomenon repeats CD Projekt Red’s previous successful partnership with Netflix. In late 2019, “The Witcher” became the world’s most-watched TV show, reaching 76 million households within its first month; the third game’s audience ballooned in the following weeks, boosting its sales almost half a decade since its release. Steam’s concurrent player numbers for “The Witcher 3” at that time mirror today’s concurrent player figures for “Cyberpunk 2077.” It’s safe to say CD Projekt Red and Netflix have done it again.
Making “Edgerunners” that successful was a tall order, but the developers partnered with legendary animation house Studio Trigger (“Kill la Kill,” “BNA: Brand New Animal”) to create something unique, a celebration of both Michael Pondsmith’s world building when he created the original Cyberpunk board game during the 1980s and CD Projekt Red’s 2020 vision. And it was built with an intention to serve audiences of both.
“My personal mission was not to make something that will be for everyone but rather something that someone can truly love,” tweeted the show’s executive producer, Rafal Jaki. That stated intention flies opposite of what other media properties clamor for, namely a “broader” audience. “Edgerunners” was never meant to find a seat in the mainstream; it was meant to find a place in your heart.
With Paramount Plus show, ‘Halo Infinite’ plans, 343 aims to expand Halo’s reach
In turn, “Cyberpunk 2077” the video game is finding a new place in history. There have been many high-profile video game disasters that were able to turn their reputations and quality around after many updates. Most famously, Square Enix completely removed “Final Fantasy XIV” from sale to be reworked as “A Realm Reborn,” becoming one of the most popular online role-playing games today. “No Man’s Sky” from Hello Games promised many things and failed to deliver. Yet since its 2016 release, the studio has been able to implement just about every feature.
“Cyberpunk 2077” isn’t quite at that level of reappraisal, and it may never attain it. The latest update timed with the show’s launch added much-requested features like altering body cosmetics via doctors and more freedom in what clothes you wear. Individually, these updates are incremental steps toward the original “role-playing game of our dreams” for which many fans had hoped.
Further hopes in changing “Cyberpunk 2077” to fit that vision are undercut by the game’s core design, how missions are structured and how the player interacts with the world. Many people expected a game that rivaled Bethesda’s role-playing games, and the game’s marketing certainly didn’t discourage this pie-in-the-sky belief. Many of the features people hoped for, like citizens running on their own unique routines or being able to “live” in the game’s locales like bars or restaurants, may never be implemented. “Cyberpunk 2077” is now too complete of a product and vision to be simply updated. It would need “A Realm Reborn” style reworking, or, naturally, a sequel.
Fortunately, the studio has increased its “mod” support, allowing people to modify the game’s files to create new styles and elements of play — while also extending the game’s life even beyond official expansions. The most popular mod allows players to pilot flying cars, a feature that was never promised, but represents a digital manifestation of the audience’s hopes for a dream cyberpunk video game. Bethesda’s “Skyrim” remains popular because of similar support, and it’s easy to see “Cyberpunk 2077” having similar legs years from now.
A decade later, ‘Skyrim’ modders are now developing their own games
CD Projekt Red has long admitted that it would scale back expansion work for “Cyberpunk 2077.” However, while further development on “Cyberpunk 2077″ is expected to cease next year, Cohn reaffirmed the studio’s commitment to further exploring the Cyberpunk brand and intellectual property.
“With this expansion, we will be updating and improving the game further,” Cohn said. “The Cyberpunk universe is so exciting and has unlimited potential, and what’s important now is that we cherish this moment and use this momentum as an opportunity to take things even further.”
“Cyberpunk 2077” is still not what was initially promised (or even intended), but if the game launched in the state it’s in now, it would’ve immediately found its place among the best, most riveting open-world action games ever made. And “Edgerunners” shines new light on the magnitude of CD Projekt Red’s stunning architectural achievement in realizing Night City, the most complex virtual city ever created for a video game experience.
CD Projekt Red is fortunate that millions have decided to reappraise “Cyberpunk 2077,” but it’s hard work, not just luck, that has earned them this second, rare chance. | 2022-09-23T15:25:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cyberpunk 2077 gets a second chance with Netflix's Edgerunner, patches - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/09/23/cyberpunk-2077-netflix-edgerunners/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/09/23/cyberpunk-2077-netflix-edgerunners/ |
Hurricane expected to hit maritime provinces with record-setting intensity Friday into Saturday.
Forecast simulation of Fiona on Saturday at 8 a.m. Eastern time. (PivotalWeather)
Authorities in eastern Canada are warning residents to be ready Friday for a “historic,” potentially record-setting storm as Hurricane Fiona approaches with more than 5 feet of ocean surge possible, hurricane-force winds and 6 or more inches of rain in many areas.
In Nova Scotia, where Fiona is forecast to make landfall early Saturday, residents are being advised to prepare for potentially lengthy power outages, which in some areas could also mean a loss of running water. The government planned to open shelters Friday afternoon for homeless and other vulnerable populations to ride out the storm, and was also readying aid expected to be necessary once the storm passes.
While it is not uncommon for Atlantic hurricanes to brush Canada’s maritime provinces, that usually happens when storms are significantly weakened as they move into colder waters. But Fiona is expected to remain a “powerful hurricane-force cyclone,” according to the National Hurricane Center, as its outer bands begin to lash the country late Friday and remain intense as it moves into the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Saturday.
Projections suggest that, by some measures, the storm will be the most intense on record to strike Canada.
“It’s going to be a storm that everybody remembers,” said Bob Robichaud, warning preparedness meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada, at a news conference Thursday.
Fiona’s likely impact to Canada is the latest marker of an Atlantic hurricane season that remained quiet through what is typically the heart of storm season, but has since turned active. The storm is one of five tropical systems meteorologists are watching in the Atlantic basin, including one that organized into a tropical depression early Friday and could soon become a threat to the Gulf Coast as Tropical Storm Hermine or Ian.
As of Friday morning, Fiona was about 600 miles south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, headed for Canada’s maritime provinces at a speed of 35 mph, with winds of up to 130 mph at its core. Hurricane conditions are expected to reach the country by late Friday night or early Saturday morning.
Weather models suggest Fiona will probably be the strongest recorded storm, in terms of barometric pressure, to ever hit Canada. Fiona’s central pressure is forecast to be below 940 millibars, the existing record, when it makes landfall, probably sometime around daybreak Saturday.
Whether that translates to record gusts “remains to be seen,” Robichaud said, adding that “ ‘historic’ is a good characteristic of what this is going to be.”
Hurricane warnings are in effect for most of Nova Scotia as well as Prince Edward Island and western Newfoundland, where meteorologists predict 3 to 6 inches of rain, with up to 10 inches in some areas, and hurricane-force winds of at least 74 mph. Tropical storm warnings extend from New Brunswick to eastern Quebec to northern Newfoundland, where rainfall could reach 5 inches and winds at least 39 mph.
Fiona is expected to lose its tropical characteristics and become a post-tropical cyclone some time Friday, though that will not lessen its probable impact. Although its core of violent winds may weaken somewhat, the storm will expand in size, with tropical-storm force winds buffeting a large area.
Nova Scotia, home to about 1 million people, was preparing for the worst of the storm with memories of Hurricane Dorian in 2019 fresh in many minds. That storm caused half a million power outages, most of them in Nova Scotia, according to the CBC. Its winds knocked down trees, destroyed roofs, wharves and boats and toppled a crane in Halifax, causing an estimated $102 million in damage in Canadian dollars.
Even as Fiona passed Bermuda from a distance of about 185 miles, the island saw widespread power outages and gusts of at least 70 mph.
A fierce Fiona heads towards Atlantic Canada. pic.twitter.com/0ar7dkK5Pm
More than half of Puerto Rico remained without power and communities remained cut off by landslides Thursday, days after Fiona battered the island.
Nova Scotia Power warned of widespread power outages, with trees still in full bloom and soils relatively soft. And the blackouts could be lasting, with crews expected to wait for winds to calm before they can safely begin repairs, said Dave Pickles, the utility’s chief operating officer.
Flooding and wind damage is raising concern about transportation issues across the province, with a single bridge connecting Cape Breton Island to the north and mainland Nova Scotia, including the populous Halifax region, to the south.
“We have one way in and one way out,” said Amanda McDougall, mayor of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. “That causeway is incredibly, incredibly important.”
Other landmark storms to hit Canada in recent decades include Hurricane Juan in 2003, which killed eight people, and Igor in 2010, which killed one person and washed out roads and railways in Newfoundland and left communities isolated for days, according to the Canadian Hurricane Centre.
Canada’s Atlantic provinces have historically sat at the northern limit for Atlantic hurricanes, with storms typically beginning to dissipate before making landfall there. But that has changed in recent decades.
Hurricanes or hurricane-strength post-tropical storms have made landfall there once every one to three years since 1951, according to the country’s hurricane center. But as the Atlantic basin has remained in an active cycle for tropical cyclones, that has meant more threats for Canada as well, with a hurricane hitting land every other year since 2000. | 2022-09-23T16:11:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hurricane Fiona forecast to hit eastern Canada with record intensity - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/23/fiona-hurricane-canada-record-storm/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/23/fiona-hurricane-canada-record-storm/ |
By Kathy Hollowell-Makle
Kathy Hollowell-Makle is executive director of the District of Columbia Association for the Education of Young Children.
The District’s policymakers have begun to recognize what the science of early-childhood education has been telling us for decades: Early-childhood education is the foundation of all learning for school and life.
The D.C. Council took bold legislative steps and made investments to ensure that early educators in the District are well-prepared and compensated for meeting the demands and joys of working with our youngest citizens. Those moves counter the historical racism that underpins care and education in the United States, and the ongoing dismissal of early-childhood educators as mere babysitters.
As with education from kindergarten through 12th grade, early-childhood education supports families’ ability to work — but it also does much more. Studies consistently show that young children receiving high-quality early education develop expansive vocabulary, possess stronger language skills, and score better in math and science school-readiness assessments. Long-term benefits for children living in underserved communities are even more significant, resulting in increased high school graduation rates, college enrollment and incomes. Even when a child experiences stress in the formative years, a high-quality, positive environment with skilled and supportive adults can mitigate its lasting effects.
This science is why every child — not only those whose parents can afford it — should have equitable access to a knowledgeable, competent, nurturing, fairly compensated early educator who intentionally creates developmental plans and rich experiences. It’s also why D.C. created a quality standard for educators to gain skills and competencies by earning degrees and credentials as part of a comprehensive effort to reverse a history of undersupporting, undervaluing and underfunding early-childhood education and educators. This history goes back centuries to when enslaved Black women were forced to care for plantation owners’ children while leaving their own children without care. After slavery, with few other opportunities, many Black women continued to work as domestic help — underpaid, overworked and excluded even in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
Despite their essential status, as well as the increasing recognition of the skill, knowledge and commitment it takes, child-care providers have remained low-wage workers to this day. Early educators earn an average of about $15 per hour nationally. Until recently, early educators in D.C. earned an average of about $20, far below the livable housing wage of $34 and the levels of compensation earned by teachers in public schools. In 2016, the D.C. Council supported the decision of the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) to increase the credentialing requirements for early educators. A court has agreed that D.C. can enact credential requirements that all lead teachers in early-learning centers and homes have a minimum of an associate’s degree, assistant teachers have a child development associate certificate and center directors have a bachelor’s degree.
The great news is that early educators and directors are already on their way to meeting these requirements. According to OSSE, as of August, 78 percent of directors of early-learning centers are now meeting their new educational requirements. Lead and assistant educators are at 40 percent and 34 percent, respectively, and 50 percent for home-based educators.
D.C. must continue to invest time and funding into ensuring that pathways to advanced credentials and education are readily and equitably accessible to educators in all settings. Now, for example, early educators working in birth-to-5 early-childhood education programs licensed by OSSE are eligible to receive comprehensive scholarships to several local universities and workforce development programs. Increased credentials — with the supports needed to obtain them — need not result in decreased supply. They do, however, need to result in increased compensation. That’s why, with overwhelming public support, in 2021, the D.C. Council unanimously passed the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund to increase the compensation of those working in licensed early learning centers and homes.
The lack of child-care supply stems from poor compensation for the workforce. We can’t fix that problem without recognizing and supporting early educators as the highly skilled and knowledgeable professionals they are — who should have the opportunity to work in a field with standards, credentials and compensation as in other professional fields. We certainly can’t fix it by continuing to pit parents and educators against one another; both want what’s best for children, and neither can afford to subsidize the cost of quality child care and early learning on their own.
Delivering on quality has costs — but the benefits are public, and the investments must be, too. D.C. and its residents recognize this and are taking steps to support the field to make early education a sustainable career choice and provide children and families with quality options. Qualified educators help shape children who are compassionate critical thinkers, problem solvers, stewards of the environment and civic-minded. After centuries of undervaluing the profession and the science of early-childhood education, we are at a crossroads with the opportunity to lay the groundwork for a stronger future.
Opinion|Why eliminating the tipped wage is a bad idea for D.C. | 2022-09-23T16:15:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | D.C. recognizes how much early-childhood education matters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/early-childhood-education-pay-equity/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/early-childhood-education-pay-equity/ |
By Christina Farver
An archeological dig to search for ancient Native American relics on April 2, 2018, before construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline near Roanoke. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Christina Farver is a climate activist in Sterling.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is in the news again, thanks to a deal cut by Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.). I live in Northern Virginia in a family-friendly neighborhood surrounded by mature trees and a walking trail that leads straight to the Potomac River. We have all the conveniences — grocery store, library, bank and restaurants. The MVP, a planned natural gas pipeline traversing 303 miles of Appalachia, is hours away. If the construction temporarily disturbs a few people along the way, well, that’s just the necessary price of progress, right?
Why does the MVP matter to me? Because the more than 200 scientists from around the world who wrote the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s February report concluded that we must stop extracting, transporting and burning fossil fuels to have a habitable world.
Because I have a son with friends, and they have plans and they deserve a livable future.
Because the MVP construction is destroying the habitat of two endangered fish — the candy darter and Roanoke logperch — menacing the Jefferson National Forest and threatening countless species that live in Appalachia.
Because climate change is not a future problem; it is a now problem.
Because sloppy MVP construction practices have resulted in more than 300 environmental infractions that were the basis of a community-organized Violation Vigil in Richmond last year. I spoke on behalf of violation No. 210, which happened in Franklin County on Oct. 16, 2019, when MVP developers violated deadlines for eliminating water quality threats. Original permits were granted for the MVP contingent on the pipeline being operational by 2018. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month approved a request for another four-year extension. At this point, sections of pipeline have been exposed to the elements for years and are visibly corroding.
Because pressurized fracked gas is dangerous and dirty — poisoning groundwater, polluting surface water and devastating landscapes and wildlife. The pipelines inevitably leak and can even explode. The MVP and new fossil fuel infrastructure are obsolete, unnecessary and harmful.
Because Indigenous leaders share traditional wisdom and practices that teach that water is life.
Because we are literally on fire. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, the wildfire season is 3½ months longer and burns twice as many acres than it did just a few decades ago.
Because people and bees and trees and birds and flowers and fish are part of a miraculous interdependent web of life that is on the verge of collapse because of our fossil fuel addiction.
Because our resources need to be directed to renewable energy. We have the technology. We need to end fossil fuel subsidies, nearly $6 trillion globally in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund, and focus on implementing clean energy solutions such as solar.
Because I will not stand by quietly while Appalachia is used as a sacrifice zone to maintain the profit-driven status quo that is killing our ecosystem.
Because all communities deserve an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just world.
So, does the Mountain Valley Pipeline matter to you? You, too, live on this beautiful, precious, fragile planet. | 2022-09-23T16:16:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why does the Mountain Valley Pipeline matter? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/mountain-valley-pipeline-matters-environment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/mountain-valley-pipeline-matters-environment/ |
Storm forming in Caribbean is forecast to hit Florida as hurricane
The National Hurricane Center forecasts a significant hurricane near Florida’s west coast by Wednesday
Projections for possible onset of tropical storm force winds from the National Hurricane Center.
Confidence is increasing that a tropical weather system developing in the Caribbean will intensify into a hurricane by Monday and strike Florida around Wednesday.
The system does not yet have a name, but the National Hurricane Center declared that a tropical depression, the precursor to a tropical storm, formed Friday morning about 600 miles east of Jamaica. Meteorologists are expecting it to quickly intensify this weekend before striking Cuba late Monday into Tuesday and then barreling north — probably toward the west coast of Florida.
The storm could be as strong as a Category 2 or 3 hurricane when it approaches Florida Tuesday into Wednesday, though the intensity forecast is uncertain.
As soon as early Tuesday, tropical storm conditions could begin over the Florida Keys and South Florida.
The storm has the potential to produce “significant impacts from storm surge, hurricane-force winds, and heavy rainfall,” the Hurricane Center wrote Friday. “[R]esidents … should ensure they have their hurricane plan in place and closely monitor forecast updates through the weekend.”
The storm could be called either Hermine or Ian, depending on whether this depression or another one, just west of Africa, organizes first.
It appears likely that this system will become the first hurricane to strike the United States this year, and watches are possible by the end of the weekend for parts of Florida and the Florida Keys.
For now, the storm is still about 72 hours away from its first landfall in Cuba. Ahead of the storm’s approach, National Weather Service offices in the central and eastern United States are launching extra weather balloons to draw in added data to improve forecasts.
The depression now
On Friday morning, the depression was about 500 miles east of Jamaica. Winds were around 35 mph, or below the 39 mph threshold needed for the system to earn a name as a tropical storm.
An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter reconnaissance aircraft was dispatched Friday morning to fly into and investigate the fledgling system.
On visible satellite, it’s evident that all the storminess is displaced to the west of a low-level swirl that has become the system’s de facto center of circulation. This is due to wind shear, or a change of wind speed and/or direction with height. Easterly winds become stronger with altitude, so the system is somewhat tilted.
That shear is stemming from “outflow,” or exhaust, from Hurricane Fiona a few thousand miles to the northeast. Until that shear relaxes on Sunday, the tropical depression will be teetering off-kilter and won’t be able to fully develop. Thereafter, however, conditions will become much more favorable for intensification.
Forecast Sunday onward
On Sunday, shear buffeting the tropical depression will weaken markedly. At the same time, the system will slip beneath a zone of clockwise-spinning high pressure aloft. That will help to evacuate air away from the system’s center at high attitudes, enhancing upward motion within the developing storm and fostering additional strengthening. That also means more moisture-rich air in contact with the sea surface will be able to enter the storm from below.
The waters of the northwestern Caribbean are very warm, replete with thermal energy to fuel potentially explosive strengthening. That could easily help the system intensify to a Category 2 or stronger hurricane before it strikes Cuba. At present, the National Hurricane Center is predicting landfall early Tuesday west of Havana.
Before reaching Cuba, the storm is forecast to pass just south and then west of Jamaica, where 4 to 8 inches of rain could fall and trigger flash flooding and mudslides.
As the storm crosses Cuba Tuesday, some weakening is probable before the storm curves toward the northeast over the warm waters of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, where it should regain some strength.
While the gulf is extremely warm, its possible some dry air and wind shear in the storm’s vicinity could limit the storm’s intensification. Still, the Hurricane Center projects the storm will be a Category 3 hurricane Wednesday morning while centered very near Florida’s west coast.
It is too soon to say exactly where along Florida’s west coast the storm might strike. It is still five days away and track forecasts this far in advance have large errors. There is still an outside chance the storm track shifts west more toward the central gulf or toward the southern tip of Florida or even offshore to the peninsula’s east.
After the storm potentially strikes Florida, it could then move up the Eastern Seaboard or just offshore, affecting coastal areas of the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and even the Northeast later in the week. However, there is much lower confidence in the forecast beyond Wednesday. | 2022-09-23T16:55:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Storm forming in Caribbean is forecast to hit Florida as hurricane - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/23/hurricane-florida-storm-hermine-ian/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/23/hurricane-florida-storm-hermine-ian/ |
Fox News Channel and radio talk show host Sean Hannity interviews then-President Donald Trump before a campaign rally at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Sept. 20, 2018. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Watching the second part of Fox News host Sean Hannity’s conversation with former president Donald Trump on Thursday night, I couldn’t help but notice that Hannity let a lot of false claims from Trump slide. I was not surprised by this, certainly; the reason that Trump grants so many interview to Hannity is that he knows that Hannity’s preferred mode of response to his claims is nodding.
But it did strike me that perhaps one reason that Hannity never endeavors to actually correct the record is that perhaps he doesn’t know how. He’s never really done it before! So, in the interest of both offering my assistance to Hannity and to ensure that his viewers have as accurate an understanding of the discussed subjects as possible, I thought it might be useful to create this draft script that Hannity could read on his program Friday night.
Draft correction script
Good evening and welcome to “Hannity.”
Last night, we showed you the second part of my interview with President Trump. It has come to my attention that some of what the president said was inaccurate or misleading. Given this network’s commitment to journalistic integrity, it seemed incumbent upon me, then, to correct the record where necessary. After all, the last thing we want is for you, the viewer, to be misinformed.
With that in mind, here is some additional information about what Trump said.
It is not the case, as Trump claimed, that the term “global warming” was abandoned in favor of “climate change” because the former term “wasn’t working too well.” In reality, it was Republican communications expert Frank Luntz who recommended the latter term to defuse concern about the problem.
It is also not true that “years ago … they thought it was global cooling,” as both Trump and I claimed. In reality, that idea was a fringe claim that has been elevated not because it was the consensus at the time but because it serves as a rejoinder to the consensus now.
It’s not the case that $85 billion worth of military equipment was “left behind” when the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan. First of all, the figure that’s been claimed was $83 billion. But second, that figure is vastly overinflated.
While it is true that the U.S. “didn’t lose one soldier in 18 months,” it’s important to understand that this is largely because President Trump made a deal with the Taliban not to attack American forces in exchange for setting a timetable to withdraw.
It’s not true, as Trump claimed, that crime in New York is “the worst we’ve ever had.” In fact, violent crime in New York City is far lower than in decades past and murders are down in the city this year.
While it is true that “more people died under Biden than under me,” as Trump claimed about the coronavirus pandemic, that’s in part because Trump supporters were less likely to get vaccinated against the virus and, as a result, the per capita death toll in Trump-voting counties has consistently been higher than in Biden-voting ones.
The flu pandemic a century ago was in 1918, not 1917.
It’s not true that Trump recommended the military go to the Capitol before Jan. 6.
It is not true that he sent the National Guard to Minneapolis during the unrest in 2020 “against the governor’s wishes.” In fact, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) made the first request.
It is not true that Trump’s favorability numbers went up after New York’s attorney general announced a lawsuit against him; there is no way a valid poll could have been fielded between that announcement and our interview. It is also not true that his poll numbers went up in the wake of the search of Mar-a-Lago.
Trump’s assertions that he “rebuilt” the military have been repeatedly identified as exaggerated.
Fox News regrets the errors.
Oh, one more, actually: While Trump claimed that he respects many people in the media, we were unable to confirm that assertion. We can confirm that, as he stated, he likes me, Sean Hannity, a lot.
[cut to commercial]
guys, Guys, GUYS!
This is a real-life commercial that just aired on Fox News pic.twitter.com/fcOeP7P8vz
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 17, 2021 | 2022-09-23T16:56:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | If we may: A proposed script for Hannity to correct Trump’s falsehoods - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/if-we-may-proposed-script-hannity-correct-trumps-falsehoods/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/if-we-may-proposed-script-hannity-correct-trumps-falsehoods/ |
Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. On this day in 2009, President Barack Obama warned the U.N. General Assembly against “reflexive anti-Americanism.” Said Obama: “Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone.”
Women’s rights protests spreading like wildfire across Iran have presented President Biden with a familiar conundrum: Whether, how, and how much to support demonstrations in the Islamic Republic. And what to learn from Barack Obama’s reaction to similar unrest in 2009.
Back then, Republicans condemned what they characterized as a milquetoast U.S. response. In 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney wove denunciations of Obama’s caution into his broader criticisms of the incumbent’s management of foreign policy.
But already, the Biden response appears to have gone farther, faster. Senior officials from Biden on down have denounced the government crackdown on the movement, which was sparked by the death in police custody last week of a woman arrested for improperly covering her hair.
‘Morality police’
Mahsa Amini, 22, died Friday after being detained by the so-called “morality police.” Since then, women all over Iran have demonstrated, and videos of many of them cutting their hair or burning the traditional hijab headscarf in protest have raced across social media.
Iran has imposed a near-total Internet blackout, likely an attempt to make it harder for the protesters to organize. Some protesters have reportedly been killed, and hundreds more wounded, in clashes with police and paramilitary forces.
“Today, we stand with the brave citizens and the brave women of Iran who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights,” Biden said in his speech on Wednesday to world leaders attending the U.N. General Assembly.
On Thursday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on the morality police, calling them “responsible” for Amini’s death, as well as seven senior Iranian security officials, citing “abuse and violence against Iranian women and the violation of the rights of peaceful Iranian protestors.”
On Friday, the Treasury Department modified U.S. sanctions to let technology companies counter the Iranian government's Internet lockdown and surveillance.
“With these changes, we are helping the Iranian people be better equipped to counter the government’s efforts to surveil and censor them,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo. More steps like this are expected.
Top officials have condemned the crackdown and expressed support for the demonstrators, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan and others. (One person who does not appear to have spoken out yet: Vice President Harris.)
A difference from 13 years ago
The Biden response — expressing support for the protesters in unflinching terms, condemning the government response, imposing sanctions — has outpaced the way the administration in which he served as vice president handled the so-called Green Revolution 13 years ago.
“Quite simply it’s good politics and policy,” Aaron David Miller, who advised administration of both parties on the Middle East for decades, told The Daily 202. “Given the hammering the Administration took politically for not responding aggressively enough to the 2009 protests, it didn’t want to be put in that position again.”
Then, the issue was a June 13 election that, authorities declared, had returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Amid credible allegations of fraud, his rivals’ supporters took to the streets. His supporters staged counter-protests. And the government cracked down on the anti-Ahmadinejad crowds.
Obama wasn’t silent, but it wasn’t until June 23 — and after many calls to toughen his rhetoric — that he declared himself “appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings, and imprisonments” which he (more importantly) directly and unmistakably tied to Iranian officials.
One recurring concern for Obama had been the degree to which American support might be counterproductive, giving Tehran room to blame demonstrations fed by anger at social repression and a terrible economy on an outside power that, after all, once helped overthrow an Iranian government.
“It is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be,” he said in his first statement, June 15, adding that he wanted “to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran.” (Iran’s government still blamed “Western-backed rioters” for the violence.)
My colleague Karen DeYoung reported Wednesday on Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi hitting back at Western critics in his general assembly speech.
“Without mentioning the protests, Raisi said Iran ‘rejects the double standards’ of some governments on human rights. In particular, he mentioned Canada’s discovery of the graves of Native children who died in government-mandated schools after being removed from their families, and children who were ‘locked up in cages’ by the United States after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.”
My colleague Kareem Fahim reported last week on Amini’s death and sketched this picture of the division blamed for her demise:
“The headscarf and other conservative dress, known as hijab, have been compulsory for women 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.”
“Career prosecutors have recommended against charging Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) in a long-running sex-trafficking investigation — telling Justice Department superiors that a conviction is unlikely in part because of credibility questions with the two central witnesses, according to people familiar with the matter,” Devlin Barrett reports.
House GOP ‘Commitment to America’ purposely short on specifics
“The debate over how to proceed on legislating abortion, for example, is evident in the document. Some Republicans would be content with a 15-week federal ban, while many others support legislation banning abortions at six weeks gestation or before, according to multiple aides,” Marianna Sotomayor and Leigh Ann Caldwell report.
“The Commitment to America pledge doesn’t get into specifics on the issue, one that polling shows is motivating voters across the country. Rather, it promises that the party will ‘protect the lives of unborn children and their mothers.’”
“A jury in a federal civil case on Thursday found that Project Veritas, a conservative group known for its deceptive tactics, had violated wiretapping laws and fraudulently misrepresented itself as part of a lengthy sting operation against Democratic political consultants,” the New York Times' Adam Goldman reports.
“The military’s innovation office is launching a sweeping review of cryptocurrencies to assess threats to national security and law enforcement posed by the rise of digital assets,” Tory Newmyer reports.
“The new estimate is a dramatic increase from the roughly $16 billion in potential fraud identified a year ago, and it illustrates the immense task still ahead of Washington as it seeks to pinpoint the losses, recover the funds and hold criminals accountable for stealing from a vast array of federal relief programs,” Tony Romm reports.
“Roskomnadzor’s activities have catapulted Russia, along with authoritarian countries like China and Iran, to the forefront of nations that aggressively use technology as a tool of repression. Since the agency was established in 2008, Mr. Putin has turned it into an essential lever to tighten his grip on power as he has transformed Russia into an even more authoritarian state,” the NYT's Paul Mozur, Adam Satariano, Aaron Krolik and Aliza Aufrichtig report.
“The agency’s role in this digital dragnet is more extensive than previously known, according to the records. It has morphed over the years from a sleepy telecom regulator into a full-blown intelligence agency, closely monitoring websites, social media and news outlets, and labeling them as ‘pro-government,’ ‘anti-government’ or ‘apolitical.’”
“In 2001, when Gallup polled Americans on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, views were clear and consistent: Only 16 percent of Americans sympathized more with the Palestinians, while 51 percent sympathized more with the Israelis. Back then, this wasn’t even a particularly partisan issue — only 18 percent of Democrats sympathized more with Palestinians,” FiveThirtyEight's Zoha Qamar reports.
“The United States for several months has been sending private communications to Moscow warning Russia’s leadership of the grave consequences that would follow the use of a nuclear weapon, according to U.S. officials, who said the messages underscore what President Biden and his aides have articulated publicly,” Paul Sonne and John Hudson report.
White House announces $1.5 billion to target opioid crisis
“The White House on Friday announced $1.5 billion in grants aimed at addressing the opioid crisis and supporting individuals in recovery. The funding is part of a federal program that aims to help states increase access to treatment for substance abuse, make medications such as naloxone more widely available and expand access to recovery support services,” John Wagner and Azi Paybarah report.
“President Joe Biden announced Thursday that the federal government will pay100 percent of the costs of Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Fiona for the next month,” Politico's Gloria Gonzalez reports.
Voter registration deadlines across the country, visualized
“There are many proximate factors behind Puerto Rico’s continued vulnerability to hurricanes and economic dysfunction. But the root problem is political inequality. It is an American colony: controlled by the United States government, but without any political representation for the people living there. Until this inequality is rectified, it’s a safe bet that Puerto Rico will never fully recover,” Ryan Cooper writes for the American Prospect.
Herschel Walker’s struggles show GOP’s deeper challenge in Georgia
“Walker, 60, cruised through a Republican primary four months ago, armed with former president Donald Trump’s endorsement and buoyed by his name recognition as a national championship-winning Heisman Trophy winner. He offers his up-by-the-bootstraps story as a counterpoint to liberal assertions that the country is rife with systemic racism, telling mostly White audiences that they should ignore overblown complaints about a racist America,” Cleve R. Wootson Jr. reports.
At 12:25 p.m., Biden will depart the White House for a Democratic National Committee event at the National Education Association Headquarters, where he will deliver remarks at 1 p.m.
Biden will return to the White House at 1:50 p.m.
At 8 p.m., The president and first lady Jill Biden will host and deliver remarks at a musical performance by Elton John.
“In Indiana and across the country, the criminal justice system is reckoning with an unprecedented boom in vigilante activity. In the past three years, at least 160 groups have been ‘catching predators’ in the United States, according to a Washington Post analysis of their social media posts. This year alone, a YouTube channel tracking catchers has counted more than 920 stings by amateurs,” Jessica Contrera reports. | 2022-09-23T16:56:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | On Iran protests, Biden goes faster and farther than Obama - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/iran-protests-biden-goes-faster-farther-than-obama/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/iran-protests-biden-goes-faster-farther-than-obama/ |
Protester sets arm on fire during Laver Cup match
A man pours flammable liquid to set his arm on fire during a protest at the Laver Cup. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
A man wearing a T-shirt with a slogan protesting the use of private jets in the United Kingdom interrupted a match at the Laver Cup tennis exhibition at the O2 Arena in London by lighting his right arm on fire while sitting on the court.
The incident occurred during a break in a match between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Diego Schwartzman.
The man, whose shirt read “end UK private jets,” doused the flames on his arm himself and was quickly removed by security, who also put out the small fire the protester set on the court using some sort of flammable liquid. Stuart Fraser of the Times reports that he later saw the man lying on the ground in a backstage area.
The match resumed after the protester was removed and the liquid was cleaned up.
The Laver Cup is a men’s team tournament pitting a team of European players against players from the rest of the world. This year’s event is particularly momentous because it marks the final competitive tournament for 20-time Grand Slam singles winner Roger Federer, who is retiring.
Everything you need to know about Roger Federer's final tournament
Federer, who was sitting courtside when the incident took place, will take the court with fellow legend Rafael Nadal in a doubles match — the last of his career — that will begin Friday around 3:20 p.m. Eastern.
Earlier this year, a woman chained herself to the net during a French Open match between Casper Ruud and Marin Cilic in Paris. The woman was wearing a T-shirt with the message “we have 1028 days left,” a reference to a U.N. report that said humanity risked catastrophe unless it worked to halt climate change.
The use of private jets has come under fire because of the sizable carbon footprint they leave behind.
Roger Federer’s final match will be doubles pairing with Rafael Nadal | 2022-09-23T16:56:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Laver Cup interrupted when protester sets his arm on fire - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/laver-cup-protester-fire/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/laver-cup-protester-fire/ |
Fairfax police ask people to shelter in place after cars damaged by gunfire
Fairfax County police asked people to shelter in place after multiple cars were found Friday morning damaged by gunfire in the Bailey’s Crossroads area. No injuries have been reported, police said.
Officers were dispatched at about 11:15 a.m. to the 3500 block of South Jefferson St., Sgt. Tara Gerhard said. Two or three cars were damaged by gunfire, but police said there was no active shooter. The area is full of busy shops and restaurants.
Police released few immediate details of the shooting, such as whether the vehicles were occupied when they were shot at. Police did not specify the nature of the call that led them to dispatch officers.
Police are asking residents to avoid the area, Gerhard said. | 2022-09-23T17:34:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fairfax police ask people to shelter in place after cars damaged by gunfire - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/fairfax-police-shelter-in-place/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/fairfax-police-shelter-in-place/ |
Ben Simmons said that before he was kicked out of an October 2021 practice, he told Sixers Coach Doc Rivers, “Mentally, I’m not ready.” (Matt Rourke/AP)
Ben Simmons said he was in a “dark place” following a playoff loss to the Atlanta Hawks while with the Philadelphia 76ers, and that the lack of support he received from teammates took “a toll” on him.
Now with the Brooklyn Nets, the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2016 opened up about his experiences during a tumultuous period that started with the season-ending defeat in June 2021 — which represented his most recent appearance in an NBA game — and culminated with his eventual trade to the Nets last season.
In between, Simmons was publicly criticized for his playoff performance by 76ers star Joel Embiid and Coach Doc Rivers, demanded a trade away from Philadelphia and briefly returned to the team only to be kicked out of a preseason practice. Then, during a 2021-22 season in which he never suited up, he was reported to have told the team he was suffering from ongoing mental health issues.
In a lengthy interview on the “Old Man & the Three” podcast published Thursday, Simmons told co-host and former teammate JJ Redick, “It got to a point where, after that [Hawks] series — it’s like, from the people that you’re supposed to have the support from, or that comfort from, and I wasn’t getting that, either, so it was just a lot — it was a toll on me. And then mentally, I just — it killed me. I was, like, ‘[Expletive], no energy for anything.’ I was in a dark place.”
Simmons then declared that he’s “in a great place” and feels “comfortable talking about it now.”
“But those were some dark days for me,” he continued. “And especially — everything’s public. That’s the crazier part. Everyone goes through different struggles, some bigger than others, but everyone has their own battles.
“And I think that was tough for me, just knowing I didn’t really have that support, either from teammates or whatever it was at that time.”
“I’m in a great place. And I feel comfortable talking about it now, but those were some dark days for me.”
Ben Simmons opens up about his mental health struggles over the past few years. https://t.co/nXHrW04E9J pic.twitter.com/QXXeFgpWj5
During their discussion, Redick touched on a number of shared experiences, either as Sixers teammates, NBA players in general or having both dealt with back injuries. Now in his second year of retirement, the 38-year-old Redick played with Simmons in the 2017-18 season, Simmons’s first as a full-time NBA player after he broke his foot before his rookie season, and in 2018-19.
On the podcast, Redick told Simmons that while he loves Embiid and Doc Rivers, “They essentially threw you under the bus after Game 7 [against Atlanta]. That’s indisputable.” Simmons agreed with the assertion.
Redick was referring to comments made by Embiid and Rivers after the loss to the Hawks in which the all-star center cited a dunk Simmons elected not to try late in the game as a “turning point” in the defeat, while the veteran coach expressed uncertainty about whether the Sixers could contend for championships with Simmons as their point guard.
During that series, Simmons frequently appeared tentative and, in particular, hesitant to shoot the ball. He set career playoff lows against Atlanta with averages of 9.9 points and 6.3 rebounds, and he took just 45 shots over the seven games, none from three-point range. His decision to pass the ball near the basket late in Game 7, when a spin move in the low block appeared to clear a path to the rim, garnered him criticism if not outright mockery from well beyond Philadelphia.
Ben Simmons did not just pass this up... pic.twitter.com/4JyM7ZHNkJ
Simmons joked with the podcast hosts that it was a “hundred-point basket,” making a sarcastic case that the significance of his non-dunk was greatly inflated in terms of how much it figured into the Sixers’ loss.
The 26-year-old guard-forward explained that after making his spin move against Atlanta’s Danilo Gallinari, he thought Hawks guard Trae Young was going to “come for the ball.” Noting that then-teammate Matisse Thybulle “is athletic and can get up,” Simmons said that his thought process was, “Okay, quick pass, he’s gonna flush it,” but that he misjudged the spacing among the players involved.
Redick delved into how Simmons might not have fully recognized the mismatch right away on Young on a “bang-bang” play, but went on to acknowledge that “when it slows down, it looks really bad.”
“Yeah, it was terrible,” Simmons agreed. “When I look at it now, I think, ‘Man, punch that [expletive].’ But it didn’t happen. And I was, ‘Okay, I can live with it.’
“I mean, everyone’s trying to kill me over one play. Like, does everyone want to watch film with me? Like, the whole arena? I can dissect everything if you guys want. But that’s not realistic.”
During that offseason, Simmons staged a holdout from the 76ers, but ended it in time to attend a pair of October practices shortly before the 2021-22 regular season was set to tip off. Calling Simmons a “distraction,” Rivers told reporters he dismissed his point guard from the second training session “to protect the team.” Simmons was subsequently suspended by Philadelphia for the season opener.
In the version of events Simmons shared on the podcast, he was trying to “do right by my teammates … but I just was not in that [mental] place to play.”
“I actually spoke to Doc Rivers before practice,” Simmons told Redick. “I was, like, ‘Doc, I’m not ready. Mentally, I’m not ready, please just understand that.’ I tried to let him know prior. Then he’s like, ‘Well, I’m gonna put you in anyway.’ And he told me to get in. I looked at him. It was like one minute into practice. Like, ‘You get in.’ And I’m like, ‘First of all, no one’s doing that, you’re doing this on purpose.’ And that’s how it felt to me, like, ‘Okay, so it seems like everyone’s just trying to [expletive] with me now.'”
“Obviously, I didn’t handle things the right way,” he continued, “but also, the team didn’t either, and the people who had that power.”
On Episode 126, Ben Simmons opens up about getting kicked out practice by Doc Rivers back in October 2021.
Watch the full episode with @jj_redick and @talter: https://t.co/XvcwoCFhLG pic.twitter.com/ocbisPvXDB
Simmons added that “getting on the floor was my priority, and I was trying to get myself to a place where I was mentally good to do that.”
“I was in such a bad place,” he said, “where I was like, ‘[Expletive], I’m trying to get here and you guys are, like, throwing all these other things at me to where you’re not helping.’
After being dealt to the Nets in a blockbuster package that sent James Harden to the 76ers, Simmons underwent back surgery. He didn’t spell out Thursday whether he would be fully ready physically for the start of Brooklyn’s training camp next week, but made it clear he felt in a much better place mentally and praised the Nets’ team environment as “very calm.”
Simmons also expressed excitement about getting on the court with his Brooklyn teammates, including Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
“It’s going to be sick. I can’t wait. … I’m just looking forward to it,” Simmons said. “I think we have a special team. I think if we get it all together, we’re going to be the champions. That’s the end goal.”‘ | 2022-09-23T17:56:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ben Simmons discusses 76ers and disastrous NBA playoffs experience - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/ben-simmons-dark-place-76ers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/ben-simmons-dark-place-76ers/ |
Metro unveils new map that includes Silver Line extension
The map also includes new names for several stations and the coming Potomac Yard station in Alexandria.
Metro's newest station map, which shows stations along the second phase of the Silver Line. (WMATA)
Metro unveiled a revised map Friday that includes seven new stations and the 11½-mile Silver Line extension, signaling that the agency is moving closer to opening the long-awaited project that has been under construction for eight years.
The map is being posted in stations, trains and transit centers. It features the addition of six stations that will open along the second phase of the Silver Line: Reston Town Center, Herndon, Innovation Center, Washington Dulles International Airport, Loudoun Gateway and Ashburn. The map includes a marking for Loudoun County, where the rail system will extend for the first time.
It also includes the Potomac Yard station, also marked as “future station,” which is scheduled to open this fall south of Reagan National Airport in Alexandria along the Blue and Yellow lines.
New station names recently approved by the Metro board are also included on the map. Those names include Downtown Largo, formerly Largo Town Center; Hyattsville Crossing, formerly Prince George’s Plaza; North Bethesda, formerly White Flint; West Falls Church-VT, which used to include UVA; and Tysons, formerly Tysons Corner.
Metro officials said it will take a month to replace all maps within the transit system, including more than 5,000 in stations and trains.
While the transit agency has not set a date to open the more than $3 billion Silver Line extension, officials have pledged to start passenger service in the late fall, provided they receive the needed permits and accreditations from regulators.
On Thursday, however, Metro General Manager Randy Clarke said a fall start date could be delayed if Metro isn’t allowed to use more of its fleet by late next month.
Metro has been operating with about half of its trains for nearly a year because of the suspension of its 7000-series rail cars, which are being investigated for a malfunctioning wheel problem. The series makes up 60 percent of Metro’s fleet, but has been sidelined since mid-October by the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission, the agency that oversees Metrorail safety.
The commission has allowed Metro to use up to 20 trains from the series each day, provided their wheels are screened every four days. But with six stations reopening in late October south of National Airport after a six-week closure, Metro would be stretched too thinly if it also had to operate the Silver Line extension with its existing fleet, officials said.
Clarke said he plans to petition the safety commission to allow Metro to reinstate more 7000-series cars. | 2022-09-23T18:13:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New Metro map includes Silver Line extension, new station names - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/23/new-metro-map-silver-line/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/23/new-metro-map-silver-line/ |
Central banks seek to manage economies by setting interest rates at levels that speed up or slow down things like car purchases and construction projects. But the enterprise revolves around a number that’s far more ephemeral — the rate that does nothing at all, also known as the neutral interest rate. Right now, it’s an important guidepost because most monetary policy makers are trying to set rates high enough to bring down inflation -- but not so high as to guarantee a recession. Another number getting more attention than usual is the US Federal Reserve’s terminal rate -- the rate that marks the peak of a tightening cycle
Fed officials have been raising rates quickly this year in a bid to bring inflation -- which has reached its fastest pace since the early 1980s -- under control. In July, the target range for the federal funds rate reached 2.25-2.5%. That set the stage for the next phase of the tightening cycle, as officials signaled that they would go on to raise rates above that level with the hope that doing so will slow down the economy and put downward pressure on inflation. In September, they raised the fed funds rate to a range of 3 to 3.25% and indicated it was likely to reach 4.4% by the end of the year.
That’s not entirely clear. Even if Fed officials think 2.5% is a neutral level for interest rates in the long run, they’re not betting the farm on it. They know they’re dealing with unusual circumstances, including the pandemic’s disruption of supply chains and the shockwaves from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As Fed Chair Jerome Powell put it in his Aug. 26 speech at Jackson Hole in Wyoming: “In current circumstances, with inflation running far above 2% and the labor market extremely tight, estimates of longer-run neutral are not a place to stop or pause.” Eventually, once inflation comes back down, the Fed may try to navigate back to the neutral rate.
