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Xi’s third term as Chinese leader raises threat of war over Taiwan
High school students Liao Hong-yu, left, and Chen Yi Hsiang demonstrate the skills they learned during combat and survival training with National Defense Education Training in Hualien, Taiwan. (An Rong Xu for The Washington Post)
HUALIEN, Taiwan — From a young age, Wang You-cheng and his friends debated what seemed like a theoretical question: If China were to attack, would they be willing to fight to protect their home?
Growing up in Hualien, where half a dozen military installations guard Taiwan’s east coast, the boys became accustomed to the sounds and sights of preparation for a war that seemed like it would never come. Airtight windows at schools blocked out the boom of F-16 fighter jets; military trucks mixed with mopeds in traffic. Wang and his friends played survival games and learned to shoot BB guns.
Their games have now morphed into the basics of civil defense as they realize war looms closer than they thought. “Taiwan is actually one of the most dangerous places in the world,” said the 17-year-old, seated in an air-gun shop with his childhood friends, Liao Hong-yu, 17, and Chen Yi Hsiang, 18.
It’s a reality dawning on more of the island’s 23 million people as Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s determination to “resolve the Taiwan question” grows in tandem with his ambition to realize China’s place at the top of the global order. Xi’s pursuit of these goals risks a wider military conflict that would pit China against the United States and its allies in Asia. President Biden reiterated last month that American troops would defend Taiwan if China invaded, even as White House officials said his remarks did not signal a change in the U.S. position of strategic ambiguity toward the island.
Xi is expected to secure a third term next week, granting him an extended reign and more latitude to realize the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” Unification with Taiwan, by force or negotiations, is a core part of that vision.
For decades, Chinese leaders have pledged to take Taiwan, where Kuomintang military forces and hundreds of thousands of Chinese fled and set up a rival government after their 1949 defeat by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Generations of Chinese students have been taught that Taiwan is an inviolable part of their country, separated by an accident of history. Under Xi, that is no longer mere propaganda.
“He doesn’t regard it as just a slogan. It’s an action plan that must be implemented,” said Chang Wu-ueh, a professor focusing on cross-strait relations at Tamkang University and an adviser to Taiwan’s government. “Before, leaders talked about unification as something to be achieved in the long run. Now, it’s number one on the agenda.”
In the uneasy stalemate since China stopped shelling Taiwan’s offshore islands in the 1970s, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have only moved further apart. While Taiwan transitioned into a multiparty democracy and its citizens increasingly identified as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, Beijing has grown more adamant that they and the rest of the world recognize the island — which the CCP has never governed — as part of China.
The uncompromising approach has led China to cut off official communication with the Taiwanese government of President Tsai Ing-wen, ending years of exchanges and economic cooperation that Chinese officials thought would lead to unification and that Taiwan officials hoped would stave off conflict.
Chinese military aircraft now ignore the median line of the strait, an unofficial border that both sides largely respected for decades. Export bans punish Taiwanese farmers and businesses, while Beijing officials vow “resolute punishment” for anyone seen as supporting Taiwan independence. In Hong Kong, the model for the “one country, two systems” formula that China proposes for Taiwan, a sweeping national security law has crushed civil society and much of the city’s autonomy.
Repulsed by the hard-line approach, Taiwan’s voters reelected Tsai in a landslide in 2020 after she highlighted Hong Kong’s fate as a reason to reject Beijing’s overtures. Xi, who turns 70 next year, now finds himself with narrowing options to accomplish his mission peacefully — increasing the chance that Beijing may eventually resort to military action. He has termed unification “inevitable” and said that he will use force if necessary.
In a speech Monday marking Taiwan’s National Day, Tsai was equally resolute. “The broadest consensus among the Taiwanese people is that we must defend our national sovereignty and our free and democratic way of life,” she said. “We have no room for compromise.”
Taiwan’s defense minister said this month that any intrusion into Taiwan’s airspace by Chinese military aircraft or drones would constitute a “first strike,” an action the ministry previously defined as an attack by artillery and missiles.
For residents in Hualien, a picturesque coastal town closer to Japan than to China, that warning took on new meaning as the seemingly faraway tensions of the Taiwan Strait landed on their doorstep. In August, in retaliation for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei, the People’s Liberation Army fired missiles over Taiwan and carried out drills to simulate a blockade of the island, including for the first time firing missiles that landed in the sea off the coast of Hualien.
The once-regular intervals of Taiwanese F-16 fighter jets suddenly became unpredictable, as planes roared day and night to intercept Chinese aircraft. When the exercises began, Bao Jhih-jia, 33, who runs a cafe built out of an old pillbox fortification, debated with his wife whether they should run or hide in the event of an attack.
“Of course, we don’t agree with unification,” he said. “But right now, if there was a war, Taiwan for sure could not win.”
Taiwan’s government has been building up military assets in Hualien and along the east coast since 2016, when relations with China worsened following the initial election of Tsai, leader of the Democratic Progressive People’s Party, which Beijing sees as supporting Taiwan independence.
New fighter aircraft are being stationed in Hualien, where a hangar built out of a cave system in the mountains can store 200 jets, protected from enemy missiles, according to Kolas Yotaka, a former presidential spokesperson who is running for governor of Hualien county. New reconnaissance drones and anti-ship missile systems are also to be installed along the east coast, according to government announcements.
Taiwan to boost defense spending to deter China’s military threat
“We cannot be so naive as to think China will not attack,” Yotaka said. “The front line is no longer just in the west, in Kinmen and Matsu,” she said, referring to the Taiwan-controlled islands closer to China. “Now the east coast is a front line.”
Across Taiwan, citizens are thinking more seriously about the possibility of war, inspired in part by Ukraine’s resistance against Russia. Former soldiers, politicians and nongovernmental organizations hold training sessions in self-defense and first-aid, as well as talks on how an attack by China might unfold. An annual four-day air raid drill in July was expanded to require some residents to hide in shelters.
For many, the question is when, not if, Beijing will make good on its threats. Having seen the crushing of Hong Kong’s democracy movement, residents like Wang and his friends in Hualien have little faith in Beijing’s promises of autonomy under a similar two-systems arrangement.
“Nothing they say is believable,” Liao said. “We need to learn more to save and help ourselves.”
A full-scale invasion of Taiwan would involve an amphibious landing, necessitating the transportation of huge numbers of soldiers, armor and supplies across the notoriously rough, 100-mile-wide strait. Military experts say the People’s Liberation Army is not yet equipped to pull it off, although China’s military capacity is growing.
While Taiwan’s presidential election next year could affect Beijing’s calculus, national security officials and government advisers in Taiwan cite two particular dates on the calendar. By 2027, the Chinese military may be capable of launching a full attack on Taiwan, according to congressional testimony last year by the then-commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. Philip Davidson. The year 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, is Xi’s target deadline for realizing China’s “great rejuvenation.”
“We don’t have much time to prepare ourselves, and our resources are far less than China’s. It’s an extreme imbalance,” said Lee Hsi Ming, former chief of general staff of Taiwan’s armed forces.
Xi is constrained by the fact that an attack would be a huge gamble, potentially miring China in a costly war with the United States. Despite increasingly aggressive posturing, Beijing has taken steps to prevent fraught U. S-China ties from worsening. Xi and Biden, who spoke by phone before Pelosi’s visit, are expected to meet on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in November.
Short of a full-scale attack, Xi has other options. These include ramping up sanctions on Taiwanese businesses, escalating gray-zone tactics — coercive actions that stop short of conflict but exhaust the island’s military — and further isolating Taipei on the global stage.
Their fruit forbidden in China, Taiwan’s pomelo growers feel squeeze
“It’s a constant warning to Taiwan and the U.S. that China could do more, that it could go further,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the German Marshall Fund’s Asia program. “They want to squeeze the ability of Taiwan to exercise its own sovereignty until, eventually, the people of Taiwan say, ‘Our lives aren’t going to get better until we agree to be part of mainland China.’ ”
Yet, as China applies increasing pressure, Taiwan’s people see themselves as ever more distinct from those across the strait — and by extension, less inclined to accept rule by the People’s Republic. After the PLA fired missiles close to Taiwan in March 1996 in retaliation for then-President Lee Teng-hui’s visit to the United States, the percentage of people who identified solely as Taiwanese shot up to 34 percent in 1997 from 25 percent two years earlier, according to an annual survey by the National Chengchi University. By 2020, those expressing Taiwanese identity reached 64 percent following the crackdown on Hong Kong. The figure has hovered around that level since.
“For Taiwanese people, every time they experience China’s provocations, it just adds to a sense of opposition — that we’re not the same,” said Liya Chen, an independent journalist and host of the podcast “One Story in Taipei.” “If someone is pointing a gun at you, would that make you want to join them?”
For teens Wang, Chen and Liao, the answer to how they would respond to a call to fight China is simple: They would have no choice.
Watching China’s efforts to pressure Taiwan and noting the risks of their homeland being caught between two major powers, China and the United States, they believe it’s possible they will see war in their lifetimes. They wonder if adults are too busy working to think about these issues. Ukraine has been an instructive example.
“In the 21st century, there can still be this kind of war …” Liao started to say.
“Where a big country would go to war just for the sake of a small piece of land,” Chen added.
“Humans never learn their lessons,” Wang said, shaking his head.
Pei-Lin Wu contributed to this report. | 2022-10-12T07:46:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taiwan weighs threat of war with China as Xi takes on third term - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/china-taiwan-war-xi-jinping/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/china-taiwan-war-xi-jinping/ |
Amazon will open center in Arlington to teach cloud computing
Amazon Web Services is opening a facility near its Arlington headquarters to provide cloud computing classes and job training. (Amazon Web Services)
Amazon’s cloud computing arm will open a training facility in Arlington’s Crystal City neighborhood this month, the company said, part of its effort to engage with area residents and expand the local tech workforce as it builds a new headquarters nearby.
The 10,000-square-foot “skills center” will include interactive exhibits on the role of cloud computing as well as classrooms where adults can take free, in-person classes on this ubiquitous technology, which allows customers to rent data storage and processing capability over the web.
The facility, which is modeled after a similar space in Seattle, will also host networking events and connect area residents with job opportunities and career coaching in connection with Amazon Web Services, the tech giant’s cloud computing business. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
“Whether they don’t know what the cloud is yet or they have some IP experience, there will be opportunities for lots of different kinds of learners to pick up and develop skills on the cloud,” said Kevin Kelly, AWS’s director of cloud career training programs.
As Amazon and other tech giants expand their corporate presence in Northern Virginia, economic development experts have emphasized that these companies must focus on building a diverse tech pipeline — or risk exacerbating inequities within the D.C. area’s labor market.
Amazon will bring more than 25,000 workers to the region as it opens its new headquarters. Experts weigh in on how this could impact gentrification and jobs. (Video: Hadley Green/The Washington Post, Photo: Jackie Lay/The Washington Post)
Amazon is set to bring in at least 25,000 highly paid jobs to its new offices in Arlington. (The company stands to receive up to $573 million in subsidies from local and state governments if it meets hiring and occupancy targets, or as much as $773 million if it exceeds them.)
The company was in part lured to Northern Virginia by the state’s Tech Talent Investment Program, which has set a goal of producing an additional 25,000 graduates in computer science and related fields over two decades, including at Virginia Tech’s new graduate engineering campus in Alexandria.
As other companies have moved in nearby, they have also announced their own tech training efforts. Boeing, which is relocating its headquarters to Crystal City, announced in June that it is working to establish a workforce development center for military veterans at the Virginia Tech campus.
Hub for military vets coming to Virginia Tech’s new Alexandria campus
AWS is also helping fund a STEM-focused tech lab that opened in August at Wakefield High School, about five miles from Amazon’s second headquarters. That facility — proposed by Wakefield teacher Wendy Maitland — will include tech stations in areas such as virtual reality, 3D printing and robotics to teach technology skills to Arlington Public Schools students.
The Arlington skills center, which will open to the public on Tuesday, will be operational five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday. Kelly said the facility will also offer resources to help gain certification in cloud computing basics — a helpful tool for workers in industries that are increasingly being shaped by cloud computing.
“The cloud has a lot of employment opportunities for people that want to upskill, reskill or skill themselves in the cloud,” he said. “And even if they’re currently employed, the cloud is increasingly becoming a part of a lot of job roles.”
AWS has for decades maintained a strong presence in Northern Virginia, tapping into the region’s resources — including lots of empty land, business-friendly politics, and robust power and broadband connections — to build, equip and run more than 50 data centers that support its cloud computing business.
That network has helped make Amazon the dominant force in the cloud computing industry: AWS held just under 39 percent of the worldwide market for infrastructure cloud services in 2021, according to market research firm Gartner, nearly double that of its closest rival.
Virginia drivers can pay a new fee by mile. It’s already nation’s largest system. | 2022-10-12T08:16:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amazon Web Services to teach cloud computing at Arlington skills center - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/amazon-aws-skills-center-arlington/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/amazon-aws-skills-center-arlington/ |
Man struck, killed on I-95 after leaving disabled car
Car that hit him ‘attempted to leave the scene but was stopped by witnesses,’ police say
A motorist was killed on Interstate 95 in Fairfax County on Tuesday after stepping out of his disabled car, the Virginia State Police said.
The man was struck by another vehicle around 3 p.m. after he got out of his car on the shoulder of the highway to see what was wrong, police said.
His car was stopped on the southbound shoulder at the 169 mile marker, in the Newington area, according to state police.
They said he was returning to the car when the other vehicle ran off the road and struck him. He died at a hospital, police said. No name was immediately available.
The car that hit him “attempted to leave the scene but was stopped by witnesses,” state police said in a statement.
The incident remained under investigation, police said Tuesday night. | 2022-10-12T08:16:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man killed on I-95 after leaving disabled car, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/man-killed-i95-disabled-car/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/man-killed-i95-disabled-car/ |
Vasapa Wanichwethin
Cremation ceremonies were held Oct. 11 for the children and others who died in a mass killing attack at a day-care center in northeast Thailand. (Video: Reuters)
Top officials in Thailand are seeking to tighten the nation’s gun laws after a former police officer killed 36 people, including 24 children, in one of the country’s worst mass slaughters in recent memory.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha ordered authorities this week to revoke gun licenses from people determined to have behaved in a way that “threatens society” or “creates chaos or unrest,” government spokesperson Anucha Burapachaisri said in a statement. The prime minister also ordered a crackdown on sales and possession of illegal guns and told officials to step up drug testing among government officials.
The Oct 6. massacre at a day-care center took place in a country that already had relatively restrictive regulations on firearms. There is no automatic right to own a gun, and permits are not allowed for people who have been convicted of serious crimes, those who have been deemed mentally ill or people with no income. Each gun requires a permit, and applicants must explain why they seek a license.
But Thai civilians still hold an estimated 10.3 million legal and illegal guns, according to the 2018 Small Arms Survey, the most of any country in Southeast Asia, and gun control efforts have been challenged by significant smuggling. Guns have reportedly crossed Thailand’s border as a spillover from Myanmar’s civil war, and Bangkok has been battling an armed insurgency in the country’s south for decades. Government officials, who can purchase firearms at a discount, also have a relatively easy path to obtaining guns.
Concerns about access to weapons came to the fore after last week’s knife-and-gun rampage. Its death toll exceeded that of the 2012 shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 26, including 20 children. The Thai attacker had been fired from the police force after being caught with amphetamines, authorities said. He killed dozens and wounded many more at a day-care center in the rural northeastern region of Nong Bua Lamphu before killing his wife, their 3-year-old son and himself in his home.
Thailand has long struggled with small-scale gun violence but was still “rocked to its core” by the attack, said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division. “But there have been so many guns in Thailand — this place has been awash with guns for years. … I’m not surprised this is finally happening.”
Corrupt government officials are suspected of contributing to the spread of illegal guns. Earlier this year, a senior local official was arrested on suspicion of trafficking hundreds of firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition, Thai media reported. The Oct. 6 shooting is the second high-profile massacre perpetrated by a person with security force ties since early 2020, when a soldier fired rounds into a Buddhist temple, a mall and other public spaces, killing dozens.
Thailand logged roughly three firearm-related deaths per 100,000 people in 2019, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, against about four for the United States.
“There is an increasing trend of gun violence, but policies for controlling both legal and illegal access to guns are not concretely formalized,” said Krisanaphong Poothakool, a professor at Rangsit University, near Bangkok, who served in the Royal Thai Police for more than two decades.
After the Oct. 6 shooting, authorities moved to recall guns from officials who have misused them or behaved aggressively on duty, the state-affiliated Thai News Agency reported. Officials with gun licenses will also need to undergo regular mental health review under the new plans.
But it remains to be seen whether the new measures will amount to a serious effort to tackle firearm smuggling and gun violence. At a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Prayuth, the prime minister, emphasized the purported role of narcotics in last week’s rampage — police at first said the shooter was on drugs, though an initial autopsy reportedly found no traces — even as he pledged to better enforce gun laws, the Bangkok Post reported.
Kasulis Cho reported from Seoul. Vasapa reported from Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. | 2022-10-12T09:17:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Thailand tightens gun control after day-care mass shooting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/thailand-gun-control-daycare-mass-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/thailand-gun-control-daycare-mass-shooting/ |
Blink-182 reunites with Tom DeLonge for a world tour. Is pop-punk back?
Blink-182 performs at Jiffy Lube Live in 2019. (Josh Sisk for The Washington Post)
Blink-182, the rock trio that rose to fame in the late 1990s by fusing pop and punk music for the mainstream, is getting back together for the first time in years and going on a world tour.
The group announced the tour and an upcoming album on Tuesday, ahead of the scheduled release of their new single, “Edging,” on streaming platforms this Friday. Tom DeLonge, one of Blink-182’s founding members, will rejoin Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker for the first time in seven years, after quitting the band for a second time in 2015.
Blink-182, whose lyrics were rife with humor and teenage angst, sold more than 50 million albums with hits such as “What’s My Age Again?” and “All the Small Things.” Its new tour — which runs from March 2023 through February 2024 — is yet another sign that rock and pop-punk is slowly returning to the mainstream.
For years, genres like electronic dance music, hip-hop and bedroom pop have hogged music charts. But artists such as Avril Lavigne, Machine Gun Kelly, Olivia Rodrigo, Willow Smith and Billie Eilish have all released songs in the past two years that venture into punk or rock.
“It makes perfect sense … that rock music is having a resurgence. And when you have a resurgence, there’s always the legends who were there and influenced it coming back around,” said Michael Kaminsky, founder and president of the artist management group KMGMT.
Blink-182 last released an album in 2019, but its members have remained in the public eye. Barker, the drummer, married Kourtney Kardashian earlier this year after courting her in front of cameras for the first season of the famous family’s Hulu show. He has also collaborated with younger stars such as Willow Smith and Machine Gun Kelly.
He “has always remained cool and hip, and does a lot of recording with a lot of up-and-coming groups,” said Bobby Borg, a musician and author. “I think that’s what kind of makes them able to do resurgence tours — they’re still respected and looked at as relevant.”
Hoppus, the band’s bassist and singer, also made headlines after he announced last year that he had been receiving treatment for cancer. DeLonge, a guitarist and singer, is well known for his theories on UFOs and aliens, publishing videos that were later declassified and released by the Pentagon.
Tom DeLonge defined pop-punk with Blink-182. He left stardom behind to study aliens.
Among the other signs of a pop-punk comeback is Las Vegas music festival When We Were Young, which is known for its 2000s emo lineup. Next year, performers will include headliners Blink-182 and Green Day, along with My Chemical Romance, Good Charlotte, the Offspring, Rise Against, Yellowcard, Sum 41 and Simple Plan.
“Blink-182 influenced a whole generation of music that came after them and set that foundation for punk rock,” said Sophie Reeves, an executive producer at creative studio Production Club. “I think there’s definitely a hope that this music will make a stronger comeback.”
“Plaid skirts, combat boots, ripped jeans, leather — you’re seeing that again, and I just chuckle,” Borg said. | 2022-10-12T09:56:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Blink-182 reunites for world tour with Tom DeLonge - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/12/blink182-world-tour-2023-reunion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/12/blink182-world-tour-2023-reunion/ |
Banned from marrying in their home countries, gay couples turn to Utah’s Zoom weddings
Hongjian Duan, left, and Zhenyu Yang on the day of their Zoom marriage in Chongqing, China. (Courtesy of Hongjian Duan)
Hongjian Duan and Zhenyu Yang wanted to get married for over two years, ever since they began dating in their home province of Chongqing, China.
“We’ve been completely obsessed with each other since we met,” said Duan, 29. “But there is no opportunity for [LGBTQ people] to get married in China.”
Same-sex marriage is illegal in China, but Duan said he and Yang, 23, were surprised to learn they could get married via Zoom by an officiant in Utah County, one of the most conservative counties in the United States.
Although their union would not be legally acknowledged in China, a marriage performed by the Utah County Marriage License Office in Provo, Utah, would provide a formal recognition of their love, Duan said.
So on Oct. 10, they put on their favorite shirts and were married at midnight in their apartment in front of a lit-up “I do” sign as Duan’s parents looked on via Zoom as witnesses.
“Since we met, the distance between us has been less than one centimeter,” Yang said in Chinese through an interpreter. “We knew we could not be separated.”
Duan responded in English: “I will love you until the end of time. I will be here no matter what happens. Stay with me — make all our dreams come true. Tell me you will be mine.”
After the pair exchanged rings and joyfully kissed, they were declared legally wed by Ben Frei, a Utah County deputy clerk who has performed dozens of same-sex marriages for LGBTQ couples from China.
Since the spring of 2020, the Utah County office has performed virtual weddings for thousands of international couples, including 585 Chinese couples, said Russ Rampton, deputy clerk of digital marriage-license services for the county.
About 150 of those Chinese marriages involved same-gender couples such as Duan and Yang, he said.
Utah County is largely populated with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which opposes same-sex marriage. But personal beliefs shouldn’t get in the way of the law, Rampton said.
“If you believe in individual liberty, same-gender marriage is a natural consequence of that,” he said. “Love spans all nations, cultures and languages. Same-sex marriage is legal in the United States, so we follow the law.”
Cities have turned parks into orchards where anyone can pick for free
Utah County had already decided to do Zoom weddings before the covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, he said, noting that the marriage license office was up and running shortly before everything shut down for weeks in the United States.
“We initially had set it up for residents of Utah County, so they wouldn’t have to travel as far to come to our office and get married,” Rampton said. “Then during the pandemic, even Las Vegas shut down.”
People started driving to Provo from all over the West, he said, because Utah County kept its marriage bureau open for in-person weddings.
“We also offered weddings over Zoom, so people who found themselves on the other side of their borders during the pandemic began calling us due to the travel restrictions,” he added.
LGBTQ couples from countries such as Russia, the Philippines and China that don’t acknowledge same-sex marriage soon discovered they could get legally married through Utah County’s Zoom service, Rampton said.
Anyone is eligible for the nuptials as long as they provide proof they are of legal age, fill out all of the required forms online and pay a $35 fee, he said.
The county also allows other licensed wedding officiants from Utah to marry couples remotely via Zoom. Michael Foley, a radio host from St. George, Utah, said he has married about a dozen LGBTQ Chinese couples and sent them marriage licenses through Utah County.
“Their marriages aren’t recognized in China, but they’re recognized here,” said Foley, noting that he usually wears his pajama bottoms to marry couples via Zoom at 3 a.m. Utah time on the weekends.
“I love doing this — it’s like a Hallmark Christmas movie every time,” he said. “To turn on my laptop and look into the eyes of a couple clearly in love and committed to each other is a wonderful thing.”
For Duan and Yang, who both work as office assistants in Chongqing, seeing an ad online that they could get married remotely with help from a Utah officiant was life-changing, they said.
“I proposed to Zhenyu, and we knew that marriage would be extremely fantastic for both of us,” Duan said. “It’s an all-new experience we’ve never had, so we were really excited.”
At precisely midnight in China, Frei called the proceedings to order from his Utah County office, more than 7,000 miles away.
“You’re choosing each other because you love each other,” Frei told Duan and Yang. “The two of you complete each other and complement each other, and I know you’ll do amazing things together because of your experiences and your hearts’ love.”
When Frei asked the couple whether they wanted to be referred to as spouses, partners or husbands during the ceremony, Duan quickly chimed in:
“I want to be the wife, and Zhenyu will be the husband,” he said.
That was fine with Frei.
“Okay, here we go,” he said. “I want you to put your wedding rings on your pinkie fingers so you can exchange them.”
Frei then went through his usual instructions for the couple to “cleave unto each other in times of sickness, health, rich, poor, fat, thin, ‘covid-22,’ wars, riots, natural disasters, ups, downs, celebrations, triumphs, families, friends and neighbors until death you do part.”
“Yes, I do, your honor,” both men replied.
After they kissed and embraced, Duan expressed his hope that their union will one day be recognized in their homeland.
“Time changes, and people change too,” he said. “The old era has gone, and the new one becomes more and more supportive and embraces many things.
“Love is love,” Duan said. | 2022-10-12T10:05:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | LGBTQ Chinese couples are getting married via Utah Zoom ceremonies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/12/gay-marriage-chinese-zoom-utah/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/12/gay-marriage-chinese-zoom-utah/ |
Takeaways from The Post’s investigation of deforestation in the Amazon
The Ituí and Itaquaí rivers in the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory in Brazil's Amazonas state. (Rafael Vilela for The Washington Post)
The lawless destruction of the Amazon rainforest is an emergency that touches us all: A unique resource seen as vital to averting catastrophic global warming is being decimated. Under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, deforestation is at a 15-year high. And the forest is racing toward what scientists warn is a tipping point, when it can no longer maintain its base ecology and suffers a spreading dieback. In this series, The Washington Post travels to some of the Amazon’s most remote and dangerous regions to reveal how crime, corruption and greed are leading to its systematic dismantling — and how Brazil, and the world, are failing to ensure the integrity of the planet’s largest rainforest.
1. Beef is the killer — and America is complicit.
The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed to make room for cattle pasture. Brazil is the world’s biggest exporter of beef, and much of it has come at the expense of the Amazon. One of the biggest buyers is the United States, where companies import hundreds of millions of pounds of Brazilian beef every year and are under no obligation to warn the American consumer of its origin. By analyzing thousands of cattle shipment and purchase logs, The Post traced deforestation-tainted beef from the rainforest to the United States and exposed the broken system that enables the trade.
2. Brazil has the tools to make the beef industry less destructive, but has declined to use them.
Brazil’s leading meatpackers, under pressure from federal attorneys, have largely prohibited the purchase of cattle from farms that have been accused of illegal deforestation. But this has only pushed the destruction out of sight. Ranchers routinely shuffle cattle from farm to farm to avoid the detection system, and meatpackers look the other way. The system has a potential fix: Each time cattle are moved, an animal transfer record is created. The government or meatpackers could use that information to determine whether cattle come from illegally deforested land. But the Brazilian government has blocked access to the records.
3. Those accused of destroying the forest are often the very ones charged with protecting it.
People accused of environmental wrongdoing have won public office in the Amazon more than 1,900 times, according to a Post analysis of thousands of federal infractions and candidate records. Those facing such accusations have pumped nearly $37 million into the coffers of politicians who frequently call for the loosening of environmental restrictions. In the Amazon, environmental wrongdoers get rich — and the rich win public office.
4. Brazil has lost nearly a fifth of its Amazon rainforest, but few have been held accountable.
The law enforcement system created to fight illegal deforestation is failing at virtually every level. Agencies gutted during the Bolsonaro administration fail to detect the majority of deforestation. The few fines that are assessed are rarely paid. Illegal deforestation is punishable by prison, but in the rare instances that offenders are convicted, few are sentenced. The Post analyzed a year’s worth of criminal cases and was unable to find a single person imprisoned for illegal deforestation.
5. Killing accompanies illegal deforestation — and is done with impunity.
The Amazon is a land of conflict, contested by many: Indigenous peoples, cattle ranchers, river dwellers and criminals. The disputes that erupt among them often lead to killings, but the vast majority of deaths go unsolved. Illegal land grabbers invade territory with the intent of “flipping” it — transforming it from pristine forest with little economic value to deforested land that can be sold with fraudulent papers and put to agricultural use. The people who get in the way of that plan, who are overwhelmingly poor or Indigenous, are often killed. In June, activist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips were shot dead after visiting an Indigenous surveillance team monitoring illegal poaching in the remote Javari Valley Indigenous Territory.
The Post's Terrence McCoy traveled to the location where journalist Dom Phillips and activist Bruno Pereira were killed, to investigate their deaths. (Video: Rafael Vilela, Terrence McCoy, Alexa Juliana Ard/The Washington Post)
6. Many of the problems preceded Bolsonaro, but they have intensified during his administration.
Brazil has long struggled to bring order to the Amazon, a vast territory with little state presence. Many law enforcement agencies have for years complained of insufficient resources and nettlesome bureaucracy. But the challenges have deepened significantly during Bolsonaro’s four years in office. The president has repeatedly assailed the institutions charged with protecting the Amazon and its Indigenous communities. Ibama, the chief environmental law enforcement agency, issues just a fraction of the environment infractions it once did. Funai, the government’s Indigenous affairs agency, has become so weakened that poachers in the remote Javari Valley Indigenous Territory have attacked its surveillance base repeatedly. | 2022-10-12T10:49:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Deforestation in the Amazon: Takeaways from The Post’s investigation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/amazon-deforestation-takeaways/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/amazon-deforestation-takeaways/ |
‘Till’ lands a gut punch with the tale of Emmett Till’s murder
Danielle Deadwyler’s performance is Oscar-worthy as the mother of the teenager whose 1955 lynching helped spark the civil rights movement
The image, in his casket, of the murdered Emmett Till, the Black 14-year-old lynched in 1955 Mississippi after reportedly wolf-whistling at a White woman, Carolyn Bryant, is said to have added urgency to the civil rights movement. Disfigured in death, Till’s swollen, virtually unrecognizable face was made famous in a photograph by David Jackson, first published in Jet magazine, showing the boy’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, looking down on her son. The implication of the violence visited upon him by two White men — Bryant’s then-husband, Roy Bryant, and his half brother J.W. Milam, who confessed to the killing in a 1956 magazine profile but have never been convicted of any crime — was more hideous than anything captured on film.
Retropolis: Emmett Till’s mother opened his casket and sparked the civil rights movement
“Till” is no mere period piece, either. Although closing on-screen titles tell us the fates of several characters (most notably Evers, who would be assassinated in 1963 in front of his wife and children), the film ends with other dark echoes. Some of them still reverberate today, with reports of attempts to suppress Black votes and the disproportionate — and disproportionately violent — policing of Black bodies. Propelled by Deadwyler’s unforgettable portrayal, “Till” leaves us with a sense of an indictment still unanswered in 2022. It’s one that is implicit in the second meaning of the film’s provisional-sounding title: the word “till,” as in until.
PG-13. At area theaters. Contains mature thematic material involving racism, strong disturbing images and racial slurs. 130 minutes. | 2022-10-12T11:19:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Till’ lands a gut punch in the tale of Emmett Till’s murder - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/12/till-movie-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/12/till-movie-review/ |
Sudan Archives will perform at the Black Cat. (Edwig Henson)
Sudan Archives is the alter ego of Brittney Parks, a singer-songwriter and experimental artist who learned to play the violin — the instrument central to her songs — by ear. Her 2019 debut, “Athena,” was full of lush compositions with deceptively pop-friendly melodies, like on “Confessions,” and songs that confronted expectations of Black women in music, especially when the violin is concerned: Song title “Black Vivaldi Sonata” is a shot across the bow, in more ways than one. Her latest album, “Natural Brown Prom Queen,” confronts those issues even more unapologetically. “It’s my time to have joy — to have Black girl joy,” she told NPR. “Making art, loving, dancing.” Oct. 14 at 8 p.m. (doors open) at the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. blackcatdc.com. $20.
Cash Langdon
After several years in the D.C. scene, singer-songwriter Cash Langdon returned home to Birmingham, Ala., in 2021. The move — in the wake of the pandemic and protests against racial violence — put the focus on his home state, for better and worse, on new album “Sinister Feeling.” “The album mostly has to do with my reframing of my own life in Alabama — being so highly critical of it when I moved away, and feeling much more settled and comfortable now,” he says. Langdon’s new music is more stripped down than the other projects he’s been part of — the power pop of Saturday Night, the synth-driven karaoke of Palette or the shoegazing duo Caution — but these shimmering summer strummers conceal pessimistic messages inside familiar pop melodies. Oct. 17 at 8:30 p.m. (doors open) at Quarry House Tavern, 8401 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring. quarryhousetavern.com. $13. Proof of vaccination required.
At 55 years old, Smashing Pumpkins mastermind Billy Corgan is technically approaching the autumn of his life, although you wouldn’t know it from the uber-prolific rocker’s plans for the next year. Alongside founding members James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin, the Pumpkins are about to release “Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts,” a concept album that serves as a sequel to genre-defining double record “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” and “Machina/The Machines of God,” which capped off the band’s first period. Corgan and company plan to release the album in three parts, and the first glimpse, “Beguiled,” entreats the listener to “return the faith” over a metallic palm-muted riff reminiscent of the band’s old days. Oct. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at Capital One Arena, 601 F St. NW. capitalonearena.com. $49-$150.
Josiah Wise has found his own way through music, from a youth in the choir to time in Philly’s neo-soul scene to his time as Serpentwithfeet, a project that filters his gospel and classical inspirations through the far reaches of experimental R&B. Whether over the clattering electronic productions of “Soil,” the gentle, nostalgic songs of “Deacon,” or the club-ready “I’m Pressed” — a single perfect for house music’s recent moment in the spotlight — the unifying force of Serpentwithfeet’s music is his powerful, melismatic singing voice and the vulnerable exploration of queer Black life and love of his lyrics. After collaborating with the likes of Moby and Ty Dolla $ign, Serpentwithfeet appeared on the new album by Bjork, a duet partner with similarly idiosyncratic aims. Oct. 19 at 8 p.m. at Union Stage, 740 Water St. SW. unionstage.com. $20. | 2022-10-12T11:19:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 4 concerts to catch in D.C.: Oct. 14-20 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/12/concerts-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/12/concerts-dc/ |
Erica Dawn Lyle mixes music and activism on her latest project
Proceeds from a compilation featuring collaborations with women in punk benefit Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust
Erica Dawn Lyle, shown here performing with Bikini Kill. (Rayna Zemel)
In the summer of 2020, as the pandemic took hold and protests against police violence erupted, mutual aid saw a resurgence in attention and application. The idea of self-organized, non-hierarchical community service made sense for people seeking real ways to help those on the front lines of the twin crises, whether marginalized folks who saw already precarious situations worsen or people who lost financial security due to lockdowns and closures.
Musicians have a unique relationship with mutual aid. As concerts and tours were canceled (and continue to be, as the pandemic enters an endemic phase), musicians needed ways to stay solvent without their chief source of income. At the same time, the ability to make and share music has long been used as a carrot to encourage fundraising for causes that benefit some of the same communities as mutual aid.
Erica Dawn Lyle is no stranger to mutual aid and its connection to music. Along with being a musician, Lyle is a writer and artist who came of age in the South Florida punk scene, documenting the connections between punk and its inherent activism and anarchism in the zine Scam.
“It was very clear to me from a very early age that if I wanted any sort of interesting or resistant or vibrant culture to happen that I was going to have to make it myself with the people around me, because it was not presented on the menu of the mainstream society there,” Lyle says.
So when Bikini Kill — the legendary riot grrrl pioneers she had joined in 2019 — canceled its 2020 tour dates, Lyle decided to take advantage of the situation and tap into the spirit of cooperation that existed at the beginning of the pandemic. She teamed with producer and Bikini Kill drum tech Vice Cooler on a collection of songs that they’d ask other musicians to sing on. Signing up collaborators was easy; finishing the project amid fraught times was not.
“People would be like, ‘Yeah, I totally want to do this,’ and then they’d be like, ‘Oh, the National Guard is in front of my house, there are protests going on, there’s tear gas everywhere. … Can I put off the deadline?’ ” Lyle says. “Or, ‘The sky is black with wildfire smoke this month, and I can’t breathe, let alone sing, so maybe I can try again in October.’ ”
Eventually, the chaos died down and the contributions poured in, spanning generations of women in punk, from Alice Bag and Kim Gordon to Kathleen Hanna and Kelley Deal to Katie Alice Greer and the Linda Lindas. All proceeds from the resulting compilation, “Land Trust,” go directly to Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, a grass-roots organization that seeks to connect farmers who are Indigenous people and people of color to land.
“Their approach is so materially tangible and direct. They are literally acquiring land and setting up collectively,” Lyle says. “I was excited about the idea of making a record that would materially benefit people so directly: Every dollar that goes toward this record is literally going to purchase land for someone.”
Oct. 14 at 8:30 p.m. at the Runaway, 3523 12th St. NE. therunawaydc.com. $15. | 2022-10-12T11:19:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Erica Dawn Lyle on "Land Trust," a mutual aid project - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/12/erica-dawn-lyle-interview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/12/erica-dawn-lyle-interview/ |
Pedestrian killed on Indian Head Highway in Maryland
Police are investigating the death of a pedestrian on Indian Head Highway on Tuesday night. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Officials said a pedestrian was struck and killed by a vehicle along Indian Head Highway in Maryland.
The incident happened around 11 p.m. Tuesday on the highway near Kerby Hill Road in the Accokeek area. Police arrived and found a man in the road. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The victim’s name was not immediately released, pending the notification of his family. No further details were immediately available. | 2022-10-12T11:19:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pedestrian struck and killed on Indian Head Highway in MD - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/pedestrian-struck-killed-on-indian-head-highway/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/pedestrian-struck-killed-on-indian-head-highway/ |
The aftermath of a Russian missile strike near Tower 101, not far from Kyiv's main train station, on Tuesday. (Ed Ram/Getty Images)
Russia’s missile strikes on Ukrainian cities Monday, which President Vladimir Putin said targeted “energy, military command and communications facilities,” also hit downtown streets, a playground and residential areas, bearing a grim resemblance to Russia’s brutally indiscriminate military style in Syria, where the Kremlin’s new top commander of the war on Ukraine, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, rose to prominence.
It is unclear whether Monday’s barrage, which continued to a lesser degree Tuesday, marked a shift in tactics that will characterize the war for months to come.
But Surovikin, whose appointment was announced by Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday, is most assuredly tasked with shifting results on the battlefield, where Russian forces have suffered a string of setbacks, including a near total rout in the northeast Kharkiv region and territorial losses throughout regions that Putin claims to have annexed in violation of international law.
Surovikin, 56, who earned the nickname “General Armageddon” in Syria, is the first overarching commander of the onslaught in Ukraine to be designated publicly by the Russian government.
