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The aim is that the tax cuts will create a more dynamic economy, which should eventually generate higher tax revenue and keep borrowing in check. The new Conservative government’s plans have drawn comparisons, even among its supporters, with the ill-fated 1972 budget drawn up by Kwarteng’s Tory predecessor Anthony Barber, who also delivered a massive package of unfunded tax cuts. In his case, inflation soared and the economy overheated before collapsing into recession. Barber’s boss, Edward Heath, was defeated by the Labour opposition two years later, and the UK had to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund in 1976. There are also parallels with policies followed in the 1980s by another of Kwarteng’s predecessors, Nigel Lawson, under then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. | 2022-09-26T13:32:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Understanding the British Pound’s Sudden Crash - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/understanding-the-british-pounds-sudden-crash/2022/09/26/4f195480-3d96-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/understanding-the-british-pounds-sudden-crash/2022/09/26/4f195480-3d96-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
U.N. tech standards race sets up proxy battle between U.S., Russia
Happy Monday! Let me tell you, Elton John did not disappoint in his farewell to D.C. on Saturday. Send your favorite songs by the pinball wizard and news tips to: cristiano.lima@washpost.com.
Below: Iranians struggle to get online amid major protests, and House Republicans plot their next move against Silicon Valley. First:
U.N. tech standards race sets up a proxy battle between U.S., Russia
U.S. officials have voiced mounting concerns about ceding leadership to China and other rivals in setting global technical standards for emerging technologies like 5G and artificial intelligence, which could have sweeping implications on economic development and internet access.
This week, scores of U.S. diplomats, regulators and Biden administration officials are pushing to gain new ground, converging on the United Nations to rally behind their preferred candidate to lead a key digital standards unit.
Up for grabs is the top role of secretary general at the U.N.’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a 157-year old specialist agency that helps to oversee how radio waves are divvied up globally and how different technologies interconnect across borders.
The election formally pits Doreen Bogdan-Martin, an American ITU veteran backed by the White House, against Rashid Ismailov, a former Russian government official and Huawei executive. Current and former U.S. officials say what’s on the line is much bigger — it’s a battle between competing visions for the future of emerging technologies and the internet.
Tom Wheeler, former Democratic chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, last month called it “the most important election you never heard of,” featuring a choice between an “open internet, or a kind of state-controlled internet that resembles Russia’s and China’s.”
The Biden administration seemingly shares that urgency, deploying a massive delegation to the ITU conference kicking off Monday that will decide the fate of the top role.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information April McClain-Delaney, one of the officials heading to the summit in Bucharest, Romania, told me that the contest between Bogdan-Martin and Ismailov “is a stark choice in terms of vision and openness.”
China has increasingly sought to exert influence over global standards-setting bodies over the past decade, including the ITU, prompting U.S. concerns that the tactic will shape what technologies are adopted and further fracture the internet between the West and its rivals.
Sean Kelly, a spokesperson for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), called it “critical that someone like Doreen Bogdan-Martin represent the U.S” and that “we encourage trusted companies to participate and lead in these international standards bodies.” Kelly added that it would "thwart any efforts by adversaries like Russia and China to control our technological future.”
Current and former U.S. officials have expressed concern that China and Russia are pushing to broaden the scope of the ITU’s work to include more sweeping internet governance and to shift away from its decentralized decision-making process.
“Some of these more autocratic nations want to go in and have more of a top-down approach and have more control over the type of internet and the standards,” McClain-Delaney said.
She added, “I think the other big issue is mission creep. … We don't want it to go into internet regulation, or a broader regulatory regime, because digital taxation — those issues are really handled in other forums.”
Top U.S. officials are arguing that Bogdan-Smith would be a win both for greater inclusivity in decision-making at the agency, which has nearly 200 member states, and for more emphasis on digital equality as a result.
McClain-Delaney argued that under Ismailov, “the vision, the priorities of the ITU would definitely be much less inclusive.” Geoffrey Starks, a Democrat who sits on the Federal Communications Commission, said in an interview that Bodgan-Smith aims to deliver “an inclusive digital future where everyone's connected, everyone has access to the opportunities that the internet brings.”
Democratic FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement highlighted Bogdan-Smith’s “proven track record of driving greater broadband and modern communications in all countries.”
During a news conference last week, Ismailov pushed back on the notion that under him the ITU would take on a greater role in issues like content regulation.
“I don’t think the ITU will be able to control or regulate that,” he said, according to an official translation. And he suggested efforts to expand internet regulation reflect member interest.
“Those organizations who don’t want to have any regulation, they’re saying that the ITU tries to take over the regulation and the management of the internet,” he said. “That is not so. The representatives of the countries want to have an international legal framework on the regulation of the internet and to agree on it.”
Ismailov also disputed suggestions that what he’s pushing for will fragment the internet.
“We would like the internet to remain a unified platform, a single space,” he said.
Natalia Abbakumova from Moscow contributed to this report.
Iranians are grappling with widespread internet blackouts
Amid intensifying national protests and widespread internet outrages, Iranians are turning to virtual private networks and other tactics to get online, Bloomberg News's Patrick Sykes, Thomas Seal, and Arsalan Shahla report.
“On Friday, mobile networks suffered a 'full shutdown,' according to Cloudflare, a content delivery network business,” the report said. “That follows nationwide blackouts from 3:30 p.m. until about 10 p.m. on Wednesday, according to a blog post from the company. Iran’s internet use is heavily mobile-based, with some 85% of site requests coming from mobile devices, the blog added.”
Blocks in Iran against many virtual private networks and major platforms like Google, however, are hampering efforts to connect to the internet. In response, the U.S. Treasury Department on Friday issued guidance expanding internet services in Iran despite sanctions against the country, as Reuters reported.
House Republicans set sights on Silicon Valley in midterm agenda
House Republicans unveiled a midterm agenda Friday that took direct aim at the tech giants over allegations they are biased against conservatives and pose risks to children.
The “Commitment to America” includes as a central plank a pledge to “confront big tech and demand fairness,” and criticized tech companies for “crystalizing an ideological echo chamber” and creating addictive apps that pose “potentially devastating consequences” for children.
While sparse on specific policy proposals, the agenda calls for boosting data privacy and security protections and giving parents “more tools to keep their kids safe online,” offering a potential preview of the legislation GOP leaders will pursue if they retake Congress.
Amazon, AT&T could foot some of the biggest bills under new minimum tax
A handful of large companies, including e-commerce behemoth Amazon and telecom giant AT&T, could bear most of the financial burden from the 15 percent corporate minimum tax signed into law last month, the Wall Street Journal's Richard Rubin and Theo Francis report.
According to a new estimate out of the University of North Carolina, the report said, "Berkshire Hathaway would have paid the most in 2021, at $8.3 billion — or about a quarter of the estimated total — followed by Amazon at $2.8 billion and Ford Motor Co. at $1.9 billion. Add the next three companies, and that reflects more than half the $31.8 billion total: AT&T Inc. at $1.5 billion, eBay Inc. at $1.3 billion, and Moderna Inc. at $1.2 billion.
“Amazon declined to comment on the figure but said it awaits federal guidance. Amazon said its taxes reflect a combination of investment and compensation decisions and U.S. laws.” (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) “An AT&T spokesman said the company doesn’t expect the minimum tax to affect its 2023 tax bill.”
TikTok Seen Moving Toward U.S. Security Deal, but Hurdles Remain (New York Times)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom Vetoes Crypto Bill That Might Have Transformed Industry (Barron's)
TikTok could face a $29 million fine in the UK for failing to protect kids' privacy (CNBC)
VPN Providers Flee India as a New Data Law Takes Hold (Wired)
Silicon Valley Slides Back Into ‘Bro’ Culture (New York Times)
How to Be Internet Famous and Anonymous at the Same Time (Wall Street Journal)
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Sameera Fazili, the deputy director of the White House’s National Economic Council, speak at an event hosted by the the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution on the technology and service sectors Wednesday. | 2022-09-26T13:32:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.N. tech standards race sets up proxy battle between U.S., Russia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/n-tech-standards-race-sets-up-proxy-battle-between-us-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/n-tech-standards-race-sets-up-proxy-battle-between-us-russia/ |
Transcript: Health Equity: Lessons from the Pandemic
MR. DIAMOND: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Dan Diamond, a national health reporter here at The Post. Today we’re looking at health equity and the lessons learned during the pandemic--or perhaps not learned. First, Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s Health and Human Services Director, joins us. Dr. Ghaly, welcome to Washington Post Live.
DR. GHALY: Hey, Dan. Thanks for having me this morning.
MR. DIAMOND: Dr. Ghaly, I'd like to begin with President Biden's recent comments saying that the pandemic is over. To be fair, he said that while we have a problem with covid, the pandemic is quote, "over." With more than 400 deaths per day still linked to covid, do you believe that the pandemic is over?
DR. GHALY: Well, I've certainly over the last two and a half years been humbled by any predictions of where we are. We know that covid is a swirly virus that mutates for a living and certainly, even though the current situation is better than it had been in recent months, certainly over the past couple years, we remain prepared in California, and I hope across the nation, for what could come next. So, in many ways us--we in the public health community are preparing for, you know, changes that come, as we've seen other times, you know, the past couple years fall and winter surges. So, it's certainly something that continues to be on our mind.
MR. DIAMOND: From a public health perspective, though, does the president's statement help you and your team? Does it help you convince more Californians to get vaccinated when the president says that the pandemic is, quote "over"?
DR. GHALY: Well, you know, at other times with other infectious diseases, whether you think we're in the middle of an increased surge, whether it's flu or other things, we always are working hard to make sure that Californians here in California are protecting themselves. So, getting boosted, still a top priority, especially given that we now have boosters that protect against the current circulating variants. So, you know, certainly having statements that may persuade people one way or the other to get protected, you know, can help, can harm the efforts. But our sort of key message is, we have valuable tools that are going to protect us, and we're encouraging Californians to still go out and get boosted today.
MR. DIAMOND: If you're watching this program, remember, you can always contribute and ask questions by tweeting @PostLive. That's @PostLive. Dr. Ghaly, I'd like to go back to what you just said about having the tools available to fight the pandemic. We've reported in The Post, others have looked at the fallout from President Biden's statement that the pandemic is over, the continued resistance on Capitol Hill led by Republicans for more funding for covid response. The White House has wanted more than $20 billion to keep funding its response for more vaccines, tools, and so on. How important is that funding to what you're doing in California?
It's absolutely critical. I mean, we've already made enormous investments in so many areas of covid response. And as we continue to beat the drum of the importance of staying prepared, staying protected, we in California in February put out what we believe is the first state's sort of pandemic recovery preparedness response, called the SMARTER Plan. It is an acronym that has all of the components of what California is working on doing--promoting shots, staying ready with masks, being aware of what's happening with the covid numbers from a surveillance perspective, staying ready with being able to deliver a couple hundred thousand vaccines in a day, half a million--half a million tests in a day--these elements that we think keep California squarely prepared for what could happen. And so those dollars, both from the federal level and being able to have the state support to allow our local counties to do the work that they need to continue doing is vital. So certainly, as we move through an uncertain fall and uncertain winter, we want to make sure Californians are aware of our SMARTER Plan, that this is where the state is oriented, working with our counties to keep California State. And those dollars that you're referring to, Dan, critical to keep that work going.
MR. DIAMOND: California and other states have made significant investments over the past couple of years in setting up covid testing centers, vaccination centers. My understanding, Doctor, is that many of those efforts have been forced to wind down because of the freeze of federal funds. How do you ensure long-lasting investments in improving access that go beyond the pandemic? Is that the SMARTER Plan? Is there more that needs to be done? What are the lessons from California?
DR. GHALY: Yeah, well, first off, I think the--one of the first lessons is we in California like to think we were more prepared than many, but we still had a long way to go. And you're right, Dan, part of the work today is how do we stay ready, and that is our SMARTER Plan. So making sure that even though there may not be as much federal support, that we still have the ability to have 200,000 doses of a vaccine, a booster provided every day in California, having that sort of infrastructure remain set up either through specialized tests or vaccine sites, testing sites, sites in the case of testing are really having built that infrastructure into the core of our healthcare delivery system, our public health system. That has been the approach. So, our hope has been that the investments in today's need around covid have allowed us to make--strengthen the foundation to do same sorts of activities. Whether it's covid in a case of another surge, flu, m-pox, it doesn't really matter, having the infrastructure built because of the covid investments has been a key strategy for California.
MR. DIAMOND: You've mentioned several times, Doctor, the booster shots, and federal officials recently authorized new reformulated booster shots that better target omicron and its sub variants. What are you seeing in terms of demand in California for these booster shots? How are you making sure that your residents are not only aware of the shots but actually going out and getting them?
DR. GHALY: Well, you know, for so much of the vaccine campaign in particular, it's been about using our connections to community. We've talked a lot in our conversation on equity in this pandemic, about the building up of community-based organizations, trusted messengers, working with those anchor faith-based institutions certainly across the state, and ensuring that we in California continue to support and fund those entities in addition to federally qualified health centers and community clinics, so that the message isn't just coming from officials at a state or a county level but really from those who meet communities where they are every single day, those providers in the community, health workers from a tour of trusted members of churches and other faith-based institutions. So that work continues in California in deep and real ways, so that we have the best chance of getting as many Californians who can benefit from boosters in the case of boosters and other doses if needed in the future, actually have the access to the information and access to people who they trust and believe it.
MR. DIAMOND: There has been a fair amount of vaccine hesitancy over the past few years. I'm curious what the folks on the frontlines--these people in churches, in the communities--what they're encountering at this point with booster uptake and how you're arming them with, say, messages that will convince holdouts. Nationally, about two-thirds of Americans have yet to get a single booster shot. Now there are new booster shots, and the uptake in my understanding has lagged behind. So, what are you giving the folks on the frontlines who aren't health experts but are encountering community questions about why the booster shot is necessary?
DR. GHALY: Well, I think a number of things. First, clear, simple data and information about the impact that these boosters can make, what we in California update on a regular basis, what the different impact, whether it's becoming infected, becoming hospitalized or God forbid, dying from covid, what the difference is between somebody who's been immunized vaccinated versus those who haven't. So, updating that information, making sure that we use the benefit of now many, many months, millions of people around the globe being vaccinated safely and sharing that information. But there is no doubt we still have a huge mountain to climb when it comes to building trust around these messages, creating reasons to give up your current hesitancy. And we know that for so many communities, they come by that very honestly--right?--decades, centuries of structural forces that don't always create a safe trusting place. And you don't overcome that in a matter of weeks or months. It takes a long time. So, we are certainly doing what we can, but also are humble in the face of what we know is a real sense of lack of trust of the information that many of us in the public health science community wholeheartedly believe.
MR. DIAMOND: Maybe one more booster question, which is, are these boosters arriving too late? They target omicron and it's some variants which raged last winter and some months ago. They're not targeted necessarily to the variants we might see this winter. So, Doctor, the timing of the boosters, is it optimal or suboptimal?
DR. GHALY: Well, I think in this world of developing science so quickly, developing these tools so quickly, having the assurances that they're safe and effective, I think we have institutions, they become available when they're available. And in many ways, Dan, your question may be best answered in a few months when we see if the threat of the certain variants that we are protected against by these boosters really rear their head and create the kind of surge that some people fear could happen. So, I say that they're valuable tools, that they protect against what we know has been the recent threat, and that for that reason it is--given their safety and their effectiveness--wise to go ahead and get your booster. Again, I think over the next few months, we'll have a chance to really see if that's right.
MR. DIAMOND: A reminder that if you're watching and have a question for Dr. Ghaly, you can go on Twitter and tag @PostLive.
Doctor, I'd like to pivot to inequality. California--a state with the biggest economy, and it's one of, if not the most progressive states in our union--and yet, it is also one of the most unequal. Can you talk a bit about the relationship between economics and public health and if California's economic inequality played a role in the state's covid outcomes?
DR. GHALY: Well, I mean, certainly California, the economic inequality that we see in certain parts of our state create living conditions that were not optimal for protecting yourself against the virus--crowded living conditions. I remember early on in the pandemic concern about issues around crowded living. And California is home to it's either seven or eight of the most densely crowded household ZIP codes in the nation. What that means is that you have people living in single room dwellings, many people sharing small dwellings, and that that is not optimal for the spread of an aerosolized airborne illness like covid is. So early on, we knew these conditions, were going to really change the impact of the pandemic, and that's directly connected to economic inequalities and economic status. You look early on at who was infected, and we talked in the first year of the pandemic, especially about, quote, "essential workers," people who couldn't stay home during the pandemic, had to go to work, worked in some very high-risk settings--whether those were nursing homes or healthcare facilities or factories to keep our economy going. And that has, of course, direct impact or connection to one's economic status.
But we also know that there's a deep cross between race and ethnicity. And as we process data and information, not just here in California, but across the nation, we see a real impact on life expectancy, whether it's Latinos in California losing over five years of life expectancy between 2019 and 2021. Similarly, Blacks in California, three and a half years, and Asians a full three years of life expectancy. So that isn't just an economic issue, we believe also is connected to those racial ethnic disparities that we're knowledgeable of but have a lot of work to do to really ameliorate [unclear].
MR. DIAMOND: Doctor, the federal government has declared a public health emergency for covid that allows for more flexibility in their response, more funding. But there could be significant fallout for the U.S. health system in your state when the public health emergency ends. The Urban Institute, for instance, has estimated that as many as 15 million people might end up losing Medicaid coverage at the end of the public health emergency. How do you ensure that there isn't more churn, more consequences for the most vulnerable people when the public health emergency ends?
DR. GHALY: Well, Dan, this is a real concern. And I think at this point, we in California--and I'm really proud of our teams within the agency. I have the privilege of running a number of departments, including our health exchange, Covered California, involved in exactly--answering exactly this question. What are we doing to equip our population? We have over 14 million Californians currently in our Medicaid program called Medi-Cal. We aren't exactly certain but believe 2 to 3 million are vulnerable to lose that Medicaid coverage at the end of the public health emergency. And so we have put in lots of plans, made investments in our county infrastructure to be able to support Californians with ensuring that they learn of their eligibility for Medicaid after the public health emergency ends, and understanding that if they are no longer eligible, that there is an opportunity in our health exchange to remain covered. So, lots of good legislation in the last two years addressing this issue, investments of real dollars in the infrastructure, and then creating plans to avoid exactly that churn that you're mentioning, Dan, to ensure that people don't lose the coverage that we know was vital during covid and is going to be very, very critical for us to be working on health equity and closing disparities.
MR. DIAMOND: Maybe a final question or two. You mentioned monkey pox. You called it an m-pox earlier. That virus spread more quickly than many experts were expecting. There are now more than 20,000 Americans infected. Do you think, Doctor, that the response to monkey pox, which has been criticized for being slow and lumbering, especially on the federal level, shows that the lessons from the covid pandemic haven't been fully implemented?
DR. GHALY: Well, I mean, there's always room for improvement. And I would say some of the lessons that we experienced, frankly, there--when you're actively implementing those changes, it's hard just to say that they're learned lessons. But honestly, some of the learnings from the evolving covid response playbook helped California with our m-pox strategies as well. But yes, of course there is challenges on vaccination, on mismatch between supply and demand, being clear about who the most vulnerable groups are, and how to ensure that the messages are clear in those communities first and foremost. So again, I would say that the m-pox response in California integrated a lot of what we learned from covid but still not fast enough, still not focused enough and we always will look for chances to improve as we move forward.
MR. DIAMOND: Last question, Doctor. How worried are you about a bad covid surge this winter? Scale of one to ten, fifteen seconds.
DR. GHALY: I'm gonna go with a solid five because I think we don't quite know yet. That's why California's SMARTER plan is out there, sort of supported across our state to make sure that we're ready for whatever this virus throws our way.
MR. DIAMOND: Okay. Well, Dr. Ghaly, thanks so much for that. Thank you for the very interesting visual behind you. I don't know who painted those paintings or drawings, but it is a colorful background. Thank you so much for joining us at Washington Post Live.
DR. GHALY: Yeah, my four kids will be happy to know you noticed them, but they're the artists. Thanks a lot for having me, Dan.
MR. DIAMOND: If we had more time, I would have asked a few questions about those drawings.
Please stay with us for the next segment of this conversation. We'll be joined by Dr. Kizzy Corbett, one of the researchers behind the coronavirus vaccines.
MS. KOCH. Hi, I'm Kathleen Koch. When it comes to health equity, one area where we're seeing increasing disparity is in adult vaccinations. Rates were already low before the pandemic, but they have dropped by double digits since 2019, with the greatest decreases among Black and Hispanic populations. Here to talk about how to reverse that trend are Judy Stewart, senior vice president at head of U.S. vaccines at GSK, where she leads a time of 800 people. Judy is responsible for U.S. commercialization efforts for a portfolio of 17 brands with a collective goal of increasing immunization rates and vaccinating more than 300 million Americans over the next five years. She's also a member of the Vaccines Investment Board that globally decides R&D priorities and investment.
And also with us is Dr. Kelly Moore. She is president and CEO of Immunize.org. It's a leading nonprofit organization focused on immunization education for healthcare professionals as well as advocacy for immunization policies that remove barriers to vaccination for all. Now Dr. Moore is an immunization and policy advisor to the World Health Organization. She was also a part of the CDC's frontline response to 9/11 and the anthrax attacks and served on its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. So, thank you both for joining us today.
MS. STEWART: Thank you.
DR. MOORE: Good to be here.
MS. KOCH: Dr. Moore, what lessons has the public health community learned from covid-19 that can help address that gap that I described when it comes to routine immunization rates?
DR. MOORE: Well, first of all, we've learned what is possible when you're adequately funded, and certainly we hope that we can translate some of the lessons we've learned with our resources from covid-19 to our routine vaccination programs. Timely data and the investment it took to create timely information for public health has been invaluable to us and really a critical part of our success in reaching vulnerable populations, especially those who were falling behind because we could see quickly which groups were falling behind. Then we had resources to go and meet with leaders from those communities, trusted partners with those communities to understand their needs and the barriers they were facing so that we could then go about addressing them together with the community.
In addition, we also addressed out of pocket expense. There was no charge for covid-19 vaccines for anyone. And we addressed we convenient access. Remote populations got vaccines at a time and place that were convenient for them. And all of those efforts really made a big difference in covid vaccination coverage. They took resources and investments, but we hope we can use those to address our routine vaccine gaps now.
MS. KOCH: Judy, what about GSK? What lessons has your company learned during the pandemic, and what has it done to help boost immunization rates?
MS. STEWART: Yeah, so I think that one of the things we've learned during covid is that adult vaccinations where we saw health disparities even before the pandemic just got larger and larger throughout the pandemic. And so one of the things that we are focusing on is trying to change the seasonality of adult vaccines. There are many CDC-recommended vaccines that are not around the flu season and there's capacity constraints, quite frankly, when we're trying to deal with a flu vaccination at the same time we're also doing covid boosters. And so we're trying very hard to educate adults that, you know, preventative care can happen at any point during the year. So, for things like a hepatitis vaccine or a Tdap booster or a shingles vaccine, you can really be doing that outside of the flu season so that you're preventing, you know, diseases but not during the flu season so that we can help with the capacity constraints.
And then I think the other thing that we're really focused on and trying to dial up the education around is just how important data transparency is. We've created a tool called Vaccine Track, and what we hope to do with that is to provide insights around where the biggest gaps in care are. It's a state-level tool. It provides information on a quarterly basis for adult vaccination rates, and it cuts it by state, by age, by gender, and by race so that you can really start to see at a very local level where the discrepancies in care are so that we can hopefully improve them as we go.
MS. KOCH: Vaccine Track sounds really fascinating. So how exactly does that close the gap? So, it's just having this more up to date information and broader information?
MS. STEWART: Yeah, so some of it's just having access--easy access. It's available to anyone in the health ecosystem, so it's going to be updated quarterly. We partnered with IQVIA to provide the information. So, I think the first step is providing the tool for everyone and providing updates on a frequent basis so it'll be quarterly. I think the real richness, though, of the tool comes when you start to take those insights and take that data and then start to build efforts to improve those health disparities. So as an example, we've partnered with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and we're working to really look at the Hispanic Population within the U.S. because we see large discrepancies in adult vaccination rates in that group, and we're also targeting at a local community level in Spanish education materials and really trying to come to deliver those messages in channels where they are often visiting--so things like Univision, Telemundo--really trying to get in-language education so that we can try to improve those rates.
MS. KOCH: Dr. Moore, what new is the public health community trying right now to reach these vulnerable populations?
DR. MOORE: Kathleen, we're leveraging data like the Vaccine Track that Judy described which is new to us but is really valuable with its sort of up-to-date information. We're also using information from CDC and other sources to identify and better characterize exactly who the vulnerable populations are when it comes to specific vaccines and where they are. And then we're leveraging those data to track and measure how well our interventions are working so what you measure gets better, and using the data in that way will help us work with those communities to address their needs in ways that are effective.
We're also in public health working to remove barriers to access. I think we've really embraced the role of the pharmacist vaccinator as a person who can be conveniently accessed by anyone, even those without routine access to primary care.
And I'm delighted that in 2023 we're going to see barriers to out of pocket costs go away for people who are on Medicaid and Medicare. Their out-of-pocket expenses to get routine adult vaccines are going to be eliminated under new laws that will go into effect next year, and that will give us more opportunities to address the needs of vulnerable communities as well.
MS. KOCH: We only have about a minute left. So, Judy and Dr. Moore, what one thing can public health advocates and, say, those participating in this event today do to improve vaccination rates?
MS. STEWART: I mean, I think from my perspective it's going to take everyone involved to really be educated, understand what vaccines you should be getting as an adult, for your family and your loved ones, remind them that they need to get vaccinated. It's the easiest way to prevent disease, especially as we age and our immune systems start to decline. So I think it's about talking about it more.
MS. KOCH: And, Dr. Moore?
DR. MOORE: I'd just add if you're a healthcare professional watching this, you have enormous influence over the people you see. The number one reason people decide to get vaccinated is because their healthcare provider told them they should. So your strong recommendation will save lives.
MS. KOCH: Well, thank you both. If our audience has any additional questions, especially about this cool new tool, Vaccine Track, they can check that out at vaccinetrack.com. So, Judy, Dr. Moore, thank you so much for joining us today.
DR. MOORE: Thank you.
MS. KOCH: All right. And back now to The Washington Post.
MR. DIAMOND: Welcome back. And for those of you just joining us, I'm Dan Diamond, a national health reporter here at The Washington Post. Our second guest is Dr. Kizzy Corbett. She's assistant professor of immunology and infectious disease at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where I'm actually going up next week, so I should know how to pronounce it. Dr. Corbett and her team at the National Institutes of Health developed the mRNA vaccine for covid-19 along with Moderna. Dr. Corbett, welcome to Washington Post Live.
DR. CORBETT: Thank you so much for having me again.
MR. DIAMOND: And if you are watching and have questions for Dr. Corbett, please tweet @PostLive. Dr. Corbett, I'd like to start our conversation off the same way I did with Dr. Ghaly, California's health director. President Biden said recently that the pandemic is quote "over." Do you agree?
DR. CORBETT: I've been very hesitant to actually say whether I agree or disagree with President Biden's statement, because I do think that a lot of the context of his thinking was likely left out. When he made that statement, one of the things that he contextualized it with was saying that, as you can see, many people aren't wearing masks anymore, which certainly is not a measure of whether or not the pandemic is over at all. Whether or not the pandemic is over is measured by whether or not the disease is preventable, treatable, and also importantly, predictable. And we have not gotten to the point yet, where the so-called seasonality, or endemicity, of the virus that causes covid-19 is predictable enough for us not to call it a pandemic.
So, I would largely disagree. But I do think that President Biden had the best of intentions in helping us to understand that we are moving in the right direction. There are certain public health measures that we were very strict with in the beginning of the pandemic that we've certainly let up with at this point. But we are not out of the pandemic just yet.
MR. DIAMOND: Is there a marker that you're looking for, Doctor, in terms of total infections, number of deaths? At this point, we're around 55,000-60,000 confirmed infections per day. The likely number is much higher because many people aren't reporting their at-home tests. We're at maybe 400 deaths per day linked to covid. Do you have a threshold in your mind for when this pandemic would be over?
DR. CORBETT: I don't have a threshold with regards to numbers. I will say that we call the seasonal influenza an endemic virus and it causes about 50,000 deaths on high end in a really bad season. And so if we could get to that point, we might think about this being an endemic virus.
But for me, the way that I think about endemicity is really about whether or not the virus is predictable. Quite frankly, we could wake up tomorrow with a press release talking about a new variant that no one would have been able to predict, that really the only thing that could detect it was scientists around the world who are still working 24 hours a day trying to detect variants in sewer water and et cetera. And so we haven't gotten to the point where we have an algorithm to predict what this virus is going to do, which causes us to be in a state where we don't really know what's going to happen next. And it's important to know that in order for us to call this thing no longer a pandemic.
MR. DIAMOND: Just curious--and maybe this is a selfish question, because I'll be in Boston next week--but what are you doing to protect yourself at this point? Are you still masking in groups? Are you eating indoors at restaurants?
DR. CORBETT: I am. So I do eat indoors in restaurants. I mask in groups. I mask inside of my building at the Chan School of Public Health. I still also--I test very frequently. We no longer test or have optional testing at work, but I do have PCR testing at home that I use and can use whenever is necessary. I think that that is part of the public health response that we didn't necessarily get right. Noting that you can mask all you want and you can take all the precautions that you want, but the truth of the matter is everyone needs to know at each stage or each point whether or not they are infectious. And so that is the most important, I think, bit to moving along in the pandemic comfortably.
And you know, one of the other important things right now is boosters. And I have not had--I'm having my booster on next Thursday, which is the day after I have a huge grant due. I couldn't lose a day, shall I have any, you know, symptoms that would prevent me from working for a day. But on next Thursday, I will be getting my booster.
MR. DIAMOND: So you circled that on the calendar as the day to both look forward to but plan around, it sounds like.
DR. CORBETT: Yes, I wanted to make sure that my side effects did not prevent me from getting my lab any money.
MR. DIAMOND: It's important to know where the vaccine fits in in our day. I would like to talk about the current vaccination campaign. But first, for folks who might not know your story and role, maybe we can go back in time for a moment. Can you briefly explain the role that NIH played in developing the vaccines along with Moderna?
DR. CORBETT: Sure. The NIH along with other collaborators--so we collaborated with Andrew Ward's Laboratory at Scripps, Jason McLellan's Laboratory, which was then at Dartmouth, but is now at the University of Texas, Austin, to understand how to make vaccines for coronavirus is in general, really focusing on the MERS coronavirus, which was at the point of which I got to the NIH in 2014, the one that was most prevalent, and also the one that was most scary. And so, we worked on MERS vaccines for I'd say seven--six or seven years prior to the pandemic, understanding how we can make these vaccines better, understanding how we might be able to deliver those vaccines very quickly, in a reliable way. That's how the collaboration with Moderna, which is a messenger RNA technology company, came about. And so, when the pandemic started, together with all of our collaborators, inclusive of Moderna, we understood really what the assignment was. We understood how we can make a vaccine, how we can make one that was safe and also reliable and quick.
MR. DIAMOND: There has been a fair amount of scrutiny around the speed of the Moderna vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine, which were rolled out in 2020, much faster than even experts like Dr. Fauci had predicted early in that year. Now you don't call it vaccine hesitancy. You call it vaccine inquisitiveness, but there's been vaccine inquisitiveness around that speed, and some folks have said they don't feel comfortable with the pace of the vaccines. How would you address that?
DR. CORBETT: I think where we are now, two-and-a-half years into this pandemic, and about a year and a half since the vaccines have been approved, at least from an emergency use perspective, is that we have a plethora of data to support the vaccines being safe, and also being effective, particularly against very severe disease.
And so, I understand where people were coming from in the--in the beginning of the pandemic as they watched vaccines development really, for the first time in many people's lives, happening on a day-to-day basis. You know, I or Dr. Fauci or someone was on the news talking about the latest revelation in the vaccine development process, and it was overload of information. And it also seemed to come out of left field or nowhere, so to speak. And so, I completely understood that inquisitiveness at that point.
But where we are now, it's very clear that while the vaccine was developed in record speed--it's very clear that we've proved ourselves over and over, whether it be from the first turn of the vaccine or with the initial booster or even today continuously with these boosters that this vaccine is safe and also very worthy to be taken.
MR. DIAMOND: Well, then let me flip that question around: If we are in a world where we've proven the safety of these vaccines and the updated boosters, could we be moving even faster? The reformulated boosters that are now available, the one that you're going to get next week, they target omicron and its subvariants which increasingly look like yesterday's challenges. We're going to have new variants on the horizon. Could boosters be expedited faster than they have been?
DR. CORBETT: Sure, they could. But one of the things that I think that is missing from the equation, and from the general understanding of how these boosters come about, is the analysis of whether or not updating the boosters is even necessary. So that does take some time, right? A new virus has to--or sorry, a new variant has to come about. And then teams, whether it be at Moderna or Pfizer, or the National Institutes of Health or other academic institutions, have to analyze whether or not the current vaccine responses are up to snuff with protecting against that new variant, and to what extent as well.
So, the current vaccines are not completely useless, particularly if you've gotten three doses, against the currently circulating omicron variant. It's just that the bivalent booster does give you a notch up in the level of protection. And so those types of data take some time to acquire and there are some bits of regulatory ask in order to change the sequence or formulation of this vaccine, and so it is important for us to make sure that it is worth it to go through those regulatory hurdles that--and that--or to just keep the vaccine the same and boost with those vaccines.
Because if you remember that in the beginning of when omicron started, I think around Thanksgiving of last year or the holidays of last year, we were right in the midst of the first booster. And it turns out that boosting with the original sequence or the original vaccine actually did good enough against omicron in that it still was able to--that booster was still able to keep people from getting severely ill against the omicron variant. And so, I think that, for all intents and purposes, the speed of which we evaluate these boosters is okay. And the only way that we are able to get--going to be able to get better is if we're going to be able to predict how the virus is going to mutate in the future. And I heard that question, actually. You asked it in the previous session, and that was my one comment in that, you know, you asked what was the prediction about the winter--the winter wave on a 1 to 10. And really no one can say. And for me, from my perspective, that is essentially why we are still in a pandemic. Until we can say it's going to be a 4 this winter, or a 10 even this winter, then we are still in a pandemic. And that is also what keeps the lag time with developing the boosters a little bit slower than some might want.
MR. DIAMOND: Well, I appreciate you answering a question that I may have asked you in a few minutes. Sticking with the boosters--sticking with the boosters just for now, you mentioned the booster campaign that began last year. At this point, Doctor, there are still many, many Americans who have yet to get the first booster, let alone the second one that you're planning to get in the coming days. I believe nearly two-thirds of eligible Americans have yet to get a single booster. Why do you think that is? What are the concerns that you are hearing?
DR. CORBETT: I think that people really have pandemic exhaustion, quite frankly. I think that it is—if--even if you look at the numbers of the amount of people who go and get their flu shot every year, those numbers are--adults, really--those numbers are dismal. And so, we are facing this level of exhaustion that is very hard to come by even if it is not about vaccine inquisitiveness or hesitancy, so to speak. People really don't necessarily think that the risk is high enough for them to continue to go get boosters, which is, at this point, seemingly has been, you know, as close to every six months, which is a lot for many people. And so, I think that we're dealing with that.
I think that the level of intensity around convincing people or educating people around the vaccines that we had very early on, because of the intensity of the pandemic, was higher. And so, there was some level of, you know, making sure that people knew about the vaccine so that they could go make their educated decision whether or not they would get it. These boosters come on board, and many people don't even necessarily know enough information to make an educated decision. I think that we haven't necessarily--and I'm included, quite frankly. You can blame Harvard and my new job for that. But I think we haven't necessarily educated and kept the conversation going with people in the most diligent manner in order to really help them to continue to be abreast of whether they want to be boosted or not.
MR. DIAMOND: So, you're saying we can blame you, Dr. Corbett, for vaccine update delays? Is that what I’m hearing?
DR. CORBETT: I’m saying that--I'm saying that it is very hard to start a lab but then also to communicate with the general public day in and day out about the necessities of boosters or any other vaccines.
Like right now, I want to even scream from mountaintops seeing what the flu season is probably going to do that people should also be getting their flu shots. You know, but those--that kind of messaging takes time, and I have--now have a lab run that is also taking the bulk of time as well. And so, similarly to when I was, you know, working on the vaccine development early on in the pandemic, I felt the same kind of burden almost on myself and that I was just like, I should just step away and go on tour and just convince people to get the vaccine. And I wish I could do that here with the boosters as well. Particularly with elderly people, people above the age of 50, I think it is extremely important that they be boosted in anticipation for a wave.
And so, one of the things that comes up I--when I hear from people is, what if the virus changed, then would I have wasted my booster on omicron? And absolutely not. The type of response that is generated from these boosters, it will likely--because of the breadth of it will likely to some extent target any sort of SARS-CoV-2 variant that might come along, you know. And so, it is very important for you to get boosted in the now, without worrying about how that might be wasted in the future.
MR. DIAMOND: You mentioned that part of you wished you could just go on tour to encourage vaccine uptake. If you were in charge of the vaccination campaigns right now, are there other tactics that you'd like to see, particularly in reaching out to communities of color that have at times lagged behind in vaccine uptake?
DR. CORBETT: I think that we certainly do not use social media enough. I think that the times have changed and the way that we get information to people has certainly changed. I think I read something recently about, you know, the number of people who get their news from Instagram, as opposed to, you know, their daily nighttime CNN slot, for example. And so, we really have to change the way that we reach out to people. We also have to change the face of those that are reaching out. I think that I was a very--I was very meaningful in the early parts of the pandemic, because I looked like people who were most hesitant, many times, around getting the vaccine. And so that is important as well.
And also, I think that, you know, I think that--you know, I think that we have to start to bundle vaccine education together. And what we're doing now is we kind of single out vaccine education on a very virus-to-virus or a pathogen-to-pathogen level. And so, you'll talk to elderly people about their shingles vaccine, but you'll skip that, oh, yeah, you should get your flu vaccine and then you should also get your covid-19 vaccine.
And all--for all intents and purposes--right?--obviously, all vaccine technology is different, and they've been developed in very different ways. But vaccines train your immune system to protect you against whatever pathogen it is. And so having a very broad view of vaccines, and giving people that very broad view continuously will help them to understand that, and also help them to start to build a little bit of trust in the system that regulates vaccines and approves vaccines, so that when a vaccine for pathogen X comes about, you know, in five years, no one is going about the questioning in the same way, but rather saying, look, I know that these steps were taken. And because for the last five years, I've been getting my updates on these vaccines, I can trust this, and I'm going to get vaccinated. We're really going to have to move people into a more educated position. And you know, I'm not an expert on these kinds of things. But I do know that these are some of the tactics that worked for me and have been very helpful.
MR. DIAMOND: Last question. You've mentioned some of the challenges in convincing folks to get vaccines not just for covid but beyond. Are you surprised by the ongoing politicization around covid, or does that make sense to you, given how heated and exhausted the rhetoric has been?
DR. CORBETT: I'm not surprised at all. I think that the times that we are in, everything comes with some bit of political slant. And so, we generally have to just accept that to some extent, and hope that we can, as scientists and as public health practitioners and medical doctors and et cetera, vaccine advocates really take on a neutral database view to tone out the politics of it all.
But I'm not--I'm not surprised. And quite frankly, I'm pretty sure that it's not going to go away. If anything, it's going to continue to get bigger as we think about changes to science policy, changes--and changes in the way that vaccines are made and, you know, different technologies that are going to start to come on board in, you know, the next 5 or 10 years. We are just going to have to be very diligent about tackling it from a data-driven perspective.
MR. DIAMOND: Yes, the politics of public health have gotten ever more complicated. We are out of time, Dr. Corbett, so we'll have to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining Washington Post Live.
DR. CORBETT: Thank you so much. And I hope you go get your booster before you come visit Chan.
MR. DIAMOND: I don't think it's going to be in the cards scheduling wise, but I'm looking forward to the T.H. Chan School of Public Health in my Harvard visit next week. Thanks again, Dr. Corbett.
And thanks to all of you for joining us today on Washington Post Live. If you’d like to see upcoming programs, you can go to WashingtonPostLive.com for details and to register. Again, I’m Dan Diamond, health reporter at The Post, and thank you so much for watching. | 2022-09-26T13:33:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Health Equity: Lessons from the Pandemic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/09/26/transcript-health-equity-lessons-pandemic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/09/26/transcript-health-equity-lessons-pandemic/ |
A gunman apparently angered by Russia's military mobilization opened fire at a recruitment office in Ust-Ilimsk, a small town in Russia's Irkutsk region, on Monday. (@Taygainfo/Reuters)
A young man shot and wounded the chief recruitment officer at a military enlistment station in Russia’s Irkutsk region on Monday, local authorities said, as thousands of fighting-aged men continued to flee the country to escape being summoned to duty in President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
The alleged shooter in the attack on the recruitment chief, at a military commissariat in Ust-Ilimsk, a small town in Irkutsk, apparently was distraught that his close friend had been called for duty despite having no prior military service.
Putin, announcing the partial mobilization, had said only experienced servicemen would be summoned. “We are talking about partial mobilization,” the president said in a national address. “In other words, only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up.”
But there have been a torrent of reports all across Russia, including from ardent supporters of the war, of people being summoned for duty despite having no prior military service, or being too old or otherwise physically incapable of going to war. Those reports, along with the government’s acknowledgment that thousands of fighting-age men had fled the country to avoid conscription, suggest that the chaotic mobilization is becoming the latest debacle in Putin’s war.
A video clip of Monday’s shooting showed the man, identified as 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin, firing at least one shot inside the office.
“The shooter was immediately arrested, and he will definitely be punished,” Irkutsk regional governor Igor Kobzev wrote in his Telegram blog. “I can’t wrap my head around what happened, and I am ashamed that this is happening at a time when, on the contrary, we should be united.”
According to Kobzev, the recruiter, Alexander Eliseev, has been hospitalized in critical condition.
Zinin’s mother, Marina Zinina, told a Russian outlet ASTRA that her son was distraught as his best friend got the summons despite never serving in the army.
“They said that there would be partial mobilization, but it turns out that they take everyone,” she was quoted as saying.
As local commissariats rushed to fulfill quotas, mobilization notices were sent to men who should be legally exempt from service because of their age, health condition or lack of military experience.
Some were sent home after public uproar. Others, like 59-year-old Viktor Dyachok, who has Stage 1 skin cancer and is blind in one eye, were called to duty, independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported.
Amid swirling confusion over who could be summoned, thousands of Russians continued to flee the country on Monday, fearing that the Kremlin will soon move to shut the borders for men running away. Meanwhile, resistance to the call up for war duty has resulted in a spate of other violent incidents.
In Ryazan, a city in western Russia, a man reportedly set himself on fire at a bus station to protest the war in Ukraine. Local outlet YA62.ru reported that the man, whom the authorities had not yet identified, “started laughing and shouting that he did not want to participate in the special operation in Ukraine,” using the Kremlin-preferred euphemism for the war.
A video posted by the outlet showed the man, who was not severely injured, being led outside the bus terminal by police and ambulance workers.
Sporadic protests have broken out, including in Russian regions populated mainly by ethnic minorities such as Dagestan, where the majority of residents are Muslim, or the indigenous lands of Buryatia and Yakutia. Local activists say these areas are being disproportionately affected by the mobilization.
More than 2,300 protesters have been detained across dozens of Russian cities since Putin announced the partial mobilization last Wednesday morning, according to rights group OVD-Info, which monitors protest activity in the country.
Traffic jams stretching miles have formed at the border crossings with Georgia and Kazakhstan as the departure of Russians continued through the weekend and on Monday.
“The jam at the Russian-Georgian border continues to be about 20 kilometers long” — roughly 12.5 miles — “and the wait times to cross into Georgia is now up to three days,” Nikolai Levshitz, a Russian-speaking blogger who helps expats assimilate in Georgia, wrote in his daily Telegram update.
With air tickets to virtually all visa-free destinations long sold-out, Russians are crossing by foot, by car or even by bicycle in hopes of reducing the waiting time to leave. Photos and video clips posted on social media have shown piles of abandoned bicycles near the border posts.
One Russian man who arrived at Istanbul airport on Monday morning said he took a charter flight from Moscow because commercial flights were sold-out, and had paid about $5,000 for his seat.
Weekend reports from Russian independent outlets said that authorities could close the country’s borders to military-aged men as soon as Wednesday.
Meduza and Khodorkovsky Live outlets, citing Russia government sources, each reported that Moscow will halt departures just as soon the results are announced of the staged referendums now being carried out in parts of four Ukrainian regions occupied by Russian troops. There is no doubt that the results of the referendums, which are illegal under Ukrainian and international law, will be reported by the Kremlin as showing overwhelming support for Russian annexation of the occupied territories.
The so-called voting, with some residents being forced to participate at gunpoint, is expected to conclude on Tuesday.
Putin and his supporters have signaled that once Russia absorbs the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, the Kremlin would consider any Ukrainian attacks on those areas as direct strikes against Russia, potentially creating the justification for stronger reprisal, including the use of nuclear weapons, and also providing a basis for declaring partial or full-fledged martial law.
On Monday, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov deflected those rumors, saying that “no decisions have been made in this regard.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away from Moscow, Putin met with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in the sunny Black Sea resort town of Sochi.
Lukashenko allowed Putin to use Belarus as a staging ground for the invasion of Ukraine in February, including Putin’s failed effort to seize Kyiv and topple the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In 2020, Lukashenko claimed he was reelected in an election widely derided as fraudulent. He then cracked down on protests, subjecting thousands to beatings and harsh prison sentences. In the two years since, 100,000 to 200,000 people have left Belarus.
In their meeting on Monday, Lukashenko told Putin not to “worry” about Russians now doing the same.
“Let’s say 30,000, even 50,000 left,” Lukashenko told Putin about the recent departures of Russian men. “So what? If they had stayed here, would they have been our people? Let them run,” Lukashenko said in opening remarks.
“I don’t know how you feel about it, but I wasn’t too worried,” Lukashenko said, referring to the thousands who departed in 2020. “Most are begging to come back,” he told Putin. “And yours will come back too.”
Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, and Kareem Fahim in Istanbul contributed to this report. | 2022-09-26T14:10:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Gunman attacks Russian military recruiter as thousands flee mobilization - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/26/mobilization-putin-russia-war-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/26/mobilization-putin-russia-war-ukraine/ |
This was a familiar scene Sunday. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
A look at the good (Hail!) and bad (Fail!) from the Washington Commanders’ 24-8 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.
Hail: Safety
Commanders defensive tackle and pending free agent Daron Payne continued his strong start to the season by tackling Eagles running back Boston Scott in the end zone early in the fourth quarter. The safety gave Washington its first points of the game. Speaking of safety, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts enjoyed an uneventful and hazard-free walk through the tunnel that leads to the visitors’ locker room after Sunday’s win. It was a far cry from Hurts’s last trip to Landover in January, when he was nearly taken out by a group of fans who tumbled to the ground after a railing near the tunnel collapsed.
Fail: Pocket presence and protection
Commanders quarterback Carson Wentz was sacked a career-high nine times — one more than he endured as a member of the Eagles in Washington’s win over Philadelphia in the 2020 season opener and one shy of John Beck’s franchise record set in a 23-0 loss to the Buffalo Bills in 2011. (The Bills were originally credited with nine sacks in that game, but the official scorers changed the total to 10 three days later.) The Eagles, who became the first team since Washington in 2019 to register four sacks in the first quarter, finished with at least nine sacks for the eighth time in franchise history. Wentz shouldered some of the blame, acknowledging he has to do a better job getting rid of the ball in the face of pressure.
The Commanders put faith in Carson Wentz. Eventually he has to reward them.
Hail: Hog > Dog
During the first quarter, the Commanders announced they have narrowed the categories for their new mascot down to two. The winning mascot, which will be revealed at the team’s final home game of the season, will be either a hog or a dog. (Historical figure and superhero were eliminated as categories, which is good news.) Fans are invited to vote for the name of the hog or dog mascot online. The options include Boss, EZ, Lieutenant, Lil General, Major, Tuddy (cringe) and Winstan (please, no). A hog — which would be a nod to the franchise’s dominant offensive line from the ’80s and early ’90s — has seemed like the obvious pick since the team announced its search for a mascot earlier this year. It just so happens the Commanders plan to honor the original Hogs at the game when they announce the winning choice.
Fail: Home-field advantage
Eagles fans took over FedEx Field and made their presence felt — with hearty boos for Wentz — throughout the day. Earlier in the week, Philadelphia Coach Nick Sirianni challenged Eagles fans to make life difficult for the Commanders and said it would be a “deflating thing” if Washington was forced to use a silent cadence at home. “That would be pretty cool,” Sirianni said. Mission accomplished. Wide receiver Terry McLaurin said Washington was forced to change its snap count a few times.
Hail: Near scorigami
Washington’s fourth-quarter safety cut the Eagles’ lead to 24-2, an unusual but not unprecedented score. Three NFL games have ended that way, including the New York Giants’ playoff win over the Atlanta Falcons on Jan. 8, 2012. Sunday’s 24-8 final, though not a scorigami, is even more rare. In fact, it had happened only once before, on Oct. 26, 1975, when the Houston Oilers defeated the Detroit Lions by that margin. Washington has still never scored exactly two points in a game.
Fail: Ron Rivera’s attempted challenge
While Wentz needs to work on not holding the ball for so long, Rivera has to improve his reaction time with the challenge flag. DeVonta Smith set up the Eagles’ first field goal with an incredible 45-yard catch along the sideline, but replays appeared to show the wide receiver got only one foot down in bounds. Rivera attempted to challenge the catch, but he didn’t throw his red flag on the field until after the Eagles had already snapped the ball on the ensuing play. “I needed to throw it sooner is the truth of the matter,” Rivera said after the game.
Hail: Benjamin St-Juste
Hurts threw for 340 yards and three touchdowns, and Smith had eight catches for 169 yards and a score, so there weren’t many standout performances in Washington’s secondary. St-Juste was an exception. The second-year cornerback, who has lined up primarily in the slot this season, played outside opposite Kendall Fuller with regular starter William Jackson III inactive with a back injury. He responded with three tackles and three pass breakups.
Fail: Washington’s offense
The new smoke machines the Commanders debuted for pregame introductions were the extent of their offensive firepower for much of the day. Washington has been outscored 46-0 in the first half over its past two games after being outgained 322-50 through two quarters and taking a 24-0 deficit into halftime Sunday. Unlike last week, things didn’t improve much in the second half against the Eagles. Washington reached the red zone for the first time in the final minute of the third quarter, but the 15-play, 93-yard drive culminated in a turnover on downs after tight end Logan Thomas was stopped for no gain on a shovel pass on fourth and goal. The Commanders scored on only one of their three red-zone trips. | 2022-09-26T14:23:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington Commanders highlights and lowlights from loss to Eagles - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/commanders-eagles-highlights-and-lowlights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/commanders-eagles-highlights-and-lowlights/ |
Diana Ejaita for The Washington Post
As a Black woman, I want freedom from oppression. So I’m finally plotting my exit.
Perspective by DeNeen L. Brown
The mouth of the Volta River in Ghana seems to be swelling with the stories of my people. By day, the river, black and thick, runs south, dumping its fresh water into the Gulf of Guinea and eventually the Atlantic Ocean, where it churns in a powerful vortex. By night, I swear I see the river reverse itself, running inland, as if an invisible force were swallowing it whole. The pink water lilies, with plump green leaves that floated south that morning, appear to be moving backward. It is magical and mysterious. I’ve never witnessed a river reverse course.
I believe this river carries the stories of my enslaved African ancestors who may have been transported down its waterway hundreds of years ago into waiting boats anchored out at sea before making the transatlantic voyage as “human cargo,” heading from this Gold Coast for South America, the Caribbean islands and other parts of North America. As many as 15 million Africans were packed in the belly of slave ships, often without proper ventilation or sufficient food. It is estimated that up to 2 million died in the Middle Passage, lost in deep-water graves.
My ancestors, though I do not know them, must have survived that gruesome voyage, only to have to endure the barbarity of enslavement in the Americas. As with many people in the African diaspora — scattered by the evil of the slave trade, disconnected from our language, song, culture and people — I am not exactly sure where my ancestors are from. Still, I know that my distant ancestors are from this continent. As Peter Tosh sang, “Don’t care where you come from / As long as you’re a Black man, you’re an African / No mind your nationality / You have got the identity of an African.”
Like many Asian Americans, I have long spurned my full name. A wave of racism made me say: No more.
In Ahmaud Arbery’s Georgia community, this group’s demands for justice have had a real impact
In December 2021, I jumped on an airplane to reconnect with the continent — and to explore Ghana as a potential place to live and plant new roots. It was a time when America seemed to be splintering, with state laws banning the teaching of critical race theory — effectively, barring the teaching of historical truths — and constant warnings about real dangers to democracy and the possibility of a new civil war. Eleven months earlier, I had watched as insurrectionists attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, scaling walls, beating police officers with American flags, breaking historic glass windows, bursting doors and trampling through a building built by enslaved Black people. Someone erected a gallows and noose outside. One man carried a Confederate flag, a symbol of entrenched racism, through the halls of Congress. The fight for racial justice seemed to be failing. The moral floor had cracked.
Democracy appeared to be imploding, and the country seemed to be increasingly dangerous for Black people — although racist terror was embedded in the fabric of American history and is not a new phenomenon. In 1999, Amadou Diallo, a student, was shot 19 times by four New York police officers who were then acquitted of all charges in his killing. In 2006, police shot Sean Bell the morning of his wedding. In 2009, transit police fatally shot Oscar Grant III in Oakland, Calif. In 2014, Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer. Walter Scott was killed in 2015, Philando Castile in 2016. In 2018, Stephon Clark was fatally shot in his grandmother’s backyard. In 2020, George Floyd was murdered, and Breonna Taylor was fatally shot while she slept in her bed. In Kentucky, Charleston and Buffalo, self-proclaimed white supremacists attacked Black people in churches and grocery stores.
As a reporter for more than 35 years, I watched, researched and wrote with a sense of journalistic distance while consuming the emotions of every tragedy. Each video was so terribly sad. The 2019 police killing of Elijah McClain in Colorado ripped at my core. I replayed the videos of McClain, 23, a peace-loving vegetarian who played his violin to shelter cats, pleading for police to stop hurting him and to just let him walk home in peace. We couldn’t walk the streets, drive, study, go to the grocery store or sleep without fear of getting killed.
One night while on my trip to Ghana, my driver made a U-turn in traffic and was stopped by a police officer. My stomach dropped. It was the middle of the night and I was terrified. I watched as the driver got out of the car and walked toward the officer standing on the side of the road. The driver motioned to the officer, talking with his hands, explaining he was lost and apologizing for making the U-turn. The officer listened. After a pause, the officer said, “I forgive you. Go about your way.”
I want this kind of freedom: to live in a country where traffic stops end peacefully. I want the ability to move among people who look like me. I want to engage in intellectual debates without having to explain the history of this country’s racism. I know no place is perfect. But I want to live in a country where racism is not a constant threat. Which is why I have decided to eventually leave America. When or where I will go I can’t say for sure — but I am finally ready.
I am not alone in my plot to leave the country where I was born in an attempt to flee entrenched oppression. There is no official tally of African Americans who have recently chosen to leave, but anecdotally there has been a surge of interest in the topic.
Looking ahead to the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved African people on the shores of what is now Virginia, Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, issued a call to people in the African diaspora to “return home” by visiting and moving to Ghana. “In the Year of the Return, we open our arms even wider to welcome home our brothers and sisters,” Akufo-Addo said in 2018 at the National Press Club in Washington, “in what will become a birthright journey home for the global African family.”
For many, the death of Floyd in 2020 may have been a turning point. “In the last two years, there has been a groundswell of Black people in America who want to go to Africa,” says Greg Carr, a professor of Africana studies and former chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. “I haven’t made the jump yet, but I’ve been thinking about it all the time. … I would prefer to experience the full range of human experiences on the continent, rather than put up with the default position in the United States, where we are ‘othered’ and excluded from the definition of humanity. It is a perpetual field of violence.”
Celebrities have been part of this trend. In 2020, the singer and actor Ludacris announced on Instagram that he had become a citizen of Gabon, a country in central Africa. Actor Samuel L. Jackson also became a citizen of Gabon after he took a DNA test that showed he was connected to the country’s Benga tribe. “It was spiritually uplifting to connect with the tribe and to look down and see my relatives and ... to be welcomed by some people that looked at me ... like, ‘Come home,’ ” Jackson told “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah. In 2021, singer Stevie Wonder announced he was moving to Ghana. During an interview with Oprah Winfrey, he explained that his decision was prompted by the recent political climate in America: “I don’t want to see my children’s children’s children have to say, ‘Oh, please like me. Please respect me. Please know that I am important. Please value me.’ ”
The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs says it does not keep track of the number of Americans who have moved out of the country. “U.S. citizens are not required to register their presence abroad, and we do not maintain comprehensive lists of U.S. citizens residing overseas,” a State Department spokesperson wrote to me. “Estimates of U.S. citizens in particular countries can vary and are constantly changing. We do not want to provide figures that cannot be considered authoritative.”