7. What about the terminal rate?
When Fed officials published quarterly projections in September, the median FOMC participant saw the funds rate rising to 4.6% by the end of next year, before returning to 3.9% by the end of 2024 and 2.9% by the end of 2025. By contrast, the terminal rate during the bout of high inflation that started in the 1970s was 20% -- a situation Fed officials are trying mightily to avoid repeating. Instead, they’re hoping holding rates steady at levels well above neutral over the next few years will do the trick. | 2022-09-23T18:26:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | For Fed, the ‘Neutral Rate’ Is Crucial, and Unknown - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/for-fed-the-neutral-rate-is-crucial-and-unknown/2022/09/23/85cb59aa-3b67-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/for-fed-the-neutral-rate-is-crucial-and-unknown/2022/09/23/85cb59aa-3b67-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
The market meltdown triggered by British Prime Minister Liz Truss’s radical plans to slash taxes partly reflects two broad critiques of her approach to fiscal policy: that her £45 billion ($50 billion) in tax cuts will be socially divisive (and perhaps usher in a Labour government) and that it’s economically illiterate.
The real weakness may be that she’s not being radical enough. In fact, let’s put the fish on the table: There is no way that Britain is getting radical, tax-cutting, growth-driving Conservative government without opening up a big, smelly discussion about the National Health Service. Health and social care account for about 20% of government spending; excluding pensions and benefits, the figure is more like 40%. Truss can’t be a radical liberalizer without addressing this line item.
The taxpayer-funded health service is facing massive patient backlogs, which were growing even before Covid. There are failings across the service, from long delays for ambulances to a massive shortage in nurses, doctors and radiographers. The percentage of cancer patients seen within target timescales has been falling. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng vowed to maintain the expenditure that was previously funded by an increase in the National Insurance levy he abolished, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which the NHS doesn’t need another major cash injection.
There are ways the government could improve the workings of the NHS, such as expanding on the use of “virtual wards” and investing more in diagnostics. But, really, Britain needs to rethink how it funds healthcare; there are plenty of universal-funding models that deliver better outcomes at a more sustainable cost. This a conversation Truss, like her role model Margaret Thatcher, is unlikely to want to start given the sacrosanct role the NHS has long played in the life of the nation.
So how radical can a Tory government be without tackling the ever-needy, constantly crisis-stricken NHS? That’s the big question.
The tax cuts announced on Friday went beyond mere tinkering at the margins. Kwarteng abolished what’s known as the “higher rate” of income tax – 45% – bringing higher earners to a top marginal rate of 40%. He cut the lowest rate from 20% to 19%. He scrapped the new National Insurance levy of 1.25% introduced in the spring to fund health and social care. He reversed a planned rise in corporate taxes, and he cut stamp duty, the charge paid by homebuyers, to get the property market moving again.
The initial market reaction to the biggest tax-cutting event since the 1972 budget -- which went down as the worst of modern times – is far from auspicious. “Genuinely, I hope this one works very much better,” tweeted Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Paul Johnson.
It’s likely there are more policies to be announced in the months to come; and the government insists on not calling this a budget. So it wouldn’t be fair to say “this is it, folks.” But if Truss is to achieve her aim of 2.5% economic growth, then she needs a bigger supply-side liberalization than Kwarteng announced Friday.
The announcement of enterprise zones – something former Chancellor George Osborne once embraced to little impact – feels like a pared down, rushed-through version of levelling up. Such zones tend to displace investment and employment from elsewhere, and the jobs created in the zones tend to be low-skilled, a 2019 report by the Centre for Cities found.
Kwarteng did say that approval for infrastructure projects would be accelerated. But a radical growth package would have to speed the delivery and cost-efficiency of public-works projects and include the hard, longer-term policies to improve skills levels and education offerings. It would also need to include substantially higher levels of immigration, both low- and higher skilled.
It’s too early to tell whether the decision to make tax simplification a core part of Treasury function will prove significant, but a truly radical plan would have the effect not just of lowering some rates but widening the tax base and turbocharging Britain’s chronically low levels of investment.
Kwarteng’s policies will provide a sugar rush but are unlikely to “deliver the gear shift in growth that the government is banking on,” notes Bloomberg Economics Dan Hanson. At a time when the Bank of England is trying to tamp down inflation, the government stimulus pushes in the opposite direction. The danger is that it also puts debt on an unsustainable path since the policy package is unfunded.
Truss spent her leadership campaign criticizing the “failed orthodoxy” of the Treasury. “The irony or challenge — however you want to characterize it — is that the conventional Treasury view is very much the market view of the world, too. That’s why we’re seeing the moves in yields and the currency,” says Hanson.
The budget, of course, poses political challenges too. Most of the criticism from Labour, charities and many commentators was around fairness. About 660,000 of the highest earners in Britain – thosetaking home over £150,000 per year – will gain an average of £10,000 from the plans to scrap the top marginal rate in November. Those earning more also benefit more from the removal of the national insurance levy.
Truss won’t be too bothered by criticism that she’s subscribing to “trickle down” economics. Her “aspiration nation” program is underpinned by the belief that voters in the poorer north of the country and those who are underprivileged don’t resent people making money so long as they have more opportunity and better living standards. It’s not inequality that rankles, but stagnation and lack of mobility, in her view.
Businesses are understandably pleased. But the proof will be whether they invest more and boost productivity. The danger is that a partial reform that doesn’t really tackle the supply-side constraints in the economy or put health care on a sustainable footing will undermine Britain’s credibility in the markets without delivering the growth Truss needs. That wouldn’t just doom Truss’s premiership, but it would further erode most everyone’s living standards. | 2022-09-23T18:26:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The UK’s £45 Billion Tax Cut Isn’t Radical Enough - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-uks-45-billion-tax-cut-isnt-radical-enough/2022/09/23/e37b3e42-3b5f-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-uks-45-billion-tax-cut-isnt-radical-enough/2022/09/23/e37b3e42-3b5f-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
Several hurricanes have made landall in the Canadian Maritimes; Fiona could be one of Canada’s strongest storms on record
Large waves crash at Quidi Vidi Gut, a historic fishing community within St. John's, Canada, as Hurricane Igor hit on Sept. 21, 2010. Hurricane Igor caused widespread damage across an eastern swath of Newfoundland, with heavy rains flooding communities, washing out roads and stranding some residents in their homes. (Paul Daly/AP)
Hurricane Fiona, a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 130 miles per hour, is on a collision course with the Canada’s Atlantic maritime provinces.
The storm is likely to be the strongest storm on record in Nova Scotia, by at least the metric of minimum air pressure. It is expected to lash many parts of Atlantic Canada with heavy rain, hurricane-force winds and, at the coast, an ocean surge of more than five feet. Massive ocean waves are anticipated just offshore.
The minimum air pressure record in Nova Scotia is 950.5 millibars, while Fiona is modeled to crash into the Canadian Maritimes at around 930 to 935 millibars. The lowest air pressure recorded in all of Canada is 940 millibars.
Before Fiona makes its mark in Canada’s record book, here are three of the most devastating storms to have previously made landfall.
Hurricane Juan (2003)
Hurricane Juan’s passage through Atlantic Canada was unique for several reasons. The storm made landfall in Canada as a Category 2 hurricane, maintaining its tropical characteristics even as it crossed through Nova Scotia and passed over Prince Edward Island.
A cyclone with tropical characteristics is fueled by warm ocean water, while extratropical cyclones get their energy from atmospheric temperature contrasts like fronts.
Fiona, like most Atlantic hurricanes that impact Canada, is currently forecast to lose its tropical characteristics. Juan did not, meaning it hit Canada with sustained winds of 100 miles per hour — nearly at its peak intensity. The storm had a minimum pressure of 969 millibars.
Juan moved through the region quickly but left a trail of devastation, causing $200 million in damage. Eight people were killed by the storm, and Halifax Stanfield International Airport recorded a peak gust of 143 km/h (88 mph), which remains the record-high gust at the airport.
Juan was the first storm name that the Meteorological Service of Canada recommended be retired from usage due to its destruction, a request that was granted by the World Meteorological Organization. The Meteorological Service of Canada has only ever recommended two storms be retired, Juan, and a strong hurricane that struck Newfoundland in 2010, Igor …
Hurricane Igor (2010)
Hurricane Igor is widely considered the most destructive hurricane on record to strike Newfoundland. Igor, which was birthed from a tropical wave off the coast of Africa, strengthened into a strong Category 4 storm with winds up of up to 155 mph.
By the time the storm made it to the eastern tip of Newfoundland, it had weakened to a strong Category 1 storm. However, the storm’s ascent to high latitudes while remaining tropical helped to greatly expand its size, becoming the second largest Atlantic hurricane on record with gale-force winds extending 920 miles from the center of the storm, a record only surpassed by Superstorm Sandy.
Igor actually intensified as it tracked closer to Newfoundland, latching onto strong frontal energy as it began transitioning into an extratropical cyclone. Still, the storm made landfall as a tropical system with winds up to 85 miles per hour.
The storm killed four people, including two in Canada. Unlike Juan, which dumped little rain across Canada, Igor thrashed parts of Newfoundland with nearly 9.5 inches of rain, washing out bridges, roads and even homes. About $200 million in damage was reported.
Neither of these two storms were the strongest to make landfall in Atlantic Canada, though. That dubious honor goes to a storm that struck Nova Scotia all the way back in 1968, Ginny.
Hurricane Ginny (1968)
Hurricane Ginny was the strongest storm to ever impact the Canadian Maritimes by the measure of sustained winds.
Ginny, which made loop-de-loops of the Southeast United States as a Category 1 hurricane before accelerating northeastward and strengthening into a Category 2 storm, slammed into Nova Scotia with maximum sustained winds of nearly 110 miles per hour — right on the cusp of major hurricane status.
Ginny also was unusual in the fact that the storm dropped a significant amount of snow. When it made landfall on Oct. 29, temperatures were cold enough in parts of Canada and the United States to produce snow instead of rain. According to local reporting, nearly four feet of snow fell in parts of Maine, with up to a foot of snow falling in parts of New Brunswick.
The incredibly snowy side of Superstorm Sandy
The storm caused upward of $300,000 of damage in the United States and killed three people, including two who were lost in the early season snowstorm. In Canada, power outages were widespread and strong winds blew down trees and power lines.
Other storms
These are but three of many notable storms to affect Eastern Canada, which has a long history of powerful tempests.
In 1954, the remnants of Hurricane Hazel became the deadliest hurricane to strike Canada, killing 81 people, according to the Canadian Hurricane Center.
The strongest storm to ever pass through Canadian waters was Hurricane Ella in 1978, which was a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of greater than 130 miles per hour. | 2022-09-23T18:27:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What are the strongest hurricanes to hit Canada? Fiona could join them. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/23/canada-hurricane-history-fiona/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/23/canada-hurricane-history-fiona/ |
All these book bans are like something out of, uh… ‘Goodnight Moon’?
Is this what the world has come to? (Stew Milne/AP)
It’s stunning that we are alive at this time in history, when people are trying to remove all but the blandest books from library shelves. I feel like — like — like, this is “Goodnight Moon,” but the old lady whispering “hush” is whispering it to all of us, and whispering it in a bad, sinister way. And they are treating some people like “goodnight, nobody,” or “goodnight, mush.”
You wish that everybody you met would be like the light, or the red balloon or even the three little bears sitting on chairs in the painting in “Goodnight Moon’s” big green room. But some people are not like that. The world is like the world in “Goodnight Moon,” but if the world were not good but bad. I wish there were a way of describing a world like that more easily.
Nothing like this has ever happened in history before as far as I can tell, and nobody has ever been like this. I am trying to find the words to describe what I see happening all around. It is like if you asked me, “Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?” and what I saw was … bad.
Kathleen Parker: The book-banning crowd is back. Resist them.
To take books away so that people cannot read them — it’s like something out of … “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” but instead of eating leaves and a cake, he is eating books! And instead of getting larger and becoming a butterfly, he is becoming powerful in his local government and school board! And there are more caterpillars like him, and they are trying to make life difficult for lady caterpillars!
What’s happening to women and minorities and different thinkers is like “The Giving Tree,” but in the worst possible way. Picture the cow jumping over the moon, but onto a human face, and forever. If things continue at this rate, the world we live in will be even less like the world in the Paddington Bear series than it is currently. It will be like the world in another book. Maybe? I assume! I haven’t had much chance to read any.
Opinion|Schools are banning my book. But queer kids need queer stories.
Opinion|This Mississippi school board takes the fun out of learning | 2022-09-23T18:28:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Republican book bans are like something out of, uh… ‘Goodnight Moon’? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/book-bans-goodnight-moon-satire/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/book-bans-goodnight-moon-satire/ |
Youngkin should have stayed out of school gender identity policy
Mr. Youngkin was not the first to broach this difficult subject in a high-handed manner. The administration of Gov. Ralph Northam (D) was able last year to issue its own model school policies on transgender students, bypassing the independent state board of education and its requirement for public hearings, because of rules established by the Democrat-led legislature. That enabled Mr. Youngkin’s education department to quickly tear them up and substitute its own guidance — one that better reflected the governor’s weaponization of parental rights as a wedge issue.
It’s troubling, for example, that the new model policies would allow school personnel to disrespect and belittle transgender students by refusing to use the name that conforms with their gender identities, even in some cases when parents have made an official request. Just as teachers are not allowed to teach creationism out of their personal or religious beliefs, so, too, must school employees be barred from hurting children placed in their care.
Far thornier is the question of what school officials should be required to tell parents about their children’s gender identity. Mr. Northam’s policy recommended that schools weigh sharing information with parents on a case-by-case basis, considering students’ health and safety. Critics argued that this led to schools actively concealing information and even misleading parents, for example by referring to a child by one name with parents and by another with the student.
Mr. Youngkin’s new policy states that schools may not “encourage or instruct teachers to conceal material information about a student from the student’s parent, including information related to gender.” This might make informants of teachers and counselors, causing transgender students — already at a greater risk of suicide and substance abuse — to avoid confiding in them and, as a result, not get needed support, such as counseling on how to tell their parents about their gender identity. There is also the risk that outing kids could endanger them if parents are unwilling to accept them.
The state has seemingly no way to enforce its model guidance on schools. Most of the state’s school divisions declined to implement Mr. Northam’s policy; the 13 districts that did, most in Northern Virginia, comprised about 44 percent of statewide enrollment.
Instead of issuing another guidance more likely to inflame than to strike a durable balance, Mr. Youngkin should have rescinded Mr. Northam’s policy and asked the state board of education to consult with his administration on how to craft a guidance that would help school districts, individual schools and administrators to navigate these fraught issues. Indeed, those closest to the students for which they are caring might prove better able to muster the right mixture of compassion and good sense these situations require than a governor in Richmond who made his political name riling up parents on school policy. | 2022-09-23T18:28:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Youngkin should have stayed out of school gender identity policy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/youngkin-virginia-school-gender-identity-policy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/youngkin-virginia-school-gender-identity-policy/ |
By Richard Schiffman
“Americans’ mental health is at the lowest point in history,” said David H. Rosmarin, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. “People are feeling more isolated than ever. They are less connected to each other and also to something spiritual. It’s a big problem.”
Rosmarin is one of a growing number of psychologists who believe that religion and spirituality have tools that can help in today’s mental health crisis. In recent years, there has been an increase in training opportunities to integrate faith and spirituality into psychotherapy as well as articles and research papers about it published in professional journals. But Rosmarin says that convincing others in a profession, who are statistically less religious than those they serve, is still a hard sell.
Antipathy between psychology and spirituality is long-standing. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, characterized religion as a “mass delusion.” Such attitudes have softened recently as scientific evidence for the health benefits of practices like prayer and meditation mounts. But mistrust persists.
“There is religiosity gap between psychologists and the general population,” said David Lukoff, a clinical psychologist. While mental health professionals are often uncomfortable with the subject, which they have little personal experience in, more than half of patients are interested in spiritually integrated therapy.
That can be a challenge. Only a quarter of psychologists and psychiatrists have been trained in how to meet clients’ spiritual needs, according to Lukoff, who recently helped develop a program to promote “spiritual competency” for therapists, which includes classes on mindfulness, self-compassion, forgiveness and mystical experience. He says that spiritual techniques can be especially helpful when individuals are grappling with deep existential questions.
“When people groan and ask, ‘God why are you doing this to me? Why is there suffering in the world? What is meaning and purpose of life?’— that is not a psychological problem. It’s a spiritual struggle,” said Eric J. Hall, a Presbyterian minister and president of the HealthCare Chaplaincy Network, a nonprofit chaplaincy service that works in hospitals and other health-care settings.
Our spiritual struggles can lead to tremendous personal growth, the Rev. Hall observed. “But when the struggle deepens without the ability to process it, people’s health often deteriorates.”
Research shows that spiritual distress increases rates of heart disease and other ailments, as well as anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide, he said.
Mainstream health-care organizations have taken note. A new diagnostic category, “Religious or Spiritual Problem,” was added into the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association ) in 1994. In 2016, the American Medical Association advised that doctors should provide a spiritual care plan as part of their treatment for patients.
Spiritual care does not mean solving someone’s problems for them, Russell Siler Jones, the director of CareNet/Wake Forest Baptist Health’s Residency in Psychotherapy, explained. “You don’t need to have the answers, only to be willing to accompany people in the struggle,” he said.
Jones, a Baptist minister, often asks those who come to him for therapy—‘Where are you drawing your strength from? What gives you hope?’ ” With religious clients, he may have them talk about their prayer life, or ask when they feel most connected to God.
For many, however, their spirituality may have little to do with organized religion, he noted.
Kenneth Pargament, a professor emeritus of psychology at Bowling Green State University who remains active researching the connection between spirituality and health, remembers working with a man who wasn’t a religious believer. “I was feeling pretty frustrated,” Pargament said. “He was deeply depressed. I couldn’t find a way to generate any kind of spark or enthusiasm in his life.” Then he asked Joe if there was ever a time when he was simply glad to be alive.
“Joe lit up. He told me that he had been a jet pilot. He said, ‘man when you cut through the sky with that thing, you can touch the face of God!’ ” Pargament recalled. “We talked about what it was like to fly and the skills involved and how he could use those skills in his life to become more assertive, more of a take-charge kind of guy. The therapy involved getting him back — literally and figuratively — into the cockpit of his life.”
Another client was suffering from advanced HIV/AIDS. Feeling despondent, she considered not going on kidney dialysis as a way to die. Pargament suggested another option. “You have lost a lot,” he said, “but you can still have sacred moments in your life being with those you love and helping others.”
Ultimately, she decided to undergo the dialysis and became, Pargament said, “a wonderful patient advocate for others in the rehabilitation facility, laughing with them, helping and feeding them.” She lived for three more years with a renewed sense of spiritual purpose.
“We’re not only shaped by our genetics or our larger environment,” Pargament explained. “We’re also goal-directed creatures who seek deep meaning and purpose in our lives.”
“The term ‘spiritual’ is often associated with religion, but that’s not how I use it,” Steve Taylor, a professor of psychology at Leeds Beckett University in the United Kingdom, explained. “Spiritual awakening is simply a shift into a more expansive state of awareness.” Many people are undergoing this shift today, he said, but added that it can be disorienting to adapt to a radically new vision of life.
The first step in spiritual therapy, says Taylor, is for clients who are opening up to their greater possibilities to know that they are undergoing a natural process and not going crazy. “I don’t actually think therapists need to do very much,” he said. “Once a person understands and accepts themselves, their spirituality will take care of itself.” | 2022-09-23T18:28:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | More psychotherapists are incorporating religion into their practices - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/09/23/psychotherapy-religion-spirituality/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/09/23/psychotherapy-religion-spirituality/ |
UNITED NATIONS — Flooding likely worsened by climate change has submerged one-third of Pakistan’s territory and left 33 million of its people scrambling to survive, according to Pakistan’s prime minister, who says he came to the United Nations this year to tell the world that “tomorrow, this tragedy can fall on some other country.” | 2022-09-23T18:29:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The AP Interview: Pakistani leader details flood devastation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the-ap-interview-pakistani-leader-details-flood-devastation/2022/09/23/3fc0db10-3b62-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the-ap-interview-pakistani-leader-details-flood-devastation/2022/09/23/3fc0db10-3b62-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
NASA is hoping to launch its Space Launch System rocket and uncrewed Orion spacecraft to the moon as soon as Tuesday
NASA is going to attempt to launch its massive Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to the moon next week, but is keeping an eye on a storm that could force a postponement. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
NASA is moving ahead with a Tuesday launch attempt of its Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, agency officials said Friday, as they watch a storm that could force them to roll back the rocket to its assembly building and waive off a launch to the moon for the third time.
While two previous launch attempts were marred by fuel leaks, including a sizable one earlier this month NASA engineers could not contain, NASA officials said they are now confident they have fixed the problem after running a fueling test earlier this week.
Still, there is a tropical depression in the Caribbean that could threaten the Florida Space Coast and force NASA to once again delay the launch. A decision on that could come Friday evening or Saturday, NASA said, since it needs a couple of days to roll the vehicle back to its assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center.
The potential track of the storm “has changed dramatically over the last few days,” said Tom Whitmeyer, NASA’s deputy associate administrator. “It’s not a named storm. We really want to continue to try to get as much information as we can so we can make the best possible decision for the hardware.”
NASA has a lot of experience from the space shuttle days in dealing with storms that roll up the Florida coast, especially at this time of year, he said. The space agency did not want to call off a launch prematurely in case the storm shifts direction.
“We have a step-by-step, measured approach for looking at weather, seeing which direction it’s going,” he said. “I don’t think we’re cutting it close. I think we’re cutting it just at the right time.”
After years of setbacks and delays, NASA officials are eager to launch the SLS rocket for the first time, which would mark the first major step in its Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon. This launch would have no astronauts on board, and is seen as a test of the vehicle before the space agency flies humans.
But NASA has run into a series of problems in getting the rocket off the ground. At the end of August, NASA said a bad sensor forced them to waive off the flight attempt. Then, on Sept. 3, it had to scrub the launch again after it could not contain a large liquid hydrogen leak.
This week, NASA tested the repair of the leak by fueling the rocket using a “kinder, gentler” approach. But even with a more careful process to load the propellant slowly and under easier pressures, engineers discovered a hydrogen leak that forced NASA to pause the fueling while it worked to stem the flow.
Ultimately, NASA’s engineers were able to get the rocket fueled, despite overcoming yet another leak that they said they were able to manage. Overall, the test was “very successful,” said John Blevins, NASA’s chief SLS engineer.
Despite the setbacks, the team was “actually very encouraged,” Whitmeyer said, calling it a “good accomplishment.”
NASA officials said Friday that they have also received a waiver from the U.S. Space Force that would allow it to proceed with the flight. The Space Force requires the batteries on the SLS’s termination system, which is designed to destroy the rocket should it go wildly off course and threaten a population center, to be recharged every so often to ensure they are in good working order.
The initial timeline called for the batteries to be recharged after 20 days. That was extended to 25 days to allow for an early September launch attempt, and now the Space Force has allowed NASA to extend it further to accommodate next week’s attempt.
The launch would be the first in NASA’s Artemis campaign to eventually return astronauts to the lunar surface. This first mission would send the Orion spacecraft, without any astronauts on board, in orbit around the moon. It would be followed by a crewed flight that would again orbit, but not land, on the moon, perhaps in 2024 — with a landing to come in 2025 or 2026. | 2022-09-23T19:01:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NASA moves ahead on Artemis moon launch attempt, while watching storm - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/23/nasa-artemis-launch-moon-storm/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/23/nasa-artemis-launch-moon-storm/ |
How far from reality can a top elections official be? Arizona may find out.
Mark Finchem speaks May 2, 2018, at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix. (Bob Christie/AP)
Asked who they thought legitimately won the 2020 presidential election, Texans by a nearly 2 to 1 margin recently indicated that they believed President Biden had. Good news, certainly, given that he clearly did. But, still: a third of respondents said that Donald Trump was the legitimate winner, which he wasn’t. Among Republicans, two-thirds said that Trump was the winner.
No matter how divergent from reality, the idea that Trump won the election two years ago is clearly not an outlier position on the right. To stand out as exceptional in embracing that position, then, takes something more. Not just expressing skepticism about the results but, say, actively working to undermine them. Continuing to press the case even as the “evidence” of fraud has collapsed. Maybe even committing to taking over a state’s elections system to rework it as you see fit.
To be truly exceptional in this space, then, you need to be someone like Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem (R) — now one election away from taking over as that state’s top elections official next year.
On Thursday, Finchem participated in a brief debate with his Democratic opponent, Adrian Fontes. The discussion didn’t focus primarily on the dull mechanics of managing the state and operating its elections moving forward. Instead, it focused heavily on how Finchem had tried to unwind the last election. And Finchem was the first to raise the issue.
“I’m running for secretary of state to restore honor, to restore integrity, to restore security to the secretary of state’s office,” he began. He later claimed that the election results in some counties were “irredeemably compromised,” including Maricopa County, where Fontes had administered the 2020 vote.
His evidence? Well, he argued that Yuma County’s vote was tainted because of a case involving a former elected official who accepted and submitted other peoples’ ballots. This, he said, “altered the outcome of Yuma County” — apparently making assumptions about the scale of what occurred (the criminal charges centered on only four ballots) and failing to understand that this occurred in the 2020 primary.
Finchem claimed that they only learned about fraud after the vote was certified, meaning it was too late. But, of course, there is no evidence of fraud in Arizona; in Maricopa County in particular. There have been no arrests or even credible allegations of any rampant illegality; there has been no evidence presented showing undeniable flaws in the system. Nor has there ever been.
That latter qualifier is important because it overlaps with another point of debate on Thursday: Finchem’s presence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Fontes, not unexpectedly, repeatedly noted that Finchem was present at the scene of the riot that day, though Finchem has insisted he didn’t know it was underway. (He would also later say he heard the riot was caused by antifa, which it wasn’t.) Asked about being there after the debate, he reiterated what he’d said in a statement at the time: He was “there to deliver an evidence package to Rep. Paul A. Gosar” (R-Ariz.).
It’s not clear what that “package” contained, but it’s not really important. Since that statement was first produced, there has been a lengthy, expensive, thoroughly partisan review of the vote in Maricopa County, home to about 60 percent of the Arizona votes cast in 2020. That review did not determine that Trump actually won — amazingly — but it did gin up a lot of new grist for the just-asking-questions mills. (The county very helpfully then answered those questions.)
Again, though, the point is that Finchem thought he had evidence of fraud then just as he thinks he has evidence now, but that evidence is as ethereal as a ghost. Yet Finchem purports to center those allegations in his decision-making anyway.
Last year, at the outset of his candidacy for secretary of state, Finchem sent out a remarkably frank fundraising email.
“I will protect the elections from the Steal,” it read, “and make sure that Arizona is the Red State it REALLY is!”
The phrase “the Steal” refers to the “Stop the Steal” movement, in which Finchem was an eager participant. He has been linked to Ali Alexander, the right-wing provocateur credited with ginning up the effort/money-making scheme in the wake of the 2020 vote. Finchem spoke at a “Stop the Steal” event in Arizona a month after the election, at which he pledged to prove that “the Steal” had occurred.
“Everybody seems to say, ‘We need to see the smoking gun, we need to see the bullets, we need to see the blood splatter … we need to see the full crime scene,’” he said then. “Ladies and gentlemen, that is exactly what we are doing.”
No crime scene, literal or metaphorical, was ever presented. In a recent interview with Time magazine, though, Finchem suggested that he already had all of the evidence he needed. Reporter Charlotte Alter asked him if he would certify a Biden win in 2024. She described his response:
“Finchem chuckled. ‘If the law is followed, and legitimate votes have been counted, and Joe Biden ends up being the winner,’ he told me, 'I’m required under the law — if there’s no fraud — to certify the election.' But, he added, 'I think you’re proposing something that, quite frankly, is a fantasy.' ”
"Why, I asked him, was it so impossible to believe Biden won in Arizona, as many polls predicted and postelection reviews confirmed? 'It strains credibility,' Finchem responded. 'Isn’t it interesting that I can’t find anyone who will admit that they voted for Joe Biden?' Was it possible that lots of people he didn’t personally know had voted for Biden? 'In a fantasy world, anything’s possible,' Finchem said."
This is actually quite revealing. As I wrote in December 2020, that many Trump supporters knew few or no Biden supporters almost certainly contributed to the sense that Biden’s win was impossible. You heard one refrain regularly from those rejecting Biden’s victory: How could he have gotten 81 million votes? The answer, of course, was that a huge portion of those votes came in large, heavily Democratic cities — places that people like Mark Finchem often don’t live.
The important part of the quote, of course, is that Finchem told Alter that he’d certify a Biden win only in a “fantasy world.” And that’s the reason we’re talking about Finchem at all: He’s poised to have the power to decide whether the results of the election should be upheld.
If he had been similarly empowered in 2020, he would not have certified that election. In February, after months of adjudication and review of the votes in the state, Finchem called for the 2020 results in Maricopa, Pima and Yuma Counties to be set aside. It’s not clear what practical effect that would have; Biden would still be president. But it’s worth noting that the purported justifications for this action were largely ones already debunked by Maricopa County.
The “evidence” was there just because Finchem and the others supporting the motion felt the need to make some sort of case. As is often the case, though, the evidence itself didn’t matter any more than it matters which route your car GPS serves up to you. They knew where they were going and didn’t care how they got there. If there was an unexpected roadblock, no problem. Just move around it. Find new “evidence.”
As secretary of state, Finchem could act both before and after an election to shape the outcome. He could limit voting mechanisms to benefit Republicans and he could approve audits or reviews to reach the same end. And he’s been explicit about the justification for doing so: He doesn’t think it’s possible for a Democrat to actually win in the state.
Vote for him, he promised, and he would “make sure that Arizona is the Red State it REALLY is”; that in federal elections in both 2018 and 2020 it wasn’t doesn’t matter. It’s about the destination, not the journey. | 2022-09-23T19:05:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Top election denier Mark Finchem aims to be Arizona's top elections official - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/arizona-election-denier-finchem/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/arizona-election-denier-finchem/ |
The Allies could have bombed Nazi death camps
A view of the World War II-era Auschwitz death camp near Oswiecim, Poland, in January 2020. (Markus Schreiber/AP)
In his Sept. 18 op-ed, “What are the limitations that define tragedy?,” George F. Will claimed that the Roosevelt administration was right to refuse to bomb Auschwitz because “bombing the killing camps would have diverted bombers from military targets, and … would have killed many Jews.”
Bombers would not have needed to be diverted from distant battle zones; American planes flew over Auschwitz repeatedly in the summer and fall of 1944, bombing German oil factories in the camp’s industrial zone, less than five miles from the gas chambers. As for the risk of accidentally killing Jewish inmates, if the Roosevelt administration had been worried about that danger, it could have bombed the railways and bridges leading to the death camp, which would not have involved any civilian casualties. That’s what Jewish groups requested at the time; it would have disrupted the trains that were transporting hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. Bridges in particular took a long time to repair.
George McGovern, the U.S. senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, was one of the pilots who bombed those oil factories in the industrial zone of Auschwitz. In a postwar interview, he said: “There is no question we should have attempted … to go after Auschwitz. There was a pretty good chance we could have blasted those rail lines off the face of the earth, which would have interrupted the flow of people to those death chambers, and we had a pretty good chance of knocking out those gas ovens.” McGovern added: “Franklin Roosevelt was a great man and he was my political hero,” he said in the interview. “But I think he made two great mistakes in World War II.” One was the internment of Japanese Americans; the other was the decision “not to go after Auschwitz. … God forgive us for that tragic miscalculation.”
Rafael Medoff, Washington
The writer is the director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. | 2022-09-23T19:14:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Allies could have bombed Nazi death camps - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/allies-could-have-bombed-nazi-death-camps/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/allies-could-have-bombed-nazi-death-camps/ |
This is a health-care crisis in the making
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) is joined by fellow Democrats and advocates outside of the U.S. Capitol in February 2019 to introduce a Medicare-for-all bill. (Dan Diamond/The Washington Post)
Regarding the Sept. 20 Metro article “Hopkins may drop CareFirst, leaving its patients in the lurch”:
As a health-care provider practicing in Baltimore City, I’ve seen my fair share of inequities because of unnecessary health insurance complexities, but the potential for 300,000 patients to lose their covered services over a payer dispute takes the cake.
CareFirst accused Johns Hopkins Health System of putting “the people we collectively serve” in the middle of contract negotiations, which Hopkins denies. But what’s the real problem here? When the health-care system places full and unchecked emphasis on profit over patient care, patients become pawns at the whim of these institutions.
The Medicare For All Act, as presented by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) in the House and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate, would remedy this situation by removing the complexity of this multi-payer, for-profit health-care system in exchange for a federally administered health insurance program in which every single provider and hospital would be considered “in network.”
Further, it would rein in billions of wasted dollars spent on insurance company administrative costs that are currently passed on to patients. It would remove the financial barriers to care that exist in our current system by eliminating co-pays, premiums and deductibles — while harnessing the negotiating power of Medicare to federally negotiate lower drug prices. Most of all, it would allow the United States to finally join every major industrialized nation in the world in offering health care as a basic human right.
Kristy Fogle, Reisterstown, Md.
The writer, a licensed physician assistant, is a board member with Progressive Maryland and founder of the Maryland Progressive Healthcare Coalition.
I am one of the 300,000-plus people in the metro area affected by the dispute between Johns Hopkins and CareFirst. I am insured with BlueCross BlueShield through my out-of-state employer. My employer’s open enrollment period has historically occurred in November, before the Dec. 4 cutoff date. I do not have a choice in insurance other than forgoing my employer’s insurance and paying for it myself.
I am a cancer survivor. I have been cancer-free for 14 years. Several years ago, I deliberately started moving to the Hopkins medical network with an eye to having all my doctors in one system and looking toward the day I am eligible for Medicare. I wanted to make sure that I could have continuity of care.
Now I am in the middle of two large organizations playing chicken. This is unconscionable toward both organizations’ patients and customers.
Sarah Sullivan Wallace, College Park
The pandemic might be “over,” according to those in power, but we are facing another health-care crisis in the D.C. area: health insurance coverage.
The recent moves made by CareFirst and Johns Hopkins Health System to discontinue coverage, putting the medical care and lives of patients at risk, is awful and unethical. To engage in such uncaring negotiation tactics, with the cost being paid by patients, is the worst of our health-care system.
The choice of medical care and doctor-patient relationships is disappearing. D.C. must allow another preferred-provider organization option to provide for individuals and families. Currently, only CareFirst and Kaiser are offered. We must allow another provider to compete in the D.C. health-care marketplace, or the lives and care of the many who live here will be at risk.
Abha Sinha, Washington | 2022-09-23T19:14:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | This is a health-care crisis in the making - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/health-care-crisis-making/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/health-care-crisis-making/ |
Martha’s Vineyard showed us who Americans really are
Martha’s Vineyard resident Jeff Whipple, top center, hugs Leonel Barboza, a migrant from Venezuela, Sept. 15 outside the Saint Andrews Episcopal Church on Martha’s Vineyard. (Dominic Chave for The Washington Post) (Dominic Chavez/For The Washington Post)
Regarding Michele L. Norris’s Sept. 18 Sunday Opinion column, “Here is what DeSantis and Abbott don’t understand about America”:
I thank the residents of Martha’s Vineyard for showing our country that we are still capable of great kindness. I was struck with how the residents of this small island put what I see as true Christian values into action. Contrast this with the behavior of Republicans who claim they want a return to Christian nationalism, but don’t seem to believe in one of Christ’s most basic tenets: “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you do for me.” I think our nation owes them a debt of gratitude for setting an inspirational example.
Laura Rundell, Dover, N.H. | 2022-09-23T19:15:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Martha’s Vineyard showed us who Americans really are - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/marthas-vineyard-showed-us-who-americans-really-are/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/marthas-vineyard-showed-us-who-americans-really-are/ |
D.C. residents deserve more than demagoguery
A voter casts a ballot June 21 at the Turkey Thicket Recreation Center for the D.C. primary election. (Julia Nikhinson for The Washington Post)
Colbert I. King’s Sept. 17 op-ed, “Old, new and borrowed — D.C.’s 2022 ballot has it (almost) all covered,” forgot to include “something recycled” in regard to the upcoming D.C. elections: Every candidate is either an incumbent or will win because an incumbent, notably Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), decided not to seek reelection. Even ballot Initiative 82 has previously been dealt with. Public financing was supposed to fix this but has done little but waste taxpayers’ dollars.
Nationwide, nine of the 10 largest U.S. cities impose term limits on either their councils, mayors or both. Prince George’s and Montgomery counties impose term limits on their councils. Maryland and Virginia impose limits on their governors.
In 1994, D.C. voters overwhelmingly approved term limits only to have them overturned by the council in 2001. “The District of Columbia Term Limits Campaign” was proposed in 2019 by James Butler but was disallowed because it conflicted with Title IV of the Home Rule Act. Ironically, D. Michael Bennett, then-chair of the D.C. Board of Elections, stepped down last year, stating that “these kinds of responsibilities and jobs — people shouldn’t sit in them forever.”
The vast majority of the legislation that comes before the council passes unanimously. Even the “independents” on the council are abusing the process by attempting a political transmogrification only to remain politically unchanged. Our primary elections are closed, and ranked-choice voting was a distraction.
The citizens of D.C. deserve more democracy and less demagoguery.
Greg Boyd, Washington | 2022-09-23T19:49:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | D.C. residents deserve more than demagoguery - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/dc-residents-deserve-more-than-demagoguery/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/dc-residents-deserve-more-than-demagoguery/ |
Republicans offer their Commitment to Vapid Sloganeering
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) with other House Republicans unveiling their "Commitment to America" agenda. (AP Photo/Barry Reeger)
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), leader of the House Republicans, has heard the anguished cries of American voters desperate for change but uncertain where the parties want to take their country. And he is ready to guide them.
McCarthy knows that regular folks across this great land have said to each other each other: Which party is in favor of freedom? Is it the Democrats or the Republicans who are pro-prosperity? Will any take the bold stance of supporting our troops? It’s just so hard to know. If only they would produce a brochure full of vaporous pablum in bulleted form so we can understand what they want to do!
So on Friday, McCarthy and his colleagues traveled to a factory outside Pittsburgh to unveil the Commitment to America, a stirring document that enumerates the GOP agenda should Republicans take control of Congress in November. The objectives range from defending America’s national security to lengthening life spans to, for some reason, eliminating proxy voting in the House. The whole thing fits on a single page.
As one of dozens of Americans who watched the entire Pittsburgh event on C-SPAN, I can testify that it was as simultaneously vapid and revealing as the Commitment itself. It featured a number of doubtlessly pre-screened questioners who served up softballs for the assembled lawmakers.
My favorite was the small-business owner who had very specific criticisms of Small Business Administration loans (before she got sidetracked on anti-vaccine conspiracy theories). Her chief complaint was that the loan the government gave her isn’t being administered effectively. And it’s true that the SBA has a poor reputation when it comes to efficiency and effectiveness. So are Republicans advocating an increase in its budget, allowing it to hire more staff and update its systems?
Of course not. Their “plan” says not a word about the SBA, or much about any government agencies whose operations they might want to improve.
The same is true of the IRS. At Friday’s event, Republican members and audience questioners repeated the lie that the Inflation Reduction Act will fund 87,000 jackbooted agents to terrorize regular people and small-business owners. In fact, the funds are desperately needed to enable the agency, which has been the target of relentless GOP budget-cutting, to go after wealthy scofflaws who cheat the government out of hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
Visual Essay: Why does the IRS need $80 billion? Just look at its cafeteria.
But to Republicans, nothing is more important than making sure the IRS is outmatched by the rich and that it remains incapable of providing customer service and enforcing the law. One of the first things McCarthy said at the event was: “On our very first bill, we’re going to repeal 87,000 IRS agents.”
Which is a pretty good summary of Republicans’ approach: We’re going to (1) lie to you about what Democrats have done, (2) in order to make you feel angry and afraid, (3) so we can undermine government and make it work poorly, (4) for the benefit of rich people.
Most of what they promise in their Commitment is about the outcomes that will magically be produced by a Republican House: no more illegal immigration, crime eliminated, children well educated and prosperity for all. Indeed, according to The Post’s reporting, part of the reason the Commitment is so empty is that there are internal disagreements about exactly what policy course Republicans ought to follow.
“It’s hard to get everybody’s wishes in a document that fits on a card,” said Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the chair of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, explaining the bottom line of the GOP message to voters.
Republicans also understand that while the idea of having ideas is appealing, you don’t want to get too specific. It sounds great to say you’ll “Curb wasteful government spending,” but once you explain which programs you actually want to cut, voters tend to say something like: “Hold on there, I said I wanted you to curb wasteful government spending, not take away the spending that helps me!”
As Republicans know, when Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the chair of the party’s Senate campaign arm, released his own policy plan, it got savaged for its promise to raise taxes on low-income Americans. It quickly became an embarrassment that Scott’s colleagues couldn’t disavow fast enough.
This is symptomatic of a broader problem: Many of the core Republican policy positions are spectacularly unpopular. That includes outlawing abortion and cutting taxes for the wealthy. Little surprise, those are hinted at only obliquely in their Commitment to America.
This whole enterprise is an attempt to duplicate the alleged success of Republicans’ Contract With America in 1994; former House speaker Newt Gingrich even advised McCarthy on the creation of the Commitment to America. Back then, with help from the news media, Gingrich constructed the myth that the Contract was so compelling it caused voters to stampede to the GOP in that midterm election.
In fact, surveys showed only a small number of voters had even heard of the Contract With America. The idea that it was politically potent during the campaign was a post-hoc fiction concocted to justify the Republican agenda and claim a mandate for change.
Perhaps we won’t get taken in the same way should Republicans win the House this year. After all, the only real “commitment” they have made is to continue saying everything is terrible and it’s all President Biden’s fault. If that’s what you’re looking for in the next Congress, fine. But don’t expect anything more from the GOP. | 2022-09-23T19:49:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Republicans offer their Commitment to Vapid Sloganeering - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/republicans-commitment-to-america/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/republicans-commitment-to-america/ |
FILE - Barbra Streisand presents the award for best musical at the Tony Awards in New York on June 12, 2016. Streisand’s latest release, “Barbra Streisand — Live at the Bon Soir” featuring songs from a three night stint at the Bon Soir nightclub in Greenwich Village in 1962, will be released on Nov. 4. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-09-23T19:58:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Early Streisand nightclub recording remastered for release - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/early-streisand-nightclub-recording-remastered-for-release/2022/09/23/33f89558-3b48-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/early-streisand-nightclub-recording-remastered-for-release/2022/09/23/33f89558-3b48-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks to the press in December 2020 in Atlanta. (John Bazemore/AP)
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Friday that he intends to replace some election equipment in a south Georgia county where forensics experts working last year for pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell copied virtually every component of the voting system.
In the release, Raffensperger (R) said his office will replace machines in Coffee County “to allay the fears being stoked by perennial election deniers and conspiracy theorists.” He added that anyone who broke the law in connection with unauthorized access to Coffee County’s machines should be punished, “but the current election officials in Coffee County have to move forward with the 2022 election, and they should be able to do so without this distraction.”
Some election-security experts have voiced concerns that the copying of the Coffee County software — used statewide in Georgia — risks exposing the entire state to hackers, who could use the copied software as a road map to find and exploit vulnerabilities. Raffensperger’s office has said that security protocols would make it virtually impossible for votes to be manipulated without detection.
The move comes after Raffensperger’s office spent months voicing skepticism that such a security breach ever occurred in Coffee County. “There’s no evidence of any of that. It didn’t happen,” Gabe Sterling, Raffensperger’s chief operations officer, said at a public event in April.
Since then, the fact that outsiders accessed county voting machines — and copied sensitive software and data — has been confirmed by sworn depositions, video surveillance footage from inside and outside of the county elections office and other documents turned over to plaintiffs in long-running civil litigation over election security in Georgia. The plaintiffs argue that the state should replace touch-screen voting machines with hand-marked paper ballots. Raffensperger and other Georgia officials are defendants in that case. They deny that the voting system is insecure.