The announcement coincided with the explosion on the Crimean Bridge, a monument to Moscow’s 2014 land grab of the Crimean Peninsula and a pet project for Putin that has served as a vital conduit from Russia to the battlefield for troops, weapons, equipment and other supplies.
Just two days after the bridge blast, which Putin has blamed on Ukraine’s special services, Moscow unleashed “high-precision, long-range weapons from the air, sea and land” to bombard Kyiv, Dnipro and other Ukrainian cities during the morning rush hour. It was probably one of the first orders given with Surovikin officially in his new role.
Such a merciless bombing represents a style of warfare similar to what Russian generals became infamous for employing during the 2015 incursion into Syria, when Moscow sent thousands of troops to prop up the government of Bashar al-Assad. The aerial bombardments left Syrians reeling and caused widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure. Some Ukrainians are fearful they will now suffer the same fate.
Surovikin did not invent those tactics, nor was he the only commander to oversee them — but he was particularly successful. In recognition, Putin awarded Surovikin the Hero of the Russian Federation medal, the country’s highest honor.
“He is being called the ‘Butcher of Syria,’ but every general that took that post was a butcher of Syria,” said Kirill Mikhailov, a researcher with the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), which has been monitoring Russian military activities since 2014. “It’s a job you take because killing people and making their life miserable is what the Russian Air Force can do best.”
Surovikin’s first tour in Syria took place in March 2017 and was supposed to last about three months as Moscow sought to give firsthand combat experience to as many high-ranking officers as possible. But Surovikin ended up overseeing the campaign until the end of the year and was promoted to Air Force commander, despite moving up the ranks as an army general leading tank units, among others.
The Russian Defense Ministry repeatedly credited Surovikin with achieving critical gains in Syria, saying that Russian and Syrian forces had “liberated over 98 percent” of the country under him.
“The Syrian army under him lifted the siege of the strategic city of Deir Ez-Zor and recaptured Palmyra for the second and last time, which was quite an important part of the fight against ISIS,” Mikhailov said, referring to the Islamic State terrorist group. “The thing specific to Surovikin is that he actually fought with ISIS, which you could say is a more formidable enemy than just Syrian rebels.”
A 2020 Human Rights Watch report said that air and ground attacks on civilian sites, including residential homes, schools and hospitals, were a hallmark of Russia’s campaign in Idlib, which Surovikin participated in during his second tour in 2019. The report listed him as one of the commanders “who may bear command responsibility for violations” during the Idlib offensive.
Pro-Kremlin media outlets lionized him as “General Armageddon.”
“He received this unofficial nickname from colleagues for his ability to think outside the box and act tough,” the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper wrote in a June profile.
Most recently, the CIT said, Surovikin was rumored to be key in holding the line of Russian defenses in the southern Kherson region, where Moscow’s troops were forced to retreat from the western bank of the Dnieper River but where the front has not crumbled as quickly as it did near Kharkiv in the northeast.
Units under Surovikin’s command killed three civilians — Dmitry Komar, Ilya Krichevsky and Vladimir Usov. After the failed coup, Surovikin was jailed for several months but then freed and never convicted of any crime as prosecutors in Moscow ruled that he was simply obeying an order, Russian state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported in 2011.
Surovikin’s loyalty to the Armed Forces in its futile attempt to save the Soviet Union from inevitable collapse has been celebrated by modern-day Russian hard-liners who see the conquest of Ukraine as a steppingstone to the restoration of the Russian empire.
“Surovikin is a legendary person, he was born to faithfully serve the Motherland,” Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg businessman who founded the Wagner private military company and has recruited prisoners to serve as mercenaries and bolster Russian ranks in Ukraine, said in a statement. “We all remember the events at the White House in August 1991, and Surovikin was the officer who received an order and without hesitation got into a tank and rushed to save his country.”
Throughout Surovikin’s career, the Russian media described him as a harsh and, occasionally, ruthless leader.
“In the army, he is known as an ardent supporter of unity of command and installing order with an ‘iron fist,’ ” Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported in 2008 when Surovikin was appointed chief of the main operational directorate of the Russian general staff.
According to a 2004 report in the business daily Kommersant, a colonel serving under him had killed himself after a heated dressing down he received from Surovikin. The same report stated that a lieutenant colonel from Surovikin’s division sent a complaint to the military prosecutor’s office accusing Surovikin and other officers of beating him because of political differences.
“He is known to be quite harsh and cruel, so he is not a very pleasant commander to have, as I understand,” Mikhailov said. “However, when a commander is being chosen, the important part is not even some tactical acumen or the impression he has on the subordinates — but the one he has on the superiors along with a perception that he is prepared to fight a real war.”
Surovikin has taken the helm with the Russian invasion arguably at its lowest point since it started, on Feb. 24. A Ukrainian counteroffensive routed Russian forces from key strongholds in the east. Moscow’s troops are exhausted. And a mobilization intended to call up hundreds of thousands of reinforcements has led to an exodus of fighting-age men from the country, as well as reports by conscripts that they are ill-equipped and receiving poor training.
Monday’s heavy missile bombardment has been praised by pro-Kremlin military correspondents who in recent weeks had been speaking in defeated tones about Ukraine’s battlefield gains.
“New attacks on critical infrastructure in Vinnytsia region, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv region, Kyiv, Lviv, Rivne, Odessa region, Khmelnytsky,” popular war reporter and blogger Alexander Kots crowed on his Telegram blog on Tuesday, listing Ukrainian cities targeted by Russian missiles. “In honor of General Surovikin’s birthday, we ask the radio to play ‘Don’t stop me now’ by Queen.”
“Shuffling senior commanders will not fix the systemic problems that have hamstrung Russian operations, logistics, defense industry, and mobilization from the outset of the invasion,” the Institute of the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in a recent analysis, adding that Putin “can only hope thereby to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensives for a time.” | 2022-10-12T11:23:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sergei Surovikin, Russia's Ukraine war chief, known for Syria brutality - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/sergei-surovikin-russia-ukraine-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/sergei-surovikin-russia-ukraine-war/ |
Carbon monoxide leak at Pennsylvania day care sickens children, staff
Emergency responders work on the scene of a carbon monoxide leak at a day-care center in Allentown, Pa., on Tuesday. (Zach DeWever/AP)
Nearly three dozen adults and children were evacuated from a day-care center in Allentown, Pa., on Tuesday after emergency workers responding to a report of an unconscious child detected carbon monoxide, an invisible, odorless gas that kills hundreds of people in the United States every year.
Of the 27 children and eight adults who were evacuated from Happy Smiles Learning Center, at least 28 were taken to four area hospitals, officials said. A malfunctioning heating unit and a blocked venting system had caused the leak, investigators told the local Morning Call newspaper.
“Thank you to our neighboring municipalities who also responded quickly and arrived on scene to offer mutual aid,” Allentown’s city government said in a statement. All patients are “stable and there’s no ongoing danger to the neighborhood or the community.” The center’s license has been suspended in the wake of the incident, the statement said.
Patients had three to 10 times the normal amount of carbon monoxide in their blood, Andrew Miller, chief of pediatric emergency medicine for Lehigh Valley Health Network, said in a statement, according to local media.
At least 400 people in the United States die of non-fire-related carbon monoxide poisoning each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 4,000 are hospitalized.
Two people dead, another suffers ‘life-threatening injuries’ after likely carbon monoxide exposure in Maryland
Allentown’s city council passed a safety ordinance in February mandating day-care facilities to install carbon monoxide detectors. But the Happy Smiles Learning Center and the city’s 160 other day-care centers had until Oct. 27 to comply, and the center had passed an inspection in July. Happy Smiles owner Jesenia Gautreaux told the Morning Call that the center didn’t have detectors but that she intended to have them installed.
The Happy Smiles Learning Center and the Allentown Fire Department could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday night.
The incident prompted a state legislator to renew calls for colleagues to pass a pending bill that would require child-care centers across Pennsylvania to install carbon monoxide detectors.
Tragedy “was narrowly avoided,” said state Sen. Wayne D. Fontana (D) in an email sent to fellow lawmakers in Pennsylvania that he later posted on his website. “I urge you to pass Senate Bill 129, which is currently in the House Health Committee, that would require inexpensive battery-operated devices” be placed in child-care centers, he said.
The bill passed the Pennsylvania Senate unanimously last month and at least twice before in previous years according to Fontana. It awaits approval from the lower legislative chamber. Pennsylvania’s state House Rep. Jeanne McNeill (D) urged the House to bring the safety bill to a floor vote in a short statement on Twitter that mentioned Tuesday’s incident.
One child who was evacuated from the facility appeared shaken, saying in an interview with a local television station that she had got nervous after seeing a classmate on the floor with his eyes closed. She remembered getting dizzy and feeling pain in her head, which are symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. Vomiting, chest pain and nausea are also signs.
Many unintentional carbon monoxide poisonings occur from December to February, according to figures published by the CDC. “When winter temperatures plummet and home heating systems run for hours the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning increases,” the CDC says.
The gas usually comes from fumes produced by furnaces, kerosene heaters, vehicles with running engines in closed garages, stoves, lanterns, gas ranges, portable generators and burning charcoal or wood.
The CDC recommends that people check or change the batteries of carbon monoxide detectors every six months, check on heating systems and burning appliances every year and never run a gasoline-powered engine less than 20 feet from an open window. Carbon monoxide poisoning is “entirely preventable,” the CDC says. | 2022-10-12T11:41:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Allentown, Pa., day care evacuates dozens for carbon monoxide poisoning - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/carbon-monoxide-poisoning-allentown-daycare/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/carbon-monoxide-poisoning-allentown-daycare/ |
The comedians, who are both Black, say they were racially profiled by police and questioned about drugs in separate encounters
Comedian Eric André speaks at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Atlanta on Tuesday with his attorneys. (Kate Brumback/AP)
Comedian Eric André was returning home to Los Angeles in April 2021 when he says an experience during a routine layover in Atlanta left him feeling humiliated.
On his way down the narrow bridge from the gate to the airplane, he says, two plainclothes officers emerged, flashed their badges and asked the comedian whether he was carrying illegal drugs. André, who says he was the only Black person he saw on the jet bridge, denied having drugs. Still, he said, the officers continued to question him.
“There’s all these people having to squeeze past us on this narrow, awkward jet bridge as I look like this suspicious perpetrator,” André told The Washington Post on Tuesday. “And I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. I’m literally coming home from a work trip.”
The officers eventually let André get on the plane, but he said the encounter left him feeling terrible. “It was demoralizing, dehumanizing, racist and traumatic,” he said.
It turned out that André was not the only one who’s been stopped on a jet bridge at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and questioned about drugs. About six months earlier, the same thing happened to Clayton English, a fellow comedian who is also Black and who says he, too, was racially profiled and humiliated by Clayton County police.
On Tuesday, the two comedians filed a lawsuit against Clayton County’s police department and district attorney’s office, alleging the agencies violated their constitutional rights. It asks the court to declare unconstitutional a Clayton County Police Department practice that the lawsuit says involves officers stopping passengers on jet bridges, questioning them and even searching their bags in a purported effort to combat drug trafficking, all while calling the stops “consensual.”
The lawsuit argues that, in reality, the stops are not consensual. Officers rather coerce passengers into cooperating, the lawsuit argues, and they disproportionately target Black passengers. More than half of those stopped during an eight-month period were Black, though only 8 percent of American airline passengers are Black, according to the lawsuit.
Though officers seize very few illegal drugs, they sometimes end up seizing cash through asset forfeitures — money that passengers who may never face charges often do not get back, according to the lawsuit.
Clayton County police intercept people on jet bridges because they are “aware of the already profoundly coercive nature of law enforcement encounters in the airport generally,” the lawsuit states, noting that before passengers arrive at the bridge, they’re required to comply with numerous security measures to proceed to their flights.
After André spoke about his experience in April 2021, the Clayton County Police Department said in a statement that the comedian “chose to speak with investigators during the initial encounter,” volunteered his travel plans and consented to a search of his luggage, which the officers did not ultimately carry out.
A Clayton County Police Department spokeswoman said Tuesday that the department had “no comment on pending litigation at this time.” The Clayton County district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Tuesday.
English alleges that he found himself in a nearly identical situation on a jet bridge at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in October 2020, as he was boarding a flight to Los Angeles. As he walked down the bridge toward the airplane, two plainclothes officers appeared, flashed their badges and asked English whether he was carrying cocaine, methamphetamine or any other illegal drug, the lawsuit says. The officers searched his bag, he said.
“I felt completely powerless, I felt violated, I felt cornered, I felt like I couldn’t … continue to get on the plane — I felt like I had to comply if I wanted everything to go smoothly,” English said at a news conference Tuesday, alongside André and their attorneys.
The lawsuit notes that other passengers “gawked” at English as the officers questioned him about his travel plans and inspected his identification and plane tickets. English told reporters on Tuesday that he eventually boarded the flight, but for the next 3½ hours, he was “waiting for the other shoe to drop” and wondered whether he would be arrested when the plane landed.
English said he reached out to André after André tweeted about his April 2021 experience. “I think we’re here because a lot of people have probably had this happen to them and feel like … they just have to let things happen to them,” English said Tuesday. “I think we’re here to speak up for those people.”
From Aug. 30, 2020, to April 30, 2021, the Clayton County Police Department conducted 402 jet bridge stops, the lawsuit says, citing department records. During that period, according to the lawsuit, officers found fewer than 0.08 pounds of illegal drugs and six prescription pills for which passengers did not have a prescription, while the department pursued charges against just two passengers.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit says, records show the officers seized more than $1 million in cash from passengers via asset forfeitures, which allow law enforcement personnel to seize property they suspect might have been used in a crime. People usually have to make legal bids to get that property back.
“These seizures do not meaningfully combat drug trafficking, but they do provide a financial windfall for the department by taking advantage of the permissive civil standards for asset forfeitures and the reluctance of individuals (particularly individuals of color) to challenge seizures,” the lawsuit states.
The policy also traumatizes passengers, said Annie Hudson-Price, an attorney with New York University’s Policing Project, which helped file the lawsuit.
“It’s not just a one-time encounter,” she said. It’s “the type of thing that lingers with you — and it haunts you.” | 2022-10-12T11:41:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Eric André, Clayton English allege racial profiling at Atlanta airport - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/eric-andre-atlanta-airport-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/eric-andre-atlanta-airport-lawsuit/ |
A little-watched Montana race has become a contentious abortion fight
By Karin Brulliard
Attendees listen to Montana Supreme Court Justice Ingrid Gustafson speak during her reelection campaign event at a home in Kalispell. (Tailyr Irvine for The Washington Post)
KALISPELL, Mont. — When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade, leaving abortion rights up to states, Montana stood out as an island of access in the northern Rocky Mountain states. The procedure remains available in a handful of clinics, including in the deeply conservative Flathead Valley near Glacier National Park.
Abortion, the state’s highest court ruled in 1999, is guaranteed by individual privacy rights made explicit by the framers of Montana’s 50-year-old constitution, who sought to shrug off decades of influence by copper barons while projecting a stay-out-of-my-business, frontier ethos.
And that is one reason the race for one state Supreme Court seat, the kind of down-ballot election that is often unexciting and uncontested, may be the most contentious on the ballot this fall.
Since a tidal wave of GOP victories in 2020 took Montana from red to dark red, the state’s independent judiciary and constitution have faced attacks by the hard-line Republicans who now dominate. The outcome of the court contest, an ostensibly nonpartisan race between a veteran jurist and a GOP-backed attorney, will be seen both as a measure of how deep their brand of conservatism runs and a test of Montanans’ support for abortion access.
“We have some very, very unique rights in our constitution, and we are in a time when we are seeing rights eroding,” the incumbent justice, Ingrid Gustafson, said last month at a meet-and-greet in an airy Kalispell home, where attendees included many who described themselves as progressives and some disaffected Republicans.
Her challenger, James Brown, sees it differently. “The Montana Supreme Court is notorious and has a well-earned reputation for legislating from the bench,” Brown said days before in rural eastern Montana, according to a video of the event, where he praised recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings on abortion, guns and environmental regulations as “major decisions for liberty.”
The race in Montana, where two of seven Supreme Court seats are on the ballot, is one of several that have shot to prominence since the nation’s highest court’s June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson. Spending by activists on both sides of the issue is flowing into contests in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and North Carolina, where results could determine which party controls the top court.
But as abortion — along with polarizing issues such as redistricting and guns — highlight the power of state courts, they are also injecting more partisanship into races even in states where judicial elections are officially above the fray, as in Montana. A roster of the state’s GOP leaders, including Gov. Greg Gianforte, have endorsed Brown, while Gustafson has sought to deflect accusations that she is an ardent liberal under her neutral black robe.
The stakes are not immediate in Montana, where the race for a second Supreme Court seat, held by former Republican lawmaker Jim Rice, is viewed as uncompetitive. The court, which some experts say is among the nation’s more liberal, recently unanimously upheld a lower-court ruling temporarily blocking three new laws that would restrict abortion. No one thinks a shift in one seat would lead to major changes.
But Republicans — who in 2020 captured the governorship for the first time in 16 years and all statewide offices — have made clear they want to ban most abortions, and they have certain paths to get there.
One would be by gaining two seats to win a legislative supermajority. That would allow them to put constitutional amendments on the ballot without Democratic support. They could also propose a constitutional convention to revamp a progressive document that one prominent Republican lawmaker has called a “socialist rag.”
The other would be by getting the Montana Supreme Court to overturn its 1999 ruling affirming abortion rights, which the state’s attorney general and Gianforte have asked the court to reverse.
The lack of urgency is cold comfort to those who view the court as a bulwark against one-party control over all three branches of state government.
“You look at it and think, well, one justice wouldn’t make that much difference,” Bob Brown, a former GOP secretary of state and senate president, said in an interview at Gustafson’s event in Kalispell. “But it won’t take that long … 5 or 6 or 10 years at the most, that hard-right element owns the Supreme Court in Montana.”
A war against the judiciary
Since Gianforte took office, the state’s newly empowered hard line Republicans have openly challenged the judiciary, which they accuse of thwarting the conservative agenda they were elected to enact.
In 2021, lawmakers formed a committee to investigate the judicial branch and subpoenaed Supreme Court justices’ personal and professional communications related to pending legislation — drawing a court challenge from Rice, the court’s most conservative member.
Republicans also passed a law allowing the governor to directly nominate judges, who were previously vetted by an independent commission, to fill vacancies. Another bill would have asked voters to decide whether to elect Supreme Court justices by local districts, rather than statewide. Both were challenged and went to the Supreme Court; the court upheld the first and rejected the second.
A host of other Republican-backed bills have also been challenged, including laws that restricted voting, which civil rights groups argued violate Native Americans’ voting rights. Several have not gone the GOP’s way: A law allowing open carry on the state’s college campuses, for example, was struck down by the Supreme Court. A district court last week ruled the voting laws are unconstitutional.
“A big part of the problem for Republicans is that the Montana constitution does not allow for some of the policies that they want to implement,” said Robert Saldin, a University of Montana political science professor.
But conservatives hold up the court rulings as evidence of activism. The Montana Family Foundation, which opposes abortion, recently outlined the Brown-Gustafson race in a radio update, arguing it was “time to balance the judiciary.” In another spot, its president called Dobbs an “awakening” that showed electing conservative justices could lead to an abortion ban in the state.
“Montana voters are just fed up with the woke, liberal agenda of the Montana Supreme Court,” said Don Kaltschmidt, chairman of the state Republican Party, whose platform opposes nearly all abortions. “James Brown has got the values of Montana.”
What he doesn’t have, Gustafson argues, is experience. A former college ski racer, she practiced law for 16 years before being appointed by a Republican governor to the district court in Billings, the state’s busiest, in 2004. Former governor Steve Bullock (D) nominated her to the Supreme Court in 2017 — where, she says, 80 percent of the decisions she has written have been unanimous.
Gustafson, who said she has attended no events sponsored by political parties, has broad support from the legal community and Democrats, as well some moderate Republicans. She is endorsed by Marc Racicot, a former governor and chair of the Republican National Committee, who described the election in a recent op-ed as pivotal to an independent and impartial judiciary.
“Our judicial system is for Montanans,” Gustafson told supporters in Kalispell. “It is not designed to go out and represent some sort of special interest group or special party or special activist. And in my mind, if you’ve got judges that want to do that, that’s malpractice.”
To Brown and his backers, Gustafson’s resume is evidence she’s part of a judicial and trial lawyer elite hostile to business and friendly to criminals. Brown, a fourth-generation Montanan who is the elected Republican president of a state commission that regulates private utilities, has represented sheep farmers and funeral directors. He also was counsel for American Tradition Partnership, a conservative advocacy group that fought Montana’s ban on corporate political money in a case that went before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Brown, who did not respond to numerous attempts to contact him, has not shied away from the Republican sheen on his candidacy. He acknowledges he was urged to run by Gianforte. The Republican State Central Committee has donated to his campaign. He has appeared at Republican-affiliated events, including one in eastern Montana where he spoke before a sign reading “Protect our guns! Vote Republican!”
“A single judge can undo the work of an entire legislature,” he said at the Custer County event, where he called himself a constitutional originalist.
Montanans will be asked explicitly about abortion in November: A legislative referendum on the ballot would require health care providers to try to save any infant born alive, including after attempted abortions, or face fines or jail time. Supporters say it would prevent the killing of infants — which is already illegal — while opponents say it would force providers to take extreme measures to treat infants with no chance of survival.
Supporters of abortion rights in Montana say they are watching that referendum and the Supreme Court and legislative races warily, though with some optimism that the Dobbs ruling may actually bode well for their cause. More than half of Montanans say abortion should be legal, according to the Pew Research Center.
The public has “come to understand more and more that it’s their fundamental rights around privacy that are at stake here,” said retiring state Sen. Diane Sands (D-Missoula), a veteran of the abortion rights movement, whose seat is seen as one of the most competitive on the ballot.
Running for her seat are Republican state Rep. Brad Tschida, who recently told fellow legislators that a woman’s womb “serves no specific purpose to her life or well-being,” and Democratic state Rep. Willis Curdy.
On a recent afternoon, Curdy — a rancher and retired teacher and smokejumper — knocked on doors in a middle-class neighborhood on the more conservative side of the district. Curdy repeated two points: That the state should pony up more for education, and that he supports Montana’s constitutional right to privacy, which, he explained, guarantees women’s right to make their own health care decisions.
Curdy did not say he was a Democrat unless asked. He did not utter the word abortion.
Some listened cordially, but stone-faced; some declined to take his flier. One man said he was glad to know “where you’re coming from” on privacy, which Curdy interpreted as meaning the man disagreed. One woman, learning Curdy is a Democrat, said “Nope!” and launched into a tirade against President Biden.
Several said he already had their vote. One bearded man, a little girl standing at his side, said he’d become a “one-issue voter,” referring to abortion rights. A woman perked up at the mention of the right to privacy, saying, “we need to stand up to the idiots running our state.”
“There’s a strong effort to make every woman in the state a second-class citizen,” Curdy said.
“There is!” the woman said. “They’ve already done it nationwide.” | 2022-10-12T11:41:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A little-watched Montana race has become a contentious abortion fight - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/montana-supreme-court-abortion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/montana-supreme-court-abortion/ |
School board meeting cut short as protests over LGBTQ books grow unruly
A school board meeting in Dearborn, Mich., was suspended Oct. 10 after attendees shouted and refused to leave when the gathering exceeded fire code capacity. (Video: Dearborn Public Schools/YouTube)
Roxanne McDonald banged her gavel repeatedly during Monday night’s school board meeting in Dearborn, Mich., where hundreds denouncing books with LGBTQ content packed into the Dearborn Public Schools administration building.
Protesters, upset about books in school libraries that they consider too sexually explicit for students, carried signs that read “Keep your porno books to yourself,” “If democracy matters, we’re the majority” and “Protect the children,” the last one written out in five languages. Others were there to support the LGBTQ community and champion inclusivity.
People shouted over each other, the school board members, McDonald’s gavel and even warnings from police.
McDonald, who chairs the school board, pleaded for calm. “Let’s show our children how to behave with civil discourse,” she said.
But when attendees were told their public comments would be limited to three minutes, they booed McDonald loudly.
Shortly after, she and the other board members left, saying they would be recessing “until we can get the situation under control.” Despite a significant police presence, which included pleas from the police chief, they never did, and the meeting was suspended until Thursday night.
It was the most recent clash in Dearborn between parents who say their children are being exposed to sexually explicit books in school and educators who say they’ve updated a system to assess materials to make sure they’re appropriate for students. The tension mirrors the growing antagonism between schools and parents that has flared up around the country in recent years, fueled by pandemic-related school closures and debates over teachings on race and gender.
“In 2020, it was the global pandemic. In 2021, it was masks. Today’s debate is books. This is a national debate, my friends,” board member Hussein Berry said at Monday’s meeting in Dearborn.
Weeks ahead of Monday’s meeting, local Muslim leaders pushed people to attend to tell the school board they oppose LGBTQ books being in public schools. One of the most prominent in the state, Imam Sayed Hassan Al-Qazwini of the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, used his sermon on Friday to urge his followers to go to the meeting to protest.
“Some of those books are completely inappropriate for our children to read,” Al-Qazwini said, according to the Free Press. “Some of those books promote pornography. Some of them promote homosexuality. We don’t need this.”
Much of what boiled over at Monday’s meeting started heating up last month when the district announced that it had reacted to a complaints from one parent by pulling out of circulation seven titles while it reviewed whether they were appropriate for students, WXYZ reported. The temporarily restricted titles included “Push,” “The Lovely Bones,” “This Book is Gay” and “Flamer” — books that deal with rape and sexuality. Meanwhile, the district worked on an updated process for assessing new materials and reviewing parents’ complaints.
Last week, ahead of the school board meeting, the district released its new policy. Officials are allowing parents to block their children from checking out certain items or to block them from using the district’s library and other media centers entirely. If parents are “truly concerned” about a particular work being in the school at all, they can go through the “book challenge process” to ask that it be removed from the catalogue. Such a request triggers a review from at least five district media specialists who, considering the parents’ concerns, will reexamine the work’s age appropriateness.
At the start of Monday’s meeting, McDonald admitted that, until last week, the district had an “outdated book review process.” But, she added, the seven-member board wants to work with parents to make sure their input is heard — about books in their children’s schools or anything else having to do with their education.
Superintendent Glenn Maleyko echoed that sentiment.
“We want a system in place that is fair to all,” he said, adding that they “want to respect the rights of all parents when we make these decisions.”
The protesters were not appeased. As the crowd jeered and the proceedings devolved, McDonald told attendees in the packed room they were violating the fire code. When some voiced opposition at being asked to watch the live stream from outside, McDonald recessed the meeting, saying board members would return when things settled down.
But that never happened. Instead, the board suspended the meeting, with plans to reconvene Thursday at a nearby high school that can accommodate more people. | 2022-10-12T11:41:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Protesters shut down Michigan school board meeting over LGBTQ books - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/dearborn-school-board-meeting-shutdown/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/dearborn-school-board-meeting-shutdown/ |
Washington Capitals goaltender Darcy Kuemper signed a five-year deal in the offseason. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
The new starting goalie in Washington stands a stout 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds and sports an infectious smile. He describes himself as a “pretty normal guy,” someone who is easygoing, positive, enjoys a good time and, above all, loves hockey. He likes learning about history and adores long hikes with his wife, Sydney, and black German shepherd, Rogue.
Fresh off hoisting the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche, Darcy Kuemper comes to the Capitals with high expectations and is intent on making Washington his long-term home.
“What drew me to Washington is they are a team that won it recently and knows how to win and still can win, and that is definitely the goal of coming here — to help them do it again,” said Kuemper, who signed a five-year, $26.25 million deal in July.
Teammates and coaches describe Kuemper, 32, as humble and selfless. The Capitals hope he can provide stability following the inconsistent performance of Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek over the past two seasons, when questions in net dominated the narrative. The hope is that Kuemper will be a breath of fresh air.
When the Capitals open the season Wednesday at home against the Boston Bruins, Kuemper will be Washington’s undisputed No. 1 goalie. Capitals management is optimistic his presence will make for a more well-rounded squad, especially in the tough Metropolitan Division.
“The thing is,” Kuemper said, “once you’ve won it, you can’t think of doing anything else but doing it again. That’s the motivation.”
Minnesota selected Kuemper in the sixth round of the 2011 draft. After five years with the Wild, he lost his job in Minnesota and agreed to a one-year deal with Los Angeles in 2017. Excelling in his backup role with the Kings, he was traded to Arizona in February 2018, where he flourished. He spent four years in Arizona before his year-long stint with the Avalanche led to a championship.
“To be honest, I had no idea how good he was until he got to [Arizona] and I got to see it every day,” former Coyotes teammate Alex Goligoski said. “By the end of that first year, I remember telling people, ‘He is a legitimate top goalie in the league.’ So consistently good. We had a couple pretty good teams in Arizona, and he more than anyone else was the reason for that.”
Capitals assistant coach Scott Allen also overlapped with Kuemper in Arizona. Allen was in charge of the penalty kill, and he credited Kuemper for much of its success.
“I just think sometimes the better the person the goalie is, the more guys want to step up for him, block that extra shot and clear that puck that challenges them,” Allen said. “When their lungs are empty because they reached that place of fatigue, they find it within themselves to push a little harder because they know he is going to do that for them in return.”
Allen said Kuemper seems unchanged by his recent success. The Kuemper that Allen knew a few years ago in Arizona is the same Kuemper who arrived in Washington.
“And that speaks volumes to the person he is,” Allen said. “Guys do change. Sometimes guys taste more success and that changes them, but I have not seen that being the case with him — at all.”
Goligoski described Kuemper as “genuinely one of the nicest people” he has ever met, and Charlie Lindgren, Washington’s backup goalie this season, called him a “really, really great guy.”
“It’s the way he treats people, the way he talks to people,” Goligoski said. “He is very engaging in the way he talks to people. He is not giving you half his attention. He is always fully in on the conversation and what they got going on and how people are doing.”
Luke Schenn, now a defenseman for the Vancouver Canucks, grew up playing with Kuemper in Saskatchewan. He became his NHL teammate in 2018 when Kuemper was traded to the Coyotes.
Schenn remembers texting Kuemper to welcome him to the team the night he flew in from Los Angeles. He asked him if he needed a ride to practice the next morning. Kuemper said no.
When Schenn woke up the next day, he decided to call Kuemper again — just in case — to ask if the Coyotes had set up a car to take him to the rink.
No, Kuemper said, the team hadn’t offered him a ride. Instead, he was going to take his goalie gear and pads, hop on the hotel shuttle and find the way to the rink on his own.
“I was like, ‘No, you meatball, I’m coming to pick you up!’ ” Schenn said. “He was going to go on like a city bus with his goalie gear to the Coyotes for his first practice. Didn’t even bother him; he wasn’t even upset. He didn’t want to bother anyone or ask the Coyotes for a ride. He was just going to wing it, stay in his own lane and not be a high-maintenance guy.”
That fits with how many described Kuemper: What you see is what you get. Washington hopes his success will continue with the Capitals — and his experience will help players around him grow, too.
“When I think of Darcy, I think of the big smile and laugh,” Schenn said. “He is always joking around. . . . Definitely a guy you want in the locker room, and the Capitals are super lucky to have him.” | 2022-10-12T11:54:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Darcy Kuemper arrives for Washington Capitals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/darcy-kuemper-washington-capitals-goalie-new-season/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/darcy-kuemper-washington-capitals-goalie-new-season/ |
Draymond Green is expected to return Thursday from his indefinite absence from the Golden State Warriors and to be available for next week's season opener against the Los Angeles Lakers. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
The Golden State Warriors elected to fine, rather than suspend, Draymond Green for punching teammate Jordan Poole during practice, an act that was captured on a video that leaked publicly last week, and the all-star forward will rejoin the team for practice Thursday following his indefinite absence.
Warriors Coach Steve Kerr said after a 131-98 preseason victory over the Portland Trail Blazers at Chase Center on Tuesday that Green is expected to play Friday in Golden State’s preseason finale against the Denver Nuggets and on Oct. 18 when the defending champions host the Los Angeles Lakers and receive their NBA championship rings on opening night.
While Kerr deemed Green’s punch and the fallout from the video leak to be the “biggest crisis” the Warriors have faced during his nine-year tenure as coach, he seemed to indicate the franchise was ready to move forward after a week of “deep discussions” between the organization’s executives, including General Manager Bob Myers, and the players. Kerr opted not to disclose the amount of Green’s fine.
“It’s been an exhaustive process,” Kerr said. “We feel like we have a great feel for our team. We’ve got a lot of continuity on our team. Bob and I know our players extremely well. This is the best way, after assessing everything, for us to move forward. It’s never easy. No matter what decision you make in a situation like this, it’s not going to be perfect. ... We have a lot of work to do, all of us, players, coaches, Bob and the front office. We’re committed to doing that work together and to making this a successful season.”
Green, 32, apologized publicly for his punch on Friday and indicated that he would remain away from the Warriors for a "few days” to give his teammates a chance to “heal” while the dust settled. The 2017 NBA defensive player of the year said he had “failed as a leader” and “as a man,” and said that he was in “a very, very, very bad space mentally” when he punched Poole last Wednesday.
“There’s nothing that warranted the situation,” Curry said last Thursday. “I want to make that clear. It’s also something we feel like won’t derail our season, what we’re trying to build, and that’s with Draymond a part of that.”
Kerr said Tuesday that Curry had spent the week “working like crazy to figure out the best way forward," and that Green and Poole had engaged in a “great discussion” about the incident.
A four-time all-star and seven-time all-defensive team selection, Green has been involved in several combative incidents in his career. During a profane 2016 halftime outburst directed at Kerr, Green reportedly shouted “I am not a robot!” so loudly that he could be heard by a reporter standing outside the visiting locker room in Oklahoma City. In 2018, the Warriors suspended Green for one game for his role in an in-game argument with teammate Kevin Durant, a disagreement that preceded Durant’s 2019 departure for the Brooklyn Nets.
Kerr has repeatedly praised Poole’s play in the preseason, and he indicated recently that he was hopeful that the scoring guard would soon sign a contract extension with the Warriors.
Poole enjoyed a breakout campaign in 2021-22, averaging a career-high 18.5 points, 3.4 rebounds and 4.0 assists in his third season. The 23-year-old guard is as an early front-runner for the sixth man of the year award.
The Warriors, who beat the Boston Celtics in June’s NBA Finals to claim their fourth championship in the past eight seasons, enter the season among the leading contenders to win the 2023 title. | 2022-10-12T11:54:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Draymond Green is fined, not suspended, for punching teammate Jordan Poole - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/draymond-green-fined-jordan-poole/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/draymond-green-fined-jordan-poole/ |
When White coaches take a stand
Clarence Shelmon and scores of other Black assistants never got the chance at head coaching jobs — or the generational wealth that comes with those opportunities
RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif. — The boxes started showing up, one by one, in the garage of Clarence and Nancy Shelmon’s house outside San Diego midway through the 2011 National Football League season. Nancy opened them and recognized their contents: photos that once adorned the walls and desk of Clarence’s office at San Diego Chargers headquarters, playbooks from previous seasons, various keepsakes and mementos from the career of a lifelong football man.
“Clarence, are you trying to tell me something?” she asked her husband, at the time the Chargers’ offensive coordinator. “Have you quit?”
His reply: “I’m just preparing.”
But by that point, he had already made his decision: At the end of that season, Clarence Shelmon, football lifer, would be walking away from the sport, walking away from the NFL, walking away — at 59 — from the only job description he had known since he was straight out of college in 1975: football coach.
His dream of becoming an NFL head coach, which he had harbored for 21 years as an assistant in the league — the last 10 of which, with the Chargers, produced five playoff appearances and just one losing season — was officially deceased.
Primary cause of death: pride. Secondary cause of death: institutional bias.
“In terms of the [NFL’s] hiring practices, there didn’t seem to be a real good path to my aspirations,” Shelmon recently recalled in his living room. “… When you know you’ve gone as far as you’re going to be able to go, not based on your abilities but just based on how [others] look at you — as a man of color — then there comes a time when [you decide], ‘I shouldn’t have to take this.’ When you have the stress and knowledge of all that goes on, it’s a burden that you carry. … So, if you don’t like it, leave. And that’s what I did.”
Shelmon, 70, is part of the lost generation of Black NFL coaches, the ones whose careers suffered for the league’s failures in racial equity.
“When you work hard and you’ve been successful, you think there should be an equitable path for you,” Shelmon said. “[When] you have success and nothing changes, it can be daunting — mentally, physically and emotionally.”
But the toll goes far beyond the unfulfilled dreams of countless Black coaches denied the opportunity to lead an NFL team. Each lost opportunity can cost a coach millions of dollars in lifetime earnings, given the vast difference in salary between a mid-level assistant and a head coach. Less measurable is the cost to Black players, who make up nearly 60 percent of the NFL’s labor force but miss out on valuable mentors and role models who could help shape the course of their careers.
Shelmon coached his final game Jan. 1, 2012. (Paul Spinelli/AP)
“The part that’s missed a lot of times is [that] we needed people like Clarence as Black players — someone we could relate to and talk to,” said Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson, who played under Shelmon for eight years in San Diego. “It’s a hard profession, and having someone to be able to guide us through being a professional is sometimes lost. People like him are critical.”
To hear these coaches’ stories is to be reminded of the universality of discrimination in the Black experience in America — where the median White household has 7.8 times the wealth of the typical Black household, according to 2019 data from the Brookings Institution — and that inclusion matters not only for the numbers or even the principle but because livelihoods, legacies and dreams are at stake.
Days after the Chargers’ 2011 season ended with an 8-8 record and a second-place finish in the AFC West, Shelmon walked into the office of head coach Norv Turner and informed him of his decision. The team put out a brief news release announcing his resignation along with a terse statement from Shelmon, the first sentence of which read, “I’m just done.”
Team management did nothing to try to change his mind, Shelmon said — not that it would have done any good. And within days, the Chargers had named his replacement. The NFL, it turned out, went on without Clarence Shelmon, just as it goes on without everyone who leaves after giving all they could.
Shelmon would never let anyone see the pain his decision brought him — though he was at peace with it, it still meant giving up a life’s ambition — but people close to him knew.
“I saw him dying, part of him, knowing he was not going to get the opportunity. That’s a devastating feeling,” Tomlinson said. “It wasn’t his fault the NFL wasn’t ready for Clarence Shelmon to be a head coach. That’s a loss on the league — because that guy could have impacted so many more guys than he did.”
When the next NFL season got underway in September 2012, Clarence and Nancy Shelmon were on vacation in the furthest locale she could find from San Diego: South Africa.