But online, one can find growing communities that are sharing stories of what they sometimes call the Blaxit, i.e., Black Exit. The YouTube channel GoBlack2Africa has posted dozens of videos interviewing African Americans who’ve moved to Africa. A video from the African Web YouTube channel titled “Why Are So Many African Americans Moving to Ghana” has been viewed over 217,000 times.
In 2021, Tim Swain, a poet and educator who moved from Indiana to Ghana, told the YouTube channel Odana Network that the first time he visited Ghana in 2007, he was transformed “as a Black person.” Then in 2014, he went to join peaceful protests in Missouri after the police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown. The attacks on protesters left him shaken. A few months later, he traveled to Ghana again. “It was like this juxtaposition of America where I am feeling like the bottom of the bottom, reminded every day that I’m a Black person that is a stain on the fabric of America,” Swain recounted. “I come to Ghana where I literally exist as a human being. I have no conscience about the color of my skin. … Every time I came to Ghana it became literally harder and harder to return to the U.S.” After about two years of planning, he and his wife moved to Ghana in 2019.
Rashad McCrorey, who owns a travel company that organizes tours to Africa, told BNC (“America’s Black News Channel”) that he was traveling in Ghana in 2020 when the pandemic hit the United States. He decided to stay. “It’s been an amazing experience,” he said. “In America, we deal a lot with racial oppression, [systemic] oppression, whether it’s red lining ... the prison industrial complex. But what I appreciate most about being in Africa is that I just wake up every day and being a man.”
Winthrope Wellington, 38, who runs Throp, a YouTube channel that highlights economic business development in Jamaica, has interviewed African Americans who have recently moved to the island. Wellington — whose father is Jamaican — permanently moved from New York to Negril after college. Last year, Wellington interviewed Rahel Teklegiorgis, a guest at his family’s hotel who decided to move to Jamaica from Philadelphia during the pandemic. “As a single Black female ... I felt welcomed. That’s the beauty of the culture here,” Teklegiorgis told Wellington. “Wherever I go, they’re like, ‘Empress!’ It’s just a beautiful thing to feel welcomed and valued and held up. ... It’s like a breath of fresh air. ... I would encourage folks to just try it. Take the first step.”
After he posted the interview, Wellington noticed a theme in the video’s comments. “I realized there was an underground movement of people asking, ‘How can I, as a Black American, move to a country where I don’t feel oppressed and automatically judged by my skin color?’ ” Wellington told me. He added that during Donald Trump’s presidency, “people were driven to my channel. People were looking for a way out.” He also noted another element that may be a key driver of the trend: In the age of remote work, people can choose to live abroad without quitting their jobs.
And yet, people have also been making this choice since before the pandemic and George Floyd and the upheavals of the Trump era. Mark E. Blanton, 53, a former U.S. Secret Service agent, and his wife, LaTasha R. Blanton, 44, a doctor of physical therapy, decided to move from their home in Virginia to South Africa after visiting in 2011. “We saw beautiful homes, luxury homes,” LaTasha told me of her first visit to South Africa. “We saw Black people holding positions.” It made her think of all the work she had put into her career in the United States without ever really feeling as though she had quite arrived. In America, she recalls, “I checked all the boxes they asked me to check: Go to school, get a degree and at the end you would have a life where you don’t have to worry as much. But it was never that.”
In 2018, they moved, resolving that “we should live out the rest of our days around people who think like us, look like us and feel the same way we feel about our accomplishments,” says LaTasha. “When I first arrived in South Africa, that is when I realized I was living.”
Mark and LaTasha now own the Real South Africa tourism company, which is based in Johannesburg and introduces visitors to life in the country. They have seen an increase in the number of people booking tours. For many, the trip is an experience that shifts their inner core. When their airplanes land, “everybody says they felt something,” Mark told me.
Whenever Mark has to travel to the States, he sobs on his return flight to South Africa. “It’s the feeling of freedom,” he explains. “I don’t want to let it go, even for a moment. I love my freedom. I truly do. You must understand the experience on this side as an African American. … A lot of African Americans are figuring this thing out. That is the biggest draw. They are getting their freedom.”
I never really felt at home in America, though I was born here and grew up in Kansas and Oklahoma, in the midst of wheat fields. As a child, I climbed trees, wrote poetry, devoured books and dreamed of faraway places. I read National Geographic magazines in the basement of the little white house on Ash Street. I consumed the set of encyclopedias that my mother bought. I watched trains crossing town near the smokestacks. I wondered where they were going. I wanted to get on those trains and leave. Wanderlust — I would later understand the word. I carried with me the desire to get out even then.
I look back now and realize I was a child in the middle of a social revolution. I grew up in the Black Power movement, coming on the tail end of the civil rights movement. I wore bell bottoms, cut my hair into a short Afro and danced to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” I “cut the rug” on the gold shag carpet in our living room and sang James Brown’s “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud.”
My parents never told me what America thought of me — or their own personal histories with race, racism and racists. It was a coping mechanism used by so many Black parents across America. Instead, they showed me I was loved. In our family’s black-and-white photos, my sisters and I are perfectly groomed — starched dresses, ribbons in our hair — and we are smiling. My mother constantly told me: “Nene, you are beautiful. You are smart. You can do anything. You can be anything you want to be.”
In first grade in 1971, I became part of a nationwide experiment of transporting Black children into White schools to fulfill the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education. I was one of thousands of Black students who would have to climb on yellow school buses in our Black neighborhoods in the early-morning hours and ride for as long as an hour, passing our own beloved neighborhood schools.
On the first day that I was to attend the school across town, my mother ironed my dress and pressed my hair and parted it down the middle. I remember wearing clipped bangs. But still I was not quite prepared for the encounter that day at Peterson Elementary in Kansas, a flat blond brick building on the White side of town.
I remember during snack time the teacher assigned a White girl to be the class monitor; she would check whether the students had indeed washed their hands in preparation for graham crackers and milk in tiny cartons. The girl circled the class. When she arrived at my desk, I proudly stretched out my clean hands. But the girl recoiled. “I can’t tell whether your hands are clean or dirty,” she spat. “They are all brown.” I remember thinking: “What the hell is wrong with you? Of course my hands are clean.” Even as a child, I would not internalize the oppressor’s opinion of me. Racism would always be their problem.
Despite the racism I faced, I excelled in the White schools. I was a track star, a volleyball player, a debate team member and my high school’s first Black head cheerleader. I had the biggest smile and could do a standing leap four feet off the ground, as if I knew I could fly. But I also suspected that my people’s stories and contributions were being left out of my lessons, textbooks and assignments. I remember asking my Advanced Placement history teacher, a White woman: “Where are the Black people in our textbooks?” She didn’t respond.
After winning an academic scholarship to a university, I stumbled into journalism during my sophomore year when a professor in an advertising-writing course saw my promise and directed me on the editorial track. During my subsequent decades as a journalist, my goal has been to humanize Black people, capturing their ordinary and extraordinary lives. As a reporter in D.C., I thought of myself as “a reporting anthropologist”: I sought to capture the dialogue, rhythm and cadence of what was then known as “Chocolate City.” The underlying questions driving my reporting were: Why did racism persist in a country that claimed it believed in equality and freedom? Why were Black people still suffering under economic, political and cultural oppression?
At The Washington Post, I covered protests across the country in the wake of police shootings and mass shootings of Black people. In 2015, I reported on the fatal shootings of nine Black people in Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Dylann Roof had been welcomed by church members for a prayer meeting on June 17, then spent more than an hour praying with them before he pulled out a pistol and opened fire. In the middle of the shooting, Tywanza Kibwe Diop Sanders, 26, asked Roof, “Why are you doing this?” according to the later testimony of his mother, Felicia Sanders. “And he told our son, ‘I have to do this because y’all raping our women and taking over the world,’ ” Felicia said. “And that’s when [the gunman] put five bullets in my son.”
I was assigned to attend seven of the nine funerals, including the funeral of the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, where President Barack Obama famously sang “Amazing Grace,” a cappella. I reported with a sense of urgency, trying to connect history to the tragedy in the church. I drove past the old Confederate plantations. I visited the Old Slave Mart Museum, which was the first port for thousands of Africans brought here at the height of the slave trade. During those days on the ground in Charleston, I interviewed relatives of the people shot in that church. I interviewed Black people. I interviewed White people. I interviewed people standing in line to attend the funeral of Rev. Pinckney. I interviewed people in the shade. I interviewed people who stood in the sun. I interviewed people inside the funeral. No one could answer the question of what drove this self-proclaimed racist to open fire on nine Black people praying in a church.
Then, later that year, I got an opportunity to interview Scott Shepherd, who was a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi and now called himself a “reformed racist.” There I was, sitting outside a Georgetown cafe, traffic whizzing by, as he told me about his past racism. “The plan for a race war is definitely still there,” Shepherd said. “They want to start another civil war. It’s people like Roof who’ve grown impatient waiting for the war. They break off and start shooting Black people.” He warned me then to tell my “Black friends” to prepare for the war. That we should stock up on food and ammunition. Better yet, he said, perhaps we should leave America.
“They don’t like you because they hate themselves,” Shepherd said of his former allies. What struck me about this interview was his searing honesty; no White person had ever directly explained the depths of racism to me. I kept the video on my phone so that I could remember this conversation.
I want the ability to move among people who look like me. I want to engage in intellectual debates without having to explain the history of this country’s racism.
In 2016, I worked on a team of reporters who established a history section of The Post’s website called Retropolis. I focused my reporting on Black people in American history and wrote short narratives, hoping to expose readers to stories they were never taught. I wrote about topics from the brutality of enslavement, to Reconstruction, to the racist terror committed against Black Americans during the Jim Crow era, to the search for mass graves of Black people killed during the Tulsa Race Massacre. I was assigned to cover the unveiling of the lynching museum in Montgomery, Ala. As I reported, I began to understand the country’s history of racism at a deep level. I was not an academic, but on this beat, as a reporter and a generalist, I began to connect the dots of America’s ugly past. It became clear that this country had never fully embraced justice for formerly enslaved Americans and their descendants.
I discovered that President Abraham Lincoln, known as the Great Emancipator, was also known as the “Great Colonizer” because of his efforts to relocate Black people out of America. In 1854, during a speech in Illinois, Lincoln said, “I should not know what to do as to the existing institution” of enslavement. “My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” In 1861, Lincoln came up with a plan to send Black people to Panama, but abolitionists fought him.
On April 16, 1862, Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. The law abolished slavery in the District and called for the payment of reparations to White enslavers loyal to the Union, as much as $300 for each enslaved Black person freed, according to the National Archives. But a little-known clause in the act did something noteworthy: It apportioned $100,000 to pay up to $100 to each enslaved person who voluntarily chose to emigrate out of the country.
Months after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, Lincoln’s administration contracted with two White men in New York to send more than 450 recently emancipated Black people to Île-à-Vache, Haiti, where they would settle a colony, according to manuscripts at the Library of Congress. On April 14, 1863, a ship named the Ocean Ranger left Fortress Monroe, Va., with 453 recently freed Black people. But the plan soon turned into a catastrophe. Dozens of the passengers died of malnutrition and disease. Less than year later, in March 1864, the United States sent a ship to rescue them, returning the emigres to the United States.
Still, Lincoln did not give up on plans to send Black people away. “By 1863,” according to the National Archives, “realizing Liberia, Haiti, and the Chiriquí lands were not reasonable for resettlement (Liberia was considered too great a distance to relocate a large number of freed slaves), Lincoln mentioned moving the ‘whole colored race of the slave states into Texas.’ Four days before his death, speaking to Gen. Benjamin Butler, Lincoln still pressed on with deportation as the only peaceable solution to America’s race problem: ‘I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the negroes … I believe that it would be better to export them all to some fertile country.’ ”
Reading these documents, I understood what my history teachers had not told me: that Lincoln believed this country would never truly accept us.
“When I first arrived in South Africa, that is when I realized I was living,” says LaTasha R. Blanton, who relocated from Virginia to South Africa in 2018.
But it was not merely White politicians discussing this topic. Black intellectuals, philosophers and leaders have long debated whether African Americans should be seeking to integrate or to separate. In short: Should we go, or should we stay?
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, a national hero in Jamaica, was one of the greatest proponents of Black people leaving America. In 1914, he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which advocated for racial uplift, Black pride, economic empowerment and Black nationalism. Garvey championed the Back to Africa movement, advocating for Black people scattered throughout the world in the African diaspora to return to the continent and form an independent Black nation.
Malcolm X believed the only true solution for Black people was separatism. “Not only does America have a very serious problem, but our people have a very serious problem. America’s problem is us,” he said in 1963. “We’re her problem. The only reason she has a problem is she doesn’t want us here. And every time you look at yourself, be you Black, Brown, red or yellow — a so-called Negro — you represent a person who poses such a serious problem for America because you’re not wanted.”
There is a long history of African Americans leaving America — voluntarily. Black writers, artists, scholars and revolutionaries sought refuge in other places that would allow them to explore who they were and what their identities were beyond the color line drawn by America. Writer James Baldwin, who departed in 1948, lived in Turkey and in France. “I left America because I doubted my ability to survive the fury of the color problem,” Baldwin wrote in a 1959 essay, “The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American.” He explored the feeling of life as an emigre in a 1961 essay, “The New Lost Generation”: “I think my exile saved my life, for it inexorably confirmed something which Americans appear to have great difficulty accepting. Which is, simply, this: a man is not a man until he is able and willing to accept his own vision of the world, no matter how radically this vision departs from that of others. ... No artist can survive without this acceptance.”
Though she later returned to the United States, Maya Angelou spent years in Egypt and Ghana, beginning in 1961. “If the heart of Africa remained elusive, my search for it had brought me closer to understanding myself and other human beings,” Angelou wrote in her book “All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes,” which covers the years she lived in Ghana. “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”
In 1969, Black Power advocate Kwame Ture, formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, moved to Guinea with his new wife, Miriam Makeba, the South African-born singer who would become known as Mama Africa. After they married, Makeba’s performances were blacklisted in the United States. “My concerts were canceled left and right,” she said. “Speaking about South African apartheid was fine, but they were suddenly afraid I might speak about American apartheid, although I never did.” Nina Simone famously left America in the 1970s, living in places including Liberia, Switzerland, the Netherlands and France. Simone told the BBC in a 1999 interview that she left America after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: “I was devastated. I wrote a song in his honor the next day called ‘The King of Love Is Dead.’ ... I must have cried for two weeks. And it killed my inspiration for the civil rights movement ... in the United States and I moved away.”
When I traveled to Ghana, I paid my respects to W.E.B. Du Bois, who had moved there in 1961 at the age of 93. Du Bois, a founder of the NAACP and an organizer of the first Pan-African Congress, is credited with inventing the field of modern sociology. In “The Souls of Black Folk,” he pondered the predicament of a Black American: “One feels his two-ness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” I carried the book with me from high school to college and into the newsroom, trying to decipher its meaning for me.
In Ghana, I visited his home and stood in the study in the bungalow where he furiously wrote during the last days of his life. In a poem called “Ghana Calls,” which he dedicated to President Kwame Nkrumah, who invited him to move to the country, he wrote: “Here at last, I looked back on my Dream; / I heard the Voice that loosed / The Long-looked dungeons of my soul / I sensed that Africa had come / Not up from Hell, but from the sum of Heaven’s glory.”
To those who are unfamiliar with the history of racist terror in this country, I know that the argument for departure made by Black intellectuals may sound the same as the insults long hurled by white supremacists, telling Black people to “go back to where they came from.” But the root of those instructions are disparate, incongruent. The white supremacists’ demand that we leave is rooted in hate and racism. The Black intellectual’s case to leave is rooted in the need to protect our existence, to find peace and true freedom, to preserve ourselves, our sanity and our lives.
When I traveled to Africa and a crowd in Ghana shouted, “Welcome home,” something inside me moved.
The more I watched, the more I reported, the more I researched history, the more intense my thoughts were about leaving. And yet, I also kept recalling an interview I conducted for my college newspaper when I covered the student protests against the apartheid regime in South Africa. I asked a graduate student from South Africa why he did not just move to another country — rather than try to fight the entrenched racist regime of the Europeans who had settled along the southern tip of Africa in the 17th century. “When a snake is in your house,” he told me, “you don’t leave the house. You kill the snake.” It was a perfect quote to explain the fight against apartheid.
I turned it over in the recesses of my mind for three decades. Finally, I decided the difference between the graduate student and me is that his people were indigenous to South Africa. It was the minority government that had come and claimed the land. In America, the fight was different. Black people were not indigenous to this land. They were kidnapped, trafficked and brought here in chains. I realized that I’d rather leave than try to “kill the snake.”
Black people have been trying to kill the snake of systemic racism and injustice in America for 400 years. Maybe, instead of a snake, the better metaphor is a wall: Fighting entrenched racism is like punching a brick wall with bare hands. In the end, the wall does not move an inch. It does not bend. It does not break. I am only human, and my knuckles bleed. Unless the majority of the population becomes true anti-racists — that is, unless they become actively involved in fighting against racism — little will change.
Some of my friends say they would never permanently move out of America. That we should embrace every constitutional right and all the great benefits of being an American because Black people built the wealth in this country. Alice Thomas, a professor at Howard University’s School of Law, argues that African Americans should stay and fight for justice here. “For me, there is a distinction between leaving to not return versus leaving to explore other places and then return home,” says Thomas. “I am one who has no desire to leave the country, but I have a great desire to travel the world. And I have traveled to African-centered destinations on the continent and to the Caribbean. And to anywhere Black people are in the world — to Amsterdam, Canada, Australia, Egypt, Uganda and several times to Kenya, to Egypt.”
Thomas says she is a “global African citizen” who has traveled throughout the world by choice. “The only choice I didn’t have was coming to America. I know my ancestral homeland is not here,” she says. “I believe I was one of the people put in the bottom of a ship and brought over here, where we were raped, pillaged and plundered. I am not an immigrant. I am a descendant of captives.” And that brutal history is precisely why Thomas, who as a professor teaches students how to use the legal system and the Constitution to fight for justice, says she will not move permanently out of the United States. “I am not giving up access to this place,” she told me. “We paid a heavy price for it. Scholars call it ‘blood sweat.’ ”
When her son wanted to leave America and give up his passport, she recalls telling him: “You will not give up the passport because it is the key to the candy shop” — meaning access to all the economic opportunities America provides. “It would be rewarding people who did what they did to my ancestors to give the key to the candy shop,” she told me. “I will stay here and throw the Constitution up in their face. I am going to be here. They would be so happy if we all got on a boat and left. And I do not want to make them happy.”
Thomas says she also won’t emigrate because too many people who can’t leave the country would still be here suffering. “I want to go as much as everybody else,” she told me, “but I have to stay. My work, not only is it not near the end, I’m needed more now than ever as a lawyer and legal scholar. The same reasons other people want to leave are the same reasons I have to say. If I leave, it would be worse for those left behind.”
I believe she and others are strong and heroic; I understand her argument, and I respect the decision. But personally, I want freedom and joy. For once in my life, I want to know what it feels like to not be judged as a Black person walking through predominantly White institutions, constantly feeling like I have to jump higher, run faster, be better.
I have always been adventurous, having traveled as a foreign correspondent to the sea ice of the Arctic, to Greenland where I drank million-year-old water from a melting glacier, to Haiti where I covered floods and regime change. I have traveled to many places in Europe: to Paris, Copenhagen, Prague and London. Each place, I have looked for Black people. But when I traveled to Africa and a crowd in Ghana shouted, “Welcome home,” something inside me moved. They say when you hear the truth, you know it. To me that was truth.
After my trip to Ghana, I decided to start preparing for a life outside this country with the aim of spending my retirement abroad. At this moment, I can’t just get up and move. But I’ve been getting things in order and saving my money. I watched YouTube videos on downsizing and financial planning. I took boxes and boxes of books and other items every weekend to Value Village. I gave away anything that would hold me down. I cut expenses where I could. I sold my house. I looked for new streams of income, as many YouTubers have advised, to sustain a digital nomad lifestyle outside the United States. I applied for a visa to Ghana. I applied for residency in other countries where I could. And when I feel solid, I will take the leap.
I know America is the land of opportunity. I respect it. I send it gratitude for my life, my education and my career. I will never give up my passport. The blue card allows me to travel the world. But I want something more.
With a new sense of liberation, I told many of my friends about my wish. I told my son. I told my sisters. I told my father. I told my mother. “What do I think about you moving out? I’m happy for you if that is what you want to do,” my mother told me. “If I had a choice to move, I would too. I’m tired of all this bulls----. I’m tired of all this racism. And it’s getting worse.”
My son, an engineer in his 20s, is a young man of few words. Once, when he was a summer intern at an international engineering company in Washington state and meeting friends at an Italian restaurant, a White man chased him through the streets of a small town and shouted, “You do not belong here!” How could I leave him? After years of conversation, he finally told me this summer: He would move too. That was enough for me to smile and start packing.
Each day, it seems, comes another urgent reminder that I should go. It happened again this summer, around Juneteenth. I was standing in the middle of the Ellipse, about 1,300 feet south of the White House, interviewing a Black artist about a garden installation she had designed to demand reparations for enslaved Black people. Suddenly, a White man who seemed to come out of nowhere ran through the installation screaming, “I don’t care about your f---ing garden!”
Then he turned to us, the only two Black people standing in that area. He screamed: “You n-----s!” He stomped a few more feet and turned again, as though we had not heard him. Again he screamed, this time louder: “You n-----s!” Then he walked away.
For a minute, it felt like being underwater or being a character in a horror movie. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I wanted to hide, but where? I wanted to speak, but the words were stuck in my throat. I heard the words with clarity, but they were still confusing.
After what seemed like an eternity, I turned to the other Black woman. “Are you okay?” I asked. Yes, she replied, then asked me the same. “Yes,” I said. But I was shaken. Then the White people who were working the table slowly came over and started apologizing.
I always say racism is like being hit with an invisible two-by-four. You can’t see the board. But the impact is just the same. It hurts. That moment further cemented my plan: I would return to Africa, to the Black rivers calling my name.
DeNeen L. Brown, a Washington Post writer, is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Maryland. | 2022-09-26T14:23:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Case for Leaving America to Escape Racism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/09/26/case-leaving-america-escape-racism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/09/26/case-leaving-america-escape-racism/ |
Woke is now a dog whistle for Black. What’s next?
There’s “urban” of course. And urban’s cousin “inner-city.”
And then there’s “at-risk,” “underserved” and “fatherless” if talking about our children. “Marginalized,” “low-income” and “welfare-dependent” if talking about the parents of those children.
We live in “Democratic strongholds” like “Chicago,” but we’re also “socialists” and “low-information voters” taught “critical race theory” by “Marxists” so we can be “anti-American.” Our neighborhoods are “sketchy” and “depressed” “ghettos” filled with “thugs” and “transient” “Section 8” “renters” employable only through “affirmative action” “diversity” “quotas.” If we choose to play a sport, we are “naturally gifted,” “ungrateful,” “intimidating” and somehow both “aggressive” and “lazy.”
In the decades since I first became aware of the coded language used to indicate Black people, I’ve lost count of how many different euphemisms I’ve read and heard to describe, well, me. I even considered creating a drinking game where I’d take a shot each time I’d heard a racist dog whistle during a politician’s speech, but I probably would’ve died.
The newest addition to this glossary is CRT. You have Black teachers, Black administrators or Black school board members? That’s CRT. Black authors in your curriculum? CRT. You happen to teach a version of American history that doesn’t capitulate to the concept of American exceptionalism? CRT. Soon, CRT will be given sentience. It’ll be blamed for sham robberies, phantom murders and the NCAA’s transfer portal. Cops will stop and frisk CRT, and will plant guns on it when the search is clean. Parents will take their children out of schools, fearing that CRT will ask their daughters to the prom.
Absurd as this might seem, there’s an insidious intentionality behind it. The White anxiety about this obscure legal terminology was mostly invented and exacerbated by Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who (rightly) thought that creating a CRT boogeyman was an effective way to galvanize White parents by putting a name to their fear of the decentering of Whiteness in America. Continents have formed in less time than it would take for that decentering to happen, but things like “time” and “reality” don’t seem to matter to the White parents distraught about Nikole Hannah-Jones.
I’ve lost count of how many different euphemisms I’ve read and heard to describe, well, me.
It would be fun if “woke” continued to shift and became a synonym for sketchy. (“Be careful when you go there.” “Why?” “That neighborhood gets a little, um, woke after dark.”) But now I’m mostly interested in what’s next. The dog whistle glossary updates every five years or so. Words are retired — when was the last time you heard “ghetto”? — to make room for others. New contenders emerge each year. Anti-Blackness is limitless, so the pool of candidates to indicate the presence of Black people is bottomless. It could be something as innocuous as “grits,” or something as arbitrarily specific as MUMFAs (Monmouth University MFAs).
I’m usually not a fan of franchise reboots, but maybe we should go back to the source material, where racists don’t have to twist themselves into bigoted little knots. Just say n----r with your chest.
Wait, that’s too offensive? Too explosive? Too dangerous to say in public? Whatever. Who’s the snowflake now? | 2022-09-26T14:23:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Damon Young: Woke is now a dog whistle for Black. What’s next? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/09/26/damon-young-woke-is-now-dog-whistle-black-whats-next/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/09/26/damon-young-woke-is-now-dog-whistle-black-whats-next/ |
Patrick Mahomes throws a pass during last season's Pro Bowl in February. (David Becker/AP)
The NFL, after years of dissatisfaction with the quality of play in its Pro Bowl, is making good on its pledge to get rid of the postseason all-star game.
In its place, the league will stage a week-long skills competition for players and a flag football game. This season’s event will be held in Las Vegas, culminating with the flag football game on Feb. 5, one week ahead of the Super Bowl scheduled to be played in Glendale, Ariz.
The NFL announced the changes Monday and said the event will be called the Pro Bowl Games.
“We’ve received invaluable feedback from players, teams and fans about reimagining the Pro Bowl, and as a result, we’re thrilled to use The Pro Bowl Games as a platform to spotlight Flag football as an integral part of the sport’s future while also introducing fun, new forms of competition and entertainment that will bring our players, their families and fans closer than ever before,” Peter O'Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president of club business and league events, said in a written statement.
The league said it will continue to incorporate fan voting into the selection of Pro Bowl players. The events leading up to the flag football game will include “unique competitions” involving both “football and non-football skills,” the NFL said.
NFL considers eliminating the Pro Bowl
ABC and ESPN will carry the flag football game, according to the league’s announcement, and Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning and his production company will be involved in planning the programming. The NFL said the event will highlight its partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had mentioned the possibility of eliminating the Pro Bowl for at least the past decade amid discussions on that topic between the league and team owners. The idea became particularly prominent earlier this year at the May owners’ meeting in Atlanta.
“We talked an awful lot about [how] some of the events around the Pro Bowl are really extraordinarily popular, whether it’s the quarterback challenge or some of the other events,” Goodell said at that meeting. “So those are things that we’ll probably go with.”
Flag Football confirmed for the 2023 Pro Bowl Games ✅
What Pro Bowl skills challenges do you want to see? pic.twitter.com/KBXdU4iz6V
The discussions about eliminating the full-contact game involved the NFL Players Association and individual players, Goodell said in May. The games mostly were low-intensity affairs, with players generally going at half speed — or slower — to avoid suffering injuries in meaningless exhibitions. Yet they continued to draw considerable TV viewership. Last season, 6.7 million viewers watched the Pro Bowl; it was reportedly the smallest television audience for the game since 2006 but still significant. That made it difficult for the league to ditch the game entirely.
Even so, the NFL is moving on to its new format.
“I think what we tried to lay out is what we’ve been talking to the NFLPA about and many of our players individually,” Goodell said in May. “I’ve spoken to several players myself about what works and what doesn’t work. I think the conclusion was that the game itself doesn’t work and that we needed to find a different way to celebrate our players, celebrate the fact of these being our Pro Bowl players and the best players in our league, and give them an opportunity to celebrate that with our fans.”
The Pro Bowl had been played since 1951, according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The first 22 games were held in Los Angeles. The game was played in Honolulu between 1981 and 2009. | 2022-09-26T15:02:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The NFL's Pro Bowl is getting a makeover - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/nfl-pro-bowl-games/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/nfl-pro-bowl-games/ |
Not controversial. (Photographer: Bloomberg)
HPV vaccinations among teens in the US dropped precipitously during the early pandemic, a disappointing reversal for shots that can prevent more than 33,000 cases of cancer each year. Worse, efforts to get vaccinations back on track could be stymied by legal challenges.
We can’t let a decade worth of slow and steady progress in HPV vaccinations be lost.
Getting the US public to accept the HPV vaccine as a safe and effective part of routine health care has been a decade-long slog. That effort involved allaying (unfounded) beliefs that these shots, by preventing HPV, could encourage sexual activity among teens. That’s because the virus excels at spreading through skin-to-skin contact — so much so that nearly everyone is exposed, perhaps more than once, during their lifetime. And while the immune system can get rid of the infection most of the time, certain strains can stick around for years, kicking off a process that morphs otherwise healthy cells into cancerous ones.
So there’s no doubt about the benefit of these shots: The HPV vaccine can nearly eliminate cases of cervical cancer, and have a profound impact on many others, including anal, penile, vaginal, vulvar and certain head and neck cancers.
These vaccines also save the health-care system money. A recent study commissioned by St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital found that preventing cancers by increasing the rate of completed HPV vaccinations could lower national direct health-care spending by more than $26 million.
Those are among the reasons HPV vaccination is now the norm for adolescents in many parts of the US. From 2016 to 2021, the percentage of teens receiving their first shot in the vaccine series leaped from roughly 60% to nearly 77%. And the gap between vaccination rates among girls, the initial targets of these shots in 2006, and boys, for whom it was recommended by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2011, is finally starting to close.
The pandemic has threatened to upend that progress. Disruptions to routine doctor visits and shifting priorities during appointments meant that about 1 million doses were missed in 2020. Data from CDC’s annual survey of teen vaccinations suggests at least a partial recovery in 2021, but we won’t have complete data until next year.
The missed doses also coincide with an increasingly hostile climate for preventive health-care services that fall under the broad umbrella of reproductive or sexual health. That politicization of routine health care could erode access to — and acceptance of — HPV vaccines.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which resulted in the overturning of the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade, access to many other therapies and preventive services, including HPV vaccination, could be at risk. Reproductive health experts worry that states with the most draconian laws around abortion might next try to limit access to FDA-approved medicines or vaccines that have long been viewed by conservative groups as controversial. For example, Texas lawmakers earlier this year tried to ban gender-affirming care for teens, and more states are trying to make it harder to access hormonal therapies.
And even if individual states don’t take up such causes, private insurers might. That risk to the HPV vaccine was made clear earlier this month by a decision in a lawsuit brought against the US government by a Christian employer, Braidwood Management. The company said the Affordable Care Act required it to cover certain kinds of preventive care that violated its religious beliefs, and a Texas judge agreed — in part, at least. The ruling said that Braidwood did not have to offer health insurance that covered PrEP, medicine taken to prevent transmission of HIV.
But the original suit wasn’t only focused on PrEP. It also called out coverage of contraceptives, HPV vaccination, and screening and counseling for sexually transmitted infections. And even though the suit ultimately didn’t impact coverage of the HPV vaccines, the decision doesn’t insulate them from future challenges, says Andrew Twinamatsiko, associate director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at the O’Neill Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. The Texas ruling “makes other preventive services vulnerable to religious challenges, however spurious.”
Mississippi, which brought the Dobbs case to the Supreme Court, ranks last in the country for HPV vaccinations among teens — just 33% of teens there have been fully vaccinated against the virus. A recent survey of providers there revealed many reasons for the shortfall, from anti-vaccination views, to the connotation of HPV with sexual activity, to the way providers were talking to parents about the vaccine — offering it as an option rather than recommending it as normal care, for example.
“We should feel positively and optimistically about the progress that’s been made and not allow this reframing of HPV vaccination as this weird fringe thing,” says Melissa Gilkey, a professor at University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Fortunately, there are some states showing how to get it right. Rhode Island stands out as having the highest HPV vaccination rate in the country in 2021. That’s not surprising given the state is among the few to mandate the shots. Starting in 2015, children there have been required to begin the series before entering seventh grade. Mandates probably aren’t going to be the answer for every state, but places where it is politically feasible (and where it won’t draw negative attention to these shots) should be considering them.
And the St. Jude’s report also suggested a side avenue for improving HPV vaccination: improving meningococcal vaccination, which is typically also offered when a child turns 11. That vaccine is mandated in many, but not all states, and the report found that people who get one often get the other. Health-care workers should be trained to strongly recommend both, the researchers said.
But helping the HPV vaccine regain its momentum will be difficult — if not impossible — if the courts don’t continue to recognize these cancer preventions as fundamental health care. It would be simply shameful to go backwards with a vaccine that could spare so many people from cancer.
• Who Is Still Dying From Covid? The CDC Can’t Answer That: Faye Flam
• Breakthrough Malaria Shot Needs More Funding to Succeed: Lisa Jarvis | 2022-09-26T15:03:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Progress on HPV Vaccines Is Too Important to Lose - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/progress-on-hpv-vaccines-is-too-important-to-lose/2022/09/26/59e53010-3da4-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/progress-on-hpv-vaccines-is-too-important-to-lose/2022/09/26/59e53010-3da4-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
I know an unpopular economic policy when I see one. And the consensus among economists about the tax cuts and deregulations announced last week by UK Prime Minister Liz Truss is almost universally negative. Larry Summers noted: “I think Britain will be remembered for having pursued the worst macroeconomic policies of any major country in a long time.” Willem Buiter described it as “totally, totally nuts.” Paul Krugman is skeptical. As Jason Furman summed it up: “I’ve rarely seen an economic policy that is as uniformly panned by economic experts and financial markets.”
The contrarian in me rebels against such harsh assessments — even as I remain unconvinced that Truss’s plan will materially boost the rate of economic growth in the UK. Allow me to explain why I am not in a state of panic.
First, I see no evidence that the markets are beginning to doubt the UK’s ability to repay its debts. The UK, and earlier Great Britain, has arguably the best debt repayment history of all time (though it did default on some of its debts to Italian lenders in the 13th century). It even repaid its extensive debts from the Napoleonic Wars, though they were more than 200% of GDP.
In other words, the UK government is borrowing at about a negative 2% real rate of interest. That hardly sounds like a country headed for default. Nor is the British level of government debt so especially high .
Yes, nominal interest rates rose and the pound fell following the announcement of Truss’s policies. But the guilty party here is probably the Bank of England. If fiscal policy is expansionary, it is the duty of the central bank to offset that influence and tighten more on the monetary side, as indeed it may do.
The bank has been slow to respond to inflationary pressures, for which it has been fairly criticized. Nonetheless, that is distinct from criticizing Truss’s policies. Those policies do reveal a lack of coordination with the Bank of England, and that embarrasses the UK government. Still, it’s not clear that those costs will endure, or that a democratic government should relegate its policy to that of the central bank.
The Truss plan offers many admirable deregulations, including an attempt to get the UK economy to build more residential structures, as it so badly needs. It is difficult to say now just how successful this plan will be, but it is definitely a step in the right direction, as are most of the other deregulations, including lifting the ban on onshore wind generators. By calling the Truss plan the worst thing ever, commentators make it unlikely that these ideas will get the approbation they deserve.
It is perfectly reasonable to question whether cutting the top marginal income tax rate from 45% to 40% (and the corporate rate from 20% to 19%) will solve the UK’s longstanding problems, which include deindustrialization and longstanding human capital deficits, especially in the North. But as someone living in a country with a top marginal income tax rate of 37%, I don’t see these changes as the height of irresponsibility, fiscal or otherwise.
To review: The UK government is borrowing more money at negative 2% real interest, and through tax cuts is allowing its wealthier private investors to reap higher expected returns. Politics aside, this is hardly the stuff from which economic disasters are made. What this debate could use is fewer adjectives and more numbers. Maybe that will lead to a more sober assessment.
• The UK Should Be Worried About Emerging Market Comparisons: Daniel Moss
• Trussonomics May Be a Gift for Labour: Martin Ivens | 2022-09-26T15:03:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Truss’s Economic Plan Isn’t the Disaster Everyone Says It Is - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/trusss-economic-plan-isnt-the-disaster-everyone-says-it-is/2022/09/26/bae0759a-3da5-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/trusss-economic-plan-isnt-the-disaster-everyone-says-it-is/2022/09/26/bae0759a-3da5-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
Death penalty dropped for man charged in botched no-knock raid
A Post investigation examined the case of Marvin Guy, who has been awaiting trial for eight years for allegedly killing a police officer
By Nicole Dungca
Jenn Abelson
Law enforcement in Amory, Miss., perform no-knock warrant and non-no-knock warrant demonstrations on Aug. 12, 2021. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
Prosecutors in Texas are no longer seeking the death penalty for a Black man accused of killing a White police detective and shooting three other officers during a botched no-knock raid in 2014.
The move came four months after The Washington Post’s “Broken Doors” podcast investigated the case against Marvin Guy, who has been awaiting trial in jail for more than eight years after Killeen police raided his apartment without warning.
In 2014, police suspected Guy was selling drugs and obtained a no-knock warrant for his apartment. Around 5:45 a.m. on May 9, a SWAT team shattered Guy’s bedroom window and shoved a battering ram into his front door. Thinking someone was trying to break in to rob or kill him, Guy said he grabbed his gun and fired through the window. Police fired back.
Police say that Guy shot four police officers, including Charles Dinwiddie, a leader of Killeen’s SWAT team who later died from his injuries. The raid turned up no drugs in Guy’s apartment.
Prosecutors charged Guy with capital murder and planned to seek the death penalty.
“After 8 years of delayed trial settings, this case needs resolution, and we seek to proceed in a manner that this case can finally be tried,” Fred Burns, an assistant district attorney for the Bell County district attorney’s office, wrote in a waiver of the death penalty filed with the court this month. “It is long past time to have this case tried to a jury.”
'Broken Doors': Understanding one of the most intrusive and dangerous policing tactics
Guy has maintained his innocence, saying that police accidentally shot the detective during the chaotic raid. He credited The Post’s podcast, along with pressure from local politicians and others, with prompting the state to take the death penalty off the table.
“I’m happy that God worked to take that evilness out of their hearts and soften their hearts,” he said. “It’s a step in the right direction.”
In a statement, Dinwiddie’s family members said they hope the case will be brought to trial quickly. “We have waited eight long years and there is still no confirmed trial date,” they wrote. “We ask that Detective Charles David Dinwiddie’s life be honored with decisive action to see this process through to its just conclusion. His legacy of service deserves no less.”
Henry L. Garza, the Bell County district attorney, declined to comment on the decision to waive the death penalty because of a gag order on the case issued by the presiding judge.
Police have generally defended no-knock raids as a necessary tactic to protect officers and prevent evidence — usually narcotics — from being destroyed. But The Post’s investigation found that fatal no-knock searches often failed to turn up large amounts of drugs, and that judges rarely questioned police seeking these warrants, which can lead to dangerous consequences for those on both sides of the door.
The reversal in Guy’s criminal case comes as the federal government and communities across the country curtail the use of no-knock warrants amid a growing awareness of the dangerous policing tactic.
President Biden signed an executive order in May that included a ban on no-knock raids by federal law enforcement agencies in all but extreme cases.
In June, the mayor of St. Louis banned the local police department from using no-knocks, two months after The Post investigated the police killing of a 63-year-old Black grandfather who was shot in his own home during one such raid.
Don Clark’s house was one of three raided simultaneously by police in February 2017. The Post found that the officer who requested the no-knock warrant for Clark’s home often sought approval for multiple-home raids — but routinely failed to find drugs during these searches.
When Mayor Tishaura O. Jones signed the executive order, Clark’s son — Don Clark Jr. — was in the room watching.
“It was a real relief,” said Clark, who said he believed The Post’s investigation helped push the mayor to take action. “We know we have a lot more to do in coming together and bringing safety to the communities and to the citizens of the city of St. Louis and around the world.”
No-knock raids have led to fatal encounters and small drug seizures
Through a spokesman, Jones declined to be interviewed, citing a pending federal lawsuit from Clark’s family. In a statement, she called the ban “an important step for our city and in line with action taken by municipalities across the country.”
In Kentucky, the state legislature approved limitations on no-knock warrants after police in 2020 killed 26-year-old Breonna Taylor in her own apartment. Taylor’s case drew widespread attention to such warrants, and her name became a rallying cry during protests against racism and police brutality.
The Justice Department has charged four former Louisville officers involved in the raid. Kelly Goodlett, a former detective, pleaded guilty last month to a federal conspiracy charge, admitting that she helped falsify information to obtain the no-knock warrant that led police to Taylor’s home. The remaining three officers have pleaded not guilty.
As Tamika Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s mother, awaits the trials, she said she is still hoping for a nationwide ban on no-knock warrants.
“I don’t like that it’s this thing we’re fighting from state to state,” Palmer said. “We need to be safe all across the board.”
More on policing in America
The Washington Post’s investigation into policing in America has been ongoing since 2015, when The Post began logging every fatal shooting by an on-duty police officer in the United States.
The hidden cost of police misconduct: The Post collected data on nearly 40,000 payments at 25 of the nation’s largest police and sheriff’s departments within the past decade to uncover thousands of police officers whose alleged repeated misconduct cost taxpayers $1.5 billion.
Video: No-knock raids, considered one of the most dangerous and intrusive policing tactics, have been at the center of a debate in recent years over police use of force. At least 22 people have been killed by police nationwide carrying out no-knock warrants since 2015, according to a Post investigation.
Podcast: Hosted by Jenn Abelson and Nicole Dungca, “Broken Doors” is a six-part investigative podcast about how no-knock warrants are deployed in the American justice system — and what happens when accountability is flawed at every level.
Curbing crime: A crime-reduction strategy abandoned by Louisville police after the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor has since spread to other major U.S. cities, gaining favor with police chiefs for its potential to reduce violent crime despite its ties to the case that sparked widespread calls for police reform.
Community oversight: Police nationwide have frequently defied efforts to impose civilian oversight and, in turn, undermined the ability of communities to hold law enforcement accountable, according to a Post investigation | 2022-09-26T15:03:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After fatal shootings, cities restrict no-knock warrants - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/09/26/cities-restrict-noknock-raids/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/09/26/cities-restrict-noknock-raids/ |
There’s always demand for a Trump smoking gun. So there’s always supply.
Then-Rep. Denver Riggleman speaks with the media during the GOP convention at Tree of Life Ministries in Lynchburg, Va., on June 13, 2020. (Parker Michels-Boyce/The Washington Post)
The revelation was offered with seemingly practiced casualness. Speaking to “60 Minutes” as he promoted a new book, former Virginia congressman Denver Riggleman (R), whose post-Congress work included analysis for the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot, claimed that there was some communication between the White House and a rioter on Jan. 6, 2021.
“You get a real ‘a-ha’ moment when you see that the White House switchboard had connected to a rioter’s phone while it’s happening,” Riggleman told CBS’s Bill Whitaker. “That’s a big, pretty big ‘a-ha’ moment.”
Riggleman kept going, but Whitaker interjected to the effect of: I’m sorry, what?
He’d heard right, Riggleman assured the reporter. And while he didn’t know where the call originated within the White House, he knew where it went.
“The thing is,” he said, “the American people need to know that there are link connections that need to be explored more.” And, as it turns out, he has a book coming out that can draw some of those connections!
The full segment aired Sunday night. Even before it did, though, the embers had been dampened somewhat. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Jake Tapper asked Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) about the snippet that CBS had been teasing.
“I can say that each of the issues that Mr. Riggleman raised during the period he was with committee, which ended quite some time ago, we looked into,” Schiff said. “And one of the things I think that has given our committee credibility is, we have been very careful about what we say, not to overstate matters, not to understate matters.”
He added that “without the advantage of the additional information we have gathered since he left the committee, it, I think, poses real risks to be suggesting things.”
On Monday morning, CNN had more details: The call lasted nine seconds and was placed to a rioter named Anton Lunyk. At the time of the call, which was placed at 4:34 p.m., Lunyk was probably no longer in the building. On April 21, Lunyk signed a plea agreement with the government that included future cooperation on the government’s probe. Less than a week later, Riggleman resigned from his position aiding the House committee.
It’s obviously important to know who placed the call from the White House and why. The calls coming into and made from the White House on that day have been a repeated focus of attention since the riot unfolded, thanks in part to the unusual gap in phone calls made by Donald Trump himself. It’s also because there are a variety of known links between Trump’s allies and those involved in the riot, from rhetorical ones to organizational ones. Trump’s culpability for the day is clear — weeks of dishonest rhetoric and a call to show up in Washington — but there’s no smoking gun in which Trump himself explicitly demanded that people break into the Capitol or in which he is known to have explicitly encouraged the violence to continue.
To Schiff’s point, that’s not even the case that the House committee is aiming toward. Their focus from the outset has been to show how Trump tried to retain power, including by setting the stage for the riot. But there’s still a hunger on the left for something more, something that draws Trump closer to the unquestionably abhorrent violence.
There’s long been just such a hunger. Just as Trump’s false claims about the election created a demand for alleged proof (see: “2000 Mules”) or a campaign to derail President Biden’s inauguration (see: Trump’s post-2020 fundraising), there’s been demand since even before Nov. 8, 2016, for something that proves Trump’s criminality, illegitimacy or both.
The investigation into Russian interference in that election, for example, soon became subsumed by the salacious allegations included in the dossier of reports compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. That the dossier was tangential to the allegations and that analyses from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and a bipartisan Senate committee bolstered mainstream reporting were details lost as both left and right focused on proving or rejecting the most extreme possibilities of Trump-Russia engagement. Trump managed to wave the whole thing away in part because of how some of his critics exaggerated expectations. But many of those critics earned big paychecks and boundless attention through that exaggeration. There was demand; they were the supply.
The demand persists. In part, that’s because Trump is still obviously a force in American politics and still potentially on track to return to the White House. In part, it’s because there are still questions about his actions both in office and before. In part, though, it’s simply because there have been so many occasions on which Trump has been linked to dubious behavior or decision-making but skated. There’s a sense among many on the left that Trump’s simply tempted fate so many times that what he’s constructed is bound to collapse on his head — and they want front-row seats. It’s a Hollywood-bad-guy iteration of expectation-setting.
There is little demand for cautious consideration of what’s known and what isn’t. Just as fervent Trump supporters don’t want to believe that Trump did lose, largely because so many voters disliked him, those who dislike Trump don’t want to believe that there isn’t some discoverable string tying Trump to obvious illegality — despite how often such strings have been announced and then shown to be frayed.
So there’s a market for those strings. For cryptic announcements that the string was discovered and will be detailed in a forthcoming book. And when it becomes clear that the string was oversold, the response is often not to be newly skeptical of allegations. Instead, it is to look for some other, stronger string that must be out there someplace.
The demand continues. | 2022-09-26T15:03:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | There’s always demand for a Trump smoking gun. So there’s always supply. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/trump-jan-6-insurrection-criminal-probes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/trump-jan-6-insurrection-criminal-probes/ |
Southern Baptist departures continue, as major seminary president resigns
The Southern Baptist Convention headquarters in Nashville, as seen in May. (Holly Meyer/AP)
The president of one of the Southern Baptist Convention’s largest seminaries has resigned, less than four years after taking office.
Adam Greenway was elected president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2019, in hopes that he would help the school recover from the controversial tenure of former president Paige Patterson, who was fired in 2018 for mishandling sexual abuse allegations. Greenway resigned Friday, during a meeting of the seminary’s executive committee.
He will take a new role at the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, according to an announcement from the seminary.
“In receiving President Greenway’s resignation, we express our deepest appreciation for his more than three and one-half years of service to his alma mater,” said Danny Roberts, chair of the Southwestern board. “He came to Southwestern Seminary during a difficult time of transition and has worked tirelessly to lead the institution to serve well the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention.”
Southern Baptist leader Paige Patterson fired over handling of sex abuse allegation
Longtime SBC leader O.S. Hawkins, a Southwestern alum who recently retired as president of GuideStone Financial Resources — the insurance and retirement arm of the SBC — was named acting president.
In a statement, Greenway said he was unprepared for the enormous “reputational, legal and financial realities” facing the seminary, which were exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Greenway said he and his wife, Carla, were ready to embrace his new role at the IMB.
“We have done our best to serve Southern Baptists by helping position our seminary for the future, but much, much work remains to be done,” he said. “Nevertheless, in the Providence of God we sense a release from our duties here.”
Justice Dept. investigating Southern Baptist Convention handling of sex abuse
Located in Fort Worth, Southwestern reported having 2,331 students in the 2021-22 academic year, according to the Association of Theological Schools. Many of those students were part time, as the school reported a full-time equivalent enrollment of 1,105 in 2021-22, down from 1,414 in 2019-2020.
According to the SBC’s 2022 book of reports, the school’s projected operating budget for the current fiscal year is $37.4 million at a time when its tuition revenue is in decline, requiring Southwestern to rely more heavily on its endowment and donations.
In 2021, Southwestern and Baylor University sued allies of former Southwestern president Patterson over control of a foundation that had been set up to benefit the two schools. That foundation’s trustees had changed their internal rules to send funds to a charity run by Patterson. The school also accused Patterson of stealing seminary property and confidential donor information in its 2021 report to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.
Southern Baptist leaders release sex abuser database they kept secret for years
Greenway was dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Ministry at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary before being elected Southwestern’s president.
He is one of a series of SBC entity heads to leave office in recent years, often in the midst of controversy. Others, besides Patterson, include former SBC executive committee president Ronnie Floyd; David Platt, former president of the SBC’s International Mission Board, who resigned after a troubled tenure that included the loss of nearly 1,000 missionaries to budget cuts; and Russell Moore, former president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, a critic of former president Donald Trump.
“These days are incredibly challenging in the life of our denomination,” Greenway said in his resignation statement. | 2022-09-26T15:04:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Adam Greenway resigns from SBC’s Southwest Theological Seminary - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/09/26/sbc-adam-greenway-southwest-seminary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/09/26/sbc-adam-greenway-southwest-seminary/ |
The announcement will come ahead of a meeting of Biden’s Competition Council at the White House.
A Transportation Security Administration PreCheck checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. (Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg)
President Biden is expected to announce a new proposal Monday that would require airlines and ticket sales websites to disclose additional fees up front, according to the Department of Transportation, aiming to add a dose of transparency to the process of booking travel.
The disclosures would cover any fees for passengers to sit with their children, to change or cancel a flight, and to bring checked or carry-on bags, according to the department. The fees would be required to be displayed the first time a ticket price is shown.
The announcement will come at a meeting of Biden’s Competition Council at the White House on Monday afternoon. The president is expected to call on federal agencies to pursue similar transparency measures in other sectors of the economy.
The public will have 60 days to comment on the proposal before it can be finalized and go into force.
JetBlue agrees to buy Spirit in $3.8 billion deal
Bag fees, in particular, are big sources of revenue for airlines — and one that has grown in recent years. Fourteen major airlines collected $5.3 billion in bag fees last year, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
The new proposal is among several consumer-friendly measures the Transportation Department is undertaking to regulate airlines. The department has proposed to clarify the definitions of canceled and significantly delayed flights that are eligible for refunds, and proposed requiring airlines to issue vouchers to passengers who choose not to travel because they have covid or another serious communicable disease. A separate proposal would require airlines give refunds for WiFi fees if in-flight internet isn’t working and for bag fees when bags are delivered late.
The airline industry is dominated by four major carriers, and the Transportation Department will help review a proposed merger between JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines that could further consolidate the industry. The Justice Department is also challenging an alliance between JetBlue and American Airlines.
Biden issued an executive order in July 2021 directing his agencies to promote competition and bring down prices for consumers, raise wages for workers and promote innovation. | 2022-09-26T15:05:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden to announce rule requiring disclosure of extra airline fees - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/26/biden-airlines-competition-fees-baggage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/26/biden-airlines-competition-fees-baggage/ |
Right wing victory in Italy expected to bring swift changes to migration
Far-Right party Brothers of Italy's leader Giorgia Meloni shows a placard reading in Italian “Thank you Italy” at her party's electoral headquarters in Rome, Sunday. (Gregorio Borgia/AP)
ROME — For years, Giorgia Meloni has railed against Italy’s migration policies, calling them overly lenient and saying they risk turning the country into the “refugee camp of Europe.”
Now, as Italy’s presumed next prime minister, migration is one of the areas where Meloni can most easily bring in sweeping change.
“The smart approach is: you come to my house according to my rules,” Meloni, of the far right Fratelli d’Italia party, said earlier this month in an interview with The Washington Post.
Her ideas, taken together, figure to significantly tighten the doors to one of the European Union’s front-line destinations for undocumented immigrants.
While in other areas — like spending and foreign policy — Meloni would be more constrained by Europe, countries have plenty of leeway to handle their own borders, and she has long made it clear that halting flows across the Mediterranean is one of her priorities.
But that doesn’t mean it will be complication-free.
Efforts to block humanitarian rescue vessels from docking at Italian ports could prompt legal challenges. And if Meloni chokes off pathways to Italy, the volume of crossings would likely increase to other Mediterranean countries like Spain — as happened three years ago when Italy was briefly led by an anti-migration, populist government.
“You can do stuff relatively quickly [on migration] that is draconian, symbolic, and sends a clear message: we’re here, we’re doing something. But there’s trouble in store,” said Andrew Geddes, director of the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute in Florence.
“When you stop the crossings and divert them [elsewhere], that is where you get into conflict with the E.U.,” he said. “It will breath life into an old conflict.”
Meloni’s party received more support than any other group in national elections Sunday, giving them a clear mandate to lead Italy’s next government and placing Meloni in position to become prime minister. During the short campaign, coming after the collapse of Mario Draghi’s unity government, migration was low among the priorities, given soaring energy bills, a looming recession in Europe, and other complications stemming from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
But migration still strikes a chord with many right-leaning voters in Italy, who feel that the country has received scant help from Europe in handling the burden of accommodating and integrating new arrivals. A record wave of asylum seekers and refugees in 2015 and 2016 turned migration for several years into political touchstone, and helped spark a nationalist movement across Europe. Though Meloni’s party didn’t immediately benefit from those sentiments, she later siphoned votes from a rival Italian far right group, the League, that soared in part because of the migration backlash.
Migration levels to Europe are nowhere near the numbers of seven years ago. But they have picked back up this year, compared to the rates from just before and after the pandemic. Politicians allied with Meloni attribute the uptick to lax policies under recent governments, including Draghi’s.
Jude Sunderland, an Italy-based associate director at Human Rights Watch, said people were opting for the journey for other reasons, including rising food prices and deteriorating conditions in their own countries.
Meloni and the two other parties in her coalition said in a jointly released platform that they want to block rescue vessel landings as a way to stop the “trafficking of human beings” from Africa. Such a move would be a throwback to the period of 2018 and 2019, when Italian politics were dominated by then Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who vowed to stop the “invasion.”
Salvini’s first move was to close off ports to the slew of nongovernmental groups that sail around the Mediterranean and attempt to rescue immigrants from their flimsy boats. His move led to protracted and risky standoffs in which boats with hundreds of migrants on board could find nowhere to dock, and sometimes spent weeks at sea while European countries negotiated over how to divvy up passengers.
The practice pulled Salvini into several court cases. Meantime NGOs saw their boats impounded and facing Italian legal challenges.
Some experts made the case that crossing the Mediterranean became deadlier during Salvini’s time: The number of arrivals to Italy dropped, but the number of deaths didn’t dip commensurately.
“We do know it will be more difficult [again]. We do know it will be tougher,” said Mattea Weihe, a spokeswoman for Berlin-based Sea-Watch, one of the NGOs that handles rescue work. Weihe said that her group, with an eye on the expected far right victory in Italy, had purchased a new rescue vessel as a “way to bring a different game to the table.”
The torchbearer of Italy’s far right is now in power and wants to make good on anti-migrant promises
Meloni has also called, repeatedly, for a “naval blockade” of the Mediterranean. A spokesman for Meloni said Monday that such a move could only be led by Europe, and in cooperation with northern African countries.
In the interview with The Post, Meloni said that “migrant flows need to be managed,” because “nations only exist if there are borders, and if those are defended.” She said that Italy had been giving immigrants few legal pathways, while instead letting migration be dominated by “smugglers” and “slave drivers.”