Before the announcement, Susan Greenhalgh, a senior adviser for election security for the nonprofit Free Speech for People and a consulting expert for one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said that replacing the machines in Coffee County is necessary but not sufficient to stem the risk to election security in Georgia.
“You still have the overall problem that the software has been released into the wild to countless individuals who may have ill intent and who may be using it to figure out ways to manipulate an election,” Greenhalgh told reporters at a news briefing earlier this week.
Video footage shows that a team from Atlanta-based SullivanStrickler spent about eight hours at the county elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, copying software from Dominion Voting Systems equipment and data from multiple memory sticks and other devices.
The county elections supervisor at the time told The Washington Post earlier this year that she allowed the team into the office to help find proof that the election “was not done true and correct.” The video footage also shows that Cathy Latham, then the chairwoman of the county Republican Party, greeted the SullivanStrickler team at the elections office and introduced them to local officials. Her lawyers have denied that she participated in the Jan. 7 copying or did anything improper or illegal.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said it is investigating a suspected computer trespass of a Coffee County elections server that day. A special grand jury in Atlanta, which was already examining the “fake elector” scheme to keep President Donald Trump in power using bogus electoral certificates, has recently expanded its inquiry to take in the Coffee County episode.
The grand jury has issued subpoenas including to Powell and to SullivanStrickler. The firm said in a statement to The Post that it was not a target of the investigation and that the company and its employees were witnesses in the case. | 2022-09-23T19:58:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgia to replace voting machines in Coffee County after alleged security breach - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/09/23/coffee-county-georgia-election-machines/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/09/23/coffee-county-georgia-election-machines/ |
The Southern Baptist Convention headquarters in Nashville. (Holly Meyer/AP)
The Southern Baptist Convention’s top administrative body voted to cut ties with two congregations Tuesday: an LGBTQ-friendly church in North Carolina that had quit the denomination decades ago and a New Jersey congregation it cited for “alleged discriminatory behavior.”
The votes of the executive committee came at the end of a two-day meeting in Nashville, as the committee copes with a Justice Department investigation. The federal-level scrutiny follows a blistering report by a consultant this year on sexual abuse in Southern Baptist settings and mistreatment of survivors by past executive committee officials.
The committee on Tuesday approved a statement that College Park Baptist Church of Greensboro, N.C., was not in “friendly cooperation” because of its “open affirmation, approval and endorsement of homosexual behavior,” which conflicts with the denomination’s conservative theological positions.
In fact, College Park had voted in 1999 to leave the denomination, and its website makes a point of stating that it’s not a member of the Southern Baptist Convention but rather of more progressive Baptist bodies.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the executive committee decided now to put the matter to a vote. But Chairman Jared Wellman said afterward that the convention had still had the congregation on its rolls.
On its website, the church describes itself as an “LGBTQIA Affirming Baptist Church” and says that it “fully welcomes and affirms all persons without distinction regarding race, ethnicity, national origin, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other human category.”
The committee, in a separate vote, declared that Amazing Grace Community Church of Franklinville, N.J., was no longer in friendly cooperation. It cited its “lack of cooperation … to resolve concerns regarding alleged discriminatory behavior.”
Since Baptist congregations are self-governing, the denomination can’t force them to follow certain policies, but it can effectively expel them by declaring them not in “friendly cooperation” if they don’t conform to denominational stances in particular areas, including having pro-LGBTQ polices, alleged support for racism or alleged failures to respond adequately to child sexual abuse, such as employing offenders as pastors.
The committee learned that more than 200 referrals had been made to a new hotline about alleged mishandling of abuse cases by SBC churches or organizations.
That news came from the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, created after the release in the spring of consultant Guidepost Solutions’ scathing report on the sexual abuse of children in SBC settings and the mistreatment of survivors by the executive committee.
Mike Keahbone, vice chair of the task force, said it is working to hire personnel to receive and investigate reports of abuse and of the mishandling of abuse in Southern Baptist circles.
The convention said in August that the Justice Department is investigating the SBC. The department didn’t confirm the report, but the convention suggested in a statement that it related to sexual abuse. On Tuesday, the committee voted to transfer $500,000 from investments to its operating budget, in part to respond to that investigation.
Some abuse survivors, following the meeting on social media, found the committee’s actions lacking. Longtime advocate and survivor Christa Brown, on Twitter, criticized it for “self-congratulatory” talk and said it’s failed to take concrete steps toward making amends to survivors or to take disciplinary steps regarding former officials faulted in the Guidepost report.
Keahbone said that he understands the criticism and that, compared with what survivors endured, “there’s nothing we could say or do that would be worthy of any praise at all.” He said the task force is doing what it can to implement reforms correctly.
Wellman echoed the thought. “I’ve just grieved and been brokenhearted for what they’ve experienced,” he said. “We recognize we have a really long way to go.” | 2022-09-23T19:59:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Southern Baptists cut ties with LGBTQ-friendly church - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/southern-baptists-cut-ties-with-lgbtq-friendly-church/2022/09/23/b50c20e2-3b61-11ed-81fc-ab0dedb7af1e_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/southern-baptists-cut-ties-with-lgbtq-friendly-church/2022/09/23/b50c20e2-3b61-11ed-81fc-ab0dedb7af1e_story.html |
Washington Capitals' Dylan Strome signed with the team in free agency. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Connor Brown and Dylan Strome, Washington’s prominent forward acquisitions in the offseason, have two markedly different approaches in their first year with the Capitals.
Strome, who had a career-high 22 goals for the Chicago Blackhawks last season, arrived with a desire to prove himself. Brown, the experienced winger acquired from Ottawa, is focused on adding value to those around him.
Strome, 25, comes from a Chicago team that opted to rebuild with younger players and new faces; Brown, 28, is ready to play with a contender once again.
“When a team kind of walks away from you, giving you up for nothing, you obviously have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder and want to prove that they made a mistake,” Strome said Friday. “ … I’m excited to be in Washington and it was an interesting process of that free agency but I’m happy it got done.”
Regarding his role in Washington, Brown said: “I’ve been around long enough that everyone understands what I am and I understand what I am as a player. For me, it is just about helping the team win. Do whatever I can to help the team win and be as productive as possible.”
Both Strome and Brown are expected to have an immediate impact this season, filling in holes in Washington’s lineup after injuries to Tom Wilson and Nicklas Backstrom. The earliest Wilson, who is recovering from ACL surgery, is expected to be back is December. There is no timeline for Backstrom, who is recovering from hip surgery.
During the first line rushes of Capitals’ training camp Friday, Brown took rushes as the right winger on the top line, alongside Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov. Wilson skated on a line with Ovechkin for the last few years as he started to solidify himself as an offensive weapon.
There is typically a learning curve when playing on a line with Ovechkin — which multiple players have noted over the years — but Brown said the initial transition has gone smoothly. Capitals Coach Peter Laviolette said Brown will be tried out in different spots in the lineup and Friday’s line rushes were “just a starting point.”
“His speed and his tenacity and the way he hounds the puck out there, he’s got a good skill level,” Laviolette said of Brown. “He brings a lot to the table. So it’s just the first practice and we’ll move the lines around a little bit as training camp goes on, but he’s a guy that I feel can offer some things in different positions.”
Brown, who had 10 goals and 29 assists for the Senators last year, said he’s still learning Washington’s system but is confident it will soon be second nature. Brown will also be a focal point on the Capitals’ penalty kill, where he excelled with the Senators. Washington is already without Wilson on the penalty kill, in addition to Carl Hagelin, who is out indefinitely as he addresses a lower-body injury and an eye injury.
Strome took rushes Friday as the team’s second-line left winger, alongside Connor McMichael and Anthony Mantha. Strome played wing and center in Chicago and Washington will try him at both positions during training camp.
“I feel comfortable in both spots,” Strome said. “And it was fun to be out there with those two guys (Mantha and McMichael). Played with Mantha a little bit at the World Championships and pretty dynamic player, so fun to play with him and then watching McMichael, he’s very skilled.”
Svrluga: Nicklas Backstrom needs to know he doesn’t owe anything to anyone
Strome’s opening night position will also depend on the play of McMichael and Lars Eller, as Washington decides who will take over for Backstrom as the team’s second-line center. The candidates include Strome, McMichael and Eller.
The Capitals coaching staff prefers McMichael at center but is open to trying him back at wing, where he spent some time last season. If McMichael wins the second-line center job during training camp, there’s a chance that Friday’s initial line rushes will be the Capitals’ opening night lineup on Oct. 12.
“I think everybody’s open-minded here,” Capitals General Manager Brian MacLellan said of who can replace Backstrom. “I think Lars [Eller] could step up, too. Strome could play there. McMichael could play there. I think the coaching staff, all the discussions we’ve had is we’re open. If somebody grabs it and takes it, we’re open to keeping it that way.” | 2022-09-23T19:59:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Caps' Dylan Strome and Connor Brown look to make an impact - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/dylan-strome-connor-brown-capitals-training-camp/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/dylan-strome-connor-brown-capitals-training-camp/ |
Boston Celtics president Brad Stevens said that Joe Mazzulla will serve as interim coach during Ime Udoka's season-long suspension. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)
While refusing to divulge specifics about the decision to suspend Ime Udoka for an improper relationship with a female employee, Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck and president Brad Stevens said Friday that a lengthy investigation into their coach’s behavior had taken a toll on the organization and that Udoka’s season-long suspension was justified.
Boston’s leadership held a news conference one day after announcing that Udoka, who guided the Celtics to the 2022 NBA Finals in his first year as coach, would be suspended for the entire 2022-23 season because of “violations of team rules.” Celtics assistant Joe Mazzulla will serve as interim coach during Udoka’s suspension.
Grousbeck said that the Celtics became aware of “a potential situation” earlier this summer and contracted with a law firm to conduct an independent investigation, which took some “twists and turns” before concluding this week. Though the Celtics did not disclose specifics of Udoka’s conduct or the identities of any other employees who might have been involved, Grousbeck said that Udoka was the only person facing discipline and that he will be subject to a “very significant financial penalty” in conjunction with his suspension, which will run through June 30, 2023.
Grousbeck declined to explain Boston’s “deliberations” on whether to suspend or fire Udoka, saying that he made the decision by “conscience and gut feel” while reiterating the franchise’s position that a decision about the coach’s future beyond this season would be “made at a later date.” There is no recent precedent for an NBA coach being suspended for a full season, and it’s unclear whether Udoka will be able to return to his post.
“We have strong values at the Celtics and we are doing our very best to uphold them here,” Grousbeck said. “We have reflected as a group with outside advisers, a diverse group, in fact, in deciding what to do. I take ultimate responsibility. I personally feel this [suspension] is well warranted and appropriate, backed by substantial research, evidence and facts. I’m standing by the decision and Ime has accepted it.”
Udoka apologized Thursday to “our players, fans, the entire Celtics organization, and my family for letting them down.”
The 34-year-old Mazzulla has been with the Celtics since 2019 after a previous stint with the team’s G League affiliate in Maine, and he will be the NBA’s youngest coach this season. Grousbeck cited Mazzulla’s “energy and passion” as factors in his appointment, while Stevens said that the Rhode Island native was the “best choice … by a long shot” to guide the defending Eastern Conference champions on a title chase.
“It’s not an easy timing for [Mazzulla] or the rest of the staff,” Stevens said. “He’s an exceptionally sharp and talented person. I believe strongly in him and his ability to lead people, his ability to galvanize a room and get behind them, and his ability to organize and understand all that comes with running a team through the season.”
The Celtics had a “brief” conversation about Stevens returning to the bench, according to Grousbeck. But Stevens, who posted a 353-282 (.557) record as coach from 2013 to 2021, said that he had “absolutely not” considered the idea, adding that the Celtics could still make an addition to their coaching staff this season. Boston lost well-regarded assistant Will Hardy when he was hired to coach the Utah Jazz in June.
“I’m going to be there for [Mazzulla] without stepping on his toes,” Stevens said. “He doesn’t need much. I believe in that strongly. Sometimes you just need somebody who has been there next to you. Hopefully I can be that for him.”
While attending West Virginia University in 2009, Mazzulla was arrested on charges of domestic battery and suspended from the basketball team. Stevens said that the Celtics had vetted that incident “really thoroughly” and concluded that it had “shaped [Mazzulla] into who he is today, in a really good way.”
“I believe strongly in Joe’s substantiveness as a person,” Stevens said. He’s been very open with me how those moments have impacted him in every which way. You can see that for a long time. We’ve had years to get to know him. … He’s 100 percent accountable.”
Candace Buckner: Robert Sarver said he wanted forgiveness. He really wanted us to forget.
Boston begins training camp on Tuesday as one of the NBA’s leading title favorites after a 51-31 campaign that produced the organization’s first trip to the Finals since 2010. The Celtics return Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart and Al Horford, among other key pieces from last year’s team and acquired guard Malcolm Brogdon from the Indiana Pacers in a July trade. However, center Robert Williams III and forward Danilo Gallinari will be sidelined to start the season with knee injuries.
Grousbeck admitted that the team’s players were “very concerned” about Udoka’s status given the timing of his suspension and the private nature of the investigation. Beyond the roster, Grousbeck and Stevens expressed support for the Celtics’ female employees and regret that some of them were subjected to online speculation about their possible involvement with Udoka once word of his pending suspension began leaking late Wednesday. The Celtics didn’t announce Udoka’s suspension until late Thursday evening.
“It’s been a hard time,” Stevens said. “We have a lot of talented women in our organization. I thought [Thursday] was really hard on them. Nobody can control Twitter speculation, rampant bulls---. We as an organization have a responsibility to make sure we’re there to support them now. A lot of people were dragged unfairly into that.”
Udoka was once viewed as a stabilizing piece capable of bringing together a talented roster that underperformed in Stevens’s last season, but his sudden and unexpected absence now presents a major test for the Celtics.
“We think our culture is very strong and we’re proud of it,” Grousbeck said. “This has shaken it, maybe. I don’t think there’s a wider [cultural] issue. … We need to uphold ‘Celtic Pride,’ and that’s what we’re trying to do here.” | 2022-09-23T20:00:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Celtics name interim coach, fail to divulge details on Ime Udoka suspension - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/ime-udoka-celtics-news-conference/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/ime-udoka-celtics-news-conference/ |
Greg Resh was a primary player in Washington’s attempted makeover the last couple of years. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Washington Commanders chief operating officer Greg Resh, among the early hires to Jason Wright’s leadership team in 2020, is leaving the organization after less than two years. In a statement, Resh said he is taking a new opportunity in his hometown of Baltimore, where his family resides.
“I’m grateful for the transformative professional opportunity provided to me and specifically the chance to partner with Jason, Dan [Snyder], and Tanya [Snyder] to support this historic franchise and its turnaround,” he said in a statement released by the team. I’ll take with me lifelong lessons, friendships, and a deep appreciation of and support for the burgundy and gold.”
Resh, the former chief financial officer of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and Roc Nation, assumed the same title with the Commanders in November 2020 and became an integral part of the team’s business operations and its search for a new stadium location. He was appointed COO nine months later as Washington restructured its front office.
“One of the key leaders of our cultural transformation and dramatic commercial turnaround, Greg’s professional expertise, his devotion to the work, and his leadership through a significant period of change was essential and greatly appreciated,” Wright said in a statement. “The mark of a successful tenure is knowing you achieved what you set out to do, and Greg did exactly that. Our organization owes him a debt of gratitude, and we wish him well as he begins a new chapter in his hometown, Baltimore.”
Resh’s exit comes at an interesting time for the Commanders, who underwent a full rebranding in February but are still under the watch of multiple entities because of previous workplace allegations. The NFL and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform are investigating the team’s workplace culture and allegations of sexual misconduct made against owner Daniel Snyder. The attorneys general in Virginia and D.C. are also looking into the team’s practices, and recent claims of financial improprieties from years prior have been placed before the Federal Trade Commission for a possible probe.
All the while, the team’s executive group under Wright has touted improvements in the team’s ticket sales and especially suite sales at FedEx Field.
“I feel like we’re in a really good spot,” Wright said during the preseason in August. “ … The last two years we really tried to professionalize the business functions and the net result of that is just a ton of outreach to our fans combined with thinking about the season-ticket member packages in a different way. … We have already sold more tickets this year before the season has even started than we did all of last year, across the entire season.”
Resh was a primary player in Washington’s rebrand the past couple of years. But he now joins a lengthy list of executives who have recently left the team. Over the last year and a half, at least 13 executives (chief officers, vice presidents and senior vice presidents) have left for various reasons.
Julie Andreeff Jensen, one of Wright’s first hires in 2020, left her post as the team’s senior vice president of external engagement and communications nine months later. She recently started her own public relations and corporate communications firm.
Damon Jones, Washington’s former chief legal officer who led the search for a new stadium, left in January, only 14 months after he arrived, to join the L.A. Dodgers front office. | 2022-09-23T20:24:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Greg Resh resigns as Commanders' chief operating officer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/greg-resh-commanders/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/greg-resh-commanders/ |
Author Hilary Mantel poses with her book "Wolf Hall" after winning the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction at the Guildhall in London October 6, 2009. Mantel died on Thursday at 70. (Luke Macgregor/Reuters)
The loss of Hilary Mantel, the brilliant and widely beloved British author who died at 70 on Thursday, spurred many eloquent reactions of grief from her admirers.
Critics and fellow authors took the opportunity to marvel again at Mantel’s gifts. New Yorker book critic Parul Sehgal wrote that the author’s death felt “like a theft of a kind.”
The loss of Hilary Mantel feels like a theft of a kind. All those books we still needed from her. That lavish imagination, that beady understanding of power. From the final book in the trilogy: “This is what life does for you in the end; it arranges a fight you can't win.”
Historian Simon Schama called her “one of the very greatest of our writers; poetic and profound prose with an incomparable feel for the texture of history.”
Shattered to learn of death of Hilary Mantel - one of the very greatest of our writers; poetic and profound prose with an incomparable feel for the texture of history.
Novelist and editor Gabriel Roth called “Wolf Hall” “one of the greatest novels,” and put a dizzying spin on its construction:
Wolf Hall is a novel that renders novelistic the story of the construction of the modern state that is the condition for the existence of the novel as a form, and as an aside it turns that story into a metaphor for the writing of a novel; it’s one of the greatest novels
— Gabriel Roth (@gabrielroth) September 23, 2022
The word “genius” appeared often on Twitter, but “generous” wasn’t far behind. It was clear that Mantel left a lasting impression on not just readers but on journalists who interviewed her and authors who received her support. Hillary Kelly, for example, recalled the experience of losing an entire interview with Mantel to a “faulty recorder,” only to have Mantel volunteer to have the whole conversation again.
I’m so sad that Hilary Mantel has died. I’m one of many journalists she’s been utterly lovely to. When I interviewed her at home a few years ago the main things that stood out were how frighteningly clever she was (I was scared to look at my sheet of questions)…
— leafarbuthnot (@leafarbuthnot) September 23, 2022
As a writer and a person, unparalleled.
I once lost an entire interview with Hilary Mantel — at the height of Cromwell mania — to a faulty recorder. She said, “Oh no trouble! It will be so fun to do again,” and asked me to call her back after her supper.
What a huge loss. https://t.co/dYRme8MeO3
— Hillary Kelly (@HillaryKelly) September 23, 2022
The novelist Stephen May was one of several writers who recalled Mantel getting in touch to offer encouragement about their work.
Short thread: Heartbroken. I have had a handful of great days in writing. One of the very best was getting an email out of the blue from Hilary Mantel saying she loved my last book which she'd read in proof form. Honestly, I nearly fainted over my lap top
— Stephen May (@Stephen_May1) September 23, 2022
“She leaves a powerful legacy in her writing,” May wrote, “but also she led an emblematic writer’s life. Do the work, focus on that and help others when you can.”
Lucy Caldwell called it “one of the greatest joys of my own writing life” when Mantel unexpectedly got in touch to praise Caldwell’s novel “These Days.” “Even better was the excuse to write back to her and to tell her how much her work meant to me — how long and deeply I’d loved it.”
Mantel became a household literary name after the publication of “Wolf Hall” (2009), a novel that imagined the life of Thomas Cromwell, who became the closest adviser to Henry VIII. That book and its sequel, “Bring Up the Bodies,” both won the prestigious Booker Prize, making Mantel the first woman to win the award twice. The last book in the Cromwell trilogy, “The Mirror & the Light,” was a finalist for the Booker.
“The contradictions and the awkwardness — that’s what gives historical fiction its value,” Mantel told the Paris Review in 2015. “Finding a shape, rather than imposing a shape. And allowing the reader to live with the ambiguities. Thomas Cromwell is the character with whom that’s most essential. He’s almost a case study in ambiguity.”
Those books sold millions of copies, but Mantel had established a reputation among critics and writers well before then, including for other works of historical fiction. “A Place of Greater Safety,” a novel about the French Revolution that runs to more than 700 pages, was the first book Mantel wrote, but it wasn’t published until later in her career. When she wasn’t inspired by history, Mantel often wrote about the supernatural. “Beyond Black,” a realistically toned novel, was set in a world of psychics and clairvoyants. Reviewing it for the Guardian in 2005, Fay Weldon wrote of Mantel: “She’s witty, ironic, intelligent and, I suspect, haunted. This is a book out of the unconscious, where the best novels come from.”
Mantel memorably described her initial haunting in her memoir, “Giving Up the Ghost,” which the New York Times named one of the 10 best memoirs of the past 50 years. She recalled encountering one morning, when she was a young girl, a spirit of some sort in her yard. “It is as high as a child of two,” she wrote. “It has no edges, no mass, no dimension, no shape except the formless; it moves. I beg it, stay away, stay away. Within the space of a thought it is inside me, and has set up a sick resonance within my bones and in all the cavities of my body.”
The writer Sam Knight was another who warmly recounted Mantel’s generosity, and he ended by suggesting that Mantel’s experience with the supernatural might not be over. “What a wonderful ghost she will be,” he wrote. | 2022-09-23T21:29:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Remembrances of British author Hilary Mantel, on Twitter and beyond - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/09/23/hillary-mantel-appreciation-remembrances/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/09/23/hillary-mantel-appreciation-remembrances/ |
NEW YORK — Markets sold off around the world on mounting signs the global economy is weakening just as central banks raise the pressure even more with additional hikes to interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at its lowest point of the year Friday. The S&P 500 fell 1.7%, close to its 2022 low. Energy prices also closed sharply lower as traders worried about a possible recession. Treasury yields, which affect rates on mortgages and other kinds of loans, held at multiyear highs. U.K. government bond yields snapped higher after that country’s new government announced a sweeping plan of tax cuts.
LONDON — The British pound has went on its biggest one-day drop in 2 1/2 years after the U.K.’s new government outlined plans to cut taxes and boost spending. It’s sparked concerns that increased public borrowing will worsen the nation’s cost-of-living crisis. The British currency plunged over 3% on Friday. Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng announced sweeping tax cuts that he said would boost economic growth and generate increased revenue, without introducing corresponding spending reductions. He also said previously announced plans to cap soaring energy bills for homes and businesses would be financed through borrowing. Critics attacked the plan for favoring business interests over working people and failing to provide any figures on its impact on government fiscal targets.
DETROIT — The Detroit auto show has returned with a roar. And a soar. The prestigious North American International Auto Show last was held in 2019. It returned last week. Visitors once again can lay eyes on the latest offerings from some of the world’s biggest automakers. But now they also can check out what organizers call “the show above the show.” The Air Mobility Experience features displays and demonstrations from six air mobility innovators that include an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, a hoverbike, a hoverboard and a jet suit. The show runs through Sunday at a downtown convention center.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. is outlining its goals for a new trade deal with Australia, Japan, South Korea and nine other nations meant to signal the country’s commitment to working with the Indo-Pacific region at a time of growing Chinese clout. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Friday released its negotiating aims for the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a deal with the 12 nations launched in May. Among them, the U.S. wants the Indo-Pacific countries to improve their labor and environmental standards and ensure their markets remain open to competition, while also taking steps to ease supply-chain backlogs at border crossings.
TOLEDO, Ohio — General Motors says it will spend $760 million to renovate its transmission factory in Toledo, Ohio, so it can build drive lines for electric vehicles. It’s the first GM engine or transmission plant to begin the long transition from internal combustion engines to EVs. GM has a goal of making only electric passenger vehicles by 2035. The investment will keep the jobs of about 1,500 hourly and salaried workers at the Toledo plant, which now makes four transmissions used in pickup trucks and many other GM internal combustion vehicles. It’s good news for workers in Toledo, who have been worried about the future of their plant.
MIAMI — Executive directors of the Inter-American Development Bank have voted unanimously to recommend firing a former Trump official as president of the Washington-based institution. The action follows an investigation that found Mauricio Claver-Carone violated ethics rules by favoring a top aide with whom he had a romantic relationship. A person familiar with the vote said the decision to recommend ousting Claver-Carone came in a closed-door meeting Thursday. The Associated Press obtained a confidential report by a law firm hired by the bank’s board triggered by an anonymous complaint of misconduct against Claver-Carone. Investigators say it is reasonable to conclude the relationship existed since at least 2019, when both held senior positions on the National Security Council.
MADRID — Spain’s Socialist-led coalition government is planning a temporary higher tax rate on the richest 1% of the country from next year. That is in addition to its windfall taxes on large energy companies and banks. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Friday the change is meant to help fund the welfare state amid hardship brought by higher prices for energy and food. The annual inflation rate climbed to 10.5% in Spain last month. The government says the tax hike targets only millionaires. It says the exact increase and scope of the tax measure are still being worked out.
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladesh’s economic miracle is under severe strain as fuel price hikes amplify public frustrations over rising costs for food and other necessities. Protests have erupted in recent weeks, adding to pressures on the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which has sought help from the International Monetary Fund to safeguard the country’s finances. Experts say Bangladesh’s predicament is nowhere nearly as severe as Sri Lanka’s, where months’ long unrest led its long-time president to flee the country. But it faces similar troubles: excessive spending on showcase projects, public anger over corruption and cronyism and a weakening trade balance. Such trends are undermining Bangladesh’s progress toward becoming a more affluent, middle-income country. | 2022-09-23T21:29:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Dow's 2022 low, UK tax cuts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-dows-2022-low-uk-tax-cuts/2022/09/23/79816432-3b80-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-dows-2022-low-uk-tax-cuts/2022/09/23/79816432-3b80-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
Execution halted at last minute when Ala. prison staff can’t find vein
Holman Prison in Atmore, Ala. (Jay Reeves/AP)
Miller, 57, was sentenced to death for a 1999 workplace shooting spree in which he killed Michael Holdbrooks, Terry Lee Jarvis and Christopher Scott Yancey, according to court records. The men were Miller’s current and former co-workers whom he had accused of spreading rumors about him, including that he was gay.
The department did not detail what transpired in the 2½ hours between the high court ruling and calling off of Miller’s execution. In a statement, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) indicated Miller can expect a future execution date.
“To be clear: Alan Miller will receive his just punishment, which is death by execution," Marshall said. "He has simply succeeded in delaying—not escaping—his appointment with justice.”
Neppl wrote that Miller is not requesting an “open-ended” stay of execution, only a delay so that he can be put to death by his preferred method. | 2022-09-23T21:30:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Alan Miller execution in Alabama halted over time constraints - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/23/alan-miller-execution/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/23/alan-miller-execution/ |
Governments need to realize that the era of economic freebies is over
Britain's Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng visit a plant Friday to promote the government's growth plan. (Dylan Martinez/AP)
Not even Margaret Thatcher oversaw a package of tax cuts and deregulation as bold as the one just announced by Britain’s conservative government. The first major government initiative under Liz Truss, the new prime minister, it is estimated to cut individual and corporate income taxes by more than 45 billion pounds a year, according to Britain’s Institute for Fiscal Studies. That would make it the biggest tax cut Britons have enjoyed since 1972 — three years before Truss was born.
Tax cuts aren’t the only thing on the agenda; there is a massive subsidy already planned for household energy prices that will offset the war in Ukraine’s disruptions, and Kwasi Kwarteng, chancellor of the exchequer, promised on Friday to reform child care, immigration, agricultural productivity, business regulations, digital infrastructure and barriers to homebuilding. But the tax cuts and subsidies loom largest in the near term — and markets aren’t happy about it.
Shortly after the government’s announcement, yields on British government bonds shot up, while the value of the pound dropped sharply on currency markets. That’s an unusual combination in rich world financial markets, but it makes sense when you consider that British inflation is currently running at 8.6 percent annualized.
Some of the market reaction may be due to market worry about the government’s fiscal position: The more money you borrow, the harder it is to pay it back and the higher your likelihood of default. But it still isn’t all that likely that Britain will pull an Argentina and tell its bondholders to go pound sand. The greater risk is that by pumping more money into the economy, the government will fuel further inflation.
That inflation will erode the buying power of the British pound (which is why the pound fell) and eat away at the face value of government bonds (which is one reason why bondholders are demanding to be compensated for the risk with higher yields). Those higher yields, in turn, will increase the total amount the government needs to borrow.
The government’s defenders might retort that of course they understand this rather elementary economics, but they have other problems to worry about. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means Britain, like the rest of Europe, faces a cold winter of brutally high energy prices. Economic growth has been sluggish — indeed, slightly negative in the most recent quarterly report. And while everyone is dealing with the dislocations of war and pandemic, Britain is also contending with the disruption of Brexit.
The country needs both government reforms and business-led investment to negotiate those adjustments and rebuild itself into an economic powerhouse capable of going it alone. It also needs to help vulnerable households through what is likely to be a grim winter. Arguably the government can’t stop to fret about transitory inflation — and even if the inflation isn’t so transitory, the government will just have to worry about that later.
But governments can’t afford to worry about inflation later; if they don’t worry, the central bank will do it for them. The Bank of England just announced its seventh straight rate hike, even as it said the economy might already be in recession.
This is something policymakers on our side of the pond are still struggling to grasp: The era of economic freebies has ended, at least for the moment.
When inflation was quiescent and real interest rates were hovering near zero, politicians could pursue their policy goals, or heck, just pander for votes, by injecting some borrowed money. And, boy, did they! But when inflation is high the central bank will set about undoing these actions by tightening monetary policy, and markets will make you pay with higher bond yields. Boost the economy with borrowed money, and you will see the gains clawed back by higher interest rates. The resulting economic contraction and inflation will erase the political gains along with the economic ones.
Clearly that message still hasn’t gotten through quite yet. Whether it’s Britain’s tax cuts or President Biden’s half-trillion-dollar bid to forgive student loans, governments are still spending as if there is no tomorrow, only the golden age of yesterday. And in fairness, “the free lunch is over” is a particularly hard message to hear when your economy is facing so many wrenching adjustments and you desperately need a little help. But however unpleasant the truth, it is still the truth: As long as inflation remains high, when governments spend money or cut taxes, they will need to pay for it, one way or another.
The last 15 years have convinced a lot of people that they didn’t have to face unpleasant truths, that hard realities could always be magicked away with more government money. But the real economic constraints were always there underneath, waiting to reassert themselves. Now they have, and if governments don’t deal with those realities, reality will deal harshly with them. | 2022-09-23T21:30:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Britain's tax cuts will have to be paid for one way or another - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/britain-tax-cuts-economic-freebies-over/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/britain-tax-cuts-economic-freebies-over/ |
Immediate, crucial action on climate is demanded
The western edge of the famed iceberg A-68, calved from the Larsen C ice shelf, is seen from NASA's Operation IceBridge research aircraft, near the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula region, on Oct. 31, 2017, above Antarctica. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The Sept. 19 editorial “The world’s ice is melting,” nicely bookended by severe storms on the U.S. Pacific and Atlantic coasts, was not a warning but a reminder of the inevitable consequences of the rising sea levels from melting shelf ice, precipitated by man-made climate change: “There are few easy answers, but humanity must — with urgency — prepare now.”
Are we — have we ever been — prepared? It doesn’t seem so. If the multifaceted, calamitous effects of rising temperatures on Earth are to be mitigated, immediate, crucial action is demanded. If the analogous concerns were a bus hurtling toward the edge of a canyon, all aboard would be screaming, “Stop.” Yet relatively few people seem concerned about this impending disaster. The general mood seems to be “It never rains in sunny California. I won’t need an umbrella.”
This is not about you or me or us. It is about our unborn children and the very existence of a habitable planet, with the attendant animals and plant life that will not be able to accept and adapt. Life on this planet is being strangled. It is our duty to act with relevant dispatch. The urgency cannot be overstated.
William A. McCollam, Fairfax | 2022-09-23T21:30:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Immediate, crucial action on climate is demanded - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/immediate-crucial-action-is-demanded/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/immediate-crucial-action-is-demanded/ |
Suicide barriers are more than worth the cost
The Taft Bridge on Connecticut Avenue NW in 2020. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Two recent articles spoke emotionally to the need to build lifesaving anti-suicide barriers on the Taft and Chesapeake Bay bridges. Each made vague reference to data supporting the effectiveness of fencing on D.C.’s Duke Ellington Bridge. As the lead author of that study, I can attest to the effectiveness of these anti-suicide barriers.
In more than three decades since the Ellington fences were erected, suicide fatalities from the bridge declined 96 percent. Correspondingly, and as opposed to commonly held beliefs, individuals thwarted from jumping off the Ellington Bridge did not subsequently find an alternative means to take their lives. Suicides did not increase on the adjacent Taft Bridge, the city’s other bridges or by any and all other methods in the years since these fences went up.
As of 2018, the Ellington Bridge fencing has prevented the deaths of some 116 would-be suicides from this site alone. Amortized, the $229,000 cost of this prevention effort equates to less than $2,000 per life saved, a cost that is declining daily. This compares to the average cost to society of a suicide at $1.33 million. To those who argue that thwarting access to a lethal jump site is a waste of money, D.C.’s experiment resoundingly counter-argues with data “not true.”
More important is that the barriers save the emotional toll of suicide on family and friends, so tragically presented in these articles.
Lanny Berman, Chevy Chase | 2022-09-23T21:31:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Suicide barriers are more than worth the cost - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/suicide-barriers-are-more-than-worth-cost/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/suicide-barriers-are-more-than-worth-cost/ |
He made a silly trombone video game. Then the internet caught wind.
By Alyse Stanley
(Washington Post illustration; Holy Wow Studios)
Making the trombone sound good is an art — one in which “Trombone Champ” has zero interest.
The trombone rhythm game blew up (pun intended) on social media this week as players shared videos of themselves butchering Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and other classic songs. Released Sept. 15, its mechanics are similar to games like Guitar Hero or Rock Band: Players move their mouse up and down and click or press a key in sync with notes cascading across the screen. Stay on beat, and the words “Perfecto!” or “Nice!” pop up. Fail, and you’ll get heckled with “Meh” or “Nasty” instead.
At the end of each song, you’re graded based on accuracy and point multipliers from combos. You’re also awarded Toots to buy Tromboner cards that feature famous trombone players, baboons and dubious facts (the trumpet is “The coward’s trombone,” according to one entry). Fair warning: If that’s not your sense of humor, this may not be the game for you.
I played the trombone rhythm game, and apologize to all baseball fans everywhere pic.twitter.com/FvDI10IlWs
— Alyse Stanley (@pithyalyse) September 22, 2022
Oh right, the baboons — there’s a lot of them in “Trombone Champ,” likely more than you were expecting. And a fair number of secrets, too.
The game’s developer, Dan Vecchitto, said that while he had hoped the game would do well, he never imagined there’d be such a large audience for his silly trombone game.
“It’s blown up way beyond our expectations,” he said in a video interview with The Washington Post.
Vecchitto, whose full-time job is in web design, has been making games for over a decade in his free time with his wife, Jackie, who works in the same field. Under the name Holy Wow Studios, they’ve released the Icarus Proudbottom series — typing games in the same faux edutainment vein as “Frog Fractions” — free online. “Trombone Champ” is their first product for sale.
Can You Pet The Dog? In many games, and in this article, you can.
Its virality has come with some headaches.
“It’s exciting, but it’s also like, oh man, it’s a lot of work,” Vecchitto said. He had naively believed that after the game finally released there would be less work to do: “Now after release, I have thousands of players who want updates. So it’s actually a lot more pressure.”
He’d already planned to add new songs and accessibility to “Trombone Champ” over time following its release, but now that it’s gone viral, he’s setting his sights higher. He plans to flesh out the game’s storyline content, and is considering several new features, such as a level editor. A Mac port was already in the works, but now he’s also looking into what it would take to bring the game to the Nintendo Switch. Some fans have speculated what playing the game would be like in virtual reality, which he said hadn’t even been on his radar.
Of course, being a largely one-person operation, he hedged that any future updates could take a while.
“Trombone Champ” was initially inspired by arcade cabinets. Vecchitto built one with his wife for their two-player typing game, “Icarus Proudbottom’s Typing Party,” for an indie convention in 2016.
“It was really fun, and I was kind of in the arcade mind-set,” he said. “I had just a mental image at some point of an arcade cabinet with like a giant rubber trombone peripheral.”
Two years later, he remembered the idea and made a prototype built around using the mouse to emulate the slide of a trombone. He started to plug away at it, culminating in the decision to make it Holy Wow Studio’s first game sold on Steam.
Over its four-year development cycle, “Trombone Champ” developed what Vecchitto described as a “small but very devoted and rabid fan base,” many of whom they knew in real life. During a play test in August open to the public via Steam, some players live-streamed the game on platforms like Twitch and YouTube, which got even more eyes on it. He’d expected the game to do OK, maybe generate some word-of-mouth buzz as players shared their ridiculous-sounding clips online.
Then came the moment when he realized how big the game had become: The night after the gaming news site PC Gamer posted a review, “Trombone Champ” briefly surpassed “God of War” on Steam’s chart of best-selling games on the platform.
Why the trombone? “It’s a naturally funny instrument, ” Vecchitto said. “I’m not sure why. … It might have to do with the loudness combined with the imprecision. It steps up to the plate with extreme confidence, but you have no idea what you’re going to get.”
The trombone can also slide between notes, unlike other rhythm-game instruments like the guitar or drums, which allows for funny sounds and fluctuations as the player goes from note to note. In practice, he said, the trombone in the game operates more like a slide whistle than a trombone. At first, Vecchitto (who has zero experience with the instrument) said he was nervous that real-life trombone players would be insulted by what was essentially “a parody of a trombone.” But the feedback he’s heard so far has been positive, and he added that the game has been a surprise hit in the ska community, who are already asking for more songs from the genre to be added. “Trombone Champ” currently features 20 songs, some from the public domain, a few composed by Vecchitto and one original track: “Long-Tail Limbo” by the London-based musician Max Tundra, of whom Vecchitto has been a fan for over two decades.
As for the baboons, that idea began as one-off joke for a feature that never actually made it into the game. Vecchitto had originally planned to include three different difficulty levels, he explained.
“I really wanted to call the easy mode ‘baby’ and the hard mode ‘bonkers,’ but was struggling to think of a good 'b' word for the standard difficulty,” Vecchitto said. “For some reason, the word ‘baboon’ came to mind. It makes no sense, but I thought it was really funny to have the standard difficulty inexplicably called ‘baboon.’ ”
From that point forward, he started incorporating the word “baboon” into more and more menu screens for a laugh. When he started to brainstorm “Trombone Champ’s” underlying narrative and non-playable characters, most of which are hidden in its user interface, he knew he had to commit to the bit.
“I realized that they had to be baboons as well,” he said. | 2022-09-23T22:04:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Trombone Champ’ is bigger than anyone could have predicted - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/09/23/trombone-champ-viral-video-game/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/09/23/trombone-champ-viral-video-game/ |
Men drafted into the Russian army during the country's partial mobilization say goodbye to friends and relatives outside a military commissariat in Moscow on Friday. (Moscow News Agency via Reuters)
RIGA, Latvia — In just two days since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced mobilization to help his ailing war in Ukraine, thousands of men have been chased down by recruiters, in some cases rounded up in the middle of the night, and swiftly loaded onto buses and planes to be sent off for military training and, presumably, deployment to the front lines.
And despite assurances by the authorities of a “partial” mobilization, limited to reservists with prior military experience, the initial haphazard call-up process has sparked fears that Putin is trying to activate far more soldiers than the 300,000 initially stated by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
“It’s just hell here; they are grabbing everyone,” a resident of Sosnovo-Ozerskoye, a rural settlement of about 6,000 people in the eastern Siberian region of Buryatia, wrote to Victoria Maldeva, an activist with the Free Buryatia Foundation who has collected hundreds of reports about mass mobilization.
“Drunk men who are supposed to leave the very same day are roaming the town square,” the Sosnovo-Ozerskoye resident wrote. “Everyone knows each other here. This is impossible to bear. Women are crying, chasing the bus, and men pleaded for forgiveness before they left as they know they are facing certain death.”
The Free Buryatia Foundation and similar activists working in Yakutia, another remote, impoverished region of Russia, said they were concerned that the mobilization is disproportionately targeting ethnic minorities that live in these areas, many thousands of miles from Moscow.
“When it comes to Buryatia, this is not a partial mobilization, this is a total mobilization,” the head of the Free Buryatia Foundation, Alexandra Garmazhapova, said in a television interview. “And it amazes me how people who know how much Vladimir Putin likes to lie believed that this will be a partial mobilization.”
Garmazhapova said her volunteers stayed up all night on Wednesday and Thursday helping men, some as old as 62, who were awakened by schoolteachers forced to go door-to-door in Buryatian villages at night and hand notices.
The rights workers said they believed that Russian military recruiters are focusing their efforts in rural and remote areas, rather than big cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg, because a lack of media outlets and protest activity makes it easier for them to enforce recruitment orders and to appease the regional leaders seeking to curry favor with Putin. The Asian ethnic populations of Siberia and the Russian Far East are also less likely to have personal and family connections to Ukraine.
In Moscow, however, recruiters found a new source of readily available recruits: demonstrators detained during antiwar rallies this week. A reporter for SOTA Vision outlet, Artem Kriger, was detained on Wednesday as he was wrapping up a live broadcast from one of the capital’s central streets.
Later, in the police station, Kriger and more than a dozen other men arrested with him were handed summonses ordering them to appear at their local military commissariats. On Friday, Kriger was also sentenced to an eight-day jail sentence after a judge found him guilty of taking part in an unauthorized rally.
Military analysts say it is far from clear that Russia’s military setbacks can be reversed simply by sending hundreds of thousands of new fighters to the front. Russia is also running short of weapons and other supplies, and has lost several commanders in the nearly seven-month-long war.
The initial disarray and confusion in the mobilization effort, and the public anger, confirmed the risk of a societal backlash that had prompted Putin to resist imposing compulsory service in the war until recent setbacks made it clear that Russia was at risk of being defeated. But large numbers of untrained, unmotivated, and ill-equipped soldiers are unlikely to reverse Russia’s losses, experts said.
Several videos posted online on Friday morning showed busloads of agitated, and apparently drunk, men who had received call-up notices brawling with one another. The videos, which could not be independently verified, highlighted the potential lack of morale and discipline of Russia’s newest warfighters.
In Dagestan, a majority-Muslim region in the North Caucasus where Russian media reported that the official goal was to gather 13,000 men at enlistment offices, a group of men engaged in a shouting match with a local recruiter, a woman who tried to shame them for being unwilling to join the war effort.
“These kids will be fighting for their future,” the woman shouted at a group of about 30 men who had gathered outside a local commissariat, according to a clip posted by “Observers of Dagestan” movement.
“What future? We don’t even have a present,” one of the men shouted back. “Go fight yourself if you want to. We don’t!”
At another recruitment station, in the small city of Yekaterinoslavka in the Far East Amur region, an officer yelled at a group of angry, resentful men who had been summoned. “Why are you crying like little girls,” the officer told a disgruntled crowd according to a video recorded covertly. “Playtime is over. You are all soldiers now.”
The Russian Defense Ministry on Friday sought to ease the chaos and anger gripping the country by sending out “clarifications” to state-run news outlets on who qualified for the call-up. But that did little to quell the panic as multiple reports emerged of men who qualified for exemptions nonetheless receiving summonses.
Pavel Chikov, the head of a human rights group, Agora, which is helping Russians find legal ways to be spared from serving in the war, reported multiple cases in which men above the stated mobilization age of 55 had received summonses.
“The Ministry of Defense has been busy for two days in a row, trying to reassure the population,” Chikov posted in his Telegram channel. “But it is important that these ‘official statements’ are just the work of the press service, and not actual decrees, which are all for official use and secret.
“District military commissars do not read Telegram, they have lists sent to them from the center, and they will continue to fill buses, assembly stations and planes with people,” he wrote.
