text stringlengths 237 126k | date_download stringdate 2022-01-01 00:32:20 2023-01-01 00:02:37 ⌀ | source_domain stringclasses 60 values | title stringlengths 4 31.5k ⌀ | url stringlengths 24 617 ⌀ | id stringlengths 24 617 ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A Black dance team arrived at a majority-White college. Some got worried.
The Cardinal Divas are making waves and facing critics as the new majorette team at the University of Southern California. (Aziza Hutcherson/Washington Post illustration)
Ten Black women recently made history at a University of Southern California football game: Dancing in the stands to marching band music, the new majorette team, the Cardinal Divas of Southern California, brought a historically Black dance style to the majority-White college.
It was a moment that inaugural team member Ire Omitowoju, 20, had long hoped for. The team’s dance moves are fashioned after a West African-, jazz- and hip-hop-inspired style that started in the 1960s and is a staple at historically Black colleges and universities.
But establishing a beacon of Black culture where only a small Black community — about 6 percent of USC’s student body — exists hasn’t been simple.
“I hope that it makes people feel like they have a voice, that they have a space on campus and at the games to really, fully be themselves,” said Omitowoju, a junior majoring in arts, technology and the business of innovation.
A video clip of the team’s first football-game performance has been viewed more than 3 million times on Twitter, as many USC alumni applauded the team’s efforts to carve out a space for the school’s Black student body, informally known as “Black SC.” The Divas caught the attention of Jennifer Hudson, who invited them to perform on her talk show. And Dianna Williams, owner of the Dancing Dolls majorette team featured in the Lifetime reality series “Bring It!”, offered to fly to California to share her expertise with the team.
“SOOOOO PROUD,” tweeted rapper and USC alum Saweetie, along with a string of heart eyes, red and yellow hearts, and peace sign emoji. Soon after, a video circulated of Saweetie’s own days as a majorette dancer at San Diego State University before she transferred to USC.
Cardinals Divas member Hannah Ethridge, 20, wasn’t planning to transfer from Pepperdine University to USC until the spring, but when she heard about the team, she accelerated her plans so she could try out. An African American studies major, she was part of her mostly Black high school’s drill team, and many of her former classmates attend her hometown’s closest historically Black college, Texas Southern University.
“I’m glad that I’ve been able to form relationships with Black students and Black women who share similar values as me and who understand where I’m coming from,” Ethridge said.
The Army is making its first uniform bra. Vets say it’s long overdue.
The team’s breakthrough also resonated with other Black California college students, who were thrilled to hear of a new space for Black students. After watching the Divas’ viral dance video, Amiah Joyner, a business economics student at UCLA, asked them to help start a majorette team at her school.
“It’s just so empowering,” said Joyner, 18, adding that it reminded her of step classes offered in elementary school. “I think it’s a very important part of Black culture that every girl or Black femme should be able to be part of.”
USC’s team plans to “remain true and authentic” to HBCU culture, Omitowoju said. But as the clip of their performance climbed in views, the Cardinal Divas were met not just with excitement but with criticism, primarily from students and alumni at historically Black colleges, who feared that introducing traditionally Black culture to a predominantly White school would open the floodgates for cultural appropriation.
“The thing is y’all keep trying to recreate HBCU culture at non HBCUs when you can just GOOOO to an HBCU,” a Tuskegee University alum tweeted. “But y’all aren’t going to do that. Y’all don’t truly support them, but will continue to try and take bits and pieces of our experience.”
A Clark Atlanta University alum wrote: “I’m perfectly fine standing on this hill by myself. But wanting HBCU culture at white schools … instead of going to an HBCU … is weird.”
Black English is being misidentified as Gen Z lingo, speakers say
Raquel Monroe, a theater and dance professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said she would have eagerly auditioned to join a Black majorette team if one existed when she attended Arizona State University in the late 1980s. But seeing how Black dance culture, such as stepping and hip-hop, has been appropriated over the years when shared with White audiences has made her ambivalent about the prospect of majorette dance teams at predominantly White institutions.
“There’s a fear that this could be co-opted and transformed,” Monroe said. If majorette dance loses its footing in HBCUs, Monroe said, “we might recognize the dancing, but it won’t be happening with Black dancers anymore.”
In the past, college dance instructors wanted students with majorette backgrounds to “park that training at the door and leave it behind,” and to learn other styles they deemed had better technique, Monroe said. But she wants majorette to be embraced.
“I hope it fulfills the desire that dancers have to engage in a significant history,” she said.
Jackson State University is responsible for much of that history. In 1971, its Prancing J-Settes departed from the baton-twirling characteristic of majorette teams and began to focus on adding dance moves that incorporated jazz, gymnastics, hip-hop and modern dance, explained Mindy Chappell, an assistant professor at Portland State University. Since then, the J-Settes have set the stage for many Black majorette teams, inspired LGBTQ choreographers and influenced the dance moves of celebrities such as Beyoncé and Ciara.
“Young women created a space for them to be their unapologetic selves, and honor movements from the African diaspora,” Chappell said.
HBCU students are being disproportionately affected by Roe’s reversal
The USC team adopted a style that mimics Jackson State’s J-Settes in which a lead dancer performs a move, and the others repeat it. The Divas often call-and-respond to an eight-count where they buck, a popping dance move the J-Settes are famous for.
All-Black majorette teams outside of HBCUs are rare but not unheard of. Kent State University in Ohio has had the Flashettes since 2016. DePaul University, the nation’s largest Catholic university, is home to the Dazzling Demons Majorette Dancers. The Bearettes at the University of California at Berkeley became the first majorette-style drill team in the UC system when the group was formed in 2015.
The UC Berkeley team has gained popularity over the years and will perform during the halftime of an upcoming Golden State Warriors game, said Ashley Anderson, 25, who was part of the inaugural team. But there was a lack of support from the school’s Black community early on, she said.
When the Bearettes began performing at the base of the student section during football games, Berkeley students would walk through their dance formations, throw food on them and steal some of the team’s belongings when they weren’t looking, Anderson said. The dancers’ shows and fundraisers weren’t as well attended as other Black student events at the university. Looking back, Anderson brushes it off as typical college student disrespect, but back then, it stung.
“Ultimately, what’s most important is for people to just really follow their hearts’ desire, and if they felt like they needed a space for themselves on their campus to dance and express themselves and do what they want to do, I think it’s fine,” she said.
Servers in pigtails earn more tips. It’s creeping them out.
The Divas have faced their own challenges. Since the team was established July, it has struggled to get field access for rehearsals and support from the USC Athletics Department to make the student-led organization into an official university team, said Brianna Brothers, the team’s videographer. The dancers now can only perform from stadium bleachers but hope to make it to the football field eventually. They perform with black USC sports bras and shorts, but they’d like funding to buy official majorette uniforms.
“They deserve everything,” Brothers said. “I hope that in the future, they keep getting this attention and that people keep their eyes on them.”
USC didn’t address its support for the Divas, or whether it would fulfill their desire to perform field shows, when asked for comment. “We admire the initiative, leadership and passion demonstrated by the majorette team,” the university said in a statement. “By engaging with and highlighting our talented student body, we hope to create an energetic, inclusive and unique experience for our students and the USC community.”
The Cardinal Divas may not have all their desired resources, but if the team’s popularity grows to be like the Bearettes’ at UC Berkeley, the university’s backing will grow, too, Anderson said.
“When you’re new and you’re trying to start something that people aren’t used to, it’s going to be a fight within itself,” she said.
The Divas’ viral moment, at least, should help.
“These girls are a bunch of amazing unicorns that you want to look at,” Brothers said. “What makes these girls different is that they brought so much attention to themselves, and they were able to make USC hear them.” | 2022-10-04T17:03:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | USC’s Cardinal Divas majorette team draws excitement — and HBCU scrutiny - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/04/usc-cardinal-divas-majorette/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/04/usc-cardinal-divas-majorette/ |
Bulgaria is no closer to a stable government after Sunday’s elections
Four things to know about Bulgaria’s fourth time at the polls in 18 months
Analysis by Emilia Zankina
Tim Haughton
A voter with her dog casts a ballot at a polling station in Sofia during Bulgaria's parliamentary elections on Oct. 2. (Dimitar Kyosemarliev/AFP)
Elections do not always provide clarity and resolution. Sometimes they merely prolong uncertainty. On Sunday, Bulgarians went to the polls for the fourth time in 18 months, but the chances of forming a stable government look slim. Here are four reasons Bulgaria’s elections failed to produce a more definitive outcome.
The novelty of new parties fades
A new party, Change Continues, won the November 2021 elections with a recipe familiar to observers of Central and East European politics: a strong dose of anti-corruption combined with a claim of competence, a dash of celebrity and the appeal of newness.
But party leaders Kiril Petkov and Asen Vasilev formed a coalition that lacked the skills and experience to navigate the corridors of power. They struggled to deliver on their promises, and the coalition was derailed when a junior partner left the government — a move taken in protest over the government’s decision to lift Bulgaria’s veto on North Macedonia starting E.U. accession negotiations. A caretaker government replaced Petkov’s administration in August.
The Ukraine crisis may reinvigorate Eastern European democracies
In Sunday’s election, Change Continues saw its support slip to 20 percent. Its campaign sought to mobilize voters around an anti-corruption agenda, strong pro-E. U. position and center-left issues such as higher pensions and more kindergartens. Its limited time in office, and the fact that no new anti-corruption party had appeared to lure away its voters, allowed Change Continues to hang onto at least some of its electorate.
So what do we know about the winner?
The winner of Sunday’s election was three-time prime minister Boyko Borissov. His GERB party won 25 percent of the vote. Mobilizing GERB’s strong local networks and pointing to his successful infrastructure projects, Borissov even managed to win over some former Change Continues voters. Borissov seemed to offer a stability that many Bulgarians seek as the country grapples with high energy prices and a cost-of-living crisis. But corruption allegations against GERB may have curtailed votes from frustrated and disillusioned Bulgarians. For some voters, chaos appeared preferable to corruption.
Another party often accused of corruption, the Movement for Rights and Freedom (MRF), also maintained much of its prior support, ending up with more than 13 percent of the vote. Its success is based largely — but not exclusively — on the party’s strong partisan attachment among ethnic Turkish voters both in Bulgaria and in neighboring Turkey.
The Baltic states are also worried about Russia
Bulgarians are divided over Russia
The war in Ukraine and Russia’s energy politics have heightened divisions in Bulgarian party politics. Strong historical ties between Bulgaria and Russia helped to fuel support for the nationalist party, Revival, which doubled its support to 10 percent. And a new party with a pro-Russian orientation, Bulgarian Rise, won just under 5 percent of the vote. Petkov had sacked its leader, Stefan Yanev, as defense minister after he refused to describe Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a war.
The pro-Russian stances of Revival and Bulgarian Rise took away potential supporters from the once-dominant vehicle of the country’s politics: the Bulgarian Socialist Party. As the successors to the Bulgarian Communist Party, the Socialists have long-standing links with Russia, but they have become bit-part players in politics in recent times. Despite disagreements with Change Continues, particularly on sanctions against Russia and armed support for Ukraine, the Socialists remained loyal coalition partners until the collapse of the government.
Bulgarians played new and nationalist cards
The pro-Russian parties also won votes from There Is Such a People — a new party centered on its leader, a pop-singer and TV media personality named Slavi Trifonov. The party burst onto the scene in Bulgaria’s April 2021 election. It then won in early elections three months later, but Trifonov failed to form a government. Following Bulgaria’s third elections of 2021, There Is Such a People joined the governing coalition of Change Continues, only to leave it over the North Macedonian veto. The language, identity and the very use of the name of Macedonia is contested by some sections of Bulgarian society.
Trifonov played on nationalist sensitivities, claiming, “Macedonia is an important part of our history and our soul.” He denounced the decision to support Macedonia’s E.U. accession as “national treachery.” He triggered a no-confidence vote in the hope of better results at the ballot box. But by then his star was fading. Support for his party dropped by more than half, leaving it below the 4 percent threshold required to enter parliament. There Is Such a People appears to be following the trend of many new parties in the region of living fast and dying young.
There is little hope that this week’s elections will produce any government, even a short-lived one. As one leading Bulgarian sociologist put it, “The mathematically possible coalitions are politically unviable and the politically viable coalitions are mathematically impossible.” As predicted by analysts and political leaders alike, these elections were inconclusive and ultimately fruitless.
At the same time, the need for a stable and regular government in Bulgaria is more acute than ever. Geostrategic uncertainties amid Russia’s war in Ukraine — coupled with a Europe-wide economic downturn and a worldwide energy crisis — require immediate attention and resolute political decisions. Instead, Bulgarians are likely to be confronted yet again with another round of early elections.
Emilia Zankina is dean of Temple University Rome.
Tim Haughton is professor of comparative and European politics at the University of Birmingham. Find him on Twitter @HaughtonTim. | 2022-10-04T17:04:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will Borissov's GERB party manage to form Bulgaria's new government? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/04/bulgaria-election-borissov-petkov/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/04/bulgaria-election-borissov-petkov/ |
Dave Johnson, left, with color commentator Devon McTavish. (Courtesy Dave Johnson)
The nuttiest travel adventure of Dave Johnson’s 27 seasons as D.C. United’s first — and only — TV play-by-play announcer probably came in 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Johnson is also the Washington Wizards’ radio voice, and when the MLS and NBA seasons overlap, schedules can test even the most nimble traveler.
The Wizards were starting a four-game western swing on a Friday night in Salt Lake City. United was opening the season at home Saturday afternoon.
After the Wizards’ game, Johnson scrambled to catch a red-eye to Boston because there were no other late-night flights heading east. He connected to Reagan National Airport, where broadcast partner Devon McTavish was waiting to drive him to Audi Field.
After United’s match, he hustled back to the airport for a flight to San Francisco for the Wizards’ game the next day against the Golden State Warriors.
“I never wanted to miss a game,” Johnson, 58, said this week. “The emotion behind soccer is so strong and so unique, it’s why I do it. Believe me, if I had to take a ship and ride a bike as well, I'd get to the game.”
That chapter of Johnson’s life with United — demented travel days and all — is coming to a close. Local broadcasts in MLS are ending after this season. That means an end for Johnson and United, which wraps up its season at home on Sunday afternoon. Starting next season, every match will appear on Apple TV as part of a 10-year deal reportedly worth $2.5 billion.
Apple and MLS have not finalized broadcast plans yet, but according to people familiar with the discussions, officials are considering 12 to 15 announcing teams handling matches on location, like the NFL.
With local productions winding down, announcers around the league have begun bidding farewell during broadcasts. Several have been on the job for many years, but no one has done it longer with one club than Johnson — first with Home Team Sports, then NewsChannel 8, Comcast SportsNet, WJLA 24/7 News, FloSports and NBC Sports Washington.
United could end up retaining him in some capacity, for radio play-by-play or digital programming. (United’s current radio broadcast is simulated audio from the NBC Sports Washington broadcast.) At the moment, though, he isn’t sure what the future holds.
“You knew this was coming, but you are focused on the games each week. Now all of a sudden you don’t know what’s next — it’s jarring,” Johnson said a day after returning from Tokyo with the Wizards. “You’re preparing for the last game but it’s not just the last game, it’s the last game.”
Johnson has called most of United’s 800-plus regular season matches and described most of the team’s 1,200-plus goals using his signature cry: “It’s in the net!”
That call did not start with United; he began using it on radio broadcasts of Baltimore Blast indoor games in the late 1980s.
Those were the days Johnson was converting his love of the sport — he is from Anne Arundel County and followed the Washington Diplomats — into a play-by-play career.
A few years after the North American Soccer League’s demise, Johnson called games for the Maryland Bays, a small-scale outfit based in Columbia. Before a 1988 playoff game in South Florida, Johnson struck a deal with owner John Liparini: If Johnson paid for the airtime, Liparini would pay his travel expenses. Johnson got two hours for $250 on a station in Towson.
Two hours is usually all you need in soccer, but then “the skies turn charcoal black,” Johnson recalled. “The lightning starts. We’re in a delay. I can't throw it back to the station. I bought the time and they didn't plan for anything. It’s just me and my equipment, and I am literally talking for an hour and 15 minutes and pulling people from the press box to fill time.”
The station didn’t charge him for the additional time.
MLS’s launch opened fresh opportunities. His first broadcast partner was Gordon Bradley, the former coach of the Diplomats, New York Cosmos and George Mason University. Over the years, Johnson worked alongside Thomas Rongen, John Harkes and Santino Quaranta, among others.
For the past seven seasons, McTavish has handled color commentary.
“Dave is the patriarch of the D.C. United community,” said McTavish, a former United player. “His passion is real. He’s been doing it for 27 seasons because he loves the sport and he loves the club. He’s gone through the highs and the lows, and keeps coming back — and coming back with a smile.”
A broadcasting novice, McTavish learned from his partner.
“Before the first broadcast, he said, ‘Just pretend we’re two guys at the bar,’ ” McTavish said. “It’s easy to say that but another thing to feel that way. Dave makes you that comfortable.”
No matter what happens with MLS, Johnson will have plenty on his plate. He’s beginning his 26th season with the Wizards and, since 1995, has handled WTOP Radio’s morning sports report.
He is also managing to live with multiple sclerosis, with which he was diagnosed in 2019. “Life is tougher, but it’s my new normal,” he said. Last month, shirts featuring “It’s in the Net!” and Johnson’s face were created to help raise funds for the National MS Society.
Johnson’s mother died in 1979 of complications from MS. One of her last good days, he said, was attending a Diplomats game at RFK Stadium.
“The Diplomats gave me an outlet during a very difficult time that next year without her,” Johnson said. “I always vowed, if I had a chance to get involved in the sport, I would do it. I’ve been able to do that for more than half my life.” | 2022-10-04T17:05:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. United broadcaster Dave Johnson sees role end with MLS changes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/dave-johnson-dc-united-broadcast/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/dave-johnson-dc-united-broadcast/ |
‘The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry’: Too much story, not enough life
Movie based on Gabrielle Zevin’s 2014 bestseller is a love letter to books that gets bogged down by plot
Kunal Nayyar in “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.” (Vertical Entertainment)
Set in a small independent bookstore and centering on its proprietor, a curmudgeonly widower, “The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” is permeated by love. Not the romantic kind — although there is a little of that, too — but mostly the love of reading, writing, thinking about and talking about books. “A place without a bookstore is not a place,” someone says when the existence of the film’s bookstore setting is threatened. If that sentiment makes you smile (guilty), or even jump up, pump your fist and shout “right on,” this movie already has a leg up.
Based on Gabrielle Zevin’s 2014 bestseller and adapted for the screen by the author — who is as known for her adult novels as she is for her young-adult fiction — “Fikry” takes place on a quaintly fictional island off Cape Cod, in a picturesque town where the film’s 40-something protagonist (Kunal Nayyar of “The Big Bang Theory”) has been drinking himself to sleep every night since his wife died, in the depressing little living space behind his shop. It’s a shop whose owner has strong opinions about literature, freely shared, but not many customers. His place is as cluttered and dingy as a used bookstore, although it’s not one — at least not exclusively. A.J. does stock some new releases, scattered among prop books that look like they were sourced from a few dozen estate sales in Hyannis.
To be sure, A.J. does get his life together enough to qualify to adopt the little girl, named Maya. And Nayyar, I’ll admit, makes an unexpectedly charming antihero. The rest of the cast is strong, too, with easy, laid-back performances by David Arquette as the affable town cop and Christina Hendricks as the sister of A.J.’s late wife, married to A.J.’s best friend and the island’s best-selling novelist (Scott Foley). Playing Maya, from age 2 to adolescence without much distinction, are Charlotte Thanh Theresin, Jordyn McIntosh and Blaire Brown.
Yes, time really does fly here, along with genuine character development, which goes right out the window as love, marriage, infidelity, a shocking paternity revelation, a tragic car accident, cancer and other developments (including the unmasking of the “Tamerlane” thief) come marching through this postcard-perfect town with metronomic regularity and all the subtlety of jackbooted stormtroopers.
PG-13. At area theaters. Contains brief strong language, some suggestive material and mature thematic elements. 105 minutes. | 2022-10-04T17:38:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry’: Too much story, not enough life - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/04/the-storied-life-of-aj-fikry-movie-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/04/the-storied-life-of-aj-fikry-movie-review/ |
After 61 years on WRC-TV, ‘It’s Academic’ is moving to WETA
Hillary Howard on the set of “It's Academic.” The long-running high school quiz show has new sponsors in David M. Rubenstein and MITRE. (Robin Trepanier/"It's Academic”)
The ancient Greeks referred to planets as “wandering stars” for the peripatetic way the celestial bodies moved across the night sky. That’s just the sort of factoid you might learn on a TV show that, in its own way, risked becoming a wandering star: “It’s Academic.”
But the homegrown high school quiz show has found a safe orbit. The program is moving to WETA, the District’s local PBS station.
“It’s finally where it probably should have been all along,” said Miguel Monteverde, senior vice president and general manager of WETA Greater Washington.
While “It’s Academic” has been on WRC (Channel 4) since its debut in 1961, over the last few years the show has confronted a passel of pesky problems that seemed to put its future in — to use the name of another quiz show — jeopardy. When WRC began renovations on its studios, “It’s Academic” had to find a new place to tape. Then longtime sponsor Giant Food pulled out. Then the pandemic forced producers to revamp the show, pitching students against one another via Zoom.
Now, producers are looking forward to stasis (a state of equilibrium or inactivity) at WETA.
“We share the same goals, in terms of education and valuing students and teachers,” said Susan Altman, the show’s producer (and daughter of the late creator, Sophie Altman). “It’s a perfect fit.”
The sponsors who stepped in after Giant’s departure to support “It’s Academic” — David M. Rubenstein and MITRE — are sticking around.
Monteverde joined WETA three years ago, after earlier stints at such media companies as Discovery. Part of his mandate, he said, has been to create programming that appeals to people in the Washington area.
“This was always on my short list of local shows,” he said. “I think it was my first month on the job when I tracked down Susan and said, ‘Hey, if you’re ever looking for a new home, think about WETA.’ ”
Monteverde is an Oakton High School graduate — Class of 1986 — but says he doesn’t consider himself a native. He was an Army brat.
“I didn’t have the joy of growing up in one place,” he said. “When somebody says, ‘Where are you from?’ that’s still a difficult question for me to answer. I’ve literally lived here since 1984. The more I know about this area, the more I feel like I’m from here, the more I feel like a part of it.”
That’s a sentiment he shares with many WETA viewers — and potential viewers.
“When I started, we did a fairly exhaustive research study,” Monteverde said. “We did a dozen focus groups — surveyed thousands of local viewers — and asked what they wanted from their local television station.
“The context is this is an incredibly competitive television landscape. Why tune into local public television when everything is on Netflix and Hulu?”
Or, indeed, on PBS.
“In addition to having the highest quality programming from PBS, we thought there was a need for local programming you’d never find on other services,” Monteverde said. “That was the theory. We tested the theory by talking to consumers, to local viewers. What they told us was they wanted to know more about the D.C. area.”
Since Monteverde’s arrival, WETA has introduced “If You Lived Here,” a house-hunting show that also conveys a sense of neighborhood history, and “Signature Dish,” which profiles local restaurants. A weekend getaway travel show — currently shooting in Charlottesville — is in the works.
And soon there will be “It’s Academic.” Teams are still competing on Zoom, but producers hope to get back in the studio soon, taping first at Montgomery County’s cable studios and eventually at WETA’s offices in Shirlington. As it happens, those studios are also being renovated.
Host Hillary Howard will helm the WETA debut of the show’s 62nd season, which will be broadcast Saturday, Oct. 29 at 10 a.m. and repeated that evening. Teams from Herndon, Washington-Liberty and W.T. Woodson high schools will compete.
“It was a show that I grew up with and it’s persisted to be an iconic show,” Monteverde said. “Others have disappeared or gone away. Susan and her team have managed to keep that one going.”
Altman said the last few years have been pretty hectic.
“That’s the nature of television,” she said. “That’s the nature of a lot of things. You have to move forward.”
Television may change — new technology, new platforms, new content — but there’s something that doesn’t. Said Altman: “One thing that never changes is teenagers.” | 2022-10-04T17:51:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'It's Academic' quiz show is moving to WETA - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/04/its-academic-quiz-show-weta/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/04/its-academic-quiz-show-weta/ |
Ian tied for the fifth-strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States, causing destruction likely among the worst in the nation’s history
Tammy Drake and her daughter Maddy Drake evacuate Fort Myers Beach, Fla., on Friday due to damage from Hurricane Ian. (Ted Richardson/For The Washington Post)
Hurricane Ian will be remembered as one of the most consequential in recent U.S. history, leaving scores of homes and businesses obliterated in addition to a still-rising number of deaths.
After pummeling Cuba, the storm came ashore on the western coast of Florida with an unforgiving storm surge that gutted the first floors of buildings and winds that knocked out about a quarter of Florida’s power. The Category 4 storm dropped more than 20 inches of rain on central parts of the state.
That wasn’t the end of Ian. It meandered over water again and made landfall in South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane.
President Biden said the scale of Ian’s devastation will probably rank among the “worst in the nation’s history.” Below are key figures on the storm’s impact and strength.
68 deaths and counting — Most of the deaths reported so far have been due to drowning in Florida, according to the Florida Medical Examiners Commission. County sheriffs have reported higher fatality figures, and the official toll is expected to rise.
The highest number of deaths occurred near the storm’s landfall in Lee County, which includes Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel Island. The deadliest hurricane on record in Florida killed at least 2,500 people in 1928. Hurricanes in 1919, 1926, 1935 each claimed between 350 and 800 lives, although all these numbers are considered somewhat unreliable.
Deaths from Ian have also been reported in North Carolina and Cuba.
6,000-plus flights canceled — Roughly 2,000 flights were canceled each day Wednesday through Friday, primarily in zones between where Ian made landfall in Florida and South Carolina. Airports in Tampa and Orlando, among others in Florida, completely shut down as the storm passed. Charleston International Airport in South Carolina also closed. Most other airports in that area remained operational but with significant delays and cancellations.
2.5 million evacuation orders — Millions of Floridians were placed under evacuation orders as Ian approached. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said about 100 evacuation centers opened statewide. Many people did not evacuate, however.
The evacuation orders covered many fewer people compared to those for Hurricane Irma, which made landfall on the Florida peninsula as a Category 3 storm in 2017. Irma was responsible for the largest U.S. evacuation in history, with roughly 7 million people ordered to leave their homes, mostly in Florida.
3.4 million-plus U.S. power outages — Around 2.7 million customers were in the dark at peak outage in Florida. That adds up to about 25 percent of the state, markedly higher than Category 5 Hurricane Michael that left 4 percent of the state without power in 2018. North Carolina recorded around 350,000 people without power at its peak, and South Carolina was around 218,000. Virginia topped 100,000. Georgia added about 15,000 out at peak.
However, the U.S. power outages pale in comparison to Cuba, where failures after Ian caused the whole island of 11 million to go dark.
$60 billion-plus in insured losses — Ian is estimated to have caused more than $60 billion in private insured losses just in Florida, making it the second-largest disaster loss event on record, according to the industry trade group Insurance Information Institute. Ian trails Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caused $89.7 billion in inflation adjusted insured losses.
Drone video from this morning showing the devastation out on Fort Myers Beach. The Red Coconut Mobile Home Park was completely washed away with homes mangled and thrown onto piles of homes and pieces of homes. #HurricaneIan #Florida pic.twitter.com/zk0ks4agP6
— Brian Emfinger (@brianemfinger) October 1, 2022
Storm statistics
Three landfalls — Ian made landfall as a hurricane three different times. It first came ashore as a 125-mph Category 3 storm near La Coloma, Cuba, early on Sept. 27. On the afternoon of Sept. 28, the storm struck Cayo Costa, Fla., as a Category 4 with 150 mph winds. Two days later, Ian made its final landfall near Georgetown, S.C., as a Category 1 at 85 mph.
Fifth-strongest winds — At 150 mph, Ian’s landfall wind speed in Florida ties for the fifth-strongest on record in the United States, with seven other storms. It ties for the fourth-highest landfall speed on record in Florida. The highest winds are rarely recorded, given a relatively sparse observation network, but observations show impressive gusts across Florida at 140 mph in Cape Coral, 135 mph in Punta Gorda and Solana, 112 mph in Pelican Bay and 110 mph in La Belle. Places as far from landfall as Tampa and Daytona saw hurricane-force wind gusts.
Gusts of 92 mph and 94 mph were also recorded at Shutes Folly, S.C., and Chesapeake Light Tower, Va., respectively.
Sixth major hurricane to hit the Gulf in last six years — Over the past six seasons, six Category 4 or stronger hurricanes have hit the continental United States: Harvey and Irma (2017), Michael (2018), Laura (2020), Ida (2021) and Ian (2022).
Other areas nearby have also been hit hard, notably portions of the Caribbean. Puerto Rico was hit by Category 4 Maria in 2017, and Category 5 Irma trashed numerous islands before reaching the United States. Dorian also roared through the Bahamas as a Category 5 before crawling northward off the Southeast coast. Hurricanes Eta and Iota in 2020 hit Nicaragua as Category 4s, as well.
All of these storms experienced rapid intensification, increasing their wind speeds by at least 35 mph within 24 hours. Scientists expect that rapid intensification events, especially in strong storms, will increase due to warming ocean waters associated with climate change.
12-foot-plus storm surge — A surge, or rise in ocean water above normally dry land at the coast, as high 12 feet was reported by Florida’s DeSantis shortly after landfall Wednesday afternoon, and forecast values of 12 to 18 feet are suspected to have occurred in some spots. The Weather Channel’s hurricane expert Rick Knabb indicated some areas were likely above 12 feet, “but it takes time to collect water marks.” Tide gauges in Naples and Fort Myers both posted their highest water levels on record.
Imagery of houses underwater up to near the ceiling would indicate at least 8 to 10 feet surge. Values were almost certainly higher in parts of the Florida coast, which will be determined in ongoing surveys. A surge around 5 feet was also reported near Myrtle Beach, S.C., its third-highest on record, as Ian made its second U.S. landfall nearby.
21.16 inches of rain — Union Park, just northeast of Orlando in central Florida, picked up 21.16 inches of rain from the storm. That’s almost four times the average rainfall for September in Orlando, and it fell in about 36 hours. The rainfall from Ian pushed Orlando to its wettest month on record. Another dozen official observation sites topped 10 inches from the storm. Parts of the region saw a “1 in 500 year” rainfall (meaning it had only a 0.2 percent chance of happening in a given year), leading to widespread and significant flooding on lakes and rivers.
Ian’s rainfall output in Florida on Sept. 29 ranked as the third-most on record since 2005, according to the National Weather Service, trailing only two exceptionally rainy days during Hurricane Harvey.
Charleston picked up 10.75 inches from Ian, which was the most outside Florida.
940 millibars landfall pressure — The strength of a hurricane’s winds is linked to the how low the atmospheric pressure is at the storm’s center; pressure lower than 980 millibars is typically thought of as conducive for hurricane formation. Ian rapidly strengthened from a tropical storm to a Category 3 hurricane with a 952 millibar pressure as it struck Cuba. This probably helped the core of the hurricane exit the country in a healthy condition, setting up a second round of rapid intensification that allowed for a 937 millibar minimum pressure.
The 937 millibar landfall pressure was the ninth-deepest central pressure for a storm hitting Florida, behind events such as Category 5 storms Michael in 2018 (919 millibars) and Andrew in 1992 (922 millibars).
Hurricane Ian intensified by 30kt in 12 hours last night, while already a cat-3/4.
At its location, there's no record of a storm this strong, strengthening *even at all* any further.
Rapidly intensifying major hurricanes at landfall is a terrible theme in the last few years. pic.twitter.com/CtN2rPKCGQ
— Sam Lillo (@splillo) September 28, 2022
Thousands of lightning strikes — In the time just before landfall, as many as 1,000 lightning events were detected in the eyewall — making it one of the most electric eyewalls in a storm in the Gulf of Mexico. Overall, as many as 34,000 lightning events were recorded in the storm, according to Vaisala scientists, placing it in the high end of tropical cyclones for lightning. While the mechanisms behind intense eyewall lightning are not fully understood, it tends to favor atypically powerful storms.
Two — There are two months left of this hurricane season, which runs June 1 through Nov. 30. October in particular can deliver high-end storms, so it’s not quite time to stop watching just yet. | 2022-10-04T18:35:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Summary of impacts and devastation from Hurricane Ian, by the numbers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/04/hurricane-ian-statistics-deaths-winds-surge/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/04/hurricane-ian-statistics-deaths-winds-surge/ |
FILE - Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., host and executive producer of the PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” takes part in a panel discussion during the 2019 Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., on July 29, 2019. Gates Jr., details the social history of African Americans in a four-part PBS series, “Making Black America: Through the Grapevine.” (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-10-04T18:35:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | PBS' 'Making Black America' details thriving while excluded - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/pbs-making-black-america-details-thriving-while-excluded/2022/10/04/66592370-440b-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/pbs-making-black-america-details-thriving-while-excluded/2022/10/04/66592370-440b-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html |
Former Northeastern University worker charged with faking explosion
The Boston police bomb squad and other law enforcement officers responded to a call about an explosion in Holmes Hall at Northeastern University on Sept. 13. (Nicholas Pfosi/Reuters)
A former Northeastern University administrator who authorities say called police to report an exploding package at a university lab last month has been charged with fabricating the story and intentionally sharing false and misleading information with federal law enforcement about the incident.
Jason Duhaime, the university’s former new technology manager and Immersive Media Lab director, was arrested Tuesday in Texas, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Rachael S. Rollins said at a news conference. Rollins added that she could not comment on a motive because the case is ongoing.
Duhaime, 45, was charged with one count of intentionally conveying misleading information related to an explosive device and one count of making repeatedly false statements to a federal law enforcement agency.
“This alleged conduct is disturbing to say the least,” Rollins said. “Mr. Duhaime’s 911 call on Sept. 13 generated an enormous law enforcement response that resulted in the evacuation of a large portion of the Northeastern [University] campus and the understandable panic among many Northeastern students, faculty and staff.”
According to federal authorities, Duhaime called emergency responders around 7 p.m. on Sept. 13 to report an explosion. That evening, authorities said, Duhaime told the 911 operator that he was injured by sharp objects that came out of a plastic Pelican case that contained a “violent note.”
Northeastern University package blast may have been staged, officials say
As part of the investigation, Duhaime told authorities — including at least one federal agent — that earlier that day, he and some students had collected several packages from the mail area and brought them to a closet in the lab, Rollins said. He told investigators that when he opened one of the cases, “very sharp” objects flew out and traveled under his shirt, injuring his eyes, Rollins said. Duhaime also alleged that one of the packages contained a letter threatening the lab.
Duhaime also reported that a second “suspicious” container was inside the lab, authorities said. It was later deemed safe when inspected by the bomb squad.
When investigators arrived at the scene, federal authorities said, they found the Pelican case empty and undamaged. There was also no letter inside the case and no indication that it had been exposed to an explosive or forceful discharge “of any type or magnitude.” The case “appeared normal,” Rollins said at Tuesday’s news conference. The lab’s closet also appeared normal and no debris was found, federal authorities said.
In follow-up interviews with authorities, Duhaime repeated the same statements to police, adding that he did not stage the incident, Rollins said. A forensic analysis of a work computer belonging to Duhaime that was seized by investigators showed a “word-for-word letter” stored in the backup folder that was created at 2:57 p.m. that same day — roughly four hours before the reported explosion, Rollins said. It also had a last printed date of Sept. 13 at 4:02 p.m. court records state.
A spokesperson with Northeastern University confirmed Duhaime is no longer employed by the university in an email sent to The Washington Post.
“Knowing what we know now about this incident, we would like to make it clear that there was never any danger to the Northeastern community. As always, the safety of our students, faculty, and staff is our highest priority,” a spokesperson with the university told The Post in an email.
Duhaime, who resides in San Antonio, is scheduled to appear in front of a federal judge in Boston at a later date. It is not immediately clear whether he has retained an attorney.
Derek Hawkins contributed to this report. | 2022-10-04T18:35:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jason Duhaime charged with staging Northeastern U. explosion, feds say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/04/northeastern-jason-duhaime-explosion-arrest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/04/northeastern-jason-duhaime-explosion-arrest/ |
Undersea pipeline sabotage demands the West prepare for more attacks
This photo taken on Sept. 29 shows a gas leak at one of the damaged Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, (Danish Defence/AFP via Getty Images)
Evidence continues to accumulate regarding underwater explosions that blew huge holes in two Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipelines on Sept. 27, and the circumstances all point to what an official NATO statement called “deliberate” sabotage. Sweden and Denmark have officially informed the U.N. Security Council that there were “at least two detonations” using “several hundred kilos” of explosives. This is the kind of capability usually wielded by a state actor, though NATO did not say officially what everyone suspects unofficially: The author of this strike against Europe’s stability and security was Russia. Now the United States and its allies must meet a new challenge: threats to critical infrastructure, just as they are about to try to get through winter without Russian oil and gas.
Intelligence sources had foreseen this, and, indeed, Ukraine’s government warned of it. Getting the response right begins with understanding why President Vladimir Putin might have chosen to strike where and when he did. In some ways, the pipelines — known as Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 — made attractive targets precisely because the short-term harm to Europe’s economy would be relatively limited. Neither carried much gas. Russia shut off the flow in Nord Stream 1, ostensibly for routine maintenance, more than a month ago, and the German government canceled Nord Stream 2’s planned opening in response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Furthermore, the explosions took place in international waters in the Baltic Sea, meaning that they cannot be construed as a direct attack on any NATO member, which could have triggered the alliance’s mutual-defense agreement. As for the timing, the attack came on the day a new undersea gas pipeline opened from one NATO member that borders on Russia, Norway, to another, Poland, which the latter had billed as a quantum leap for its energy security.
Put it all together and the attack looks very much like an attempt to take revenge on countries that have backed Ukraine — a signal to them that more expensive energy supply disruptions might be coming — while preserving plausible deniability.
The West has long been aware of Russia’s capacity to disrupt critical energy and communications infrastructure through cyberattacks and disinformation. In April, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with the FBI and the National Security Agency, issued a joint warning about the cyberthreat to critical infrastructure such as energy and utilities. And so far, Ukraine and its supporters have kept cyber-damage to a minimum. Sabotage to the gas pipelines shows that Russia might use more prosaic “kinetic” tools — high explosives — to achieve the same purposes. In fact, Norway has suspected the Russian navy damaged its undersea fiber-optic cables earlier this year.
NATO was wise not to assign blame without ironclad proof, while warning it would respond forcefully against known culprits. What must come next, however, is stepped up air and naval surveillance of the global network of undersea pipelines and cables, more accumulation of energy reserves for the winter and assurance that existing pipeline repair services — they already exist in both the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea — can act rapidly if needed. In protecting critical infrastructure, resilience is an essential part of deterrence. | 2022-10-04T18:36:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Baltic Sea pipeline sabotage demands the West prepare for more attacks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/04/gas-pipeline-sabotage-russia-ukraine-response/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/04/gas-pipeline-sabotage-russia-ukraine-response/ |
In photos: Remembering country music icon Loretta Lynn
Country music singer Loretta Lynn performs onstage in California.
Loretta Lynn points to her Hollywood Walk of Fame star during induction ceremonies.
Lynn, left, and sister Crystal Gayle, right, poses with their mother, Clara Butcher, during the Academy of Country Music Awards in Buena Park, Calif.
Lennox Mclendon/AP
Lynn embraces her husband, Oliver “Mooney” Lynn, during rehearsal for her New York debut.
Antonio Carozza/AP
Lynn sings during a concert at the International Festival of Country Music at Wembley Arena in London.
Lynn and Vince Gill perform at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.
Lynn is presented with the Icon Tribute award by Del Bryant, left, and Frances Preston at the BMI Country Awards in Nashville.
Rusty Russell/Getty Images
Lynn poses with her awards at the Grammys in Los Angeles. She and singer Jack White won an award for best country collaboration with vocals for the song “Portland, Oregon” and she was awarded best country album for “Van Lear Rose.”
From left, country singers Gretchen Wilson, Martina McBride, Lynn and Reba McEntire share a moment on the red carpet before the Grammy Salute to Country Music honoring Lynn in Nashville.
President Barack Obama awards Lynn with the Presidential Medal of Freedom during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
Lynn waves to the crowd after performing during the Americana Music Honors and Awards show in Nashville.
Lynn and singer Kacey Musgraves perform “You're Lookin' at Country” during the Country Music Association Awards in Nashville.
Lynn and her family attend her and Jack White's Induction into Nashville's Walk of Fame.
Lynn performs at the BBC Music Showcase during South By Southwest in Austin.
Lynn speaks during an interview and performance for SiriusXM's Willie's Roadhouse and Country Christmas channels in Hurricane Mills, Tenn.
Lynn poses with her Cracker Barrel Country Legend Award at the Loretta Lynn Ranch in Tennessee.
Photo editing and production by Stephen Cook | 2022-10-04T18:36:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In photos: Remembering country music icon Loretta Lynn - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/loretta-lynn-dies-90/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/loretta-lynn-dies-90/ |
We’re getting this election entirely backward
Pro choice supporters gather outside the Michigan State Capitol during a "Restore Roe" rally in Lansing, on September 7, 2022. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)
This is often framed as a choice that is between the concrete, immediate and practical on one hand and the hypothetical and abstract on the other. Inflation and crime are supposedly “kitchen table issues” that affect people’s lives and communities every day. But that abortion and democracy stuff? Maybe some people care about those things, but they are not what hard-nosed, pragmatic candidates spend their time on.
This is exactly backward. In fact, it’s voting on the basis of inflation or crime that is impractical, even naïve.
It’s true that inflation and crime are serious problems that touch people’s lives. The trouble is that the person you elect to Congress will be able to do almost nothing about them.
By contrast, the people you vote for in this election and the ones in the near future will absolutely help determine whether abortion rights and democracy survive.
The impotence of members of Congress on those “kitchen table issues” is something we rarely talk about, in part because doing so honestly would make voters look more than a little foolish. How many reports quote regular people saying that they’re really concerned about gas and grocery prices, and so that’s what they want candidates to address? We take those priorities as almost sacred, and say, “Woe to the candidate who does not show voters they hear their concerns!”
What’s going to determine whether inflation comes down? The actions of the Federal Reserve, and the strength of supply chains, and whether the global economy plunges into recession. If a candidate says, “Inflation is bad, so vote for me!” it should be regarded an implicit acknowledgement that they don’t have any actual ideas to do anything about it, because it’s not a problem Congress can fix in the short term.
And to be clear, this overpromising applies to both parties. The Inflation Reduction Act is a very good law that will do many worthwhile things, but it’s not going to bring down inflation.
Or take crime. Republicans would have you believe that the spike in certain kinds of crime (particularly homicide) that accompanied the pandemic in 2020 was the result of rampaging liberalism. After all, some activists proposed defunding the police (even though it didn’t actually happen almost anywhere) and a few progressive prosecutors were elected.
The trouble is that the increase in crime happened everywhere, in places run by Republicans as well as by Democrats. There was even a rural crime wave that coincided with the pandemic, and you sure can’t blame Democrats for that.
All of which is to say that crime is complex and fed by national forces. It’s not that policy doesn’t matter over the long term, or that there aren’t things local officials in particular can do to make a difference. But the ubiquitous GOP claim that electing an appropriately “tough” congressman will reduce crime in your community is absurd.
Now let’s turn to the supposedly airy ideas Democrats are campaigning on. Will your vote make a difference to the future of reproductive rights in America? Heck yes it will. Unlike some other issues, this is one where the parties couldn’t be more different, and they will have the ability to directly and rapidly put their ideas into action. Just ask women in Texas and Arizona or any of the other states where abortion has been banned.
Many political factors would determine whether the Republican Party follows though on its oft-stated desire to ban all abortions the next time there is a Republican president with a GOP Congress. But abortion is an issue where your vote makes a real difference, and the effects on the lives of women and their families will be profound.
Likewise, on the question of whether we ought to have a democracy in which there are fair elections and the losing side accepts defeat, the parties have very different positions that make a concrete difference in people’s lives. In many states, the choice for offices, including governor and secretary of state, is between one sane person and one election saboteur who pledges to be all but committed to stealing future elections. If you value democracy, this election could determine whether we continue to have one.
It may be counterintuitive to say that the supposed “kitchen table issues” are the ones on which voters are being overly credulous and impractical, allowing candidates to fool them into thinking something will happen when it never will. But it’s the truth. | 2022-10-04T18:52:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | We're getting this election all wrong - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/04/getting-election-wrong-inflation-crime-abortion-democracy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/04/getting-election-wrong-inflation-crime-abortion-democracy/ |
What you need to know about refinancing later, tapping stocks or retirement accounts, and how much house you can (really) afford to buy right now
If you’ve been house-hunting in recent years, you’ve really been through it. Maybe you were waiting out the market, hoping the rocketing prices would start to flatten. Now, of course, they have — but between 2021 and 2022, mortgage rates have more than doubled, from less than 3 percent to nearly 7 percent.
The math on a 30-year, fixed-rate loan for a $600,000 house with a 10 percent down payment tells the tale: At a 4.0 percent interest rate, the monthly payment would be $2,500. At 7.0 percent, the payment is $1,100 higher, at $3,600.
“Every buyer needs to do a gut check” on how much house they can afford now, advises Patrick Holland, vice president at Embrace Home Loans in Fairfax, Va. So let’s get into some of the questions you may be asking yourself.
Do higher interest rates make it harder to qualify for a home loan?
Is it true that my housing payment should max out at 28 to 30 percent of your pretax income?
How can I get a lower interest rate?
What are the penalties if I use money from my retirement account to buy a house?
Should I cash in stocks to afford a house?
Can I refinance later when interest rates come down? | 2022-10-04T19:18:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 6 answers about high-interest rate mortgages for homebuyers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/10/04/house-buying-high-interest-rate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/10/04/house-buying-high-interest-rate/ |
Trump sued CNN for defamation. Here’s where his case falls apart.
Former president Donald Trump speaks at a rally at Macomb Community College in Warren, Mich., on Saturday. (Sarah Rice for The Washington Post)
Did Donald Trump miss the news? Under Chris Licht, CNN’s new chairman and CEO, the network is embracing middle-of-the-road newscasting and has parted ways with high-profile staffers who spoke in blunt terms about Trump’s behavior in office.
If the former president is grateful, he’s not showing it. Trump filed suit against CNN on Monday, alleging that it has strived “to defame [Trump] in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically.” This culminated “in CNN claiming credit for ‘[getting] Trump out’ in the 2020 presidential election,” according to the complaint filed in a Florida federal court.
Trump is seeking $475 million in punitive damages. Like other Trump lawsuits, this one lacks substance — more bluntly, it’s garbage — with its only utility being as a guide to this country’s wide-ranging First Amendment protections. CNN, in earlier correspondence with Trump excerpted in the legal filing, told the former president’s counsel, “While we will address the merits of any lawsuit should one be filed, we note that you have not identified a single false or defamatory statement in your letter.”
Although Trump’s financial demands run to nine figures, the document behind them is a flimsy 29 pages. It takes issue with statements aired on CNN that accuse Trump of pushing the “big lie” and that characterize him with the “false ... and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler.’ ” The most facially laughable of these, of course, is “Russian lackey,” which is not only an innocuous put-down but also rests, in part, on one of the most infamous moments in U.S. diplomatic history — when then-President Trump sided with Russia over U.S. intelligence regarding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The other allegedly “defamatory labels” are no such thing. Here are a few claims in the complaint, followed by explanations as to why they aren’t defamatory:
· Psychiatrist Allen Frances told then-CNN host Brian Stelter in August 2019, “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin and Mao were in the last century.” Frances also said: “He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were. He needs to be contained but he needs to be contained by attacking his policies, not his person. It’s crazy for us to be destroying the climate our children will live in. It’s crazy to be giving tax cuts to the rich that will add trillions of dollars to the debt our children will have to pay. It’s crazy to be destroying our democracy by claiming that the press and the courts are the enemy of the people.” Trump argues in his complaint that PolitiFact cited part of Frances’s statement as a “Pants on Fire” falsehood.
This was a dark moment for CNN. Stelter later admitted that he should have challenged Frances (he cited technical problems, saying he hadn’t heard the statement). But the unspecific nature of the commentary and the way it’s couched — that Trump “may be” responsible for the deaths — place it in the realm of rhetorical hyperbole. Shameless commentary isn’t always libelous. “I’m reasonably confident that a court would rule that, taken in context, that passage is an expression of opinion by Dr. Frances about the human toll of policies Trump pursued, which is protected by the First Amendment,” Lee Levine, a longtime media defense attorney, tells me by email.
· House Democrats in March 2019 likened aspects of Trump’s rise to Hitler’s, as CNN reported then. According to the suit, “the ‘reporting’ is nothing more than self-serving pronouncements by political opponents of [Trump] and their news proxy (and political participant), CNN.”
Read the statements in question, and it’s clear why they’re not remotely defamatory. For instance, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) said, “Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany. And he went about the business of discrediting institutions to the point that people bought into it.” Clyburn also said: “Nobody would have believed it now. But swastikas hung in churches throughout Germany. We had better be very careful.”
To defame someone, you must make a false statement that purports to be a fact about that person. In this instance, Clyburn is speaking to historical parallels and political trends, not launching the sort of ad hominem attacks necessary to win a defamation claim.
· CNN host Jake Tapper said on a show in January 2022: “There is a reason Trump was in Arizona, to push the legislature to disenfranchise the state’s voters based on all of his deranged election lies.”
Those italics are in the lawsuit, apparently seeking to highlight the defamatory sting of Tapper’s remarks. Except they are no such thing. It’s well established that Trump has been told, again and again, that his claims about a stolen election are false. His persistence in airing these claims suggests that he’s lying, though Trump’s lawyers have said that he “subjectively believes that the results of the 2020 presidential election turned on fraudulent voting activity in several key states.”
Even if Trump believed his own statements, however, Tapper’s commentary would be protected as hyperbole — a valued commodity in a democratic society.
CNN’s lawyers will also likely argue that the challenged statements in the suit are, to a large extent, protected as assertions of opinion — the very doctrine that Trump deployed to get out of a lawsuit brought by a Republican strategist in 2016.
The complaint also argues that CNN has treated Trump’s claims of a stolen election differently from various claims by Democrats in recent election cycles. Set aside for a moment the fact that Trump’s claims have been more persistent, more egregious and more impactful, as we all saw at the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021. Even if CNN had treated Democratic claims of voter fraud more favorably, that would be protected First Amendment activity. Just think what would happen to Fox News if slanted reporting amounted to libel.
· Licht held a conference call in June 2022 in which he expressed low regard for the wording “big lie,” a term with Nazi origins. “Since then,” reads the complaint, “CNN’s on-air personalities — including John King, Jake Tapper, John Avlon, Brianna Keilar, and Don Lemon, among others — have continued to use the phrase in describing [Trump and Trump’s] questions of election integrity despite an apparent admonition from their Chief Executive Officer.”
So what? This is a management issue for CNN, not a legal one.
Calling presidents liars, even when they’re honest, is a great American tradition. Trump, the greatest liar in American political history, stands no chance of upending it. | 2022-10-04T19:19:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Trump files frivolous suit against CNN - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/04/trump-lawsuit-cnn-defamation-debunked/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/04/trump-lawsuit-cnn-defamation-debunked/ |
Sen. Ron Johnson downplays Jan. 6: ‘Not what an armed insurrection would look like’
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee hearing on Sept. 14 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is being criticized for once again downplaying the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, in which a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol seeking to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral win. The siege left five people dead, including a police officer; two other officers who were on duty that day later died by suicide.
In remarks to the Milwaukee Rotary Club on Tuesday morning, Johnson argued that it was inaccurate to call the deadly attack an “armed insurrection” because there were no firearms seized from the Capitol that day, despite plenty of evidence of firearms in the crowd.
“The ‘armed insurrectionists’ stayed within the rope lines in the [Capitol] Rotunda,” Johnson added, making air quotes gestures with his fingers. “I’m sorry — that’s not what an armed insurrection would look like. I don’t think they’d be able to reopen Congress about six hours later and complete the counting of electoral votes if there literally had been an ‘armed insurrection.’ So again, I realize that term has been used to inflame the situation.”
Johnson did not mention that many rioters went beyond the rope lines, ransacking congressional offices, damaging sculptures and art, and causing about $1.5 million worth of damage. At the insistence of top lawmakers, Congress reconvened about six hours after the attack, despite there still being shattered glass, broken furniture, “corrosive gas agent residue” and “garbage and debris everywhere.”
Johnson’s comments Tuesday were swiftly condemned by hundreds of people, including several Democratic lawmakers and at least one member of the Biden administration.
“Ron Johnson continues to downplay the violence of Jan 6, glossing over how the mob seriously wounded police officers,” Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) tweeted. “January 6 was a deadly attempt to overturn the election. To call it anything else is a disservice to the brave men & women who protected our democracy that day.”
“It WAS an armed insurrection,” tweeted former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, who has since left the GOP. “[Johnson] is wrong. And in November, the people of Wisconsin should tell him he’s wrong.”