“Is it a smart approach? No,” she said. “Letting in hundreds of thousands of people, then keeping them pushing drugs or being forced to prostitute themselves at the margins of our society isn’t solidarity.”
She has suggested that Italy in cooperation with Europe should set up so-called hotspots outside of the E.U. where would-be asylum seekers and refugees can be vetted, with only those who are approved being granted passage. Politicians on the left and right have long talked about such ideas, but the obstacles are manifold: few countries want to host such centers, and the possibility for rights abuses are rife. Britain is currently pursuing a related plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, but its rollout has been complicated by court challenges.
Within the European Union, several countries over the years have taken major steps to make it harder for undocumented immigrants to reach the bloc. Greece has been accused of intercepting immigrants crossing from Turkey and pushing them back into international waters. And Italy, in a policy supported by both the left and right, has worked to build up and equip the Libyan coast guard to pull back immigrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean. | 2022-09-26T15:05:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After election win, Meloni expected to change Italy's migration policy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/26/italy-meloni-right-wing-migration/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/26/italy-meloni-right-wing-migration/ |
Understanding the Pound’s Sudden Crash
The aim is that the tax cuts will create a more dynamic economy, which should eventually generate higher tax revenue and keep borrowing in check. The new Conservative government’s plans have drawn comparisons, even among its supporters, with the ill-fated 1972 budget drawn up by Kwarteng’s Tory predecessor Anthony Barber, who also delivered a massive package of unfunded tax cuts. In his case, inflation soared and the economy overheated before collapsing into recession. Barber’s boss, Edward Heath, was defeated by the Labour opposition two years later, and the UK had to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund in 1976. Another of Kwarteng’s predecessors, Nigel Lawson, Chancellor under then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, also faced the challenge of rising inflation in the late 1980s after introducing a package of tax reforms. | 2022-09-26T16:34:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Understanding the Pound’s Sudden Crash - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/understanding-the-pounds-sudden-crash/2022/09/26/4f195480-3d96-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/understanding-the-pounds-sudden-crash/2022/09/26/4f195480-3d96-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
Ranked-choice voting might be Virginia’s future
A man leaves his polling place March 3, 2020, in Richmond. (Julia Rendleman for The Washington Post)
Imagine that instead of settling for one candidate in an election — perhaps the lesser of evils — you could rank multiple candidates according to your preference.
It’s called “ranked-choice voting” (RCV), and it is slowly gaining traction as an alternative way to conduct elections. Some states are making limited use of it, including Maryland and Virginia.
Takoma Park has used RCV for 15 years. In Virginia, the 2020 General Assembly approved a pilot program allowing its use for local elections, though no locality has yet adopted it.
In traditional voting, voters choose just one candidate. In most states, including Maryland and Virginia, a candidate can prevail with a simple plurality. Other states require a majority of votes to win, and if no candidate tops the 50 percent threshold, the top two vote-getters meet again weeks later in a “runoff” election.
In ranked-choice balloting, also known as “instant-runoff voting,” if no candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes in the initial round of counting, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated. Candidates who were second choices to the eliminated candidate are then apportioned to the remaining candidates and the results are retabulated. The process is repeated until one candidate achieves a majority.
RCV has its champions. FairVote is a national nonprofit that does research and advocacy for ranked-choice voting among other electoral reforms, and it is active in Virginia. OneVirginia2021, which pushed for decades to end partisan redistricting by the General Assembly in favor of an independent redistricting commission, is back as UpVote Virginia, now pushing for broad adoption of RCV in the commonwealth. Del. Sally Hudson (D-Charlottesville) has established Ranked Choice Virginia to advance RCV.
Among the advantages supporters tout are that voters using RCV report that they feel free to cast their ballots for a truly favored candidate — without regard to whether polls or pundits say the candidacy is doomed — because they know that their second and subsequent choices will also matter. In some elections, it has made it difficult for candidates on the far left or right, who could muster a plurality, to win a majority.
That played out last year in Virginia. The state Republican Party, forced by the pandemic to hold an “unassembled convention” to nominate its statewide slate, opted for ranked-choice voting in part to avoid forcing more than 50,000 delegates who were congregated in 39 locations to cast multiple ballots until one candidate won a majority. A few days later, after the lengthy rounds of retabulation, the process yielded a ticket led by former hedge fund executive Glenn Youngkin that swept all three statewide offices.
Notably, the most far-right of the seven GOP candidates, state Sen. Amanda F. Chase of Chesterfield, never got more than 25 percent of the delegate votes. Her outspoken solidarity with former president Trump and her defense of his discredited stolen-election claims could have given her enough support from Trump loyalists to win a primary with a plurality. It’s not unimaginable that she might have won a traditional single-location convention dominated by far-right activists.
In a ranked-choice special election in Alaska last month, Republican Sarah Palin, that state’s Trump-endorsed former governor, lost a special election for a U.S. House seat to Democrat Mary Peltola.
Because of RCV’s reputation for rewarding moderates, it has few adherents on the partisan fringes, particularly on the right. They deride them as “jungle primaries.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) blasted RCV as “a scam” in a tweet after Palin’s defeat. Republican legislatures in Tennessee and Arkansas forbid localities from using any form of RCV.
In Virginia, however, it has some notable bipartisan backing. Republican George Allen, a former governor and U.S. senator, and Rep. Don Beyer (D), a former lieutenant governor and U.S. ambassador, both praised RCV in UpVote Virginia’s launch video. “What it benefits is the people, the voters,” Allen said. Beyer added, “it brings people together, no matter their leanings.”
With the Republican Party’s success in last year’s state elections, RCV is starting to catch on more broadly with the Virginia GOP. The party used RCV on its own in three congressional primaries this year.
Heavily Democratic Richmond was poised to become Virginia’s first locality to adopt a form of RCV, but the proposal failed on a 3-6 vote earlier this month amid City Council uncertainty about it. Arlington is considering using RCV only for its primaries, similar to how it is done in New York City.
Advancing such a system without thoroughly educating the public though could be problematic. In an era fraught with false claims of voter fraud and stolen elections, it is critical that voters have a clear understanding of how the RCV process works to ensure its widespread accepted legitimacy.
Ranked-choice voting might be the future in Virginia, but it will take time to build public understanding and acceptance of this approach to conducting party nominations and elections.
Opinion|Why does the Mountain Valley Pipeline matter? | 2022-09-26T16:35:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Ranked-choice voting might be Virginia’s future - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/virginia-ranked-choice-voting-future/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/virginia-ranked-choice-voting-future/ |
The Danish filmmakers, who previously were hesitant to cooperate with the investigation, said this week they decided to comply with a subpoena issued by the committee.
By Dalton Bennett
In this Nov. 15, 2019, photo, Roger Stone leaves federal court in Washington. (Julio Cortez/AP)
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob intends to show at its hearing this week video footage of Roger Stone recorded by Danish filmmakers during the weeks before the violence, according to people familiar with the matter.
The committee is considering including video clips in which Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to former president Donald Trump, predicted violent clashes with left-wing activists and forecast months before the 2020 vote that the president would use armed guards and loyal judges to stay in power, according to one of the people familiar with hearing planning.
The Washington Post revealed in March that the Copenhagen-based filmmakers had recorded footage of Stone as they followed him for extended periods between 2019 and 2021. They were at his side as Stone traveled to Washington for the “Stop the Steal” rallies that spilled into violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Their film on Stone, “A Storm Foretold,” is expected to be released later this year.
The selection of clips for Wednesday’s hearing has not yet been finalized, according to people familiar with the committee’s planning. But thematically they are likely to focus on how Stone, former Trump chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and other associates of the former president planned on declaring victory regardless of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, one of the people said.
A Jan. 6 committee spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The Danish filmmakers, who previously told The Post that they were hesitant to cooperate with the congressional investigation, said this week that they had decided to comply with a subpoena issued by the committee. Politico reported in August that committee investigators had traveled to Denmark to review their material and interview the filmmakers.
The filmmakers arrived in the United States over the weekend ahead of the hearing on Wednesday.
“Being with Roger Stone and people around him for nearly three years, we realized what we saw after the 2020 election and Jan. 6 was not the columniation but the beginning of an antidemocratic movement in the United States," director Christoffer Guldbrandsen said in a phone interview.
Committee investigators focused on six hours of material captured by the documentarians, selecting roughly 10 minutes of footage, according to the filmmakers. The material - a total of 14 clips was provided by the filmmakers - spans nearly three years of footage gathered for the forthcoming documentary.
In one clip, previously reported by The Washington Post, Stone told a staffer four months before the election that Trump should use the powers of his office to reject official results and secure victory in the courts with help from federal judges who owed him fealty.
In another clip selected by the committee, after attending a rally for Trump ally Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.) the day before the election, Stone talked of violence.
“F--- the voting, let’s get right to the violence. Shoot to kill, seen an ANTIFA, shoot to kill. F--- ‘em. Done with this Bulls---.” Stone immediately followed this with: “I am of course only kidding. We renounce violence completely. We totally renounce violence. The left is the only ones who engage in violence.” | 2022-09-26T16:35:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jan. 6 committee hearing will use clips from Roger Stone documentary - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/jan6-committee-roger-stone-documentary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/jan6-committee-roger-stone-documentary/ |
Income and wealth inequality in the United States has grown significantly in recent years and is greater than in almost any other developed country. Raphael W. Bostic, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, joins Washington Post global economics correspondent David J. Lynch to discuss the causes and impact of such persistent economic inequality.
Raphael W. Bostic
President & CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Presenting Sponsor: AARP | 2022-09-26T16:36:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta president on U.S. income and wealth inequality - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/09/26/federal-reserve-bank-atlanta-president-us-income-wealth-inequality/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/09/26/federal-reserve-bank-atlanta-president-us-income-wealth-inequality/ |
Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden is seen on a screen during an interview via video link at the New Knowledge educational on Sept. 2, 2021. Snowden has been granted Russian citizenship. (Olesya Astakhova/Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin granted citizenship on Monday to Edward Snowden, the former security consultant who leaked information about top-secret United States surveillance programs and is still wanted by Washington on espionage charges.
Snowden, 39, was one of 72 foreigners granted citizens in a decree signed by Putin on Monday.
Snowed, who considers himself a whistleblower, fled the United States to avoid prosecution and has been living in Russia, which granted him an asylum in 2013.
Snowden’s revelations, published first in The Washington Post and The Guardian, were arguably the biggest security breach in U.S. history. The information he disclosed revealed top-secret NSA surveillance as part of a program known as PRISM and extracting a wide range of digital information.
In 2017, Putin said in a documentary film made by U.S. director Oliver Stone, that he did not consider Snowden “a traitor” for leaking government secrets. | 2022-09-26T17:13:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Putin grants citizenship to Edward Snowden, who disclosed US eavesdropping - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/26/putin-snowden-citizenship-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/26/putin-snowden-citizenship-russia/ |
A new way to visualize America’s surge in partisan hostility
Trump supporters argue with protesters outside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center where Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had just spoken in Pittsburgh on April 13, 2016. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
We are at one of those moments where it’s worth stepping back and considering the state of things though the lens of recent history. Ten years ago, the defeat of Mitt Romney by Barack Obama prompted reflection within the Republican establishment about its appeal. Now, Romney regularly sides with Democrats in opposition to the right-wing president who succeeded Obama — including on that president’s effort to retain power despite losing his bid for reelection.
What seemed — often misleadingly — as a fairly standard partisan tension in 2012 has now become a focus of regular articles speculating about civil war or, at least, a rise in political violence. Americans from either political party view the other side with increasing hostility. A former defense secretary who served under Donald Trump recently said that “extreme partisanship” was the biggest threat the nation faces.
Newly published data from a regular national survey shows exactly how that divide has widened.
At the time of each presidential election, the American National Election Studies (ANES), run by Stanford University and the University of Michigan, asks Americans about their political views. The research has been conducted for decades, with researchers asking the same or similar questions during each cycle. The result is a pool of data that offers unique insight into how Americans’ political views have changed in recent decades.
Last week, ANES published a page compiling how key trends have evolved. Those data make it easy to see the widening political gulf.
Consider how people identify their own ideologies. Since the 1960s, Republicans have been much more likely to identify themselves as conservative than anything else. Democrats were about as likely to identify themselves as liberal as they were to say they were moderate. But that changed in about 1994, at which point Democratic self-identification as liberal began to rise.
Since 2004, it has skyrocketed — as identification as “conservative” has plunged. Republican identification as “conservative,” meanwhile, has continued to rise.
I’ve broken out racial groups there because of the interesting divide between White Democrats and Black or Hispanic members of the party. The recent surge in Democratic self-identification as liberal is heavily a function of Whites in the party (as I’ve noted before).
(Two notes: First, there weren’t enough Black or Hispanic independents to have data before about a decade ago. Second, there still aren’t enough Black Republicans to break the group out.)
What this tells us, though, is that Democrats (mostly White Democrats) now see themselves more to the left than in the middle. That is, closer to the ideological pole.
We can view that, too, by considering how members of each party view those ideological groups. The ANES has a “feeling thermometer” in which respondents are asked to evaluate how warmly they view a group or subject. A score of 100 is a very warm feeling.
In recent years, views of the opposing ideology have plunged among partisans. In 1994, Democrats were only 4 degrees more favorable to “liberal” than “conservative.” In 2020, the gap was 28 points — again driven heavily by White Democrats. The shift in the gap among Republicans was more modest, but only because it has been so wide for decades. But you can see that, since 2004, there’s been a plunge in how Republicans see “liberal.”
Over this period, of course, we’ve also seen partisanship change in Congress. Evaluations of voting patterns conducted by the academic team at Voteview shows how the average ideology of caucuses in both chambers of Congress have moved to the poles since 1963 (roughly the period at which the ANES data shown in this article begins). That movement, as you’ve probably heard, has been much larger among Republican members of Congress.
There’s been another shift since 2004 that is worth mentioning. A common trope several decades ago was that the Democratic and Republican parties were functionally indistinguishable, with each holding only slightly different views on key subjects. That sense (always more common among independents) has fallen. Now, most partisans and three-quarters of independents say that there is a real difference between the parties.
This sits alongside other amplifications, like that partisans increasingly identify as strongly partisan.
Now we add it all together. Americans, particularly members of partisan groups, are more likely to embrace the ideological poles, less likely to have positive views of the pole opposite their own, increasingly see the choice between Democrat and Republican as important and are more likely to identify themselves as strongly partisan in their views.
The result? A nation in which the political poles have grown more crowded and more hostile to those on the other side. | 2022-09-26T17:31:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A new way to visualize America’s surge in partisan hostility - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/republicans-democrats-partisan-hostility/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/republicans-democrats-partisan-hostility/ |
President Biden shows off the No. 46 Atlanta Braves jersey he received from the team during a ceremony honoring the 2021 World Series champions. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
Saying he knows “something about being counted out,” President Biden welcomed the Atlanta Braves to the White House on Monday to celebrate their “unstoppable, joyful” run to the 2021 World Series championship.
The Braves started slow in 2021 and didn’t have an above-. 500 record until early August, but they caught fire late in the season to win their fourth straight National League East title and then defeat the Milwaukee Brewers, Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros in the playoffs for their first World Series title since 1995.
“It was a rough start, played through injuries. At the all-star break, not one day with a winning record. Given a 0.4 percent chance of winning on CNN. My batting average isn’t nearly as good,” Biden said, drawing a laugh.
Biden said the Braves were playing with the spirit of Hank Aaron, the Hall of Famer and Braves icon who died before the 2021 season.
“This team is defined by the courage of Hank Aaron, the home run king and 25-time all-star. Hank Aaron shattered a lot of records, but he shattered racism as well, with dignity and with class,” Biden said.
Added Braves Chairman Terry McGuirk: “We still think we have a special angel looking over us, having our recently passed friend Hank Aaron pulling the strings from on high. There’s no question Hank was a part of what we did, and he’d have been there every step of the way if he was here.”
Braves President Alex Anthopoulos and Manager Brian Snitker then presented Biden with a No. 46 jersey, a nod to Biden’s status as the 46th president.
Cardinals’ Albert Pujols slugs his way into MLB’s 700 home run club
Monday’s reception was a decidedly nonpolitical affair, and there was no mention of Biden’s support of MLB’s decision to strip the Braves of last year’s All-Star Game.
In April 2021, Biden said he “strongly” supported players who were demanding that MLB move that year’s All-Star Game from Truist Park, the Braves’ home stadium in suburban Cobb County, after the Georgia state government enacted sweeping restrictions on voting. Two days after Biden’s comments, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced he was moving the game away from Georgia, stating that “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box.” The game was eventually played in Denver.
The move was condemned by Republicans and some Democrats, with Stacey Abrams — a once and future Democratic gubernatorial candidate from Georgia — saying she was “disappointed” because “I don’t want to see Georgia families hurt by lost events and jobs.” (She did, however, commend the players, owners and Manfred for speaking out about the issue.)
This year’s Braves team has the third-best record in the National League at 95-58 and has clinched a playoff spot. Atlanta, which opens a three-game series against the Nationals in Washington on Monday night, is 1.5 games behind the New York Mets in the NL East race with nine games remaining.
“We have a very young and talented roster, and we hope this isn’t a one-and-done visit to your home,” McGuirk told Biden. “In short, we plan to be back.” | 2022-09-26T17:35:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | President Biden salutes Atlanta Braves at White House - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/braves-white-house-visit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/braves-white-house-visit/ |
Here’s what I-66 drivers paid Monday during the first tolled commute
Tolling began Saturday on the western section of the 66 Express Lanes, bringing to an end a two-week, toll-free adjustment period.
Motorists enter an eastbound express lane of I-66 in Gainesville this month. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Washington-bound drivers paid an average of $6.10 during the Monday morning commute to use new Interstate 66 toll lanes from Gainesville to Centreville, according to the toll operator.
The highest toll in the eastbound lanes was $6.50 at the peak of the commute, officials said. Some early risers drove those nine miles for $3.50.
The rates on the first morning commute since tolling went into effect on the new section of express lanes outside the Beltway appeared to be slightly lower than those on the 66 Express Lanes inside the Beltway. About 8:30 a.m. Monday, drivers were paying $9.50 to drive from the Beltway to Washington, roughly 10 miles.
Inside the Beltway, however, the entire corridor is tolled during rush hour. In the new system outside the Beltway, drivers have the option of avoiding tolls by using regular traffic lanes.
Tolling began Saturday on the western section of the 66 Express Lanes, bringing to an end a two-week, toll-free adjustment period. The new I-66 lanes stretch from Route 29 in Gainesville to Route 28 in Centreville. Another roughly 13 miles of express lanes to the Capital Beltway are under construction and scheduled to open in December.
The tolls, like those along express lanes on interstates 95, 395 and 495 in Virginia, vary depending on traffic. The toll-lanes operator is required to maintain a minimum average speed of 55 mph, with prices changing to achieve that goal. The speed limit in the tolled lanes is 70 mph, compared to 55 mph to 65 mph in the free lanes.
Nancy H. Smith, a spokeswoman for I-66 Express Mobility Partners — a consortium of investors that will maintain and operate the toll lanes under a 50-year concession — said Monday that during the early days of tolling, rates will stay unchanged for at least 30 minutes at a time.
“As the system adjusts to live traffic conditions, the time period between changes in toll rates will decrease,” she said.
Drivers can see the toll price on electronic signs before entering the lanes. Passenger vehicles such as cars, pickup trucks, SUVs and most vans pay the same rate. Larger vehicles and large trucks will pay a higher rate, while motorcycles can use the lanes free.
Solo drivers will be charged a toll to use the lanes, but carpools with at least one passenger can ride free with an E-ZPass Flex set to “HOV” mode. When express lanes open throughout the corridor later this year, a vehicle will need three occupants to ride free.
The project expands I-66 to 10 through-travel lanes: three general-purpose lanes both eastbound and westbound, and two HOT lanes in each direction.
On Monday, toll rates were lower on the westbound lanes, reflecting the lighter traffic heading toward Prince William County. The average for the entire western section during the morning was $3.
Smith said the expectation, based on projected traffic volumes, is that the average for the entire nine-mile section during the afternoon rush will be around $6.25, with a high around $7.
Midday traffic should expect rates ranging from $2.50 to $3 along the entire system, she said. | 2022-09-26T17:39:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Toll rates in Virginia average $6.10 on new 66 Express Lanes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/26/i66-express-lanes-tolls/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/26/i66-express-lanes-tolls/ |
When Bethesda's Walt Whitman High School opened in 1962, it had one especially distinctive feature: a geodesic dome that served as the school's field house. (Montgomery History)
In the spring of 1962, a strange and wondrous structure began rising on Whittier Boulevard in Bethesda. It was a geodesic dome, the futuristic building popularized by R. Buckminster Fuller. Soon the building would echo with the sounds of Keds and Chucks squeaking on a varnished wooden floor. The massive dome enclosed the gymnasium of the brand-new Walt Whitman High School.
For 30 years, the dome was the symbol of the school, as recognizable in its way as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was a dark day for Barry Kemelhor, Whitman Class of 1970, when the dome was demolished in 1992.
“We thought it was the most modern — the greatest — thing in the whole world,” said Barry, 70. The Whitman dome — the first for any U.S. high school, apparently — garnered press coverage near and wide. A construction industry trade publication hailed its innovation and predicted it would last into the next century.
“It didn’t make it,” Barry said. “It lasted 30 years.”
In 2021, Barry’s class held a pandemic-delayed 50th reunion. As part of the event, attendees toured the current Whitman, where they encountered current students and current teachers.
“I went over to them and not a single person had ever heard of the dome,” he said. “That was kind of shocking to me.”
Future Whitmen and Whitwomen — or Vikings, as they’re known — will have no excuse for such ignorance. This Friday at 4 p.m., Barry and others from the Class of ’70 will gather at the school to dedicate a bronze plaque and an explanatory sign that tells the dome’s story. If you’re one of the 15,977 Whitman alums who matriculated “geodesically” — that is, during the time the dome stood — you’re invited to attend.
Buckminster Fuller favored the geodesic dome — an arrangement of triangular or polygonal panels — because it was lightweight and cost-effective. Montgomery County’s school board chose the innovative design based on research by the Educational Facilities Laboratories (EFL), which found the round footprint afforded more interior space at a cheaper price than a conventional gym.
“They basically saved money by literally cutting corners,” Barry said.
Whitman’s architect was John W. McLeod of McLeod & Ferrara. The school was built at a cost of $3.8 million. With a capacity of 2,500 for basketball games and 3,600 for stage programs, the dome was said to be the largest high school auditorium in the country.
The summer before Whitman opened, education officials from around the country visited the school, trying to decide if they should jump on the dome bandwagon. The junket was sponsored by the EFL, which encouraged officials to cast off old notions of school buildings.
Montgomery’s school board president, William R. Thomas III, said, “We’ve been concerned in recent years with the stereotyped nature of school architecture,” referring to the “brick and mortar straitjackets of education.”
Not everyone was convinced the future was geodesic. Across the state line, John Riecks of the District’s school board said one fault of Whitman’s dome was the slender pylons on which it rested. They provided easy access to the roof.
“County school officials have already reported teenage boys climbing up to the top of that dome, and they will have to devise some way of keeping them out,” Riecks told The Post.
Montgomery County’s director of school construction, James Sheldon, admitted they’d probably have to build fences around the pylons.
Over the years, the dome proved too tempting a target for some vandals. It was a canvas for graffiti — and more.
“They put a car up there,” said Barry. “They put a toilet on the top of the dome.”
Inside was lovely, though, he said, with a honeycomb ceiling. At a time before the Kennedy Center, Capital Centre and Merriweather Post Pavilion, the Whitman dome was the setting for concerts, including such acts as James Brown, Martha and the Vandellas, and the Hollies.
The dome worked its way into stories that weren’t even about the dome itself. A Washington Evening Star high school sports article from November 1963 noted: “The dome-shaped gymnasium has attracted most of the attention at the school. The dairy serving the cafeteria has compounded the geometric idea by packaging its product in wedge-shaped cartons.”
Those wedge-shaped cartons were Tetra Paks, invented not in homage to Whitman’s dome but by a Swedish entrepreneur named Ruben Rausing.
Barry — as loyal a Whitman booster as you’re likely to find — said the dome helped make the untested school distinctive at a time when many parents weren’t sure they wanted to send their kids there.
In 1992, the dome was torn down. Why?
“I’ve heard several reasons,” Barry said. “The first has to do with asbestos. Nobody cared about asbestos in 1961. The other was some [roof] leakage. It was too costly to fix it so they just got rid of it and replaced it with the most generic structure. It’s basic. It has no character.”
He hopes the new plaque and sign will rescue the dome from obscurity.
Did you work at Walter Reed before it relocated to Bethesda? Then you’re invited to a reunion on Oct. 16 from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the hospital’s old grounds between Georgia Avenue and 16th Street NW. For information, visit walterreedsociety.org. | 2022-09-26T17:52:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In 1962, Bethesda's Whitman High unveiled its domed gymnasium - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/26/whitman-high-dome-bethesda/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/26/whitman-high-dome-bethesda/ |
Britain has replaced Italy as Europe’s problem economy
British Prime Minister Liz Truss with Kwasi Kwarteng, left, the chancellor of the exchequer, and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly at the House of Commons in London on Sept. 7. (AFP via Getty Images)
At the start of this month, doom-mongers looking for the next financial crisis in Europe were pointing at Italy. Just as the pessimists predicted, Italians have elected a populist coalition led by the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party. But a funny reversal has occurred. Italy’s economy seems provisionally stable. Britain has emerged as the weak power in Europe.
What gives? Intellectual fashion has been running against globalization for several years, so it’s easy to miss the answer. But the Italy-Britain inversion underlines an old lesson. Sacrificing some sovereignty and submitting to the rules of international organizations are not necessarily bad things. If the rules work reasonably well, doing so can be an advantage.
Despite junking the responsible government led by economist Mario Draghi, and despite replacing him with an unsavory populist coalition, Italy is in reasonable shape because of the European Union. However loudly the populists used to denounce Europe’s Germanic orthodoxy, they now promise to implement the economic plan drawn up by Draghi and approved by the E.U. — not least because it comes with almost $200 billion of post-pandemic recovery aid from Brussels.
Italy’s populists also want the European Central Bank in their corner. Over the summer, fearing another euro-zone crisis triggered by the price shocks from the Ukraine war, the central bank created a bond-buying program to protect wobbly countries from short-selling hedge funds. To retain access to this support, Italy has to avoid crazy policies.
In short, this is not the Europe of a dozen years ago. Rather than reacting belatedly and grudgingly to signs of stress, the continent is trying to preempt problems. Italy has deep structural fragilities, ranging from demography to debt, and much could still go wrong. But for now the smart money is on its stability.
Meanwhile, having left the E.U., and having never been a member of the euro zone, Britain is in the opposite position. The new Conservative government led by Prime Minister Liz Truss faces almost no constraints. She was expected to be bold. She is turning out to be bonkers.
The first sign came with her response to soaring natural gas prices. To protect low-income Britons from a choice between heating and eating, Truss had to deliver subsidies. But she opted for a monstrously expensive remedy, trampling her party’s reputation for budgetary prudence. The Truss subsidies are due to last for fully two years. They are especially generous to the rich. By the U.K. government’s own estimates, they will cost more than $60 billion in the next six months, a whopping 4.7 percent of GDP over the period. Because of their design, they will end up costing even more if natural gas prices experience another upward hit.
But that was just the rehearsal. On Friday, in a Reaganesque bid for higher growth, the Truss team announced a ruinous package of unfunded tax cuts. It did this despite the obvious danger that the stimulus would add to inflation, which is at 9.9 percent and expected to rise. It did this despite the impact on Britain’s national debt, which is forecast to hit 90 percent of gross domestic product in 2024-2025, up from 75 percent before the pandemic. And it did this without allowing the government’s Office of Budget Responsibility to model the impact of its giveaways.
Not surprisingly, financial markets panicked. Interest rates on two-year government bonds hit 4 percent, up from 0.4 percent a year ago, adding to the government’s prospective debt burden. The pound fell 3.4 percent against the dollar by day-end Friday, its steepest drop in two years. Over the weekend, finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng signaled that he might cut taxes some more. The pound promptly fell a further 4.7 percent when Asian markets opened Monday, sinking briefly to its lowest level since the system of floating currencies began in 1971. The pound then rallied on the hope that the Bank of England would step in to stabilize it. When the bank said it would not hold an emergency meeting, the currency headed down again.
Why did the Bank of England disappoint the traders? It has only a modest stockpile of foreign currency reserves, so it cannot prop up the pound by stepping in to buy a ton of it. Its only option is an emergency interest rate hike, on top of the 0.5 percent it delivered last week. This would help the pound, and by dampening import prices it would mildly restrain inflation. But higher interest rates would drive the economy into a ditch and raise the cost of servicing the national debt. Given the Truss team’s reckless bent, it might lash out against the central bank and undermine its independence.
When the Brexit referendum damaged Britain’s access to its key export market, an economic penalty was inevitable. But this is the first time that being in the currency union has looked more attractive than being outside it. The European Central Bank is in a far stronger crisis-fighting position than the Bank of England. | 2022-09-26T18:06:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Britain has replaced Italy as Europe’s problem economy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/britain-europe-weak-economy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/britain-europe-weak-economy/ |
A man walks through debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona in Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, on Sept. 19. (Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters)
Still reeling from Hurricane Fiona, Puerto Rico needs fast, generous and effective help from the federal government as well as from businesses and nonprofits, as “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and his father, Luis, argued in a recent Post op-ed. Yet necessary as it is, emergency relief is not sufficient for rendering the island less vulnerable to, and better able to cope with, such disasters over the long term. (Just five years ago, Hurricane Maria did even more damage than Fiona.) To get that bigger job done, the U.S. government is not just going to have to start providing more help to Puerto Rico; it’s also going to have to stop doing harm. And at the very least, that should mean an end to the policy under which the United States denies Puerto Rico the freedom to bring in vital imports on whatever ships it deems best.
There’s a long list of structural U.S. policies that disfavor Puerto Rico, starting with its lack of a representative vote in Congress. Even if the thorny issue of statehood could be permanently resolved, Puerto Rico — like the state of Hawaii — would still be subject to the Jones Act of 1920, an outdated protectionist law that artificially raises the cost of shipping food, energy and pretty much everything else to the island. Originally enacted to preserve national merchant sealift capacity in case of war, the law requires ships carrying goods between U.S. ports to be U.S.-flagged and at least 75 percent U.S.-owned and -crewed. And they must be assembled entirely in the United States from domestically made components. As of 2022, only 99 oceangoing vessels met these criteria.
The Jones Act has not stopped the long-term decline of U.S. shipbuilding or the rise of Asian and European competitors that now dominate global sealift capacity. But by limiting Puerto Rico’s choices, it has driven up the island’s import costs to “at least twice as high as in neighboring islands,” according to a 2015 report by a team of former International Monetary Fund economists. Yet the measure applies even during natural disasters — unless the president waives it. Despite his generally poor response to Maria in 2017, President Donald Trump did at least waive the Jones Act for 10 days, under pressure from Puerto Rican officials.
This was a tepid move at best — no substitute for repealing the law, at least as it applies to Puerto Rico, Alaska and Hawaii. Yet President Biden has not called for even 10 days of Jones Act relief — thus far — in the wake of Fiona. Unfortunately, Mr. Biden strongly endorsed the law early in his presidency, pledging on Jan. 25, 2021, that he “will continue to be a strong advocate for the Jones Act and its mandate that only U.S.-flag vessels carry cargo between U.S. ports.” This was a sop to maritime unions that endorsed him in 2020 and form part of the small cluster of shipping interests that continues to oppose Jones Act reform. Puerto Rico has been a part of the American community for more than a century, during which the U.S. citizens who populate it have enriched this nation’s culture and fought in its wars. They earned free shipping long ago. | 2022-09-26T18:06:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | To help Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona, repeal the Jones Act - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/puerto-rico-hurricane-fiona-jones-act/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/puerto-rico-hurricane-fiona-jones-act/ |
Loudoun County credits 4-0 start to ‘IHOP season’; Flowers stays focused
Loudoun County’s offensive line has propelled the team to a 4-0 start. (John Klimavicz)
Loudoun County Coach Matt Reidenbaugh laughs when he hears his offensive line described as a “cast of characters.”
“Yeah, that’s a perfect phrase,” Reidenbaugh said.
The Captains will enter Friday’s game against No. 18 Tuscarora with a 4-0 record, largely thanks to its prosperity in the trenches. The unit’s success comes down to a simple moniker, best represented by its aptly named group chat, “IHOP season.”
“I mean, our mentality is just to get pancakes,” said senior center Evan Stanley, who said assistant coach Mike Mitchell keeps a “pancake chart” that counts how many times the team blocks a defender to the ground. Through four games the Captains have 46 pancakes, and senior Stuart McGuinness holds the lead with 20.
For Loudoun County, a rushing attack isn’t so much a nicety as it is a necessity, a prerequisite for the brand of football that’s conducive to frigid postseason nights. And yet, the county’s oldest program — which Reidenbaugh describes as a “sleeping giant” — hasn’t made it past the second round of the playoffs since 2012.
Loudoun County could have the credentials (and personality) to break through in Class 4 on the strength of its line. The group includes Stanley, the dancer and communicator; McGuinness, the extroverted leader; junior Blaine Colebank, the shortest and funniest; and juniors Chase Kibble and Sammy Holstead, who offer calm perspectives.
The linemen are inseparable. They often meet up for “bro dates” to grab wings. During Saturday morning yoga, two linemen have taken to wearing robes, and they said it’s only a matter of time before that’s line-wide attire.
“Practice is very funny — and yeah, we take the drills seriously,” McGuinness said. “But we’re always doing new handshakes, making jokes with our signals; we just make the game more fun … We play very physical, but we’re all really just a bunch of jokesters.”
Flowers keeps eyes on prize
As C.H. Flowers players walked off the field following their 54-7 win over Bowie on Saturday, their subdued demeanor seemed unfitting for a team that had just finished off a nearly flawless performance.
While the victory was impressive, September dominance has lost its luster for mainstays such as four-star defensive back Braydon Lee. What once was a reason to celebrate has become the expectation.
“I think we’ve been a lot more chill this season because we realize that like our coaches have been telling us, we are the only public school in Maryland that can beat us,” Lee said. “Most of our team from last year [which reached the 4A quarterfinals] is back, plus we added a few guys from private schools. As long as we continue to play for one another and do the little things, we’ll have way bigger wins to celebrate in November and December.”
The Jaguars (4-0) know the true tests await, such as an Oct. 7 meeting against perennial championship contender Wise, a team Flowers has never beat.
In previous seasons, Flowers treated the Wise game like its state championship. The Jaguars would circle the date of the game on their calendar and constantly compare their level of play to that of the Pumas. Lee said that’s no longer the case.
“We aren’t really thinking about them in that way this season,” Lee said. “And I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way. We know they have some dogs and that they have an amazing team, but so do we. There will be a lot of hype and trash talk leading up to that one, but the goal for our season isn’t to beat them, it’s to win a state championship. But obviously if we can beat them on the way to a [championship], that’d be real cool, too.”
Todd Lattimore Jr., Northern: The senior quarterback threw for 307 yards and totaled three touchdowns as the Patriots topped St. Charles in a battle of undefeated Southern Maryland Athletic Conference teams.
For high school QBs, learning playbook is a new form of summer school
Joshua Narh, Duval: The senior utility player had 119 yards and two touchdowns on five carries, as the Tigers beat Northwestern, 62-0, to extend their winning streak to three games.
Jordan Dennis, South County: The junior quarterback returned from an injury that kept him out of Stallions’ Sept. 16 loss and threw for 241 yards and five touchdowns in a 61-6 rout of Justice.
Roman Jensen, Maret: The junior quarterback threw for 237 yards and five touchdowns in the Frogs’ 40-7 win over Severn.
Bell at Coolidge, Friday, 6 p.m.
Quince Orchard at Seneca Valley, Friday 6:30
Broad Run at Stone Bridge, Friday, 7 p.m.
Archbishop Spalding at Pallotti, Friday, 7 p.m.
Flint Hill nabs first win in three years
As Flint Hill players sprinted and jumped across Collegiate School’s field in celebration Friday evening, running back Andrew King found Coach Kirk Peterson near the sideline. There, they hugged and cried for about two minutes.
King and Peterson had envisioned their first win with Flint Hill since August 2021. After 11 losses, their vision became a reality in Flint Hill’s 37-28 triumph in Richmond. It was the Oakton private school’s first victory since November 2019 and snapped a 13-game losing streak.
“I hadn’t been that happy in a long time,” said King, who rushed for 215 yards and two touchdowns. “We just let all our emotions out. When I hugged Coach P, it was like, ‘Man, we really did it. This is really the start of a new journey at Flint Hill.’ ”
King felt despair after Flint Hill’s nine losses last season. While the junior was also disappointed after the Huskies’ opening pair of losses this month, optimism remained. After Flint Hill (1-2) added talent over the offseason, King believed the Huskies were close to a victory.
Flint Hill’s players preached belief throughout practices last week, and they yelled that word on the sideline Friday. Afterward, players returned to their locker room to dance to hip-hop music for the first time after a game.
“It really did take me a minute to process it because I had not felt the feeling of winning a football game in a very long time,” King said. “It’s a moment I’ll never forget.”
Poolesville rides a roller coaster to 4-0
Late on Friday night, the Poolesville Falcons gathered for a picture on the home field they had just defended. Still covered in sweat and grass, they posed together with four fingers in the air.
Through four weeks of the high school football season, Poolesville is 4-0. It’s the first time the program has achieved that kind of start since 2005, and the road to such a record has been a roller coaster.
On Friday, the Falcons won their second overtime game of the season by beating Rockville, 22-21. The night began with a series of unfortunate events as the Falcons derailed an otherwise efficient offense with three turnovers in the first half. They trailed the Rams 15-0 at the break.
“At halftime, I told them we were moving the ball well, we just had to clean things up” Falcons Coach Tony Nazzaro said. “And then we opened the second half with a fumble.”
The third quarter provided salvation for Poolesville. It put up 15 points to tie the game, and that score stood until the end of regulation. Rockville scored first in overtime but failed on a two-point conversion. Poolesville responded with a touchdown and won the game on a successful extra point.
“And that’s not a given on this level,” Nazzaro said. “I give credit to our holder who handled a slightly high snap. Everyone got it done.”
That seems to be the theme for this Poolesville team: getting it done, however possible. Even as the Falcons keep a wide-angle lens on this season, Nazzaro has emphasized enjoying every victory. As the program well knows, it’s hard to get it done this often.
“At the end of the day these are high school kids,” Nazzaro said. “I want them to enjoy all of it.” | 2022-09-26T18:07:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Loudoun County credits 4-0 start to ‘IHOP season’; Flowers stays focused - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/loudoun-county-credits-4-0-start-ihop-season-flowers-stays-focused/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/loudoun-county-credits-4-0-start-ihop-season-flowers-stays-focused/ |
Nikki Giovanni on how libraries shaped her
Nikki Giovanni is an acclaimed poet, best-selling author and a civil rights activist. On Wednesday, Oct. 5 at 11:00 a.m. ET., join Washington Post Live for a conversation with Giovanni about her latest children’s book that pays tribute to libraries and how she has used her voice as a writer throughout her long career.
Poet & Author, “A Library” | 2022-09-26T18:08:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nikki Giovanni on how libraries shaped her - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/05/nikki-giovanni-how-libraries-shaped-her/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/05/nikki-giovanni-how-libraries-shaped-her/ |
With Nicklas Backstrom still out, Connor McMichael has ‘great opportunity’
Connor McMichael wants to be a true centerman in the league. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
McMichael, who played in 68 games for the Capitals last year as a rookie, played both wing and center in Washington. This season, McMichael is focused on winning the position battle for the team’s second-line center. He’s mainly played down the middle during his hockey career and wants to continue that full-time with the Capitals.
“That's my natural position and that's where I want to perform,” McMichael said.
“That is always a good thing, to have a battle with your teammates and kind of compete for certain spots in the lineup and it is good to kind of get a kick in your [butt] and get going a little bit,” McMichael said. “I’m having a lot of fun.”
“He’s a great, great player and great kid,” Kuznetsov said. “Well, he’s not a kid anymore, he’s a grown man … he can skate, he got skill, he can shoot. All he need just a little bit more confidence, right?”
“Last year I didn’t get many opportunities so just to get to show what I can do on the power play, it meant a lot and obviously,” McMichael said. “I was on the PK [Sunday], too, and I like both of those roles and I like how the coaches are testing me out there so hopefully I can stick to it.”
To help improve his game, McMichael gained about five pounds of muscle while working with trainer Gary Roberts. He now weighs about 190 pounds and said he was careful to not put on too much weight but wanted to feel stronger overall.
“It is always good when guys can be versatile and play up and down the lineup in different positions so that is something I pride myself on,” McMichael said. “If a winger goes down I can fill that role, center goes down I can also step in. I think it’s a big part of my game.” | 2022-09-26T18:10:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Connor McMichael aims to fill opening from Nicklas Backstrom injury - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/connor-mcmichael-capitals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/connor-mcmichael-capitals/ |
Josh Whetzel has only called a handful of major league games. (Photo courtesy of Rochester Red Wings)
Gathering nuggets is a big part of Josh Whetzel’s job. That’s how, for the past 27 years, he’s filled dead air as a minor league broadcaster in Albany, Ga., Kinston, N.C., Binghamton, N.Y. and Rochester, where Whetzel has been since 2003. So during an interview this past weekend, while he talked about getting a few chances in the majors with the Washington Nationals this month, perhaps Whetzel knew the assignment.
Perhaps that’s why he grinned a bit.
“I’ll tell you this …” Whetzel, 50, began in the visitors’ dugout at LoanDepot Park in Miami, a few hours before the fourth or fifth major league game of his career. He honestly doesn’t count. He does know, however, that his first chance came when Mariano Rivera broke the all-time saves record against the Minnesota Twins in September 2011.
“I would bet I’m the first person to ever broadcast a big league game who only has one lung.”
Okay, you’re up, Elias Sports Bureau.
But like the best nuggets, this one had a material effect on how Whetzel became a lifelong play-by-play person. When he was 17, Ganglioneuroblastoma, a form of cancer, put him through trials no high-schooler should experience: Chemotherapy. Radiation. An allergic reaction to chemotherapy that made it difficult to breathe. Then a football-sized tumor in his chest that required surgery, thus the removal of his right lung.
While he was recovering, a few of his friends contacted Dream Factory, an organization that planned trips for kids dealing with health issues. They wanted to send Whetzel to Dodger Stadium. Growing up in rural Kansas, about a mile and a half from the nearest paved road, Whetzel followed the Dodgers because his dad and uncle were big fans. They had a satellite dish in the backyard that caught Dodger games some nights. So a few times a week, they would gather around the television and listen to Vin Scully simulcast the first few innings on TV and radio.
Whetzel soon went to Dodger Stadium, met Scully and returned to a request from KLKC, the local radio station: They wanted to interview him about his experience.
“And afterward, the station manager was like, ‘You really sounded good on the air … You know, we have a part-time job on the weekends, would you like to apply for it?’ ” Whetzel recounted. “It was a sort of DJ, board ops gig. They ripped off an AP one-minute newscast and had me record it, and they hired me. I worked there for two years while I was at Labette Community College. From there, I went to [the University of Kansas] and called games. Then from there …
He paused for a moment.
“From there it’s been all baseball.”
A domino effect led to Whetzel’s latest chances in the majors, doing games aside Charlie Slowes on the Nationals’ radio network. Dave Jageler, Slowes’s usual partner, took a handful of weekend ESPN radio assignments in September. Pete Medhurst, the usual fill-in, does play-by-play for Navy football, leaving the hole for Whetzel to plug. Whetzel has already done three games and is expected to have three more at Nationals Park when Washington faces the Philadelphia Phillies.
On one hand, there’s a challenge in covering players he’s unfamiliar with, like when he’d never seen Josiah Gray pitch before calling Friday’s game. But on the other, so much of the Nationals’ roster has passed through Rochester, making Whetzel an expert in their backstories. In the past two years, after the Red Wings became Washington’s AAA affiliate before the 2021 season, Whetzel has relayed the actions of Luis García, CJ Abrams, Keibert Ruiz and Cade Cavalli, among many others, to audiences in western New York and D.C.
“Minor league games aren’t always the most fun or interesting, but Josh keeps it interesting and lively,” said catcher Tres Barrera, who is with the Nationals but has played 99 games for Rochester. “I mean, I’m usually catching, but that’s what my parents have told me.”
Told of this review, Whetzel breaks into a monologue about announcers who sound bored. Sure, he admits, there are nights when you just don’t have it, when the errors pile up, when the pitcher out there won’t throw a strike and the sixth inning feels like the world’s slowest crawl.
And sure, after more than two decades in the minors, after getting so close to major league jobs — including as a runner-up to one last winter — Whetzel isn’t always excited to broadcast a Tuesday night game in a little Northeastern town. But he promises not to sound bored, no matter if he’s calling Gray in Miami or a long shot veteran in Rochester.
No matter what, there’s always a story to tell, of players chasing the same dream as he is.
“It just does sound a bit better when you’re describing major league players,” Whetzel said. “Like last winter, when I almost got that job, I sent around tape of a Stephen Strasburg rehab start with us. So this opportunity with the Nationals has really energized me. Maybe there will be another opening and the tape will be good enough. I can only hope.” | 2022-09-26T18:10:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Josh Whetzel gets his shot on Nationals radio - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/nationals-radio-broadcast-josh-whetzel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/nationals-radio-broadcast-josh-whetzel/ |
Sinema, McConnell engage in mutual admiration — and some Democrats seethe
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) speaks during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee hearing, Sept. 14, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) on Monday engaged in a mutual admiration exchange with the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), expressed support for restoring elements of the filibuster and suggested that Republicans might win control of the House or Senate in the midterm elections.
Several Democrats were unhappy, criticizing not only her remarks but her timing.
Sinema made the comments during a speech at the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville, speaking and answering questions at the invitation of McConnell. There, McConnell effusively praised Sinema in his introduction, saying she is the “most effective first-term senator” he’s seen during his 37 years in the Senate.
Sinema, for her part, spoke highly of McConnell. “Despite our apparently differences, Senator McConnell and I have forged a friendship, one that is rooted in our commonalities, including our pragmatic approach to legislating, our respect for the Senate as an institution,” she said.
Since 1993, dozens of Democrats and Republicans, diplomats and foreign leaders have spoken at the McConnell Center. Vice President Joe Biden did in February 2011; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) spoke in April of this year. But Sinema’s appearance came just weeks before midterm elections as several of her Democratic colleagues are campaigning to help the party hold onto the House and Senate in November.
That angered Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a potential challenger to Sinema in 2024.
Sinema has frequently expressed interest in the kind of bipartisanship that has frustrated her progressive Democratic colleagues, particularly when Republicans used the filibuster to block them from passing climate, abortion and voting rights legislation. Democrats had called for scrapping it to enact key parts of their agenda ahead of the midterm elections, while they control the White House and Congress. The appointment of judges and key administration officials has also been slowed by Republican use of the filibuster.
“I have an incredibly unpopular view,” Sinema told the crowd in Kentucky. After saying she supported requiring 60 votes to pass legislation in the Senate — where her party controls only 50 seats — Sinema said she wanted to go even further. “I actually think we should restore the 60-vote threshold for the areas in which it has been eliminated already. We should restore it,” she said, before pausing to let the audience applaud their approval.
“It would,” she said, “make it harder for us to confirm judges. And it would make it harder for us to confirm executive appointments in each administration.” Ultimately, that would force compromises and create “more of that middle ground in all parts of our governance,” she said.
Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) eliminated the 60-vote threshold for federal judges in 2013. McConnell, in 2017, scrapped the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees as the Senate considered President Donald Trump’s nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch.
“Frustration” with the filibuster, Sinema said, “represents solely the short term angst of not getting what you want. And those of you who are parents in the room know that the best thing you can do for your child is not give them everything they want.”
She argued that bad laws emerge without the kind of consensus that a filibuster can force. As proof, Sinema pointed to the House where no filibuster rule exists. “When Republicans are in control, they pass a little bit of crazy legislation,” she said. “And when the Democrats are in control, they pass a little bit of crazy legislation. And the job of the Senate is to cool that passion.”
She criticized both Trump and President Biden for talking about eliminating the filibuster as well as both parties on immigration and border security.
“For my entire lifetime,” the 46-year-old senator said, “the federal government has absolutely failed, absolutely failed in its charter to protect our border. We have not had a secure border my entire life.” But, after the election, Sinema said she would connect with “my good friend” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) to work on the issue.
“The two of us from different political parties, but sharing the same core values. We recognize the crisis that we’re in and we want to solve it.” Cornyn and Sinema were part of a bipartisan group that worked on successful gun control legislation following the deadly mass shooting at a school in Uvalde, Tex.
Sinema’s appearance crystallized what her critics have said is the freshman’s senator’s problematic alliance with the Republicans, whose agenda Democrats and progressives argue is harmful to the country.
Keith Olbermann, the former ESPN “SportsCenter” and MSNBC host, went on Twitter to criticize her comments and, in so doing, revealed that they had a personal relationship years earlier. “When we dated, in 2010-11, Kyrsten was a legit progressive, far to my left. Now she has embraced the Political Industry where there is only process, not policy, and never people.”
During the question-and-answer session, Sinema was asked whether it was harder to run for statewide office or run a marathon. Sinema — a self-described “avid marathoner”— said they were somewhat comparable and that after completing one recent marathon she “could barely walk in the Senate for the whole following week.”
Standing from the podium, she added, “I was walking around —” then slightly gyrated her body with her hands raised into fists, as if gripped on fixtures for support. “But you know, in the Senate that’s fine.” As the crowd laughed, she added, “Most of them struggle with walking anyways.”
Analysis: GOP floats impeaching Biden for ... something | 2022-09-26T18:49:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sinema earns McConnell's praise, draws criticism from Democrats - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/sinema-mcconnell-filibuster-elections/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/sinema-mcconnell-filibuster-elections/ |
A tale of WWII derring-do that reveals the humanity of its heroes
Review by Andrea Pitzer
Colditz castle gained international fame through its use as a prisoner of war camp for Allied officers in World War II. (Peter Endig/AP)
In 1943, French prisoners of war launched a mouse wearing a tiny parachute from a fourth-story window of Colditz, an ancient castle towering over Germany’s Mulde River. The liberation of the miniature paratrooper reflected the men’s boredom in captivity — but also their aspirations. Many of the detainees in the castle were obsessed with planning their own flights to freedom, plotting and executing escape attempts ranging from the inspired to the impossible.
“Only in fairy tales do people escape from prison,” wrote Vladimir Nabokov in his novel “Invitation to a Beheading.” And parts of Ben Macintyre’s latest book, “Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape From Colditz, the Nazis’ Fortress Prison,” do read like a fairy tale.
Macintyre tells the story of the POW camp that had more escape attempts than any other during World War II. He parades a brigade of officers, some of whom have since been lionized or found postwar fame through film, television and multiple books. Ultimately, Macintyre offers a more complete and complex account than is typical in popular histories from the Nazi era. Read in that light, this is less a fairy tale than an honest account of heroic but fallible men in captivity, made more compelling through the acknowledgment of their flaws and failures.
Across a half-dozen years, Colditz operated as a camp for officers deemed deutschfeindlich, a word evoking deep anti-German hostility. In the case of Colditz prisoners, deutschfeindlich referred to officers who overtly disrespected their captors or had a proclivity for escaping. Despite these tendencies, during the years that the Wehrmacht jailers at Colditz still observed the Geneva Conventions, the men were largely insulated from the savage treatment administered elsewhere by the Gestapo or the SS. They put on ballets in drag and performed concerts. But all the while, many of them remained fervent in their desire to leave Colditz and return to the battlefield. Dozens attempted escapes.
These stories of flight make up the heart of Macintyre’s tale, as do the consequences of each attempt. Disappointed to learn that the French contingent had beaten them out of the gates to log the first success, the British felt compelled to sharpen their game. Prisoners would attempt to dig more than 20 tunnels in all and, at times, the competing projects interfered with each other. An international prisoners’ committee emerged to determine who would be allowed to escape, as well as how and when.
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But Macintyre also dwells on the details of life for those who remained confined by Colditz’s walls. In a cubbyhole beneath an attic sat a radio room complete with desks, where detainees tuned in nightly to the BBC. Britain’s MI9 managed to provide maps, compasses, German money and fabric for Wehrmacht replica uniforms, all smuggled in via parcels of blankets, gramophone records, chess pieces or tins of food. Locks were picked, and guards (called “goons” by the prisoners) were bribed — not always successfully.
Much of Macintyre’s timeline unfolds via records kept by a German officer present throughout Colditz’s time as a camp. This jailer appears almost as a background narrator, observing and occasionally outsmarting the prisoners, while documenting the history of escape attempts in a physical museum he established in the castle that grew after the discovery of each new scheme.
“Prisoners of the Castle” sometimes reads like “A Thousand and One Nights” meets “Groundhog Day,” with evermore baroque attempts to exit the same dull trap. But the near whimsy of Colditz took more than one grim turn, and in narrating those darker developments, “Prisoners of the Castle” works to undo some conventions of World War II escape stories.
The book’s preface opens with a gentle mockery of the myth of Colditz, which locates all detainees’ “mustaches firmly set on stiff upper lips.” In what follows, Macintyre occasionally catches them in moments of pain, loss and even deterioration. A Belgian’s deliberate failure to salute a German officer spiraled into a court-martial and a death sentence that was later commuted. Recaptured prisoners earned time in solitary for their escape attempts, which sometimes destroyed their sanity.
Later in the war, the dangers became more existential. As Germany’s military fortunes plummeted, other elements of the Third Reich took an interest in the most prominent detainees at Colditz. The castle went from being an officers’ club to a stable of hostages that the worst Nazi elements hoped to use to extort clemency for themselves or to exact revenge for their losses.
With so many absconding prisoners to cover, Macintyre keeps things moving and does not get in the way of his material. He seems aware that this is not a story for literary flourishes but one whose strength resides in the stitching together of voices from disparate historical records.
We get plenty of action, from the tiny Scotsman who sneaks out inside an old mattress to the glider built entirely inside the castle attic with a plan to launch it from the roof. But we also hear directly from the mattress stowaway, who made it on foot as far as the then-neutral American consulate in Vienna in May 1941, where an official refused to help in any way, saying, “They’ll get you in the end. They always do.”
Macintyre has already made a name for himself through World War II histories such as “Operation Mincemeat” and “Double Cross,” as well as BBC documentaries. He knows how to layer dramatic details and doesn’t shy away from sharing the worst things his imprisoned protagonists did, including the degree to which Colditz prisoners quickly replicated the most atrocious aspects of their home societies — from classism and exclusionary social clubs to virulent racism.
Even the most celebrated detainees are presented as complicated people. Wing Commander Douglas Bader ranked as the greatest war hero in the prison and was met on arrival with salutes from German sentries. A double-amputee flying ace, he had two tin legs and a penchant for making his subordinates’ lives (and everyone else’s) miserable.
Micky Burn, another combat hero with a very different personality, was a brash bisexual who veered from an early love affair with Nazism to embrace of Communism. His posh background earned him admission to Colditz’s Bullingdon Club, an organization modeled on an elite dining club at Oxford University. But he soon unnerved its members with his enthusiastic lectures on Marxism. In a letter to his parents from captivity, Burn wrote, “I am now living in a castle, as most of the best people do at this time of year.”
Some portraits are particularly moving. We get to know the camp dentist, a Scotsman who concealed his Jewish identity and served as an intelligence agent, sending coded secrets out of Colditz to London. And we witness an Indian doctor — cruelly ostracized by his British peers — who plots his own radical escape from Colditz.
With dozens of characters, “Prisoners of the Castle” risks becoming a grab-bag of vignettes. However, each detainee is memorable enough that readers are unlikely to get lost. And a treasure trove of details is arrayed on the page. Macintyre so seamlessly fuses so many different accounts that their compilation creates something more profound than a simple escape yarn: a biography of the prison itself and the world detainees built there.
Prisoners of the Castle
An Epic Story of Survival and Escape From Colditz, the Nazis’ Fortress Prison
By Ben Macintyre | 2022-09-26T19:37:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A tale of WWII derring-do that reveals the humanity of its heroes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/09/26/prisoners-castle-review-ben-macintyre/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/09/26/prisoners-castle-review-ben-macintyre/ |
The question that was too wild for ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ to ask
Florence Pugh and Harry Styles in “Don’t Worry Darling.” (Warner Bros. Pictures) (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
“Don’t Worry Darling,” the source of the hottest gossip on the fall film circuit, turns out to be a stylish but familiar story of the creepy goings-on behind a happy domestic surface. The movie’s attacks on retro gender roles and abusive tech wizards are of a piece with director Olivia Wilde’s feminist commitments, but their predictability is also a bit of a letdown.