Alexander Dorzhiev, 38, from Ulan-Ude, a city in Buryatia about 150 miles from the border with Mongolia, received a notice on Wednesday morning and was ordered to show up the next day at 4 a.m. at a local recruiting station, and to leave his hometown just a few hours later.
As the father of five small children, Dorzhiev should be exempt from military service, according to Russian laws. Amid public uproar, the governor of Buryatia, Alexey Tsydenov, said 70 fathers who should have been exempted were summoned but later released from the commissariats.
The chaos brought sharp criticism even from some supporters of Putin’s government.
“This just shows the quality of the way our enlistment offices work,” pro-Kremlin journalist and politician Andrey Medvedev wrote on Telegram, criticizing the mobilization procedure in Russia. “This leads to panic in the rear, hysterical moods and massive social tension. Mobilization should strengthen the army, not cause upheaval.”
Added to the national panic was the Kremlin’s acknowledgment that a secret paragraph in the mobilization decree signed by Putin on Wednesday dealt with the number of soldiers Russia is aiming to call up.
Novaya Gazeta Europe reported Thursday, citing a source in the presidential administration, that the clause envisioned activating 1 million people. Another Russian outlet, Meduza, reported that the number could be as high as 1.2 million. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called both reports “a lie” but did not provide a corrected figure.
Pro-Kremlin bloggers and Instagram models launched a hashtag #NoToPanic on Russian social media platforms. They published nearly identical posts insisting that “only 1 percent of reservists will be called up” — in what appeared to be a coordinated effort to debunk the reports that the real recruitment target is far higher than 300,000.
“Would one french fry be enough for you to get full? I think everyone would say no, that’s just 1 percent of your portion,” blogger Anna Belozerova wrote on VKontakte, a Russian social networking platform. “You rightly guessed that I am talking about mobilization that everyone is panicking about. We all need to stay calm! It will be just 300,000 people, 1 percent of reservists.”
Yet Russians seeking to avoid military service continued to flock to the country’s borders, fearing that even if they were spared this week, they might be ensnared in the next mobilization wave.
With flights almost entirely sold out, most are crossing land borders by car or on foot, although the opportunity to escape to Europe appeared to narrow. Finland, the only remaining E.U. land border open to Russians, said Friday it would stop Russians with tourist visas from crossing in the next few days. | 2022-09-23T22:43:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russian military mobilization targets ethnic minorities and protesters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/23/russia-mobilization-minorities-ukraine-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/23/russia-mobilization-minorities-ukraine-war/ |
Maryland judge allows early mail-vote counting to avoid result delays
A woman drops a ballot into a drop box to cast her vote during Maryland's primary election on July 19 in Baltimore. (Julio Cortez/AP)
Maryland election officials can begin counting mail-in ballots before Election Day under a judge’s ruling on Friday that suspends a state law poll workers feared could delay results by weeks or months.
The ruling on the petition — which lawyers for Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox argued against in court — comes after a primary cycle marked by an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots, short staffing and extended delays.
Expecting an even higher volume of mail-in ballots in the general election, the Maryland State Board of Elections asked the court for an emergency remedy to deliver timely results and meet local, state and federal certification deadlines. The delays, its lawyer noted, would be unavoidable otherwise, as a shift in voting trends continues to bump up against Maryland’s law prohibiting tabulation until two days after the general election. Canvassing more than 340,000 mail-in ballots cast during the primary resulted in a nearly month-long delay.
“There is no doubt that the increased number of mail-in ballots will have an enormous affect on the process of this election,” Judge James A. Bonifant said in his ruling. “Mandatory deadlines will be missed if the court takes no action.”
In a statement, the board said it was pleased by the court’s decision.
“This ruling provides election officials with additional time to canvass and tabulate these ballots to ensure that all critical election-related deadlines established by law are met,” the statement said.
The November ballot will feature Cox, a first-term delegate who has embraced former president Donald Trump’s rhetoric and tried to impeach outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan (R), and Wes Moore (D), a best-selling author who garnered high-profile celebrity and political endorsements, as gubernatorial candidates, along with any third-party contenders and a host of congressional, state and local offices.
Cox, who has called the 2020 presidential election “stolen” and promised primary voters he would audit the 2020 election if elected, filed an opposition to the petition, arguing that changing the process weeks before the election was unconstitutional and would undermine “trust in the outcome of elections.”
Earlier this week, attorneys for Cox and the elections board made their case before Bonifant, arguing the power to intervene rested with the General Assembly, not the court.
State lawmakers attempted to change the vote counting timeline during this year’s legislative session when they passed a bill that would have permanently removed the provision prohibiting the early canvassing of mail-in ballots — the only one of its kind in the country. While Hogan supported counting mail-in ballots early, he vetoed the bill, citing other concerns including the exclusion of “basic security measures such as signature verification.”
Hogan said in a statement that he agreed with Bonifant’s ruling.
“We welcome Judge Bonifant’s decision allowing the State Board of Elections to institute early canvassing for the general election, as I did in 2020 during the pandemic,” Hogan said in the statement. “It worked well in that election, but partisan legislators dropped the ball on adopting our successful approach, making this step necessary.”
Sen. Cheryl C. Kagan (D-Montgomery), who carried the bill Hogan vetoed, said she was thrilled and relieved by the judge’s ruling to allow early canvassing.
“He analyzed the arguments by the opponents and ultimately concluded that indeed it was right for democracy, that mail-in ballots be counted in a timely way,” Kagan said at a news conference outside the courthouse.
Kagan said she has spoken with legislative leaders about bringing back the proposal next year to make the move permanent.
“This is not about who’s going to win or lose in the gubernatorial race or any race. It’s really about just making sure that we get the results in a timely way,” Kagan said. “If there’s a legal challenge, if there’s need for a recount, we want to make sure we have lots of time before the date by which people need to be sworn in to start their work representing the people.”
The longest delays in this year’s primary were in Montgomery, Maryland’s most populous county. Officials received more than 74,000 mail-in ballots during the primary and took 36 days to completely tabulate all ballots and conduct a recount in the Democratic primary race for county executive.
“Faced with three-to-four times as many ballots and failing to count a single one of them until two days after the election may require 100 to 120 days (or nearly 4 months),” said the board’s petition, filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court earlier this month.
The board warned that delays in the general election could interfere with local, state and federal result certification deadlines, such as some local office terms that are slated to begin on the first Monday in December, and Congress being set to convene Jan. 3.
The petition also stated that a slow process to return results could sow mistrust and doubt in the state’s electoral process.
“A prolonged canvassing and tabulation period would call into question the reliability and veracity of those processes,” the petition said. “Voters may assume that mistakes are causing the delay or that more nefarious activities might be prolonging the count and causing the violations.”
Cox made a similar argument, saying that court interference, which his lawyers called “unconstitutional,” could develop mistrust in the state’s election system. He told reporters earlier this week that he would respect the outcome of the election if the current process stayed in place, but he would not say whether he would respect the outcome if the judge sided with the elections board.
Montgomery County Board of Elections spokesman Gilberto Zelaya said his office has been gearing up to start the intricate canvassing process since the primary. And while the ruling will help with the timeline, he encouraged voters to return ballots early to make the most of the ruling.
“This relief won’t amount to much if voters don’t return their ballots promptly,” he said. | 2022-09-23T22:47:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland judge allows early mail-in ballot counting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/maryland-mail-voting-judge-decision/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/maryland-mail-voting-judge-decision/ |
Landscaper fatally shot while on job in Northeast Washington
A D.C. police vehicle. (Peter Hermann/The Washington Post)
A landscaper working along a residential street in Northeast Washington was fatally shot in the back Thursday afternoon after he confronted a man he saw trying to break into a truck, according to D.C. police.
The victim, identified as Bacilio Villatoro, 57, lived in Silver Spring, Md., with one of his two adult sons, and had a wife and grown daughter in El Salvador, according to his brother-in-law.
Police said Villatoro was shot about 12:40 p.m. in the 3000 block of Adams Street NE, in a neighborhood that has a mix of industrial buildings and private homes and is lined by New York and South Dakota avenues.
Dustin Sternbeck, a D.C. police spokesman, said that Villatoro saw a man tampering with a truck and began to argue with him. Sternbeck said the man pulled out a gun and Villatoro turned and began to run.
Sternbeck said Villatoro “tried to flee and was shot in the back.”
Villatoro died at the scene and police said the gunman drove off in a black Chevrolet Impala. No arrests were made as of Friday. Police said it appears no property was taken. It was not immediately clear if the truck belonged to the landscaping company or another worker.
“He was a quiet person,” said the brother-in-law, 53-year-old Jose Villatoro, who shares a common last name with his in-law but is not blood-related. “If somebody aggravated him, he just left them alone. That’s the kind of person he was. Why did this happen to him?”
Villatoro was the District’s 151st homicide victim this year, a 2 percent drop from this time in 2021. His killing also broke a 10-day respite from deadly crime: Before Thursday, there had not been a homicide in D.C. since Sept. 11.
But the city continues to struggle with gun violence and homicides, coming off a year when it surpassed 200 killings for the first time since 2003. The violent crime, Jose Villatoro said, “is out of hand.”
The Gateway neighborhood where Villatoro was shot has had no other homicides this year, and police statistics show assaults with dangerous weapons have dropped compared to last year. But those statistics also show robberies have nearly doubled.
Jose Villatoro, who lives in Prince George’s County, said his brother-in-law came to the United States in the late 1980s and had worked alongside him breaking stones at a construction supply and rock quarry company in Bethesda. He said Bacilio Villatoro had recently left that work for the landscaping job.
The brother-in-law said others at the job site told him the attack appeared to be a robbery attempt. He said Bacilio Villatoro kept about $100 to $150 in his pockets for transportation and other needs.
Jose Villatoro said his brother-in-law had sent money to his wife and other relatives in El Salvador. He said Villatoro enjoyed being with friends and watching sports, and while quiet and sparse with words, he “liked to be with people who were talking.”
Relatives in Maryland and in El Salvador are discussing burial arrangements.
“He died working,” Jose Villatoro said. “That’s the kind of guy he was.”
Teo Armus contributed to this report. | 2022-09-23T22:48:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Landscaper in D.C. fatally shot on the job - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/shooting-homicide-landscaper-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/shooting-homicide-landscaper-dc/ |
Military aide arrested on gun charge at White House
The White House in Washington. (Stefani Reynolds for The Washington Post)
A military aide was arrested at a White House security gate on Thursday after the U.S. Secret Service reported finding a loaded firearm in a bag during a security check, according to an agency spokesman and an affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court.
Patrick James Tansey, 54, who has an address listed in Virginia, was charged with carrying a pistol without a license and possession of an unregistered firearm and ammunition. The affidavit says the Smith & Wesson gun was not registered in D.C.
Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, said Tansey works at the White House and has credentials to access the grounds, but is not authorized to be armed. The affidavit says a Secret Service officer spotted the gun while screening Tansey’s book bag through an X-ray machine.
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Friday freed Tansey and set a hearing for Oct. 5. Efforts to reach Tansey were not successful Friday afternoon. His attorney declined to comment. The military branch to which Tansey is assigned could not immediately be learned. | 2022-09-23T22:48:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Military staff member arrested on gun charge at White House - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/white-house-firearm-arrest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/white-house-firearm-arrest/ |
By Julie Watson and Joshua Goodman | AP
FILE - This undated photo provided by the U.S. Marshals Service shows Leonard Francis, also known as “Fat Leonard,” who was on home confinement, allegedly cut off his GPS ankle monitor and left his home on the morning of Sept. 4, 2022. For Venezuela, the fugitive nicknamed “Fat Leonard” at the center of a huge Navy bribery case who was arrested at an airport outside Caracas this week could become the latest bargaining chip in President Nicolas Maduro’s efforts to win official recognition from the Biden administration, according to experts. (U.S. Marshals Service via AP, File) (Uncredited/U.S. Marshals Service) | 2022-09-23T23:01:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Fat Leonard' may be Venezuela bargaining chip, experts say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/experts-fat-leonard-may-be-venezuelas-bargaining-chip/2022/09/23/06be97a4-3b8e-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/experts-fat-leonard-may-be-venezuelas-bargaining-chip/2022/09/23/06be97a4-3b8e-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
FEMA allocated billions for disaster mitigation after Maria. Few projects have gotten underway.
Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico on Sept. 18, leaving residents without power, water and safe shelter. Residents from Ponce and Salinas shared their stories. (Video: Zoeann Murphy, John Farrell, Drea Cornejo/The Washington Post)
SALINAS, Puerto Rico — When Leida Rodriguez started building a house in Villa Esperanza, neighbors suggested she lift it because the nearby Rio Nigua rose a few feet during Hurricane Maria — nothing these weathered coastal souls hadn’t seen before.
So she built the house four feet off the ground, hoping to mitigate coastal flooding in southern Puerto Rico, where she found an affordable spot in a beautiful community to live out her retirement. Never did she imagine that a Category-1 cyclone would bring so much rain that the beams of her white-and-blue trim home would buckle and slide into a deep mud hole.
“It was my refuge, my place of peace,” said Rodriguez, 50, who along with her husband used their life savings to build the home block by concrete block. “We thought it wasn’t going to happen. No one had ever seen flooding like what happened.”
Hurricane Fiona dumped at least half as much rain as the coastal town of Salinas — where most of its residents live in flood zones — sees in a year. Though the storm brought far less powerful winds than Category-4 Maria in 2017, some parts of the main island experienced just as much rain or more. Many were caught off guard. First responders rescued hundreds of people from inundated homes and some roads and bridges repaired after Maria were destroyed again.
The U.S. government made historic allocations, including more than $3 billion for hazard mitigation, to Puerto Rico after Maria — some of which was slated to go toward preventing severe flooding during storms. A separate pot of federal public assistance money is designated for rebuilding public infrastructure. In Salinas, which was walloped by Maria and battered again by Fiona, officials have submitted 74 projects to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for funding. To date, just seven — including road repairs and a basketball court — have been completed, data from Puerto Rico’s Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency, shows. About two dozen more entered the construction phase in the last six months.
Salinas officials have identified 44 potential mitigation projects. So far, they’ve submitted three, including a proposal to build a water treatment plant that was approved in December and is in the design phase. Two other projects under review propose installing generators at critical facilities and a new storm water system on public streets leading to a hospital. Neither one of those projects has been constructed.
“I’m pretty sure if these mitigation plans would have been carried out, it would’ve mitigated the issues that some of these municipalities experienced,” said researcher Jennifer Hinojosa, who works for Hunter College’s Center for Puerto Rican Studies in New York and been tracking the recovery from Maria.
Instead, residents and experts say unrestrained coastal construction, mangrove destruction, deforestation, coastal erosion and poor canal maintenance have heightened the risk for marginalized communities like Salinas, a town of 25,000.
Across the island archipelago, 5 percent of the available post-Maria FEMA funds for hazard mitigation have been obligated, according to the data from Puerto Rico’s recovery office, a first hurdle in getting a project started. The cumbersome management of those funds at both the federal and local level is slowing down Puerto Rico’s slow long-term resiliency reconstruction, experts said.
FEMA officials said they are continuing to work with municipalities to help stave off the most severe — and in some cases, preventable — damage when a storm rolls through.
“Hurricanes are a natural phenomenon,” said Victor Alvarado, a local environmental activist. “Disasters are man-made.”
‘Maria didn’t do this’
Puerto Rico’s southern region is drier than its northern coast and its topography makes it prone to rapid flooding. Hurricane Fiona concentrated its heavy rainfall over the southern slopes of the central mountains where water rushes down steep highlands and spills into the coastal plain until it reaches the sea. The soil is often unable to absorb all the moisture and instead it runs off the surface, according to meteorologists and regional climatological reports.
While the eye of the storm swirled westward, it dragged a line of intense weather that brought with it sustained humidity. That system pounded the southern coast with relentless precipitation.
“It’s a double whammy. You have a hurricane with strong gusts and then a tail of intense rain that remained stationary over the south dropping two to three feet of water,” said University of Wisconsin meteorologist Ángel Adames-Corraliza, a native of Puerto Rico. “That’s a nightmare scenario.”
Weeks earlier, Salinas residents had been worried about persistent drought conditions threatening their aquifer and only source of drinking water in the municipality. Today, many neighbors are struggling to understand why the inundation was so fierce that it triggered midnight rescues for hundreds who said they had never seen so much water. Engorged streams and creeks burst in all directions. The Rio Nigua jumped its banks and discharged into channels never carved in recent memory.
Daniel and Maria De Jesús have lived confidently inside their home in the Coquí community of Salinas for more than 40 years, never before experiencing a severe deluge. The house sits a few feet above the low-lying roadway. Yet several hours into Fiona’s downpours, brackish water invaded their bedroom.
“I’ve never felt so much fear,” said Daniel De Jesús, 76, whose family was rescued by National Guard troops Sunday. “I stayed here during Maria. If I had done the same for Fiona, I would not be here to talk about it.”
Pieces of newly-laid asphalt was shattered like shards of glass and strewn about the neighborhood. The smell of rot was inescapable as residents piled their waterlogged furniture on the curb next to mounds of riverbed soil and sheared vegetation. Families strung out their clothes hoping the blistering post-storm sun would dry them out and get rid of the unmistakable odor of mold.
The De Jesús family lost most of their possessions. But that is not what worries them. They said they have warily watched how new construction projects, such as a nearby solar farm and housing developments, have taken little care for the geography and risks of the flood plain.
“Nature is reclaiming and telling us this belongs to her,” Daniel De Jesús said. “As the saying goes, the river always finds its course.”
Developers build too close to creeks and canals. They compact the soil and fill in wetlands with sand and gravel. They change natural water flows, said environmental lawyer Ruth Santiago, who works closely with a coalition of community-based organizations.
“There are things that are being approved...that are making the flooding worse,” she said.
Salinas Mayor Karilyn Bonilla Colón did not respond to interview requests but has been vocal in the local press about using the federal dollars principally for flood mitigation and urban renewal.
Illegal coastal construction in protected estuaries and sensitive land reserves, such as nearby Jobos Bay, has become a flash point for locals and other Puerto Ricans living near the ocean. In recent years, communities have waged court battles and protested against the central government giving what they see as illegal permits to builders destroying mangrove forests and exacerbating flooding.
Mangroves act as natural barriers that protect communities from storm surge and can absorb water, among other ecological benefits. These same communities saw flood levels rise dangerously in the middle of the night, Santiago said.
“Puerto Rico is a group of islands that is very limited in geographic space. It can be described as a mountain range surrounded by a narrow coastal plain. And that coastal plain is very narrow in the south,” Santiago said. “So you can’t keep building, using up land space. Floodwaters need areas that are not impacted by construction in order to go out to the sea without causing damage.”
Victor Bonilla said he held out as long as he could but when the water reached nearly a foot in height at 12:30 a.m. on Monday, he put his two boys and wife inside a dump truck that was helping to evacuate residents of barrio Playita — walking distance from the popular Punta Arenas beach.
“I didn’t want to leave. I’m a fighter but when you have a family, you’ve got to surrender,” said Bonilla, 37, whose family has lived and fished here for generations. “You learn how to live with flooding and adjust but we didn’t think this storm would do this. Maria didn’t do this.”
Mitigating disaster
The type of construction work that should be happening, residents and experts say, has not transpired in decades. Levees, canal dredging, sea walls and other diversions are the kind of flood control measures the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has long studied in this region. They’ve made recommendations and drawn up detailed plans, but the work either was not funded or was not completed, local officials and residents said.
In 2018, Puerto Rico’s congressional representative, Jenniffer González Colón(R), announced the approval of $2.5 billion of federal funding for flood control projects, including the canalization and construction of levees along Rio Nigua in Salinas. Some work has begun and is in the design phase, but not in time to make a difference for hundreds of families like the ones community leader Ismenia Figueroa’s serves.
“You learn to fight for what’s yours here and depend on no one,” said Figueroa, 60, her eyes reddening with tears. “But the sense of powerlessness can be so suffocating.”
This is the kind of thing Puerto Ricans in these Salinas neighborhoods and leaders said they have come to expect: Many overtures and announcements but lagging progress.
The sluggish pace of FEMA dollars reaching those communities with the most urgent infrastructure needs is a frustrating fact of life for residents. Much of the completed public infrastructure work in Puerto Rico has gone to rehabbing roads or rebuilding recreational facilities, records show, after Hurricane Maria.
The work is necessary, community leaders say, but so many of the projects that require significant investment, engineering and design to create resiliency, stay suspended in the proposal phase. Some of these plans and requests for hazard mitigation date back to declared disasters from previous hurricanes, according to FEMA data obtained by The Washington Post.
The delays are the consequence of bureaucratic hurdles and management struggles at the state and federal level, said former FEMA hazard mitigation expert and historian, Rafael Torrech. The veteran grant writer was brought in after Hurricane Maria to help guide applicants through the process. Hazard mitigation projects normally take longer and can take a back seat to the rebuilding of public infrastructure because they are focused on planning for the future.
FEMA has dedicated staff but the mechanisms for releasing money are outdated and ill-suited to long term reconstruction, Torrech said. The added complications of Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy and lack of access to financing meant the government could not afford to put out bids for work through the federal agency’s reimbursement model. It took time for FEMA, Puerto Rico’s recovery office, and the fiscal oversight board managing the Commonwealth’s finances to develop cash flow solutions.
By then, there were labor and material shortages driven by the pandemic, transportation issues and an ongoing exodus from Puerto Rico. A limited supply of professional firms able to do design and engineering work from the island archipelago drove up costs.
“Puerto Rico is a perfect example of everything that went wrong,” Torrech said. “Practically, none of the mitigation projects has gotten to the construction phase. You cannot control nature but you can control your reaction to it. It’s a question of management.”
It’s a cycle that has been repeated disaster after disaster, experts said. Soon, the only options left for some of Puerto Rico’s most under-resourced communities such as those in Salinas, is to abandon their homes and relocate.
Wanda Lee considered it. The 44-year-old left her seaside home to start anew in Pennsylvania, overwhelmed by the weeks of powerlessness and joblessness in the aftermath of Maria. But, she said, the island called her back home.
Then came Fiona. Lee was asleep for most of it, relegating the storm to an afterthought. When she awoke and stood up from her bed, she stepped into a puddle of water. The flooding was worse than five years earlier and she and her neighbors had to be rescued from their homes. But this time, she won’t be packing up.
“I stick out the storms and I stick out these hurricanes because it’s part of me,” Lee said in front of her newly-waterlogged home. “I’m a playera [beach lover] and this is what we do.”
Rodriguez, the woman who lost her house to a mudslide near the river, spent hours on the phone Thursday with federal officials to see if she qualifies for help. She said she is not optimistic because the low-cost lot where her house once stood was in a flood zone where many of her neighbors did not get help after Maria.
“I will recover,” she said. “But I won’t rebuild here.” | 2022-09-23T23:53:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico as a Category 1 storm. Flooding still wrought havoc. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/23/hurricane-fiona-puerto-rico-floods/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/23/hurricane-fiona-puerto-rico-floods/ |
People attend a pro-government rally in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Friday. (Wana News Agency/Via Reuters)
Iran’s military Friday warned anti-government protesters against continued unrest, vowing to confront “plots” by enemy forces as demonstrators, angry over the recent death of a woman in police custody, clashed with security forces across the country.
“These desperate actions are part of the evil strategy of the enemy to weaken the Islamic regime,” the army said Friday, Reuters reported. It went on to say that the military would “confront the enemies’ various plots in order to ensure security and peace for the people who are being unjustly assaulted.”
The unrest was sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, an Kurdish woman who was detained by Iran’s “morality police” while visiting the capital, Tehran. She was allegedly held for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women — a charge her family has denied in interviews with local media. An initial police report claimed that Amini fell into a coma while in custody, but her family and other activists said she appeared to have been beaten.
Iran’s government throttled internet and cellular service and blocked WhatsApp and Instagram. But images and footage of extraordinary scenes — such as women defiantly removing their veils, burning headscarves and cutting off their hair — have emerged on social media, captivating the public both in Iran and abroad.
Other videos showed men and women protesting together, chanting “bread, work and freedom!” Some burned images of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shouting “Death to the dictator!”
“What especially stands out is how it’s women and youth-led, specifically by Iranian Generation Z,” said Holly Dagres, an Iran analyst and a nonresident fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank. “They have the same needs and wants of youth everywhere, the freedom to express themselves and be themselves, and have little in common with the geriatric leadership of the Islamic Republic.”
The move aims to “advance Internet freedom and the free flow of information for the Iranian people, to provide them greater access to digital communications to counter the Iranian government’s censorship,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a tweet.
“The escalating crackdown requires a coordinated international response in terms of both pressuring Iran to refrain from using excessive force and exploring avenues for accountability,” said Tara Sepehri Far, an Iran researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Rights groups say they have documented hundreds of arrests and injuries, as well as authorities abusing women detainees. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 11 Iranian journalists had been arrested, including one of the first to report on Amini’s hospitalization.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said at the United Nations in New York this week that her death must be “steadfastly” investigated, the AP reported. At a news conference on the sidelines of the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, Raisi said he contacted Amini’s family.
“Only a credible investigation” by the government could ease tensions, said Far. But, she said, “judging based on the long track record of not being transparent, not investigating abuses,” there is little hope among Iranians for government accountability. | 2022-09-24T00:19:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Iran warns protesters against unrest, stages counter-demonstrations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/23/iran-protests-mahsa-amini/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/23/iran-protests-mahsa-amini/ |
Nancy Barnes, who saw NPR win its first Pulitzer Prize, announced her departure the same day a corporate restructuring move was announced. (Evy Mages For The Washington Post)
The top news executive at NPR announced Friday that she is leaving the organization, an unexpected departure that coincides with a shake-up in the nonprofit media giant’s management structure.
Nancy Barnes, who took over NPR’s newsroom in 2018 as senior vice president and editorial director of the broadcasting and digital news operation, said she will leave the organization later this fall. She did not announce new plans, but said in a note to staff on Friday that she will “pursue other journalistic endeavors.”
Her decision came hours after NPR’s chief executive, John Lansing, announced the creation of a new position that will oversee all of NPR’s programming — trademark news programs such as “All Things Considered” as well as podcasts and non-news programming such as “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me.” The new chief content officer position would have effectively created another tier of management over Barnes, who previously reported directly to Lansing.
A highly regarded newspaper editor at the Houston Chronicle and Minneapolis Star Tribune, Barnes took over NPR’s newsgathering operations from an interim manager following the resignation of Michael Oreskes in 2017 amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment.
NPR said it would conduct a search for Barnes’s successor, who will become the fourth person to run NPR’s news operations in the past five years.
For fiscal year 2021, NPR had revenue-after-expenses of $16.9 million — a swing from a deficit of $14.1 million the year before. Officials have indicated that the organization was hit hard by the pandemic, with daily listening and corporate support falling as fewer people listened to news reports while working from home. At one point in mid-2020, NPR imposed unpaid, week-long furloughs on most of its newsroom employees.
Lansing announced the new chief content officer position in a staff memo Friday morning. Barnes announced her resignation that afternoon.
She wrote in an internal memo that there is “increasingly overlap between the news and [non-news] programming divisions” and that she supported Lansing’s decision to add a new chief content officer. She called her departure “bittersweet.”
NPR’s news division currently employs 481 people. The programming division employs an additional 183.
Barnes supervised NPR’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election, the pandemic, social unrest following the murder of George Floyd and the Russian military invasion of Ukraine. She also created a climate desk, a disinformation team and a breaking news investigations team. She said she would remain on the job through the 2022 midterm elections.
NPR won its first Pulitzer Prize under Barnes last year, in audio reporting, for an investigative podcast series called “No Compromise” about gun rights activists. A second NPR-produced series, “Throughline: Soleimani’s Iran,” about the assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, was a finalist for a Pulitzer last year. | 2022-09-24T00:32:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NPR’s news chief announces unexpected departure after four years - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/09/23/barnes-npr-resignation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/09/23/barnes-npr-resignation/ |
Her trilogy set during the time of Henry VIII sold millions of copies and won two Man Booker Prizes
Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize, British novelist Hilary Mantel poses for photographers with her book “Wolf Hall.” (Daniel Deme/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Ms. Mantel had written critically praised historical and contemporary novels to little commercial notice before she became a literary phenomenon in 2009 with “Wolf Hall” and two subsequent novels, “Bring Up the Bodies” (2012) and “The Mirror & the Light” (2020). The books, based on the life of Thomas Cromwell, a key minister to King Henry VIII, were set in an epoch awash in royal intrigue, religious upheaval, ruthless political machination and the brutal treatment of women.
In Cromwell, she found a character who was alternately resourceful, sympathetic and cunning. “Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning,” Ms. Mantel wrote in “Bring Up the Bodies,” “and when you come back that night he’ll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks’ tongues, and all the jailers will owe him money.”
“Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies” won the Man Booker Prize, making Ms. Mantel the first British writer — and the first woman — to win the honor two times. The “Wolf Hall” books have been adapted for a BBC miniseries and as plays produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Reviewing “Wolf Hall” in the Atlantic, writer and critic Christopher Hitchens pronounced it “a historical novel of quite astonishing power. … The means by which Mantel grounds and anchors her action so convincingly in the time she describes, while drawing so easily upon the past and hinting so indirectly at the future, put her in the very first rank of historical novelists.”
Cromwell, a real-life figure with a mysterious, rough-hewed past, had been an adviser to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, a Catholic cleric who had once been close to Henry VIII. Henry broke with the Catholic Church after it refused to grant him an annulment from Catherine of Aragon, the first of his six wives.
Wolsey was ousted, as the opportunistic Cromwell then helped guide Henry through a separation with the Catholic Church. Henry declared himself head of the Church of England, coinciding with the Protestant Reformation then occurring in northern Europe. Cromwell helped arrange some of the king’s later marriages, as Henry hoped to have a male heir to the throne.
The three novels, totaling almost 2,000 pages, proceed through the rest of Henry’s ill-fated marriages — two of his wives were beheaded — and examine the relationships of Cromwell and others surrounding the all-powerful king.
Ms. Mantel, who struggled with poor health and was in pain for much of her life, wrote with an urgency and an awareness of human frailty that gave her novels an added sense of poignancy. She suggested that Henry VIII may have had osteomyelitis, a bone infection of the leg.
“Historians, and, I’m afraid, doctors,” she told the Guardian in 2020, “underestimate what chronic pain can do to sour the temper and wear away both the personality and the intellect.”
Ms. Mantel spent years writing her books, drawing on meticulous historical research. “I cannot describe to you what revulsion it inspires in me when people play around with the facts,” she told the New Yorker in 2012. “If I were to distort something just to make it more convenient or dramatic, I would feel I’d failed as a writer.”
Instead of a dry recitation of 500-year-old facts, her novels were told in the present tense with the hot breath of everyday life. The dialogue crackled with menace, irony and wit, women were vibrant characters, and people of all social classes were caught in the swirl of forces beyond their control.
Besides the high drama of the king and his court, Ms. Mantel chronicled other historical events, including a deadly plague, that echoed through time.
“The warm weather has brought sweating sickness to London,” she wrote in “Wolf Hall,” “and the city is emptying. … This plague came to us in the year 1485. … Now every few years it fills the graveyards. It kills in a day. Merry at breakfast, they say: dead by noon.”
Ms. Mantel makes the plague personal by describing the symptoms of its victims, including Cromwell’s wife and two daughters.
“I’m very keen on the idea that a historical novel should be written pointing forward,” she said in 2009. “Remember that the people you are following didn’t know the end of their own story. So they were going forward day by day, pushed and jostled by circumstances, doing the best they could, but walking in the dark, essentially.”
Hilary Mary Thompson was born July 6, 1952, in Glossop, a town in the northern England county of Derbyshire. Her father was a clerk, and her mother had worked in a textile mill.
When Hilary was a child, her mother took up with a male boarder in their house, Jack Mantel, and her father left the family. Eventually, she, her mother and two younger siblings moved to Chelsea, England, with Mantel. The children took his last name, even though he and Hilary’s mother were not married.
“The story of my childhood is a complicated sentence that I’m always trying to finish, to finish and put behind me,” she wrote in “Giving up the Ghost,” her 2003 memoir. “My childhood ended so, in the autumn of 1963; the past and the future equally obscured by the smoke from my mother’s burning boats.”
After attending Catholic school, Ms. Mantel enrolled at the London School of Economics, hoping to become a lawyer. She transferred to the University of Sheffield, graduating in 1973 and soon marrying a fellow student, Gerald McEwen. She then worked as a social worker and store clerk and battled debilitating headaches, leg pain and other unexplained ailments. Doctors could not diagnose a physical illness and prescribed antidepressants.
She accompanied her husband, a geologist, to Botswana in 1977, and Ms. Mantel taught English and worked on a historical novel set in 18th-century France. A self-described obsessive reader, she also studied medical textbooks and concluded that she suffered from endometriosis, a painful gynecological condition.
At 27, she had surgery that left her, in her words, “minus ovaries, womb, bits of bowel, bits of bladder. Minus a future, as far as having children was concerned.”
Ms. Mantel’s first novel was rejected by publishers, and when her endometriosis returned, she was treated with steroids, causing her to gain a great deal of weight. She and her husband divorced in 1981, then remarried a year later before moving to Saudi Arabia, where they lived until 1986.
While there, Ms. Mantel wrote a pair of novels set in northern England, “Every Day Is Mother’s Day” (1985) and “Vacant Possession” (1986), centering on a toxic mother-daughter relationship. In 1988, Ms. Mantel published “Eight Months on Ghazzah Street,” a novel based on her bleak life in Saudi Arabia, followed a year later by “Fludd,” about religious belief in a northern England community in the 1950s.
During those years, Mr. Mantel wrote film reviews for the Spectator magazine in London and dozens of book reviews. Her earlier novel about the French Revolution, “A Place of Greater Safety,” finally appeared in 1992.
Despite chronic illness, she published three more novels in the 1990s, including the acclaimed “The Giant, O’Brien” (1998), based on the historic story of an Irish giant exhibited as a curiosity and whose death is exploited by a scheming doctor. Ms. Mantel adapted the novel for a BBC play. In 2003, she published a widely praised memoir, “Giving Up the Ghost,” that addressed Ms. Mantel’s physical ailments and her loss of religious faith.
Her final novel before the “Wolf Hall” trilogy was “Beyond Black,” a dark comedy touching on religion, clairvoyance and ghosts.
“Many of my novels, whatever their theme,” Ms. Mantel said, “have a supernatural tinge. Paranoia is their climate, the macabre is always lurking.”
Sometimes blunt and acerbic in her political views, Ms. Mantel was criticized in 2013 for describing Catherine, then Duchess of Cambridge, wife of Britain’s Prince William, as a “shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own.” A year later, Ms. Mantel published a short story, “The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher,” that led some British politicians to call for an investigation. Ms. Mantel pointed out that the story was fictional and, in case, the former British prime minister was already dead.
In addition to her husband, Ms. Mantel’s survivors include a brother.
Ms. Mantel said her lifelong health problems led her to consider writing a form of release, a way of transcending her troubles.
“I have been so mauled by medical procedures,” she wrote in her memoir, “so sabotaged and made over, so thin and so fat that sometimes I feel that each morning it is necessary to write myself into being.” | 2022-09-24T00:32:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hilary Mantel, best-selling author of ‘Wolf Hall’ novels, dies at 70 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/23/hilary-mantel-wolf-hall-novelist-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/23/hilary-mantel-wolf-hall-novelist-dead/ |
GOP candidate jokes about kidnapping plot against Michigan governor
At two campaign events on Sept. 23, Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon, a Republican, made jokes about a plot to kidnap her Democratic opponent. (Go Nakamura/Reuters)
One of the highest-profile domestic terrorism cases in recent memory is now, according to a Trump-backed Republican gubernatorial candidate in Michigan, a punchline.
In 2020, federal officials interrupted a kidnapping plot that targeted Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), leading to criminal charges against six people and convictions for two of them last month. Whitmer’s rival in the November general election referenced the plot Friday, drawing laughter from supporters. Twice.
At one event, the Republican challenger, Tudor Dixon, said, “The sad thing is Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head and ask if you’re ready to talk. For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom.”
A crowd response at a Trump rally created a quandary: What to do about the QAnon song
Dixon drew applause and laughter with the line, according to video posted online by a reporter in attendance. She spoke in while standing in front of a backdrop that read “Michigan Families United,” an organization that says it advocates for “a family-friendly agenda” for the state.
At another event on Friday, Dixon said that when Whitmer appeared with President Biden at an auto show in Detroit recently, her facial expression appeared to say, “I’d rather be kidnapped by the FBI,” CNN reported.
Later, she added: “I think when you’re being attacked every day, you have to have a little levity in things — we can still have fun.”
Dixon made the remarks as she was joined on the campaign trail by former president Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and top adviser Kellyanne Conway. The former president, who endorsed Dixon right before her August primary, will hold a rally with Dixon and other candidates in the state Oct. 1.
Maeve Coyle, a spokeswoman for Whitmer’s campaign, said in a statement, “Threats of violence are no laughing matter,” adding that “the fact that Tudor Dixon thinks it’s a joke shows that she is absolutely unfit to serve in public office.”
The comments come amid a backdrop of growing concerns by Democrats that Republican rhetoric is stoking threats of political violence, particularly against federal officials after a court-ordered search of Trump’s Florida home for classified government documents he stored there.
Even before a mob of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was certifying Biden’s victory in the presidential election, Michigan had seen its top government office overtaken by armed protesters.
In April 2020, Michigan’s Capitol was stormed by protesters with guns who said they wanted the state to lift safety measures put in place during the pandemic. “A handful of them, wearing camouflage fatigues with semiautomatic rifles slung over their shoulders, watched ominously from the gallery above the Senate chamber as the elected officials did their work,” the New York Times reported.
Less than six months later, the FBI charged six men with planning to kidnap Whitmer, and several others with plans to attack law enforcement officials, overthrow the government and ignite a civil war. One person in the group, Adam Fox, spoke about needing “200 men” to storm the Capitol building in Lansing, Mich., and take hostages, including Whitmer, according to prosecutors. Fox said they would try Whitmer for “treason” before the election in November, they said.
Fox and another defendant, Barry Croft Jr., were convicted by a federal jury on two charges of conspiracy, one related to the kidnapping scheme and another to obtain and use a weapon of mass destruction. The men face life in prison.
At the time, Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) condemned the suspects on Twitter, writing: “A threat against our Governor is a threat against us all.”
He added: “We condemn those who plotted against her and our government. They are not patriots.”
A spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association called Dixon’s comments on Friday “dangerous.” He added that the remarks are “utterly disqualifying for the role of Michigan governor.” | 2022-09-24T01:02:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tudor Dixon makes kidnapping joke about Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/dixon-whitmer-kidnapping-joke/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/23/dixon-whitmer-kidnapping-joke/ |
Frogs 40, Admirals 7
Maret football's offense lines up during its 40-7 win over Severn on Friday in Severna Park. (Kyle Melnick/TWP)
“As soon as that happened, it’s like we came to life,” Maret Coach Mike Engelberg said. “It’s like: ‘Wait a second. We’re a football team.’ ”
“That fourth quarter was kind of our awakening,” Engelberg said. “You saw us become a team. Prior to that fourth quarter, we’re all just kind of feeling it out, like, ‘What do we do?’ And then all of a sudden in the fourth quarter … the kids are like, ‘Wait a second — we can do this.’ ”
While Maret’s 46 players are the most in school history, Engelberg recruited many of them from the hallways in the 320-student upper school. Some wanted to join after watching the Frogs (3-1) beat Bell on a game-winning field goal in last year’s D.C. State Athletic Association Class A championship game.
“The entire program is built around patience,” June said, “and coaches saying: ‘Hey, you don’t need any experience to play for this team. We just want people who want to win and people who want to play.’ ”
But Maret proved it is further along. Jensen threw an eight-yard touchdown pass to June on the first play of the fourth quarter to provide the Frogs a 21-7 lead. About a minute later, Maret defensive back Donovan Calhoun intercepted a pass. On the ensuing play, Calhoun caught a screen pass and sprinted down the left sideline for a 50-yard touchdown. | 2022-09-24T02:03:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | With a fourth-quarter ‘awakening,’ Maret football blows past Severn - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/with-fourth-quarter-awakening-maret-football-blows-past-severn/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/with-fourth-quarter-awakening-maret-football-blows-past-severn/ |
The legal dispute could impact the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation
Former president Donald Trump tosses caps to the crowd at a recent rally. (Chris Seward/AP)
Lawyers for former president Donald Trump have entered a high-stakes legal battle seeking to limit the scope of former top White House aides’ testimony to a federal grand jury that is investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 elections, according to people familiar with the matter.
The action sets up a potentially precedent-setting struggle that could affect the Justice Department’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, and address the scope of a former president’s assertion of executive or attorney-client privilege to preserve the confidentiality of advisers’ communications.
The specific contours of the fight, reported first by CNN, are unclear. One person familiar with the matter said that the dispute concerned the testimony of two top aides to former vice president Mike Pence — his former chief of staff, Marc Short, and former counsel, Greg Jacob. The men appeared before the grand jury in July and answered some, but not all, questions, based on Trump’s assertion of privilege, people familiar with the matter said.
Grand jury matters are typically secret. However, the case spilled into light after Trump attorneys M. Evan Corcoran, John P. Rowley III and Timothy C. Parlatore were seen at federal court in Washington on Thursday with no publicly scheduled matters, along with a lead Jan. 6 federal prosecutor, Thomas Windom. A person with knowledge of the matter said Trump’s representatives were present for a Jan. 6-related proceeding.
Trump’s attorneys and a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. said they could not comment on grand jury matters. Efforts to reach representatives for Short or Jacobs were not immediately successful Friday night.
A dispute over executive privilege and compelling a witness’s testimony before a grand jury would typically be heard by Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell in Washington. While Howell has in the past moved quickly, any appeal to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia would probably extend through the end of the year, and the arguments would be unlikely to be made public before then. A spokeswoman for Howell did not respond to a request for comment.
In most fights over executive privilege — which are often between Congress and the executive branch — both sides usually compromise and settle their differences rather than risk a precedent-setting defeat for either branch of government.
But the stakes of the criminal investigation into Trump’s actions during the presidential transition after he lost reelection in November 2020 may make negotiation more difficult.
The Justice Department is questioning witnesses about conversations with Trump, his lawyers and others in his inner circle who sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from some states Joe Biden won, people familiar with the matter have said. Prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021 and his pressure on Pence to overturn the election. Those lines of inquiry are separate from the investigation into classified documents recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home — though that case, too, has produced legal fighting over issues of executive and attorney client privilege.
Both Short and Jacob have unique windows into those events. Both were with Pence on Jan. 6 at the Capitol. They testified with Pence’s approval before a House select committee conducting a parallel investigation, although the former vice president declined to do so himself. Jacob also told the committee that two days before the riot, private Trump attorney John Eastman conceded that the plot to have Pence help overturn the election was illegal.
However, Trump’s legal options to withhold testimony may have been limited by a string of court decisions since Jan. 6. | 2022-09-24T03:35:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump lawyers try to limit Pence aides’ testimony to Jan. 6 grand jury - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/jan6-grand-jury-privilege-fight/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/jan6-grand-jury-privilege-fight/ |
Albert Pujols, in the midst of a magical final season, hits home run No. 700
Albert Pujols returned to the St. Louis Cardinals this season. (Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
Albert Pujols punctuated a magical final season with his 700th career home run Friday night against the Los Angeles Dodgers, a shot that made him just the fourth major league player in history to hit so many.
The 42-year-old rejoined the team with whom he made a name for himself, the St. Louis Cardinals, on a one-year deal this spring. At the time, he had 679 homers. He had only hit 21 in a season once since 2018. By the time MLB named him an all-star to commemorate his stellar career, he had just 685 homers — far enough away that it seemed Pujols would need a stunning revival to make it close. He entered Friday hitting .313 with a 1.034 OPS since.
Pujols, who hit No. 699 earlier in Friday’s game, didn’t need 700 homers to be a surefire Hall of Famer, though he is in the smallest of upper echelons now. Only Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth have more home runs to their name than Pujols. Bonds’s numbers are considered tainted by some, his legacy controversial enough to keep him out of the Hall of Fame.
Only nine players have more hits than Pujols. All of them, with the complicated exception of Pete Rose, are in Cooperstown. Only two players, Ruth and Aaron, have driven in more runs in their careers. He is the most prolific Dominican hitter in baseball history, and the first to cross the 700-homer threshold.