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D), who is running against Johnson for Senate, said Johnson was “still covering for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.”
“This is NOT who we are or what we stand for in Wisconsin. It’s time to vote him out,” Barnes tweeted.
Johnson also came under fire for a portion of his comments in which he said that “protesters did teach us all how you can use flag poles, that kind of stuff, as weapons.” In video of the Jan. 6 attack, law enforcement officers outside the Capitol were shown being harassed, beaten and sprayed with gas substances by members of the mob. One of the Capitol police officers who responded that day, Caroline Edwards, said she was struck in the head with a bike rack. She later described the scene as “carnage,” recalling how officers were on the ground, bleeding and throwing up. In one video from the attack, a rioter can be seen bashing a fallen police officer with a pole flying the American flag.
Early on Jan. 6, The Post's Kate Woodsome saw signs of violence hours before thousands of President Trump's loyalists besieged the Capitol. (Video: Joy Yi, Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post, Photo: John Minchillo/AP/The Washington Post)
“You mean the January 6th attackers ‘did teach us how you can use a flag pole’ to brutally beat police officers, @SenRonJohnson?” deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates tweeted Tuesday in response to Johnson’s remarks.
In a statement, Johnson’s office claimed that the senator had said “summer protesters,” not “some of the protesters,” and that he had been referring to people protesting the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020.
“This clip is completely and deceptively taken out of context to push a political narrative,” Johnson spokeswoman Alexa Henning said in an email. “He acknowledges the left-wing rioters know how to use flag poles and other metals objects and water bottles as weapons. But there is a distinction between that and an armed insurrection.”
Johnson was “in no way condoning this action,” Henning added.
This is not the first time Johnson has downplayed the severity of the Jan. 6 attack. Several Democrats last year called on Johnson to step down after he told a conservative radio show that the Capitol rioters hadn’t scared him — but that they might have had they been Black Lives Matter protesters. On Tuesday, Johnson reiterated part of those sentiments.
“I did say I was never afraid on Jan. 6 because it’s true,” Johnson said. “I was in the Senate chamber, they closed the doors. My assumption was that a couple of crazy people got by security. … About five, 10 minutes later they opened up the door and said go back to your office. And I went back to my office and then I saw the violence.”
During the Oath Keepers' sedition trial on Oct. 3, a U.S. prosecutor told the jury the extremist members planned “to shatter a bedrock of American democracy.” (Video: Reuters)
Johnson’s comments came as a trial began this week for several members of the extremist Oath Keepers group, who allegedly traveled to Washington and staged firearms near the Capitol before forcing entry through the Capitol Rotunda doors in combat and tactical gear in the Jan. 6 attack. Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and four co-defendants face seditious conspiracy and other charges; they have pleaded not guilty to felony charges alleging that they conspired for weeks after the 2020 presidential election to unleash political violence to oppose the lawful transfer of power to Biden.
Spencer S. Hsu, Tom Jackman and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report. | 2022-10-04T19:49:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sen. Ron Johnson downplays Jan. 6 as ‘not what an armed insurrection would look like’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/04/ron-johnson-jan6-flagpole-insurrection/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/04/ron-johnson-jan6-flagpole-insurrection/ |
Most fentanyl is seized at border crossings — often from U.S. citizens
An 8-year-old girl from Honduras entertains herself as her family camps next to a U.S. Customs checkpoint on June 23, 2018, in Matamoros, Mexico. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
One line of political rhetoric that’s proved particularly popular as the midterm elections approach goes something like this: President Biden’s open-border policy has allowed dangerous drugs like fentanyl to flood into the country, imperiling our children.
The evidence for this is often patchy, with Republicans — generally the people articulating this line of argument — often pointing to things like drug seizures as evidence. That those are seizures, drugs generally stopped at the border, doesn’t seem to derail the argument. After all, the same rhetorical trick is applied to immigrants themselves; that most of those stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border were prevented from entering doesn’t exclude them from being added to what’s meant to be a scary-sounding total number of people seeking to come to the United States.
But there’s another point that’s worth drawing out here. Seizures are a dubious metric not only because those drugs will not be sold in the United States but also because of where and how those seizures occur: usually at border checkpoints and often in the possession of U.S. citizens.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) provides detailed data on drug seizures. Those include seizures throughout the country, not just at the U.S.-Mexico border, and seizures undertaken by the CBP’s Air and Marine Operations (AMO) unit. But it breaks down the data usefully, allowing us to see the quantities of drugs seized by agents and where those seizures occur.
It is true that the amount of fentanyl being seized by CBP has increased in the past few years. In the third quarter of calendar year 2019, some 668 pounds of fentanyl were seized by the Border Patrol, the Office of Field Operations (which manages border checkpoints, including at airports) and AMO. In the third quarter of 2020, that surged to 2,357 pounds. In the third quarter of 2021, the figure was 2,921 pounds. Full data for the third quarter of 2022 isn’t available yet, but the total in the first two months was over 4,400 pounds.
Most of that, in each quarter, was seized at the U.S.-Mexico border. In the period from the fourth quarter of 2018 to the end of August 2022, an average of 87 percent of seized fentanyl was stopped at the southern border. But most of that was stopped by OFO at border crossing points.
If we look at this not as raw totals but, instead, as percentages, the scale of stops that occur at border crossings becomes obvious. On average, just under three-quarters of all fentanyl seized by CBP is seized at U.S.-Mexico border crossings.
Only about 11 percent of fentanyl is seized by the Border Patrol between checkpoints — the sort of scenario that often gets amplified as a point of political pressure.
It is necessarily true that some percentage of drugs is not seized at the border. After all, there are illegal drugs in the United States that originate elsewhere. But it’s not fair to simply assume that enormous quantities of drugs simply aren’t detected.
We recently considered this question in terms of migrants seeking entry to the country. Yes, some portion of migrants enter the country illegally and are not detected by the Border Patrol. But the percentage of migrants who do so has declined in recent decades thanks to both expansions of barriers on the border undertaken in the administrations of George W. Bush and Donald Trump and because of improved surveillance tools deployed at the border.
It’s also because many migrants want to be stopped by government officials, in order to make an asylum claim that might allow them to remain in the country legally for some time. In other words, in many cases it’s simply easier to use the border checkpoints in the first place. Part of the goal of installing barriers on the border is to increase the likelihood that people will use manned crossing points.
Then there is simple physics. Fentanyl isn’t like marijuana, which is voluminous and hard to hide in a car or on your person. If you want to smuggle a large volume of pot, you aren’t going to throw it in the trunk of your car. But even a relatively large volume of fentanyl can be tucked easily out of sight. Multiple government officials have testified in recent years that most drugs enter at border crossings.
So who is being stopped with drugs at the border? Well, consider what’s occurring at those checkpoints. Thousands of vehicles and people are lined up, waiting to come in. At the San Ysidro crossing point, authorities have about 40 seconds to identify signs of smuggling, USA Today reported several years ago. The less suspicion a smuggler can draw, then, the better. And who better to reduce suspicion than a U.S. citizen?
CBP doesn’t have compiled data on the percentage of seizures that are U.S. citizens. But a perusal of the organization’s website turns up a large number of news releases in which fentanyl seizures involve Americans. In March, for example, CBP published a notice in which it identified four people who had been detained for attempting to smuggle fentanyl. All were identified as citizens.
Again, the idea of smuggling fentanyl into the country is to get the drugs in quickly without detection. Paying a citizen to drive them in makes more sense in that regard than having a noncitizen lug them across the Rio Grande.
But reality isn’t always politically useful. Using the specter of fentanyl (the dangers of which are also overhyped) as a way to hand-wring about immigration is obviously useful.
We can see that reflected in media coverage. As noted above, fentanyl seizures began to surge in 2020. Fox News, though, only began ginning up its coverage once Biden was inaugurated. Over the past five months, the network has mentioned fentanyl far more regularly — and often in the context of the border.
For the most part, we can assume, the discussion doesn’t center on how much of the drug is taken from U.S. citizens at border checkpoints. | 2022-10-04T19:49:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Most fentanyl is seized at border crossings — often from U.S. citizens - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/04/border-fentanyl-seizures-americans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/04/border-fentanyl-seizures-americans/ |
Students with disabilities in Fairfax County Public Schools are more likely than their peers without disabilities to be suspended and to fail state tests, a new report has found.
The report, completed over the course of two years by nonprofit group the American Institutes for Research at a cost of roughly $463,000, was commissioned by the Fairfax school board in October 2020. The researchers examined student data, audited students’ special education plans, held focus groups with school staff and families, surveyed parents and observed classrooms.
Some of the report’s findings were positive, including that Fairfax has “robust division-level leadership and infrastructure for special education services” and that many parents of students with disabilities report strong positive feelings about their children’s teachers. But others were sharply negative: In the time period studied, students with disabilities were 3.1 times more likely to receive an in-school suspension and 4.4 times more likely to receive an out-of-school suspension than their peers who do not have disabilities. The report also found that, between 2016 and 2019, the pass rate for state end-of-year exams was consistently 30 percent lower for students with disabilities than it was for their non-disabled peers.
The report makes several suggestions for alterations to the Fairfax special education system, including reducing special education teacher workload, developing more comprehensive professional development plans for special education teachers and publishing districtwide guidance for communication between schools and parents of students with disabilities.
The report will be used as the basis for a new, overarching plan for Fairfax’s special education students, a plan the school board is hoping to finalize in February. As a first step, the board met Tuesday to review and discuss the report with its authors. Many members praised the researchers for their work and promised a better path forward.
“This is hard, this is painful, but I do believe this is going to be our road map to the success we promise to achieve for every student,” board member Megan McLaughlin said at the meeting.
A spokeswoman for the school district did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the report on Tuesday.
The report examined student data between 2016 and 2019, leaving out the months of pandemic-era education — when teaching was conducted mostly online — because researchers decided that conclusions drawn from that period would not be applicable to regular in-person learning. Fairfax, which enrolls roughly 179,000 students, making it the largest school district in Virginia, serves approximately 28,000 students with disabilities, according to the report — and employs about 6,300 special education personnel across nearly 200 schools.
The 213-page report’s positive findings also include the conclusion that Fairfax has an efficient system for identifying students with disabilities in early childhood, that many parents believe special education services meet their students’ needs and that “parents are generally satisfied with opportunities for academic and social inclusion for their children.” The report further found that Fairfax engages in recruitment and retention efforts for special education staff and that the district managed to retain about 90 percent of them between 2015 and 2019.
But negative findings include the fact that many new teachers in Fairfax lack preparation to adequately support their students with disabilities, that “special education services are implemented inconsistently across the district” and that progress reports for students with disabilities “do not provide sufficiently detailed, data-based information.” The report also found that Fairfax does not meet Virginia state targets for the percentage of time students with disabilities should be taught in general education classrooms, that Fairfax maintains a special education student-teacher ratio that is lower than the Virginia state average and that “communication from the district about special education can be inconsistent and difficult to access.”
At the meeting Tuesday, board member Rachna Sizemore Heizer, who has long been an advocate for improving special education, said that the findings made her upset.
“I really appreciate your report, this is so validating, I’ve been saying this stuff since 2011,” she said. “I am so angry. I am so angry we’re still here.”
The report lays out 19 detailed suggestions for alterations to Fairfax’s special education program. Many touch on communication with parents, including proposals that Fairfax develop a standardized procedure for documenting parent input when determining whether a student is eligible for special education services and when developing a student’s special education plan. Other suggestions include publishing guidance on “special education caseloads and class sizes” and making more information available to prospective special education employees on the Fairfax website.
At Tuesday’s meeting, board member Karl Frisch asked how long it would take to implement all of the recommendations laid out in the report. One of the researchers said it would require at least three years. | 2022-10-04T19:53:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Report: Fairfax students with disabilities suspended more than other students - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/04/fairfax-students-with-disabilities-suspended/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/04/fairfax-students-with-disabilities-suspended/ |
Analysis by Mark Gongloff | Bloomberg
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., appears via video link during the Qatar Economic Forum (QEF) in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday, June 21, 2022. The second annual Qatar Economic Forum convenes global business leaders and heads of state to tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges, through the lens of the Middle East. (Bloomberg)
Mark Gongloff is a Bloomberg Opinion editor and writer of the Opinion Today newsletter. A former managing editor of Fortune.com, he ran the HuffPost’s business and technology coverage and was a reporter and editor for the Wall Street Journal. | 2022-10-04T20:07:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Should Twitter, or Investors, Trust Musk This Time? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-should-twitter-or-investors-trust-musk-this-time/2022/10/04/7e8a0e1e-4415-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-should-twitter-or-investors-trust-musk-this-time/2022/10/04/7e8a0e1e-4415-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html |
The D.C. Council took the first of two votes Tuesday to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. (Craig Hudson/For the Washington Post)
The D.C. Council on Tuesday took the first of two votes to allow the District’s noncitizen residents to cast ballots in local elections, coming close to concluding an almost decade-long effort by activists and council members to enfranchise the estimated 50,000 noncitizens living in the District.
The bill, which received a 12-1 vote on first reading Tuesday, would amend the District’s election code and permit all noncitizen residents in D.C., including green-card holders, temporary residents on visas and undocumented immigrants, to vote in local elections, provided they meet the remaining requirements for voting in the District. Qualifying noncitizens would be allowed to vote in all local races, including mayor, attorney general, school board members, District council members and council chair, but not federal elections.
If the bill becomes law, D.C. would join several Maryland municipalities, including Hyattsville and Takoma Park, in allowing nonresidents to vote in local elections. New York City passed a bill allowing legal noncitizen residents to vote in the city’s local elections in November, but a state judge ruled that it violated the state constitution and struck it down in June.
Council member Brianna Nadeau (D-Ward 4) introduced the bill as lead sponsor with six other council members in June 2021. The bill passed unanimously out of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety a week ago.
“In the District, we understand disenfranchisement,” council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), one of the bill’s sponsors, said at last week’s committee meeting, referring to D.C.'s own battle for statehood and representation in Congress. “It’s personal.”
Councilmembers have attempted to introduce similar bills granting noncitizens voting rights four times in the last nine years, first in December 2013 by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) when she was the Ward 4 council member. Four of the current bill’s sponsors, Nadeau, Allen, Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) and Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large), previously sponsored attempts in 2017 and 2019.
Those bills all stalled due to lack of interest or support, Allen said in an interview with The Post Wednesday. This year is the first time a bill on the issue has passed a full council vote.
“This time around, it felt like there were better organized efforts to help advocate for it," Allen said. “That made the difference.”
An estimated 51,511 noncitizens lived in D.C. in 2020, according to the Migration Policy Institute. But Arturo Griffiths, a coordinator for the D.C. Immigrant Voting Rights Coalition, said that in previous years immigrant communities in the District felt too disconnected from the city’s politics at large to get behind the efforts of organizers.
“I used to be the president of a Latin American festival,” Arturo said. “We had to vote for the president. That was the only election we had in our community.”
He said other factors, like national conversations around voting rights and a concerted effort by activists to pressure council members and educate residents, helped the bill gain traction. In a July hearing, over 50 public witnesses testified in support of the bill.
The lone vote against the bill Tuesday was council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), who voiced concerns about permitting “complete strangers” to the District to vote, appearing to refer in part to migrants being bused into the District by Republican governors in Texas and Arizona.
“Could someone who was put on a bus from Texas and dropped off at the vice president’s property … then vote in our local elections?” Cheh asked.
“Cheh’s ‘questions’ are rooted in age-old xenophobia and racism,” Abel Amene, an organizer with the Metro D.C. Democratic Socialists of America, wrote to The Post following the meeting. “Immigrants are not ‘complete strangers.’ They are our neighbors, family and friends."
The bill now will go to a second vote, and, if it passes, be subject to review periods by Bowser and Congress before becoming law.
Lawmakers also considered several other pieces of legislation Tuesday.
The council unanimously approved a bill introduced by Allen that codifies pandemic-era changes to voting in the District. It requires the D.C. Board of Elections to mail every registered voter a ballot and permanently transitions the city away from traditional, neighborhood-based polling precincts in favor of popular “vote centers” open to all eligible voters. It further calls on the board to stand up at least 100 ballot drop boxes during early voting and Election Day.
Allen’s bill also instructs the elections board to develop and distribute educational materials about running for local advisory neighborhood commissioner for people incarcerated at the D.C. jail; in 2021, District residents elected the city’s first ANC who was jailed.
Another pair of bills related to reproductive health, stemming from lawmakers’ concerns related to the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn the fundamental right to abortion, passed unanimously on the first reading.
One piece of legislation shields individuals in the District who help someone self-terminate a pregnancy from any penalties, including if they provide products to self-manage an abortion. The second bill prevents D.C. from cooperating if a state tries to prosecute someone who comes to the District in search of abortion-related care.
All three bills will require a second vote before heading to Bowser’s desk.
The council also gave final approval to a bill that expands paid leave for D.C. government employees, increasing their caregiving and parental leave benefits from eight to 12 weeks. The bill also adds new categories: up to 12 weeks of personal medical leave and two weeks of prenatal leave, mirroring recently expanded benefits that became available to the District’s private-sector workers Oct. 1.
Silverman, who introduced the measure with Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large), said in a statement that the council needs to still fully fund the bill to reach the full 12 weeks called for in the legislation, but said funding for the new prenatal leave benefit was approved earlier this year. | 2022-10-04T20:07:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. Council advances bill to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/04/dc-council-noncitizen-vote-elections/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/04/dc-council-noncitizen-vote-elections/ |
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A voucher program that would provide West Virginia parents state money to pull their children out of K-12 public schools is blatantly unconstitutional and would disproportionately impact poor children and those with disabilities, a lawyer representing parents who sued the state argued Tuesday in West Virginia’s Supreme Court. | 2022-10-04T20:07:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | W.Va. Supreme Court hears arguments in school voucher case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/wva-supreme-court-hears-arguments-in-school-voucher-case/2022/10/04/7f182efa-441b-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/wva-supreme-court-hears-arguments-in-school-voucher-case/2022/10/04/7f182efa-441b-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html |
Yes, we need immigration reform. But a secure border must come first.
Asylum-seeking migrants cross the Rio Grande near El Paso on Oct. 3. (Paul Ratje/Reuters)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says “the best thing that we can do for our economy is comprehensive immigration reform.” Here’s what she left out: It is President Biden who has made it impossible to pass any bipartisan immigration reform by unleashing the worst border crisis in U.S. history.
The news from the southern border keeps getting worse: Not only have we seen a record 2.15 million arrests of migrants so far this fiscal year, but Fox News’s Bill Melugin also reports that the 2022 fiscal year saw at least 599,000 known “gotaways” — illegal migrants we know evaded U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and slipped into the country. That is a significant increase from 2021, when the Department of Homeland Security reported 390,000 gotaways. By contrast, before Biden took office, there were just 69,000 gotaways in fiscal year 2020 (about half of which took place during the pandemic) and about 200,000 in 2019.
This means that, over the past two fiscal years, nearly 1 million people have illegally snuck across our southern border and disappeared into the country. We don’t know who these people are but, unlike asylum seekers, who turn themselves in to border officials, they intentionally evade detention. They could be violent criminals, drug smugglers or terrorists. And those are the ones we know of; many more could have crossed our porous southern border without being detected.
Not only do Democrats refuse to acknowledge the unprecedented crisis their policies have unleashed, Pelosi argues the deluge of illegal migrants is a positive for America — because we can put them to work. “We have a shortage of workers in our country,” she said. “And you see even in Florida, some of the farmers and the growers saying, ‘Why are you shipping these immigrants up North? We need them to pick the crops down here.’ ”
It is true that we are experiencing the worst labor shortage in U.S. history. There are some 10 million unfilled jobs in the United States, and 49 percent of all small businesses report that they have job openings they cannot fill, which far exceeds the 48-year historical average of 23 percent. This labor shortage is helping to drive inflation because, without workers, supply can’t keep up with rising demand, which causes prices to rise.
We need immigrants to help fill these jobs. How do we know? Because despite the plethora of available jobs, my American Enterprise Institute colleague Nicholas Eberstadt points out that more than 1 in 10 prime-age men are “labor-force dropouts — neither working nor looking for work.” While foreign-born workforce participation appears to be back to pre-pandemic levels, Eberstadt says, “almost all of the residual manpower shortfall appears to be among native-born Americans.”
But the answer is not to throw our borders open to anyone who decides to show up. We need to expand the number of legal immigrants, and reform our immigration system to make sure we are bringing the right people into the country with the skills our economy needs. The American people generally support a welcoming immigration policy. But there will be no political will in Congress or the country to take on immigration reform until the Biden administration stops the deluge of migrants and drugs flooding into our country illegally.
It was the same with criminal justice reform. The only reason President Donald Trump in 2018 was able to sign the First Step Act — which shortened federal prison sentences and gave people additional chances to avoid mandatory minimum penalties for nonviolent offenses — was because violent crime in the country was under control. We could never do what he did today because we are in the midst of the worst crime wave in many cities since the 1990s. Similarly, you cannot pass immigration reform in the middle of the worst border crisis in U.S. history. You have to secure the border first.
So, Pelosi is right: We do need to reform our immigration system. But the prerequisite for any immigration reform is a secure border.
Opinion|Migrants used as political pawns deserve more humanitarian aid
Opinion|Italy and Sweden show why Biden must fix the immigration system
Opinion|No religious person can celebrate the GOP’s abuse of immigrants | 2022-10-04T20:08:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Immigration reform can happen only with a secure border - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/04/immigration-reform-border-security-biden-pelosi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/04/immigration-reform-border-security-biden-pelosi/ |
FILE - New Hampshire Republican U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc speaks during a debate Sept. 7, 2022, in Henniker, N.H. Though former President Donald Trump didn’t formally endorse Bolduc in his primary, the former president called him a “strong guy, tough guy.” And he’s among many candidates who used Trump support to win GOP nominations and now must try to appeal to a broader swath of the electorate in general elections. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm, File)
HUDSON, N.H. — Don Bolduc isn’t making a full about-face, but the Republican nominee for Senate in New Hampshire can’t seem to stop shifting his position about whether the 2020 presidential election was legitimate. | 2022-10-04T20:08:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Another shift for NH GOP Senate candidate on 2020 election - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/another-shift-for-nh-gop-senate-candidate-on-2020-election/2022/10/04/2ae5ed56-4414-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/another-shift-for-nh-gop-senate-candidate-on-2020-election/2022/10/04/2ae5ed56-4414-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html |
Maryland Coach Mike Locksley, quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa (right) and his older brother Tua Tagovailoa celebrated a win against West Virginia on Sept. 4, 2021, in College Park, Md. (Kevin Richardson/The Baltimore Sun/AP)
Tua, the starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, had been evaluated for a possible head injury four days before, but he was allowed to return to field later in that game and start Thursday’s contest. Tua’s concussion against the Cincinnati Bengals has sparked intense scrutiny over his medical care from the Dolphins and the NFL’s concussion protocols.
Friday, as Taulia continued his preparation for the Michigan State game, “we all knew that he was not necessarily all the way there,” Locksley, who also coached Tua at Alabama, said. The players and coaches were on “pins and needles,” Locksley said, as they watched a concerned Taulia work through meetings and practice. Taulia still hadn’t talked to Tua and his brother’s health remained at the forefront of his mind.
“Of course, I wanted to go to my family and not play the game, but that would be very selfish of me, just because we put in hard work together,” Taulia said. “I know how much my team needs me. That's also my family, too.” | 2022-10-04T21:03:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taulia Tagovailoa says Tua 'doing good' after quick trip to Miami - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/taulia-tagovailoa-brother-tua/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/taulia-tagovailoa-brother-tua/ |
The singer changed the genre with her controversial 1975 hit, ‘The Pill.' In post-Roe America, the song’s legacy feels complicated.
Perspective by Chris Richards
Popular music critic
Loretta Lynn in 1985. The singer, who died at the age of 90, was one of country music's great trailblazers. (David Redfern/Redferns)
“If your eyes are on me,” Loretta Lynn sang onstage nearly a decade ago, “you’re looking at country” — and if you were standing out in the charmed darkness of Washington’s 9:30 Club that night, here’s what your eyes saw: A regal, fragile, cheerful 81-year-old matriarch of country music decked out in a twinkly pink gown with NFL-kicker-grade shoulder pads, holding her microphone like a scepter, smiling down on her faithful — a coal miner’s daughter turned benevolent honky-tonk queen.
Is that country music? An American Dream vector that lifts people out of hardship into something sparklier, more humane and more fun? Sadly, like other forms of stardom, the lift remains literal for the stars but figurative for the audiences, and Lynn seemed to understand the whole transaction better than most. A few moments later in the set, she sang “The Pill,” a history-making ode to birth control and probably the most famous song ever written about the ongoing fight for women’s bodily autonomy. Turns out, in patriarchal America, a queen is still a woman.
Lynn died on Tuesday at her home in Tennessee. She was 90 years old, and her life followed the storybook contours that Hollywood cliches are made of. So much so, that her journey from elementary-school dropout, to teen mom, to Nashville superstar felt destined to be transposed into “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” the 1980 biopic named after the singer’s 1970 signature hit. Sissy Spacek would go on to win an Oscar for her portrayal of Lynn, but the song’s drama was still tough to eclipse. Within its eight-word opening line — “Well, I was born a coal miner’s daughter …” — Lynn tells her story with melody, steering it all over the road, evoking an erratic path through poverty’s complications, eventually landing on the right note, as if by will more than fate.
But if “Coal Miner’s Daughter” was Lynn’s hallmark, “The Pill” is her triumph, and its legacy in a post-Roe America has become more complicated than previously imaginable. In 1975, “The Pill” was a controversial hit about hard-won freedoms, Lynn’s playful twang conveying its liberated mood with levity and bounce. Listen to “The Pill” in 2022, though, and the flutter in her voice sounds nervous about whatever’s coming next. And here’s something even messier: Lynn was an early and avid supporter of Donald Trump, the candidate-turned-president whose Supreme Court appointees, in their eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, would help strip away the very rights that her art ultimately fought for. How do we begin to understand that?
Obviously, the shape of Lynn’s legacy will eventually be decided by her music more than her political endorsements, and that’s good, because her songs make the chronic problems in today’s country music industry feel so clear. The inexcusable lack of women’s voices in contemporary country isn’t about establishing superficial parity on the radio. It’s about making space for women to tell stories that only women can tell. Isn’t country music supposed to be about telling the truth? Lynn — often righteously, sometimes paradoxically — told the whole of hers. Let’s hear the rest. | 2022-10-04T21:07:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Loretta Lynn's 'The Pill' changed country music - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/04/loretta-lynn-the-pill/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/04/loretta-lynn-the-pill/ |
PM Update: After coolest Oct. 4 on record, conditions set to improve
Back to at least 1872, there hasn’t been a chillier high temperature on Oct. 4 in Washington. Before today, the record low maximum for the day was 56, set back in 1998. Today’s high so far is just 54, and temperatures shouldn’t move upward much, if at all. The District wasn’t alone, as a record low was recorded at Dulles International Airport as well. Like today, other chilly early October days tend to feature rain and minimal movement of temperature. It seems like that’s the only weather we get lately! Fortunately, that’s not the case. We begin really turning the corner Wednesday.
Through tonight: A few more rounds of showers may pass through — perhaps this evening and again late night. Drizzle is also possible between any steadier activity. Temperatures really won’t move much overnight. Where you’re at this evening is close to where you’ll be in the morning. Numbers will mainly be in the upper 40s to near 50 for lows. Winds will be from the north around 10 to 15 mph, with gusts around 25 mph.
Tomorrow (Wednesday): Cloudy conditions will await us in the morning. The big difference from recent days is we should also see some sunshine. A small chance of showers early will disappear by afternoon. We’re also be finally climbing out of the coolest of the temperatures, with highs trying for the low and mid-60s. Winds will be out of the north around 10 mph with stronger gusts.
Rain, rain, go away: We’ve seen measurable rain for five days in a row now. It’s the first run this long since early April. We average about one such stretch a year, though they are rarely quite as gloomy. As of Monday, four days in a row saw 0.32 inches or more rainfall. That ties for the seventh longest run of at least 0.32 inches of rain day-to-day. Even today could target that mark, although odds seem increasingly less good for that to happen. | 2022-10-04T21:25:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | PM Update: After coolest Oct. 4 on record, conditions set to improve - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/10/04/dc-area-forecast-milder-wednesday/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/10/04/dc-area-forecast-milder-wednesday/ |
“There was no place to put the water. There is still no place to put the water,” said the emergency manager of Seminole County, which saw historic floods.
By Barbara Liston
Brady Dennis
Sheriffs survey flooding from the Peace River near the Peace River Campground in Arcadia, Fla., on Monday. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)
WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. — The tidy lawns and palm tree-lined streets of Hacienda Village lie more than 150 miles inland from where Hurricane Ian came barreling ashore near Fort Myers. But on Monday, the neighborhood was lined with sopping sofas and soaked dressers, ruined appliances, sodden rugs and discarded mattresses.
Family photo albums sat in the midday sun, in hopes that some memories could be salvaged, while some individual snapshots blew through the streets like tumbleweed.
In this neighborhood, a 20-minute drive north of Orlando, as in numerous other inland communities throughout Florida, Ian and its remnants dumped biblical amounts of rain. The storm caused ponds to swell far beyond their banks and creeks to become rushing rivers. It overwhelmed storm-water and sewage systems, and brought unprecedented flooding to places far from the most visceral scenes of destruction along the coastline.
Flooding from the Peace River in Arcadia, Fla., has shut down Highway 72 in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. (Video: Thomas Simonetti/The Washington Post)
“Right now, I want to run. I want to turn my back and just run as far away as I can,” Rose Grieber, 79, said as she surveyed the already mildewing interior of the home she shares on La Vista Drive with her 82-year-old husband, Ron.
The couple had recently poured tens of thousands of dollars in renovations into the house they have owned since 2008, installing new floors and cabinets, new counters and bathroom fixtures. But they watched helplessly over the weekend as floodwaters caused by Ian poured through their front door and inundated nearly everything in sight.
“I know on the news, people will show Fort Myers Beach — really terrible, catastrophic — and that’s obviously significant, but this storm had really broad impacts across the state of Florida,” Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) told reporters Monday after he toured flood damage in North Port, which lies inland and north from where Ian came ashore.
“Everyone who lives here will say this is the worse they have ever seen here, by far. Not even close,” DeSantis said.
There as elsewhere, DeSantis said, he saw homes that had been “totally cut off from the world” because of the floodwaters. Some residents still had to canoe to and from their houses. Some roads remained impassable days after Ian had moved on.
“You can hide from the wind. We build structures now in Florida that will withstand wind,” he said, “But when you have this much water, it’s just paralyzing.”
Video: Boats rescue residents in North Port, Fla., after Ian
A nearly 3-hour drive to the northeast, in Seminole County, Alan Harris has been grappling with the paralyzing effect of that flooding.
“It’s definitely record-breaking. I’ve been in the community over 22 years, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Harris, emergency manager for the county, which lies north of Orlando and is home to nearly half a million people.
“When you look at the historical records, there is no history for this,” Harris said of what had unfolded in recent days. “Homes that have never flooded before are flooded. Retention ponds became lakes, golf courses became lakes, and apartment and condo complexes that have never flooded became lakes.”
In addition, Harris said, storm-water systems could not keep up with the deluge, which dropped in excess of a foot of water in some parts of the county — onto ground already saturated by recent rainfall. That downpour, coupled with rising rivers, washed away roads and made bridges impassable — at least 6 bridges remain closed indefinitely until they can be repaired, he said.
All told, nearly 6,000 homes in the county have suffered damage, with some homes mired in water up to the owners’ shoulders. Hundreds of residents had to be rescued, many of them with help from the National Guard.
“There was no place to put the water. There is still no place to put the water,” Harris said Monday afternoon. “I was here in 2008 when we broke records for flooding, but this has far surpassed that.”
Across inland Florida, from suburban neighborhoods to retirement communities to rural outposts, similar stories have played out.
Florida’s Division of Emergency Management said Monday that officials were continuing to respond to the impacts of “significant flooding” along the Peace River in DeSoto and Hardee Counties. It was there where search-and-rescue crews turned after Ian to help residents trapped in their homes, and where swelling waters collapsed a bridge.
Not far away, flooding from the Myakka River prompted the temporary closure of Interstate 75 — one of Florida’s most critical highways — in both directions. DeSantis referenced the impacts of such closures on Sunday during a visit to the inland farming community of Arcadia, which was hit hard by flooding.
“This is such a big storm that brought so much water, that you’re having basically what’s been a 500-year flood event here in DeSoto County and some of the neighboring counties,” the governor said. He added that in addition to damaging homes, “It’s interrupting transport. It’s interrupting commerce, because some of these roads still aren’t passable.”
Elsewhere, a combination of power outages to lift stations and overburdened storm water and wastewater systems are making cleanup in the aftermath of Ian particularly nasty.
Officials in central Florida warned residents to avoid standing water and the myriad lakes in the area because of potential fecal contamination. Cars attempted to drive around small geysers of sewage water that broke through the asphalt.
The city of Orlando on Monday asked residents and businesses to refrain from flushing toilets, doing laundry, washing dishes and taking showers as much as possible while workers made emergency repairs to the city’s sewer system, after break in a main caused “an overflow of sewage in the surrounding lakes and streets.”
“There are literally turds and tampons in the street in front of my house,” Kathy Keily of Winter Park texted a friend group on Friday.
By Monday, much to her relief, Kiely’s home, driveway and garage had been power washed multiple times thanks to the help of her siblings, who converged to help clean up.
Florida might be known for its beautiful beaches, but the state also has thousands of miles of rivers, streams and canals that crisscross inland communities.
“Those systems can quickly be overwhelmed by intense rainfall events,” said Tom Frazer, dean of the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida. “We have a large part of the state which is not on the coast and will continue to be subject to flood threats moving forward.”
Those threats are only growing, he said, in part because of climate change. Scientists have detailed how warming oceans can fuel more intense storms, and how warmer air holds more moisture, creating conditions for monumental rainfall.
“That’s what we are seeing with these large hurricanes and tropical storm events that are depositing large amounts of rain on the land,” said Frazer, who also serves as executive director of the Florida Flood Hub, a state-backed research consortium aimed at helping communities better forecast, mitigate and adapt to flood risks.
Frazer said that as hundreds of new residents move to Florida each day, that feverish growth also results in shifts to land-use patterns, making it even more important for communities to understand changing flood threats.
“Every day we are changing the way water flows, and the landscape,” he said, and public officials must think more proactively about how to cope with the increasing stresses on infrastructure.
“We’ve designed water conveyance systems based on historical data rather than future problems,” Frazer said. “We’ve engineered them for events that have occurred historically, but the world is going to be different moving forward.”
He credits Florida for investing significant funds into resilience efforts, including money for counties and cities to better understand their vulnerabilities, so that they can better decide where to make future investments.
“Every county needs to assess the threat posed by flooding,” Frazer said, because flooding will continue to be a serious risk even far from the coast. “We know that [storms] are becoming more intense and moving more slowly and depositing more rainfall.”
Long after Ian’s departure, worries of rising water linger, even far from the ocean.
The St. Johns River continued to rise Tuesday along much of its path through Central Florida, including the town of Deland, where the river was already past flood stage.
In the small community of Astor, nearly an hour’s drive inland from Daytona Beach, Amber Harper had watched the river keep rising in the days after the storm, eventually breaching sandbags piled at her door and filling the living room with nearly a foot of water. The house, for now, is uninhabitable.
“We will get it fixed,” she said Tuesday, “and back to normal in time.”
Back at the Hacienda Village community in Winter Springs, residents also continued to take stock of the damage, and of the recovery that lay ahead.
Gary and Lillian Ritter, relative newcomers to the neighborhood, evacuated at the insistence of their daughter. They returned to find several inches of water in the house and about 18 inches in their sunroom.
“It broke our hearts,” Lillian said. “But people had it worse than me.”
Nearby, Rose Grieber stood in a back bedroom, where her family had already ripped out the flooring and had fans running, attempting to dry all that had been soaked.
“Believe it or not, it was beautiful,” she said, standing on the plywood subfloor.
She wondered aloud how to begin to salvage what remained, and what it would take to start again.
“Right now,” she said, “it’s just devastating.”
Liston reported from Winter Springs. Lori Rozsa contributed reporting from Astor, Fla. | 2022-10-04T21:38:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hurricane Ian inland flooding struck Orlando area, more Florida regions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/04/inland-flooding-damage-hurricane-ian-florida/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/04/inland-flooding-damage-hurricane-ian-florida/ |
How U.S. Soccer failed its players
Today on “Post Reports,” we talk about a damning new report on systemic abuse in women’s soccer.
Portland Thorns fans hold signs during the first half of a 2021 National Women’s Soccer League match against the Houston Dash in Portland, Ore. An independent investigation into the scandals that erupted in the NWSL last season found that emotional abuse and sexual misconduct were systemic in the sport. (Steve Dipaola/AP)
U.S. Soccer hired former attorney general Sally Q. Yates to investigate abuse allegations against coaches in the National Women’s Soccer League after reports in The Washington Post and the Athletic. The report, released Monday, found widespread abuse and misconduct.
Sports columnist Sally Jenkins said that abuse within women’s sports has been a long-standing problem, but it’s only recently that there’s been a public reckoning about it.
“These are some of our top athletes in the country, and nobody did anything. They treated the women like they were the problem,” Jenkins said. “The systemic issue is men in suits at the top of these organizations who do not take complaints from athletes seriously.”
Jenkins joined “Post Reports” to explain how deep and far-reaching abuse is within not just soccer, but many other Olympic sports as well, and why the culture of abuse has gone on for so long. | 2022-10-04T21:39:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How U.S. Soccer failed its players - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/how-us-soccer-failed-its-players/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/how-us-soccer-failed-its-players/ |
John Carlson is back to lead the Capitals from the blue line, and most of his fellow defensemen remain the same. (Nick Wass/AP)
With two games left in the preseason, the Washington Capitals are still solidifying their opening night roster. And while constructing their ideal forward lines has presented challenges, piecing together the blue line has been more straightforward.
“I think everyone always says coming into camp that spots are open, but we have five guys coming back [on the blue line] that are locks,” assistant coach Kevin McCarthy said last week. “They all played well last year, and they all played well together, too.”
John Carlson, Martin Fehervary, Dmitry Orlov, Nick Jensen and Trevor van Riemsdyk return, but Justin Schultz departed for Seattle. Matt Irwin, newcomer Erik Gustafsson and Lucas Johansen are the candidates to win that spot, with Gustafsson the front-runner.
Gustafsson, who signed a one-year, $800,000 contract in July, has been practicing with van Riemsdyk on the third pairing, and his offensive style seems to mesh well with Washington’s defensive structure. (The 30-year-old has played 309 NHL games, notching 32 goals and 117 assists.) He played in two of the first four preseason games and is expected to make at least one more appearance before Washington’s Oct. 12 season opener against Boston. McCarthy said last week that he would prefer a veteran to occupy the third-pair role to start the season.
“You’re in a situation that, once the season starts, you have to win games,” he said. “It isn’t training camp anymore. So you are looking at players with NHL experience. That would be your first go-to, but we are open to see how it goes here.”
If Gustafsson wins the role, the Capitals still have decisions to make about their depth — will they keep seven or eight defensemen, and who are the front-runners there? Irwin and Johansen seem to be the top picks, but it’s not clear who is first in line.
Johansen, the Capitals’ first-round pick in 2016, is the younger brother of Nashville Predators star Ryan Johansen and has had a slow start to his pro career. The 24-year-old had to wait until last season to make his NHL debut — and he only played one game after he was called up from Hershey of the American Hockey League.
McCarthy said Saturday that Washington’s staff was happy with Johansen’s progress last year and that he’s a player the team is looking at “for the future.” If Johansen is not on the opening night roster, he will have to clear waivers before he can be sent back to Hershey.
“I feel like I’m trending in the right direction,” Johansen said Friday. “Last year, for me, I wanted to really take a good step forward and keep that trend going and establish myself as an NHL player, so just trying to get better every day and progress.”
Irwin, 34, was a reliable seventh defenseman last season. He signed with Washington in July 2021 and re-signed for one more year this summer. He played 17 games last season, notching a goal and three assists.
“We got a lot of great depth here, a lot of good players, so it’s been a good competitive camp and everyone has been pushing each other and making each other better,” van Riemsdyk said.
The Capitals have other options if Irwin and Johansen don’t pan out. Washington signed Gabriel Carlsson to a one-year, two-way contract in the offseason. The 25-year-old has played 75 NHL games since 2016-17, all with the Columbus Blue Jackets. He will start the season with Hershey.
Bobby Nardella is in the mix, too. The 26-year-old has been slowed by injuries early in his professional career but was solid in Washington’s preseason game last week at Philadelphia. The Capitals also have Vincent Iorio, a second-round pick in 2021. The 19-year-old had a “good camp, impressed everybody,” McCarthy said, but would benefit from time in the AHL.
Alex Alexeyev, the Capitals’ first-round pick in 2018 who made his NHL debut last year, was supposed to be an option to start the season. But after he had shoulder surgery in July, the earliest the 22-year-old is projected to return is late October. | 2022-10-04T21:40:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Capitals look to complete blue line this preseason - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/capitals-defenseman-preseason/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/capitals-defenseman-preseason/ |
Commanders right tackle Sam Cosmi suffered a thumb injury that required surgery. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Washington has had poor luck with injuries, dating back to last year. It continued into the summer, when soft-tissue injuries sidelined many players in camp, and now, four games into the season, the Commanders’ luck has hardly changed.
“When you start seeing some steps go forward, and then all of a sudden you go backward, that’s a tough pill to swallow,” Rivera said. "… To lose a player of Jahan’s caliber who’s done a lot of good things for you, that’s even more frustrating.”
From 2021: Rookie Sam Cosmi’s hard work paid off in debut, giving him inside track to start Week 1 | 2022-10-04T21:40:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders RT Sam Cosmi has thumb surgery, will miss time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/sam-cosmi-commanders-thumb-surgery/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/sam-cosmi-commanders-thumb-surgery/ |
Transcript: “The Lincoln Project”
MS. CASEY: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Libby Casey, senior news anchor here at The Post.
My guest today is a director of "The Lincoln Project," the new docuseries on Showtime. Fisher Stevens joins us now.
It's so good to have you. We are hoping to get your fellow director, Karim Amer, to join us. We've having a trouble with the connection, but we may be able to get him shortly. In the meantime, we are thrilled to talk to you about this series. It is explosive, Fisher.
MR. STEVENS: Thank you.
MS. CASEY: Remember, audience, we want to hear from you as well. So, if you have questions for our director, send us them via Twitter. Just tweet us @PostLive.
So, you know, a lot of our viewers, Fisher, probably discovered the Lincoln Project through those cutting ads and those viral tweets that really attacked then President Trump, and they got a reaction not only from the public but even from the president himself.
You know, the super PAC had a big personality, not something we usually think about, about super PACs. How did you and Karim find out about the Lincoln Project, and why did you decide to follow them?
MR. STEVENS: Well, actually, when covid hit and I saw the response that President Trump was doing, I was flabbergasted. So I got a bunch of my editor friends, my documentary friends together, and we went about raising money and made a‑‑to make our own ad to say like, "Wake up. We need help. Like, this is bad."
Then I saw "Morning in America," and I was like, oh, my God, it's been done, and we'll never do it better than whoever made this. And then I found out it was the Lincoln Project.
So I started following the Lincoln Project, and I started just becoming obsessed with them, like many people, just how powerful, how they didn't give a shit about‑‑can I say that on this? I don't know. But, anyway, they were just ruthless, and then I realized these are the guys that I've been fighting against in my political activism career my whole life.
And come August, I wanted to do something to document the election, and I thought what better way than to be embedded with these guys. Like, how is it going to work with these guys? Because we heard that they were all going to gather in Salt Lake City and Park City, Utah, and through mutual friends of Karim and mine, we got a connection to do a Zoom with Rick and Steve and Reed and Stuart and raised some money. And they allowed Karim and I to go in and basically be embedded with them for the entire‑‑from September, October, until the Election Day, and then, obviously, things didn't turn out the way we had thought they would when we were filming with them. So we continued filming up until, you know, a few months ago.
MS. CASEY: What do you mean when you say things didn't turn out the way you thought? Because they were ultimately successful in helping the effort to make sure Donald Trump was not reelected.
MR. STEVENS: Yes. Things did turn out in that way, but we really thought we were going to kind of film this group, this Lincoln Project group to new heights and that they would stay together, and maybe we would‑‑you know, the film would end, and they would still be together, still fighting. And, obviously, they had all kinds of inner turmoil and struggles inside, and that became interesting too, and we obviously had to document that.
The other thing that these guys did predict‑‑and Stuart even says it in the movie‑‑is knowing that the election would be certified on January 6th, he said, "Listen, I think there's going to be trouble"‑‑and he‑‑"January 6th. Don't‑‑don't‑‑don't think there might‑‑something might not happen." He said that in November, I believe, while we're filming. So we knew that once Biden was elected that the film wouldn't end also because there would be‑‑the Lincoln Project's job wouldn't be finished. They have to keep fighting, which they did also. So they kept fighting, and there was infighting inside of the Lincoln Project itself.
MS. CASEY: And we'll talk more about some of that infighting and some of the scandals that‑‑but a lot of the partners and people who were instrumental in forming it to step away.
But you just mentioned a lot of names. You rattled off a bunch of names that if you watch this docuseries become very familiar, and if you're deeply involved in politics, they may be familiar names. But, if you're someone sitting on your couch watching commercials, these are men‑‑some women but mostly men‑‑who have been instrumental, Fisher, in steering the political conversation for decades, and they are behind the scenes. So tell us about these political operatives and just how powerful they have been in American life.
MR. STEVENS: Well, yeah. I mean, I worked‑‑I remember, like, as a‑‑you know, I started getting involved in politics very young just doing volunteer work, which I've only done volunteer work, working for, you know, mostly, you know, Al Gore and John Kerry and Barack Obama, just working, just volunteering, and obviously, these are the guys that fought Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama. These are the guys that were against them, and here we are working together.
I thought also what a great scope, what a great lens to watch these guys work and be on the same side and watch them, and they are smart. They really are‑‑they're all brilliant guys and one really wonderful woman, brilliant woman, Jennifer Horn, and I was kind of amazed at how brilliant they were. And watching Rick‑‑and you'll see in the series, you know, he creates ads like before your very‑‑before your very eyes, and they're incredible. And Stuart Stevens and Steve Schmidt and just the way that they think and operate, it was wonderful to have them on your side, on our side, and that was what attracted me to this film, to doing this film.
So I got‑‑you know, I got a firsthand seat, like a front‑row seat at watching them do their magic, and they really are great at their jobs. And they are‑‑they are political operatives, and they really know what makes people tick, and especially, they knew what made Donald Trump tick. And they got under his skin, and even today, they continue to seemingly get under their skin. The last ad that they cut only a few weeks ago is‑‑Trump is still coming at these guys, and they come at him. So it's still going on.
MS. CASEY: I mean, they seem to really understand the way Trump thinks, and you see that process playout where they are‑‑I mean, some of these people that you focused on are obsessed with Donald Trump and what he could do and what he thinks.
I want to play a clip from your series. This is cofounder Rick Wilson, and he's describing the goal of the Lincoln Project, and you just get a sense of where he's coming from.
[Videos plays]
MS. CASEY: We now have Karim Amer joining us as well, director as well as our other guest, Fisher, of this Lincoln Project docuseries on Showtime.
Welcome, Karim. It's great to see you. Thank you for joining us.
You know, we just watched this clip from your series featuring Rick Wilson. I would love to hear from you, Karim, what you found intriguing about these people who were so focused on Donald Trump.
MR. AMER: Yeah. I think what was fascinating is at a time when we've seen our political‑‑our political realities become so fragmented where‑‑and people are stuck in their ways and unwilling to move from one side to the other, to see people who have devoted themselves to the Republican Party and had the willingness to go against what they had been preaching for years, we thought would be interesting from a character perspective, because when we make these kinds of films, we look for someone who's going on a journey, somebody who's got stakes, and these guys definitely fit that criteria. They were people on a journey who had stakes who were going against what they had kind of devoted their lives to, and it was a point of no return for them, politically. And so that's‑‑we thought it could be, you know, a captivating journey for us to point our cameras on.
Of course, we had no idea what happened from there, but like the best films, you never do. So I think we got very lucky to capture this moment of history.
MS. CASEY: Mm‑hmm. You know, as we were just talking about a moment ago with Fisher, the Lincoln Project was able to get under Donald Trump's skin, and I want to point out one thing that Trump said at one point. He said, quote, "I'm running against Sleepy Joe Biden but also against some really stupid Republicans who didn't know how good they had it."
Karim, when did the senior team at the Lincoln Project realize they were getting under Donald Trump's skin?
MR. STEVENS: Well, I think the ability to get under Donald Trump's skin was part of the ingenuity of the Lincoln Project from the very get‑go. Like, they had the‑‑you know, the started with a New York Times column that was quite, you know, beautiful written, but they never imagined that it was going to lead to this huge success and become the most fastest‑growing super PAC in American history.
I think what‑‑their kind of eureka moment is when they started buying up these ads on Fox News and the D.C.‑‑the local Fox News in D.C. in a slot that's quite cheap, which was kind of from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. because who the hell is going to be usually watching Fox at that time. Of course, they knew that the president would be. You know, maybe Kellyanne Conway may have tipped off George. Who knows how they knew? But they knew to buy that ad space, and they were able to get under his skin. And he tweeted at them, and that caused a huge explosion in their follower‑‑in their viewership. And so I think once they saw that they could kind of like, you know, antagonize the‑‑or troll him, so to speak, they continued to do so, and that became kind of part of their core competitive advantage and strategy that we capture.
MS. CASEY: And, Fisher, we just heard Karim mention George. That's George Conway, of course. What was his role in the Lincoln Project, and how did he become a character that we see periodically in your series?
MR. STEVENS: I think George's name was used. They‑‑they needed George to kind of really get‑‑I mean, Steve Schmidt was a name. Rick was a name, but they knew the power of George's name on an op‑ed would really kind of make them have more heft and more bulk. And they called George, and they knew George was against Trump. And they asked if, you know, George could look over the op‑ed and kind of, you know, give notes and sign on, and he did.
He, unfortunately for us, did not go to Park City, was not there. So we‑‑he's in the movie a little bit, but we didn't really get to get as deep with George as we would have liked to. And he did kind of play a role at the end there, tried to make détente between the two‑‑the two groups when they started to separate.
But George certainly was an adviser throughout and on the podcasts and played a pivotal role because of his name and his name power.
MS. CASEY: Yeah. You know, Karim, these savvy pros were running these ads that were very effective on social media. I mean, they were irreverent. They grabbed you. They even grabbed the attention of the sitting president. But they make the point in your docuseries that they weren't just throwing out zingers, that they were trying to be strategic, and they were using all those decades of experience in Republican operative circles to know where to place the ads, who to get them in front of. What was it like to see them work and see their effectiveness?
MR. AMER: So, for me, personally, it was quite fascinating because I had‑‑you know, I made a film called "The Great Hack" which was about Cambridge Analytica and Facebook and the way that was weaponized in 2016, but we had started making that film after Cambridge Analytica‑‑after the election. So I hadn't gotten the opportunity to witness kind of this propaganda work happen in real time, and we had that opportunity in "The Lincoln Project" which was really great to see how amazing they were at winning Twitter for the day. I mean, they were such‑‑they were so good at figuring out the cultural zeitgeist of what was going on in the country, how to react immediately, and what you see so cleverly in their‑‑in their technique is the rapid response. They would be getting stuff out faster than we could imagine.
And, as filmmakers, Fisher and I were always kind of astounded by it because, like, it takes us so much longer to make a‑‑to make something, and to see them kind of react so quickly and keep knowing how to kind of, you know, hack the culture was quite remarkable.
I think "The Lincoln Project" will go down as a political technology story. There's no denying it. Like, I think they‑‑they never imagined that they would be‑‑that it was going to be about Twitter. They started before covid, but there‑‑I think the ingenuity of what Rick Wilson brought with his kind of tone and Steve's kind of‑‑and Stuart's command of history and American politics as well as the tech savviness that Ron and Madrid brought in terms of targeting was a really perfect combination that was quite, you know, effective.
MS. CASEY: Let's watch something from your docuseries where we see those ads being created in real time, and we see the process of people like Steve Schmidt, Stuart Stevens coming up with the words and the scenes, and then we see what it turns into. Let's watch.
MS. CASEY: So then we see, of course, later how these ads actually turn out. I mean, what was it like to watch their minds work? Because there are sections of your docuseries where you can‑‑you see these guys saying words out loud. Like, you see the idea phase, and then you see other people writing it down, and they're turning these ideas and phrases into what are very potent ads.
Fisher, let's start with you.
MR. STEVENS: Well, I found it really inspiring. I mean, I've spent a lot of time making fiction, right? So you agonize over a line. You know, you write a line, and then four years later, you see it up on the screen. I mean, this was like writing a line, and then the next day, you're seeing it on the screen.