Now, more than ever, it would have been exciting to see a director with Wilde’s bona fides pose the provocative question that “Don’t Worry Darling” hints at but can’t quite confront: What should feminism do about women who wonder if liberation is a bad bargain?
That there’s going to be a twist is obvious from the get-go in “Don’t Worry Darling.” Alice (Florence Pugh) and her husband, Jack (Harry Styles), live in a mid-century modern dream of a planned community called Victory, where the women keep immaculate houses and the men work mysterious jobs and grovel for the approval of Frank (Chris Pine), the town’s architect. Clearly, all is not as it seems, and the one woman bold enough to say so is stigmatized as a crazy lady.
But when the twist arrives, “Don’t Worry Darling” reveals just how much political potential it squandered. (I can’t warn you strongly enough to turn back here if you haven’t seen the movie and hope to be surprised by it.)
Alice, it turns out, was once a surgeon. Jack, rattled and emasculated by the contrast between his stalled career and Alice’s success, becomes an acolyte of Frank, a silkier and more sinister riff on Canadian psychologist-turned-masculinity-guru Jordan Peterson. Jack drugs Alice and keeps her shackled in a canopy bed, where a sophisticated headset projects an immersive illusion into her propped-open eyes. Her life in Victory is a simulation, designed and overseen by Frank. Jack, like the other men who live there, has committed to caring for the body of his “personal wife” in the real world — and to building Frank’s movement in exchange for the chance to reside in a retrograde fantasy.
After Alice recovers memories of her old life and confronts Jack about what he’s done, he insists it was for their benefit. He’s just freed her from her miserable rotation schedule! He’s making a sacrifice by leaving the simulation every day for a job that pays for Alice’s prison!
The message is blunt: Only a pathetic monster steals a woman’s life from her and reframes the theft as a gift. Only a loser needs to tear a woman down to feel better about himself.
But there’s a far more interesting — and much more dangerous — question lingering behind that indictment of Jack’s motivations. Why might someone choose to live in Victory?
For Alice’s neighbor Bunny (Wilde herself), the projection provides a relief from grief. In the real world, she tells Alice, her children are dead. In Victory, she at least has simulations of them: eternal scamps who come off the school bus every day to wreak havoc in her perfect yard. That’s a tempting, but underdeveloped, plotline: Viewers never learn how Bunny found Frank in the first place.
And “Don’t Worry Darling” implies that at least one woman is invested in the project on its own terms. Frank’s wife, Shelley (Gemma Chan), leads the other wives in hypnotic ballet classes, treats him to burlesque performances, defends him from Alice’s attacks — and then stabs him to death when Alice’s escape threatens to bring down the project, declaring that it’s “her turn,” though for what, the film doesn’t say. The implication is that Shelley is disgusted with Frank for the missteps that put the community at risk, but again, “Don’t Worry Darling” doesn’t have the time — or the guts — to explore it.
Women such as Shelley who embrace — and fight for — traditional gender roles hardly need to be invented. She’s Phyllis Schlafly with a better wardrobe, a tradwife without the racist panic about White birthrates. If she lived in New York, she’d be a hit in the Dimes Square crowd, where converting to Catholicism is the hip move.
Women who choose traditionalism pose questions to which feminism hasn’t necessarily worked out the answers.
How can society move beyond the raw deal in which women are expected to pull in salaries and manage households? Does treating the domestic sphere as less worthy than professional life denigrate femininity? And how much can ordinary people be expected to cast off everything they’ve been taught to believe — and to value — in order to personally participate in remaking the world?
Liberation movements tend to market themselves as the key to happiness, and with good reason. For a tiny minority of people, suffering for a cause might be the selling point. But promising a long stretch of hard work and alienation before the good stuff isn’t exactly a mainstream recruiting pitch.
As the radical feminist Shulamith Firestone wrote in “The Dialectic of Sex,” “Many women give up in despair: if that’s how deep it goes they don’t want to know.”
Or, as the traitorous rebel in “The Matrix” explains when he asks to be reintegrated into a mass, machine-generated delusion, “I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious,” he muses. But after nine years of living in terror and discomfort, “You know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.”
That’s what feminism — as well as the movements against climate change and racism — is up against. “Don’t Worry Darling” would have been genuinely shocking if it confronted viewers with the temptations of ignorance, not just its costs. | 2022-09-26T19:38:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | 'Don't Worry Darling' doesn't dare to ask this provocative question - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/dont-worry-darling-feminism-versus-traditionalism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/dont-worry-darling-feminism-versus-traditionalism/ |
Italy has voted for a new government, likely to be led by a prime minister whose party arose from the ashes of post-World War II Italian fascism. The rise of Giorgia Meloni, the firebrand ethno-nationalist seemingly victorious in Sunday’s elections, has sent shock waves through Europe and triggered fears that Italy might be the Achilles’ heel in Western resolve to resist Russia’s bloody campaign in Ukraine.
In fact, it would be a stretch to regard Ms. Meloni, who would be Italy’s first female premier, as a fascist. And, having dropped her former admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, she has been unstinting in backing NATO’s support for Ukraine — although the same cannot be said of her probable coalition partners in Italy’s legislature. She has also tempered her erstwhile rhetoric suggesting she would splinter the European Union, possibly because Italy depends on enormous infusions of E.U. pandemic relief funds.
Yet there remains ample cause for concern about Ms. Meloni, who is set to govern one of the world’s largest economies despite her own modest credentials in government. She is the latest in a string of extremists who have performed well in European elections this year, including nationalists in France, Hungary and Sweden. Her apparent victory is more evidence that far-right leaders are ascendant in a continent buffeted by immigration, economic head winds and, on its eastern flank, the most destructive war in three-quarters of a century.
Political upheaval is the default in Italy, which has had 69 governments in the 77 years since World War II ended. Still, Ms. Meloni’s premiership would be a watershed event. Amid a drumbeat of anti-immigrant rhetoric — she warns darkly that ethnic Italians are in danger of “replacement” — she has advanced the farfetched idea of a naval blockade to stop unauthorized foreigners from reaching Italian shores. That’s unlikely to work. It’s also a toxic echo of the fierce antisemitism of Mussolini, the World War II dictator whom Ms. Meloni once openly admired.
Henry Olsen: Fears about Italy’s Giorgia Meloni are overblown. But don’t underestimate her.
Her intolerance is also directed at LGBTQ people, for whom her government might make life more challenging in the only major E.U. country that has not legalized same-sex marriage. Framing her views as pro-family, she has vowed to block same-sex adoptions and surrogacy.
The lurking danger of a Meloni government is to Europe’s ability to withstand Mr. Putin’s attempts to break Western anti-Kremlin sanctions, using Europe’s dependence on Russian energy exports as leverage. Italy’s economy is chronically anemic, and many Italians will suffer as Moscow’s pressure mounts. That will test Ms. Meloni’s determination to hold the line, especially given that one of her coalition partners, Matteo Salvini of the League party, opposes sanctions, and the other, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, is an apologist for the Russian authoritarian. | 2022-09-26T19:39:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The danger after Giorgia Meloni's win in Italy's shocking election - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/italy-election-giorgia-meloni-russia-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/italy-election-giorgia-meloni-russia-ukraine/ |
Fears about Italy’s Giorgia Meloni are overblown. But don’t underestimate her.
Giorgia Meloni, who will likely take power in Italy after Sunday’s election, has caused much concern in Europe and the United States because of her party’s historic ties to neo-fascism and her praise of Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Those fears are overblown, but no one should underestimate the populist leader’s desire for significant political and economic change.
Meloni co-founded the Brothers of Italy in 2012 as a breakaway from the country’s main center-right party, People of Freedom. The Brothers was nationalist from its inception, taking its name from a line in the Italian national anthem. It uses colors and symbols associated with the post-war Italian Social Movement, a party founded by supporters of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. It has never advocated fascism, but its pedigree has nevertheless always raised concerns.
But Italy is not Hungary. It has a robustly free media and has been a Western democracy for nearly 80 years. Moreover, Meloni’s party has never embarked on a crusade against liberal democracy the way Mussolini or even Orban has. The Brothers party doesn’t want to end democracy; it wants to respect Italy’s national traditions and restore the country’s economic freedoms.
Those twin concerns mark Meloni’s rise and explain her appeal. She came to prominence when she proclaimed in 2019 that “I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian.” This social conservatism isn’t rooted in the past; rather, it is rooted in a sense that Italy’s past is worthy of respect and can form the foundation for its future.
The Post's View: Danger lurks after Italy’s shocking election
The economic issues are also crucial to explaining her rise. Italy is a founding member of the euro zone, but its economy has largely stagnated after adopting the euro in 2002. Since then, Italy’s economy has never grown by more than 2 percent annually, except for last year’s post-pandemic bounce. It also never recovered from the 2008 financial crash; unemployment has never dropped below 8 percent since then, and its real GDP per capita remains lower than it was in 2007.
This has produced political upheaval, of which Meloni and her party are the current beneficiaries. Italy’s 2006 election featured two traditional coalitions, center-left and center-right, which received almost all of the votes. Pro-European traditional parties anchored each coalition, with no serious populist opposition. By 2013, an anti-establishment populist party, the 5 Star Movement (M5S), received more than 25 percent. Five years later, M5S won nearly a third of the vote and 22 percent went to the Brothers and the League, which had taken a populist, anti-immigrant turn.
That majority reasserted itself Sunday, with the Brothers taking the lead. Meloni’s party received 26 percent of the vote, and M5S and the League together pulled in 24 percent. A further 5 percent voted for a variety of populist and sovereigntist parties, including one that wants Italy to leave the European Union.
Clearly, staying the course is not on Italians’ agenda. Thus, Meloni has every incentive to depart from Italy’s recent past.
Doing so won’t be easy. She will be hamstrung by Italy’s massive debt, which causes it to rely on support from the European Union and European Central Bank. Her social conservatism could also be opposed by the European Parliament. France’s prime minister reacted to Meloni’s win by saying France would “be attentive” to Italy’s abortion laws to protect women’s access to the procedure. The E.U.’s recent move to withhold financial aid to Hungary — which Meloni’s party opposed — shows Brussels is not afraid to put its money where its values are.
Meloni knows she needs to move carefully. She took pains during the campaign to say Italy will be fiscally responsible under her leadership. She supports sanctions against Russia and expresses broad support for the Western alliance. No one should expect her to make waves in these areas once she takes power.
Nevertheless, Meloni cannot operate as a normal European leader. Italians wants change and, in recent years, they have moved to whichever party credibly promises to deliver. So to stay in power, she must show she can push the E.U. to give Italy more slack to execute what the nation wants.
That conflict will likely emerge on three fronts: migration, E.U. financial support and capping energy prices. Regarding the first, Italy is a front-line nation when it comes to migration from Africa and the Middle East. Meloni has previously called for a naval blockade to prevent mass immigration. Restricting immigration is popular in Italy, and she will likely be willing to stand up to the E.U. if it disapproves of her efforts to limit it.
Second, the E.U.’s financial support to Italy comes primarily from its coronavirus recovery program, NextGenerationEU. That support is substantial but comes with many strings attached. Meloni has argued for renegotiating with the E.U. to give her more flexibility in using the funds. Expect her first budget, due later this year, to lay down that challenge.
Finally, Meloni has stated that the E.U. needs to cap energy prices and that Italy will act if the E.U. does not. Such a cap could be extremely expensive, as it would require substantial government transfers to energy companies to keep them solvent. Germany is said to be looking at some form of energy price cap, which could produce room for agreement. But Meloni knows standing up to Brussels and Berlin to protect Italians’ energy bills would be extremely popular if she had to.
Many in the European establishment believe they can tame Meloni as they did her predecessors. But Italy’s first female prime minister is not likely to go along meekly. Given Italians’ strong desire for change, she is likely to be a stronger change agent than many think.
Opinion|Fears about Italy’s Giorgia Meloni are overblown. But don’t underestimate her.
Opinion|The E.U. must punish Viktor Orban, Hungary’s authoritarian leader
Opinion|Post Elizabeth: As royal family mourns, William and Harry make headlines in Windsor | 2022-09-26T19:39:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Fears about Giorgia Meloni are overblown. But don’t underestimate her. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/italy-election-meloni-brothers-populist/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/italy-election-meloni-brothers-populist/ |
Three cheers for NASA’s asteroid smasher
By Rae Paoletta
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, spacecraft onboard, on Nov. 23, 2021. (Bill Ingalls/AP)
Rae Paoletta is the editorial director for the Planetary Society.
Who ever thought crashing into space rocks could be so useful to science — and to the defense of humanity?
On Monday, at 7:14 p.m. Eastern time, NASA will make history by forcing a kitchen-appliance-size cube to collide with an asteroid. Scientists will then be able to evaluate whether smashing into asteroids is a viable way to one day save the planet from dangerous objects, if it ever comes to that.
At first blush, the mission — titled Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART — might seem a bit silly (sorry, NASA). Smashing into an asteroid like a pool cue to an eight ball sounds like something Nathan Fielder might suggest in an episode of “Nathan For You.” You can almost envision the comedian calmly pitching a team of NASA engineers: “The plan? Save the planet from a dangerous asteroid by hitting it with a multimillion-dollar spacecraft.”
But NASA has serious hopes riding on the mission. If successful, it could change how we fund and develop planetary defense projects.
Asteroids are a notoriously sticky wicket. On one hand, they’re remnants from the birth of our solar system; relics from the beginning of everything — or whatever our slice of that is. On the other, asteroids have caused inconceivable damage to our planet. Roughly 66 million years ago, a 6-mile-wide asteroid slammed off the coast of what is now Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. A single asteroid robbed us of the chance to see pterodactyls soar across the sky, or to have them use us for food, depending on which way you look at it.
DART can’t undo the damage of past asteroid impacts, but it can help us prevent them in the future. With DART’s collision, scientists tested a planetary defense strategy known as the “kinetic impactor technique,” which aims to move — but not destroy — an object.
In DART’s case, the target was Dimorphos, a rock orbiting another, much larger asteroid called Didymos. (In astronomical terms, that makes Dimorphos a “moonlet.”) If all went as planned, DART will have nudged Dimorphos a bit closer to its parent asteroid, changing the time it takes to orbit around Didymos from from 11.9 to 11.8 hours — a small but significant change.
Thankfully, Didymos and Dimorphos pose no threat to Earth, so no matter what happened Monday, humanity is safe for now. But as near-Earth asteroids, Didymos and Dimorphos belong to a category of rocky bodies that require somewhat greater attention. According to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, about 29,000 of these objects have been discovered. Of that number, a few thousand are considered “potentially hazardous,” but it’s hard to find exact figures.
While the threat of a massive asteroid actually hitting Earth is very low, when near-Earth objects (asteroids and sometimes comets) make their way into our atmosphere, the results can be devastating. In 1908, an asteroid or comet traveling at about 33,500 miles per hour blew up three to six miles over the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Siberia. Exact details around that event, called the Tunguska Impact, are still shrouded in mystery. But the energy released during the explosion leveled entire forests, killing enormous swaths of trees and animals. It’s estimated the force of the explosion might have measured up to 15 megatons of TNT.
History repeated itself in 2013 — although thankfully to a much lesser degree — when a 65-foot asteroid exploded about 14 miles before reaching the ground above Chelyabinsk, Russia, creating an enormous cloud of gas and dust. The subsequent shockwave damaged 7,200 buildings across six cities and injured 1,500 people.
What makes asteroids and events such as this fundamentally terrifying is that they’ve been completely out of our control. The idea of an object randomly striking Earth and causing so much destruction is existentially daunting.
Deflecting asteroids is ambitious work — quixotic, even. But so is saving the world. Both are worth the effort. | 2022-09-26T19:39:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Three cheers for NASA’s asteroid smasher - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/nasa-dart-mission-asteroid-collide/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/nasa-dart-mission-asteroid-collide/ |
Putin is backed into a corner
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 23 in Moscow. (Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/Getty Images)
A rat is most dangerous when backed into a corner. Max Boot’s Sept. 22 op-ed “Don’t fall for Putin’s bluff” raised the question of the willingness of Russian President Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons. I agree that there is a very small probability of Mr. Putin acting upon these bluffs.
We must not forget Mr. Putin’s final goal: to annex the majority of Ukraine and reunite the former parts of the Soviet Union that fall under his definition of the “Russian world.” His definition includes those who speak Russian or a close language, practice the Eastern Orthodox faith and live in territory that was part of Catherine the Great’s empire in the 18th century. However, since the start of the war, Mr. Putin has inch by inch been backing himself into a corner, and with last week’s partial mobilization, he stepped back a whole foot. Although his grip on power is firm within his country, his recent actions show he feels threatened and isolated, and this makes him increasingly dangerous.
Benjamin Reznikov, Vienna
Opinion|Putin has just made the world a far more dangerous place | 2022-09-26T19:39:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Putin is backed into a corner - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/putin-is-backed-into-corner/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/putin-is-backed-into-corner/ |
Putin says nuclear threat is no bluff. We should take him at his word.
By Joseph Cirincione
Russian intercontinental ballistic missile launchers move during a Victory Day military parade in Red Square in Moscow in 2016. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
Joseph Cirincione is author of “Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin is losing his war. If the Ukrainians continue to liberate areas of their country from his invading army, would he actually use nuclear weapons as he has threatened? If so, how? And what would the U.S. response be?
It is difficult to put percentages on risk. Nor does it really matter. Given the stakes, if the chances are 10 percent or 40 percent, the response would be the same: Minimize the possibility of nuclear use, and prepare responses in advance.
That is what U.S. military and intelligence leaders are doing — and have been doing since the early days of the war. They are studying all the possible use scenarios. U.S. intelligence is closely watching for any sign that a nuclear weapon is being readied.
We should believe Putin that “this is not a bluff.” The first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict is an integral part of Russian military doctrine, as it is in U.S. war plans. Unlike the United States, Russia regularly practices for the use of nuclear weapons and integrates them into its conventional military exercises, most recently just before Putin‘s invasion.
Russian military writings describe in detail how, if Russia is losing a conflict, it could use nuclear weapons to force its enemy to retreat. This “escalate to de-escalate” or “escalate to win” strategy is somewhat controversial, but it is not dissimilar to various U.S. plans for using nuclear weapons first.
What would that look like in Ukraine? There are numerous scenarios, with scores of variations, but they fall into a small number of broad scenarios.
Demonstration shot. One option is for Russia to fire a nuclear weapon over an uninhabited area — say, part of the Black Sea — as a demonstration of its seriousness in hopes that the West will back down. Some scientists involved in the Manhattan Project urged just such a demonstration shot as an alternative to bombing Japanese cities at the end of World War II. While no one would be killed and there would not be physical damage, the explosion would stop the world in its tracks. There has not been a nuclear weapon used in combat in 77 years. No one has even seen a nuclear explosion above ground since 1980.
This explosion would not require a nuclear response by the United States. To prevent further escalation, President Biden could call for Russia’s international isolation (China and India, for example, would quickly distance themselves), impose extraordinarily harsh new sanctions and issue warnings of grave consequences should Russia proceed with additional explosions.
As shocking as this would be, Russia would likely reject this option for the same reason U.S. military leaders did in 1945: It is not shocking enough.
Low-yield weapon. Russia could fire a “low-yield” nuclear weapon on a Ukrainian military target. The explosion would kill hundreds or thousands and cause significant damage. Russia could use one of the 10-kiloton warheads it deploys on some of its ground-launched cruise missiles, including the Iskander that has been used extensively in the war with conventional warheads. Although this would be a massive explosion — equal to 10,000 tons of TNT — it would be small by nuclear standards. The bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was 15 kilotons; most U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads range from 100 to 1,000 kilotons. Some believe that Russia has even smaller-yield warheads, in the one-kiloton range.
This might be the most likely scenario. Again, it would not require a “response in kind” by the United States, though some would urge that. The likely response, in addition to those in scenario one, would be massive increases in military aid to Ukraine and possibly concerted NATO or U.S. strikes on the Russian units that launched the attack.
Large-yield weapon. Putin could dial up the explosive force of the attack to the 50- or 100-kiloton range, or about three to six times the Hiroshima bomb. Tens of thousands would die with massive damage and radiation plumes. If the target were Kyiv, it would decapitate Ukraine’s leadership. This would almost certainly trigger a direct U.S. or NATO response, though not likely nuclear. The United States and NATO have sufficient precise, powerful conventional weapons that they could use to devastate Russian forces in Ukraine and command headquarters, including those units responsible for the attack. This would likely be accompanied by large-scale cyber operations.
Nuclear attack on NATO. This is the least likely scenario. Russian first-use doctrine includes the option of striking NATO targets. The attack could be by long-range missiles or air-launched cruise missiles on Central European states. If the yield of the weapon was similar to the previous scenario, it would inflict a level of destruction on a NATO state not seen since World War II. This could trigger a nuclear response. Some would argue a limited nuclear counterstrike was necessary to preserve nuclear deterrence. More likely is an all-out conventional assault to try to eliminate either Putin himself or the weapons he commands before he strikes again.
These are horrible scenarios to consider. If you are worried, you are having the appropriate reaction. We should do all we can now to prepare a massive political response that might deter Putin from crossing the nuclear line. | 2022-09-26T19:39:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Putin says nuclear threat is no bluff. We should take him at his word. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/putin-nuclear-threat-bluff-us-biden-response/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/putin-nuclear-threat-bluff-us-biden-response/ |
Not sharing knowledge of death camps is a stain on souls
The Auschwitz death camp in Oswiecim, Poland, in January 2020. (Markus Schreiber/AP)
Rafael Medoff noted in his Sept. 24 letter, “The Allies could have bombed the Auschwitz death camp,” that George McGovern, later a senator and presidential nominee, was one of the pilots who bombed oil factories in the industrial zone of Auschwitz.
As an imagery analyst for the Army, I took courses with the Defense Intelligence Agency. One of the exercises in Bomb Damage Assessment run by Dino Brugioni, the dean of imagery instructors and analysts at the agency, was an analysis along the lines suggested by McGovern.
We and countless other classes analyzed the damage to the rail center that served the industrial zone and the death camp. In fact, some bomb damage did come near the death camp rail lines by accident; deliberate targeting would not have changed the bombing mission profiles as both targets could have been hit during the same missions.
Not bombing the camps or their rail head was not a mistake in my view; it was a deliberate choice by people who did not care to know or deal with the Holocaust that was occurring. The knowledge of the camps was out there, and the information was smuggled to the Swiss, to the English and to the U.S. media, some of whom refused to publish it. That, in my view, will remain a stain upon their souls.
Joseph Schvimmer, Gaithersburg | 2022-09-26T19:39:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Not sharing knowledge of death camps is a stain on souls - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/stain-their-souls/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/stain-their-souls/ |
Supporters of student debt cancelation have argued some estimates overstate the policy’s price-tag
The CBO estimate excludes the White House’s simultaneous move to lower the monthly amount borrowers can be forced to repay as a percentage of their income from 10 percent to 5 percent. That policy is set to cost an additional $120 billion, according to estimates from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a D.C.-based think tank that has opposed Biden’s policy.
Some economists cautioned that opponents of the policy frequently overstate its price-tag. Marshall Steinbaum, an economist at the University of Utah, said his research suggests that more than 60 percent of outstanding student loans have rising balances over time — suggesting that many of them are not being paid off. | 2022-09-26T19:41:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | CBO: Biden student loan forgiveness to cost $400 billion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/09/26/cbo-student-loan-forgiveness-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/09/26/cbo-student-loan-forgiveness-biden/ |
Transcript: Future of Work: The Challenge of Economic Inequality
MR. LYNCH: Hello and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m David J. Lynch, global economics correspondent here at the Post.
Today I'm joined by Raphael Bostic, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta for a conversation about the economy, inequality, and the American dream.
Dr. Bostic, welcome.
DR. BOSTIC: Thank you, and it's good to be here, David. Good to see you.
MR. LYNCH: Well, we're delighted to have you with us.
Now, before we get to our discussion about economic opportunity, I do need to ask you about a couple of issues that are making news today, and first, I'd like to get your view of the extraordinary events unfolding in the United Kingdom, where financial markets basically have turned a resounding thumbs‑down on the government's plan for massive tax cuts and borrowing with inflation already sky high. What implications does the UK situation have for the already weak global economy?
DR. BOSTIC: Well, I think what we've seen in the reaction to the proposed plan is a real concern and a fear that the new actions will add uncertainty to the economy.
You know, one of the things that I spend a lot of time thinking about is how do we create more certainty for consumers so that they have confidence, that they know what's going to happen moving forward, and I think what we've seen in terms of market reaction is that the proposal has really increased uncertainty and really caused people to question about what the trajectory of the economy is going to be or might be moving forward.
For me, I think that it will certainly cause everyone to think hard about what their policies need to be moving forward and how much of this policy needs to be put in place. I know they're huddling right now. I have no doubt about that.
For me and for us here in the United States, I think the key question will be what does this mean for ultimately weakening the European economy, which is an important consideration for how the U.S. economy is going to perform. You know as well as I do that trade with Europe is incredibly important for our economic performance, and if that gets weaker, that puts more stress on us.
MR. LYNCH: So, at the end of the day, does greater instability emanating from the UK increase the odds of a global recession?
DR. BOSTIC: Well, I think it doesn't help it. You know, it would take international modelers to really try to quantify how much.
But, you know, one of the things that we know as a basic tenet of economics is that more uncertainty leads to less engagement for consumers and businesses, and less engagement in an already tenuous environment is not going to be positive.
So it is a concern. It's something that me and my team and all of us here in the Federal Reserve will be watching closely to make sure that we understand the implications of this development.
I would also say, though, that at this point, as I understand it, these are just proposals, and we haven't actually seen what's going to play out on the ground. And so that will be the other important question as we move forward.
MR. LYNCH: Right. Now, back in the U.S., the Federal Reserve last week raised interest rates for the fifth time this year. Markets this summer were clearly too optimistic about prospects for an early end to the Fed's rate hikes, but with stocks and bonds now being driven down for several days in a row, are investors too pessimistic about the outlook, or are they simply reacting appropriately to a fundamental change in the cost of borrowing?
DR. BOSTIC: Well, you know, I don't know whether they're too optimistic or not optimistic enough.
You know, for me, I actually think the more important thing is that we need to get inflation under control, and until that happens, we're going to see, I think, a lot of volatility in the marketplace in all directions. Little pieces of news can drive people to‑‑and businesses to draw some more extreme conclusions than I think might be appropriate, and all of this, I think, is driven by the fact that we have inflation that is too high.
You know, the U.S. economy functions best when there's confidence about where the economy is going to be and what its trajectory is going to be over both the short and the medium term, and high inflation undermines that. So what we need to do is get inflation to be much more under control, down to our 2 percent target, and once that happens, I think we'll be able to draw more clear signals from where the market is evolving to.
But, also, you know, I just think we'll just hear much more clearly from businesses and from consumers, "These are the investments that I'm going to make. This is how I'm thinking about my prospects," and I'm pretty confident that's going to happen. Once we get there, I think it will be far less likely that we'll see the wild swings that we've seen over the last several weeks, but I still think we've got a ways to go. And there's some more work that we're going to have to do to try to help move inflation in the right direction.
MR. LYNCH: Now, the Fed obviously is not alone in raising interest rates. Central banks in Europe, the UK, Canada, really all around the world, with few exceptions, have been doing likewise. How do you assess the risks that all this relatively uncoordinated monetary tightening could in its cumulative impact prove excessive and, thus, drive the global economy into a recession that it might otherwise avoid?
DR. BOSTIC: Well, I'll say two things on this. First, I don't think it's as uncoordinated at some might think. You know, our leaders here, the chair and others in Washington, talk regularly with their colleagues across the world, and so there's an awareness of what we're seeing and a collective understanding about how it all fits together that informs our thinking about the exposure of the U.S. economy to things that are happening overseas and the exposure of overseas economies to things that are happening here. And all of that is taken into account. So I do think that that is an important thing for people to understand that we are not on an island. Our economy is not on an island. So it wouldn't be appropriate for our policy to be there either.
And then the second thing I would also say is it's important to remember that at the beginning of this tightening episode, monetary policy was at its maximally accommodative stance. We were basically at zero, which is trying to push the economy as strong as possible, and you see the same basic stance in central banks all the way across the world.
So I think when you look at our policy, we are just now getting to a place where we might be construed as having a more constrictive or restrictive stance, but many other central banks are in a position where they're just not pushing as hard as they used to be. So I think while there's going to be less momentum coming from our policy, we haven't fully pulled the reins yet, and so I think the likelihood of a cascade such that we get a global recession is not where we are right now. But it is definitely something we'll have to keep an eye on in the weeks and months to come.
MR. LYNCH: Okay. Now, you've been very vocal about the need to spread the gains of economic growth, the benefits of economic growth throughout the entire society, and you've said that you think the U.S. has, quote, "a moral and economic imperative to end racism," close quote. What are the practical implications of that imperative for the Fed's management of the economy? How would things, how should things be different in how the Fed operates if it really does make that a core concern?
DR. BOSTIC: Well, first of all, I would say, you know, we have a dual mandate of stable prices and maximum employment, and that dual mandate really informs and guides how we think about the economy. And when I first started in this job, I really asked the question like, what should our maximum employment benchmark be, and how should we think about it? And one thing that became very clear is that there were parts of our economy, there were parts of our economic community that were not contributing nearly as much as they might have otherwise, and that was constraining our economy potential. That was stopping or slowing our ability to get to maximum employment.
And so we do think about that. I think about that a lot here in this bank, and there are a couple ways to think about this. One is just really to figure out what are the drivers or the things that are causing that impairment that are preventing economic opportunities from reaching everyone so those people can reach their full potential, and as I go around the U.S. and my district in the Southeast, you know, I talk to people and they tell me the things that are not working. They tell me about education or about childcare or constraints, and I'm able to take that information and move that into discussions that I have with policymakers who have the levers to potentially make a change there.
The second thing that I think is important is that it's really helped us think about how we execute monetary policy. Now, it's very clear that monetary policy doesn't do the targeted sorts of investments that would most directly affect some of these challenges, but it is also the case that monetary policy does have implications for basically the foundation of the economy and also the benchmarks and the baselines as we move forward.
And one of the things that we've learned over the last, really, 10 years or so is that the Federal Reserve was a little too aggressive in slowing growth as we got closer to maximum employment, and there was as risk that maybe we were preventing the economy from including people in terms of employment that we might have otherwise. So, in our new framework, we basically took the position that we wouldn't slow the economy because of the fear that the economy was going to overheat until we actually saw inflation start to move, and then once that happened, then we would slow it down. And I think that helped right before the pandemic lead to millions of people to get jobs that would not have under previous approaches to monetary policy.
So I think there, in both those ways, we have an ability to speak to and try to help make progress in terms of the inequality that we see in the U.S. economy.
MR. LYNCH: I want to ask you about that framework, but I'll come back to that in a bit. First of all, just to make sure I'm clear, so you're not calling for any sort of formal expansion to the dual mandate. It's more a question of just how it's interpreted, and I ask that because, as you know, the Fed already faces criticism from some on Capitol Hill who say that it may be losing its focus on the dual mandate by worrying about concerns such as climate change.
DR. BOSTIC: So, you know, first of all, I'm laser‑focused on the dual mandate, and I don't want anyone to think that I spend any time on things that are not directly contributing to our mandate. Pretty much everything that I do is with the goal of trying to help our economy reach its maximum potential, and that will get us to maximum employment and stable prices. So that's the baseline there.
I don't have any interest or goal to get our institution to go beyond that. I think we've got a lot‑‑enough on our hands already, and we want to‑‑I think it's appropriate for us to stay in that space.
Just on the climate change question, so that you mentioned it, you know, one of the things that we are charged with doing is trying to preserve and maintaining a financial stability, and to the extent that climate change is introducing new risks into the portfolios of banking institutions in the communities across the country, we need to understand the nature of those risks and make sure that banking institutions are prepared in case those risks come to fruition.
You know, we've got a hurricane that's going to bear‑‑that's bearing down right now on Florida. That's part my‑‑part of my district. That has implications for holdings and loans that banks have. I'm hopeful that this storm does not do a lot of damage, but what we've seen over the last several years is storms are bigger, they're stronger, and they're doing more damage, which exposes all of my financial institutions in the Sixth District to a lot more danger. And I think it's responsible for us to just acknowledge that and have conversations to make sure that banking institutions are thinking about that and have a plan moving forward so that they're still around tomorrow to continue to provide the services that we need them to do.
MR. LYNCH: Okay. Now, in one of your speeches, you described systemic racism as the yoke that drags on the entire economy, and you provided some striking evidence of how this has worked over the generations. And the example that stuck with me was that at the end of World War II, when the government was trying to promote homeownership, in the state of Mississippi, out of a total number of VA‑guaranteed home loans that was 3,200 total home loans, only two went to African American borrowers. And I want to repeat that number, because I had to read the speech or that passage twice to make sure I was reading it correctly. The government gave borrowers in the state of Mississippi, gave 3,200 of them, discounted loans that they guaranteed, the government guaranteed. Only two went to African American borrowers. And folks might ask, "Well, who cares? That was a long time ago." But acquiring homes and passing them on, building wealth, this is how the process works, and obviously, if White families were able to access government financial aid that was largely off limits to Blacks, that has an effect that lingers over time.
But what can the Fed do about those sorts of historic inequities? What should the central bank try to do about that?
DR. BOSTIC: Well, I think‑‑well, first of all, when I saw those numbers, I had to read them several times myself. You know, that was really just a striking demonstration of the disparities and experiences under ostensibly a single program which has major implications.
In terms of what the Fed should do, I think that just the virtue of you having‑‑now having those facts in your head is an important contribution. You know, as I've gone around the country and my district and talking about how we help the economy be more effective, what I found is that many are not aware of the things that have happened in the past that are contributing to our constraints.
As you appropriately noted, homeownership has been a pathway for wealth building for families throughout the history of this country, and it often becomes the foundation upon which families and entrepreneurs are able to start small businesses, to go to college, and to do a whole host of things that allow them to ultimately be much more productive. And so having folks that are aware, having the American public be aware of the realities that have prevented some from getting to those experiences, I think, can help us have a richer conversation about things we might do to try to make sure that doesn't happen moving forward and to think maybe creatively about how we allow people's ideas to carry the day as opposed to their past financial situations.
MR. LYNCH: All true, but I wonder, though, you know, as you look back, we've had a half century of various government programs that have tried to address some of these issues, to close some of the‑‑some of the gaps between racial groups and other groups in society, and they've had limited success, to be charitable, I think. So I wonder what you would say or what your view is of arguments for more dramatic action, more dramatic action although politically controversial action, something like financial reparations for the descendants of enslaved people. Is that something that makes sense, or is it just too controversial to even look at?
DR. BOSTIC: Well, you know, I don't know if it's too controversial. That's for the policymakers who are going to face that question to think about.
I do think, though, to your point, that, you know, we all should be thinking about to what extent are the practices and policies that we're doing helping to make progress on this, and so I've had a number of conversations with businesses in the last several years where they have tried to explore are there things that we are doing in terms of how we make people aware of our job openings and the like, that are not as inclusive as they might be. So the chamber of commerce‑‑the Metro Atlanta chamber of commerce here has a racial equity initiative where they've created playbooks to help businesses examine their policies and maybe find ways to reach people they hadn't been reaching before and employ them.
There's a Partnership for Inclusive Innovation here in the state of Georgia that is run out of the lieutenant government's office, which is trying to get investment capital to small business entrepreneurs who typically don't have access to venture capital and the like. And the thing I really like about that program is that they've tried to make sure that entrepreneurs are contacted who aren't just in the Metro Atlanta area, which is where a lot of that money goes.
So I think the key here is really for us collectively to think about different ways that we might do the things that we do to try to reach people in different ways, and I will say in both the partnership case, the Metro Atlanta chamber case, and even a case such as creating internships for high school potential dropouts, what I've heard in terms of the outcomes have been that people have performed far better than you might have expected otherwise, and that there are really good ideas out there that can move the dial both in terms of income and in terms of wealth building that we need so much in so many parts of the country.
MR. LYNCH: What's your assessment of the role that the Fed's own policies, though, have played in contributing to greater income inequality? The ultra‑low interest rates of the past 10 or 15 years, for example, fueled a huge boom in financial markets, and that was great news for people who already owned financial assets at the beginning of that period, but it further contributed to them pulling away from lower‑income groups. Is that just an unintended consequence that couldn't be avoided, given the nature of the various financial crises, or was the Fed not thinking of these sort of outcomes?
DR. BOSTIC: So I was not at the Fed in those days. So I can't tell you what they were and weren't thinking about.
What I'll say is this. You know, I think this is a really hard issue. You know, on one level, you know, my charge in the Federal Reserve is to create price stability, to establish an environment in the economy that allows it to grow robustly. We don't have a lot of say in terms of what the distribution of income was before or the distribution of wealth was before, and the unfortunate reality is if the economy is growing, those who have wealth are going to get wealthier. And those who have not been able in a position to have wealth, they're not going to be able to participate in the same way.
So, for me, what I've really tried to do in terms of thinking about this is let's get as many people into the wealth‑building space as possible. Let's make sure that they have enough income or that they're building the skills that allow them to compete for jobs that get them income that allows that to live sustainably and not on the edge, moving them away from being precarious, and then once they do have an ability to build wealth, let's make sure that they build that wealth in a safe and sound way.
So we do a lot in terms of financial literacy and financial advising in terms of putting tools out there for people so that they can understand things they might do once they are positioned.
But, look, we didn't get into this situation in three or four years. This is going to be something that's going to take many, many years for us to really make sizable progress.
But, in many ways‑‑you know I'm a central banker, and I'm paid to get nervous‑‑I'm also very optimistic about what we can do as Americans, and I think that the more that we see that there is potential and growth and good ideas coming from places that we haven't always looked at closely, I have every confidence that we will start to see more and more capital flow there and more and more investment in ways that allows us to get broader growth and more employment and a more resilient economy.
MR. LYNCH: So a few minutes ago, you mentioned the Fed's new inflation targeting framework, and arguably, I think that could be the tool where the Fed may potentially have the greatest potential impact on these sort of issues, but‑‑and the idea being that the Fed would allow the economy to run hot for longer so that disadvantaged groups would have a chance who are always the last in line, would have a chance to benefit from a tight labor market. But I wonder whether this current episode of high inflation essentially strangles that strategy in its crib, because won't the Fed be allergic to resumption of inflation once this current episode is put to rest, which could take a year or two or three?
DR. BOSTIC: Well, you know, I would‑‑I look at it a little differently. I think that the environment that we're in right now, the high‑inflation environment we're in right now, is very much the byproduct of a covid economy. We have high demands because a lot of people were sitting at home for multiple years, not spending money. We had a strong fiscal support, and we had an economy that turned out to be far more resilient than I think anyone had anticipated.
At the same time, we have supply chain disruptions. We have war in the Ukraine. We have a lot of challenges in China in terms of a drought. All of those things have really constrained supply. So that imbalance that we have is of a nature that we haven't historically seen. So I'm not sure that it would be appropriate to draw long‑term lessons from this experience.
Certainly, we have to make sure, first and foremost, that we get inflation under control, because if we don't have that price stability, we're not going to be in a situation where we're going to see businesses and families be willing to invest in themselves, and it could undermine the likelihood that we can have sustained growth. But once we get that under control, I think it's going to be an important conversation that we have in the Federal Reserve at the Federal Open Markets Committee about how we're going to approach this and exactly what lessons we should learn from this pandemic episode.
But I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that we're going to be skittish or anything like that. I think this is going to be an open conversation where we're going to let the data and the evidence and what we see from how the economy has evolved inform what we think the appropriate path forward should look like.
MR. LYNCH: So you mentioned the unique features of the last couple years of economic circumstances, which I think no one can argue with, but in light of that, I'd like you to look back at the experience of the last year or so. As you know, Fed officials from Chair Powell on down spent most of last year insisting that inflation would prove, quote/unquote, "transitory," and that, of course, turned out not to be the case. We ended up with the highest inflation in 40 years. Should the Fed have done a better job of understanding what was happening in the economy, or was it the case that for all the circumstances you laid out, repeated unforeseeable shocks, the economy‑‑the pandemic‑era economy was simply unreadable?
DR. BOSTIC: Well, you know, I think it's been a very difficult time, and, you know, if you're an economist and you're building models, those models are predicated on data from previous episodes in history. And this episode is just unlike all of them, and so I do think this is a particularly difficult environment.
It's one of the reasons why at our bank, we have actually decided‑‑and we had decided this a while ago, but we found a higher premium on this to do a lot more direct outreach to collect information in real time and to engage in surveys that happen with a faster frequency than what some of the national data provide, to hopefully give us an earlier sign or signal of what was going on. And, look, we were getting glimpses that inflation was going to be a risk and that there was‑‑and there was also a diversity of views on how fast the supply chain issues would resolve. So it was difficult.
But now we're in a place where we know inflation has gone up rapidly, and it has been enduring, and we've got to take that on board. And I think what you've seen is us doing just that, and I think there's still some more work to do on that front. But no one should doubt our resolve to get inflation under control.
MR. LYNCH: Okay. In the limited time we have left, I want to ask you a question I asked President Mester of the Cleveland Fed when she joined us last month, which is, as you know, this is a time when many people doubt elites, doubt elite institutions in this country, whether it's the press, big business, government, you name it. And I wonder how you assess the institutional credibility of the Fed with the broader public, not so much financial markets, but with the broader public after the experience over the last year. Is it something you worry about?
DR. BOSTIC: I worry about this every day, but I will say I've been heartened as I go around the Sixth District. People actually believe in us. They have faith that what we're doing is going to be effective.
You see this in the data. The long‑run expectations for inflation are at the target that we‑‑are at or near the target that we have in place, and this is not the concern that I hear more often. More often, I hear folks say keep doing what you're doing, get the information that you need, and we will be behind you. I think our transparency and our willingness to tell people exactly what we're thinking in real time has been helpful. It's something I'm going to continue to do, and as you talk to my colleagues, they're‑‑they are really in this for the right reasons. And I think the public has understood that pretty clearly.
MR. LYNCH: Interesting. Unfortunately, that's the final word. We are out of time. So we'll have to leave it there. Raphael Bostic, thanks so much for joining us today. We appreciate your time,
And to you in the audience, thanks to you as well. If you’d like to see what we have coming up, head no over to WashingtonPostLive.com, and if you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m @DavidJLyunch there. But thanks again for watching. We’ll see you next time. | 2022-09-26T19:41:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Future of Work: The Challenge of Economic Inequality - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/09/26/transcript-future-work-challenge-economic-inequality/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/09/26/transcript-future-work-challenge-economic-inequality/ |
Trump can win the 2024 nomination the way he won in 2016: Barely
Donald Trump benefited in 2016 by having several rivals in the Republican field, allowing him to win delegates with a relatively small share of the vote. That could benefit him again if he runs in 2024. (Nati Harnik/AP)
When The Washington Post and our partners at ABC News asked Republicans whether they wanted to see Donald Trump nominated in 2024, the results were perhaps surprising: Less than half of respondents said they did, about the same percentage as said they didn’t.
This is certainly not the position in which Trump would like to find himself as speculation about the Republican field in two years’ time starts to take shape. Trump wants to box people out, for them to see him as so dominant that there’s no point in entering the race. He wants, in essence, for the 2024 primary to unfold the way the 2020 one did: a clear field that allowed him to glide toward the general election.
Our poll indicates that this is not the path forward for Trump. Instead, head-to-head primary polling — the utility of which at this point is functionally equivalent to asking your cat what it thinks — has Trump leading the field but south of 50 percent of support.
In other words, where he was when he won the nomination and the presidency in 2016.
The grip that Trump has maintained on the GOP in the past six years obscures how loose it was back in 2016. People are very cognizant that he was elected that year with less than 50 percent of the vote; he famously got fewer raw votes than did Hillary Clinton in the November general election. But less remembered is that he also got less than 50 percent of the vote in the primaries, becoming the first elected president to get less than 50 percent of the vote in each contest in the modern presidential primary era.
See the yellow area on the graph below (repurposed from December 2016)? That’s the under-50-percent zone. Trump’s the only winning presidential candidate embedded in it. President Biden, by contrast, won most of the primary and general election votes cast.
How do you win a nomination without winning most of the votes? There’s one very important reason that you’ve already thought of and which we’ll get to in a second. But another reason is that the Republican nominating contest is designed to do exactly that.
There were 21 days on which voting or nominating conventions occurred that year. Only on the last seven did Trump win a majority of votes cast. There were days on which he won a majority of the vote in one or two states, but most of the time he earned fewer votes than his competitors.
But the system helped him in two ways. The first is that there’s a built-in advantage that goes to the winning candidate in a primary in many states. Nominations are won after candidates accrue a majority of delegates to the party convention. Often, the winner of a state, even if it’s with 45 percent of the votes cast, is given a bonus number of delegates, with the rest distributed by vote margin. So if you win the state, even with less than half of the vote, you can end up with most of the delegates.
In some states, the pot is even larger: The winner just gets all the delegates. Notice the third set of results above, shown with a black bracket. That was the primary in South Carolina, which was winner-take-all. So Trump got 33 percent of the vote — and all of the delegates. Notice the dark bar below.
On Super Tuesday (the tallest spikes above), Trump benefited mostly because he got a disproportionate number of delegates in each state. The system was weighted to winning, not to majority support.
The result was that the percentage of votes won by Trump remained under 50 percent for the duration of the primary season. Until the last few primary contests, he was edging past opponents and adding to his delegate total. As the primaries moved forward, he continued to hold about half of the delegates that had been allocated even as he had won only about a third of the votes cast.
Now the obvious caveat: Trump was able to prevail in the 2016 primaries because the field was so big for so long. He could snatch victory in South Carolina with 33 percent of the vote because there were still a half-dozen competitors vying against him. Had there been only two candidates after New Hampshire, it’s not clear that Trump would have won the nomination — which was why so many candidates hung around, hoping that they would be the last non-Trump candidate standing. Therefore, Trump continued to be able to leverage his fervent base of support well into the primary season.
In other words, Trump sitting at 50 percent support as 2024 slowly nears isn’t necessarily bad … if no other candidate gets a majority of the vote. That he has a robust, energetic base that makes up less than half of the electorate is more helpful in a crowded field than a narrow one. If the GOP electorate is broken into thirds — Trump lovers, Trump haters and those who might look elsewhere — giving voters in those second two groups more choices to pick from means a lower likelihood any candidate will leapfrog the former president.
What our poll suggests, then, is that if he wants to run again, Trump should encourage as many people to run as possible. Keep a big field and leverage that energetic base that others are unlikely to be able to match. He can win in 2024 the way he won in 2016: by the skin of his teeth. | 2022-09-26T20:51:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump can win the 2024 nomination the way he won in 2016: Barely - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/trump-election-2024-presidency/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/trump-election-2024-presidency/ |
GLOUCESTER, VA — AUGUST 21: Gavin Grimm, 17, listens as his mom Deirdre Grimm, fights back tears while talking at their home in Gloucester, Virginia, on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2016. The transgender teen sued the Gloucester County School Board after it barred him from the boys' bathroom. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)
She spends at least one evening every week with her 23-year-old son — dinner, a movie or a ferocious game of putt-putt golf (the scores remain disputed).
These are nights Deirdre Grimm is grateful for, nights she knows may never have happened if she didn’t listen to him, didn’t fight for him.
“There’s no other way to do it,” Grimm said during a break she took from her nursing shift this week to return my call about Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s latest attack on transgender youth. “If you want to have an alive child, you have to support them.”
Gavin Grimm and his mom dragged the nation by the lapels into the reality of trans children seven years ago, when he was banned from using the boys’ bathroom at his school in Virginia’s Gloucester County. He prevailed with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, in a case that nearly made it to the Supreme Court.
But as Youngkin (R) seeks to raise his national profile, he has again focused the potent paranoia of culture-war conservatives on schools and children, with a directive to make transgender youth use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their “biological sex.” Oh, and kids caught in the hell between fearing parental rejection and needing to live their truth now have to ask mom and dad for permission to use their preferred pronouns in school.
Gavin Grimm won $1.3 million from the school board that tried to tell him where to go to the bathroom
Thousands of people weighed in as soon as Youngkin’s proposal was opened up for comments online Monday. Many opposed it, worrying about the harm that can come to vulnerable children and the burden it puts on teachers forced to “out” students. Supporters cheered it as a win for parents’ rights and called it a rebuke to “pedos” and “groomers.”
It’s a way to launch a culture war on the backs of kids when really, as a society, we’re past that level of ignorance.
Gavin Grimm’s teachers, even in a small, Tidewater county, called him Gavin. They called him “him.” So did the kids.
It wasn’t until the adults who didn’t know him, who didn’t understand who he was and whose lives would be totally untouched by which bathroom Gavin would pee in, decided to weigh in.
“It’s like we’re going backwards in time,” Deirdre said. And she doesn’t want to go back to a place she fought so hard to leave.
“I was one of those people who was being close-minded,” she said of the years Gavin Grimm struggled with his gender identity.
Transgender at Five
Gavin tried to come out to his mom when he was younger. She pushed back, tolerating the short hair and the boy clothes. When he grew leg hair and wouldn’t shave his legs, she told him he looked like “a gorilla.”
She knew her kid was struggling and she wouldn’t tell his dad that the struggle was with gender dysphoria. She didn’t want to tell the family that one of her twins may be trans. What is trans anyhow? Remember, this was before Caitlyn Jenner.
Transgender at 10
The closeted child and the festering secret exploded on Gavin Grimm’s 14th birthday, the day he was planning to kill himself. Mom, still insisting she did not have twin boys, held a birthday party for a boy and a girl.
“I was the birthday girl to her. She got the sheet cake from Walmart, she had my dead name on it,” Gavin said, referring to the name he was given at birth.
He was sullen at the party and seeing the insistent swaths of pink all over the place, he retreated to his bedroom, imagining how he would end his life. A family fight followed and Deirdre made a decision.
“She told everyone about me, Gavin, at the birthday party. Told everyone to get rid of the pink cards, the pink [expletive].” She has two boys, and that’s how it would be from now on, Gavin said.
“She took that drastic action even before knowing I might have taken my life that day,” he said. “It was so different from her worldview. But she did the right thing.”
Deirdre, a self-described “woman of faith,” began fighting.
“I don’t want to be a trailblazer,” Deirdre said, when she testified before the Gloucester County School Board on her son’s behalf in 2014. “But here I am in this position.”
She told the stoic parents that she understands their confusion. “We’ve been struggling with this child since he was 8 years old. And now I know the reason,” she said.
She told them about medical research into gender identity. She read from her Bible. And she told them the main reason she was fighting to understand all this, fighting for her child.
More than half of transgender male teens who spoke with the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2018 had tried to kill themselves. About 30 percent of female trans teens did, too. Those statistics hold for much of the past decade.
“That’s why Gavin wasn’t in school last year, because he’s suicidal,” she told the board, as she argued for him to be seen as the way he sees himself — just another teen boy trying to make it through high school.
When their own friends and the school board voted against them, the Grimms kept fighting. Gavin Grimm became the national face of transgender kids fighting for their right to exist.
He tried to tell parents how to react when their child tells them they’re trans: “The best thing you can do is arm your children with confidence, so they know they have a future in this world,” he said. “Make sure they know they are loved, make sure they are supported.”
After all they lost during that long, legal battle (her marriage, relationships with at least half their family, privacy) and all they gained (the rights for trans children to exist fully in schools, a $1.3 million settlement to pay their legal fees), the current mess that Youngkin is riling up is infuriating, devastating and chilling.
But experts interviewed by my colleagues about Youngkin’s efforts cited Grimm’s case among the reasons the directive likely won’t hold up in court.
“At last, my victory feels final,” Gavin Grimm wrote in a Washington Post op-ed last year. “But I shouldn’t have had to fight this hard.” | 2022-09-26T20:55:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Youngkin's ambitions won't overshadow Gavin Grimm's fight for trans kids - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/26/grimm-youngkin-transgender-virginia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/26/grimm-youngkin-transgender-virginia/ |
Food service workers in San Francisco go on strike and shut down concessions; flight attendants plan Tuesday protest at multiple airports
San Francisco International Airport food service workers demonstrate on Monday. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Cashiers, baristas, bartenders, cooks and lounge attendants at San Francisco International Airport launched an open-ended strike Monday over staffing levels and wages, shutting down most of one of the nation’s busiest airport’s food concessions.
While neither the strike by airport concession workers nor the protests by flight attendants are expected to disrupt air travel this week, they’re the latest signs of upheaval in the nation’s transportation sector, coming just weeks after rail workers narrowly averted a strike fueled in large part by nationwide labor shortages.
“Right now, on my wage, I make so little that I couldn’t even buy one meal at this airport, where hamburgers are $22,” To said. “I need to work two jobs to support my family, and I’m always working double shifts.”
Michigan Chipotle outlet the chain’s first to unionize
The strike at San Francisco International is expected to shut down “virtually every food and beverage outlet within the airport,” UNITE HERE Local 2 union leaders said, and the union is urging travelers to bring their own food. The food service workers are employed by more than 30 companies at 84 food and beverage outlets.
“The San Francisco International Airport advises travelers that a labor action by airport food workers is impacting staffing [at] restaurants and lounges,” said Doug Yankel, a spokesperson for the airport. “Some food and beverage outlets are closed, while others remain open with limited hours and offerings.”
Flights attendants for United and Southwest will demonstrate on Tuesday amid drawn-out contract negotiations over wages, staffing levels and rescheduling of workers when flights are delayed or canceled. The protests will happen outside airports in Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Washington and other cities.
At United, flight attendants said their lives have been upended by cancellations and delays, which routinely force them to spend hours, unpaid, waiting on the phone with the airline’s scheduling services. Some attendants slept on cots in airports this summer because hotels were overbooked.
“We are mentally and physically exhausted, because instead of getting rest, we’re on hold, on the phone, trying to find out where we’re going to spend the night or layover,” Pejas said. “Flights attendants will land somewhere at 10 p.m. and have to wait until 1 a.m. on the phone to find out where they’re going to sleep. We’re not getting rest.”
Joshua Freed, a spokesperson for United, said the company is eager to reach a contract agreement with the union to address flight attendants’ concerns.
“We’ve worked hard to reduce wait times for flight attendants to talk to a crew scheduler, including more hiring and adding digital options for some items,” he added.
Lynn Montgomery, the president of TWU Local 556, which represents 18,000 Southwest flight attendants nationwide, said flight disruptions have become so routine that “workers are constantly working outside their normal schedule.”
“I’ve never seen flight attendants so disheartened,” said Montgomery, who has also worked as a Southwest flight attendant for 30 years. “They feel like they’ve given and given, and the company isn’t giving back to them. It’s way more investor-focused these days than employee-friendly.” | 2022-09-26T21:09:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Airport workers are striking and protesting across the country - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/26/airline-workers-aiport-strike-protest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/26/airline-workers-aiport-strike-protest/ |
In the Atlantic, last year was the third most active season on record in terms of named storms.
This year, Hurricane Fiona slammed Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands, causing flash flooding, mudslides and widespread power outages. Now all eyes are on Hurricane Ian as it barrels toward Florida.
Preparing for a tropical storm can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be intimidating. Here are some tips for readying yourself before a hurricane hits, staying safe when it makes landfall and assessing the damage after it passes. | 2022-09-26T21:09:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to prepare for a hurricane and stay safe after it hits - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/09/26/how-to-prepare-for-hurricane/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/09/26/how-to-prepare-for-hurricane/ |
Maarten Schmidt, astronomer who explained quasars, dies at 92
In 1966, Time magazine put him on a cover and compared him with Galileo
Maarten Schmidt (Bob Paz/California Institute of Technology)
Maarten Schmidt, the Dutch-born American astronomer who explained the mysterious heavenly bodies known as quasars and in so doing helped create the modern picture of the universe, its structure and its history, died Sept. 17. at his home in Fresno, Calif. He was 92.
The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where he was professor emeritus, announced the death but did not cite a cause.
Through his groundbreaking work on quasars, Dr. Schmidt was credited with helping to revolutionize scientists’ understanding of the cosmos. He provided evidence for ideas and concepts now prominent in the public discourse, such as the big bang and black holes.
Quasars were found to be objects that, through unknown mechanisms, radiated enormous energies across expanses of space so vast as to seem almost limitless. Although neither stars nor planets, they seemed to share some properties of stars. Hence the name quasar, an acronym that recognized their starlike properties, and stands for quasi-stellar radio source.
In identifying these objects, and showing what and where they were, Dr. Schmidt made observations with one of the great scientific instruments of his day, the 200-inch-diameter reflecting telescope installed in the observatory at Mount Palomar in California.
Wearing a heated flight suit as protection against the chill of the mountain night at Palomar, Dr. Schmidt aimed the giant telescope at the point in the sky which colleagues identified as the source of some of the unexplained energy reaching us from space.