Pujols’s push comes in what was already an emotional season for the Cardinals. Longtime catcher Yadier Molina announced this would be his final season, meaning he and starter Adam Wainwright would also be chasing history together. In September, they made their 325th start together, an all-time record that will not be broken any time soon.
While Wainwright has said he could continue pitching after this season, Cardinals fans have treasured this season as “one last ride” with the three staples of their title-winning 2006 and 2011 squads. Wainwright and Molina stayed in St. Louis their whole careers. Pujols, meanwhile, departed for a ten-year sabbatical in Anaheim — a stint that was not quite as productive as his early Cardinals years.
He made the all-star team nine times in his first stint with the Cardinals and just once as a member of the Angels. He hit 40 homers six times as a member of the Cardinals and just once as a member of the Angels. But whatever might have been in St. Louis likely would have taken more out of Pujols than what did happen in Anaheim. Until this season, Pujols would not have been able to serve as the designated hitter as regularly with a National League team. Who knows how wear and tear and the struggle to keep him at first base might have affected his ability to stay in the game until this season. However winding his path back to Busch Stadium may have been, he made it all the same.
And that path will give him one more chance at a title, as the Cardinals entered Friday in control of the National League Central, likely to host one of four inaugural wild-card series in the first week of October. The three-time MVP has 19 postseason homers in his career, none of which count toward that 700 total. But he doesn’t need anything extra now. The final push is over. He left no room for doubt. | 2022-09-24T03:35:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Albert Pujols hits home run No. 700 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/albert-pujols-home-run-700/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/23/albert-pujols-home-run-700/ |
My sister, who lives out of state and stays in touch with hometown friends, connected me with one of her friends, “Susan,” who needed help with a minor home repair.
Because of her budget constraints, I suggested that we could do the flooring job together. (I was mildly interested in her.) I thought that maybe I creeped her out, because I never heard from her again.
Jill said we couldn’t be together, because it would be a betrayal to Susan.
Jill told me she is going to see other people. I’m a bit disappointed and confused.
Stuck: “Jill’s” interpretation of “girl code” seems to be that if a friend confesses to a case of unexpressed and unrequited love, then Jill must stay away, regardless of her own feelings, impulses or instincts.
Jill might have misreported or exaggerated her friend “Susan’s” feelings for you, but I am going to venture a take on this: that if Jill really wanted to have a second date with you, she would find a way to justify it — especially if the chemistry between you is “amazing.”
You could certainly contact Susan to follow up on her flooring — or other — needs, but you should ask yourself whether you want to invite involvement with someone who is so passive and hard to read.
Theo’s wife, “Teri,” hosted a birthday party for Theo, which is where my husband and I met her. She asked whether we would like to go out socially.
We got together a couple of times, and it wasn’t that enjoyable.
Teri took complete command, such as by ordering the food for the group and controlling the topics we discussed.
It’s not that we dislike them, but we have no interest in going out socially with them!
I have given every social cue there is: not answering calls, not returning texts and breaking plans after she has worn me down to make them in the first place!
My question is: How do I tell someone I’m not interested in being friends without hurting their feelings?
Want Out: “Teri” obviously doesn’t read cues the way most people do, so you’ll have to be honest (but polite) with her. Because of her domineering personality, she might need to have the dynamic and your intentions spelled out.
You could say: “Obviously, our husbands are great friends, but we don’t seem to have great chemistry when we get together as couples. I’m going to back away and let the men continue their special friendship without me.”
I gently brought it up, and I got a very unsatisfying answer.
Moving On: The ability to let go and move on is essential self-care. | 2022-09-24T04:53:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: Date said they can't be together because her friend loves him - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/24/ask-amy-date-friend-love/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/24/ask-amy-date-friend-love/ |
Carolyn Hax: ‘Your family, your responsibility’ means his folks get nothing
Dear Carolyn: My husband and I generally take the path of “your family, your responsibility.” So he handles the details of trips to visit his family, etc., and I handle mine. We have good relationships with them all and this generally works fine.
We now have three nieces and nephews, two on his side and one on mine. The problem is that he consistently forgets the birthdays of our nephews on his side, even with a couple gentle reminders, while I never forget our niece’s on my side. I’m totally happy to help brainstorm ideas, but I don’t want to take on the responsibility of managing his side of the family, including the logistics of ordering and sending gifts. But I also feel bad as they get old enough to notice our lack of gift-giving.
Is this a let-it-go situation or worth bringing up? His sister has never brought it up, but she’s the kind of person who would notice.
— His Nephews, His Problem?
His Nephews, His Problem?: Two choices. One is to leave things alone and let the consequences land where they may. That could include your husband not being close with his nephews. Oh well! And if his sister doesn’t like it, then she can call him out herself, or you, misogynistically, or just roll with it like an adult herself.
(Full disclosure: I raised forgetting birthdays — at random! the worst way — to an art form, and if my sisters and their kids don’t all know that I care about them a ton but don’t make a priority of milestone-marking, and gleefully accept it when they forget my and my kids’ birthdays, then I do see that as my fault for not being clear.)
The other choice is for you to take over the gift-giving, because it’s important to you, and shift something else off your plate to his.
You’ve got a good system and I never ever ever ever want to be responsible for anyone picking up dropped mental-load items for anyone else. But. If leaving it to your husband would amount to making your nephews collateral damage in a chore war, then take over and hand a different chore to your husband. One that either he’s better at getting done or won’t hurt little feelings if not done.
Or, if they’d appreciate money/gift cards, which take +/- 00:00.47, then take it over without an in-kind trade. That’s what a functioning, trust-based, respectful, workload-sharing system allows you to do. Your call.
They are also YOUR nephews, no? You have a relationship with them too, no? You expect to continue to have a relationship with them, no? So … when the current system is failing these people who are also your people in a way that seems wrong to you, then it’s time to sit down and say, “This isn’t working. How can we fix it?” Even if the current system seems theoretically fair. For what it’s worth, I am the social secretary because my husband sucks at it. On the other hand, I haven’t washed a dish or done a load of laundry in two years. Cuz, I kind of suck at being on top of that.
Similar problem with my husband. I created a shared calendar with everyone’s birthdays as recurring events. We both get notifications about two weeks in advance and discuss what to get and who is responsible for buying/sending. Sometimes it’s me, sometimes he does it. | 2022-09-24T04:53:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: 'Your family, your responsibility' = his folks get zip - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/24/carolyn-hax-families-gifts-responsibility/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/24/carolyn-hax-families-gifts-responsibility/ |
Miss Manners: I want my brother to stop insulting our hometown
Dear Miss Manners: My family grew up in a lovely area. I still live here, while my brother and sister-in-law have moved out of state. My brother occasionally reaches out to ask whether they can stay with me for a weekend to attend events and visit family and friends.
I love having company, and I welcome visitors whenever I can. But since moving away, my brother and his wife have taken to making negative comments to me about the state in which we all grew up — about our governor, the traffic, the high cost of living, the weather, you name it — all while staying in my house!
Because your brother grew up in your area, he probably thinks he has free license to insult it — forgetting that his sibling has remained loyal and does not feel the same.
But that does not mean, Miss Manners assures you, that you have to listen. You might say: “I know that you never thought much of our hometown, and I’m so glad you have found a place that suits you better. But I still love it here, and when you disparage it, it makes me feel terrible. I love having you at my house, and it seems as if you like staying here, so perhaps while you’re here, you can find some things that you still like about the place that I still clearly love.”
Then Miss Manners suggests steering the conversation away from the local news.
The desire to connect with all of your guests is commendable, but Miss Manners assures you that no one will expect you to remember all 47 names. The advantage of having so many guests in your home is that it is unlikely that you will have to greet any of them more than once.
Name tags feel a bit businesslike — or like a high school reunion. Should you need to reference anyone, surely your young guest of honor will discreetly come to your aid — or indulge you afterward in a rousing post-party game of, “Which one was the woman with the purple hair and the psychology degree?” | 2022-09-24T04:53:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: I want my brother to stop insulting our hometown - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/24/miss-manners-brother-insults-hometown/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/24/miss-manners-brother-insults-hometown/ |
Foreign vessels, some of them have Chinese flags, fish near Torishima, Japan, on Oct. 31, 2014. A Chinese scientific ship bristling with surveillance equipment docked in a Sri Lankan port. Hundreds of fishing boats anchored for months at a time among disputed islands in the South China Sea. And ocean-going ferries, built to be capable of carrying heavy vehicles and large loads of people. (Kyodo News via AP) (Uncredited/Kyodo News) | 2022-09-24T05:06:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | China using civilian ships to enhance navy capability, reach - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/china-using-civilian-ships-to-enhance-navy-capability-reach/2022/09/24/51147202-3bbf-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/china-using-civilian-ships-to-enhance-navy-capability-reach/2022/09/24/51147202-3bbf-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
LOS ANGELES — St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols hit his 700th home run, connecting for his second drive of the game against the Los Angeles Dodgers and becoming the fourth player to reach the milestone in major league history.
NEW YORK — Aaron Judge was held without a homer for the third straight game, keeping him at 60 for the season and one shy of Roger Maris’ American League record, and the New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox 5-4.
LONDON — Roger Federer wrapped up his superlative professional tennis career at age 41 with a loss in doubles alongside longtime rival Rafael Nadal at the Laver Cup.
DUSSELDORF, Germany — Daichi Kamada scored following Weston McKennie’s giveaway in the 24th minute, Kaoru Mitoma added a goal in the 88th, and Japan beat an lackluster and injury-depleted United States 2-0 in the Americans’ next-to-last World Cup warmup. | 2022-09-24T08:09:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Friday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/fridays-sports-in-brief/2022/09/24/2f5a3520-3bd8-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/fridays-sports-in-brief/2022/09/24/2f5a3520-3bd8-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
Fiona, one of the strongest storms to hit Canada, leaves thousands without power
By Selena Ross
Scott Dance
Jeffery Mosher secures his sloop, Ricochet, to the wharf along the waterfront in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Fiona. (Ted Pritchard/Reuters)
One of the strongest storms ever to hit Canada left hundreds of thousands of people without power early Saturday.
Former Hurricane Fiona’s landfall at the Nova Scotia coastline was “imminent” as of 2 a.m. Saturday, according to the Canadian government’s hurricane tracking center.
The storm was forecast to be so serious that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau postponed a visit to Japan, where he planned to attend Shinzo Abe’s funeral, at the last minute on Friday.
The center also predicted a considerable ocean surge, or storm-driven rise in water above normally dry land, causing coastal flooding. It predicted a “rough and pounding surf” with waves up to 26 to 40 feet (8 to 12 meters).
Ahead of the storm’s arrival, Nova Scotia, home to about 1 million people, was preparing Friday for the worst.
Nova Scotia Power warned of widespread power outages, with trees still in full bloom and soils relatively soft. And the blackouts could be lasting, as crews will wait for winds to calm before they safely begin repairs, said Dave Pickles, the utility’s chief operating officer. | 2022-09-24T08:09:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fiona wallops Canada's Novia Scotia with storm surges expected - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/24/hurricane-fiona-nova-scotia-canada/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/24/hurricane-fiona-nova-scotia-canada/ |
Louise Fletcher holds the Academy Award she won for her leading role in “One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest” in Los Angeles, March 30, 1976. (AP)
Actress Louise Fletcher, best known for playing on-screen villain Nurse Ratched in the 1975 movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” has died age 88.
The movie directed by Milos Forman was adapted from the 1962 novel by Ken Kesey and was received with great critical acclaim, sweeping up Oscar awards for best picture, best director, best actor, best actress and best screenplay in 1976.
Her comeback role in “Thieves Like Us” in 1974 was spotted by director Forman who cast her as the icy nurse that would go on to define her career.
Born Estelle Louise Fletcher on July 22, 1934, in Birmingham, Alabama she was second of four children. Her parents were both deaf and in her Oscar acceptance speech she shocked crowds when she took a moment to sign out part of her speech to her parents. | 2022-09-24T09:19:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Louise Fletcher, ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ actress, dies at 88 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/24/louise-fletcher-death-cuckoos-nest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/24/louise-fletcher-death-cuckoos-nest/ |
LONDON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 19: King Charles III and members of the royal family follow behind the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard with the Imperial State Crown and the Sovereign’s orb and sceptre, as it is carried out of Westminster Abbey after her State Funeral on September 19, 2022 in London, England. Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born in Bruton Street, Mayfair, London on 21 April 1926. She married Prince Philip in 1947 and ascended the throne of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth on 6 February 1952 after the death of her Father, King George VI. Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on September 8, 2022, and is succeeded by her eldest son, King Charles III. (Photo by Danny Lawson - WPA Pool/Getty Images) (Photographer: WPA Pool/Getty Images Europe)
Watched by millions around the world, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II demonstrated the enduring glamor of Britain’s hereditary order. As recession looms, however, and the pound sinks to its lowest in nearly four decades, it is time to ask: Can the monarchy reform fast and radically enough to adapt to an age of social and economic breakdown?
• British Majesty Is a Recent Invention: Adrian Wooldridge
• Beyond Britannia and the Marmite Monarchy: Ben Schott
• Queen’s Funeral Deserved All That Airtime: Jonathan Bernstein | 2022-09-24T09:41:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Reality Is Coming for Britain’s Royals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/reality-is-coming-for-britains-royals/2022/09/24/b1c5d0e4-3bdf-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/reality-is-coming-for-britains-royals/2022/09/24/b1c5d0e4-3bdf-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
Listed at 7 feet 3 and 235 pounds, Kristaps Porzingis says he has lost seven pounds since last season. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Kristaps Porzingis seemed light and breezy as he sat down for his first media day as a Washington Wizard. Ever affable, he opened by joking with a reporter about his new beard. He sounded relaxed; he looked tan. He had spent most of his summer in his native Latvia with family, training and competing with his national team in two FIBA World Cup qualifiers. Before that, there was a month in Spain.
But — and you would be forgiven for not noticing on his 7-foot-3 frame — Porzingis not only seemed lighter, he is lighter. The Wizards’ biggest big man is a teeny bit smaller these days. He lost seven pounds, and he feels the difference.
“The extra weight doesn’t really help me,” Porzingis said. “I need to be strong and that’s how I’ll feel the best.”
Porzingis’s focus heading into his first summer after joining the Wizards at the trade deadline last season was his body. The former all-star played just 51 games last season in part because of a bone bruise in his right knee and hasn’t played more than 57 in a season since 2016-17.
John Wall provides haunting details of his struggles with mental health
Improving his endurance was the primary goal. Porzingis’s game doesn’t require him to be a hulking, physical bruiser, but by getting down to a trim 235 pounds and gaining muscle in his legs, he hopes to be able to stay on the court for a full season and be more mobile on the defensive end.
The Wizards are banking on it as they prepare for a campaign in which the overarching aim is simple, if you ask President and General Manager Tommy Sheppard.
“Just continue to improve,” Sheppard said.
Improvement for the Wizards means not missing the play-in tournament for the second straight year, staying healthy and showing that Bradley Beal and Porzingis can flourish as a core duo.
Porzingis begins his seventh year in the NBA as the third key figure the Wizards have paired with Beal, who signed a five-year, $251 million contract over the summer.
Together, the two are owed $77 million in 2022-23.
Celtics 'standing by' Ime Udoka suspension but decline to provide details
Coach Wes Unseld Jr. said Tuesday the 27-year-old Latvian is beginning the season playing without restrictions — gone are the minute caps and the need to sit out the second half of back-to-back games that Porzingis dealt with last season as he recovered from his knee injury.
Now the question is about the chemistry between Porzingis and Beal. The pair never shared the court last season because Beal was rehabbing an injured wrist by the time Porzingis arrived. Over the summer, Porzingis was in Europe and Beal began working out in late July or early August. Beal spent his offseason welcoming his third son and recovering from torn ligaments in his wrist.
They have played together in “three or four pickup games,” Porzingis said Friday. The rest will be figured out as the season unfolds.
“He’s dangerous. He’s dangerous, man,” Beal said, offering his first impressions of Porzingis. “I’m jealous I’m not 7-3. I’m a whole foot shorter, but I’m excited. Because he’s a specimen. He’s probably the best big I’ll play with in my career — to see his size, his versatility, his ability to stretch the floor, spread the floor. His ability to pass is underrated. And his defensive capabilities are underrated, too; he’s another guy I think had a false narrative about him. I think he’ll prove a lot of people wrong. I’m excited to see.”
Playing Porzingis alongside Beal gives the Wizards the opportunity to stretch the court with a guard who can drive and a big capable of shooting three-pointers. Both Kyle Kuzma and Beal mentioned Porzingis’s passing ability as an added bonus.
“It’s one thing to play against somebody and prepare for them, but to see them every day and watch how they move on your side of the ball, it’s been a pleasant surprise,” Kuzma said.
Porzingis was competing with the Latvian national team when the Wizards held a minicamp in Los Angeles toward the end of the summer. He and Deni Avdija, who was competing with the Israeli national team, were the only two players missing — 14 others, including the six new faces Washington welcomed this offseason — volunteered to participate in the team-bonding event.
“Every night we had guys doing something together as a team. That’s the most important thing,” said Kuzma, a former Laker. “Me playing on a championship team, I just remember everybody being cool, everybody being together at all types of times, though day and night.”
If he felt he missed out, Porzingis didn’t mention it Friday. His goal for the season is to exceed expectations both for the Wizards and himself.
He landed at No. 86 in ESPN’s series of the top 100 players in the league ahead of the season, and it rankled him. The Wizards are expected to be in the realm of a play-in tournament team again — depending on how Beal and Porzingis mesh.
“Especially this year, I’m coming in with a chip on my shoulder because of the ESPN rank, the this, that, it’s kind of — okay,” Porzingis said. “I use it as gasoline, as energy. I’m looking forward to reminding everybody what I can do on both ends of the floor.” | 2022-09-24T09:41:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wizards’ Kristaps Porzingis is leaner — and starts year without limitations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/wizards-kristaps-porzingis-bradley-beal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/wizards-kristaps-porzingis-bradley-beal/ |
The two are widely seen in the Republican Party as potential rivals for the 2024 presidential nomination and public contrasts and behind-the-scenes tensions have already erupted
Former president Donald Trump, left, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis each spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando last February. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
At a recent gathering DeSantis had with a few dozen donors in Arizona, “everyone asked him about 2024,” according to Don Tapia, a donor who attended and who served as an ambassador in the Trump administration. DeSantis, Tapia said, “is building a base with the Trump people," but, “right now the Republican base is Donald Trump’s base.” | 2022-09-24T10:28:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump and DeSantis: Once allies, now in simmering rivalry with 2024 nearing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/24/desantis-trump-2024/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/24/desantis-trump-2024/ |
Biden says the pandemic is over — and when it comes to casinos, concerts and cosmetic procedures, Americans seem to agree. For theater, therapy and funerals though, not so much.
By Marc Fisher
Taylor Telford
OCEAN CITY, MARYLAND - AUGUST 27: Visitors enjoy their time at Seacrets, a Jamaican-style waterfront bar & restaurant, in Ocean City, MD on August 27, 2022. (Shuran Huang for The Washington Post)
CarLa Bryant’s family reunion would have celebrated its 46th straight meeting this year, but there will be no such gathering of the generations. Too many of Bryant’s older relatives are still not ready to travel again.
“I’m not around too many people yet,” relatives told Bryant, 56, who lives in Prince William County and works for the Fairfax County government.
Eleven hundred miles away, in Fort Smith, Ark., Terry Davis, a 71-year-old retired Safeway manager, made his family’s reunion a priority. Although last year’s event was canceled because “we didn’t want to put the older people at risk,” this year, “people were adamant: ‘I’m not afraid, I’m coming,’ ” he said. “We’ve kind of gone on with normal life, especially things that are important to us.”
Two-and-a-half years into the coronavirus’s deadly spread, after nearly all government-imposed restrictions have been lifted, as many businesses urge or require workers to come back to their offices, President Biden declared last week that “the pandemic is over.” Yet even as the passion to get back to normal overrides years of caution, many Americans remain conflicted and confounded about what activities are safe.
Americans are coming out of the pandemic in the same kind of dynamic disarray that marked its beginning, with a crazyquilt of contradictory decisions about how to spend their discretionary time and money: Americans are flying again, but they’re not too keen on getting back aboard buses, subways and other public transit. Concert tickets are being snapped up, but theater tickets, not so much. In-person visits to medical doctors have returned to pre-pandemic levels, but mental health counseling remains overwhelmingly virtual.
The blizzard of decisions each person must make — even as the coronavirus remains highly contagious, although without nearly the severe or deadly effects it had in 2020 — can seem blinding:
“I just don’t know,” Bryant said. “I’ve had very few people at my house. This whole topic of remote work has pushed us all farther away from each other. I want our family reunion to get back to normal. I try to do things again: I went to my first movie with friends” — “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” — “but that felt weird. I had a bit of anxiety and I haven’t done it again.”
Bryant masks up when she goes to crowded places, but she has gone to three funerals and a baby shower recently and didn’t regret it, though she did find herself edging into a corner, away from other people.
Almost two-thirds of Americans now believe there is little or no risk in returning to their pre-pandemic lives, and 46 percent of them say they have already done so — the highest level yet recorded in an Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index survey conducted in mid-September.
Even though there are still about 400 covid deaths each week, many Americans have, like Davis, decided to return to activities that feed their souls or help them feel like they’re back in the world again. For family reunions, 2020’s mass cancellations and Zoom gatherings were followed by scotched plans in 2021, and this year by a surge of reunions back to pre-pandemic levels, many fully in-person, but many featuring online elements, said Edith Wagner, editor of Reunions magazine.
“There’s just far fewer hugs online, and that’s driving people back to seeing each other in person, even if they’re still apprehensive,” Wagner said.
As they choose which activities to resume, people’s priorities have varied, resulting in an economic and social hodgepodge — a country still in flux and a comeback that remains spotty.
This year, the pop, rock, hip-hop, country and other concerts put on by Live Nation Entertainment, the country’s largest concert producer, are attracting the biggest audiences it’s ever seen, more than 20 percent over 2019’s attendance, according to company data. Through this July, Live Nation had sold more than 100 million tickets, compared to 74 million during the same months of 2019, said Joe Berchtold, the company’s president.
“Everybody’s returned to pre-pandemic levels, across all venues, from small clubs to stadiums and festivals,” he said. That’s true across the concert industry, according to Pollstar, which collects box-office data nationwide. The average number of tickets sold per show jumped above 2019 levels in the first half of this year, the data showed.
But among theaters, symphonies and other arts groups, many of which appeal to an older audience, the number of tickets sold this year is down by 32 percent compared to 2019, said Eric Nelson, who analyzes research for TRG Arts, a consultancy that tracks how more than 140 arts organizations in the United States and Canada fared through the pandemic. On Broadway, the total audience was less than half the size last season as in the season before the pandemic. This fall, to appeal to older patrons concerned that theaters had lifted mask mandates, some theaters added back weekly mask-required performances.
One million covid deaths: visualizing 114 lives, cut short
“In places that never shut down or never had mask mandates, people are more willing to come back faster,” Nelson said. “Some of those people never broke the habit, while in other parts of the country, they had long periods at home and baking banana bread replaced going out for the evening.”
At the movies, there are plenty of seats to choose from, as fewer than half of Americans and Canadians attended an in-person movie last year, according to a Motion Picture Association report. Theaters have tried to lure fans back by tearing out some seats to make room for big recliners, as well as adding food and alcohol options in many locations. But “it just takes time to get back,” said Patrick Corcoran, vice president of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO).
For now, the movies themselves aren’t back. The country lost about 1,000 screens in the pandemic, but half of those were sold and have reopened, Corcoran said. More than 40,000 big screens remain, according to NATO, but hefty production delays wrought by the pandemic contributed to a sharp drop in releases of both blockbusters and smaller films.
Americans want to be entertained, but the pandemic made staying home a more robust competitor to going out. “In any given year, only 20 percent of the population is going to go to a concert,” Berchtold said. “Those who want to go are going. People are getting back to their lives.”
“The demand for in-person events isn’t back to 2019, but it’s strong and growing,” said Amy Calvert, the council’s chief executive. “There’s almost this euphoria: People are so glad to see each other.” Convention organizers are catering to lingering anxiety about big crowds by adding outdoor sessions where participants walk and talk, smaller meetings, and free time for people to meet one-on-one.
Weddings are crowded, but not funerals
In Las Vegas, the return of tourists lifted the nation’s gambling mecca to record business — the same trend seen at casinos around the country: This year is on track to set a record for commercial gaming revenue for the second-straight year, according to the American Gaming Association. In the first half of 2022, total casino revenue exceeded $29 billion, nearly an 18 percent year-over-year increase.
Cremations now outnumber burials nationwide, with 59 percent of families choosing the less expensive option so far this year, the National Funeral Directors Association said. The trend toward cremation was well underway pre-pandemic, but it accelerated as families looked to save money or avoid travel, funeral directors said.
“Our family culture is changing fast, and the difficulty of traveling in the pandemic made that much more obvious,” said Walker Posey, who owns Posey Funeral Directors in North Augusta, S.C. “More folks are just divided. We get families who haven’t spoken to each other in years, and they don’t know if a sibling or parent is alive, so they’re not necessarily coming together in grief.”
Although many people, especially older folks, chose to stay home and watch services on a computer during the most intense phases of the pandemic, increasingly they are coming to Posey’s funeral home. “It’s very healthy for them,” he said. “When they couldn’t come together because of the pandemic, there was a lot of friction. You’d hear people make remarks about masks. It was a hot topic. But people are setting those differences aside.”
Davis, the Arkansas retiree whose family reunions resumed this summer, is glad he made attending a relative’s funeral a top priority. It’s time to put family and social connections first, he said, so he’s back to going to his doctors and attending church services, funerals and reunions.
There’s no clear pattern when it comes to which families resumed reunions this year, said Suzanne Vargus Holloman, co-director of the Family Reunion Institute. Holloman’s family scratched their event this summer, but her husband’s proceeded, drawing about 100 people in Columbia, S.C., about as big a crowd as they had had pre-pandemic.
“People all have to make their own risk calculations,” she said, “but when it’s for family, they tend to prioritize it.”
Much of the nation’s shopping shifted online, and the road back for bricks-and-mortar stores has been rough. Visits to indoor malls dropped 4.3 percent in August compared to the previous year, and they were down 2.3 percent at outdoor shopping complexes, according to data collected by the Placer.ai Mall Index, which tracks the locations of 30 million internet-connected devices. The picture was even worse for in-person visits to clothing stores (down 10.1 percent) and department stores (down 11.3 percent).
People have been heading back to restaurants, but “several habits that consumers picked up during the pandemic haven’t reverted back to where they were pre-pandemic,” said Vanessa Sink, a spokeswoman for the National Restaurant Association. Before covid, about 63 percent of restaurants’ business took place outside their dining rooms — takeout, delivery and drive-through. That figure soared to about 90 percent at the height of the pandemic.
In recent months, the reluctance to eat at restaurants has diminished, but not by a lot: The off-premises share of the business has dropped to about 80 percent, still well above pre-pandemic levels, Sink said.
Returning to fields, but not gyms
At gyms, tracks, fields and other places where Americans get physical, “everything stopped in March 2020,” said Tom Cove, president of the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, which tracks youth and adult participation. But fairly quickly, people returned to activities that let them remain apart from each other. Participation soared between 2020 and 2022 in pickleball (up 39 percent), skateboarding (32 percent), tennis (28 percent) and golf (25 percent).
The only team sport to maintain heavy participation through the pandemic was basketball, Cove said, because it’s often played outdoors and informally, one-on-one or with close family members.
“Georgia baseball teams lost maybe a couple of games,” Cove said, “while in California and New York, you lost a season and a half in many places.” Even when leagues have resumed play, it’s often with fewer teams and fewer games, as leagues have lost referees and coaches; some because they’re older and wanted to avoid covid risk, and some because “people are abusing officials more and they’re, like, ‘For $50 and a risk of getting covid, I don’t need it,’ ” he said.
The thirst to get back to youth sports is palpable, Cove said: “Kids missed being with their friends, and team sports provides that. But people have changed. Parents say, ‘Hey, we discovered we like having the family come together for dinner, so maybe we’re not traveling for sports five nights a week.’ ”
Spectator sports, though not yet at pre-pandemic attendance levels, this year made strong progress toward that goal. Major League Baseball has seen attendance jump by more than two-thirds over last year, up to more than 90 percent of 2019 numbers, MLB data shows.
What hasn’t yet come back is fitness clubs, which show “the slowest return of anything we track,” Cove said. The top seven activities Americans have pulled away from all took place in clubs, starting with stationary cycling (down 40 percent), cross-training workouts (28 percent) and cardio kickboxing (27 percent.)
Some Americans haven’t gone back because they belonged to facilities near their workplace and they no longer commute. In other instances, their clubs are simply gone — about 1 in 5 did not survive the pandemic, Cove found.
Some doctors’ visits remain virtual
Before the pandemic, the fitness club was Rose Betts’ stress reliever. A 61-year-old nurse at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, she hit the gym three or four nights a week, working out, doing weight training. She hasn’t been back since 2020.
“I don’t know if I have enough faith in people to know that they’re actually going to wipe down the equipment,” Betts said. Fearful of monkeypox and covid, she still wears a mask everywhere and only dines at restaurants outside.
“I have things I like to maintain,” Betts said. She swears her last procedure — she had skin around her neck lifted and contoured earlier this month — made her look 10 years younger.
“I run into people and they’re like, ‘Oh, you don’t look 61!’” Betts said. “And I’m sitting here thinking to myself, ‘Yeah, if you only knew.’ People spend their money on new cars, and it makes them feel good. I spend my money on a little nip, tuck, inject, and it makes me feel better.”
Full calendars at many plastic surgeons’ offices reflect a nationwide boost in optional medical procedures. More than three-quarters of plastic surgeons report being busier now than in 2019, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. The group’s survey said Americans are seeking to counter aging effects from pandemic stress and to fix up their looks before returning to in-person interaction.
“People didn’t like the way they looked on Zoom,” said Okoro, 52, a plastic surgeon in Marietta, Ga., whose practice’s revenue more than doubled between 2020 and 2021 as he did more Botox jobs, neck contouring and tummy tucks. He’s seeing more younger patients and more men.
Demand for surgery has been “mind-bogglingly explosive,” said Bob Basu, a plastic surgeon in Houston and a vice president of the plastic surgeons group’s board. His practice is enjoying its 29th-straight month of year-over-year growth, he said, drawing not just the well-to-do, but patients who considered the pandemic a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform themselves while out of the public eye. “Mommy makeovers” — targeting tummies, breasts and other body areas affected by motherhood — have been huge.
“Americans feel like it’s okay to say, ‘Hey, I want to do something for myself,’ ” Basu said.
Across medical specialties, Americans are returning to their doctors’ offices, according to insurance industry claims data. Telehealth visits — by video or phone — soared from 0.16 percent of all visits in spring 2019 to 7 percent of claims a year later, according to FAIR Health, which manages a large database of insurance claims.
“Patients seem to be demanding more telehealth than face-to-face meetings,” said Vaile Wright, the American Psychological Association’s senior director for health-care innovations. Often, it’s the therapist or counselor who wants to keep the visits remote. “There are fewer no-shows with telehealth, and that’s your only source of revenue, so there’s a financial incentive,” she said. That incentive could disappear if insurers revert to pre-pandemic policies and cover telehealth visits at a lower rate or only in limited circumstances.
But even therapists who like the convenience of online care say something is missing when they can’t see patients in person: “You do lose some of the nonverbal — the foot-tapping, the fidgeting, the behaviors that can be revealing,” Wright said. “You can’t take a patient outside for a walk on a telehealth visit.”
Jaclyn Peiser and Scott Clement contributed to this report. | 2022-09-24T11:12:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Is the pandemic over? Americans are torn. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/24/is-the-pandemic-over/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/24/is-the-pandemic-over/ |
The 1964 painting “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” by Andy Warhol, shown in Christie's showroom in New York City on May 8, sold for more than $195 million, becoming the most expensive 20th-century artwork to sell at auction. (Ted Shaffrey/AP)
“MARILYN MONROE DIES; PILLS BLAMED”
That was the front-page headline on an Aug. 6, 1962, Los Angeles Times story that began, “Marilyn Monroe, a troubled beauty who failed to find happiness as Hollywood’s brightest star, was discovered dead in her Brentwood home of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills Sunday.”
More than 60 years after her death at age 36, the “blonde bombshell” is as much of a sensation as she ever was.
The longevity is fueled in part by bizarre speculation that the actress was murdered, with suspects ranging from the Kennedys and the CIA to Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa and the Mafia. But mainly Marilyn Monroe’s sex appeal has lasting commercial appeal, as capsulized by a 1973 headline in the Ithaca (N.Y.) Journal: “MM: Still Making Money.”
FBI searches a landfill for Jimmy Hoffa in latest attempt to solve decades-old mystery
Just this year, Andy Warhol’s silk-screen portrait “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” sold for more than $195 million at Christie’s, a record for a 20th-century artwork sold at auction. On Wednesday, Netflix will release a widely anticipated film about Monroe, “Blonde,” based on a 2000 novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates. The closest equivalence to the Marilyn phenomenon is the adulation for Britain’s Princess Diana 25 years after she died in a car crash.
Monroe never was nominated for an Academy Award, but she was the most famous actress in the world. She grew up as Norma Jeane Mortenson (and later Norma Jeane Baker) in Los Angeles-area orphanages and foster homes. She dropped out of high school and soon became a photo model, first as a brunette then as a bleached blonde. In 1946, at age 20, she signed a movie contract with 20th Century Fox, which changed her name to Marilyn Monroe. (Monroe was the maiden name of her mother, who was in a mental institution.)
By 1953, the curvaceous actress was a worldwide sex symbol, starring in the musical comedies “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “How to Marry a Millionaire.” Already others were cashing in on her fame. In December 1953, Hugh Hefner published his first Playboy magazine with a photo of Monroe on the cover and a calendar photo inside of a nude Marilyn against a red velvet curtain. Hefner paid a photographer $500 for the calendar photo, equal to about $5,500 today. Monroe was paid nothing. “I never even received a thank-you from all those who made millions off a nude Marilyn photograph,” she said, according to the 1995 book “Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words” by photographer George Barris.
Monroe’s private life was less successful. In 1942, at age 16, she married the boy next door; they divorced four years later. In 1954, she wed retired New York Yankees star Joe DiMaggio and divorced him nine months later. Her 1956 marriage to playwright Arthur Miller ended in divorce in 1961.
That year, Monroe became enamored with new President John F. Kennedy, and the feeling was mutual. According to numerous biographies, they spent a night together at the Palm Springs, Calif., home of singer Bing Crosby. In May 1962, the actress created a sensation at Madison Square Garden when she sang a sultry “Happy Birthday” to Kennedy while wearing a dress so tight it had to be sewed on. “I can now retire from politics,” JFK quipped. (This year, Kim Kardashian caused a stir at a Metropolitan Museum of Art gala by wearing the Monroe dress, which she borrowed from Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum. Ripley’s purchased the dress in 2016 for $4.8 million.)
By early 1962, Monroe had begun taking prescription drugs to cope with anxiety. In June, 20th Century Fox suspended her from the filming of “Something’s Got to Give” after she kept missing work. She stayed secluded in her Spanish-style home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. That’s where, in the early morning of Aug. 5, her psychiatrist found the dead actress “nude, lying face down on her bed clutching a telephone receiver in her hand,” an empty pill bottle nearby, the Los Angeles Times reported. The county coroner ruled her death “a probable suicide.”
Monroe was buried in a crypt in Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles. But her legend lived on. In 1973, Newsday reported a “resurgence of interest” in Monroe. “By mid-October the shelves of department stores and gift shops throughout the country will be stocked with Marilyn Monroe jigsaw puzzles,” playing cards, date books and calendars, Newsday wrote, adding, “From Paris came word that ‘the Marilyn Monroe look’ — tight skirts, tight sweaters, high heels — is back in vogue.” Said a former Monroe publicist: “Everyone who can make a buck off Marilyn’s memory is trying to do it.”
Everybody from Monroe’s housekeeper to novelist Norman Mailer wrote books about the star. In his best-selling 1973 book, “Marilyn: A Biography,” Mailer included previously published claims that Monroe had an affair with married Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and was murdered by the CIA. In a TV interview with Mike Wallace, Mailer admitted he didn’t believe the speculation but included it to sell books because “I needed money very badly.”
By 1982, Monroe was more popular than ever, the Associated Press reported. That year, she appeared on the cover of Life magazine for the 19th time, more than any other movie star. “Monroe’s estate is still earning thousands of dollars by licensing the late Hollywood star’s image,” the AP reported, noting that an opera titled “Marilyn” was “among the most successful attractions in Italy during the 1982 season.”
Monroe murder theories continued to surface that year. One was that Teamsters leader Hoffa had the actress killed out of revenge for Robert Kennedy’s investigations of him. Los Angeles County District Attorney John Van de Kamp ordered a new autopsy on Monroe’s body. His office concluded there was “no credible evidence supporting a murder theory.” Van de Kamp expressed “the faint hope that Marilyn Monroe be permitted to rest in peace.”
CIA may have used contractor who inspired ‘Mission: Impossible’ to kill RFK, book alleges
But the rumors raged on. A 2017 documentary, “Unacknowledged,” claimed Monroe was murdered because she threatened to reveal classified information proving the existence of space aliens.
The Monroe legend has thrived mainly on her made-in-Hollywood sex image. “Forty years after her death,” the Hartford Courant reported in 2002, “Monroe is still Hollywood’s most successful invention, its most instantly recognized product.” When Playboy founder Hefner died in 2017, he was buried at Westwood cemetery next to Monroe in a crypt he had purchased in 1992 for $75,000, about $160,000 now. Hefner had said, “Spending eternity next to Marilyn is too sweet to pass up,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
More than a dozen films have been made about Monroe. Netflix promotes its new movie “Blonde,” starring Ana de Armas, as “a boldly reimagined fictional portrait” of the Hollywood legend. The movie is rated NC-17 because of graphic “sexual content.” Despite her sex-symbol image, Monroe’s films rarely ventured beyond what today would be PG-13 territory. In a 1962 interview, she expressed surprise she could show her navel in a movie for the first time in “Something’s Got to Give.” “I guess the censors are willing to recognize that everyone has a navel,” she said.
Six decades after her death, Monroe’s image still rakes in big box-office dollars. Yet the real-life Monroe remains mysterious. In the book by photographer Barris, she is quoted as saying two months before her death: “I’m not the girl next door — I’m not a goody-goody — but I think I’m human. As far as I’m concerned, the happiest time of my life is now. There’s a future, and I can’t wait to get to it. It should be interesting.”
More on film history
‘Top Gun,’ brought to you by the U.S. military
JFK’s secret weapon in the Cold War: James Bond
In 1973, ‘Soylent Green’ envisioned the world in 2022. It got a lot right. | 2022-09-24T11:12:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Marilyn Monroe's fame grew after her death fueled conspiracy theories - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/24/marilyn-monroe-fame-death-blonde/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/24/marilyn-monroe-fame-death-blonde/ |
We’re focusing on the wrong part of the FBI’s Trump investigation
While legal maneuvering and rulings in Trump’s favor have garnered attention, a counterintelligence investigation may matter more.
Perspective by Stephen M. Underhill
Stephen M. Underhill is professor & chair of the department of communication studies at Marshall University. He is author of "The Manufacture of Consent: J. Edgar Hoover and the Rhetorical Rise of the FBI" (MSU Press, 2020).
This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and partially redacted by the source, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 FBI search of former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. (Department of Justice/AP) (AP)
On Wednesday night, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit issued a partial stay of District Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling granting Donald Trump a special master to review the 11,000 documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago home by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The ruling exempts classified documents from Special Master Raymond Dearie’s review for now, and allows a criminal investigation pertaining to them to proceed.
The legal community, including many on the right, has been baffled by Cannon’s rulings in the case. Even Trump’s former attorney general, William P. Barr, called them “deeply flawed.” On the left, many have questioned Cannon’s independence because Trump appointed her, and she is presiding over a case that he is actively trying to discredit.
If history is precedent, however, all of this legal wrangling may be moot because there is another component to the FBI’s investigation of Trump’s storage of documents: a counterintelligence operation, which is a whole different matter. The FBI’s Counterintelligence Program is responsible for “exposing, preventing, and investigating intelligence activities in the U.S.” that threaten “the nation’s critical assets,” and keeping “weapons of mass destruction from falling into the wrong hands.” Historically, this mission has been of utmost importance and justified the FBI using highly aggressive, secretive and sometimes unlawful tactics.
This history indicates that it is the counterintelligence element of the FBI’s investigation into Trump that could pose the most risk for the former president, especially because it is the part where the courts will be least likely to know what the bureau is doing and least likely to limit what it can do.
J. Edgar Hoover — the first FBI director and the man who led the bureau for nearly a half-century — epitomized the way the FBI deployed espionage-like tactics in its counterintelligence program. Hoover learned the art of such tactics in conjunction with fascist European police forces before World War II.
In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt hitched the New Deal to Hoover’s celebrity reputation to rebuff conservative critics. The FBI could chase bank robbers and kidnappers across stateliness, it was equipped with fast cars, fast guns and radios. It had links to Hollywood studios and New York publishers. Hunting outlaws like “Baby Face” Nelson, “Machine Gun” Kelly and “Pretty Boy” Floyd mesmerized audiences about the power of Roosevelt, Hoover and the New Deal.
Meanwhile, below the radar, Hoover forged relationships with anti-communist police societies like the International Criminal Police Commission, which was taken over by Nazi Party officials in 1935. Hoover sent FBI delegates to Berlin in 1939 to learn what the ICPC described as “repressive and preventive measures against actions preparatory to crimes and other dangerous conduct showing criminal intentions.”
Roosevelt authorized Hoover to transform the FBI into a counterintelligence agency — but he presumed Hoover was anti-fascist and would target Nazi and Japanese sympathizers. Instead, the conservative Hoover wanted to stop American “Communists,” a label he applied broadly to the liberals crusading for an expanded federal government that offered a social safety net.
Hoover hid his disdain for the New Deal under the popular Roosevelt, sensing a battle he couldn’t win. But after Roosevelt died in 1945, Hoover began attacking its ideology, institutions, workforce and beneficiaries. Hoover and the new president, Harry S. Truman, already had an adversarial relationship, and whispers soon swirled around Washington that Truman was going to downsize the bureau and fire Hoover.
Hoover retorted that any attempt to remove him from office was an international Communist conspiracy to weaken U.S. defenses as part of a Soviet attack. In the burgeoning Cold War climate, this was a potent claim — one that protected Hoover’s job.
The contention fit with Hoover’s broader tactics in this era. In 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act, which made the FBI responsible for protecting nuclear secrets and empowered the bureau to remain a counterintelligence agency even with World War II in the past. Hoover used this authority to help foment the “Red Scare,” which mixed the actual problem of nuclear espionage with fearmongering that the New Deal sheltered traitors who wanted to weaken the FBI.
Beginning in 1956, Hoover went even further tactically, launching an operation called COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) that combined vast amounts of surveillance, blackmail, propaganda and violence. He valued dirty secrets about his adversaries and their loved ones that he could use to silence dissent.
Assistant Director William Sullivan oversaw COINTELPRO and later wrote in his memoirs that the moment Hoover got dirt on a senator, he sent an emissary to Capitol Hill to make sure the senator knew that the bureau had “by chance happened to come up with this data on your daughter.” Hoover wanted the senator to know this, because “from that time on, the senator’s right in his pocket.”
When illegal surveillance discovered criminal activity, agents passed it to the Department of Justice’s criminal division for prosecution. Other times, however, Hoover’s agents resorted to manufacturing such evidence.
COINTELPRO targeted not only politicians and activists, like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., but also the organizations and social movements to which they belonged. Over the 15 years of its existence, it focused on the Women’s Liberation Movement, Communist Party USA, anti-Vietnam War organizations, environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement, Chicano and Mexican American groups, Puerto Rican independence groups and the civil rights and Black Power movements, especially their leadership. While COINTELPRO mostly focused on groups on the left, it did also investigate far-right groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the National States’ Rights Party.