Shelmon coached for four NFL teams: the Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks, Dallas Cowboys and San Diego Chargers. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)
‘Life, unfortunately, isn’t fair’
Clarence Shelmon’s coaching career spanned 37 years, the last 21 of them in the NFL — for the Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks, Dallas Cowboys and Chargers.
As a running backs coach, Shelmon mentored two Hall of Famers — Emmitt Smith with the Cowboys and Tomlinson with the Chargers — plus running back Chris Warren and fullbacks Lorenzo Neal and John Williams, each of whom made multiple Pro Bowl appearances.
In the five years (2007 to 2011) he spent under Turner as the Chargers’ offensive coordinator — a position that has served as one of the top breeding grounds for future head coaches — the team won three division titles and finished in the top five in scoring offense each season.
But during those five years — and, in fact, in all his years in the league — Shelmon never got so much as an interview for a head coaching job. That’s despite the fact his final nine years came during the Rooney Rule era, after the NFL, in 2003, put in place a mandate requiring teams to consider minority candidates for head coaching jobs.
“You want to put guys in position where they get an opportunity to be considered for a [head coaching] job,” said Turner, a former offensive coordinator himself who spent 15 seasons as an NFL head coach, when asked about Shelmon’s career track. “Unfortunately, there’s a lot of factors that go into hiring a guy. There’s only 32 teams, and there’s usually six to eight openings [per hiring cycle]. And there’s a lot of capable, qualified guys. A lot of times they’re getting hired by guys they’ve worked with before.”
Asked about Shelmon’s capabilities and qualifications as a head coach, Turner said, “Clarence would have been outstanding.”
It wasn’t as though jobs weren’t available or that Turner lieutenants were excluded from them. His San Diego staffs from that period produced three future full-time head coaches, including a Black man (Steve Wilks) and a Latino (Ron Rivera).
All told, nine colleagues who served on the same staffs as Shelmon during his NFL career, as coordinators or assistants, went on to get full-time head coaching jobs. All but two were younger than him. Only one, Wilks, was Black. Five of the nine posted losing records as head coaches, with four being fired after two or fewer seasons.
Rob Chudzinski coaching path
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And then there was Shelmon’s young partner on “Football Night in San Diego,” a weekly show on the city’s NBC affiliate for which Shelmon served as an analyst from 2012 to 2018. In 2013 and 2014, he was paired with a former backup quarterback named Kevin O’Connell, who was in his late 20s when he retired from playing and was giving broadcasting a try.
By 2015, O’Connell had moved on to coaching, landing a job as the Cleveland Browns’ quarterbacks coach. By 2019, he had become offensive coordinator for Washington. And in 2022, at 36, he was named head coach of the Minnesota Vikings — going from first-year assistant to head coach, a journey Shelmon never was allowed to complete during a 21-season NFL career, in just seven years.
“It’s just so unpredictable,” said Rob Chudzinski, who spent four seasons working alongside Shelmon in San Diego, first as tight ends coach under the late Marty Schottenheimer in 2005 and 2006, then as tight ends coach and assistant head coach under Turner in 2009 and 2010. More than 15 years younger than Shelmon, Chudzinski was named the Cleveland Browns’ head coach in 2013.
“It’s all about what year and what team and what job,” he added. “Those jobs are hard to come by. Sometimes it’s whose name gets hot at a certain time. It’s impossible to predict who’s going to get what job and when.”
Asked what part race played, Chudzinski said he preferred not to discuss that.
Ron Rivera coaching path
Rivera, who was defensive coordinator for the Chargers at the same time Shelmon was offensive coordinator and who is now the head coach of the Washington Commanders, said the lack of diversity remains “a major problem” for the NFL.
“I think it is the responsibility of everyone in the NFL,” he said, “to help fix this issue and even the playing field.”
Back in the early 1980s, when a young Shelmon coached under Lee Corso at the University of Indiana, he grew close with a backup quarterback named Cam Cameron. In part because of Shelmon’s example, Cameron followed him into the coaching ranks after graduation, starting with an entry-level graduate assistant position at the University of Michigan.
Cam Cameron was named head coach of the Miami Dolphins in 2007 after being offensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers for five seasons. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)
Cameron lasted one season in Miami, going 1-15. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)
LEFT: Cam Cameron was named head coach of the Miami Dolphins in 2007 after being offensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers for five seasons. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images) RIGHT: Cameron lasted one season in Miami, going 1-15. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)
But somewhere along the way, Cameron climbed past Shelmon on the career ladder and in the early 2000s became his boss as the Chargers’ offensive coordinator, with Shelmon serving as running backs coach. Cameron’s ascension to the head coaching job with the Miami Dolphins in 2007 created the opening that gave Shelmon his first shot at a coordinator job.
“Why would I get a head coaching opportunity and he didn’t, when he taught me the game?” Cameron asked rhetorically. “I’m not a finger-pointer kind of guy, but I have to ask: Why is that? And how can we work together to get to where we can all have those opportunities, Black or White?”
Cam Cameron coaching path
As disappointed as he was that his own aspirations fell short, Shelmon said he was happy for his colleagues who were given a chance.
“Those people are good guys, good coaches,” he said. “I don’t begrudge them. … But I’m not going to sit here and say they were any better than me. I could certainly do what they did, if not better. Life, unfortunately, isn’t fair. And for me, it just wasn’t fair.”
At that, Shelmon paused and chuckled.
“For them, it was.”
Shelmon never looked back after retiring from coaching. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)
‘There’s no rhyme or reason’
Since Art Shell of the Los Angeles Raiders became the first Black head coach of the NFL’s modern history in 1989, just 24 other Black coaches have joined him, out of nearly 200 head coaches hired. Much more common was the Clarence Shelmon story.
For every Ray Rhodes or Dennis Green or Tony Dungy who managed to grab one of those head coaching jobs — with their accompanying glory, power and fame (however fleeting), not to mention salaries that could reach 10 times what they earned as assistants — there were untold others who were denied the opportunity, their names largely lost to history. But that’s not the case for members of their own community, who raise those names in praise as if describing a parallel universe where all of them got their rightful due.
“Emmitt Thomas and Sherm Lewis and Ray Sherman,” said the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Todd Bowles, one of three Black full-time head coaches currently in the NFL, rattling off the names of three predecessors who deserved a chance. “There are a lot of guys who hadn’t gotten an opportunity that I thought were outstanding coaches.”
When or if progress comes to the NFL — and none appears close at hand, given that there are the same number of Black full-time head coaches in 2022 as there were in 2003, the year the Rooney Rule was implemented — it will be too late to help these men.
“There’s no rhyme or reason why Clarence Shelmon wasn’t a head coach,” said longtime NFL assistant Terry Robiskie, whose career peaked with interim head coaching stints for Washington in 2000 and Cleveland in 2004. In both cases, he was passed over for the full-time job. “There’s no rhyme or reason why Jim Skipper wasn’t a head coach. There’s no rhyme or reason why Willie Shaw wasn’t a head coach, [why] Lionel Taylor wasn’t a head coach.
“There’s so many. There’s no reason why I couldn’t be.”
Ray Sherman served as offensive coordinator for four teams and was a fixture of the head coach interview circuit during the 2000s and early 2010s. Frequently, news reports about his interview with this or that team contained the qualifier “in order to satisfy the Rooney Rule,” which required teams to interview at least one minority candidate for each head coaching vacancy. He never got a job offer and said the blame lies with “old-school owners” who aren’t willing to have a Black man be the public face of the franchise.
“These guys don’t want to hire Black head coaches,” said Sherman, now 70 and preparing to be the wide receivers coach of the Las Vegas franchise in the relaunched XFL in 2023. “They’ll hire you as a position coach, hire you in scouting, but they won’t give you the keys to the car. I used to get bitter, but I put it behind me.”
Ray Sherman is one of several Black longtime assistants who never got a chance to be a head coach. (Icon Sportswire/Getty Images)
Ted Cottrell spent two of his 10 seasons as a defensive coordinator with the Minnesota Vikings. (Jim Gehrz/Star Tribune/AP)
Ted Cottrell was a defensive coordinator for four teams in the late 1990s and 2000s, his teams making the playoffs in seven of his 10 years in the position. In 1999, his Buffalo Bills ranked first in the NFL in yards allowed. It wasn’t enough to put him in a head coach’s office.
Cottrell, now 75, said he interviewed for eight head coaching jobs during his 24 years in the NFL, but only twice did he consider the team’s interest to be serious: with the Indianapolis Colts in 2002, when the job went to Dungy, and with the San Francisco 49ers in 2003, when the job went to Dennis Erickson. Most of the other interviews, he said, were conducted to satisfy the Rooney Rule.
“There were times they’d interview you,” Cottrell said, “and they’d already picked the guy.”
Cottrell and Shelmon worked together in San Diego and became coordinators at the same time, in 2007 — after the Chargers’ 14-2 finish the year before led to head coaching jobs for offensive coordinator Cameron (with Miami) and defensive coordinator Wade Phillips (with Dallas). Cameron and Phillips are White.
Shelmon and Cottrell are Black, and both would top out as coordinators, earning no consideration for head coaching jobs even after the 2007 Chargers went 11-5 and advanced to the AFC championship game, where they lost to the New England Patriots. It remains the last time the franchise, now representing Los Angeles, went that deep in the playoffs.
Cottrell was fired by the Chargers midseason in 2008, replaced by Rivera, who would become the head coach of the Carolina Panthers three years later. Cottrell has not worked in the NFL since, bouncing around minor league and developmental circuits such as the United Football League, the Alliance of American Football and most recently the Spring League.
He said he still wants to get back into the NFL, but he knows whatever chance he had of being a head coach is gone.
“You’re thinking: ‘Okay, I’m qualified. I’ve put my time in.’ And you’re denied the opportunity,” Cottrell said. “It takes its toll. You’ve done the things you’re supposed to do. You ask yourself the question: ‘What did I do wrong, that I can’t get this opportunity like everyone else?’ It’s bothersome. It eats at you. It eats at your family.
“You’ll say, ‘It’s okay.’ But it’s not okay.”
Shelmon loved football as much as others of his generation, but unlike most, he didn’t need it. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)
Missing out on ‘generational wealth’
If the psychic and emotional toll of seeing a life’s dream denied is substantial, so, too — and much more measurable — is the financial toll. Assistant coaches in the NFL are highly compensated, relative to the general public, but the wealth gap between them and the select few chosen to be head coaches is massive.
Salaries of NFL assistants are typically not made public, but Shelmon said his were in the low six figures as a running backs coach, jumping to $600,000 in his first season as the Chargers’ offensive coordinator, then $850,000 in his fifth and final year in that position, 2011.
Consider the salaries as head coaches of some of the colleagues who passed Shelmon on the way up.
Cameron signed a four-year deal worth a reported $10 million with the Dolphins in 2007. Typically, NFL coaching contracts are fully guaranteed — minus subsequent salaries if that coach gets rehired by another team — meaning Cameron would have received the full $10 million despite lasting just one year.
Chudzinski’s Browns contract in 2013 was reportedly for four years and $14 million; he, too, was fired after just one year, at which point $10.5 million was still owed to him.
Today, according to people familiar with the salary structure for NFL coaches, the wealth gap between head coaches and everyone else is even wider, with mid-level assistants on average earning around $500,000, coordinators making roughly $1.5 million and head coaches being paid about $5 million.
In other words, five years as a coordinator vs. five years as a head coach could cost someone in the neighborhood of $17 million.
“Your wealth increases exponentially as a head coach,” Shelmon said. “You’re talking about generational wealth.”
According to Thomas M. Shapiro, a professor of sociology and public policy at Brandeis University and author of the book “The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality,” that disparity reverberates across a lifetime — and even beyond.
If you assume a $20 million difference in career earnings between a longtime head coach and a longtime assistant, Shapiro said: “The [gap] is quite significant in the life chances associated with top income-earners that translate into family wealth — homes, best health care, business and investment opportunities, kids’ college, down payments for kids’ first homes. They and their children have chances, multiple — not just one chance to fail, like most of us. This is where ‘quantity of more’ translates into ‘quality of life’ — from where they live, who the kids grow up with, their social circles, networks, prep schools, status. I like to remind audiences that wealth is not the goal — it is a means to loftier and human goals.”
Shelmon doesn’t take his own good fortune for granted, especially the financial realities that allowed him to retire when he did. He loved football as much as others of his generation, but unlike most, he didn’t need it. He and Nancy, a CPA who had worked herself up to partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, never had children and invested wisely, leaving them on the type of financial footing that meant they no longer required his NFL coordinator’s salary.
The Shelmons bought their stately, four-bedroom house in the upscale San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe, its one-acre lot replete with gardens, fountains and a koi pond, in 2005. Today it is worth $3.5 million, according to Zillow.
He is thinking more of his less financially secure brethren, those who didn’t have the wherewithal to walk away at a relatively young age as he did. Like many in the industry, they moved between different assistant coaching jobs every couple of years, either because they were fired or they were chasing a head coaching opportunity that never came.
“There are a lot of men in this league who work hard and have had a tremendous amount of success and never got the opportunity. And for different reasons, they want to stay,” he said. “I love the game. I like the NFL. I have no animosity towards the NFL. But some of those guys have families. … I understand why they stay.”
Shelmon has plenty of mementos after spending close to four decades coaching. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)
‘A part of him died’
In the early weeks of 2000, Shelmon got a strange call from a friend and fellow NFL coach.
“Why are you turning down the Saints interview?” asked the friend, whom Shelmon declined to name.
Shelmon, at the time the Cowboys’ running backs coach, didn’t know what his friend was talking about, but he soon found out: The New Orleans Saints, Shelmon said, had asked the Cowboys for permission to interview him for their offensive coordinator job — a promotion that could have positioned Shelmon for a future head coaching position.
But Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Shelmon said, had denied permission without informing Shelmon about the inquiry. According to Shelmon, once he found out, he confronted Jones in the owner’s office.
“I said, ‘Jerry, I hear the Saints called to inquire about me as the offensive coordinator,’ ” Shelmon recalled. “And he said, ‘Yeah, Clarence, they called.’ I said, ‘But you didn’t tell me.’ He said: ‘Well, I knew you weren’t going to be calling the plays. They just wanted you to come and work with their running game.’ ”
The NFL’s current anti-tampering rules would prohibit the Cowboys from blocking Shelmon’s opportunity, but those regulations were less stringent 22 years ago. The Cowboys did not dispute Shelmon’s account, saying their actions were within the league’s rules and that the team valued Shelmon enough to want to keep him. Jones, through a team spokesperson, declined to comment.
Whether Jones’s maneuver was within the rules is immaterial to Shelmon. “Either way,” he said, “it was still wrong.”
Mike McCarthy ended up getting the job as offensive coordinator of the Saints instead of Shelmon. McCarthy went on to be head coach of the Packers and Cowboys. (David J. Phillip/AP)
Instead of Shelmon, the Saints hired Green Bay Packers quarterbacks coach Mike McCarthy. Six years later, the Packers hired McCarthy back as their head coach; he spent 13 years in the top job, winning the Super Bowl following the 2010 season, and is now in his third season as coach of the Cowboys, his career earnings sitting comfortably in the tens of millions of dollars.
Shelmon is a native of Bossier City, La., about 2½ hours from Dallas. When he took the position as the Cowboys’ running backs coach in 1998 — choosing it over a similar opportunity with the Colts, he said — he did it to be close to home and to work with Emmitt Smith, the future Hall of Famer who was already a four-time all-pro. But there was a third reason: When Shelmon was deciding between the Cowboys and the Colts, he chose Dallas, he said, in part because Jones had promised to help advance his career toward his ultimate goal of becoming a head coach.
“That always stuck with me. I’ll never forget it,” Shelmon said. “I thought that was wrong, particularly when [Jones] said if I come there, he was going to help me with my advancement.”
That incident was the first of two that opened Shelmon’s eyes to the ways in which NFL teams fail Black coaches, even if it was cutthroat competitiveness — as opposed to racial animus — driving the decisions. The other occurred in San Diego after the 2006 season. Cameron, the Chargers’ offensive coordinator, had landed the Dolphins’ head coaching job and soon inquired about bringing Shelmon with him as offensive coordinator.
There was one problem: Shelmon, who had been promoted to offensive coordinator when Cameron left, was under contract for 2007. And with the Chargers transitioning from Schottenheimer, who had been fired unexpectedly after a dispute with ownership, to Turner, upper management was unwilling to let Shelmon out of his contract. The team would later say it was reluctant to let him go because of his prowess as the architect of its running game.
Shelmon, pictured talking with quarterback Cleo Lemon, spent 10 seasons with the Chargers. (Kirby Lee/AP)
NFL rules allowed the Chargers to deny permission for a lateral move, but there was a complicating factor: The Dolphins, under Cameron, wanted Shelmon to be the primary offensive play caller. In San Diego, everyone knew Turner would be calling the plays. In effect, the Miami job would have been a significant promotion. Cameron said he would have tripled Shelmon’s salary and made him an assistant head coach. The play-calling duties and elevated title probably would have placed Shelmon in better position for future head coaching opportunities.
“There was this sort of unwritten rule in the NFL that if you didn’t call the plays, it was going to be hard to get a head [coaching] job,” Shelmon said. “Now, let’s face it: That only was applicable to certain people. There are a lot of [White] guys in the league that did not call plays [as coordinators] that are head coaches. But I know for me, I was going to have to call the plays if I was going to eventually be a head coach.”
Cameron wound up calling the plays himself in 2007, with the Dolphins suffering through a disastrous 1-15 season that resulted in his firing.
“I got a rude awakening about how guys could not get out of contracts, even if it’s a great opportunity for them and their families,” Cameron said. “Anything good that ever happened to me in coaching was the result of mentors I had like Clarence. … There’s no telling what would’ve happened if I got Clarence to come with me to Miami.”
Shelmon did not explicitly tie the Cowboys incident or the Chargers situation to racism, and that sort of back-channel blocking of coaches’ mobility long has been common in the NFL. Cameron said he was victimized himself during his career.
Chargers owner Dean Spanos, through a team spokesman, declined an interview request from The Post regarding Shelmon.
In San Diego, Shelmon had become close with Tomlinson, the dynamic running back and 2006 NFL MVP who had come to regard Shelmon as an unparalleled football mentor and a second father.
“Nobody taught me more in an individual setting than Clarence Shelmon,” said Tomlinson, now a special assistant to ownership in the Chargers’ front office. “I learned more from him about defenses, schemes, all the things we’re trying to do as an offense than from anyone. He taught me how to know what everyone on the field was doing. That was foreign to me. I just focused on my job: ‘Why do I need to pay attention to what everyone else is doing?’ He said, ‘This is going to make you a better all-around player.’
Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson spent eight seasons with Shelmon in San Diego. (Chris Carlson/AP)
Tomlinson won the Walter Payton Man of the Year award for the 2006 season. He credits Shelmon as a mentor. (Donald Miralle/Getty Images)
LEFT: Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson spent eight seasons with Shelmon in San Diego. (Chris Carlson/AP) RIGHT: Tomlinson won the Walter Payton Man of the Year award for the 2006 season. He credits Shelmon as a mentor. (Donald Miralle/Getty Images)
“He also taught me how to be a man, how to balance work and home life. He talked to me about my branding, about conducting myself around the corporate world. And he and Nancy had been married forever, so he was a role model in that respect. I was engaged to my now-wife at the time, and he was critical for me in that regard, in being better at my relationship with her.”
In the early part of 2007, however, in the aftermath of his lost opportunity with the Dolphins, Tomlinson noticed a change in Shelmon.
“A part of him died in a sense: the belief in what the NFL was supposed to be about — a meritocracy, a fair chance, that if you work hard enough, you’re going to get what you want,” Tomlinson said. “He deserved that shot [after] all the years, all the production of his players. I could tell that it took a lot out of him.”
Hall of Fame wide receiver James Lofton, after turning to coaching himself, spent six years working as wide receivers coach alongside Shelmon with the Chargers; in the last of those six years, 2007, he worked under Shelmon after the latter was promoted to offensive coordinator. What Lofton saw was a man with all the tools and experience to be an NFL head coach.
“He had the passion. He had the desire. He had the intelligence,” said Lofton, now 66. “And he had the presence for when you stand in front of a room and be the guy to lead guys out there to win on Sunday.”
Perhaps because of the cachet his name carried in the league, Lofton received three interviews for NFL head coaching positions, he said, but no job offers. He left his coaching career behind in 2008 for broadcasting — “I just didn’t see a pathway forward to where I was going to become a head coach,” he said — and is now an analyst for CBS.
“You wonder, ‘If not now, when?’ ” Lofton said. “For Clarence to walk away at 59 — once [the game] starts to course through your veins, it’s tough to give up. He had a passion that was unquenchable. … You want that chance. You’re watching other people get elevated around you, and you wonder: ‘What about me? When is my chance?’ ”
Shelmon stayed in the San Diego area after retirement and makes his home in Rancho Santa Fe. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)
‘There has to be a fundamental change’
In Bossier City, Shelmon grew up in a house without running water or electricity. The schools were segregated until the last semester of his senior year. He went to the Black school. His mother, a janitor, cleaned classrooms and bathrooms at the White one. On weekends, she mopped and vacuumed the houses of White people, sometimes bringing home their discarded newspapers, which is how Clarence learned of the world beyond Louisiana.
“I watched her work these two jobs her entire life,” he said of his mother, “and we were never on any public assistance, such as welfare. She worked her butt off for us, [and] she asked for nothing to be given to her. And I wasn’t going to ask for anything, either. But she also wasn’t going to take nothing. And I wasn’t going to take what was happening [in the NFL]. So I think I got that from her.”
When Shelmon decided to leave the league, that was the principle he stood upon: He deserved better.
“I was raised [to believe] that if you don’t like something, and if you don’t feel like you’re being treated fairly … then you make sure that you put yourself in a situation [where] that’s not something you have to rely on,” he said.
By the end, he said, his continued employment in the NFL would have made him partially culpable — “along with the people who were responsible for the hiring,” he noted — for perpetuating a system that denied him one opportunity after another.
“When I look in that mirror, I have to like what I see,” Shelmon said of that period. “And I wasn’t liking what I was seeing.”
He counts his NFL career as just the fifth- or sixth-most-important accomplishment of his life — behind, off the top of his head, the college scholarships he funded for kids from Bossier City and the charitable work he did in San Diego, among other things. More than the statistics of the famous running backs he coached, Shelmon takes pride in the fact that he helped Lorenzo Neal, Darren Sproles and LaDainian Tomlinson register to vote for the first time.
Upon retirement, Shelmon had three goals: learn to play a musical instrument, learn a new language and join the board of a community organization. He did all three: saxophone, Italian and the San Diego Food Bank.
Shelmon has kept busy in retirement. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)
“He didn’t miss [football] as much as I thought he would,” said Nancy, who is also retired. “I think he missed the technical aspects of plotting a game plan and beating a team. But you have so little time to enjoy the victories, and the grind is just unbelievable. I expected it to be harder for him than it was.”
As a female executive in an industry once dominated by men, Nancy could empathize with her husband’s struggle against the prejudice that kept him from reaching the top of his profession. The big difference: The accounting industry has adapted to the times, with women and minorities making up 54 percent of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ new partners in 2022.
Football largely has not.
“I find the NFL so frustrating because it’s these old White men” who own the vast majority of teams, she said. “And that’s the difference: Corporate America has had to adapt from a profit standpoint, and there is nothing that has motivated the NFL owners to adapt to the way the world is.”
Nothing that has happened since 2011 has led Shelmon to think he made a mistake walking away when he did. In the first few years, he turned down a handful of opportunities to return to the NFL as an assistant, but it’s unlikely any of them would have led to a head coaching job. The 2022 season began with fewer than half as many Black head coaches (three) as there were at the start of Shelmon’s final season of 2011 (seven).
If anything, the situation is worse now, and Shelmon, starting his eighth decade on the planet, doesn’t have much confidence in the situation improving during his lifetime.
“You can’t legislate or mandate hiring practices — because those guys own the team. It’s their team. They can do what they want with it. And that’s fine,” Shelmon said.
“There has to be a fundamental change in somebody’s heart. … Until the owners decide that they’re going to look at a person who looks like me and not see my skin [color] and just say, ‘Hey, this guy can do the job,’ regardless of what he looks like, then it’s not going to change.”
Shelmon was disappointed he never got a chance to be a head coach, but he also doesn't consider his NFL career the top accomplishment in his life. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)
Editing by Jason Murray and Joe Tone. Copy editing by Michael Petre. Photo editing by Toni L. Sandys. Video by Jorge Ribas. Video story editing by Jessica Koscielniak. Design and development by Brianna Schroer and Joe Fox. Design editing by Virginia Singarayar. Project management by Wendy Galietta.
Dave Sheinin has been writing for The Washington Post since 1999. In 2019, he was awarded the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting. Twitter Twitter | 2022-10-12T11:54:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A generation of Black coaching talent the NFL lost - Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2022/clarence-shelmon-nfl-black-coaches/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2022/clarence-shelmon-nfl-black-coaches/ |
The past couple of years have been a famously tumultuous time for the US labor market — with the steepest employment losses ever early in the pandemic, a rapid recovery and then a so-called Great Resignation that was more about switching jobs than resigning.
Through all of that, the median number of years that American wage and salary workers have been with the same employer didn’t budge. It was 4.1 years in January 2020, and according to job-tenure data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics to little fanfare last month, it was 4.1 years in January 2022.
As is apparent from the chart, the amount of time Americans spend in the same job hasn’t changed all that much over the decades either. There are some comparability issues, with current statistics measuring tenure among wage and salary workers while those before 1983 (which I’ve harvested here from a 2019 Employee Benefit Research Institute paper) cover all workers, including the self-employed. But BLS reports from the 1960s indicate that the self-employed, especially the farmers among them, stayed in the same job longer than wage and salary workers did, so if anything, the pre-1983 tenure estimates are overstated compared with today’s, and median tenure has risen slightly since then.
Given how frequently one hears that we live in an age of job hopping and unstable employment far removed from the “old model of work where you could expect to hold a steady job with good benefits for an entire career,” this is perhaps a surprising result. The tenure statistics don’t quite show that such claims are entirely wrong, though.
For one thing, higher job tenure doesn’t always equate to more job stability or security. In a recession when many people are laid off and there are few new hires, median tenure will actually rise because only the people who still have jobs are counted. And in a strong labor market recovery, all those new hires drive tenure down.
Beyond these cyclical effects, placid overall job tenure numbers can cover up some pretty interesting currents under the surface. Here, for example, are the occupational groups that experienced the biggest increases or decreases in tenure from 2020 to 2022.
Local governments are struggling to hire enough police officers, firefighters and schoolteachers, and that’s being reflected as rising median tenure. In the occupations where median tenure is falling, a mix of job switching and hiring growth is probably driving the change. The rise in quits that prompted talk of a Great Resignation was concentrated in low-paid fields such as food service, where median job tenure was already quite low.
Tenure statistics are also available by industry, but the results are a little quirky so I’m going to skip making a chart. Median tenure in petroleum and coal products manufacturing was up by a whopping 4.1 years, while in furniture and related products manufacturing it was down by 1.9 years. Agriculture also experienced a substantial increase, while media and waste management both experienced big decreases. Add it all together, and there’s no change, but that doesn’t mean there were no changes.
Over the longer haul, some interesting undercurrents reveal themselves when you break things down by age and gender. Men 45 and older experienced sharp declines in median job tenure in the 1980s and 1990s, for example, although thee situation has stabilized for them since.
The decline in the 1980s and 1990s persisted through two business cycles, so I think it truly did represent reduced job security. Older men were hit hard by layoffs in the early 1980s and early 1990s, and those who were able to return to the workforce drove median tenure down. That stuff about the disappearance of the “steady job with good benefits” (it’s a line from a 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign speech) isn’t all wrong.The tenure for women of all ages, meanwhile, has mostly risen through the decades, although not during the past decade.
Here the increases up to 2000 mainly reflect women’s entry into the full-time, permanent paid US workforce. The share of women ages 25 through 54 with jobs doubled from 37% in 1951 to 74% in 2000. Many women were joining the workforce and thus driving tenure down throughout that period, but women staying in jobs and building careers more than made up for that.
Since then, the movements have coincided with the fluctuations of the job market, with median tenure rising amid the weak labor demand of the 2000s and early 2010s and mostly falling over the past decade as women’s employment rates rebounded.
One thing that stands out in both charts is the stability of median job tenure for those ages 25 through 34. For women, it has barely changed since the early 1980s; for men, it hasn’t really budged since the early 1950s (which implies that it has probably risen a bit). In other words, all that talk about millennials being inveterate job hoppers was mostly bunk. Yes, young adults change jobs more often than their elders, but as economist Gray Kimbrough has shown repeatedly using a different measure — the percentage of workers with at least two sequential employers in the same year — current young adults are less likely to do so than earlier generations did at the same age.
Another thing that’s maybe a little less obvious but seems important is the onset of what you might call normalization after about 2000. The decades before then experienced big shifts in men’s and women’s attachments to their jobs. Since then, men’s job tenure has held more or less constant while women’s has been cyclical. This shift from an age of disruption to a steadier era has also apparent in measures of corporate volatility and startup activity. In that sense, these really are more stable times, even if they don’t always feel like it.
• Working From Home Is Not an Urban Escape Hatch: Justin Fox | 2022-10-12T12:03:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Great Resignation? Workers Are Staying Put - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/what-great-resignation-workers-are-staying-put/2022/10/12/092eb62a-4a22-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/what-great-resignation-workers-are-staying-put/2022/10/12/092eb62a-4a22-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Look Past Israel’s Bonkers Politics. Its Economy Is Thriving.
As even the most advanced economies buckle under the highest inflation rates this century, anemic growth and depreciating currencies, Israel would appear to be irretrievably dysfunctional with voters preparing to elect their fifth government in less than four years. A day doesn’t pass without reports of clashes in the West Bank, the recurring hazard of Hamas missiles fired from Gaza and the peril of a nuclear showdown with Iran.
Israel’s perennial headlines obscure a greater reality, which is that the Mideast nation of nine million is an economic juggernaut. It has the fastest growth and one of the lowest rates of inflation and jobless. On top of that, the shekel is the world’s best-performing currency among the 31 that trade actively and the only one that strengthened against the dollar the past decade.
Unlike any of the 34 developed economies, Israel is poised to achieve 5.2% gross domestic product growth in 2022, 3.5% in 2023 and 3.5% in 2024, according to more than a dozen forecasts compiled by Bloomberg. With unemployment at 3.5% and inflation at 4.3% (around half the annualized rate for the US and European Union) Israel is proving to be the benchmark not only for stability, but for innovation as well.
If anything changed during the past 10 years, it’s that corporate Israel became diverse. None of the 630 companies domiciled in Israel account for more than 10% of the market’s value. Technology has emerged as the No. 1 industry, including 107 companies making up almost 25% of the market. In 2012, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries dominated the index with a weighting of 24%, followed by agricultural and chemicals producer ICL Group at 10%. Today, health care and materials represent 11.2%, down from 43.1%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
From auto parts to medical equipment solutions to food, water and climate change, technology made in Israel is transforming the world’s biggest industries. This hub of innovation includes Mobileye Global Inc., the creator of vision-based driver assistance systems for 50 car makers, or 70% of the global market. Mobileye recently filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering valuing the Intel Inc. unit at as much as $30 billion. Also, there’s Nanox Imaging Ltd., serving governments, hospitals and clinics with cloud-based image analysis, online diagnosis and billing services while developing a 3D medical imaging device; Innoviz Technologies Ltd., the maker of light detection ranging (Lidar) sensors and perception software for autonomous driving; and Redefine Meat Ltd., the closely-held manufacturer of animal-free food using proprietary 3D printing and meat digital modeling to replicate the appearance, texture and flavor of whole muscle meat.
The people behind these companies characteristically are unafraid to fail because they are designing solutions for problems that haven’t been defined. When Amnon Shashua, a professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, founded Mobileye in 1999, he was already thinking about advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) that initially were met with skepticism. “The industry brushed us off,” he said in a September interview in the company’s Jerusalem headquarters. “We developed it and we won in the value market.”
Mobileye, which was acquired by Intel in 2017 after an IPO three years earlier, outperformed the 75 members of the Solactive Autonomous & Electric Vehicles Index, with a 43% increase in revenue in 2021 and sales gains of 30% in 2022 (projected to be 23% next year), making it No. 1 in growth among Intel units, according to estimates by 13 analysts compiled by Bloomberg. The forecasts are bolstered by Mobileye’s rising share of the market and its unique applications.
Half of all new cars last year, or 40 million vehicles, were equipped with ADAS, and Mobileye supplied 28 million, or 70%, Shashua said. The company has been able to expand its market share in part because Mobileye “is the only company that built an entire world high-definition map we called REM, or Road Experience Management,” enabling deployment of autonomous vehicles in new locations almost instantaneously, he said.
Nanox was also buffeted by doubts about a business conceived to address two-thirds of the world population -- from Africa to South America to nursing homes in the US -- without direct access to medical imaging. Since its 2020 IPO, the shares lost more than 50% of their value. But since mid-March, Nanox is outperforming global peers by gaining 32%. Analyst forecasts compiled by Bloomberg predict a total return (income plus appreciation) of 219% during the next 12 months, greater than any of the 10 largest medical imaging companies.
“We are trying to move the world from predictive medicine to preventive medicine,” said Erez Meltzer, 65, who became the chief executive officer of Nanox in January. “You cannot be there unless you don’t have any fear of your own failure,” he said. “And sometimes, it’s like developing a cure for a disease which is nonexistent.”
Innoviz, the auto parts maker headquartered east of Tel Aviv and listed on the Nasdaq stock market last year, reported revenue increases of 144% in the first quarter and 78% in the second, dwarfing the gains posted by the 48 members of the Bloomberg Intelligence Global Auto Parts Index. The company’s not-so-secret sauce is Lidar technology providing reliable navigation in changing environments. Japan Post said in July it will digitize roads using Innoviz Lidar for digital maps. A month later, Volkswagen AG ordered $4 billion of Lidar from Innoviz, and analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Cantor Fitzgerald LP and Berenberg predict Innoviz revenue will increase 288% in 2023 on average and 374% in 2024.
“Anything that is robotic will need a Lidar,” Oren Buskila, chief research and development officer and co-founder of Innoviz, said in a July interview. “We chose the car market because this is where we’ll see the biggest growth for Lidars,” he said. In 10 years, most new cars will have Lidar, Buskila added. “The car industry can change as we shift to real self-driving cars, not just ones that break autonomously but can actually take the responsibility of driving from the driver and let him go to sleep, or work on his laptop or read a book or whatever.”
At a point when climate change is everyone’s existential threat, sustainability increasingly drives the agenda for corporate Israel. That’s especially true for the 2018 startup Redefine Meat, which created the first 3D printed plant-based steak. “If you single out an industry that is contributing damage of this planet, meat is the biggest one,” co-founder and CEO Eshchar Ben-Shitrit said during a July interview at the company’s Ness Ziona headquarters. “We believe that in the next 20 years, there will be a big meat company very similar to JBS or Tyson Foods that will not need animals and we believe we have a good chance to be this company.” Redefine Meat products are in more than 500 restaurants, butcher shops in Israel, Berlin, Amsterdam and London.
Polarized politics haven’t prevented successive short-lived governments from focusing on sustainability as a priority. “The most promising sectors in terms of climate innovation are the ones to do with alternative protein, so Redefine Meat is one of them,” Yuval Laster, the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s senior deputy director for strategy and policy, said last month in Jerusalem. “Water tech, food tech, agriculture tech are all part of what we see as climate innovation,” including “more than 600 startups in Israel already.”
So even if past is prologue and the next government fails for lack of consensus, the economy shows no signs sputtering. “Climate and innovation are bipartisan in Israel,” Laster said.
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• New Israeli-Palestinian Clash Shows Worse to Come: Hussein Ibish
• Arab-Israeli Summit Masks Stalled Diplomacy: Bobby Ghosh | 2022-10-12T12:03:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Look Past Israel’s Bonkers Politics. Its Economy Is Thriving. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/look-past-israels-bonkers-politics-its-economy-is-thriving/2022/10/12/431b97f6-49f3-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/look-past-israels-bonkers-politics-its-economy-is-thriving/2022/10/12/431b97f6-49f3-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Analysis by Clive Crook | Bloomberg
Jerome Powell, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, attends the International Monetary Fund Committee (IMFC) plenary session at the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Saturday, April 21, 2018. The IMF said this week the world’s debt load has ballooned to a record $164 trillion, a trend that could make it harder for countries to respond to the next recession and pay off debts if financing conditions tighten. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
The US Federal Reserve dragged its feet over confronting inflation. Is it now about to go too far with its monetary tightening? It’s certainly possible.
The best reason for keeping inflation under control in the first place is that, once it isn’t, getting it back down is difficult. Delicate judgements are required. The danger of doing too much or too little can’t be avoided. Still, there are ways to reduce the risk.
One of the Fed’s persistent problems is the obligation it feels to signal commitment. The commitment to “price stability” is part of its mandate, of course. Taken literally, however, it’s unachievable. Even if one accepts that stable prices mean 2% inflation, it isn’t in the Fed’s power to achieve inflation of precisely 2%, month after month — or to get inflation back on target on some preset schedule.
The appetite for commitment, doing whatever it takes, staying the course and so forth, inevitably spills into other areas. The banks says it expects to do such and such with interest rates and/or quantitative easing over the coming months, and dares the markets to doubt its resolve.
With terrible timing, such promises were given formal standing when the Fed adopted its now-abandoned framework for “forward guidance.” The idea was to keep interest rates close to zero until inflation had exceeded the 2% target for some time: Easy financial conditions regardless.
That’s commitment! The habit is hard to break — and financial markets make it harder still. The instant a change in interest rates is announced, discussion shifts to the next change, and the one after that. When and by how much? What’s the terminal rate? When will that be reached? The Fed gestures at answers, and then feels held to them.
So, just as keeping rates “low for longer” went too far, there’s a risk that staying the course on rapid monetary tightening will go too far. Announcing, or even seeming to announce, a path of future rate increases adds to the risk of getting locked into the wrong policy.
In principle, if the Fed had decided in March that a policy rate of say 4% would be needed to get inflation back under control, it should have set the rate at that level then, telling investors that the next change, should one be needed, might be up or down. Trouble is, the Fed has trained investors to think that won’t happen. If it adopted such an approach without warning, investors would be stunned and the result would be financial-market turmoil.
Sadly, gradualism in shifting to tighter policy might therefore be prudent — but that doesn’t mean the Fed has to be rigid. It can still direct attention away from the future path of the policy rate and toward the data that determines its view of what the rate should be.