Then, with photographs made with the telescope from the dim light that came from the same spot in the sky, Dr. Schmidt searched for clues to the mystery. He found his explanation in a phenomenon that science knows as the cosmological redshift.
That is the name for a shift in frequency — toward the red end of the spectrum — of light beamed by objects in an expanding universe, as they fly apart from one another in the wake of the big bang. The big bang was the event that set everything in motion.
What Dr. Schmidt recognized in his photographs was the spectrum of hydrogen, the characteristic pattern of light frequencies emitted by the excitation of the hydrogen atom that pervades the universe.
But the individual, discrete lines in the hydrogen spectrum had been shifted so that each had a wavelength 1.16 times greater than usual. It demanded an explanation. It violated expectations and was a cause for consternation.
In an interview he gave years later, he recalled telling his wife at home that “something terrible” had happened at work.
By eliminating all other possibilities, Dr. Schmidt came face to face with the discovery that has been credited with overturning many of the prevailing ideas about the evolution of the universe. He concluded that the explanation had to lie in the frequency shift caused by expansion of the universe.
He described the conclusion as startling, astounding. He recalled pacing the floor at home for hours. Applying the principle of the cosmological redshift placed the quasar at a distance more than 2 billion light-years away.
A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, moving at 186,000 miles per second. A billion light-years is an unimaginable distance. Recognizing that the quasar could be found at such a distance gave support for new ideas of the size of the universe, of how infinitely far it extended beyond our solar system and our galaxy.
In an interview with the American Institute for Physics, he recalled the trepidation he felt on coming to such a conclusion, on wondering how it would be received, if he published it, whether he might be ridiculed. “You couldn’t keep quiet, and you had to say something and it better be good because it was clear it was an occasion,” he said.
The work, published in Nature in 1963, is widely regarded as revolutionary.
In 1966, Time magazine put him on a cover and compared him with Galileo. “Just as Galileo set the stage for Sir Isaac Newton, who compiled the laws of planetary motion and gravitation,” the magazine reported, “Schmidt and his colleagues are forcing their contemporaries to exercise their inventive imaginations merely to comprehend what the great observatories have seen, and the clues collected from faint spectrograms may lead science into a new era of understanding.”
He received a major new award in science, the Kavli Prize, which honored him as one who “unlocked the gate to the far reaches of the universe.”
The prize, bestowed by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, was shared with a fellow astronomer who made clear the connection between the quasar and the black hole. Scientists think that quasars harbor black holes and derive their energies from the association with black holes.
Together the concept of the quasar and of the black hole has come to symbolize the modern view of the universe as a place of violent interactions and the unleashing of enormous energies, capable of beaming light that could reach us on Earth after a journey that consumed billions of years.
Such signals from billions of light-years away can be viewed as messages from far back in time, offering information about the early history of the universe.
Maarten Schmidt was born in Groningen, Holland, on Dec. 28, 1929. His father was a government accountant, and his mother was a homemaker. After spending his undergraduate years at the University of Groningen, he received a doctorate in 1956 from the University of Leiden, where he studied under renowned astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort. Dr. Schmidt came to the United States on a Carnegie Institution fellowship and joined the Caltech faculty in 1959. He retired in 1996.
At a party at the observatory in Leiden, he met Cornelia “Corrie” Tom, a kindergarten teacher he married in 1955. She died in 2020. Survivors include three daughters. | 2022-09-26T21:10:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maarten Schmidt, astronomer who explained quasars, dies at 92 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/26/maarten-schmidt-astronomy-quasar-caltech-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/26/maarten-schmidt-astronomy-quasar-caltech-dead/ |
Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Lovie Smith, left, and Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin shake hands following a game in 2014. (Don Wright/AP)
Since 1989, only 25 head coaches in the National Football League have been Black, and in the more than a century long history of the NFL only 26 Black men have held the title.
Despite 60 percent of the league’s players being Black, an investigation by The Washington Post found that the NFL’s hiring and firing practices still disadvantage Black coaches at every turn.
Sports enterprise reporter Michael Lee and sports columnist Jerry Brewer join us today to discuss their reporting about how the NFL sidelines Black coaches. | 2022-09-26T21:10:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How the NFL sidelines Black coaches - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/how-the-nfl-sidelines-black-coaches/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/how-the-nfl-sidelines-black-coaches/ |
Penn Jillette on new crime novel ‘Random’
Penn Jillette is one half of the popular magic duo Penn & Teller and the author of several books. On Wednesday, Oct. 5 at 3:00 p.m. ET, Jillette joins The Post’s national arts reporter Geoff Edgers to discuss his new crime novel, “Random,” about making life choices based on a roll of the dice and his decades-long career as a magician.
Magician & Author, “Random: A Novel” | 2022-09-26T21:12:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Penn Jillette on new crime novel ‘Random’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/05/penn-jillette-new-crime-novel-random/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/05/penn-jillette-new-crime-novel-random/ |
Chris Cuomo speaks in Des Moines in 2016. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“Everybody lost,” said Chris Cuomo in a New York Magazine interview by Kara Swisher, published Monday, with regard to two years of tumult in the Cuomo family: New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo resigned his office in August 2021 over a sexual harassment crisis. Chris Cuomo, once a star CNN anchor, lost his job in part because he provided advice to his brother during the scandal. Former top CNN executives Jeff Zucker and Allison Gollust lost their posts after an investigation into the handling of the controversy over Chris Cuomo’s actions.
Cuomo, the former anchor of the 9 p.m. hour at CNN — “Let’s get after it,” he’d exhort his viewers nightly — is speaking out to promote his about-to-debut show, “Cuomo,” on NewsNation. If his remarks to Swisher are any indication, it will feature commentary ranging from dead-on accurate to self-serving to a tad delusional.
In the delusional basket belongs the sense of public service that he derives from the series of interviews he did with then-Gov. Cuomo when covid-19 started raging in 2020. “When Jeff [Zucker] decided to have Andrew on, I believe it was the right call because the country was desperate and starved for comfort,” said Chris Cuomo. Perhaps some folks may have derived comfort from the Cuomos’ fraternal banter. Others mocked it, and the vast majority of America ignored it or didn’t know it was going on to begin with.
In defense of the line-crossing interviews, Cuomo pointed out that media critics didn’t howl about the arrangement at the time. “They did so later,” he said. Correct: They did so when it became plain that Chris Cuomo would cover his brother when things were going well — during the early days of covid, that is — and hide when things started to slide downhill — during the scandals that emerged in early 2021.
Erik Wemple: Chris Cuomo risked his career to help his brother. Was anybody listening?
The decision to interview his brother was “a little bit of an impossible situation,” Cuomo told Swisher — and it wasn’t his plan in the first place (a claim that squares with previous reporting by the Erik Wemple Blog regarding the push from Chris Cuomo’s higher-ups to do the Cuomo-on-Cuomo segments). “[W]hen I did have him on, it was not about news and covering a governor of state. That’s all I’m saying. And I don’t think that it’s an easy case to make against me that I don’t know how to test people in power.”
Boldface added to highlight a violation of the Erik Wemple Blog’s Don’t-Tell-Me-You-Host-a-Talk-Show Rule. There was a certain logo that fronted Chris Cuomo’s show every night: “CNN,” it said. That stands for “Cable News Network.” As long as that logo is present, viewers expect news. Over on Fox News, host Sean Hannity has tried to wiggle out of ethical binds — whose heinousness far exceed anything in the Chris Cuomo oeuvre — by arguing that he works as a “talk show host.”
Best not to even dabble in an argument advanced by Hannity.
Cuomo was fired by CNN in December 2021, after New York Attorney General Letitia James released transcripts that showed his involvement in his brother’s pushback operation. A CNN statement also referred to another consideration in the personnel decision, which was later reported to be a sexual harassment allegation from Cuomo’s time at ABC News. Cuomo has denied that allegation.
As for the revelations that he assisted with his brother’s fruitless efforts to fight sexual harassment allegations, Cuomo said that he wasn’t the “main guy” — that he was a “side piece” (his term, not ours) in the massive PR assault. Thousands of pages of testimony from the New York AG support this version of events, as this blog reported in December 2021. “Chris sends me a lot of things a lot of the time. Half of it I don’t engage in. He gives unsolicited advice,” noted Melissa DeRosa, who served as Andrew Cuomo’s top aide, in her testimony.
That dynamic makes Chris Cuomo’s trajectory doubly painful: He risked his career to ineffectively assist his brother. When Swisher asked Chris Cuomo about his relationship with his brother, considering that “he kind of got you fired,” Chris Cuomo responded, “He’s my brother.” | 2022-09-26T21:56:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Chris Cuomo is defiant about his CNN firing and his brother's crisis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/chris-cuomo-cnn-interview-erik-wemple/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/26/chris-cuomo-cnn-interview-erik-wemple/ |
Carson Wentz took a career-high nine sacks in the Commanders' Week 3 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Ron Rivera watched the tape, and his initial diagnosis, he said, was accurate.
“I’m an optimistic person,” Rivera said Monday. “But … the guys that need to play better got to play better. That’s the truth of the matter. You go back and look at some of the things that have happened — we had some opportunities in that game.”
Through Sunday’s games, the Commanders had allowed 15 sacks and 53 quarterback pressures, both league highs. Philadelphia produced seven of its nine sacks without blitzing, relying on a basic four-man rush to wreak havoc.
Although opinions differ — especially on social media, where users are quick to cast blame — Ross Tucker, the former NFL offensive lineman and current host of the “Ross Tucker Football Podcast,” believes a handful of Sunday’s sacks were the result of Washington’s line simply getting beat. But the others, Tucker said, were tied to Wentz’s poor pocket presence and his penchant for holding the ball too long.
With Carson Wentz, the Commanders hope his production finally matches his talent
Tucker said Wentz’s style worked in 2017, when he helped the Eagles to the Super Bowl and was an MVP candidate before suffering a knee injury. But behind Washington’s line, and perhaps with a slightly slower step than he had before his injuries, Wentz has been exposed.
Svrluga: The Commanders put faith in Carson Wentz. Eventually, he has to reward them.
“Some of those things are things that … we can do to help them as far as what we want to call for our protections in those particular plays,” Rivera said.
Rivera also noted that, on Sunday, the defense corrected issues of positioning, but it didn’t finish plays. For instance, a defensive back would read the play correctly and get in the right spot to be able to eliminate an explosive play, but then he would fail to do so.
More difficult: watching the Commanders’ offense rely on just one dimension instead of spreading the ball around and marrying the running game with the passing game. Against the Jaguars, Washington had 10 players catch a pass. Against the Eagles, Washington’s top receiving option, Terry McLaurin, didn’t have a reception until the third quarter, and its leading tight ends, Logan Thomas and John Bates, combined for just four targets, two catches and five yards.
“There’s only one ball,” Rivera said, “and we’ve got to find that combination more that starts with running the ball, whether it starts with throwing the ball early on, throwing the shorter passes or the intermediate passes, you know, take a little bit of pressure off the quarterback, and then every now and then throw in the deep … stuff. It’s a combination of things that we’re working through and we’re trying to find.” | 2022-09-26T22:10:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carson Wentz’s sacks top a long list of issues the Commanders must face - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/commanders-struggles-wentz-sacks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/commanders-struggles-wentz-sacks/ |
Christian Pulisic, seen here at training camp in Cologne, Germany, last week, is slated to start for a U.S. squad seeking to rebound from a 2-0 defeat to Japan on Friday. (Martin Meissner/AP)
The final test for the U.S. men’s national soccer team before the World Cup will come Tuesday against Saudi Arabia on Spain’s southeastern coast.
And while the result of a friendly two months out will be largely forgotten by the time the Americans arrive at Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium outside Doha, Qatar, for their opener against Wales, they recognize the importance of performing far better than they did in the next-to-last tuneup.
That 2-0 defeat to Japan on Friday in Düsseldorf, Germany, wasn’t as close as the score suggested, triggering alarms about the team’s preparedness for the sport’s biggest competition.
After Tuesday’s friendly, all that remains in Coach Gregg Berhalter’s four-year buildup is finalizing his roster before the Nov. 9 announcement. There are no more full-squad camps, regional tournaments or FIFA match windows to calibrate tactics and appraise prospects.
As preparations wind down, Berhalter needs to see marked improvement in Murcia, Spain.
“It was a poor performance,” he said Monday, reflecting on the defeat. “We got our butts kicked, and we’re not proud of it. … We want to play better this game. It starts with the collective — us playing together, more cohesive — and if we do that, we’ll be fine.”
On Friday, the collective was fractured and, aside from goalkeeper Matt Turner, none of the 16 players who got into the game distinguished themselves. Was that performance an anomaly during an otherwise encouraging two years or a sign of brewing trouble?
“Better now than the first game in Qatar,” Turner said after Friday’s stinker. “It doesn’t really concern me.”
As a starting point, Berhalter’s concern Friday was his team’s inability to solve problems and to play high-intensity soccer. From a technical standpoint, the Americans made unforced defensive errors, turned the ball over carelessly, failed to adapt to Japan’s pressing tactics and struggled to generate many quality opportunities.
On Tuesday, Berhalter will receive a boost from the return to Christian Pulisic, the star attacker who missed the Japan match with an unspecified injury. Berhalter said Pulisic will start.
A part-time starter at Chelsea, Pulisic has not had many opportunities to shine in the Premier League or Champions League this season. Berhalter said he will “just let Christian be Christian.”
“He does a great job of changing the game in moments,” Berhalter said. “And that’s all he needs to do. He doesn’t need to do anything more than he’s done in the past. He just needs to be himself.”
DeAndre Yedlin, a prime candidate to start at right back, said the team is eager to see Pulisic back on the field.
“Christian is a guy that’s always motivated — he always wants to play,” Yedlin said. “It will be very good to have him back, and obviously when he does well, it’s better for us.”
Berhalter also said he will start Ricardo Pepi at striker, replacing Jesús Ferreira, who on Friday missed a golden chance in the opening moments. Josh Sargent, a halftime sub against Japan, and Jordan Pefok, who wasn’t invited to this camp, are also in the mix at a position that remains unsettled as the World Cup nears.
“I don’t need [Pepi] to score five goals,” Berhalter said. “We need him to play like a forward in our system and hopefully he gets opportunities — and hopefully takes the opportunities. It’s stuff that he’s done before for us.”
Not in a long time, though. He last scored for the United States in October 2021 and, since moving to Europe from MLS last winter, has scored one league goal.
To score Tuesday, he’ll need service — something the U.S. midfield failed to provide Friday for Ferreira in the first half and Sargent in the second. Japan’s press stymied U.S. efforts to mount an attack. No doubt, the Saudis took notes.
Berhalter also reiterated Monday that he thinks the impending roster decisions are getting to some players on his young squad. The United States is expected to have the youngest roster at the World Cup.
“There’s stress involved, and there’s outside factors that affect performance,” he said. “We should at least acknowledge that and say that the guys were tense [vs. Japan]. It’s our job as coaches to put them at ease.”
It wasn’t just players on the bubble who stumbled Friday, though.
“Naturally, guys are going to be nervous. Naturally, guys know what’s at stake,” said Yedlin, a 2014 World Cup veteran. “We all love each other here and we’re all trying to obviously make this team, so it’s down to crunchtime now.”
Note: Software executive JT Batson, who has deep ties in grass-roots soccer programs and served on two U.S. Soccer Federation bodies, was named the USSF’s chief executive and secretary general. Batson, 40, will start right away. He succeeds Will Wilson, who announced in June that he would leave this fall after 2½ years in the job. Batson, a Stanford graduate, has held positions on the USSF’s finance committee and development fund. | 2022-09-26T22:10:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | USMNT to face Saudi Arabia in final pre-World Cup test - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/usmnt-saudi-arabia-final-friendly-world-cup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/usmnt-saudi-arabia-final-friendly-world-cup/ |
Why a ‘carpetbagger’ attack is particularly potent in Pennsylvania
Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz holds a news conference with Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) on Sept. 6 in Philadelphia. (Mark Makela/Getty Images)
In the abstract, it seems like a potent attack: This Senate candidate from the opposing party is simply airdropping in from New Jersey because he thinks he can win election. He’s a carpetbagger, in other words, a guy who doesn’t understand this state or its residents.
It didn’t work. Yes, Mark Kelly had been born in New Jersey, but the Arizona Republican Party’s effort to use that against him, however scattershot, didn’t prevent the Democrat from being elected as the state’s junior senator in 2020.
Perhaps you assumed I was referring to another effort to cast a Senate candidate as an outsider: the effort from supporters of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman to depict the Republican nominee in that state, Mehmet Oz, as a carpetbagger. (Perhaps that assumption was aided by the large photograph above.) It’s an effort that appears to have gotten much more traction than was seen in Arizona, with more than half of respondents in a July Fox News poll saying they had at least some concern about Oz’s level of familiarity with the state.
There’s a good reason this attack would work better in Pennsylvania than in Arizona, setting aside the fact that Kelly has been married to a former representative and Oz still has a home in Jersey. Pennsylvania is among the states with the highest percentage of residents who were born in the state; Arizona is among the states with the lowest percentage.
The Census Bureau includes a question about where people were born in its centennial surveys of the population. Extracting that data since 1850 (using the excellent IPUMS tool) we can see how the population of each state has evolved over the past 170 years. (Data for 1890 were not available.)
There’s a lot of American history contained in that graph, from restrictions on immigration (seen in the wavelike pattern of the orange sections in New York’s graph, for example) to the expansion of the country to the west to the emergence of new states over time.
But what we are focused on is the portion of each population born in the state in 2020. That looks like this.
Now, the difference between Pennsylvania and Arizona is more readily obvious. Nearly three-quarters of Pennsylvanians are native to the state! Only about 4 in 10 Arizonans are.
As mentioned above, Pennsylvania is among the five states with the highest percentage of native-born residents. Arizona is among the five states with the lowest percentage.
Highest percentage of residents born in state
Lowest percentage
1. Louisiana (77.6%)
51. Nevada (27.2%)
2. Michigan (76.7%)
50. District of Columbia (33.2%)
3. Ohio (75%)
49. Florida (36.3%)
4. Pennsylvania (71.7%)
48. Arizona (40%)
5. Wisconsin (71.5%)
47. New Hampshire (40.9%)
Again, this isn’t the only reason that Kelly won or that Oz is trailing. But it does offer a glimpse of why efforts to cast Kelly as an East Coast interloper didn’t gain as much traction as the similar attack on Oz.
It probably also didn’t hurt that Kelly’s opponent in the Arizona Senate race was also born on the East Coast — making both of them part of the 46 percent of the state’s population in 2020 that wasn’t born there. | 2022-09-26T22:14:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why a ‘carpetbagger’ attack is particularly potent in Pennsylvania - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/why-carpetbagger-attack-is-particularly-potent-pennsylvania/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/why-carpetbagger-attack-is-particularly-potent-pennsylvania/ |
FRANKFURT, Germany — Europe is staring down a winter energy crisis. Russia has reduced natural gas supplies as Europe supports Ukraine, and the continent’s ability to get through the winter may depend on how cold it is and competition from Asia. The lights of the Eiffel Tower are turning off earlier than normal and shop windows across Europe are going dark to save energy. High prices mean households and businesses are trying to use less heat and electricity, but they’re running into the hard truth that cutting back only shaves a little off their bills. Governments are rolling out relief and have been able to bolster natural gas storage. But analysts say Russia still has leverage with energy prices high and supplies tight. ___
NEW YORK — Stocks fell on Wall Street and put major indexes deeper into a slump as recession fears grow. The S&P 500 fell 1% Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1%, becoming the last of the major U.S. stock indexes to fall into what’s known as a bear market. The Nasdaq dropped 0.6%. The losses were broad and included banks, health care companies and energy stocks. The British pound slumped to an all-time low against the dollar and investors continued to dump British government bonds in displeasure over a sweeping tax cut plan announced in London last week. Treasury yields continued to rise as the Federal Reserve and other global central banks step up their fight against inflation.
DALLAS — The government is getting its day in court to try to block a partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue. A trial is scheduled to start Tuesday in the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against the airlines. The government says that letting American and JetBlue work together on flights in the Northeast will hurt competition and lead to higher fares. The airlines say it’s just the opposite — they say their partnership will make them stronger competitors against Delta and United, and that’s good for consumers. The trial is being held in federal court in Boston. It’s expected to last about three weeks.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden plans to announce a new initiative that would eventually allow consumers to see a more complete price on airline tickets before they buy them. That would include baggage and change fees. The White House says the proposed rule from the Department of Transportation will prevent airlines from hiding the “true cost” of airline tickets, which would help consumers save money up front and encourage more competition among airlines to offer better fares. The requirement will apply not only to airlines directly but also on third-party search sites such as Kayak and Expedia. The rule would need to go through a 60-day comment period before final approval.
WASHINGTON — Susan Collins, the new president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said says that a higher unemployment rate will be needed to bring down inflation from unusually high levels, but suggested any economic downturn would likely be modest. In her first speech as Boston Fed president, Collins said Monday that the economy is resilient enough to withstand the higher interest rates needed to combat inflation, which is near a four-decade high.
LONDON — The Bank of England has sought to reassure financial markets after the British pound touched an all-time low against the U.S. dollar, but its entreaty has fallen flat for investors concerned about the government’s sweeping package of tax cuts. The central bank said Monday that it’s “closely monitoring’’ the markets and wouldn’t hesitate to boost interest rates to curb inflation. The statement came after the pound plunged as low as $1.0373, its lowest since the decimalization of the currency in 1971. There are concerns that tax cuts announced Friday by Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng would swell government debt and fuel further inflation as the United Kingdom teeters toward recession.
PARIS — The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says Russia’s war in Ukraine and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are dragging down global economic growth more than expected and driving up inflation that will stay high into next year. The Paris-based organization projects worldwide growth to be a modest 3% this year before slowing further to just 2.2% next year, representing around $2.8 trillion in lost global output in 2023. The war in Ukraine has driven up food and energy prices worldwide, leading the OECD to project annual economic growth to slow to around 1.5% this year in the U.S., 1.25% in the 19 countries using the euro currency and 3.2% in China.
SEATTLE — Starbucks says it wants to start contract negotiations next month at 234 U.S. stores that have voted to unionize. The Seattle coffee giant said Monday it sent letters to stores in 36 states and the District of Columbia offering a three-week window to start negotiations. But Workers United, the union organizing Starbucks workers, is skeptical. It notes that Starbucks opposes unionization. Just three stores have begun bargaining contracts with Starbucks in the U.S. since the start of this year. Workers United says its national committee is focused on developing core proposals that workers will be able to use when they bargain at individual stores.
SEATTLE — Amazon says it is holding a second Prime Day-like shopping event in October. The company is the latest major retailer to offer holiday deals earlier this year to entice cautious consumers dealing with tighter budgets. The event will be held October 11 and 12, offering early access to discounted items to Prime members. The event will mark the first time Amazon is holding a major sales event twice in a year and follows its annual Prime Day in July. It signals a recognition from Amazon that it needs to provide more deals to cash-strapped consumers in what’s expected to be a challenging holiday shopping season for retailers. | 2022-09-26T22:40:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Europe's energy woes, Dow bear market - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-europes-energy-woes-dow-bear-market/2022/09/26/6c6479fe-3ddf-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-europes-energy-woes-dow-bear-market/2022/09/26/6c6479fe-3ddf-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
Do Kwon, co-founder and chief executive officer of Terraform Labs, in the company’s office in Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday, April 14, 2022. Kwon is counting on the oldest cryptocurrency as a backstop for his stablecoin, which some critics liken to a ginormous Ponzi scheme. (Bloomberg)
Instead of being backed by holdings of a fiat currency like the more-famous Tether — which claims to hold one US dollar for each Tether minted — TerraUSD “achieves price-stability via an elastic money supply.” In its White Paper, the stablecoin’s instigators note that the extreme volatility of Bitcoin’s price is Terra’s raison d’etre.
At the core of how the Terra Protocol solves these issues is the idea that a cryptocurrency with an elastic monetary policy would maintain a stable price, retaining all the censorship resistance of Bitcoin, and making it viable for use in everyday transactions.
There’s just one, slight, $60 billion problem. The algorithm didn’t work. The peg didn’t hold. TerraUSD’s price collapsed, as did that of the associated Luna token. And holders of these tokens got wiped out.
That was in May, and now Kwon is on the lam. Except, he says he’s not. And he also says it’s nobody’s business where he is, unless you’re a friend, plan to meet, or are playing a location-based game (that last one is a joke, we think).
Running a bad business isn’t against the law. Losing $60 billion of customers’ money in itself is also not a crime. But authorities in Seoul are convinced he did something wrong, and seek to charge Kwon and five others for breaches of capital markets laws.
Having failed to get him to front up, South Korea went one further and asked Interpol to help, which they did, requesting “law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.”
This international game of cat and mouse isn’t a good look for Kwon, or crypto executives anywhere.
For more than a decade, proponents have fought to shake off cryptocurrency’s image as a frontier for criminals, digital blackmailers, drug lords and international arms smugglers. Yet every time the head of a cryptocurrency outfit — legitimate or not — drags their feet on explaining what happened to their collapsed business, or fails to outline a legal defense to any criminal charges, they’re giving fodder to the naysayers.
“They are decentralized Ponzi schemes,” Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., told Congress last week. It’s not helpful to Kwon’s cause, or that of cryptocurrencies more broadly, that his refusal to give his whereabouts comes just as a poster child for the old-school, central-bank run fiat system points fingers at an entire industry.
To be fair to Kwon, he’s not alone. Numerous other trailblazers have faced allegations and prosecution. Some were outright scoundrels, some sailed too close to the wind, and others were victims of regulators’ inability to keep up with changing times. And it remains an ongoing debate which of these categories some of the more high-profile cases belong.
Tether and its affiliated exchange, Bitfinex, last year settled charges that the stablecoin wasn’t fully-backed, as it had claimed, and that it had engaged in illegal commodity transactions. In another case, an employee of a different exchange was charged with insider trading.
There’s plenty of illegal actions and weird shenanigans going on in the crypto universe to give ammunition to the detractors. The life and death of Gerald Cotten, founder of exchange QuadrigaCX, went from a tragic tale to a conspiracy theorist’s dream. Following his sudden death in India at age 30, it was revealed that Cotten had various aliases and had siphoned C$250 million ($183 million) out of the exchange into wallets whose passwords had been lost.
But crypto skeptics sometimes conveniently forget that infamous Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff didn’t need new-fangled tools to bilk investors of $65 billion. And the Enron and WorldCom frauds were committed before Bitcoin was even invented.
Cryptocurrency is a new technology that attracts new business models and plenty of opportunists. That’s just how new industries work.
The oil boom of the late 19th century saw hundreds of wells sunk and dozens of schemes collapse, wiping out innumerable investors. Yet history negates the early claim that oil, as a commodity, and the industry that followed, are a total scam. Indeed, many at the time felt that the liquid dripping from underground coal seams was not enough to sustain a business.(1) In fact, the break-up of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil neither crushed the company nor ended this new energy boom. After facing angry legislators and losing court battles in the early 20th century, the business bounced back and rewrote history.
Cryptocurrencies have the same potential as oil to upend old industries and indelibly change the world. But to get there, the crypto barons need to face the music and show the world they’ve nothing to hide.
• Coinbase’s ‘End of Story’ Is Just the Beginning: Lionel Laurent
• Doge May Be a Hustle, But It’s the People’s Hustle: Tim Culpan
• Colonial Hackers Broke the Fundamental Bitcoin Rule: Tim Culpan
(1) Daniel Yergin’s “The Prize” details early misgivings in great color. | 2022-09-26T22:40:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Crypto Bros Need to Stop Proving Jamie Dimon Right - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/crypto-bros-need-to-stop-proving-jamie-dimon-right/2022/09/26/b7e45372-3ddf-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/crypto-bros-need-to-stop-proving-jamie-dimon-right/2022/09/26/b7e45372-3ddf-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
Just a week after his father’s killing, D.C. boxer will return to the ring
Dusty Hernandez-Harrison plans to compete Saturday as scheduled despite his father/trainer’s slaying last weekend
Dusty Hernandez-Harrison, left, is set to fight Saturday night one week after his father and trainer, Buddy Harrison, was fatally shot. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Less than 48 hours after his father was fatally shot, D.C. boxer Dusty Hernandez-Harrison walked past the spot where the killing unfolded.
Chilling reminders included blood on the street outside Buddy Harrison’s residence in Southeast Washington and bullet holes in a nearby door. It’s the same apartment where Hernandez-Harrison grew up while being taught how to fight by his father, who would go on to double as his trainer — and only a block from his current home.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I’m doing good,” Hernandez-Harrison told The Washington Post on Monday. “I struggle with one part: I don’t like that he was by himself at the end. Just the thought that he’s just laying there by himself, that’s the only part that I struggle with. Other than that, I’m really at peace.”
Hernandez-Harrison confirmed he would fight as scheduled Saturday in the main event of a card at Entertainment and Sports Arena, where tributes to Harrison are in the planning stages. Harrison, 62, would have wanted “Beltway Battles: Round 3,” the final installment of a series aimed at reviving the sport’s rich tradition in the D.C. area, to go on even in his absence, Hernandez-Harrison and promoter Thomas LaManna noted.
“It’s boxing, which automatically will make you remember Buddy and think about Buddy,” LaManna said. “I know Dusty has a great support team around him. ... The decision to fight, they’re going to support him. They’re going to be behind him 120 percent — me as well. We’re going to make sure that he’s in the perfect head space to be great on Saturday.”
He became a promoter in that time, founding DHH Promotions, and along with LaManna, who also continues to box professionally, assembled cards for the first two “Beltway Battles” shows. This time, Hernandez-Harrison has concentrated on being in the ring rather than managing logistics associated with the bouts.
Harrison was the first to put boxing gloves on his son when he was 2, and he performed the same task as recently as Thursday, when the two took part in an open workout for the media at Urban Boxing in Navy Yard. The next day, Harrison posted an image of him and his son on social media, writing: “I am still lacing his gloves at 28 years old. I thank Jesus for the opportunity to do so.”
That picture has generated hundreds of tributes to Harrison, whose work in the community included providing food, clothing and shoes for the homeless. He also mentored disadvantaged youth at his gym, Old School Boxing, in Hillcrest Heights, Md. But Harrison often recounted the horrors of gun violence close to home, saying he would hear shots before going to bed and wake up to more in the morning.
Before Monday, Hernandez-Harrison had not spoken publicly about his father’s death, which D.C. police are investigating as a homicide. Harrison was shot outside his home in the 2700 block of 30th Street SE, per police. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
“It’s going to be weird,” Hernandez-Harrison said of Saturday’s bout against an opponent to be named. “… [Harrison was] a great cornerman. My dad, he would tell you, he’s not really a teacher in the gym, like breaking things down, but he’s great in the corner. That’s going to be a hard voice to replace.” | 2022-09-26T22:41:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dusty Hernandez-Harrison will fight after killing of father Buddy Harrison - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/dusty-hernandez-harrison-beltway-battles-buddy-harrison/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/dusty-hernandez-harrison-beltway-battles-buddy-harrison/ |
E3, once the video game industry’s biggest event, returns live in 2023
(Washington Post illustration; E3)
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, is returning in 2023 as an in-person event from June 13-16.
Once the gaming industry’s annual keynote event, E3 has diminished in importance over the years as other events have capitalized upon E3’s multiyear absence. The trade show is now embarking on a new strategy to win back fan interest and court major brands as it faces a crowded gaming event calendar, with dozens of virtual and live showcases each year.
Next year’s E3 will be launched in partnership with ReedPop, an exhibition company that hosts some of the world’s biggest entertainment trade events such as the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), New York Comic-Con and the Star Wars Celebration. As reported by GameIndustry.biz, 2023′s iteration of E3 will be a hybrid event for both business attendees and fans: The first two days will be business-focused and exclusive to industry workers; the third day will include a mixture of events, with half the Los Angeles Convention Center dedicated to industry workers and the other half to general consumers; the final day will be dedicated to fans.
Some of the expo’s new features include an E3 app where attendees can organize in-person meetings, media assets delivered straight to inboxes before and during the show for industry workers and increased access for independent publishers to showcase games in the convention center’s Concourse Hall.
For years, E3 has been gaming’s biggest event. Is that still true?
The trade show’s success hinges upon who is willing to show up. While the covid-19 pandemic has hampered all in-person gaming events, E3 was hit particularly hard. The trade show canceled its event in 2020, transitioned to a fully virtual showcase in 2021 (when it was rebranded as “Electronic Entertainment Experience” to reflect the move) and announced an in-person event in 2022 that was later changed to online-only and eventually canceled altogether.
In the interim, other events, such as The Game Awards and Summer Game Fest have grown in prominence. Both are hosted and organized by Geoff Keighley, a longtime host at E3 until 2020 when he announced that he would not be returning to the trade show, citing concerns about its lack of innovation. Keighley’s Summer Game Fest in 2021 was a resounding success: The show received over 25 million live streams with a peak of 3 million concurrent viewers globally, according to figures shared with The Washington Post, and it hosted the first gameplay reveal of FromSoftware’s mega hit, “Elden Ring.” Despite both Summer Game Fest and E3 both being slated for June 2023, Keighley has maintained that the two events are not competitors.
Although E3 has repeatedly cited the pandemic for its event planning woes over the past few years, the cracks were already forming before any global lockdown orders came into play. Sony and Electronic Arts have both been absent from E3 since 2019, opting to rely mostly on in-house conferences instead.
Despite a lukewarm 2021 event and increasingly crowded landscape, E3’s relevance and impact is still undeniable. But its hibernation for the past few years has given other showcase events a window to proliferate and grow. For E3 to maintain its cachet, it must succeed in its plan to be a trade show for industry insiders as well as a celebration of upcoming releases for fans. | 2022-09-26T22:44:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | E3 is returning live, June 2023, for both fans and industry members - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/09/26/e3-june-2023-fans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/09/26/e3-june-2023-fans/ |
D.C. breaks ground on long-awaited Barry Farm redevelopment
Construction crews before a groundbreaking ceremony for The Asberry in D.C. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Paulette Matthews, 63, watched discerningly on Monday as D.C. government officials celebrated the redevelopment of Barry Farm, the historically significant Southeast community where she lived for more than two decades before she was forced to move away.
Matthews is among hundreds of Barry Farm residents who were relocated as D.C. pursued revitalizing the impoverished area. And as vice president of the Barry Farm Tenants and Allies Association, she has fought to preserve Barry Farm’s integrity and to ensure the residents who left would be able to return, as promised.
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and others reiterated that commitment while breaking ground on the redevelopment, conceptualized by the D.C. Housing Authority more than a decade ago as officials sought to break up concentrated poverty in areas with distressed public housing. In a nod to Matthews and others who had fought to protect the community, Ward 8 D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. (D) opened his remarks on Monday by stating: “It’s been a long time coming.”
Twelve years ago, “there were a lot of residents who were feeling afraid, insecure about what would happen and would they be able to come back,” White said. “Today, we are making a promise that you will be able to come back.”
The Barry Farm redevelopment begins in earnest this month with the construction of the Asberry — a mixed-use building set to be completed in early 2024 with 108 affordable housing units for people 55 and older and 5,000 square feet of commercial space — along Sumner Road SE. The city has thus far allocated $43 million for the entire Barry Farm redevelopment, which is slated for completion in 2030.
D. C. public housing residents are angry they will now be forced to move for redevelopment
Barry Farm emerged as a settlement community for formerly-enslaved Black people after the Civil War. Facing a dearth of affordable housing for residents in the 1940s, the National Capital Housing Authority used eminent domain to develop part of the community into some 444 units of public housing. The community blossomed even more, and residents at the time played active roles in the Civil Rights movement and desegregating schools; it was there in the 1980s that the D.C. go-go group called the Junkyard Band formed — further solidifying the neighborhood’s rich history.
The conditions of those public housing units faced increased scrutiny into the 2000s and the District developed a plan to transform the site into a mix of townhouses, market-rate apartments and replacement public housing units for low-income tenants through the New Communities Initiative.
But the demolition and proposed construction have been the source of intense battles over historic preservation and displacement in the rapidly-gentrifying District.
In 2018, the D.C. Court of Appeals sided with residents who said the zoning commission’s previous approval of the project did not sufficiently address concerns about displacement. And in 2020, one year after hundreds of families had moved out of the Barry Farm dwellings ahead of its demolition, the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board agreed to preserve five buildings from the original complex, though residents originally sought for the designation to cover 32 buildings.
“The Barry Farm community is a significant part of D.C. history, so we must continue to tell the story and preserve the history and take care of our longtime residents,” Bowser said Monday. “Over the years and throughout this development, that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
Matthews has been among the most vocal advocates for the community as the redevelopment project took shape. Even before she moved to Northwest D.C. three years ago, she and her neighbors also did not feel confident about the city’s assurances that they could return.
“Around 2014, 2015 when they started talking about redevelopment, we were going to a lot of meetings and what they said didn’t always make sense,” said Matthews. “It was like getting on a merry-go-round and never getting off.”
On Saturday, Matthews was among a group of about three dozen advocates and former residents who spent the afternoon commemorating Barry Farm’s past, including now-razed sites where former landmarks once stood — and construction will soon begin. Matthews and others have said they’d like Barry Farm’s new buildings to be developed concurrently, rather than piecemeal, so more former residents can take advantage and potentially reunite with their neighbors.
The finished Barry Farm project, officials say, will yield a mixed-income community with at least 900 affordable housing units, 380 of which will be reserved for previous residents. Another 100 units were built less than a half-mile away.
Thirty-three of the Asberry’s units will be available at 30 percent of the region’s Median Family Income (MFI), which is about $42,700 for a family of four and just under $30,000 for one person, according to the Department of Housing and Community Development. Forty-four percent of the building’s units will be priced at 50 percent of the MFI; 21 units are at 60 percent and 10 units are set at 80 percent of the MFI.
The nonprofit Preservation of Affordable Housing, Inc. and the D.C. Housing Authority are co-developers on the project. DCHA executive director Brenda Donald said her agency has a team dedicated to keeping track of where relocated families live and will work to ensure residents are placed into units that meet their families’ size and needs, which may have changed since moving away from Barry Farm.
“Some of us lived here most of our lives and we are excited and ready to return. This opportunity to be in a new community gives us a better life for all families,” said Barry Farm resident Darlene Jamison, who spoke at the groundbreaking event. “This is a dream come true for all of us.”
On Saturday, Matthews and advocates with the D.C. Legacy Project and Empower D.C. came to the razed land that once contained a portion of the Barry Farm dwellings, to reflect on the past. Among them was Sarah Shoenfeld, who wrote the nomination for the Tenants and Allies Association that would go on to preserve five of the community’s buildings as historic landmarks.
In the coming months, the D.C. Legacy Project will troubleshoot maintaining the historic site as new buildings rise around it. But concerns about housing affordability for Anacostia residents remain, especially as development continues. Shoenfeld stared toward the recently-completed Fredrick Douglass Memorial Bridge, which stretches over the Anacostia River to connect the nearby Barry Farm neighborhood to Navy Yard, home to Nationals Park and myriad luxury apartments.
“You look across the bridge and you can see everything that’s coming this way,” Shoenfeld said. “They’ve done a lot of work to try to mitigate the displacement pressures. But there was a really tightknit community here that has been dispersed to places all over the city, and that is not going to ever exist again.” | 2022-09-26T23:06:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. breaks ground on Barry Farm redevelopment - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/26/dc-barry-farm-redevelopment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/26/dc-barry-farm-redevelopment/ |
The ‘Metro for D.C.’ bill moved through the council’s transportation committee with unanimous approval
D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) speaks at a rally on March 2, 2020, in support of his bill that would give residents $100 a month in free public transportation credits. (Justin George/The Washington Post)
A proposal that would give D.C. residents $100 a month for transit advanced out of a committee Monday and will go to the D.C. Council for a vote.
The “Metro for D.C.” bill, which would give the monthly SmarTrip credit to all adults and young children in the District, moved through the council’s transportation committee with unanimous approval. The bill was created to help lower-income residents with transportation costs while helping to stabilize Metro, which is facing a nearly $200 million operating shortfall next year because of lost fares to telework.
The bill was introduced in early March 2020 by council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), days before the region began facing pandemic-related restrictions.
“It was an important idea then, but now as we are faced with our economic recovery, it’s absolutely imperative,” Allen said Monday. “Metro success is so closely linked to the District’s success and, frankly, the region’s success.”
D.C. Council resurrects proposal to give residents $100 a month in transit fare
The bill, co-introduced by eight of the council’s 13 members, would give D.C. adults and pre-kindergarteners $100 in monthly SmarTrip credits to use on the Metro as well as regional bus systems that use SmarTrip. Federal employees who receive transit subsidies would not be eligible. Students enrolled in D.C. schools already receive unlimited transit fare through the city’s Kids Ride Free program.
About 185,000 people, or 44 percent, of people in D.C. who use Metro would qualify for the credits, the D.C. Council Budget Office said in a report. Council members initially discussed limiting the program to low-income adults, but Allen said the cost to verify eligibility was too great.
The credits would not accumulate, with balances resetting each month to $100. The bill also would devote at least $10 million a year to bus system improvements in mostly underserved areas.
Metrorail ridership has risen about 10 percent since Labor Day but is less than half of pre-pandemic levels. The transit system is facing a budget shortfall amid rising telework during the pandemic.
Budget officials this month projected a nearly $185 million funding gap next year because Metro will have used up federal coronavirus aid.
Annual funding shortfalls are projected to grow to $527 million the following year, widening each year unless there are significant increases in revenue or funding, Metro officials said last week. The “D.C. for Metro” bill, meanwhile, would cost the city between $54 million and $163 million in transit credits — depending on usage among recipients.
“Metro appreciates legislative initiatives that provide funding and improve services,” Metro spokeswoman Sherri Ly said in a statement. “We welcome all initiatives that encourage customers to choose Metro.”
After showing its worth during pandemic, momentum builds for free or reduced-fare transit
Supporters of the proposal said the pandemic has highlighted how lower-income residents rely on transit. The District budget office report found that 40 percent of those who would be eligible for the credits earn less than $36,000 a year. The office of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) did not respond to a request for comment about the proposal.
Momentum has increased nationally free transit during the pandemic, with Alexandria among the communities that have removed fares.
Money to pay for the program would come from tax revenue that exceeds city projections, the result of growth and rising property values. Allen estimated that the program would require up to $163 million in its first year and another $10 million for bus system improvements, such as bus lanes and shelters.
The city took in $311 million more last year than it planned for, council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) said.
Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) said improving bus service would help to lure more riders to the system.
“We need to figure out how do we get people to get back on public transportation in the numbers that at least we saw pre-pandemic,” Henderson said. “For some folks, it’s cost as a barrier. But for a lot of people, it’s around the reliability piece.”
Cheh, who chairs the transportation committee, said the program is expensive but that D.C. would recoup its investment.
“We need to help our transit system. It’s in a lot of trouble,” Cheh said. “It will increase ridership and increase transit use with all of the benefits that accrue to the District as a result of that.” | 2022-09-26T23:06:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Metro for D.C.' proposal to give $100 a month for transit advances - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/26/metro-dc-transit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/26/metro-dc-transit/ |
The incident occurred in the 1200 block of Meigs Place NE, D.C. police said.
A view of a D.C. police car. (Peter Hermann/The Washington Post)
A man was fatally shot in Northeast Washington on Monday afternoon, D.C. police said.
The call for a shooting came in about 2:51 p.m. in the 1200 block of Meigs Place NE, said Officer Sean Hickman, a D.C. police spokesman. The block of the shooting is located in the Trinidad area.
An adult male was taken to a local hospital, where he died, Hickman said. The victim’s name has not yet been released. | 2022-09-26T23:32:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man fatally shot in Northeast D.C., police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/26/man-fatal-shooting-northeast-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/26/man-fatal-shooting-northeast-dc/ |
After impasse, Prince George’s finalizes agreement with teachers union
Students return for the first day of school at Eleanor Roosevelt High School on Aug. 29 in Greenbelt, Md. (Michael A. McCoy for The Washington Post)
The Prince George’s school system and its teachers union ratified a new three-year contract last week that will boost teacher pay and increases time for teachers to plan lessons.
Prince George’s County Educators’ Association President Donna Christy said she believes the contract will help retain and recruit more educators to the county which — like many other districts — has struggled with staffing schools.
“A lot of it really helps start to give more control of the profession back to the educators, and starts to set the stage for our educators to have more autonomy and voice in their own profession,” Christy said in an interview Monday.
Under the contract, teachers will get a 6 percent cost-of-living increase during the first fiscal year, which began July 1. It will be followed by a 4 percent increase the following year, and an additional 3 percent increase during the third fiscal year, beginning July 1, 2024.
Teachers who have a National Board Certification — a voluntary, advanced teaching certification — receive an additional boost of $13,000 in salary pay, Christy said. Teachers with the certification in a low-performing school will receive an extra $9,000 on top of that — totaling a $22,000 increase in pay.
The contract also includes a $100 stipend for teachers to buy schools supplies, and provides additional protections around planning time. Teachers at elementary schools, early childhood centers and special-education centers obtained a minimum of 240 minutes of time each week — roughly 15 more minutes than they had before. Teachers at middle and high schools have a minimum of 45 minutes of planning time each school day, and for two days each week, their planning time must be a full class period.
Administrators also can’t cut into teacher’s allotted personal planning time by scheduling “collaborative planning” during those periods, when educators across a department meet. Christy explained that many union members had run into problems with their personal planning time being used instead for collaborative planning.
Prince George’s schools at impasse with teachers union in contract talks
Last week’s school board vote solidifies the tentative agreement reached last month. The new contract is retroactive to July 1 and ends June 30, 2025.
The union made over 100 proposals during the contract negotiation process. It reached an agreement with the school system on about 80 of those proposals, Christy said.
The school system did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The district ratified its contracts with four other employee unions representing administrators, principals, facility service employees and education support professionals in June. | 2022-09-26T23:33:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prince George's finalizes three-year contract with county teachers union - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/26/prince-georges-teachers-union-contract/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/26/prince-georges-teachers-union-contract/ |
Kevin Durant said Monday that he requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets because he had doubts about the organization's commitment to building and maintaining a championship culture. (Dustin Satloff/Getty Images)
Kevin Durant issued trade requests to the Brooklyn Nets because he didn’t approve of how his teammates responded to adversity last season and because he wasn’t convinced the organization was upholding a championship standard.
In his first extended public comments since asking out of Brooklyn in late June, the 12-time all-star forward laid out the root causes of his frustration at Nets media day Monday and expressed hope that his months-long “standoff” with owner Joe Tsai and General Manager Sean Marks would make the team “better and more competitive.”
Durant said he became concerned in the months following his decision to sign a four-year, $198 million extension in August 2021. Expecting to continue chasing championships with Kyrie Irving and James Harden, Durant instead endured a nightmare campaign hampered by injuries, Irving’s extended absence because of New York City’s vaccine mandate and Harden’s midseason trade to the Philadelphia 76ers.
“I’m getting older,” said Durant, who will turn 34 this week. “I want to be in a place that’s stable and trying to build a championship culture. I had some doubts about that. I voiced them to Joe, and we moved forward from there.”
Durant’s frustration grew when he missed six weeks from mid-January to early March with a knee injury. During his absence, Brooklyn went 5-16, including an 11-game losing streak, and Harden missed multiple games under mysterious circumstances before he was traded. Durant concluded that the team “skipped some steps” in its work habits.
“I wanted everybody to be held accountable for their habits as a basketball player every day,” Durant said. “I think a lot of stuff was getting swept under the rug because we’re injured or this guy is not around or just the circumstances. I thought we could have fought through that a little more and focused on the guys who were here a little bit more. When I went out with the injury, we lost [11] in a row. I’m like, ‘We shouldn’t be losing some of these games that we lost, regardless of who is on the floor.’ ”
Durant noted that the Golden State Warriors kept winning despite Stephen Curry’s late-season foot injury and the Dallas Mavericks didn’t quit when Luka Doncic suffered a calf injury right before the playoffs. The Warriors went on to win the NBA title once Curry returned, and Doncic led the Mavericks to the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2011.
“I felt like we could have fought through a lot of the stuff that held us back,” Durant said. “Championship teams do that. ... I felt like we had enough talent to do that, and that’s what rose some doubt up in my mind. When adversity hit, can we keep pushing through it? I’ve been on some championship teams and teams right on the brink of winning the championship, and they did those things. I want to be a part of a group that did that.”
With the Nets in the midst of a playoff push, Durant said he decided to focus on playing rather than airing his grievances. The Nets were promptly swept by the Boston Celtics in the first round, raising questions about the futures of Durant, Irving and Coach Steve Nash.
Irving said Monday that he had “felt embarrassed leaving the court” at the end of the season, and Durant didn’t wait long, issuing his first trade request to Tsai when free agency opened. Reports indicated that Durant made another trade request later in the summer and that he asked Nets ownership to replace Marks and Nash. Ultimately, Tsai stood by his general manager and coach, Brooklyn didn’t receive any trade offers for Durant that it deemed suitable, and Durant rescinded his requests in late August.
“Kevin and I go way back,” Nash said. “Families go through things like this — adversity and disagreements. ... We cleared the air and we spoke. We got on the same page. I’m glad we’ve got it behind us.”
Robert Sarver starts process of selling Phoenix Suns and Mercury
The saga dominated NBA headlines for nearly two months, but Durant said he wasn’t disappointed that a deal never materialized because he maintained his “love” of playing basketball, regardless of his organization. The 2014 MVP added that he appreciated Tsai’s candor during their offseason conversations; the owner and Marks told him flatly, “You’re too great for us to give you away.”
Durant said he and Nets brass eventually agreed that he would return, noting that Nash shared many of his concerns about the team’s response to adversity.
As Durant’s situation played out, Irving was embroiled in his own contractual limbo. Irving said Monday that he “gave up four years, $100-something million” by deciding to remain unvaccinated last year, a reference to a possible extension offer from the Nets ahead of the season. When Brooklyn declined to offer him a multiyear extension this summer, Irving flirted with the trade market before picking up his $37 million player option.
The seven-time all-star guard, who will be an unrestricted free agent in 2023, admitted the uncertainty around his future and Durant’s future this summer was “awkward,” “shocking” and a “clusterf---.” Nevertheless, Irving said he would be “all-in” with Brooklyn and acknowledged there “weren’t many” alternative options this summer because of the “stigma” associated with his unvaccinated status and extended absence.
Durant insisted that he had not intervened on Irving’s behalf this summer, despite their close friendship, and that he had encouraged Marks and Irving to build their relationship independently.
“I never walk into any GM’s office or coach’s office and demand anything,” Durant said. “... I come in and do my job as a player, which is to be coachable, work as hard as I can and be available. A lot of people got that in their minds that I control everything here with the Nets. I only control my job. My job is to be a player. Their relationship, they had to figure that out on their own. I’m not the liaison between Kyrie and the organization.”
The Nets have scrambled to rework their roster, but it’s unclear where they will land in the Eastern Conference pecking order. Out went LaMarcus Aldridge, Bruce Brown, Goran Dragic, Andre Drummond and Blake Griffin. In came Markieff Morris, Royce O’Neale and T.J. Warren, and Ben Simmons and Joe Harris are expected to return from significant injuries that sidelined them last season.
Before Brooklyn can reestablish itself as a title contender, Durant has laid out a more immediate and modest goal.
“I feel like we don’t have any respect out there on the court,” he said. “That’s what I want for us: respect amongst the NBA community as a team for how we play on both ends of the floor, from GM all the way down to the equipment manager. You do that by how you work every day. ...
“It’s [been] a year of growth and a year of us looking in the mirror. We f---ed up as a team. That only makes you better. I’m banking on that.” | 2022-09-26T23:50:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kevin Durant trade requests came because of Brooklyn Nets' struggles - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/kevin-durant-kyrie-irving-nets-media-day/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/kevin-durant-kyrie-irving-nets-media-day/ |
Mauricio Claver-Carone’s term as IDB president was set to expire in 2025.
Mauricio Claver-Carone was the first American to hold the top job at the organization. (Tarina Rodriguez/Bloomberg News)
The Inter-American Development Bank, the hemisphere’s premier international lending institution, voted Monday to fire its president. Mauricio Claver-Carone was terminated following a unanimous recommendation by the 14-member executive board, the organization said.
The termination was first reported by Reuters.
In a statement, the IDB said Claver-Carone, whose term was set to expire in 2025, “will cease to hold the office of President of the Bank” effective Monday.
The statement did not refer to a well-publicized investigation into him. Two sources familiar with the probe said it was the results of that investigation that led to the vote. The sources were not authorized to speak about the inner workings of IDB nor the results of the investigator’s report, which has not been made public.
One source said investigators found evidence to conclude Claver-Carone had a relationship with a staff member who reported directly to him, and to whom he gave raises totaling more than 45 percent of base pay in less than one year. Claver-Carone’s leadership of the organization also resulted in employees fearing retaliation from him, the source said.
Vice President Reina Irene Mejía Chacón will lead the organization until a new president is elected, the statement said.
The Biden administration appeared to welcome Claver-Carone’s ouster.
A spokesperson for the Treasury Department said the United States “supports the dismissal of the IDB President.” The department said Claver-Carone’s “refusal to fully cooperate with the investigation, and his creation of a climate of fear of retaliation among staff and borrowing countries, has forfeited the confidence of the Bank’s staff and shareholders and necessitates a change in leadership.”
Claver-Carone had previously criticized the nature of investigation, saying in a statement to the Associated Press that the probe “failed to meet international standards of integrity that both the IDB and the region strive to exemplify.”
He had added: “In clear and direct contravention of IDB ethics rules, neither I nor any other IDB staff member has been given an opportunity to review the final investigative report, respond to its conclusions, or correct inaccuracies.”
In a statement after the vote, Claver-Carone also claimed without evidence that ousting him from his position would embolden China, the AP reported.
In June 2020 President Donald Trump announced the nomination of Claver-Carone, then senior figure at the National Security Council whom the Trump administration credited with boosting private sector investment in Latin America and the Caribbean. His election that September marked the first time the United States — by far the bank’s biggest donor — held the top position at the six-decade-old organization.
Trump nominee to head Interamerican bank divides countries in hemisphere
Claver-Carone’s defenders described him as a reformer leading a long-beleaguered organization rife with corruption. According to his biography on the IDB’s website, he had led “a comprehensive reform of the Bank’s business model,” and was “overseeing a broad effort to improve operational efficiency, productivity and transparency to facilitate better results, impact and monitoring effectiveness.”
Critics describe him differently. Investigators said there was evidence he conducted an affair with a staffer at the National Security Council, which prompted one official to warn that it posed a counterintelligence security risk, the AP reported. The Biden administration — which has sought to reaffirm America’s relationship with multinational organizations — had indicated it was taking the allegations against Claver-Carone seriously.
Michael Shifter, former president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, said Claver-Carone’s lack of high-level diplomatic expertise made him an unusual choice for the IDB role. “There was a basic question of how qualified was he, given his background,” Shifter said in an interview. “There was always a cloud, or at least a big question.” | 2022-09-27T00:07:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Interamerican Development Bank votes out President Mauricio Claver-Carone - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/trump-nominee-is-voted-out-head-inter-american-development-bank/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/trump-nominee-is-voted-out-head-inter-american-development-bank/ |
U. of Idaho may stop providing birth control under new abortion law
Employees could be charged with a felony and fired if they appear to promote abortion, according to new guidance
Demonstrators march from Freedom Plaza to the Supreme Court in Washington on Oct. 2, 2021, in an effort to bring awareness and support for the fight for abortion rights. (Amanda Voisard/for The Washington Post)
The University of Idaho’s general counsel issued new guidance on Friday about the state’s near-total abortion ban, alerting faculty and staff that the school should no longer offer birth control for students, a rare move for a state university.
Idaho’s trigger ban took effect on Aug. 25, approximately two months after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade. That law, which was passed by state lawmakers in 2020, bans abortions at any time after conception, except in instances where the pregnant person’s life is at risk or in cases of rape or incest so long as the crime was reported to law enforcement.
“In this new and evolving legal landscape, how these laws will be enforced remains unclear,” the University of Idaho’s general counsel wrote in the Sept. 23 message to all university employees. “Accordingly, the university and its employees should be aware of the potential risks and penalties associated with conduct that may be perceived to violate the laws.”
Because the language of the law is “unclear and untested,” the message reads, “we are advising a conservative approach here, that the university not provide standard birth control itself.”
Condoms could be provided “for the purpose of helping prevent the spread of STDs,” according to the guidance — but not “for purposes of birth control.”
Jodi Walker, the executive director of communications at the University of Idaho, said the university “follows all laws.”
“This is a challenging law for many and has real ramifications for individuals in that it calls for individual criminal prosecution. This guidance was sent to help our employees understand the legal significance and possible actions of this new law passed by the Idaho Legislature,” Walker wrote in a statement emailed to The Post on Monday.