COINTELPRO could have a devastating impact on organizations. FBI records for “COINTELPRO — BLACK HATE” directed agents to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist hate type organizations.” Accordingly, the FBI planted inflammatory material on organizational members to sow division. The FBI also used coercive tactics to turn friends and allies against each other. Other common COINTELPRO tactics included perjury, witness harassment, witness intimidation and the withholding of exculpatory evidence.
COINTELPRO was the state’s response to the civil rights movement and accelerated with the tumult of the 1960s as Cold War fears about subversives continued to swirl. The program was exposed in 1971 by a group of concerned citizens calling themselves the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI. The commission burgled an FBI field office in Media, Pa., and passed secret documents to news agencies. Sordid revelations about the program caused an uproar, prompting its demise. But in its 15 years, it had a major impact on American politics and society, exposing how far secretive counterintelligence operations could go without arousing scrutiny.
Counterintelligence programs peak at times of heightened concern about nuclear espionage and nuclear war. The recent deterioration in the relationship between Russia and the United States and the tensions between China and the U.S., as well as the unusual activities at Mar-a-Lago, are reminiscent of conditions that gave rise to COINTELPRO.
Trump’s efforts to delay and discredit the DOJ’s criminal case may slow the work of federal prosecutors. Cannon’s rulings may lend him support. But this probably won’t slow the counterintelligence work being done to ascertain what damage — if any — Trump’s storage of documents posed. If the FBI has evidence of espionage, U.S. politics may be on the cusp of transformation. While times have changed, one thing remains true: Americans and politicians are willing to countenance aggressive tactics in the name of national security in times of fear. | 2022-09-24T11:13:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | We’re focusing on the wrong part of the FBI’s Trump investigation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/24/were-focusing-wrong-part-fbis-trump-investigation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/24/were-focusing-wrong-part-fbis-trump-investigation/ |
The Capitol dome in D.C. on Aug. 12. (Susan Walsh/AP)
The bad news about Electoral Count Act reform is that the tiny number of Republicans who voted for the effort in the House of Representatives are all on their way out next year, either because they’re retiring or because right-wing challengers defeated them in their primaries. The good news is that the Senate version of the legislation to bolster the rickety 1887 law that lays out procedures for counting and certifying votes in a presidential election has secured 10 GOP co-sponsors, the magic number to overcome a filibuster. The finish line is in sight. Now, to protect our democracy’s foundations, Congress must prioritize passing something over passing something perfect.
The stakes of fixing the ECA become more obvious every day as election deniers secure slots on ballots nationwide — some for high office such as governor, and some for lower-profile local roles such as county clerk that nonetheless have the power to manipulate elections. The New Yorker recently documented a right-wing campaign to install believers in Donald Trump’s “big lie” as secretaries of state across the country; an analysis by The Post found that a dozen Republican candidates in key battleground races refused to commit to accepting the results of their elections, including some who declined to respond.
Thankfully, there’s plenty of room to improve the Electoral Count Reform Act drafted by the group led by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) without dooming it, and a Rules Committee markup will be underway soon to do just that. Some of those improvements could surely come from the Presidential Election Reform Act that Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), both involved in the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, introduced this month — and that just passed. That bill would require a greater proportion of legislators, one-third rather than one-fifth, to support objections to a slate of electors. The proposal also would eliminate archaic and confusing language allowing for challenges based on a vote’s not having been “regularly given.” Finally, it would set a more generous timeline for litigation over electoral vote certification.
Other differences between the two bills are just that: different. Both would point Congress toward a single “conclusive” slate of electors submitted by a state’s governor, and both account for the possibility of a so-called rogue governor submitting an unlawful slate — but in conflicting ways. Some experts in the area prefer the Cheney-Lofgren approach of having a judge designate a new official to certify the count; others prefer the Manchin-Collins tactic of asking the courts to decide directly. The same goes for the question of whether states ought to be allowed to determine what events qualify as “catastrophic” for the purposes of delaying an election, or whether federal legislators should take it upon themselves to enumerate categories that meet the standard. Neither answer is obviously superior to the other.
What is obvious, however, is political reality. Congress must pass a bill that can beat the filibuster in the Senate, and the lining up of co-sponsors proves the compromise the chamber struck this summer is the best bet. Senators must devote their efforts to bringing on board what they’ve learned, including from their colleagues across Capitol Hill, to enhance that proposal even further — doing all they can do, and accepting what they can’t. | 2022-09-24T11:13:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Electoral Count Act reform must be completed - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/24/congress-finish-electoral-count-act-reform/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/24/congress-finish-electoral-count-act-reform/ |
Riders aboard a Metro train in D.C. in October 2021. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
A few weeks ago, a gunman involved in an altercation at L’Enfant Plaza Metro station fired a single shot on the Green and Yellow line platform. An innocent bystander was injured. Now, let’s extrapolate.
Imagine the potential carnage if someone at rush hour opens fire inside a crowded Metro car, where 120 people might be crammed cheek by jowl. Imagine they pull the trigger repeatedly. In the enclosed-space chaos that would ensue at the sight of a gun or the sound of a shot, how many passengers would be hurt either by bullets or by people tripping, diving and trampling?
The nightmare scenarios are too numerous to count, which is why D.C. forbids passengers from carrying handguns aboard railcars and other public transportation vehicles. So does Amtrak, which requires that firearms on trains be unloaded, declared in advance, and contained in checked, hard-sided luggage.
There are sensible reasons for excluding concealed-carry handguns from crowded transit systems, as for banning them from schools, government buildings, stadiums, arenas and hospitals. Those are also among the places where hidden handguns are off-limits under D.C. law. However, a Supreme Court decision in June threw into doubt which places can be regarded as sufficiently sensitive to merit a handgun ban. That ruling by the court’s conservative majority has inspired lawsuits challenging local bans in some places. One has targeted the District’s handgun prohibition.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court by four D.C.-area residents who hold concealed-carry permits. They argue that D.C.’s prohibition does not comport with the Supreme Court’s ruling, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, requiring that government bans must fit “this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
That’s a question of historical debate, and it might depend partly on the duration of which specific traditions are at issue. The Founding Fathers’ experience is not instructive; they rode carriages and horses, not the subway.
More broadly, the challenge to D.C.’s policy founders on facts and logic. The lawsuit argues, for instance, that Metro is different from schools or government offices — where the District’s handgun ban remains uncontested — because it is “not populated with individuals who would be high-value targets to a terrorist or active killer.” In fact, government officials and schoolchildren regularly ride Metro.
As for the lawsuit’s contention that Metro stations are not national landmarks or symbols that would tempt a terrorist, that’s a curious argument for a transit system whose station names include “Pentagon,” “Arlington Cemetery” and “Capitol South.”
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D), responding to the lawsuit, relied on common sense in his brief to the court. “In dense spaces characterized by jostling and interpersonal conflict, the risk of a gun being accidentally discharged or hastily fired is tragically high,” he wrote, “not only for the innocent bystanders who may be shot, but also for the countless other victims who may be crushed or thrown from a platform by a panicked crowd.” | 2022-09-24T11:13:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Lawsuit challenging a handgun ban on Metro is illogical - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/24/metro-dc-handgun-ban-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/24/metro-dc-handgun-ban-lawsuit/ |
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday. (Gavriil Grigorov/AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin will probably not drop an atomic bomb on Ukraine, if only because doing so would prove exceptionally costly for Russia and the world. But his words have consequences, and in threatening to use nuclear weapons, reaching for shock effect, Mr. Putin is venturing into extreme recklessness.
Russia possesses up to 2,000 nonstrategic or tactical nuclear weapons, mostly designed for relatively short-range use on a battlefield or for defensive systems. Bombs to be dropped from planes and warheads for missiles are held in reserve, in central storage depots, on which the United States presumably keeps close watch. These tactical nuclear weapons have never been limited by treaty. As for longer-range weapons, the New START accord between Russia and the United States limits each to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads.
Without any doubt, the use of a nuclear weapon in Ukraine would create a humanitarian cataclysm. As Paul Craig and John Jungerman noted in a history of the arms race, “The overwhelming fact of the nuclear fire is that it is more powerful by a factor of 10 million to 100 million than chemical fires,” such as those in conventional weapons. The blast, heat and radiation from a nuclear bomb could easily spread beyond Ukraine to endanger lives in Russia and elsewhere. This grim prospect of blowback might restrain Mr. Putin, if he is thinking rationally. Also, Mr. Putin cannot simply launch nuclear weapons with the push of a button; there are other people, including the defense leadership, involved in the process. There are no military gains to be had from a nuclear attack that indiscriminately incinerates everything in its path and leaves the land uninhabitable. At the same time, Russia’s military and security forces have so far apparently not slowed Mr. Putin’s disastrous war adventure.
Even if Russia is not likely to use a nuclear weapon, Mr. Putin’s threats are disquieting and irresponsible. An atomic bomb has not been used in combat since 1945. One reason: deterrence, the “cocked pistols” confrontation of the superpowers. These mountains of nuclear warheads were eventually reduced as the Cold War ended, but historian Nina Tannenwald has shown that beyond deterrence, the utter destructive nature of nuclear weapons reinforced a powerful taboo — a revulsion — against actual military use. The frightening experience of the Cuban missile crisis and periodic false alarms throughout the nuclear age no doubt deepened the taboo. Russia’s latest nuclear deterrence principles, approved by Mr. Putin in 2020, say cautiously that a nuclear weapon can be used only if the country is under nuclear attack or “the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.” Mr. Putin now jumps beyond this, threatening to use nuclear weapons “in the event of a threat to the territorial integrity” of the nation while attempting to draw new borders by force.
Mr. Putin is straining the fabric of the nuclear taboo. Bluff or not, he escalates danger for all. The Biden administration is right to deliver private warnings to Mr. Putin of grave consequences for nuclear use. Mr. Putin should remember the wise words of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” | 2022-09-24T11:13:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Putin probably won't drop a nuclear bomb. But words are dangerous, too. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/24/putin-nuclear-bomb-threat-ukraine-dangerous/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/24/putin-nuclear-bomb-threat-ukraine-dangerous/ |
Washington Commanders quarterback Carson Wentz will face his former team, the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday at FedEx Field. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post))
Some 20,000 Eagles fans are expected to travel from Philadelphia to FedEx Field in a bus caravan on Sunday, most likely to boo, but also to witness the Carson Wentz Bowl. The divisional matchup is Wentz’s first game against his former team since he was traded in 2021, likely creating mixed emotions on both sides.
The Eagles (2-0) are now led by Wentz’s replacement, Jalen Hurts, and suddenly boast one of the league’s top offenses. Washington (1-1), meanwhile, has been a team of extremes, capable of starting fast with a dynamic offense one week but coming out flat and faltering behind a streaky defense the next week.
Which version will show up Sunday? These keys to the game could determine it. Here’s what to watch as Washington returns home to face the Eagles (1 p.m., Fox).
Eliminate the chunk plays
Washington couldn’t get out of its own way during the first half of its loss in Detroit. But as the offense regrouped in the second half to score four touchdowns and pare the Lions’ lead, the defense continued to allow big plays that ultimately decided the game.
Plays like that 58-yard run by Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown in the third quarter, or that 22-yard touchdown catch by running back D’Andre Swift, in which he fell down and still found the end zone after getting up.
Through Week 2, Washington has allowed seven plays of 25 yards or more, tied for the league lead. Against the Lions, the Commanders allowed six such plays; three went for at least 40 yards.
The reasons are varied, Coach Ron Rivera and players have said — miscommunication, missed tackles, wrong assignments, poor gap fits and so on.
“It’s one of those things that you have to shore up those little details,” Rivera said. “ … There’s a discipline to playing this game. If you’re not disciplined and you’re not where you’re supposed to [be], they’re gonna find you. And that’s the truth of the matter in this game, because you gotta give credit to the other team as well.”
Establish (and stop) the run
Washington has relied primarily on its passing game to start the season, benefiting from its versatile playmakers. Through Week 2, Wentz has thrown the ball 87 times, fifth-most among quarterbacks. But against Philadelphia, which boasts cornerbacks James Bradberry and Darius Slay, the Commanders’ offense may be forced to find more production on the ground.
The Eagles have allowed 6.2 yards per rush, the second-highest average in the league and well above the 3.5 yards Washington’s offense has generated on the ground.
The bigger challenge will be on the other side, as Washington’s depleted defensive line looks to stop Philadelphia’s rushing attack. The Commanders will be without defensive end Casey Toohill (concussion) and defensive tackle Daniel Wise (ankle). They previously lost defensive tackle Phidarian Mathis for the season with a knee injury. They listed end James Smith-Williams (abdominal) as questionable, and starting tackle Jonathan Allen is managing a groin injury. Even though the Commanders’ claimed tackle John Ridgeway from Dallas for reinforcement, the group is thin and could remain so until Chase Young returns from his ACL recovery.
Overcoming injuries is an annual challenge for every team, but the timing this week makes it especially tough. The Commanders are the only team that has allowed more rushing yards per attempt than the Eagles (7.6). Philadelphia’s offense, meanwhile, ranks second in rushing yards per game (189.5), largely because of Hurts, who leads all quarterbacks with 147 yards on the ground.
Contain Jalen Hurts
The Eagles’ third-year quarterback has impressed in the first two weeks, appearing more comfortable in his role — enough so that he’s played fast and has posed a threat on the ground and in the passing game. The Commanders have a history of struggling against dual-threat quarterbacks, but their downfall has typically been of their own doing.
Pass rushers have to stay in their rush lanes and be on point with their responsibilities up front. Against a quarterback like Hurts, one mistake could be costly.
“The first challenge he presents is that every time he has the ball in his hands, it’s a run-pass option,” Rivera said. “ … It’s all about discipline. That’s one of the big emphases this week. Just discipline — discipline in your assignment, discipline in how we want you to do your assignment. And we’ll continue to focus on discipline against this football team and this football player.”
Keep the focus
Much is at stake for both teams, despite it being Week 3. The Commanders are coming off a road loss they’d like to forget, and the Eagles are looking to keep their winning streak alive. But the rivalry runs deeper, especially with Wentz now leading the Commanders.
He has described his exit from Philadelphia as “bittersweet” and said his years there were a “wild ride,” with the highs of leading the Eagles to the verge of the Super Bowl in 2017 and the lows of his final days, when he was benched in favor of Hurts.
“Definitely will have some mixed emotions in terms of those things, but nothing crazy jumps out other than my time there was a whirlwind,” Wentz said. “It was wild. The NFL is a whirlwind, but I’m grateful to still be playing and I’m excited for this one.”
Wentz’s teammates said throughout the week that the quarterback has been focused as usual, but minimizing distractions will be paramount for Washington, especially if the crowd is composed mostly of Philadelphia fans.
Take advantage of Kam Curl’s return
Yes, the defensive line is banged up, but the Commanders should benefit from the return of safety/Swiss Army knife Kam Curl, who missed the first two games because of a thumb injury.
Darrick Forrest played well in place of Curl, especially in Week 1. But few can truly replace a player like Curl, whose size and versatility allow Washington to use him in various ways: in the slot, at both safety spots, outside, in the box and on blitzes.
“I think what it does, too, is it gets us back to the original Buffalo (nickel package) we had going into the season,” Rivera said, “obviously, with him and [Darrick Forrest] out on the field at the same time. What it gives us is a … bigger body and a big presence as far as safety is concerned in the box.”
Curl’s return should impact more than the secondary. The defense as a whole should be able to do more, disguising its coverages and using its personnel to throw different looks at Philadelphia.
Plus, Washington’s linebackers have struggled for the better part of the last three seasons, and having Curl back should provide help for the second level of the defense. Rivera said he spoke with middle linebacker Cole Holcomb this week, urging him to play less anxiously and reminding him he doesn’t need to try to do everyone’s job, as second-year linebacker Jamin Davis continues to develop and David Mayo works through an ankle injury.
Injury report: Curl is a go, but defensive end Casey Toohill (concussion) and defensive tackle Daniel Wise (ankle) are both out for Sunday. Defensive end James Smith-Williams, who has started in place of Chase Young, is questionable with an abdominal injury, but he said Thursday he’s “fine” and should be available. Linebacker David Mayo is also questionable with an ankle injury.
Washington also lost center Chase Roullier, possibly for the season, with a knee injury suffered last week. Wes Schweitzer is expected to start in his place. | 2022-09-24T11:13:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders’ Week 3 keys vs. Eagles: Contain Jalen Hurts, establish the run - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/commanders-jalen-hurts-eagles-preview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/commanders-jalen-hurts-eagles-preview/ |
Maryland Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wes Moore wants to offer tens of thousands of young Marylanders a chance to participate in a state initiative similar to national programs like AmeriCorps. (Bryan Woolston/AP)
Maryland gubernatorial hopeful Wes Moore (D) wants to create a new rite of passage to adulthood for high school graduates: a year of public service.
The idea of having young Americans spend a year providing service in their communities has been bandied about for more than a decade. National nonpartisan groups have formed around it. A presidential candidate once suggested it. But political will and the often hefty price tag associated with requiring participation have stalled national efforts.
And now Moore, an Army veteran and lead contender in the race to become Maryland’s next governor, is pushing a plan to offer tens of thousands of young Marylanders a chance to participate in a state initiative similar to national programs like AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps and Teach for America.
The service year option, which would provide job training and mentorship, is designed to prepare young Marylanders for college and careers and to make access to those opportunities equitable and affordable; part of Moore’s broader platform to attack complex systemic problems, such as child poverty and the racial wealth gap, with a focus on providing the same opportunities to people from various backgrounds.
Project advocates say it would be the first program of its kind in the country. Maryland lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to launch Maryland Corps, a similar, and much smaller, program more than five years ago, but concerns were raised about the $2 million needed to implement it and the idea was shelved.
Moore, who has not offered a cost estimate and has said he does not plan to raise taxes to fund it, said his program probably would run through a partnership of federal, state, and local governments, along with nonprofit and for-profit companies. An industry expert estimated that a service year option could cost as much as $30,000 per year for each participant, depending on how it is structured.
Moore sees it as an investment in the state’s economic and educational future.
“If you look at things like gap years, … the challenge of them is that not every kid can do it,” Moore said. “I’m a big believer in experiential learning. I feel like there’s a lot of students who are just finishing up and they’re not clear what they want to do. And so if you give them an opportunity to learn and grow … that’s going to help them through this transition to adulthood.”
Most of the calls for national service have followed major flash points in history, from the terrorist attacks on 9/11 to the 2016 presidential election, which caused political divisiveness.
The vitriol has led to an increase in hate crimes in Maryland and across the country. According to FBI data, hate crimes in Maryland skyrocketed 110.5 percent, from 19 in 2019 to 40 in 2020. The numbers jumped 13.4 percent nationwide.
Advocates say service brings people together from different races, cultures and economic statuses for common purpose.
John M. Bridgeland, co-founder and vice chairman of the Service Year Alliance, an initiative to create a national service counterpart to military service in the United States, described Moore, a best-selling author and former chief of one of the country’s largest poverty-fighting organizations, as being “uniquely positioned to advance this idea at a uniquely important moment in history.”
Bridgeland, who was appointed the first director of the USA Freedom Corps, a national community service program created after 9/11 by President George W. Bush, said much of the debate around service has been on the national level and has mostly focused on whether Americans should be encouraged or required to do it. Similar to Moore, many of the proposals have come from leaders with a history of military service.
Three years ago, Pete Buttigieg, a Navy veteran and then-mayor of South Bend, Ind., suggested a mandatory national public service program for young Americans to develop skills and to build social cohesion. Roughly a decade ago, U.S. Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), a Korean War veteran, introduced a failed bill that would have forced every young American to do two years of national service before turning 25.
A number of states, including California and Iowa, have made varying levels of investment in service, most of which are focused on conservation, but Bridgeland said he knows of no other that has enacted a program on the scale of what Moore is proposing.
“If it does come to fruition, it would be a model,” he said. “A common question is: Where are you going to college or what are you doing after? If this took off, it could be: Where are you doing your service year?”
The program, which is part of Moore’s education, economy and social justice agendas, would offer a stipend for work in fields that could include environment, education, and health care. An added incentive could include in-state tuition, he said.
While the scope of Moore’s plan would be novel, the idea builds off a state program, Maryland Corps, that was proposed six years ago and never got off the ground. The legislature passed a bill in 2016 to create a pilot program for 100 participants between the ages of 17 and 23.
Under the bill, Maryland Corps would have provided stipends of up to $15,000 for corps participants and one-time scholarships of up to $6,000 for those who completed the program. Sen. Shelly L. Hettleman (D-Baltimore County) said the bill passed, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) signed it but didn’t provide any funding for it.
Earlier this year, the Democratic-controlled General Assembly passed a more expansive bill for 5,000 participants with a $20 million price tag, hoping to launch the effort working with a new Democratic administration. Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) worked with Hogan to set aside $5 million in the 2023 fiscal budget as seed money for the corps program.
“The opportunity to explore public service and serve your community is sort of the thing that we both agree is essential for both expanding opportunity and restoring democracy so that people can do things across lines of difference that they might otherwise not and not have the opportunity to be exposed to one another,” Ferguson, a Teach for America alumnus, said of Moore.
The Democratic nominee, who attended military school and whose mother signed him up for the Army at age 17, said a service year option is personal to him because of the way his military service affected his life.
“The values that I developed in the Army mirror much of what I saw in military school, and it now mirrors in many ways everything that I continue to see now,” Moore told an audience at the Brookings Institution in May of last year, a month before launching his gubernatorial campaign. “We were all under a common bond, and it didn’t matter whether or not we went to college, or voted as Democrats or Republicans, we had a shared mission. We had a common purpose.” | 2022-09-24T12:30:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wes Moore wants high school graduates to do a year of service - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/24/wes-moore-service-year-graduates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/24/wes-moore-service-year-graduates/ |
Investigators continue to ask cooperating members of the Oath Keepers who have pleaded guilty about their knowledge of any coordination with others.
Tom Jackman
Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, and four of his colleagues in the group will go on trial on seditious conspiracy charges starting on Tuesday. (Aaron Davis/The Washington Post)
Five members of the extremist group Oath Keepers, including leader Stewart Rhodes, face trial for seditious conspiracy next week, in which U.S. prosecutors will try to convince jurors that Rhodes’s call for an armed “civil war” to keep Donald Trump in power on Jan. 6, 2021, was literal — and criminal.
Prosecutors’ challenge will be to prove that Rhodes, one of the most visible figures of the far-right anti-government movement, and his group intentionally conspired to use force to prevent President Biden’s swearing-in. Whether the government tips its hand in court about the Oath Keepers’ ties to other political figures, the trial is an important step in the wider probe, analysts said.
“I don’t think that the investigation is by any means over,” said Barbara L. McQuade, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at the University of Michigan. “I think they may have important lines of investigation, and we just don’t know it yet. … and it will take many more months before they feel they have tapped all those veins of information.”
In previous court proceedings, Rhodes and his co-defendants have said their actions were defensive, taken in anticipation of what they believed would be a lawful order from Trump deputizing militias under the Insurrection Act to stop Biden from becoming president. They are prepared to argue they relied on advice from their attorney, Oath Keepers general counsel Kellye SoRelle, to delete their communications when Trump did not act.
“What the Government contends was a conspiracy to oppose United States laws was actually lobbying and preparation for the President to utilize a United States law to take lawful action,” Rhodes attorneys Phillip A. Linder and James Lee Bright argued.
How Trump’s flirtation with an anti-insurrection law inspired Jan. 6 insurrection
A federal defender for SoRelle, who has been charged separately in the attack and pleaded not guilty, did not respond to a request for comment.
The trial also poses a test for the Justice Department as it confronts rising domestic extremism and politically motivated violence. Convictions for seditious conspiracy would deliver a public condemnation of political violence and could mark the end of the Oath Keepers as an organization, if not as a movement, extremism experts said. According to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, about 35 percent of the more than 860 people federally charged in the Capitol riot were associated with extremist groups or conspiratorial movements.
If Rhodes and the Oath Keepers are found guilty, anti-government extremists could treat them as martyrs and use them to attract recruits. Acquittals would deliver a bigger boost, allowing private militant organizations to claim a victory over the government “enemy,” he said. Still, successful prosecution could deter elected leaders and law enforcement officials from supporting radical anti-government groups that try to present a more moderate face to the mainstream public.
“While the Oath Keepers might struggle to keep going, the people supporting its causes are still there, and the ideas that motivated them are still there,” Jensen said, adding, “This prosecution isn’t going to end anti-government militias in the United States.”
A quarter of Republicans view the Jan. 6 attack as justified
The trial is the first of three seditious conspiracy trials set this fall accusing members of the Oath Keepers and a second far-right group, the Proud Boys, of plotting to use force to oppose the lawful transition of power by attacking Congress as it met to confirm President Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Prosecutors depict the Oath Keepers convergence that day on the East Capitol steps as a milestone, where political polarization tipped into plotting insurgency and violence. The Oath Keepers group came in combat-style tactical gear with an “arsenal” of weapons staged at nearby hotels, prosecutors have said. The Oath Keepers on trial are not charged with assaulting police, though the indictment describes them as joining mobs that fought with law enforcement.
The 44-page indictment against Rhodes and eight co-defendants is unusual in that it alleges a seditious conspiracy that came to fruition with an actual attack, and was not just “aspirational,” legal analysts said. The nine indicted have been split into two trial groups, with Rhodes and four others going first and the rest in November.
“Defendants can use the argument, ‘This was just tough talk, we’re a group of blowhards who like to talk and make stuff up.’ But when plans are written out in text messages and something actually comes to pass, it’s much easier for the government to prove to a jury they intended to do it,” McQuade said. “That’s a real treasure trove that can be powerful evidence that someone has entered into an agreement, and that’s what makes this case different from others.”
Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate and former Army paratrooper and aide to libertarian congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.), founded the Oath Keepers in 2009, saying its mission was to prevent “a full-blown totalitarian dictatorship” from arising in the United States. His group took off amid anti-government fervor after the election of President Barack Obama. It later aligned itself with Trump and promoted his false claims of widespread voting fraud
Charging papers say Rhodes made a string of incriminating statements, starting two days after the 2020 election. On Nov. 5, Rhodes privately repeated to an invitation-only message group of Oath Keepers leaders: “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit,” according to his indictment. Five days later, Rhodes published a plan of action under the headline, “WHAT WE THE PEOPLE MUST DO.” He cited the example of an anti-government uprising in Serbia that stormed parliament, prosecutors say.
That same day, Rhodes announced publicly on Alex Jones’ Infowars web show that he had armed men stationed outside Washington “prepared to go in” to prevent Trump from being removed illegally from office, adding that he should declassify materials to expose the “deep state” and “who all the pedophiles are.”
After Trump called supporters to Washington for a “wild” rally on Jan. 6, Rhodes honed his message. If Biden assumed the presidency, he told an Oath Keepers regional leader on Dec. 22, “We will have to do a bloody, massively bloody revolution against them,” according to his indictment. In an open letter Dec. 23, Rhodes urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act if Congress certified the election, saying that on Jan. 6, “Tens of thousands of patriotic Americans, both veterans and nonveterans, will already be in Washington, D.C., and many of us will have our mission-critical gear stowed nearby just outside D.C.” He said the group was ready to “take to arms in defense of our God given liberty.”
Prosecutors are expected to present new testimony from cooperating witnesses. But it remains unclear whether they will expand on suggestions in court filings, public reports and congressional hearings of the defendants’ ties to political figures.
Cooperating Oath Keepers defendant William Todd Wilson in April told a court that he heard Rhodes repeatedly implore someone over the phone the evening of Jan. 6 “to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose a transfer of power,” but whoever was on the other end denied Rhodes’ request to speak with Trump directly. Earlier, SoRelle briefed Oath Keepers about efforts to overturn the election by representatives of the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, QAnon conspiracy supporters and the legal team of Rudy Giuliani, according to a transcript of a Nov. 9 GoToMeeting call released in another defendant’s court filing this spring.
Florida and national leaders of the Oath Keepers were in contact with Proud Boys leaders and also with Trump political confidant Roger Stone and former Trump national security adviser adviser Michael Flynn, providing security around the latter two. Prosecutors have noted that Trump attorney Sidney Powell also has helped raise money through her nonprofit group for some of the Oath Keepers’ legal defense.
Prosecutors said Rhodes and at least 10 co-conspirators brought firearms, ammunition and related items to the Washington area — with Rhodes spending $40,000 on such gear just before and after Jan. 6. They staged the weapons across the Potomac River at a Ballston hotel with rooms assigned to armed “Quick Reaction Force” teams from North Carolina, Arizona and Florida, prosecutors said.
That day, charging papers say that Rhodes exchanged numerous calls with a deputy and directed co-defendants’ movements outside the Capitol by text, then spoke with them before several breached the building. On the east side of the Capitol, prosecutors say, a “stack” of five Oath Keepers in tactical gear moved to the front of the mob attacking police outside the Rotunda doors and then forced their way inside, where some of them joined a group pushing against a police line at the hallway to the Senate chamber and searched in vain for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). A second “stack” of Oath Keepers, also in tactical gear, entered through the same doors about 30 minutes later, according to the indictment, and at least one battled with police near the Rotunda and was eventually repelled by officers using chemical spray.
Afterward, prosecutors alleged Rhodes said, “Patriots entering their own Capitol to send a message to the traitors is NOTHING compared to what’s coming,” and called for local extremist groups to organize to oppose the Biden administration.
Standing trial with Rhodes are Kelly Meggs, 53, an auto dealership manager from Dunnellon, Fla., who prosecutors described as the “Florida state lead” on Jan. 6; Kenneth Harrelson, 42, a medically discharged former Army sergeant and father of two from Titusville, Fla., who prosecutors called the “ground team lead”; Jessica Watkins, 39, another Army veteran and former bar owner and militia organizer from Woodstock, Ohio; and Thomas Caldwell, 68, a retired Navy intelligence officer from Berryville, Va.
Rhodes’s defense has been hampered by the indictments in June and August of two of his key aides — deputy Michael Greene and attorney SoRelle, respectively — whose ability to testify may be limited without jeopardizing themselves.
Linder and Bright, Rhodes attorneys, have also quarreled with Rhodes, who sought to replace them three weeks before trial. Edward T. Tarpley Jr. for now has joined Rhodes’s team, injecting another dose of uncertainty into the proceedings. | 2022-09-24T12:44:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oath Keepers sedition trial could reveal new info about Jan. 6 plotting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/24/oath-keepers-sedition-trial-preview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/24/oath-keepers-sedition-trial-preview/ |
Cuba sent gay men to work camps. Now it’s voting on same-sex marriage.
A woman with a baby in Havana on Friday walks past a poster urging Cubans to vote for a new family law that would allow same-sex marriage. (Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images)
After 79,000 neighborhood meetings, months of discussion, and an outpouring of more than 300,000 suggestions from citizens, Cubans will vote in a referendum Sunday that could redefine family rights — including legalizing same-sex marriage.
The proposed new Family Code would be among the most progressive in Latin America, defying a long tradition of machismo in Cuba. In addition to approving same-sex marriage, it would allow gay couples to adopt, and increase the rights of women, the elderly and children.
Supporters call it a sign of the progress on LGBTQ+ issues under Cuba’s Communist government, which was once so hostile to gay men it sent them to forced labor camps for “reeducation.” Yet leaders of the influential Roman Catholic Church and the island’s growing evangelical movement have expressed unusually vocal dissent.
“It reminds me very much of the debate we had in Canada and the U.S. 10 or 20 years ago, about the role of the family, the role of gay rights,” said John Kirk, a Cuba scholar at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.
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What makes Cuba different is the political context. Gay rights activism has been channeled largely through the single-party system, rather than independent civil-society groups, which are restricted. The government has promoted the new law in billboards, rallies and official media. President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Thursday urged Cubans in a televised address to vote for the code, tying the balloting to support for the political system.
“Voting ‘yes’ is saying yes to unity, to the Revolution, to socialism,” he said.
That rankled government critics, who noted that Cubans were rarely given the opportunity to vote freely in other matters — such as choosing their leaders.
The vote comes at a time of widespread anger over food and electricity shortages. The economy is still hobbled by the effects of the covid-19 pandemic and U.S. sanctions tightened by the Trump administration and maintained by the Biden administration. The dissatisfaction raises the possibility that some Cubans could cast a protest vote.
“I understand that the rejection of the dictatorship will prompt many people to want to vote no, reflexively, so that the regime suffers a symbolic defeat,” independent journalist Mario Luis Reyes told the news site 14ymedio, run by the Cuban dissident Yoani Sánchez. “But if the ‘no’ wins, those who will really be defeated are us.”
As Biden lifts Trump-era sanctions, Cubans hope for an economic lift
The 100-page proposal reflects a sea change in official attitudes toward gay rights in Cuba.
In the 1960s, after the triumph of Fidel Castro’s Revolution, the Communist government exalted the “new socialist man” and repressed dissidents of all kinds. Gay citizens were fired from jobs and even sent to labor camps.
A leading figure in transforming such homophobic attitudes was sexologist Mariela Castro, the daughter of Fidel’s brother and fellow revolutionary, Raul. She runs a government sex education institute and is a prominent advocate of gay rights.
Today, workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation is outlawed, and the public health system provides gender-reassignment surgery free of charge.
The new family law would expand not just gay rights, but protections for women, children and the elderly. It urges couples to share housework equally, condemns family violence and insists that kids have a voice in family decisions.
“So this goes against the traditional paterfamilias [model], with the Latin father being in charge,” Kirk said.
Cuba’s Catholic bishops and other Christian religious leaders have spoken out strongly against the proposal. It could also get a thumb’s down from other social conservatives.
“The proposal is permeated by what is known as “gender ideology,” which, as often happens with ideologies, is a construction of ideas that people want to impose by force onto reality, and wind up distorting it,” the Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement.
The new measure, which would replace a 1975 family code, was discussed in more than 79,000 community meetings between February and April, and amended based on citizens’ suggestions. Cuba’s National Assembly passed it in July. It needs more than 50 percent of the votes cast in Sunday’s referendum to take effect. Typically, measures put to a referendum in Cuba receive overwhelming support, but the outcome this time is not as clear.
While the government has billed the referendum as an exercise in democracy, some critics say the rights of gay people shouldn’t be subject to a vote.
“The fact they are asking people what they think about the rights of a minority shows they don’t really understand how democracies work,” said Juan Pappier, senior Americas researcher for Human Rights Watch. | 2022-09-24T12:44:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cuba votes in referendum on gay marriage - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/24/cuba-same-sex-marriage-referendum/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/24/cuba-same-sex-marriage-referendum/ |
President Biden (C-R) presents British singer Elton John (C-L) with the National Humanities Medal after he performed a show called 'A Night When Hope and History Rhyme,' as part of his farewell tour on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington D.C. United States, 23 Sept. 2022. (Bonnie Cash/Pool/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
LONDON — British singer Elton John was left teary eyed and “flabbergasted” after being awarded a surprise national humanities medal by President Biden, following a concert at the White House on Friday night.
John, 75, who was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, has become a globally renowned singer, pianist and songwriter. He has also championed various charities and humanitarian causes, especially those tackling HIV/AIDS.
“I’m never flabbergasted but I’m flabbergasted and humbled and honored by this incredible award from the United States of America,” he said, overcome, moments after clutching Jill Biden’s hand and hugging her husband. “I will treasure this so much.”
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The Grammy-award singer praised “America’s kindness to me as a musician,” calling it “second to none,” and vowed his new medal would push him to redouble his efforts to help eradiate the illness that impacts more than 38 million people globally, according to the World Health Organization.
With the White House as his backdrop, John opened with “Your Song” followed by classic tracks: “Tiny Dancer,” “Rocketman,” “Crocodile Rock,” and closed with the jaunty “I’m Still Standing.”
The concert on the South Lawn, entitled “A Night When Hope and History Rhyme,” was part of his farewell tour, as the singer prepares to hang up his mic after a glittering 50-year career. It was also an event to honor “everyday history-makers in the audience,” according to the White House, among them teachers, military families and LGBT+ advocates.
John dedicated “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” to Ryan White and his mother Jeanne White-Ginder, who attended the concert. Her son lost his life to AIDS-related complications after a blood transfusion and died in 1990, just a month before his high school graduation.
The legendary singer launched the Elton John AIDS Foundation in 1992, which has raised over $450 million so far and funded programs across four continents. In between songs, John spoke to the audience about his hope to help eradicate the virus by 2030.
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Among the estimated 2,000 guests at the musical event were former first lady Laura Bush, tennis champion Billie Jean King, British ambassador to the United States Karen Elizabeth Pierce, and John’s husband, David Furnish. Members of Biden’s administration including transport secretary Pete Buttigieg and defense secretary Lloyd Austin were also at the concert.
John has previously performed at the White House in 1998 alongside Stevie Wonder at a state dinner for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Other artists who have performed at the coveted venue include Patti LaBelle, opera star Andrea Bocelli and the Jonas Brothers.
He has sold more than 300 million records worldwide, according to his official website, and carried out more than 4,000 performances in over 80 countries.
He became Sir Elton John after being knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998 and has been a close ally of Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, defending them in the press after the criticism they received for stepping back from senior royal duties. John reworked “Candle In The Wind” following the death of Harry’s mother in 1997, which went on to break records, selling over 33 million copies as people across the world mourned.
Earlier this week, John told fans while onstage in Canada that he was “very sad” to learn of the death of the queen, praising the late monarch’s decency and noting she had for decades “worked bloody hard.”
His medal from Biden will sit alongside his Legion d’Honneur given to him by French President Macron in 2019. | 2022-09-24T13:01:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elton John teary-eyed as Biden surprises him with medal at concert - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/24/elton-john-medal-biden-white-house/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/24/elton-john-medal-biden-white-house/ |
Her role earned her an Oscar but, even as she worked steadily, she found it hard to maintain momentum in her career
Louise Fletcher holds the Academy Award she won for her role in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest" in 1976. (Associated Press)
Louise Fletcher, whose riveting performance as the cruel and dominating Nurse Ratched in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” set a new standard for screen villains and won her an Academy Award, died Sept. 23 at her home in Montdurausse, France. She was 88.
Her agent David Shaul confirmed the death but did not provide a cause.
After putting her career on hold for years to raise her children, Ms. Fletcher was in her early 40s and little known when chosen for the role opposite Jack Nicholson in the 1975 film by director Milos Forman, who had admired her work the year before in director Robert Altman’s “Thieves Like Us” as woman who coldly betrays her brother.
At the time, she didn’t know that many other prominent stars, including Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn and Angela Lansbury, had turned down the role of Nurse Ratched. “I was the last person cast,” she recalled in a 2004 interview. “It wasn’t until we were halfway through shooting that I realized the part had been offered to other actresses who didn’t want to appear so horrible on the screen.”
Once institutionalized, McMurphy discovers his mental ward is run by Ms. Fletcher’s unsmiling, imposing Nurse Mildred Ratched, who keeps her patients tightly under her thumb with rules and tranquilizers. As the two clash, McMurphy all but takes over the ward with his defiant bravado — including hosting an overnight orgy — leading to ever-greater punishment from Ratched and the institution, where she restores order.
Holding her Oscar at the 1976 ceremony, Ms. Fletcher addressed her deaf parents in Birmingham, Ala., talking and using sign language: “I want to thank you for teaching me to have a dream. You are seeing my dream come true.”
Later that night, Forman made the wry comment to Ms. Fletcher and Nicholson: “Now we all will make tremendous flops.”
Forman next directed “Hair,” the movie version of the hit Broadway musical that failed to capture the appeal of the stage version. Nicholson directed and starred in “Goin’ South,” generally regarded as one of his worst films. Ms. Fletcher signed on for “Exorcist II: The Heretic” (1977), a misconceived sequel to the landmark original.
Far more than her male peers, Ms. Fletcher was hampered by her age in finding major roles in Hollywood. Still, she worked continuously for most of the rest of her life. Her post-“Cuckoo’s Nest” films included “Mama Dracula” (1980), “Firestarter” (1984) and “The Boy Who Could Fly” (1986).
She was nominated for Emmys for her guest roles on the TV series “Joan of Arcadia” and “Picket Fences,” and had a recurring role as Bajoran religious leader Kai Winn Adami in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” She also played the mother of musical duo Carpenters in the 1989 TV film “The Karen Carpenter Story.”
Estelle Louise Fletcher was born in Birmingham on July 22, 1934, and she was the second of four siblings. Her mother was born deaf, and her father was a traveling Episcopal minister who lost his hearing when struck by lightning at 4.
The Fletcher children were helped by their aunt, with whom they lived in Bryant, Texas, for a year. She taught them reading, writing and speaking, as well as how to sing and dance. It was those latter studies that convinced Fletcher she wanted to act. She was further inspired, she once said, when she saw the movie “Lady in the Dark” with Ginger Rogers.
She moved to Los Angeles to launch her acting career soon after graduating from North Carolina State University in 1957. Her career was hampered at times by her height. At 5-feet-10, she would often be dismissed from an audition immediately because she was taller than her leading man.
Ms. Fletcher married producer Jerry Bick in 1959 and gave birth to two sons, John and Andrew, in quick succession. She decided to put her career on hold to be a stay-at-home mother and didn’t work for 11 years. The marriage ended in divorce. Survivors include her sons; a sister; and a granddaughter, according to the New York Times. | 2022-09-24T13:10:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Louise Fletcher, who cruelly dominated as Nurse Ratched in ‘Cuckoo’s Nest,’ dies at 88 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/24/louise-fletcher-who-cruelly-dominated-nurse-ratched-cuckoos-nest-dies-88/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/24/louise-fletcher-who-cruelly-dominated-nurse-ratched-cuckoos-nest-dies-88/ |
The Wizards' Deni Avdija, much like the rest of the roster, brought a different look to the team's media day. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
Several of the Washington Wizards have emerged from their long summer with different looks. Deni Avdija dyed his hair. Kristaps Porzingis grew a beard. Bradley Beal, though still appearing as youthful as he did 11 years ago when he started this journey, now sports the grown-up visage of a dad of three.
The Wizards’ roster as a whole has a different look and feel, as well.
There’s Monte Morris, who has followed his childhood friend Kyle Kuzma to D.C. to provide Washington with a starting point guard. Will Barton, who came over in the same trade from Denver as Morris, here to get buckets as soon as he checks into the game. And Delon Wright, ready to pick up his man for all 94 feet and pump up the team’s defensive mojo.
Somehow, a team with 11 returning players still looks different. And yes, better.
After failing to make the playoffs last season — a year that started out promising but ended with the top players either injured or sitting out, while the fresh faces took their lumps — the Wizards spent the summer reshaping the lineup in specific ways.
They can all look around and see it. From team president and GM Tommy Sheppard and head coach Wes Unseld, Jr. to the players themselves, they notice how the talent — and, just as important — veteran presence has improved from a year ago.
“We’re all being brought in here to win. To help Brad,” Porzingis, who if you think about it, should be considered as the Wizards’ first summer acquisition, said at Friday’s media day. Porzingis arrived in Washington following a deal at the trade deadline, but since he appeared in 17 games, his play could only hint at the future.
“I think we’re trying to do the best job we can,” Porzingis said. “But I think we’re making moves in the right direction.”
For sure, the Wizards spent all summer making the right moves. They look deeper and better. The only problem: The Eastern Conference got better, too.
The young teams that fought to make the play-in are now better.
The Atlanta Hawks acquired all-star guard Dejounte Murray to pair with all-star point guard Trae Young. And in Cleveland, the rising Cavaliers added even more athleticism to the mix with the trade for Donovan Mitchell.
The veteran teams that didn’t deliver on high expectations are also better.
The Philadelphia 76ers strengthened their rotation by signing P.J. Tucker, and at the same time weakened a conference rival in Miami. And despite causing chaos with his trade demand, Kevin Durant chose to return and fulfill his contract in Brooklyn (for now), keeping the Nets in the top echelon.
Though there’s messiness in Boston, with head coach Ime Udoka now serving a one-year suspension for violating team rules, the defending conference champion Celtics improved with the addition of guard Malcolm Brogdon. And even a couple of non-playoff teams from a year ago — the New York Knicks getting their big free agent signing in Jalen Brunson, and the Detroit Pistons trading for sharpshooter Bojan Bogdanovic — moved the needle and got better.
So where does that leave the Wizards? In a familiar spot where outside expectations remain muted. But the principle players in D.C. see hidden potential, such as the matching of Beal, Porzingis and Kuzma. Arguably, they are the team’s top three guys, but they’ve yet to play even a pickup game together.