I loved that they were just like willing to "Let's just throw this out here," and they did check each other. They go‑‑you know, there you saw a moment where Stuart was like, "Yeah, that's good," but, you know, constantly, "Well, let's try this. Let's try that." So, I mean, we could have just done a whole episode just on them writing ads. We film them writing constantly.
I love their balls as well. They just didn't‑‑they didn't mince words, right? And that's something the Democrats are always kind of weighing, "Should we say this? Will this go well with our demographic?" These guys just said, "Okay. I don't care. Let's go for it."
The difference‑‑the difference that they‑‑was with this than what they did with the Republicans is everything they said was truth. When they were fighting, you know, like this‑‑not that I'm saying these guys did this with vote ad, but they did make shit up a lot in‑‑when they were on the other side.
This side, they didn't have to make anything up. Everything they did or said was real. So that was a big difference, but it was great to see them like no holds bar and how quick it turned around.
MS. CASEY: Karim, you told us that something that fascinated you about these people was their soul searching and the fact that they went from being dyed‑in‑the‑wool Republicans, in fact, very powerful Republicans behind the scenes to being people fighting against Donald Trump and even risking their professional futures. Did the morality of their work over the decades and their ability to steer American politics in the past come up a lot in your interviews as you talked to them?
MR. AMER: You know, it did. I mean, I think‑‑and one of the things that was challenging is having to kind of focus on what story we were trying to tell at the moment, which is the story of this last election and not, you know, get too stuck in the past.
I mean, I'm a Muslim American immigrant in the United States. It was very hard for me to sit there and hear them talk about the glory days of Bush and Cheney. I'm like I don't know if those‑‑I'd call those glory days. You know what I mean? [Laughs] Like, yes, things have gotten worse under Trump, but for God's sake, like, if we're going to start saying Cheney was the good old days, we got a problem here, right?
So, you know‑‑but at the same time, as much as I'd love to have a serious conversation with Steve Schmidt on his views about Dick Cheney and his support of Dick Cheney, in the face of the collapse of the American Experiment, perhaps, with fascism, like, beyond the doorsteps kind of grabbing and threatening and enveloping so many aspects of society, I think you need useful people like the Lincoln Project who know how to bring the fight in a way that the Democrats just don't, and I think that that's what we were focused on capturing.
And I think that, you know, not allowing people the space for political redemption is very problematic in our society because we need‑‑you know, as Stuart says, you need every useful son of a bitch you can get, and I think‑‑you know, I stand by that. I think that is a very important thing.
Should people be held accountable? Of course, they should, but in the face of what‑‑of what stakes were posed and continue to be posed by the right‑wing fascist movements that have become the dominant voice, unfortunately, of the Republican Party, this is what needed to happen.
MS. CASEY: I want to talk more about how your politics sort of factored into the production of this series, but first, I've got to hear from you. You know, when Joe Biden won the presidency, how responsible or effective did the team at the Lincoln Project feel? What was the mood like, and did they point to each other and say, "You did this," or did they point to themselves and say, "I did this"? How did it go?
MR. STEVENS: I think‑‑I think there was‑‑there was mixed feelings. They were all very disappointed in a lot of the Senate races, and they were also disappointed that 74 million people voted for Donald Trump. I think it was quite unexpected on their part.
However, there were certain places that they focused on, certain parts of Georgia, certain parts of Pennsylvania, certain parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, where it was clear that those ads and those‑‑that data worked, and so, in that sense, there was also a little back pat, you know, patting on the back and like that. So it was‑‑but it was very mixed. The emotions were mixed, and I think at times, they felt great, but then, you know, the end of the day, there's‑‑they knew that their job was far from finished, right? They knew that Trumpism is still prevalent and that these people are‑‑who decided not to acknowledge Joe Biden as president are going to be a cancer in society and in the system, and they knew their work wasn't finished.
MS. CASEY: And, as you guys have said, there were members of the Lincoln Project who were very concerned about January 6th. So what was it like to be with them to witness the attack on American democracy and the U.S. Capitol, Karim?
MR. AMER: Yeah. I mean, I think they‑‑I think they, unfortunately, knew how dangerous the language and vitriol was becoming within the party, and they could see the cowardice among some of their former colleagues who, you know, at one point were criticizing Donald Trump and then could not say anything ever to challenge his authority or any of his abuse of powers. And we filmed some of those moments where you could see them kind of talking about how there could be a violent‑‑you know, a violent scenario that was likely.
I think that it was very shocking for them, you know? I mean, I remember having conversation with one of them, and I said to them, you know, "We saw these kinds of political violent images in Egypt," which is where Fisher and I met. We met in Tahrir Square, actually, when I was filming during the Arab Spring, and we saw how much the symbols of power could change in a country. But nobody ever imagined images like that in the United States, right? Just‑‑you just‑‑I think we grow up with this mythology in America that American exceptionalism is so powerful that it can kind of overcome anything, and I think certainly in my generation, we haven't seen any real strife that's caused the country to feel so divided until recently.
So it was‑‑I felt that, you know, they were‑‑they were mourning the kind of demise of some of the‑‑some of the‑‑some of the ways in which they saw the beauty of the country get desecrated, and I think it was very personal for them to know that they could have maybe had a hand in helping weaponize some of these ideas early on, you know? I mean, this January 6th in many ways is the Frankenstein that I don't think they are directly responsible for, but I do think, as we show in the series, you know, you draw‑‑you draw a through line from Palinism to Trumpism to where we are today.
MS. CASEY: Well, even as the founders of the Lincoln Project grappled with some of those sort of existential questions, they were feeling a lot of success, and there were a lot of questions and curiosity about how powerful the Lincoln Project could be in the future, and then it was torn apart by scandals. So let's talk about this. One of the cofounders, John Weaver, was accused of sexual harassment and sexual grooming of young men, even teenagers. Some of those men were people that worked with him.
Karim, there were the accusations against Weaver, but there were also accusations of people within the Lincoln Project sort of ignoring the allegations. What happened?
MR. AMER: You know, the situation with John Weaver was something that we obviously were as surprised by as everybody else. We never met John Weaver. He was never in Utah when we were filming, and when we asked about his whereabouts, we were informed that he had had a heart attack, so he wasn't available.
I think different people have different accounts from within the Lincoln Project of who knew what when, and we cover that in the series to the best of our ability. But, ultimately, it was one of the‑‑one of the‑‑you know, I think the‑‑when we look back at the story of the Lincoln Project, the fight over the money and the fight over Weaver were the two kind of‑‑two bullets that really sunk their success, and I think that they were‑‑the difference in opinion of what should and shouldn't have been done was something that you felt very sharply, especially amongst the different generations in the group.
MS. CASEY: Yeah. I mean, Fisher, you document some of the people of the group, especially the young idealists who worked for the Lincoln Project, just being in despair when they get a sense of the fights over money and also when they realized that leaders of membership knew about the allegations of Weaver. Fisher, what was it like to sort of film that and have that be part of the story?
MR. STEVENS: Well, I have to say it was a bummer, the whole thing, because Karim and I thought we were just going to make a movie about like this group, and then things took a‑‑things did take a turn. And I think what we had to do was just capture. We didn't judge it. We just kind of put our cameras on it and captured whatever we could and then let all of them speak, speak to all the allegations, and I think‑‑well, I would say, fortunately, the Lincoln Project is still working and still making great ads. It's unfortunate that they're not all doing it together, so‑‑but I'm‑‑I think both Karim and I were, you know, like you guys, like the public. We didn't know what was going on. We were just filming, and then all of a sudden, these bombs dropped, and we‑‑as filmmakers, we just tried to capture what was going on, so that's what we did.
MS. CASEY: Yeah. To be clear about the bombs, there were the allegations against Weaver, but there were also charges of financial mismanagement. And we see various founders in your docuseries kind of accusing others of like a big grift, of trying to take advantage of people's generosity and giving money to this group. So what happened, Fisher? Why did this group ultimately fall apart in the way that it did?
MR. STEVENS: Well, I think‑‑it's like what Karim said. I mean, people started going, "Well, how much did you make, and how much did you make?" and there was not full transparency. And, as we say in the show, the system is set up so there's not full transparency, whether it's the Lincoln Project, whether it's Trump, when it's Biden's administration.
So I think the big issue‑‑listen, my‑‑I remember when Citizens United was passed. We saw the whole system change, and unfortunately, some of these guys were for Citizens United. And we see this is a result of all of that where you can be‑‑you don't have to be transparent, and it's legal.
So we didn't‑‑you know, we asked numerous times, as you see, how much, who made what, when, and they all answered the way they want to answer. And we just kind of lay it out there for the audience to make do with what you will. Like, you guys be the judges. This is what they took.
I personally know that making‑‑you know, we‑‑I don't know. I can't say I have any of the answers because we don't really have any of the answers. So it's‑‑I'm just glad that it's still around. To be honest, I'm‑‑I at the end of the day, as Karim said earlier, it's like we need these guys, in my opinion, to keep fighting the fight.
Now, it's up to you whether you want to give them money. I believe that Rick and Reed and Stuart are doing‑‑are still making great ads, and the bigger problem is not the grift. The bigger problem to me is fascism in this country quickly coming upon us, and anybody fighting that and willing to put their necks out to fight that, I'm willing to support. So that's kind of how I ended up feeling at the end of the day.
MS. CASEY: And, Fisher, as you said, it's Rick Wilson, Reed Galen, Stuart Stevens are all still part of it.
Karim, what's the lesson that you want viewers to take away from the rise and fall, though as you said, it still exists, but fall, the power of the Lincoln Project?
MR. AMER: That's a good question. Look, I think that we have to‑‑I think the Lincoln Project forces us to kind of overcome a lot of the romantic mythology we'd like to see American politics through. I think we‑‑you know, we grow up in an education system that overromanticizes the founding the country and the origin of the country, and as Steve says towards the end of the series, America has always had a beautiful part and a very ugly part. And they've kind of‑‑they're kind of a double helix structure to the origin of the nation, and I think the Lincoln Project reminded us of that because they show us that a group of individuals with a mission and a virtue‑based mission can galvanize a momentum and a movement that can actually effect massive change.
But, at the same time, the American political system is the ultimate financial score, and it has been turned into a business. And that is not the fault of the Lincoln Project or Cambridge Analytica. That is the fault of the reality of our complacency as citizens in allowing for our election cycles to be completely for sale and allowing for political behavior to become modified and allowing for social media to be weaponized in such a way. So we have allowed for all these things, yet we're so outraged when we hear someone has made money in politics. Like, change the laws. Stand up for something. You know, it's like we're so easy to point at our outrage, but we are‑‑we're not seeing people get into the fight as much as they should.
So I think it's easy to criticize the Lincoln Project, but you have to ask yourself, what have you been doing in the election cycle to actually try to effect change as well? And I think that would be my position, but, of course, it's a story that teaches us about hubris and about the issues of avarice and how an amazing kind of thing can rise and fall and, as Fisher says, rise again, you know, maybe not in the same potency, but it's still kicking.
MS. CASEY: Fisher, in addition to being a director‑‑
MR. STEVENS: Yeah. I just want‑‑
MS. CASEY: Oh, go ahead, Fisher.
MR. STEVENS: The last thing, I do want to say the complacency Karim was talking about is crucial, and it's really the reason we made this. And it's the reason we tried to get it out. We got it out before the election because we are on a precipice of things, of falling off a cliff. You know, you're looking at‑‑you're looking at Italy. You're looking at Sweden. You're looking at Brazil. You're looking at all these countries, and you see where it's going, and we are at that tipping point now where, you know, we may have a Congress with a House Majority leader who refuses to acknowledge that Biden is president, basically‑‑McCarthy‑‑and it's dangerous. And you know the first thing he's going to do is to try to impeach the president and throw everything into turmoil.
So I think we can't be complacent, and that's why I just hope people watch this and they get fired up one way or another, whatever it is you do.
MS. CASEY: Fisher, I want to pivot just briefly before we end. In addition to being a director, you are an accomplished actor. You've been on the show "Succession," which is all about power and really the levers of power in America. So I have to ask you, which one of the characters from your docuseries and from the Lincoln Project would you want to play?
MR. STEVENS: Well, I mean, I would‑‑I have to say I would want to play‑‑I'd have to put on a little weight and maybe even lose a little hair more, but I think Rick Wilson would be who I'd‑‑I would love to play Rick because I just love Rick's energy, and I just love his‑‑the way it goes. I hate shooting guns; he loves to shoot guns. So I'd have to learn how to shoot guns, but other than that, you know, I can't drive a car very well, but I'd fly‑‑I'd take flying lessons, but Rick, I would say, yes.
MS. CASEY: All right. Well‑‑
MR. AMER: You'd be a great Rick.
MS. CASEY: You have an acting challenge ahead of you, even assignment ahead of you.
Well, I'd like to thank you both so much. Unfortunately, we are out of time today, so we'll have to leave it there. Karim Amer and Fisher Stevens, directors of "The Lincoln Project," thank you for your time. A reminder for those who'd like to watch, the series will premier this Friday night, 8 p.m.‑‑that's Eastern Time‑‑on Showtime. Thanks to both of you.
MR. STEVENS: Thank you very much, guys. Thank you.
MR. AMER: Thank you.
MS. CASEY: Thank you.
And thanks to all of you for watching with Washington Post Live. To check out what interviews we have coming up, head to WashingtonPostLive.com, and you’ll find out all about our upcoming events and programming.
I'm Libby Casey. Thank you so much. | 2022-10-04T21:41:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: “The Lincoln Project” - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/04/transcript-lincoln-project/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/04/transcript-lincoln-project/ |
Soccer officials who enabled abuse ‘should be gone,’ USWNT captain says
U.S. women's national team captain Becky Sauerbrunn, pictured in Washington last month, responded Tuesday to Sally Q. Yates's report on abuse in the NWSL. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
The fallout from an investigative report describing “systemic” abuse and misconduct in the National Women’s Soccer League began to play out Tuesday in cities 5,000 miles apart.
In London for a Friday match against England, U.S. national team captain Becky Sauerbrunn called for those responsible to lose their jobs, while in Oregon, the owner of the NWSL team that employs her, the Portland Thorns’ Merritt Paulson, announced he and two other top officials are stepping aside for the time being.
Among the revelations in the 172-page report by Sally Q. Yates, the former acting attorney general, was that Paulson and president of soccer Gavin Wilkinson enabled former coach Paul Riley, who had been accused by two players in 2015 of sexual coercion, harassment and intimidation. Paulson later endorsed Riley for a job elsewhere in the league.
“I cannot apologize enough for our role in a gross systemic failure to protect player safety and the missteps we made in 2015. I am truly sorry,” Paulson, who also owns the MLS’s Portland Timbers, said in a statement.
He said he was removing himself from all “Thorns-related decision making” until a joint investigation by the NWSL and its players union is completed. Wilkinson and Mike Golub, the team’s president of business, also will step aside, Paulson said, and all team decisions will be handled by the club’s general counsel.
Yates’s report also said the Thorns “interfered with our access to relevant witnesses and raised specious legal arguments in an attempt to impede our use of relevant documents.”
Paulson’s statement came after 107ist, which oversees fan groups for the Thorns and Timbers, called on Paulson to sell the teams. The group staged a protest outside Providence Park on Monday night.
Speaking to reporters from London, Sauerbrunn said national team players are “not doing well. We are horrified and heartbroken and frustrated and exhausted and really, really angry.”
She also said “every [NWSL] owner and executive and U.S. Soccer [Federation] official who has repeatedly failed the players and failed to protect the players, who have hidden behind legalities and have not participated fully in these investigations, should be gone.”
The Yates report said abuse and misconduct were pervasive and systemic in the NWSL, a nine-year-old circuit with 12 teams, including the Washington Spirit. It accused team executives of repeatedly failing to heed warnings or punish coaches who abused players.
The report also found that coaches were the subject of numerous allegations, including “degrading tirades; manipulation that was about power, not improving performance; and retaliation against those who attempted to come forward.”
Players also told investigators that coaches made “sexually charged comments, unwanted sexual advances and sexual touching” and engaged in “coercive sexual intercourse.”
Aside from Riley, the report detailed allegations against two other former coaches, Chicago’s Rory Dames and Louisville’s Christy Holly. The USSF hired Yates to investigate last year amid reports in The Washington Post and the Athletic of widespread allegations against NWSL coaches.
Yates found the sport’s power brokers, including USSF officials, repeatedly failed the players by ignoring red flags and dismissing complaints.
Sauerbrunn, a University of Virginia graduate in her 15th pro season, said “it’s time for those that are in authority and leadership positions to start holding each other accountable and asking for the change that needs to happen in order for players to feel safe in this league.”
The report comes as the NWSL is about to start its six-team playoffs and the national team, which has won a record four World Cup trophies, is preparing for a friendly against European champion England on Friday at Wembley Stadium.
That match is “marred by this report, and it’s marred by the atrocities that have been condoned and tolerated and allowed to go on in the NWSL for the last 10 years,” U.S. defender Alana Cook said.
Sauerbrunn said the players are united in forcing change and reclaiming the sport.
“For so long, the passion for the game has been taken away from players because of the abuse that they have faced in this league,” she said. “I’m done allowing that to happen. I love the game of soccer. I want to be passionate and I want to play, and we need to bring that joy and accessibility back to the game. It’s finding that joy again with my teammates, and not allowing anyone to take that away from me like it’s been taken away from so many people.”
U.S. Coach Vlatko Andonovski said he was “disgusted” by what he read in the report and has “tremendous respect for the bravery of the players who spoke out and the players who participated in this report.”
He said he and others in positions of power need to “do our parts to make sure no one has to deal with this ever at any level in our sport or any sport.”
The Yates report suggested recommendations, including accurate disclosure and explanation of misconduct to prevent other teams from hiring coaches. It also suggested the USSF improve its licensing process, which could help “weed out problematic coaches.”
Andonovski said he has given the national team players space and flexibility at training camp this week, allowing them to bow out of practices and meetings — “or even if they don’t want to play the game. It is up to them because this means more than the game.”
Commending the players who stepped forward, Andonovski said: “They did this not to protect themselves because we failed to protect them. They’re doing this so we can protect the next generation and the players outside of NWSL — the college players, the 15-year-olds and the 12-year-olds.”
Rick Maese contributed to this report. | 2022-10-04T22:44:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Becky Sauerbrunn says soccer officials who enabled abuse ‘should be gone’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/nwsl-abuse-becky-sauerbrunn/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/nwsl-abuse-becky-sauerbrunn/ |
Scott Merryman, who suffers from PTSD-related mental illnesses, will be released from custody to undergo treatment, authorities say
A portrait of Scott Merryman during basic training. (Michael Noble, Jr./For The Washington Post)
A former Army paratrooper who admittedly threatened to kill President Biden is set to be released from federal custody Thursday after authorities agreed not to prosecute him if he undergoes treatment for mental health problems stemming from his combat experiences in Afghanistan, according to court filings.
Scott Merryman, 38, who served in Afghanistan for 15 months in 2007 and 2008 and was later diagnosed with various mental illnesses related to post-traumatic stress disorder, was in the throes of a “hyper-religious” psychotic breakdown this year when made the threats against Biden in Facebook posts and phone calls to the White House and the Secret Service. He was arrested Jan. 27 in Maryland after traveling from his home in rural Kansas, vowing to “lop the head off the serpent in the heart of the nation” and “slay the Anti-Christ,” as he called the president on social media.
His attorneys and family members have long argued that Merryman is a psychiatric casualty of war, not a criminal, and that he belongs in a treatment facility, not a prison. After months of court wrangling, federal prosecutors and the chief judge of U.S. District Court in Maryland now appear to concur with the defense, based on an agreement finalized this week with Merryman and his main lawyer.
“I’m a very, very, very happy mom,” Merryman’s mother, Terry Bryant, said Tuesday from her home in Independence, Kan., in the southeastern corner of the state. “I told his lawyer: ‘You went up against the government and you won! You should be proud of yourself!’ Finally, Scott is going to get the help he needs.”
The U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland declined to comment on the deal.
Under the “deferred prosecution” agreement, filed in court Tuesday, the U.S. attorney’s office agreed to put off prosecuting Merryman for up to 36 months. In the meantime, Merryman will be released from incarceration Thursday and immediately begin receiving inpatient treatment at a private mental health facility. The agreement includes provisions barring him from possessing weapons, consuming intoxicants, disrupting his treatment or “engaging in criminal activity,” including threatening anyone.
The criminal case against him could resume if he breaks the agreement.
He threatened to kill Joe Biden. His family says he’s a casualty of war.
If Merryman “has successfully satisfied the requirements of this agreement,” he can request to be released early, after 24 months, from mandated mental health treatment and supervision. Provided he cooperates in therapy and abides by other rules — whether he remains in treatment for 36 or 24 months — the charges against him will be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning they could not be refiled. He was charged in an indictment with threatening to harm the president and making threats in interstate communication, each punishable by up to five years in prison.
Since his return from deployment with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in 2008, Merryman’s life has been marred by depression, guilt, outbursts of rage, “intrusive memories,” alcohol abuse, opioid addiction, failed relationships, self-isolation and suicide attempts, according to hundreds of pages of mental health records reviewed by The Washington Post. He was initially diagnosed with PTSD in 2009, after what the Army said were his “multiple exposures to combat,” and was honorably discharged based on his disability.
Over the years, in counseling with mental health professionals at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Merryman has said he is most haunted by a firefight with insurgents in an Afghan village in which he mistakenly machine-gunned a small girl.
After more than a decade of debilitating emotional ailments, Merryman suffered a psychotic breakdown late last year in which he became obsessed with the Bible’s Book of Revelation, believing he was a God-anointed prophet of the world’s final days, according to friends and loved ones. Soon afterward, he set out for the nation’s capital.
After his medications were adjusted following his arrest, the delusions went away, although the PTSD remained, his lawyers said. From the beginning, they argued that he should be placed in a mental health facility for PTSD treatment while he awaited a trial, at which they intended to argue that he was not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. But prosecutors and Chief Judge James K. Bredar insisted that a defendant accused of threatening to kill the president should be kept behind bars under tight security.
Merryman’s lead attorney, Sedira Banan, said her client’s good behavior and apparent mental stability while in federal custody in recent months — along with evaluations conducted by government mental health experts — changed the minds of prosecutors and the judge, who agreed that Merryman could be released to get treatment in a private facility. Banan declined to comment further on the agreement. | 2022-10-04T22:52:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Afghanistan war veteran Scott Merryman, who threatened Biden, could avoid prosecution - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/04/veteran-ptsd-threatened-biden-released-merryman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/04/veteran-ptsd-threatened-biden-released-merryman/ |
He woke when a plane crashed into his home. Now he grieves 3 strangers.
The plane crashed into Jason Hoffman’s house in Minnesota on Saturday night, killing the three people aboard
Three people died after their plane crashed into a home in Hermantown, Minn., on Oct. 1. (Screenshot via Fox 21)
Just before midnight on Saturday, Jason Hoffman and his wife, Crystal, woke up to the sound of a thunderous boom. Shaken and thinking a furnace had exploded, Hoffman turned to his bedside table to grab a flashlight. It illuminated an “unimaginable sight,” he said: Most of the bedroom had been reduced to a pile of rubble, and a small airplane poked through the roof.
As a cloud of dust formed inside the house in Hermantown, Minn., Hoffman’s shock turned into heartache. The three people aboard the Cessna 172 aircraft were killed in the late-night crash. The victims were identified by police as Alyssa Schmidt, 32, her brother Matthew, 31, and Tyler Fretland, 32. The three were from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area.
Fretland, a certified flight instructor, was flying the plane. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
“The biggest heartbreak about all of this isn’t losing a home, but that three people — all of them young — died,” Hoffman told The Washington Post. “It’s absolutely heartbreaking.”
A soccer player was spooked before fatal plane crash. So was his pilot.
Fretland’s mother told KSTP that her son was trying to acquire his commercial license. He and the Schmidt siblings were traveling back from a wedding in Duluth, a port city in northern Minnesota, she said.
But soon after they had taken off, a control tower warned police that the plane had disappeared from the radar about one mile south of Duluth International Airport, a spokesperson for the city of Hermantown said in a news release. Officers scouted the area until they found the wreckage at Hoffman’s house — where the couple, now jolted awake, was trying to escape from the debris.
“We were choking on all of the dust and at the same time trying to get some clothes and find our cat through all the rubble,” Hoffman said.
Zuzu, the cat, was unscathed. So were Crystal and Hoffman, though he had a couple of scratches on his calf. “We were extremely lucky,” he said. “I realized that if the plane had fallen an extra 16 to 18 inches down, it would have hit our bed.”
In the hours after the crash, Hoffman’s neighbors rallied to help the couple. That kindness even extends to strangers, Hoffman said.
“Two days ago we lost our home, and we’re now on our way to a rental house a local business owner offered to furnish for us and let us stay in,” he said. “You don’t realize how much impact an act of kindness has until you’re in a situation where you really need it.”
Though “the generosity has been unreal,” there’s still a sense of loss. The two-story brick house had been a “fairy tale kind of thing,” Hoffman said. For six years, cherished memories and strong friendships had been forged in that Hermantown neighborhood. But now, they can’t imagine moving back in, Hoffman said.
“I don’t think we’ll ever rebuild the house because of what happened,” he said. “Three people lost their lives there and, even though we didn’t know them, it’s just too heartbreaking.”
The pain of their deaths is also being felt 150 miles south in Burnsville, a suburb outside Minneapolis, where the Schmidt siblings were known as a close-knit duo.
Alyssa Schmidt, who taught second grade at Echo Park Elementary, was “an incredibly talented young teacher who positively impacted students every day,” Tony Taschner, a spokesman for Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School District 196, said in a statement.
Rachelle Peterson, one of Alyssa’s friends and former classmates, said Alyssa was a kind and selfless person who made her feel at home when Peterson first started as a student at Valley Middle School in Apple Valley, Minn. Decades later, their trips to the state fair and country concerts remain “an experience that I will take away for a lifetime.”
And Peterson said Matthew was equally as kind as his older sister.
“He had the best smile and always gave the best hugs,” she said. “He was quiet and sweet, but his demeanor carried light and love to more than we will ever know.”
The siblings had a close bond that remained strong through high school and college, she added.
“Alyssa and Matt were closer siblings than most,” Peterson said. “Where there was one of them, many times there were both. It was no random moment that they were together when this tragedy happened.” | 2022-10-04T22:52:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Three dead after plane crashes into Hermantown, Minnesota home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/04/minnesota-plane-crash-house-hermantown/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/04/minnesota-plane-crash-house-hermantown/ |
Stewart Rhodes romanticized deadly force and called it patriotism
Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, speaks during a rally outside the White House in 2017. He is charged with seditious conspiracy. (Susan Walsh/AP)
Stewart Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers in 2009 as a hedge against a federal government that he believed was hungering for too much power. He recruited former members of law enforcement and military veterans, folks he thought understood what it meant to take an oath and honor it. Before long, he had thousands of members who were chest-thumping and trash-talking the government, democracy and the very foundational values that allowed them to complain and moan — and to strut about with an overabundance of entitlement.
If they were aggrieved, it was only because they didn’t get their way.
Now Rhodes, along with four of his cohorts, is on trial in federal court in Washington for seditious conspiracy. He is accused of plotting with others to overthrow the government on Jan. 6. Rhodes argues that there was no such conspiracy, no offensive strategy. He was simply providing security for protesters and awaiting orders from President Donald Trump — waiting for Trump to give the go ahead to battle fellow Americans in service to him, a would-be despot.
Rhodes is facing a jury of his peers. He’s facing the people, the institutions, the grand experiment of the Founding Fathers that he was itching to confront.
FBI got tip about Oath Keepers’ plans for armed fight in November 2020
Rhodes, 57, is one of the most distinctive characters associated with that terrible day. His recruits looked like a parade of anonymous lemmings hopped up on rage and self-regard as they snaked their way up the Capitol steps in a single-file line, one that cut through the chaotic crowds to sow their own horrible mayhem. Rhodes, who stayed outside, is the face that defines the movement.
He’s a stocky man with a round face, a thinning buzz cut, a goatee and glasses. His most distinguishing feature is a black eye patch that he wears due to a firearm accident that those close to him said occurred while he was cleaning his gun. He is often pictured in an Oath Keepers baseball cap with the organization’s yellow logo and the designation: Lifetime Member, as if that is some grand honorific. He seems to enjoy the look of olive drab camouflage. It calls to mind the Army paratrooper that he once was. He carries around two-way radios like he’s on night patrol even if he’s just working crowd control at a Trump rally. At his most combative, Rhodes is the fulsome commander in military gear acting as though a trip to a stadium is a journey through the heart of darkness.
Rhodes has militarized civilian life by romanticizing deadly force and calling it patriotism. He has turned public service into a threat. He is a man who stands in the town square calling out to be part of something. He and the government disagree on exactly what that something is.
Over time, Rhodes has cast himself as both outsider and insider. He isn’t part of the Establishment, yet he presents himself as someone who knows all of the Establishment’s secret misdoings. He is contradictions and misdirection.
Rhodes is a Yale Law School graduate. That cerebral aspect of his character is more readily discerned when he’s delivering talks on patriotism while wearing a too-big jacket and tie. His Oath Keepers attire might have one think that he has the sort of booming baritone that commands authority from 50 paces, but his speechifying tone is light on bass and heavy on dire warnings.
“This government is wildly outside of the Constitution, and so is every level of government all the way down to your town council,” Rhodes said during a speech posted to YouTube in 2014. But not to worry. “All those who’ve sworn the oath to defend the Constitution … as long as we still draw breath, the republic lives inside of us.”
The republic may live inside Rhodes, but he was determined to avoid its capital for his trial. Defense lawyers representing the accused tried mightily to avoid a jury trial, specifically they aimed to avoid one in Washington. They wanted to move it to Virginia. They wanted to dodge the citizens of Washington: the lawyers and bureaucrats and cogs in the system who keep so much of the country churning along, not in the dramatic ways that get parsed on social media or highlighted in a breaking news feed, but in the boring and thankless, yet essential, ways. It’s true that residents here were affected by Jan. 6 in a manner that the country at large was not. The insurrection was not an event that unfolded at a distance but one that exploded just down the block, around the corner, across the street.
A regular guy believed the lie, joined the riot, apologized. Now what?
The judge denied the defense request. And so a trial in Washington forces the defendants, especially Rhodes, to see the faces of the Establishment, of the government that was attacked that day. The Oath Keepers didn’t terrorize some omnipotent force. They terrorized people. They terrorized neighbors: People who have taken an oath. A population of public servants. A bunch of law school graduates, smarty-pants and East Coast elites. A bunch of folks who just might see the reality behind the costumes and posturing and aw-shucks-it-was-just-talk excuses.
Rhodes denigrates the government, and the government is made up of people. It isn’t an inanimate structure. And having to stand trial in the nation’s capital, having to be judged by the men and women who make sure that the Social Security checks reach bank accounts, that Medicare bills are paid, that devastated communities get financial aide after a hurricane or wildfire, may force a tiny reminder of the truth.
Jan. 6 was an attack on democracy. But it was also an attack on people. On the peers that Rhodes desperately pretends he can’t see. | 2022-10-04T22:52:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stewart Rhodes romanticized Jan. 6 insurrection as patriotism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/04/stewart-rhodes-insurrection-jan-6/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/04/stewart-rhodes-insurrection-jan-6/ |
NEW YORK —Amazon is implementing a hiring freeze on the corporate side of its retail business for the rest of the year. The New York Times reported Tuesday the company informed recruiters that all open job postings for such roles will close, and new openings will be available next year. The report also said the company recommended phone interviews and other recruiting efforts be canceled. According to the report, some roles - such as field positions - will be exempt. In an email, Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser said the company expects to adjust its hiring strategies. Glasser declined to say if Amazon was implementing the hiring freeze.
NEW YORK — While most Americans say having a good standard of living is important, more than half believe it’s unlikely younger people today will have a better life than their parents, according to a new poll. Black adults have a more positive outlook than Hispanic and white Americans on upward mobility, while Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say that structural factors such as education, race, gender, and family wealth contribute to one’s upward mobility.
WASHINGTON — The number of available jobs in the U.S. plummeted in August compared with July, a sign that businesses may pull back further on hiring and potentially cool chronically high inflation. There were 10.1 million advertised jobs on the last day of August, down a huge 10% from 11.2 million openings in July. In March, job openings had hit a record of nearly 11.9 million. The sharp drop in job openings will be welcomed by the Federal Reserve. Fed officials have cited the high level of openings as a sign of strong labor demand that has compelled employers to steadily raise pay to attract and keep workers.
NEW YORK — Thrifters who flock to Goodwill stores will now be able to do more of their treasure hunting online. The Goodwill Industries International Inc., the 120 year-old non-profit organization that operates 3,300 stores in the U.S., and Canada, has launched an online business as part of a newly incorporated venture called GoodwillFinds. Until now Goodwill had no centralized online division, with each store selling some of its donations online via third party websites such as eBay and Amazon. The new venture will help fund Goodwill’s community-based programs across the U.S. provide professional training, job placement and youth mentorship. It should also expand its base of customers.
WASHINGTON — Devastated by Russia’s invasion eight months ago, the Ukrainian economy will plunge 35% this year. That’s according to a World Bank forecast Tuesday. The war has destroyed factories and farmland and displaced millions of Ukrainians. The 189-country anti-poverty agency estimates that rebuilding Ukraine will cost at least $349 billion, 1.5 times the size of the country’s prewar economy. Still, the bank’s assessment marks an upgrade from the 45.1% freefall it forecast in June. And it expects that the Ukrainian economy will return to growth in 2023, expanding 3.3% — though the outlook is highly uncertain and will depend on the course of the war. | 2022-10-04T23:10:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Twitter sale on; Americans pessimistic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-twitter-sale-on-americans-pessimistic/2022/10/04/33df8368-4432-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-twitter-sale-on-americans-pessimistic/2022/10/04/33df8368-4432-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html |
If there’s one city in the world that has reason to welcome the latest bout of global currency turmoil, it’s Hong Kong. With Britain shooting down the pound, Japan intervening to support the yen for the first time in almost a quarter-century, and Europe’s single currency reaching a two-decade low, there’s less attention on the Chinese territory’s 39-year-old dollar peg.
And that, surely, is how the technocrats at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority want it.
Let’s be clear: The peg isn’t going anywhere, at least in the near term. But it has been a popular speculative target of hedge fund traders in the past, from George Soros to Bill Ackman to Crispin Odey, and so the current quiet is notable. Apart from some low-level chatter, there’s been no sign of a marquee bet by a high-profile name or a building wave of bearishness against the linked exchange-rate mechanism.
The implied volatility on Hong Kong-US dollar options — a measure of how costly it is to bet against the peg using these derivatives — has risen somewhat this year, but it remains below its pre-pandemic levels in 2019 and in 2016.
That’s a little surprising, given that conditions look potentially less favorable for the peg than at any time since the 1997-1998 Asian crisis. After a long period following the 2008 global financial meltdown, during which Hong Kong was a beneficiary of near-zero US interest rates, the cycle has decisively turned. Economic pain is here already. More looks almost certain to be on the way.
Any economy that runs a peg tying the value of its currency to another country’s effectively outsources its monetary policy. In return for the anchor of currency stability, the peg operator gives up control of domestic interest rates and money supply, tracking the policy decisions of its counterpart central bank. In the case of dollar pegs, that’s the Federal Reserve (the Saudi riyal and the United Arab Emirates’ dirham are among other currencies fixed to the US unit). For a small, open trading economy and financial center such as Hong Kong, this arrangement can make a lot of sense. However, it comes at a price.
Unless economic cycles are perfectly aligned, there’s always a risk of importing policies that are either too loose or too tight. For instance, if the US is growing strongly and Hong Kong is in recession, then the level of interest rates is likely to be higher than the city would prefer; and vice versa if the Fed cuts rates to stimulate the economy while Hong Kong is already expanding rapidly.
When too loose, things will (all else equal) tend to run hot and asset prices will appreciate. The flip side is less fun. When policy is too tight, funds drain out and asset prices fall. This is where Hong Kong finds itself now. The city’s foreign-exchange reserves have dropped 13.6% since November last year (though they remain ample to cover the monetary base), property prices are turning down after a long boom, and the benchmark Hang Seng Index of stocks has slumped to an 11-year low.
The system is intensely pro-cyclical, removing liquidity just when it’s needed and adding it when things are already frothy. In effect, the volatility that is usually absorbed by a floating exchange rate is instead transferred to the domestic economy. Because the value of the currency can’t change, property and stock prices have to adjust instead.
The best way to see just how out of kilter Hong Kong is compared with the US right now is to look at relative inflation rates. The chart below uses moving averages to smooth out the peaks and troughs. Even so, it’s immediately clear how radically the US has moved apart:
Hong Kong hardly needs higher interest rates, yet it has no choice but to keep following the Fed’s tightening if it wants to maintain the peg. Meanwhile, the territory’s economy has shrunk for the past two quarters; Covid-19 restrictions have ravaged local businesses; housing prices have fallen for 11 consecutive weeks; and a record exodus of residents left the city in the 12 months through June amid Communist Party-imposed political changes. What’s more, China’s economy is also struggling and the yuan is its weakest since 2008, adding depreciation pressure.
The Fed is also far from done. Back in July, futures markets expected the fed funds rate to top out at 3.3% and to be falling by mid-2023. After a shocker of an August inflation report, they now predict a peak of almost 4.5%. If US inflation continues to disappoint on the upside, the pain will get worse for Hong Kong. The one-month Hong Kong interbank offered rate, against which many mortgages are priced, has risen by 2.4 percentage points since the end of May. It looks certain to go higher, judging by its Libor equivalent.
So why not just ditch the peg? There are multiple reasons. The yuan, not being fully convertible, isn’t a viable alternative. China may be trying to bind the former British colony closer to the mainland, but having Hong Kong as an offshore fundraising center still suits the country’s economic interests. Above all, there is hard-won institutional and market credibility — most notably during and after the Asian financial crisis, when the territory endured five years of deflation and a near-70% decline in property prices while holding the line on the currency. The city won’t give up that reputation easily.
Hong Kong dollar bears have long discounted these arguments. But why take on a tough and canny adversary like the HKMA when British government ministers are so accommodating? Speculators will doubtless be back at some point when the easier pickings have dried up. In the meantime, Hong Kong’s monetary chiefs can raise a glass to Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng.
Kyle Bass Takes on a Widowmaker Currency Trade: Mark Gilbert
Don’t Fret for Hong Kong’s Dollar Peg Just Yet: Matthew Brooker
The Hong Kong Dollar’s Peg Has Become Untenable: Richard Cookson | 2022-10-04T23:10:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hong Kong Dollar Bears Are Curiously Quiet. Thank the UK - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/hong-kong-dollar-bears-are-curiously-quiet-thank-the-uk/2022/10/04/c07511f0-4430-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/hong-kong-dollar-bears-are-curiously-quiet-thank-the-uk/2022/10/04/c07511f0-4430-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html |
style="height: 725px;"
Its image is ubiquitous ahead of any hurricane, fundamental to decisions coastal residents, first responders and politicians make to prepare for storms and to evacuate: the forecast cone.
But amid finger-pointing over what mistakes may have contributed to dozens of deaths during Hurricane Ian, the concept of the cone is being questioned.
The National Hurricane Center graphic is perhaps misunderstood as widely as it is broadcast. It simply shows the likely future locations of a storm’s center — that is, the path weather-forecasting models suggest its eye will take over the next three to five days.
But many view the cone as indicating that danger is limited to areas within a shaded wedge of the map.
“Some people think the cone represents the size of the storm, which it doesn’t,” said Rebecca Morss, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “Some people think it represents the area of impact, which it doesn’t.”
“The storm is not a point,” said Craig Setzer, a broadcast meteorologist in Miami. “As much as we have told people that hazards extend outside the cone, which is almost a disclaimer, people don’t perceive that.”
The cone fails to communicate threats such as storm surge — the destructive rise in water above normally dry land at the coast — as well as inland flooding, winds and tornadoes. This leaves people unprepared to make life-changing decisions to save their lives and protect their property, Morss said.
“As we saw in this case, sometimes you don’t realize how bad it is and it’s really too late to protect yourself,” she said.
That was true last week for many in communities such as Naples, where lifelong resident and charter boat captain Bill D’Antuono said many fixated on the center of the Hurricane Center’s forecast cone and early predictions of a strike near Tampa. When Ian inundated coastlines near Naples with as much as 12 feet of water, locals were stunned, and D’Antuono was frustrated.
“We can hit an asteroid with a satellite 6 million miles away, but we can’t accurately predict where a hurricane’s going to go,” he said.
The Hurricane Center has used the forecast cone since 2002 to show a zone where a storm’s center will probably pass. It begins at a tropical cyclone’s current location and widens over the course of its predicted track to reflect increasing uncertainty about the storm’s movement — it’s easier to forecast where a storm will be tomorrow than where it will be in three or five days.
The width of the cone is based on an average of forecast errors over the previous five years — that is, the difference between the Hurricane Center’s predictions of where a storm would go and the track it ultimately took.
But that means for storm tracks that are relatively easy for meteorologists to predict, the cone is wider than it needs to be; for hurricanes like Ian that are difficult to pin down, the cone is too narrow, underestimating risk to areas outside its boundaries. Forecast cone graphics also failed to capture the uncertainty in the tracks for Charley in 2004, Joaquin in 2015 and Matthew in 2016, meteorologists said.
The width of the cone at different lead times has gotten smaller over the years as forecasts have improved. Despite these gains, scientists have grappled with the cone’s effectiveness when communicating risk to the public.
“I think the limitations of the cone have been known since it was first used for communication, and NOAA’s been actively working on it to improve communication,” Morss said.
A key limitation is made clear in the fine print around the graphic. As Hurricane Ian approached landfall, a disclaimer appeared atop every six-hour update as it does for the forecast cone graphic for every storm: “Note: The cone contains the probable path of the storm center but does not show the size of the storm. Hazardous conditions can occur outside of the cone.”
But the disclaimer is often stripped off versions of the cone displayed on television, and research has repeatedly shown that a minority of people understand what the cone does and does not depict.
Of 2,847 Floridians surveyed, almost half incorrectly believed that areas outside of the cone were safe from hurricane damage, for example, while 40 percent thought the cone indicated where damage would occur, a study published in August reported.
Forty-eight percent believed the cone showed all possible paths the center of a storm could take — when, in reality, it can only be expected to include the most likely 60 to 70 percent of possible tracks. That means there is about a 1-in-3 chance a storm’s center could take a path outside the cone, something few people are aware of.
“You would think, as time goes on, more people would gradually learn,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami and study co-author. “But I don’t know if that’s happened.”
How the hurricane cone of uncertainty can be a cone of confusion, and what to do about it
Instead, some scientists say changes are needed in how cone graphics are designed and shared — if not whether the cone should be used at all — to better communicate risks of flooding, damaging winds and tornadoes.
“I think this is one of the challenges, is to get people understand a hurricane is not a point on the map. It’s not like the center of circulation is the only thing: It is the impacts,” said W. Craig Fugate, who led the Federal Emergency Management Agency from 2009 to 2017.
Fugate wants to move away from solely relying upon the cone to track where the storm is going, and instead use a new model that would communicate the impacts more clearly to decision-makers and the public. For him, the question of how to communicate multifaceted weather risks is a complex issue that social scientists and meteorologists will have to figure out.
Many of them suggest misinterpretations could be avoided if forecast cone images did not include a centerline, for example, because it can give an undue impression of certainty in where a storm will strike. The line, and the cone itself, are based on predictions from weather forecasting models that are rarely perfect.
In the case of Ian, while forecast cones included the eventual landfall point Cayo Costa just west of Fort Myers, focus was largely on a centerline that suggested impact closer to Tampa until about 24 hours before the storm crashed ashore.
“People focus overly on the track line,” Morss said. “They don’t know that there’s potential for tracks outside the cone itself.”
Beyond that, there is a need to communicate that a storm will be felt far away from its center. Research shows that tropical-storm-force winds of 39 to 73 mph are all it takes for people to perceive that they have been “hit” by a storm, Setzer said. In the case of Ian, hurricane-force winds of at least 74 mph spanned nearly 100 miles at landfall, and tropical-storm-force winds extended virtually the length of the Florida Peninsula.
The Hurricane Center develops a host of graphics communicating how widely hurricane- and tropical-storm-force winds may be felt, and to what extent of coastline a storm can be expected to deliver storm surge. But none are shared as widely as the forecast cone.
“People don’t have time to look at 10 different things,” Morss said. “Those can be difficult to interpret, as well.”
Studies show that during times of extreme weather events, people flock to broadcast airways for information. The national media’s hyper-focus on where storms are tracking also draws extra attention to the cone, rather than to other forecast graphics and tools the National Weather Service uses, Fugate said.
Instead, it would be more helpful if cone graphics included areas of potential impact and types of hazards to expect, experts said, not just a prediction of where a storm’s center will go. As it is, the cone doesn’t reflect much beyond that.
“The cone is doing what the cone is supposed to do,” Setzer said. “The storm is much bigger than a point.”
Susan Buchanan, a spokesperson for the National Weather Service, which oversees the Hurricane Center, said that “we frequently adapt our products, services and communications based on social science guidance,” but did not offer any specific information about plans to update the forecast cone.
Brittany Shammas contributed to this report. | 2022-10-04T23:10:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Hurricane Ian's "cone" of predicted path confused some Floridians - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/04/hurricane-cone-map-confusion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/04/hurricane-cone-map-confusion/ |
Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, at a clinic in Fairview Heights, Ill., in April. (Martha Irvine/AP)
The mobile units join mail-order abortion pill providers and telehealth appointments among the latest strategies sought by reproductive rights advocates and health-care providers to keep abortion safe and accessible to as many patients as possible as the landscape grows more restrictive, particularly in the South and Midwest.
States such as Illinois may try to write rules that limit what are known as “long-arm statues” from states such as Texas with “bounty laws.” Such laws incentivize private citizens to sue anyone they suspect of “aiding or abetting” the state’s abortion ban, and it’s unclear how far outside state borders the laws may try to reach, said Robin Fretwell Wilson, who directs the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois College Law. | 2022-10-04T23:10:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Planned Parenthood to launch its first mobile abortion clinic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/04/planned-parenthood-mobile-clinic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/04/planned-parenthood-mobile-clinic/ |
A hog inside a holding pen at a farm near Elliott, Iowa, in December 2021. (Charlie Neibergall/AP)
The pork lobby, seemingly aiming for the hearts of anti-Californiacs across the country, claims that because it buys most of its pork from other states, the industry would have to reinvent itself just for California. Nice try. I’d think most Americans everywhere would be relieved to know such practices were discontinued. Besides, the Center for a Humane Economy reports that about 34 percent of pork farmers already don’t use gestation crates.
Their legal argument focuses on what’s known as the “dormant commerce clause,” or the implied prohibition in the U.S Constitution’s commerce clause against states passing legislation that excessively interferes with interstate commerce.
Thus, the justices that make up the high court’s conservative majority have a rare opportunity to align themselves not only with their liberal counterparts but with some of history’s greatest ethicists and philosophers. The law provides a way to end a ruthless means of food production. In the process, they would be helping create a humane economy while also reminding us that that our human — and humane — bonds are stronger than financial incentives or arguments of inconvenience. | 2022-10-04T23:40:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Supreme Court case puts California pork law to test - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/04/supreme-court-california-pork-law/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/04/supreme-court-california-pork-law/ |
Supreme Court debates Alabama’s refusal of second Black voting district
The case is another major test of the Voting Rights Act
Attorney Deuel Ross speaks to the media on Tuesday outside the Supreme Court. To his right, are Rep. Terri A. Sewell (D-Ala.), plaintiff Evan Milligan and President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Janai Nelson. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The Supreme Court’s liberal justices combined Tuesday for an aggressive and unified defense against Alabama’s efforts to limit creation of voting districts in which minorities have the ability to elect candidates of their choice.
The case is another major test of the Voting Rights Act, which the court’s conservative majority has diluted in recent years. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson seemed determined Tuesday to go down swinging if the current challenge eventually goes the same way.
At the end of the nearly two-hour argument, it appeared a majority of the court might not embrace Alabama’s request for a broad reinterpretation of how the law is enforced, and that a narrower compromise was a possibility.
The state is challenging a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel that said it must create a second congressional district, out of seven, in which an African American candidate would have a good chance of being elected. Alabama’s electorate is 27 percent Black, and the charge is that most of those voters are packed into one district and the rest spread among others so that their voting power is diluted.
“What strikes me about this case is that under our precedent it’s kind of a slam dunk if you just take our existing precedent the way it is, and the three judges below all found this,” Kagan said. The three-judge panel was made up of one Democratic nominee and two judges nominated by President Donald Trump.
The Voting Rights Act is “one of the great achievements of American democracy to achieve equal political opportunities regardless of race, to ensure that African Americans could have as much political power as White Americans could,” Kagan said, before adding that the court in recent years has cut back on its protections. If Alabama is successful, she asked, “what’s left?”
How the Supreme Court could give Republicans more power with elections
Alabama Solicitor General Edmund G. LaCour Jr. said the state redrew its congressional lines after the 2020 Census “in a lawful, race-neutral manner” that largely retained existing districts.
The law does not require Alabama “to replace its map with a racially gerrymandered plan maximizing the number of majority-minority districts,” LaCour said. It only “requires an electoral process equally open to all, not one that guarantees maximum political success for some over others.”
Jackson challenged LaCour’s assertion that neutrality on race was essential. Those who drafted the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection, she said, did so “in a race-conscious way.”
“They were, in fact, trying to ensure that people who had been discriminated against, the freedmen … were actually brought equal to everyone else in the society,” she said.
That question of constitutional colorblindness is one that could figure into the court’s deliberations later this month about affirmative action in university admissions.
Conservative Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Amy Coney Barrett were sympathetic to LaCour, with Barrett saying the states are “being asked to navigate the rock and the hard place” of the Constitution’s command of equal protection and the Voting Rights Act’s assertion of minority rights.
Alito seemed to agree that challengers to a state’s redistricting maps should use only race-neutral means to show that the number of minority voters was large enough and compact enough to warrant election districts.
He seemed taken with Alabama’s assertion that a “computer simulation that takes into account all of the traditional districting standards would almost never, in a million simulations, it would never produce a second majority-minority district” in Alabama unless specifically told to take race into account.
But Deuel Ross, a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund representing some of the challengers, said “there is nothing race-neutral about Alabama’s map.” The judicial panel that heard the case, he said, found that Alabama’s plan divides the state’s Black community “and allows White bloc voting to deny Black voters the opportunity to elect representation responsive to their needs.”
Once again, Alabama is the battleground over Black voting rights
The fight centers on what is called the state’s Black Belt, which is named for its fertile black soil but also is a swath in which many of the state’s Black voters live. The challengers’ maps would remove some of those voters from the district that now routinely elects a Black congresswoman and create a second district in which a Black candidate would have a much greater chance.
But LaCour said that could only happen by splitting the counties along the state’s Gulf Coast, which the state has said is a unified community of shared interest because of combined French and Spanish heritage.
Sotomayor was unimpressed. “Just so happens that all of those people are White. And you’ve never split those communities,” she said. “The Black Belt has all Black people or not all but mostly Black people” and it is always split in the state’s plans.
The case is the first for current Supreme Court justices to consider how to apply the Voting Rights Act to racial gerrymandering. In 2019, the court said federal courts had no role in policing partisan gerrymandering.
The judges in the Alabama case were applying Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which forbids practices that would mean racial minorities “have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.”
To challenge a redistricting map, plaintiffs must show that there is a minority community large and compact enough to warrant a district. Then it must show racially polarized voting patterns. The panel of judges in the case at issue said it was not a “close call”: “Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress.”
But the Supreme Court on a 5-4 vote earlier this year put the panel’s ruling on hold, meaning the fall elections will take place under the plan drawn by the state’s Republican-led legislature.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, representing the Biden administration, said the history of racial discrimination in Alabama is “severe” and its underrepresented Black voters are “sufficiently numerous and compact to form a majority in a reasonably configured district.”
Because the state can’t win under the law “as it’s been applied for the past 40 years,” it is asking the court to “radically change the law,” Prelogar said.
Requiring race neutrality at the outset of proving discrimination, she said, would mean “nothing would stop Alabama and many other states from dismantling their existing majority-minority districts, leaving Black voters and entire swaths of the country with no ability to elect their preferred representatives.”
While the argument was lively, it did not seem to foretell the ultimate resolution. Two of the conservative justices who seem likely to agree with Alabama, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch, asked either limited questions or, in Gorsuch’s case, none at all.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has shown himself wary of classifying voters by race, and was in the majority in both of the cases Kagan cited as weakening the Voting Rights Act. But he was a dissenter when the court last spring put on hold the panel’s decision saying there should be two majority-minority districts. He said the judges had followed Supreme Court precedents and produced “an extensive opinion with no apparent errors for our correction.”
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said the answer to the case might be found in a narrower argument in Alabama’s briefs: “whether the newly drawn district alone is sufficiently compact or whether the minority population is so sprawling that any majority-minority district cannot be reasonably configured.”