The school’s general counsel, Jim Craig, who did not sign his name to the email outlining the new guidance, did not respond to a request for comment.
Leading antiabortion advocates have long held that they are not interested in restricting access to birth control. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, one of the country’s largest antiabortion organizations, said she doesn’t know of any antiabortion advocates who have called for birth control to be restricted on college campuses.
“We certainly have not called for that,” said Hawkins. While Hawkins would eventually support restrictions on some forms of emergency contraception, she said the movement needs to end abortion across the country first.
Abortion rights advocates were quick to point to the University of Idaho’s new policy as evidence of the antiabortion movement’s broader ambitions.
“We always knew extremists wouldn’t stop at banning abortion; they’d target birth control next,” Rebecca Gibron, chief executive of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, wrote in a statement. “The University of Idaho’s announcement is the canary in the coal mine, an early sign of the larger, coordinated effort to attack birth control access.”
Many schools are still evaluating policies in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. The American College Health Association called the ruling in June “deeply distressing” and wrote that the ruling and the state laws triggered in its wake “will directly endanger college health professionals’ ability to provide evidence-based, patient-centered care, and may place them in legal jeopardy.”
“I will do everything in my power as president to ensure we continue to provide this critically important care,” Mary Sue Coleman, the president of the University of Michigan, wrote in a statement in June, after the Supreme Court ruling.
“I think there’s a lot of fear,” said the employee, who said she cried in her office after receiving the message on Friday afternoon.
“I think about the resident hall advisers. This is the kind of advice they give out if students are sexually active and not ready for a family,” she said. “Now it’s the kind of thing that could get them fired and charged with a felony.”
Katie Shepherd contributed to this report. | 2022-09-27T00:12:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U. of Idaho may stop providing birth control under new abortion law - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/u-idaho-may-stop-providing-birth-control-under-new-abortion-law/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/u-idaho-may-stop-providing-birth-control-under-new-abortion-law/ |
“We’ve been blessed many, many times before, but at some point your luck runs out," one veteran emergency-management official said.
A major hurricane could have a devastating impact on Tampa Bay, one of the most vulnerable areas in the country to rising seas and extreme weather. (Video: Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post, Photo: Eve Edelheit/The Washington Post)
Mark Luther, a marine sciences professor who lives in a St. Petersburg, Fla., neighborhood that juts into Tampa Bay, summed up his feelings about Hurricane Ian on Monday in two words:
“I’m stressed.”
Luther, an expert in the physics of oceanography at the University of South Florida who manages the region’s tide gauges, understands better than most people just how vulnerable this densely populated area is to the combination of storm and surge — and how lucky it has been to dodge a direct hit from a major hurricane for the past century.
As he spoke about how sea-level rise and a development boom have deepened the risk around Tampa Bay, with so much more property and people in harm’s way than decades ago, he was busy moving his own vehicles and valuable possessions to higher ground.
“The street in front of my house floods during a bad high tide,” said Luther, who lives near the border of the low-lying neighborhoods of Shore Acres and Venetian Isles, only steps from the waterfront.
Tampa Bay's coming storm: Sea-level rise could cause massive damage if major hurricane hits region
Two years ago, the waters from Tropical Storm Eta crept into his garage and lapped at his door. That relatively mild storm brought several feet of surge, enough to flood hundreds of homes nearby and cause millions of dollars in damage.
Luther knows this week has the potential to bring something far worse — that Ian could be the storm that officials have feared for decades.
The precise size and strength of Ian, as well as what path it ultimately will carve as it ambles up the Gulf of Mexico, remained uncertain on Monday evening. But this much is clear: The Tampa Bay region that lies in its crosshairs, with nearly 700 miles of shoreline and more than 3 million residents, is one of the most vulnerable places in the United States to severe flooding if a catastrophic hurricane were to score a direct hit.
Several years ago, a Boston firm that analyzes potential catastrophic damage found that the region could suffer $175 billion damage in a storm the size of Hurricane Katrina. An earlier World Bank study called Tampa Bay — home to Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, and a collection of other beach towns and low-lying communities — one of the 10 most at-risk metropolitan areas on the globe.
“The fact this could be larger than anything we’ve seen is very concerning,” said Libby Carnahan, a Florida Sea Grant agent and a founder of the Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel, formed in 2014 to help area leaders better understand the rising flood risks and find ways to become more resilient.
Data show that the Tampa Bay region has experienced considerable sea-level rise in recent generations. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has been measuring the sea level at St. Petersburg since 1947, recording a rise of nearly 9 inches since the record began.
In recent years, there are indications that the pace of change is growing faster. For instance, NOAA reports that seas have been rising at a pace of nearly 3 millimeters per year at St. Petersburg since 1947 and significantly faster since 1990.
The region’s climate advisory panel wrote in a 2019 set of recommendations that there “is broad scientific consensus” that sea-level rise will continue, and that “ if adaptation strategies are not implemented, cities throughout the Tampa Bay region will likely experience” a litany of damage and increasing public-health threats. Among them: flooding of private homes and public infrastructure, serious beach erosion, deteriorating drinking and wastewater facilities, and a decline in local ecosystems.
Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council years ago simulated a worst-case-scenario hurricane to show local leaders what could happen if such a storm steered their way. The fictitious Phoenix hurricane scenario projected that damage could destroy nearly half a million homes and businesses, millions of residents could require medical attention and thousands of people could perish.
The group also has estimated that without a coordinated response, “the regional economy may lose more than $15 billion in real estate value, $5 billion in property tax revenue, and approximately 17,000 jobs as a direct result of [sea level rise].”
What is storm surge, and what causes it during hurricanes?
“We have such a density of people, and we’ve put our greatest valued real estate and the tax base in really the most vulnerable areas,” Carnahan said.
Given that reality, a devastating storm that inundates a large number of structures could force the area to consider where it is safe to rebuild — and where it isn’t. “We haven’t had to make too many of those decisions in this area” in the past, she said. “It’s something hard that we don’t want to talk about.”
Sally Bishop, who until her retirement in 2018 was the director of Pinellas County Emergency management, also felt uneasy Monday about what the days ahead might bring. She said it wouldn’t take a Category 5 monster to cause widespread damage around Tampa Bay. A less powerful storm could still wreak havoc.
“As an emergency manager who knows too much, it doesn’t give me any warm fuzzies knowing what we are up against, the way this is shaping up,” Bishop said. “We’ve been blessed many, many times before, but at some point your luck runs out.”
Bishop said she and other local officials worked hard in recent years to harden the area’s defenses and make sure people had reliable places to take shelter during and after storms.
But the reality, she said, is that Pinellas County in particular is bordered on three sides by water and is home to fragile barrier islands, all of which are susceptible to strong winds and storm surges. Meanwhile, if a forceful hurricane were to push into Tampa Bay, the resulting winds and surge could devastate downtown Tampa and surrounding neighborhoods. “There’s no place for all that water to go,” she said.
On top of that, a slow-moving system that dumps massive amounts of rain, which Ian could become, would probably cause massive power outages, overwhelm water systems and create dangerous, localized flooding.
“I’m praying we are not going to see the worst-case scenario we’ve always planned for and worried about,” Bishop said. But, she added, “This is one to pay attention to.”
Local officials were certainly paying attention Monday, and they were pleading with residents to do the same.
“At 6 to 8, 10 feet of water — and remember, this is like a wall of water coming in — it will come in very rapidly, very powerfully. This could push houses off their foundation,” Pinellas County Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins said at a news conference, imploring residents to evacuate.
“There’s going to be significant debris and damages, roads could be washed out, bridges could be impacted,” she added. “Most high-rise buildings, all of their electrical equipment, elevators, all of that is down on the ground floor. All of that is going to be washed away.”
Perkins said the ground is already saturated, and the storm is slowing in a way that might allow it to sit over the area for days, dumping cataclysmic amounts of rain. She said workers were pumping nearby lakes to create capacity, but she is still expecting destructive amounts of flooding.
“I’m a native. I understand that we’ve seen scares and things before. Sometimes that leads folks to take things for granted,” Pinellas County Commissioner Charlie Justice said. “I would tell you now is not the time to do that. There is no scenario where we will not feel significant impacts.”
As local leaders began to issue evacuation orders for some residents Monday, Debbie Amis and her husband, owners of the Tiki Bar and Grill in Gulfport, were doing all they could to prepare for the possible impacts on their restaurant, which is a stone’s throw from the water.
“We are expecting to be really affected by this,” she said, noting that the property can begin to flood even in a hard rain. The couple and their employees spent part of Monday moving tables and chairs and preparing to board up windows if necessary.
“There’s not much of a buffer [from the water] until it reaches us,” Amis said. “We are just keeping our fingers crossed, doing the best that we can.”
A dozen miles away, Luther, the USF scientist, was doing the same.
After moving what he could to higher ground and battening down his home by the bay, he planned to head to a hotel he had reserved near Disney World, where he plans to visit the Epcot theme park and hope for the best for his beautiful and fragile city.
“At least I can drink margarita and listen to my favorite mariachi band while my house blows away,” he said. “There’s nothing else I can do.”
Karin Brulliard and Chris Mooney contributed to this report. | 2022-09-27T00:12:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Tampa Bay faces high storm surge flood risk as Hurricane Ian nears - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/26/hurricane-ian-tampa-flood-risk/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/26/hurricane-ian-tampa-flood-risk/ |
The president faces a challenge as he simultaneously tries to make good on two pledges: To be the most pro-labor president in history and to provide Puerto Rico with whatever it needs to recover from a devastating hurricane.
President Biden faces pressure to make a one-time waiver of the Jones Act to allow a British Petroleum ship to deliver diesel to storm-ravaged Puerto Rico. (Chris Kleponis/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
President Biden faced growing pressure Monday to grant a federal waiver and allow a British Petroleum ship loaded with diesel fuel to access a port in Puerto Rico, where hundreds of thousands of hurricane-ravaged Americans remain without power.
Because the ship is not U.S.-owned, it has been idling off the island’s coast, awaiting a decision by the Biden administration on waiving the Jones Act, a century-old law backed by labor unions and key to the president’s “Made in America” agenda.
Despite mounting calls from the governor of Puerto Rico, local activists and members of Congress, the Biden administration did not grant the waiver required for the ship to dock Monday, raising concerns that the ship could soon leave the power-starved island behind.
White House officials said the Biden administration did not have the authority to simply suspend the Jones Act in Puerto Rico, citing a law passed by Congress in 2020 to crack down on broad waivers. Local officials said Biden had the power to issue one-time waivers that could still provide much-needed, temporary relief, but an administration official said that any exception would require careful consideration to ensure it is legal.
The debate highlights the challenge the president faces as he simultaneously tries to make good on two pledges: to be the most pro-labor president in history and to provide Puerto Rico with whatever it needs to recover from a devastating hurricane that has left much of the island in the dark.
As the labor movement defends the federal shipping restrictions and denounces calls to give foreign shippers special access to Puerto Rico, local officials and activists have long decried regulations that increase costs and make it more difficult to deliver essential goods to the island.
The Jones Act, part of a World War I-era shipping law, requires that goods shipped between points in the U.S. be carried on U.S.-flagged ships built and mostly owned by Americans. Under the act, which was intended to support a U.S. shipping industry for national defense purposes, territories such as Puerto Rico and far-flung states such as Hawaii can face fewer options for shipping goods.
As Puerto Rico continued to suffer from power outages and food shortages in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona, a wide range of officials began to call on the federal government to intervene by waiving the Jones Act. The push came to a head Monday when Gov. Pedro Pierluisi announced that he had asked for federal relief in order for the offshore vessel to dock.
“I have requested the personal intervention of the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security so that a ship contracted by a private supplier, loaded with diesel and located near Puerto Rico, can unload the fuel for the benefit of our people,” Pierluisi said Monday in a tweet.
Carmen M. Feliciano, executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, said that Pierluisi favored a temporary Jones Act exemption to facilitate the shipment of fuel to the island.
Officials also pressed their case at the White House, where four Puerto Rican lawmakers met on Monday with the administration’s liaison for Puerto Rican affairs, as well as other administration officials.
The Puerto Rican officials — three from the state’s House, one from its state Senate — asked for the administration to grant the Jones Act waiver and to bypass immigration restrictions to the island to allow high-skilled workers, said Tatito Hernández, the speaker of the island’s House.
Eight members of Congress, including New York Democrats Nydia M. Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, wrote an open letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last week requesting the waiver. After news of the idling ship — first reported by Las Noticias T11 — began to circulate online Monday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) added his voice to the chorus of officials calling for the federal government to grant the reprieve.
“@WhiteHouse must immediately grant this Jones Act waiver and provide much-needed relief to the people of Puerto Rico,” Lee wrote on Twitter.
A Biden administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said that any waivers of the act would have to go through a deliberative interagency process to determine legality. The kinds of broad waivers requested by some members of Congress would not be legally viable, the official said.
For one-off requests like the one sought for the BP ship, the Department of Homeland Security aims to complete the review process and provide a response within two days, the official said.
Waiver requests must show that the items being shipped are necessary for the national defense and cannot be otherwise obtained by U.S.-flagged vessels, officials said.
Labor unions, which have been among Biden’s strongest supporters, have opposed efforts to weaken or waive the Jones Act, including after natural disasters.
The American Maritime Partnership — a coalition that represents operators of U.S.-flagged vessels and unions covered by the Jones Act — wrote a letter to Mayorkas on Friday explaining why the Jones Act should not be waived in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona.
The group said that domestic vessels were ready and available to support the recovery effort in Puerto Rico, with more than 2,000 containers positioned in the port of San Juan to provide supplies before the storm. The group’s president, Ku’uhaku Park, said that U.S.-flagged ships are providing Puerto Rico with essential goods for its recovery, adding that waiving the Jones Act would benefit foreign shippers rather than Puerto Ricans.
“There is no indication that American shipping capacity is insufficient to meet demand, and, therefore, no justification for a waiver of the Jones Act,” he said.
For his part, Biden has repeatedly voiced his support for the act, often winning the praise of unions for speaking out in favor of a law that some Democrats and Republicans have called antiquated.
Five days after his inauguration, Biden signed an executive order to promote “Made in America” policies, citing the Jones Act as one such law. Under Biden’s executive order, waivers of the Jones Act must be reviewed by the White House’s “Made in America” office.
In a “National Maritime Day” proclamation earlier this year, Biden cited his “unwavering support” for the Jones Act and praised the law for supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs. Earlier this year, he won praise from unions for rejecting calls to suspend the act in response to rising gas prices and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Still, Biden has previously suspended the Jones Act as president, including after a cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline led to gas shortages last year.
The White House pointed to other actions it has taken to support recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, where the Category 1 Hurricane Fiona has devastated communities still struggling to rebuild after Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Biden approved a major disaster declaration for much of the island last week, and later directed his government to cover 100 percent of the costs for debris removal, search and rescue, power and water restoration, and shelter and food for one month. There are more than 1,000 federal officials on the island helping to restore power and providing other support, a White House official said.
Biden has repeatedly said he would bring the full force of the federal government to help Puerto Rico rebound. His actions are being closely watched by Puerto Ricans, particularly after former president Donald Trump received poor marks from locals for his handling of Hurricane Maria. Trump angered residents by feuding publicly with local politicians, denigrating the island as corrupt and tossing paper towels at storm-ravaged Puerto Ricans during a visit in 2017.
Trump, however, did provide a temporary waiver of the Jones Act for Puerto Rico in 2017, after facing increasing pressure and criticism of his stewardship of the storm.
By contrast, Biden has sought to showcase a more serious and collaborative approach, saying that he would provide the island with whatever it needed to recover.
“I promise you, it is a high priority,” he told supporters last week, according to a video captured by “The View” co-host Ana Navarro and posted on social media. “And from day one I was on the phone with the governor … Whatever he wants, we’re giving him everything he’s asked for and more.”
But more than a week after Hurricane Fiona touched down, roughly 80 percent of the island’s water and sewer plants are without electricity, meaning they have to rely on their diesel-powered backup generators. That creates the immediate need for the fuel. Hernández, the House speaker, stressed that power outages on the island were responsible for more deaths following Hurricane Maria in 2017 than the storm itself.
“We have a ship full of diesel in the south waiting to enter the island. It’s right there, waiting for us — if they give us the waiver we’ll import it right away,” Hernández said. “A lot of people need oxygen, a lot of people need water, a lot of people need help … It’s really scary.”
As of Sunday, blackouts were still affecting key parts of the island — 95 percent of residents in Ponce; 88 percent of those in Mayaguez; and 84 percent of those in Arecibo, were suffering from power outages, according to information provided by the speaker’s office.
Against that backdrop, local officials called on the Biden administration to take additional action to provide relief. The storm has exposed long-standing concerns about the way the U.S. territory is treated under federal law.
Ramón Luis Nieves, who served in Puerto Rico’s state Senate and focuses on the island’s energy policy, said that the Jones Act also prevents Puerto Rico from buying liquefied natural gas produced by American companies.
“For years the people of Puerto Rico and its legislatures have demanded the U.S. exempt Puerto Rico from the Jones Act. It makes no strategic sense for the U.S.,” Nieves said, criticizing the “unholy alliance” between the U.S. shipping industry and the unions.
Federico de Jesús, a senior adviser for the Power 4 Puerto Rico coalition, said the Jones Act costs consumers on the island more than $1.5 billion each year.
“The Biden administration can and should issue a Jones Act waiver TODAY for the BP ship unable to dock in Puerto Rico to provide diesel for power plants giving power to hospitals and other critical infrastructure,” he said. | 2022-09-27T00:12:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden faces pressure to waive restriction as ship idles off Puerto Rico coast - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/biden-ship-jones-act-puerto-rico-hurricane/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/biden-ship-jones-act-puerto-rico-hurricane/ |
LAUREL, Md. — NASA managed Monday to crash a small spacecraft directly into an asteroid, a 14,000-mile-per-hour collision designed to test whether such a technology could someday be deployed to protect Earth from a potentially catastrophic impact.
The violent end of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft thrilled scientists and engineers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., which operated the mission under a NASA contract.
The asteroid, Dimorphos, is the size of a stadium — or the Great Pyramid of Giza, as one scientist put it Monday — and is about 7 million miles from Earth at the moment. It orbits a larger asteroid named Didymos. Neither poses a threat to our planet now or anytime in the foreseeable future.
This was just a test, NASA’s first demonstration of a potential planetary defense technique, called a kinetic impactor. The idea is to give a hypothetically dangerous asteroid just enough of a blow to alter its orbital trajectory.
Launched last November from California, the spacecraft was small, roughly the size of a vending machine or golf cart. Dimorphos is rather big — roughly 500 feet or so in diameter, although its precise shape and composition were unknown before the final approach. Scientists anticipated a plume of debris from the asteroid upon impact but no significant structural change. This is more akin to a bug splattering on a windshield.
“This isn’t just bowling-ball physics,” Applied Physics Laboratory planetary scientist Nancy Chabot told reporters. “The spacecraft’s gonna lose.”
How it works: NASA hopes to hit an asteroid now in case we really need to knock one away later
But even small effects on an asteroid’s movement could prove a planet-saver. An early collision with an asteroid, if done early enough — say, 5 to 10 years in advance of its projected encounter with Earth — could be just enough to slow it down and make it miss.
There are thousands of potentially hazardous asteroids that come close to, or cross, the Earth’s orbital path around the sun. None is currently known to be on a trajectory to hit the planet.
As engineers conceived of an asteroid deflection mission, they seized on an ingenious idea that would greatly reduce the costs: Hit an asteroid “moonlet” that’s orbiting a larger asteroid.
To detect the effect of a collision with a single asteroid orbiting the sun would have required two spacecraft, engineer Andrew Cheng told reporters, because such an asteroid is moving at tremendous speed, and the impact from a small spacecraft would result in a minimal, hard-to-detect change. A second spacecraft would have to be present to scrutinize the effect.
But a moonlet, like Dimorphos, orbits its larger twin at a stately pace. The effect of the impact should be more easily detected — including by telescopes on Earth and in space. No second spacecraft is necessary.
It will take at least a couple of days to tell if the DART mission succeeded in slowing down the targeted asteroid, and to what degree it did so. Telescopes on Earth and in space observed the collision, as did a small instrument, called a cubesat, that was deployed 15 days before impact.
This is an unusual mission in that it does not involve a spacecraft trying to survive a hazardous landing on an alien world or proving itself operational in the rough environment of outer space, noted Robert Braun, head of the space exploration sector at the Applied Physics Laboratory.
“Here, what we’re looking for is loss of signal,” he told reporters before the collision. “What we’re cheering for is a loss of the spacecraft.”
By Monday afternoon the engineers in Laurel had sent their final course corrections to the DART spacecraft, and from that point it was on its own, making final navigational adjustments autonomously. The vehicle was aimed directly at the larger, brighter asteroid, but programmed to fire thrusters that would pivot it toward the smaller asteroid when it came into view.
Some bizarre scenarios could not be ruled out because the asteroid’s shape wouldn’t be determined until the final hour before impact. Indeed, only the larger asteroid — not Dimorphos — could be seen in the live feed from the spacecraft’s camera 90 minutes before impact.
“If we were right on course, and it was shaped like a doughnut, we’d fly right through it,” Braun said.
Not until the final minutes of DART’s journey did the spacecraft or its human operators back on Earth get a good look at Dimorphos. It wasn’t visible at all until about an hour before impact. Even then it was just a tiny, barely perceptible dot next to its brighter twin.
There was joy in the Mission Operations Center — the engineers standing, too tense to sit at their consoles — as the asteroid loomed larger on the screen.
“We’ve locked on Dimorphos,” engineer Elena Adams reported 27 minutes before impact.
The camera on board kept snapping away. The dot grew into a clearly spherical rock with a rough, boulder-covered surface, looking like something you’d keep in the garage as a scouring tool.
In the last image it completely filled the frame. DART was hitting the bull's eye.
Then came a blank screen. DART had succeeded, and ceased to exist.
“Impact confirmed for the world’s first planetary defense test mission,” NASA’s live-streamed broadcast announced.
On the NASA feed, the agency’s administrator, Bill Nelson, declared that the mission had demonstrated technology “to save our planet.” Ralph Semmel, director of the Applied Physics Laboratory, said he felt an adrenaline rush as DART made a direct hit on the target: “Never before have I been so excited to see a signal go away.” | 2022-09-27T00:12:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NASA DART mission successfully crashes spacecraft into asteroid - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/09/26/nasa-dart-mission-asteroid-crash/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/09/26/nasa-dart-mission-asteroid-crash/ |
Japan to hold state funeral for Shinzo Abe; Harris to attend
Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
Updated September 26, 2022 at 10:04 p.m. EDT|Published September 26, 2022 at 9:42 p.m. EDT
People pay their respects to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe outside the Nippon Budokan hall in Tokyo on Tuesday, ahead of his state funeral later in the day. (Pool/Via Reuters)
TOKYO — Vice President Harris is expected to join world leaders in Tokyo on Tuesday to commemorate the life of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, who was assassinated in July.
The event takes place amid anger in Japan that taxpayers will be footing the $11.5 million bill to honor a leader and staunch U.S. ally who was popular abroad but often divisive at home. Compounding the furor, a scandal has engulfed the ruling Liberal Democratic Party since its ties to a religious group came under the spotlight in the weeks since the former conservative leader was fatally shot.
The suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, told police he wanted to carry out the assassination because his life and family had been ruined as a result of his mother’s large donations to the Unification Church, to which Abe had apparent close ties. The church has confirmed Yamagami’s mother was a member.
Hundreds of protesters gathered on Monday night outside one of Tokyo’s most congested subway stations in Shinjuku to protest the funeral. Demonstrations are expected outside the Diet, Japan’s national assembly, during the service, which will begin at 2 p.m. local time at the Nippon Budokan hall in the capital.
Japanese authorities have stepped up security measures for the occasion, particularly in light of the acknowledged lapses that enabled the gunman to approach Abe and open fire with a homemade weapon during a campaign event.
About 4,300 guests, including about 700 from overseas, are expected to attend Tuesday’s closed ceremony, according to Nikkei Asia. Members of the public can visit a park near the Budokan to offer flowers.
Before the funeral, Harris is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-Soo and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Her advisers have said the discussions will broadly be about regional economic and security issues, including China’s actions in the Taiwan Strait and cooperation against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Harris heads to South Korea later this week, where she plans to visit the demilitarized zone, Han announced at the beginning of his meeting with the U.S. Vice President on Tuesday. In a statement, the White House said Harris would tour sites at the DMZ, which separates the two Koreas, meet with service members and receive an operational briefing from U.S. commanders.
“The Vice President will reflect on the shared sacrifice of tens of thousands of American and Korean soldiers who fought and died together, and will reaffirm that the U.S. commitment to the ROK’s defense is ironclad,” the White House said, using an abbreviation for the Republic of Korea, the formal name for South Korea.
On Monday, after arriving in Tokyo, Harris met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, offering her condolences for Abe’s death and emphasizing the U.S.-Japan alliance and U.S. support for Abe’s vision of a “free and open Indo-Pacific."
With the U.S. midterm elections weeks away, both President Biden and Harris had intended to limit their travel to places in the United States, touting wins under their administration and campaigning and fundraising for Democrats. But the White House shifted its plans after the deaths of Abe in July and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 8.
“As you have said, the alliance between Japan and the United States is a cornerstone of what we believe is integral to peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region,” Harris told Kishida on Monday. “And it is something we’ve prioritized because we also believe it is in the best interest of the American people in terms of their security and prosperity — and we do believe the same for the Japanese people.”
In addition to events around Abe’s funeral, Harris also plans to tour the Zojoji Temple, where thousands of Japanese flocked in the immediate aftermath of the former leader’s killing to pay their respects. | 2022-09-27T02:14:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Japan to hold state funeral for Shinzo Abe; Kamala Harris to attend - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/26/shinzo-abe-state-funeral-japan-kamala-harris/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/26/shinzo-abe-state-funeral-japan-kamala-harris/ |
Myles Garrett hospitalized after car flips; injuries are not life-threatening
The Browns' Myles Garrett was heading toward his home after leaving practice Monday afternoon when the crash occurred. (David Richard/AP)
Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett was taken to a hospital with what police described as injuries that were not life-threatening after the vehicle he was driving flipped over in a single-car crash Monday afternoon.
A female passenger also suffered injuries that were not life-threatening and was taken to a hospital, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, which said impairment from alcohol or drugs was not suspected.
Garrett’s agent, Nicole Lynn, said (via ESPN) that he was expected to be discharged from the hospital Monday night. Lynn tweeted that Garrett “has been alert and responsive” and that the extent of his injuries is unknown.
Garrett, 26, reportedly was driving southbound in Sharon Township when his Porsche 911 Turbo S was damaged in a rollover incident off the right side of the roadway. State troopers responded to a report of a crash around 3 p.m.
Garrett owns a home in Sharon Township, which is south of the Browns’ training facility in Berea. The team held a practice Monday until approximately 12:30 p.m., according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The newspaper reported that Garrett participated in the practice and then remained at the facility for a short period.
The Browns confirmed that Garrett was in a one-car crash after leaving their facility and said in a statement they were “gathering more information.”
It was initially unclear whether Garrett will be able to take the field when Cleveland plays at the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.
The crash is under investigation. The OHSP stated Garrett and his passenger were wearing safety belts.
“That’s why safety belts help,” a spokesman for the OHSP, Sgt. Ray Santiago, told the Plain Dealer. He added, “We’re very grateful that he and his passenger are alive.”
Selected by the Browns with the No. 1 pick in the 2017 draft, Garrett has blossomed into one of the NFL’s best pass rushers. A two-time first-team all-pro and a three-time Pro Bowl selection, he set a franchise record with 16 sacks last season. With a career total of 61.5, he is one sack away from topping Cleveland’s all-time mark. | 2022-09-27T02:53:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Myles Garrett hospitalized after car flips; injuries are not life-threatening - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/myles-garrett-hospitalized-after-car-flips-injuries-are-not-life-threatening/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/26/myles-garrett-hospitalized-after-car-flips-injuries-are-not-life-threatening/ |
On Equinox, day and night were almost equal; Monday they were
Conventional wisdom may differ from reality, although the difference need not be great. Perhaps this was one of the messages conveyed in Washington on Monday by the times of sunrise and sunset, which were exactly 12 hours apart.
Thursday was the day of the equinox, and on such a day, we often expect that the Latin derivation of the word would prevail and that day and night would be equal, as the construction of the word implies.
In fact, equality in the length of night and day almost occurred on Thursday.
On Monday, however, we could say with greater assurance, and on the basis of authoritative sources, that we had finally arrived at the day of equality, a day that satisfied the desire to see planetary law obeyed and Earth’s order upheld.
On Thursday in Washington, the specialists say, the deviation from expectation involved geometrical intricacies of the sun and the Earth, and the laws governing the refraction of light.
As a result of the tilt of Earth’s axis, for half the year we enjoy more daylight than darkness; and for the other half, we spend more time in darkness.
So if it is not on the day of the equinox, a day must come when the light and the dark are equal. This year, that day appeared to be Monday.
In its preliminary climate summary for Washington, the National Weather Service gave the time of Monday’s sunrise as 6:59 a.m. It gave the time of Monday’s sunset as 12 hours later: 6:59 p.m.
But days grow steadily shorter. On Tuesday, the Weather Service said, the sun will rise at 7 a.m., and set at 6:57 p.m. And on that day, and for months to come, we will have less daylight than darkness. | 2022-09-27T03:02:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | On Equinox, day and night were almost equal; Monday they were - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/on-equinox-day-and-night-were-almost-equal-monday-they-were/2022/09/26/f3e98ace-3e00-11ed-b420-0e634b26f676_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/on-equinox-day-and-night-were-almost-equal-monday-they-were/2022/09/26/f3e98ace-3e00-11ed-b420-0e634b26f676_story.html |
Jim Florio, New Jersey congressman and governor, dies at 85
He signed one of the strongest gun-control laws in the country but lost bid for reelection as governor over a tax increase
Former New Jersey governor Jim Florio attends Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy's State of the State address in 2019. (Julio Cortez/AP) (Julio Cortez)
Jim Florio, a New Jersey Democrat who spent 15 years in the U.S. House of Representatives before he became his state’s governor in 1990, pushing through one of the strongest gun-control laws in the country but also an unprecedented tax hike that drove him from office after a single term, died Sept. 25 at a hospital in Mount Holly, N.J. He was 85.
His daughter, Catherine Florio Pipas, confirmed his death but did not cite a cause.
Mr. Florio spent decades in public office, serving in the New Jersey General Assembly for four years before winning his Camden-based U.S. House seat in 1974. He became, in the description of the Almanac of American Politics, “one of the fathers of the Superfund,” the multibillion-dollar federal program established in 1980 to clean up hazardous waste sites across the United States.
He weathered two unsuccessful bids for governor before winning the office in 1989. At the time, amid a national recession, New Jersey faced a budget shortfall that threatened to reach $600 million. During his campaign, Mr. Florio was imprecise on how he would address the deficit. But he did declare, according to the Bergen Record: “You can write this statement down: ‘Florio feels there is no need for new taxes.’ ” He defeated Republican Jim Courter in a landslide, 61 percent to 37 percent.
But within months of taking office, Mr. Florio concluded that he had no option but to raise income and sales taxes, for a total increase reaching $2.8 billion. It was “the largest state tax increase in American history at that time,” said Rutgers University political scientist Ross K. Baker, a “spectacularly large amount of money” that proved particularly “irksome” to voters because it included taxes on household items such as toilet paper.
Protesters hurled rolls of toilet tissue at the New Jersey State House, where Republicans soon claimed majorities in both chambers. Mr. Florio’s popularity plummeted. An editorial cartoon described in a campaign dispatch by the Times depicted Saddam Hussein gazing at himself and asking, “Magic mirror on the wall, who’s the most hated and feared leader of them all?” In the next panel, the Iraqi dictator angrily shouts, “Who the *@#!!?* is Jim Florio?!””
Announcing his candidacy for reelection in 1993, Mr. Florio remarked that “we made difficult decisions, many of which I hated to do. But the alternatives were worse, including the most expensive alternative of all — the cost of doing nothing.” Promising to reduce state taxes, his Republican opponent, Christine Todd Whitman, won by 26,000 votes, a margin of 1 percent.
In a statement after Mr. Florio’s death, New Jersey’s current governor, Phil Murphy (D), described him as “a leader who cared more about the future of New Jersey than his own political fortunes.”
Baker remarked that critics who reduce Mr. Florio’s political career to the ire provoked by his tax increase overlook “a large and important part of a long and distinguished political career.” Mr. Florio worked to lower auto insurance rates and established a record on environmental protection, especially where the New Jersey shore and the state’s Pinelands were concerned, that Baker described as “outstanding.”
But perhaps his chief legacy, Baker said, was the gun-control law enacted in 1990, during Mr. Florio’s early months in office. Mr. Florio later defended the measure, which banned a wide rage of assault weapons, from repeal amid an attack by the NRA. The ban remains in place today.
James Joseph Florio was born in Brooklyn on Aug. 29, 1937. His mother was a homemaker. After his father lost his shipyard job following World War II, the family struggled financially.
Mr. Florio left high school to join the Navy in 1955 and later earned a high school equivalency degree. He remained in the Navy Reserve until 1975, reaching the rank of lieutenant commander. He received a bachelor’s degree in social studies from Trenton State College in 1962 and a law degree from Rutgers in 1967. During law school, he worked after hours as a janitor to support his children.
In the early years of his career, Mr. Florio practiced law in Camden, which became his political base. He won his seat in the General Assembly in 1969 and unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Rep. John E. Hunt in 1972 before unseating the Republican incumbent as a member of the Watergate class of 1974. In addition to his work on the Superfund legislation, Mr. Florio spearheaded efforts to clear schools of asbestos.
Baker described Mr. Florio as constitutionally “an executive type” more than a congressional one. He failed in a bid to unseat incumbent Gov. Brendan T. Byrne in the 1977 Democratic primary. Four years later, Mr. Florio tried again for the governor’s office and lost so narrowly to Republican Thomas H. Kean that a recount dragged on for weeks. Kean held the office until Mr. Florio succeeded him in 1990.
In 2000, Mr. Florio sought a return to politics and ran for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Democrat Frank Lautenberg. He lost a bruising and expensive primary race to investment banker Jon S. Corzine, who prevailed and remained in the Senate until taking office as New Jersey governor in 2006.
Mr. Florio’s marriage to Maryanne Spaeth ended in divorce. In 1988, he married Lucinda Coleman.
Besides his wife, of Morristown, N.J., survivors include three children from his first marriage, Christopher Florio of Ipswich, Mass., Gregory Florio of Haddon Heights, N.J., and Catherine Florio Pipas of Lebanon, N.H.; a stepson, Mark Rowe of Mount Laurel, N.J.; a brother; 10 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
After his political career, Mr. Florio practiced law in Cherry Hill, N.J. He wrote a memoir, “Standing on Principle: Lessons Learned in Public Life” (2018).
Speaking to the Philadelphia Inquirer that year, he said he was “at peace” with his defeat as governor. Voters may have been angry about the tax increase, but his gun law was “still the toughest assault weapon ban in the country.” | 2022-09-27T03:54:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jim Florio, New Jersey congressman and governor, dies at 85 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/26/james-florio-new-jersey-governor-congressman-obituary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/26/james-florio-new-jersey-governor-congressman-obituary/ |
My husband started showing me his ideas on what car I should buy, but I told him I want to do this on my own. I want to do my own research, take test drives on my own, basically I want to buy the car without his help. To my surprise, he’s really upset about this. He told me he feels rejected and hurt and thinks I will get taken advantage of.
My job includes negotiating with vendors so that’s ridiculous. He has bought two new cars since we’ve been together and I’ve never been consulted on them — which was fine but now it’s my turn, I think. I just want to pick my own car — is that so much to ask? What can I say to my husband to help him understand where I’m coming from?
— Unreasonable?
Unreasonable?: Oh for fox’s sake, no, it’s not unreasonable for you to pick out the car you will be driving.
So: “This is the car I will be driving. I decide whether I like driving it.”
He has expertise in cars, but you have expertise in you. You win. Don’t explain it beyond one final, “My car, my choice.” The taken-advantage-of part, well, I could go off on multiple rants there, but I won’t, except to say it’s about his spinning things to his advantage at your expense to maintain control over you. Hold firm. I hope he won’t pout for too long.
· The point is “I want to pick it based on what I value in a car. Not what YOU value you in a car, which may not match up with what I am looking for.”
Would you feel comfortable letting him know what you choose and allowing him to weigh in on any potential issues he sees? It’s fine if the answer is no, you wouldn’t feel comfortable. But it could also be useful for you to hear if he has any knowledge about this particular car that would be an issue. And still move forward having heard him, regardless of whether you take his advice.
As far as getting taken advantage of, “Wow, I’m amazed you think so little of my ability to understand basic negotiating. THAT’s hurtful to me.” To borrow a phrase: Return that awkward to sender.
· No, no, no, to asking his thoughts on the choice if she doesn’t want to do that. Adults can make this decision just fine. I have always bought cars on my own. I’m not an expert on cars. I can research and find excellent cars I like, and I’m also a good negotiator.
Me again. Count me as another no, no, no vote on calling in the spousal consult. Don’t feed the helplessness narrative. Thanks. | 2022-09-27T04:46:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Husband 'really upset' he can't pick out spouse's new car - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/27/carolyn-hax-new-car-husband/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/09/27/carolyn-hax-new-car-husband/ |
Students walk through the halls at Forestdale Elementary School in Springfield, VA on Aug. 22, 2022. Many school systems continue to face staffing shortages, according to national data released Tuesday. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
More than half of public school principals participating in a national survey reported being understaffed as classes started in August, according to federal data released Tuesday that come as another sign of persistent employee vacancies in schools.
Sixty percent of those grappling with the issue said they were contending with open support-staff positions, and almost 50 percent cited unfilled teaching jobs. Principals also reported losing positions for teachers and staff.
Teachers shortages were most common for special education and the elementary grades, followed by math and English as a Second Language or bilingual education, according to the results of an August survey done by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), an arm of the Department of Education.
Principals also reported they were short of transportation workers and custodians — along with mental health staff.
Nearly half of schools with vacancies lacked people to fill mental health jobs, which have become especially important during the pandemic, with a rise in rates of depression and anxiety among students.
Elena Ashburn, a high school principal in Wake County, N.C., has seen teacher hiring trends up close — starting the school year short by two teachers, which she said is unusual in her experience. Two might not sound like much, she said, but they are in hard-to-fill subjects — science and special education — and the vacancies take a toll on students.
“There’s a lot of competition for the talent,” she said.
As schools try to catch students up academically, instructional support staff are in demand. More than 40 percent of principals reporting staff shortages said they lacked academic interventionists and 40 percent said they lacked tutors.
One major problem in hiring is too few candidates for each job, the survey showed.
Brian Fleischman, a principal in Overton, Neb., about two hours west of Lincoln, recalls that five years ago, he would get 50 to 100 applications for each elementary school teaching job that came open. This year, his opening for a second-grade teacher drew five applications.
“We were blessed,” he said. “We got a rock star.” But he said hiring is becoming “more and more competitive.”
Dan Domenech, executive director of the AASA, the national school superintendents association, said that while there is little hard data on staffing shortages, he hears school system leaders talk about it all the time.
He said that even last year, when staffing shortages were at unseen highs in some areas, he did not see approaches like Florida’s — offering jobs to veterans without college degrees. Arizona is allowing college students to instruct children.
Even summer school had staff shortages.
“It’s different than it’s ever been, and it’s definitely having an impact on this school year,” Domenech said. “It’s not just teachers, it’s custodians, it’s cafeteria workers, the bus drivers, everybody.”
He called it disappointing as the nation’s schools make another attempt to return to pre-pandemic stability. “We were hoping that we would be able to get back to some semblance of normalcy,” he said, “but we’re not.”
Wanted: Teachers. No training needed.
NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr said in a statement that 20 percent of respondents said they were understaffed before the pandemic.
The NCES data is part of an effort to provide more up-to-date information about the pandemic’s effect on K-12 schools. The data released Tuesday was collected from more than 900 schools. The organization labeled the data experimental because of factors including a shorter data collection window. | 2022-09-27T04:47:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Schools still facing teacher and staff shortages, data shows - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/27/school-teacher-staff-shortages/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/27/school-teacher-staff-shortages/ |
BISMARCK, N.D. — When Cara Mund was competing to become Miss North Dakota, a key part of her platform was increasing the number of women elected to political office. Later, after she became the state’s first Miss America winner, she traveled the country to encourage women to use their voice to make an impact. | 2022-09-27T04:47:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cara Mund's House pitch rides on abortion, outsider appeal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cara-munds-house-pitch-rides-on-abortion-outsider-appeal/2022/09/27/fd9dd6e2-3e19-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cara-munds-house-pitch-rides-on-abortion-outsider-appeal/2022/09/27/fd9dd6e2-3e19-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
In the land that invented fascism, the far right is back in power. Italy’s general election on Sunday yielded the result most saw coming — an emphatic victory for the nationalist Brothers of Italy Party, which secured about one-quarter of all votes and, along with a coalition of right-wing allies, a solid majority in both houses of the Italian Parliament. The party’s leader, Giorgia Meloni, 45, is poised to become Italy’s first female prime minister. She’s also set to be her country’s most ultra-nationalist premier since fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
Meloni’s success marks a significant moment not just for Europe but for all Western liberal democracies. In a major European country, a far-right party directly linked to its country’s fascist past has not simply entered government or backed a ruling coalition but is set to take the lead. For years, as right-wing populists advanced electorally across the continent, more centrist politicians tried to erect “cordon sanitaires” that would freeze them out and cast them as politically beyond the pale.
But if there’s one dominant story in Western politics over the past decade, it’s that the far right is no longer beyond the pale. Indeed, it has taken over the right-wing mainstream in many countries, including, arguably and most significantly, in the United States. In France, the far right has long been the leading force of the opposition; in Spain, it has also gained ground. In Sweden, a party originally founded by neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists will now be the second-largest faction in parliament. In Hungary and Poland, the far right is already in power.
Meloni’s Brothers of Italy can trace its origins to the Italian Social Movement, a small neo-fascist party founded out of the ashes of World War II by Giorgio Almirante, a former chief of staff to Mussolini. In the wake of Meloni’s victory, Almirante’s daughters were misty-eyed about what the election represented, describing to an Italian news agency that the vote was a “completion” of their father’s journey.
Meloni rages at being called “fascist," and many analysts don’t view the “fascist” label as a useful frame through which to see her rise to power. There’s little to differentiate her anti-establishment politics from that of other would-be populists elsewhere, as many in the West chafe against the perceived failings of an entrenched liberal establishment. She has disowned elements of Mussolini’s dark legacy and has denounced antisemitism.
In an interview with my Washington Post colleagues, Meloni said she should be viewed as a mainstream conservative. “The issue of individual freedom, private enterprise in economy, educational freedom, the centrality of family and its role in our society, the protection of borders from unchecked immigration, the defense of the Italian national identity — these are the matters that we preoccupy ourselves with,” she said.
Yet Meloni has a lengthy record of extremist rhetoric, has embraced the white supremacist narrative of the “great replacement” theory and has engaged in frequent dog whistling to a radical base. “Since 2017, she has tweeted repeatedly that Italian identity is being deliberately erased by globalists such as [Jewish American financier George] Soros and European Union officials, who have conspired to unleash ‘uncontrolled mass immigration,’” wrote Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. “The paranoid style in Italian politics translates into xenophobic proposals to deny citizenship to children born in Italy to foreign parents and to cut foreigners’ access to welfare benefits.”
Economic and demographic anxieties course through Italy — home to some of Europe’s highest unemployment rates and lowest birth rates — and Meloni is only the latest politician to harness them. Anti-immigrant and nativist parties have been part of numerous ruling coalitions in recent years.
The Italian elections “were unique because Meloni will be the first female prime minister of Italy and the first far-right prime minister in today’s western Europe,” wrote Cas Mudde, a professor in the school of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia. “But they were usual in the sense that far-right parties (and ideas) have been part of the European political mainstream for at least two decades now.”
The Italian far right won the elections. This is a first in a founding member of the EU.
But if Meloni is able to govern, it is only thanks to the alliance with the so-called "moderate" right. Berlusconi and the EPP are the stepping stone for the extremes.
Meloni’s own journey from angry neo-fascist youth politics to the halls of power in Rome would be impossible without the toleration of the establishment. “Meloni owes much to the more moderate forces in what Italians call the ‘center-right’ alliance,” David Broder, author of “Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy,” wrote in Politico Europe. “They’ve allowed her the opportunity to present herself as part of the mainstream, not just because she’s been softening her policies — at least in presentation — but also because center-right politicians jumping on her bandwagon have given her a veneer of respectability and credibility.”
At the same time, attempts by her main center-left rivals to make the election about a spectral “fascist” threat proved unsuccessful. “The far right can succeed in Italy because the left has failed, exactly as in much of the world, to offer credible visions or strategies,” wrote Italian essayist Roberto Saviano. “The left asks people to vote against the right, but it lacks a political vision or an economic alternative.”
Similar arguments were made about the success of the far right in Sweden’s recent election, where the Sweden Democrats became the second-largest party in the country and are now kingmakers in ongoing coalition talks. “Individuals leaning toward the Sweden Democrats for various reasons have felt stigmatized: Some haven’t been invited to family gatherings, and in a few cases have even lost their jobs,” noted Swedish author Elisabeth Asbrink. “This has not only fed the party’s self-image as a martyr but also nurtured even more loyalty among its supporters.”
Charles Kupchan, a European expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the New York Times that far-right parties have not only pushed centrists further to the right but are now “normalized” themselves. | 2022-09-27T04:48:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Italy's Meloni: The mainstreaming of the West’s far right is complete - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/27/mainstreaming-wests-far-right-is-complete/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/27/mainstreaming-wests-far-right-is-complete/ |
The Bank of England’s next scheduled monetary policy gathering on Nov. 3 is a long, long way away. With the pound dropping to a record low against the dollar this week and UK borrowing costs surging, market soothsayers have called for an inter-meeting intervention. But Governor Andrew Bailey has resisted that temptation — and he’s right not to fall into the trap traders are setting for him.
On Friday, the government revealed the biggest suite of tax breaks in half a century, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng promised “more to come.” That fiscal giveaway, combined with energy-bill compensation for households and businesses that will cost £60 billion ($64 billion) in the next six months alone, has rattled sterling markets, with the poundbearing the brunt of investor unease.
So speculation about how the BOE would react mounted on Monday. Futures markets began to anticipate an emergency rate increase in the coming weeks. The prospect of verbal intervention to prop up sterling helped the pound recoup its losses against the greenback.
“If I were still at the BOE, I would be tempted to announce an extra meeting in a week,” Sushil Wadhwani, who was a UK ratesetter until 2002 before setting up his quantitative hedge fund PGIM Wadhwani, said on Monday. “The argument for waiting a week would be to give them time to properly assess the extra news. The reason for not waiting until November is that they are cognizant of the need to respond in a timely basis to the new developments.”
In the end, a statement from Bailey came late Monday, saying the central bank would make a “full assessment at its next scheduled meeting” on the impact of the UK government’s fiscal plans and the fall in sterling, and “act accordingly.” In other words, keep calm and carry on. Stick with the schedule. Don’t be swayed by the hedge funds seeking to profit from market turbulence. Stay aloof.
The Monetary Policy Committee voted last week by 5-4 to increase the official interest rate by half a point to 2.25%, with three panel members in favor of a bigger 75 basis point increase. In the statement accompanying the decision, the MPC said it would “respond forcefully as necessary” if inflationary pressures started to become more persistent.
The futures market is already testing that commitment, given that the government’s tax giveaway is likely to stoke an inflation rate that’s already running at almost five times the central bank’s 2% target. At one point on Monday, traders were anticipating an official borrowing cost 80 basis points higher in the coming week. But the market is still predicting an official rate that is nose-bleedingly high at the next BOE meeting, albeit a tad less surreal in its elevation.
That surge in market interest rates could crush the UK housing market. The cost of a two-year fixed-rate mortgage — the most popular option with UK borrowers in recent years — with a 75% loan-to-value is already at its highest in a decade, according to Bank of England data for August. And that doesn’t include the surge in borrowing costs in recent days.
Neal Hudson, visiting fellow in real estate and planning at the Henley Business School, estimates that 300,000 borrowers per quarter need to refinance their fixed-rate mortgages at the new, higher rates, with the number peaking at 375,000 in the second quarter of next year. Put another way, about 1.4 million UK households are set to refinance their mortgages over the coming year, out of 9 million owner-occupied and 2 million buy-to-let mortgages currently in place. But the central bank’s job is to curb rising consumer prices, not to keep the real-estate market afloat.
There’s a bigger problem facing financial markets. The BOE is scheduled to start selling the pile of more than £800 billion of bonds it’s accumulated through quantitative easing. Offloading those at the same time the government needs to issue more debt to fund its fiscal extravagance risks exacerbating the surge in bond yields: Five-year borrowing costs for the UK have climbed above those of Italy and Greece in recent days.
The central bank, though, has said there’s a “high bar for amending the planned reduction in the stock of purchased gilts.” It’s also suggested that only the risk of disorderly markets would prompt a pause in sales; for now, even though yields have surged, the gilt market appears to be functioning normally.
So halting plans to sell off its bond holdings risks being interpreted as the central bank admitting that it’s lost control of the gilt market. That would be a dangerous path, given that it’s already effectively relinquished the pound to the vagaries of the currency market.
Currency market intervention, even if only verbal, would also risk worsening sterling’s woes and revive traumatic memories of the pound’s 1992 ejection from the European exchange-rate mechanism. Last week, the Bank of Japan intervened to defend the yen for the first time since 1998, saying “the government is concerned about excessive moves in the foreign exchange markets.” But there, the currency is falling because interest rates are being kept on hold, widening the differential with higher US borrowing costs. The UK is in a different situation; if the Treasury or the central bank even hinted that it was trying to influence sterling’s value, traders would smell blood.
Huw Pill, the BOE’s chief economist, is scheduled to speak Tuesday at a conference on “Economic and Monetary Policy Challenges Ahead” at midday London time. Let’s hope he resists the temptation to go off-piste; his comments, presumably vetted by the central bank, will come under even more scrutiny than usual.
As things stand, fiscal and monetary policy in Britain are diametrically opposed, with the Treasury stamping on the accelerator while the central bank is hitting the brakes. A driver on a racetrack seeking a controlled skid can simultaneously use the throttle and the handbrake to shift the inertia of the car to drift sideways around a corner. Getting the calibration between acceleration and braking wrong, though, can lead to disaster.
The pound is the immediate victim, along with borrowing costs; it remains to be seen whether the shift in government fiscal policy will result in an overreaction from rate setters. For now, though, the BOE is right to keep its hands off the steering wheel.
Truss’s Economic Plan Is Hardly a Disaster: Tyler Cowen
Market Meltdown Sends a Warning to UK Government: Mark Gilbert | 2022-09-27T06:18:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Bank of England Is Right to Snub Calls for Emergency Action - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-bank-of-england-is-right-to-snub-calls-for-emergency-action/2022/09/27/7f9d3a5a-3e21-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-bank-of-england-is-right-to-snub-calls-for-emergency-action/2022/09/27/7f9d3a5a-3e21-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
Analysis by James Hertling | Bloomberg
A cash tray holding British pound banknotes and coins in a shop in Barking, UK, on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022. As the UK enters a period of public mourning after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, data releases are likely to show a temporary reprieve in inflation and a jump in wage growth. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
Currency crises in emerging markets are often considered a cost of doing business. They’re not supposed to be the stuff of advanced economies, especially those that have been steadily raising interest rates, but that appears to be what’s happening now in the UK. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Daniel Moss spoke to editor James Hertling about the state of sterling on a Twitter Space. The following has been cut and edited for clarity.
Listen to the whole Space, including commentary from Yuko Takeo on Japan’s currency intervention, here.
Daniel Moss: What do you make of what’s going on in the UK markets? Is it a bit rich to be likening the UK to an emerging market?
James Hertling: I think what’s important to understand is that it’s probably not a crisis yet, because it hasn’t trickled down into the real world yet — it’s still just a market ruckus.
DM: But we know from our experience in Asia in the late 1990s, that it’s often a short trip between market ruckus and a generalized sense of crisis.
JH: Ultimately, it is a confidence crisis among investors and institutions who control capital flows. It’s been a long time coming in the UK — probably since the Brexit vote, and possibly even before the response to the fallout of the financial crisis. Confidence has seeped out of the UK’s ability to manage and prioritize its economy frankly. It’s hard to say what it will take for that confidence to be restored.
DM: So if this was a slow burn, which in your view has been building for some time, what is it that happened on Friday? Why was that such an explosion?
JH: Liz Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, rolled out an economic program which largely featured packages of enormous tax cuts. The highest income tax band was eliminated; stamp duties were cut; the income tax base rate was reduced. It’s a page straight out of the supply side playbook — the idea that you can unleash the animal spirits of growth by cutting taxes and letting people keep more of their money. But, after tens of billions of pounds had been spent on Covid relief, and in the middle of a huge energy crisis, the UK is in a very fragile economic environment. Ultimately, Liz Truss rolled out a whole bunch of tax cuts that the country just can’t afford.
DM: So the day before the UK government announced this new tax package, the Bank of England announced its interest rate decision. It was pushing up its bank rate, the benchmark rate in the UK by half a percentage point. Three members of that nine-person panel dissented and said, no, not enough. If they had their time again, do you think they wish, in retrospect they’d have done 75 basis points, and would that matter at this point?
JH: Yes, and no. They would probably prefer to do the other 25 basis points, but given the violent reaction that we’ve seen, it probably would have been swamped. Now they’re in a little bit of a box because many people are saying that they might be reluctant to act aggressively now because of their memories of 1992, when George Soros broke the Bank of England. The first moves by monetary authorities now are going to be seen as egging on the markets, which is obviously the big risk given how fraught the market is. If the Bank of England does try to make a move — emergency or otherwise — the first reaction by the market will be to question their credibility and staying power.
DM: Well, the Truss government has only been in office for a couple of weeks, and for much of that time, the UK was in a mourning period where little substantive policy could be rolled out. The new chancellor is really getting a baptism of fire. How’s he handling this?
JH: He certainly put on a brave face. But party reactions indicate that the Truss government really doesn’t have a deep well of support in the Tory back benches. We’ll see if she lasts until the end of the month, that’s the level that we’re talking about in terms of the extreme reactions from her own side of the aisle.
DM: When there’s been emerging market crises in the past, it’s often been up to central banks to instill order. Is the BOE up to it?
JH: The Bank of England certainly hasn’t covered itself in glory for the past few years. There have been complaints that its communication strategy and inflation-fighting policy has been inconsistent. Governor Andrew Bailey has not been standing really that tall for the past few years since he replaced Mark Carney. If the bank tries to take action to calm the markets, the markets won’t initially be calm, they’ll probably be asking the question, what else have you got? That’s the big concern because they don’t have a whole lot in their arsenal. They can keep raising interest rates, but then they’re raising interest rates. They’re gonna certainly deepen the recession that’s due to come over the winter and into next year. | 2022-09-27T06:18:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The UK’s Pound Slide Has Been a Long Time Coming - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-uks-pound-slide-has-been-a-long-time-coming/2022/09/27/8042e004-3e21-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-uks-pound-slide-has-been-a-long-time-coming/2022/09/27/8042e004-3e21-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
Thousands have been injured or killed since the military takeover, but the human costs go well beyond that
Aung Naing Soe
Myanmar migrant workers wait in August at the Mae Tao clinic in Thailand, just across the border from their home country. (Chalinee Thirasupa for The Washington Post)
NEAR THE THAI-MYANMAR BORDER — When Kyaw Shwe, 48, packed up his family to leave Myanmar, he knew there wasn’t much he could bring. The military was looking for him and the journey to the border was going to be long. In a backpack, he stuffed a few sets of clothes, his phone and his reading glasses. Then, carefully, he folded in a Burmese cheroot cigar and five packets of instant coffee.
One recent afternoon, in an empty house along Thailand’s western border where he’s been sheltering, Kyaw Shwe retrieved the coffee packets. He wanted to explain that his 18-year-old son had given him the coffee and the cigar the day before he disappeared. He wanted to say his name, Bhone Wai Yan Kyaw, and talk about what soldiers did to him when they found him in a safe house with other student activists.
Kyaw Shwe lifted the coffee in his hands but couldn’t bring himself to speak. His shoulders sagged. He let out a wail.
As fighting rages on in Myanmar, its citizens are faltering under the losses they’ve incurred in 18 months of violent conflict. Entire villages have been razed; loved ones have been executed in secret; and 1.1 million jobs have evaporated from the economy. International attention has waned, drawn away by crises such as the war in Ukraine. But the costs of the military’s takeover — and the ongoing desperate push to resist it — have continued to mount.