“It’s a waiting game because we haven’t seen each other on the court either,” Kuzma said. “I like the possibilities of it all. Watching open gym and just imagining certain lineups, certain things. We are all interchangeable. We all can score obviously, we’re all willing passers, we all know how to play the game of basketball. We’re all … three unique, different players.”
Similarly, Sheppard would like to take a wait-and-see approach on the bigger picture: whether these changes will produce more wins and a playoff appearance.
When asked at his pre-training camp news conference if he feels the 2022-23 Wizards are a playoff team, Sheppard answered with a two-and-a-half minute response. He spoke about young players having to prove themselves, the older veterans bringing their experience from winning programs and the defensive concerns that have been addressed. Sheppard’s main point, however, focused on the simple concept of nightly improvement.
“Playoffs, absolutely, that’s the goal. That’s everybody’s goal. I just want to see the improvement that we believe is already happening,” Sheppard said. “We got to see it translate out on the floor, and it only translates in wins. It really does. So that’s going to be a big challenge for all of us to manage expectations of this team, see how they’re performing.”
The Wizards certainly do have a new look — Avdija with his frosted, blonde streaks and Porzingis getting used to his facial hair. But the changes will be simply cosmetic if the team stalls improving in the win column.
“I go out and my main focus is winning games and trying to help this organization hold up a Larry [O’Brien trophy] one day. That’s my goal,” Beal said. “That’s my dream. I showed that I can score with the best of them, I showed that I can be an all-star. I showed that I can be an all-NBA player. Check almost every box, so now I have to win and be a winner. So, that’s my final box I want to check and will check it. So, that’s my main focus. That’s what I want to prove — that I can win.” | 2022-09-24T13:18:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Wizards are better, but so is the rest of the East - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/wizards-better-eastern-conference/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/wizards-better-eastern-conference/ |
A different take on the Bear Flag Republic. (Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Secession, of all things, is back in the news. Residents of San Bernardino County, the largest in California, are debating whether to try to break off and form a state of their own. And there’s more: Last month, a New Hampshire electoral commission refused to bar from the ballot legislators who want their state to leave the US entirely. A citizens’ group had charged the legislators, absurdly, with insurrection.
Secession movements are nothing new, and punishing their advocates is a dreadful idea. Their causes are complex and, almost always, point to problems that should be taken seriously.
Let’s start with those who want their states to leave the country. The last time that was seriously attempted, a divided nation fought a war that cost an astonishing 600,000 lives. President Abraham Lincoln’s 1861 proclamation calling forth the militia to suppress the insurrection is one of the great documents of political history. But it hardly follows that everyone who advocates carving out a new nation from pieces of the US is an insurrectionist.
Consider the issue of race. In 1917, inspired by the Irish rebellion, the crusading black journalist Cyril Briggs published an essay arguing that “reason and justice” demanded establishment of a new Black-run country within the borders of the US, in return for “many generations of unrequited toil and half a century of contribution, as free men, to American prosperity.” Eleven years later, the Communist International would cite Briggs’s article in adopting a resolution calling for Black self-determination in the US.
From the 1930s onward, any number of radicals would argue for creation of a separate Black entity. In the late 1960s, the Republic of New Afrika called for a new country to be established in what was known as the Black Belt. (This might have been part of the inspiration for Fletcher Knebel’s so-so 1969 novel “Trespass,” in which a group of Black militants takes prominent White people hostage and demands the immediate creation of a Southern homeland for the descendants of slaves.) In 1982, James Forman, head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, published “Self-Determination and the African-American People,” in which he argued for the creation of a new country within the “historic homeland” of the Black Belt. He pointed out wryly that with 958,000 square miles to choose from, there was sure to be space.
As I’ve noted before in this space, up until Jan. 6, 2021, many a Black radical proudly wore the label of insurrectionist. Should they have been kept from running for office thereafter? Or should the nation have tried to gain a deeper sense of their grievances?
Examples also abound that have no connection with the nation’s history of racial oppression. I’m old enough to remember the Martha’s Vineyard secession movement of the late 1970s, which culminated in a 10-2 vote by the selectmen to leave Massachusetts and either establish a new state or join an existing one. Some residents went further, proposing independence from the US. You can still purchase the Seagull flag that some hoped would fly over the island. Insurrectionists all?
Bits and pieces of California have been arguing for secession from the US for years. Silicon Valley bigwigs, for example, have long talked of forming a new country, originally in search of a libertarian paradise, and then to protest the election of President Donald Trump. As a matter of fact, Trump’s 2016 victory led to cries across the deep-blue states that the time had come to set up shop on their own.
Punish the advocates?
Obviously not. We shouldn’t punish secession talk. Kudos for New Hampshire for understanding this.
On the other hand, nobody’s trying to punish leaders of San Bernardino County’s effort to secede not from the US but from California. Maybe that’s because nobody thinks they have a chance of succeeding. Under the US Constitution, carving out a new state requires the consent of both the state losing territory and the US Congress. (For this reason, some scholars question whether West Virginia is actually a state. Seriously.)
It’s true that back in the 1960s, the California senate passed a bill that would have broken the state in two. But that was a transparent effort to gain more power in Washington by doubling the number of senators, and never got anywhere.
Still, size might matter. Advocates point out that San Bernardino County is larger than the combined land area of Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Their substantive argument, however, has nothing to do with size. They claim that the urbanites who hold power in Sacramento ignore the concerns of rural counties. (Long before the Civil War, an analogous claim was made by West Virginia statehood advocates, and the state’s first governor cited as the justification for leaving Virginia his region’s treatment “as a sort of outside appendage — a territory in a state of pupilage.”)
As the legal scholar Glenn Harlan Reynolds (formerly my student) points out in his much-discussed 2019 essay on secession movements, the argument is common. Whether we’re speaking of eastern Oregonites or upstate New Yorkers who want new states, the central concern seems to be that people feel ignored. Reynolds argues that the states should either let their rural counties leave or take their concerns more seriously — in particular, that legislatures shouldn’t be so swift to assume that regulations appropriate to the city also make sense elsewhere.
Fair enough. But would regulatory reform be enough? A new paper argues, from a study of thousands of secession movements around the world, that a group’s sense of shared cultural identity is a more important predictor than economics. Philosophers have long debated whether the existence of a common identity built around culture creates a prima facie case for secession. Whatever the answer, the new research suggests that if we’re as hopelessly polarized as pundits seem to think, we’re in for a lot more secession talk in the years to come.
• Even Mainstream Republicans Are Pretty Extreme: Jonathan Bernstein
• Trump and His Spurious Business Face a Reckoning: Timothy L. O’Brien | 2022-09-24T14:15:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | America’s New Secession Movements Aren’t a Crime - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/americas-new-secession-movements-arent-a-crime/2022/09/24/9fb8c968-3c09-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/americas-new-secession-movements-arent-a-crime/2022/09/24/9fb8c968-3c09-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
A simple way to assess this is to look at net imports of oil, natural gas and coal as a share of energy consumption, and net imports of cereals as a share of domestic food supply. I did this for 135 countries and territories representing more than 95% of the global population.(1)
To emphasize, these are broad categories. For example, Australia is a powerhouse exporter of fossil fuels but, within that, it is still a big net importer of oil. Coal and gas are its big net exports. Similarly, “cereals” is a catch-all term that doesn’t capture the nuances of, say, swimming in corn but being deficient in wheat.
Yet, taken as a whole — meaning discounting trade between members — the EU would sit in the upper left quadrant. Still dependent on net imports of fuel for 61% of its energy needs but also a net exporter of cereals equal to about 10% of its overall supply.(2) Add Norway, a close neighbor and military ally of many EU members, and the pro forma energy ratio would fall to 35%. The implication is that, in this crisis, Europe will hang together or be hung separately — and the Kremlin will exert as much pressure as possible this winter to crack commitment to the common market.
With regards to food, China is a top three producer of corn, wheat and rice — but only as a result of intensive farming. China is the world’s number one user of pesticides and inorganic fertilizer, with the latter adding a further strategic dimension to its high oil and gas imports. Moreover, despite being a top three producer of those crops, China isn’t a big exporter of any of them. Indeed, it is the world’s second-largest importer of rice — a potential vulnerability that plays on President Xi Jinping’s mind.(3) In short, China is a huge agricultural power but must be just to (mostly) feed itself.
Still, China is a giant economy with the means to bid for imports. The truly vulnerable are those countries highly dependent on imports, relatively poor and in debt. To capture these other dimensions, I ranked the 135 states on five different criteria: fuel and cereal import dependency, gross domestic product, GDP per capita and government-debt-to-GDP. Then I added up the rankings to produce a simple score for each country, the lower the better.(4)
In his recently published book, “The End of the World is Just the Beginning,” geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan emphasizes an outgrowth of globalization: specialization. International supply chains are, after all, about efficiency and competitive advantage. Seven decades of free trade backed by US security, more or less, encouraged many countries to trade some measure of independence for faster growth. Indeed, that order has enabled countries with few natural resources, and otherwise precarious geography, to become economic dynamos in certain fields; think of Taiwan in semiconductors, for example. Equally, global trade has enabled population explosions in countries with scarce agricultural resources because they can sell other goods, securely, to ship in food; think Saudi Arabia.
At the dire end of the scale, countries like Sri Lanka that depend on physical and financial flows from elsewhere, face shortages, economic hardship and potential social unrest. Bear in mind, too, that many such countries lie within the tropics, meaning their productive capabilities, including agriculture, are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (see this).
High prices for energy and crops, combined with an ascendant dollar, will suck away more of the most vulnerable countries’ income even as the need to restructure their economies intensifies. The temptation to bargain with Russia, however reluctantly, will be strong. With over 200 million people in an acute food crisis, and ten times that number facing some form of food insecurity — today — this is existential.(5)
• The Energy War Against Russia Demands Sacrifice: Liam Denning
• Biden’s Oil Move Adds to His Energy Contradictions: Liam Denning
(1) Fossil fuel dependency ratio calculated using 2020 data supplied by the International Energy Agency. Cereal dependency ratio is a three-year average for the period ended 2019, as supplied by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Overall data set limited to those countries with both sets of numbers available.
(2) EU cereal import dependency is estimated for the July 2022 to June 2023 season. Source: EU Committee for the Common Organisation of Agricultural Markets.
(3) All these data are as of 2019 and come from the FAO’s World Food and Agriculture Statistical Yearbook 2021.
(4) In theory, a country could rank number one on all five criteria and, therefore, score just five points, the best possible (the worst would be 5 x 135 = 675). As it is, Russia is top with a score of 106 and Jamaica comes last with a score of 569.
(5) Source: “Food Insecurity: The New Normal”, JPMorgan Chase & Co., September 2022. | 2022-09-24T14:15:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Putin’s Ukraine War Forces Ugly Bargains on Food and Fuel - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/putins-ukraine-war-forces-ugly-bargains-on-food-andfuel/2022/09/24/9f610db8-3c09-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/putins-ukraine-war-forces-ugly-bargains-on-food-andfuel/2022/09/24/9f610db8-3c09-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
By Steve Lash, The Daily Record | AP
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The official portrait of retired Maryland Court of Appeals Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera was destined to be highly symbolic, as it would be the first of 24 such drawings of the state’s top jurists going back to 1778 to feature a woman. | 2022-09-24T14:16:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judiciary unveils Barbera’s portrait, a first for a woman - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/judiciary-unveils-barberas-portrait-a-first-for-a-woman/2022/09/24/04d7d74a-3c09-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/judiciary-unveils-barberas-portrait-a-first-for-a-woman/2022/09/24/04d7d74a-3c09-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
By Sydney Shuler, The Daily Progress | AP
A banner from the Visions of Progress is seen, Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022 in Charlottesville, Va. The exhibition of early 20th Century portraits of Central Virginia Black residents, titled “Visions of Progress,” will be at the Small Collections Library at UVa from September 2022 to September 2023. (Sydney Shuler/The Daily Progress via AP) | 2022-09-24T14:16:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Revolutionary Black portrait exhibition opens at UVa - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/revolutionary-black-portrait-exhibition-opens-at-uva/2022/09/24/153f5914-3c09-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/revolutionary-black-portrait-exhibition-opens-at-uva/2022/09/24/153f5914-3c09-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
In Berlin, Keira D’Amato represents evolution of U.S. women’s marathoning
Keira D'Amato will look to continue her rise in Sunday's Berlin Marathon. (Jonathan Mehring for The Washington Post)
BERLIN — Keira D’Amato was on I-95, driving north to catch a flight out of Dulles Airport. The American women’s marathon record holder was on her way to Berlin . She wondered what she forgot.
D’Amato enters Sunday’s race as one of only two elite women to have run the 26.2-mile distance in less than 2 hours and 20 minutes. She finished January’s Houston Marathon in 2:19.12 — besting Deena Kastor’s 16-year-old U.S. women’s marathon record by 24 seconds.
By the the time she landed in Berlin, that twinge of anxiety appeared to be gone. She took her place next to the world’s fastest marathoners in front of the city’s famed Brandenburg Gate, waving to hundreds of cheering fans. She took selfies and smiled for the crowd. She completed a tour of pre-race news conferences, interviews and publicity events with a steady, experienced hand.
She’s 37. A mom of two. And America’s fastest female marathoner.
But D’Amato does not quite fit the exact criteria of a veteran elite marathoner. Although she was an all-American runner in college, she spent years away from the sport thanks to an injury, only picking it up again in 2016, making her an unlikely candidate to shatter Kastor’s record, one that survived two generations of runners and the advent of super shoes.
D’Amato ran in Berlin in 2019. But things were so different for her then, it may as well have been a lifetime ago.
“I got my own ticket and I got my own registration,” she recalled. “I don’t think I had water bottles on the course. I just drank from the water stop.” She finished the race in 17th place, running the course in 2:34.55 seconds. She was not sponsored. Four other American women finished ahead of her.
Since then, D’Amato set an American women’s 10-mile record, signed a sponsorship deal with Nike, broke Kastor’s record in Houston and shook off just two weeks of preparation time to finish eighth in the marathon at July’s World Championships.
“This whole thing has been so fun, surprising and a little surreal,” says the 37-year-old mother of two, who, when she’s not running, works as a realtor, about the last three years. “It feels like a dream in a way.”
On Sunday, she will line up alongside 45,526 other runners — a third of whom are women. Long gone are the days when Boston Marathon organizers told Roberta Gibb, who in 1966 became the first woman to run the fabled race, that “women are physiologically incapable of running 26.2 miles.” Gibb hid in the bushes and ran the race anyway, crossing the finish line in 3:21.40. In 1972, the race admitted women for the first time, and eight ran.
“Katherine Switzer had the courage to put her name and a bib [in 1972]," said Kastor, who won the bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Games. "And Katherine paved the way for Joan [Benoit Samuelson], for the Olympics to finally pick up this sport and for Joan to win the first medal and inspire my dreams. It’s a great circle.”
Three American women have won medals in the Olympic marathon since it was introduced in 1984 — a gold and two bronzes. A small club of American women — including Kastor, Des Linden and Shalane Flanagan — have won marathons in New York, London, Chicago and Boston.
"We had Deena Kastor as our hero,” said Linden, who won the 2018 Boston Marathon and ran the event at the Olympics twice. Then came Linden’s generation of marathon stars — Amy Cragg, Kara Goucher, Flanagan. “I think it got more people excited about marathoning and kept them in the sport and now we are seeing the product of that.”
Professional running also feels different now, D’Amato said. Her first tour of professional running, immediately post-college, didn’t feel as like inclusive and supportive and encouraging as it does now, she said.
“I think that takes like a really like strong special person to be able to fight like tooth and nail, but then also have the utmost respect for all of the competitors,” she said.
The mix of inspiration and healthy competition is not all that has helped the pool of elite women’s marathoners to expand. Systemic changes to contracts and financial models have meant more runners can make a living running. Advances in shoe technology, training strategy and use of statistics are helping to push the pace and lengthen careers. Since the introduction of super shoe technology in 2016, the women’s half marathon world record has been lowered ten times — three in 2021.
“There’s so much more science that’s involved now as opposed to 20 years ago when it was ‘go out and run as many miles as you can and puke in the trash can afterwards,’” Ben Rosario, executive director of the HOKA Northern Arizona Elite Team told The Post. “Everything is very structured, it’s very calculated, it’s very purposeful. And that gives the athlete the mindset that I’m totally prepared and I can take huge risks because I am absolutely 100% ready.”
American women still lag behind in overall race times, but “now you have multiple U.S. women that can compete in Berlin or New York or London or Chicago or the Olympic Games and be real factors to win, real factors to be on the podium,” Rosario said. “This is unprecedented.”
And almost all the fastest American marathon runners — with D’Amato atop that list — are in their thirties. Many are past the point where conventional wisdom said that they should retire. But they just keep getting faster. D’Amato showing up in Berlin is no accident. She isn’t here for nostalgia.
“I wanted to pick the course that was really flat so I can run really fast,” D’Amato said. While she declined to state a specific time goal, she has suggested she hopes to lower the record time she set in Houston in January — and to win. “If I were betting on Keira today or Keira in January," she said of herself. "I would bet on Keira today.”
No American — man or woman — has ever won the Berlin Marathon. Unlike New York or Boston, which have tougher, hillier courses and generally worse weather conditions, Berlin is remarkably featureless. The weather is impressively consistent. It is where Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge broke the men’s world record in 2018, running a blistering 2:01.39. It is made for speed – and competition.
D’Amato’s take? “I’m here for it.” | 2022-09-24T14:54:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Berlin, Keira D’Amato represents evolution of U.S. women’s marathoning - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/09/24/keira-damato-berlin-marathon/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/09/24/keira-damato-berlin-marathon/ |
Not just lives are at risk with Youngkin’s trans student policies
When it comes to Virginia’s children, human potential also stands to be lost.
Aaryan Rawal, an 18-year-old activist with the Pride Liberation Project, speaks during a rally on July 14, 2022. (Eric Lee/For The Washington Post)
When it came time to find someone to edit his college essay, Aaryan Rawal turned to a teacher at his high school in Fairfax County.
He trusted her opinion. He also trusted that she wouldn’t out him to his parents.
He hadn’t told them he identified as queer, he said, and his essay addressed his struggle to accept that part of himself.
The essay opened with a scene of him putting on lipstick in a shade “muted enough to avoid an explosive argument, but vibrant enough to challenge” his family’s understanding of gender norms.
Then it showed Rawal obeying orders to remove the lipstick.
“For years, my sexual orientation clashed with my Indian heritage,” he wrote in that essay. “I threw out pink clothes, purged musicals from Spotify playlists, remained silent in class discussions on LGBTQIA+ issues, and deepened my voice to hide the inflections of the ‘gay voice’ — all in an attempt to stamp out my sexuality. None of it worked, but I still avoided anything with even loose connections to Queerness until the pandemic. No longer walking hallways pierced by gay slurs, I finally appreciate that my sexuality is not tethered to a color, music genre, behavior, or voice, but rather, a part of me I cannot change.”
Rawal is now a student at Harvard University. Virginia’s public schools propelled him to that prestigious campus, and that should be a point of pride for the state. But a close look at his experience also shows this: A shift in policy could have shifted that outcome.
Rawal said it wasn’t until his senior year of high school that he began to openly identify as queer at school. He said he only felt safe doing that because of the “model policies” put in place by then-Gov. Ralph Northam (D) to protect transgender students. The policies direct schools to allow, without deferring to parents, students to use facilities, pronouns and names that align with their gender identity.
Rawal is not transgender, but he said the polices created an atmosphere where he felt free to be himself at school. He described it as allowing him to focus on his studies and pursue his passions.
“I don’t think I would be attending Harvard without that policy,” Rawal told me on a recent afternoon. “I think I would have been very depressed and suicidal.”
The 18-year-old shared his essay with me and agreed to speak openly about his experience in Virginia’s schools because he knows what’s at stake right now for LGBTQIA+ students in the state. He also decided long before we talked that he didn’t want to hide that part of himself in his public life. As an activist with the Pride Liberation Project, he has contributed to op-eds that identify him as LGBTQIA+ and he has been open about his identity on social media.
One of his most recent tweets on the subject came after Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) unveiled new directives that would remove the protections put in place by Northam’s model policies.
“The model trans policies saved my life and are the reason I was able to attend a school that, while not perfect, still affirmed some of my humanity,” Rawal tweeted. “@GlennYoungkin new guidelines undermine the humanity of so many Queer kids — especially gender Queer and Queer students of color.”
The model trans policies saved my life and are the reason I was able to attend a school that, while not perfect, still affirmed some of my humanity.@GlennYoungkin new guidelines undermine the humanity of so many Queer kids- especially gender Queer and Queer students of color.
— Aaryan Rawal (@aaryannotaaron) September 17, 2022
The new policies require schools to force students to use restrooms and other facilities corresponding with their assigned sex at birth and prevent students from changing their names or pronouns without parental permission. They do this despite studies that show LGBTQ youth are already at high risk of self hate and self harm.
In the U.S., at least one young person who identifies as LGBTQ attempts suicide every 45 seconds and 1.8 million seriously consider it each year, according to The Trevor Project. The organization, which offers 24-hour crisis support, found through its 2022 national survey that 45 percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year.
“We know if this gets implemented, students will die in Virginia,” Rawal said. “Students will be subject to abuse and harassment. To us this isn’t a game. This isn’t about advancing an agenda.”
Once homeless, he’s why trans men of color will soon get their own housing program in D.C.
Youngkin has defended the new policies using the same rhetoric that helped him get elected — he’s doing it for parents. “Schools shall defer to parents to make the best decisions with respect to their children,” reads a guiding principle of the proposed policies. I am a parent of two children in Virginia’s public schools. And I know I am not alone in wanting their schools to be free from policies that are based in hate and breed fear. Schools should serve as safe spaces for all children — not just because all homes don’t feel safe, but especially because all homes don’t feel safe.
Years before I was a columnist, I was a cops reporter, and in that position, I saw time and again parents who were capable of horrific cruelty toward their children. Saying he trusts parents to do right by their children may help build a presidential platform for Youngkin, but using it to restrict how vulnerable children can identify in the places where they spend much of their time is inhumane and dangerous.
His policies stand to cost not only lives but also human potential. How can we expect LGBTQ students to thrive when we are putting in place policies that we know will make it more difficult for them to survive?
Before she died, a Black transgender woman wrote she was ‘tired of being not heard.’ Her loved ones hope people now listen.
For a column I wrote about Nona Moselle Conner, a transgender woman who died at the age of 37, I spoke to her father. He told me that for a long while, he couldn’t hug her in public without worrying about who was looking. But by the time she was stabbed 48 times (in an attack she survived), he didn’t care who saw him pull her close.
“A lot of men who have children who are gay and transgender have a lot of issues, and if we were able to overcome our issues, I think a lot of our kids wouldn’t suffer as much or for as long as they do,” he told me after her death. “I know I lost a lot of years. A lot more than I should have. But I thank God she knew without a shadow of a doubt how much I loved her.”
The new policies won’t take effect until after a 30-day public comment period, which is expected to start Monday. Already experts have questioned the legality of the changes and several school systems have vowed to resist them. But the most compelling opposition has come from students who have expressed fear and worry.
After the new policies were announced, the student-run Pride Liberation Project heard from 250 students within 24 hours and nearly 1,000 students within days. The organization also knows of more than 90 schools across the state where students are planning to walk out in protest. A statement released by the Pride Liberation Project condemned Youngkin’s new policies as “bigoted.”
“These revised guidelines will only hurt students in a time when students are facing unparalleled mental health challenges, and are a cruel attempt to politicize the existence of LGBTQIA+ students for political gain,” it reads.
At Harvard, Rawal is studying political science. But he knows he just has to look at his hometown to see how policies have real-life ramifications.
In his essay, he wrote about accepting his own identity and making a commitment to help others.
“Until Queer Brown teenagers like myself can proudly celebrate the multiplicity of their identities, I’m determined to study and challenge the marginalization of all communities,” he wrote, “no matter the shade of my lipstick.” | 2022-09-24T15:16:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Not just lives are at risk with Youngkin's trans student policies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/24/youngkin-trans-policies-harm/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/24/youngkin-trans-policies-harm/ |
Jupiter will be the biggest and brightest it’s been in 59 years Monday
Other than the moon, it will be the brightest natural object in the night sky.
Photographer Christopher Go captured this image of Jupiter on Aug. 23 from Cebo in the Philippines during a short respite from clouds and rain. (Christopher Go)
Starting this weekend, sky gazers will see a rare view of Jupiter’s enormity as it appears its biggest and brightest in decades. Jupiter will be one of the most brilliant natural objects, if not the most, in the night sky.
On Sunday, Jupiter will reach its closest distance to Earth in 59 years, around 367 million miles. On Monday, the gas giant will reach opposition, meaning it will appear opposite the sun to Earthlings. Jupiter will rise in the east while the sun sets in the west. The two events will make Jupiter appear brighter and larger in the sky, with the best views Monday night, according to NASA. However, the planet will appear slightly bigger and brighter for the next few weeks.
Separately, the two occurrences aren’t exceptionally rare. Jupiter reaches opposition every 13 months, which makes the gas giant appear bigger and brighter than at any other time of the year. It also makes its closest approach to Earth, appearing larger, about every 12 years, the amount of time the planet takes to orbit the sun. The overlap of the two events is a game of physics and won’t take place again until 2139.
“This is one of the fun things about living on a moving planet,” said Michelle Thaller, an astronomer at NASA. “Everything is lined up to make Jupiter the largest you’ll see in the sky for the last 59 years.”
Take a cosmic tour inside the images captured by NASA’s Webb telescope
Telescopes in space will also be able to capture a better view of the gas giant for the next couple of months, Thaller said. The recently launched James Webb Space Telescope has already captured an exceptional image of the planet in remarkable detail. The image below, created from several composites, shows auroras above the northern and southern poles of Jupiter. The famous Great Red Spot, a large spinning storm that could swallow the Earth, and its clouds appear white as they reflect a lot of sunlight.
Jupiter has long fascinated astronomers, as it could provide clues to Earth’s early history. Jupiter was probably the first planet to form in our solar system, created from leftover gas and dust from the formation of the sun around 4.6 billion years ago. During this time, the large, heavy planet swung through the inner solar system and destroyed other new planets forming in its path. Debris from the destroyed nascent planets were some of the construction materials for Venus, Earth, Mercury and Mars.
Thaller said Jupiter might also be responsible for much of our home planet’s water. As Jupiter was moving through the inner solar system, it might have delivered some of the water that fills our oceans today.
“We think that a lot of [Earth’s] surface water may have been brought by Jupiter coming in and dragging a lot of the icy stuff from the outer solar system with it,” Thaller said.
Watch this ‘surreal’ Jupiter eclipse that you probably missed
For galactic explorers, Jupiter’s moon Europa is also one of the likeliest places to find life in our solar system, outside of Earth. The ice-covered moon could possess the three necessary ingredients for life — liquid water, chemistry and energy.
As Jupiter makes its rare approach, admire one of the biggest physical reasons we’re here.
“There’s so many cool things about Jupiter,” Thaller said. “It will look particularly big and bright over the next couple of weeks. It’ll just be beautiful.” | 2022-09-24T15:46:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jupiter appears biggest and brightest to Earth in 59 years on Monday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/24/jupiter-approach-opposition-brightest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/24/jupiter-approach-opposition-brightest/ |
Liz Clarke
Commanders owner Daniel Snyder speaks in February at the team's name-reveal event at FedEx Field. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Sentiments among NFL team owners regarding Daniel Snyder’s ownership of the Washington Commanders have shifted significantly, as they await the findings of both a congressional investigation and a league-commissioned probe into allegations of misconduct by him and his team. Multiple owners said in recent days they believe serious consideration may be given to attempting to oust Snyder from the league’s ownership ranks, either by convincing him to sell his franchise or by voting to remove him.
All spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, but their willingness to address it at all is notable because the league and owners have publicly said little to nothing substantive about the prospect of seeking to get Snyder out of the NFL. While no action is imminent, the comments reflect a growing level of frustration among the owners over the controversies that have engulfed Snyder and the Commanders and the team’s financial performance under his ownership, including its inability to secure public financing for a new stadium. As recently as a few months ago, several owners expressed wariness about such an attempt at ousting him, in part because of the prospect of Snyder responding with legal action.
One owner this week was particularly forceful, saying the initial effort could involve urging Snyder to sell the team voluntarily.
“He needs to sell,” that owner said. “Some of us need to go to him and tell him that he needs to sell.”
If Snyder could not be persuaded to do so willingly, NFL rules would require a vote of at least 24 of the 32 owners to force him to sell.
Bruce Allen testifies for 10 hours in congressional Washington NFL probe
Asked about the developments, Commanders President Jason Wright responded with the following statement: “We are making important progress on a cultural transformation to ensure our workplace is inclusive and safe for all. The League has publicly recognized our efforts, and independent experts regularly examining our journey on this accord have confirmed this progress. We are relentlessly focused on continuous improvement at every level of the organization so that we can be a gold standard organization in all facets.”
Following Sarver’s announcement, the attorneys representing more than 40 former Commanders employees said this week the NFL should force Snyder to sell.
“We now need the NFL community, including players, owners, and corporate sponsors, to demonstrate the same outrage and moral strength as those in the NBA community and force accountability for these egregious actions,” the attorneys, Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, said in a statement. “Like Robert Sarver, Dan Snyder must go.”
A sale would bring Snyder a financial windfall. The Commanders are worth $5.6 billion, according to the annual estimates of NFL team valuations by Forbes released last month. Snyder and family members own the entire franchise after an $875 million buyout in March 2021 of the ownership stakes of former partners Dwight Schar, Fred Smith and Robert Rothman, which were about 40 percent of the franchise. At that time, the other NFL team owners granted Snyder a $450 million debt waiver to make the purchase. In 1999, Snyder led an investment group that originally bought the team from the Jack Kent Cooke estate for $800 million.
Moreover, the owners could attempt to convince Snyder that selling the team would have the added benefit of removing him from the public scrutiny he has endured amid investigations by the NFL, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and two attorneys general.
The NFL owners’ next meeting is scheduled for Oct. 18-19 in New York. The owners also have regularly scheduled meetings in December and March.
Roger Goodell: No timeline for end of NFL probe into Daniel Snyder, Commanders
Tanya Snyder, Daniel’s wife and the franchise’s co-CEO, has represented the Commanders at league meetings since the NFL announced in July 2021 that it had fined the team $10 million and that she would oversee the franchise’s daily operations for an unspecified period. Those decisions were based on the findings of a previous investigation into the team’s workplace led by attorney Beth Wilkinson, and the league recently confirmed that the team’s day-to-day oversight remains unchanged.
The franchise’s efforts to secure public funding for a stadium in Virginia stalled in June. The Commanders ranked 31st among the 32 NFL teams in home attendance last season, ahead of only the Detroit Lions, according to figures compiled by ESPN.
In June, The Washington Post reported details of an employee’s claim that Snyder sexually assaulted her during a flight on his private plane in April 2009. Later that year, the team agreed to pay the employee, whom it fired, $1.6 million in a confidential settlement. In a 2020 court filing, Snyder called the woman’s claims “meritless.”
The committee detailed allegations of financial improprieties by Snyder and the team in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in April. The attorneys general for D.C., Karl A. Racine (D), and Virginia, Jason S. Miyares (R), announced they would investigate. The team has denied committing any financial improprieties.
The committee’s final investigative report is pending. Snyder gave a voluntary deposition under oath to the committee remotely for more than 10 hours in July. He had declined the committee’s invitation to testify during a June 22 public hearing on Capitol Hill, with his attorney citing Snyder’s travel out of the country and issues of fairness and due process. His attorney later refused to accept service electronically of a subpoena from the committee.
Document reveals details of 2009 sexual assault allegation against Daniel Snyder
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell testified remotely to the committee during the June 22 hearing. Former team president Bruce Allen gave a remote deposition under subpoena to the committee for about 10 hours earlier this month.
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), the committee’s chairwoman, wrote to fellow committee members in a memo in June that the panel’s investigation had found evidence that Snyder and members of his legal team conducted a “shadow investigation” and compiled a “dossier” targeting former team employees, their attorneys and journalists in an attempt to discredit his accusers and shift blame.
According to Maloney’s memo, the committee’s investigation found evidence that Snyder and his attorneys combed through more than 400,000 emails on Allen’s inactive team account in an effort to convince the NFL that Allen was “responsible for the team’s toxic work culture.” Lawyers representing Snyder provided Wilkinson and the NFL with the Allen emails, according to the evidence found by the committee’s investigation.
In some of those emails, Jon Gruden used racist, homophobic and misogynistic language over approximately seven years of correspondence with Allen and others while Gruden worked for ESPN. Gruden resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in October after the emails were revealed in media reports. He filed a lawsuit against the NFL in November, accusing the league and Goodell of using leaked emails to publicly sabotage his career and pressure him into resigning.
The NFL has said that it did not leak Gruden’s emails. Tanya Snyder told fellow owners at a league meeting in October in New York that neither she nor her husband was responsible for the leaked emails, multiple people present at that meeting said then. | 2022-09-24T15:47:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders’ Daniel Snyder faces hardened attitudes from fellow NFL owners - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/dan-snyder-nfl-owners-washington/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/dan-snyder-nfl-owners-washington/ |
The space agency had hoped to launch its rocket and Orion spacecraft to the moon on Tuesday
NASA was hoping to launch its Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft Tuesday. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
NASA said Saturday that it was canceling the Tuesday launch attempt of its Artemis I moon mission as Tropical Storm Ian moved through the Caribbean toward the Florida Coast.
In a statement, NASA said that the delay would allow the agency to begin preparing the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion crew capsule sitting on top of it to roll from the launchpad back to its assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center.
The decision to roll back would be made on Sunday, the space agency said. If the storm changes course, NASA could keep the rocket on the pad and possibly try to make another launch attempt in the current available launch period, which runs through Oct. 4.
NASA canceled the first two launch attempts of its Artemis I mission to the moon because of technical issues. It had been hoping to get the rocket off on Tuesday but have been keeping a close eye on the storm, which is expected to become a hurricane currently on track to hit Florida.
After years of setbacks and delays, NASA officials are eager to launch the Space Launch System rocket for the first time, which would mark the first major step in its Artemis I program to return astronauts to the moon. This launch would have no astronauts on board, and is seen as a test of the vehicle before the space agency flies humans. | 2022-09-24T15:48:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NASA delays Artemis I launch as Tropical Storm Ian intensifies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/24/nasa-delays-artemis-launch-storm/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/24/nasa-delays-artemis-launch-storm/ |
Girl Scouts explore a stream on the grounds of Rockwood, a Montgomery County estate left to the national scouting organization in 1936 by its owner, Carolyn Caughey. Local Girl Scouts protested when the sale of Rockwood to developers was announced in 1978. The size of the development was scaled back and some buildings left for public use. (Friends of Rockwood) (Friends of Rockwood)
Camping is an integral part of Girl Scouting, a way to learn independence and self-sufficiency. Taking part in a class-action lawsuit can teach a lesson, too. It was the prospect of losing a beloved Montgomery County Girl Scout camp that mobilized a group of green jumper-clad scouts to stride into the Rockville courthouse on a January day in 1979.
They were there to support nine plaintiffs who were suing the Girl Scouts of the USA: seven adults and two of their Girl Scout peers. The field trip to the courthouse would count toward their Active Citizenship badge.
That’s one of the details in a new book from Ann Robertson called “Rescue Rockwood: How a Group of Determined Girl Scouts Rallied to Save a Beloved National Camp.” It’s a messy tale from the Carter/Reagan years that still rankles some in the Girl Scout community.
Robertson is the volunteer historian of the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital, the group that oversees local troops. It was local Girl Scouts who were most upset about losing Rockwood, a 67-acre site off MacArthur Boulevard near Great Falls, when the national Girl Scouts announced they were selling it to a developer.
The national group had been bequeathed the property after the 1936 death of its owner, eccentric society dame Carolyn Gangwer Caughey. Carolyn may have pronounced her last name “coy” but there was nothing coy about her.
“She was really a character,” said Robertson. “She could twist arms and get almost anything out of anybody.”
Caughey was born in 1864. She was married to John Caughey, son of a Pittsburgh industrialist, though she had her own income from savvy speculation in Washington real estate. Well, she probably had her own income. In 1915, John sued Carolyn, claiming he provided the funds for various properties that were in her name.
He later dropped the case and, oddly, they didn’t get divorced. They did live pretty much separate lives after that, Carolyn at Rockwood, her country house.
The Caugheys had no children and as Carolyn grew older she had decisions to make about her estate. She liked plucky women, being one herself, and she was moved by the story of Helen Hopkins, a survivor of the Knickerbocker Theatre disaster of 1922.
Hopkins, 26, was among theatergoers who were trapped when the snow-covered roof collapsed. She was a Girl Scout leader and her calm demeanor and the way she helped other victims made her a heroine of the disaster, which killed 98. Caughey was a friend of Hopkins’s mother and in her last will — she wrote several — she left Rockwood to the national Girl Scouts for use as a “character building center.” Wouldn’t it be nice to have more Helen Hopkinses?
After some internal discussion, the Girl Scouts accepted the property. Scouts camped there. They explored the property, hiking its trails, fording the stream that ran through it. The mansion Caughey had lived in hosted programs for adult scout leaders. Troops came from around the country, using Rockwood as base camp for trips into Washington.
Almost from the start there was a certain tension.
“The locals thought, yes, it’s a national camp, but it’s a little more ours than anybody else’s,” said Robertson.
Why hadn’t Caughey just left Rockwood to the local council?
“I think the reason she went to the national organization is that by being national instead of local, the camp would be integrated,” said Robertson. The local Girl Scout council wasn’t integrated until 1955.
A property like Rockwood is expensive to maintain. Girl Scouts of the USA had another camp — Macy, in Westchester County, N.Y. — that served a similar purpose. It didn’t need both. In 1978, the national group announced Rockwood was being sold to developers Berger/Berman, which hoped to build nearly 200 homes on it.
Some Washingtonians wondered why they were being asked to buy Thin Mints and Samoas when the Girl Scouts were getting a $4 million for Rockwood. The public didn’t understand the difference between the local troops and the national umbrella organization, Robertson said.
The class-action lawsuit was filed by individuals, not the Washington council. They raised money with bake sales and garage sales. They were buoyed when Maryland’s attorney general, Stephen Sachs, joined the suit, making Maryland a plaintiff. Sachs said the state had an interest in making sure the terms of charitable trusts were maintained.
But in 1981, before Maryland et al. v. GSUSA went to trial, a resolution was reached. Part of the camp, including its two main buildings, would be given to the Montgomery County parks department for public use. And the national scouting group would pay the legal fees of the plaintiffs.
The now-smaller housing development went through. Its name — Woodrock — infuriated boosters of the camp.
Today, Caughey’s mansion and a cottage remain. Both are rented out for events, including weddings. Robertson said some brides give a nod to Rockwood’s history by offering Girl Scout cookies at the reception. | 2022-09-24T17:05:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The story of Rockwood, a Md. Girl Scout camp, is told in a new book - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/24/rockwood-girl-scout-camp/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/24/rockwood-girl-scout-camp/ |
In creating a high-profile new Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, the administration hopes to enshrine a focus on equity for long-polluted communities that will “outlive all of us,” says administrator Michael Regan
EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced the creation of a high-level office dedicated to environmental justice and civil rights on Saturday. (Gerald Herbert/AP)
WARREN COUNTY, N.C. — Forty years ago, Dollie Burwell was a young mother in this rural farming region, determined to fight North Carolina’s decision to dump thousands of truckloads of contaminated soil nearby.
Fearing the site could sully groundwater and become a magnet for other toxic waste, Burwell and other local Black women organized fierce protests that carried on for weeks. Protesters lay in the road to block rumbling trucks. They marched, chanted and prayed. They got arrested, again and again.
Ultimately, they failed to stop the 22-acre dump. But their efforts spurred other pollution-burdened U.S. communities to take notice and band together to fight what became known as environmental racism.
A historical sign now marks the place that “sparked [the] environmental justice movement” — and Burwell, now 74, is widely acknowledged as a mother of that movement. But as she returned to Warren County on Saturday, even she struggled to grasp what her long-ago protest had borne.
‘This is environmental racism’ How a protest in a North Carolina farming town sparked a national movement
On a sunny afternoon, leaders from around the country converged on Warren County to pay tribute to the movement’s beginnings, and to hear Michael Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, announce the creation of a high-level office dedicated to environmental justice and civil rights.
By placing the new office on par with EPA’s other core programs, such as those that oversee the nation’s air and water regulations, the White House also hopes to enshrine the focus on environmental justice in ways that future administrations cannot simply ignore.
“This means that at the top of the EPA leadership pyramid, when decisions are made, environmental justice and civil rights will be baked in from beginning to end,” Regan said in an interview ahead of Saturday’s announcement.
“You have to have the structural changes,” he added. “If it’s an important issue, it needs to be front and center. It needs to be elevated.”
Mustafa Santiago Ali helped shape the EPA’s original environmental justice office, established during the early 1990s, and became a key adviser to administrators under Republican and Democratic presidents. During his 24 years at the agency, he saw the focus on vulnerable communities rise and fall.
“With different administrations, some would prioritize environmental equity, and others would let it fall by the wayside and only pull it out whenever there was a significant issue that happened,” said Ali, executive vice president for the National Wildlife Federation, who left EPA in the early days of the Trump administration.
By contrast, Biden administration officials said the new office — which will be created by combining three existing offices at EPA and elevating it on the agency’s organizational chart — will have a budget of roughly $100 million and 200 employees spread across the Washington headquarters and 10 regional operations.
Ali described such changes as “transformational.”
“Institutionally, it helps to make sure that environmental justice will always be dealt with on a high level,” he said. “Whether Democrats or Republicans are in leadership, environmental justice will always be there at the table.”
‘Part of the institutional fabric’
Getting to that table has been a long and rocky road.
Even before national newspapers and television networks covered the Warren County protests in 1982, poor and segregated communities around the nation had largely worked in the shadows, battling coal-fired power plants, sewage treatment facilities, fossil fuel refineries, landfills and other pollution sources.
Beginning in the early 20th century, mostly White public officials in many places instituted “redlining” policies that kept Black, Latino and other minority, low-income residents in neighborhoods deemed undesirable. It was in those same places that heavy industry and other sources of pollution were allowed to cluster, exposing residents to layer upon layer of health risks, many of which remain.
Redlining means 45 million Americans are breathing dirtier air, 50 years after it ended
A 2017 study by the Clean Air Task Force found that Black people are nearly four times as likely to die of exposure to pollution than White people, for instance. But the problems slowly began to garner more widespread attention in the wake of the demonstrations in Warren County.
Several years after the protests, a landmark 1987 study called “Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States” detailed how communities with higher percentages of minorities were more likely to be home to hazardous waste facilities.
That was followed by the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington in 1991, attended by activists from polluted places from Alaska to Albuquerque, and from Houston to Chicago. The gathering helped galvanize once-isolated communities into a national movement.
“The summit was about people of color taking charge of their destiny,” said Robert Bullard, a professor at Texas Southern University and the author of “Dumping in Dixie,” told The Washington Post last year.
In 1992, President George H.W. Bush established the first EPA Office of Environmental Justice. Two years later, President Bill Clinton signed an executive order creating an environmental justice working group.
Still, there was no significant support from Congress. In 2004, during the George W. Bush administration, the EPA inspector general found that the agency had failed to incorporate environmental justice into its day-to-day decision-making and had “not developed a clear vision or a comprehensive strategic plan.”
President Barack Obama later revived the office’s original mission, though some activists argued his administration should have more aggressively focused on the issue. President Donald Trump later tried to zero out the office’s budget altogether.
‘The question becomes, is your life better?’
He established a White House interagency council on environmental justice, created an office of health and climate equity at the Health and Human Services Department and a separate environmental justice office at the Justice Department. He also directed the government to steer at least 40 percent of its sustainability investments toward historically disadvantaged communities.
Biden to place environmental justice at center of sweeping climate plan
The past year and a half has been an exercise in trying to prove that those promises — and real investments — are becoming reality in communities most in need.
The Biden administration said it is making progress. It points toward the tens of billions of dollars included in last year’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including money to update aging drinking water infrastructure around the country, as well as to cap leaking oil and gas wells, reclaim abandoned mine caps and clean up toxic pollution sites located near disadvantaged communities.
Still, questions remain about exactly how — and how quickly — those funds will be , and whether legislative compromises could lead to more pollution in certain places already shouldering an undue burden of risks.