Kavanaugh said he thought that was the right question, but Alabama had not supplied an answer. “Why do you think it’s so sprawling, given that it does respect a community of interest in the Black Belt, that it can’t be a new majority-minority district?” he asked.
LaCour said the challengers did not use traditional redistricting practices in their proposed maps, but Kavanaugh did not seem to agree.
Ross and attorney Abha Khanna, another lawyer for the challengers, said LaCour’s analysis was wrong. The maps submitted by the plaintiffs, Ross said, “look very similar to Alabama’s own Board of Education map and [they] increase opportunities for minority voters, while satisfying traditional and state redistricting criteria at least as well as Alabama’s map.”
The cases are Merrill v. Milligan and Merrill v. Caster. | 2022-10-04T23:53:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Supreme Court debates Alabama’s refusal of second Black voting district - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/04/supreme-court-alabama-voting-rights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/04/supreme-court-alabama-voting-rights/ |
Antonio Inoki, Japanese wrestler and lawmaker, dies at 79
As a politician, he visited North Korea repeatedly to help resolve Japan’s longstanding issue of past abductions of Japanese nationals to the North
Boxing champion Muhammad Ali tries to evade kicks by wrestler Antonio Inoki during a World Martial Arts match in 1976 in Tokyo. (AP)
Antonio Inoki, a popular Japanese professional wrestler and lawmaker who faced boxing champion Muhammad Ali in a mixed martial arts match in 1976, died Oct. 1 at 79.
The cause was complications from amyloidosis, a disease that attacks the body’s tissues and organs, according to New Japan Pro-Wrestling, of which he was the founding president.
Mr. Inoki helped set up mixed-martial-arts matches between top wrestlers and champions from other combat sports such as judo, karate and boxing. In 1976, he faced Ali in a mixed-martial-arts match at Tokyo’s Budokan hall, an exhibition match that Japanese fans remember as “the fight of the century.”
To many outside Japan, however, the match was seen as unprofessional and not taken seriously. Mr. Inoki was mostly on the mat and kicking at Ali’s legs as the boxing champion circled around him.
Kanji Inoki was born in Yokohama on Feb. 20, 1943, and moved to Brazil with his family when he was 13 and worked at a coffee plantation. He debuted as a professional wrestler at 17 and captured the attention of Rikidozan, known as the father of Japanese pro-wrestling.
Mr. Inoki made his pro-wrestling debut in 1960 and gave himself the ring name Antonio Inoki two years later. With his archrival, the late Shohei “Giant” Baba, he made pro wrestling a hugely popular sport in Japan. Mr. Inoki founded New Japan Pro-Wrestling in 1972.
Mr. Inoki entered politics in 1989 after winning a seat in the upper house, one of Japan’s two chambers of parliament, and headed the Sports and Peace Party. He traveled to Iraq in 1990 to win the release of Japanese citizens who were held hostage there. He also staged a pro-wrestling match in North Korea.
Mr. Inoki visited North Korea repeatedly to help resolve Japan’s long-standing issue of past abductions of Japanese nationals to the North.
He retired as a wrestler in 1998 but remained active in politics until 2019. Information about his survivors was not immediately available. | 2022-10-04T23:53:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Antonio Inoki, Japanese wrestler and lawmaker, dies at 79 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/04/antonio-inoki-japan-wrestler-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/04/antonio-inoki-japan-wrestler-dead/ |
Yusuf al-Qaradawi surrounded by Egyptians after leading Friday prayers in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Feb. 18, 2011. (Khaled Elfiqi/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Islamic cleric whose views reached across the Arab world on Qatar’s Al Jazeera network, backing the Arab Spring uprisings and denouncing al-Qaeda while facing condemnation from some leaders who saw him as a threat, died Sept. 26 in Qatar’s capital, Doha. He was 96.
Thousands of mourners attended Mr. Qaradawi’s funeral in Doha on Sept. 27, a day after his death was announced by his family and state-run media in Qatar, where Mr. Qaradawi had lived in exile for decades after leaving his native Egypt. No cause was given, but the cleric had been largely out of the public eye since falling ill with the coronavirus last year.
Mr. Qaradawi’s ideology was largely a self-made amalgam of Islamic schools — some moderate-leaning and others backing violence as a necessary tool — giving him a reputation as an independent voice that could sway in various, and at times apparently contradictory, directions.
At the core of his beliefs was an adherence to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group forged during his boyhood in Egypt that held Islam as a foundation for government, education and other key aspects of civil life. That itself made him a hugely polarizing figure.
The Brotherhood is seen as the enemy of many Western-allied regimes across the Muslim world, which made Mr. Qaradawi a pariah for leaders in places such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In 2015, an Egyptian court sentenced Mr. Qaradawi in absentia to death. Two years later, Qatar faced a full-scale blockade by Egypt and several Persian Gulf neighbors, partly for providing haven for Mr. Qaradawi and others.
The pressure and persecution only elevated his stature among many followers. He wrote more than 100 books, including some highly regarded volumes on Islamic jurisprudence, and helped lead a website, Islamonline.net, that offered what some called e-fatwas on politics and personal conundrums.
But his platform on Al Jazeera gave him the self-crafted title of “global mufti,” bringing him into hundreds of millions of homes. He delivered sermons, gave interviews and hosted a call-in show, “Shariah and Life,” that dispensed guidance on topics ranging from euthanasia by Muslims (not acceptable), women’s role in politics (fine as long as traditional Islamic codes are followed) and whether it’s permitted to sterilize cats (yes, if done humanely).
Maverick cleric is a hit on Arab TV
His multimedia reach gave his bigger pronouncements resonance unmatched by nearly any other Islamic scholar. He denounced al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks, but also declared that suicide bombings by Palestinians against Israelis were “heroic martyrdom” and that retaliation against U.S.-led forces in Iraq was legitimate defense. In 2009, he described the Holocaust as part of “divine punishment” against Jews.
In 2016, Mr. Qaradawi revised his fatwa on Palestinian suicide attacks, saying they were no longer permissible because Palestinians had other options to resist Israel.
“He is regarded by many as a ‘moderate’ — a possible bridge between the West and Islam,” Tommaso Virgili, now a researcher on Islamic issues at the Berlin Social Science Center, wrote in 2018. “However, many of his tenets show very little ‘moderation.’”
Mr. Qaradawi dismissed contentions that his views fed tensions in the region. He described Muslims as part of a “single nation” that is not at odds with the West, but is also compelled to fight back against perceived injustices.
“I was the first who condemned the crimes of Sept. 11, even before it was clear to many that al-Qaeda was behind the attacks,” he told Der Spiegel in 2005. “There is certainly a difference if violence is used in a blind terrorist act or if it is used in rebellion against a foreign occupying force.”
The interviewer asked if Mr. Qaradawi felt the Muslim world is morally superior.
“We condemn the excessive materialism of the West. We deplore the loss of solidarity and brotherliness, the decay of morals and the daily violations of human dignity,” he replied. “God has disappeared.”
Yusuf al-Qaradawi was born on Sept. 9, 1926, in the Nile Delta village of Saft Turab, the only child in a farming family. When he was 2, his father died and he was sent to live with his uncle, who became impressed with the boy’s ability to memorize long passages of the Quran.
Mr. Qaradawi was enrolled in a religious school in Tanta, about 60 miles northwest of Cairo, to prepare for Cairo’s al-Azhar University, regarded as the center of Sunni Muslim scholarship.
In Tanta, Mr. Qaradawi’s first encountered the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was fast becoming a political force in Egypt between the world wars. Mr. Qaradawi often recounted how he was spellbound by a lecture from the group’s founder, Hassan al-Banna.
The Muslim Brotherhood soon faced crackdowns by authorities worried about its rise. In 1948, it became a hunted group after a follower assassinated Egypt’s prime minister, Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha. Banna was then killed by suspected government loyalists.
Mr. Qaradawi graduated from al-Azhar in 1953 and became active in Brotherhood affairs. He was arrested and jailed at least three times, during which he claimed he was tortured. In the early 1960s, he left Egypt for Qatar, where the ruling dynasty offered him sanctuary and a position as an Islamic scholar.
In Qatar, Mr. Qaradawi publicly renounced some of the more radical elements of the movement. He rejected the teachings of renowned Muslim Brotherhood firebrand Sayyid Qutb, whose support of armed struggle helped give the ideological underpinnings for al-Qaeda, Egypt’s Islamic Jihad and, later, some leaders of the Islamic State.
The Arab Spring protests that began in 2010 seemed a capstone to his calls for political reforms across the Muslim world — although he was always careful not to encourage any dissent that would upset his patrons in Qatar.
“Our manner of protesting should reflect sense and reason,” Mr. Qaradawi said in a sermon in Doha in 2012.
He used Al Jazeera to rally behind groups that overthrew and killed Libyan dictator Col. Moammar Gaddafi in 2011, and urged on demonstrations against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who managed to maintain control with the help from allies Iran and Russia.
In Egypt, Mr. Qaradawi made a triumphant return after President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown by protests in early 2011. “Don’t let anyone steal this revolution from you,” he told crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. “Those hypocrites who will put on a new face that suits them.”
His prominence in Islamist circles rose even higher when presidential elections in 2012 brought Muslim Brotherhood stalwart Mohamed Morsi to power. But many Egyptian activists and secular reformists strongly opposed Morsi and his allies, including Mr. Qaradawi.
Egypt's ousted strongman Hosni Mubarak dies at 91
Egypt’s military ousted Morsi in 2013 and opened a relentless purge against the Brotherhood. Mr. Qaradawi and his seven children were declared terrorists. His daughter Ola al-Qaradawi and her husband were arrested in 2017.
In 2017, in an essay published 100 days after his daughter’s arrest, Mr. Qaradawi offered words of encouragement and said Egypt was “punishing your father through you.”
“A day would feel like eternity,” he wrote. “These days of injustice will, if God wills it, become part of your past.” (She was released in late 2021, but her husband remains jailed.)
In addition to Ola, Mr. Qaradawi is survived by his third wife, Aicha; three other daughters, Siham, Ilham and Asmaa; three sons, Mohamed, Abdel-Rahman and Osama; and 12 grandchildren. Many of his children studied at British or U.S. universities.
Mr. Qaradawi spent his recent years working on a unified compilation of his books and representing various organizations, including the International Union of Muslim Scholars.
In a 2004 interview, Mr. Qaradawi reflected on the power of television to give him a voice that few other could match. He was unabashed about seizing the chance.
“There are some preachers who can shake the very pulpit but cannot write. I know some sheikhs like that,” he told Arab Media & Society in 2004. “Some people can write very well; but put them up in the pulpit and they stutter and stammer. They can’t perform. … I think Allah has granted to me something of both.” | 2022-10-04T23:53:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Yusuf al-Qaradawi, influential Islamic scholar, dies at 96 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/04/qaradawi-islamic-scholar-jazeera-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/04/qaradawi-islamic-scholar-jazeera-dies/ |
Aaron Judge's 62nd home run of the season was a solo shot. (LM Otero/AP Photo)
New York Yankees star Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run of the year against the Texas Rangers on Tuesday, passing Roger Maris for the most in a season by an American League player and punctuating a late stretch of breathtaking drama that only once-in-a-generation pursuits can create.
The home run record has long been sacred in baseball, measuring the most uncomplicated feats of baseball strength that even the sport’s unpredictable bounces and unforeseen variables cannot interrupt. Tuesday’s homer gave Judge a complicated, unofficial and uncomfortable title: the most prolific single-season home run hitter who did not play during the game’s steroid era.
Only record-holder Barry Bonds (73), Mark McGwire (70 and 65) and Sammy Sosa (66, 64 and 63) have hit more than 62 homers in a season. All three played in a time when MLB did not test for performance-enhancing drugs as stringently as it does now.
So Judge, with his iconic No. 99, has emerged as a new modern prototype, a new home run hero for a different era, the latest in a long line of Yankee legends.
Judge hit his 60th homer Sept. 20, seemingly giving him plenty of time to catch and pass Maris, whose family began to follow him from city to city to be there to see it. For days, fans fell silent every time a pitcher delivered a ball to Judge, who went seven games between hitting Nos. 60 and 61, a drought that must have felt like eons to the slugger before he ended it with a line drive to left field last week.
Examining Albert Pujols's magical season with the St. Louis Cardinals
The Yankees played their last home series of the regular season, with their division title already sealed, through rain and cold this past weekend. Fans packed the stands anyway, though the Baltimore Orioles walked Judge five times in three games and struck him out six times.
So Judge was left to take his pursuit to Texas, where he hit his 62nd home run in time to ensure the full extent of his dominance this year.
The 30-year-old entered Tuesday leading the AL in home runs and RBI, with a batting average that trailed only one AL player, Minnesota’s Luis Arraez. Not only is he having one of the greatest all-around offensive seasons in baseball history, but he is hitting for power at a pace unparalleled by anyone in the sport. Judge has 62 homers. The next-closest player entered Tuesday with 46. Not since the days of Babe Ruth has the gap between No. 1 and No. 2 been so vast. Judge has a chance to become the AL’s first Triple Crown winner since the Detroit Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera in 2012 — and just the second since Boston Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski in 1967.
But Ruth, Maris, Yastrzemski and the rest didn’t have to face pitches like the ones Judge sees regularly. He is compiling these numbers at a time when offense, at least as measured by batting average, is at record lows, at a time when pitchers have never thrown harder and in a city where his every move is scrutinized.
MLB’s new postseason format, explained
He is putting them together months after turning down a contract offer worth more than $200 million and weeks before he will become a free agent for the first time. And he is doing it all for a scuffling Yankees team so picked apart by injuries that Judge has all but held the offense together as they clung to their lead in the AL East. They recently clinched the AL East title in Toronto, a late September celebration that did nothing to alleviate the tension of a superstar and a fan base waiting for something much rarer.
Unlike Maris and Ruth, Judge is making history a generation after widespread use of since-banned drugs complicated the home run record. McGwire later admitted to using steroids when he broke Maris’s record by hitting 70 homers in 1998. Bonds, whose murky legacy has kept him out of the Hall of Fame, followed with 73 homers in 2001 to establish the single-season record.
Maris’s son Roger Jr. has been in attendance to watch Judge’s chase, at home and on the road. After Judge tied Maris with No. 61, he told reporters he believes Judge should “be revered for being the actual single-season home run champ.”
“That’s really who he is if hits 62,” he said. “And I think that’s what needs to happen. I think baseball needs to look at the records, and I think baseball should do something.”
Judge is not only compiling his numbers against the highest velocity in MLB history but under the most stringent drug testing policy the sport has ever had. He said he considers Bonds’s 73 the record — in other words, 62 is something but not the whole thing. But that he has surpassed the number that no one surpassed for more than 30 years until the steroid era does mean he is now an intractable part of the conversation about the greatest single-season showings of all time — just in time for him to hit the free agent market. | 2022-10-05T00:24:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Aaron Judge hits home run No. 62 to pass Roger Maris - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/aaron-judge-62-home-runs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/aaron-judge-62-home-runs/ |
Nationals begin the season’s final series with a 4-2 loss to the Mets
Nationals pitcher Cory Abbott allowed four runs in four innings of Tuesday's doubleheader opener in New York. (Frank Franklin II/AP)
NEW YORK — The Washington Nationals are still in the early stages of their rebuild, hoping to turn their inexperienced players into winners down the line. Over the season’s final weeks, those players have gotten an up-close view of what winning looks like.
The Nationals began their final series of the season with a doubleheader Tuesday against the New York Mets at Citi Field. In the opener, Washington lost, 4-2, to fall to 55-105. With the win, the Mets (99-61) kept themselves in the hunt for the NL East title; regardless of whether they can rally past the Atlanta Braves, they will be in the postseason.
With the expanded playoff field, that has been a theme for the Nationals down the stretch. Over the past month, the Nationals have played the Mets, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Baltimore Orioles, the Miami Marlins and the Braves. All but the Orioles and Marlins will be in the postseason, and all but Miami will finish with a winning record. Washington entered Tuesday’s games 10-18 in that stretch, doing what it can to play spoiler without the kind of pieces that would let it focus on winning now.
The Nationals are built to rely on their starting rotation, but it has produced poor results throughout an injury-riddled season. Cory Abbott, Paolo Espino and Erick Fedde were the projected starters for this series. Fedde was the only one expected to be in the rotation. Espino was a bullpen arm, and Abbott was claimed off waivers in May; both are in the rotation because of injuries or to protect young arms who were shut down early — to save their contributions for future seasons, when they will matter more.
That brought Abbott to the mound Tuesday afternoon with another chance to prove himself. How he’ll fit in the franchise’s plans next year remains to be seen, but his season of inconsistency concluded with him going winless in nine starts.
He stranded a pair of runners in the first inning and was attempting to do so again in the second. But after jumping ahead 1-2 against Brandon Nimmo with two outs, Abbott worked himself into a full count before Nimmo hit a two-run double.
Abbott opened the third by allowing an infield single, a wild pitch that hit the backstop on the fly and back-to-back walks. At one point in the inning, he had thrown 31 balls and 31 strikes on the afternoon. But after a pair of strikeouts, he escaped having allowed just one run on a Mark Canha sacrifice fly.
Nimmo’s fourth-inning solo shot handed the Mets a 4-0 lead, and Abbott’s day was over when the inning ended. He struck out six and walked four, leaving his ERA at 5.25.
“Ugly progress,” the 27-year-old right-hander said of his season. “Just finding myself and what I need to do to stay in the big leagues as a starter. I have a lot to go off of, I guess. Keep pushing it in the offseason and come back better and stronger.”
Abbott said he plans to work on adding a fourth pitch — probably a cutter. He said it would be useful for getting in on the hitter’s hands, something he noted he could’ve used on Nimmo’s go-ahead double in the second.
After Abbott’s struggles, the Nationals had to play from behind again. Only three of the afternoon’s nine starters — César Hernández, Lane Thomas and Victor Robles — had started on Opening Day against the Mets at Nationals Park.
Only Robles was playing the same position (center field) as he was for the first game of the year — and he exited in the fifth inning with an apparent injury, replaced by pinch runner Alex Call, after hitting a double. Riley Adams then hit a two-run homer off Carlos Carrasco to cut the Nationals’ deficit to 4-2, but that was as close as they would get against this postseason-bound opponent.
“We don’t want to be in position that we’re in,” Manager Dave Martinez said Monday. “We want to be headed to the playoffs. But what I like is our guys are young. They get an experience of playing, still playing some pretty meaningful games, and they get to learn to do this.”
What’s next for Martinez’s staff? The manager said before the doubleheader that each member of his coaching staff would be back next year.
That was expected but not set in stone. When the Nationals exercised the 2023 options in the contracts of Martinez and General Manager Mike Rizzo in July, Martinez said all of his coaches received two-year deals when they were hired. The implication was that they would be retained through next season. | 2022-10-05T00:24:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nationals lose to Mets to begin doubleheader in season's final series - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/nationals-mets-doubleheader/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/04/nationals-mets-doubleheader/ |
Perspective by Courtland Milloy
As a scholar focused on improving the economic well-being of African Americans, Andre Perry often wearied of reports about racial disparities that offered no solutions. Simply comparing the deficits of people who had been discriminated against with the assets of people who benefited from the discrimination got us nothing except an ever-widening economic gap.
More intriguing to Perry was how some Black people managed to make economic progress no matter what — either by organizing for policy changes or increasing individual effort.
“If we can find the places where Black people are doing well, then we can learn from them and maybe replicate some of those conditions in places where Black people aren’t doing as well,” said Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a D.C.-based public-policy think tank.
Perry and Brookings colleague Jonathan Rothwell, working in partnership with the NAACP, have succeeded in finding such places by the hundreds. Most are characterized by the relatively long life spans of their residents. Among the 20 counties with the highest life expectancy for Black people, three are in Virginia: Loudoun (82.7 years), Fairfax (82.2) and Prince William (81.8). One is in Maryland: Montgomery County (81.3 years.)
They also correlate with higher-income Black households.
Areas where Black people are living long and well are widely scattered, in urban and rural areas, in red and blue states, North and South. In both Manassas Park, Va., and Weld County in Colorado, the mean life expectancy for Black residents is 96 years — the highest in the nation.
Perry and his team have created a Black Progress Index with an interactive dashboard that allows users to see predictors of longevity where they reside.
“When you look at racial disparities by lumping all Black people together, and seeing everybody as the same, you lose the nuanced differences as well as the sense of agency that we have in our lives,” Perry said. “Even as we struggle to close racial gaps as a race, we still must be aware of the opportunities to make improvements in our lives and in our communities.”
And knowing how other Black people are succeeding is indispensable.
For first time, more Americans fault discrimination than self-motivation for white-black prosperity gap
“In some areas, you’ll see that the Black community has taken civic action to address a problem or organized to increase the minimum wage,” Perry said. “Others will then begin to say, ‘If they can do it, why not us?’ ”
Since the Black Progress Index became operational last month, Perry says, he has been inundated with requests from elected officials and community leaders to learn how to use this treasure trove of socioeconomic data.
But just knowing the characteristics of a neighborhood where residents live long and well is a good start.
Perry’s research showed that the percentage of Black adults ages 25 and over with at least a bachelor’s degree is highly predictive of longer life. The more the merrier.
“The individual effect of education on health is well established, and living near higher-income adults may boost health in other ways, such as by improving markets, safety, or government policy and resources,” Perry said.
The Black college attainment rate is very high in D.C. metro areas, including Howard County in Maryland (54 percent); and Arlington and Loudoun counties in Virginia (51 percent and 50 percent, respectively). Life expectancy for Black adults in these places is also very high, from 79.4 years in Howard County to 82.4 in Loudoun County.
“If America had a Wakanda,” Perry said, referring to the high-tech African kingdom full of promise and potential as depicted in Marvel’s “Black Panther” movie, “it would be the DMV,” or the District, Maryland, and Virginia.
None of this is to excuse the historic and ongoing economic injustices that perpetuate racial disparities. But there are plenty of Black people who know what it takes to survive and even thrive while engaged in the struggle for equal opportunities.
On the opposite end, the Black college attainment rate is just 4.4 percent in Florida’s Baker County, outside of Jacksonville, and Black life expectancy there is 76.4 years. Butts County, outside of Atlanta, has the same low Black college attainment rate and even lower Black life expectancy, at 73.8.
In the poorest sections of Southeast Washington, the average life span for Black residents is 68 years. In Jefferson, Ohio, it’s 63, among the lowest in the country.
Black entrepreneurship — measured by the rate of business ownership — is also a significant predictor of life expectancy. Roughly 1 percent of Black adults aged 18 to 64 own an employer business, and a standard deviation in ownership rates predicts an increase of roughly 0.2 years in life. The Black business ownership rate is as high as 4 percent in Hidalgo County in Texas, where Black life expectancy is 91.5 years.
Also, Black fathers matter in the home. Areas that have dads living in households with their kids tend to be among the more prosperous households. The more fathers living with their children means longer life for the children. However, 57 percent of Black children are not living with their father, according to Census Bureau data. When they are living in the household, Black fathers invest heavily in their children in terms of play, reading, helping with homework and other activities. Studies show that Black fathers spend as much time with their children as similarly situated White fathers. However, when children are apart from their fathers, they spend much less time on positive activities.
“We’re not trying to blame anyone, just point out that there are underlying benefits to having fathers in the home,” Perry said.
Perry also found that having a large share of foreign-born Black adults in the area correlates with long life expectancy. But researchers are not sure why — maybe it’s because they haven’t spent as much time dealing with White American racism, which has been proved to take a heavy toll on Black people who were born and raised here.
“We are seeing Black people pushing in different ways against racism, with some efforts resulting in better outcomes,” Perry said. “We just want more people to know what it takes to get those better results.”
More from Courtland Milloy
Navigating the wilderness, avoiding predators urban and rural
A Black woman hits glass ceiling then breaks ground as her own boss
How to stop gun violence? End poverty and racism. | 2022-10-05T00:28:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Black people live longest in places where they can prosper - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/04/black-progress-index-blacks-live-longest-prosper/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/04/black-progress-index-blacks-live-longest-prosper/ |
A search and rescue officer patrols a Harlem Heights neighborhood near Fort Myers Beach, Fla. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)
As President Biden and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell prepared to visit storm-ravaged Fort Myers Beach, Fla., with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Wednesday, a week after the hurricane hit, many survivors said they were still struggling with basic needs.
The Florida Medical Examiners Commission has confirmed 72 storm-related deaths, but the toll is probably higher: County sheriffs have documented additional deaths not included in that total, and searches continue for the missing.
Over 200,000 individuals had applied for FEMA assistance as of early Tuesday, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Of those, about 99,000 had been approved, for a total of about $73 million in individual assistance, the agency said.
Some who applied for FEMA assistance at the shelter said FEMA staff members referred them to the American Red Cross for temporary housing assistance, although the agency was referring hurricane survivors back to FEMA, a Red Cross spokeswoman said.
“We’re trying to get a hotel from FEMA, but we really didn’t get too far on that,” Silva said as she left the shelter. She had brought her two boys with her, ages 13 and 16. The 13-year-old piped up.
The storm not only flooded her house; it also ripped off swaths of her roof. The FEMA staffer put her on a list to receive tarps to patch the damage but couldn’t say how soon those would arrive.
“I’m in limbo right now, an uncertain world. I just want to find shelter because it’s not good for your lungs,” she said of the damp house, alluding to health issues suffered by the children. “They have to do something. We will be homeless, and I fought hard to keep three children together and out of state care.”
On Friday, Congress approved a stopgap spending measure that allows FEMA to tap $19 billion to respond to Ian and other disasters. All 16 of Florida’s Republican House members opposed the bill.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) voted against the spending bill; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) was in Florida and missed the vote. Both have said they opposed Democrats tying disaster relief to unrelated spending, and on Friday they sent a joint letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee asking for funding to “provide much needed assistance to Florida.”
Federal assistance is supposed to be available to hurricane survivors across southwest Florida, officials said. Those grants are supposed to help pay for temporary housing, emergency home repairs, uninsured and underinsured personal property losses, or medical, dental and funeral expenses related to the disaster, and applicants are reviewed on a case-by-case basis to determine need, officials said.
“We’re aware of the unique needs communities impacted by Hurricane Ian are experiencing, and our disaster survivor assistance teams are being sent to these areas because we believe in meeting people where they are,” said Jaclyn Rothenberg, FEMA’s director of public affairs.
“They cannot access those applications, and they need immediate support,” Willis said.
Nearly 3,000 people affected by the storm were staying at 22 shelters Tuesday, and that number rose in recent days as some discovered their homes were uninhabitable, ran out of alternative places to stay or couldn’t afford staying at a hotel, said Brad Kieserman, vice president of disaster cycle services for the American Red Cross.
As Silva left the shelter, June Gonzalez stood nearby, preparing to head to work. Before the storm, Gonzalez, 44, evacuated to the shelter from her mobile home on Pine Island with her fiance and 12-year-old son, Luis Andrietta, who is autistic and has to stay out of the heat because of a health condition.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Gonzalez said, having checked with FEMA staffers at the shelter. “They said I probably won’t even get assistance because we’re renters, not owners. I don’t count on any help from them.”
She applied for FEMA assistance the day after the storm but hadn’t heard from anyone. She said her sister in Puerto Rico received FEMA assistance after Hurricane Maria and told her to be patient, that “it’s a process, it takes time.”
Hundreds of people and their pets filled the hallways at Hertz Arena, which is being used as a shelter. Gonzalez would prefer to stay at a hotel, but rooms are scarce, prices are spiking and none of the agencies at the shelter were offering temporary housing assistance. She said her friend was paying $241 per night, money that Gonzalez needs for food.
Pat Heiland, 80, a retired customer service worker, evacuated to the shelter from her flooded home on Sanibel Island and wasn’t sure how to apply for FEMA assistance. She didn’t have a computer or phone and needed nurses to bring her a wheelchair just to get to the shelter’s FEMA desk. Heiland said she had always relied on her husband to take care of their house, but he died a year and a half ago.
“FEMA was here; I think they’re coming tomorrow. What am I going to do? This is a big place,” Heiland said as she sat on her cot next to the cage of her pet parrot, Will.
Nina Marshall also found the process of applying for FEMA aid confusing. Marshall, 56, had been living with her 88-year-old mother in her duplex in Fort Myers when the hurricane struck. Her mother applied for FEMA help, but when Marshall tried at the shelter, FEMA’s staff told her she was already part of her mother’s application and would have to wait for that to be processed, including potentially a low-interest federal loan for her dog-sitting business.
The American Red Cross took over the Hertz Arena shelter this week from the county, and along with other organizations was trying to assist residents. Groups such as the Naples-based nonprofit Better Together distributed food, diapers and first-aid kits in the Harlem Heights neighborhood of Fort Myers, a mostly Black and Latino neighborhood that was among those hit hardest by the hurricane. There, residents were still living in flooded homes and struggling for basic necessities.
FEMA search-and-rescue teams, in the meantime, walked through streets still brimming with knee-deep storm water, checking on residents.
“I can’t tell you anything about insurance,” said the search-and-rescue team member, Jeffrey Taylor. “Try to take everything out. If you want to do any kind of work in there, wear a mask. It’s going to get worse.”
Harvey, 32, a house cleaner, has been living at home since the storm with her 13-year-old son and husband, a roofer who’s already back at work, using their one remaining car. Their three other children were staying with her sister in nearby Lehigh Acres, but Harvey wasn’t sure how long that would last. And she wasn’t sure if they should return to the house. Not only had water seeped into the floor, but all of the food in their refrigerator had spoiled, too.
Anita Parmer was volunteering at the pantry this week after the storm destroyed her home on Fort Myers Beach. Parmer, a retired elementary school teacher for special-needs students, evacuated to a friend’s house in Naples before the storm and was still staying there. Fire officials hadn’t allowed her and other evacuees to return, although a friend sent her cellphone video showing extensive wind and flood damage. Her monthly mortgage payment is due soon.
“I registered with FEMA; they said an adjuster would be out. He called me this week and I have to tell him you can’t get on the island,” said a frustrated Parmer, 68. “If I can’t get in there, how am I going to tell you what’s damaged? Is it salvageable? After two weeks being closed up, will anything be salvageable?”
Among those picking up donated jambalaya, water and a bag of groceries at the pantry was Gary Pierre Louis, 46, who brought his wife and 5-year-old son. Pierre Louis works advising migrants on their paperwork, and he said he doesn’t want to leave the area because he has clients to help.
But his rented townhouse in the Island Village neighborhood and his office flooded. He had rental insurance and applied to FEMA but wasn’t optimistic it would help, having applied after his former rental was damaged by Hurricane Irma in 2017.
“They came, they took pictures of the house, and six months later nothing happened,” he said, until he pressured insurers to make the repairs.
On Tuesday, FEMA inspectors visited the nearby Pine Ridge Palms mobile home park, owned by residents ages 55 and up.
Jim Anderson, 73, a resident who works in maintenance at the park, was making repairs himself, because he didn’t have insurance. He planned to apply for FEMA assistance but worried about what it would provide. | 2022-10-05T00:37:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hurricane Ian survivors face delays getting FEMA aid - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/04/hurricane-ian-fema-victims/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/04/hurricane-ian-fema-victims/ |
Serial killer in California may have killed 5 people since July, police say
A “person of interest,” dressed all in black and wearing a black cap, has appeared in videos from several of the homicide crime scenes in Stockton, Calif. Ballistics tests have linked the fatal shootings of six men and the wounding of one woman in California — all potentially at the hands of a serial killer — in crimes going back more than a year, police said Monday. (Stockton Police Department/AP)
California police on Tuesday provided new details in five killings over the past six months and two other attacks from last year that authorities say may be the work of one or multiple serial killers.
The seven cases — six in Stockton, Calif., and one in Oakland — have all been linked by ballistic and video evidence, police said, releasing footage of a “person of interest” and a description from the only surviving victim.
This year, five men, each alone in the dark at night or early in the morning were killed between July 8 and Sept. 27 in Stockton, which police first announced publicly last week. None of the men were robbed, and police said the cases do not seem to be connected to drugs or gang violence.
“By definition, these shootings are a series of killings, and so we do believe we could have a potential serial killer,” Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden said Tuesday. “That’s how we’re going to treat it as such.”
The concerns about a potential serial killer grew on Monday, when authorities confirmed that two cases from April 2021 were linked to the five homicides. A man was fatally shot in Oakland on April 10 — the only case identified outside of Stockton thus far — and a woman was shot in the city six days later, but survived her injuries.
The woman told police she saw a male around six feet tall, wearing dark clothes, a dark jacket and a black “covid-style” mask, McFadden said.
Of the seven people who were shot, five were of Hispanic descent, but McFadden said on Tuesday that the motive was unclear.
The San Joaquin County’s Office of the Medical Examiner identified the victims as Paul Yaw, 35; Salvador Debudey Jr., 43; Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21; Juan Cruz, 52; and Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54, the Associated Press reported.
Last week, authorities cautioned residents to be vigilant, avoid traveling alone and stay in well-lit areas of the city. McFadden on Friday told the public to “have your head on a swivel.”
Police also released a photo of the person of interest, who was shown in Tuesday’s video. The hazy picture showed a silhouetted individual clad in all black facing away from the camera. On Tuesday, McFadden said authorities wanted to speak to the individual, who has not been connected to any of the crimes.
As of Tuesday, police have not found any witnesses in the Stockton killings because there was little light and the victims were in isolated areas, McFadden said. Investigators have reviewed hundreds of hours of video, he said, but none of the incidents were caught on camera.
The city, Stockton Crime Stoppers and local business owners have put together a cash reward of $125,000 for information leading to an arrest in the cases.
McFadden said on Tuesday that this series of homicides is “abnormal” for Stockton. Thus far in 2022, there have been 43 homicides in the city — up from 32 this time last year.
Analydia Lopez, wife of victim Salvador Debudey Jr., told KCRA-TV that his killing has “caused a lot of pain” for the family. | 2022-10-05T00:37:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stockton police warn of potential serial killer in six deaths - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/04/stockton-serial-killings/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/04/stockton-serial-killings/ |
The warehouse associates stopped working for a few hours over safety concerns at the Staten Island facility, home to the only unionized workforce at Amazon
Amazon signage in front of a warehouse in Staten Island where at least 50 employees were suspended on Oct. 4 after staging a sit in at the warehouse to highlight safety concerns after a fire broke out. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg)
Amazon suspended at least 50 workers on Tuesday who were involved in a work stoppage the previous evening at the company’s only unionized warehouse in the United States, union leaders said.
Roughly 100 warehouse associates on the night shift at the Staten Island facility refused to work for several hours on Monday evening, shortly after a fire broke out in a trash compactor machine used on cardboard, according to Amazon Labor Union officials. Labor leaders said the warehouse smelled of smoke and that they couldn’t breathe. One worker went to the hospital, they said.
Seth Goldstein, a labor attorney for Amazon Labor Union, called the suspensions of the Staten Island workers “a violation of workers’ rights to join in a collective action about the terms and conditions of their employment.”
“The workers didn’t feel safe going back to work. They were engaging in rights that have been protected for 85 years under the National Labor Relations Act,” Goldstein said.
Amazon confirmed that company managers had suspended workers with pay who engaged in the work stoppage on Monday, as they investigate the events that took place. Company spokesman Paul Flaningan said that while Amazon respects its workers’ rights to protest, it is not appropriate for employees to occupy active work spaces, break rooms or thoroughfares in its warehouses.
That independent union made national headlines in April after securing an unprecedented victory for the labor movement at the Staten Island facility, signaling a new era for labor relations at Amazon, the country’s second largest employer. However, the company has so far refused to recognize the union.
Amazon Labor Union organizers say Amazon’s crackdown in Staten Island was intended to have a broad chilling effect on their organizing campaigns, including the upcoming election.
Video recordings of the action shared with The Washington Post show chaos in the warehouse cafeteria, with dozens of workers chanting “send us home” and later confronting management.
“While the vast majority of employees reported to their workstations, a small group refused to return to work and remained in the building without permission,” he said.
Amazon workers launch campaign to unionize in Albany
Union leaders dispute Amazon’s description of the event.
“It’s a shame that due to Amazon’s lack of safety protocols, workers had to take a stand, because they were not feeling as though the company took [the fire] as seriously as they should have,” said Christian Smalls, president of Amazon Labor Union. Amazon fired Smalls from the Staten Island facility, after he led a walkout during the height of the covid outbreak in 2020.
Chris Smalls’s Amazon uprising and the fight for a second warehouse
Amazon has refused to work with the union in Staten Island. Last month, a National Labor Relations Board hearing officer said it would dismiss Amazon’s objections to the union’s victory, securing a path for warehouse workers to negotiate a contract. The union has yet to be certified.
Meanwhile, the company has responded to the high stakes union campaign in Albany by resorting to familiar tactics from previous union campaigns. They have brought in union avoidance consultants to convince its workforce to vote against unionization, and have disciplined the campaign’s lead organizer. | 2022-10-05T00:41:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amazon suspends 50 warehouse workers after work stoppage in New York - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/04/amazon-work-stoppage-new-york-suspension-union/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/04/amazon-work-stoppage-new-york-suspension-union/ |
FILE - Ashley McBryde performs during CMA Fest 2022 on June 12, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. McBryde released her latest album “Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville.” (Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Country singer-songwriter Ashley McBryde had a whole cast of colorful characters that lived in her songs, and her friends’ songs, too, and now she has a town to let them flourish. | 2022-10-05T00:42:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Lindeville' is where Ashley McBryde's characters come alive - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/lindeville-is-where-ashley-mcbrydes-characters-come-alive/2022/10/04/d8abf10a-4438-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/lindeville-is-where-ashley-mcbrydes-characters-come-alive/2022/10/04/d8abf10a-4438-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html |
The emerging dynamic five weeks before the election underlines a predicament Republicans are confronting in the midterms
Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, participates in his Unite Georgia bus tour in Forsyth on Wednesday. (Erik S Lesser/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
DUNWOODY, Ga. — National Republican leaders such as former president Donald Trump and Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.) on Tuesday rallied behind Herschel Walker, defending the party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate in Georgia after he denied a report that he paid for a girlfriend to get an abortion in 2009.
But Republican leaders and activists in Georgia expressed unease with Walker’s candidacy after his personal life was yet again under the spotlight in a crucial midterm battleground, voicing worries that they elevated a flawed candidate who could complicate efforts to win back the Senate.
The emerging dynamic five weeks before Walker faces Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) underlines a predicament Republicans are confronting. Many see Georgia as one of the best opportunities to flip a Senate seat, and they feel compelled to continue boosting their candidate, who polls show is competitive. Yet in elevating an untested political newcomer who has faced allegations of stalking, violent threats and hypocrisy in his personal life as well as criticism over false claims, they are bracing for a potentially difficult final stretch.
“I don’t think anybody got on the internet last night or got on Twitter last night and said this is going to be good for Herschel Walker,” said Lane Flynn, a former chairman of the DeKalb County Republican Party. “The question going forward is how transactional is the average voter going to be — not necessarily the hardcore super GOP person. But the suburban mom or … people who skipped the last election, maybe voted blue. Can they be brought back?”
Republicans cannot replace Walker on the ballot this late into the campaign, and several suggested doing so would not be the right move even if they could. Instead, many said they hoped Walker could weather this storm, as Trump was able to win over voters by striking a defiant posture amid revelations about his past seen by many as disqualifying for a candidate for public office.
On Monday, the Daily Beast published a detailed description from an unnamed girlfriend who said that the former football star encouraged her to have an abortion after she became pregnant while they were dating, wrote her a $700 check to pay for the procedure and then sent her a “get well” card.
Walker, who is campaigning as an opponent of abortion rights with no exceptions for rape, incest or a threat to the life of the mother, and has voiced support for a national ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, immediately denied the report, saying in a televised interview on Fox News Channel that the account published in the Daily Beast is a “flat-out lie.” The Washington Post has not independently verified the reporting from the Daily Beast.
Walker’s campaign has not clarified whether he knew the woman referenced in the story. He said on Fox News that he frequently writes large checks to people he knows, but the Walker campaign did not respond to a request for a list of other examples.
Trump on Tuesday defended Walker in a statement that he posted to Truth Social, his social media network. “They are trying to destroy a man who has true greatness in his future, just as he had athletic greatness in his past,” Trump wrote.
Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, issued a statement about Walker on Tuesday, saying, “The NRSC and Republicans stand with him.” Mallory Carroll, spokeswoman for Women Speak Out PAC, a partner of the antiabortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, sounded a similar note: “Herschel Walker has denied these allegations in the strongest possible terms, and we stand firmly alongside him.”
On Tuesday morning, Walker arrived in a black SUV at a pre-scheduled private event at First Baptist Church Atlanta, a sprawling complex in a suburb north of the city. The event was advertised on Facebook as an opportunity to “Worship and Luncheon with Herschel Walker.”
Church officials barred reporters from the property during the event. Afterward, several attendees said the format was a conversation between Walker and Anthony George, the church’s pastor. Walker detailed his life and his reasons for running for Senate, according to several who attended.
Walker’s reported conduct in the Daily Beast story did not come up, one man said as he was climbing into his SUV in the parking lot.
Shortly before the event, Ralph Reed, a Walker backer and the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, walked to a curbside wooded area just off the church property to give a brief statement to reporters.
“This latest personal attack against Herschel Walker is unlikely to resonate with voters in Georgia,” he said. Reed then sought to frame the choice as between Walker, a politician who would vote to curb abortion rights, vs. Warnock, an advocate of abortion rights.
Walker’s campaign raised more than $180,000 in less than 24 hours after the report about his past, a major funding boost, Walker spokesman Will Kiley said.
But elsewhere in Georgia, Republicans expressed despair about the latest round of stories — or kept their distance from Walker.
The campaign of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is up for reelection in November, treaded carefully around the developments surrounding Walker, with a representative not mentioning the Senate candidate by name.
“As he has said repeatedly throughout this campaign,” Kemp campaign spokesman Cody Hall said in a statement, “the governor is laser focused on sharing his record of results and vision for his second term with hardworking Georgians, and raising the resources necessary to fund the advertising, ground game, and voter turnout operation needed to ensure Republican victories up and down the ballot on November 8th.”
Seth Weathers, a longtime Georgia Republican strategist and state director for Trump’s campaign in 2016, lamented the situation. “We could have had Gary Black,” he said, referring to one of Walker’s opponents during the GOP primary.
“I warned everyone I knew that this was a dumb idea,” Weathers added, though he said he planned to vote for Walker in November.
A Georgia Republican official from suburban Atlanta who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be more candid said Monday’s revelations amplified concerns among her friends that Walker’s ascent to the Senate would mean a half-dozen years of drama that would reflect badly on and even embarrass the state.
“For a lot of my friends, it’s, ‘I don’t want to be embarrassed. I want good temperament. Is this someone I want to go to the game with? Someone I want to be around my child?’ ” the official said.
“I think they’re like: ‘I’m not happy with the Biden administration. I don’t like the way things are going. But you know, Warnock, he doesn’t embarrass me. He seems relatable to me.”
Some Republicans pointed to Walker’s adult son, a young conservative who has become an outspoken critic of his father amid the allegations, as a deepening problem.
Warnock’s campaign said little on Tuesday, and it did not respond to an emailed inquiry about the abortion claim involving Walker. Privately, Democrats noted that the claim, and his son’s response, fits into an argument Democrats are advancing: Once voters know the real Walker, they will not like him.
Warnock and groups boosting his campaign have been running ads about allegations that Walker physically threatened women with whom he was romantically involved.
They include one from Walker’s former wife Cindy Grossman, who has detailed threats of abuse she said she has faced from Walker. Speaking to ABC News in 2008, Grossman said Walker “got a gun and put it to my temple.” In an interview with CNN the same year, she said: “He held the gun to my temple and said he was going to blow my brains out.”
The interviews were part of a media tour done ahead of the January 2009 release of Walker’s book about his struggles with mental illness, titled “Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder.”
The Warnock campaign and two different outside groups backing his candidacy have used some of these clips in attack ads. The organizations are “Georgia Honor,” a Democratic-backed organization and the Republican Accountability Group, an organization with GOP support.
Walker wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in August decrying the GOP-backed ad, saying that it unfairly used his efforts to destigmatize mental health as an attack against his candidacy.
“My former wife, Cindy, and I gave a TV interview in 2008 to share our story — not about the glory days of football but about the pain of my mental-health struggles and their effect on our marriage,” Walker wrote in the Journal. “Now I’m running for office, and my struggle has become the subject of a dishonest attack ad.”
Two other women have reported Walker’s behavior to police, according to media accounts that The Washington Post has not independently verified. In 2012, Myka Dean requested the police and told them that Walker threatened violence, according to a story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She said the two had an on-again, off-again relationship for 20 years. She died in 2019. Walker has denied the account, and he was not charged with a crime.
Also, police were called in 2002 when a different woman said he was “lurking” outside her home, according to an account by the Associated Press. Charges were not brought against Walker.
In large part, Walker and his defenders have offered his 2008 book about his struggles with dissociative identity disorder up as a counterpoint and redemption story to these claims.
Grossman’s son with Walker, Christian Walker, alleged on Twitter on Monday night that his father “threatened to kill us” and caused him and his mother to move six times in six months “running from your violence.”
On Tuesday, Christian Walker posted two short videos online: “We were told at the beginning of this he was going to get ahead of his past, hold himself accountable and all of these different things. And that would have been fine. He didn’t do any of that.”
Christian Walker also addressed his three half-siblings, who his father had not publicly discussed before the campaign. Walker’s campaign initially acknowledged that the football star had one child out of wedlock and subsequently acknowledged two others.
“He has four kids, four different women, wasn’t in the house raising any of them,” Christian Walker said in a video, accusing his father of hypocrisy for presenting himself as pro-family when he abandoned his own. Christian Walker has not responded to multiple attempts to contact him.
Asked for comment Monday on Christian Walker’s postings, the Herschel Walker campaign pointed to a tweet from the candidate. “I LOVE my son no matter what,” Herschel Walker wrote on Twitter shortly after his son’s messages posted.
Many in Georgia’s political class followed Twitter in real time Monday night, texting each other back and forth about the Daily Beast story, Christian Walker’s tweetstorm, and the implications of both on Walker’s chances of becoming senator, said one Republican strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely about the situation.
Some openly wondered whether this would be a decisive blow to the campaign, while others questioned the legal process and electoral implications of trying to replace Walker on the ballot, according to the strategist. Some worried that Monday’s report would not be the last about Walker before the election.
Other Republicans said they believe concerns about inflation and other matters will spur voters to pick GOP candidates such as Walker over Democrats, the party in power at the federal level.
No matter how they felt about him, Republicans agreed that Walker would be the GOP representative on the ballot and nothing would change that.
“We’re kind of stuck,” Flynn said.
Wootson reported from Washington. Hannah Knowles contributed to this report. | 2022-10-05T00:42:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | GOP leaders rally behind Walker. But in Georgia, Republicans fret. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/04/walker-georgia-senate-abortion-claim/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/04/walker-georgia-senate-abortion-claim/ |
Singer Shervin Hajipour’s ‘Baraye’ — ‘Because Of’ — ‘puts decades of depression, hurt and anger into simple words’
Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour posted the song “Baraye” — "Because Of” — on Instagram Sept. 28. It amassed 40 million views before authorities forced him to take it down and arrested him the next day. (Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images)
The unofficial anthem of Iran’s ongoing anti-government protests is a soulful song, with lyrics strung together from tweets by demonstrators risking their lives to defy the country’s ruling clerics.
“Because of dancing in the streets,” the song begins. In Iran, dancing in public is banned.
“Because of every time we were afraid to kiss our lovers.”
“Because of the embarrassment of an empty pocket.”
“Because of yearning for a normal life.”
Other lyrics name corruption, censorship, gender discrimination, environmental degradation and national tragedies, such as the near extinction of the Persian cheetah and the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane in 2020, in what Iran’s government has said was a military accident.
“Because of women, life, freedom,” the song concludes, echoing a popular protest chant: “Azadi.” Freedom.
Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour posted the song, “Baraye” — which means “for the sake of” or “because of”— to his Instagram account on Sept. 28. It accrued more than 40 million views, according to Amin Sebati, a London-based expert on Iranian cybersecurity, by the time authorities forced Hajipour to take it down and arrested him the following day.
Hajipour, 25, was released on bail Tuesday, according to Iranian state media. His lawyer did not respond to requests for comment. In an Instagram post after his release, Hajipour thanked his supporters and expressed his love for Iran, vowing not to leave.
By then, “Baraye” had become ubiquitous across Iran and online platforms.
Hajipour’s arrest came as part of a brutal crackdown on the weeks-long protests. Authorities have killed more than 130 protesters, according to rights groups, arrested and injured thousands more, and cut off or slowed internet access across much of the country.
“The song puts decades of depression, hurt and anger into simple words,” said Sarah, a 32-year-old fashion designer in Tehran, who runs her business on Instagram. She would give only her first name, out of concern for her safety.
As Iran protests persist, supreme leader blames foreigners for unrest
Sarah said she hears Hajipour’s “lullaby of hope” everywhere: played on mobile phones at protests, blasted from cars, sung by passersby in the streets, shouted from rooftops, chanted at schools and offices and streamed across social media.
“Shervin’s arrest [has] made the song even more popular because the injustice of this action has enraged people,” said Saeed Souzangar, a 34-year-old managing director of a technology company in Tehran. “This song is eternal and the anthem of the revolution, and no matter how much the system tries to stop it from being played, the more you will hear it.”
Souzangar said Monday that he and his colleagues were spending much of their time either protesting — an experience, he said, that felt like “bungee jumping” — or searching for friends in detention.
“My generation didn’t get to live freely in this country,” Souzangar said. “I want future generations to be spared from the psychological and emotional torture we experienced.”
He told The Post on Monday that two friends had just been arrested for “spreading information about the protests,” and he did not know their whereabouts.
“This time, small concessions are not going to work,” he said Monday, referring to chants calling for an end to clerical rule. “Now, all these different groups in Iran have become one, and they have one demand.”
Despite the internet crackdown, Hajipour’s song has been able “to move quickly and change people’s hearts and minds,” a significant step even if it does not fundamentally alter the political system, she said.
“Even if these protests die tomorrow, Hajipour’s song will continue to be a form of defiance and heard in every protest to come,” said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.
Some of “Baraye’s” lines directly echo chants in the streets.
“Because of my sister, your sister, our sister,” Hajipour sings, alluding to Amini, the woman whose death, in the custody of police who detained her for an alleged violation of Iran’s strict dress code for women, set off the protests.
“For the ruins of poorly built homes,” another lines goes, in reference to the May collapse of a poorly built, 10-story commercial building in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province. The catastrophe left the country grief-stricken and fueled weeks of anti-government and anti-corruption protests.
Tina, a 29-year-old from Iran’s Khuzestan province living in Tehran, who would also give only her first name, said one line — “for forced heaven,” strictly enforced Islamic law — resonated the most.
“This one signified all the years of oppression, violence and humiliation us woman have been living with in Iran, forcing us to follow rules that we don’t even believe in,” she said.
Tina said she works at a private company, and that she and her colleagues play “Baraye” several times a day.
In recent weeks, while attending protests she said she has felt an intense feeling of power and unity. But she has been left with a broken heart, she said, because Iran’s leaders are using violence to combat the unrest.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made his first public statements Monday, in which he derided demonstrators as agents of the West and “thugs, robbers and extortionists.” When protests broke out in 2019, sparked by a rise in fuel prices, the government shut the internet down for 12 days. Hundreds, by other estimates, more than one thousand, people died.
“We are defenseless, no one cares about us except ourselves,” Tina said. “Most of the casualties are so young … We are fighting this fight alone and with all of our might.”
“Each baraye speaks to the pain and frustration that Iranians have been suffering,” she said. | 2022-10-05T00:43:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Shervin Hajipour's 'Baraye' has become the anthem of Iran’s protests - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/04/iran-protests-song-shervin-hajipour-arrested/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/04/iran-protests-song-shervin-hajipour-arrested/ |
In this photo provided by South Korea Defense Ministry, an Army Tactical Missile System or ATACMS, missile is fired during a joint military drill between U.S. and South Korea at an undisclosed location in South Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South Korean and U.S. militaries successfully fired a total of four Army Tactical Missile Systems missiles during the exercise that it said was aimed at demonstrating its precision strike capabilities against the North. (South Korea Defense Ministry via AP) (Uncredited/South Korea Defense Ministry) | 2022-10-05T00:43:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | S. Korea missile crash during drill with US panics wary city - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/skorea-says-missile-malfunctioned-and-fell-during-drill/2022/10/04/223bbc60-4439-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/skorea-says-missile-malfunctioned-and-fell-during-drill/2022/10/04/223bbc60-4439-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html |
State audit details misspending in Montgomery school system
An ‘off the books’ vendor account, ongoing theft led to changes in the transportation department’s leadership this year
A Montgomery County school bus in Kensington, Md., on Feb. 25, 2019. A September 2022 state audit cited several financial improprieties in the school system's transportation department. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
A state audit revealed more details of financial misconduct in the transportation department of Montgomery County schools, including ongoing theft, thousands of dollars in questionable credit card purchases and an “off the books” vendor account that have led to changes in the department’s leadership.