A love story, forged in Myanmar’s political strife, ends in execution
“We cannot even begin to understand,” Maung said, “how huge it’ll be.”
Not far from where Kyaw Shwe is sheltering, a young engineer who joined a rebel army is learning how to walk after his right leg was shattered by a land mine. A single mother begs for news back home of her 14-year-old son, who hasn’t spoken to her since the military put out a notice for her arrest, while a pair of newlyweds search for work after the garment factory they relied on in Yangon shut down. An esteemed professor who once held court in one of Myanmar’s best universities paces around an old, barren terrace house, terrified to slide open the gate because his family of six, including his two children, crossed into Thailand without documentation.
In nondescript buildings along the border, there are tens of thousands more like them. They traveled through jungles and combat zones to make it here. For many, it’s the first place they were able to pause — and take stock.
“I still don’t know how to believe it,” said Zin Moe, Kyaw Shwe’s wife. She held the T-shirt her son wore the last time he visited, unwashed after six months because she hoped it would keep his smell.
“We’ve lost everything.”
The steepest costs
Myanmar’s young people, who grew up during the country’s brief window of democracy, have led the resistance against the military junta, also known as the Tatmadaw. As the conflict drags on, many are paying a steep price while contending with a loss of faith in their future — and a sense of being abandoned by the world.
Violence has escalated in Myanmar’s northwest, particularly in the Sagaing and Magway regions, which are almost entirely isolated from international assistance. Experts warn that tensions are also on the verge of exploding in places like Rakhine state, site of the military’s systematic persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority — now considered by the United States to be genocide. The United Nations said it needs $826 million to address basic humanitarian needs in Myanmar for 2022. As of July, the world body had raised $106 million — 13 percent of that goal.
“There are villages in Magway and Sagaing literally on fire,” said a 31-year-old rebel who asked to be identified only by his battlefield name, Comrade Kite. “And who is helping us?”
Like many who have joined Myanmar’s rebellion, Comrade Kite was not a fighter — he had never even held a gun — until the coup in early 2021. A computer network engineer, he enlisted with a rebel army after watching the junta’s soldiers open fire at peaceful protesters.
Myanmar’s rebellion, divided, outgunned and outnumbered, fights on
Land mines have long been a weapon of the Tatmadaw, and since the coup, soldiers have been laying mines in conflict zones at a “massive scale,” possibly constituting war crimes, rights advocates say.
In the Thai hospital, Comrade Kite was surrounded by young men just like him, he said. Some had lost limbs; others were blinded or left paralyzed. In the daytime, he kept himself distracted with his laptop, watching YouTube tutorials and Marvel movies. But at night, no matter how he tried, he couldn’t block out the sound of crying.
“It’s not easy for us, mentally,” he said. “We’re young. Most of us aren’t married; we don’t even have girlfriends.”
“We worry about how we’re going to fit back into society. We worry about whether we’ll ever be able to be happy.”
The narrowing of hope
It’s hard to know how many Myanmar families have been separated since the coup. In addition to people who have been killed, thousands are in prison and even more in hiding. Under pressure from the military, some families have started cutting ties with relatives associated with the resistance, posting public notices disowning sons, daughters and siblings.
Ma Cho was a volunteer for a women’s committee within the National League for Democracy, the political party led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. After the coup, Ma Cho said, she found her face broadcast on state-run TV stations — a single mother and motorcycle saleswoman transformed into a “political criminal” wanted by the junta. She’s tried contacting her son numerous times after fleeing Karen, she said, but he’s been too afraid to respond.
“This, really, is a very painful feeling for me,” Ma Cho said, choking back tears. “I think I’ll meet him only after the revolution.”
Many others along the border sustain themselves on similar hopes — at least, for as long as they’re able.
Bhone Wai Yan Kyaw, the oldest of Kyaw Shwe’s three children, had been an ordinary teenager before the military takeover. He was interested in soccer, poetry and music, and hated bullies. He had just started learning how to play the guitar, and on Instagram, he posted covers of folk songs that he and Kyaw Shwe recorded together. It made his father happier than he ever knew.
On Feb. 25, Kyaw Shwe said, Bhone Wai Yan Kyaw disappeared. Kyaw Shwe and Zin Moe went to the safe house in Yangon he’d been sharing with other student activists, and neighbors told them that a convoy of five military trucks had come by. Bhone Wai Yan Kyaw was in the house with two others and was helping one of them, a 15-year-old girl, escape over a wall when soldiers shot him twice. Once in the chest and once, after he had fallen onto the ground, in the head. Soldiers dragged his body onto the street, neighbors said, then loaded him onto a truck and drove off.
‘Burn it all down’: How Myanmar’s military razed villages to crush a growing resistance
“Merciless,” he said.
Kyaw Shwe spoke slowly, leaning against his knee as he sat on the floor. It was painful to talk about his son, but his death was the reason Kyaw Shwe had made his family leave Myanmar. It wasn’t possible to mourn publicly in the country anymore. And he had wanted Bhone Wai Yan Kyaw’s life to amount to more than that bullet hole.
“I will let myself be hurt,” Kyaw Shwe said, “because the world needs to know.”
Zin Moe told him that he was already an adult and that adults didn’t need birthday parties. But he shook his head.
“No,” he said, smiling at his parents. “I’m not an adult.”
“I’m still just a kid.” | 2022-09-27T06:19:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Myanmar military coup: Hidden costs mount as the world looks away - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/27/myanmar-conflict-coup-takeover-junta-pdfs-military/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/27/myanmar-conflict-coup-takeover-junta-pdfs-military/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Staged referendums pave way for annexation; Russia i...
Ukraine live briefing: Putin could announce annexation soon, U.K. says; Russia interrogated Japanese consul
Men arrive at a Russian military recruiting office during partial mobilization in Russia's Rostov region on Monday. (Arkady Budnitsky/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
The staged referendums in four Ukrainian territories held by Kremlin-backed officials will end today. The votes are not free and fair, and are illegal under international law. The referendums could set the stage for Russian President Vladimir Putin to use a speech to Russian lawmakers on Friday to announce the accession of the occupied regions of Ukraine to Russia, British intelligence officials say.
Meanwhile, a man shot and wounded an official at a Siberian military recruitment office on Monday, as unrest continues after Putin announced a partial military mobilization. At least 2,386 arrests have been made since Sept. 21, when a wave of demonstrations broke out, according to rights group OVD-Info. Thousands of fighting-age men have fled.
Japanese officials on Tuesday condemned Russia’s detention of its consul in Vladivostok, in the country’s Far East. Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said that Russia carried out a “coercive interrogation” that included blindfolding and physical restraint, and called it “extremely regrettable and unacceptable.” The diplomat has since been released, and is in good health. “There is absolutely no evidence that there was any engagement in illegal activities as the Russians claim,” Hayashi said.
Reports from across Russia indicate people are being summoned for duty despite having no military experience, or being too old or physically incapable of serving, in an early sign — along with the number of people fleeing the country to avoid conscription — that the mobilization could be the latest misstep in Putin’s war. The Kremlin has acknowledged that some Russians who do not meet the criteria for military mobilization have received summons.
Russia’s leaders are probably hoping that any accession announcement “will be seen as a vindication of the ‘special military operation’ and will consolidate patriotic support for the conflict,” British defense officials said Tuesday. “This aspiration will likely be undermined by the increasing domestic awareness of Russia’s recent battlefield sets-backs and significant unease about the partial mobilisation,” they added.
Putin on Monday granted Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden, a former American security consultant who was granted asylum in Russia in 2013 after leaking information about top-secret U.S. surveillance programs.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine is “still the number one goal for the occupiers” and that Kyiv’s forces are “doing everything to curb enemy activity” in the occupied territories. In his nightly address Monday, he also described Putin’s mobilization of reservists as “a frank attempt to give commanders on the ground a constant stream of “'cannon fodder.'”
Reservists mobilized in Russia probably will receive “minimal” training before being deployed to Ukraine, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Monday in its daily intelligence assessment. The ministry said the partial military mobilization announced by Putin represents “an administrative and logistical challenge” because a deficit of military trainers means fighters who largely have not had recent combat experience will be sent to the front unprepared, which probably will lead to a “high attrition rate.”
The situation around a nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine “remains tense” according to Ukraine’s military. Staff don’t want to cooperate with Russian forces and are trying to leave the area, but a nearby occupied region “is completely closed for entry and exit,” Ukrainian military leadership said in a statement. The claims couldn’t be independently verified by The Washington Post. Russia has been accused of risking nuclear disaster at the Zaporizhzhia plant.
The Japanese diplomat detained in Vladivostok on allegations that he obtained classified information will leave the country by Wednesday out of concerns for his safety, Tokyo said. Relations between Japan and Russia have deteriorated since the beginning of the year, when Tokyo imposed wide-reaching economic sanctions on Moscow in response to its invasion. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at the U.N. General Assembly last week that Russia’s aggression in Ukraine “tramples on the vision and principles of the U.N. Charter.”
Snowden, who is still wanted by Washington on espionage charges, was the most prominent among the 72 foreigners in the decree issued by Putin Monday. The 39-year-old, who considers himself a whistleblower, was granted permanent residency in Russia in 2020, and his lawyers said at the time that he was applying to obtain a Russian passport without renouncing his U.S. citizenship.
German and Danish officials are working to establish the cause of sudden pressure changes in the Nord Stream gas pipelines. The incident won’t have much of an impact on already-tight gas supplies to the continent because no gas was flowing through it anyway. Russian energy giant Gazprom shut down Nord Stream 1 in August for what was meant to be three days’ maintenance work; it hasn’t reopened since.
Putin’s partial mobilization, announced on Sept. 21, is Russia’s first military mobilization since World War II. It is different from a general mobilization, which involves drafting from the general population, explain reporters Mary Ilyushina and Annabelle Timsit.
It coincides with a significant Russian troop shortage in Ukraine and follows major setbacks in the Kremlin’s “special military operation” amid a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive around Kharkiv. Russia is believed to have invaded Ukraine with about 150,000 troops in late February — so the number being talked about by officials, 300,000, is more than double that.
Michelle Lee in Tokyo contributed to this report. | 2022-09-27T06:19:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/27/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/27/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
Hurricane Ian strengthens to Category 3 as Florida residents evacuate
A condominium resident boards up their home located on Indian Rocks Beach in Pinellas County where the government prepares for the potential impact of Hurricane Ian that is headed for the Florida Gulf Coast on Tuesday, September 26, 2022. (Octavio Jones/For The Washington Post)
Hurricane Ian continued to strengthen as it turned toward Florida early Tuesday, with residents of coastal communities around the Tampa Bay region ordered to evacuate, urged to even go short distances to avoid the worst of the storm.
The storm intensified overnight to become a Category 3 hurricane with maximum winds estimated to be more than 115 mph. at its core as it moved 35 miles south of the city of Pinar del Rio, Cuba, as of 3:20 a.m. Eastern. The National Hurricane Center warned that life-threatening storm surge, hurricane-force winds, flash floods and mudslides were expected in western Cuba overnight and into Tuesday, urging residents to move quickly to evacuate and protect property.
Ian threatens to bring severe flooding and damaging winds to Florida’s Gulf Coast, appearing bound for landfall somewhere between Naples and the west coast’s Big Bend area between Wednesday and Thursday. It is forecast to become a Category 4 storm with 140 mph by late Tuesday or early Wednesday, likely making it the strongest September hurricane in the Gulf since Rita in 2005.
Hurricane warnings were in issued across the Tampa Bay region Monday evening, along with storm surge warnings.
The hurricane’s biggest threat may be its storm surge, or a rise in ocean water over normally dry land that is caused by low air pressure and winds. The National Hurricane Center predicts Ian could send as much as 5 to 10 feet of storm surge onto Florida’s coastline, a hazard that can be deadly and destructive. The gentle slope of the ocean bottom along the Florida coastline can mean that even a minor hurricane or tropical storm can be capable of causing serious coastal inundation.
The storm is also expected to bring flooding rains as it stalls along the coast, with 10 or more inches in some areas.
Ian comes as part of a surge of late-season tropical activity in the Atlantic basin, which saw a record-tying zero named tropical cyclones form during August. While meteorologists had been watching as many as five tropical systems in recent days, including a nascent Ian, the storm is now one of two under surveillance. The other, several hundred miles west of the Cabo Verde Islands, could soon become Tropical Storm Julia. | 2022-09-27T07:49:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida residents evacuate as Hurricane Ian churns closer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/27/hurricane-ian-florida-evacuation-orders/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/27/hurricane-ian-florida-evacuation-orders/ |
Robert Schentrup moved across the country to Washington state with his parents after his sister Carmen was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Fla. (Eirik Johnson for The Washington Post)
SEATTLE — Robert Schentrup dreaded this trial. He dreaded the graphic rehashing of his sister’s murder. He dreaded the state campaign for her killer to face the death penalty — a sentence that, after years of therapy and reading and reflection, the 23-year-old could not support. He dreaded the arguments it would spark with his parents.
The gunman who killed his sister Carmen and 16 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day in 2018 had pleaded guilty, and no one disputed that guilt. Why relive the horrors of the Parkland, Fla., massacre, Robert thought, when Nikolas Cruz could spend the rest of his life in prison?
Even 3,200 miles away in a new city, he struggled to avoid news out of the Fort Lauderdale courtroom where jurors will soon decide whether Cruz lives or dies. Since the proceedings began in July, they have reviewed nightmarish surveillance footage, toured bloodstained classrooms and heard, in clinical detail, how AR-15 bullets destroyed young bodies. Robert refused to watch, but when he thought about prosecutors mentioning Carmen, he got angry. Then he started typing.
“I have been dreading this phase of the trial for the last four and a half years,” he posted on Twitter. “Because this is the part where people will tell me that retribution will bring ‘justice’ and ‘healing’ to me and my family. This is the part where pundits on TV will invoke the name of my sister to support the murder of another human being.”
Americans are divided over the death penalty — whether it deters crime, whether it’s applied in a racist way, whether the state should be killing people at all. Sixty percent say they favor capital punishment for those convicted of murder, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center, but that number drops among younger Americans.
Parkland reflects this rift: Some parents of Cruz’s victims have called for him to die — one father’s anguished testimony brought the gunman’s defense team to tears. Yet some survivors of the deadliest school shooting to ever go before a jury have protested the prospect of more killing. With a verdict expected as early as next month, the debate plays out on social media, on television and between members of at least one grieving family.
“You cannot say that murder is heinous or unforgiveable,” Robert wrote on Twitter, “while advocating for the murder of someone else.”
“I love but disagree with my son,” replied his mother, April, quoting his tweet. “If police did their job that day, the shooter would’ve been killed. … Since they didn’t do what was needed then, let the court get it right this time.”
Carmen was a week away from her 17th birthday when Cruz fired his semiautomatic rifle into her AP psychology class.
She was known as a fountain of talent: A violin, guitar and piano player. A church choir singer. A linguist who was teaching herself German. A straight-A student who had just been accepted into the University of Florida’s honors program. A finalist for the National Merit Scholarship — though Carmen hadn’t known this. The award letter arrived the day after her death.
“She was driven and so put together,” Robert said on a recent evening in his Seattle basement apartment, sprawled on a hand-me-down leather couch from his parents. “She had ambitions.”
His youngest sister, Evelyn, a freshman at the time, escaped the carnage. Robert, who had graduated the year before, remembers watching a Chris Rock special in his Orlando dorm room before his phone buzzed with the news that cleaved his life into Before and After.
Carmen had just been telling him about getting into the University of Florida, and somehow, suddenly, he was back in Parkland, weeping at a memorial for her, confronting the surreal display of her name on a white cross.
“Crying is now part of our daily routine,” Robert’s father, Phil, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Phil and April sued the FBI for bungling tips about Cruz, who had once commented in a YouTube video that he was going to become a “professional school shooter.” They criticized the Broward County school district for security failures, including ignored warnings, unlocked gates and a delayed response to the gunshots. They advocated stronger mental health screenings and firearm restrictions. They moved to Washington state because, as April later told an NPR reporter, Parkland came to feel “suffocating.” (April and Phil declined to be interviewed for this article.)
Robert agreed with them through it all. Until he started questioning what his parents wouldn’t waver on.
Growing up, Robert said, he and Carmen were opposites. She kept out of trouble. He got busted for smoking weed in the high school parking lot. Her dream was to cure Lou Gehrig’s disease, the affliction that killed their great aunt. He had no clear goal. She preferred a clean-cut look. He once wore his friend’s grandmother’s silk robe to class and now sports a gold nose ring. She was 18 months younger — and the babysitter.
“My parents, when they left the house once, they asked Carmen to watch me,” Robert said, laughing softly.
The shock of her loss transformed him.
Robert dropped his computer science major for psychology, trading a discipline he had seen as lucrative for what he would rather do with his time on Earth — a path that led him to probe how the forces beyond our control can influence our behavior. He went to therapy. He got into politics. He volunteered at a nonprofit focused on ending gun violence, which turned into a full-time youth organizing job. He moved into the Seattle basement apartment with two friends from Parkland, who understood his pain, as well as his reluctance to endorse justice through killing.
“One week ago, my mom called me and brought this up and was mad that I disagreed with her,” Robert told one of them, 24-year-old Zach Xu, who was sautéing halibut in their kitchen. “I was like: You brought it up! You literally brought it up!”
“Was this before or after she sub-tweeted you?” Zach wise-cracked.
They were joking around — one of Robert’s strategies for shouldering the unthinkable.
Sharing his take on the death penalty had fueled tension in the family, but it hadn’t torn them apart. Debate was practically a Schentrup sport. He admired his mother’s open mind — she always heard him out — and learned from his father it was okay to have a controversial opinion (as long as Robert could thoroughly defend it).
They still went out to dinner and sang along at country concerts and hung out with Evelyn, now a college sophomore, when she was in town from school. Robert dog-sat his parents’ 10-year-old miniature poodle, Mocha, who used to sleep in Carmen’s bedroom.
Still, conversation’s about Cruz’s fate never got easier, so they agreed to disagree. Most of the time.
“It is hard to say: I disagree morally with your position and not have that person think you are attacking them,” Robert said, “especially with the people who raised you.”
When his parents asked whether he wanted to join them in writing a victim impact statement for the trial — the prosecution was soliciting them from Parkland families and survivors — Robert said no.
He could not push for Cruz’s death.
April Schentrup, mother of Carmen Schentrup, who was killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, reads a poem her daughter wrote. (Video: Reuters)
Before Carmen’s murder, Robert hadn’t thought much about capital punishment. Maybe, in an alternate universe where no one expected him to weigh in on another man’s life, he wouldn’t have minded if the state killed a school shooter.
As Cruz’s sentencing approached, however, an uneasy sensation crept up: dread. He had no sympathy for the gunman. Rather, Robert had to fight to keep rage from consuming him.
Why didn’t he want Cruz to die?
Robert vaguely remembered reading about people who lost a loved one in the 2015 Charleston church massacre. A mother, a sister, a daughter — they all publicly forgave the perpetrator.
“I found it at the time really weird,” he said. “I was like, how could they do that? It didn’t make sense to me. But it stuck with me.”
Then he read “Just Mercy,” the memoir of Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer and civil rights advocate who represented death row prisoners, including a falsely accused man whose story turned into a movie.
Robert was horrified by the facts Stevenson laid out: America’s death row prisoners are disproportionately Black, poor and mentally ill. They tend to have backstories of childhood abuse, brain damage and PTSD from military service. And when they’re put to death, those who love them suffer.
Teenage robbers had murdered the author’s grandfather. Robert was moved to read that Stevenson directed his fury elsewhere. “These shocking and senseless crimes couldn’t be evaluated honestly,” Stevenson wrote, “without understanding the lives these children had been forced to endure.”
Robert considered Cruz’s life.
The gunman’s defense attorneys have argued that his mother abused cocaine, alcohol and tobacco while he was in the womb, damaging Cruz’s brain. She put him up for adoption, and by age 3, a child psychiatrist told Cruz’s new family that he had severe issues.
His adoptive father died before Cruz reached kindergarten. His adoptive mother called authorities to their home more than 50 times. She never opted to have Cruz committed, his lawyers said, because she would have lost his Social Security check.
“If I have anger, it’s mostly at the broad system set up to enable that outcome,” Robert said, discussing Cruz’s background with his roommate. He and Zach both worked from home and chatted between Zoom calls. The more philosophical the topic, the better.
Cruz should have received intensive help, Robert went on. He should never have been allowed to touch a gun.
“The fact that the school administration knew this kid had a lot of bad s--- going on and nothing was done to significantly help him. ...” he said. “There were red flags out the a--.”
“He even called the cops on himself,” Zach interjected, referring to a time Cruz told a 911 dispatcher that he had gotten in a fight with a family friend’s son.
Zach, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas 2016 graduate, had followed the trial sparingly. He knew Carmen. His football coach also died in the shooting. The other night, days after the defense had rested its case and prosecutors prepared to begin their rebuttal, he asked Robert: Have you forgiven Cruz?
Robert had carefully refined his stance on the death penalty. He’d had to argue about it with his dad, after all. But forgiveness — that was murkier territory.
“I haven’t forgiven him,” he said. “It’s just ... I am wrestling with how culpable an individual can be when they are part of these much broader systems that clearly affect us.”
Cruz should be locked away from others. Stopped from hurting anyone else.
“But I would say that I have been trying to see him more as a human,” Robert said, “rather than the typical narrative that he’s a horrible person who is completely, irrecoverably bad and evil and that we must purge him from the Earth.”
Which brings him back to the death penalty.
“It’s about smoke and mirrors and redirection,” Robert said. “It makes it look like you’re doing something without truly changing anything at all.” | 2022-09-27T07:49:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | His sister died in the Parkland massacre. He wants the gunman to live. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/27/parkland-school-shooting-trial-death-penalty/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/27/parkland-school-shooting-trial-death-penalty/ |
— Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), in a tweet, Sept. 25
Finally. Murray’s staff cited as evidence for the tweet GOP support for a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which in theory might require reductions in spending in Social Security and Medicare. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in January told Fox that “if Republicans take charge of the United States Senate [in 2022], I will do everything in my power to make sure we have a vote on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.” | 2022-09-27T07:50:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The false claim that Senate Republicans ‘plan to end Social Security and Medicare’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/false-claim-that-senate-republicans-plan-end-social-security-medicare/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/false-claim-that-senate-republicans-plan-end-social-security-medicare/ |
Biden to reveal plan for reducing obesity, ending persistent hunger by 2030
President Biden speaks at the White House in May. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
The White House will convene a national conference on dietary health and food security on Wednesday for the first time in over 50 years to launch a national campaign that seeks to tackle high obesity rates and end persistent hunger in the United States by 2030.
The move aims to accelerate improvements in public health and ameliorate a problem that is weighing down the nation. More than 73 percent of Americans ages 15 and older are obese, based on body-mass index measurements — the second highest rate among some three dozen countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — and about 1 in 10 U.S. households is food insecure.
The White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health comes as Americans wrestle with rising food costs and the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says may have exacerbated obesity in the United States.
The pervasiveness of diet-related diseases creates broader issues for the country, the White House said. It hurts military readiness, workforce productivity, academic achievement and mental health. It also increases health-care costs for cash-strapped American families, the White House said.
It is “an urgent, nutrition-related health crisis,” it said in a statement.
In a 44-page summary of its dietary policies to be unveiled at the conference, the Biden administration pledged to make healthful food more affordable and accessible and to invest in expanding physical-activity options and enhancing research on food and nutrition.
Among the specific policies President Biden has promised: expanding free school meals to 9 million more children in the next decade; improving transportation options for an estimated 40 million Americans who have low access to grocery stores or farmers markets; reducing food waste (one-third of all food in the United States goes uneaten, the White House says); conducting more screenings for food insecurity; educating health-care providers on nutrition; reducing sodium and sugar in U.S. food products; addressing marketing that promotes fast food, sugary drinks, candy and unhealthy snacks; and building more parks in “nature-deprived communities.”
Previous administrations have sought to improve dietary health. Federal efforts date at least as far back as President Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1906 signed the first U.S. food safety legislation into law.
More recently, as first lady, Michelle Obama spearheaded the “Let’s Move” campaign to raise awareness about childhood obesity, but her initiative had mixed results and attracted criticism from the right.
President Richard M. Nixon was the first to convene a White House conference on hunger in 1969, and this week’s conference has roots in a recent bipartisan push. Last year, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a longtime proponent of the fight against hunger, introduced a bill that would allot funds to hold a White House conference on food and health. The bill was co-sponsored by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) and Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.).
At the time, Braun expressed support for “a bipartisan and common-sense approach” toward tackling hunger, while Walorksi, who died in a car crash last month, said fighting food insecurity and “eliminating barriers that are holding back families from success are bipartisan priorities.”
“Hunger doesn’t have to exist in this country,” McGovern said on MSNBC. “We have lacked the political will to connect all the dots and end it once and for all. America has an abundance of food. We live in the richest country in the history of the world.” | 2022-09-27T09:12:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden to release plan for reducing obesity, ending hunger by 2030 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/biden-end-hunger-crisis-2030/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/biden-end-hunger-crisis-2030/ |
Brazil’s presidential election in October has become a riveting head-to-head contest between two larger-than-life figures representing opposite ends of the political spectrum: the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who ruled the country from 2003 to 2010. While there are nine other contenders in the race, none has a realistic chance of winning. The election outcome will have profound implications for Latin America’s biggest and most-populous nation.
The next administration will have to respond to growing public outrage over surging living costs and rising poverty and hunger in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, even as it tries to convince investors that it is committed to sound fiscal policies. Bolsonaro has pledged that, if re-elected, he would privatize state-owned oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA and the national postal service, cut corporate taxes in a bid to boost investment, pass pro-gun laws, and make it more difficult for women to have abortions. Lula has said he would change rules that limit public spending, reform the tax system so the rich pay more and the poor pay less, ensure Brazil becomes self-sufficient in oil and fuel, and protect the Amazon rainforest. The vote will also be a key test for Brazilian institutions, since Bolsonaro appears to be laying the groundwork to challenge a result that goes against him.
As the Oct. 2 vote approaches, polls suggest Lula has been inching closer to having enough support to reach the more than 50% of valid votes needed to avoid a runoff. A Sept. 23 poll by DataFolha shows the challenger taking 47% of the first-round vote while Bolsonaro held steady at 33%. Other polls also showed Lula gaining momentum in the last days of the campaign and, while a runoff is still the most likely scenario, the chances of an outright victory have been growing.
Bolsonaro has spent big to ease the impact of Covid-19 and, more recently, to temper rising living costs for vulnerable Brazilians. His popularity hit a record high during the pandemic as the government gave 600-real ($111) cash handouts to the poor. With the inflation rate exceeding 10%, Bolsonaro has spearheaded legislation to temporarily increase grants for about 18 million families. He will also give temporary cash handouts to truck and cab drivers to cushion them against higher fuel prices. While the measures are popular and inflation has been slowing significantly, it hasn’t been enough so far to close the gap with Lula in the polls.
The state of the economy is, by quite some margin, the main worry of Brazilian voters, and it’s shown signs of improvement in the past few months. Growth beat expectations in the second quarter, and unemployment is at its lowest in almost seven years even if still above 9%. Economists now see Brazil ending the year with a 2.7% expansion of gross domestic product and inflation slowing to 5.88%, which is a much better outlook than at the beginning of 2022. The big question is whether there’s sufficient time before the next vote for these improvements to influence enough voters to strengthen Bolsonaro’s candidacy further. | 2022-09-27T09:21:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What to Know About Bolsonaro-Lula Showdown in Brazil - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/what-to-know-about-bolsonaro-lula-showdown-in-brazil/2022/09/27/8a43b692-3e43-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/what-to-know-about-bolsonaro-lula-showdown-in-brazil/2022/09/27/8a43b692-3e43-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
Why Change the Bank of England’s Inflation Target?
Analysis by Andrew Atkinson | Bloomberg
The Bank of England’s role has been in flux ever since it was founded in 1694 to fund a war with France. Its main job these days is to keep prices in check, something it has largely achieved since being handed control over interest rates 25 years ago. Lately, however, it’s struggled to deal with the shocks unleashed by the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. BOE policy makers came under further pressure when a new government said it intended to review the bank’s mandate, then unleashed a budget that threatened to ignite more inflation. The tension is clouding the future of an institution long seen as a model for others to follow.
1. How is the system meant to work?
After the breakdown of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s and the high inflation that followed, many central banks, including the BOE, adopted a principle laid out by Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman: that the best way to ensure steady economic growth and a robust financial system is to focus on keeping prices stable. They do this via so-called inflation targeting -- explicitly aiming to keep prices going up by a small amount each year. The BOE says this makes it easier for businesses to set the right prices and for people to plan their spending.
2. Who sets the inflation target?
The BOE is tasked with achieving a rate of inflation set by the government each year. Right now that rate is 2% based on the Consumer Price Index, a goal it shares with most central banks in advanced economies. If inflation diverges by more than 1 percentage point in either direction, the bank’s governor must write to the chancellor of the exchequer -- Britain’s finance minister -- explaining why, and what the bank will do about it.
3. How does it keep inflation in check?
Its main policy tool is the Bank Rate, the rate of interest it pays to commercial banks that deposit money with the BOE. For those banks, making loans to consumers and businesses is only worthwhile when it pays better than making risk-free loans to the BOE. So when the Bank Rate goes up, the banks charge everybody else more, restricting the supply of money in the economy and curbing prices. By the same token, when the Bank Rate goes down, the money supply tends to grow and prices rise. Between 1997 and the eve of the pandemic, UK inflation averaged 2% a year.
4. How has the BOE’s role evolved?
Before 1997, interest rates were set by the chancellor, with the BOE governor providing advice. Within days of taking office, Tony Blair’s Labour government gave the bank operational independence and created a nine-member Monetary Policy Committee led by the governor, a move designed to insulate monetary policy from the risk of political opportunism. The BOE was initially given an inflation-rate target of 2.5% based on the Retail Price Index excluding mortgage interest payments. In 2003, the goal was shifted to 2% based on the CPI. In 2013, the BOE saw its remit change again when George Osborne, the Conservative chancellor, said that letting inflation overshoot the target was tolerable if it was required to support growth and employment. At the time, inflation was running close to 3% and the economy was emerging from the euro area’s sovereign debt crisis.
5. What’s the problem now?
Surging costs of imported energy and food helped to push inflation to 9.9% in August, almost five times the bank’s target and higher than in other Group of Seven countries. Members of the ruling Conservative Party accused BOE Governor Andrew Bailey of missing the early signs of an explosion in prices and acting too slowly once inflation set in, increasing the likelihood of a recession. Since Prime Minister Liz Truss took office, government policy has become increasingly at odds with the BOE’s inflation-fighting remit. On Sept. 23, Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng announced big tax cuts and heavy borrowing to try to kick-start the economy. The move could make it hard for the BOE to get prices back under control without fueling a personal debt crisis and tipping the country into a prolonged recession.
6. How does Truss want to change the BOE?
Before taking office in September, Truss said the UK was facing an unprecedented economic situation and that the “business as usual economic strategy” isn’t working. The BOE should remain independent, but the time has come to revisit its mandate, she said. In a newspaper article, Truss said the commodity-induced inflation spike has been “exacerbated by monetary policy.” How she would revise the current system is unclear, though she has mentioned the possibility of widening the BOE’s target to include a measure of money supply.
7. Does money supply targeting work?
In the early 1980s, Margaret Thatcher’s government set money supply targets to grapple with double-digit inflation. The idea was to reach a certain level of money supply to keep prices stable in the long term, even if it meant higher inflation in the near term. However, the metrics being measured were volatile and sometimes contradicted other signals on the state of the economy. That led to monetary targets falling out of favor in official circles and an ill-fated shift to manipulating foreign exchange rates as a way to anchor inflation. Proponents of money supply measuring have reclaimed some authority after Tim Congdon, who advised Thatcher, predicted the latest inflation spike early on after seeing broad money growth rocket by 15% at the start of the pandemic.
8. Is the independence of the BOE at risk?
Kwarteng has said the government has an “absolute” commitment to an independent BOE and its 2% inflation target. However, some analysts have expressed concern that talk of revising the bank’s mandate raises questions about political interference in its work. Any loss of credibility for the BOE could damage the economy by making monetary policy less predictable, leading investors to demand higher returns for owning UK government debt. The chancellor has the power to change the BOE remit overnight by sending a letter to the governor. In practice, the government would probably formally consult on the matter to signal its intentions. | 2022-09-27T09:21:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Change the Bank of England’s Inflation Target? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-change-the-bank-of-englands-inflation-target/2022/09/27/77a344f2-3e3a-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-change-the-bank-of-englands-inflation-target/2022/09/27/77a344f2-3e3a-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
Pakistan has a narrow window to boost climate resilience
This year’s floods are only part of Pakistan’s environmental crisis. Good governance at the local level might be one path forward.
Analysis by Erum A. Haider
A woman who was displaced by floods carries water collected from a puddle outside a camp in Pakistan’s Sindh province on Monday. (Rizwan Tabassum/AFP/Getty Images)
Pakistan’s floods this year are a result of a climate crisis a century in the making. Climate experts predict Pakistan will see devastating floods more frequently, interspersed with periods of extreme heat and drought.
While some studies suggest that this year’s flooding is unique, experts say the warning signs for increasingly intense monsoons have been repeatedly ignored. And while climate change is the primary villain in this saga, the intense flooding is also the result of challenges endemic to Pakistan’s political institutions.
It is no coincidence that the areas most affected by the floods today are also the poorest and least developed in the country. A 2015 map of the districts with the lowest educational attainment in the country virtually overlaps with the United Nations’ Situation Report from early September. Weak governance and underinvestment in citizens seem to predict “natural” disasters, too.
Flooding is only one part of Pakistan’s broader water and environmental crisis
In addition to frequent flooding, my research suggests Pakistan also faces a very different type of water crisis. In a study conducted in January in urban Karachi, my co-author and I found that low-income households were spending up to 12 percent of their monthly income on a few jerrycans of non-potable, brackish water.
Nearly 30 percent of the people interviewed in that study reported living on less than 30 liters of water a day — well below the U.N. threshold of 50 to 100 liters of water per person. The mismanagement of water and drainage systems across the country points to deep inequalities in access to basic needs and severe underinvestment by the national and local governments.
These types of inequalities show up in other vital services, as well. My work on electricity privatization in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, suggests that large urban neighborhoods are collectively punished with scheduled blackouts when individuals fail to pay mounting electricity bills on time. As studies in India, South Africa and elsewhere note, liberalization of service delivery can sometimes provide elites an unfair advantage in shaping the rules to suit their own needs. And political elites in Pakistan, and elsewhere, are reluctant to give up power.
Absent investments in education, infrastructure and institutions, it’s common to see votes exchanged for basic needs, such as access to water or electricity. Meanwhile, studies point to a failure of the Pakistani government to invest in a community-centered national environmental-protection plan, choosing to focus only on disaster mitigation.
Good governance at the local level offers one path forward
Are there best practices that might inform policy changes? Local communities can have considerable success in maintaining infrastructure projects, such as roads and irrigation channels.
Recent work finds that communities in the semiautonomous region of Gilgit-Baltistan in northern Pakistan benefit from very high levels of education, strong community organizations and deep commitments to ecological sustainability.
In 1997, a community in this region created a conservation trust, run by villagers, in the face of government attempts to transform the region into a tourist destination. Today, the region faces an existential threat from intense timber logging and encroachment by hotels and guesthouses along water channels — much of which is sanctioned by the government. Nevertheless, the conservation trust has sustained its work amid these threats, and this region continues to be one of the most climate resilient, with its communities autonomously working toward adaptation.
What role will international assistance play?
Political institutions in Pakistan are the result of complex domestic and local factors, but they also reflect international influences. Pakistan has long occupied a central role in the foreign policy of the United States and Europe, for strategic reasons. In the aftermath of this year’s floods, many within and outside Pakistan have emphasized the need for accountability from the national government. Others focused on demands for international aid, loan forgiveness and even climate reparations.
Pakistan continues to depend on loans and technical assistance from global lenders to stabilize its economy. Last year, a U.N. Environment Program report stated that the inability of countries such as Pakistan to adapt to climate change was at least partially due to a global failure in financing climate resilience.
In Pakistan and elsewhere, the window for climate adaptation is shrinking rapidly, according to that U.N. report. Any hope that Pakistan has at preparing for the future depends on strong and urgent commitments toward climate resilience from international and national policymakers.
Erum Haider (@erumrum) is an assistant professor of political science and environmental studies at the College of Wooster in Ohio. | 2022-09-27T09:21:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pakistan's floods stem from climate change — and political challenges - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/pakistan-floods-climate-change-adaptation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/pakistan-floods-climate-change-adaptation/ |
An electoral court police officer in Brasilia on Monday guards electronic voting machines being prepared for Brazil's general election Sunday. (Eraldo Peres/AP)
RIO DE JANEIRO — Marcelo Arruda was wearing a black T-shirt bearing the face of his hero, presidential election front-runner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva the day he was killed.
On July 9, prosecutors say, Jorge Jose da Rocha Guaranho, drove to Arruda’s Lula-themed birthday party, blasting the song lauding President Jair Bolsonaro so loud that the guests could hear the chorus: “The myth has come and Brazil has woken up.”
Guaranho, a prison guard, and Arruda, a police officer, exchanged insults in what prosecutors called a political quarrel. Guaranho left, returned and shot Arruda to death, prosecutors say.
Guaranho was charged with qualified homicide and is expected to testify this week. His lawyer, Luciano Santoro, told The Washington Post he suffered severe beatings to the head and doesn’t remember the incident.
Analysts now see the killing of Arruda in the southern city of Foz do Iguaçu as the first in a spate of incidents in an unusually deadly election campaign.
From revolutions and revolts in the first half of the 20th century to the brutal military dictatorship in the second, Brazil has suffered a long history of political violence. But since throwing off the dictatorship in 1985, Latin America’s largest country has enjoyed relative calm at election time. Attacks have been largely limited to municipal candidates and politicians, often involving political rivals or criminal gangs.
This campaign has been different. The front-runners in Sunday’s first round — Bolsonaro, the right-wing incumbent, and Lula, the left-wing former president — are the most polarizing figures in Brazilian politics. The vote has been cast as an existential contest between authoritarianism vs. democracy. Now it’s supporters of the candidates who are attacking each other, creating a new atmosphere of fear.
A man was shot inside an evangelical church in Goiânia last month after he expressed disagreement over the distribution of pamphlets urging churchgoers not to vote for leftist parties. Weeks later, police said, a Bolsonaro supporter near Confresa stabbed a co-worker to death after the man defended Lula in an argument.
On Saturday, witnesses told police, a man walked into a bar in Cascavel, 85 miles from Foz do Iguaçu, and asked who planned to vote for Lula, the newspaper O Povo reported. When a 39-year-old man said that he did, he, too, was stabbed to death. Police said Monday they had arrested a 59-year-old man in what appeared to be a politically motivated attack.
There have been several reports of Lula supporters beating Bolsonaristas during public rallies.
One in five voters here considers the use of violence when an opponent wins justified to at least some extent, according to a recent survey by Quaest for the University of São Paulo. About half of those believe violence is “very justified.” There’s little variation between Lula and Bolsonaro supporters.
Voters say they’re afraid to voice their opinions ahead of the election Sunday.
“I have never felt this kind of fear,” said Sonia Campello, a 68-year-old retired teacher in Brasilia, the capital.
Campello remembers the days when she, her mother and sisters wore wear red scarfs around their necks on election days as a show of support for the leftist Workers’ Party.
“Since last election the joy of the election period was replaced by fear,” she said. She still wears T-shirts with portraits of her candidates, she said, but avoids going to places where she thinks she might be harassed or attacked by Bolsonaro supporters.
Lula has condemned the violence and decried a “climate of hatred in the electoral process which is completely abnormal.”
Bolsonaro initially refused to condemn Arruda’s killing, saying he would wait for the investigation to establish a motive. But after the second killing by a self-proclaimed Bolsonarista, he told Noticias R7, that he “regrets any death that is politically motivated.”
“There is no point in blaming me for the actions,” he said during a presidential debate on Saturday.
But analysts say Bolsonaro’s belligerent rhetoric has fueled the rancor. Four years ago, he urged his followers to “shoot the ‘petralhada,’” a slur for Worker’s Party supporters. As a congressman, he suggested the military should have killed more people during the dictatorship, and said only a “civil war” would bring true change to Brazil.
Bolsonaro was himself stabbed on the campaign trail in 2018. Authorities identified the assailant as Adélio Bispo de Oliveira, a former member of the Socialism and Liberty Party who claimed he was on “a mission from God.” A court ruled that he was mentally ill and couldn’t be held responsible for his actions.
Marcos Nobre, president of the Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning, a think tank, said Brazilians at both ends of the political spectrum have grown less tolerant. But he argued the violence from the right-wing bolsonaristas and Lula’s Petistas are different.
“They are not two polar sides,” he said. “They are playing two different games. One is playing by democratic rules. The other one isn’t.”
Regardless of ideology, the common ground many Brazilians now seem to share is fear.
Two out of three Brazilians now fear that they themselves will be victims of political violence, according to a recent poll by the Brazilian Forum of Public Security.
Fabiano dos Santos, 42, a convenience store worker in São Paulo, said he will vote for Lula as he has always done. But this year, he said, he will not wear a red T-shirt.
“Am I afraid of suffering reprisal? Of course I am,” he said. “You can’t even put a sticker on your car anymore — you’d have your car scratched.”
Dos Santos said another friend was harassed at a train station while wearing a Brazilian flag T-shirt, often worn by Bolsonaro loyalists.
“They thought he was a Bolsonarista,” he said. “The whole thing has no logic, and there was no such thing before. Now it’s like Corinthians and Palmeiras,” rival soccer teams in São Paulo.
Dragging in the polls, Brazil’s Bolsonaro woos a surprising new demographic: The poor
For leaders, too, the race has turned deadlier.
The Observatory of Political and Electoral Violence in Brazil has tracked at last 214 cases of politically motivated violence this year, including 45 alleged homicides, targeting elected officials, candidates and public employees, up 23 percent from 2020.
Political scientist Felipe Borba, who coordinated the observatory’s report, tied the increase to Bolsonaro’s use of threats as an electoral tactic.
“Brazilian elections have always been polarized, but there has always been mutual respect that no candidate has ever dared to cross.” he said. “Bolsonaro is the first one to openly use the discourse of violence against his opponent.”
But historian Lilia Schwarcz, senior lecturer of anthropology at the University of São Paulo, sees historical precedent.
“Bolsonaro represents the continuation of authoritarianism and of people who think like him, that share a love the military dictatorship and were not happy with democratization,” she said. “Now they are emboldened to express these views.”
Pablo Ortellado, a professor of public policy at the University of São Paulo, sees growing intolerance on both sides.
“My concern is that it is civil society being split and increasing their intolerance against the other,” he said.
Ortellado cautioned that there is no data to prove widespread violence among citizens. But other data, he said, shows growing polarization dating back a decade, when Brazil suffered years of turmoil, corruption scandals, the arrests of dozens of government officials and the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff.
The environment has raised concern among military commanders, who in a meeting last month discussed plans in case of unrest on election day, according to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.
The Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for details.
Gabriela Sá Pessoa in São Paulo contributed to this report. | 2022-09-27T09:21:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brazil election: Bolsonaro-Lula vote sees violence grow - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/27/bolsonaro-brazil-election-political-violence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/27/bolsonaro-brazil-election-political-violence/ |
Growing up, Marguerite “Peg” Koller’s wish was to have a big family. She got it in spades.
Marguerite “Peg” Koller with her extended family in 2010. Since then, the family has grown considerably. (Family Photo)
Life as an only child was lonely for Marguerite “Peg” Koller.
“I had to go outside to find kids to play with,” said Koller, 99, who grew up in Philadelphia, and now lives in Montgomery County, Penn. “I definitely wished I had siblings.”
More than just a brother or sister, she longed for a large family. So when the time came for her to start her own brood, she went with a “more is more” mentality.
Koller and her late husband, William, who came from a compact family of four, had 11 children, 56 grandchildren and, as of Sept. 19, 101 great-grandchildren and counting.
“It’s terrific,” said Koller, who goes by “grandmom.”
She has fond memories of being a young mother. It was chaotic, to be sure, but “I look back, and I don’t think about it being hard,” she said, except perhaps getting everyone dressed and ready for church on time. But the small struggles were a fine exchange for having a full house.
“I just loved having them, and having so many people around me,” she said, adding that her 11 children were born over a span of 19 years.
At one point before she got married, however, she nearly became a nun. As a teen, she applied to join the convent and was accepted.
Despite her hope for a large family, “I just felt I had a vocation,” said Koller, explaining that she is a person of faith and a Catholic.
It was her mother and then-boyfriend (who later became her husband of 66 years), who convinced her to get married instead and, in hindsight, she’s glad they did. Her family, she said, is her greatest source of pride.
In 1942, Koller married William Koller, a World War II veteran who died in 2008. Together, the couple started Koller Funeral Home in Philadelphia, which still exists today and is run by several family members.
Boy with cancer hoped to see monsters. Strangers came in costume.
The couple was not sure at first how many children they wanted, but once they got started, “we just kept going,” Koller said, adding that her life was never lonely again.
The Koller kids, for their part, loved living in a jam-packed household, where there was no shortage of action and entertainment.
“It was such a great experience growing up in our family,” said Chris Kohler, 60, who was the ninth born, and married a man with the same last name, though spelled differently. “Even now that we’re all grown up, we’re still such great friends.”
Having their steady-handed parents as role models, she said, made the siblings close.
“They had such a great relationship,” Kohler said, explaining that they split household duties equally, including cooking and cleaning. “They worked hand in hand in the business and at home.”
“They always had to be together, always holding hands,” she continued. “I was hoping that I would find something like that for myself.”
Go ahead and stare at my prosthetic arm. I know it is awesome.
Not only did Kohler want to emulate her parents’ relationship, she also wanted the energy and fullness of her childhood home.
“We had so many brothers and sisters around to play with and help us. That made an impression on me, and so I always wanted to have a big family,” said Kohler, who went on to have six children and 14 grandchildren so far.
Her siblings, too, all had an above average number of kids. The fertility rate in the United States is 1.78 births per woman, and the majority of the 11 Koller siblings had more than five children each.
The many-sibling mind-set carried over to the next generation. Greg Stokes, 41, Koller’s grandson, is a father of four girls. “Coming from a large family, I always wanted people around,” said Stokes, who has eight brothers and sisters. “I think everybody in my family wanted to have multiple kids because of the energy and the excitement.”
Although he is one of 56 grandchildren, Stokes, who also lives in Montgomery County, easily developed a tight bond with both of his grandparents. He has vivid memories of attending a local swim club with his grandparents and cousins in the summertime, and he often takes his daughters there.
“Everybody always had a really close relationship with grandmom and grandpop, and really with each other,” Stokes said, adding that he and his cousin lived together in college and for several years after. “We would have sleepovers at grandmom and grandpop’s, and every Christmas Eve, there’s a big party.”
Throughout life’s challenges, including his brother’s death at age 12, having countless people to lean on made the pain easier to bear. “It’s definitely been a very unique experience,” Stokes said, adding that the majority of the extended family lives in Pennsylvania.
He plays college football in North Dakota. And he is 49 years old.
Part of what has kept them close, he continued, is his grandmother’s unwavering dedication to each member of the family. “She is there for every high school and college graduation,” Stokes said. “She always makes an effort to be present.”
In fact, six years ago, when two family weddings were scheduled on the same day (hazard of a big clan), she made it to both, despite the celebrations being more than an hour’s drive apart. She had a similar experience with two of her grandchildren’s graduation ceremonies.
“For all our kids’ graduations and baptisms and birthday parties, she always wanted to be there,” Kohler said of her mother. “Her family is her life.” Koller loves attending milestone events, and thinks they are important markers of life.
“I don’t miss parties,” said Koller, explaining that her faith, a balanced diet and regular exercise — she lifts weights twice daily — is the secret to her long life. Koller passed down the same values in her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
When Chrissy Balster’s son was born — bringing the great-grandchildren count to 100 — she and her husband brought their newborn baby directly from the hospital to visit their grandmom.
“No matter the size of the family, how big it grows, how far away we are, those lessons that my grandparents started 75 years ago are very much rooted in all of us,” said Balster, 34, whose son was born on Aug. 4, and was named “Koller William” after his great-grandfather.
Introducing the 100th great-grandchild to his great-grandmother, Balster said, was a moment of pure joy for all of them, but especially her. “It was so exciting to bring together these two amazing people,” she said. “We are just so lucky to be a part of her legacy.”
Holding her newborn great-grandson in her arms for the first time, “I thought about my husband,” Koller said. “He would be so thrilled.” Although it’s become increasingly difficult to get the growing family together, the Kollers still have an annual Christmas Eve party, as well as regular reunions. They also stay connected through social media.
Just as Koller has never missed a major milestone, her family, which now consists of close to 250 people including spouses, also try to be present at all her big celebrations.
The whole family, including the newest great-grandson, who was born last week and is also named after his great-grandfather, William, is coming together to mark their matriarch’s 100th birthday on Nov. 28 at a local country club.
She said she is excited to work her way around the room and chat with her many, many family members. And she has been clear with her family about something else: “I’m going to get up and dance,” she said.
Do you have a story for Inspired Life? Here is how you can submit. | 2022-09-27T10:17:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Marguerite Koller is 99 and has 101 grandchildren - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/27/family-101-grandchildren-marguerite-koller/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/27/family-101-grandchildren-marguerite-koller/ |
Allies spent millions in a sometimes secretive effort to weed out candidates who could cause the House leader trouble or jeopardize GOP victories in November
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) at a manufacturing facility in Monongahela, Pa., in September. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) made a name for himself as a firebrand social media phenomenon who delighted in trolling the left, famously boasting to colleagues that he had built his House office by focusing on communications not legislation.
But the strategy made him vulnerable to forces within his own party that helped end his time in office. Top allies of Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, worked this spring to deny Cawthorn a second term in office, after the Donald Trump-endorsed lawmaker made controversial comments about cocaine use and sex parties in Washington that led McCarthy to announce he had “lost my trust,” according to multiple Republicans briefed on the effort, which has not been previously reported.
GOP lobbyist Jeff Miller, one of McCarthy’s closest friends and biggest fundraisers, and Brian O. Walsh, a Republican strategist who works for multiple McCarthy-backed groups, were both involved in an independent effort to oppose Cawthorn as part of a broader project to create a more functioning GOP caucus next year, said the Republicans, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The allies close to McCarthy have sometimes taken steps to conceal their efforts, as they did in the Cawthorn case, with money passing from top GOP donors through organizations that do not disclose their donors or have limited public records, federal disclosures show.
In safe Republican districts, controversial Republicans like former New York State party chair Carl Paladino, Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini and Trump-endorsed congressional candidate Joe Kent have been targeted after distancing themselves from McCarthy’s leadership and echoing extreme claims. McCarthy’s team has also gone to work to protect several GOP incumbents from far-right challenges, campaign finance records show.
Miller, Walsh and McCarthy’s office declined requests for comment.
House GOP tries to embark on united front as expected rifts loom
McCarthy’s own approach to enforcing unity within his sometimes fractious Republican caucus has been more aggressive than his two immediate predecessors, Reps. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), whose tenures in leadership were marred by dissent and dysfunction. McCarthy has spoken publicly about the need to not just win a majority in the House, but to make sure his party wins “a governing majority.”
“We’re coming out with solutions. If we’re unified in that, even if we have a small majority, we’d be very strong in being able to pass it,” McCarthy said at a March House Republican retreat. “So we want the idea to be so strong that you overcome all the politics that people bring.”
McCarthy has a reputation for caring about politics over policy, but ultimately his fate may lie in the hands of one person: Trump. If Republicans win a small majority in the House, Trump could likely influence enough votes to determine the speakership, GOP strategists say. It’s a major reason McCarthy allies say he has remained close to Trump even when he has grown frustrated with him.
Several Republican members of the House have applauded the efforts to bring more pragmatists into power who will prioritize passing conservative policies over the more disruptive tactics of the House Freedom Caucus. That group of far-right lawmakers has asked for rule changes in the next Congress that would increase their leverage over the rest of the caucus.
“One subset lives in reality, the other subset does not,” a Republican member of Congress concerned about the Freedom Caucus said.
Behind the scenes, some of the party’s top donors have worked with McCarthy’s allies to further the project, while taking steps to obscure their direct involvement in more controversial races.
“McCarthy is a political animal, and he has a lot of political animals working for him,” said a Republican operative close to several prominent donors who is familiar with the broader effort. “He is not a guy to be trifled with. It’s like they say in the Marine Corps, ‘No better friend, no worse enemy.’ And they mean it, and they act on it.”
McCarthy allies argue that their interventions in GOP primaries have little to do with political ideology, but rather focus on elevating politicians who will work with the rest of the Republican caucus or who have the best chance of winning their district. The Bakersfield, Calif., Republican has recently embraced some of the most far-right members of his caucus, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-N.C.), whose committee assignments he plans to restore if Republicans win the House.
Much of the spending in Republican primaries by McCarthy’s political operation has been done out in the open by the House GOP’s largest super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, for which McCarthy has helped raise $165 million this cycle.
CLF, which is run by Dan Conston, has spent more than $7 million in Republican primaries this cycle, much of it focused on nominating more moderate, and therefore electable, candidates in swing districts. The group also spent millions in attempts to protect incumbents like Michael Guest (R-Miss.), Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), and Jamie Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), who hail from safer Republican districts, when they faced challenges from more far-right figures.
The group spent nearly $40,000 on turnout calls to help Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) in a safe Republican seat when he was challenged in the primary by online agitator Laura Loomer, who has described herself as being “pro-white nationalism” and a “proud Islamophobe,” campaign finance records show. In an overwhelmingly Republican Texas district north of Houston, CLF and another group founded by McCarthy allies, American Patriots PAC, spent nearly $1 million to help McCarthy favorite Morgan Luttrell beat Christian Collins. Both Collins and Loomer were endorsed by members of the Freedom Caucus, including Greene.
CLF used a different McCarthy-aligned group this summer to intervene on behalf of Herrera Beutler, who earned Trump’s ire by voting for his impeachment in 2021. Kent, her Trump-endorsed challenger, opposed McCarthy as speaker, denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election and denounced the legal treatment of Jan. 6 rioters as “banana republic stuff.”
But in the weeks before the Aug. 2 primary, two groups, WFW Action Fund and previously unknown group called Conservatives For A Stronger America, began attacking Kent as a closeted leftist, with television ads misleadingly suggesting he wanted to “defund the police” or showing old photos of the former Army Special Forces officer sporting long hair alongside false claims that he supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
After Kent defeated Herrera Beutler in the primary, both PACs opposing him publicly report contributions that tied their efforts to McCarthy’s allies. WFW Action Fund received transfers of nearly $1 million from CLF in the months before the ads.
Conservatives For a Stronger America reported after the primary that it received all its money from a group called the Eighteen Fifty-Four Fund, apparently named after the year in which the Republican Party was founded. That group, in turn, which has spent money on an number of races this cycle, has received funding from three sources, according to federal records: WFW Action Fund, American Patriots PAC and a nonprofit called Common Sense Leadership Fund, which is not required by law to report its donors. Federal records do not connect any of the specific donors to the transfers to Conservatives for a Stronger America.
Annie Dickerson, the founder of WFW Action Fund, attended McCarthy’s Jackson Hole donor retreat this summer, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. She was joined there by the personal advisers of financial manager Charles R. Schwab, Elliott Management’s Paul Singer and Citadel’s Kenneth C. Griffin, who are all billionaire donors to CLF, WFW Action Fund and other parts of McCarthy’s political operation. They are also all donors to American Patriots PAC, a group founded in 2018 by Conston, which has paid Walsh for strategy consulting this cycle.
At the same time, the anti-Kent effort reached outside McCarthy’s immediate orbit for support. After the primary, WFW Action Fund disclosed a July 27 donation of $100,000 from Fix Congress Now!, a PAC that has been otherwise dormant this election cycle. Fix Congress Now!, in turn, had received a $102,450 donation from an affiliated group called Unite America PAC on July 2.
Unite America PAC is affiliated with a nonprofit of the same name that seeks changes to the U.S. election system that would give the nation’s political extremes less power, such as through the use of nonpartisan primaries or redistricting. Though it has Republican donors, the group is mostly funded by Riot Games executive Marc Merrill and Cathryn Murdoch, the wife of former Fox News executive James Murdoch, who are both are major donors to the Democratic National Committee.
GOP seeks reset as inflation, abortion temper midterm expectations
A spokesman for Unite America said the donation was made to support Herrera Beutler. “We affirmatively supported pro-democracy Republicans this primary cycle,” said Chris Deaton, a spokesman for the group.