“We can’t use the new office of environmental justice as our litmus test. The litmus test is, how are they doing in reaching folks and getting resources to them?” Ali said. “The question becomes, is your life better?”
Miller-Travis agrees that a main hurdle will be rectifying the “historic neglect” of environmental justice.
“Where the rubber is going to hit the road is when they start to release this money to state agencies,” she said. “How do you make sure those state agencies treat everyone equally under the law, which they haven’t always done before? … Now is the moment to make those places whole.”
Regan insists that is the goal. He said the EPA has the ability to push grants directly to nonprofits, school districts, counties and front-line communities affected by pollution. He said lawmakers also made clear that a significant portion of funding for key water infrastructure, for instance, should be directed toward disadvantaged communities.
“We are focused on those communities that have the potential to be disproportionately impacted by climate impact,” Regan said. “And we will be sure that they are front and center.”
In some industrialized areas, worry also remains that provisions in the recent funding bills could allow more offshore drilling, relax permitting requirements and reduce public input about proposed infrastructure projects. Some communities worry such changes could result in more pollution from fossil fuel production and other effects.
“We’re not really excited about that aspect of it, and we’re hoping we can overturn that particular part of the agreement,” said Hilton Kelley, an environmental and community activist in Port Arthur, Tex., home to oil refineries, liquid natural gas terminals and dozens of other facilities that release toxins into the air.
Kelley said he understands trade-offs were necessary to secure the unprecedented amounts of funding and, in particular, to secure the vote of Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.). And he believes Biden is working hard to live up to his promises to Americans overburdened by pollution.
But if the worrisome parts of those legislative deals stick, he said, “We have fewer tools in the toolbox to fight for environmental justice.”
‘The work is not done’
On Saturday, the mother of the environmental justice and other leaders marveled at how their cause had found its way from the fringes of the American conservation movement to the heart of a president’s agenda.
Where she had once found herself marching in the street and carted away in handcuffs, she now found herself celebrating the sort of affirmation she and others had never quite anticipated.
She and others had come too far, seen too much, for that.
Steven Mufson contributed to this report. | 2022-09-24T17:14:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | EPA unveils new office to place environmental justice at agency’s core - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/24/epa-environmental-justice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/24/epa-environmental-justice/ |
Charlie Lindgren will be the backup goaltender this season to Darcy Kuemper for the Capitals. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Washington Capitals goaltender Charlie Lindgren arrived in the District without much fanfare. He signed with Washington on the first day of free agency in July — the same day the Capitals inked a deal with Colorado’s Stanley Cup-winning goalie Darcy Kuemper to be the team’s No. 1 starter.
All the attention was on Kuemper that day, and the next day, and the next. Kuemper is the Capitals’ shiny new acquisition, expected to be the stalwart in net who will help the team live up to expectations. But Kuemper isn’t the only one slated to be in between the pipes for Washington this season. Lindgren will see a healthy amount of action as Kuemper’s designated backup.
Kuemper started 57 games last season in Colorado and is expected to have a similar load this year. That will leave anywhere from about 20-30 games for Lindgren, barring any injuries or significant change in Kuemper’s recent play.
“I’ve worked extremely hard to get to this point,” Lindgren said. “Like I’ve always told everyone, there’s no room for complacency, you’ve got to keep on working and keep on working hard. I’m still trying to climb the ladder and be a better goalie every single day.”
Washington signed Lindgren, 28, to a three-year, $3.3 million deal after he played in five games last season for the Blues and went 5-0-0 with a 1.22 goals against average and a .958 save percentage. He spent the majority of the season with the Springfield Thunderbirds of the AHL, and went to the Calder Cup final, an experience Lindgren said would help him in the long run.
“Lindgren, he still has to prove what he is, but I think he’ll get it done,” Capitals General Manager Brian MacLellan said. “He’s got a smaller sample size. Really good in the American League. Really good in the sample size last year in the NHL. I think it’s a good opportunity for him and we believe he can do it.”
Before his time in St. Louis, he spent five seasons with the Montreal Canadiens, a stretch Lindgren says became “frustrating” toward the end. Lindgren played in 24 games for the Canadiens, posting a 10-12-2 record with a 3.00 goals against average and a .907 save-percentage.
“I went through my fair share of adversity in Montreal but also I look back and I think Montreal is what led me here,” Lindgren said. “I got to learn from one of the best goalies all-time in Carey Price and that is priceless … being around [Jordan] Binnington, [Ville] Husso, Joel Hofer [in St. Louis], I’ve been around so many good goalies and iron sharpens iron.”
It’s hard to miss Lindgren on the ice, his bushy mustache clear as day behind his goalie mask. You hear his laugh and banter, always smiling and cracking a joke whenever he has the chance. He prides himself in being a “good team guy,” and one who helps others around him improve.
Lindgren’s competitive nature comes from growing up in a hockey family — his younger brother, Ryan, plays for the New York Rangers. His father and middle brother, Andrew, both were goalies.
Perspective | Nicklas Backstrom needs to know he doesn’t owe anything to anyone
“Chuck is an awesome guy,” T.J. Oshie said. “ … l love that guy. He’s been great in the locker room and also on the ice working with guys, doing the extra stuff in practice and doing the little games at the end, that’s the fun stuff and when you bond and get better. That is a great tandem back there and I’m excited for them to get to work.”
Lindgren had a couple of Caps connection before he came to Washington. He knew Nic Dowd from their time at St. Cloud State. Lindgren was a freshman when Dowd was a senior and captain at St. Cloud. Nick Jensen also went to St. Cloud but left a year before Lindgren arrived. Lindgren and Jensen have gotten closer over the years, often working out with Dowd in the summers.
Lindgren and Dowd are close friends and Lindgren gave Dowd’s son, Louie, his goalie stick Friday after practice. Dowd described Lindgren as “one of the hardest working goalies” he’s ever played with.
“When I signed with Washington, obviously, [me and Dowd] were both really excited,” Lindgren said. “Like I said, we train together in the summers. So we were as thrilled as it gets. I have a ton of respect for Dowder. When I was freshman, being around him, he was like the first pro I ever really saw. Just the way he took care of his body and the way he competed, I learned a lot from him.” | 2022-09-24T18:15:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Goaltender Charlie Lindgren’s winding NHL road leads him to Capitals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/goaltender-charlie-lindgren-capitals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/goaltender-charlie-lindgren-capitals/ |
The Rotunda at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
The three events included a noose found wrapped around a statue on campus, a student vandalizing the African American Affairs office building and an “unusual” act of philanthropy left on the grass near the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers.
Jennifer “J.J.” Wagner Davis, an executive vice president and chief operating officer, and Tim Longo, the associate vice president for safety and security, said in a university-wide email sent this week that “the nature and timing of these events have caused some to speculate they are linked or part of a larger pattern of racially motivated crimes.” But the two wrote that there was “no current, visible trend of hate crimes or racially motivated acts.”
The first incident took place last month, when rocks were thrown through the window of a building on Dawson’s Row that houses the Office for African American Affairs. Campus police investigated and charged a student for the act of vandalism.
FBI investigating HBCU bomb threats as a hate crime, suspects juveniles may be involved
Last weekend, several people on campus reported seeing a flag with a symbol that looked like a crown or an owl on the grass near the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. There was also a check for $888.88 that was delivered as a surprise to a student’s room, bearing the same symbol as the flag. Some students speculated the flag represented a white supremacist organization and the check was an attempt to target a student of color, university officials said, but an investigation found that wasn’t the case.
The FBI and campus police found the act was done by an alumnus who is a part of a philanthropic organization that conducts random acts of kindness for students. The symbol on the flag, an owl, is meant to represent the group: Wise Investment Philanthropy. The check was delivered as an act of philanthropy, and the flag was left on the grass near the memorial “as a sign of respect,” university officials said.
University officials said this week documents were also left near the scene of the crime but released little information about it because they didn’t want to compromise an investigation. One of the documents, they said, was a flier for an unrelated campus event.
After bananas and nooses on campus, here’s how a student body president copes
The other document said “TICK TOCK.” The FBI and campus police are investigating the document’s relevance and its relation to the noose. | 2022-09-24T18:15:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U-Va. officials say 3 events are not a ‘trend of hate crimes’ on campus - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/24/uva-student-vandalism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/24/uva-student-vandalism/ |
Will Chicago voters back a candidate for Ill. governor who bashes the city?
By Mark Guarino
State Sen. Darren Bailey addresses the crowd after winning the Republican gubernatorial primary on June 28 in Effingham, Ill. Bailey will face Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker in the fall. (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)
Darren Bailey, the Republican nominee for Illinois governor, spent the summer bashing Chicago as “a crime-ridden, corrupt, dysfunctional hellhole.” But apparently, he’s had a change of heart. He recently admitted that he was living atop the city in the John Hancock Center, one of Chicago’s biggest skyscrapers.
Bailey’s persistent anti-Chicago rhetoric presents a political quandary for the candidate: His criticism of the city and its Democratic leadership is cheered by his hard-right supporters, but he also needs the support of voters in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs to win in November.
Bailey, 56, a state senator from largely rural downstate Illinois, is running against Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is seeking his second term. He represents a sharp contrast to the past three Republican Illinois governors, who have won by flexing fiscal conservative values and advocating for business-friendly policies, while remaining relatively moderate on social issues.
By contrast, Bailey, who has the endorsement of former president Donald Trump, frequently quotes Scripture in public and supports a total ban on abortion. He earned his reputation as a provocateur within his party for sponsoring legislation to separate Chicago from the rest of the state.
While his hard-right rhetoric and positions helped Bailey in the primary, they are unlikely to help in a general election where Republicans need to peel away voters from Chicago and its five collar counties. That turf controlled by Democrats is denser in population and more racially and ethnically diverse than more rural regions of Illinois, where the population tends to be either stagnant or shrinking. Biden only needed to win 14 of the state’s 102 counties to beat Trump by 17 percentage points in 2020.
John Jackson, a political scientist at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, said Bailey needs to “appeal to independents and Republicans who are more moderate and not prone to getting on board automatically with him.” While Trump’s endorsement helped tip a contentious six-person primary in his favor, Jackson said “it’s not nearly enough” to win the general election.
Bailey, who operates a large family farm that produces corn, wheat and soybeans in downstate Xenia, located about 250 miles from Chicago, is more in his element when talking to voters far outside the city. Addressing a crowd of farmers in rural McLean County last month, Bailey described Chicago in almost apocalyptic terms. He compared it to “the O.K. Corral with shootouts and homicides every night.” At a campaign event this month, he called Democrats Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx “the Three Musketeers of crime, chaos and tragedy in the city of Chicago.”
This month, he also staged impromptu media events at sites of gun violence in an effort to suggest that Democrats don’t care about victims and to present himself as an outside catalyst for change. In one exchange with a reporter, however, he admitted to living in one of Chicago’s most prominent high-rises. He said he wanted to “immerse” himself in the city’s “culture.”
Pritzker has portrayed Bailey as too extreme for Illinois. During the primary, Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association spent $30 million in ads attacking a moderate Republican mayor from the Chicago suburbs. Critics said the governor wanted to ensure that Bailey would be his general election opponent.
Bailey and Pritzker have agreed to two debates in October.
The governor has cited comments Bailey made in a 2017 Facebook video, in which he said the Holocaust “doesn’t even compare” to abortion, a comment that many faith leaders blasted as insensitive. In August, Bailey doubled down, telling a radio interviewer that “the Jewish community themselves” told him he was right, without specifying which congregations he consulted. Hours after a gunman killed seven people and critically injured two dozen others on the Fourth of July in Highland Park, a suburb north of Chicago, Bailey posted a Facebook video in which he praised law enforcement and told viewers to “move on and let’s celebrate the independence of this nation.”
Bailey’s defense of those remarks has dominated several news cycles since he won the primary in June and has made some top Republicans nervous. At a Republican gathering at the Illinois State Fair in August, state Rep. Jim Durkin, House Republican leader, would not say if he supported Bailey. Instead he emphasized the party’s goal of picking up seats to reduce the stark disadvantage to Democrats, who hold a 73-45 majority in the House and a 41-18 majority in the Senate.
Illinois Republican Party Chairman Don Tracy said Bailey is a “really genuine guy” who is “not a polished politician.” That image is also key to his appeal, especially downstate where Bailey is a member of the so-called “Eastern Bloc” of Republican state legislators who opposed Pritzker’s Covid-19 policies.
Bailey, who has served in the legislature since 2019, came to prominence in 2020 when he filed a lawsuit against Pritzker, claiming the governor had exceeded his legal authority when he issued a stay-at-home order at the beginning of the pandemic. When the Illinois General Assembly met in person in May 2020, Bailey was the lone holdout who refused to wear a mask, a decision that forced a vote to physically remove him from the proceedings.
The moment solidified Bailey as a fighter, said Tracy.
“For those of us who thought lockdowns without legislative involvement were either a bit excessive or overly wrong, he was one of the few people who was really willing to stand up and fight that,” Tracy said. “That gave him not just publicity, but a reputation for someone who was willing to speak truth to power.”
Bailey’s early momentum is tied to Trump, who appeared with him at a rally the weekend before the primary. But since then Bailey has largely avoided answering reporter questions about the former president. In a recent radio interview, however, Bailey said that the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort was “very upsetting” and made him “very concerned about the future of our country.”
Bailey is part of a wave of Illinois Republicans who scored primary wins over more moderate rivals. Kent Redfield, a professor emeritus with the University of Illinois and the Institute for Government and Public Affairs, said these victories are largely due to an energized base of grass-roots activism among Trump supporters and a moderate wing of the GOP “that’s been in decline” in recent years. Redfield said that top Republican leaders who supported moderate candidates are now concerned that their original goal of breaking their party’s super-minority status in the General Assembly has become even more of an uphill climb.
“The intention was to reestablish credibility, increase numbers in the legislature, and rebuild their funding base. I don’t think having Bailey on the top of the ticket is helping with that,” Redfield said. “Now, Republicans are in a place where instead of being in expansion mode, it may be survival.”
Tracy, the state GOP chair, said that Trump “is going to be a factor” in the election, but not as much as elsewhere in the country. He said that Illinois Republicans win when they focus less on Trump and more on what they perceive as failures of the Biden administration and “what happens when you walk away from common-sense” economic policies and toward “progressive socialist ideas.” Pritzker, he said, is vulnerable on issues voters care about like crime and high gas and grocery prices. He dismissed measures Pritzker instituted, like a gas tax freeze and suspension of the grocery tax, as “election-year gimmicks.”
Steve Boulton, chairman of the Chicago Republican Party, said Bailey’s opportunities are with minority communities in Chicago and its suburbs who tend to be more conservative on social issues and are those most affected by inflation and crime. This is especially true for Black Chicagoans, whose population has shrunk by nearly 33 percent since 1980. “The Democratic ethos is not working anymore for them,” Boulton said.
Bailey marched in a prominent South Side parade in August and his running mate, former conservative talk show host Stephanie Trussell, is Black and a Chicago native. She also has come under fire for recent anti-gay social media posts.
Boulton says voters shouldn’t be misled into believing Bailey is a Trump acolyte. “What’s emerging in the Republican Party is not anti-government, it’s smarter government,” he said. “Darren Bailey signs on with that.” | 2022-09-24T18:37:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Darren Bailey, GOP nominee for Illinois governor, bashes Chicago but needs its votes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/24/illinois-governor-republican-chicago-bailey/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/24/illinois-governor-republican-chicago-bailey/ |
Elijah McClain died of ketamine shot from medics, amended autopsy says
Demonstrators carry a placard during a rally in June 2020 to protest the death of Elijah McClain in Aurora, Colo. (David Zalubowski/AP)
Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man whose death in 2019 after an encounter with Denver police helped fuel calls for police accountability, died because paramedics injected him with a dose of ketamine that was too high for someone his size, according to an amended autopsy report publicly released Friday.
The conclusion is a drastic departure from the original autopsy report, released several months after the fatal confrontation, which said there was not enough evidence to determine how McClain died. The new findings are based on evidence, including police body-camera footage and other records, that a pathologist for the county said he requested in 2019 but did not get.
Though it still lists the manner of death as “undetermined” — as opposed to a homicide or an accident — the report could bolster the prosecution of the police and first responders charged in McClain’s death and reignite calls for greater accountability from the city.
Police had no legal reason to place Elijah McClain in chokehold, probe of death finds
McClain, a massage therapist and self-taught musician, was walking home in August 2019 when he was detained by police responding to a 911 call that someone was acting “sketchy.” Officers tackled him and put him in a carotid chokehold, which restricts blood flow to the brain. Paramedics injected him with ketamine, a powerful sedative. He went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and died several days later.
In the amended autopsy report, forensic pathologist Stephen Cina said the ketamine injection was excessive for McClain, who stood about 5-f00t-7 and weighed 140 pounds.
A review of body-camera footage that police did not provide during the initial autopsy showed that McClain was “extremely sedated” within minutes, according to Cina. He said he thought McClain was struggling to breathe as he lay on a stretcher and that respiratory arrest was “imminent.”
“Simply put, this dosage of ketamine was too much for this individual and it resulted in an overdose, even though his blood ketamine level was consistent with a ‘therapeutic’ blood concentration,” Cina wrote. “I believe that Mr. McClain would most likely be alive but for the administration of ketamine.”
It was not clear whether the carotid hold contributed to his death, said Cina, noting that medical literature suggested it would not have. He said that he saw nothing on McClain’s neck that showed he died of asphyxiation and that McClain could speak after the officers let him up.
Firing upheld for officers who mocked Elijah McClain’s chokehold death
Cina also noted that McClain was “alive and responsive to painful stimuli” up to the point that he received the ketamine shot.
“It is my opinion that he likely would have recovered if he did not receive this injection,” he said.
Deaths related to ketamine toxicity are usually classified as accidents, according to the report, but Cina said the manner would remain “undetermined” because other factors could have played a role.
He added: “I acknowledge that other reasonable forensic pathologists who have trained in other places may have developed their own philosophy regarding deaths in custody and that they may consider the manner of death in this type of case to be either homicide or accident.”
In an emailed statement to The Washington Post, an Aurora police spokesman said the department “fully cooperated with the investigation.” A representative for Aurora emergency services did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Saturday morning.
Prosecutors initially declined to charge anyone in McClain’s death, citing the lack of evidence in the original autopsy.
Some officials, medical experts and criminal justice advocates criticized prosecutors for not seeking a second medical opinion to avoid an “undetermined” manner of death.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) appointed a special prosecutor to reopen the case, and a grand jury was empaneled to consider criminal charges.
Grand jury indicts police and paramedics in 2019 death of Elijah McClain
During the proceedings, the investigation of McClain’s death came under greater scrutiny when Colorado Public Radio reported that the county coroner had met with police before the autopsy was released and that police investigators were present during the examination.
In September 2021, charges were announced against three Aurora police officers and two paramedics. The defendants are expected to enter pleas in November.
Evidence that emerged during the grand jury proceedings prompted the coroner to alter the original autopsy report, but the changes remained secret for more than a year.
The amended version released Friday was made public under a court order after Colorado Public Radio and several other media outlets sued to get access to it.
McClain’s case drew little interest outside Colorado until the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. McClain’s death became a rallying cry in the months of protests that followed. Friends and family remembered him as a gentle person who would use his lunch break to play violin for animals at a local shelter.
Aurora last year agreed to pay $15 million to settle a lawsuit by McClain’s family. The city also banned the chokehold used in his arrest and is considering a ban on ketamine. | 2022-09-24T19:20:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elijah McClain died of ketamine shot from medics in 2019, report says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/24/elijah-mcclain-autopsy-ketamine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/24/elijah-mcclain-autopsy-ketamine/ |
John Wall and Bradley Beal were teammates for eight years with the Wizards. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Bradley Beal and John Wall haven’t been teammates on the Washington Wizards for nearly two years, but they have a bond that goes deeper than basketball.
In a moving essay published Thursday in the Players’ Tribune, Wall detailed his struggle with depression over the past few years. His mother, Frances Ann Pulley, died of breast cancer 10 months after a 2019 Achilles injury took Wall off the basketball court and marked the beginning of the end of his career with the Wizards. He was traded in December 2020.
Wall and Beal’s relationship was complicated during their eight years as backcourt-mates. The pair was the subject of frequent speculation as they vacillated between being goofy, close friends and moody locker room adversaries.
But their bond was strong. It reached another level after Wall received a call during a Wizards’ road trip to play the Charlotte Hornets that his mother had been placed on a ventilator. Wall returned to his room at the Ritz Carlton and had a breakdown, smashing “the TV, the mirror, everything,” he said.
Beal came to sit with him.
“I never wish that on anybody. I lost my grandmother last November,” Beal said Friday at Wizards media day when asked if he had read Wall’s piece. “So kind of seeing what he went through and then not even like a year and a half [later], he went through it again. Lost his mom, lost his grandma, not having basketball. That’s a lot for somebody to deal with who had the world in his hand. He revolved his world around his mother, that’s the reason why he played the game as hard as he did, and that’s taken from you.”
Beal, 29, reiterated Friday what anyone who has helped a loved one through grief knows. Sometimes the best way to comfort someone is by simply showing up.
“I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say,” Beal said. “Just being there, being there to hold him, being there to comfort him, whatever he needed — that’s what I was there for.”
The guard said he didn’t fully comprehend Wall’s feelings until his maternal grandmother, Ora Mae Stokes, died last year. Beal sobbed at shoot-around the day he learned the news but played against Cleveland before taking a brief leave from the Wizards to grieve with his family.
“To have that experience myself a year and a half, almost two years later, it was like, I understand what that meant,” Beal said. “Because I had my brothers, I had my family there, my support system, too. It’s important, man, we need each other. It’s important you have your support system, your family, your friends — everybody needs somebody in this life. I’m blessed that I can call John my brother and I continue to do so.”
Beal joined the Wizards for the start of training camp Saturday “100 percent” healthy after missing the second half of the 2021-22 season with a left wrist injury. | 2022-09-24T19:38:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | When John Wall needed a friend most, Bradley Beal was there - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/john-wall-bradley-beal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/john-wall-bradley-beal/ |
Washington Hebrew Congregation violated D.C. law, judge rules
The ruling is part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine in 2020 following allegations of sexual abuse of toddlers
Washington Hebrew Congregation in D.C. is the target of a lawsuit by parents who say it ignored warning signs while a teacher sexually abused at least seven toddlers for more than a year. (Perry Stein/The Washington Post)
A judge has ruled that Washington Hebrew Congregation violated the District’s consumer protection law when it failed to follow several child safety regulations while operating its preschool, the latest in an ongoing lawsuit between the city and the Northwest Washington synagogue.
Other allegations laid out in the 2020 lawsuit filed by D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) — including a claim that the congregation misrepresented the safety of its programs to parents — will go to trial, Judge Alfred S. Irving Jr., ruled.
The District has alleged the congregation frequently ignored city laws designed to keep children safe. Its lawsuit followed accusations that a teacher sexually abused more than a dozen toddlers for over a year, which are detailed in a separate lawsuit against the synagogue that was filed by a group of parents in 2019.
D.C. sues Washington Hebrew Congregation preschool for not protecting children from alleged sexual abuse
In April, Racine’s office filed a motion for summary judgment, a request for the court to make a ruling before a trial. Irving on Sept. 13 ruled on some of the city’s allegations and said others should be tried by a jury.
He ruled the congregation violated safety regulations by hiring unqualified teachers and assistant teachers, failing to maintain paperwork that showed staff were qualified and operating a summer program without a license.
He also ruled the congregation failed to properly report suspected child abuse — unrelated to the parents’ sex abuse lawsuit — to the District government on at least three occasions. Those instances, from 2016 and 2018, involved accusations that staff members used physical force with children, court documents show.
By violating child safety regulations, Irving said, the congregation breached the city’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act which prohibits deceptive and illegal business practices, according to court filings.
“Washington Hebrew Congregation broke the law and ignored the rules intended to protect children in its care — with truly tragic consequences,” Racine said in a statement. “Childcare providers must hire qualified teachers and assistant teachers and immediately report suspected child abuse. With this ruling, we are one step closer to accountability.”
Jennifer Millstone, the congregation’s director of member engagement, said leaders have taken all allegations seriously and that they were reported to D.C. police and Child Protective Services as soon as they were uncovered. She added the congregation continues to perform background checks on prospective educators and that staff participate in training and development.
“Ensuring the safety and well-being of children in our care is embedded in our Jewish values. Throughout the criminal investigation, we brought in support and resources to help them and their families,” Millstone said. “We sympathize with the anger and hurt the families feel and have worked tirelessly with all parties to explore every avenue for resolution.”
Irving sided with the congregation in one instance: He ruled that the District “failed to meet its burden and the court” regarding an allegation Washington Hebrew violated the city’s Nonprofit Corporations Act. Several other allegations — including a claim that the synagogue violated a city regulation that requires at least two adults to be present with toddlers in licensed child development centers — will go to trial. A trial date has not yet been set.
D.C. authorities say ‘insufficient ... cause’ exists to make an arrest in alleged sexual abuse at a preschool
Irving also denied the city’s request for summary judgment regarding an allegation that the congregation “violated District of Columbia laws and regulations, continues to violate such laws and regulations, and may violate such laws and regulations in the future,” according to court documents. The judge wrote Washington Hebrew has implemented a corrective action plan from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, and that the education agency issued a license in 2019 for the congregation to operate a year-round facility.
Additionally, OSSE inspection reports from 2020 and 2021 indicated the congregation has complied with the agency’s regulations, according to court documents.
Next, the court may decide whether to determine remedies for the legal violations before the other claims go to trail or wait until after.
Families sue Washington Hebrew preschool over alleged sexual abuse
This ruling comes after developments in the lawsuit between Washington Hebrew and a group of parents who said their children were sexually abused at the school.
Court documents filed in July showed the synagogue argued that parents surrendered their right to bring forth a lawsuit when they signed activity waivers upon enrolling their children in school.
The paperwork parents signed included a document that stated “neither parents nor their children will bring claims against WHC or any of its employees for personal injuries sustained ‘as a result of’ a child’s ‘participation in these activities [of the Washington Hebrew Congregation’s Edlavitch-Tyser Early Childhood Center],’ ” court documents show.
But parents understood those “activities” to include “typical preschool activities,” their attorneys responded in court records. “Not a single plaintiff parent who signed the release contemplated that it would cover injuries sustained as a result of their children being sexually abused by a trusted WHC employee.”
A trial date for that case has been set for March 13. | 2022-09-24T20:08:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington Hebrew Congregation violated D.C. law, judge rules - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/24/washington-hebrew-sexual-abuse-court/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/24/washington-hebrew-sexual-abuse-court/ |
Florida has long been a sanctuary for immigrants. That’s now being tested.
Greimar Torrado looks at an ornament at a warehouse run by the Venezuela Awareness Foundation, which helps provide migrants with clothes, shoes and other basic needs in Doral, Fla. (Bryan Cereijo for The Washington Post)
MIAMI — As record numbers of Cubans and Venezuelans reach the United States, Florida is rapidly becoming an epicenter of the nation’s divisive immigration debate, casting a shadow over the state’s reputation as a beacon of opportunity for new arrivals amid a deepening political feud.
New data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that immigrant communities that have traditionally settled in Florida in large numbers now make up a growing share of the migrants reaching Texas and requesting asylum. While the Sunshine State has not provided current data on how many then move on to Florida, Miami-Dade County officials estimate that tens of thousands have arrived over the past year. Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast Guard continues to intercept thousands of Cuban and Haitian migrants on boats as they attempt to reach Florida by sea.
The wave of people hoping to start anew in the Miami area is testing South Florida’s ability to absorb one of the largest migrant influxes in decades. And as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) wades deeper into the immigration debate — flying 50 migrants, most of them from Venezuela, from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard this month — his actions are sparking a broader debate over the state’s standing as a safe haven for those fleeing poverty, violence and dictatorship.
“We are seeing more people say, ‘We need to step up the pressure and close the door,’ even if it’s the very same door that me and my parents walked through,” said Michael Bustamante, associate professor of history and Cuban American studies at the University of Miami.
Throughout Miami, migrants such as Greimar Torrado, 30, are hoping they will continue to feel welcomed in Florida, a state many are just starting to familiarize themselves with. She embarked on a 23-day trek with her boyfriend from Venezuela to reach the U.S.-Mexico border, arriving last month.
Now they hope to establish roots here — even if it means sleeping on an air mattress in a relative’s studio apartment.
“We decided to come to Miami, because we have friends in Miami,” Torrado said. “If God decides for us to stay here, we will stay here. If God decides we should move somewhere else, we will.”
‘Nothing can compare to this’
For generations, the immigration debate in Florida has been tempered by a cultural sensitivity instilled by waves of immigrants from the Caribbean and Latin America. The diversity — 1 in 5 Florida residents are foreign-born — has transformed both the culture and politics of South Florida in particular over the past 60 years.
In Miami, signs of Latino influence are ubiquitous, from the ventanitas selling Cuban cafecito to national landmarks like the Freedom Tower, known as the “Ellis Island of the South.”
“Miami wouldn’t be what it is without the immigrants it opened the doors for,” said María Corina Vegas, a Venezuelan American who helps lead a bipartisan national group advocating for immigration’s economic benefits.
But the new wave of migrants eclipses those that have come before.
Tens of thousands of Cubans began fleeing the communist state last year after Nicaragua lifted its visa requirement, opening up a new channel to try to reach the United States through Central America. Political instability and gang violence has fueled an ongoing exodus of people fleeing Haiti. In South America, Venezuelan migrants are taking risky journeys by foot to flee inflation, poverty and the country’s autocratic president.
In all, Cubans, Colombians, Haitians and Venezuelans — all demographic groups with extensive family in and cultural ties to South Florida — accounted for about 1 of every 4 immigrants who encountered a CBP officer in August.
“There is nothing like this in the history of Cuban migration,” said Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. “Whether by land, sea or air, nothing can compare to this.”
According to Miami-Dade officials, 58,000 Cuban refugees living in the county received state humanitarian assistance from Oct. 1, 2021, through July 1 — many of them recent arrivals. They are part of an estimated 197,000 Cuban nationals who came into contact with federal immigration officials while entering the country over the last year. Historians say the exodus represents the largest resettling of Cuban migrants to the United States, surpassing even the 150,000 Cubans who fled Fidel Castro’s government during the Mariel boatlift in 1980.
Venezuelans are fleeing in similar numbers. According to CBP data, 155,000 Venezuelans have arrived since last October — three times the number apprehended over the previous fiscal year.
DeSantis said his fear is that a sizable share of those migrants eventually arrive in Florida, which he said justified his use of state tax dollars to transport migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.
“If you have folks that are inclined to think Florida’s a good place, our message to them is we are not a sanctuary state,” he said. “And yes, we will help facilitate that transport for you to be able to go to greener pastures.”
The rising numbers pose a predicament for DeSantis. On the one hand, maintaining the loyalty of key Latino voters in Florida is important as he seeks reelection in November. On the other, he is also trying to appeal to a broader audience that is tough on migration as he weighs a potential 2024 presidential run.
While many Cuban and Venezuelan supporters appear to be standing by him, others are incensed by the Martha’s Vineyard flights.
“Not only is [DeSantis’s] policy ineffective, inefficient and costly to taxpayers, but it’s also completely detached from what Florida’s history is,” Vegas said.
In recent days, Republican leaders have stepped up to defend DeSantis’s actions. Even Rep. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), whose parents emigrated from Cuba in the 1950s, has been stiffening his stance.
“What’s happening in Venezuela, what’s happening unfortunately now in Colombia, what has been taking place for more than seven decades in Cuba, what’s happening in Nicaragua, is unfortunate and very sad,” Rubio, speaking in Spanish, said in an Instagram post. “But no country in the world can take on the responsibility of thousands and thousands of people entering illegally every day.”
‘In Miami … I feel free’
In Miami-Dade County, where foreign-born residents make up 57 percent of the county’s 2.7 million residents, local leaders stress that new arrivals are still mostly being absorbed without major financial hardship or cultural backlash.
Many are sleeping on the couches of sympathetic relatives who have taken them in. The vast majority of these migrants, county leaders say, are in the country legally because they have already been processed by CBP and allowed to remain in the United States pending further proceedings.
Yet, Miami-Dade leaders note that the new Cuban, Colombian, Haitian, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan migrants are arriving at a time when the county’s housing market has grown increasingly expensive even for established middle-class families.
“We are going to continue being what we have always been, a welcoming community,” said Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava (D). But, she added, “we want to be sure the federal government is aware if we have a big onslaught we will need their support.”
Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, said the recent influx of migrants is already threatening to undercut the county’s success in reducing its population of homeless residents. In recent weeks, Book said, his office has encountered “multiple migrant families” nearly every day who are in need of emergency shelter. The county is keeping its limited supply of emergency shelter space for U.S. citizens, but the trust refers migrants to social service agencies and, in some cases, helps migrants buy bus or plane tickets to other cities.
“My community should be concerned,” Book said. “We do the best we can … but anyone who thinks this is not a growing crisis is really fooling themselves.”
Patricia Andrade, director of the Venezuelan Awareness Foundation, a group that helps new arrivals in the Miami area, said migrants traditionally want to go wherever they have family or the best chance of finding a job. Increasingly, she said, those places are outside Florida.
“A lot of them are going to places like Utah, Arizona and North Carolina. In fact, last week, of a group of some 1,300 that were processed, the majority was heading to Utah,” Andrade said. “The bottom line is that there’s definitely a new trend — 70 percent is going to another place, while only 30 percent is coming to Miami.”
Nonetheless, many are still intent on reaching South Florida, where restaurants, stores and homes that sound and smell like home abound.
Every Friday, dozens of Venezuelan asylum seekers line up outside a warehouse in Doral — a corner of South Florida nicknamed “Doralzuela” — where volunteers hand out clothes, shoes and other basic necessities like kitchen utensils.
The only thing they can’t help with is housing.
“And that’s actually a big problem now, because we have Venezuelans who are sleeping in the streets,” she added.
As he picked through toys and clothing Friday, Simon Briceño recounted an 18-day trek by bus and foot from Venezuela to the Texas border with his wife and three children. He decided to leave after finding it increasingly difficult to support his family on a $100-per-month salary as an oil worker. Though still waiting for a work permit, he’s been stunned to learn he might soon be able to make the same amount in a single day as a construction worker.
“In Miami, I feel secure, and I feel free,” he said.
For now, however, Briceño is struggling. His family lives with his cousin’s family — about 10 people total — all sharing an efficiency apartment that rents for $2,000 a month.
“This is the first time in my life I have ever had to seek donations,” he said.
‘Why shouldn’t we protect ours?’
Since being elected governor in 2018, DeSantis has attempted to position Florida both as a welcoming place for refugees fleeing dictators and as a state that takes an increasingly dim view of immigrants who don’t enter with a visa.
When he appears at events in Miami, DeSantis frequently touts Florida as a beacon of “freedom” and vows to work with Cuban American activists and faith leaders — many of whom are Republicans — to support immigrant communities.
But DeSantis has also signed legislation that mandates that police work with federal immigration authorities and bans Florida municipalities from implementing “sanctuary city” polices, as well as a bill that penalizes local governments and private contractors that transport “unauthorized” immigrants in the state.
His administration has increasingly appeared to struggle as DeSantis attempts to navigate the immigration debate.
Last month, Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Núñez (R), a Cuban American who DeSantis selected for the job, caused a firestorm in South Florida when she suggested that Florida would soon begin busing Cuban migrants to Delaware.
Both Núñez and DeSantis quickly backtracked, with the governor telling reporters his policies “do not apply for refugees.” Two weeks later, DeSantis authorized the flight that transported migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. No Cubans were aboard — but there were dozens of Venezuelans planning to apply for asylum.
“This unquestionably was a clear warning to us,” said Frank O’Loughlin, executive director of the Guatemalan-Maya Center, an immigrant rights group based in Palm Beach County. “With the governor’s antics, we feel like we are on the cusp of something dreadful.”
Yet, political analysts say they remain skeptical that DeSantis will suffer lasting political ramifications for his actions.
Susan A. MacManus, a veteran Florida political analyst, said the Latino community remains “fairly split” over whether DeSantis did anything wrong by flying migrants to Massachusetts. She noted that South Florida is rife with rumors that criminals and drug dealers are among those arriving.
“A lot of this has to do with the nature of who they think is coming,” MacManus said.
Bustamante, from the University of Miami, added that Florida’s immigrant communities may now be moving away from the “sentiment that he, or she, who comes after us are part of the same story.” He said that shift in attitude makes it easier for DeSantis and Rubio to appear more rigid on the issue.
On Wednesday, social justice organizations held a rally at a park in Doral surrounded by luxury apartments and an upscale shopping center, a sign of the Venezuelan American community’s growing economic clout, to condemn DeSantis’s actions.
“He turns his back on us,” said Liz Rebecca Alarcón, executive director of Pulso, a media organization that attempts to get Latinos more engaged in the political process.
As Alarcón spoke in the park, Silvia Quinez, 38, walked by with her two children. A Colombian who moved to the United States 18 years ago, Quinez said she supports DeSantis’s immigration policies and accused Biden of “keeping the borders too open.”
“I don’t think it’s safe for our country,” said Quinez, referring to the United States. “Anyone can come through, and they are not checking their backgrounds or anything … We protect other country’s borders. Why shouldn’t we protect ours?”
But as she stood outside a shelter in San Antonio on Tuesday and picked through boxes of donated clothing, Yormeni Lopez said she hopes Florida keeps the door open. The single mother of three children — ages 13, 6 and 9 months — crossed the Rio Grande on Sept. 17. She clung to them while crossing the chest-high water.
Now she plans to join her uncle in Miami.
“He’s going to help me find work,” she said.
Molly Hennessy-Fiske in San Antonio contributed to this report. | 2022-09-24T20:21:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida has long been a sanctuary for immigrants. That’s now being tested. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/24/florida-desantis-immigration-cuba-venezuela/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/24/florida-desantis-immigration-cuba-venezuela/ |
DALLAS — Max Duggan completed 22 of 29 passes for 278 yards and three touchdowns and Emari Demercado ran for two fourth-quarter touchdowns in TCU’s 42-34 win over SMU on Saturday as coach Sonny Dykes’ Frogs won the Iron Skillet rivalry game against the program that he coached the previous four seasons. | 2022-09-24T20:23:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | TCU provides Dykes happy "homecoming," defeats SMU 42-34 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/tcu-provides-dykes-happy-homecoming-defeats-smu-42-34/2022/09/24/909299ba-3c44-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/tcu-provides-dykes-happy-homecoming-defeats-smu-42-34/2022/09/24/909299ba-3c44-11ed-b8af-0a04e5dc3db6_story.html |
Wolverines 34, Terrapins 27
Michigan running back Blake Corum (2) was able to run through the tackles of Maryland defenders like Beau Brade (25) most of the game Saturday in Ann Arbor, Mich. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — For Maryland football, still searching for a marquee win against a top Big Ten foe, an enormous breakthrough appeared tantalizingly close. The Terrapins never seized total control of their game against No. 4 Michigan, yet they refused to let the matchup slip away either.
Inside a packed Michigan Stadium, Maryland showed this team has the talent — and can muster the poise — needed to compete with the Big Ten’s best. But in the final quarter, the Terps couldn’t keep pace with the reigning Big Ten champion and suffered a 34-27 defeat.
Playing a close game against a top-tier opponent, which Maryland has rarely done since joining the conference before the 2014 season, marks a step forward for this program under Coach Michael Locksley. But the way the game ended, with the Terps (3-1) unable to keep the game close in the waning minutes, gave it a disappointing finish, even with CJ Dippre’s consolation score with 45 seconds to go. The Terps converted a two-point conversion but didn’t secure the late onside kick, their last glimmer of hope.
Maryland’s offense took the field trailing by eight with 6:28 to go — at that point, a game-tying touchdown and two-point conversion still were within the realm of possibility — but quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa threw an interception on the second play of the series. Michigan (4-0) effectively sealed the victory with a long touchdown run from Blake Corum, and the Terps resigned to yet another loss against a top-tier Big Ten program.
Since joining the Big Ten, the Terps have gone 3-20 against Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State, often the top three teams in the East division. Of those rare wins, two came in 2014 — against Penn State (in James Franklin’s first year as the head coach when the team finished 7-6) and against Michigan (the 5-7 team during Brady Hoke’s final season). The other victory was seemingly a breakthrough for Coach Michael Locksley’s squad when it knocked off Penn State, but those Nittany Lions had a down season, finishing 4-5.
Maryland has suffered those 20 losses by an average margin of around 34 points, so Terp fans have grown accustomed to lopsided blowouts that zap the optimism from a season. Only four times have the defeats come by fewer than 21 points; this loss against Michigan joined that short list Saturday, perhaps indicating the Terps are getting closer to a breakthrough.
But for now, Maryland will keep waiting for that win, one that grabs the attention and acclaim of football fans outside the D.C. region and the group of Terp alumni. They nearly did it in overtime against Ohio State when Matt Canada was the interim coach. And they had a chance Saturday. But Corum ran for a career-high 243 yards and two touchdowns to scuttle the hope that hung over this game for three quarters.
Heading into the matchup, Locksley said his team would “leave caution to the wind,” aiming to “keep the game really tight and get it to a fourth quarter, and you never know what can happen.” The Terrapins entered the final quarter facing only a 17-13 deficit. But on the second play of the fourth quarter, Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy connected with Roman Wilson for a 20-yard touchdown. For the first time all day, Michigan had a two-score lead.
The Terrapins’ offense had gone quiet for much of the past two quarters, but in response to that Wolverines touchdown, the Terps converted a fourth-and-1 on a short pass to Tai Felton, then surged down the field on Corey Dyches’s 44-yard reception and scored on another pass to Felton. Maryland failed to convert a two-point conversion, but that score kept a win in reach, even though the Terps still trailed 24-19. McCarthy’s third-down pass to Ronnie Bell for 49 yards pushed Michigan down the field, and the Wolverines settled for a field goal. That set up Maryland’s drive with a 27-19 deficit, but Tagovailoa threw the pick.
Tagovailoa took a big hit early in the third quarter and had to be tended to by the team’s medical staff. He had to sit out one play — in which backup Billy Edwards Jr. couldn’t help the Terps convert a third down around midfield — but he returned, finishing with 20-of-30 passing and 207 yards.
To have a chance to win against the defending Big Ten champions, the Terps needed a clean performance, free of self-inflicted trouble. But the game had a dreary start with Felton fumbling the opening kickoff. The Wolverines scored a touchdown on their first offensive play. Eight seconds into the game, Michigan had grabbed a lead. But Maryland responded and kept the score close through much of the game.
Maryland’s defense had trouble stopping Corum, but the unit also managed some important contributions in key moments. Linebacker Ahmad McCullough, taking on a larger role in the absence of injured Ruben Hyppolite II (ankle), recovered VanDarius Cowan’s forced fumble as Michigan approached the red zone late in the opening quarter. The defense also held Michigan to a 5-of-12 success rate on third down.
Locksley has called kicker Chad Ryland, a transfer from Eastern Michigan, “one of the more meaningful gets out of the transfer portal for us.” Ryland gives the Terps a seemingly automatic option to score three points if the offense stalls past the 40-yard line — a luxury Maryland did not have in recent years. He proved his value against the Wolverines, hitting a pair of field goals over 50 yards in the first half.
Antwain Littleton II, the powerful redshirt freshman running back, had another strong showing and scored Maryland’s first touchdown, but Maryland’s running game slowed as the game went on.
With Maryland driving in the second quarter for a chance to go up two scores, Tagovailoa stringed together four completions, including one that picked up 26 yards thanks to Dippre’s leap over a defender. But then he threw an interception — that wasn’t reviewed, despite appearing to be a questionable catch. On Michigan’s ensuing drive, the Terps sacked McCarthy to force a third-and-25, and the Wolverines missed a field goal to help Maryland avoid damage from the controversial turnover.
But just before the halftime break, Maryland’s offense went three-and-out and handed the Wolverines an extra opportunity. Michigan then scored a touchdown on a fourth-and-1 play with Corum’s 22-yard run. The Wolverines had climbed back ahead of the Terps, taking a 17-13 lead.
After Tagovailoa’s interception, Maryland didn’t score again until early in the fourth quarter. | 2022-09-24T21:09:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland comes close, but not close enough to beat Michigan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/maryland-loses-michigan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/24/maryland-loses-michigan/ |
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