The details were part of a Sept. 29 audit by the Maryland Department of Legislative Services of the school system’s financial management practices.
The school system’s procurement department became aware of questionable purchases last year during a routine review of school activity of school system-issued credit cards, the state audit said. An internal audit of an employee’s spending found questionable credit card purchases, including gift cards, furniture and other items shipped to the employee’s home.
Montgomery County Public Schools also found an account maintained by a transportation vendor, which was funded with money owed to the school district. The account was used to make payments to several employees and purchase items outside of the school district’s purview, according to the state’s report. The school system then notified the Montgomery police, who initiated their own investigation in November.
Until now, school and police officials have declined to provide information, saying only that the investigation was into possible “financial improprieties.”
Police investigating Montgomery County schools’ transportation department
At the time of the county investigation in November, the school system placed Todd Watkins, the former head of the transportation department, and Charles Ewald, the former assistant director, on leave. Two employees who were involved are no longer with Montgomery County Public Schools, spokesman Chris Cram said in a statement Tuesday. The state audit report does not name any employees involved in the investigations but noted that one of the employees previously placed on leave was terminated in February and that the other employee resigned a month later.
Phone numbers listed for Watkins and Ewald were not answered Tuesday. The Montgomery County Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The school district hired an outside accounting and advisory firm in December to direct an independent forensic investigation into the “off the books” vendor account and transactions from July 2016 to January 2022, according to the state’s audit. That investigation — released in February — found that about $1.2 million was deposited into the account. There were also payments totaling around $649,000 made directly to school district employees or to purchase goods and services — “purportedly on behalf of MCPS” — from October 2017 to November 2021, according to the state’s audit.
When Montgomery County Public Schools announced the police investigation Nov. 16, the account had a balance totaling $535,036, according to the state’s audit.
The firm also found up to $572,000 worth of credit card purchases it deemed questionable or needing further review from July 2016 to January 2022.
Cram, the Montgomery school district’s spokesman, said Tuesday that “a great deal of work has been done by MCPS staff over the past year, including hiring forensic auditors and a significant amount of work with our police partners.” The school district has recovered in excess of $800,000 as of Tuesday, Cram said.
As a result of the district’s internal investigation, the school district has identified a new vendor for purchasing buses, revised internal structures that monitor finance and procurement, reviewed purchasing card transactions retrained staff who have purchasing cards, evaluated employee access to purchasing cards and decreased card purchasing limits, Cram said.
The school system declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.
Beyond the transportation department details, the state audit also found that the school district had significant security risks within its computer network, procurement policies that were “not sufficiently comprehensive” nor consistently used, and a need to improve internal accountability in some areas. The school district agreed that each of the audit’s findings were factually accurate and agreed to follow several of the audit’s recommendations.
Auditors noted that the school district’s response was “sufficient to address all audit issues.” | 2022-10-05T03:23:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | State audit details investigation of Montgomery school transportation department - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/04/montgomery-schools-transportation-investigation-audit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/04/montgomery-schools-transportation-investigation-audit/ |
Charles Fuller, who won Pulitzer for ‘A Soldier’s Play,’ dies at 83
He explored racism, violence and the weight of history in more than a dozen plays
Playwright Charles Fuller in 1977. (Jerry Mosey/AP)
Charles Fuller, who helped bring nuanced, multifaceted Black characters and stories to the forefront of American theater, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for “A Soldier’s Play,” his blistering exploration of racism and violence at a Louisiana Army base during World War II, died Oct. 3 at a hospital in Toronto. He was 83.
His son David Indikator Fuller said Mr. Fuller had dementia, but he did not give a specific cause of death. Mr. Fuller had lived in Canada for about four years, he said, after working for decades in his hometown of Philadelphia.
A soft-spoken writer who liked to populate his plays with sprawling casts of characters, Mr. Fuller launched his theater career in the late 1960s as Black actors and playwrights were pushing to diversify the predominantly White theater scene. Joining the ranks of African American playwrights including Amiri Baraka and Charles Gordone, he said he sought “to depict African Americans, especially African American men, not as the stereotypes we have seen for years, but as we see ourselves.”
“We live lives that are interesting, exciting,” he added, in an interview with American Theatre magazine in 1999. “My struggle all these years has been to do nothing more than to change how people see us, and in doing so perhaps change how we see ourselves.”
With “A Soldier’s Play,” Mr. Fuller became only the second African American playwright — after Gordone — to win the Pulitzer Prize in drama. Loosely adapted from Herman Melville’s novella “Billy Budd,” about a sailor who inadvertently kills one of his superiors, the play followed a Black military lawyer who investigates the murder of a Black Army sergeant in 1944, when the armed forces were still segregated. The suspects include members of the Ku Klux Klan, bigoted White soldiers and, eventually, Black G.I.s.
While Mr. Fuller’s play evoked classic courtroom dramas and detective stories through its use of suspect interviews and flashbacks, “there is nothing usual about the way Mr. Fuller has written his play,” wrote New York Times theater critic Frank Rich. “By the time he reaches his resolution, it’s clear that the identity of the culprit isn’t what really matters here at all … for what Mr. Fuller has written is a relentless investigation into the complex, sometimes cryptic pathology of hate.”
Directed by Douglas Turner Ward for the Negro Ensemble Company, “A Soldier’s Play” premiered off-Broadway in late 1981 with a cast that included future stars Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson in small roles. Adolph Caesar starred as the murdered Tech. Sgt. Vernon C. Waters, who is killed at the start of the play but is shown in flashbacks to have tormented his Black soldiers, especially the Southerners, in fits of rage that seemed to suggest a self-loathing stemming from years spent struggling to endure and escape White hatred.
Mr. Fuller said he based the Waters character on the sort of man he met while living in the Philadelphia projects, “someone who wanted to be a king in a place that didn’t need a king.” He also drew from his experience serving in the Army in peacetime Japan and South Korea, and from conversations with his late friend Larry Neal, a poet and cultural critic who helped introduce Mr. Fuller to classic literature when they were both teenagers in Philadelphia. (The play’s setting, the fictional Army base Fort Neal, was named in his honor.)
Not all critics admired Mr. Fuller’s approach to issues of race and resentment. Baraka, a leader of the Black Arts movement, wrote that Mr. Fuller’s point of view embodied “the most backward sector of the black middle class.” But “A Soldier’s Play” ran for more than a year and inspired a critically acclaimed film adaptation, “A Soldier’s Story” (1984), which Norman Jewison directed from a screenplay by Mr. Fuller.
Several of the play’s original cast members reprised their roles in the film, which earned three Oscar nominations, including best picture, best supporting actor for Caesar and best adapted screenplay for Mr. Fuller, who lost to Peter Shaffer for “Amadeus.”
Mr. Fuller went on to write TV movies, a young-adult novel and a cycle of plays set during the Civil War era, but he remained best known for “A Soldier’s Play,” which found a new audience in recent years. The play was revived off-Broadway in 2005 and made its Broadway premiere in 2020, starring David Alan Grier as Waters and Blair Underwood as the military lawyer, Capt. Richard Davenport. The production was forced to close after less than two months because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I never thought that it would be on Broadway,” Mr. Fuller told NPR after the premiere. In part, he said, the play hadn’t transferred to Broadway in the 1980s because some audience members weren’t prepared for the closing scene, in which Davenport tells a White officer he’d better get used to having African Americans in charge. The dialogue was too incendiary, said Mr. Fuller, who once described American theater as “the most segregated institution in the country, very much the Old South.”
Still, he noted, times had changed. The Broadway production received seven Tony nominations and won two, including best revival, and a national tour is scheduled to start in December.
Charles Henry Fuller Jr. was born in Philadelphia on March 5, 1939. His father ran a print shop, and his mother was a homemaker. Together, his parents fostered 20 children while also raising Mr. Fuller and his two younger sisters, according to a 1983 profile in The Washington Post.
Mr. Fuller helped his father proofread galleys, fueling a childhood love of language, and was 13 when he saw his first play, buying a ticket to see a comedy with Yiddish theater stars Molly Picon and Menasha Skulnik. He was the lone African American in the audience and didn’t understand a word — “I didn’t know until it started that the whole thing was in Yiddish,” he recalled — but “I felt myself responding to it.”
After thriving in diverse, racially integrated classrooms at parochial school, he enrolled at Villanova University, where he said he encountered racist jeers when students and professors learned he wanted to become a writer. He dropped out of college his junior year, joining the Army in 1959. Mr. Fuller served for four years before continuing his education at La Salle College (now a university) in Philadelphia, taking evening classes while working as a loan collector, college counselor and city housing inspector.
In his free time, he wrote short stories and co-founded a theater group, taking up playwriting in part so the actors had material to perform. While still in college, he attended the 1966 premiere of his first full-length work.
“I remember walking out onstage on opening night — to the applause of my family and friends, of course — and realizing I would never go back to school again,” he told the Times in 1988. “I was a playwright and that’s what I was going to do. And after 1970, I never worked a 9-to-5 job again.”
Mr. Fuller later came to view his debut play, which ran off-Broadway in 1969 under the title “The Perfect Party,” as “one of the world’s worst interracial plays.” But it helped him meet members of the Negro Ensemble Company, for whom he wrote the 1974 coming-of-age story “In the Deepest Part of Sleep.”
“It went down the drain, too,” he told the Times, adding that its failure prompted him “to do something bigger and beyond myself, something historical, that would stand outside normal Black theater.” The result, “The Brownsville Raid,” was based on the story of Black Army soldiers who were wrongly accused of murder in the early 20th century, and it marked an initial foray into the themes and setting that defined “A Soldier’s Play.”
Mr. Fuller next won an Obie Award, honoring off-Broadway theater, for his 1980 play “Zooman and the Sign,” about a psychotic young man (originally played by Giancarlo Esposito) who murders a 12-year-old girl playing on her porch in Philadelphia. The play was adapted into a 1995 TV movie with a screenplay by Mr. Fuller and was twice revived off-Broadway.
His wife of 44 years, Miriam Nesbitt, died in 2006. They had two children: Charles Fuller III, who died in 2013, and David Fuller, who survives him. Mr. Fuller is also survived by his wife of 14 years, Claire Prieto-Fuller, a Trinidadian Canadian filmmaker; a stepson, Ian Prieto; a sister; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Mr. Fuller declined to discuss his Army service in interviews, saying it was a part of his life he would “prefer to forget,” but he returned to a military setting several times in his work. His last off-Broadway play, “One Night …,” examined sexual assault in the armed forces, opening in 2013 to mixed reviews.
After “A Soldier’s Play” premiered on Broadway, he told the Times he was researching a new project set after the Korean War. “I’m not thinking about some happy-go-lucky thing. … It needs to be done,” he said, describing a project that apparently remained unfinished. “But I don’t know if I’m going to do it. I’ve been playing with it for years. Right now, if I did what’s in my head, no one would come to see the play.” | 2022-10-05T04:15:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Charles Fuller, who won Pulitzer for ‘A Soldier’s Play,’ dies at 83 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/04/charles-fuller-soldiers-play-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/04/charles-fuller-soldiers-play-dead/ |
Ask Amy: My wife wants financial independence or a divorce
Dear Amy: My wife and I are both retirees. We have been together for a total of 32 years. All of our retirement income goes into a shared bank account.
About six months ago, out of the blue my wife told me that she wanted a divorce. She explained that due to reasons having to do with money, she felt she had lost her autonomy. It seems she wants to have her own bank account and withdraw $400 a month to go into her personal slush fund to do with as she wishes.
Am I wrong in feeling jilted that she will stay with me for $400 a month? Is love worth $400 a month, or is there a deeper issue here? I’m curious about what your take is on this.
Disappointed: This is not about the cost — or value — of “love.”
I have been with my wife for 22 years. We have two wonderful children together. I love her family, however, I dread spending time at her family’s home.
For one thing I am completely bored at her mother’s house. I work hard and rarely take a vacation. Secondly, my nieces and nephews that I have watched grow up have grown mostly into insufferable know-it-all bores. I dread their presence. Lastly, my brother-in-law turns every conversation into a conversation about money.
My family doesn’t live nearby, and we rarely get together. This year, I want to be alone, go away alone, and play golf.
Bored: May I point out that the most “bored” people can sometimes also be boring people?
That having been said, if you don’t want to spend this holiday with your in-laws (whom you say you “love” but don’t seem to like), you should bring this up without framing it as a criticism of your wife’s family.
Start bragging about how they are thoughtful toward others. How they help their neighbors. How they are kind and considerate. In other words, if you’re going to brag, brag about things that really matter.
Jim: Great advice. | 2022-10-05T04:28:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: My wife wants financial independence or a divorce - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/05/ask-amy-money-divorce-wife/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/05/ask-amy-money-divorce-wife/ |
A visual forensics analysis shows authorities using indiscriminate force, making violent arrests, and throttling internet service to crush demonstrations.
Videos from nationwide protests in Iran depict the strategies security forces are using to crackdown on protests. (Video: 1500 Tasvir/Telegram/Twitter)
Iran’s bold and bracing protests, stretching across an unsettled nation for more than two weeks, have been marked by defiant acts and daring slogans that challenge the country’s clerical leadership and its stifling restrictions on all aspects of social life.
Government security forces have responded with deadly, uncompromising force. At least 52 people have been killed, according to Amnesty International, including women and children.
The ongoing protests began in response to the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who fell into a coma after being detained by the country’s hated “morality police.”
In videos that began circulating online Oct. 2, armed police and protesters are seen running near Sharif University while explosions can be heard. (Video: Reuters)
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claimed Monday that the unrest had been instigated by foreign powers and blamed protesters for the violence: “The ones who attack the police are leaving Iranian citizens defenseless against thugs, robbers and extortionists,” he said.
Khamenei gave his full backing to the security forces, signaling a further wave of repression could be coming.
To understand the extent of the government’s crackdown against protesters, The Washington Post analyzed hundreds of videos and photographs of protests, spoke to human rights activists, interviewed protesters and reviewed data collected by internet monitoring groups. The Post geolocated videos of protests in at least 22 cities — from the Kurdistan region, where the protests began, to Bandar Abbas, a port city on the Persian Gulf, to Rasht on the Caspian coast.
The investigation focused on three key tactics used by the government to crush the protests — the apparent use of live ammunition by security forces, targeted arrests and the throttling of internet service.
The Post interviewed protesters in Marivan, Balo and Tehran, who corroborated the findings. All spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals by security forces.
The protester in Marivan, a city of 50,000 people in the Kurdish west, described the scene on Saturday as akin to martial law. “All of the security forces were out. … I would say more than 1,000. They filled every square and intersection and major street.”
Indiscriminate force
The Post geolocated videos from seven cities that appear to show security forces shooting at protesters. Though it was impossible to verify the type of rounds used from the videos alone, “it’s extremely likely [security forces] were using live rounds against protesters during the events of recent days and weeks,” said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, the director of Armament Research Services, who reviewed the videos for The Post.
Security forces have been firing indiscriminately at demonstrators since the start of the protests, according to 1500 Tasvir, an anti-government monitoring group. Videos recorded Sept. 17 in the Kurdish city of Saqqez — Amini’s hometown — appear to corroborate the claim. They show protesters marching through the center of the city on the same day as Amini’s funeral. They are quickly dispersed by officers on motorcycles firing in the direction of the crowd.
A video posted on Sept. 17 shows an injured protester in Saqqez, Iran, being rushed to a medical facility. (Video: Twitter)
A video filmed on side streets nearby captures a frantic group carrying a young man, unconscious and covered in blood, into a medical facility.
Analysts with Janes, a defense intelligence group, also reviewed videos for The Post and determined that at least two videos likely showed the use of live ammunition.
Videos posted online Sept. 20 in Rasht and Sept. 23 in Tehran show officers firing at crowds, using what are likely live rounds, according to analysts. (Video: 1500 Tasvir; Telegram)
In a video posted Sept. 20, officers fire pistols in the air and at retreating crowds in the northern city of Rasht. The officer to the left is likely firing off live rounds into the air where there is no point of impact, according to Andrew Galer, head of land platforms and weapons at Janes.
A video posted Sept. 23 in Tehran shows a man in army fatigues calmly taking aim and shooting a variant of an AK-47 assault rifle, according to Janes. While blank cartridges are made for the AK-47, Janes said, it has no record of any less-lethal or riot-control rounds being made for the gun. “On probability, [these] are assessed as being live rounds,” Galer concluded.
A leaked document from the general headquarters of Iran’s armed forces on Sept. 21 — obtained by Amnesty International and reviewed by The Post — ordered security forces to “severely confront” protesters. Another document, issued two days later by the commander of armed forces in Mazandaran province, went even further, ordering security forces to “confront mercilessly, and while going as far as causing deaths, any unrest by rioters and anti-Revolutionaries.”
The protesters interviewed by The Post in the western cities of Marivan and Balo told The Post they had witnessed security forces firing on demonstrators.
“Security forces fired directly at the people in Darai Square,” said the protester in Marivan, describing a crackdown on Oct. 1. “They had no intention to arrest or to calm the situation. They only wanted to shoot.”
The protester from Balo described a chilling “ambush” on Sept. 21 by the Basij, a paramilitary force under the command of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. “Members of the Basij were already on the roofs of nearby buildings,” the protester said. “They started shooting in the air, and the crowd scattered.” Other Basij fighters came out onto the streets, shooting into the air at first, and then directly at the fleeing protesters, he told The Post.
Two young men were killed in the barrage of bullets, he said — one was shot in the stomach, another in the throat. Their deaths were corroborated by Hengaw, a Kurdish rights group, and videos from their funerals were shared with The Post.
The Post verified and geolocated five videos showing security forces violently arresting protesters in five cities across Iran over the past two weeks. The videos show security forces often detaining protesters away from the crowds, on side streets. Some arresting officers traveled on motorbikes, allowing them to quickly descend on demonstrators and whisk them away.
The protester in Balo recounted members of the Basij making arrests in the middle of the night on Sept. 21 and using tear gas to force civilians out of their homes.
“They [the Basij] come with civilian clothes and cover their faces. It creates fear,” the protester said.
As of Sept. 30, security forces had arrested at least 50 people in Balo, and the majority are still in custody, according to the protester. “There are no more protests in Balo because of the fear they created,” the protester said. “After 10 p.m., you don’t see anybody out.”
Prisoners in Iran are routinely subjected to torture and other inhumane treatment, rights groups have found, and families often struggle to get information about loved ones who have been detained. “The documented acts of torture and other ill-treatment raise concerns that hundreds of people arrested since the start of the protests risk similar treatment in custody,” Amnesty said.
Videos shared by anti-government monitoring group 1500 Tasvir and verified by The Post show violent arrests of protesters in cities across Iran. (Video: 1500 Tasvir)
In a video from Gorgan, the capital of Golestan province in the northeast, officers on motorcycles surround and beat a protester in front of a closed storefront at night before arresting him.
In Tehran, a video shows officers walking a man in a black shirt, his hands behind his back, to a busy downtown street. They then force him onto the back of a motorcycle driven by an officer and speed away.
In another video from Kermanshah, in the west, a protester surrounded by officers on motorcycles is placed into a police vehicle and driven away.
Internet restrictions
Iran has frequently employed internet disruptions during times of unrest, making it more difficult for protesters to communicate with one another and with the outside world. But the cuts over the past two weeks have been more targeted and appear to show a greater level of sophistication.
Network traffic data from Iran to Google’s web search product shows significant disruptions in the evenings beginning Sept. 21, the bloodiest night of protests so far and a crucial turning point in the government’s response, according to Raha Bahreini, a human rights lawyer and Iran researcher for Amnesty. The majority of the deaths recorded by Amnesty took place Sept. 21.
According to The Post’s analysis of internet data, traffic patterns show a cyclical nature to the disruptions, beginning every afternoon around 4 p.m. local time — the end of the Iranian workday, when most protests begin — and returning to normal levels after midnight.
Instagram and WhatsApp, major platforms for sharing video, were also shut down Sept. 21, according to NetBlocks, a London-based group that monitors global internet access. These restrictions have coincided with sudden decreases in visual evidence coming out of Iran.
The Post tracked the number of protest videos coming from a Telegram account that regularly posts and circulates clips. The count revealed the direct impact of the throttling of internet connectivity, with the number dropping from around 80 new clips on Sept. 21 to just 40 the day after.
1500 Tasvir told The Post that in the first few days of the protests, the group received more than 3,000 videos per day. After the increase in internet disruptions, that number dropped dramatically, to about 100 to 200 videos per day.
The protesters who spoke to The Post confirmed the internet restrictions observed in the data.
“Most of the people don’t have internet at home,” said the protester in Balo. “They only have internet on their sim card, and it’s cut between 4 and 10 p.m. And even when it comes back, it’s still very bad.”
That account was echoed by the protester in Marivan: “The internet gets cut every day at 3 or 4 p.m. and doesn’t come back until around midnight or 1 a.m.,” the protester said. “None of the big apps like Instagram or WhatsApp or Telegram work.”
Despite the violence by security forces — and the daily blackouts — protesters are still in the streets. To some, the crackdown has only made them more determined. The protester in Tehran recalled a scene from a recent protest, where he and his compatriots dragged trash cans into the street and set them on fire. As security forces approached on motorcycles, they began to chant:
“We didn’t have our people killed in order to compromise.”
Kareem Fahim in Istanbul contributed to this report. | 2022-10-05T05:42:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What videos reveal about Iran’s crackdown on protests - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/10/05/iran-protests-crackdown-deadly/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/10/05/iran-protests-crackdown-deadly/ |
On the ground, Russia’s war effort is reeling. Ukrainian forces accelerated their advances on territories occupied by Russian troops and their separatist proxies, liberating towns in the southern Kherson region while also moving toward Luhansk in the east. After taking back Russian-controlled areas in the northeast Kharkiv region in a lightning campaign last month, Ukraine is hoping to remove Russia’s last footholds north and west of the Dnieper River, which will cripple the Kremlin’s already-waning ability to mount its own campaign on the strategic Ukrainian port of Odesa.
“The Ukrainian armed forces commanders in the south and east are throwing problems at the Russian chain of command faster than the Russians can effectively respond,” said a Western official who briefed my colleagues about sensitive security information on the condition of anonymity. “And this is compounding the existing dysfunction within the Russian invasion force.”
Morale and unit cohesion among the Russian brigades on the front are in tatters, with Ukrainian strikes on Russian ammunition and supply depots exacting a critical toll. At home, it’s getting equally grim. Some estimates found that 700,000 people — about 1 out of every 200 Russians — left the country in the space of less than two weeks since President Vladimir Putin ordered a “partial mobilization” of troops to reinforce his faltering invasion.
The current state of play follows the Ukrainian recapture over the weekend of the city of Lyman, a key transit hub in eastern Donetsk. My colleagues journeyed there and spoke to locals as gunfire echoed in the distance. “Well, they’re either hunting pheasants, rabbits or Russians,” a retired schoolteacher quipped to them.
Putin is trying to create his own facts on the ground. By Tuesday, motions had passed through Russia’s rubber-stamp parliament accepting the “accession treaties” Putin signed last week announcing the absorption of the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — all only partially occupied by Russian troops — into the Russian Federation. Russian-backed separatists in these four so-called republics had staged sham referendums to join Russia, outraging Kyiv and the international community.
The annexations only heighten the awkwardness for Kremlin officials, who as of yet could not detail where their borders lay as Ukrainian forces pushed through wilting Russian defenses.
“Ukraine’s victory in Lyman will remain symbolic for the message it sent to the Kremlin: Putin’s annexation of the partly occupied regions was a farce,” my colleagues reported from the front lines. “Lyman was very much part of the lands that Putin claimed in a ceremony in Moscow on Friday, but just one day later, his soldiers left in a hurry — some dying on the way out.”
Putin, of course, seems undeterred. His 37-minute speech Friday waved away criticism of Russia’s violations of international law and reprised his conspiratorial raging at the agendas of the United States and its European allies. He called for “a liberation anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony,” casting the annexations as an act of resistance to the “parasitic,” “neocolonial system” of the West, while also detailing the historical legacies of “plunder” and “genocide” carried out by various Western powers in centuries past.
On one hand, none of this rhetoric should be surprising. Such grousing is standard for Putin, who always seeks to place Russia on equal footing with the United States and its partners. Moreover, dogmatic “anti-imperialism” was stock-in-trade under the Soviet Union, which for decades sought to back and mobilize revolutionaries and leftists across the colonized or decolonizing world. In some instances, such as its support of opposition to the apartheid regime in South Africa, the Kremlin found itself on the right side of history far sooner than its adversaries in the West.
But all of this is ephemeral when set against the war unleashed by Putin, the documented atrocities conducted by his troops in Ukraine, and the overarching colonial project of using brute force to bring Ukrainians to heel while denying their nation-state’s very right to exist. “Putin is apparently oblivious to the absurdity of condemning imperialism while at the same time committing the most brazen act of imperial aggression in modern European history,” noted Peter Dickinson of the Atlantic Council.
Putin is also silent about his own nation’s ruthless, bloody history of imperial conquest, let alone the horrors of Stalinism. While Western empires were setting up their systems of exploitation and extraction in various parts of the world, Russia’s czars were waging merciless wars of expansion in places not far from the current battles in Ukraine.
“In 1818, when Russian forces attempted to conquer the Northern Caucasus, they encountered a population that refused to be subdued,” wrote Lynne Hartnett, a historian of Russia at Villanova University. “In answer to the guerrilla warfare that the indigenous population unleashed against the invaders, Russia burned villages to the ground, incinerated forests and took civilians as hostages.”
“There’s no attempt to deal with the oppressions of the Russian and Soviet past, the way the Kremlin repeatedly colonizes, ethnically cleanses, deports, starves and mass murders other nations, and the way it kills and arrests and humiliates masses of its own people too in labor camps, gulags, and the killing cellars of the KGB,” wrote Soviet-born British journalist Peter Pomerantsev, nodding to how Putin last year shuttered Memorial, a major Russian civil society organization that investigated the misdeeds of the Soviet past.
Instead, Putin is on his own revanchist journey of restoring Russia’s empire. “He is ‘gathering in the lands’ as did his personal icons — the great Russian tsars — and overturning the legacy of Lenin, the Bolsheviks, and The Post-Cold War settlement,” wrote Fiona Hill and Angela Stent in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. “In this way, Putin wants Russia to be the one exception to the inexorable rise and fall of imperial states.”
For now — as his citizens seek to flee, his nation’s geopolitical isolation deepens and his military teeters — Putin’s mission seems more delusional than ever. | 2022-10-05T05:43:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Annexations show the depth of Vladimir Putin’s imperial delusion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/putin-colonial-imperial-delusion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/putin-colonial-imperial-delusion/ |
Russia’s leader is betting an impending infusion of drafted troops can change the dynamic on the battlefield in Ukraine, but he is losing time as Ukraine’s counteroffensive advances
By Paul Sonne
Ukrainian soldiers ride on an armored vehicle making its way down a road between Izium and Lyman in Ukraine on Tuesday. (Francisco Seco/AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin is betting that an impending infusion of drafted troops can change the dynamic on the battlefield in Ukraine, but analysts say he is losing time, as his military operation succumbs further to Ukrainian advances and shows signs that it needs more than just raw personnel to regain the initiative.
Putin has distracted attention from the bleak battlefield picture in recent days by orchestrating referendums, declaring annexations and making nuclear threats — all part of an attempt to freeze Russian territorial gains amassed since February that are unraveling by the day.
But those political machinations in Moscow, carried out with great fanfare and bluster, have been unable to mask the reality some 600 miles away in Ukraine: Russia’s force is beleaguered and poorly managed — and in the immediate future, there may not be a silver bullet to fix it.
Military analysts agree that Russia’s haphazard mobilization of at least 300,000 reserves is unlikely to help Putin on the battlefield in a matter of days. Whether it can aid Moscow in stabilizing the situation longer term — into the late fall, winter and spring — is an open question, they said.
The impact of the new soldiers depends partly on whether they can be trained effectively — and how the Russian military organizes and deploys them.
“People are not beans. Units are not units, except on a map,” said Frederick Kagan, a senior fellow and director of the critical-threats project at the American Enterprise Institute. “If you take a bunch of pissed-off, demoralized, scared, untrained humans, give them weapons and throw them into a fighting force, you don’t have soldiers.”
Putin will have to focus first on restoring basic fighting capability to a military with badly depleted units that need to be reequipped at scale, which is difficult, Kagan said. “Before we are talking about flooding the zone, we are really talking about restoring combat units to anything like combat capability,” he said.
How much territory the Russians lose before the reinforcements arrive isn’t entirely down to Moscow. Ukraine has been beating back the Russians on two major fronts for more than a month. It is unclear how long Ukrainian forces, which are suffering losses of their own, can sustain the push.
“One of the hardest things to know is when to stop,” said Christopher Doherty, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “Just as you’ve made this huge gain, you’ve stretched all of your logistical line, many people have been in combat for days on end. There is a psychological bump you get from winning and being on the offensive, but everybody runs out of juice at some point.”
At the moment, Ukraine is keeping up its momentum. In the east, its forces wrested back the city of Lyman over the weekend and are advancing deeper into occupied areas of the Luhansk region. The Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south, meanwhile, has quickened in recent days, with forces moving down the Dnieper River toward Kherson.
Where and when the Ukrainian counteroffensive ultimately pauses will also depend on weaponry and ammunition, much of it coming from the United States.
On Tuesday, the Biden administration announced an additional $625 million in aid to Ukraine, including four more HIMARS rocket launchers, 16 155-mm Howitzers and 75,000 155-mm artillery rounds. Ukraine has asked for longer-range rockets and tanks but so far hasn’t received them. The United States has committed more than $16.8 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, according to the White House.
Russia regularly warns of consequences if the United States and its allies continue to arm Ukraine but has proved unable to disrupt the flow of weaponry. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that the amount of American arms being given to Kyiv had reached a “dangerous line.”
Disappointment about Moscow’s battlefield position has seeped into the public sphere in Russia, primarily through Telegram channels but also at times on tightly controlled state television.
Russian military blogger Maxim Fomin, who posts under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky, said in a video uploaded Tuesday to Telegram that the situation on the front for Russian forces is “not great, to put it mildly.”
Russia doesn’t have enough forces on the battlefield “to solve the Ukrainian question decisively,” he said, expressing concern that draftees about to be sent to the front in many cases are not receiving proper training.
“You can fight with unprepared people, but it’s fraught with big losses,” he said.
Andrei Marochko, a Russia-backed militia official in Luhansk, told the Russian state television show “60 Minutes” that the Ukrainians backed by NATO were operating with superior battlefield intelligence capabilities.
“They literally look in real time online with satellites at our movements, our fortification structures,” Marochko said. “That gives them certain privileges and makes their chances of success a lot higher than ours.”
He said the Russian side had fewer forces than the Ukrainians in a number of locations, offering up a rationale for Putin’s recent mobilization.
Rapid loss of territory in Ukraine reveals spent Russian military
There are few indications that any of the major problems that have been dogging the Russian military since the start of the invasion have been solved. For months, it has faced difficulty carrying out combined ground and air attacks, leading troops with a variable will to fight and organizing a complicated logistics pipeline to get supplies to the front.
More than seven months in, no clear commander of the Russian campaign has emerged in public, and recent reports have suggested that Putin is intervening personally to make battlefield decisions. Hard-liners within Russia have attacked the country’s generals publicly for poor decision-making.
The problems Putin is facing in Ukraine are compounded by risks at home. The mobilization has made the war in Ukraine real for many Russians who had been paying little attention.
The result is likely to be many more Russians — including those with sons, brothers and husbands now headed to the front — searching out information about how Russian forces are faring.
“They have given people a reason to pay attention to what is happening on the battlefield,” said Sam Greene, a professor of Russian politics at King’s College London. “When you are not being sent there, you can just kind of get news off the television, and the television isn’t going to tell you much. Now all of a sudden it matters to you.”
At the same time, the Russian state has fumbled in its execution of the draft, calling up men meant to be disqualified.
Russia restructured its military 10 years ago and dismantled a lot of the mobilization system, which was expensive to maintain and seen as largely unnecessary — and now it is showing, said Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at the Rand Corp.
Massicot said there is little reliable public information about how Russia intends to train and deploy the draftees, making it too early to say exactly what kind of impact the mobilization is likely to have. She said the new troops are likely to have poor combat capability but could free up personnel in the rear to fight at the front, assuming there are soldiers to free up.
“Creating a tank battalion out of these guys is going to go how we all would expect,” Massicot said. “But if they use them in an auxiliary role or a noncombat role in the occupied territories, there probably is a significant benefit for what they are trying to do — which is hold on.”
The situation has demonstrated the limits of Putin’s ability to control the functions of his own government and military.
“One of the things that we should have learned through this is that there are things that Putin doesn’t know — one of which is how good is his army, how effective is his state,” Greene said. “He has never tried this stuff before. So, he is not going to know how effectively it’s going to work until push comes to shove.” | 2022-10-05T07:58:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Putin faces limits of his military power as Ukraine recaptures land - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/05/putin-military-losses/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/05/putin-military-losses/ |
14-year-old’s arthritis meds denied after Ariz. abortion ban, doctor says
A 14-year-old girl in Arizona was initially denied access to her arthritis medication because the same drug can be used to end pregnancies. (Earl Neikirk for The Washington Post)
For years, Deborah Power, a rheumatologist in Tucson, had prescribed methotrexate to manage her 14-year-old patient’s rheumatoid arthritis. But just two days after the state’s abortion ban took effect last month, a pharmacy denied the teen’s refill.
The reason: In a higher dosage, methotrexate — a drug used to treat some cancers, arthritis and a slew of autoimmune diseases — can also induce abortions and terminate ectopic pregnancies, though that’s not its most common use, Power told The Washington Post.
Emma Thompson was ultimately able to get her prescription filled, but the delay highlights the medical complications some patients are facing in states with strict abortion rules. Even if their medications are not prescribed to end a pregnancy, the reversal in June of Roe v. Wade has thrown pharmacists, patients and physicians into a “constant juggling act,” Power said, balancing medical care with changing policies and potential legal consequences.
“I don’t think everyone understands what the ramifications of such a broad, sweeping antiabortion law are and how many other women are affected by this,” she added. “Like how can we decide that women can’t have this medicine that men can? That’s discriminating on gender. And how can you make a law that doesn’t allow me to provide standard of care for my patients?”
Throughout Emma’s life, rheumatoid arthritis — an inflammatory disorder that causes the body’s immune system to attack healthy tissue in the joints — had resulted in prolonged hospital stays, clinical trials and simply “too much pain to have a normal life,” said her mother, Kaitlin Preble. For 10 years, her daughter’s physicians had experimented with different doses of methotrexate, finally landing about a year ago on just the right amount that allows Emma to thrive, attend school and “simply be a normal teenager,” Preble said.
All of that seemed to be at risk on Sept. 25, when Preble checked her Walgreens app to see whether Emma’s prescriptions were ready. Instead of a green light indicating they could be picked up, a message popped up saying her methotrexate refill had been denied.
“It didn’t even give the reason why,” Preble said. “It just said that I had to call my doctor.”
Still, Preble said she had an inkling that the state’s new abortion ban — one that dates back to the 19th century and prohibits the procedure, except to save the pregnant person’s life — had something to do with it. Her suspicions were confirmed the next day, when Preble drove to the pharmacy “and made a big deal inside,” she said.
At first, no one would explain why her daughter wasn’t able to get a medication that’s “crucial to her health,” Preble said. Then, she urged a pharmacy technician to get some answers.
“The pharmacist said she denied it because Emma is 14 years old,” which is considered a childbearing age, Preble said. “The pharmacy tech then asked, ‘Well, did you look at her history? She’s been getting this medication for a long time,’ and the pharmacist said, ‘No,’ which I think was very crucial.”
Through it all, Preble was shaking and in tears: “I understand that pharmacists are scared because they don’t want to be liable to anything. But it’s extremely unfair to put a child through this unpredictable situation. And we shouldn’t have to jump through all these hoops to get a medication.”
In a statement to The Post, a spokesperson for Walgreens said that, while the company couldn’t discuss individual patients, “new laws in various states require additional steps for dispensing certain prescriptions and apply to all pharmacies, including Walgreens.”
“In these states, our pharmacists work closely with prescribers as needed, to fill lawful, clinically appropriate prescriptions,” the spokesperson said. “We provide ongoing training and information to help our pharmacists understand the latest requirements in their area.”
Great country we got here pic.twitter.com/T0vxwLgX7Y
Patients across the country face similar situations as more drugs are scrutinized. Many of the medications are teratogens, or drugs that can result in fetal abnormalities and miscarriages if taken by someone who is pregnant. In some cases, women have to prove they’re on birth control or submit pregnancy tests for pharmacies to fulfill prescriptions for drugs that can terminate pregnancies, The Post previously reported.
When it comes to methotrexate — which is used or has been used by nearly 60 percent of rheumatoid arthritis patients — medical groups have already said there are increasing challenges in accessing the drug. In Texas, for example, pharmacists are allowed to refuse to fill prescriptions for misoprostol and methotrexate under the state’s “heartbeat bill.” The American College of Rheumatology in July urged pharmacists across the nation to provide the medication “without delay and with the assumption that they are not being used to terminate a pregnancy.”
“Methotrexate must remain accessible to people with rheumatic diseases, and legal safeguards must protect rheumatology professionals, pharmacists, and patients from potential legal penalties,” the medical group said in a statement.
Federal officials warn pharmacists about denying abortion medication
The new laws have also affected patients with other conditions, such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. In August, the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation said it “vehemently opposes” policies that inhibit patients’ access to approved treatments.
“The decision on what the most appropriate therapy for their illness is should be made as a shared decision between a patient and their healthcare professional, following medical evidence,” the organization wrote in a statement.
Although her daughter’s next refill isn’t scheduled for another month, Preble said she is already dreading the possibility of another denial.
“These laws are just too extreme and don’t take into account all the different scenarios that people are going through,” she said. | 2022-10-05T08:02:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 14-year-old girl denied arthritis medication amid Arizona abortion ban - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/05/abortion-arizona-arthritis-prescription-refill/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/05/abortion-arizona-arthritis-prescription-refill/ |
Eva Dou
Chinese President Xi Jinping stands in front of a painting of the Great Wall during a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 2018. (Pool/Getty Images)
As the summer of 1989 approached, a 35-year-old official in southern Fujian province named Xi Jinping was scrambling to contain local offshoots of nationwide protests that would become the biggest crisis for the Chinese Communist Party since Mao Zedong’s rule.
Students were calling for democratic freedoms. They wanted an end to official corruption and censorship of the press.
Xi, the Ningde city chief, and other Fujian officials struggled to figure out what to do as some 100,000 people took to the streets over several months starting in April, fired up by reports of students occupying Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Some piled into the railway station in Fujian’s provincial capital, bringing trains to a standstill. Fujian police arrested thousands, according to local official histories. But more kept coming.
By the time Xi emerged 23 years later in 2012 as China’s top leader, many thought he represented a party that had mellowed in its advancing years. Since 1989, the Chinese leadership had moved toward what outside observers saw as a more stable system of collective rule. To prevent Mao-style personality cults, senior leaders shared power and the head of state was confined to two five-year terms. Xi, they prophesied, would be a liberal reformer.
These predictions proved badly misguided.
Rather, the party was seriously concerned about its survival. Under the lax leadership of Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, rampant corruption, factionalism and mounting social discontent were undermining legitimacy. Xi was brought in to clean up the mess.
Over the last decade, Xi has reversed political changes of the 1980s designed to prevent over-centralization of power. He has done away with presidential term limits, reasserted party control and elevated his personal status to a level unseen in at least 30 years, if not the Mao era.
At a crucial party congress beginning Oct. 16, Xi is set to complete his elevation to uncontested paramount leader. “Xi Jinping is somebody who has spent years making the whole ideological apparatus say that the party only works with him as leader, and only his way of thinking about things is accurate,” said Joseph Torigian, a China historian at American University in D.C.
From early in his career, including in Fujian, Xi demonstrated a commitment to defending the party from perceived threats. After taking power, he launched a cleanup campaign that mirrored the party’s actions following Tiananmen, when it slammed the brakes on political change and rallied around a strongman leader, Deng Xiaoping, to steer the nation out of crisis.
Now, it is increasingly unclear when Xi will consider his role as savior of the party completed. He speaks regularly of a world undergoing “changes unseen in a century” and warns of the grave dangers of relaxing political authority. Only with the party in command, Xi says, can China achieve its “great rejuvenation.”
It won’t be easy. As he begins his third term, he must contend with a severe economic slowdown and spiraling tensions with the United States and its allies. And many of the challenges Xi faces are related to his choices.
Strict “zero covid” policies have hammered the economy. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, his close partnership with Vladimir Putin has fueled concern in Western nations over Beijing’s intentions, following harsh security clampdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. And China’s military aggression toward Taiwan is threatening to destabilize the region and bring tension with the United States to a head.
But early indications suggest Xi is preparing to ramp up, not tamp down, his policy ambitions after the meeting. In the last year, Xi has intensified policy initiatives to promote China’s vision of global development and security as well as an ambitious drive to deliver “common prosperity” by tackling inequality at home.
Aside from being reappointed general secretary of the party and chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission (and therefore almost certainly staying on as president from early next year), analysts predict that Xi will probably achieve a “supermajority” of politicians within his network on the 25-member Politburo that sits at the apex of power. Pekingologists are watching to see if he receives a new official title such as “people’s leader” or “party chairman.” Few expect a successor to emerge at the twice-per-decade conclave.
“Counterintuitively, the more problems that the system faces, the more of a case that Xi Jinping can make that it was right” for the party to give him broad decision-making powers and authority as the “core” of the leadership, Torigian said.
China’s State Council Information Office and Foreign Ministry declined to answer questions for this article.
In 2012, as Xi was preparing to be confirmed as China’s next top leader, the party was struck with one of the largest political earthquakes it had faced since 1989. Bo Xilai, a contemporary of Xi’s and contender for a top leadership position, fell from power in a scandal that revealed deep fractures and glaring abuses of authority in the senior ranks.
As the Arab Spring was deploying social media and promises of democratic reforms to topple authoritarian regimes, official corruption was everywhere in China. And an angry public was increasingly calling it out online, posting pictures of cadres with Rolexes and fueling rule-of-law activism.
As a “princeling” son of a revolutionary leader with a record of loyalty, Xi was brought in to put the nation back on track. “There was a broad consensus that the party was at an existential turning point and that something needed to be done,” said Christopher Johnson, a former senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency and CEO of China Strategies Group.
After taking power, Xi immediately warned officials about the seriousness of the situation. In internal speeches, he said that tackling corruption was a question of survival for the party.
In contrast to other authoritarian leaders including Mao, who occasionally ran roughshod over established institutions to grab power, Xi has largely worked within the party to strengthen its levers of power while placing himself in a unique position to operate them.
One example is how he turned an anti-graft campaign designed to enforce discipline and punish excess after Bo’s downfall into an expanded and permanent National Supervisory Commission, established in 2018. “That’s why he is so powerful now. If he controls that institution, then he can compel consent from colleagues on policies and decisions of his preference with the threat of disciplinary investigation,” said Ling Li, a lecturer on Chinese politics and law at the University of Vienna, adding that the extent to which Xi has achieved complete personal control over the anticorruption apparatus is unclear.
In January 2013, two months before he assumed the presidency, Xi advised against denigrating either Mao or Deng for fear that the People’s Republic could collapse like the Soviet Union. He oversaw a mass education campaign for cadres who watched a documentary about the Soviet regime’s final years. It warned of the need to be “vigilant in peacetime” and spoke of “bitter lessons” from Mikhail Gorbachev’s failure to prevent the party from unraveling.
The moral of the Soviet Union’s demise continues to animate Xi’s leadership today. In July, the docuseries was rereleased by the official social media account of World Socialism Studies, a research institute under the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
After Gorbachev’s death on Aug. 30, Chinese nationalists called him a “villain of history.” The propaganda department of Zhejiang province said that “he did indeed bear unavoidable responsibility” for the Union’s breakup.
U.N. report: China may have committed crimes against humanity in Xinjiang
In the name of preventing “separatism,” Xi imposed draconian national security legislation on Hong Kong to end protests over creeping interference from Beijing. He has pursued a policy of mass detention and forced assimilation in Xinjiang, which the U.N.'s human rights commissioner recently ruled may constitute crimes against humanity. He has declared that self-governing Taiwan “must and will” come under Chinese Communist Party rule.
Xi’s dedication to the party is apparent in little-known essays and speeches reviewed by The Washington Post from his 17 years in Fujian — as is his tendency to respond to periods of uncertainty with more-concentrated control.
One lesson Xi took from Tiananmen was that art and literature could be a threat to the party, presaging the shift to stricter censorship under his rule. In October 1989, Xi wrote in local literary magazine “Caibei” that art could not be allowed to be used “as a political tool.” He criticized an avant-garde exhibition held in Beijing before the protests, where one artist had squatted over eggs like a chicken and another washed his feet in a bowl.
Unmentioned by Xi was the most notorious part of the show: A 26-year-old art student had illegally fired a gun, as part of her performance art, after which she was immediately arrested. “It’s impossible for any nation’s government or ruling party to not meddle at all in literature and the arts,” Xi wrote. “The difference is only in the extent of the interventions. Standards vary.”
At the same time as Xi led efforts to tamp down protests in Ningde, the party’s top leadership was creating a hard-line position against political liberalization that would persist until Xi and sharply intensify under his tenure.
“Never Turn Back,” a recently published history of the 1980s in China by Harvard scholar Julian Gewirtz, shows that substantive debates about political reform, led by then general secretary Zhao Ziyang, took place throughout the decade, but hard-liners within the party swiftly ended them after Tiananmen.
Propaganda directives from the time gathered by Gewirtz describe how the crisis awakened the party to the failure of ideological and political work during the 1980s. A report by state investigators noted a “loss of faith” in the party and socialism, prescribing targets for ideology and politics like those for the economy.
To reassert control after the purge of Zhao, Deng was designated as the “core” of the party, a title he conferred to his chosen successor, Jiang Zemin. In May 1989, Deng advised that leaders should “not be dissatisfied with each other, do not deplete your own power. … The key is the leadership core.”
Xi has ruled by that same mantra. He was crowned “core” leader in 2016, a title that eluded his predecessor. An important resolution on party history passed in November secured Xi’s position as the unquestioned leader for the foreseeable future, when it ruled that establishing Xi Thought as guiding ideology and establishing Xi as core of the party “expressed the deepest wishes of the whole party, the whole military, and the peoples of the whole country.”
Ideological focus
Weeks after the Tiananmen crackdown, in July 1989, Xi hiked into the backcountry with a straw hat and walking stick, to visit the impoverished village of Xiadang. Xi had chosen the village, one of the most remote in Ningde, for the center of his poverty alleviation push.
It was the carrot to the stick of a security buildup to tamp down political unrest, as recorded in local gazetteers. Even as Xi hiked the hills touting economic opportunity, the county where Xiadang was based had just built a munitions warehouse and started twice-a-year patriotic training for militias. Soon after, provincial authorities announced police may take anyone who did not produce their national ID card back to a police station.
Xi would report incredibly rapid success: More than 96 percent of destitute people in his district pulled out of abject poverty in two years.
Xi has since brought a similar deal to China’s people on a larger scale. Poverty alleviation has been one of his hallmark campaigns, capped by his declaration in early 2021 that China had eradicated extreme poverty. As with his experiment in Xiadang, the nationwide poverty relief campaign came with parallel measures to quell political dissent, with some of the harshest execution reserved for ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
In Xiadang village today, the myth of Xi the man blends seamlessly into the nationwide initiatives he is credited with creating. Xi’s quotations sprawl across walls and buildings in large, red characters. Local museums show photos of Xi personally leading the charge, walking through fields with a hoe slung over his shoulder.
Central to Xi’s mode of rule is renewed enforcement of the ideological “mass line” within the party — shorthand for following directions set by the top leadership. His eponymous philosophy, Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, is taught in schools and pored over by economic planners, People’s Liberation Army generals and diplomats.
“Ideological control is not a supplement, but arguably the foundation of political control, because if an autocrat can control people’s ideas and beliefs, there would be no need for coercion,” said Yuen Yuen Ang, a professor of politics at the University of Michigan.
The fear is that Xi has over-centralized power, making criticism of his policies tantamount to criticism of the party itself. Ang sees this dynamic at play with the sidelining and silencing of voices that criticized Xi’s “no limits” partnership with Russia — a move that escalated Western perceptions of China as a threat.
Taming Taiwan
In 1995, the 42-year-old Xi found himself on the front lines of a different crisis. The United States had allowed Taiwan’s President Lee Teng-hui to visit, infuriating Beijing, which claimed Taiwan as a runaway province. The People’s Liberation Army mobilized troops in Fujian.
Xi was head of Fujian’s capital Fuzhou, and also held a military title. While it’s unclear if he was directly involved in the barrages of missiles fired from Fujian into the waters around Taiwan that year, he must have keenly followed events. When Xi was promoted to governor, he ordered a buildup of military installations, citing Lee’s trip and the threat of Taiwan “separatism,” according to an essay he published in 2000.
Since becoming president, Xi has expressed impatience on Taiwan, saying in 2019 “we should not allow this problem to be passed down from one generation to the next.” He has ramped up naval drills near Taiwan, raising alarms that he could be flirting with the idea of invasion.
In August, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited Taiwan, plunging U.S.-China ties to fresh lows. China’s ambassador to France declared that Taiwan’s people would need to be reeducated after unification, in line with Xi’s broader push for ideological allegiance.
Loyalty enforcing mechanisms have been strengthened from the top to bottom rungs of the party. Low-level members are encouraged to attend study sessions where they learn about ideology and pledge fealty. At the highest level, the members of the Politburo since 2018 have been required to present annual reports to Xi for his approval and feedback.
Xi first adopted a similar practice in April 1989 when he set up a “responsibility system” for Ningde officials, including himself. They would be assessed on progress toward self-set goals and be “severely punished” for inaction, according to a front-page article in the official Fujian Daily newspaper from the time.
As students filled the streets in May 1989, Xi called a news conference in Fujian. He reminded local journalists of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, and argued that restricting personal freedoms was necessary for society to function. The elision of freedom with lawlessness was an easy one to make, and one that Xi’s party still makes today.
“If everyone just does what they want,” he said, “do you still have guarantees of your democracy and security? Can it really be done this way? So democracy cannot be absolute. It must have certain constraints.”
Dou reported from Ningde, China. Pei-Lin Wu and Vic Chiang in Taipei and Lyric Li in Seoul contributed to this report. | 2022-10-05T08:15:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As China’s party congress nears, Xi Jinping set to extend reign - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/china-xi-jinping-party-congress/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/china-xi-jinping-party-congress/ |
British Prime Minister Liz Truss listens to her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, address the annual Conservative Party conference on Oct. 3. (Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)
LONDON — Prime Minister Liz Truss on Wednesday will seek to shore up her authority after a brutal first month in office by asserting that while “not everyone will be in favor” of the changes her new government is pushing, “everyone will benefit from the result — a growing economy and a better future.”
Truss is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech to the annual Conservative Party conference — a moment Conservatives had hoped would mark a fresh start after the many scandals of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Instead, Truss is having to defend the first weeks of her premiership, which have already seen historic economic volatility, a revolt within her party and voters turning away from Conservatives in droves.
According to prepared remarks released to journalists, she will argue that Britain needs to “do things differently” and “whenever there is change, there is disruption.”
“I am determined to take a new approach and break us out of this high-tax, low growth cycle,” she is expected to tell the party faithful gathered in Birmingham, England.
Who is Liz Truss, the U.K.’s new prime minister?
Truss came into office with a lot to prove. Although she had a somewhat prominent role as foreign secretary during the war in Ukraine, she wasn’t known to the British public the way Johnson — a colorful former mayor of London and newspaper columnist — had been before he took the helm.
Truss was propelled not by a general election but by a leadership contest within her party. Even then, she wasn’t the first choice of Conservative Party lawmakers, and some of the grass roots party members who rallied around her have admitted they already missed Johnson.
Any momentum Truss had as incoming prime minister was cut short after two days by the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The new prime minister joined the new king in touring the four nations of the United Kingdom, but she played a marginal role. During the queen’s funeral, Australian broadcasters mistook her for a “minor royal.”
When attention eventually returned to politics, things took a dramatic turn for the worse. Her government’s plan to grow the economy through tax cuts primarily aimed at the wealthy, to be funded by billions in borrowing, sent investors scrambling to dump British assets. The pound sunk to an all-time low against the dollar. The Bank of England had to intervene to quell a financial market revolt.
The pound has since rebounded. But divisions within the Conservative Party remain, as the conference proceedings this week have made clear. Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Tuesday hit out at those within the party who “staged a coup” that “undermined the authority of our prime minister in an unprofessional way.”
The Conservatives have “lost the perception as them being the economically competent party — it’s as simple as that,” Curtis said.
A poll published Tuesday night showed the opposition Labour Party leading the Conservatives by 38 points in the so-called “red wall” areas in northern England that swung behind Conservatives in the 2019 election.