Right now, the policy rate is still too low. The main test is not the core inflation rate, much less consumer-price inflation, which change erratically and with a long lag, but the level of demand. It’s growing more slowly than before but not slowly enough to come back into alignment with supply. As a result, the labor market remains tight and wage costs are rising too fast.
When those indicators start sending a different message, and demand is growing at a suitably subdued pace, the Fed should stop tightening — regardless of its dot plots, determination to stay the course, willingness to see unemployment rise if necessary, and all the rest.
A lot can happen, and fast, to change the calculation. At the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank this week, finance ministers and central-bank governors are preoccupied with the effects of tighter monetary policy in the US and Europe on financial instability and growth prospects in the rest of the world. The UK’s calamitous adventure in fiscal heterodoxy continues to roil financial markets, and draws attention to possible fragilities elsewhere.
If these or other factors press down abruptly on US demand, as they well might, the Fed needs to react without worrying about earlier ill-advised “commitments.” The Fed and everybody else should judge its policy not by what it might or might not have promised, but by the state of the economy right now.
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Clive Crook is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and member of the editorial board covering economics. Previously, he was deputy editor of the Economist and chief Washington commentator for the Financial Times. | 2022-10-12T12:03:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Trouble With Telling the Fed to Stay the Course - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-trouble-with-telling-the-fed-to-stay-the-course/2022/10/12/c1c5bce6-4a14-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-trouble-with-telling-the-fed-to-stay-the-course/2022/10/12/c1c5bce6-4a14-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Biden to designate Colorado’s Camp Hale as his first national monument
The move delivers on a key priority for Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat battling for reelection
Bunkers that were used for artillery practice at Camp Hale in Eagle County, Colo. (Courtesy of Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress)
Biden has yet to create an entirely new national monument, although he has expanded existing national monuments that President Donald Trump slashed in size. The designation will apply to Camp Hale, which served as winter training grounds for the Army in the 1940s and which now provides critical habitat for wildlife including elk, deer, lynxes and migratory songbirds.
The Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument will encompass more than 53,800 acres and will also include the Tenmile Range, a mountain range with stunning views that is prized by hikers and rock climbers, according to a White House fact sheet.
Tracking Biden’s environmental actions
Bennet, who will appear with Biden in Colorado on Wednesday, is running against Republican Joe O’Dea, a Denver business executive. A spokesman for O’Dea said he opposes Biden’s creation of the national monument, which relies on the Antiquities Act, a 1906 law that empowers the president to safeguard public lands and waters for the benefit of all Americans.
A Republican who says Trump lost looks to put Colorado’s Senate race in play
House Republicans, led by Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, raised similar concerns in a letter to Biden last month. The lawmakers added that the Camp Hale designation could lock up land that could be used for mining or timber harvesting.
A spokeswoman for Bennet’s campaign declined to comment.
The legislation backed by Bennet, known as the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act, or Core Act, seeks to protect more than 400,000 acres across the Rocky Mountains. The measure — also sponsored by Sen. John Hickenlooper and Reps. Joe Neguse, Jason Crow, Diana DeGette and Ed Perlmutter, all Colorado Democrats — has passed the House four times but has run aground in the evenly divided Senate.
“Every time it passes the House, we get excited that things might happen,” said Brad Noone, a 10th Mountain Division Army veteran who deployed to Afghanistan and now lives in Salida, Colo. “But it always tends to stall out in the Senate. This absolutely feels like the closest we’ve ever come.”
During World War II, Camp Hale housed up to 17,000 troops in the 10th Mountain Division. At an elevation of 9,200 feet, the site was ideal for training in skiing, snowshoeing and rock climbing — skills that ultimately helped the soldiers defeat Axis forces in Italy. After the war, some of the same soldiers who toiled at what they called “Camp Hell” returned to the region to help launch Colorado’s booming ski industry.
One of those soldiers, Pete Seibert, went on to found the Vail Ski Resort, cementing the town’s status as one of the country’s top skiing destinations.
“We just wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Pete Siebert training at Camp Hale,” said Vail Mayor Kim Langmaid, adding that the site and surrounding public lands “are the lifeblood of our community.”
Soon after taking office, Biden set an ambitious goal of conserving 30 percent of the nation’s land and waters by 2030. Administration officials have been eyeing Camp Hale since July 2021, when Interior Secretary Deb Haaland visited Colorado and participated in a roundtable discussion with sponsors of the Core Act.
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Last fall, Biden restored full protections to three national monuments that Trump had reduced in size, including Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante — known for their historical treasures of Native American art and settlements. Biden also reimposed fishing limits in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which Trump had opened to commercial fishing.
Three more national monuments that Biden could designate | 2022-10-12T12:03:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden to designate Colorado's Camp Hale as national monument - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/12/camp-hale-national-monument-colorado/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/12/camp-hale-national-monument-colorado/ |
Meet the environmental lab deliberately built to drown
A rendering of the Elizabeth River Project’s boardwalk in Norfolk. (Work Program Architects)
NORFOLK, Va. — As coastal cities wrestle with increasing threats from rising waters, a nonprofit’s costly new headquarters offers an answer that is both defiant and prescient.
The Elizabeth River Project’s $8.1 million headquarters on a flood plain destined to be submerged in the coming decades as tides rise and storms intensify has been designed to showcase strategies to stay longer in harm’s way.
Eventually it will surrender to the inevitable: The environmental group has agreed to demolish the building and abandon the site.
“It’s intended to show you how to work and play and live with this rising sea level,” said Marjorie Mayfield Jackson, who co-founded the Elizabeth River Project 25 years ago to restore the waterway. “And once it’s no longer functioning, we take down the building and give it back to nature, give it back to the river.”
Polls show more than half of Americans think they are being harmed by climate change. That number jumps in places already feeling its effects like Norfolk, where a poll shows three-quarters of the population is worried about the risk. Yet worrying about the problem is one thing, facing the reality is another.
The novel experiment to build a sort of resilience theme park for homeowners and developers, destined for destruction, aims to ease people into confronting that reality.
“This whole corridor is at risk, but culturally vital,” said Sam Bowling, the architect for Work Program Architects who spearheaded the design. “All these people live and work and have their favorite bars along Colley Avenue. They don’t want to leave. They’re aware of the risks.”
Construction on a small creek will be complete next year, Mayfield Jackson said. A 6,500-square-foot laboratory will be raised 11 feet on an avenue resurgent with restaurants, a brewery and small businesses. Strategies to reduce the building’s environmental impact are off-the-shelf solutions so they can be replicated by homeowners and developers. A solar array will generate electricity. A green roof and a rain garden will collect water for use in toilets. A southern-facing green wall will reduce the need for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter, bolstered by insulation that exceeds local energy-saving requirements.
The lab’s reduced environmental impact will be certified by EarthCraft, a program the designers view as more approachable and affordable to homeowners than the well-known LEED certification.
“We want to show others that there might just be a better way to live and work in urban areas on the coast, despite rising seas,” Bowling added.
The site marks the first time a U.S. private property owner has agreed to a rolling conservation easement, according to the representative of the land conservation trust working with the nonprofit, which acknowledges that rising waters will overtake the land. When certain trigger points like repeated flooding are reached, the land is returned to nature forever.
A.R. Siders, an assistant professor in the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration and a member of the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center who studies adaptation to climate change, said policies like these could make it easier for people to move away from threatened areas.
She points to the collapse of Outer Banks homes on an eroding shoreline that spread debris 15 miles down the beach this spring after a storm. “Wouldn’t it be better to have a plan to dismantle those homes and take them away before they cause debris over miles of beach?” she asked.
A rolling easement, she added, makes what seems unpredictable predictable. For a city, the easements mean it reaps the tax benefits of permitting building in a vulnerable area but understands that comes with an expiration date.
Norfolk officials say the site shows ways to comply with the city’s updated zoning ordinance, which awards new developments points for resilience to climate effects. At the site, restored wetlands featuring native grasses and an oyster reef will mitigate flooding and prevent erosion. Pervious paving and rain gardens will absorb and store rainwater, keeping it out of the city’s overwhelmed storm water system.
“We’ve been supportive of this,” said Kyle Spencer, Norfolk’s acting chief resilience officer. “We’d like to see ourselves as this sort of living laboratory to work through these really complicated, tough issues cities like ours are facing.”
Mary-Carson Stiff, a board member of the Living River Trust, a nonprofit conservation effort that will enforce the easement, said it offers a potential solution to the coming conflict between rising waters and private property rights in cities like Norfolk, where portions of the waterfront will become uninhabitable.
Rolling easements are used in a few states, but only by public bodies. In Texas, they protect access to public beaches. As the mean low tide naturally shifts, the public’s right to access moves, as well. In Maine, they protect dunes by prohibiting sea walls and requiring their removal as the shoreline moves.
The idea was first championed in the 1990s by James Titus, a sea-level rise expert at the Environmental Protection Agency who clashed with agency officials over his repeated calls to address the problem.
As waters threaten, private property becomes public under the public trust doctrine — the legal principle that the government owns natural resources like rivers and shorelines.
“There’s no legal framework to address the large-scale changing ownership of a coastline as sea levels rise,” Stiff said. “I see the rolling easement as the instrument to address what will be an incredible legal challenge in the future.”
By agreeing to rolling easements, property owners get tax benefits from the federal government and from some states, Stiff said. For now, state and local governments face expensive buyouts and potential court battles.
In 2009, a hurricane damaged cottages along the beach in Nags Head, N.C., and the town ordered their permanent removal, saying they sat on public trust land and declaring them public nuisances. The owners sued. After years in court, Nags Head lost and settled for $1.5 million.
Why haven’t easements become common since Titus started talking about them more than two decades ago?
Jesse Reiblich, who was recently a postgraduate law fellow at William & Mary and examined easements while a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Ocean Solutions, said it will take “property owners realizing that they are waging a losing battle. That hasn’t happened yet on a large scale.”
Decades from now, either climbing sea levels or frequent floods will prompt the Elizabeth River Project to tear down its headquarters. What can be recycled will be recycled, connections to utilities like water, sewer and electrical will be removed, and nature will again rule the land.
For Mayfield Jackson, it’s fitting for a creek that is slowly recovering from the devastation of industrialization.
“We’re not just showing how to do it right for humans and businesses,” she said, “but to safeguard the river, too.” | 2022-10-12T12:04:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | This Elizabeth River Project environmental lab in Norfolk, Va., is deliberately built to submerge - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/10/13/meet-environmental-lab-that-will-be-deliberately-built-drown/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/10/13/meet-environmental-lab-that-will-be-deliberately-built-drown/ |
Geopolitics, not humanitarianism, has long guided U.S. refugee policy
Why the U.S. readily welcomes some refugees, but not others.
Perspective by Emily Frazier
Emily Frazier is an assistant professor of human geography at Missouri State University, and her research focuses on refugee resettlement in the U.S.
Asylum-seeking migrants walk near the border wall on Oct. 6 after crossing the Rio Bravo to turn themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents to request asylum in Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. (Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)
On Sept. 27, President Biden signed a presidential determination setting the new refugee admissions ceiling for the 2023 fiscal year. Despite the president’s stated commitment to rebuild and strengthen the U.S. Reception and Placement program (USRAP) after Trump-era cuts, the new admissions cap was not increased from last year’s number of 125,000. Actual admission totals in 2022 fell well-below the cap.
Although advocates initially hailed Biden’s election as a chance to repeal former president Donald Trump’s restrictions and expand humanitarian protections, the administration’s progress has been irresolute, raising questions about Biden’s commitment to restoring refuge in the United States. The president’s recently released determination states that the 125,000 ceiling is “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest” — yet it is not humanitarian concerns that are primarily shaping refugee policy decisions.
The United States has been considered a haven for those fleeing persecution from its earliest days, and narratives of refuge and humanitarian protection have long formed a crucial part of the American mythos. However, refugee resettlement in the United States has never been merely about providing refuge. Despite the purported humanitarian commitments of the program, U.S. refugee policy aligns with and supports the geopolitical interests of the nation. Biden’s recent admissions determination is best understood as a continuation of this history.
U.S. refugee policy has long privileged certain groups and excluded others in line with purported national security interests or geopolitical alliances. Before the establishment of the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, Jewish advocates urged the U.S. government to admit European Jews and other minorities displaced by Nazi aggression. However, concerns about national security and selective immigration “quota acts” — to say nothing of institutional antisemitism — made it difficult for many to enter the United States.
In 1945, President Harry S. Truman issued a directive to expedite the relocation of displaced Europeans to the United States in line with existing nationality-based quotas for immigration. Additional provisions followed, including the 1948 Displaced Persons Act and later amendments that allowed for the resettlement of more than 250,000 Europeans in the aftermath of World War II. However, these provisions did not extend protection to displaced people outside Europe, despite successive displacement events across other regions.
For several decades thereafter, the United States lacked a comprehensive framework to admit refugees. As a result, refugees were largely admitted through reactive, one-off programs that frequently lacked provisions for permanent residence or status, while denominational networks and organizations across the country carried out the work of resettlement.
Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, extemporary provisions for certain displaced populations further revealed the United States’ selective geopolitical calculus in determining the boundaries of deserving asylum and protection in national refugee policy. Following the 1956 revolution in Hungary against the Soviet Union, thousands of displaced Hungarians were brought to the United States under existing provisions. In the same period, over half-a-million people were violently displaced during the Korean War. Despite U.S. military involvement on the peninsula, no such resettlement or parole programs for displaced Koreans were enacted.
Similar patterns emerged in later decades in line with the zeitgeist of the Cold War and subsequent American military entanglements. Later, resettlement provisions were made for Cubans as well as others viewed as defectors from Communist ideologies. At the end of the Vietnam War, more than 300,000 refugees fleeing violence in Southeast Asia were admitted to the United States.
After nearly a century of anti-Asian sentiment and exclusion in American immigration policy, resettlement from Southeast Asia bucked past trends. Yet this, too, served a geopolitical interest. After failed military engagement in the region, many Americans felt a duty to rescue those seen to be fleeing Communism, resulting in the country’s then largest resettlement operation.
In 1980, passage of the Refugee Act enacted significant changes to the structure of the resettlement program, placing power to set refugee admissions in the hands of the president, restructuring admission requirements and routing funding for resettlement through a new federal structure.
The act also brought U.S. policy into line with the definition of refugee status found in international law, a move away from the explicitly anti-Communist policies of previous years. However, this restructuring did little to change the geopolitical utility of refugee policy. Geopolitical alliances in Central America led the U.S. government to deny refugee status to migrants fleeing violence in El Salvador and Guatemala due to American interventions supporting the oppressive governments of both countries.
Since 1980, the United States has resettled more than 3.1 million refugees through the USRAP, in addition to those granted asylum or admitted via complementary pathways such as humanitarian parole and special visa statuses. While the United States has resettled refugees from all over the world, certain displacement events are prioritized for protection above and beyond the resettlement ceilings regularly set by the president.
Recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine triggered the ongoing displacement of nearly 7.5 million refugees. In response, the United States quickly joined other allies in issuing affirmations of refugee protection and opening pathways for resettlement. After the fall of Kabul in August 2021, the United States launched Operation Allies Welcome to facilitate the evacuation and resettlement of Afghans to the United States. Despite the chaotic logistics of evacuation and transport, more than 76,000 Afghans have now been brought to the United States as humanitarian parolees, and recent legislation has been introduced to provide additional support and a pathway to permanent residency.
Though other significant displacement and humanitarian crises have occurred elsewhere during the same period, the geopolitical interests of the United States enabled a common response in both cases. Such initiatives for Ukrainians and Afghans are both significant and welcomed. Advocates have criticized the lack of proportional protections for other ongoing crises and populations, however. Moreover, though the admission of most Ukrainians and Afghans has occurred outside the USRAP program, the admission of these groups reduced last year’s USRAP admissions and left thousands in line for resettlement waiting in limbo abroad.
More than 100 million people are now counted among the world’s forcibly displaced, and resettlement options around the globe have declined. If, as the administration claims, the United States wishes to continue “to lead in international humanitarian response,” more work is needed to make the resettlement program responsive to humanitarian goals rather than geopolitical interests.
Regarding U.S. refugee policy as a humanitarian initiative obscures the geopolitical underpinnings of the program and reinforces implicit notions that some populations are more deserving of protection than others. In a complicated global landscape, it remains politically expedient for the United States to offer refuge to those fleeing America’s enemies, over other displaced populations in need.
Biden’s slow progress to raise refugee admissions undermines claims that this administration will prioritize rebuilding refuge. If the new admissions ceiling is met in the coming year, 125,000 new arrivals would relieve existing resettlement backlogs and invigorate recovering resettlement networks. But progress toward this goal remains to be seen. And further efforts are needed if the United States is to restore humanitarian leadership in the face of pressing global displacement needs — beyond the bounds of geopolitical expediency. | 2022-10-12T12:04:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Geopolitics, not humanitarianism, has long guided U.S. refugee policy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/12/biden-refugee-policy-politics-humanitarianism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/12/biden-refugee-policy-politics-humanitarianism/ |
A history of U.S. interference worsened Pakistan’s devastating floods
Development aid targeted for water as an economic and technical matter had environmental and financial consequences
Perspective by Maira Hayat
Maira Hayat is an anthropologist and faculty member at the University of Notre Dame.
A girl sits on a cot as she crosses a flooded street in Baluchistan province on Oct. 4. (Fida Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
As Pakistan is enduring devastating floods and an ongoing humanitarian disaster — including decimated crops, more than 500 children dead, hospitals filled with malaria and dengue-infected people and millions of people displaced from their homes — its water infrastructure and management have come under increasing scrutiny. It is tempting to turn to stories about mismanagement, dysfunction and disorder. But in fact, Pakistan’s water woes implicate multiple actors. Recognizing their responsibility for what has unfolded during the floods can lend credence to Pakistan’s message at the upcoming COP27 conference: that countries such as Pakistan, which are bearing the worst costs of climate change, must not bear them alone.
The irrigation network — that today is proving to be inadequate for the climate-changed rainfall intensities, flash floods and glacial lake outburst flood events — has roots in British colonial rule. After independence, the United States and international organizations further shaped Pakistan’s water infrastructure and with it, other structures of society. The agricultural and military elites of today’s Pakistan command wealth and capital along these colonial and post-colonial lineages, as do Europe’s welfare-state institutions.
In other words, the history of Pakistan reveals that inequality and poverty are no more natural than the floods: Both are colonial legacies perpetuated by contemporary arrangements of sovereignty and financial dependence.
For several centuries, British rulers colonized Indian land and settled it with people of their choosing, with an eye to securing the loyalty of agricultural elites and maximizing tax revenue for the military state. At the end of British colonial rule in 1947, India was partitioned into two independent countries, Pakistan and India. Among other things, partition created questions about waterways that transcended the new borders. Over the next decade, a process unfolded, involving U.S. diplomacy and World Bank intervention, over how the water and infrastructure would be shared between the two newly decolonized neighbors. In 1960, India and Pakistan signed the Indus Water Treaty, brokered by the World Bank and commonly viewed as an instrument of peace. But the treaty was also an instrument of profit-making.
Soon Pakistan became the site of an unprecedented feat of earth-moving — including the excavation of 7 billion cubic yards of earth — as part of a $2 billion project ($17 billion in today’s dollars) entailing construction of dams, barrages and 400 miles of link canals in the Indus basin. While the New York Times (Jan. 19, 1968) described it as a project that would “tame the Indus,” Pakistan viewed it as compensation after India took control of the three eastern rivers of the Indus — the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.
The inspiration for developing the Indus basin as an engineering project came from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a key agency of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which was created to address the crisis of the Great Depression in America. Modeling international development projects on the TVA was a Cold War tactic, deployed by the United States in its desire to win people and places over to U.S.-style modernization, development and democracy.
The project was framed as a technical one, requiring external technical assistance and funding, rather than a political one. But the project implicated politics, too, of course. Resolving the India-Pakistan dispute over sharing the waters of the Indus rivers was seen as instrumental to stemming the spread of Communism.
In 1962, some 500 American families arrived in what was then West Pakistan, or, in the words of Irene Douglass, an American woman who accompanied her husband to the region, the “far end of the world.” They were mostly construction workers and their families who came to Pakistan after a San Francisco-based construction company, Guy F. Atkinson Construction Co., obtained a $510 million ($5 billion today) contract to build Mangla Dam on the river Jhelum.
About 2,500 American and European workers would come to be housed in a fully air-conditioned town built for them once construction began. The International General Electric Co. supplied $1.5 million worth of the electrical equipment for the dam. Six years later, the $623 million ($5.3 billion today) contract for Tarbela dam on river Indus was obtained by the Italians and French, who beat out American, German, British and Swiss competitors for the contract. Present-day South Asian geographies, then, were jointly engineered. Just as economies in the global north and south developed jointly.
Some people in Pakistan at the time, such as planner, economist and creator of the Human Development Index Mahbub ul Haq, opposed the influx of such huge amounts of foreign aid, arguing that it would have a stultifying effect on Pakistan’s own institutional growth. It also increased resentment among residents in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, at the disproportionate attention given to West Pakistan’s water challenges relative to the concern for recurring flooding in East Pakistan.
During a National Assembly meeting in December 1962, a member of the legislature from East Pakistan articulated this resentment: “This cannot be imagined for a free country. The government should realize that unless development projects of East Pakistan are given the same treatment [as those of] West Pakistan, there can be no real progress. How can there be patience on the part of East Pakistan on account of this long and continued apathetic treatment?” In short, this massive engineering intervention to remake Pakistan’s water contributed to escalating tensions within the new nation-state. In 1971, after a bloody struggle for independence, East Pakistan became Bangladesh.
Today, the Indus basin in Pakistan is a thoroughly engineered landscape, home to the world’s largest contiguous infrastructure network, with water controlled, stored and diverted thanks to big and small dams, barrages, canals and link canals. And it is just this relationship with water — narrowly conceived as an engineering problem and not also a political one — that has been thrust into public attention by the ongoing devastation.
Yet water was always a political project, one fashioned by the politics of U.S. imperialism, international development and debt, and postcolonial aspirations to growth. The valorization of big infrastructure, together with a view of water as primarily an economic and national resource, has exhausted and polluted the soil and aquifer and shrunk the delta. It has obscured attention to water’s everyday values and infrastructures. And it has made it harder to see that preparing for, instead of controlling, might be the only way to make flooding less destructive.
Good governance, climate adaptation and flood-resistant building all require money. Pakistan’s external debt stands at $99 billion and it is among the top 10 borrowers in the water sector at the World Bank. Such multilateral donor institutions give not only finance but also technical assistance. They also impose governance changes — such as new audit instruments and procedures — across a range of scales, meaning that multilateral institutions have shaped Pakistan’s water governance at least as much as purportedly corrupt and inept local officials.
This is not about directing blame, but a reminder of our shared past and present. Recognizing our different roles, and historical as well as ongoing responsibility, in what is unfolding today in Pakistan will help frame urgent conversations and actions around the climate reparations that are a practical and moral necessity for addressing the planet’s needs in our time.
More than 70 percent of climate adaptation finance given by the global north is disbursed as loans, not grants. The economic cost of loss and damage in developing countries has been estimated at $290 billion to $580 billion by 2030, rising to $1 trillion to $1.8 trillion by 2050. Yet calls for establishing a Loss and Damage Facility by the G-77 and China were blocked by developed countries in Glasgow in 2021.
Loss and damage, rooted in the project of reparative justice, refers to impacts of climate change that cannot be adapted to. Put simply, it is too late for anyone to prepare against these. It is too late to stop loss and damage, but there is still time to ensure more just outcomes for people in the climate-changed present and future. | 2022-10-12T12:04:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A history of U.S. interference worsened Pakistan’s devastating floods - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/12/pakistan-flood-us-development-water/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/12/pakistan-flood-us-development-water/ |
Ben Sasse: An affirmative action hire if there ever was one
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) listens during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on March 23. (Alex Brandon/AP)
Conservatives have long bemoaned the politicization of higher education, accusing faculty and administrators of catering to “wokeness” and engaging in cancel culture personnel policies. Now, we will see how deep their concern about academic freedom really is, thanks to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse.
DeSantis is seeking to install Sasse as president of the University of Florida, which many students, faculty, administrators and donors perceive as an assault on academic independence. And for good reason: DeSantis makes no bones about his contempt for free speech and academic freedom.
The governor has championed an anti-protest law and a measure attempting to bar teachers from talking about race in classrooms, both of which were blocked in state court. He also backed the infamous “don’t say gay” bill, suspended a state attorney for speaking out against the state’s abortion restrictions and, most ominously, changed Disney’s tax status after the company criticized his LGBTQ policies. And he’s routinely tried to exclude the media from events.
With regard to higher education, DeSantis is widely suspected to be behind the University of Florida’s attempt to bar professors from testifying against the state’s voter suppression bill. He also supported legislation that created an exemption to the state’s open government laws, thereby allowing the University of Florida to conduct its president selection process behind closed doors.
Given that the governor’s chief of staff reportedly helped guide Sasse through the selection process, the ensuing outrage that DeSantis is attempting to put a Republican flunky atop the state’s flagship institution was hardly unexpected. Sasse’s vocal opposition to same-sex marriage and support for right-wing Supreme Court judges who disposed of nearly 50 years of abortion precedent naturally don’t sit well in a diverse university setting.
Sasse provided a lame defense of his views during a recent student forum. “The fact that I’ve had political positions and policy positions that reflect the views of Nebraskans, it’s a different job than president of UF.”
He tried evading tough questions at the event. Inside Higher Ed reported:
In other words, don’t expect him to criticize DeSantis’s attacks on the First Amendment.
He’s also done an about-face on academic tenure, which he eliminated while serving as president of Midland University in Nebraska before running for Senate. The Gainesville Sun reports, “Questioned about his criticism of tenure while at Midland, Sasse [said] that the school and a major research university such as UF are ‘obviously hugely different institutions.’” | 2022-10-12T12:04:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Ben Sasse: An affirmative action hire if there ever was one - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/ben-sasse-university-florida-desantis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/ben-sasse-university-florida-desantis/ |
California’s ‘crazy train’ is still going nowhere fast
Newly constructed pillars near Fresno, Calif., part of the state's high-speed train project, in July 2021. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
Amtrak TV commercials used to depict trains winding through the landscape as a lofty musical tribute to the experience played. “There’s something about a train — that’s magic!” a deep voice sang.
There’s something about California’s high-speed passenger train, too, though not in a good way: Originally touted as a sub-three-hour link between San Francisco and Los Angeles, this mega-project has not carried a single passenger in the 14 years since the state committed to building it. It has made a lot of public money disappear, though: more than $10 billion, with the ultimate cost estimated at $113 billion.
That is more than triple the initial $33 billion price tag bandied about during a 2008 referendum campaign to authorize a $9 billion initial bond issue; the public was told to expect completion by 2020. In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) kept the dream alive, barely, by committing to finish 171 miles between relatively small cities in the state’s interior, on the apparent thinking that, if the middle part gets done, future state legislators and governors will figure out how to pay for the beginning and the end.
Now, the New York Times reports that some past leaders of the high-speed rail authority concede it “may never work.” Some of these officials, the Times notes, were “speaking candidly on the subject for the first time” — a phrase that should have come with a trigger warning for the many critics who long ago predicted this debacle but were not heeded.
Not looking good in hindsight are two former governors, Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Jerry Brown (D), who backed the plan as a way to reduce carbon emissions from cars and planes. Don’t feel too sorry for California voters, though, who brought this mess on themselves — first by approving the 2008 referendum, then by reelecting Brown in 2014 over moderate Republican Neel Kashkari, who campaigned against what he called the “crazy train.” (Kashkari has since become president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank.)
Looking better are GOP governors of Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin, who in 2010 and 2011 rejected President Barack Obama’s offer of funding for high-speed rail, because, the governors argued, the money would not be enough to cover the whole cost, with their states on the hook for the rest.
As for what caused the train’s woes, the Times’s story called out the many sordid and — given the recent history of U.S. infrastructure delays — eminently foreseeable political manipulations and legal obstacles that turned this California dream into a costly, complex nightmare.
Early on, France’s national railroad company ended its bid to help develop the California line and went somewhere with less red tape: Morocco.
Special interests ranging from Silicon Valley’s tech industry to Los Angeles County supervisor Mike Antonovich intervened to change the bullet train’s route through the state, which accordingly ended up in a suboptimal configuration “not based on technical and financial criteria,” as a former official told the Times.
To be sure, there is a case to be made for California high-speed rail — in theory. Its northern and southern population centers are roughly 400 miles apart, within the distance over which bullet trains can have a competitive advantage relative to air travel, according to a 2010 World Bank analysis, assuming “exceptionally high and concentrated travel demand.”
Whether that level of demand would ultimately materialize depends on fares and variables such as the availability of transportation links and other amenities at the system’s major destinations. Those are big question marks in sprawling Los Angeles, which has no city center such as those in Paris and Lyon or other urban pairs that Europe’s bullet trains connect.
The World Bank study admonished that “Any ... shortfall in ridership or yield, can quickly create financial stress” for high-speed rail. It is an especially pertinent warning, now that zoom is not just a description of what bullet trains do, but also the name of an app rendering many business trips unnecessary.
As it is, many of the world’s bullet trains need operating subsidies, and some, such as the island-length train in Taiwan, have required bailouts.
Full operation of a San Francisco-to-Los Angeles. bullet train would cut carbon emissions by the equivalent of 213 million gallons of gasoline per year, according to the state high-speed rail authority’s 2022 annual report. That’s about a week’s worth of California’s fuel consumption in 2021. Surely there is a cheaper, less grandiose way to achieve the same savings.
At this point, the best thing for California might be to cut the project’s losses and abandon it. Yes, this would leave in place several massive concrete structures that have been completed. Passersby could look on them as monuments to magical thinking about infrastructure. | 2022-10-12T12:04:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | California's high-speed rail line, still going nowhere fast - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/california-high-speed-rail-nightmare/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/california-high-speed-rail-nightmare/ |
Writers, be wary of Throat-Clearers and Wan Intensifiers. Very, very wary.
By Benjamin Dreyer
Benjamin Dreyer is Random House’s executive managing editor and copy chief and the author of “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style.”
I suppose, as a child, I learned the art of padding a school composition from the 1967 musical “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” specifically from the song “The Book Report,” in which the “Peanuts” characters are tasked with providing 100 words on “Peter Rabbit.” Lucy, bless her, painfully counts her way word by word, eventually crawling to the finish line by noting that, after their adventures, Peter and his siblings were “very, very, very, very, very, very happy to be home … 94, 95. The very, very, very end.”
Cleverer methods of cheating — sorry, more sophisticated workarounds — followed for me, including the age-old trick of bloating typewriter margins (back in the 1970s, mind you) in an attempt to put one over on teachers foolish enough to assign papers by number of pages rather than word count. But it’s Lucy’s “very”s and the concept of word fat that stuck with me over the years, especially once I got into the copy editing racket.
Now, it’s a common misapprehension that “editing” is a synonym for “deleting.” Yes, by all means trim away what I call the Throat-Clearers and Wan Intensifiers — “to be sure,” “that said,” “of course,” “in sum,” “rather,” “actually,” and, to be sure (ahem), “very.” But I have learned that prose often benefits from the cushioning of a few extra words — for rhythm, for sense, sometimes simply to counter the airlessness of sentences that are so straitened they can’t breathe.
That there are few absolutes in writing is why a case can be made for just about any word on a list of the proscribed. My British friends chide me about the ones cited above, noting that if they can’t utter these words, they can’t speak at all.
Good writing, I think, ultimately exists between the twin goal posts of as-few-words-as-you-need and as-many-words-as-you-want. I, a natural natterer, lean toward the latterer.
But one must draw the line somewhere. I recommend striking out “actually” at every opportunity, unless it’s in a discussion of the movie “Love Actually,” in which case we might want to focus on the title’s confounding commalessness. Similarly, though I would never fault the supreme lyricist Johnny Mercer for the gorgeous “You’re much too much / And just too very very,” I am on constant alert for “very,” always looking for the chance to dispose of it. I’d encourage you to do the same.
For one thing, “very” is a fraud, masquerading as a strengthener when it merely wheedles and pleads. To call someone “brilliant” is to make a bold assertion; to call someone “very brilliant” attempts to persuade others of something one appears not to truly believe. Moreover, it’s a dull adverb and encourages duller adjectives. What, after all, is “very hungry” compared with “ravenous”? What’s “very sad” up against “despondent”? Who’d want to be “very strong” when you might be “herculean”?
Now, every time I go on one of my anti-“very” rants, I recall the time my friend the dazzling writer Amy Bloom rapped my knuckles (virtually) and noted that sometimes those two modest little syllables are all you need to give a modest everyday adjective an extra shove. And yes, she’s correct, as she tends to be about just about everything.
The other day I had cause to recall the time, back in my senior year at Northwestern University, when I directed a play. This was shortly before I abandoned my theatrical ambitions in the face of the incontrovertible fact that many of my classmates were vastly more talented than I was — who wants to sign on for lifelong mediocrity at age 20? As a last hurrah, I’m happy to report, the show went well. My parents flew out from New York to Evanston, Ill., to take in the Saturday night performance. Afterward, the cast, crew, family and friends were hanging around backstage, and someone — a faculty member? somebody’s parent? it was an adult — shook my hand and complimented the production as “very professional.”
After the well-wisher moved on, my father — standing just over my shoulder, as I recall — spoke up. Not a man free with compliments — he was more in the mold of how the late Mary Rodgers describes her parents, Dorothy and Richard Rodgers (as in “& Hammerstein”), in her superb recently published memoir, “Shy”: often wonderful about the big things yet often terrible about the small things.
My father offered, of all things, a copy edit: “It wasn’t ‘very professional,’ ” he said to me. “It was professional.”
It was — with the exception of what, decades later, were his last words to me, possibly to anyone, and you’ll forgive me for not sharing them here — the nicest thing he ever said to me.
Opinions on language
Opinion|Words in English don’t last forever. And that’s okay.
Opinion|The quotes likely to be permanently evocative of the Jan. 6 scandal | 2022-10-12T12:04:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why to avoid 'very' in English grammar - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/editing-writing-word-choice-avoid-very/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/editing-writing-word-choice-avoid-very/ |
Crime is everywhere, and it’s freaking Americans out. Lee Zeldin knows.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) at a gubernatorial debate against Gov. Kathy Hochul on June 13. (Bebeto Matthews/AP)
Here’s the good news about the shooting outside the home of Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) on Sunday: Unlike the attacker who tried to stab him this summer, the assailants apparently were not trying to kill him. The shooting was a drive-by unrelated to his gubernatorial campaign. But the fact that there was a drive-by shooting in the quiet suburban neighborhood where Zeldin lives highlights why crime has become such a potent issue in the midterm elections.
According to the FBI data, there were more murders in the United States in 2021 than in any year since 1994. And Axios reports that the FBI numbers might in fact be low because law enforcement agencies significantly underreported crime data to the agency, leaving roughly “2.1 million crimes in the U.S. … uncounted due to the lack of reporting.” Crime has gotten so bad that Starbucks recently announced it was shuttering 16 locations in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., over safety concerns. | 2022-10-12T12:04:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Crime across the U.S. could make all the difference in November - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/lee-zeldin-shooting-crime-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/lee-zeldin-shooting-crime-midterms/ |
The U.S. Treasury expects millions of companies to name their owners
Will the Corporate Transparency Act cut down on illicit financial dealings? That’s the plan.
Analysis by Elizabeth Meehan
Treasury officials are preparing to implement the 2021 Corporate Transparency Act, designed to combat illicit financial dealings. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
In late September, the U.S. Treasury finalized a rule that will require millions of small companies to disclose more information about their owners. This is Treasury’s first move to implement the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), enacted by Congress over President Trump’s veto in 2021. Designed to combat illicit finance, the new database catches the United States up with the United Kingdom and other global allies that already maintain registers of corporate owners.
The 2016 Panama Papers and other massive leaks revealed corruption by political and business elites worldwide — often using “shell companies” to shield the identity of owners. But governments worldwide have been slow to change laws that allow companies to operate with anonymity. So how did proponents of disclosure finally succeed in the United States? My research shows that “strange coalitions” of industry groups such as the Bank Policy Institute and advocacy groups like the FACT Coalition are central in securing greater corporate transparency in the United States and beyond.
The new law targets “anonymous shell companies”
When someone sets up a company in the United States, they don’t need to identify the person who actually owns it or who is in charge of its day-to-day operations. In fact, in some cases obtaining a library card might require divulging more information than setting up a U.S. company. Anonymous companies operate that way for a large number of reasons — but the main concern is that U.S.-registered companies have been used to hide illegally obtained assets from corruption, human and drug trafficking, terrorist financing and many other illicit activities.
Those looking to evade detection will often layer companies on top of one another to make it harder to identify the true owner. Such “anonymous shell companies” do no real business other than allowing “illicit actors” to conceal their true identity. According to Treasury, the CTA will “pierce the corporate veil” and require reporting the real person who owns a company, not just the shell company that claims ownership.
Scandals don’t always increase transparency
Political science researchers as well as journalists point to information leaks such as the Panama Papers and ensuing scandals as the major push toward greater corporate transparency. The “John Doe” whistleblower behind the Panama Papers recently noted they were proud of the major policy changes resulting from this data leak. And BuzzFeed has repeatedly claimed credit for ensuring passage of the CTA after reporting on global banking misconduct in the 2020 FinCen Files.
Yet long before these scandals, lawmakers knew that anonymous shell companies posed a number of challenges. A version of the CTA was first proposed by Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) in May 2008. The measure was introduced in every session of Congress until it passed both houses in December 2020.
A “strange coalition” backed the CTA
Enacting the CTA took more than the global outrage over these financial scandals. First, a small group of advocates prioritized ownership transparency as one of their core issues. The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition, founded in 2011, spent nearly a decade producing investigative reports, lobbying legislators and building a coalition with interest groups such as Friends of the Earth and Polaris. FACT’s strategy was to highlight how anonymous companies enable and perpetuate the harms these groups care about, such as environmental degradation and human trafficking. FACT’s advocacy kept ownership transparency on Congress’s agenda and contributed to building bipartisan consensus around change.
Second, several key business interest groups became supportive of increasing ownership transparency. U.S. anti-money laundering (AML) laws after 9/11 only required some industries, like banks and credit unions, to collect limited customer information to reduce the risk of illicit financial dealings. Other industries, like hedge funds and private equity firms, successfully lobbied to remain exempt.
We know free school lunches help. What else would end hunger?
Further changes in May 2016 required AML-regulated industries to start collecting ownership information. To reduce their compliance costs, banking and some real estate industry groups started to support greater ownership transparency. They recognized that having the U.S. Treasury collect and share ownership information would cut compliance costs considerably. What’s more, some service providers such as Corporation Service Company also sought to ensure the rules apply to all professions that set up companies, to level the playing field across industries.