Olivia Perez-Cubas, a spokesperson for WFW Action, said the group raised money from CLF and other partners to support Herrera Beutler because the group is “dedicated to building and expanding the ranks of GOP women in Congress.”
The complex shuffling of funds through other groups became a pattern in multiple Republican House primaries, where Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates found themselves targeted. A person involved said some of the efforts were coordinated by McCarthy allies. At other times, as in a recent race in Florida’s 8th District, where $1.6 million was spent against Anna Paulina Luna, individual donors decide to intervene on their own.
A group that only came into existence in August, American Liberty Action PAC, spent more than $2.5 million in recent weeks to defeat candidates who questioned the 2020 election and expressed affinity for the Freedom Caucus in their recent campaigns, including Paladino and Sabatini.
Both candidates set off alarm bells for Republican strategists close to McCarthy. Paladino had recently circulated a conspiratorial Facebook post about the cause of the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde and suggested in 2021 that the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler is “the kind of leader we need today.” Sabatini, a friend of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), had been an outspoken critic of McCarthy.
“They would have been legislative terrorists whose goal was fame,” said a person familiar with the effort to stop them.
After Paladino and Sabatini both lost their primaries, American Liberty Action disclosed that it was entirely funded by the Eighteen Fifty-Four Fund and a nonprofit, American Prosperity Alliance, which does not disclose its donors.
Paladino blamed McCarthy and his allies for the spending, which he said only arose because his opponent, Nick Langworthy, made it clear he would be more friendly with GOP leadership.
“Nick sold his soul,” Paladino said. “If I was going to go to Washington, I was going to go as an independent Republican. I just didn’t want to be owned by anybody.”
Sabatini also believed during his campaign that he was being attacked by the Washington establishment.
“Everything is happening behind the scenes, but obviously that is what the money shows,” Sabatini said of the involvement of McCarthy allies. “They don’t want a conservative to win. They want a brainless, spineless robot.”
Trump has so far declined to criticize McCarthy for the primary interventions. People close to both men say they continue to have a close working relationship around House races, despite other tensions, as Trump has prioritized growing the size of the House majority.
The former president notably declined to make an endorsement against Rep. David G. Valadao (R-Calif.), even though he was one of the ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021. CLF spent about $800,000 in the primary to help Valadao defeat his GOP rival, Chris Mathys, who ran on a platform of supporting Trump more.
“When your own party spends $300,000 a week before the election attacking you, then you really have to wonder which side are they on,” Mathys said after his defeat, noting that he could not get his calls returned by Trump. “We called 50 times but never got a call back from anyone.”
As in the case of Herrera Beutler, the efforts by McCarthy and his partners have not always been successful. CLF was unable to defeat Sandy Smith, a pro-Trump candidate in North Carolina’s 1st District who faced past allegations of domestic violence. In Arizona, CLF and WFW Action spent about $1 million to support Republican Tanya Wheeless, only to watch her lose the primary to Kelly Cooper, who has challenged the legitimacy of the 2020 election and promised to seek the release of those arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol.
The Cawthorn race became a concern for McCarthy earlier this year, when the freshman member told a podcast about seeing cocaine use in Washington and being invited to sex parties. After meeting with McCarthy over the statements, Cawthorn blamed “the left and the media” for trying to use his comments to divide the GOP. His office did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
In the weeks before his primary, a group called Results for N.C. spent $1.7 million to defeat him and support his opponent. The National Association of Realtors, which gave $600,000 to CLF, gave $300,000 to the cause. A nonprofit that does not disclose its donors, Americans for a Balanced Budget, gave $830,000.
Most of the rest of the money, $700,000, came from Ryan Salame, an executive at crypto currency exchange FTX U.S., a major donor both to McCarthy’s own operation and to other groups backing McCarthy’s favored candidates. West Realm Shires Services, the corporate name used by FTX U.S., gave $750,000 to CLF in August. Advisers to Salame and FTX declined to comment.
But Mark Wetjen, the head of public policy and regulatory strategy at FTX, was invited with his family to McCarthy’s August donor retreat in Wyoming. | 2022-09-27T10:26:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Kevin McCarthy’s political machine worked to sway the GOP field - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/mccarthy-midterms-gop/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/mccarthy-midterms-gop/ |
With scoop by scoop of soil, Alexandria remembers lynched Black teens
Alexandria City High School students Naeem Scott, right, and Nathan Desta place soil from the locations of Joseph McCoy’s and Benjamin Thomas’s deaths into jars during a commemoration Saturday. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
One by one, they scooped a clump of gray-brown soil and poured it into glass jars.
First came the descendants of one of the victims, then local faith leaders and elected officials, and finally two high school students who had just delivered monologues as Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas, the two Black teenagers lynched here in Old Town Alexandria.
More than 350 people in total helped fill the jars to the very top Saturday afternoon, taking part in an effort by this Northern Virginia community to commemorate the horrific 19th-century episodes of racial terror.
Under an overcast sky, they gathered outside Alexandria City Hall and heard the stories of how McCoy and Thomas were both dragged out of jail cells and killed by White mobs. How the pair never got trials for crimes they said they never committed. How police and city leaders ignored or even encouraged the mobs to brutalize the adolescents, who were hung from lampposts just a few blocks away.
“This soil cries out, and it demands a response,” said the Rev. James G. Daniely, pastor at Roberts Memorial United Methodist Church, turning his blessing of the soil into a question for the audience: “What will your response be? Will it be another monument that’s tagged on a wall somewhere, or will you really be moved to fight for justice?”
Once a notorious slave pen, it is now a museum on slavery — and freedom
That challenge was posed by several speakers at the soil-collection ceremony, organized by the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project, a two-year-old initiative to inform the public of the city’s “history of racial terror hate crimes.”
Dozens of communities around the country, including Poolesville, Md., and Charlottesville, have organized similar events in recent years to commemorate the lynchings that took place on their own ground, sending glass jars filled with soil to the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala. More than 160 Alexandria residents will travel by bus next month to deliver the jars filled for McCoy and Thomas and add them to a display at EJI’s Legacy Museum. They also will retrieve a pillar from the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and bring home a six-foot steel pillar engraved with the names of both victims.
Audrey Davis, the Alexandria project’s co-director, said there was no better way to honor the two teenagers’ lives than to lead community members on that journey, the culmination of more than two years spent unearthing their stories.
“If we’re going to tell accurate history, you have to own the terrible parts of your history,” Davis, who is also director of the city’s Black History Museum, said in an interview. “You can’t deny that these crimes were committed and two young boys lost their lives.”
As ceremony speakers recounted, McCoy was arrested on April 23, 1897, for allegedly assaulting an 8-year-old White girl. The news set off a mob of more than 150 White men, who used a battering ram to break through the police station where he had been jailed.
Joseph McCoy was lynched by a mob in 1897. At a virtual remembrance, officials vowed not to forget.
Police managed to contain them, but 500 people returned later that night and dragged McCoy into the street, hanging the 18-year-old from a streetlamp on the corner of Cameron and Lee streets in Old Town. The mob beat him with clubs and cobblestones and shot him three times until he stopped breathing in the early hours of the following day.
Just over two years later, on Aug. 8, 1899, Thomas was killed a few blocks away in similar circumstances. After the 16-year-old was arrested for an alleged assault of a White girl, local African American leaders tried to protect him at the city jail, in defiance of instructions from city leaders.
In a summer of racial protests, Alexandria remembers a young lynching victim
The incident — in which 15 Black men were arrested — revived tensions from McCoy’s lynching, prompting as many as 2,000 White Alexandrians to attempt to break into the jail the following night. Seeking to calm the mob, then-Mayor George L. Simpson vowed that if Thomas was not indicted and executed, he would lead a group to lynch Thomas himself.
But he never had to make good on that promise. Some in the mob managed to get inside, dragging Thomas by a rope down St. Asaph Street as they kicked and bludgeoned him. They hung him from a lamppost at the corner of King and Fairfax streets, where he remained alive for 20 minutes — until someone fired a gun straight at his heart.
In now-urbanized, paved-over Alexandria, event organizers collected soil from areas around the city that were associated with the lives, arrests and deaths of its two victims. A wooden cart containing soil for McCoy’s jar was filled at his boyhood home on South Alfred Street and his home church nearby, where one of the city’s oldest African American congregations hosted his funeral. Soil for Thomas was excavated from his home in the mostly Black neighborhood of Uptown and at the site of his lynching.
But both vessels also had soil mixed in from sites of importance to Alexandria’s African American community — ranging from the building that once housed Parker-Gray High School, which educated Black students in segregated Alexandria, to the library where Black lawyer Samuel Tucker led a sit-in in 1937.
“There’s so many areas that still have tragic histories or difficult histories or were parts of our civil rights journeys as well,” Davis said. “It’s all part of the greater story, and Black history shouldn’t be divided into singular incidents.” Neither McCoy nor Thomas would be able to imagine the city, or the country, that had emerged from the one they experienced in the late 19th century, she said.
That reality weighed heavily as two Black students from Alexandria City High School, Naeem Scott and Nathan Desta, delivered the monologues Saturday afternoon recounting those lynchings, each giving voice to one of the teenagers describing their final hours.
The Rev. Robert Lewis Taylor, who is about five or six generations removed from McCoy, sat in the front row of the audience with his two cousins during the ceremony as he watched Mayor Justin M. Wilson (D) recount the lynching of their relative and deliver a formal proclamation of apology.
Despite living in nearby Fairfax County, Taylor, 70, said he’d never learned this piece of family history until he received a message earlier this year from Alexandria residents who had been researching the incidents for the commemoration project.
“It rocked me,” Taylor said. “Today was wonderful, but it’s still mind-blowing to know that that happened to someone in your family.”
The ceremony, he said, “gives us a chance to work on reconciliation. You can’t say closure, but you can say reconciliation.” | 2022-09-27T10:39:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Alexandria commemorates lynching victims at soil-collection ceremony - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/27/alexandria-va-lynching-victims-soil/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/27/alexandria-va-lynching-victims-soil/ |
Netflix’s true-crime series gets the well-documented details right, but at what cost?
Analysis by Bethonie Butler
The 10-episode limited series follows several film efforts to tell the story of Dahmer, from the 2002 horror film “Dahmer,” starring a then-unknown Jeremy Renner, to the 2017 drama “My Friend Dahmer,” which was based on a graphic novel by Dahmer’s high school classmate Derf Backderf and starred Ross Lynch (of Disney’s “Austin and Ally”) in the title role. This series, notably, is one of the few about the killer that aims to put the focus on his victims — though it ultimately falls short.
Critics and viewers have been divided over “Dahmer — Monster,” which carries a 50 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes, where several reviews note Murphy and co.’s attempts to tell the stories of Dahmer’s victims, and how those stories are too often overshadowed by the acts of the killer himself. One example is the sixth episode, in which Dahmer meets a deaf man named Tony Hughes (Rodney Burford, in a standout performance). The episode is centered around Tony, the events that led to his murder and his family’s heartbreak over his initially unexplained disappearance. But the final frame of the episode centers Dahmer and the unspeakable things he does to his victims’ dismembered bodies.
“ 'The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ is about a lot of things, it’s about homophobia, internalized and externalized. It’s about a country that allows hatred to grow, unfettered and unchecked,” Murphy said in his Emmys acceptance speech for directing an episode of the anthology, for which Darren Criss also won a lead actor trophy for portraying Versace’s killer, Andrew Cunanan. “One of out of every four LGBTQ people in this country will be the victim of a hate crime. We dedicate this award to them, to awareness, to stricter hate-crime laws, and mostly, this is for the memory of [murder victims] Jeff [Trail] and David [Madson] and Gianni and for all of those taken too soon.”
Relatives of at least one of Dahmer’s victims have spoken out against “Dahmer — Monster.” Rita Isbell, whose brother Errol Lindsey was killed in 1991, spoke to Insider about the series, which recreates the emotional moment Isbell lashed out against Dahmer in a courtroom. “When I saw some of the show, it bothered me, especially when I saw myself — when I saw my name come across the screen and this lady saying verbatim exactly what I said,” Isbell told Insider. “If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought it was me. Her hair was like mine, she had on the same clothes. That’s why it felt like reliving it all over again. It brought back all the emotions I was feeling back then.”
“Can’t stop thinking about this disturbing scene from DAHMER where one of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims finally manages to escape … and the police actually bring him back inside the apartment,” reads a tweet accompanying video from an episode that features Dahmer’s youngest murder victim, 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone. “Now on Netflix.” | 2022-09-27T10:39:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Dahmer — Monster' is not a story that needs retelling - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/27/dahmer-monster-netflix-victims/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/27/dahmer-monster-netflix-victims/ |
The rapper’s breakout single ‘Munch (Feelin’ U)’ has traveled from the Bronx, to TikTok, to Billboard, and now it’s seeking permanent residence in your brain
Ice Spice attends a “Fashion Night Out” hosted by Cardi B on Sept. 17 in New York. (Shareif Ziyadat/Getty Images)
It’s fun to be indelibly dazzled whenever a fantastic new rap song seems to come out of nowhere, but they always come from somewhere. In the case of “Munch (Feelin’ U)” by Ice Spice, somewhere is a few places: the 22-year-old’s native Bronx, the birthplace of hip-hop itself; a still-burgeoning drill subgenre that continues to span boroughs, state lines and oceans; and perhaps most crucially, inside the airlocked privacy of her mind.
Since dropping “Munch” back in August, Ice Spice has become one of the most magnetic voices to emerge from New York’s drill scene since the late Pop Smoke’s godly baritone first came rumbling out of Brooklyn in 2019. As he did, she knows exactly how and where to exhale her rhymes into drill music’s sleek architecture, offering a breathy human counterpoint to the alien bass lines, the glitchy hi-hats, the antiseptic synth melodies that tend to hide out in the corner. The cool lilt of her voice, however, consistently occupies the center of the room, and it’s treated with just enough reverb to make us feel like we’re eavesdropping on the inner-monologue unspooling at the center of her consciousness — a place where the brags and taunts fly unchecked.
About those. “Munch (Feelin’ U)” is an I-don’t-love-you-at-all song, which makes the parenthetical head fake in its title feel deliciously cruel. Listen to the refrain just once and you’ll instantly deduce that Ice Spice is not feeling you whatsoever. It seems that a “munch” is a guy who, ahem, has only one use — an admirer so inadequate, a new piece of slang had to be invented to properly describe his insignificance. She doesn’t dwell on him, though, rapping calmly and swiftly: “I’m walking past him, he sniffing my breeze.” Two needling verses, three cold hooks and it’s all over. The song’s concision is almost as devastating as its sang-froid.
So now what? After we determine where an out-of-nowhere song came from, we tend to wonder where everything else might be headed. We can chart the ascent of “Munch” out of the TikTok wilderness and onto Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart where it currently resides, but any speculation about where its path leads beyond that feels beside the point.
Maybe Ice Spice is the next Cardi B. Or maybe “Munch” goes down in history as this year’s “Mo Bamba.” Does it really matter? The value of new music shouldn’t depend on our prognostications of how much it’ll be worth tomorrow. It’s the other way around, in fact. Try to remind yourself by listening to this song right now, loud and repeatedly. | 2022-09-27T10:39:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ice Spice raps like she’s in her own head. Is she in yours yet? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/09/27/ice-spice-munch-feelin-u-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/09/27/ice-spice-munch-feelin-u-review/ |
The Spiral office building at 66 Hudson Boulevard in Hudson Yards in New York, US, on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022. Empty offices have led to a cascade of shuttered restaurants and other street-level businesses that depended on daytime worker traffic. And falling building values mean less property-tax revenue for city coffers. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
The Federal Reserve’s new hawkish stance has pushed stocks lower and heightened concerns about the direction of the US economy over the coming year. Anxiety has been centered on labor and housing crashes, but investors, city mayors and economic developers have kept up hopes for improvement in the office market. It’s best to let go of that wishful thinking.
A bigger problem for the office sector is that it’s not clear how well it would recover after any Fed-induced recession. If such a recession eventually led to lower interest rates, housing would probably bounce back quickly. The labor market continues to be the strongest part of the US economy, so it might be the last to feel a recession and the first to be restored. But once a 1970’s office building empties out, it’s not clear that demand would come rushing back in an ensuing recovery. Maybe some office buildings could be converted into housing, but not all buildings are readily convertible.
This was a plausible scenario for a lot of office buildings even before the Federal Reserve turned hawkish, but now it seems likely the problem will be bigger and happen sooner. There’s still reason to think other parts of the US economy will get through this period of supply and demand rebalancing in relatively good shape, but when it comes to office buildings and central business districts, we should be prepared for the worst.
Why Is a New York Apartment Still So Hard to Find?: Justin Fox
Markets Need a Less Rosy View of Inflation News: John Authers
Your Guide to the Permanent Pandemic Economy: Allison Schrager | 2022-09-27T10:52:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Office Markets Are the Real Estate Crash We Need to Worry About - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/office-markets-are-the-real-estate-crash-we-need-to-worry-about/2022/09/27/268b53aa-3e50-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/office-markets-are-the-real-estate-crash-we-need-to-worry-about/2022/09/27/268b53aa-3e50-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
Jury selection begins today in Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy trial
Founder Stewart Rhodes and four other members of his anti-government extremist group face trial in the attack on U.S. Capitol.
Members of the Oath Keepers stand at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Jury selection begins Tuesday in the highest-profile trial yet stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, with five members of the extremist group Oath Keepers, including founder Stewart Rhodes, facing charges including seditious conspiracy.
A panel of Washington, D.C., residents are due to report for in-person vetting by prosecutors, defense attorneys and U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta at the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse for a trial they have been told could last six to eight weeks. Another four co-defendants charged in the same nine-person indictment will begin jury selection and face a separate trial on Nov. 10.
The jury pool for the first trial was winnowed down from 150 prospective jurors called to answer a written questionnaire. The document inquired about matters such as their availability and potential knowledge of defendants, witnesses and attorneys in the case, and their views on the Jan. 6 riot.
Rhodes and the others stand accused of conspiring to use force to oppose the lawful transfer of power to President Biden. Prosecutors say his group called for civil war and staged firearms near D.C. on Jan. 6, when supporters of then-President Donald Trump attacked the Capitol. A 44-page indictment alleges that the group went to the Capitol ready “to answer Rhodes’ call to take up arms,” and that several breached the East Capitol Rotunda doors wearing camouflage vests, helmets, goggles and Oath Keepers insignia.
Rhodes and others have pleaded not guilty to all charges, which are punishable by up to 20 years in prison. They say they acted defensively in case Trump invoked the Insurrection Act to call up private militias to overturn the 2020 election results and stop Biden from becoming president, and are prepared to argue they relied on advice from their attorney.
Mehta, the trial judge, has said he expects the selection of a jury of 12 members plus four alternates to take at least two days, meaning opening statements would not begin before Thursday or — since proceedings will not be held Friday — the beginning of next week.
In pretrial hearings, attorneys have already haggled over who should be excluded from serving on the panel. Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed to strike 13 prospective jurors for various reasons. Rhodes asked to disqualify another 72 of those remaining, but Mehta agreed to dismiss only 16 and said the rest would be screened in person.
One of the 16 disqualified prospective jurors hand wrote on their questionnaire, “I think Jan. 6 is one of the single most treasonous acts in history of this country,” for example.
It is not unusual for defendants in high-profile prosecutions to assert that prospective jurors harbor “extreme prejudice” or hostility toward them.
Supreme Court precedent holds that to be impartial does not mean that jurors must be ignorant. Appeals court rulings say that the question is not what potential jurors know about the case or think about the defendants in general, but whether they are so biased against those on trial that they cannot be impartial in deciding whether they are guilty of the charges. | 2022-09-27T10:52:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jury selection begins in Oath Keepers Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy trial - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/27/jury-selection-oath-keepers-trial/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/27/jury-selection-oath-keepers-trial/ |
Black women’s voices must be central to the battle for abortion access
Black women have long connected Black civil rights to reproductive rights, bodily autonomy and the fight for legal abortion.
Perspective by Kim Gallon
Kim Gallon is associate professor of Africana Studies at Brown University and director of the Black Press Research Collective. She is the author of "Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press."
An abortion rights activist wears tape reading “2nd Class Citizen” on their mouth as they protest outside the Supreme Court in Washington on June 24. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
The Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the efforts of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) to ban most abortions after 15 weeks nationwide materialized the worst fears of Black reproductive rights activists and maternal health activists. They have long warned that if and when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it would have an injurious and disproportionate impact on Black women and other Black people who are able to get pregnant, particularly those living in the rural South.
But despite Black reproductive activists’ urgent efforts to draw attention to how these laws will disproportionately impact Black communities, Black women note that they often feel invisible in the current public debate over abortion in mainstream media outlets. Black women have long connected civil rights on the basis of race to reproductive rights, foregrounding legal abortion as a major front in the struggle against racism and sexism. Historically, the Black press was a space for Black women to make those arguments about bodily autonomy. While access to this platform did not translate into the Black press’s wholesale support for reproductive rights, it did illustrate the political and social stakes of the debate.
Known for its campaigns to end anti-Black racism and discrimination, the “fighting press,” as it was called, was much more circumspect in their position on abortion in the years that preceded the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. Structural racism was so prevalent in the lives of Black people in the 1970s that they often viewed the issue of abortion and birth control through the lens of white supremacy. Rumors circulated within and among African American communities claiming that the U.S. government sought to restrict Black population growth by limiting Black reproduction and controlling Black women’s fertility.
These beliefs were rooted in history. White enslavers’ brutal practices forced Black women to conceive and give birth to increase their enslaved population. Scientific racism and forced sterilization in the early 20th century also demonstrated to significant numbers of Black people that they could trust neither the medical system nor the government with their reproductive decisions. As a result, suspicions of Black genocide and eugenics occupied the same space with discussions about abortion and reproductive rights.
The Doe v. Scott case in 1971 demonstrated how fearful some Black communities were about Black women becoming the target of government-subsidized abortions. In this case, the Illinois State Supreme Court legalized abortion in Illinois. Shortly after the decision, the Chicago Daily Defender polled its readers, asking: “Do you believe that welfare funds used for abortion on black women is genocide?” A reported 63.7 percent of the respondents said yes, exposing a deep concern by Black people about the relationship between abortion and genocide.
And yet, Black feminists viewed the issue differently and pushed for the Black press to also include their perspectives about the importance of abortion access. For example, the Michigan Chronicle devoted a full page to the views of Black women in Detroit, ages 16 to 35, on local abortion legislation the year before Roe v. Wade. Women’s page editor Marie Teasley reported, “I found their concerns ranged from guilt aspects of Black liberation to moral and religious convictions, to possible genocidal practices to the woman’s right to personal choice.”
Black women journalists used their papers as platforms to respond to allegations that abortion was genocide. Romanie Branham, Hampton college student and part-time summer employee of the Philadelphia Tribune, the longest running Black newspaper in the United States, noted in 1971 that while she feared that abortion might be used to reduce the Black population, Black women had too much to lose in being forced to give birth. “Black women are just at the point now in history where they are able to get decent jobs and even go into well-paying careers.” The radical possibility of reproductive rights mitigated the fears of many young Black women like Branham; legal abortion was a chance for them to control their fertility in a world with new opportunities beyond motherhood.
Black reporters also provided evidence to help readers understand the root of the issue. In 1977, Mattie Trent, a staff writer for the Pittsburgh Courier, pointed out that the Hyde Amendment barred the use of federal Medicaid to fund abortions, which, she argued, undermined “the theory of abortion as a means of Black Indian genocide.” The protests of lower-income Black women and their advocates over the disproportionate impact that the legislation would have on Black women’s access to abortion, reported Trent, further belied the idea that Black women were targets of reproductive rights groups and the government.
Claudine B. Harper, writing in 1974 for San Francisco’s Sun Reporter, challenged the notion among some Black people that Planned Parenthood was “a kind of genocide.” While Harper acknowledged her own concerns that communities of color were targets of nefarious campaigns for legal abortion and accessible birth control, she nevertheless emphasized access to birth control as key to Black progress and a way to “ensure a strong nation of Blacks.” Rather than viewing birth control as an existential threat to Black life, Harper’s comments redefined it as fundamental to Black nationalism.
Black women writing in the Black press also charged that abortion bans were a tool of capitalism and patriarchy. Pamela Haynes, in her Pittsburgh Courier column, “Right On,” was unapologetic in 1972 in her criticism of Black men who supported antiabortion legislation. Highlighting the connection between gender and race, Haynes blasted Black men who were antiabortion, stating, “These brothers, machismo tripping to theirs, scream that Black woman, already burdened by racism and sexism, should further give up their humanity to become baby making machines for women who economically may not be able to support them.” For Haynes, racial solidarity demanded a consideration of women’s reproductive rights.
Black women journalists’ outlook on abortion, particularly those that rejected it as a plot to destroy Black families, were not without criticism. But women like Elizabeth Hood stood steadfast in their view that abortion rights allowed Black people to have equal opportunities “to develop and live as free, creative people.” For Hood and other Black women writing in support of abortion in the Black press, freedom was not only about the elimination of white supremacy, but was equally about self-determination and the right of people to make choices about reproduction.
The Black press in the era of Roe v. Wade created a forum for a rich diversity of Black women’s voices on abortion, often overlooked in White news outlets, and demonstrated the significance of their perspectives for the larger battle for reproductive rights in the United States in the late 20th century. As people across the country engage in a new fight for universal access to abortion, Black women’s ability to capture the necessary nuance of gender, class and race offers a model in the discussions and struggles to come. Their perspective is unique and essential to discussions. Black people already encounter structural racism in health care that is, partially, responsible for high rates of pregnancy-related death, preterm births and other maternal health complications. Restrictions on abortion will have deadly consequences for them, and that is an important element in the debate ongoing throughout the country. | 2022-09-27T10:53:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Black women’s voices must be central to the battle for abortion access - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/27/black-womens-voices-must-be-central-battle-abortion-access/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/27/black-womens-voices-must-be-central-battle-abortion-access/ |
Trump wants to follow in Richard Nixon’s footsteps in the midterms
But it might not work.
Perspective by Robert Fleegler
Robert Fleegler is an associate professor of history at the University of Mississippi.
From left: President Richard Nixon in 1973 and President Donald Trump in 2019. (AP/Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Donald Trump’s legal troubles and campaigning have thrust the former president back to the center of American politics just in time for the midterm elections. With designs on a political comeback in 2024, Trump hopes to mimic the midterm successes of another former president — one he has been compared to since the outset of his presidency: Richard M. Nixon.
Commentators have noted how both men distrusted elites and the media, in addition to their willingness to abuse presidential power in historic fashion. But when it comes to the midterms, Trump may not be able to match Nixon’s record from 1966. That year, Nixon, like Trump now, was out of political office, but thinking of running for president in the next cycle. In the midterm campaign, he was a success as a surrogate, helping him overcome past losses, and catapulting the former vice president back into the top tier of potential Republican candidates for 1968.
Trump has several disadvantages that Nixon did not — ones that may hinder his efforts this fall and weaken a potential presidential bid in 2024. But Nixon’s journey shows that there is a path from a loss to the White House, and it goes through the midterms.
In 1960, Nixon, then vice president, lost a historically close presidential election to John F. Kennedy. Two years later, he ran for governor of California, only to lose by a larger margin to the Democratic incumbent, Edmund “Pat” Brown. Talking to reporters on election night, Nixon attacked the media and seemed to announce the end of his political career, famously declaring: "You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”
Two years later in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson — who had ascended to the presidency after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 — trounced his Republican opponent, Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) in a historic landslide, winning 61 percent of the popular vote to Goldwater’s 39 percent and 44 states to Goldwater’s six. The Democrats also added two Senate seats and 37 House seats, giving them overwhelming margins in both chambers.
The large majorities gave Johnson the ability to break the hold of the conservative coalition of southern Democrats and Republicans that had prevented the passage of liberal legislation since the late 1930s. Johnson pushed bill after bill through the 89th Congress, enacting his historic Great Society program, which included Medicare, Medicaid and federal aid to education. At the same time, Johnson Americanized the Vietnam War — which had previously been fought with South Vietnamese troops and U.S. advisers.
During this period, Nixon joined a law firm in New York City. He played the role of loyal Republican soldier and campaigned across the country for Goldwater in 1964. Like many Republicans, Nixon — a staunch anti-communist — publicly supported Johnson on Vietnam.
Though Johnson proved highly successful in passing his legislative agenda, the political winds were changing as the 1966 midterm elections approached. Not everyone was happy with the new laws and the party in the White House traditionally loses seats in a president’s first midterm.
Structural factors worked against Johnson too, leaving him coping with rising inflation and street crime. There was also talk of a “White backlash” against Johnson’s robust civil rights agenda, which included the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the two laws that ended legal segregation in the South. Meanwhile, though a majority of the country still supported the Vietnam War, frustration was growing as American troops were dying at a high rate with little progress to show for it.
In 1966, Nixon sprang into action as a surrogate for Republican candidates. “There is a special aura about a presidential candidate, even one who has a lost,” he observed. “It lends weight to his words.” The former vice president also had the ability to straddle the divide in his party between the liberal Rockefeller wing and the conservative Goldwater faction. Nixon focused his campaigning in Republican-leaning districts where Democrats had won in 1964. This strategy maximized his impact, while positioning Nixon to take credit for the party’s successes.
And by the fall, it was clear that he had become the most important advocate for the GOP. “The man who is raising the most money, addressing the most meetings, and scoring the most points for the Republican Party in this year’s Congressional elections,” wrote James Reston in the New York Times, “is none other than that familiar figure, Richard Milhous Nixon.”
During the campaign, Nixon made a number of forays into the South, which was fast transforming from a place where Republicans couldn’t compete into the heart of the modern GOP. While Nixon declared there was “no future in the race issue for” either party, and reiterated his support for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, he also previewed the themes he would use to appeal to Southern conservatives in 1968 as part of his famous “Southern Strategy.” With clear racial overtones, Nixon attacked abuses in Johnson’s anti-poverty programs and riots in the streets following the urban upheavals of 1965 and 1966.
Toward the end of the campaign, Nixon even faced off with Johnson one-on-one. Johnson had returned from a summit with South Vietnamese leaders and the heads of several other Asian allies with a proposal to bring U.S. troops home from South Vietnam if North Vietnamese troops withdrew, infiltration ceased for six months and violence declined.
Nixon criticized the proposal and the New York Times published the text of his response. An American withdrawal, Nixon argued, would leave the South Vietnamese to fight on their own when they were unprepared to do so. “Communist victory would almost certainly be the result of ‘mutual withdrawal,’ ” he remarked, if the North Vietnamese continued to support the Communist Viet Cong guerrillas.
Johnson fired back in strikingly personal terms, saying, among other things, “I do not want to get into a debate on a foreign policy meeting … with a chronic campaigner like Mr. Nixon.” Tom Wicker of the Times called it “one of the sharpest personal attacks Mr. Johnson has made in his three years in office.” But by lashing out, Johnson raised Nixon’s profile, essentially making him the titular leader of the Republican Party. The president may have done this deliberately because he saw Nixon as the easiest candidate to beat in 1968.
The outcome of the midterms burnished Nixon’s credentials even more. Throughout the campaign, he had predicted the biggest off-year Republican success in two decades. His prediction rang true when the GOP gained 47 House seats. Nixon had campaigned for 86 candidates for federal or state office, with 59 of them victorious. By contrast, only roughly 39 percent of the candidates Sens. Robert Kennedy (D-N.Y.) and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) campaigned for had won. “The political equivalent of the batting championship for the 1966 campaign season,” wrote Warren Weaver of the Times, “went to Vice President Richard M. Nixon hands down.”
Of course, Nixon was not solely or even primarily responsible for the Republican Party’s comeback from the debacle of 1964. The difficulties of Johnson’s first two years in office and the traditional energy the out-of-power party has in off-year races were far more critical. Nevertheless, Nixon’s extensive campaigning and perceived success helped him remove some of the stigma from his previous defeats, establishing him as one of the front-runners for the GOP nomination in 1968.
Trump endeavors to do the same thing in 2022. So far, he has shown himself to be a kingmaker within his own party as his endorsements of J.D. Vance in Ohio, Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia, among other candidates, helped propel them to victory in the Republican primaries. But these candidates’ weaknesses are evident from their anemic poll numbers. Furthermore, Trump’s renewed prominence (along with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade last June) may energize Democratic voters in a way Nixon and the mood in 1966 didn’t. This may cost the GOP wins in key Senate races and even control of the body itself.
Could these factors have the opposite effect of Nixon’s perceived 1966 success and instead damage Trump’s chances to win the nomination again? Perhaps. But Trump’s cultlike support from the party’s base — something Nixon never had — might allow him to overcome such an outcome. Only time will tell. | 2022-09-27T10:53:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump wants to follow in Richard Nixon’s footsteps in the midterms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/27/trump-wants-follow-richard-nixons-footsteps-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/27/trump-wants-follow-richard-nixons-footsteps-midterms/ |
Judge lets Jan. 6 defendant have guns to hunt so he can save on groceries
The Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (John Minchillo/AP)
On Jan. 6, 2021, Jon Mott was one of the scores of pro-Trump rioters who broke into the Capitol’s Rotunda, according to prosecutors. Four months later, he was arrested after federal investigators say they received tips and social media posts pointing to his involvement in the insurrection.
Since then, the 39-year-old Arkansas man has pleaded not guilty and been released to await trial. Under the conditions of his release, Mott was barred from possessing any weapons, court records show.
Last week, though, Mott’s lawyers asked a federal judge to grant him a special request: permission to go hunting.
“For the majority of his life, [Mott] has participated in the Conservation efforts of wildlife management by engaging in the practice of subsistence hunting,” Mott’s attorney, Joseph W. Allen, wrote in a motion Friday.
Allen, who didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post, wrote that allowing Mott to hunt would save him $5,000 in grocery bills — a welcomed cut, considering food prices have increased 11.4 percent over the past year. According to Allen’s motion, Mott — who has never had any firearms-related charges — legally owns “several firearms that he has used priorly for the purposes of subsistence hunting.”
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth agreed to the request — with a caveat. While Mott will now be allowed to use firearms for hunting, he can’t store any weapons or ammunition inside his home or workplace, Lamberth’s order states.
Before, During, After: The Attack
Court records detail the case prosecutors have so far built against Mott, who is charged with entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a restricted building, and two counts of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Just one day after supporters of former president Donald Trump breached the Capitol, where Congress was certifying President Biden’s electoral victory, an unnamed tipster sent the FBI screenshots linking Mott and an associate to the siege, according to a criminal complaint. In one, Mott’s unnamed associate allegedly posted on Facebook: “I’m ok. We did it. [Mott] and I got separated for about 20 minutes but I’ve made contact with him. He’s better than ok. I’m now trying to get us the hell out of here. Good work patriots.”
Two days later, another tip came, showing a Facebook Live video of Mott’s friend saying the two had been at the Capitol, according to court records. Then, on Jan. 15, 2021, an additional witness showed agents photos and videos Mott’s associate had sent of the two pushing their way inside the building, the complaint states.
According to the evidence federal agents analyzed, Mott and his friend flew together to D.C. a day before the riot, court records add. They had attempted to raise cash for their trip through a GoFundMe page aimed at “protesting corruption in DC on Jan 6th,” according to the complaint, though it’s unclear whether the money was used to fund their travels.
Once in D.C., Mott was allegedly part of the large group that forced its way into the Rotunda, the domed room at the heart of the Capitol. Police body-camera footage showed him pushing against an officer’s baton while yelling, “Don’t touch me. If you don’t touch me, I won’t touch you,” the complaint states.
Police radio communications synchronized with hours of footage show how failures of planning and preparation left police at the Capitol severely disadvantaged. (Video: The Washington Post)
In another video authorities obtained from New York-based news agency Freedom News, prosecutors say a swollen-eyed Mott is seen pouring water into another protester’s face — something the complaint alleges is “indicative of recovery from tear gas or similar chemical irritant, which was deployed by law enforcement on January 6, 2021, in an effort to subdue rioters seeking entry into the Capitol.”
After gathering that information, federal agents surveilled Mott at his home and workplace in Arkansas, noting the same distinctive ring-finger tattoo that he flashed in the recordings, according to the complaint. The last step was to compare the evidence the authorities had compiled with Mott’s license plate registration.
It was a match, prosecutors allege, and Mott was arrested in May 2021 in Arkansas.
Altogether, officials have said that over 2,000 people could face charges related to entering the Capitol or attacking officers on Jan. 6. So far, over 900 people have been charged, and nearly 400 have pleaded guilty.
Mott is not the first Jan. 6 defendant to ask a judge for permission to access guns. In April, a judge in Texas restored a sentenced rioter’s right to possess firearms, citing the woman’s credible “fears for her safety.”
A month later, a defendant from Georgia asked a judge whether he could have two of his confiscated guns back — the reason, according to court records: to kill venomous snakes on his property. | 2022-09-27T10:53:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judge allows Jan. 6 defendant Jon Mott to have guns for hunting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/27/jan-6-gun-hunting-groceries/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/27/jan-6-gun-hunting-groceries/ |
In test of ties with U.S., Colombian leader proposes shift on drugs
Colombian President Gustavo Petro delivers a speech after the reopening of the border between Venezuela and Colombia to trade at the Simón Bolívar international bridge on Monday in Cúcuta, Colombia. (Guillermo Legaria/Getty Images)
NEW YORK — Colombia’s new leftist leader is proposing steps to decriminalize elements of his country’s flourishing narcotics industry, signaling a potential break with a past hard-line strategy on drugs and a test of Bogotá’s ties with its most powerful ally, the United States.
President Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla whose election this summer marked an end to decades of conservative rule in Colombia, described plans that would permit small-scale farmers to legally grow coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine, and address deforestation and climate change by paying farmers not to plant the crop — or anything else — in Colombia’s rainforest.
He said the booming international drug trade, more powerful than it was in the days of famed Colombian cartel leader Pablo Escobar, and the destabilizing toll it had taken on Latin American nations illustrated the “resounding failure” of the U.S.-backed war on drugs.
“We need to construct a more effective path,” he said in an interview on the margins of the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York last week. He made an appeal for support from consumer nations, principally the United States.
“I can’t go down this path alone, given that the demand comes from outside Colombia,” he said.
Petro’s desire to pursue significant changes to Colombia’s policies, which for decades have included U.S.-funded efforts to forcibly eradicate coca plants and spray pesticide on coca fields, reflect a desire for profound change in a country where persistent economic inequality and the toll of the coronavirus pandemic have generated waves of popular unrest, like elsewhere in Latin America. Thousands of Colombians marched on Monday in opposition to proposals Petro has put forward including tax increases and land reform.
The president’s agenda could also cause fissures in the U.S.-Colombia relationship, a partnership that has provided Bogotá billions of dollars in U.S. aid and represented a cornerstone of U.S. dealings with the region. Already, Petro has abandoned the previous government’s policy on Venezuela, reestablishing ties with leftist President Nicolás Maduro and reopening the two countries’ borders to trade for the first time since 2019.
Brian Winter, vice president for policy at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, said Petro represents a “paradigm shift” on the issues that have dominated the U.S.-Colombian relationship, including the drug trade, border security and each country’s policy toward Venezuela. Petro is also urging changes to extradition practices that have allowed U.S. courts to try Colombian drug traffickers.
“He’s talking about a wholesale reinvention of the relationship between Colombia and the United States as it’s existed for the last 30 years,” Winter said. While both sides are proceeding cautiously as they size one another up, he said, “there’s no doubt that this very important relationship is changing and might look dramatically different two years from now.”
At the U.N. last week, Petro telegraphed his willingness to challenge the prevailing view among U.S. allies, not just on the drugs trade but on the war in Ukraine. In a fiery speech, he warned Latin American nations — in a nod to the U.S.-led campaign to support Kyiv against Russia — to be wary of pressure from outside powers “to ally ourselves on the fields of battle.”
Petro assumed power in Colombia as other countries in the region have taken a shift to the left, with the election of former protest leader Gabriel Boric in Chile and Marxist Pedro Castillo in Peru. As the Biden administration seeks to reassert U.S. influence in Latin America and respond to China’s deepening inroads, it will have to navigate those governments’ desire to establish a different rapport with Washington.
Petro, who served time in prison in the 1980s for his links to a guerrilla group, urged the United States to follow Colombia in broadly decriminalizing drug consumption and taking a “pragmatic” rather than “fundamentalist” approach to the narcotics trade.
Coca crops have reached record highs in recent years amid growing insecurity in rural Colombia, a sign of trouble more than five years after the government signed a peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the powerful leftist rebel group.
To respond to those problems, Petro said he would pursue a plan to implement “phased decriminalization,” beginning with coca leaf production by small-scale farmers known as campesinos. He described those farmers as victims of the drug war and other societal forces, citing their expulsion from rich farmland to remote jungle areas where poor soil and distance from markets made coca leaf one of the few economically viable crops.
“The campesino who grows coca leaf, in my opinion, is not a criminal,” he said. He said his proposal was aimed in part at protecting a vulnerable part of Colombian society and eliminating one potent driver of violence.
“As long as there’s prohibition there will be mafia,” he said. Decriminalizing some production “doesn’t mean ending the American cocaine market, but it does mean taking Colombia out of this cycle of violence.”
Petro repeatedly stressed the responsibility of consumer countries — especially the United States — to take greater responsibility for addressing demand at home in lieu of focusing on suppressing production abroad.
It appeared to be a more cautious step than what people close to his government had previously proposed, perhaps due to U.S. opposition to broad decriminalization and a lack of explicit support from his Andean neighbors Peru and Bolivia, who along with Colombia account for most global coca production. Petro declined to say whether he thought Colombian lawmakers would support such a move.
In what he called a potential “synergy” tacking drugs and climate change, Petro proposed that countries including the United States could help pay some Colombian campesinos to become stewards of the rainforest, eschewing the cultivation of coca or other crops in new areas and ensuring that virgin areas of Colombia’s Amazon survive.
Renata Segura, deputy program director for Latin America at the International Crisis Group, said Petro appeared to be attempting to position himself as an international leader on drug policy but would face challenges in forging a consensus beyond the failure of the current approach.
“A lot of conservative right-wing sections [of Colombia] would be horrified at the idea of any kind of regulation, but there is a very widespread opinion that the war on drugs has been very bad for Colombia,” Segura said. In that sense, she added, “I think he is reading the room.”
A State Department spokesperson, speaking on the condition of anonymity under department rules, said the Biden administration would work with Colombia to “disrupt the supply of illicit drugs and to promote holistic policies” supporting peace and development in coca-growing areas, in addition to efforts to reduce demand at home.
Some congressional Republicans are already voicing concern. In a letter last week to Rahul Gupta, the Biden administration’s top official for drug control policy, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) expressed consternation about Petro’s potential decriminalization plans and other issues.
“President Petro’s drug policy and posture towards the United States is alarming,” they wrote.
In a departure from many countries closely allied with the United States, Petro has also questioned the U.S.-led policy of support for Ukraine’s war against Russia’s invasion, which is also backed by most European countries.
“Let the Slavic nations speak among themselves; let the people of the world do it,” he said in his U.N. address. “War is only a trap that brings closer the end of times in a giant orgy of irrationality.”
Petro said in an interview that sending arms to Kyiv would escalate the conflict. Citing Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population, he said Ukraine’s assertion that the fighting was a justified means for defending its sovereignty was one of several versions of events surrounding the conflict.
“There are two narratives, like in every war,” he said.
Samantha Schmidt in Bogotá and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report. | 2022-09-27T10:53:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Colombian leader Petro proposes shift on drugs in test of U.S. ties - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/27/united-states-colombia-drugs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/27/united-states-colombia-drugs/ |
Former NFL quarterback Brett Favre is at the center of a widening scandal over misused welfare funds in the state. (Rogelio V. Solis/AP)
In 2017, a Mississippi nonprofit called Operation Shoestring received a federal grant worth more than $200,000. But when the organization sought to renew the funding a year later, the money was no longer available.
“It had been reallocated in ways we’re reading about now,” Robert Langford, executive director of Operation Shoestring, which has been providing aid to families in need for more than a half-century, said in an interview.
Mississippi’s widening welfare scandal involves tens of millions of dollars and has embroiled the state’s former governor, Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre and professional wrestlers, among others. Organizations such as Operation Shoestring, and the at-risk populations that rely on those funds, continue to feel the sting.
As Langford tried to renew the funding in 2018, the state officials tasked with distributing the money were found to be funneling millions away from those it was intended for. The scandal’s impact will be felt for years, advocates say.
“It makes my blood boil,” Langford said. “We’re talking about funds that were supposed to be used to help move people out of poverty in the poorest state instead becoming literal currency for favors, both political and financial for people. It’s amazing.”
The details of the scandal continue to emerge in court filings and reporting by nonprofit news organization Mississippi Today. Last week, John Davis, the former executive director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services, pleaded guilty to two federal charges and 18 state counts of embezzling federal welfare funds. The U.S. Justice Department said Davis misused the money and helped create “sham contracts … knowing that no significant services would be provided.”
Brett Favre sued by state of Mississippi over welfare misspending
His plea has spurred speculation that Favre and others could be further implicated. Favre received $1.1 million intended for welfare recipients in exchange for speeches and appearances the state auditor says he never made. And text messages included in court filings show Favre was heavily involved in discussions that resulted in $5 million in welfare money going toward the construction of a volleyball facility at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter played volleyball.
Favre is among the subjects of a civil suit filed by the state of Mississippi but hasn’t been charged criminally. He has denied any wrongdoing and returned $1.1 million to the state. His attorney, Bud Holmes, declined to comment on whether Davis’s plea deal might impact the former quarterback. “There’s no point in speculating,” Holmes said.
While Favre, 52, has been linked to just a small fraction of the government money alleged to have been misused by state officials, he has emerged as a public face of the scandal. He earned some $140 million during his 20-year NFL career and millions more in endorsement deals.
“Less than 1 percent of families in Mississippi receive TANF that are eligible, and that is because for years families have found it to be an inhumane process that is just not worth it,” said Aisha Nyandoro, the chief executive of Springboard To Opportunities, a nonprofit that works with Mississippi families in need. “They make it so incredibly difficult for families that need these resources to get it. But then others who don’t need it can just send a text message and money magically appears in their bank account.”
A Mississippi state audit in 2020 found more than $94 million in federal welfare funds that had been subject to suspect spending. An independent audit a year later confirmed most of the findings and, hampered by a lack of cooperation, said it was unable to discern whether nearly $77 million in spending was permissible.
“To change the narrative, we have to change the narrator. It is less about Brett Favre and this volleyball stadium. That becomes sensationalism,” Nyandoro said. “You can hide behind something like that and not recognize there are real victims, there are people that didn’t receive the money they needed to get their car fixed, to get a job; moms who couldn’t get diapers. What good could have been done in Mississippi with this $94 million? How many families could’ve been impacted?”
Despite widespread poverty across the state, court filings describe a corrupt system in which state officials directed welfare money to programs, people and projects that had little interest in helping the state’s most vulnerable.
Recent court filings have suggested Favre continually pressed state officials for money to pay for the volleyball facility. “We obviously need your help big time and time is working against us,” Favre texted Gov. Phil Bryant (R) on Sept. 4, 2019. “And we feel that your name is the perfect choice for this facility and we are not taking No for an answer!”
“We are going to get there,” the then-governor responded. “This was a great meeting. But we have to follow the law. I am [too] old for Federal Prison.”
Favre previously told Mississippi Today that he had not discussed the volleyball facility project with Bryant.
The latest texts were included in a filing made Friday by Bryant, who revealed some communications as he argued against a subpoena seeking access to more of his records. The former governor also shared texts he had exchanged with Rodney Bennett, former president of University of Southern Mississippi. In January 2020, shortly after Bryant had left office, Bennett texted him that he had “asked Brett not to do the things he’s doing to seek funding from state agencies and the legislature for the volleyball facility.”
“As you know, [Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning] has a process of how we request and get approval for projects and what he’s doing is outside those guidelines. I will see, for the ‘umpteenth time’ if we can get him to stand down,” Bennett wrote. “The bottom line is he personally guaranteed the project, and on his word and handshake we proceeded. It’s time for him to pay up — it really is just that simple.”
“Maybe he wants the State to pay off his promises,” Bryant responded. “Like all of us I like Brett. He is a legend but he has to understand what a pledge means. I have tried many time[s] to explain that to him.”
According to the latest court filing, Favre had previously texted Bryant in July 2019: “I have to come up with a lot of money if this doesn’t get clearance.”
The money for the volleyball facility was channeled through a nonprofit called Mississippi Community Education Center. Nancy New and her son, Zach, ran the organization, have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with investigators.
Favre tweeted in May 2020 that he had “never received monies for obligations I didn’t meet” and “was unaware that the money being dispersed was paid for out of funds not intended for that purpose.” But court filings suggest he had at least some awareness of where the money was coming from. Favre texted Bryant in July 2019, court records show, expressing hope that Nancy New also could help fund an indoor football facility, giving the school’s program “instant credibility.”
Bryant responded via text message, according to the filing, telling Favre that “Nancy has some limited control over Federal Funds in the form of Grants for Children and adults in the Low Income Community” and “any improper use could result in violation of Federal Law.”
As the scandal continues to unspool, the people at the heart of it hope for more accountability and corrective measures, even if it requires federal intervention to fix a system that failed Mississippi’s poor long before Favre started pushing the volleyball facility.
“There’s a sense that this is not a surprise,” Operation Shoestring’s Langford said. “It’s terrible, but it’s not a surprise. The deck has been stacked against low-income folks in Mississippi for generations. The scale of this is really extraordinary. Fundamentally, this is part of a long tradition of in some sense continuing to victimize people who have not been dealt a fair hand in generations.” | 2022-09-27T10:54:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brett Favre and the Mississippi welfare scandal that keeps growing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/27/brett-favre-mississippi-welfare/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/27/brett-favre-mississippi-welfare/ |
CLEVELAND — Browns All-Pro defensive end Myles Garrett was in hospital care as doctors assessed non-life-threatening injuries he suffered while flipping his Porsche in a one-car accident following practice.
ATLANTA — Geoff Collins is out as Georgia Tech’s football coach, fired in the midst of his fourth season after failing to make headway with a brash plan to turn the Yellow Jackets into a national powerhouse through branding and promoting Atlanta’s big-city culture.
TORONTO — Blue Jays right-hander Alek Manoah was honored with a sportsmanship award for defending teammate Alejandro Kirk after the catcher was criticized online for his weight. | 2022-09-27T10:54:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mondays-sports-in-brief/2022/09/27/2b18c070-3e45-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mondays-sports-in-brief/2022/09/27/2b18c070-3e45-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html |
American Airlines, JetBlue battle Biden administration in antitrust trial
Experts see the lawsuit as one volley in a larger Biden administration plan to tackle consolidation in key industries
By Douglas Moser
Lori Aratani
JetBlue and American Airlines planes are seen at Tampa International Airport. (Chris O'Meara/AP)
BOSTON — American Airlines and JetBlue Airways are set to defend a jet- and revenue-sharing partnership Tuesday as a federal antitrust trial begins that could open the gate for more relationships among domestic air carriers.
The Justice Department — joined by six states and D.C. — sued the airlines last year to break up the partnership, called the Northeast Alliance, saying it thins competition in an already concentrated industry. The airlines say the agreement allows two relatively smaller carriers in the Northeast, specifically in routes between Boston and New York, to compete more effectively against the two largest players there, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines.
Experts see the lawsuit playing out in a Boston federal courtroom as a volley in a larger Biden administration plan to tackle mergers and consolidation in key industries. Federal regulators also are weighing JetBlue’s plan to purchase Spirit Airlines amid a rocky year for carriers — stung by elevated flight cancellations that have caught the attention of Washington.
Agreements such as the Northeast Alliance are rare among domestic carriers, but they are common internationally. American is a founding partner of Oneworld, an alliance of international carriers that includes British Airways, Japan Airlines and others, that shares planes and airport space around the world.
Brian Quinn, a Boston College Law School professor who specializes in mergers and corporate law, said if the Northeast Alliance survives, it could lead to more alliances on other domestic routes.
“It could signal that you’re opening the door, and there’s no reason for people not to walk through it,” he said.
Justice Department sues to block American Airlines, JetBlue alliance in the Northeast
While the alliance between American and JetBlue is not a merger, the Justice Department maintains it is akin to one because two former rivals are teaming up to coordinate schedules, sell seats on each other’s flights on selected routes and share revenue on those transactions. In court filings, the Justice Department said the agreement erodes competition, costing consumers while “severely diminishing JetBlue’s role as the independent and disruptive force it had long been.”
The government’s argument leans on JetBlue’s history as a disrupter to the industry. Its role has been as an upstart that offers high-quality service at a lower fare, forcing legacy airlines to respond with lower fares themselves.
American and JetBlue, however, said the alliance is the only way they can compete with larger rivals United and Delta in the Northeast. In court filings, American and JetBlue said the alliance offers a “game changing solution” that has produced “hundreds of millions of dollars in consumer benefits.”
The trial will begin against the backdrop of an industry that has fewer competitors than 20 years ago, a consolidation that occurred through a combination of mergers and bankruptcies. According to the Justice Department, the top four airlines had 55 percent of the domestic air travel market in 2000, with another dozen smaller carriers competing for the rest. By 2020, the top four accounted for 81 percent of the market, alongside a dwindling number of smaller competitors.
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At the same time, JetBlue is proposing to purchase Spirit Airlines, a no-frills, low-fare carrier that competes against JetBlue on multiple routes around the country.
American and JetBlue finalized an agreement with the Transportation Department in the waning days of the Trump administration that included conditions to share seat and gate usage and other competition information with the federal government. The airlines agreed not to share information about fares and flights for other routes, where they compete against each other.
Both airlines also agreed to give up coveted slots at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Reagan National Airport outside D.C. to foster more competition in those busy facilities. Daniel Wall, an attorney representing American Airlines, said the Justice Department’s case ignores the additional flights, frequencies and competition created by the alliance.
“The DOJ’s case is all academic speculation theorizing that American and JetBlue have merged, when they have not and have no intention to do so,” he said.
Aviation analyst Henry Harteveldt said federal officials are challenging the alliance because of concerns it will enable two former rivals to collaborate in ways that harm consumers, although he said the public has seen benefits from the agreement.
“Everything I have seen is that it makes things easier for travelers,” Harteveldt said. “It helps JetBlue compete against Delta, and it helps American against Delta and United.”
He said that if the Justice Department succeeds in unwinding the carriers’ alliance, American would have to rethink how — or if — it wants to be a player in the New York market.
The case is part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to push back on what it sees as attempts to reduce competition in key industries.
Bill Baer, who led the Justice Department’s antitrust division from 2013 to 2016, said that in appointing Jonathan Kanter to head the antitrust division and Lina Khan to chair the Federal Trade Commission, the Biden administration selected two appointees who pledged to be aggressive about deals that reduce competition in key industries.
“This really is part of the Biden administration’s commitment to be very vigorous in opposing mergers and acquisitions that further consolidate already concentrated industries,” said Baer, now a visiting fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
In a speech this month at Georgetown Law’s Global Antitrust Enforcement Symposium, Kanter said the antitrust division is “working to use every tool we have available to promote competition and meet the moment.”
Since last November, the division has challenged or obtained merger abandonments in six cases. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this month, Kanter said the department has seven pending antitrust lawsuits — the largest number of civil cases in litigation in decades.
Justice Department lawyers have argued cases against mergers in publishing and health care in recent months, with mixed results. A federal judge ruled against the agency’s challenge to a merger between UnitedHealth Group and Change Healthcare. The department is awaiting a ruling in a case that involves a proposed merger between publishing giants Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.
Quinn, the Boston College professor, said the federal litigation signals a change from other administrations, where “bigger is better” had more bipartisan support.
“For years, antitrust has been a nonideological area,” he said. “I think this administration has focused on bigness as a problem not just in airlines, but big tech, agriculture — bigness across the board as a problem and is looking to use these antitrust tools.”
American, JetBlue lose bid to have antitrust suit tossed
The two airlines announced the Northeast Alliance in July 2020 and finalized an agreement with the Transportation Department in January 2021 that allowed the alliance to go into effect. The alliance began operating the next month. That September, the Justice Department and attorneys general in Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and D.C. sued to break it up.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Monday that the effects of the “anti-competitive new venture” will extend beyond the Northeast.
“[It] will hurt competition in more than 100 markets, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego — costing California consumers an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars each year,” he said in a statement. “We are in court today to prevent this unlawful attempt by American Airlines and JetBlue to merge their operations and reduce competition in the marketplace.” | 2022-09-27T10:54:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | American Airlines, JetBlue battle Justice Department in Boston antitrust trial - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/27/american-airlines-jetblue-antitrust/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/27/american-airlines-jetblue-antitrust/ |
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