If there were an election today, pollsters say the opposition Labour Party would have its biggest ever majority.
“What this shift in the polls shows is that British electorate is increasingly volatile. It’s decreasingly aligned to party attachment. Voters will swing from one party to the next,” said Will Jennings, a politics expert at the University of Southampton.
Politics in Britain are much less polarized than in the United States. That’s partly because of Brexit, which prompted many people to walk away from parties they had supported for decades and to instead think of themselves as “leavers” or “remainers” — labels that crossed party lines. And now that those camps don’t have the prominence they once did, voters are open to being swayed by other concerns.
That volatility means the pendulum could swing back and forth a number of times before the next election, which could be as far off as January 2025 and so neither the Conservatives nor Truss are in immediate danger.
Still, the Conservatives are known for ruthlessly ditching leaders who no longer seem like vote winners. Johnson was ousted halfway through is term in office, following a number of scandals, even though he led his party to a whopping majority in 2019.
“She’s in a vulnerable, delicate situation,” Jennings said. “If Conservatives stay at the current levels in the polls, MPs will get very worried. One should never presume too much about political futures, but it’s certainly true she’s in a difficult spot. Recovering support of her MPs and voters will be a tremendous challenge.”
Grant Shapps, a former Conservative minister, suggested that Truss needs to turn things around quickly.
“The next 10 days, of course, is a critical period,” he said on the News Agents podcast. Asked if the party might change leaders, yet again, he said: “The question is for Conservative MPs, if they are in any case thinking, ‘well, I’m going to be out at the next election,’ then they might as well roll the dice as it were, and elect a new leader.”
Truss no doubt hopes her speech on Wednesday will help galvanize the party faithful gathered in Birmingham.
She can be a stilted communicator, though. And she doesn’t have the box office appeal Johnson had.
Some lawmakers are reportedly leaving the conference early to avoid the next political mess: train strikes. | 2022-10-05T08:15:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Liz Truss speaks at Conservatives' annual conference following financial panic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/liz-truss-conservative-party-conference/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/liz-truss-conservative-party-conference/ |
A U.N. Command soldier, right, and a South Korean soldier stand guard at the military demarcation line separating North and South Korea, at the Joint Security Area of the demilitarized zone on Oct. 4. (Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images)
TOKYO — North Korea has ramped up its missile tests this year as it expands its weapons program, conducting 23 launches since January. In the past two weeks, it fired five rounds of missiles.
But its test on Tuesday raised the stakes: It flew a missile over Japan for the first time since 2017. It didn’t warn Tokyo in advance. And that missile flew farther than anything previously launched by North Korea.
Missile tests can serve many purposes, from improving technical capabilities to sending a political message, both domestically and globally. They also serve as a reminder of the lack of progress on jump-starting nuclear negotiations with the regime and how Pyongyang’s military capabilities have evolved during the stalemate.
Flying over Japan
On Tuesday, residents in northern Japan woke to sirens warning them of the missile launch. North Korea fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile at 7:22 a.m. Japan time, which flew 4,600 kilometers (2,858 miles) for 22 minutes over Japan’s Aomori prefecture before landing in the Pacific Ocean, Japanese officials said. It reached an altitude of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles).
It’s not clear what type of weapon it was. Japanese defense ministry officials say it may be similar to the Hwasong-12, which can reach Japan and Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean. The missile may be an upgrade from the Hwasong-12, given its trajectory and the distance it traveled, according to Kim Dong-yup, a former South Korea Navy officer who teaches at Kyungnam University in Seoul.
North Korea has been aggressively testing its weapons in line with leader Kim Jong Un’s five-year plan. Earlier this year, Kim vowed to “strengthen and develop” his country’s nuclear and weapons program at the “highest possible” speed.
North Korea typically lofts missiles high in space, which then land in the waters in between the country and Japan to avoid threatening the security of its neighbors. Launching one across Japan may have been intended to make a political point, some experts say.
Why now? Why Japan?
We don’t exactly know what that point may be; North Korea is one of the most closed-off countries in the world, and it hasn’t publicly talked about its missile launches in six months. But there are clues that can help experts understand what message it may be trying to send.
For the past two months, the U.S., South Korean and Japanese militaries have been conducting military exercises designed to demonstrate their readiness to work together in the event of a conflict. While the allies say the drills are defensive in nature, Kim’s regime has long viewed them as hostile acts and used them to justify its weapons development and nuclear program.
After Tuesday’s test, the U.S., South Korean and Japanese militaries launched air, sea and land drills in response.
Security dynamics in Northeast Asia region have become increasingly volatile with China’s growing military threats and in the aftermath of the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since the invasion, North Korea has drawn closer to Russia while Japan’s relations with Russia have deteriorated.
South Korea, U.S. begin military drills likely to draw North’s ire
As U.S.-China competition intensifies, China has drawn North Korea closer. South Korea and North Korea have grown further apart, with a new conservative government in Seoul eager to side with Washington to take a harder line toward Pyongyang.
Given this backdrop, North Korea may see an opportunity to exploit the instabilities in the region and remind a world focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine that it still matters, said Robert Ward, senior fellow for Japanese Security Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
China, Russia draw North Korea closer than ever
“The missile launch intensifies the security threat along Japan’s western flank — Russia to the north, North Korea in the center and China to the south. One important strategic threat to watch for is cooperation between Russia-China-North Korea, which amplifies the risk to Japan,” Ward said.
From the North Korean perspective, there are not many flight-path options for a missile with a range exceeding 4,000 kilometers other than the route over northern Japan and toward the Pacific Ocean, said Masashi Murano, a Japan chair fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. The other options would be seen as an effort to strike the U.S. mainland or to reach Guam.
Pending nuclear test
A familiar cycle of escalation appears to be taking shape.
To some analysts, Tuesday’s test was reminiscent of the ramped-up tensions and rapid diplomacy that began five years ago. In August 2017, North Korea launched a ballistic missile over Japan amid threats from then-President Donald Trump that he would unleash “fire and fury” if Pyongyang kept ratcheting up tensions with repeated missile tests. In September 2017, North Korea conducted a nuclear test.
What does North Korea’s new monster ballistic missile test mean?
Again, North Korea is probably gearing up for its first nuclear test since 2017. According to commercial satellite images and statements from intelligence officials, North Korea apparently completed preparations for its seventh nuclear test and is waiting for the right political moment to hit the button.
The United States and its allies intend to seek an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the North’s latest provocation. But China and Russia, two of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have sided with North Korea since Pyongyang started its volley of ballistic missile tests in violation of the council’s resolutions banning them.
Meanwhile, diplomatic relations between the United States and North Korea have hit a wall.
Since denuclearization talks collapsed at the 2019 summit between Trump and Kim, U.S. and South Korean negotiators have urged North Korea to return to negotiations, saying they have no preconditions to resume dialogue. But the Biden administration has not shown it is willing to grant the sanctions relief that Kim seeks. | 2022-10-05T08:15:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Here's what North Korea's latest missile launch over Japan means - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/north-korea-missile-japan-nuclear-weapons-explained/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/north-korea-missile-japan-nuclear-weapons-explained/ |
The president often uses identity to connect with crowds, most recently in Puerto Rico. Sometimes it may be a stretch.
President Biden on Monday in Ponce. Puerto Rico, at a community center aiding those battered by Hurricane Fiona. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
President Biden, to hear him tell it, is as Greek as Poseidon. He was brought up by both the Puerto Rican community and the Black community. And he’s more Jewish than the Jews.
Put Biden in front of a crowd, and he’ll try to connect with it — even if, at times, the connection seems to stretch the available facts. When delivering the commencement address for the U.S. Naval Academy, he claimed to have almost attended the school. When he spoke to a group of athletes in Israel, he suggested he came close to trying out as a walk-on in the NFL.
The president tries to relate to local officials with remarks about his brief tenure as a county commissioner — 50 years ago — sometimes with a tale about removing a dead animal from a constituent’s lawn. (In one version, he carts it away in a pickup truck; in another, irritated at her tone, he places it on her doorstep.)
Biden’s search for a connection also shows his approach to ethnic politics, a skill that he needed for much of his career as he sought to cater to small slices of an electorate in a small state. And it reflects his role, once he graduated to the national stage, as a glad-handing pol who has visited Little Italy in Cleveland, Chinatown in Los Angeles and Little Havana in Miami.
“I’m an honorary Greek — not only today but every day!” Biden said in 2009 before quoting Aesop, the Greek fabulist and storyteller, at a celebration of Greek Independence Day.
“We haven’t had a Greek in the White House, but now we have Joe Bidenopoulos,” the then-vice president said on another occasion. (As an April Fool’s joke last year, the Greek Reporter news site wrote a story suggesting that researchers had traced Biden’s ancestors to a Greek man named Markos Bidenopoulos who fought in the Greek War of Independence).
While most of the mentions are innocuous, Biden has gotten in trouble before for appropriating a British politician’s family story as his own. During his 1988 presidential campaign, he slightly altered lines Neil Kinnock delivered about his Welsh coal-mining ancestors who would spend hours underground before coming up and playing football.
Biden, who delivered those lines during a debate at the Iowa State Fair, later said that he meant to credit Kinnock — but the episode helped drive him out of the race.
During his latest presidential run, his ability to relate to voters — particularly those grieving or suffering from tragedy — was central to his political strength, with voters often saying that amid ephemeral politics driven by tweets and memes, Biden’s humanizing connections drew them to overlook some of his gaffes or the attacks of his rivals.
And there were plenty of those, particularly as he sought to connect with Black voters, who made up a crucial portion of his coalition.
“I come out of a Black community, in terms of my support,” Biden said in a November 2019 primary debate. “If you notice, I have more people supporting me in the Black community that have announced for me because they know me, they know who I am.”
Responding to criticism of that comment, he said a few months later: “I’m not saying, ‘I am Black.’ But I want to tell you something — I have spent my whole career with the Black community.”
Biden also often notes that he is a son of Pennsylvania (where he was born) and also Delaware (where he moved at age 10).
“I grew up in a heavily Irish Catholic community in Scranton, Pennsylvania,” he said in 2020, “and a heavily Italian Polish community in Claymont, Delaware.”
His favorite food is Italian pasta, and Jill Biden has deep Italian roots as the country’s first Italian American first lady.
But he is few things more than Irish — an Irish Catholic with an Irish temper, by his own account, who occasionally gets his Irish up and ends up in a black Irish mood.
“We Irish are the only people who are nostalgic for the future,” he is fond of saying.
But he also uses his Irishness to find a connection, and not only with other Irish Americans.
“Whether it was my ancestors who boarded coffin ships in the Irish sea in the famine in the 1840s or families who fled oppressive regimes and natural disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean,” he said in 2020 in Florida, “all of our ancestors, yours and mine, they came equipped with only one thing — the only thing they had in their pocket was hope.” | 2022-10-05T09:21:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden is actually Greek. And Jewish. And raised by Puerto Ricans. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/05/biden-jewish-greek-puerto-rican/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/05/biden-jewish-greek-puerto-rican/ |
Reporters want to know: Can we use your disaster photo, please?
By Jeremy Barr
When Beth Booker posted a photo of her mother’s house flooded by Hurricane Ian last week, messages of concern and sympathy came pouring in. What also came in droves were requests by media outlets to use her photos in coverage of the story.
“I’ve gotten a lot of [direct messages] and replies here asking to interview my mother and to use my photos on the news,” Booker wrote on Twitter. “Her. House. Is. Under. Water. We are literally in an eyewall of a hurricane. No, not available for an interview.”
Journalists pleading with regular people to republish their images of a natural disaster has become an almost daily ritual on social media, where local, national and global outlets search constantly for newsworthy images taken by regular people. Some news agencies, such as Reuters, even have dedicated Twitter accounts for the pursuit.
These journalists aren’t exclusively chasing life-or-death photos. In August, for example, a News 12 Long Island reporter was quick to swoop into Twitter and ask for permission to use someone’s photo of a “crazy” line of people outside a soon-to-close pizzeria in Holbrook, N.Y. But the practice is particularly common after a natural disaster or extreme-weather event that affects a large swath of territory.
“Photographers and videographers can only be in one place at a time and often aren’t present when the worst destruction hits, so that’s why TV news outlets may turn to social media for visuals,” said Mark Feldstein, professor of broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
It’s also relatively easy hunting. The sheer number of viral images depicting Ian’s destruction in Florida and South Carolina means that networks can simply move on to the next person if they get a no — or no response at all — to their request.
Hi there - Sara with CNN here. Are you safe?? Did you take this video? If so, can CNN use your photo/video on all CNN media, worldwide in perpetuity along with affiliate distribution? Thanks and stay safe!
While journalists pleading to use someone else’s work is hardly a new phenomenon, the public nature of social media has laid bare the sausage-making process for everyone to comment on.
Some are upset to see multimillion-dollar media corporations essentially begging for free material — usually offering the amateur photographer no compensation besides a caption credit. And then there’s the language in the requests: often a stunted mix of well-wishes and imposing legalese.
“OMG! I hope you all are okay!” an ABC Action News staffer wrote to Booker after seeing her mother’s submerged house in Fort Myers Beach. “I was wondering if you own the rights to this photo/video. If so, ABC Action News would like permission for us and our Scripps affiliates to use your photo/video on all our platforms (broadcast and digital). We’d, of course, give you credit!”
Barbara S. Cochran, a veteran of NBC News and CBS News who is now professor emeritus at the University of Missouri’s journalism school, likened the social media requests to the age-old practice of journalists knocking on someone’s door and asking for a photo of a loved one who was killed.
In either case, she said, it’s incumbent on the journalist making the request to respect the wishes of the person who has the photo and to be willing to take “no” for an answer.
“There is a point in an emergency, whatever it is, where the emergency is still going on, and you’re treading on very thin ice if you are reaching out to them as a journalist,” said media ethicist Kelly McBride.
McBride said journalists have generally gotten much better in recent years at showing empathy and compassion when asking for permission to republish photos. And she pushed back at critics who say the media is profiting off the pain of regular people. “I think your duty as a journalist is to figure out the best way to tell the most accurate story, and clearly scouring social media for documentation of something as massive as a hurricane is an important strategy,” she said. “If you didn’t do it, your story would likely be less accurate.”
Aside from questions of tact, there’s the matter of money. When an official Fox News account asked a Twitter user for permission to use his photo of a collapsed construction crane in Dallas in 2019, it only took a few minutes to get a reply: “Sure, how much?”
The answer from most media organizations is generally: nothing. Some critics accuse the companies of leaning on user-generated photos as a way of cutting professional photographers out of the process and cutting costs, further straining an already weakened profession.
And some professional photographers have gone so far as to intercede on social media, urging amateurs to request compensation before handing over rights to their images.
“News outlets make a profit from these interviews and get lots of clicks and higher ratings from dramatic cellphone videos, but often don’t want to pay people for it,” Feldstein said. “There’s something a bit ghoulishly exploitive about news outlets profiting from others’ misery without compensating them for their help when they need it most.”
Many amateur photographers ultimately allow journalists to use their photos free of charge. Seeing a photo you have taken on television can be exciting, and for those chronicling natural disasters or causes that need more attention, the publicity can be a good trade-off for the lack of compensation.
“I think it’s possible that people who are posting video want people to witness what they see,” Cochran said. “They’re sharing their experience. I think there’s every justification for [journalists] asking them, and often the people on the receiving end are not going to be disturbed by it.”
Dan Shelley, president of the Radio Television Digital News Association, noted another potential complication: It’s important for journalists to inquire whether the person who posted the image actually took it. If a network airs an image without the permission of the original photographer, it could face a copyright infringement claim from the rightful owner. “Even though it is inadvertent and they have acted in good faith, news organizations are still often hit with infringement claims,” he said.
After initially expressing her concerns about the media requests to interview her mother and use the images, Booker decided a day later to grant blanket permission.
“Okay, news outlets,” she wrote. “You have my full permission to use these photos and share our story. I will do anything to bring attention to her and to reunite with her as soon as possible. Share this far and wide to keep the faith.”
Booker’s story ended on a happy note: Her mother was located. | 2022-10-05T10:09:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Reporters want to know: Can we use your disaster photo, please? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/10/05/media-disaster-photo-requests/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/10/05/media-disaster-photo-requests/ |
A Pa. teen went missing in 1969. Her remains were just identified.
The address in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., that 14-year-old Joan Marie Dymond's parents lived at when their daughter went missing on June 25, 1969. (Google Maps)
On a warm June day in 1969, 14-year-old Joan Marie Dymond of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., told her family she was going outside after eating supper. The 5-foot-5 teenager with brown eyes and brown hair never returned.
A half-century later, Dymond’s remains have been identified, Pennsylvania’s state police said Tuesday. Dymond’s family “very much deserves closure. We will do everything in our power to see that they have it,” Capt. Patrick Dougherty, the commanding officer of Pennsylvania State Police Troop P, said in a news release.
Dymond’s remains were found on Nov. 17, 2012, on the grounds of a former coal-mining operation in Newport Township, less than a dozen miles from Dymond’s home, by people digging for relics in a trash-filled depression in the ground, according to police.
Examinations showed the remains to be those of a female, estimated to be in her midteens to early 20s and to have died because of “foul play,” police said. Lab results also showed the unidentified person — first referred to as Jane “Newport” Doe — had probably died in the late 1960s.
After negative tests that had compared the remains with DNA samples in national databases, Pennsylvania police received funding from the Luzerne Foundation, a nonprofit in the state, to conduct genetic genealogy testing at Othram, a private laboratory in Houston. Dymond’s remains were submitted to Othram in March.
Those tests showed the remains could be related to the Dymond family, police said. Then, this month, DNA tests comparing samples from the Dymond family confirmed Jane “Newport” Doe was Joan, police said. They are now focusing on finding the perpetrator.
A young girl’s murder went unsolved for nearly 58 years. A 20-year-old college student helped crack the case.
In a news conference, Luzerne County District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce urged members of the public to report even the tiniest potential leads. “You’d be shocked at what small details can actually turn into a new lead and help us solve a case.”
Dymond was wearing a brown blouse with long sleeves and flowered slacks at the time of her disappearance, the Times Leader media group reported, citing a notice in the Wilkes-Barre Record newspaper on July 3, 1969. Dymond had gone missing on June 25 that year.
Dymond was a “sweet girl,” Suzanne Estock, her sister, told reporters at the news briefing. Estock, who was pregnant at the time, said Dymond had been excited about becoming an aunt. Estock expressed hope of finding those responsible for her sister’s death. “It’s a shame somebody so young and with her whole life ahead of her was taken.”
Dymond’s parents, George and Anne, died without learning of their daughter’s fate, in 1984 and 2000, respectively, according to local reports. | 2022-10-05T10:31:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Remains of Joan Marie Dymond, Pa. teen missing in 1969, identified - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/05/missing-pennsylvania-teen-joan-marie-dymond/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/05/missing-pennsylvania-teen-joan-marie-dymond/ |
Jenifer Lewis isn’t done baring her soul
Jenifer Lewis, queen of the high kick, says her “career has excelled to a level that I wanted as a kid.” (Shuran Huang for The Washington Post)
Jenifer Lewis sashays into a theater at the AFI in Silver Spring, Md., where fans are waiting to hear her talk about her new book, “Walking In My Joy,” a series of stirring, laugh-out-loud vignettes about her life. She enters to the sounds of another diva as Aretha Franklin, singing “A Deeper Love,” blasts on the speakers: “Now I’ve got love in my heart / it gives me the strength / To make it through the day.”
The event is part toast — to Lewis and her fans — and part roast for, well, anyone who should catch Lewis’s playful ire: “Now sit down, you’re getting on my nerves,” she jokes after basking in applause. “I got one nerve left!” For the veteran of TV, film and Broadway, it’s also part cabaret: Within a few minutes of her entrance, Lewis plops down at the piano to sing a signature tune, one that has gone viral several times over: “I don’t want nobody — ” she belts, pausing to ask if she’s allowed to curse (a privilege no one familiar with Lewis’s work would ever deny her). Given the all-clear, Lewis lets loose: “I don’t want nobody, f---ing with meeeeeeeeeee / In theeeese streets!”
“In These Streets” is the subtitle of Lewis’s book, which features the same kind of soul-baring honesty the actress offered in her 2017 memoir, “The Mother of Black Hollywood.” In that book, Lewis candidly discussed living with bipolar disorder and a sex addiction that she brings up matter-of-factly to the crowd at AFI. “I didn’t know I was bipolar then. I rather enjoyed that part of it,” she cracks as the audience erupts in laughter.
In “Walking In My Joy,” Lewis recounts reaching out to famous friends including Brandy Norwood and Kathy Griffin during the pandemic and her self-reflection over months in isolation. She recalls the decade DJ Pierce (better known as Shangela of “Drag Race” fame) lived in her basement while trying to break into the entertainment industry. She tells the harrowing story of the man who conned her out of $50,000, but emerges triumphant, recalling how her testimony in court led to a prison sentence for the serial fraudster: “Y’all know I performed … ‘the truth the whole truth and nothing but’ with real tears,” Lewis writes.
“When I tell the truth, the electricity goes up my spine,” she tells the AFI crowd. “I am damn near possessed by it.”
“She already has the aura and the confidence and the projection of a star,” the New York Times wrote of Lewis in 1983, just after Bette Midler recruited her as one of her backup singers, the Harlettes. “She is the very essence of show business — a singer with a dazzling voice, a high-kicking dancer, a lusty comedienne, a coiled spring of energy.”
At 65, Lewis remains all of those things; her high kicks are legendary. She did several at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, where “Black-ish” was honored earlier this year, a tribute she cites as one of her proudest moments.
Though Lewis, a native of Kinloch, Mo., has been working in Hollywood for decades, it was “Black-ish” that marked her breakout into mainstream fame. Like many veteran Black entertainers, Lewis is enjoying the sort of career renaissance and appreciation her fans have always wanted for her.
With ‘Abbott Elementary,’ Sheryl Lee Ralph is finally getting her flowers
“Jenifer Lewis was one of the first Black women I ever saw on TV that was not ‘Sesame Street,’ ” Hannah Oliver Depp, whose Silver Spring and Petworth-based shop Loyalty Bookstore hosted the Lewis event, tells the crowd at AFI.
A perpetual scene-stealer, Lewis is beloved for a range of roles. She’s Will’s Aunt Helen on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” coolly delivering one-liners that make her recurring role on the show (eight episodes in all) seem much more expansive. She’s Dean Dorothy Dandridge Davenport, telling Hillman students “You’re on my list!” on “A Different World.” She’s Anna Mae Bullock’s mother in “What’s Love Got to Do With It?,” the cult classic film about Ike and Tina Turner. She’s Jackie Washington, an R&B diva primed for a comeback in the cult classic mockumentary film “Jackie’s Back!” She’s Grandma Ruby on “Black-ish,” calling her biracial daughter-in-law everything but a child of God (“Rae Dawn Chong” was one particularly memorable barb).
In her latest role, on Showtime’s “I Love That For You,” she plays Patricia, the icy CEO of a home shopping network called SVN. “It’s my best work,” Lewis said in an interview with The Washington Post. “I walked into it like a fitted glove.”
“My career has excelled to a level that I wanted as a kid. But even ‘I Love That For You,’ they waited until I was 65 to make me a porn star!” she jokes, while genuinely celebrating a role that sees her “grind” on handsome young men with no lines.
“And now I’m mobbed on the streets. Even if I lower my … head they’re like ‘Jenifer Lewis!’ I’m like ‘Aah!’ ” Not even masks can hide her identity: Her Shakespearean diction is instantly recognizable no matter how many layers of fabric it’s underneath. “All I have to say is, ‘Baby, let me see that dress.’ ” Inevitably, she said, someone will say, “Excuse me, Miss Lewis …”
Many celebrities talk about mental health issues but few have taken fans into their treatment and recovery process the way that Lewis has. When Kathy Griffin, struggling in the aftermath of the controversy around a 2017 tweet that showed her holding a mask made to look like the severed head of President Donald Trump, took a large quantity of pills, she called Lewis. “I think I’m in a little trouble. I took some sleeping pills,” Lewis recalls Griffin saying in her book. “I think I took too many. And I don’t want to die.”
“I knew Jenifer wouldn’t be scared by a friend that was suicidal,” Griffin said in a phone interview. “She wouldn’t run in fear and she wouldn’t call me names.” What Lewis did do was sit with Griffin for hours on end, and was still there when she awoke the next morning.
“I just think she’s so funny and smart and resilient, and I admire her,” Griffin said. “I like her because she doesn’t do small talk. When you talk to Jenifer, it’s like you’re going to really talk about stuff.”
That’s true even on her book tour. “I didn’t come all the way to Maryland to tiptoe through the tulips and tell you about the chapters in this book. Read it!” Lewis tells her fans. “I came here to tell you to take care of yourself. And vote.”
Activism, Lewis said, is her biggest priority at this stage of her life. “Show business, it’s like brushing my teeth. All somebody has to say is ‘places’ or ‘action’ and I’m on.” But “America is in a lot of trouble right now, so there’s nothing more important. It should be important to everybody,” she added.
“Women have got to shut this country down,” she said, referring to the Supreme Court’s recent dismantling of Roe vs. Wade. “We’ve got to stand up. We’ve got to take a knee. And we have to also lay down, and I don’t mean on the … sofa.”
But Lewis, walking in her joy, still has hope. “These are not dark times. These are awakening times,” she said in July while accepting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The actress, who loves to travel, recalled a recent trip to Kathmandu in Nepal, where she got to see Mount Everest, the Himalayan mountain she dreamed of climbing when she was a child.
“I had my phone just smashed against the window, and there was a yoga teacher on that flight and she was just happy to be right next to me looking out,” Lewis said. “She overheard me say, ‘Since I was 13 years old, I wanted to climb to the top.’ She looked at me and said, ‘Look at you — now you’re above it.’ ” | 2022-10-05T10:57:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jenifer Lewis isn’t done baring her soul - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/05/jenifer-lewis-walking-my-joy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/05/jenifer-lewis-walking-my-joy/ |
One of Loretta Lynn’s last public appearances captures her iconic legacy
The 2019 CMAs kicked off with 16 female singers on stage, and the message was clear — they wouldn’t be there if not for Loretta Lynn
Hosts Carrie Underwood, Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton kick off the 2019 CMA Awards in Nashville with an all-female medley. (Image Group LA/ABC/Getty Images)
It was a profoundly rare sight — 16 female country artists spanning multiple generations, all together onstage at the 2019 Country Music Association Awards, kicking off the genre’s biggest night in the national spotlight with a nine-minute medley of iconic hits. Throughout the performance, there was only one break from the music.
“Ladies and gentleman, this is for a living legend we’re so honored to sing for tonight,” said Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles, accompanied by singers ranging from Tanya Tucker to Gretchen Wilson to Maren Morris, along with show co-hosts Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire. “Sitting right there, the first woman to win CMA entertainer of the year: Miss Loretta Lynn!”
The audience at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville roared as Lynn, wearing a sparkling green ensemble, beamed and waved to the crowd from her front-row seat. Though no one knew it yet, this would be one of her last public appearances, and the subtext was clear: Without Lynn — one of the most influential and groundbreaking country artists of all time who shattered preconceived notions about female singer-songwriters — many of the singers in front of her might have never made it to the stage.
When news broke Tuesday morning that Lynn died at the age of 90, there was an outpouring of grief from the country music community, and many of the tributes had a similar theme: “None of us women in country music could be where we are without her and the paths Loretta Lynn paved,” Tenille Arts tweeted, while McEntire, in her very Reba way, summed it up: “I sure appreciate her paving the rough and rocky road for all us girl singers.”
“Rough and rocky” is one way to put it: In a 2003 profile of Lynn, historian Robert Oermann told The Washington Post that when Lynn was trying to launch her career in the 1960s, the Music Row myth persisted that female listeners didn’t want to buy music from female singers. Country record label executives also referred to the “female slot” in the genre — singular because it was considered standard to have only one woman on their roster.
Lynn proved that thinking wrong with a string of instant classic hits — “Don’t Come Home a-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind), “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” “The Pill” — with shockingly candid lyrics about marriage, infidelity and birth control, proving that, actually, there was an enormous appetite from female audiences to hear someone sing about experiences they were going through.
“It was what I wanted to hear and what I knew other women wanted to hear, too,” Lynn told the Associated Press in a 2016 interview. “I didn’t write for the men; I wrote for us women. And the men loved it, too.”
Incidentally, by the time those 16 singers took the stage at the 2019 CMA Awards, some progress had been made — but some things were still exactly the same. Despite all the evidence that there is a massive audience out there, female country singers still face an uphill battle. In recent years, studies show that only about 10 percent of songs played on country radio are by women. At a concert several years ago, Morris told the audience that a programmer advised her against releasing a ballad as a single because “no one wants to hear a bunch of sad women on the radio.”
The issue has gained consistent mainstream attention in recent years, with prominent singers speaking out, particularly when one country radio station tweeted — and then quickly deleted and backtracked — that it followed the so-called unwritten rule that stations should never play two female artists back to back. Two months before joining her fellow singers on the CMAs stage, Martina McBride publicly called out Spotify for the fact that, while building a country playlist, she hit the refresh button 14 times before the streaming service suggested a song by a woman.
Depressing statistics aside, the CMAs moment reminded everyone of Lynn’s critical influence with the breadth of talent who fought hard to get there: Nettles joined Kimberly Schlapman and Karen Fairchild in paying tribute to Lynn with “You’re Lookin’ at Country.” Underwood, Parton and McEntire sang “Those Memories of You,” recorded in 1987 by Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. The Highwomen, the supergroup made up of Morris, Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby, took on Tammy Wynette’s “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad.” Tucker, Wilson and Sara Evans sang some of their own hits, and everyone joined at the end with Martina McBride for “Independence Day,” a song that is frequently mistaken for a patriotic anthem but is actually about a woman seeking freedom from an abusive husband.
Singer-songwriter Loretta Lynn, best known for "Coal Miner's Daughter," "The Pill" and "Dear Uncle Sam," died on Oct. 4 at the age of 90. (Video: Reuters)
The camera frequently panned to Lynn in the audience, along with artists including Trisha Yearwood, Kelsea Ballerini, Kacey Musgraves, Carly Pearce, Ashley McBryde and Hillary Scott of Lady A. The theme of that year’s show was celebrating the female singers of country music, which executive producer Robert Deaton said in an interview on Tuesday was “overdue” at the time.
“The statement I wanted to make was, throw out any type of research. Who cares about the research of ‘how many women can we play in an hour?’ Let’s not look at that, let’s celebrate these great women so people can see all these female artists on one stage together and go, ‘This is our history,’” Deaton said. “Let’s make sure all these voices are heard — that’s what was most important to me. And who started that was Loretta.”
Deaton, who was friends with and worked with Lynn for years, said her presence in the front row that night was “incredibly important” and meaningful to the artists she inspired. Lynn walked into an industry dominated by men and executives who said things like, “Here’s a pretty little girl singer to come out and sing her little song,” and didn’t care what people told her — she wanted to sing about the things that mattered to her.
“She broke those doors down,” Deaton said. “She paved the way for all these strong women we have today.”
It was also a full-circle moment for Lynn, who made history by becoming the first female artist to win CMA entertainer of the year (the night’s most coveted prize) in 1972. As the country music industry mourned the icon on Tuesday, tributes continued to pour in, reminding everyone of one of the most important parts of her legacy.
“She blazed the trail for the rest of us to try and follow,” said Jamie O’Neal. “This one really hurts. RIP to country music’s Queen.” | 2022-10-05T10:57:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | One CMAs moment shows Loretta Lynn’s outsize impact on country music - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/05/loretta-lynn-country-music-cmas/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/05/loretta-lynn-country-music-cmas/ |
The growing polarization of workplaces is leading to more arguments over politics and less diversity of perspectives within organizations
About 1 in 4 workers, or 26 percent, said they have personally experienced differential treatment (positive and negative) because of their political views or affiliation, according to fresh data from the Society for Human Resource Management.
The figure, from a survey of 500 workers, represents a sharp increase from 2019 when just 11 percent of workers reported differential treatment because of their political views or affiliations.
In addition, 1 in 5 workers reported experiencing poor treatment in the workplace by co-workers due to their political views, the survey found.
It also recorded a small uptick in workplace arguments and altercations over politics, with 45 percent of workers reporting they have experienced political disagreements in the workplace, up three percentage points from 2019. Nearly half, or 46 percent, said they had witnessed such disagreements at work.
Corporations are under greater pressure from employees and consumers to weigh in on political issues including reproductive rights, racial justice, gun control and climate change. But the rise of politics in the workplace has consequences for polarization across the country, as well as employee productivity and retention, said Johnny C. Taylor Jr., SHRM’s chief executive.
Amid the labor shortage and ongoing fallout of the “Great Resignation,” the trend is creating even more turnover as employees leave organizations where they feel ostracized for their beliefs.
Some Gen Z job applicants are scrubbing campus political activism from their résumés
“If people are leaving because they are experiencing political disagreement and toxicity in the workplace, then the very thing we’re trying to correct for, which is turnover, we’re playing right into it,” Taylor said.
The result is that organizations are growing more politically like-minded, a phenomenon that has been brewing since 2014, when executives began speaking out more on social and political issues, said Abhinav Gupta, a scholar with the Academy of Management and an associate professor of management at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, who has spent years studying politics and the workplace.
Nearly 40 percent of workers surveyed by SHRM said that discussions of political issues have become more common in the workplace in the past three years.
“It seems like companies are becoming more politically polarized one way or the other,” Gupta said. “When CEOs come out and speak about a political issue or controversial social issue, that essentially speeds up this process of homogenization. It makes employees whose political views are different from that of the CEO feel more uncomfortable, more unwelcome in the company.”
Federal judiciary can’t stop support staff from political activity
In the past decade, corporate boardrooms have become more partisan and more right-leaning, according to a June study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which drew on voter registration data of more than 3,700 executives from nearly a thousand S&P 1500 firms. The trend suggests that “the growing tendency of U.S. individuals to socialize and form relationships and friendships with politically like-minded individuals extends also to the highest-level decision makers in the workplace,” the study states.
The sense of growing division is not unique to boardrooms: a March analysis from the Pew Research Center found that Democrats and Republicans are further apart ideologically now “than at any time in the past 50 years.” The spike in political polarization among executives was more than double that of local registered voters in the same period, the study’s authors observed.
Increased polarization inside companies has “automatic consequences” for polarization in society, Gupta said, as people leave jobs or change locations to work for companies that are “a better ideological match.” A greater divide within organizations will also widen the divide outside them, Gupta said.
Lately, Gupta has been studying the relationship between political polarization and leadership practices. What he has seen so far is that companies that are more ideologically homogeneous tend to have more ethical lapses, as evidenced by fines and other penalties levied by regulatory bodies.
Top business executives have gotten even more Republican, study finds
“You can think of this as the moral dividends from diversity,” Gupta said. “The more you can subject situations to this kind of sanity check from different viewpoints, that can reduce the likelihood of making decisions that will eventually catapult into big ethical lapses.”
Roughly 60 percent of workers surveyed by SHRM said they tend to agree politically with their co-workers, while more than 50 percent said they tend to agree politically with their manager.
Employees with in-person jobs are more likely to engage in political discussions with co-workers and more likely to have experienced political disagreements in the workplace compared with hybrid employees and fully remote workers, the SHRM survey found.
With roughly a month until Election Day, business leaders should be actively thinking about how to create an environment where employees can civilly discuss their views, Taylor said. Although more workers are experiencing differential or biased treatment because of their political views, as well as engaging in political discussions with their co-workers, just 8 percent of organizations have communicated guidelines to employees around political discussions at work, the survey found.
“These conversations are going to occur,” Taylor said. “What we need to do is not ignore that they’re occurring.” | 2022-10-05T12:07:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Politics are becoming tougher to avoid at work, survey finds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/05/politics-bias-at-work-survey-shrm/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/05/politics-bias-at-work-survey-shrm/ |
Rereading ‘The Gift of Fear’ in the age of mass shootings
Review by Hope Corrigan
Flowers line a fence at a makeshift memorial for the victims of the shooting at a King Soopers grocery store in March 2021 in Boulder, Colo. (Chet Strange/Getty Images)
It’s been 25 years since Gavin de Becker’s influential book “The Gift of Fear” was published, teaching readers how to tell the difference between “true fear” and “unwarranted fear” by trusting their intuition. De Becker opens the book with a story about a woman who was raped and nearly murdered after letting a man into her apartment, even after she felt uncomfortable by his presence. He recounts how this woman initially ignored warning signs to avoid seeming rude. But after the rape, when the man went to the kitchen to get a knife to kill her, she trusted the impulse that told her to flee, which saved her life.
“The Gift of Fear” skyrocketed de Becker to personal safety stardom. His bestseller landed him on Oprah Winfrey’s television show — twice — and he has since published three more books, provided personal safety services to celebrities, assessed threats against Supreme Court justices and become Jeff Bezos’s longtime security officer. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
But what happens when violence is perpetrated using military-style rifles, killing dozens of people at a time? While some of de Becker’s advice still holds true, we often can’t avoid or predict mass violence now — it finds us in our grocery stores, nightclubs, churches, movie theaters, malls and public transit — and the uncertainty is causing constant fear. A survey by the American Psychological Association found that 79 percent of adults in the United States say the possibility of a mass shooting causes them stress; a third of these respondents say that fear of mass shootings prevents them from going to certain places. Young children report anxiety and fear over school shootings, leading to PTSD and depression.
The source of collective fear has changed over time — from child kidnappings in the 1980s to Satanic Panic in the ’90s and terrorism a decade later — and so has the media consumption that fuels that worry. Roxane Cohen Silver, a professor of psychological science, medicine and public health at the University of California at Irvine, studies individual and collective long-term trauma. “Right now, we can be in the United States and we can learn about the massacre at a mosque in New Zealand instantaneously because it was live-streamed and it was posted and it was rapidly disseminated,” she said.
There are too many mass shootings for the U.S. media to cover
De Becker believes the crux of his argument still holds weight. It’s true that mass shootings often involve someone the victim knows. According to Everytown, an organization working to end gun violence, over half of mass shootings between 2009 and 2020 were related to domestic violence, a form of violence de Becker examines in “The Gift of Fear.” While mediums for violence have changed in the past 25 years, human behavior hasn’t, he told me. “Violence and predation have been part of human life for millions of years — and the changes of a mere 25 years are inconsequential,” he wrote in an email. “The best safety strategy remains exactly the same as it has been throughout human history: Avoid being in the presence of someone you feel might do you harm.”
It’s easier said than done. An analysis by the Marshall Project found that mass shootings are happening more frequently and have become far deadlier in recent years. (Americans are 25 times more likely to die from gun violence than citizens in other wealthy countries.) Gabe Friedman, a 28-year-old who works in nightlife in New York City, said the fear of a mass shooting is constant. “Anytime I go out to work or go out to celebrate, it’s always kind of in the back of my mind: What would I do if a shooting happened?” he said. Hillary Crigler, a 24-year-old student, told me that attending classes in big assembly halls at her university puts her on edge. She recalled almost leaving a lecture at one point because she was so unsettled by another student who walked in late, carrying a large black bag.
Mass violence takes toll on Americans’ psyches
This thought process isn’t abnormal: A few weeks ago, I asked my Instagram followers if the frequency of mass shootings affected their mental health or caused them to alter their routine. I received dozens of replies: The majority said they don’t go to movie theaters or concerts anymore, and if they do, they can’t enjoy themselves. A close friend said she has panic attacks in Costco. Another person replied that she has so much anxiety over mass shootings that it factors into each decision she makes when she leaves her apartment. The common thread was that young adults today are always on alert, always looking for an escape route, and the omnipresent threat of a mass shooting has altered their lives in myriad ways.
De Becker’s thesis on a mass shooter’s likely emotional state holds up: In his chapter on safety in the workplace, he says that nobody who goes on a shooting rampage “just snaps” — rather, the obvious warning signs are ignored. The “language of violence,” he writes, often includes rejection, entitlement, identity seeking and grandiosity. The problem then becomes who, if anyone, is paying attention. Sometimes, parents and peers say they never saw it coming. Other times, the warning signs are ignored. Chapter 7 of “The Gift of Fear” — “Promises to Kill” — presciently outlines the perpetrator’s intentions in the recent Safeway shooting in Bend, Ore., that killed two people and injured two others. All the warning signs of an imminent mass shooting were there: He wrote a manifesto that said he would “commit a national tragedy”; it emphasized his loneliness, detailed baseless covid-19 theories and showed aggression. According to classmates, he was prone to getting in fights and being “creepy” toward women, sending harassing messages on social media. But if no one reads the manifesto, if no one ensures that this man can’t access firearms, how does anyone protect themselves?
Fear over recent shootings has some avoiding crowds, businesses
And what do you do if, say, you’re at a movie theater and a lone man with a backpack comes in during the credits, raising your alarm bells? De Becker’s advice when I presented him with this example was to leave the theater, if that’s what your intuition encourages you to do.
“No animal in nature would do otherwise; no animal feeling fear would ignore it,” he wrote.
When de Becker interviews survivors of violence, many say they had a moment when they knew the perpetrator meant them harm. But we know that many victims of mass shootings never even have the chance to register a perpetrator’s presence. Route 91 Harvest festival concertgoers had no idea a man would open fire on them from a hotel window. The victims of the King Soopers shooting in Boulder, Colo., had no reason to believe a quick shopping trip would turn deadly. It’s empowering to “refuse to be a victim,” but America’s gun laws have ensured that anyone can be a victim, anytime, anywhere.
While parts of “The Gift of Fear” feel outdated — saying that a woman who is jogging with headphones on is ignoring one of “nature’s basic safety rules” reads like victim-blaming — the advice still applies to certain situations. And the overall message holds true: Being able to distinguish between true fear and unwarranted fear can be lifesaving. But our constant fears are warranted — when we’re not inundated with reports of gun violence, oftentimes random and on a mass scale, we’re surviving it, moving through life tense and traumatized.
Hope Corrigan is editorial initiatives manager at The Washington Post. | 2022-10-05T12:15:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker turns 25 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/05/gift-of-fear-gavin-de-becker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/05/gift-of-fear-gavin-de-becker/ |
8 CIRCE (Back Bay, $16.99). By Madeline Miller. This follow-up to “The Song of Achilles” is about the goddess who turns Odysseus’s men to swine.
9 A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES (Bloomsbury, $18).By Sarah J. Maas. A threat is growing over a magical land where a huntress is being held captive.
10 THE SONG OF ACHILLES (Ecco, $17.99). By Madeline Miller. The legend of Achilles retold through the lens of his friend Patroclus.
6 HOW TO FOCUS (Parallax Press, $9.95). By Thich Nhat Hanh, with illustrations by Jason DeAntonis. Meditations for mindfulness to enhance the power of concentration.
8 ENTANGLED LIFE (Random House, $18). By Merlin Sheldrake. A biologist explains the importance of fungi to our bodies and the environment.
10 THE BOOK OF DELIGHTS (Algonquin, $17.99). By Ross Gay. Essays about finding joy written by a poet over the course of a year.
1 1984 (Signet, $9.99). By George Orwell. The classic novel about the perils of a totalitarian police state.
2 DUNE (Ace, $10.99). By Frank Herbert. In the classic science fiction novel, a young boy survives a family betrayal on an inhospitable planet.
3 FIRE & BLOOD (Bantam, $9.99). By George R.R. Martin. A history of the Targaryen family.
4 MISTBORN: THE FINAL EMPIRE (Tor, $9.99). By Brandon Sanderson. A fugitive and a thief join forces to overthrow the oppressive Lord Ruler.
5 LORD OF THE FLIES (Penguin, $11). By William Golding. The classic, unsettling tale of English schoolboys stranded on a deserted isle.
6 ANIMAL FARM (Signet, $9.99). By George Orwell. Animals stage a workers’ coup on a farm, then devolve into a totalitarian state, in this classic broadside against Stalinism.
7 THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL (Bantam, $7.99). By Anne Frank. The diary of a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl as she hides from the Nazis in an attic during World War II.
8 THE CATCHER IN THE RYE (Little, Brown, $9.99). By J.D. Salinger. The classic novel of teenage angst.
9 THE SHINING (Anchor, $9.99). By Stephen King. A writer and his family decamp to an old hotel as caretakers and slowly discover supernatural threats.
10 SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE (Laurel Leaf, $7.99.) By Kurt Vonnegut. The classic anti-war novel that centers around the firebombing of Dresden. | 2022-10-05T12:15:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington Post paperback bestsellers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/washington-post-paperback-bestsellers/2022/10/04/0aab0c86-440c-11ed-9007-3c94dedcc189_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/washington-post-paperback-bestsellers/2022/10/04/0aab0c86-440c-11ed-9007-3c94dedcc189_story.html |
By Haben Kelati
Red Baraat will headline the Down in the Reeds festival. (Mahmoud Essam)
Down in the Reeds festival
Red Baraat — headliner at this year’s third annual Down in the Reeds festival at the Parks at Walter Reed — is a band of few words but boundless energy. The center of the group’s lively, predominantly instrumental sound is the dhol, an Indian double-sided drum played by frontman Sunny Jain, who, alongside his Brooklyn bandmates, plays traditional Bhangra music that zips into your ears and moves your feet. The group’s 2017 album, “Bhangra Pirates,” is full of dance-friendly songs like “Gaadi of Truth.” So many instruments get their moment here: an electric guitar vigorously keeping up with invigorating drum playing while the staticky horns come in and out.
Medicine Singers, also performing at the festival, specialize in powwow music — propulsive Native American drum and vocal music played during cultural celebrations and gatherings. On the group’s most recent self-titled album, the musicians are doing more than honoring their ancestral music, though. Recorded in collaboration with guitarist Yonatan Gat, the album features plenty of unexpected funk and psych-jazz sounds, including some trippy trumpet playing from the late jaimie branch. The organizers of this festival have described it as a “celebration of the healing power of music,” which means Medicine Singers have come to the right place. Oct. 8 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Parks at Walter Reed; entrance at intersection of Georgia Avenue NW and Butternut Street NW. downinthereeds.com. Free; RSVP required.
Rock the Park
This free two-day dance festival in Franklin Square — presented by the local nonprofit DowntownDC — offers plenty of reasons to move, showcasing locally and internationally acclaimed DJs specializing in house, soul, go-go and more. Saturday’s headliner is Kenny Dope of Masters at Work, the legendary New York duo who helped popularize house music throughout the ’90s. Earlier in the day, local DJ Geena Marie and go-go troupe TOB are booked to deliver some hometown sounds. On Sunday, the starriest name in the lineup is DJ Jazzy Jeff, a hip-hop pioneer whose career spans sharing the first Grammy for rap music with Will “the Fresh Prince” Smith and helping break neo-soul stars Jill Scott and Musiq Soulchild. Expect a crowd. This is the second year of Rock the Park, and more than 8,000 attended last year. Oct. 8-9 at Franklin Square, 1315 I St. NW. downtowndc.org/event/rockthepark2022. Free.
Singer-songwriter Tamino-Amir Moharam Fouad was born and raised in Belgium to Egyptian and Lebanese parents and is known for blending Western and Arabic musical traditions with a seamless grace. His debut project, 2018’s “Amir,” was a collaboration with the Nagham Zikrayat Orchestra, a dynamic ensemble featuring musicians from all across the Middle East — but on the album’s opening ballad, “Habibi,” Tamino holds his own, gently pulling listeners into the depths of his voice. He returns to the song’s titular lyric — an Arabic term of endearment — again and again, the repetition evoking massive waves surging from a bottomless ocean. On his latest album, this year’s “Sahar,” the arrangements feel equally sparse, leaving sufficient room for the evocative subtlety of Tamino’s lyricism. Over the wistful midtempo guitar jangle of “Fascination,” he describes a failure to see eye to eye with someone, both poetically and chromatically: “None of your colors can be found within the lines of the pages I made mine.” Oct. 11 at 7:30 p.m. (doors open) at the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. blackcatdc.com. $20-$25.
Spellling
Spellling — real name: Chrystia “Tia” Cabral — knows how to sing in delicate whispers, but her elocution can contradict that daintiness. She likes to lean into the drama of her songs, elongating words by overemphasizing certain syllables — a playful antithesis to the articulation-isn’t-important attitude that prevails across so much of today’s pop music. Spellling’s third and latest album, “The Turning Wheel,” saw the singer step into a lusher production style, featuring orchestra arrangements, grandiose piano playing — the works. Her previous projects, however, including her 2017 debut, “Pantheon of Me,” relied more on the singular charm of her voice to build the vividly mystical world her songs inhabit. But that doesn’t mean Spellling’s voice takes a back seat whenever the production becomes fuller. Over the serene strings of “The Future,” she bemoans a love that can’t work because of two people in two different places, singing with signature sweetness about how “I live in the future, future / Too many years apart.” The effect is dizzying, as if she’s truly singing across time. Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. at Songbyrd, 540 Penn St. NE. songbyrddc.com. $16-$18. | 2022-10-05T12:16:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 4 concerts to catch in D.C.: Oct. 7-13 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/05/concerts-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/05/concerts-dc/ |
Foreign Air’s ‘emotionally true high intensity’ is back on full blast
The electro-pop duo finishes the U.S. leg of its tour at Songbyrd on Oct. 8
Jacob Michael, left, and Jesse Clasen of Foreign Air, whose sophomore album, “Hello Sunshine,” dropped in September. (Luke Adams)
While you may not know the band’s name, it’s possible you’ve heard Foreign Air’s music: The electro-pop duo’s songs have blared behind pulse-pounding scenes on dramas like “Shameless,” “How to Get Away with Murder” and “You.” But the dark synth melodies and cleverly foreboding lyrics featured on shows don’t always capture Foreign Air’s profundity — or its breadth as a multigenre band.
Jesse Clasen and D.C.-based Jacob Michael met in 2006 when their respective touring bands were put on the same bill, but they didn’t form Foreign Air until about a decade later. Looking to move away from their guitar-and-drum rock roots, they invested in synthesizers and samplers. Michael said he was inspired to try his hand at electronic music by U Street Music Hall DJs.
“It was a brand-new experience, even though we were still just writing music,” Clasen said in a Zoom interview from Denver, where the duo had headlined a show the evening before. “We went to another planet to write songs. It was like we were breathing in foreign air.”
The project’s title was sorted, but it was still years before the release of its first full-length album; the duo opted to first drop over an album’s worth of gloomy, groovy singles — a number of which appeared on shows. Delayed by the start of the pandemic, Foreign Air’s debut album, “Good Morning Stranger,” released in October 2020.
“It was a great representation of Foreign Air’s intention of emotionally true high intensity,” Clasen said of the collection that mixes hip-hop, ’90s alternative rock and electronic indie.
But as with most art and artists in the past two-odd years, the pandemic had an impact. Clasen said he experienced burnout, mental health struggles and a cross-country move during lockdown. The hardships served as inspiration for the 14-track “Hello Sunshine,” which dropped in early September.
“Our sophomore record is like a snapshot of our covid journey,” Clasen said. “We sort of fell back into this desire for natural, raw anti-production. We went to a farm in Virginia to finish the album and didn’t think too hard about things. Just guitar, bass, all real drums.”
The first half of the new LP steers into candid confessions, backed by heavy synth and incessant high-hat; in “Blue Days,” Clasen sings, “My ego is evil / It’s coming to get me.” But the second half — in a turn more Cage the Elephant than Glass Animals — slows down and smiles toward reflection: “The sun is shining on you now / You’re learning to forgive at last,” Clasen croons through a touch of distortion on “See a Bit More.”
The end of the album, Clasen said, is about “opening back up to the world” after a pandemic-driven absence. It would seem the pair are succeeding — they finish their U.S. tour at Songbyrd, then head to Europe for another leg. Meanwhile, maybe the world is opening itself up to them, too.
“It’s been interesting with some of the songs we’re playing live for the first time and you’re watching people sing along,” Michael said. “It’s just kind of like, ‘Oh, yeah, this song is out in the world.’ It’s not ours anymore. It belongs to the people, and that’s been really cool.”
Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. at Songbyrd, 540 Penn St. NE. songbyrddc.com. $18-$22. | 2022-10-05T12:16:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Foreign Air’s ‘emotionally true high intensity’ is back on full blast - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/05/foreign-air-interview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/05/foreign-air-interview/ |
Majority of Md. voters favor legalizing recreational pot, Post-UMD poll finds
A majority of Maryland registered voters say they support legalizing recreational marijuana, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll finds. (Parker Michels-Boyce for The Washington Post)
A large majority of registered voters in Maryland say they support legalizing recreational marijuana use, just weeks before voters will decide the question in the November election, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll finds.
Just under 3 in 4, or 73 percent, of Maryland voters favor legalizing “the use of cannabis” for people 21 and older by next July, matching language on November’s ballot. Support for the idea is widespread, with majorities favoring it across regions, education levels, and racial, partisan and age groups. Legalizing marijuana is especially popular among young voters, with 87 percent of voters under 40 favoring legalization.