This increased lobbying for ownership transparency among some industry groups also led the FACT Coalition to ally with groups like the Bank Policy Institute to push Congress to adopt the CTA. Together, this “strange coalition” prevented Congress from passing an AML reform bill in 2018 that did not include increasing ownership transparency. Then, in 2021, the coalition managed to insert the CTA into the “must-pass” 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.
Everyone loves to hate the IRS. That’s a problem.
Will the registry work?
Transparency advocates and the U.S. Treasury hope the ownership register will lessen the impacts of illicit finance in the United States. But it’s too early to tell.
Recent research by Matt Collin, Florian Hollenbach and David Szakonyi examined whether increasing ownership transparency around real estate purchases changed the financial behavior of those looking to park corrupt and criminal assets via real estate transactions. They found that requiring full disclosure of purchasers who buy homes with all cash in some parts of the United States did not change the incidence of all-cash purchases.
Stronger oversight and enforcement mechanisms may help. Collin, Hollenbach and Szakonyi argue a lack of overt enforcement of ownership reporting requirements is likely why they observed no behavioral change. Their argument mirrors other recent research by Daniel Honig, Ranjit Lall and Bradley Parks, who find that transparency improves development aid project outcomes when enforcement mechanisms are in place — such as an appeals process for denied information access requests.
With its new rules in place, the U.S. Treasury has some new tools. Treasury can fine noncompliers up to $10,000 and threaten those who violate the law with up to two years in prison. But requiring disclosure of company owners is just the first step. How well Treasury enforces these new rules — and what level of resources the U.S. government directs toward compliance and enforcement — will be the all-important next steps.
Elizabeth (Bit) Meehan is a PhD candidate at the George Washington University and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. This article draws from her dissertation research on the Political Origins of Corporate Transparency. Follow her on Twitter @bitmeehan. | 2022-10-12T12:05:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S.-registered "shell companies" won't be able to remain anonymous. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/corporate-transparency-act-compliance-enforcement/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/corporate-transparency-act-compliance-enforcement/ |
Most Republican candidates endorse the ‘big lie’ — even when voters don’t
We examined whether candidates’ beliefs — for and against the ‘big lie’ — matched up with those of their state’s voters. Nope.
Analysis by Brendan Harnett
Brian Schaffner
Former president Donald Trump and Michigan Republican attorney general candidate Matt DePerno listen as Michigan Republican secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo addresses the crowd during a rally in Warren, Mich., on Oct. 1. (Todd Mcinturf/AP)
Most Republicans running for national or statewide office in 2022 have publicly stated that they believe the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. In many cases, these candidates are running for offices — like secretary of state — that would help oversee future elections.
But do their potential constituents also believe the “big lie” — or are these candidates running solely on the strength of their primary voters’ commitment to this falsehood? Here’s what our research found.
Measuring public opinion on the ‘big lie,’ by state
Since no pollster has systematically checked to see what proportion of each state’s voters believe the “big lie,” we used a method called multilevel regression with post-stratification to create reliable estimates.
We examined nationally representative surveys with this method. First, we pooled two waves of surveys from Bright Line Watch, one from November 2020 and the other from February 2021, each of which polled 2,700 respondents. We combined that information with data on each state’s demographics and political characteristics, matched against those 5,400 respondents, to make predictions about the percentage of each state’s voters who said they believed the 2020 election was stolen. The methodology is commonly used to produce subnational estimates of public opinion from national surveys.
To be sure that our model was accurate, we compared our estimates with specific state polls from Pennsylvania, Florida, Massachusetts and Utah. We found that our model was accurate within 4 percentage points.
Notably, the polling data we used to inform our model was collected in the months immediately after the 2020 election. This allows us to establish public support for the “big lie” in each state long before the 2022 campaigns began. That makes it easier to establish whether citizens’ beliefs encouraged more election-denying Republican candidates to run for office in the months that followed.
State support for the ‘big lie’ does encourage more election-denying candidates
Nationally, the Bright Line Watch polls we analyzed found that 35 percent of Americans believed that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. However, our estimates show that belief in the “big lie” varies remarkably across the 50 states. In Maryland, Vermont and Massachusetts, fewer than 25 percent of adults endorsed the “big lie.” Elsewhere, in Arkansas, Wyoming, Oklahoma and West Virginia, at least two-thirds of the population believes the stolen election claims.
Perhaps even more surprising, those variations in public opinion appear largely unrelated to whether election-denying candidates are running in those states. When we try plotting the percentage of statewide Republican candidates who have endorsed the stolen election claims alongside the percentage of state voters who believe in the “big lie,” we find no clear pattern. For example, many states whose populations largely believe that the 2020 election was stolen do not actually have many Republican candidates on the ballot who endorse those claims.
Likewise, we find many states where a relatively small proportion of the population believe the 2020 election was stolen — but many of the Republican statewide candidates endorse that. For example, 38 percent of Michigan’s eligible voters doubt the 2020 election results. But Kristina Karamo, the Republican candidate for Michigan secretary of state, quite publicly promotes the “big lie.” In fact, none of the Republican candidates for statewide office in Michigan have publicly accepted President Biden as the rightful winner of the 2020 election — even though most of their potential constituents accept that he won.
Similarly, in Pennsylvania, only 41 percent of eligible voters believe in the “big lie.” Yet, the Republican nominee for governor, Doug Mastriano, is a prominent denier of Biden’s victory and even attended the Jan. 6, 2021, “stop the steal” rally in Washington, D.C. Mastriano has made clear that he would use his executive powers to intervene in the next election’s administration.
By contrast, in Ohio, upward of 50 percent of the population has reservations about the 2020 election’s integrity. And yet Frank LaRosa, the Trump-endorsed Republican-nominee for secretary of state, affirms the election’s legitimacy — which he oversaw during his first term.
Conspiracy theories are spreading wildly. Why now?
So, who is pushing the ‘big lie?’
Overall, this suggests the emergence of Republican candidates in 2022 who endorse the “big lie” is largely unrelated to their state voters’ beliefs. These candidates may have been responding to opinion among Republican primary voters. But in many states they now face general elections in which most voters don’t accept that view.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that Ron DeSantis, who did not face a primary in his reelection bid in Florida, has been careful in what he says about the 2020 election’s legitimacy. As in Pennsylvania and Michigan, most Floridians believe Biden legitimately won. And so DeSantis has not endorsed Trump’s lies directly. However, he has backed Republican election-denying candidates nationwide — and appointed someone as secretary of state — Cord Byrd — who has yet to acknowledge Biden’s victory.
This lack of fit suggests that Republican candidates are pushing these claims either on their own or in response to their primary voters, since those candidates are not responding to what potential general election voters in their states believe.
Congress is polarized. Fear of being ‘primaried’ is one reason.
Will being out of step with public views cost Republicans at the ballot box this November? If it does not, MAGA Republicans will capture the last line of defense protecting the integrity of our elections and be in position to further undermine the U.S. democratic process.
Brendan Harnett (@BrendanHartnett) is a senior at Tufts University.
Brian Schaffner (@b_schaffner) is Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies at Tufts University and co-director of the Cooperative Election Study. | 2022-10-12T12:05:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will endorsing the big lie hurt Republican candidates this November? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/republicans-election-deniers-voters-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/republicans-election-deniers-voters-midterms/ |
That won’t help solve Europe's energy crisis triggered by Russia's war in Ukraine. Still, Gordon Birrell, an executive for project co-developer BP, says the development “could not be more timely” as Europe seeks to reduce its reliance on Russian natural gas to power factories, generate electricity and heat homes.
While an earlier agreement allowed Italy’s biggest energy company to start production at two Algerian gas fields this week, it wasn't clear when flows would start from the July deal because it lacked specifics, analysts said. | 2022-10-12T12:05:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Europe turns to Africa in bid to replace Russian natural gas - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/eu-countries-turn-to-africa-in-bid-to-replace-russian-gas/2022/10/12/e747ae90-49f9-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/eu-countries-turn-to-africa-in-bid-to-replace-russian-gas/2022/10/12/e747ae90-49f9-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
The Bank of England stands in the financial district of The City of London, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. The pound sank against the dollar early Wednesday after the Bank of England governor confirmed the bank won’t extend an emergency debt-buying plan introduced last month to stabilize financial markets.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali) | 2022-10-12T12:06:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UK markets roiled after bank rules out extending help - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pound-falls-after-uk-bank-chief-rules-out-extending-help/2022/10/12/6bf9b8b6-4a01-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pound-falls-after-uk-bank-chief-rules-out-extending-help/2022/10/12/6bf9b8b6-4a01-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
A “He Gets Us” campaign advertisement in Las Vegas. (He Gets Us)
A $100 million effort launched this year is blanketing cities and the web, aiming to redeem Jesus’ brand from the damage done by some of his followers.
Billboards with messages like “Jesus let his hair down, too” and “Jesus went all in, too,” have been posted in major markets like New York City and Las Vegas. And ads featuring black-and-white online videos about Jesus as a rebel, an activist or a host of a dinner party have been viewed more than 300 million times, according to organizers.
The He Gets Us campaign, funded by the Signatry, a Christian foundation based in Kansas, will expand in the next few months, with an updated website, an online store where people can get free gear if they forgive someone or welcome a stranger, and an outreach program for churches, all leading up to a Super Bowl ad.
U.S. Christian majority could fade in coming decades, models find
Jon Lee, one of the chief architects of the campaign, said organizers hope to start a movement of people who want to tell a better story about Jesus and act like him.
“Our goal is to give voice to the pent-up energy of like-minded Jesus followers, those who are in the pews and the ones that aren’t, who are ready to reclaim the name of Jesus from those who abuse it to judge, harm and divide people,” said Lee, a principal at Lerma, a cross-cultural advertising agency based in Dallas.
Jason Vanderground, president of Haven, a branding firm based in Grand Haven, Mich., said the movement hopes to bridge the gap between the story of Jesus and the public perception of his followers. The campaign has done extensive market research and found that, while many Americans like Jesus, they are skeptical of his followers.
The market research split Americans into four categories: non-Christians (16 percent of the sample), people who are “spiritually open” (20 percent), “Jesus followers” (34 percent) and “engaged Christians” (30 percent). It showed a wide gap between the first three groups and the last category.
Bible demands action on climate change, Evangelicals say in new report
Most people in the first three categories said the behavior of Christians is a barrier to faith. More than two-thirds agreed with the statement: “Followers of Jesus say one thing, but do not follow those things in practice.” Only 5 percent of the engaged Christians agreed. Most folks in the first three categories also agreed that Christians care only about stopping abortions, rather than caring for moms and their children. Only 6 percent of the engaged Christians agreed.
The recent scandal involving Herschel Walker, the former football star turned outspoken antiabortion Senate candidate who allegedly paid for and pressured a former girlfriend to have an abortion, seems to fit how many of those outside the church see Christians — especially after many of his supporters rallied around Walker, despite the scandal.
Ironically, the ideas that Jesus loved all people and warned about religious hypocrisy were seen as very important to engaged Christians and Jesus followers in the research but were not seen as very important to the non-Christians or spiritually open.
Vanderground said Christians see their faith as the greatest love story, but those outside the faith see Christians as a hate group.
“Jesus said, ‘People are going to know my followers by the way they love each other and the way they interact with each other,’ ” Vanderground said. “I think when we look at American Christianity now, we don’t see nearly as much of that — and that concerns a lot of people.”
Lee said past faith-based campaigns, like the famed “the family that prays together, stays together” series of television ads, were aimed at getting people to go back to church. This campaign takes a more spiritual but not religious approach. Lee said organizers hope the ads inspire people at least to consider that Jesus might be relevant to their lives.
Those who see the ads can contact the campaign and get connected with Bible study resources to check out the story of Jesus for themselves, he said.
So far, Vanderground said, 100 million people have been exposed to the campaigns and about 30,000 have signed up for Bible reading plans. Of those, more than half have completed the reading plans. Those reading plans can help people get in touch with the real message of Jesus, he said.
“Our research shows that many people’s only exposure to Jesus is through Christians who reflect him imperfectly, and too often in ways that create a distorted or incomplete picture of his radical compassion and love for others,” Vanderground said. “We believe it’s more important now than ever for the real, authentic Jesus to be represented in the public marketplace as he is in the Bible.”
Vanderground hopes the ideals of Jesus, as portrayed in the ads, might help change American culture if they are more broadly accepted. He also hopes more Christians will begin to live out the teachings of Jesus. | 2022-10-12T12:07:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | $100M ‘He Gets Us’ campaign aims to fix Jesus’ brand from Christian damage - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/10/12/he-gets-us-christians-jesus/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/10/12/he-gets-us-christians-jesus/ |
The next U.S. battle tank could use AI to identify targets
The AbramsX is the largest redesign of U.S. military tanks since the Cold War, but its approval faces an uphill climb in the Pentagon
The Abrams X military tank prototype. (General Dynamics Land Systems)
Over the weekend, in a 55-second YouTube video with dramatic music, the world got a glimpse at a new killing machine that’s more fuel-efficient, quieter and sleek.
General Dynamics, the defense contracting juggernaut, showed off a prototype of its next-generation military tank, the AbramsX. It’s the biggest upgrade of America’s military tank technology since early in the Cold War, former military officials said, which presents both critical design advances and worries about unnecessary military spending.
The AbramsX comes loaded with features typical of modern military weapons. Powered by a hybrid electric diesel engine, it’s lighter and far more fuel-efficient than current gas-guzzling Abrams tanks. It can also operate with a smaller crew and has artificial intelligence systems to spot enemies, its creators said.
But the design faces an uphill climb in the halls of the Pentagon, military experts said. Russia’s war in Ukraine has shown the promise and peril of tank technology in a modern battlefield. Military strategists worry how useful tanks might be in a potential war against China, the U.S. military’s chief rival. Outfitting lethal machines with artificial intelligence also concerns military skeptics.
“It’s going to be hard for the tank community to get resources to do a major upgrade,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security think tank.
Fighter pilots will don augmented reality helmets for training
Shortly after the Vietnam War, the Defense Department commissioned Abrams tanks into service, looking to match Soviet firepower and technology. The M1 Abrams tank has served as a primary battle tank for the U.S. Army and, until recently, the Marine Corps.
The Abrams tank has gone through various changes in the past century, but it has been plagued with several issues: It’s costly and gas-guzzling, and it isn’t as nimble on the battlefield as lightweight armored vehicles, such as the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, military experts said.
For the past few years, General Dynamics has been trying to solve those problems, said Tim Reese, the company’s director of U.S. business development. General Dynamics did not disclose a price tag for the AbramsX, which is still in the preliminary stages.
Reese said the tank weighs roughly 10 tons less than current models in service. Its hybrid electric diesel engine would be 50 percent more fuel-efficient than the Abrams tanks the military uses now, which require more than a gallon of gas per mile traveled, Reese said.
The design would also be slightly different. Instead of soldiers sitting in the turret at the top of the tank, they would be in the hull. Creators said the tank could operate with a three-person team, one fewer than usual. The AbramsX has enhanced armor to protect it against bombs dropped by drones.
The tank’s software is another major upgrade. An artificial intelligence system on board could be used to spot dangers in the distance. Reese envisioned a scenario where the software could alert soldiers that an enemy tank is a few miles away and it has roughly 90 percent confidence it’s a threat. The tank can also communicate with unmanned aerial vehicles, which could scout dangers ahead.
In fighting situations, Reese noted, the tank’s artificial intelligence could prioritize a target list when multiple enemies are present. But it could not kill anyone automatically. “In the end, a human operator — the commander of the vehicle — makes a decision whether to engage and with what got it,” he said.
Cancian said the AbramsX is a big leap forward for the military’s tank program but noted that it will face challenges getting approval from top Pentagon brass, who are debating how useful tanks will be in America’s future.
The military wants new ‘robot ships’ to replace sailors during battle
The war in Ukraine has provided some lessons, he said. In the conflict’s early days, he said the Ukrainians defeated Russian tanks with ease, a sign that the machine might not be very useful anymore. But as the war has progressed, officials from Kyiv have said tanks would be helpful and keep asking Western officials for them.
On the other hand, the United States’ main strategic rival is China, and a battle with Beijing would be largely fought with naval and air power, Cancian said, rather than tanks. “A lot of people look at this [tank] and say, ‘You know, this is not going to help us at all with China,’ ” he said.
Bill Hartung, an arms expert at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said it’s too early to tell if the AbramsX tank will be a technological marvel.
As the military has seen with other high-tech machines like the F-35 fighter jet, he said, complex weapons systems can be a mixed blessing: They’re harder to maintain, subject to technical breakdowns and costlier than expected. “The Army should proceed with caution,” he said.
Hartung also noted that outfitting tanks with artificial intelligence comes with risks. (Experts have noted that poor data could lead to poor decisions in battle.) Hartung said it’s too early to tell how these capabilities will fare in war, but he’s not hopeful.
“They’re making it sound like it’s going to be this miracle weapon,” Hartung said. “But that’s so rarely the case.” | 2022-10-12T12:07:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The next-generation AbramsX battle tank is an AI-fueled hybrid - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/12/abramsx-ai-hybrid-military-battle-tank/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/12/abramsx-ai-hybrid-military-battle-tank/ |
Wednesday briefing: Ukraine hit by more Russian airstrikes; student debt relief hearing; long covid; Angela Lansbury; and more
Russia bombarded Ukraine with airstrikes for the second day in a row.
The target: Key infrastructure in 12 of Ukraine’s 24 regions. Nearly 20 cities have been hit since Monday — retaliation for an attack on a strategic Russian bridge this weekend.
What else to know: Leaders from the Group of Seven, the world’s wealthiest democracies, yesterday promised to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes” to hold off Russia.
There’s a hearing today on the student debt relief plan.
The details: Six Republican-led states will argue that the Biden administration doesn’t have the power to offer such widespread forgiveness.
A reminder: The White House wants to forgive up to $10,000 in student debt for borrowers earning under $125,000 per year. Pell Grant recipients can get up to $20,000.
Why it matters: Officials have held off releasing an application for the program because of the legal challenges, and this case may be the plan’s biggest threat.
Many coronavirus patients haven’t recovered months after being infected.
How we know this: Data from nearly 100,000 people who participated in a Scottish study of long covid, released today.
What it found: 1 in 20 people had not recovered between six and 18 months after getting sick, and 42% reported feeling only somewhat better.
Why it matters: Millions are suffering from the long-term effects of covid. This data helps us understand the scale of the problem.
Controversy is swirling around the Republican Senate candidate in Georgia.
Why? Herschel Walker has campaigned against abortion in all cases. However, he has been accused of paying for a girlfriend’s abortion and encouraging her to have another.
The details: The woman said the abortion happened in 2009, which is after Walker said his beliefs about abortion changed. Walker has denied the woman’s claims.
Why this race matters: It could determine which party controls the Senate.
Angela Lansbury, the star of “Murder, She Wrote,” died yesterday.
How we’ll remember her: As big-hearted crime writer and sleuth Jessica Fletcher, the voice of Mrs. Potts in “Beauty and the Beast” and the world’s most evil mom in “The Manchurian Candidate.”
Her family said the 96-year-old died at her home in Los Angeles.
Climate change is causing heavier rains in almost every part of the country.
The details: Warmer air can hold more water, so rising temperatures are leading to more intense rainfall in most regions of the U.S., according to a study released yesterday.
Why it matters: The planet continues to warm, and we don’t know if existing infrastructure can handle the downpours of the future.
Portugal wants you to move there and work remotely.
What to know: It’s introducing a visa for remote workers, available Oct. 30. The European country is hoping its location, low cost of living and mild weather will draw people in.
How it works: You’ll need to meet a minimum annual salary requirement (about $32,760) and provide proof of employment to qualify.
And now … Fat Bear Week has a winner: Meet 747, a.k.a. “Bear Force One.” Plus, your dog knows when you’re upset: Scientists explained how. | 2022-10-12T12:07:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Wednesday, October 12 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/10/12/what-to-know-for-october-12/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/10/12/what-to-know-for-october-12/ |
Green space, amenities and generations abound in Franklin Farm
The neighborhood in the Oak Hill section of western Fairfax County, Va., is known for its community facilities, green space and families
By Laura Scudder
Franklin Farm, in the Oak Hill section of western Fairfax County, Va., has 13 miles of trails. (Photos by Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Carla Steckley has never lived anywhere like Franklin Farm. She has resided in other places, such as St. Louis and a Detroit suburb, but never anywhere for as long as the neighborhood in the Oak Hill section of western Fairfax County, Va.
“I never dreamed that that would happen,” Steckley said of living in Franklin Farm for 30 years.
Residents of the neighborhood say the shared community facilities can’t be beat. Those facilities include: 14 small playgrounds (or “tot lots”), six tennis courts, four pickleball courts, three basketball courts, 13 miles of trails, six ponds, two swimming pools and a community center.
According to the Franklin Farm Foundation, the neighborhood’s homeowners association, the neighborhood has more than 1,770 homes and 850 total acres — nearly 200 of which are open space.
The green space is what has kept Steckley in the neighborhood. She couldn’t imagine living without it, especially when the pandemic hit. Having nature in her backyard is what allowed her to stay healthy during the early shutdowns and beyond. She’s a fan of “forest bathing,” a practice of spending time in nature.
It is “important for people to have that. It reduces stress. I try to walk. I think it’s real important to do that sort of thing. … I feel very safe when I go out,” she said.
The green space isn’t accidental. Franklin Farm, which has 27 communities, was once the largest dairy farm in Fairfax County, owned by James Franklin and his family until around 1980, when he sold the land to a developer.
Although the neighborhood has seen new faces over the years, some residents, such as Steckley, have been there for decades. Now, their children live in the neighborhood with their kids.
“I can think of like four people who I grew up with who have since moved back also, and are raising their family, … so you’re seeing a lot of second-generation Farmers in the neighborhood who have come back,” said Ginny George, who grew up in Franklin Farm and, now married, lives there with her children. She also serves as the foundation’s community functions chair.
George isn’t the only one. Other families have also seen generations live in the neighborhood.
Kevin North and his wife are original Franklin Farm owners, buying their home in 1985 and moving into it in 1989 after renovations. He remembers how new everything was back then.
“It was really kind of a neat and exciting time, because … we were all of a similar age, we were all having kids at the same time, so there were just lots of children,” he said. “And it was just fun having everybody kind of growing up together — parents and kids — in the neighborhood when it was brand new. All of us were dealing with the same things.”
Now, North’s children live in the neighborhood. He and his wife spend their time taking their granddaughter to one of Franklin Farm’s pools. Regular pool memberships for residents cost $190 for an individual and $230 for a family. (Limited nonresident memberships are available for a higher price.)
George and her husband chose to expand their home when they had children, rather than moving elsewhere. She now helps put on the events that she always enjoyed, such as block parties, face-painting, movie nights and fall festivals, as well as holiday events, such as the Turkey Trot and Breakfast With Santa.
“It’s really funny, because all the things that you take for granted as a child, as a parent, [you’re] just so appreciative. I love having the pools and the tot lots and all the walking paths, and good schools and fantastic neighbors,” George said. “I just love that our house backs to mature trees, and we live on a cul-de-sac. We know the majority of our neighbors, and everybody socializes. It’s gone from being a great place to grow up in, to now raising our own family.”
Franklin Farm’s proximity to public transportation and stores also makes it desirable.
“It’s great to know that if you need to get downtown [to D.C.] or need to get someplace and you don’t want to drive, I literally can walk three minutes to the end of my street and catch the Connector bus to the Metro station,” North said.
George wishes there was a large indoor community space in the neighborhood.
“I would love for our neighborhood to have an indoor area, … so that we could have more community events and that they wouldn’t be so weather-contingent — more of a clubhouse room up at one of the pools. And I would love if we had a snack bar at our pool,” she said.
Overall, though, few Franklin Farm residents would want to live anywhere else.
“We have to applaud what’s right in the world these days, and I think this is one of those things that’s right in the world,” Steckley said.
Living there: The neighborhood is just off Fairfax County Parkway, close to Route 50. Franklin Farm is about 7.5 miles from Dulles International Airport.
Real estate agent Joan Reimann with McEnearney Associates said the typical home in Franklin Farm is a three-level, Colonial-style, single-family home built in the 1980s with approximately 1,700 to 2,500 square feet on the upper two levels and a finished basement. Lot sizes are approximately one-quarter acre.
“Many of the homes have been renovated with updated kitchens and baths, and an emphasis on outdoor space with inviting patios and screened porches,” Reimann said.
Real estate agent Casey Samson said that, since March 1, 28 homes have sold in Franklin Farm — 48 in the past year. The average sale price was about $950,000 until about June, when it fell to about $900,000. The average days on the market was seven.
Since March 1, 16 homes rented in Franklin Farm. The average rent is about $3,500 a month.
Samson said home prices are up 25 percent since 2020 and are selling at 119 percent of tax assessment, which is consistent with the rest of the market.
The most expensive house sold in the past year was a four-bedroom, four-bathroom, 3,800-square-foot Colonial with a two-car garage for $1.2 million. The lowest-priced house sold was a three-bedroom, three-bathroom, 3,800-square-foot Colonial for $600,000.
The lowest-priced house on the market is a three-bedroom, three-bathroom, 1,000-square-foot townhouse for $520,000. The most expensive listing is a six-bedroom, four-bathroom, 4,500-square-foot brick Colonial that is listed at more than $1 million.
The homeowners association fees range from $1,150 to $1,412 annually and are billed quarterly.
Transit: The closest Metro station, Wiehle-Reston East on the Silver Line, is about six miles away. The Fairfax Connector serves the neighborhood and takes residents to the Metro station.
Schools: Crossfield Elementary (pre-K to sixth), Navy Elementary (K to sixth), Oak Hill Elementary (pre-K to sixth), Carson Middle (seventh and eighth), Franklin Middle (seventh and eighth), Oakton High (nine to 12), Chantilly High (nine to 12). | 2022-10-12T12:20:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Neighborhood profile: Franklin Farm - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/12/where-we-live-franklin-farm/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/12/where-we-live-franklin-farm/ |
Biden concedes risk of ‘slight’ U.S. recession as IMF issues warning
(Samuel Corum/Bloomberg News)
As banks and international financial organizations forecast the possibility of a recession, President Biden said he didn’t believe it would happen in the United States — but acknowledged it could.
“I don’t think there will be a recession,” Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper, in an interview that aired on Tuesday. “If it is, it will be a very slight recession,” he added. “Look, it’s possible. I don’t anticipate it.”
Biden’s take came as the International Monetary Fund, a global lender, downgraded its outlook for the world economy and warned of “storm clouds” gathering — among them “persistent” inflation, the fallout from the Ukraine war and a slowdown in China’s property market impacting the global economy.
The chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, also told CNBC this week that the United States was likely to tip into recession “six to nine months from now,” despite at the moment “actually still doing well.” He added: “This is serious stuff.”
A recession is technically defined as two quarters, or six months, of negative growth for the economy. However, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of U.S. recessions, looks for other signs such as “significant” and widespread declines across the economy including in the employment rate, consumer spending and other factors.
Biden, however, said financial experts were often throwing around predictions. “Every six months they say this,” he said, but it “hadn’t happened yet.”
“We’re in a better position than any other major country in the world — economically and politically,” he continued. “We still have real problems,” he added, but said that recent legislation such as the nearly $2 trillion American rescue plan and Inflation Reduction Act had accomplished a lot.
What is a recession? Your economy questions, answered.
As international head winds continue to weigh on the world economy, the 190-member IMF forecast that global growth would slow from 6% in 2021 to 3.2% in 2022 and 2.7% in 2023 — the weakest growth since 2001, it said Tuesday, except for the global financial crisis and the acute phase of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The three largest economies, the United States, China and the euro area, will continue to stall,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, told reporters. “In short, the worst is yet to come, and for many people, 2023 will feel like a recession.”
Gourinchas said that countries accounting for a third of world output are expected to “contract” this year or next. In the United States, he tweeted, rising interest rates could slow growth to 1% in 2023 down from 1.6% this year.
Globally, he said, “inflation remains the most immediate threat to current and future prosperity by squeezing real incomes & undermining macro stability.” He urged central banks around the world to “keep a steady hand with monetary policy firmly focused on taming inflation.”
This morning, I presented our analysis of the global economy. Russia’s war in Ukraine, the cost-of-living crisis & slowdown in China are the primary reasons we are downgrading growth to 3.2% in 2022 & 2.7% in 2023. https://t.co/rV7PnlIg55 (1/5) pic.twitter.com/XZLSWB5jq6
Biden said he knew families were worried about the rising cost of energy, medication and looking for “breathing room,” with the economy set to be a major focus of the upcoming midterm elections.
U.S. job growth slowed again in September, a sign that the labor market may be cooling from its red-hot peak earlier this year while it remains an area of strength for a U.S. economy bracing for a downturn. The Federal Reserve has also hiked interest rates five times since March, moving at an aggressive pace to curb inflation and balance the economy even as some financial experts warn a recession and financial pain are in store for American families and businesses.
As the war in Ukraine rumbles into its eight month, the decision by a coalition of oil-producing nations led by Russia and Saudi Arabia last week to slash oil production by 2 million barrels per day, in a rebuke to President Biden, has also deepened fears of a global recession. The White House said Tuesday that Biden was in the midst of reevaluating the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia following the OPEC Plus announcement. | 2022-10-12T12:20:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden downplays risk of major U.S. recession amid IMF warning - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/biden-recession-risk-economy-imf-inflation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/biden-recession-risk-economy-imf-inflation/ |
Carcasses of stranded pilot whales on the west coast of New Zealand's remote Chatham Islands on Saturday. (Tamzin Henderson/AFP/Getty Images)
Hundreds of pilot whales washed up on the remote shores of New Zealand’s Chatham Islands in two separate “mass stranding” events that occurred just days apart and deeply “affected” the people who live there, officials said.
Some 230 whales became stranded — or beached — northwest of Chatham Island on Friday, and another 245 whales washed up on Pitt Island, south of the archipelago, on Monday, the New Zealand Department of Conservation said.
Many of the whales were already dead, but the remaining ones had to be euthanized to minimize their suffering, as they could not be put back into the water, the department added. That operation ended Wednesday, it said.
“This is a sad event for the team and the community,” Dave Lundquist, a technical adviser the conservation department, said in a statement, adding that representatives of tribes that inhabit Chatham Island “were present to support” the department’s efforts. “Many people” were “affected” by the terrible scenes, he said.
It comes just two weeks after some 200 whales died after stranding themselves on the west coast of Tasmania, an Australian island southeast of the mainland.
Efforts to save the whales that were not already dead when they washed up on Chatham Islands were made more difficult by the archipelago’s remote location and the predators roaming the waters that surround it, the department said.
Rescuers save dozens of whales after hundreds die on shores of Tasmania
Experts don’t always know why whales wash up on land, but it’s a relatively common occurrence that can also affect other marine animals such as dolphins. A “mass stranding” involves at least two animals, unless it is a mother and her calf. Pilot whales in particular are “prolific stranders,” according to the conservation department.
The largest mass stranding ever recorded on the Chatham Islands involved nearly 1,000 whales and happened more than 100 years ago, the department said.
The archipelago is extremely remote — it takes about two hours to fly from New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, to Chatham Islands Tuuta Airport — and “limited communications and challenging logistics” make operating there difficult, the department added.
When whales that strand themselves are not already dead or seriously injured, conservationists will in some cases work to “refloat” them into the water. This involves keeping the whales cool and wet on land to stabilize them before carrying them carefully back into the ocean using tarpaulins or large floating platforms.
Because pilot whales are social mammals, their instinct is to stay with their pods; they might collectively strand themselves in an effort to help one injured whale, or beach themselves even after they are refloated if they hear a whale’s distress call from land.
“So even when you got some animals successfully into deeper waters, it’s not uncommon for them to turn tail and come straight back in,” Karen Stockin, a marine biology researcher at Massey University in New Zealand, told The Washington Post in 2020.
In September, 32 whales were refloated outside Macquarie Harbor in Tasmania after the “mass stranding” there. The island’s Parks & Wildlife Service said several of them re-stranded that night, “which can occur during a stranding response.” It said it would work to “re-float and release the remaining live whales.”
Lundquist said Wednesday that “all the stranded pilot whales are now deceased, and their bodies will be allowed to decompose naturally.”
“These events are tough, challenging situations,” the conservation department’s Chatham Islands team said in a statement. “Although they are natural occurrences, they are still sad and difficult for those helping.” | 2022-10-12T12:20:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Whales euthanized in New Zealand after washing up on Chatham Islands - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/whales-stranding-new-zealand-chatham-islands/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/whales-stranding-new-zealand-chatham-islands/ |
Atmospheric scientists noted the trend was prevalent in nearly every region of the country
A resident walks her dog in the rain and wind in St. Petersburg, Fla., as Hurricane Ian approaches on Sept. 28, 2022. (Gerardo Mora/Getty Images)
A paper published Tuesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds that it’s raining harder in most of the United States. The study, written by researchers at Northwestern University, tied the results to climate change and to warmer air’s ability to hold more water.
Record rain is hitting drought-stricken areas. That’s not good news.
The findings echo the fundamental laws of physics and thermodynamics, as well as the evidence from decades of research, and highlight the real-time effect that humans are having on the weather and climate.
The research offers confirmation of what atmospheric scientists have been warning of for years: a warmer world is, on balance, a wetter world. And as global temperatures continue to rise, an uptick in precipitation extremes is expected.
Climate change is causing heavier rains
What the study finds is consistent with a basic tenet of atmospheric physics: For every degree Fahrenheit that air temperature rises, the atmosphere can hold 4 percent more water; this is known as the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship. Where storm clouds develop and the atmosphere is sufficiently moist, it means a warmer climate will support more intense rainfall.
The study reports “consistent shifts from lower to higher daily precipitation intensities, particularly in the central and eastern United States.” The authors compared rainfall over two periods — 1951 to 1980 and 1991 to 2020 — to see how patterns evolved.
“When it’s raining, it’s raining more,” said Ryan Harp, the author lead author on the study, in an interview. “But what we also did was … we were able to verify some of the expectations we had based on modeling studies.”
In other words, most similar studies to date had centered on projections made by forward-running computer models fed with historical data. This is among the first that, on a nationwide level, examine observed daily rainfall trends.
“I think during that process we were a little surprised that this paper hasn’t been written before,” said Daniel Horton, a study co-author and a professor at Northwestern University, in an interview. “We know that precipitation should be increasing … but we just wanted to do a very straightforward paper that says, ‘Yep, we’re seeing it.’ ”
Harp said the fact that reality matched simulations lends credence to climate models.
“People should in general be trusting in climate models,” he said. “We’re constantly working to improve them to the best of our abilities.”
Not necessarily more rain overall, and not everywhere
In the study, the authors examined daily data from more than 1,700 weather stations distributed in the Lower 48. Each had to have a continuous record dating back to at least 1951 to be included in the study.
In the eastern United States, the researchers observed a 4.5 to 5.7 percent increase in average daily rainfall on days when it rained. That does not say there are more days with rain, or more rain overall.
“That doesn’t necessarily give us the whole story,” Harp said. “There may be places where precipitation intensity is increasing but frequency is decreasing. We might not know if there’s an overall increase or decrease. That’s one thing that we’re working on.”
Greg Carbin, the head of forecast operations at the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center, who was not involved in this research, appreciated that the study touched on the “paradox of potentially fewer precipitation days with higher-intensity precipitation occurring on those days.”
Carbin has noted a trend of more rain falling on fewer days in his analysis of recent precipitation.
“Overall, the area covered by the count of 1-inch rainfall days was lower than in recent years across large parts of the central and eastern U.S.,” Carbin wrote in an email. “In fact, moderate to severe drought has plagued areas of the Northeast, and extreme to exceptional drought is now expanding across part of the central U.S. Nonetheless, we have had extreme rainfall events occur in St. Louis, Dallas, eastern Kentucky, and, most recently, with Hurricane Ian in Florida.”
Despite strong trends in the central and eastern United States, the authors noted that there were a few places where rainfall did not appear to be growing more intense. The paper does detail “mixed signals in the western U.S.,” but for reasons the authors are still trying to identify.
“That [trend] didn’t hold true for the western U.S.,” said Harp, especially in the Pacific Northwest. He explained that changes in the overall placement of weather systems are “suppressing” any tendency for heavier precipitation in the West. A slight change in the location at which high and low pressure systems are anchored can have an enormous bearing on steering currents, and subsequently on how much precipitation falls in a given location.
Changing precipitation trends poses societal challenges
With the planet continuing to warm, a continued increase in rainfall intensity can be expected. That spells concern over whether existing infrastructure can handle the downpours of the future.
Communities may need to turn to simulated precipitation events of the future to guide building decisions, Horton said.
The past summer was a testament to the extent to which climate-supercharged downpours can wreak havoc on major metropolitan areas. During a five-week span in July and August, five 1,000-year rain events — or extremely heavy rainfall episodes that have a 0.1 percent chance of happening in any given year — occurred across the nation.
“Recent years have seen some remarkable high-end precipitation events,” Carbin said. | 2022-10-12T12:25:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Study finds climate change is bringing more intense rains to U.S. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/11/rain-increasing-climate-change-us/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/11/rain-increasing-climate-change-us/ |
That sense of deja vu stems from Irving’s devotion to a particular set of themes and motifs: hotels, wrestling, absent fathers, sexual gymnastics, etc. But the familiarity of those elements also speaks to his mountainous presence in contemporary literature since the late 1960s. Over a dozen years, starting in 1978, Irving published four remarkable novels in row: “The World According to Garp,” “The Hotel New Hampshire,” “The Cider House Rules” and “A Prayer for Owen Meany.” Popular and critically acclaimed movie adaptations have sewn Irving’s stories even more broadly into American culture.
You wouldn’t know it from Adam’s congenial demeanor, but having sex with him is risky business. Young women get stuck in showers, they fall down stairs, they wreak havoc. Nothing phases Adam’s mother, though. She patiently advises caution and mends injuries like some kind of sexual coach. When a young woman named Maud gets out of hand while climaxing, Adam says, “It was my mom who unwrapped Maud’s legs from around me, and pulled me off her.” Where’s a bear when you need one?
These erotic adventures subject poor Adam’s penis to much distress and discussion. It should come as no surprise that Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick” remains a literary touchstone throughout “The Last Chairlift,” and eighth-grade boys the world over would be impressed by the number of prurient jokes that Irving derives from Melville’s title.