Read full Post-UMD poll results
“The thing that stood out to me is the high level of support and the diversity of support. Whether you look across party, region, almost every characteristic, you see majorities supporting this,” said Michael Hanmer, the director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement, which co-sponsored the poll. “That’s been the trend across the country. People have really shifted their views across time on this issue, all pointing in the direction of being more supportive.”
Ernest Giordano said he never thought he’d see the day that so many states had legalized marijuana, but he supports the measure. The 64-year-old retiree in Silver Spring said he hasn’t smoked marijuana since his high school days but hopes to start buying it once it’s legal.
“Why not?” he said about legalization. “Let’s tax it and make some money off it.”
If voters pass the measure — Question 4 on the ballot — Maryland would become the 20th state to legalize adult recreational use of the drug. D.C. voters legalized recreational use of marijuana in the city with a 2014 ballot initiative, and recreational marijuana was legalized in Virginia last year. Maryland already has a legal medicinal marijuana program, as do 36 other states and D.C.
Surveys have consistently shown that most Marylanders support legalizing marijuana, although support in the latest poll appears higher than other recent statewide polls have found. In 2019, a Post-UMD poll found that 66 percent of Maryland residents supported legalizing marijuana and using tax revenue from its sale for educational programs. A Goucher College poll in March found that 62 percent of Maryland residents supported legalizing recreational marijuana.
The Post-UMD poll asked registered voters the same question they will see on the Nov. 8 general election ballot: “Do you favor the legalization of the use of cannabis by an individual who is at least 21 years of age on or after July 1st, 2023, in the state of Maryland?”
By race, 77 percent of Black voters and 70 percent of White voters favor the proposal. The measure has strong support from wide majorities of independents (81 percent) and registered Democrats (78 percent), along with a narrow majority of registered Republicans (53 percent).
Brian Ridgeway, 62, a Republican in Churchton, in Anne Arundel County, said he does not support the use of marijuana, so he won’t be voting for the measure in November. Even so, he said, he supported decriminalizing the use of the drug.
“I don’t think it’s right to put them in prison for using,” Ridgeway said. “Maybe you do a fine, or something like that, but putting them in prison, and sometimes there’s some long sentences, it’s unnecessary, and I think it’s wrong.”
Maryland decriminalized possession of up to 10 grams of marijuana in 2014 with the punishment of a $100 civil fine. Then, in 2017, the first medical dispensaries opened under the state’s medical marijuana program, which has generated more than $388 million in dispensary sales so far this year.
Support for legalization is widespread among the various regions in Maryland, with the strongest approval in Prince George’s County (80 percent of voters), Montgomery County (76 percent) and central Maryland and the Baltimore area (73 percent). Sixty-four percent of voters in Southern Maryland and on the Eastern Shore support legalization.
By far those most enthusiastic about legalization are young voters. Almost 9 in 10 voters under age 40 said they support legalizing cannabis, compared with roughly 7 in 10 of those ages 40 to 64 and just over half of those 65 and older.
‘Yes on 4’ ballot campaign launches push to legalize marijuana in Md.
Aaron Watson, 32, says he doesn’t often vote — but the prospect of buying marijuana legally in the state is helping motivate him to fill out his ballot this year.
“Weed was never bad; it was just always looked down upon because they made it look that way,” said Watson, who lives in Lothian, in Anne Arundel County. “There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s from the earth, it’s naturally grown, and I just kind of feel bad for the people who got in trouble before, because once it’s legalized, what do you do about the people who got felonies?”
The bill passed by the General Assembly that put the question on the ballot includes a companion bill that will allow people who were arrested for marijuana possession to have their records expunged, and others serving time for simple possession to have the opportunity to get their sentences reconsidered.
Although Watson says he plans to vote, he’s in the minority among younger voters: Under half of voters under 40 (48 percent) say they are certain to cast a ballot in November, compared with 82 percent of registered voters ages 65 and older. The expected high turnout of older voters — and their correspondingly lower support of marijuana legalization — could spell less support for the measure in election results.
As judges rule against Dan Cox, Md. Democrats press him to accept results
The lagging support among older voters might bring down the overall support for the marijuana initiative, but it could also become a factor to drive turnout among younger and generally less-engaged voters who don’t vote as frequently, which, Hanmer said, has the potential to translate into support for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore, who has performed well with young voters against his Republican opponent, Del. Dan Cox (Frederick).
“It’s one of those things that might get people who are younger and don’t have as much political experience and might be on the fence about voting to show up in a midterm election,” Hanmer said.
Camryn Jaziorowski, a 19-year-old student, said he feels more inclined to cast his first ballot in this year’s election because of the marijuana referendum.
“Legalizing it opens more opportunities for people who need care,” said Jaziorowski, who lives in Huntingtown, in Southern Maryland, and also said he uses medicinal marijuana.
Maryland appears set to join the growing number of states to have introduced legalization as a means to address the disparate effects of the war on drugs. An American Civil Liberties Union study found that between 2010 and 2018, Black people were arrested at 3.64 times the rate of White people nationally for having marijuana, even though Black and White people use marijuana at similar rates.
Eddie Fields, 63, of Fort Washington, Md., said that although he wouldn’t plan to use the new legal market, he sees legalization as part of criminal justice reform and plans to support the ballot initiative in November. Fields, who is Black, said he’s also surprised to see so many states moving to legalize so quickly.
“Marijuana laws are just another way of oppressing Black people,” Fields said. “I never thought that would change.”
If the referendum passes, beginning next year, Marylanders over 21 will be able legally to possess up to 1.5 ounces of marijuana and grow two plants out of the public view. The state will conduct a study on the public health impact of marijuana and a disparities study to understand what might be needed to help women- and minority-owned businesses enter the industry.
The law also would create a cannabis business assistance fund; a cannabis public health fund to study topics including mitigating youth use and to pay for public health campaigns; and a community reinvestment and repair fund, requiring at least 30 percent of the revenue from adult-use cannabis to be reinvested in the communities historically most affected by marijuana prosecutions.
See Post-UMD poll crosstabs by group
The poll of 810 Maryland registered voters was conducted by telephone Sept. 22-27, with 79 percent reached on cellphone. The margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points.
Coverage of marijuana legalization
Most Americans support weed legalization. He hoped a jury would, too.
Youngkin proposes new crimes for pot possession, changes to CBD retail | 2022-10-05T12:20:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland supports recreational marijuana ballot initiative, poll finds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/05/maryland-recreational-marijuana-poll/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/05/maryland-recreational-marijuana-poll/ |
My 6-year-old is extremely hard on himself. What do I do?
Q: My 6-year-old has been hard on himself for years, but I feel as if it’s getting worse. He says he hates himself if he makes a mistake with writing a letter of the alphabet and recently even spanked himself for spilling water. We don’t spank in our family, so I was extremely surprised and disturbed. Now, my 3-year-old is picking up on some of these behaviors and saying he hates himself and hits himself. This isn’t normal, right? Where do I turn for help?
A: It’s terribly hard to watch our children be so hard on themselves. Finding support for your son and yourself is a great next step.
You mention that your son has been hard on himself for years, but I have to stress how little I know about your family, and that makes a big difference here. There could be myriad things happening, and I want to address as many as I can to cover all of the bases.
You ask an important question — “This isn’t normal, right?” — and I want to get right to it. I understand what you’re asking, and I suggest you see all behavior, especially from younger children, as “normal.” What do I mean? All the behavior we see (the language and spanking), although deeply upsetting and reason for support, is fulfilling some sort of need in your son. In simple terms, I don’t see behaviors as normal or abnormal; I see them as a sign that something isn’t working for your child, and he is getting his needs met with these behaviors.
What needs are getting met with self-hating language and hitting? That’s the million-dollar question. Is your son anxious? Is there a learning issue? Is there a physical health issue? Is he being hurt or abused by an adult in his life? I don’t know, but when a young child has been hard on himself for years (and he’s only 6), we need to take it seriously and not assume he will grow out of it. This level of frustration and self-abuse is also so hard, because he is too young to fully help himself; his brain isn’t mature enough to talk to itself, leaving him feeling angry, ashamed and anxious.
To begin, make a list of who, what, where, when and how: who is there when he self-attacks, what’s happening, where is he, when does it occur and how often. Try to get as much detail as you can, and go as far back as possible. The more specific you can be, the better and faster the support will begin.
Next, call your pediatrician and ask to have a full examination and lab done. Although it may have nothing to do with his behavior, we need to make sure he isn’t having allergic reactions or imbalances affecting his mood.
Then call a meeting with his teachers and the counselor. Your “writing a letter” comment made my ears perk up, and I’d like for the school to begin to see how your son’s learning is moving along. You can also request that he be tested for all kinds of issues, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, reading problems and more. Be aware that you can do this privately or through the public schools.
Finally, educate yourself more. Read Ross Greene’s “The Explosive Child,” go to livesinthebalance.org and watch the videos there, and consider working with someone who specializes in this approach, so you can fully support your son. I also like “Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD,” by Eli Lebowitz; it has data on anxiety in children and a simple, clear approach for how to help parents of anxious children. (Great worksheets are in the back.)
Hitting oneself, like hitting others, is an act of pent-up frustration — an explosion of big emotions with nowhere to go. Using empathy and compassion, first and foremost, will help your son feel calmer, as well as seen and safe, and from there, he can learn to handle his big emotions with more equanimity. Again, he is trying to relieve the pressure of emotions, such as vulnerability, fear and helplessness, with aggression, which is not abnormal, but your role as a loving parent is to help ease his frustrations, help him feel his big feelings and teach him to cope with the stress of simply being a human.
I know I am throwing a lot of work your way, but please don’t wait. Your whole family deserves support, and if there’s something more serious that is happening or that has happened, such as physical or sexual abuse, we want to know now, so the healing can begin. Good luck. | 2022-10-05T12:20:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Child is extremely hard on himself. What do I do? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/10/05/child-angry-frustrated-advice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/10/05/child-angry-frustrated-advice/ |
The domes as they appeared before Hurricane Ian struck. (Treasure Seekers Shell Tours)
Nature had other plans. Beginning in the early 2000s, hurricanes and erosion ate away at the land where the Cape Romano dome home sat. By this year, it was hundreds of feet off the shore — an otherworldly local landmark that drew a stream of sightseers who arrived by boat.
“It was coming eventually,” said Brian Slager, who lived in the house from 1989 to 1991. “And a storm as bad as this one — if anything’s going to take it, this would. I’ve been around in Florida and living long enough to know that if Mother Nature wants to take something, it takes it.”
It was a nature lover’s paradise, Slager said, with only two homes as neighbors. They were unusual, too — one shaped like a pyramid and another up on stilts. He recalled “a lot of adventure” from those days: once giving a tour to a boatload of women, another time seeing his dog chase after a Florida panther and return the next day, “his tail wagging like nothing happened.” | 2022-10-05T12:46:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hurricane Ian destroys Florida's ‘dome home’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/10/05/ian-florida-dome-home/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/10/05/ian-florida-dome-home/ |
Real-life couple play make-believe lovebirds in ‘Guys and Dolls’
Phillipa Soo and her husband, Steven Pasquale, headline the Kennedy Center’s Broadway Center Stage production as Sarah Brown and Sky Masterson
Before celebrating their five-year wedding anniversary last month with a nice dinner near their Brooklyn Heights home, Phillipa Soo and Steven Pasquale worked up an appetite with the kind of couples’ activity theater people know all too well: running lines and rehearing scenes together.
The actors figured they could use the head start on the Kennedy Center’s musical-in-concert staging of “Guys and Dolls,” which begins its 10-day engagement Friday. Pasquale plays compulsive gambler Sky Masterson in Frank Loesser’s 1951 crowd-pleaser, while Soo portrays Sarah Brown, the idealistic evangelist who catches his eye, as part of a decorated cast that also includes James Monroe Iglehart, Jessie Mueller and Rachel Dratch.
Kennedy Center ups the Broadway ante with starry 'Guys and Dolls'
Soo, a Grammy winner and Tony nominee for playing Eliza Hamilton in “Hamilton,” and Pasquale, a Broadway veteran who starred in the FX series “Rescue Me,” had never worked together onstage before. But the stars aligned for this latest production of the Kennedy Center’s Broadway Center Stage series, in which beloved musicals are mounted for limited runs with an expedited rehearsal process.
“We’re in this moment in our careers where we’re both just so fortunate to have a lot of other things going on,” Pasquale says. “It’s just really lovely to have work and spending time together be the same thing.”
Soo adds: “When we first met, we really bonded over the fact that we love this art form and this profession. We love what we do, so getting to be in the room together just makes it all the more special.”
Speaking by phone from New York, Soo and Pasquale discussed their onstage chemistry, working through those rapid rehearsals and tweaking the Golden Age musical for modern sensibilities.
Q: What made this the right production for you two to finally work together on?
Pasquale: “Guys and Dolls” is one of the — I don’t know, five, six, eight? — perfect American musicals. It is, for so many people, their favorite show. It is so well structured. It’s nice to work on something that you’re not necessarily building that’s brand new, which we do a lot, and being able to just step into something that’s perfect.
Soo: As two theater nerds who happen to also be married, it’s a really fun thing for us to do as a couple, just sitting around and dreaming about all these fantastic scenes and songs and roles that we could potentially play together. It’s kind of a dream come true that we get to do this right now.
Q: Have either of you starred in “Guys and Dolls” before?
Soo: I played Sarah Brown in high school, so I get to revisit all this material as an adult and see what stuck from that. It’s funny: I was telling Steve, “I remember all the songs, but I don’t remember anything that I said or anything that I did.” But, of course, as we’ve started digging into this material, it just all comes flooding back. The material is so effortless and so precise, and yet the language is just so rich.
Pasquale: And I have no previous experience with “Guys and Dolls” other than I’m an American songbook guy, so I know all of Frank Loesser’s canon. But getting to know this material well, this is the first time for me.
Q: How does your real-life rapport contribute to playing a will-they-won’t-they couple onstage?
Pasquale: It’s such an interesting question that everybody asks that, but I think Pippa is a really good actor, so if she was not my wife, I feel like it would be just as accessible and exciting to me. I just think it’s about feeling like your partner is a good actor and a good listener, not so much having comfort as a married couple.
Soo: I’ve become entranced by the fact that I’m watching this fantastic actor play this character. What comes secondary to that thought is, “Oh yeah — and this is Steve.”
Q: What’s your relationship with the 1955 film adaptation, in which your parts were played by Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons?
Pasquale: They changed it for the movie a lot. I’ll just say this and be as politic as possible: The book musical and the stage musical is a far more successful version of “Guys and Dolls” than the famous movie. That’s my take on it. But I should warn you: I am doing a Marlon Brando impression.
Soo: No, he’s not! He’s kidding.
Q: The show traditionally includes a scene in which Sky whisks Sarah away to Cuba and perhaps tricks her into getting drunk on spiked milkshakes. How do you navigate a touchier scene like that?
Pasquale: We changed it a little bit because we simply cannot get away with that in this current climate, right? So we’ve made that particular moment a moment about Sarah having real agency, and knowing what she’s doing and drinking and choosing it herself, and have a little fun with it.
Soo: Exactly. We’re asking ourselves, what are the important things here in order to tell this story? What are the given circumstances that make it so that we feel like we’re not taken out of the story by something that might make us feel uncomfortable as an audience?
Q: Do you find yourselves bringing the show home with you at night, or do you leave it in the rehearsal hall?
Pasquale: In a normal process, we would leave a lot of it at work most of the time. But because this is such an abridged process — I mean, we’re trying to basically mount a full production of “Guys and Dolls” in, like, 10 days — we don’t have the time to not take it home. So we’re talking about it and running it and trying to just stay in the world of it because it’s such a fast-paced process.
Soo: I feel like it [normally] takes at least like, gosh, 30 or 40 shows before you actually feel like, “Oh, this is it. This is the show.”
Pasquale: But we feel like the gods of the theater are with us here, and that it will magically come together and the audience will have an incredible time.
Q: Is there anything else you wanted to add?
Pasquale: We just want to make sure that President Biden takes the night off and comes and checks us out. He deserves to have a light, fluffy evening with all of the tension that’s happening in Washington, and anyone that’s pro-democracy — and, you know, for the peaceful transfer of power — is welcome.
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Opera House. 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600. kennedy-center.org.
Dates: Oct. 7-16.
Prices: $59-$299. | 2022-10-05T13:25:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Real-life couple play make-believe lovebirds in ‘Guys and Dolls’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/05/phillipa-soo-steven-pasquale-guys-dolls/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/05/phillipa-soo-steven-pasquale-guys-dolls/ |
Ask Jules: I want share my life on social media, but no one engages with my posts
Hi, Jules: I feel like a narcissist when I post a lot of stories, but at the same time, I want to share my life. But nobody replies to my stories, even if I say I’m about to get surgery or something. It’s like people are sociopaths through social media. People want to see my stories but don’t seem to actually want to engage with them or me. It’s messed up and I ask myself why?
— Tiff
Tiff: If you’re deeply upset with people’s lack of engagement on your posts, you should assess why you decide to broadcast certain media or thoughts online in the first place. What’s on your mind more — getting a reaction out of others, or building a digital portfolio of your life that others can simply opt-in to?
The framing of your question makes it clear that you want to believe the latter, but a desire for people’s reactions seems to be taking over. For example, when posting about your surgery, if you’re sharing the renowned hospital bracelet shot or anything that leaves viewers with question marks in their heads — it can feel like you’re leaving out valuable context to fish for reactions. It may be happening subconsciously, but nonetheless, it’s happening.
If you’re instead posting the what, when, how and why details of your surgery — the intent feels rooted in archiving a memory, something that you’re comfortable sharing with others as a bonus. Being grounded in your truth and then opening yourself up to connection creates a far healthier dynamic with what you decide to post on social media.
I don’t think that it’s right to always expect a reaction from people. With the amount of content consumed on these platforms, you can’t assume that your audience will be at your beck and call. People tend to scroll through social media in moments of downtime and the use is often mindless. Like have you seen how fast people tap through Instagram stories or scroll through their Twitter feed? Truly, I wouldn’t take it to heart.
Now, I’m not defending loved ones who don’t attend to your serious life updates, but I do think that the lines get blurred if you only share these updates on social media instead of informing them more personally. If something is shared so willingly with the general public, they may be confused about their role in the situation.
Everyone’s use of social media is subjective. Younger generations seem to be more comfortable with posting these updates on social media rather than individually emailing, calling or even texting. But if that’s you, I would more formally notify your loved ones about your use of these platforms or adjust your communication style based on what’s most native to them.
With all that being said, I’d be remiss not to acknowledge the growing desensitization among social media users. The amount of information we’re exposed to is now far from natural, and I think it’s easier for our minds to go a bit numb rather than process it.
More are beginning to research if what we experience through social media and AI interfaces can lead to decreased empathy for others and increased self-interest, so you’re not wrong to question it. Many of the current design choices, like public-facing engagement metrics, make it difficult for users to not give into chasing likes, shares and reactions. But I don’t believe that narcissism is inherent to these platforms — user intent plays a big role here.
You’re navigating an interesting time. Have high standards for both your online and offline relationships, but prioritize empathy and communication along the way.
Do you have questions about life online? Ask advice columnist Jules Terpak.
Jules Terpak is a content creator who explores our relationships with tech and digital culture. Ask her questions about life online and the growing relationships we have with the digital world. | 2022-10-05T13:56:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Jules: I want share on social media, but no one engages with me - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/05/ask-jules-social-media-posts-response/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/05/ask-jules-social-media-posts-response/ |
Saudi-led coalition may cut oil production despite White House overtures
Fearful of spike in energy costs, Biden officials launched last-minute effort to try and dissuade America’s Middle Eastern allies from scaling back energy production
A man walks past OPEC headquarters on Oct. 4, 2022 on the eve of the 45th Meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee and the 33rd OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting held in Vienna. (Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images)
The OPEC Plus group of oil-producing nations, which includes Russia and Saudi Arabia, is expected to announce a significant cut to oil production on Wednesday, in a move that could push gas prices up worldwide and represent a direct rebuke to President Biden.
The potential cut comes despite aggressive lobbying by the Biden administration for the consortium to continue production at current levels or higher — punctuated by Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia in July. The new policy is expected to be announced Wednesday morning. Biden had earlier in his administration vowed to make Saudi Arabia an international pariah, but he re-engaged while trying to use all available channels to curb increases in the price of gas.
Yet Biden’s efforts have been overshadowed by a recent steep drop in the price of oil that moved the consortium to act at an in-person meeting for the first time since 2020 in Vienna, on Wednesday. The price drop in oil prices was driven by a souring of the global economy, forcing demand to plunge. The expected production cut — which some analysts believe could be the most dramatic from OPEC Plus since 2020 — aims to push those prices back up.
The Biden administration has been waging a last minute push to convince Middle East allies not to dramatically cut oil production ahead of a crucial meeting of OPEC Plus on Wednesday, according to senior administration officials.
The effort, involving senior-level discussions with foreign-counterparts, is seen internally as a long shot. Two senior administration officials acknowledged their view that the cartel of oil producers would significantly cut production as they consider their largest reduction in output since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We know they will cut big,” said a senior administration official.
One official quibbled with the suggestion that the Biden administration was waging a major push to dissuade countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates from cutting production, saying it was a “minor effort.” Other officials said it was a more significant push, but acknowledged that Biden was not making calls on the matter.
In the Ukraine war, a battle for the nation’s mineral and energy wealth
Even so, an announcement could add to inflationary pressures in the U.S. and Europe, as well as undercut the effort to bolster Ukraine as it defends itself against the Russian invasion. Russia had pushed for the production cut, which will enable Moscow to sell oil for higher prices on the global market, generating more revenue for its war and troop mobilization.
“Hopes that lower fuel prices will help calm soaring inflation in struggling economies are already being dented with oil having shot up ahead of a key meeting today to determine output,” said Susannah Streeter, a senior investment and markets analyst at British financial services company, Hargreaves Lansdown.
“Oil prices jumped 8 percent over the two previous sessions with markets pricing in a reduction of up to 2 million barrels of oil a day, which would represent the biggest cut since the height of the pandemic.”
However, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told CNBC in an interview on Tuesday the slash in production should lead to a “wholesale revaluation of the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia,” adding that Biden’s visit this year didn’t yield the necessary results from Riyadh. “When the chips are down the Saudis effectively choose the Russians instead of the United States,” he said. “We need them right now.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) added in an interview: “President Biden should make it clear that we will stop supplying the Saudis with weapons and air parts if they fleece the American people and strengthen Putin by making drastic production cuts.”
Amar Nadhir contributed to this report. | 2022-10-05T14:00:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opec Plus sidesteps pressure from White House and slashes oil production - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/05/opec-plus-oil-cut-russia-saudi-arabia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/05/opec-plus-oil-cut-russia-saudi-arabia/ |
MEDAN, Indonesia — It was his third soccer match.
Muhammad Virdy Prayoga, 3, was just getting to know the game. He had watched his first match just a few months ago with his parents, and on Saturday, he entered Kanjuruhan stadium with more than 40,000 others streaming in to watch Indonesia’s second-largest derby. Arema FC, the home team for Indonesia’s eastern Malang regency, was facing off against Persebaya Surabaya, its rival team from East Java.
Virdy stood on his seat before kickoff, wearing an Arema scarf around his neck that stretched down to his ankles. His mother, Elmiati, 33, turned on her phone to film a video and Virdy grinned widely at the camera, his eyes shining with excitement. He loved Arema FC; he loved watching the players far down on the pitch, kicking the ball — and he loved being part of the crowd.
But as chaos overcame Kanjuruhan stadium that night, culminating in what has become one of the deadliest sporting event disasters in the world, it was the crowd that took Virdy away from his mother.
"We didn’t know what was happening,” Elmiati said of the stampede. “People just kept pushing and shoving.”
As fallout continues from the incident, arguably one of the most wrenching figures has been the number of children reported dead. Initially, officials said that there were just 17, but on Wednesday, Wiyanto Wijoyo, head of the Malang Health Authority, told The Washington Post that the number had more than doubled to 40. According to death certificates from local hospitals, he added, there have been a total of 131 fatalities.
On Saturday, after the match which Arema lost, a group of Arema supporters invaded the pitch and tried to approach players. Police and military personnel responded with an aggressive show of force, using batons and riot shields to beat back supporters before firing dozens of nonlethal munitions like tear gas onto the pitch and directly into the stands. In the scramble to escape through the stadium’s narrow doors, some of which were locked, dozens of people suffocated or were trampled to death.
Of the 101 patients who were transported to Wava Husada Hospital on Saturday night and Sunday morning, 73 of them died, said Isabella Kusuma Anjelin, an emergency medicine specialist who was working at the time. Some of them were children but few were as young as 3.
Elmiati, who like many Indonesians, goes only by one name, was watching the game from section 13 of the stands. When the match ended, she and her family were still in a good mood even though Arema had lost. They wanted to get home to their other daughter, 14, who had stayed home.
She started to feel alarmed when she saw police charging onto the field. And when they started firing tear gas directly at the stands, near where she was seated, she started to panic.
“The gas burned my throat, and it was stinging my eyes and skin,” she said. “They just kept firing and firing.”
Desperate to escape the thick cloud of smoke and gas, her husband Rudi Hariyanto, 34, picked up Virdy as they tried to leave via gate 13. The door was obstructed, allowing only one person at the time to pass through, Elmiati remembered. As people around her pushed and shoved to escape, she became separated from her husband and son.
After making it outside, Elmiati learned from another family member who had also been at the game that Hariyanto and Virdy were still inside. She gave a photo of them to local authorities to see if they could help to identify them. Just after 11 p.m., about an hour after police first started firing tear gas, she got a call.
Virdy was at Kanjuruhan Hospital, and Hariyanto was at Wava Husada hospital. They were both dead.
At Kanjuruhan hospital, Elmiati held Virdy’s body, stroking his hair. His head had been bandaged and dried blood streaked from his nose. His face was pale and his eyes closed.
“We were planning to send him to kindergarten next year,” Elmiati said. “Now he’ll never get the chance.”
Malang police chief Ferli Hidayat was dismissed on Tuesday for his role in disaster, along with nine commanders from the Mobile Brigade Corps, a paramilitary arm of the Indonesian National Police that was present at Kanjuruhan stadium during the clearing of supporters. Hidayat declined multiple times to speak with the Post.
Mohammad Mahfud Mahmodin, Indonesia’s coordinating minister in charge of security, has set up a formal inquiry into what happened and vowed to identify those responsible. Those who lost loved ones, he announced earlier this week, would receive $3,270 in compensation.
Tan reported from Singapore. Winda Charmila contributed reporting from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. | 2022-10-05T14:00:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The story of a 3-year-old that died in Indonesia’s Kanjuruhan stadium - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/indonesia-stadium-malang-kanjuruhan-children/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/indonesia-stadium-malang-kanjuruhan-children/ |
South Korea apologizes for missile crash during drill with U.S.
South Korea’s military apologized Wednesday after a missile crashed during joint drills with the United States, alarming some residents on the country’s eastern coast.
The U.S. military and South Korea fired surface-to-surface missiles into the sea in response to North Korea launching a ballistic missile over Japan on Tuesday, for the first time since 2017.
People in and near South Korea’s coastal city of Gangneung reported seeing a bright flash and hearing the sound of an explosion overnight, according to local media. Footage shared on social media showed what appeared to be flames and rising smoke.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday that a Hyunmoo-2 missile fell inside a military base about 1 km (0.62 miles) from where it was launched “after an abnormal flight,” according to the Yonhap news agency.
A military official extended an apology to residents after the failed launch led the missile “to crash into the military base,” national broadcaster KBS said. The official said propellant had sparked a fire but the missile’s warhead did not detonate.
Kwon Seong-dong, a lawmaker for Gangneung, criticized the military for not issuing a clarification early on about the malfunction and described the approach as “irresponsible.” He said the blast sounds and light flash had worried many people.
The military, however, said there were no casualties or damage to civilian properties, pledging to investigate the cause. The missile appeared to be separate to those launched with the U.S. military.
North Korea has stepped up missile tests this year, but its test on Tuesday sent the missile flying farther than any it has launched before landing in the Pacific Ocean — with no advance warning to Tokyo. Residents in northern Japan woke to warning sirens.
Washington called the move “dangerous and reckless” as the U.S. military and its allies put on a show of force with air operations over the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, and the West Sea.
In recent weeks, the United States, Japan and South Korea have conducted military exercises to show their readiness to join forces in the event of a conflict.
Min Joo Kim in Seoul and Michelle Ye Hee Lee in Tokyo contributed to this report. | 2022-10-05T14:00:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | South Korean military apologizes for failed missile launch, alarmed residents - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/south-korea-missile-drill-crash-gangneung/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/south-korea-missile-drill-crash-gangneung/ |
It’s important to debunk misinformation when we can — a task that often, unfortunately, starts at home
Advice by Teddy Amenabar
Stephanie Hays/ The Washington Post
Even when a source of information is known to be unreliable, research shows, many people will start to believe a claim if it is repeated often enough.
That’s why it’s so important to stop misinformation when we can — a task that often, unfortunately, starts at home.
Correcting friends and family members about what they share online can be stressful, but it counts. Experts say we’re more likely to change our point of view if we’re approached by someone we care about, especially if the person is someone with whom we tend to agree. Researchers who studied the circulation of false information on WhatsApp and other messaging platforms found that corrections received from a family member or a close friend are reshared more often than those sent by a casual acquaintance.
The Washington Post spoke with half a dozen experts who study political misinformation on the internet, how it spreads and the ways that people discern fact from fiction. They say the key is to be empathetic. Listen and try to understand someone’s concerns. Share the sources you use to gather reliable news and information. And if you really want to change someone’s point of view, get ready for multiple conversations, not just one chat.
Start with friendship, not facts
Mike Wagner, a professor and political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, said it’s important to remember that “the facts don’t matter” for many people who share misinformation. They often don’t trust mainstream news sources or political institutions. Find the shared experiences that bring you together and demonstrate you’re not on the attack or calling them stupid.
“Aim for the heart, not the head,” he said. “If facts worked, there would be no need to have the conversation.”
Wagner said you can disarm someone by engaging in “costly talk,” which is when people share concessions that are “bad for their side.” From there, Wagner suggests trying to discover the person’s trusted sources. If they won’t listen to mainstream media outlets or public officials, for example, who will they listen to, and are those sources sharing accurate information?
Don’t become emotional
Leticia Bode, a professor at Georgetown University who studies interventions against misinformation, said her advice is always to be kind and empathetic. We’ve all been misinformed at some point, Bode said. It’s best to approach the conversation with the best intentions.
“Take a deep breath and try to let go of whatever emotions you’re feeling related to the misinformation,” Bode said. “A lot of misinformation, and especially disinformation, is created to arouse emotions.”
Keep online messages short
If your conversation is actually a reply on social media or a text in a group chat, try to keep the message short, as well. “Don’t overwhelm them with information,” Bode said. Share a link to a credible source and then move on. “You can’t get bogged down in correcting all day long,” she said.
Ask: ‘Where did you learn that?’
Instead of telling someone what they believe to be true is wrong, ask them where they first heard of it, said John Silva, a director at the News Literacy Project. Were they listening to a podcast? Reading an article? Or did they find it on Twitter?
Once you’ve asked them to share where they get their information, share your sources of information as well, Silva said. Talk about what’s been reported by those organizations or people and why you trust what they’ve said.
Silva suggests following up, and asking, “How can I help you trust what I trust?” or “What would it take for you to trust” the election process?
Talk about the money behind misinformation
When you’re talking to someone who believes in a conspiracy theory, Wagner said it can be helpful to ask: Who’s benefiting from your believing this? Who’s raising money or making money because of the audience they’ve built from this?
Wagner said that it can be helpful to remind people that if somebody at a mainstream news outlet such as The Washington Post or NPR reports something that’s false, they can be fired.
“People who work for really ideological talk shows or podcasts don’t have the same worry,” Wagner said. “They don’t get in trouble in the same way.”
Deen Freelon, a professor and researcher at the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media who studies disinformation that spreads on social networks, said people should understand that mis- and disinformation are a profitable business for both those who share it and the social media platforms on which they share it.
“For the bottom line, it’s very good, but from a democratic, social and PR perspective it’s quite bad,” Freelon said.
Don’t debate at the Thanksgiving table
Experts say the holiday table is not the place to have these conversations.
Instead, invite someone out to coffee and make it a one-on-one conversation, Silva said. Better yet, wait for that person to bring up the election or the news on their own and be ready to respond. Avoid confrontations.
“None of us want to feel humiliated. None of us like to be wrong. That’s a very uncomfortable feeling,” Silva said. “We want to provide a safe pathway for these people to acknowledge that they were manipulated.”
Set the record straight in the family group text
The person who first shared the misinformation will always be the hardest to convince. Instead, you may want to consider everyone else who’s reading the post. Bode has found that people are less likely to believe in misinformation when they see others have been corrected.
Bode said there is always a risk a person could become annoyed about your reply debunking their claims on Twitter or Facebook. So, she recommends “a hybrid approach” where you “gently” correct online and try to talk to somebody offline, as well.
Be willing to walk away
If voices start to rise, if your blood starts to boil, “you need to pull back,” Silva said. It’s nearly impossible to recover the conversation once it evolves into a confrontation.
“You’re not necessarily going to fix this in one conversation,” Silva said. “You might need to just pull back and say ‘Maybe we can talk about this later.’ ”
In Wisconsin, 1 in 5 people say they have ended relationships with friends or family members because of politics and the recent statewide and national elections, Wagner said. Conversations about politics, especially with those to whom you’re close, can become personal fast. Sometimes, you may decide the “emotional labor” of these conversations is no longer worth it, Wagner said.
“Not everybody is persuadable,” he said. “It’s okay if you’ve tried your best and they just can’t see it.”
Remember that changing minds takes time
While it’s possible to change someone’s mind, experts say it almost always takes more than one conversation. “You have to think of it as a long game,” Freelon said. The people you’re speaking to need to see that you’re “personally invested” in the outcome.
Madeline Jalbert, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington who studies how people judge truth, said everyone is vulnerable to misinformation. Once you’ve heard and start to believe a falsehood such as, “The election was stolen,” it’s hard to “go back to a place” where you’ve never considered that point before, Jalbert said.
“All of us hold beliefs that don’t fully match up with reality,” Jalbert said. “It’s something that’s very tricky to correct.” | 2022-10-05T14:18:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 9 ways to debunk political misinformation from family and friends - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/05/debunk-political-misinformation-advice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/05/debunk-political-misinformation-advice/ |
‘I refuse to comply’ says Russian journalist, days after escaping house arr...
Marina Ovsyannikova, a former Russian state TV journalist who quit after making an on-air protest of Russia's military operation in Ukraine, listens during a courtroom hearing in Moscow on Aug. 11. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
In her first remarks since fleeing pretrial house arrest earlier this week, Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova said she considers herself “completely innocent” and issued a call for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be isolated from society and put on trial.
“Respected employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service, put such a bracelet on Putin,” she said in a video, referring to the electronic tracking device she has been forced to wear on her ankle by Russian officials. “It is he who must be isolated from society not me, and he should be tried for the genocide of the people of Ukraine and for the fact that he destroys the male population of Russia en masse.”
Ovsyannikova, a former editor on Russian state-owned Channel 1 television, made international headlines earlier this year after bursting onto the set of the channel’s flagship news program holding a poster that read “stop the war.” Her protest was widely hailed as a dangerous act of resistance as Russia moved to crack down on critics and public displays of dissent amid its invasion of Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Ovsyannikova once again urged Russians not to believe government lies, saying that she had been targeted for simply telling the truth. After Russia’s February invasion, media access was swiftly blocked and Moscow banned what it deemed to be “fake” news of its assault on Ukraine. Russia’s media clampdown has forced many journalists to flee the country.
Russia has fined Ovsyannikova twice for the offense of discrediting its military and in August placed her under a two-month house arrest on charges of spreading fake news about the military, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years.
It remains unclear how she managed to escape, along with her 11-year-old daughter. Ovsyannikova did not respond to calls and text messages from The Washington Post in recent days.
Ovsyannikova’s ex-husband first reported to authorities on Saturday that she was missing, Russian media reported. Igor Ovsyannikov told the pro-Kremlin RT network that he did not know where his ex-wife was, but that his daughter did not have a passport.
Ovsyannikova’s remarks came as Putin signed a document formalizing the annexation of four regions of Ukraine, a breach of international law. Despite the move, Ukrainian troops are making a “fast and powerful advance” in the country’s south and liberating “dozens of settlements” from Russian control, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. | 2022-10-05T15:49:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova flees house arrest condemns Putin war - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/marina-ovsyannikova-house-arrest-putin-russia-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/marina-ovsyannikova-house-arrest-putin-russia-war/ |
Can the Supreme Court navigate this clean-water swamp?
Environmental activists gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday as justices hear arguments in a case that could limit the scope of the Clean Water Act of 1972. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
The not-so-simple question before the Supreme Court on Monday was: At what point does water enter the U.S. government’s jurisdiction?
Oral argument on the first day of the court’s new term concerned Michael and Chantell Sackett’s effort to build a house on a lot 300 feet from a large lake in Idaho. They started prepping it with sand and gravel in 2007, but when the Environmental Protection Agency learned the Sacketts didn’t have a permit, it ordered them to stop and restore the land to its previous condition — or pay a fine.
The Sacketts’ property was connected to a fen and, thence, to the lake, via a “shallow subsurface flow” of moisture, the agency advised, making it subject to the 1972 Clean Water Act. Some 15 years of litigation have followed, including a previous trip to the Supreme Court in which the Sacketts won the right to continue their suit.
Much commentary on this case, which pits the Biden administration, environmental groups and blue-state governments against the Sacketts, their supporters in the business community and red states, portrays it as a test of the conservative six-justice majority’s intentions to curb federal environmental regulation.
The Constitution leaves direct power over land use mostly to states and localities, but it empowers Congress to regulate interstate commerce. Half a century ago, Congress relied on that for indirect authority to deal with a national environmental crisis, passing the Clean Water Act in 1972, and defining its ambit as “the waters of the United States, including the territorial seas.”
Given the centrality of oceans, rivers and lakes to the national economy, this determination made sense and no one on the right or left seriously challenges it. Given that pollutants can infiltrate “waters of the United States” at any point in the hydrologic cycle, however, there is disagreement as to precisely where on the planet the federal government’s clean-water jurisdiction ends — because in a constitutional system, it has to end somewhere.
By their muddy nature, wetlands are contested terrain. As the government’s interest in protecting them has grown, and clashed with agricultural, industrial and real-estate interests, so has debate — and litigation.
As a 2019 Congressional Research Service report put it: “For more than forty-five years, all three branches of government have struggled with how to interpret the meaning of ‘waters of the United States’ in the Clean Water Act.”
Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency focuses on a particular aspect of the problem: how to determine, under the terms of the Clean Water Act and a 1985 Supreme Court ruling, if a property is sufficiently “adjacent” to waters of the United States to be regulated.
In 2006, the court wrestled with that issue, but a splintered ruling produced a loose standard — a “significant nexus” to water — that only then-Justice Anthony M. Kennedy fully endorsed. The Sacketts, noting that a road runs between their lot and the lake, want to revisit that ruling and limit regulation to property with “a continuous surface water connection,” as a four-justice minority in the 2006 case advocated.
Yet on Monday, conservative Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh seemed to balk at that notion, noting that not even past Republican administrations that included Donald Trump’s had embraced it. He reminded the Sacketts’ lawyer that seven administrations since 1977 had accepted a definition of “adjacent” property that included some separated from water by “berms, dunes, dikes, or levies.”
Following up on Kavanaugh’s point, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor acknowledged that property owners have a legitimate need for legal clarity and nudged the federal government’s lawyer to articulate “another test that could be more precise and less open-ended.” The lawyer’s not very satisfactory answer was to advise her that regulators are working on a new rule.
A win for the Sacketts — and the business interests backing them — is certainly foreseeable, given the majority’s ideology, but after Monday the precise outcome did not seem foreordained. This is one of those Supreme Court cases in which it’s not clear where even a perfectly unbiased court would draw the line — in other words, a more typical case than many people acknowledge. | 2022-10-05T16:11:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Can the Supreme Court navigate this clean-water swamp? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/epa-clean-water-difficult-supreme-court-case/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/epa-clean-water-difficult-supreme-court-case/ |
Why is the army punishing a general for calling out MAGA lies?
Women soldiers at a ceremony outside the Pentagon in March 2015. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The U.S. military is under assault, as I noted recently, from MAGA extremists who seek to harness it to carry out their malign agenda — and who disparage anyone who stands in their way as a “woke loser.” This is arguably the most dangerous civil-military challenge since the heyday of McCarthyism in the 1950s. The military is rightly eager to stay out of politics, but this laudable instinct can lead it to run away from controversy even at the cost of ceding the information battlefield to the far-right forces trying to subvert American democracy.
The treatment of Maj. Gen. Patrick J. Donahoe is a case in point. Until recently, this combat veteran was commander of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning in Georgia, home of the Army’s infantry and armor schools. Now, his retirement is being held up while Army leadership considers how to respond to an inspector general’s investigation that concluded that he had “failed to display Army values and core leader competencies.” (I obtained a copy of the inspector general’s report, which has not been publicly released. Neither the Army public affairs office nor Donahoe responded to my repeated requests for comment.)
What did Donahoe do wrong? Ironically, his only offense was to champion on social media the very values the Army claims to stand for. Having a senior officer defend the Army’s policies should not be seen as improper involvement in politics — but that is how it is being portrayed, not just by the Army’s right-wing critics but also by the Army’s own inspector general.
It all began in March 2021 when Fox “News” host Tucker Carlson expressed outrage over Air Force plans to develop a maternity flight suit. “It’s a mockery of the U.S. military,” huffed Carlson at the time, arguing that while “China’s military becomes more masculine,” ours becomes “more feminine.” In reply, Donahoe posted on Twitter a video of himself conducting a reenlistment ceremony for a female soldier. “Just a reminder,” he wrote, “that @TuckerCarlson couldn’t be more wrong.”
Donahoe’s retort earned the ire of the MAGA right. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who had compared the “emasculated” U.S. military unfavorably with the supposedly more macho Russian army, sent a letter of complaint to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, falsely accusing Donahoe and other officers who defended the role of women in the military of expressing partisan political views.
A few months later, in July 2021, Donahoe clashed again with the MAGA right after he posted a message encouraging all soldiers, as per Defense Department policy, to get vaccinated against covid-19. Josiah Lippincott, a Marine veteran turned graduate student at conservative Hillsdale College, attacked Donahoe on Twitter. (Lippincott is now banned from the platform, apparently for writing that Kenosha, Wis., shooter Kyle Rittenhouse “did nothing wrong.”) Lippincott wrote that “the lockdowns, liberty restrictions, quarantines and general disruption of servicemember’s lives is a way bigger killer than the virus.” (In fact, vaccines allow soldiers to safely resume their normal lives.) Donahoe engaged in a brief online debate with Lippincott, culminating in a frustrated tweet: “Hey, @Hillsdale, come get your boy.”
Fox News host Laura Ingraham, a notorious anti-vaxxer, claimed that Donahoe’s tweet was an example of “high-level intimidation campaigns being used at the top of our military.” Far from being intimidated, however, Lippincott appeared on Ingraham’s show to accuse Donahoe of “spouting MSNBC talking points” and being one of the “woke losers who love cancel culture and can’t see reality.”
Rather than defend Donahoe, the Army might censure him. In the judgment of the Army inspector general, Donahoe’s criticism of Carlson “exhibited poor judgment,” “drew national attention for [Major General] Donahoe and did not reflect an Army culture of dignity and respect.” Donahoe’s exchange with Lippincott, the inspector general decided, “was unwise and had the potential to bring discredit on the Army. His use of sarcasm and ‘snarky’ tweets to private citizens was in poor taste, clearly displayed poor judgment, and ran counter to Army values.”
Donahoe’s third offense, in the eyes of the inspector general, was to offer encouragement to a junior female officer under his command who had been subject to vile, misogynistic attacks on Twitter. One user even wrote, after a picture of her was posted, that she needed to “get raped.” Donahoe came to her defense on Twitter, writing that this officer “looks like a tanker.” He then had a brief, innocuous exchange with her on Twitter for all to see. The inspector general claimed that his tweets, in reaching out directly to a junior subordinate, “violated the cadre-student relationship” and “reflected poor judgment.”
Some infractions. You can argue that Donahoe shouldn’t have engaged in a back and forth with a random MAGA troll about vaccines, and that he shouldn’t have been so snarky. (In fact, he told the inspector general he regretted it.) But he did not write anything remotely offensive or improper. He was simply defending Army policies on inclusivity and vaccines — policies that are anathema to the MAGA right.
Retired Army Col. Yegveny Vindman complained on Twitter that the Army and the Defense Department “are lost,” “fear the right” and “are losing their moral compass” because they want to punish “the ‘Woke’ general” for standing up to Fox News. It’s a harsh indictment, but one that deserves serious attention considering the source.
Both Yevgeny Vindman and his twin brother, retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, were fired in 2020 from the National Security Council and effectively driven out of the Army after Alexander courageously and honestly testified about President Donald Trump’s attempts to blackmail Ukraine into helping him politically. “Whenever you get ‘politicized,’ even if it’s in support of Army or Department of Defense values, it’s a death knell to your career,” Yevgeny told me.
I understand where the Army is coming from: It desperately wants to avoid being dragged into the political muck. But the military cannot afford to ignore dishonest and cynical attacks against its professionalism. If Donahoe is now disciplined for his tweets, it will send a chilling message to the entire Army not to call out MAGA lies. And that, in turn, will enable the real threat to “Army values” — the one posed by Trump and his followers — to metastasize. | 2022-10-05T16:11:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Don't discipline Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe for calling out MAGA lies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/patrick-donahoe-army-discipline-fox-news/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/patrick-donahoe-army-discipline-fox-news/ |
The company’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off with two American astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut
SpaceX plans to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12 p.m. Eastern time on Oct. 5. (Video: Reuters)
Shortly before liftoff, Mann, a Marine Corps Colonel who became the first Native American woman to reach space, told mission control, “Let’s do this!” After the crew successfully reached orbit, she reported the flight “was a smooth ride up hill.”
Given the frayed relations between the United States and Russia, the flight is seen as yet another symbol that the countries are finding a way to cooperate in space. For more than 20 years, the countries have served as the main partners on the space station — sustaining a fragile, co-dependent relationship that has served both countries’ space programs well.
Last month, it was Russia’s turn to fly an American, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, to the station. Rubio and a pair of cosmonauts launched in a Russian Soyuz rocket that arrived at the station Sept. 21.
During the space shuttle era, NASA flew Russian cosmonauts. And after the shuttle was retired in 2011, Russia transported NASA’s astronauts to and from the station. Wednesday’s flight is to be the first time a Russian flew on a SpaceX rocket. The space agencies are expecting additional crew swaps in the years to come, although the partnership has been in question because of Russia’s deadly invasion of Ukraine.
“Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts are all very professional,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in June. “Despite the tragedies that are occurring in Ukraine by President Putin, the fact is that the international partnership is solid when it comes to the civilian space program.”
That was a message driven home by NASA leaders in the days leading up to Wednesday’s launch.
“When you are flying each other’s crew members, you know that you have a huge responsibility, that you’re promising to the other country to be able to ensure that you’re flying their crew member safely,” Kathy Lueders, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, said. “At a working level, we’ve really appreciated the constancy and the relationship even during some really, really tough times geopolitically.”
During a call with reporters Tuesday evening, Sergei Krikalev, a former cosmonaut who serves as the executive director of Roscosmos’s human spaceflight programs, reiterated that Russia would continue its partnership on the space station through 2024, a date to which it had previously committed itself.
While Russia is working to design and build a new space station, he said, “we know that is not going to happen very quick,” so the country could “discuss extending our partnership in ISS.”
NASA has indicated it would welcome that. It has said it plans to use the space station until 2030.
Joel Montalbano, NASA’s ISS program manager, said Tuesday that Borisov has “made it very clear that Roscosmos has committed to meeting all their international commitments.” He said the Russian space agency has provided “excellent support” for the recent launches, “and we expect it to continue.”
After lifting off Wednesday, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule is expected to dock with the space station Thursday afternoon. The crew is scheduled to spend about six months performing science experiments on the orbiting laboratory. | 2022-10-05T16:29:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | SpaceX launch latest sign of enduring Russia and U.S. space relations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/05/spacex-launch-russia-nasa/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/05/spacex-launch-russia-nasa/ |
Highly anticipated sequel was literally unplayable for many on its first day
“Overwatch 2,” the highly anticipated sequel to Blizzard’s hero shooter “Overwatch,” launched Oct. 4 but many fans eager to play were plagued with connection issues as the company suffered waves of distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks that prohibited players from connecting to the game.
The game’s troubles occurred immediately upon launch at 3 p.m. Tuesday and extended into Wednesday. Players, some of whom took off work or skipped class to spend the whole day on “Overwatch 2,” were stuck on a load screen that told them they were in queues behind thousands of people. Others who stuck out the queues were still not able to get into the main menu, instead seeing an “Unexpected Server Error” message. Other players on the official Blizzard forums have said their accounts have been wiped, along with all the alternate character models, cosmetics and achievements they’ve earned from their years of playing “Overwatch.”
At the time of publication, Blizzard had not responded to a request for comment about player accounts being wiped.
'Overwatch' pros weigh in on 'Overwatch 2' early access
Blizzard president Mike Ybarra acknowledged the issues facing players trying to load the game Tuesday and said the company’s servers were getting hit with DDOS attacks, in which bad actors bombard servers with phony traffic from different sources to prevent users from accessing a service.
Some players circumvented the DDOS attacks by changing their regional location to Asia or Europe with mixed results. Players fortunate enough to get into “Overwatch 2” were still beset with problems. Many were abruptly booted from matches, which was especially frustrating for the players in the game’s ranked competitive mode, who struggled to win rounds as they lost teammates to disconnects.
Game director Aaron Keller stated Wednesday that Blizzard has been “steadily making progress” on “Overwatch 2’s” server issues as it contended with a second DDOS attack.
In recent years, blockbuster titles such as “Overwatch 2” are popular targets for DDOS attacks, carried out by people who may have a grievance against a game company or are simply entertained by the ensuing chaos. In September, players were unable to access Call of Duty titles, “World of Warcraft” and “Overwatch” after a massive DDOS attack took Activision Blizzard’s PC servers offline. “World of Warcraft Classic” players were cut off from the game in 2019 when Blizzard’s servers were slammed with DDOS attacks. In 2018, Ubisoft’s servers were flooded with DDOS attacks during its launch of “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey,” which is not a multiplayer title but required an online connection to access.
DDOS attacks also go beyond gaming. Occupy Central, the campaign promoting democracy in Hong Kong, had its websites knocked offline by DDOS attacks in 2014.
'Overwatch 2' beta impressions: Sequel misses original's charm
Blizzard’s Team 4, the group tasked with developing stewarding “Overwatch 2,” has endured numerous issues while making the Overwatch franchise, including some tumultuous changes. “Overwatch” creative director Chris Metzen, the rockstar developer who was the face and voice of Blizzard for over two decades, left the company in 2016, shortly after shipping the original “Overwatch.” He later revealed he was suffering panic attacks during the game’s development because of the overwhelming pressure to deliver a huge hit. In April 2021, Blizzard announced that Jeff Kaplan, “Overwatch’s” soft-spoken and beloved game director, had left the company after 19 years. Kaplan hasn’t been heard from since. Former Blizzard designer Jesse McCree, who was the namesake of “Overwatch’s” cowboy gunslinger hero (now known as Cole Cassidy), was removed from the company in November 2021 along with several other Blizzard employees when Activision Blizzard was hit with a sexual harassment suit.
According to the people who were actually able to try out “Overwatch 2,” it’s apparently quite good — as long as you aren’t playing in competitive mode. The game has been receiving generally positive reviews, earning high marks from publications such as IGN and Game Informer. | 2022-10-05T16:29:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Overwatch 2' launch plagued by DDOS attacks, server disconnects - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/10/05/overwatch-2-servers-ddos/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/10/05/overwatch-2-servers-ddos/ |
Sharper than on PS4, ‘Nier: Automata’ on Switch remains virtuosic
Review by Gene Park
The Nintendo Switch is home yet again to another one of those “greatest of all time” titles. This time it’s the existentialist poetry of famed game director Yoko Taro’s “Nier: Automata.”
“Nier: Automata” was released on PlayStation 4 in 2017, offering an irresistible, one-of-a-kind experience. Developed by Platinum Games, it’s basically a character-action game in the vein of “Devil May Cry,” surrounded by an open-world structure inspired by Zelda and publisher Square Enix’s usual role-playing output. It also presents one of the more frank and open discussions found in the video game medium about clashing life philosophies. As a total package, “Nier: Automata” is a beast of a title.
And now, here it is on Nintendo’s underpowered but incredibly popular console, presented at a sharper resolution than the original PS4 release at 1080p, capped at 30 frames-per-second performance (compared to 60 fps on other current-gen consoles) and maintaining that benchmark through all but the most graphically taxing situations.