For his part, Adam has a profound effect on his mother’s romantic life, too. He sets her up with Elliot Barlow, an unusually tiny man who is his favorite teacher at Exeter Academy. That Elliot has no sexual interest in women only helps make him the perfect husband for Adam’s gay mom. “Two beards are better than one,” a friend says. And their marriage ceremony is one of the most brilliantly choreographed calamities that Irving has ever written — complete with a deadly act of God, an earth-shattering orgasm and an old man wearing only a diaper who runs around on all fours, biting guests’ ankles. (It must also be noted that Jonathan Franzen is no longer the leading user of human poo in a literary novel. In “The Last Chairlift,” even the ghosts lose control of their bowels. You have been warned.)
That’s a beautiful theme, and there’s a wonderful novel about that theme trapped in this great ordeal of printed matter. Early in the story, Adam says, “My life is a movie because I’m a screenwriter. I’m first and foremost a novelist, but even when I write a novel, I’m a visualizer.”
Simon & Schuster. 889 pp. $38 | 2022-10-12T13:08:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In John Irving's The Last Chairlift, a writer searches for his father - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/12/john-irving-last-chairlift-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/12/john-irving-last-chairlift-review/ |
2 FAIRY TALE (Scribner, $32.50).
By Stephen King. A teenager must protect the world from being invaded by the evil ruler of a fantastical realm.
4 THE WINNERS (Atria, $28.99). By Fredrik Backman. A long-simmering tension escalates between the residents of two hockey-obsessed towns.
5 MAD HONEY (Ballantine, $29.99). By Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan. A woman confronts the possibility that her teenage son is a murderer when his girlfriend dies from a fall.
7 THE GOLDEN ENCLAVES (Del Rey, $28). By Naomi Novik. The conclusion of a trilogy about the Scholomance, a deadly school for magicians.
8 THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT (Knopf, $28). By Maggie O’Farrell. In 16th-century Italy, young Lucrezia de’ Medici fears that her new husband, Duke Alfonso II, wants to murder her.
9 THE BULLET THAT MISSED
(Pamela Dorman, $27). By Richard Osman. In the latest Thursday Murder Club novel, four senior citizens investigate a cold case involving a reporter who disappeared while working on a dangerous story.
10 HORSE (Viking, $28). By Geraldine Brooks. A scientist and a historian bond over their shared interest in a Civil War-era racehorse and his enslaved groom.
3 WHAT IF? 2: ADDITIONAL SERIOUS SCIENTIFIC ANSWERS TO ABSURD HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS
(Riverhead, $30). By Randall Munroe. Munroe, a former NASA roboticist and creator of the webcomic “xkcd,” responds to ludicrous questions using research and science.
5 STARRY MESSENGER: COSMIC PERSPECTIVES ON CIVILIZATION
(Henry Holt and Co., $28.99). By Neil deGrasse Tyson. The astrophysicist considers contemporary issues driving people apart through the lens of science.
6 CRYING IN H MART (Knopf, $26.95).
By Michelle Zauner. A Korean American indie-rock star chronicles her relationship with her late mother and their shared culture.
7 SOLITO (Hogarth, $28). By Javier Zamora. A poet who fled El Salvador when he was 9 tells the story of his migration to the United States.
8 THE DIVIDER: TRUMP IN THE WHITE HOUSE, 2017-2021 (Doubleday, $32).
By Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. Two political journalists chronicle the crises that plagued Donald Trump’s presidency.
9 HEALING THROUGH WORDS (Andrews McMeel, $24.99). By Rupi Kaur. The best-selling poet provides instructions and prompts to encourage writing as a path to self-understanding. | 2022-10-12T13:08:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington Post hardcover bestsellers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/washington-post-hardcover-bestsellers/2022/10/11/6b676f30-498c-11ed-af21-fd023621cb3b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/washington-post-hardcover-bestsellers/2022/10/11/6b676f30-498c-11ed-af21-fd023621cb3b_story.html |
The Smithsonian museum reopens 8 galleries with amazing aircraft and fun hands-on activities.
By Vicky Hallett
The T-38 Talon hangs from the ceiling at the National Air and Space Museum, which will reopen half of its building in Washington, D.C., on Friday with eight new and renovated exhibits.
Big things are happening at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Really big, like the installation of an 18,000-pound F-1 engine. It’s hanging from the ceiling of one of the museum’s eight newly renovated galleries that will open Friday. But don’t be nervous that it’s above you instead of under a rocket to the moon, said Margaret Weitekamp, Space History Department curator. “We are confident in the engineering done there,” she said.
Many calculations have gone into the museum’s makeover, which won’t be finished until 2025. Expect to see high-tech improvements — including plenty of screens to touch — along with fun facts about the people who contributed to aviation and space history. Here are five cool objects and experiences you won’t want to miss:
Northrop T-38A Talon
At the far west end of the museum soars this sleek jet. “It even looks fast standing still,” said Jeremy Kinney, associate director for research and curatorial affairs. Eight world records stenciled on its nose belong to Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran, the first female pilot to break the sound barrier. From the 1930s to the 1960s, she racked up more than 200 records for speed, altitude and distance. She also promoted her cosmetics brand, Wings to Beauty. Her flight suit is on display nearby in the Nation of Speed gallery, devoted to America’s love of vehicles. Cochran would have liked “Race Against the Machines,” a station that calculates how quickly visitors run in place.
T-70 X-Wing Starfighter
The only way this orange-and-silver spacecraft loaded with laser cannons and proton torpedo launchers could ever take flight is with movie magic. Featured in the 2019 film “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” the prop blends authentic details, such as engines and a cockpit, with fantastical ones. Can you spot the droid perched in the co-pilot’s seat? Sci-fi fans will also want to hunt for Mr. Spock’s pointy ears from “Star Trek,” donated by the family of the late actor Leonard Nimoy.
Space toys
Model airplanes, plastic rockets and other toys are part of the collection because they show how kids have always wanted to pretend to fly, Weitekamp said. Her favorite is this 1950s-era helmet in the Destination Moon gallery with a kazoo mouthpiece. Is that how real helmets work? “Only if communications are bad,” she said, joking. But it probably inspired children, just like the helicopter toy that the Wright brothers’ dad gave them when they were little. There’s an oversize version of it in the Early Flight gallery that you can try out: Pull the black wheel hard to send the propeller spinning up a plastic tube.
Operation Migration
Problem: Baby whooping cranes born in captivity needed to learn to migrate a 1,200-mile route from Wisconsin to Florida. Solution: Teach the endangered birds to follow an ultralight aircraft. The successful mission was part of Operation Migration, featured in the We All Fly gallery. The display also includes an example of a bird costume worn by the pilot and a loudspeaker that played adult crane sounds during the flight. (The goal was to persuade the babies to bond with the plane, not people.) A nearby simulator teaches how to “fly” a similar aircraft.
Walking on Other Worlds
You’ll feel like you’re zigzagging through the solar system in the Exploring the Planets gallery, where a pair of curved screens displays detailed digital images based on evidence gathered by probes and rovers. Fact bubbles about these strange environments pop up to explain, for instance, that someone hopping two inches off the ground on Earth would completely jump off Comet 67P. It’s a cool way to showcase some of the latest findings from experts, Weitekamp said. “These scientists know these planets as places, like you know your neighborhood, and you know where there’s a good sledding hill,” she said. (Don’t expect to go sledding on Venus, which is 880 degrees Fahrenheit.) | 2022-10-12T13:17:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 5 things not to miss at reopened National Air and Space Museum - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/10/12/national-air-space-museum-reopens-with-new-stories-more-touch/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/10/12/national-air-space-museum-reopens-with-new-stories-more-touch/ |
The work may also boost our understanding of epilepsy, schizophrenia and intellectual disabilities.
Stanford scientists transplanted human brain cells into the brain of a rat. The light flickering on and off shows the human cells as they work inside the brain. (Video: Stanford Medicine)
In work that could boost our understanding of brain disorders and enable discovery of new drugs to treat them, researchers at Stanford School of Medicine transplanted human brain tissue into rats where it became a functional part of their brains.
Their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, took seven years to complete and involved extensive ethical discussions about animal welfare and other issues. The study’s most immediate applications will involve research into conditions such as autism, epilepsy, schizophrenia and intellectual disabilities.
The implanted human brain tissue was created in the lab using a technique that allows scientists to change skin cells into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells — the cells from which all others develop as the embryo grows. In the lab, scientists can nudge these cells down the developmental pathway, growing them into any one of the 200 or so types of cells in the human body.
Researchers created clumps of these cells that resemble parts of the brain. The clumps, known as organoids, resembled the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the brain associated with some of its most advanced processes, including language, memory, thought, learning, decision-making, emotion, intelligence and personality.
Using syringes, the scientists injected the human brain tissue into the brains of rat pups two to three days old. Rat brain cells then migrated to the human tissue and formed connections, incorporating the human cells in their brain’s machinery.
“We don’t remove that part of the rat brain. Essentially what happens is that the rat tissue is pushed aside,” said Sergiu Pasca, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, who led the study.
The human brain tissue measured roughly one-fifth of an inch when transplanted, but expanded and by six months, accounted for about one-third of the hemisphere of the rat’s brain. The brain is organized into two hemispheres, right and left, each responsible for different functions.
Deep inside the rat’s brain, human and rat cells connected in the thalamus, the area critical for sleep, consciousness, learning, memory and processing information from all of the senses, except for smell.
“Overall, I think this approach is a step forward for the field, and offers a new way to understand disorders,” that involve the malfunction of brain cells, said Madeline A. Lancaster, a group leader at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, who did not participate in the study.
“Ethically, there may be concerns about animal welfare, and so just like all animal experimentation, the benefits should always be weighed against the risks to the animal,” Lancaster said. “But I do not have any concerns around whether the human transplants would cause the animal to become more ‘human,’ since the size of these transplants are small and their overall organization is still lacking.”
Pasca said researchers had extensive discussions with ethicists about animal welfare in preparation for the experiments. He said the rats in the study displayed no signs of anxiety, nor was there evidence they suffered pain or seizures.
Japanese stem cell pioneer Yoshiki Sasai is credited with developing the first neural organoid in 2008, but these have had limited impact because they lacked the system of vessels that carries blood throughout the body, Lancaster said. This deficit caused the organoid cells to become stressed and die.
“This study overcomes this limitation by transplanting organoids into the rat brain where the organoids can become vascularised,” Lancaster said. “The result is much more mature " structures, connections and activity from the transplanted tissue inside the rat.
In one experiment, the Stanford team took skin cells from a person with a rare, inherited genetic condition called Timothy Syndrome, which has some of the characteristics of autism and epilepsy. Using the ability to change skin cells into other types of cells, researchers created brain organoids from the patient and implanted them into one side of the rat’s brain.
For comparison, they transplanted organoids from a healthy person into the other side of the same rat’s brain. They discovered that after five to six months, the Timothy Syndrome cells were smaller and involved in very different electrical activity from the healthy brain cells. Fewer than 100 people around the world have been diagnosed with Timothy Syndrome.
“I’m not entirely surprised by the findings, but it’s super cool,” said Bennett Novitch, a member of the Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study. In 2021, Novitch and colleagues developed organoids that produced brain waves, the electrical pulses that brain cells use to communicate with one another.
He said the Stanford scientists showed that human brain organoids could not only be integrated into the rat brain, but also used to change the animal’s behavior.
In a complex experiment, they created clumps of human brain cells that had been customized so that individual neurons could be switched on by a specific frequency of blue laser light. Those clumps were then injected into rat brains and after three months, the scientists threaded ultrathin fiber-optic cables into the rat brains so the researchers could beam in blue light.
The rats were placed in glass boxes with a water spout. The researchers then conditioned the rats to expect water only after their brains had received a pulse of blue light. The rats grew to associate the blue light with receiving water, showing that the implanted human cells were now involved in the complex, reward-seeking machinery inside their brains.
“This is very difficult experimentation to do,” Novitch said.
He noted, however, that using rats implanted with human brain tissue for drug-testing would work for small studies, but not for pharmaceutical companies because of the speed and scale required.
Pasca said he hopes to teach other researchers to use his group’s techniques to study different brain disorders.
“There are enough problems in neuroscience to solve to last for many years to come,” he said. “The challenge of understanding psychiatric disorders is immense.” | 2022-10-12T15:28:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Scientists transplant human brain tissue into rats to study brain disorders - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/10/12/brain-tissue-rats-stanford/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/10/12/brain-tissue-rats-stanford/ |
Georgia is a purple state where leaders will be picked by purple voters
A person waits in line to vote in the Georgia's primary election on May 24 in Atlanta. (Brynn Anderson/AP)
In most places, in most races, the results of this year’s midterm elections will be determined by members of the two largest political parties and by the independents who consistently vote with those parties. But in a few places, in a few races, the results will be determined by something else: voters who split their ballots between the parties, electing a Democrat to one office and a Republican to another.
If polling is any guide — which it is, with caveats — Georgia may well be one of those latter places. The state which handed President Biden his narrowest margin of victory in November 2020 could two years later reelect both a Republican governor and a Democratic senator. And, at least in the case of the senator, Raphael G. Warnock, a victory will be a function of people voting across party lines.
Polling released Wednesday from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Georgia News Collaborative shows Gov. Brian Kemp (R) with a 10-point lead over former state Rep. Stacey Abrams. Warnock, meanwhile, is in a tight race against former NFL star Herschel Walker, with 46 percent to Walker’s 43 percent.
About 5 percent of the electorate, the Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein reported, are Kemp-Warnock voters. Take away that crossover and the margin in the Senate race flips to a statistically insignificant Walker advantage.
To jaded newspaper writers who have, through years of exposure, come to rely on partisanship as a reliable marker of election outcomes, this seems like something of a novelty. But really, it isn’t. More than a fifth of U.S. states have governors of one party but voted for the 2020 presidential candidate of the other party. That includes seven states in which the governor is Republican but the 2020 vote went to Biden — like Georgia.
It also includes Arizona, where Gov. Doug Ducey (R) earned Donald Trump’s eternal ire for standing behind his state’s pro-Biden vote in 2020. But even before Arizona shifted to the Democratic column in 2020, we could see how partisan support for statewide candidates diverged.
When Ducey was reelected in 2018, he was on the same ballot as a Senate race, a contest won by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D). Exit polling (which is also imperfect!) indicates how partisan defections determined each result.
About 1 in 7 Democrats backed Ducey’s reelection bid (the outer circle below). About 1 in 8 Republicans backed Sinema’s (the inner circle). In each case, the losing candidates got about 85 percent of their party’s support — but the defections helped determine the outcome.
In New Hampshire, the 2020 results were even more stark. Biden narrowly won here, too, in part thanks to 1 in 10 Republicans backing his candidacy. But Gov. Chris Sununu (R) easily won reelection thanks in part to 1 in 5 Democrats backing his candidacy.
In North Carolina, the pattern was slightly different. There was broad partisan loyalty in the 2020 presidential race, but 1 in 12 Republicans backed incumbent Gov. Roy Cooper (D). This helped Cooper defeat his Republican challenger, winning by 4.5 percentage points in a state that went for Trump by 1.4 points.
Those elections had the benefit of occurring simultaneously. Other splits are a function, in part, of election cycles. In 2020, for example, Trump secured the support of only 90 percent of Republicans, according to exit polls. In the 2021 gubernatorial race, Republican Glenn Youngkin got 97 percent of the Republican vote.
One can certainly generate a number of explanations for why gubernatorial races seem to so frequently defy the gravitational pull of partisanship. But part of it is also situational. Kemp gets 94 percent of the Republican vote in the new Georgia poll compared to Abrams’s 87 percent in part because of what’s unfolded since their initial 2018 matchup and in part because of incumbency. Warnock gets 94 percent of Democratic support compared to Walker’s 84 percent of Republican backing because of incumbency and, certainly, because of Walker’s unique … challenges.
There’s a reason that partisanship is so often the primary driver for voters, including the increasing divergence between the parties. But sometimes, in some situations, elections do come down to choices between candidates.
Noted: Sen. Lee urges Sen. Romney to ‘get on board’ and support his campaign
2:12 PMNoted: Democratic candidate in Idaho endorsed by prominent Republicans
1:40 PMThe latest: Fetterman says, ‘Recovering from a stroke in public isn’t easy’ | 2022-10-12T15:49:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgia is a purple state where leaders will be picked by purple voters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/georgia-governor-partisanship-kemp-abrams/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/georgia-governor-partisanship-kemp-abrams/ |
The new details on Herschel Walker and what they mean for his denials
Georgia GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker, left, participates in a campaign event with Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), center, and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in Carrollton, Ga., on Tuesday. (Jessica McGowan/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
The Washington Post is the latest media outlet to independently report and confirm key details of a woman’s allegation that Herschel Walker paid for her abortion in 2009.
Walker still flatly denies it. But The Post’s report by Annie Linskey and Alice Crites adds new detail, which contribute to the significant questions about the plausibility of Walker’s denials, which already contained some key holes.
We’ve known key aspects of the timeline before, thanks to reporting initially from the Daily Beast and later from the New York Times and now The Post:
The woman, who spoke to The Post and others on the condition of anonymity, has provided reporters a copy of a receipt from a women’s clinic from Sept. 12, 2009, in the amount of $575.
She has also provided an ATM slip that has an image of the check from Walker, in the amount of $700. (The Post confirmed the check contained an address associated with Walker at the time and what appears to be his signature. The woman said she had estimated the cost using internet searches and added travel and recovery expenses.)
She has also provided a get-well card she says Walker sent her and which contained the check.
Walker hasn’t denied the payment itself — “I send money to a lot of people,” he said, when asked about it by Fox News’ Sean Hannity — just that he paid for an abortion. His case would seem to be that any such payment would’ve been meant for some other purpose, even though it arrived soon after the abortion, was for a similar amount and, according to the woman, was contained in the get-well card.
But the woman insists she and Walker spoke about at length about obtaining the abortion. And The Post’s new report adds that the woman’s bank account at the time contained less than $600, which The Post’s Linskey and Crites confirmed with a contemporaneous ATM receipt.
The reason that’s significant: It would suggest that the woman, who has said she was unemployed at the time amid the Great Recession, was in real need of help covering her expense. It might be possible that she would ask for money without necessarily disclosing what it was for. But this was a major expense during a time of apparently significant financial hardship; it would seem to make sense for someone in such a position to emphasize the urgency of the situation.
The woman assures she and Walker discussed the purpose of the money and that the discussions were lengthy. A person she confided in at the time also confirms it.
“When I talked to him, I said, ‘You need to send — I can’t afford to pay for this,’” the woman told The Post. She added that she told Walker: “We did this, too. Both of us did this. We both know how babies are made.”
Despite the evidence, Republicans have continued to rally around Walker and argued that he’s being impugned. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and the head of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), appeared alongside Walker on Friday.
But even aside from the details above, Walker has offered a series of confusing defenses that are difficult to reconcile.
He had repeatedly said that he didn’t know who could make such an allegation, even as the woman was later reported to be the mother of one of his children. A day after that report, Walker continued to plead ignorance, despite the report stating she had their child in the early 2010s — a date that would’ve come after three of his four known children were born.
(After Walker said on Thursday he still didn’t know who the woman was, his wife reached out to her the next day, according to texts she provided to the Daily Beast. Walker has since told ABC News that he figured out who the woman was “last week.”)
Walker has also said all of the Daily Beast’s reporting is false, despite having confirmed its earlier reporting that he had fathered the other children.
And Walker has explained his son Christian Walker’s decision to speak out against him by saying his son was “extremely hurt” by the reports of other children, because he believed his dad had “never told him about it.” Walker said his son’s belief was mistaken, but it would seem odd that his adult son would believe such a thing if his father had indeed been transparent about his siblings.
Thus far, we’re still waiting to see how Georgia voters feel about the matter, and their verdict could be crucial for control of the Senate — just as it was in the 2020 election. A University of Georgia poll released Tuesday showed the race remains tight, with Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) at 46 percent and Walker at 43 percent. But only a handful of interviews were conducted after the Daily Beast’s initial report on Oct. 4.
Analysis: How Biden’s announcement in Colorado impacts the state’s Senate race
3:25 PMNoted: Ryan doubles down on saying Biden shouldn’t run in 2024
3:11 PMNoted: Sen. Lee urges Sen. Romney to ‘get on board’ and support his campaign | 2022-10-12T15:49:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The new details on Herschel Walker, and what they mean for his denials - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/herschel-walker-washington-post-new-details/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/herschel-walker-washington-post-new-details/ |
As the committee studies the role social media played in the insurrection, threats to kill or injure key witnesses fester on 4chan and the .win forums
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold its next hearing Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern time. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
The attacks against Hutchinson are part of a broader pattern of violent threats on fringe social networks directed at witnesses testifying before Congress about the Capitol insurrection. Since the committee began hosting prime-time hearings in June, the nonprofit Advance Democracy has identified a tide of vitriol targeting key witnesses and prominent Jan. 6 committee lawmakers on online forums with reputations for fostering extremism and right-wing views. They include Gab, the .win forums and Truth Social, former president Donald Trump’s social media company.
Since Jan. 6, the pro-Trump Internet has descended into infighting over money and followers
The committee has been probing the role that online platforms, ranging from fringe sites to Facebook and Twitter, played in inciting the violence at the Capitol that left five people dead, dozens of police officers injured and hundreds facing prosecution. The continuing violent rhetoric is a troubling sign of what could come, especially as Trump and his allies push false narratives about Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, researchers say.
“Only a few years ago these views were fringe, but now, with the widespread promotion of these narratives by political leaders, elected officials and media personalities, the threat of political violence has never been more significant,” said Daniel Jones, the president of Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit that conducts public interest investigations. Jones previously worked as an investigator for the FBI and the Senate, where he wrote the Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.
Gallows or guillotines? The chilling debate on TheDonald.win before the Capitol siege.
Federal law prohibits using the internet to harass or stalk someone or making threats across state lines, according to the nonprofit PEN America, which advocates for free expression. But it is unclear what investigations have been undertaken into the threats. The U.S. Capitol Police referred questions about its investigation of threats to the Justice Department and the FBI.
How to protect yourself from online harassment
The committee has sought to highlight how Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election results opened election officials across the country to threats of violence both offline and online. Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) described how he received “just shy of 4,000 text messages over a short period of time” after Trump retweeted his phone number, pressuring him to change the state’s election results. Other witnesses described threats at their homes. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) testified that someone tried to break into his daughter’s home. Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” votes to overturn his defeat in a recording of a phone call previously reported by The Washington Post.
But the threats still take a toll even though the sites where they appear are comparatively small, experts say. The largest is 4chan, which had an average of nearly 6 million unique visitors a month between June and August, according to analysis from SimilarWeb. The .win forums are event smaller — Patriots.win, the most popular .win forum, had an average of 403,295 unique visitors a month during the same time period.
“It’s designed to intimidate them,” Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Virginia who has studied cyberstalking and online harassment, said of the threats. “It raises the price of bearing witness to reality, political violence.”
Citron warns fringe networks will continue to foment violence without more efforts from law enforcement to enforce existing laws or a change in regulation that would reward social media sites for better policing of their sites.
The continued violent rhetoric comes after Democrats promised to create new internet regulations that would address the role that social media platforms played in inciting the mob that descended on the Capitol. Yet 21 months after the attacks, Democrats have been unable to use their narrow control of Congress to follow through on those pledges.
Facebook, Twitter could face punishing regulation for their role in U.S. Capitol riot, Democrats say
Lawmakers were widely expected to consider changes to Section 230, a decades-old legal provision that protects social networks from lawsuits over photos, posts and videos that people share on their services. But no proposal to update the law to address extremism has advanced in Congress, amid partisan divisions over the role tech companies should play in policing online speech. The White House has called for reforms to the law and hosted forums focused on online extremism and gender-based harassment. But the Biden administration has not endorsed a specific proposal to change the law.
In a proposal that has been circulated among Democrats in Congress, Citron has called for Section 230 to be updated so that websites would enjoy legal immunity in instances of harassment and stalking only if they can show they took “reasonable steps” to prevent such abuse. She also argues that the protections shouldn’t be extended to sites that deliberately encourage or permit such activity.
Citron warns that in the interim, online extremism could get worse.
“We’re going to see escalations,” she said. “The threats to democracy are going to become more acute than they already are.” | 2022-10-12T15:50:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Violent threats against Jan. 6 witnesses spread on fringe sites - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/12/online-threats-insurrection-witnesses-/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/12/online-threats-insurrection-witnesses-/ |
Falls Church approves deal to subsidize movie theater with tax dollars
Falls Church Mayor David Tarter. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Lawmakers in Falls Church voted Tuesday night to approve a deal that would grant up to half a million dollars in tax revenue each year for a long-awaited movie theater in this tiny Northern Virginia suburb.
The unusual economic-incentives deal had been subject to criticism from some residents and city leaders who questioned whether funding a movie theater was an appropriate use of city money. An initial vote set for September was delayed after the city’s planning commission recommended against the deal.
But in the end, all but one city council member voted to greenlight the agreement, which proponents had hailed as a way to secure Falls Church’s first new cinema in decades — a deal that had already been cemented by lawmakers years ago.
“The taxes that we’re talking about today are taxes paid by those folks who attend the theater,” City Council member Debbie Hiscott said at a city council meeting. “If you’re not attending the theater and you’re not paying taxes on those tickets, you’re not contributing to those taxes that are going back to the owner.”
Under the deal, Falls Church would essentially redirect much of the revenue it collects over the next three decades through taxes on ticket and concessions sales at the cinema back to the developer and property owner, Mill Creek Residential Trust.
The plan’s supporters had stressed that incentives are necessary to attract an entertainment facility that might otherwise choose to locate in the city’s much larger, better-resourced neighbors — and could attract visitors and even lower taxes for Falls Church residents.
Incentives serve “to give us a complete community where we walk to entertainment,” said Mayor David Tarter, “and not just be a bedroom community where you drive somewhere else.”
The first $20,000 generated by the city’s 10 percent ticket tax will stay with Falls Church. Any money collected beyond that up to $340,000 would go back to the developer in the form of annual grants.
The first $10,000 generated by the city’s 4 percent meals tax would go to Falls Church, while up to $150,000 beyond that would also go to the developer. All dollar figures will increase by 3 percent each year.
That said, the cinema could get less money from Falls Church depending on how well it performs: If the theater makes $13 million in any given fiscal year, the subsidies are put on pause. And if that happens four years in a row, the city will terminate the meals tax grants entirely — and scale back the other grants to a 20-period instead.
The agreement is also contingent on the developer meeting certain milestones meant to keep the developer on track on this long-delayed project. They include: executing a lease by the end of the month, submitting design drawings to the city by Dec. 31, and opening the theater by March 2024.
Paragon Theaters, a small chain that also has cinemas in Florida, North Carolina and Fredericksburg, has been secured as the movie theater operator for the project.
City lawmakers had approved a similar agreement with the developer in 2o16, but the cinema had to revise its plans, cutting down on one screen and reducing the number of seats from 750 to 550 as the coronavirus pandemic dealt a tough economic blow to movie theaters.
The Founders Row property is replacing a strip on a main road that previously included a handful of beloved small businesses, including a bowling alley and a deli/ice cream parlor. The development project also includes apartments, senior living, retail space and offices.
Vice Mayor Letty Hardi said that while she acknowledged the vocal opposition to the idea of using public money for the movie theater, the project’s design depends on keeping the cinema as its anchor.
“Given that the site was really built around the theater … I don’t hear of a viable alternative for the shell of the space,” Hardi said. “It would be irresponsible for us not to proceed with it at this point.” | 2022-10-12T15:54:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Falls Church approves deal to subsidize movie theater with tax dollars - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/falls-church-movie-theater-vote/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/falls-church-movie-theater-vote/ |
I believed in traditional reporting, but Trump changed me — and it should change the rest of the media too.
Perspective by Margaret Sullivan
Despite my nearly four decades in journalism, I was unprepared for the moment of no return that came on a July day in 2016, as a blazing sun beat down on the streets of Cleveland. Walking around the grounds of the Republican National Convention, I was looking for a column idea. I was new at this, having started at The Washington Post only a few weeks earlier. Wandering and observing, I came upon a table of souvenirs, meant to appeal to the convention attendees who had arrived from all corners of the nation to cheer on the Republican Party’s nomination of Donald Trump. I already had seen some gleefully misogynistic anti-Clinton paraphernalia — “Hillary sucks but not like Monica” — but nothing measured up to the horror I felt as I registered the meaning of a T-shirt featuring the image of a noose and these words: “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required.”
Over the weeks and months ahead, as I started to write what I hoped were well-reasoned Post columns about Trump’s relationship with the media, I felt an irrational anger coming at me like an unending blast from an industrial-strength hose. Trump hadn’t invented this anger, of course, but he certainly emboldened it — and used it for his own purposes. On social media, in phone messages, in emails I received, the sheer hatred from Trump supporters shocked and even frightened me. One, unsigned but from a “lifetime member of the NRA,” asserted that people like me wouldn’t be around much longer. Another, signed “A Real, True Patriot,” read:
“Though I would never read a manure-laden pile of toilet paper like Washington Compost, I heard about your Nazi column about ‘reaching the masses’ with your fake news to convince people that your leftist Nazi lies are truth. You are a well-trained serpent of the left, following communist orders as you were taught. ‘If you say and repeat a lie often enough, it will eventually be seen as truth’ — Lenin … Here’s what you (slithering, fake-news/propaganda- generating slimy slug) should do: Go fornicate yourself with a large, sharp knife, and then eat rat poison until your belly is stuffed.”
Analysis | What Will Happen to America if Trump Wins Again? Experts Helped Us Game It Out.
Perspective | What happens to society — and our democracy — when community and regional journalism dries up
I was called the c-word repeatedly. One reader suggested I have my breasts cut off. I tried to let all this nastiness roll off my back and even found it amusing when a Post reader sent me an email calling me a “venomous serpent.” John Schwartz, then a reporter for the New York Times who had become a friend, suggested I treat it as a badge of honor and write a book titled “Memories of a Venomous Serpent.”
Now, six years later, we journalists know a lot more about covering Trump and his supporters. We’ve come a long way, but certainly made plenty of mistakes. Too many times, we acted as his stenographers or megaphones. Too often, we failed to refer to his many falsehoods as lies. It took too long to stop believing that, whenever he calmed down for a moment, he was becoming “presidential.” And it took too long to moderate our instinct to give equal weight to both sides, even when one side was using misinformation for political gain.
It’s been an education for all of us — a gradual realization that the instincts and conventions of traditional journalism weren’t good enough for this moment in our country’s history. As Trump prepares to run again in 2024, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the lessons we’ve learned — and committing to the principle that, when covering politicians who are essentially running against democracy, old-style journalism will no longer suffice.
Back in 2016, I was still looking for common ground with the Trump crowd. It fit with my background as a traditional newspaper journalist. During nearly 13 years as chief editor of the Buffalo News, ending in 2012, I had believed that I could listen to or communicate with our readers, whatever their politics — and I was registered to vote as a “blank.” Our editorial board, which I sat on, endorsed candidates from various parties, and I had courteous relationships with officeholders of all stripes. I frequently would go out to speak to civic organizations, such as rotary clubs, in the Buffalo-Niagara region with no regard for whether their members leaned right or left.
At the Cleveland airport after the convention, I interviewed one delegate, a concierge for a car dealership named Mary Sue McCarty, who wore a cowboy hat and pearls as she waited for her flight home to Dallas. She had her mind made up about the news media: “Journalists aren’t doing their jobs. They are protecting a certain class.” When I pointed out that it was the New York Times that broke the consequential story about Hillary Clinton’s email practices and that mainstream media organizations had aggressively investigated the finances of the Clinton Foundation, she shrugged: “If it’s a Republican, it’s investigated to death. If it’s a Democrat, it’s breezed over.”
This assertion could hardly have been more wrong. After all, the media’s endless emphasis on Clinton’s emails would prove to be a big factor in dooming her campaign. It simply wasn’t the case that the press was giving Democrats a pass.
Clearly, the empirical common ground I depended upon — and believed in — was eroding. Dealing with that growing reality over the next few years would change me as a journalist and even as a person. Some principles and beliefs, I found, were more important than appearing to get along with everyone or responding to criticism by offering to compromise or change course. Journalists have to stand, unwaveringly, for the truth — and if that meant being attacked by zealots who wanted to call such a position evidence of bias, I could live with that. For me, it would soon become a matter of simple integrity to acknowledge that some of the old-school rules and practices didn’t work anymore.
From this new vantage point, it seemed self-evident that the mainstream press was too often going easy on Trump. Well into his presidency, journalists didn’t want to use the word “lie” for Trump’s constant barrage of falsehoods. To lie, editors reasoned, means to intend to be untruthful. Since journalists couldn’t be inside politicians’ heads, how were we supposed to know if — by this definition — they were really lying? The logic eventually became strained, given that Trump blithely repeated the same rank mistruths over and over.
Too many reporters and their editors didn’t seem to want to figure out how to cover Trump properly. From the moment he descended the golden escalator at Manhattan’s Trump Tower in June 2015 to announce his candidacy, the news media was in his thrall. Journalists couldn’t stop writing about him, showing him on TV and even broadcasting images of the empty stage waiting for him to arrive at a rally. Trump had described himself as “the ratings machine,” and for once he wasn’t exaggerating.
As I continued to tackle the 2016 campaign, I criticized the press’s obsession with the former reality-TV star, yet I was caught up in it, too. I have no regrets about what I wrote, but I certainly was aware that if I wrote a column with Trump’s name in the headline, it probably would find a passionate audience: thousands of comments and retweets, hundreds of emails, requests to talk on TV. And because I wrote about the news media, and Trump never stopped using the news media as a foil, there was so much to say.
In every way, Trump was a deeply abnormal candidate, but the news media couldn’t seem to communicate that effectively or even grasp the problem. Instead, his every unhinged, middle-of-the-night tweet was covered like legitimate news. To be fair, the media was applying a standard that had made sense up until that moment: When a major presidential candidate says something provocative or worse, it’s newsworthy. The problem is that we were applying this old standard to a candidate who was exploiting it for his own purposes — while seeking to undermine democracy itself.
In the late afternoon of Nov. 8, 2016, Election Day, I walked into The Post’s newsroom with a column already started about Hillary Clinton’s supposedly inevitable victory. A few hours later, I was scrambling, just like every reporter, editor and commentator. My colleagues and I watched the television screens placed all around the newsroom as one battleground state after another fell to Trump.
Tossing away my useless column, I wrote that the media coverage of the 2016 race had been, as I put it, “an epic fail.” They — and I would include myself in this criticism — employed a kind of magical thinking: A Trump presidency shouldn’t happen, therefore it won’t happen.
Soon, word filtered down from the boss, Marty Baron, that I should produce a second column before I left the newsroom that night. He wanted me to write my recommendations for how the traditional press should cover the new president. So, I wrote a call to arms for American journalists: “Journalists are going to have to be better — stronger, more courageous, stiffer-spined — than they’ve ever been.” I filed it, not at all convinced that I’d written anything worthwhile on this momentous night, said good night to my editor and headed out of the newsroom around 3 a.m.
Stunned and spent, I walked slowly through the deserted streets of downtown Washington. As I neared my apartment, I could see the U.S. Capitol, that seemingly inviolable symbol of American democracy, off to the east. Lit from within, it glowed an ethereal white in the darkness.
In every way, Trump was a deeply abnormal candidate, but the news media couldn’t seem to communicate that effectively or even grasp the problem.
As we would learn over the coming years, the Capitol was not inviolable, and neither is the democracy it represents. American democracy is now on the edge of a precipice. What can members of the press do to help keep it from tipping over as the 2024 campaign looms? What should we have learned since that summer in 2016?
For one thing, I’m convinced that journalists — specifically those who cover politics — must keep a sharp focus on truth-seeking, not old-style performative neutrality. Does that mean we throw objectivity out the window? Of course not. We should be resolutely objective in the sense of seeking evidence and approaching subjects with an open mind. We should not, however, resort to taking everything down the middle, no matter what. Rather than, for example, having equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats (or conservatives and progressives) on every talk show, or devoting equal numbers of words to each side of a political argument, we should be thinking about what coverage serves the public best.
Those who deny the outcome of the 2020 election certainly don’t deserve a media megaphone for that enduring lie, one that is likely to reemerge in the presidential campaign ahead. But the media should go one step further: When covering such a politician in other contexts — for example, about abortion rights or gun control — journalists should remind audiences that this public figure is an election denier.
That’s exactly the model pursued by WITF, a public radio station in Harrisburg, Pa., which decided to remind its audience on a regular basis that some Republican state legislators and members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation had opposed the transfer of power to Joe Biden, despite the lack of evidence to support their claims of election fraud. A story on the station’s website about a state legislator’s efforts to get Pennsylvanians vaccinated was accompanied by a sidebar of text about his behavior after the election. On-air stories have used a tagline to accomplish the same purpose. The decision wasn’t easy, one editor told me, “because this is not the normal thing.”
Unfortunately, many media organizations — increasingly owned these days by huge corporations or hedge funds — seem more interested in ratings and profits than in serving the public interest. So, they are extremely hesitant to offend groups of viewers or voters, including the many Republicans who have signed on to the lie about the 2020 election being stolen. The new boss of CNN, Chris Licht, raised eyebrows when he made the rounds on Capitol Hill a few months ago to assure Republican leaders that members of their party would be treated fairly on the network that had been one of the former president’s favorite punching bags. One conservative publication, the Washington Free Beacon, called Licht’s unusual outreach an “apology tour.” Given all this, it’s difficult to picture CNN consistently alerting viewers that a politician is an election denier, even when discussing a different subject. Yet that’s exactly the type of bold measure that is needed.
Media people — not just reporters but their editors and top leaders of newsrooms — also need to take a hard, critical look at the types of stories that constitute traditional campaign coverage. That coverage has historically leaned on such things as live footage of speeches, rallies and debates; on “horse race” articles based on polls or conventional wisdom; and on blowing up small conflicts (campaign staff in disarray!) into major stories. These modes of coverage can have the effect of normalizing a candidate who should not be normalized. They also often constitute a distraction at a time when huge swaths of one party are essentially running against democratic practices.
By no means am I counseling that journalists act as if they are “on the team” of Trump’s rivals. That’s not our job. At the same time, we have to be aware that covering someone who doesn’t care about democratic norms — even something as basic as the peaceful transfer of power — requires different judgments about what stories really matter, and how we should or should not cover them.
In making these judgments, we have to relentlessly explain ourselves to our readers, viewers and listeners. Although it didn’t involve Trump, a good example of this came over the summer when the Plain Dealer newspaper in Cleveland decided against covering a rally for U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance featuring Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis because of the absurdly restrictive rules the campaign had tried to impose, including a prohibition against interviewing attendees who weren’t approved by rally organizers. Instead, the Plain Dealer published white space, with a note to readers written by editor Chris Quinn headlined, “We reject the free speech-trampling rules set by J.D. Vance and Ron DeSantis for covering their rally.” Quinn was blunt: “Think about what they were doing here. They were staging an event to rally people to vote for Vance while instituting the kinds of policies you’d see in a fascist regime.”