The best games to play on Nintendo Switch
“Nier: Automata” was never a game on the cutting edge of graphical presentation, with low-resolution textures and far-off objects popping in regularly on the PS4 version. The PC port, which launched a month later, was also famously poorly optimized and taxed CPU usage. Yet “Nier: Automata” runs well enough on the Switch that I forgot I was playing it on Nintendo’s aging, decade-old mobile chipset.
Developer Virtuos, based in Singapore, is no stranger to previous feats of successful Nintendo Switch ports; its past work includes the BioShock series and Rockstar’s open-world detective game, “L.A. Noire.” The studio joins Panic Button, who have ported Id Software’s Doom series to the Switch, in the pantheon of masters of the Switch hardware, responsible for what many consider to be impossible ports of high-end AAA titles to the weakest home console on the market.
“Nier: Automata” is a great example of how strong art direction and design can leave a game feeling timeless. Despite the blurry textures, the game features two sartorially stunning heroes, both drenched in moody, black gothic fashion, blindfolded with silver hair and with sex appeal that transcends the game’s story. Not everyone has played “Nier: Automata,” but millions will likely immediately recognize the hair and dress of one of its main characters, the android 2B.
Playing this game on the Nintendo Switch only underscored how rare such an experience is not just on the platform, but in the medium in general. Yoko Taro has famously said he finds games that stick to genre conventions boring, which is why his titles often mix and match formulas on the fly. In its first five minutes, the game covers twin-stick shooters, side-scrolling action and top-down shoot ‘em up gameplay in a virtuosic opening sequence, all while retaining the same button controls, maintaining coherence in player participation.
The scope of the game expands as the story persists, and so do your enemies — both in terms of size and numbers. The Switch version still depicts large-scale, open-world battles against Goliath-sized combatants, and it’s mostly here where the system strains under the spectacle of sparks, explosions and literally thousands of moving machine parts in a battlefield. Nonetheless, it remains an impressive performance.
Modestly priced at $40, “Nier: Automata” offers dozens of hours of content in a port that sees sensible compromise (blurrier textures, a capped framerate) while retaining what makes the experience an opera of spectacle and mood. Its launch this week further strengthens the deep quality of the Nintendo Switch’s growing library, and it is immediately one of the best titles you could own on the platform. | 2022-10-05T16:29:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nier: Automata, one of the best games ever, is great on Nintendo Switch - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/reviews/nier-automata-switch-port/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/reviews/nier-automata-switch-port/ |
(Whitney Museum of American Art)
If you owned this painting, you’d never watch TV again
Willem de Kooning painted his “Door to the River” masterpiece at the height of his powers
If you were to talk about what made American art exciting in the two decades after World War II, you could hardly fail to mention this painting by Willem de Kooning. I mean, just look at it. Those brushstrokes are traces of the painter’s vigorous arm movements. Such a powerful sense of freedom and velocity! The color is so sweet it seems to hum with self-pleasure. (That musky pink beside the yolky yellow, the peripheral outbreaks of blue.) Marvel, too, at the subtle but unaccountably powerful opening up of imaginary space generated by those slivers of dark gray between the sturdy verticals just to the left of center.
The whole painting feels like an alloy of massive gestural energy and fleeting delicacy. Heft married to contingency. It’s in a museum, thank goodness. But imagine it hanging on your living room wall. You’d never watch TV again! You couldn’t drag your eyes from it.
“Door to the River,” which is at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, is nearly seven feet high and six feet wide. The Dutch-born de Kooning painted it in 1960. He was at the height of his powers. His friend and rival, Jackson Pollock, had died in a car accident in 1956; de Kooning surprised people a year later by dating Pollock’s girlfriend, Ruth Kligman, the only survivor of the crash.
De Kooning’s career, meanwhile, went from strength to strength. He was the kingpin of a newly dominant movement, abstract expressionism. His friend, Thomas Hess, had just published the first de Kooning monograph. The Museum of Modern Art was planning a retrospective. He went to Rome, where he lived for several months, hanging out with artists Alberto Burri, Cy Twombly, Afro and Marisol, and an entourage of admirers. There was something epic about his life’s narrative to date, from Dutch stowaway to American culture hero.
At the same time, de Kooning seemed lost. He was in his mid-50s. Some artist friends cursed his success, describing him as a sellout. The critic Clement Greenberg had turned on him, lamenting his adherence to conventions Greenberg saw as staid (easel painting, drawing, figurative content).
Then he painted “Door to the River.” The canvas had little of what John Elderfield called “the gritty buildup and scabrous intermingling of paint, charcoal and granular particles” that characterize de Kooning’s earlier paintings. The paint here was much smoother, more fluid. De Kooning applied it to a cotton duck fabric with a commercially primed white ground, with little of the scraping back that had been integral to his earlier process.
Eager to capture transient effects, he worked quickly, twisting his brush at the end of his long, house painter’s brushstrokes to create smashed, splattered or feathery effects, as if the paint were pure light reflected off undulant water. He occasionally added water to the paint, creating emulsions that left bubbly textures on the surface. (“I think he remained a Dutchman,” said the Stedelijk museum director Edy de Wilde, “in his love of light and water.”)
Elderfield, who put together a great de Kooning retrospective at MoMA in 2011, has described how de Kooning simplified his colors in “Door to the River” (and other works of the same period): the pink is an organic red pigment mixed with titanium dioxide and a small amount of zinc oxide. The blue is artificial ultramarine combined with titanium white. The yellow is cadmium yellow. Primary colors, essentially, and therefore prescient of his mesmerizing, pared-down late work.
In the 20th century, artists had embraced chance over deliberate intent in all kinds of ways. De Kooning loved to talk about the content of his art as a “slipping glimpse.” “I have to do it fast,” he said. “It’s not like poker, where you can build to a straight flush or something. It’s like throwing dice.”
But it wasn’t quite as random as all that. De Kooning was a great draftsman, with years of training under his belt, and no one was better at harnessing accidents. In painting after painting, with feline prowess, he found ways to recover compositional balance, and in the process — it was really a kind of high-wire act — he amplified the overall effect of energy and resplendence. The result, in the case of “Door to the River,” was cosmically lovely.
Door to the River, 1960
Willem de Kooning (b. 1904). At the Whitney Museum of American Art. | 2022-10-05T16:37:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Perspective | Willem de Kooning painted this masterpiece at the height of his powers - Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/interactive/2022/willem-de-kooning-door-to-river/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/interactive/2022/willem-de-kooning-door-to-river/ |
Mario Batali on the first day of his trial in Boston in May. He was found not guilty. (Steven Senne/AP)
When “Batali: The Fall of a Superstar Chef,” was released last month, the early stories about the film focused on the explosive account of Eva DeVirgilis, a former Babbo employee who went public with her allegation that Mario Batali had sexually assaulted her after she blacked out in a private room at the Spotted Pig in Manhattan. She had told a similar story to “60 Minutes” in 2018, but her name and identity were concealed.
Yet after multiple viewings of the documentary, which is airing on Discovery+, I think the filmmakers are using DeVirgilis’s allegations to tell a much larger story about society nearly five years after Batali first faced sexual misconduct charges in 2017. They’re arguing that America’s legal, law enforcement and workplace systems still largely favor the powerful, despite any reckoning that the #MeToo movement promised women who, for generations, felt as if there were few rewards in standing up to abusive men.
Mario Batali found not guilty of sexual assault in Boston trial
The evidence, the film suggests, is walking among us: Batali remains a free man even after multiple accusations of sexual assault, including one in Boston, which marked the first time a chef had been taken to criminal court to face an accuser.
“The #MeToo movement has largely left the criminal justice system untouched,” Jane Manning, director of the Women’s Equal Justice Project, tells the filmmakers. “At every stage of the process, we often see a system that is stacked against the victim.”
Many of the same women who first stood up to Batali, as well as to Ken Friedman, owner of the now-closed Spotted Pig, make an appearance in the documentary. Their stories have not changed, but the medium gives them a chance to be seen, literally and emotionally. The things they allegedly endured and the things they allegedly witnessed can still trigger an emotional response, which director Singeli Agnew captures in sometimes heartbreaking and/or enraging interviews.
Trish Nelson, a long-time server at Spotted Pig, recounts the day Amy Poehler, the comedian and actress, visited the West Village restaurant known to attract celebrities of every stripe. Nelson was on her hands and knees, gathering glassware, when Friedman allegedly pushed her face into his crotch, all with Poehler watching. The same story appeared in a New York Times story in 2017, but this time Nelson provides something extra: the emotional weight of that alleged incident.
What Friedman was communicating, Nelson says, was his power over underlings: “This is who you are. This is who [Poehler] is. You are not the same, and I control you,” Nelson says, interpreting Friedman’s actions. She starts to cry at the memory.
One recurring theme is the trail of alleged victims in Batali’s wake, both male and female. They include Arturo Sighinolfi, owner of Rocco, an old-school red sauce restaurant in Manhattan, which Batali allegedly used to build his reputation no matter what it cost the owner. Or Jamie Seet, a former general manager at the Spotted Pig, who alleges that she witnessed Batali, via a camera in the third-floor party room, assaulting a woman who appeared to be unconscious. Seet harbors guilt about not protesting more, even though she says she complained to Friedman and chef April Bloomfield.
Ex-Kinship employee alleges Michelin-starred chef used racist language
“I’m totally ashamed that I didn’t put my foot down. I didn’t call the cops," Seet says. The implication is clear: Those who didn’t try to stop the alleged abuse just perpetuated it.
Some apparent patterns come into focus, too: Batali’s alleged penchant for groping women who just wanted to take a picture with him. Or women who claim that Batali sexually assaulted them while they were unconscious, an alleged routine that suggests the purported victims may have been drugged, similar to the women in the complaints against Bill Cosby.
What Agnew does best, though, is build a case, allegation by allegation, like a skilled prosecutor. The Spotted Pig employees who let things go because they feared Friedman’s power and temper (this group apparently included Bloomfield). Criminal charges that could not be brought against Batali because overworked (and possibly under-trained) detectives couldn’t find enough evidence. A settlement that fell apart when Friedman suddenly shut down the Spotted Pig, robbing 11 former employees of a share of the restaurant’s profits. A Boston judge who granted access to an accuser’s personal communications, which gave Batali’s lawyers plenty of material to paint Natali Tene as a liar and a possible gold digger. (Batali was found not guilt in the bench trial.)
The lesson, says Manning in the film, is that any woman who goes up against a powerful man must prepare for all-out war, even five years into the #MeToo movement.
The documentary ends with the usual disclaimers — that Friedman, Batali and Bloomfield would not comment or participate in the production — but it also concludes with a sentence: “As of August 2022, Mario Batali faces no other criminal charges.”
After all that has passed in the preceding hour and 15 minutes or so, the filmmakers appear to be making the case that Batali, despite losing his reputation and his empire, has not faced the true consequences of his alleged actions. Countless women, the film seems to imply, feel imprisoned by their shame or guilt or anger, while Mario Batali remains free. | 2022-10-05T17:39:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mario Batali documentary argues that the chef has escaped justice - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/10/05/batali-documentary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/10/05/batali-documentary/ |
Roger Stone exits federal court in Washington in November 2019. (Julio Cortez/AP)
We knew Fox News host Tucker Carlson was an effective propagandist, based on his years attacking the attackers of Donald Trump. Now we’re learning what a force he can be as a lobbyist.
In early 2020, Carlson met with Trump adviser Jared Kushner to secure clemency for his friend Roger Stone, the renowned political dirty trickster whose résumé as an operative goes back to Richard M. Nixon. The revelation comes from the new book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.”
The episode highlights one of the baked-in perils of the media industry: People who work in it get awfully close to power, and avoiding the temptations of that proximity requires integrity. As well as bosses who actually care about journalistic principles, a dynamic not in evidence at Fox News.
Most of the Carlson-Stone story is a matter of very public record. As the Erik Wemple Blog explained at length in 2020, the two have been close for years. The mutual backscratching surfaces in printed material and video clips. “Like many in the upper reaches of media, business and government, this executive stood in fear and trembling before the legend of Roger Stone,” wrote Carlson in the introduction for a book authored by Stone in 2018. “And for good reason: Roger Stone is a troublemaker — indeed, not just a troublemaker, but perhaps the premier troublemaker of our time, the Michael Jordan of electoral mischief. This is either terrifying or delightful, depending on your uptightness level. I love it. Television executives don’t. That’s the difference.” Stone has been an occasional guest on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
And “Tucker Carlson Tonight” has been there for Stone. When the FBI in January 2019 raided Stone’s Florida home, Carlson denounced the tactic and criticized CNN for obtaining video of the early-morning action. The network, he contended, was in cahoots with officials from Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, which had been probing Stone’s activities. “CNN acted as the public relations arm of the Mueller investigation, as they have before,” said the host. (In fact, CNN journalists’ presence that morning was because of a hunch informed by their reporting.) Stone was subsequently indicted — on counts that included witness tampering and making false statements — found guilty on all counts and sentenced to more than three years in prison.
The whole affair short-circuited Carlson, who just couldn’t stand by and allow the justice system to do its thing. When it emerged that the Mueller report hadn’t established a Trump-Russia conspiracy, Carlson howled about Stone’s situation: “Where are the pardons here?” asked Carlson in March 2019. “I mean, is it time for the executive branch to send a really clear message we’re going to stop the destruction of innocent people by completely out-of-control bureaucrats?”
The next night, he kept at it. “If the Russia collusion story was a hoax, and of course it most certainly was a hoax, then why is Roger Stone going to prison for his role in it?” he asked. “If Roger Stone serves even a single day behind bars, the Russia lie will be validated as true.” On it went: “Prosecutors want Roger Stone to serve nine years not because he hurt someone or hurt this country. He didn’t. But because they hate him,” Carlson said on Feb. 13.
The transcripts, in other words, reflect that Carlson made good on the consequences that he’d dangled before Kushner — if Trump didn’t act, he’d make a public fuss. Journalists don’t, or should not, veer into this sort of personal advocacy; their role is to determine what is happening and to report the findings, the better to inform viewers. Yet viewers weren’t the priority for Carlson. Stone was.
We asked both Fox News and Carlson himself about the report in Haberman’s book. Neither responded to emails.
You know who’s on record as despising the sort of strong-arm tactics that Carlson deployed against the White House in this instance? Tucker Carlson. In December 2018, he accused former Playboy model Karen McDougal of “extortion” in her dealings with Trump in the previous presidential election. The accusation was false, and McDougal filed a defamation suit against Carlson. The complaint was dismissed because a federal judge ruled that “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was not to be taken seriously.
Someone, however, apparently took him seriously indeed. In December 2020, the White House announced Stone’s pardon. In an appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” shortly after the news broke, Stone said, “Well, Tucker, thanks for your outstanding analysis and reporting on this issue.” | 2022-10-05T17:39:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Haberman: Tucker Carlson pressed Trump White House to pardon Roger Stone - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/haberman-tucker-carlson-roger-stone-pardon/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/haberman-tucker-carlson-roger-stone-pardon/ |
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway at the Republican National Convention in Washington on Aug. 26, 2020. (Susan Walsh/AP)
Kellyanne Conway began a new job this week, appearing on Fox News as a paid contributor. It’s a good fit for Conway, who has always excelled at presenting punchy rhetorical points on the fly. It’s also a good fit, of course, because Conway has spent most of the past six years deploying such points in service of Donald Trump and his politics — precisely the sort of thing Fox News viewers have grown accustomed to hearing.
On Tuesday night, Conway appeared on Sean Hannity’s eponymous show. When Hannity asked whether Conway expected to see “a dramatic demographic shift this election,” she replied that she did — particularly among Hispanics.
“Hispanics are realigning,” she said, first pointing to economic considerations as a cause. Then, she added, “they’re also very religious and they see a Democratic Party that’s openly hostile to religion most days. They can’t even give you thoughts and prayers when there’s a tragedy. It’s only thoughts now.”
This is not an uncommon argument. But it’s an overly simple and, in part, an explicitly dishonest one.
As a general rule, it is true that Hispanic and Black Americans are more likely to identify as Christian and less likely to say they have no religious identity than White Americans. Data from the biannual General Social Survey (GSS) shows that over the past two decades, religious identity as Christian has waned across racial groups and rejection of religious identity has increased. You can see this in the two graphs in the left-hand column, below.
Conway’s point, though, is centered on the right-hand column. Democrats are more likely to reject religion than Republicans — if we’re talking about White Democrats. Non-White Democrats identify along religious lines about the same way that White Republicans do. There were not enough Black and Hispanic Republicans included in the survey to show on the graph, which says something by itself.
This is only one measure of religion, of course. The GSS also asks about religious attendance where, again, we see that Whites are least likely to say they attend religious services regularly.
But that’s mostly because White Democrats are much less likely to do so. White Republicans attend religious services at about the same rate as Black Democrats.
So should we assume that Black Americans will similarly “realign” with Republicans? Well, no, because we understand that the religious traditions between those groups are largely dissimilar and because we recognize that there are other historic reasons that Black Americans align with the Democratic Party. Church attendance, in fact, likely reinforces that alignment.
What these graphs are reinforcing, really, is that the distinction between religious identities can be as important as the distinction between religious and nonreligious. At the outset, we considered religious identity through the lens of Christianity, because when Conway talks about religion she’s talking about the particular version of religion that is most common in her party. When she talks about the left’s purported “hostility” to religion, she’s talking about conflicts rooted in how her allies think religion should be practiced and manifested.
There are wide differences in how different religious groups overlap with political preferences. Pew Research Center matched voter files with polling to determine how religious identification related to voting in the 2018 midterm elections. It was a broadly Democratic-friendly election, but if we compare the margin among religious groups to the national margin, we get a sense of the spread.
The margin among White evangelical Protestants was 73 points more Republican than the national margin. Among White Catholics, it was 29 points more Republican. Among Hispanic Catholics, though, it was 35 points more Democratic. Among Black Protestants, it was 80 points more Democratic.
There was a shift to the right among both Blacks and Hispanics in 2020, as Pew’s data documents. But the gaps above are wide. If White Catholics and Hispanic Catholics deviate by 64 points in their national vote margin, that suggests pretty strongly that there are other pulls on political choice besides simply religious identity. A third of Trump’s support in 2020 came from evangelicals, according to Pew, a group with a very specific view of religion and religion’s role in society that is not shared even by other Christians.
Conway’s certainly right, though, that some Hispanics are increasingly choosing to vote Republican. Texas Monthly’s Jack Herrera wrote an excellent assessment of the shift in the southern part of that state in 2020. To oversimplify, the suggestion from Herrera’s article is that religious identity is a subset of cultural changes that are affecting vote choice. This doesn’t conflict with Conway’s assessment, necessarily; it’s just a different focus.
The focus deployed by Conway is unsubtle. That Democrats are “openly hostile” to religion will likely come as a surprise to the heavy majority of Democrats who are religious, including White Democrats. It will come as a surprise to President Biden, a practicing Catholic who makes a point of attending service each week — and who defeated Conway’s boss in 2020, a president whose trips to churches were inseparable from politics. Her example is that Democrats object to the phrase “thoughts and prayers,” which, of course, is not an objection to praying but to Republican reliance on the phrase as a response to mass shooting events.
This is one reason Conway is so good at what she does. She knows the data, certainly; her background is in polling. She’s adept at using factual points as a jumping off point for rhetorical ones. Like that Hispanics are more religious than (White) Democrats — ergo, they will be turned off by the purported anti-religious tendencies of the left.
No wonder Fox News wanted to bring her onboard.
Noted: DeSantis running strong in reelection bid as Biden visits Florida
3:58 PMNoted: McConnell-linked super PAC invests $22.3 million across 7 states
3:41 PMThe latest: White House criticizes ‘shortsighted decision’ by OPEC Plus
3:25 PMNoted: In Pa., Fetterman seen as more in touch than Oz, poll finds
3:07 PMNoted: Rick Scott ranks the likeliest pickup opportunities for Republicans | 2022-10-05T18:00:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The politics-religion overlap is murkier than Kellyanne Conway suggests - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/05/religion-republicans-kellyanne-conway/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/05/religion-republicans-kellyanne-conway/ |
Herschel Walker, and the GOP’s declining demand for morality in leaders
Then-President Donald Trump watches as Herschel Walker throws a ball at the White House Sports and Fitness Day event in 2018. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Long before the most recent revelations rendered it significantly messier, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman asked Donald Trump about Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s messy personal life. Trump wagered that it wouldn’t really matter.
Trump, in comments published in Haberman’s new book “Confidence Man,” called it “a personal history that, 10 years ago, maybe it would have been a problem. Twenty years ago would’ve been a bigger problem. I don’t think it’s a problem today.” Asked why he thought things had shifted, Trump offered: “Because the world is changing.”
Trump is almost unquestionably right that these things once mattered much more. But it’s not so much that the world has changed as that the Republican Party has.
And rather conveniently so.
The Daily Beast’s report that Walker had paid for an abortion in 2009 (which Walker denies), combined with harsh comments about Walker from his conservative son, have rekindled long-running questions about just how much personal conduct and hypocrisy matters to voters. It’s a conversation we occasionally have, such as when a GOP congressman urges a mistress to have an abortion or when a GOP Senate candidate is reported to have pursued teenage girls while he was in his 30s. These questions often focus on the GOP, because the party around the turn of the century built its brand on morality. Think: the “values voters” of 2004.
What’s clear is that the party has evolved considerably since then, toward a version of itself that can accept the likes of Trump and Walker — and overwhelmingly.
In 2011, the Public Religion Research Institute asked whether people thought an elected official who committed an immoral act “can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.” (Journalist John Dickerson pointed to these findings Wednesday.)
While half of Democrats said they could, just 36 percent of Republicans said the same — a finding in line with the GOP’s emphasis on morals over the previous two decades.
But by 2016, things had changed substantially. With a vulgar, thrice-married alleged adulterer at the top of the party’s ticket, the number of Republicans who said such an official could fulfill their duties nearly doubled to 70 percent. And by the end of Trump’s term as president in 2020, that number stood at 71 percent.
Democrats, by contrast, are about where they were in 2011. While back then 49 percent said such a candidate could fulfill their duties, in 2020 that number stood at 47 percent. (There was a momentary uptick to 61 percent in 2016.)
It’s a question that also cropped up in the aforementioned 2017 Alabama Senate race. When GOP nominee Roy Moore was accused of pursuing teenage girls decades before, The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University asked the same question as PRRI.
And again, Republicans were suddenly more willing to look the other way — or at least focus on other things. While Alabama Democrats said by a seven-point margin that such a candidate couldn’t fulfill their duties, Alabama Republicans said they could by a 27-point margin, 50-27.
This is, as with many poll questions, not a perfect gauge of how Walker’s alleged conduct might be received by voters. For one, he’s denying paying for the abortion, and many Republicans will undoubtedly accept that denial. Second, an “immoral act” could certainly span a whole host of behaviors; basically everyone has done something immoral.
But an alleged abortion is hardly the only aspect of Walker’s past that would seem to run afoul of the standard most of the GOP subscribed to just a decade ago. And it’s not just his son saying Walker “threatened to kill us” and that the family had to move repeatedly to flee violence from Walker, or his ex-wife recounting incidents in which Walker held a gun to her head. It’s also the three previously undisclosed children he had with different women. (Walker has campaigned against absentee Black fathers but doesn’t appear to have been a major presence in these children’s lives.) Walker is now speaking in terms of redemption — even as he denies the abortion story — but were Walker to have paid for an abortion, that also would run afoul of his recent claims to always have opposed abortion rights.
A final poll we’ll note here is a survey from The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2012, when Republicans were more insistent upon morality. It asked whether “Americans are too tolerant and accepting of behaviors that in the past were considered immoral or wrong.” While half of Democrats agreed with that statement, 77 percent of Republicans did.
Today, it’s Republicans who say they’re more tolerant of immoral behavior, at least in their politicians. Whether it’ll be enough to salvage Walker’s fledgling political career — which independents will also have a major say over — is another matter.
The latest: DeSantis greets Biden ahead of hurricane briefing
5:43 PMTake a look: Biden arrives in Florida, takes an aerial tour of damage
5:11 PMThe latest: IRS helping FEMA communicate with those affected by Ian
4:57 PMThe latest: After OPEC’s move, White House again urges energy companies to pass savings to customers | 2022-10-05T18:57:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Herschel Walker, and the GOP’s declining demand for morality in leaders - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/05/walker-republican-moral-politicians/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/05/walker-republican-moral-politicians/ |
Democrats aim to keep spotlight on abortion
Their efforts have collided with ramped-up Republican attempts to center the midterm elections on crime and the economy
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) in Milwaukee on Sept. 24. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
From Nevada to New Hampshire, Democrats have run full-page newspaper ads on abortion as well as a flurry of television commercials focused on the issue in key Senate and House battlegrounds. In one such race in Virginia, the Democrat is running an ad this week featuring a woman who tells viewers she was raped at 17 and is disgusted by the Republican candidate’s comments on abortion.
In Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who is fighting for his political survival this fall, called his state’s legislature into a brief special session that was quickly ended by Republicans, saying he wanted to open a path to enable voters to do away with a recently activated abortion ban from the 19th century.
And in Michigan, Democrats are strategizing around a ballot measure aimed at enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution, looking to capitalize on the referendum to drive voters they need to win key races to the polls in November.
With five weeks left until the midterms, Democrats are seeking to use every tool at their disposal to keep the focus on abortion, an issue they see as a powerful motivator and closing message. Their efforts have collided with ramped-up Republican attempts to center the elections on crime and the economy, posing a growing challenge in the final stretch.
“It does counteract a deck that is stacked against us in many ways,” said Christina Reynolds, a vice president at Emily’s List, a group focused on electing women who support abortion rights. “There is a reason you’re seeing it on the air in so many places.”
A stretch of strong summer special election performances emboldened Democrats’ hopes of defying predictions of a GOP wave. As time has passed since the June Supreme Court decision that polls show was unpopular with most Americans, Republicans said they have sensed a stronger opportunity to make inroads with late-deciding voters. Recent polls show GOP candidates making headway in some key contests.
Voters “are beginning to harden their opinions in the final weeks of the election cycle as Republicans demonstrate they are best equipped to solve problems related to inflation and rising violent crime,” said Republican Governors Association spokesman Jesse Hunt. “Democrats engaged their base voters by spending a tremendous amount of money on a single issue while failing to adequately address why voters believe they are worse off under Joe Biden,” he said, referring to abortion.
Nationally, recent Google News searches for inflation have run about even with inquiries on abortion. And in Senate battleground states such as Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia, that has also been the case.
Polls show a mixed picture of how much the country has focused on abortion as the campaigns head into the final weeks. A September Gallup poll found 6 percent of Americans saying abortion or the judicial system is the most important problem in the country, down from 10 percent in August and 14 percent in July. On abortion specifically, 4 percent said it’s the country’s top problem, similar to 5 percent in August but down from a peak of 8 percent in July. At the same time, weekly Economist-YouGov polls that ask how important abortion is to people along with other issues show little change since early August.
Democrats see an advantage on the abortion issue. Fifty-one percent of registered voters said they trust Democrats to do a better job with abortion while 32 percent prefer Republicans, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll. And 62 percent of voters named abortion as among their leading issues when they cast ballots in November. The same poll found 64 percent of voters disapproving of the Supreme Court striking down Roe, with 54 percent disapproving “strongly.”
Biden this week sought to encourage renewed attention to abortion laws. “Congress should codify the protections of Roe and do it once and for all,” he said Tuesday. “But right now, we have — we’re short a handful of votes. So the only way it’s going to happen is if the American people make it happen.”
Republican defensiveness on abortion as evidence has encouraged Democrats to keep bringing it up. On Tuesday night during a gubernatorial debate in Maine, Republican Paul LePage said he would not sign a bill adding restrictions to the state’s abortion law.
“Would you let it go into law without your signature?” Democratic Gov. Janet Mills asked. LePage, a former governor, replied, “I don’t know,” calling it a “hypothetical.” An extended back-and-forth ensued, in which LePage was in a defensive posture and ultimately said he would veto a measure that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
To highlight the issue, Democrats have also boosted paid political advertisements on abortion, airing more than 132,000 ads on the topic in September, up from 33,000 abortion-related ads in August, according to AdImpact, which tracks commercials.
These include advertisements Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) released this week featuring a woman who says, “At the age of 17, I was raped. It was devastating.” She pointed to prior comments from Republican challenger Yesli Vega that appeared to cast doubt on whether women can get pregnant after being raped. “That made me sick,” the woman says in the ad.
Vega later attempted to clarify her comments, saying, “those were not the comments I ever stated.” She had previously replied to a person telling her that she heard it was harder for a woman to get pregnant if she’d been raped by saying, “I haven’t seen any studies. But if I’m processing what you’re saying, it wouldn’t surprise me, because it’s not something happening organically. Right? You’re forcing it.”
In Nevada, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) recently launched an ad in which she said she would “fight for a woman’s right to make our own health-care decisions,” while Republican opponent “Adam Laxalt won’t.”
Laxalt and his allies have attempted to rebut her charge. A recent advertisement funded by the National Republican Senatorial Committee accused Democrats of using scare tactics in a state that has abortion protections in place.
“Over the last two years, Democrat politicians have done incredible damage to America,” a female narrator says in the advertisement, listing increases in crime, issues at the U.S.-Mexico border and a spike in prices. “They changed our lives. But one thing hasn’t changed: Abortion in Nevada,” the narrator says. “Why do Democrats like Catherine Cortez Masto only talk about something that hasn’t changed? Because they can’t defend everything that has.”
In Wisconsin, Evers, who is in a competitive race against Republican challenger Tim Michels, called a special legislative session to start a lengthy process to allow voters to put laws, including abortion rights, on the ballot before voters.
It lasted just seconds before Republicans shut it down. “To think that politicians that are running women’s lives and other’s lives wouldn’t take a minute to discuss this issue is an embarrassment to the state of Wisconsin,” Evers told reporters after a rally for abortion rights at the state Capitol.
The governor said he called the session in response to comments by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who recently suggested that his state should hold a referendum on adding exceptions for rape and incest to the state’s 1849 law banning the procedure in most instances. The law went into effect after the Supreme Court struck down federal abortion rights and Evers has said it should be repealed.
But Wisconsin doesn’t have a mechanism for a statewide ballot measure. “It dawned on me that it might be a good idea to allow that to happen,” Evers said in an interview with The Washington Post. He added that Johnson “set the stage” for the session.
In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Johnson said he thinks the 19th-century abortion ban should be updated to include exceptions for rape and incest. “I would at minimum want it updated for that,” Johnson told the paper. Johnson’s Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, is engaged in a statewide campaign swing he has dubbed “Ron Against Roe.”
Republican leaders in the state called the Evers maneuver a “desperate political stunt” and signaled in advance that they would shut down the session swiftly, as they have in the past. “Gov. Evers would rather push his agenda,” said Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, both Republicans, in a joint statement ahead of the session, “than talk about his failure to address rising crime and runaway inflation caused by his liberal DC allies.”
Michels has signaled a shift on abortion, recently telling a Wisconsin radio host that he would sign legislation allowing abortions in the state in the case of rape or incest. State law already permits the procedure if the woman’s life is in danger.
Michels had insisted previously that he would not change his views on abortion, though he acknowledged that he faced pressure to do so. A spokesman for Michels did not respond to an email seeking comment.
In Michigan, Democrats successfully added a ballot measure that, if passed, will add the right to an abortion to the state’s constitution. Democrats hope it will drive supportive voters to the polls in November, to keep Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) in power and pick up state legislative seats. Michigan is also home to three of the most competitive House districts in the country, including two seats that Democrats must defend and another the party hopes to flip.
“Our job as Democrats and as candidates is making sure that we are connecting ourselves and our candidates to voters on the issue,” said Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D), who drew national attention after a floor speech defending LGBTQ youths went viral. She said that Democrats in the state should tie themselves to the ballot measure with a message to voters that they will protect the outcome and won’t “gut” it as some Republicans have threatened.
Sixty-two percent of likely Michigan voters said they support the ballot initiative, according to a Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll. Twenty-four percent said they were opposed, while 14 percent said they were undecided on it.
Prominent Democrats not on the ballot this year are also trying to help draw voters’ attention to abortion. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), who won reelection in 2020, recently appeared at a news conference with Emily’s List President Laphonza Butler to pitch voters on backing more candidates supporting abortion rights — part of a national series of events.
“It’s going to be hard to remove this issue of women’s reproductive freedom from the conversation,” Cooper said. “You are seeing Republican candidates who have had extreme positions trying to scrub their websites and trying to move a little bit more toward what they call a common-sense position, but don’t believe them.”
Some Democrats have pointed to recent developments that have kept abortion in the news, arguing that the issue will continue to command attention.
In Arizona last month, a judge revived an 1864 law banning most abortions, which drew a response from Democrats in key races there. Sen. Mark Kelly (D) ran an advertisement highlighting comments opposing abortions made by GOP Senate nominee Blake Masters. Democratic gubernatorial nominee Katie Hobbs said she was “mourning” the decision.
Patrick Marley and Scott Clement contributed to this report. | 2022-10-05T20:25:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Their efforts have collided with ramped-up Republican attempts to center the elections around crime and the economy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/10/05/democrats-abortion-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/10/05/democrats-abortion-midterms/ |
Bess Lavine, half of mother-daughter judge team, dies at 94
She overlapped for many years with her daughter Sherrie on the Prince George’s County District Court
By Louie Estrada
Judge Bess Lavine in 1989. (Family photo)
Bess Lavine, a retired Prince George’s County District Court judge who broke through gender barriers, pushed for criminal justice reforms and mentored legal professionals including her eldest child, leading to one of the first mother-daughter judge teams in the country, died Sept. 18 at an assisted-living center in Rockville. She was 94.
Judge Lavine had Alzheimer’s disease, said her daughter, retired Prince George’s County District Court Judge Sherrie Krauser, who began reading her mother’s law books when she was 8.
As a young lawyer with a private practice in Hyattsville, Md., Judge Lavine was shut out of the clubby Prince George’s County Bar Association, and she started in the early 1960s what is now the Prince George’s County chapter of the Women’s Bar Association of Maryland.
A few years later, she became the first woman to serve as a Prince George’s County juvenile court master, the equivalent of a judge. She was credited with promoting efforts to raise the qualifications of those serving as legal representatives of juveniles and advocating the creation of supportive family services.
In 1978, she was the second woman appointed to the District Court, presiding mostly over misdemeanors, traffic violations, domestic disputes, landlord-tenant problems and small-claims cases. She lobbied lawmakers to pass legal protections for victims of domestic violence and helped to establish a substance abuse treatment facility as an alternative to time behind bars for drunk-driving offenders in the county.
She stepped down from the bench in March 1989 and, five months later, was replaced by her daughter. Judge Lavine continued to work as a substitute judge until an injury from a fall led her to fully retire in 2006.
At the time when both were adjudicating cases at the Hyattsville courthouse, the National Association of Women Judges said it believed they were the first mother-daughter duo to simultaneously hold judgeships in the same court.
Bessie Blafkin, the youngest of four siblings, was born in Philadelphia on Nov. 29, 1927. Her mother died soon after giving birth. Her father was a shoemaker. At 7, during the Depression, she was sent to live with her 21-year-old sister Clayre and her husband, Samuel Blavatt, and they relocated to Washington for his work as a butcher.
The future judge graduated in 1945 from Theodore Roosevelt High School in the District and was a prelaw student at George Washington University when she married Irvin Lavine, who graduated from the university’s law school and went on to become a patent and trademark lawyer.
After obtaining her bachelor’s degree from GWU in 1949, Judge Lavine put off her plans to attend law school to start a family in Prince George’s County. “The only problem was money,” she told The Washington Post. “We just couldn’t afford to have both of us in law school, so I took a breather.”
She gradually became involved in Democratic Party politics at the county level. Among other activities, she organized voter registration drives in Black communities.
In 1954, she was elected to the Prince George’s County Orphans’ Court, a forum to resolve disputes involving wills and estates but a position that didn’t require a law degree. She began taking night classes and earned a law degree from the University of Baltimore in 1961.
“She felt what it is like to be excluded,” said District Court Judge Patti Lewis, a mentee of Judge Lavine who founded the Maryland chapter of the National Association of Women Judges. “As a young Jewish woman starting in the Orphans’ Court, she was breaking barriers at every opportunity. She encouraged new lawyers considering a career in the judiciary, especially women litigators and attorneys of color, not to question their own abilities.”
Judge Lavine’s husband died in 2016. In addition to her daughter, Judge Krauser, of Los Angeles, survivors include two other children, Hilary Lavine of Rockville, Md., and Matt Lavine of Clarksville, Md.; eight grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. | 2022-10-05T20:25:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bess Lavine, half of mother-daughter judge team, dies at 94 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/05/bess-lavine-prince-georges-judge-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/05/bess-lavine-prince-georges-judge-dead/ |
Judge holds the home run record. Bonds doesn’t. Reality is real.
New York Yankees' Aaron Judge hits a homer, his 62nd of the season, on Oct. 4. With the home run, Judge set the American League record for home runs in a season, passing Roger Maris. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Depending on what you want to believe, we now have effectively two home run records in baseball, just as there are two contrasting versions of just about every story in American life. There’s Barry Bonds’s 73 homers in 2001, and there’s Aaron Judge’s 62 in 2022.
But here’s what we’re learning as a society: Just because somebody tells you a good story doesn’t mean that reality is any less real.
It’s a little embarrassing to look back now at the celebrated home-run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998 and recall how easily all of us were taken. A couple of pretty impressive power hitters became godlike sluggers overnight and at the exact same moment, for no apparent reason, and somehow no one found this more than passingly peculiar.
I was a young reporter at Newsweek then (it was a major magazine, kids — you’ll have to take my word for it), and I can recall sitting in on cover meetings where we talked about this sudden explosion of home runs without a shred of journalistic skepticism. We told ourselves a story that we — and, more important, our paying readers in the supermarket — wanted to believe.
By the time Bonds, an extraordinary player with or without anabolic steroids, hit his 73rd home run three years later, we’d grown accustomed to the idea that modern hitters were just bigger and better than Babe Ruth and Roger Maris, the previous two home run kings. (Both Yankees, incidentally.) Seventy was the new 60.
It’s not that none of this actually happened. It’s just that none of it happened the way we told ourselves it did.
Will Leitch: Baseball looks strange, but the weird thing is how easily it happened
In retrospect, the steroid era presaged a period of American life when our most revered institutions would, one after another, squander our trust. Baseball, churches, banks, news outlets, the military and the intelligence agencies — all of them reeled from scandal in the 2000s as Americans vented their pain and outrage in new online communities.
Trumpism sprouted like a weed from the ruins. It is the political expression of our disbelief and disappointment. For a lot of Americans, “trolling the libs” means, essentially: If nothing anyone tells us is true, then we might as well get behind the version of reality that makes our elite institutions feel powerless and uncomfortable.
But back to baseball: Now comes Judge, a stunning colossus — 6-foot-7, 282 pounds — who, according to baseball’s testing regimen and to any sighted person’s eyes, needs no pharmaceutical intervention to drive a ball 350 feet to the opposite field with a flick of his wrists. Once dismissed by scouts as too ungainly to succeed, he is, like all great athletes, relentlessly competitive and impervious to noise. This is not a man who cheats.
Even if you can find something not to like about Judge (and I’m really not sure what that would be), you have to marvel at the immensity of what he shouldered these past few weeks.
There’s no harder thing in sports than putting the barrel of a bat squarely on a spinning baseball traveling close to 100 miles per hour. To do it while the entire country watches impatiently, with special baseballs in play and cellphones recording from every direction, is as much a feat of mental strength as it is physical.
George Will’s 2022 Opening Day Quiz
There was a moment Tuesday when the cameras caught Judge, after another soft out, slamming his helmet in the dugout — maybe the only display of frustration he flashed all year. A few hours later, he opened the second game of a doubleheader with what the Yankees’ radio voice, the incomparable John Sterling, calls a “Judgian blast” — number 62, a laser like most of the others.
The official Major League record book will continue to show that Bonds owns the single-season home run title, followed by McGwire and Sosa. (In case you find this confusing, all three of them played for teams in the National League, which is why Judge is now referred to as the “American League record-holder.”)
That’s fine. None of them has entered the Hall of Fame, or likely ever will, which tells you everything you need to know.
But the rest of us should acknowledge the larger truth because that’s our most pressing responsibility as a society now — to embrace reality among an endless proliferation of myths. Judge broke the record honestly. He is the rightful heir to Ruth and Maris. His is not a mirage of our own making.
Here’s what I will remember about watching the Yankees’ last night game of the regular season, I think: my 17-year-old son, texting me excitedly from his own hitting practice, to share the moment when Judge hit his 62nd. For his generation of fans, there are no bogus home-run races to dwell on, no investigations and congressional hearings. There is only Aaron Judge and his remarkable summer.
They don’t have to sort through multiple versions of reality — and neither should the rest of us. | 2022-10-05T21:39:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Aaron Judge, not Barry Bonds, is the real home run king - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/aaron-judge-barry-bonds-home-run-record/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/aaron-judge-barry-bonds-home-run-record/ |
Bijan Ghaisar deserves justice
Longtime family friend Mona Faal, center, and other supporters gather on Nov. 17, 2019, at the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. to commemorate the second anniversary of Bijan Ghaisar’s death (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
The Post rightfully condemns the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi by agents of his government. Bijan Ghaisar was brutally killed by agents of the U.S. government who still freely walk among us. The silent stonewalling at the very highest levels of the U.S. government is disturbing, to say the least.
Ghaisar deserves justice.
Joe Kennedy, Arlington | 2022-10-05T21:39:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Bijan Ghaisar deserves justice - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/bijan-ghaisar-deserves-justice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/bijan-ghaisar-deserves-justice/ |
Fighting fires is necessary
Firefighters watch a backfire operation while battling the Mosquito fire near Volcanoville, Calif., on Sept. 9. (Benjamin Fanjoy/Bloomberg News)
David Von Drehle’s Sept. 25 Sunday Opinion column, “How to prevent deadly wildfires? Stop fighting fires.,” painted an incomplete and inaccurate picture of wildfire prevention.
As a forester in California for more than 20 years, and whose former home burned to the ground, I’ve experienced these fires firsthand. I’ve seen the devastation they can cause to people’s lives, and the impacts they can have on homes, property and wildlife. My conclusion? We need to fight fires. We need to do it effectively, and we need to do it immediately.
Mr. Von Drehle failed to provide evidence, examples or research to support his argument. In California alone, more than 365,000 acres have burned this year and 880 structures have been either damaged or destroyed — and we still have months left in fire season. His argument was dangerous and irresponsible.
I suggest Mr. Von Drehle spend some time in the West, talking to homeowners who have lost everything, business owners who are financially struggling and the vulnerable populations growing sicker from smoke inhalation. Leave the firefighting advice to the people on the ground who have been there, have experienced the worst effects and know that we must keep fighting fires.
Matt Dias, Sacramento
The writer is head of the California Forestry Association. | 2022-10-05T21:39:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Fighting fires is necessary - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/fighting-fires-is-necessary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/fighting-fires-is-necessary/ |
Immigrants gather Sept. 14 with their belongings outside a church on Martha's Vineyard. (Ray Ewing/Vineyard Gazette via AP)
Florida paid roughly $32,604 for each one of 48 migrants, corralled by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and tricked into believing they would be sent to a promised land of abundant jobs and government cash support. Instead they were flown to Martha’s Vineyard for maximum publicity — all at the expense of Sunshine State taxpayers. The migrants, mainly Venezuelans, were not only pawns in Mr. DeSantis’s political game; they were potentially defrauded. The governor and those who assisted him should face a reckoning — and they may, in court.
In Texas, Javier Salazar, the Democratic sheriff whose county includes San Antonio, where the migrants were duped into signing up for Mr. DeSantis’s scheme, has opened a criminal investigation. Whether or not criminal charges ensue, details that have emerged about how the gambit unfolded could bolster a class-action suit on the migrants’ behalf against Mr. DeSantis and others.
According to the New York Times, the woman who recruited the migrants in supermarket aisles, parking lots and elsewhere is Perla Huerta, a former Army counterintelligence agent. She informed neither the migrants nor a Venezuelan man she enlisted to help her that she was working on Florida’s behalf or at Mr. DeSantis’s instigation. The governor claims the trip was “clearly voluntary.” But the information Ms. Huerta provided the migrants, who had been allowed into the United States to await hearings on their asylum applications, was designed to hoodwink them — with promises of steady jobs, along with a pamphlet promising “up to eight months of cash assistance.” In fact, cash assistance is routinely provided to foreign nationals who arrive under the official U.S. refugee program, generally after years of screening; asylum seekers, such as those exploited by Mr. DeSantis, are not eligible for that program or aid.
counterpointDeSantis’s migrant stunt might be a scandal. But so is our border crisis.
In the process of executing his airborne political theater, the Florida governor tapped roughly $1.6 million of the $12 million appropriated by the state legislature for transporting unauthorized migrants elsewhere. To the governor’s apparent chagrin, few such migrants have arrived lately in his own state — and an outcry followed the suggestion by Florida’s lieutenant governor, in August, that the governor might ship undocumented Cubans out of state. Hence the migrant recruitment in Texas for flights — arranged with an aviation firm close to Mr. DeSantis’s political cronies — that satisfied the niceties of state law by touching down in Florida en route to Martha’s Vineyard.
On arriving there, the migrants surprised local volunteer aid organizations, which were given no advance notice but nonetheless greeted and helped the migrants graciously. That gave the lie to Mr. DeSantis’s hyperbolic predictions that liberal states would suffer meltdowns should they receive migrants.
The Editorial Board on immigration
Opinion|DeSantis stage-managed his cruelty for everyone to see
Opinion|D.C. Mayor Bowser promised a ‘sanctuary city.’ Now it’s crunch time. | 2022-10-05T21:39:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Ron DeSantis must be accountable for Martha's Vineyard migrant stunt - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/florida-ron-desantis-florida-migrants-marthas-vineyard/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/florida-ron-desantis-florida-migrants-marthas-vineyard/ |
Another queen is dead. Long live Loretta Lynn.
“Life, it seems, has thrown everything it’s got at Loretta Lynn,” journalist David Segal wrote in The Post 20 years ago, and there is no better way to put it.
A dirt-poor child bride from the Appalachian hills of Eastern Kentucky wound up at the White House receiving the nation’s highest civilian honor. Cheated on and physically abused, she stayed with her husband for 48 years. She was also a feminist hero. Lynn lost her best friend in a plane crash. Lost her oldest son when he drowned in a river. Lost a potential bundle when Hollywood made a hit movie of her life that somehow, she said, didn’t earn her a nickel.
Yet she had everything, or darn close to it. Sixteen No. 1 records and the money they brought in. The adoration of fans and the admiration of colleagues. Lynn was the first woman named entertainer of the year by the Country Music Association — a feat she then topped by being named artist of the decade by the Academy of Country Music.
Lynn was compared once to the meteoric and definitive singer Hank Williams, most likely because she leaned hard into her songs and led with her inner hillbilly. But she might just as well have been called a counterpart to George Jones, that countryest of all country singers. She was a theme on which other artists did variations.
Loretta Lynn died Tuesday after 90 astounding years. She was tough and resourceful, gifted and grand. What began in a cabin up a remote draw called Butcher Hollow — “Butcher Holler,” to the natives — ended on a 3,000-acre spread near Nashville where people make RV pilgrimages to see her white-columned mansion.
A skilled songwriter as well as a great singer, Lynn was openly autobiographical in her music. She said once that her husband, Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn — a moonshiner when he married her when she was 15 — sometimes wondered which lines in her songs were about him. In fact, “90 percent of the time every line in there was for him,” Lynn once said. “Those songs was true to life.”
There’s a famous song that says country music needs trains, trucks and Mama — but like its cousin, the Delta blues, country just needs a lot of real life to chew on: sinning, praying, loving, hating, cheating, drinking, wishing, crying. Loneliness, epiphanies and laughter. So the more life threw at Loretta Lynn, the truer to life she could be.
The story goes that Doolittle heard his wife singing to the four children she’d had by age 19 and realized she should be a star. If I had to guess why she stuck with a womanizing, hard-drinking, sometimes violent man, it would be that Doo saw what was special in her. Though surely it was more complicated than that.
Together, Lynn and her husband got her to Nashville, where she befriended the superstar Patsy Cline and Cline’s producer Owen Bradley, a man who loved women’s voices. In the early 1960s, before Cline’s death in an airplane crash, the Cline-Bradley engine lifted Lynn to a place with the Grand Ole Opry, and from there she stepped to the top of the charts in 1967, with a Doolittle-inspired song that was an instant classic: “Don’t Come Home a-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind).”
For the next 15 years, Lynn was never far from No. 1. Her songs explored the sexual politics of a new time — not at the theoretical level of college seminars but at the level where women shared kitchens and bedrooms and conflict with men. The great female singers of the period all explored the same rapidly shifting ground; Lynn was arguably the least pleading or sentimental. Tammy Wynette endorsed the power of “a lotta good lovin’ ” to keep a man in line. Dolly Parton pleaded with lovely Jolene not to take her man “just because you can.”
Lynn, by contrast, warned her rivals that she would meet them in “Fist City.” And she let her men know she would deal with them later.
What a force she was, this coal miner’s daughter. She blew the lid off in 1975, releasing a song she recorded with Bradley in 1972 — a lusty celebration of birth control. Years earlier, Lynn had taken a song to No. 1 called “One’s on the Way,” about the soul-crushing life of a young woman with two small children and another one coming. Now, she celebrated freedom for the next generation in a song bluntly titled “The Pill.”
Life threw everything it could scrape up at Loretta Lynn, and for 90 years she used it all to be bigger and stronger and more magnificent. Another queen is dead.
Opinion|Queen Elizabeth decided to be boring — for Britain’s sake | 2022-10-05T21:40:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Loretta Lynn turned hard knocks into hit after hit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/loretta-lynn-death-country-music-queen/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/loretta-lynn-death-country-music-queen/ |
The veto was a feature of the U.N. Security Council, not a bug
The United Nations headquarters building on March 1 in New York. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
Urging restraint in using U.N. Security Council vetoes puts President Biden on the right side of history. It is not a “self-defeating idea,” as stated in the Oct. 3 editorial “A self-defeating idea — literally.” The veto of the permanent five members was surely a compromise in the creation of the Security Council. A better structure would have offered a voice to all nations, much as the U.S. Senate does for all states.
To fix a Security Council hamstrung by vetoes, require that at least two of the permanent members join for an effective veto. To gain their concession, offer each a one-time election of another nation as permanent Security Council member.
William Sherman, Charlottesville | 2022-10-05T21:40:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The veto was a feature of the U.N. Security Council, not a bug - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/veto-was-feature-un-security-council-not-bug/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/veto-was-feature-un-security-council-not-bug/ |
We need to talk about development of coastal land
A wild pony in December 2018 at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on Assateague Island in Virginia. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Virginia has the longest undeveloped U.S. coastline on the Atlantic Ocean along the Eastern Shore and the False Cape area in Virginia Beach.
Big storms over the years destroyed homes and clubs on the Eastern Shore barrier islands. Some homes were moved to the mainland.
A settlement at False Cape also failed. That area is a land link in southern Virginia Beach to North Carolina that separates Back Bay from the Atlantic Ocean.
The barrier islands are owned and managed by federal, state and public conservation programs. False Cape is a more-than-4,300-acre state park.
The United Nations has recognized these islands as an international biosphere reserve. We have problems in other states with the overdevelopment of such lands along the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf coasts. The country needs a national discussion about the future of such areas given the realities of rising sea levels and warming ocean waters resulting in the horrible damage from big storms such as what just took place in Florida.
Rodger Provo, Fredericksburg
The near-collapse of Florida’s flood insurance system, as reported in the Oct. 1 news article “Florida’s insurance woes could make Ian’s economic wrath even worse,” reminded me of a similar crisis in the 19th century. The introduction of electric and gas utilities into buildings caused a catastrophic increase in building fires, prompting a crisis in the fire insurance business.
The insurance industry formed the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), a nonprofit, independent organization. The NFPA wrote standards for installing gas and electricity service in buildings. Insurers then set rates based on whether a building complied with these voluntary standards, making that industry an effective private regulator of building safety. The NFPA standards ultimately became the basis for governmental building codes.
The insurance industry could facilitate the drafting of effective, rigorous standards for building safety and integrity in the face of flooding. Insurance would be reasonably priced only for buildings that met such standards.
It might be next to impossible to put reasonably priced, flood-protected buildings where major flooding is a regular threat; this could provide grounds for a refusal to insure buildings in such locations, halting the unreasonable construction of new buildings in such locations. As one who objects to paying (through taxes) for the irrational construction of buildings on floodplains, I would welcome such a policy — even though it would discourage development in Florida and other vulnerable places.
The federal flood insurance program is a failure. Action is required from the insurance industry and the federal government to respond to this crisis.
Carl E. Nash, Washington
The writer was a senior executive at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and worked for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. | 2022-10-05T21:40:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | We need to talk about development of coastal land - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/we-need-talk-about-development-coastal-land/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/05/we-need-talk-about-development-coastal-land/ |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.