Of course, the press must be just as tough on Democrats, should they adopt similar tactics or start lying all the time or trashing governmental norms. The standards should be the same for all. But journalists shouldn’t shy away from the unavoidable truth: Most of this is coming from Trump-style Republicans.
Perhaps the most important thing journalists can do as they cover the campaign ahead is to provide thoughtful framing and context. They shouldn’t just repeat what’s being said, but help explain what it means. This is especially important in headlines and news alerts, which are about as far as many news consumers get. When Trump rants about the supposed horrors of rigged elections and voting fraud, journalists have to constantly provide the counterweight of truth. We have gotten better at this since 2016. Now we have to stick to it.
All of these suggestions go against the grain of traditional politics coverage. Undoubtedly, this approach will draw accusations of bias from the right; undoubtedly, journalists and news leaders will be put on the defensive. They’ll need to get over that. The stakes are enormously high. Doing things the same old way isn’t remotely appropriate. By now, that’s something we all should have learned.
Margaret Sullivan was The Post’s media columnist from 2016 until late August. This article is adapted from her memoir, “Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) From an Ink-Stained Life,” to be published this month by St. Martin’s Press. | 2022-10-12T16:11:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | If Trump Runs Again, Do Not Cover Him the Same Way: A Journalist’s Manifesto - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/10/12/margaret-sullivan-how-media-should-cover-trump-next-campaign/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/10/12/margaret-sullivan-how-media-should-cover-trump-next-campaign/ |
(Museo de Arte de Ponce. )
Dubbed “the most wonderful painting in existence,” Frederic Leighton’s “Flaming June” is now owned by a Puerto Rican museum
Funny story: Andrew Lloyd Webber once saw this painting in a shop on King’s Road in west London. The 1895 painting, known as “Flaming June,” had been not so much “missing” as forgotten for half a century. The composer loved it. This was the 1960s — the premiere of “Jesus Christ Superstar” was still a few years off. He asked his grandmother to lend him the 50 pounds the shop was asking, but she refused: “I will not have Victorian junk in my flat,” she explained.
Look, when it comes to Victorian art, I’m mostly with Lloyd Webber’s grandmother. But “Flaming June”? “Flaming June” is inimitable, unforgettable, and grandma clearly hadn’t seen it when she declined to put up the cash.
“Flaming June,” by Lord Frederic Leighton (1830-1896), is such a powerful composition, so intensely colored, and erotic in such strange and disturbing ways that it transcends comparisons and makes you forget about who made it, in what context, and why. It leaves your jaw on the floor.
Along with John Everett Millais’s “The Escape of a Heretic, 1559” and a series of three paintings by Edward Burne-Jones, “Flaming June” is on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, which has one of the world’s leading collections of Victorian art.
The Puerto Rican museum has lent the works to New York while its main galleries are closed for repair following the devastating earthquakes of January 2020. In the meantime, of course, Puerto Rico, which had not yet fully recovered from Hurricane Maria in 2017, was recently battered by Hurricane Fiona. To be thinking about “Flaming June” in such a context is to be haunted by varieties of cognitive dissonance. It is beyond my capacities as a critic to distill that dissonance into a cheap thread of contrived wisdom or false consolation, so (forgive me) I’m just going to babble on about the painting.
Leighton was a fixture in 19th century British art — a president of the Royal Academy and as thoroughgoing a classicist as the British Empire ever produced (his nickname was “Jupiter Olympus”). He painted “Flaming June” at the end of his life. The format is square, with sides of 47 inches, and its dominant subject, loosely based on a famous Michelangelo sculpture (the female personification of “Night” in the Medici Chapel in Florence), seems to have been squeezed into it.
Leighton set his youthful figure — a classical nymph or naiad — in a Mediterranean setting. A low sun ignites the flat water behind her somnolent head, enhancing the atmosphere of morbid Shakespearean fantasy.
Having slipped from consciousness, she seems to be slipping also from life. In the foreground, her bare foot — suggestively flexed like Raphael’s red-stockinged foot in Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s “Raphael and the Fornarina” — is the liveliest thing about her. From it, Leighton leads your eye up to her thigh, which remains parallel to the picture plane. But from there his drastic foreshortening leads the eye back in space as if along a meandering river.
Oh, God, that orange! The radiant gown clings to her skin, suggesting the wet drapery sculpture of the Greeks (but on Mannerist steroids). Its color is set off by her blushing skin, by the rich but comparatively quiet background hues of khaki and burgundy and by the auburn of her hair, which Leighton encourages us to confuse with the textured cloth billowing all around her.
The Victorians were preoccupied with poetic connections between sleep and death, and it’s telling that Leighton has included, at top right, the branch of an oleander bush, known for its deadly toxicity. The message?
Honestly, I hate interpreting Victorian paintings, whose meanings can be so extravagantly dull, so laboriously literary. I would prefer simply to bask in the atmosphere of “Flaming June,” which Samuel Courtauld, the founder of London’s Courtauld Institute, once called “the most wonderful painting in existence.” But let me at least take a stab. The message could either be: “the classical past remains sensuously alive even as it lies in ruins all around us” or “Don’t ever burn the wood of oleander trees!” Your guess will no doubt be better than mine.
Flaming June, c. 1895
Frederic Leighton (b.1830). At Museo de Arte de Ponce . | 2022-10-12T16:12:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Perspective | When Andrew Lloyd Webber tried to buy this painting, his grandmother called it junk - Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/interactive/2022/frederic-leighton-flaming-june/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/interactive/2022/frederic-leighton-flaming-june/ |
Robin Wall Kimmerer, just named the recipient of a MacArthur ‘genius grant,’ weaves Indigenous wisdom with her scientific training and says that a ‘sense of not belonging here contributes to the way we treat the land’
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass,” which combines Indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge, first hit the bestseller list in February 2020. “If the world is listening, I have a responsibility to speak,” she says. (Rosem Morton for The Washington Post)
GETTYSBURG, Pa. — A dozen years ago, Robin Wall Kimmerer submitted an unsolicited manuscript to Milkweed, a nonprofit independent press in Minneapolis. It was a brick of about 750 pages.
“I sent it out without any confidence that anyone would want to read such a thing,” says Kimmerer, 69. “I didn’t have an agent. I’m not a professional writer. I’m a botanist. But it was something that I felt I really wanted to say.”
The submission was “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants,” which asks readers to reconsider how they view and treat the natural world.
Kimmerer’s goal was to reach two specific audiences: science colleagues and students. She reached many, many more than that. The book is a word-of-mouth publishing wonder, with more than 1.4 million copies in print and audio, and it’s been translated into nearly 20 languages. On Wednesday, Kimmerer was named a MacArthur fellow, a recipient of the “genius grant,” which increased this year to $800,000 paid over five years.
In February 2020, more than six years after initial publication, for which the book had been whittled down to about 400 pages, the paperback edition of “Braiding Sweetgrass” reached the New York Times bestseller list. It’s resided there for 129 weeks.
Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. In “Braiding Sweetgrass,” she weaves Indigenous wisdom with her scientific training. The book is simultaneously meditative about the abundance of the natural world and bold in its call to action on “climate urgency.” Kimmerer asks readers to honor the Earth’s glories, restore rather than take, and reject an economy and culture rooted in acquiring more. She invites us to learn from plants and other species, nature’s teachers. “If we use a plant respectfully, it will flourish. If we ignore it, it will go away,” she writes.
Her work is “an invitation into reciprocity,” Kimmerer says. “In return for these spectacular gifts of the Earth, say to yourself: ‘What am I going to do about that? What is my accountability in return for everything I’ve been given?’”
Sales of the book were on the rise when the pandemic began, a moment, Kimmerer says, “of values clarification for us all, of saying what really matters.” It was a moment when many people were spending more time contemplating and living in nature, becoming open to the teachings of other cultures, and searching for guidance in the face of pending climate disasters.
“I was sensing, as an environmentalist, this great longing in the public, a longing to belong to a place,” Kimmerer says. “I think about how many people have no culture, have no ancestral home. ‘I don’t belong here’ is what I was hearing from people. That sense of not belonging here contributes to the way we treat the land.”
The book’s success was sudden, but the time it took to arrive was not. As a single mother, Kimmerer’s first responsibility was always to her two daughters, now 40 and 35. Her time to write was long confined to the hours after they went to sleep or when she took a sabbatical. (She is a professor at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, and the founder and director of its Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.) On the book’s jacket, she lists “mother” first among her achievements. As an academic, she needed to publish scientific papers and secure tenure, and she was one of the first women on her campus to do so.
“Braiding Sweetgrass” has spurred musical collaborations; inspired visual artists, such as Jenny Holzer; and moved one reader, a textile designer, to create a fabric and skirt, which Kimmerer wore the day I met her, ahead of a reading she was giving that night at Gettysburg College.
She knows how to hold a room. Kimmerer’s voice is gentle, seductive and measured. She has the ability to be poetic in describing nature’s bounty and searing in her call to protect the Earth and take action. “We’ve accepted banishment even from ourselves,” she writes in “Sweetgrass,” “when we spend our beautiful, utterly singular lives on making more money, to buy more things that feed but never satisfy.”
Ironically, the book has made Kimmerer a tidy sum, and now there is the hefty MacArthur Fellowship — though, she says, she lives as simply as she did before, “except that it did allow me to convert to green energy at my house. My 200-year-old house is now carbon neutral, thanks to ‘Braiding Sweetgrass.’”
Kimmerer tends to speak in prose as transporting as her work, with occasional bursts of exquisite botanist wonkery: “I am, perhaps, well known for my photosynthesis envy.” She refers to the book as though it, too, is animate, like one of her beloved plants. She mentions its inherent beauty, on recycled paper, and “how it’s made its way internationally to audiences without my having had much to do with it.” The book changed her life. She is invited to speak everywhere, including the United Nations, and receives letters and poetry from readers all over the world. Her work, she says, has had “an impact in places that I had never expected.”
Review of Suzanne Simard's 'Finding the Mother Tree'
To her readers, Kimmerer is a plant star; her work, transformative. “I was driving across the country listening to her read the audio book, and I had to pull over several times,” says the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Powers. “My eyes were filled with tears, and I couldn’t see the road.” He became a Kimmerer fan long before she settled onto the bestseller list. As an homage, he named a character after Kimmerer in his 2014 novel, “Orfeo.”
Kimmerer is modest in assessing her talent when claiming she is not “a professional writer.” She won the esteemed John Burroughs Medal honoring nature writing for “Gathering Moss,” a 2003 university press book rooted in academic research that served as inspiration for Elizabeth Gilbert’s novel “The Signature of All Things.” On the cover of “Braiding Sweetgrass,” Gilbert extols the book as “a hymn of love to the world.” Had Kimmerer not become a botanist, she says, she would have been a poet.
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When her manuscript arrived at Milkweed, editor Patrick Thomas was immediately enchanted. “My guess is that she was born with this voice,” he says. Together, he and Kimmerer spent a couple of years paring the book to a manageable length.
Getting published is one thing, being read is another, as many crestfallen authors know. Of the 3.2 million titles that NPD BookScan followed last year, only 2 percent sold more than 5,000 copies, the initial print run of “Braiding Sweetgrass.”
There was little marketing push for the book, Kimmerer says. It was barely reviewed. The initial author tour was largely limited to college campuses in Minnesota.
But readers kept buying the book — stacks of it, largely through word of mouth and passionate support from independent bookstores. The reading world broke down into two groups: “Braiding Sweetgrass” fanatics and people who had yet to hear of it. Sales doubled annually; Kimmerer likens it to exponential growth in a forest. Thomas says, “People were hungry for a message like this that was scientific and connected to a tradition they don’t understand.”
The book changed the fortunes of her publisher. “Braiding Sweetgrass” is the most popular book in Milkweed’s 42-year history “by a factor of three,” says chief executive and publisher Daniel Slager. Its success is “the craziest thing that has happened here, completely unprecedented in my experience.” Since the book’s publication, Milkweed’s staff has doubled, and so has the number of titles it publishes each year.
In 2016, Kimmerer appeared on Krista Tippett’s “On Being” radio program, an episode that was broadcast again this year. “It touched a nerve,” Tippett says. “She’s naming the limits of science alone that we’ve come to rely on in the West.”
Kimmerer receives 90 or so speaking invitations each month — she accepts about 10 percent of them, many conducted virtually; she’s wary of leaving too large a carbon footprint and of becoming depleted. She still teaches. Her beloved garden in Upstate New York is a “weedy mess.”
A life of constant public appearances is not one she would have chosen. “I’m a quite private, introverted person. I’m happiest at my desk or in the woods,” she says over lunch. “This realm comes at a cost to me. It’s not something that I would seek, but it has sought me. It feels important to celebrate this extraordinary moment to the openness of Indigenous knowledge,” she says. Last month, the Biden administration named a diplomat for plants and animals.
Kimmerer feels the weight of her family’s legacy, the imperative to honor the stories. At age 9, her father’s father was sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which Jim Thorpe also attended, less than 30 miles from where she sits. It was one of many schools intended to force the assimilation of its Native students. Kimmerer speaks of her “deep responsibility to our knowledge,” Indigenous knowledge, “that they tried to eradicate from our people,” she says. “If the world is listening, I have a responsibility to speak.”
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Kimmerer is working on an illustrated children’s book inspired by “Braiding Sweetgrass.” (An illustrated young-adult version of the book, adapted by Monique Gray Smith, will be published next month.) She is also writing a third book, which builds on her previous ones. “It’s about seeing the natural world as full of persons. It’s meant to animate the plant world,” she says.
Powers, who appeared at a Harvard symposium with Kimmerer, says that “she looks at things with a long sense of time. I wanted to hear that wisdom, that clear-eyed, levelheaded, intensely knowledgeable voice expound on everything.”
Kimmerer loves stories, which she likens to medicine in their power to heal. “Braiding Sweetgrass” swells with them. During her talks, she is inclined to ask questions, inviting readers and audiences to search for answers. “Every one of us every day are showered with gifts from the Earth,” she says at Gettysburg College. “We have an economy that is relentlessly asking for more. What we should be asking now is not what we can take, but what can we give?” | 2022-10-12T16:12:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Braiding Sweetgrass became a surprise -- and enduring -- bestseller - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/12/braiding-sweetgrass-robin-wall-kimmerer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/12/braiding-sweetgrass-robin-wall-kimmerer/ |
“First, survive. Don’t rush to jail. Then, write.”
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk on authoritarianism, covid and his new novel
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk. (Elena Seibert)
Orhan Pamuk’s newly translated “Nights of Plague” is a novel of contradictions: humorous as it is dire, historical as it is fictitious. Telling the story of an imagined island off the coast of Turkey struck by plague in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, it examines both the disruptive force of pandemics and the rise of global authoritarianism through a fictional lens.
Pamuk’s conjoined interest in these strikingly contemporary themes was coincidental; he began writing the book several years before the appearance of the coronavirus. His use of plague as a metaphor for the outbreak of authoritarianism, however, was no accident, as he recently told The Washington Post in a wide-ranging conversation conducted in English about “Nights of Plague.”
Pamuk’s allegory has not gone unnoticed by the powers that be, earning the Nobel laureate legal trouble for supposedly insulting Turkey’s flag and the nation’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It’s not the first time Pamuk has stirred up nationalist ire, as he’s been charged with “insulting Turkishness” in the past.
Even when discussing grave topics, Pamuk manages to remain optimistic, insisting that things might yet change for the better in his country.
“Nights of Plague” is a surprisingly funny book.
I wrote more than half of the story before the coronavirus pandemic, and my wife would go to work and she used to come home in those years before the pandemic, and I would read to her and say to her, Look, so many horrors are happening! So many people are dying! Fires, revolutions, executions, hanging of people, bubonic plague, one in three dies. … And my book is funny! Do you think that people think that I am heartless or what? She would say, Continue — go ahead. So I finished the book.
As you mentioned, you began it long before covid. What inspired you to write a plague story?
Many years ago, I thought I’d write a historical novel set in a medieval Ottoman plague. In fact, in “Silent House,” one of my early books, there is an Ottoman historian who’s researching for documents about a past plague, and later even in “The White Castle” there are scenes of plague I was considering.
I began to read about 19th-century epidemics. I saw uprisings in Poland and Russia against the imposition of quarantine. In those times, almost without exception, in order to make the quarantine work, governments got authoritarian. [I read this as Recep] Tayyip Erdogan and the Erdogan government were getting authoritarian. Finally, I said, this is the time that I should write my allegorical, political novel, because it is an authoritarian situation. But before I finished it, the real pandemic took over.
I want to tell you this funny story. When I was writing the novel, I was thinking how the three greatest books ever written about the bubonic plague were Daniel Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year,” Alessandro Manzoni’s “The Betrothed” — the Italian “War and Peace” — and Albert Camus’ “The Plague.” These are the best novels about plague, and none of these writers had ever experienced plague. The most realistic is Daniel Defoe’s, psychologically, because he based his book on his uncle’s notebooks, who experienced the 1665 London plague. None of these three writers experienced plague, and neither had I. I was like, I’m the fourth one! Then suddenly we were overtaken by coronavirus, and everyone began saying How lucky you are.
Did the real pandemic impact “Nights of Plague?”
Yes. In March and April 2020, when covid was a bit mysterious and there was no vaccination and everyone was frightened, I was over 65 and I was scared. And I realized, although I researched so much, my characters were not as afraid as I was. So I injected my fear into them.
Why set the story in a fictional place rather than in a real one?
I began this novel as a political allegory, but allegories are short, and it ended up being a panoramic description of the empire. Why did I need an island? I did not want to argue with the chroniclers of real places. I wanted an ideal place. Not Thomas More’s ideal Utopia island, but ideal in the way that it represents the generality.
A common theme throughout your work is the tension between tradition and modernity, especially in regard to religion. It’s central to “Snow.”
It’s in all of my novels. Modernization, tradition — these may be lofty statements for historians or for sociologists, but for me, it should be a story. A human story. My idea of people is not that there are the good, modernist ones and there are the traditional ones — it’s not like that. We all have the desire for modernization and the desire for embracing the past or tradition, with different proportions in our minds. That is the way I treat my characters.
You mentioned that the novel grew partially out of a desire to address the rise of Erdogan’s authoritarianism …
There is no free speech in Turkey.
That’s exactly what I’d like to discuss. Freedom of expression is always under attack, but we’re living in a particularly perilous time in that regard. Turkey has imprisoned many writers and journalists as well as a number of musicians. The same in Iran of course. It’s a problem all over the world.
I don’t want to generalize it. I mean, even in Trump’s America, there was free speech, no? He could not curtail it. He curtails women’s rights for abortion, or the court did that. There are right-wing populists in Europe — [Hungary’s Viktor] Orban — but he could not curtail free speech. In Turkey … there is no free speech, and you cannot have a real democracy without it. We have an electoral democracy. So many people are sent to prison so easily, so how can you say there is full democracy in Turkey? I don’t think it is. So, in the end, I don’t want to make global generalizations. I’m talking about Turkey.
You’ve been accused of insulting Turkishness again.
This time no. This time Kemal Atatürk and the flag. Insulting Turkishness was 2005. So more or less the same.
They get angry with me, they want to give me problems, but they cannot continue really. The public prosecutor invited me to his office, saying that the Major [from “Nights of Plague”] was an insult to Atatürk. This happened in May of this year. Then it was leaked — I didn’t do it — it was leaked to the media in summer. And then in the end, the conversation was like this: So which page? The prosecutor couldn’t tell a page. And nothing happened. My case, this time, is lost in the labyrinth of bureaucracy in Ankara.
Is the investigation theoretically still open?
Yes, it’s still open. They are not pursuing it, but not closing it. In case they may one day need it.
Would you say that this is an attempt to silence you?
Maybe there’s an attempt of intimidation, but in the end, they know that it won’t work. But it is a political gesture. Don’t buy his book! Once there’s an investigation, once it’s reported big, lots of people believe it’s true. It’s nationalistic politics, of course.
In a world where authoritarianism is on the rise, what can writers or artists do to fight back?
I am the vice president of PEN International. I care about free speech. I care about writers who are silenced, curtailed. I will not be silenced. I know there are writers who will not be silenced. This is all we can do.
Also, we have to be modest. The power of literature is limited. We can only move the hearts of people who read books. Let’s not exaggerate the power of fiction.
What needs to change in Turkey?
Of course, the first thing we need is free speech. And on the human side, we need leaders who are more tender, compassionate. Who pity the people. Who do not only look at statistics.
Turkish people are really suffering immense poverty. I’ve never seen my country — or any country — get so poor in two or three years. Income per capita went down. The nation is eating, consuming less. Enjoying less. I feel the anger.
When I came to Turkey before, there was a much more lighthearted atmosphere. Now it feels like a more closed-off country. Is that driven by an increase in nationalism?
It’s closed off for other reasons, not ideological reasons. It is closed off because of poverty. You cannot eat. You cannot travel because of poverty. And the nation is angry.
I don’t think the country is more nationalist than, say, 10 years ago. The nation is angry. I agree. Maybe the nation is even expressing its anger through nationalism, but it’s not that suddenly people are all getting nationalistic. They may be going inward, but they will open easily if there will be money, growth, egalitarianism, etc.
We’re talking about very serious topics, but you seem surprisingly optimistic. Are you optimistic?
Yes! I’m optimistic because Erdogan’s coalition will not survive if there is an honest, accurate election. The nation wants freedom.
Nick Hilden writes about the arts, travel, tech and health for numerous publications. He wanders the world constantly, and you can stalk his latest travels via Instagram or Twitter. | 2022-10-12T16:12:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Novelist Orhan Pamuk on authoritarianism, covid and his new novel - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/12/orhan-pamuk-interview-authoritarianism-covid-literature/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/12/orhan-pamuk-interview-authoritarianism-covid-literature/ |
Liz Cheney may find breaking with the GOP painful but liberating. I did.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) vice chairwoman of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, at the Capitol on Sept. 30. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Last week, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) crossed the Rubicon. “For almost 40 years now, I’ve been voting Republican. I don’t know if I have ever voted for a Democrat,” she said. “But if I lived in Arizona now, I absolutely would for governor and secretary of state.”
To Democrats or independents, her declaration would seem to be a no-brainer: No one who believes in our democracy can possibly support election deniers such as Kari Lake and Mark Finchem. But anyone who has spent a lifetime as a party loyalist knows how hard it must have been for her to say those fateful words.
One of the most basic convictions uniting Republicans is that, however bad a Republican candidate might be, a Democrat is always worse. This has allowed seemingly sensible Republicans to excuse one outrage after another. Cheney has now broken with that orthodoxy. She has called out the biggest lie of all — that the worst Republican is superior to the best Democrat.
I have some small sense of what Cheney might be going through. After spending my entire adult life as a Republican — and working as a foreign policy adviser to three Republican presidential candidates — I finally had enough after Donald Trump’s election. I re-registered as an independent the day after the vote. Before 2016, I had never voted for a Democrat in my life. Since then, I have never voted for a Republican.
It was a traumatic experience. I lost old friends and colleagues, and I was not exactly welcomed by some on the left who insisted I was a “war criminal” for having supported the Iraq War. Humans are tribal animals, and it’s disorienting to leave your tribe behind.
Cheney remains a Republican, but she has experienced far greater discomfort and danger in breaking so publicly with her party. She is, after all, Republican royalty: the daughter of a former vice president who was herself the No. 3 Republican in the House. Party loyalists feel betrayed by Cheney, and she has the death threats to prove it.
Even to go as far as Cheney has — endorsing a couple of actual, gasp, Democrats — is an impressive feat of courage and principle that few other high-profile Republicans are willing to undertake. But, based on my own experience, I suspect her rebellion from party orthodoxy, now that it has started, might not stop.
I found breaking with my party to be a painful but liberating experience, and she might, too. Leaving the GOP made me realize how much I missed by looking at the world through a partisan lens. In particular, I was willfully blind to what the Republican Party had become long before Trump came along. The racism, the nativism, the hostility to science, the conspiracy-mongering, the cruelty, the willingness to win at all costs: None of it is new. Trump did not invent these malign trends. He merely accelerated them.
If Cheney hasn’t done so already, I imagine that before long she will be forced to reexamine her lifetime in the GOP and ask where it all went wrong. Some argue that the roots of the current craziness lie in Newt Gingrich’s rise in the 1990s. Others point to Barry Goldwater’s rise in the 1960s. But the insanity definitely didn’t start with Trump — and, sadly, it won’t end when he passes from the scene.
I suspect that, like me, Cheney used to roll her eyes at the wilder and woollier manifestations of the Republican coalition while telling herself that the fanatics and fascists didn’t really represent the party. Now, it’s obvious that the extremists are the mainstream. It’s principled conservatives such as Cheney who are the outcasts and misfits in this freak show.
But leaving the party didn’t just free me to reckon with the influence of far-right zealots. It also forced me to come to grips with what passes for conservative orthodoxy. Many mainstream Republicans believe that gun control doesn’t work, that climate change isn’t a major threat, that every social welfare program is about to usher in a socialist dystopia (remember the Affordable Care Act “death panels”?), and that tax cuts are always good — the bigger the better. These beliefs aren’t as nutty as the claim that Trump won the 2020 election, but, in my post-Republican view, they are also at odds with reality. They are manifestations of an ideology that begins to unravel under the slightest critical examination.
Cheney is welcome to stay in the GOP and fight for what’s left of its soul. But, if she is to do so, she needs to understand how bad the party has been for so long — and how hard it will be to change course.
I can’t predict where her ideological journey might take her, but I can say that it is just beginning. Having taken off the blinders of party loyalty, she can gaze at the world anew. By losing her House seat, she has liberated herself to think freely and see clearly. She might be both horrified and gratified by what she perceives. Someday, she might even find herself rethinking bedrock beliefs such as climate denialism and opposition to gun control that are the “respectable” face of contemporary Republicanism. | 2022-10-12T16:29:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Liz Cheney may find breaking with the GOP painful but liberating. I did. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/liz-cheney-rubicon-republican-authoritarianism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/liz-cheney-rubicon-republican-authoritarianism/ |
Judge tosses DOJ bid to compel Steve Wynn to register as China agent
Casino mogul and GOP megadonor Wynn need not register after the fact, judge rules, dealing a setback to U.S. crackdown on foreign influence in American politics.
Casino mogul Steve Wynn (Charles Krupa/AP)
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit to compel casino mogul and Republican megadonor Steve Wynn to register as an agent of China, handing a setback to the U.S. government’s intensifying efforts to police foreign influence in American politics.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of Washington, D.C., in a 20-page opinion, made no determination about whether Wynn, former chief executive of Wynn Resorts, in fact acted as an agent of Beijing in advancing its interests in 2017 through his relationship with President Donald Trump and members of his administration.
But the judge said despite his reservations, the government had no legal authority to force Wynn to register retroactively after his alleged relationship with Chinese authorities ended under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The Justice Department brought the first lawsuit to compel registration under FARA in more than 30 years against Wynn last May in a sign of stepped-up enforcement of the 1938 law, which was originally enacted to target Nazi propaganda.
Boasberg said he agreed that compelling disclosure by Wynn was “plainly consistent with the central goal of FARA,” and did not dispute that even retroactive disclosure by former agents would reveal “information that [FARA] says the public needs.” Nevertheless, the judge concluded, “While the goals of FARA are laudable, this Court is bound to apply the statute as interpreted by the D.C. Circuit. And that requires dismissal.”
U.S. sues to compel casino mogul Steve Wynn to register as agent of China
Wynn, a former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, was accused of relaying a request from senior Chinese official Guo Wengui asking that the Trump administration remove a Chinese national who had sought asylum in the United States. Wynn’s activities from at least June 2017 through August 2017, prosecutors asserted, included discussing Beijing’s interests directly with Trump during a dinner in June 2017 and providing Guo’s passport photos to the president’s secretary. Wynn, the government argues, was acting at the behest of the Chinese official, Sun Lijun, then-vice minister for public security, as well as of the Chinese government itself.
Wynn at the time acted out of a desire to protect significant business interests involving casinos he owned and operated in Macao, a part of China, the Justice Department alleged, and the department had ordered Wynn to register three times without success.
In a written statement, Wynn attorneys Reid Weingarten and Robert Luskin said: “We are delighted that the District Court today dismissed the government’s ill-conceived lawsuit against Steve Wynn. Mr. Wynn never acted as an agent of the Chinese government and never lobbied on its behalf. This is a claim that should never have been filed, and the Court agreed.”
Guo, who left China in 2014 and was later charged with corruption, was not named in the complaint but has previously been identified by prosecutors.
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately comment.
In a news release last May, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said that the suit demonstrated the department’s commitment to ensuring “transparency in our democratic system.”
“Where a foreign government uses an American as its agent to influence policy decisions in the United States, FARA gives the American people a right to know,” Olsen said at the time.
Wynn stepped down as RNC finance chairman in January 2018 and as CEO of Wynn Resorts the following month in the face of allegations of sexual misconduct, which he has denied. He and his wife have remained prolific political donors, contributing about $2.5 million to Republican candidates and committees in the first three months of this year, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. | 2022-10-12T16:46:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Casino mogul Steve Wynn does not need to register as foreign agent, judge rules - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/wynn-doj-lawsuit-tossed-foreign-agent/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/wynn-doj-lawsuit-tossed-foreign-agent/ |
Two prototypes would launch early next year as the company seeks to build a constellation that would eventually grow to 3,236 satellites and compete with SpaceX’s Starlink system
An artist rendering shows what the United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket would look like launching from its Cape Canaveral, Fla. pad. The rocket is scheduled to make its first launch in early 2023. (Photo courtesy of ULA) (ULA)
The prototype satellites, part of Amazon’s Kuiper system that would beam the internet to stations on the ground, were initially scheduled to launch by the end of this year by rocket start-up ABL Space Systems. But delays and the opportunity to launch with ULA, which was already contracted for 47 launches of satellites for Amazon, compelled the company to switch rockets, Rajeev Baydal, the vice president of technology for Project Kuiper, said in an interview.
Amazon has permission from the Federal Communications Commission to put up 3,236 satellites, helping connect people without easy access to broadband, as it seeks to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink system. The company has pledged to invest more than $10 billion into a system it says will serve not only individual households, but also schools, hospitals and businesses that don’t have access to reliable broadband. Baydal said that Amazon now has 1,000 people working on the project as it seeks to grab a part of the lucrative internet market taking hold in space. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
“It’s absolutely a critical program for the company,” he said, adding that “there are over a billion people on Earth without reliable broadband.” Being able to connect “the unserved and underserved around the planet, that’s really an important part of what we’re doing.”
Even though SpaceX has been first to deploy its constellation, Baydal said the market for internet service is massive and could support more than one company: “We’re going to need multiple constellations to serve those customers.”
Amazon, he said, is “building extremely advanced new technologies, and a lot of our focus has gone into how do we reduce costs for our customers. In the long run, we believe what we're doing will translate into a lot more capacity, a lot higher bandwidth, and actually a lot lower prices for our customers. That's our DNA.”
The company has been developing Vulcan, its next-generation rocket, which it says will become the workhorse as it retires the Atlas V, which relies on a Russian-made engine. Vulcan has been delayed repeatedly, in large part because its engine, the BE-4, is years late. That engine is being developed by another Bezos company, Blue Origin. Despite the setbacks, ULA said there has been tremendous progress recently and that Vulcan is on track to launch for the first time in the first quarter of next year.
Tory Bruno, the CEO of ULA, said in an interview that the company is “confident we have enough time” to perform both launches, and analyze the data to meet the Space Force’s timeline.
In June, Frank Calvelli, the newly installed Space Force acquisition chief, has said getting Vulcan ready to launch Pentagon satellites is a national security priority, and one of his first trips was to visit ULA to monitor its progress. | 2022-10-12T16:50:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amazon to launch first of Kuiper Internet satellites on ULA rocket - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/12/amazon-internet-satellites-ula/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/12/amazon-internet-satellites-ula/ |
An Amazon Prime Thursday Night Football cameraman works during an NFL football game between the Denver Broncos and the Indianapolis Colts. (Jack Dempsey/AP)
This week, as Washington prepared to face the Chicago Bears on Thursday night, several players said the situation was sad but just a reminder of football’s inherent risks and the NFL’s behemoth business might. Several added that they hate “Thursday Night Football” — “It sucks,” linebacker Cole Holcomb said — but that Tagovailoa’s concussion simply underscored the hazards they have no choice but to accept.
Though some studies suggest Thursday games are actually similar to games on other days of the week in terms of injury rates and quality of play, players have complained the league is prioritizing profit over safety since 2006, when the NFL first introduced “Thursday Night Football.” In the past decade-and-a-half, despite players regularly expressing disdain, it’s become a revenue driver and cultural mainstay. Even one of its loudest critics — former NFL cornerback Richard Sherman, who once called “Thursday Night Football” a “poopfest” and a “middle finger” to players — cashed in to become a Thursday night commentator.
“I don’t like it, but … [the NFL] is business, so they're going to do what's best for their business. I understand that,” Allen said. “We can complain about it all day. It's not going to change anything.”
This week, Coach Ron Rivera took extra precaution with his players. He told them not to wear helmets at practice to reduce the chance of accidental collisions. He adopted the approach because Carolina Panthers star linebacker Luke Kuechly suffered a concussion in the team’s Thursday game in both 2016 and 2017. The team doctors suggested the cumulative effect of subconcussive hits while wearing a helmet even in practice could have caused the head injuries.
Four years later, told of the exchange, Commanders left tackle Charles Leno Jr. said he understood both sides and couldn’t pick one — though he knows the physical toll of “Thursday Night Football” as well as anyone.
In November 2018, the NFL flexed a Chicago home game from Sunday afternoon to Sunday night the week before the Bears had to play at Detroit on Thanksgiving. Leno left the field Sunday at about 10:30 p.m., and because of the schedule change, he only had about 84 hours until the next kickoff.
Others, such as safety Bobby McCain, have always believed the complaints about Thursdays were overblown. He said he’s in the minority but likes playing off a short week.
His explanation: In a normal week, players get two two-day breaks from hitting (Monday and Tuesday, Friday and Saturday). But during a short week, they don’t hit from Monday until Thursday night.
“He's a [defensive back],” Allen said. “He's running around, getting his legs back. Me? I just came off a game with [Tennessee running back] Derrick Henry, and I'm exhausted.”
One of the main points of McCain’s argument in favor of Thursday games was that there’s no such thing as a football game with a low injury risk. Players get concussions “all the time,” he said, and they accept that long before they get to the NFL.
“I hate what happened to Tua because that's my guy,” McCain, who played with Tagovailoa in Miami in 2020, said. “But it also happens. It happens to people week in and week out.”
Therein lies one of the tricky parts of promoting player safety in a sport with a soul as violent as football’s. Though the policies before Tagovailoa’s injury may have been insufficient and the quick turnaround might have compounded the problems, the league, teams and NFLPA can only do so much.
On Monday afternoon, rookie defensive tackle John Ridgeway was lying on his belly in front of his locker at the Commanders facility, scrolling his phone and chewing Copenhagen tobacco. He said he’d always found it odd the NFL played games on such short rest, and now that he is in the league, it seems even weirder. The team tracks his every movement on the field to help his body — and then schedules him to play on a Thursday?
In a few decades, Ridgeway joked, maybe the NFL will put player safety ahead of business. He said he thinks about head injuries, about how short the average NFL career is and about how it seems obvious to him teams shouldn’t play on Thursday nights. Then he shrugged.
“I just play,” he said. | 2022-10-12T17:12:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders players discuss pros and cons of Thursday NFL games - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/commanders-thursday-night-football/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/commanders-thursday-night-football/ |
New Maryland men's basketball coach Kevin Willard watches over practice earlier this month in College Park. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
MINNEAPOLIS — When Kevin Willard took the job as the Maryland men’s basketball coach in March, he lauded the program’s history and spoke of his memories of watching former Terrapins greats.
Nearly seven months later, he was asked what he has learned about the program since his hiring. “You got to know how to eat crab cakes,” Willard said, prompting laughter at a Tuesday morning news conference during his first trip to Big Ten media days.
The players are starting to see that side of Willard, a more relaxed version of the coach on the court. Senior Donta Scott said Willard “tries to be one of those coaches that always brings a little bit of light and a little bit of funniness to the group.”
Scott says that lightness stands in stark contrast to how Willard runs practice.
“Very intense,” Scott said.
Scott said he conditioned “a lot more” this offseason and has lost between 20 and 30 pounds. Willard’s practices focus on skill work, Scott said. Jahmir Young, a transfer point guard, said practices have the competitive feel of games and that Willard “demands a lot out of us.”
The preseason work this year, Willard said, “has been a little bit more intense than it usually is” because he wants to lay a foundation that carries to future players who arrive and learn from their more experienced teammates.
“We’re not just coming in and, because it’s Year 1, we’re just going to throw the balls out and that’s it,” Willard said. “Is it going to be smooth from the start? I can tell you that right now: No. We’re still messing up drills that I can’t believe we’re messing up. But we have very high expectations for this year, and this program will have high expectations every year.”
Willard, who was first a head coach at Iona and then at Seton Hall, has an eerily similar résumé to predecessor Mark Turgeon: He led Seton Hall to the NCAA tournament five times, never past the round of 32. He won the Big East tournament in 2016 and regular season in 2020. Willard, like Turgeon, missed his best chance for an NCAA tournament run in 2020, when his team was projected to earn a No. 3 seed before the postseason was canceled because of the pandemic.
But Maryland is banking on the idea that more resources and a program with a history of success will allow Willard to reach greater heights. The school expects to compete for Big Ten and national titles and believes Willard will take them there.
He won’t be judged too much by the 2022-23 season, which begins Nov. 7 against Niagara before ramping up to more difficult nonconference games. The Terps are coming off a 15-17 season in which Turgeon resigned after eight games, Danny Manning served as interim coach and the team finished with a losing record for the first time since 1992-93. But any signs of promise and change will be welcome to a fan base that sees its 2002 national title drifting further into the past.
Here’s what to know about the Terrapins entering Willard’s first season:
The trio who stayed
Willard has three established returners in Scott, senior guard Hakim Hart and sophomore forward Julian Reese. Scott, a 6-foot-8 forward, has been a starter the past three years and is the top returning scorer (12.6 points). Hart, a disruptive defender, has steadily improved in his college career, becoming a starter as a sophomore and averaging 9.9 points last season. Both were part of Maryland’s 2020 Big Ten title team.
“I try to be a very loyal guy to the teams I’m on,” Scott said when asked whether he considered transferring amid the coaching change. He wanted to “make sure there wasn’t any confusion about me just wanting to stay a Maryland guy, stay a Terp.”
Scott and Hart, former AAU teammates in Philadelphia, will probably join Reese in the starting lineup. As a freshman, Reese played off the bench behind Qudus Wahab, who left the program this offseason, and Willard believes Reese is poised to make a leap.
“Big jumps come with big opportunity,” Willard said. “He had an opportunity [last season], but he was never going to have the opportunity he’s going to have this year.”
The Terps lost a pair of scholarship players — Wahab and reserve guard Marcus Dockery — but this trio gives Willard a strong core to build around. Willard is aware that coaching changes often spark roster turnover, so he told his players: “Give us a chance before you make a decision. Just see what we’re all about. See what we’re going to do for you.”
Many decided to stay. And when recruiting transfers, Willard wanted to complement the returners, rather than add new pieces at the same position.
Impact transfers
Willard took over a team that had a significant hole in its backcourt following the departure of starters Fatts Russell and Eric Ayala, the team’s top scorers. He landed a pair of solid replacements in Young (Charlotte) and Don Carey (Georgetown).
Both seniors were multiyear starters at their previous stops and are proven scorers. Young, a 6-1 point guard, has averaged at least 18 points each of the past two seasons. Carey averaged 13.5 points for the Hoyas last season.
What was Willard’s staff looking for when bringing in transfers? “Kids that wanted to be at the University of Maryland, first and foremost” and “wanted to be part of the rebirth of Maryland basketball,” he said.
Depth questions
Behind the possible starting lineup of Young, Carey, Hart, Scott and Reese, the Terps face questions. The rest of the roster lacks experience.
In the frontcourt are 6-11 freshman center Caelum Swanton-Rodger and 6-7 forward Patrick Emilien, a graduate transfer from St. Francis (N.Y.). Maryland also has junior forwards Arnaud Revaz and Pavlo Dziuba, but neither has played much during their time in College Park.
“Donta and [Reese] are going to have to really be smart and make sure that they can play as many minutes as they can — until Cael gets a little bit more confidence, Pat gets used to the Big Ten,” Willard said. “I just think early on, until those guys get their feet under them, it’s going to be a little bit more by committee.”
At guard, Willard has a pair of returners in junior Ian Martinez, who averaged 12.5 minutes and 2.8 points last season, and sophomore Ike Cornish, a four-star recruit who redshirted in 2021-22.
Willard also brought in a familiar face who could serve as a backup point guard: Jahari Long, who has length at 6-5, played sparingly under Willard for two seasons at Seton Hall and missed most of last season because of an injury.
“If Jahari never makes it in basketball, he’ll be on my staff forever,” Willard said. “He’s the ultimate teammate. He’s an unbelievable student. Everyone loves him. And I think he’s a very, very good player.”
Noah Batchelor, a 6-6 wing, joined the program as Willard’s first commitment at Maryland, and the three-star prospect could take advantage of these depth questions to earn playing time as a freshman.
Asked about his rotation, Willard said everything is a “work in progress” at this time of year. | 2022-10-12T17:12:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At Maryland, Kevin Willard brings new intensity — and faces old expectations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/maryland-mens-basketball-kevin-willard/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/maryland-mens-basketball-kevin-willard/ |
How Mookie Betts and a reality TV show helped a D.C. entrepreneur grow
From left to right: Adewale and Amira Ogunleye, Mookie and Brianna Betts, and Jerri Evans and Clint McDermott. (Vivien Killilea / Getty Images)
This time last year, Jerri Evans didn’t know anything about Los Angeles Dodgers star Mookie Betts.
Evans, a D.C. native, had returned to the city after her mother’s 2010 death and spent the past decade building Turning Natural, a juice bar with six locations in the region. Last winter, Evans was ready to grow the business, but with limited options for the kind of support she was looking for, the engineer-turned-entrepreneur was bracing for a long, uphill battle.
That changed when representatives from Players TV, an online network whose programming centers on athletes’ off-field lives and pursuits, reached out to gauge Evans’s interest in participating in a show called “Front Office” — something akin to ABC’s “Shark Tank” with a rotating cast of athletes serving as the prospective investors. Betts and his wife, Brianna, wanted to invest in a health-conscious business, and Turning Natural was identified as a fitting candidate.
“We were going to hustle until we figured it out,” Evans said of her plans to grow the business before she heard from the show. “You kind of get discouraged because here you are nine years in, six locations, you have a proven model, you’re profitable, and you still can’t walk into a bank and ask for seven figures.”
The show is one of several athlete-focused programs on the network, alongside a DeAndre Jordan-hosted vegan cooking show and a reality show starring Dwyane Wade, among others. It’s the result of a marketing partnership between Players TV and UBS bank, which tapped former Pro Bowl defensive end Adewale Ogunleye as its head of sports and entertainment in 2020. Through the partnership, UBS created three programs for Players TV, including “Front Office.”
During the waning years of Ogunleye’s NFL career, which ended in 2010, the former Chicago Bear became more money conscious. He lamented the “shady characters” who offered questionable investment opportunities to players, and he wondered why they weren’t being told about the same wealth-building tools and institutions that other millionaires had access to. He pitched the idea of UBS partnering and working more closely with athletes to help them better capitalize on their entrepreneurial pursuits, leading to his role and eventually the Players TV programming, meant to open the door for meaningful projects and conversations about money.
“We’re reimagining the way people should be looking at investing with clients,” Ogunleye said of his work at UBS.
That’s how Evans connected with Betts, the featured investor in a soon-to-be released episode of “Front Office” who was looking to expand his portfolio by investing in a small business.
Showrunners searched for small business owners with the understanding that Betts would be interested in a company branded around a health-conscious lifestyle, and they eventually found Evans.
Evans grew up in Anacostia with her mother, Annette, who was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer in 2001. With limited access to healthy food options, Annette relied on homemade fruit and vegetable juices to meet her nutritional needs, and she eventually began selling those juices from her home. Annette was in remission for nine years following her initial diagnosis, but by the time the cancer was found to have returned in 2010, it was too late. She died less than two weeks later.
The loss left a void that pushed Evans to reassess her priorities. Mentally exhausted, she quit her engineering job and moved from Atlanta back to D.C. She wanted to make money, but she didn’t want to go back to engineering. She wanted to take care of herself, but she wanted to honor her mother’s legacy.
Three-to-seven-day juice cleanses were a regular part of Evans’s life, and her friends occasionally partook, although they typically enjoyed the product more than the process. They started requesting the juices so often that Evans eventually launched Turning Natural in 2013, selling juices from a church cafeteria.
Over nine years, Evans built and expanded Turning Natural, which now operates five D.C. locations and another in District Heights, Md., selling veggie patties, black bean burgers, salad dressings and playfully named juices such as Green Latifah and Mikale Jackson. She planned to expand the product line and to push those products into more stores and online retailers, but initially anticipated that goal would take years because she said banks viewed her businesses, which operate in underserved communities, as too great a risk.
In the “Front Office” episode filmed in January and scheduled to air Oct. 25, Evans tells Betts and his team about Turning Natural’s backstory. Evans said she felt like she bonded with Betts over their appreciation of healthy eating and their mutual connection to Nashville — where Betts was born and where Evans attended Tennessee State.
Evans requested an investment of around $250,000. After Betts and his group deliberated, Ogunleye escorted Evans back to the boardroom, and she eventually accepted a seven-figure deal.
For Evans, the deal with Betts and his team represents something deeper than financial support. It touches on the very sentiment that drove Ogunleye to help launch programs such as “Front Office.”
We’re “not just talking about franchising, but having access to financial advisers and having access to amazing people,” Evans said. “I think those are some of the things that people often forget when it comes to scaling a small business: It’s not just the resources. Give me all the money in the world, but if I don’t know what to do with it, I don’t know how to properly put it in places to grow my company.”
Evans said she hadn’t followed sports since the Washington Bullets changed their name to the Wizards in 1997. After the “Front Office” experience, her burgeoning baseball fandom may grow alongside her business.
“Of course I’m a Mookie Betts fan,” she said. “I’m not just saying that because he’s an investor — he’s actually really good! And I’m understanding more and more about baseball, so that helps, too.” | 2022-10-12T17:12:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mookie Betts helps D.C. brand Turning Natural expand - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/mookie-betts-turning-natural/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/mookie-betts-turning-natural/ |
Davante Adams charged with misdemeanor assault for shoving photographer
Davante Adams faces a misdemeanor assault charge after an incident at Arrowhead Stadium on Monday night. (Ed Zurga/AP)
Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams was charged with one count of misdemeanor assault Wednesday for pushing a freelance photographer who was in his path as he entered a tunnel to the locker room after his team’s loss to the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium.
The photographer, who is identified in court records as Ryan Zebley, was working the “Monday Night Football” game for ESPN when the incident occurred. He went to a hospital afterward and then contacted police, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department told the Kansas City Star.
The citation, filed in Kansas City Municipal Court, stated Adams “did, by an intentional, overt act, inflict bodily injury or cause an unlawful offensive contact upon [Zebley] by pushing [him] to the ground using two hands causing whiplash and headache, possible minor concussion.”
The 29-year-old wide receiver is due to appear in court Nov. 10.
The NFL and the Raiders have not commented on the charge, and the league was reviewing the incident Tuesday for potential disciplinary action, a person familiar with the situation said. It was not immediately clear whether a suspension was under consideration or merely a fine. The Raiders’ bye week began Tuesday.
Adams, who kept moving after the encounter, quickly apologized in the locker room.
He apologized again on Twitter, writing: “Sorry to the guy I pushed over after the game. Obviously very frustrated at the way the game ended and when he ran infront of me as I exited that was my reaction and I felt horrible immediately. That’s not me. MY APOLOGIES man hope you see this.”
With the 30-29 loss to their AFC West rival, the Raiders fell to 1-4, foiled in part by Coach Josh McDaniels’s decision to try a two-point conversion for the lead rather than an extra point for the tie after Adams scored on a 48-yard touchdown pass from Derek Carr with 4:27 to play.
Adams, who rejoined his former Fresno State teammate Carr when he left the Green Bay Packers in an offseason trade, caught three passes for 124 yards and scored touchdowns of 58 and 48 yards, but the Raiders blew a 17-0 second-quarter lead in the loss.
He was clearly frustrated by a late-game series as he left the field after the team’s final offensive play with 46 seconds left. On fourth and one from the Las Vegas 46-yard line, Adams was running downfield as Carr let loose a deep pass, but Adams and fellow wide receiver Hunter Renfrow collided and the ball fell incomplete.
McDaniels called the incident “an unfortunate situation” Tuesday afternoon.
“We obviously don’t want any of our guys to be doing anything like that,” McDaniels said. “He knows that. He’s very well aware of that. But I know the person; I don’t think there was any intent behind it on his part. | 2022-10-12T17:21:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Raiders' Davante Adams charged with misdemeanor assault for shoving photographer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/davante-adams-assault-charge/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/davante-adams-assault-charge/ |
A Joby Aviation Inc. Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) during the company’s initial public offering in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021. Joby Aviation, which promises to build and operate a commercial fleet of aerial taxis by 2024, began trading Wednesday, testing the imaginations of public investors. The shares surged more than 12% during the first hour of trading. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
Delta Air Lines Inc. is putting its money where its vision is with a $60 million equity investment in Joby Aviation Inc., a startup maker of an electric aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter and flies like an airplane. Delta is joining United Airlines Holdings Inc. and American Airlines Group Inc. in investing in the technology with the hope that one day these aircraft will shuttle passengers back and forth to airports above crowded roadways in New York and Los Angeles.
The practical and more mundane test for these aircraft — known as electric vertical take-off and landing, or eVTOL — will start with cargo. The experiment will most likely commence overseas where the skies aren’t quite as busy as they are in the US and the need is greater (think island hopping in Southeast Asia). This is why Textron Inc., the maker of Cessna private jets and Bell Helicopters, purchased Pipistrel in March. The Slovenia-based pioneer of electric aircraft is working on an autonomous cargo drone.
In the US, FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. have a use case for cargo versions of eVTOLs. Both companies use small feeder planes to shuttle packages between sorting hubs, especially in more rural areas, and they will gain efficiency by taking off and landing from the parking lot of these facilities. That will cut out the time and expense of landing at an airport and having a truck take the cargo the final distance to the hub.
UPS has ordered aircraft from startup Beta Technologies Inc., whose first version will be piloted. The aircraft can hold 1,400 pounds of freight and have a flying range of up to 250 miles. FedEx is teaming up with Elroy Air for an aircraft that will be pilotless and have capacity to fly up to 300 miles and carry as much as 500 pounds.
• Your Next Porsche Might Be a Two-Wheeler: Chris Bryant
• Don’t Expect Drones to Air-Drop Your Packages: Thomas Black | 2022-10-12T17:21:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A George Jetson World Will Start With Parcels, Not People - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-george-jetson-world-will-start-with-parcels-not-people/2022/10/12/d7664ffc-4a32-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-george-jetson-world-will-start-with-parcels-not-people/2022/10/12/d7664ffc-4a32-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England. (Bloomberg)
“You’ve got to get this done.” Hardly the words of encouragement UK pension fund managers wanted from the governor of the Bank of England. Speaking in Washington late on Tuesday, Andrew Bailey insisted they wind up excess leverage in gilts before the BOE ends its support for the country’s government bond market.
That means the pension funds have just three days. The central bank confirmed early on Wednesday that its temporary bond-buying £65 billion ($72 billion) safety net will be whisked away on Friday. It’s a surprisingly aggressive stance from a central bank that has thus far done a stand-up job maintaining financial stability. Optimists among the fund managers may be hoping that the BOE will keep the balance of the facility in reserve if market conditions require further support. But, for now, expect a larger uptake through Friday because they have little option but to take Bailey at his word.
There is potentially more bad news for people expecting the BOE to postpone quantitative tightening. There is no respite from new supply, either from the government or the unwind of the central bank’s holdings of quantitative-easing bonds. The UK Treasury’s Debt Management Office sold £3.5 billion of a new five-year gilt today, after Tuesday’s sale of a 30-year index-linked gilt.
The DMO is going ahead with its sale of a new 2038 maturity bond, though that’s been delayed till the week of Nov. 7. While that gets it out of the way of the BOE’s active gilt sales — which start from Oct. 31 — the markets are apprehensive about an increased unwind of QE taking place at all. Such sales would double the amount of QT, just as interest rates are being hiked aggressively, too. In regular times, an extra £10 billion of gilts over a quarter across the yield curve could be easily absorbed. But these aren’t ordinary times.
To be fair, the BOE has become more accommodating in its buyback operations rather than keeping them at backstop levels. (The central bank has been requiring identification codes to verify the institutions it is ultimately buying back from.) On Tuesday, it purchased £3.3 billion in conventional and inflation index-linked bonds (the latter form the largest part of pension fund holdings). It’s the highest amount yet on record and brings the total buyback to nearly £9 billion. This may more than double by the end of the week if the BOE quibbles less about the price it pays.
The overall situation, however, isn’t helped by the UK economy. Even before the gilt crisis, it appeared to be slipping into recession. Bloomberg Economics estimates the market turmoil since late September will take at least another 1% off gross domestic product. August GDP data, released on Wednesday, showed the economy fell 0.3%, worse than expectations, driven by a 1.8% fall in industrial production. Services were also surprisingly weaker at minus 0.1%. The September figure is expected to fall by 1%, in part due to the extra holiday from Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. The result will likely mean third-quarter growth fell 0.7%.
The question is whether a weaker GDP alters the monetary policy committee’s outlook at its next economic review on Nov. 3. Much of that depends on how Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng’s fiscal statement on Oct. 31 is received. From his statements in the House of Commons on Tuesday, a relentless pursuit of growth remains top of the agenda. That will be of concern to an inflation-fighting central bank: Annual price gains are already around 10%. Still, recent events mean the BOE must carefully consider the risks of too big an interest-rate hike.
Uncertainty is a very poor backdrop in which to make investment decisions, especially for foreign investors even if sterling is on its knees. The UK’s weak economy would normally be an attractive environment to hold bonds, particularly long maturities. This, perhaps, explains some of the reluctance for pension funds to dispose of gilts at low prices. It’s the type of asset they are genetically predisposed to own. There certainly has been a long lag time — nearly three weeks now — for sizable disposals of long-dated gilts. There’s an extra cog in the chain for many pension funds, having pooled their gilt investments with third-party liability-driven investment managers handling the leveraged risk. There is, however, no time to dally now.
The UK bond turmoil is ensnaring all market participants. As an IFR article highlights, it is not just systemic issues with pension funds, but also the post-Global Financial Crisis shift toward centralized clearinghouses, that are complicating matters. There are far fewer individual counterparty-to-counterparty derivative trades now, as the vast majority of over-the-counter swap and option transactions are processed through entities such as the London Stock Exchange’s LCH Ltd.
This may exacerbate market vulnerability to a sudden surge in demand for high-quality collateral (such as gilts) that are required for balancing daily margin swings of derivative trades. The BOE has acted to keep the vital market plumbing free from blockages, by creating several repo borrowing facilities. However, some of these are just temporary and have a stringent client identification requirement similar to the buyback program. More needs to be done to ensure there isn’t a repeat of the scramble for top-grade collateral that prompted the sudden gilt market breakdown at the end of last month.
This UK market stramash is far from contained; there are major long-term systemic issues that need to be resolved. The BOE is now taking the tough-love approach after a short period of largesse. Maybe the fight to contain inflation trumps all — and perhaps the central bank knows enough about the state of pension fund balances not to worry unduly. It’s a calculated gamble that the rest of us have to hope succeeds.
• British Reserve Means Knowing When to Shut Up: John Authers
UK Turmoil Spawns the Return of Bond Vigilantes: Mohamed A. El-Erian | 2022-10-12T17:21:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bank of England Risks Snatching Defeat From Jaws of Victory - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/bank-of-england-risks-snatching-defeat-from-jaws-of-victory/2022/10/12/ffedb30a-4a2f-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/bank-of-england-risks-snatching-defeat-from-jaws-of-victory/2022/10/12/ffedb30a-4a2f-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
There are better ways. (Photographer: Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
With rents, food prices and child-care costs all rising, coming up with the cash to cover unexpected expenses is becoming more difficult. Even among wealthy Americans, the stock market downturn means plenty of them also find it tough to come up with the cash to pay for things like surprise home repairs or dental work.
When interest rates were low, borrowing money to make up for a temporary shortfall was relatively easy and didn’t come at such a price. That’s changed. Credit-card rates are approaching 20%, personal loan rates are north of 10% and home equity lines of credit can be hard to come by.
For some people, reducing retirement contributions temporarily or even borrowing from a 401(k) may be smarter than piling up high-interest debt. Yes, traditional personal wealth advice directs savers to “set it and forget it” when it comes to 401(k) retirement plans. But while I’m by no means encouraging people to be reckless with their 401(k)s, I do think some of the stigma and taboo around adjusting retirement savings when in financial straits needs to change.
Assuming cash-poor families have already done a budget review and cut unnecessary expenses, dialing back on retirement savings could be the least-painful short-term fix. Remember, there aren’t annual reminders or enrollment periods for existing employees when it comes to 401(k) plans like there are when making elections for health benefits. Most people set a contribution rate when they start a job and leave it there for years. Sometimes external circumstances warrant making a change for a period of time.
The “least harmful” change to make is to reduce your 401(k) contribution amount. There are tentative signs some workers are already doing this. A recent report by T. Rowe Price Group Inc. shows how there was a slight decline in the average contribution rate among its plan participants starting at the end of May, which coincides with when inflation was starting to peak.
To me, that makes sense sometimes: Tweaking the percentage of your salary that’s going to retirement may provide enough of a bump to deal with any short-term financial strain. The size of the increase you’ll get is influenced by your salary and withholding amount, among other factors. (But keep in mind, you may have a bigger tax liability, too.) Bankrate.com has a helpful calculator.
For those who are going down this path, it’s crucial to limit how many months you’ll be contributing less to avoid getting used to the pay bump. Pick a date to stop and remind yourself to increase your contributions again after that time.
In addition, plan to use future raises or bonuses to get back on track, says Mark Wilson, a certified financial planner in Irvine, California.
Also, if you’re leaving any portion of an employer match on the table, you may want to reconsider making contribution changes — in that case, taking on debt, even if it’s expensive, may be better than passing up free money.
Another word of caution — make sure you’re reducing or cutting contributions because you really need to, not because you’re panicking about the stock market decline. While it feels counterintuitive, continuing to put money into your 401(k) while stocks are down will actually help you come out ahead.
If a change in 401(k) contribution levels isn’t enough, most plans will also give you the option to borrow from your retirement account. The rules vary based on an employer’s plan, but most loans have to be repaid within five years. The interest rate is lower than a credit card — currently around 7% — and unlike with a bank, the interest you pay goes back into your retirement account. You can take up to 50% of your vested retirement account balance or $50,000, whichever is lower.
The most important caveat with a 401(k) loan though is that if you leave your job, you’ll typically have to repay it no later than when your taxes for that year are due. If you’re unable to do so, the unpaid balance will be treated as a distribution and you’ll be on the hook for income taxes as well as face a 10% early withdrawal penalty if you’re younger than 59 and 1/2.
Notably, only 10% of 401(k) borrowers default on their loans, but 86% of those who leave their jobs with an outstanding loan wind up defaulting, according to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The paper also points out how people may save more in their workplace-based savings plans if they feel like they’re more flexible and liquid.
It’s another reason why including a 401(k) in the discussion about what to do if you’re strapped isn’t always the worst thing in the world. Still, any tweaks to a retirement savings plan should really be thought of as a stopgap fix. Permanently reducing or suspending contributions will have dire consequences for retirement, especially if you’re young and have years for returns to compound.
• Do You Know How Much a Kid Will Cost You?: Erin Lowry
• Welcome to the Scary, New Inflationary World: Stuart Trow | 2022-10-12T17:22:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Feeling Pinched? Sometimes Your 401(k) Can Help - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/feeling-pinched-sometimes-your-401k-can-help/2022/10/12/35eebf12-4a26-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/feeling-pinched-sometimes-your-401k-can-help/2022/10/12/35eebf12-4a26-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
This 2022 photo provided by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation shows J. Drew Lanham, Ornithologist, Naturalist, and Writer, 2022 MacArthur Fellow, in Clemson, S.C. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced the winners of their prestigious fellowships known as “genius grants” on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. The fellowship honors 25 discipline-bending and society-changing people whose work offers inspiration and insight and comes with an award that was raised this year $800,000 distributed over five years. (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation via AP) (Uncredited/John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation) | 2022-10-12T17:22:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | MacArthur's 2022 'genius grant' winners picked to inspire - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/macarthurs-2022-genius-grant-winners-picked-to-inspire/2022/10/12/8e843662-4a48-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/macarthurs-2022-genius-grant-winners-picked-to-inspire/2022/10/12/8e843662-4a48-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
The Right Way to Pull Back on Covid Spending
By early next year, the US government will likely run out of money to pay for Covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. Although President Joe Biden has requested an additional $22 billion from Congress, Republicans are in no mood to continue splurging on the pandemic — not least because so much relief money has already been misspent.
Shifting more costs to the private sector makes sense, but some level of government funding is still necessary to protect the vulnerable and stay ahead of future threats. The administration and lawmakers should agree on a more limited approach that focuses on those most in need and ensures that the US is still prepared to fight the next pandemic.
Since the start of the Covid outbreak, the government has allocated more than $86 billion for shots and treatments. By most metrics, the effort has been a success: Some 215 million people have been fully vaccinated and almost 10 million courses of therapeutics have been administered, all free to consumers. This investment has prevented millions of deaths and hospitalizations. Although the pandemic isn’t yet “over,” as Biden has declared, the government has largely done its job.
So what should come next?
With another relief package unlikely, the White House should prioritize. As a start, it’s hard to justify spending more money on free shots for the 92% of Americans covered by health insurance. It’s true that the US vaccination rate — at 68% — remains disappointingly low. But by now it’s clear that money isn’t the issue for those forgoing their shots.
The key will be managing the transition to insurers. In August, the Biden administration met with state and local officials, health-care providers, insurers, and drugmakers to discuss what it calls the “pathway to commercialization,” which is a good start. But Congress, too, needs to step up. In particular, some treatments are available only under an emergency-use authorization, which means they may not be covered by Medicare and Medicaid once the public-health emergency ends. Optimally, the Food and Drug Administration will conclude its reviews before government supplies run out. If it doesn’t, Congress should enable the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to expand the definition of covered drugs to include Covid-19 therapeutics.
Next, the uninsured will still need help. Lawmakers should consider Biden’s proposal in next year’s budget to offer free vaccines to adults who lack coverage, modeled after a similar successful program for children. A dedicated vaccine program, which would include flu and other routine shots, would be an improvement on the current use of discretionary funds primarily during outbreaks. It also would better prepare the health system for future threats from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Even as the government reels in its spending, however, it needs to prepare for the next variant and future pandemics. Congress should continue to authorize funding for basic research, the development of new vaccines and therapeutics, and manufacturing capacity. Advance purchase commitments from the federal government also would reduce uncertainty for drugmakers and incentivize further innovation. A “revolving fund” approach, in which private insurers and public programs reimburse the government after an initial investment, could help alleviate taxpayers’ burden.
In ways big and small, the US is moving on from Covid. With a bit of foresight, the federal government should be able to manage this transition as well — without putting Americans at needless risk.
• Here’s Who Really Needs the Updated Covid Booster: Faye Flam
• The CDC Needs to Restore the Public’s Trust: Editorial | 2022-10-12T17:22:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Right Way to Pull Back on Covid Spending - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-right-way-to-pull-back-on-covid-spending/2022/10/12/49a1ebc0-4a2f-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-right-way-to-pull-back-on-covid-spending/2022/10/12/49a1ebc0-4a2f-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Weak earthquake shook northern Maryland on Tuesday night
People reported feeling it in the D.C. area, including inside the Beltway
Quake reports to the U.S. Geological Survey. (USGS)
A tiny earthquake struck near the town of Sykesville, in northern Maryland, on Tuesday night. The tremor was centered about 20 miles west of Baltimore and 30 miles north of Washington.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the weak quake was rated magnitude 2, and that it occurred at a depth of 3.1 miles.
Hundreds of people reported feeling the earthquake, which struck at 11:49 p.m. All but one report to the USGS categorized the shaking as “weak.” This is the lowest shake rating in a scale that spans across nine categories, peaking at “very heavy.”
Seismograph near Baltimore picked it up pic.twitter.com/Ts12rYu45f
— Jordan Tessler (@TerpWeather) October 12, 2022
While most of the reports of shaking were within a few miles of the epicenter, shaking was felt as far away as the Front Royal and Chantilly areas. It was also noticed inside the Beltway in Annandale, Bethesda and Silver Spring.
WTOP relayed word of a few calls to 911 from residents of Howard County who “heard a boom or felt a rumble.”
There were no reports of damage. “Damage does not usually occur until the earthquake magnitude reaches somewhere above 4 or 5,” the USGS wrote. Whether a weak quake causes damage depends on soil type and other localized factors.
The late-night quake was the first to strike the area since Aug. 18, 2021, when a magnitude 1.7 struck near Woodlawn on the outskirts of Baltimore. Across the broader Washington-Baltimore region, about one quake of this intensity might be expected per year. It is also common to go several years without one.
Almost all earthquakes in the region are similarly weak, with most unnoticed by residents. Last year marked the 10th anniversary of a 5.8 earthquake that rocked the Mid-Atlantic. It struck near Mineral, Va., on Aug. 23, 2011, and was the strongest east of the Rocky Mountains since 1944.
Remembering the 2011 Virginia earthquake that rocked the Eastern U.S. | 2022-10-12T17:22:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Earthquake struck near Sykesville, Maryland, Tuesday night - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/12/maryland-earthquake/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/12/maryland-earthquake/ |
Mississippi River water levels are dangerously low, at times halting shipping
Water levels are approaching their lowest in a generation, forcing emergency dredging to keep commerce flowing.
The towboat Roberta Tabor pushes barges up the Mississippi River's Chain of Rocks Canal in Granite City, Ill., on July 9. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg)
The Mississippi River is flowing at its lowest level in at least a decade, and until rain relieves a worsening drought in the region, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain water levels high enough to carry critical exports from the nation’s bread basket.
Areas of persistent and developing drought stretch across much of the Mississippi basin, which itself covers 41 percent of the contiguous United States. Though record-setting storms caused catastrophic flooding in parts of the watershed this summer, the past few months have been among the driest on record in parts of the Heartland, at a time of year when river levels are normally hitting their low points. And long-term forecasts suggest that unusually dry weather is likely to continue.
At some spots, gages reported the Mississippi’s river stages — a measure of water height normally used to evaluate flood conditions — with negative values, an indication of how far below normal levels the waters have receded.
There’s also a risk for drinking water. The relative trickle that is reaching the river’s mouth in Louisiana’s outlying Plaquemines Parish is allowing salt water to intrude up the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to taint drinking water drawn from the river and requiring emergency action by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Repeatedly over the past week, water levels have become too low for barges to float, requiring the corps to halt maritime traffic on the river and dredge channels deep enough even for barges carrying lighter-than-normal loads. Days after a queue of stalled river traffic grew to more than 1,700 barges during emergency dredging near Vicksburg, Miss., a separate 24-hour dredging closure began Tuesday near Memphis. More dredging, which routinely costs billions of dollars a year, could be needed if barges continue to run aground.
The transportation industry says the intervention is needed to maintain a flow of exports that is central to the country’s agriculture industry. About 60 percent of U.S. corn and soybean exports move down the Mississippi, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Arkansas, Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee rivers, according to the USDA.
Such a drastic constriction in water flows across such a large area has translated to an unusually lasting impact on Mississippi River levels. The last time dry conditions had such an effect on the river was a decade ago.
If those areas “were to stay dry through the rest of the year, levels could be even worse than we had in 2012,” said Jeffrey Graschel, service coordination hydrologist at the National Weather Service’s Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center. “It just remains to be seen how much rain we get over the next month to three months.”
Taming the mighty Mississippi: A picaresque tour of infrastructure reveals a struggle for control all along America’s great river
River levels are not expected to hit record lows just yet. It’s difficult to compare current conditions across the record books because the river’s banks have changed so dramatically from preindustrial times, Graschel said — on the Mississippi alone, waters pass through dozens of locks and dams. But if the current dry conditions surpass those observed in 2012, they might approach the severity of a 1988 low water crisis, he said.
Long-term weather forecasts suggest no significant change in precipitation patterns in the coming weeks. Hydrologists predict sustained drought, as well as areas of newly developing drought across the western half of the country this month, according to the Climate Prediction Center.
While the center said it expects near-normal precipitation patterns over the next week or two across the Mississippi basin, bringing some chances for rain, dry conditions are predicted to resume for the latter part of October and into early November.
In the meantime, the low river levels are causing costly problems, and even exposed a 19th century shipwreck in downtown Baton Rouge.
Plaquemines Parish warned residents on Sept. 28 that drinking water drawn from the Mississippi contained elevated levels of sodium and chloride, a potential health issue for people on dialysis or low-sodium diets. As the southward river flow slackens, a layer of saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico is creeping up the Delta, forming a wedge at the bottom of the river because salt water is heavier than fresh water, Graschel explained.
To protect the community, the Army Corps of Engineers said Sept. 28 that it would build a sediment barrier across the river channel to prevent more salt water from flowing northward.
That work is in addition to the corps’ routine dredging of the lower Mississippi that has only become more important as river flow has waned. The corps dredges an average of about 265 million cubic yards of river bottom in the Mississippi Valley each year, at a price tag that totaled $2.45 billion in 2020, spokeswoman Lisa Parker said.
An estimate of ongoing emergency dredging work was not available, she said. But the low water conditions are making work that was already extensive more difficult, ensuring depths of at least 9 feet along 4,267 linear miles of channels, Parker said.
Parker noted that, though costly, the work to maintain a viable transportation network on the country’s inland rivers represents what the corps estimates to be $12.5 billion in transportation cost savings, because moving cargo over water is cheaper than on rail cars or tractor-trailers.
For its part, the industry has limited the amount of cargo attached to any single towboat — only up to 25 barges, instead of the typical 40, Calhoun said. Still, barges continue to run aground. On the Ohio River, even, waters are low enough that barges got stuck this week near that waterway’s confluence with the Mississippi, transportation company American Commercial Barge Line reported.
“This situation underscores the importance of the inland waterways and the Mississippi River as an artery to commerce,” Calhoun said.
But others disagree, saying the problem demonstrates that nature can’t be tamed. The Mississippi has changed so much from its natural state, it has become “a volatile system,” said Robert Criss, a professor emeritus of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Though that volatility is often most evident during floods, Criss said his research shows it can affect the river on a day-to-day basis.
“You don’t want things being unpredictable, and that’s what we have,” he said. “We have an unpredictable river.”
Until significant rainfall arrives, river flow is getting some help, for now, as pools used to store floodwaters along the Ohio and Missouri rivers are being emptied to make room for winter storm runoff, Parker said. But that is only expected to continue through this month, she said — unless authorities decide to hold some of the waters back.
Then, they could be released should river waters drop to critically low levels in the coming months. | 2022-10-12T17:22:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mississippi River water levels are critically low, bringing some shipping to a halt - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/12/mississippi-river-drought-low-levels-agriculture/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/12/mississippi-river-drought-low-levels-agriculture/ |
Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaks at a campaign event for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Sept. 27 in Alpharetta, Ga. (Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)
RICHMOND — Half of Virginia voters gave good marks to Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) in a poll from the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University, with 50 percent approving and 40 percent disapproving.
But Virginia voters were divided on what issues matter most to them heading into next month’s midterm congressional elections, with Democratic candidates holding a slight edge over Republicans on a generic ballot. Forty-six percent of registered voters said they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate in their district, while 40 percent planned to vote for the Republican.
That Democratic edge comes despite President Biden getting low approval ratings in the poll — 39 percent approved of the job he’s doing, 56 percent disapproved — suggesting that this year’s election might not follow a predictable path. Usually, midterm elections go poorly for the party in power in the White House, particularly when the national economy is struggling.
In the CNU poll, 31 percent of Virginia voters identified the economy and inflation as their top issue facing the country, the most of any topic. But there was a stark partisan divide: 53 percent of voters who are Republicans said their top issues were economic while 14 percent of Democrats felt that way.
Among Virginia voters who are Democrats, the top issues include climate change (17 percent), racial inequality (16 percent), abortion (15 percent), the economy and inflation (14 percent) and gun violence (12 percent). Independent voters’ most important issue is the economy and inflation at 31 percent, followed by climate change at 8 percent.
The race “is clearly not just about the economy,” Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, research director of the Wason Center, said in a briefing with reporters Wednesday. In a written analysis, the Wason Center added: “It’s fair to say Republicans and Democrats aren’t just disagreeing on policy; increasingly they aren’t even having the same conversation.”
This year, Virginia is highly important in the national midterm elections, with some races having the potential to help determine which party will control Congress.
The race between Rep. Elaine Luria (D) and State Sen. Jen Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach) is one of the most competitive in the nation, and Virginia’s 7th District race between Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) and Prince William Board of County Supervisors member Yesli Vega (R) is competitive as well — and very expensive, with the candidates or party PACs spending more than $20 million on ads so far.
Republicans are hopeful as well in Virginia’s 10th District after Youngkin made significant gains there last year — but Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D) is still favored.
Republicans have been energized by Biden’s low approval rating and the state of the economy throughout the campaign, making inflation a primary focus of their message, while Democrats have been hammering on abortion after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, spending millions on attack ads accusing Republicans of wanting to ban abortion nationally.
The CNU poll delivered mixed results on the issue of abortion. Overall, as they have for years, Virginia voters favored protecting abortion rights, with 67 percent saying abortion should be legal in most or all cases compared with 27 percent opposing.
Fifty-eight percent of Virginia voters opposed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which enshrined abortion as a constitutional right, while 36 percent supported overturning it.
But the poll also found that 51 percent of voters would support an abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy that included exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
Republican candidates in Virginia’s most competitive congressional races have been coy about answering clearly when asked if they would support a 15-week ban on abortion, intent on sticking to a message about abortion policy being a state issue, even though a federal 15-week ban on abortion has been introduced in Congress.
Kiggans called the measure a “common-sense restriction” but wouldn’t give a clear answer on whether she would support the legislation in Congress, though Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), speaking as a surrogate for her on CNN, said she would support a 15-week ban.
Vega said she couldn’t give a position on the federal 15-week ban because she wasn’t familiar with the widely circulated legislation.
In Richmond, Youngkin has proposed that the General Assembly consider a 15-week ban when it convenes in January. Republicans control the House of Delegates and can get the legislation through that chamber, but Democrats hold a narrow 21-19 edge in the state Senate and have vowed to resist.
The CNU poll found split results for Youngkin. Forty-two percent of Virginia voters said the state is going in the right direction while 40 percent say it’s headed in the wrong direction.
And while 22 percent of Virginia voters said the country is going in the right direction compared with 65 percent saying it’s headed off course, strong majorities favored recent policies from the Biden White House in the Inflation Reduction Act. That includes 82 percent who supported allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, 69 percent who favored efforts to reduce pollution in low-income communities and 68 percent who favored extending health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.
The poll was conducted over the phone Sept. 18-Oct. 7 among 740 Virginia registered voters with 61 percent of the sample interviewed on cellphones; it has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. | 2022-10-12T17:22:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | CNU poll: Va. voters lean Democratic for midterms, approve of Youngkin - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/cnu-poll-youngkin-elections-virginia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/cnu-poll-youngkin-elections-virginia/ |
The Carnegie Library — seen here in a 2019 photo — is the centerpiece of Mount Vernon Square. There's an Apple store inside, along with the DC History Center. The historical society is hosting an Open Day on Oct. 15. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
You may think that history is what happened long ago, but Laura Brower Hagood wants you to think about history differently. She also wants you to enjoy a free beer and a discount taco.
Hagood is the executive director of the DC History Center, which is hosting its first Open Day on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“This is like our coming out party,” Hagood told me. “This is our first major public event on-site and in person. It’s going to be a showcase of everything we do here in this building and an invitation to discover Mount Vernon Square and all of our neighbors and partners.”
Discovering Mount Vernon Square — at Massachusetts and New York avenues NW — means discovering the handsome building the historical society is in: the Carnegie Library, opened in 1903 with a donation from steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. But it also means discovering more recent neighbors, like Prost, a Bavarian beer bar at 919 Fifth St. NW, and Rebel Taco, a Mexican restaurant that just opened at Fifth and K NW. Both are among local businesses offering discounts through an Open Day reward card. (To register for the free event, go to dchistory.org/event/open-day/.)
“I think we’re very cognizant of our building existing in a neighborhood,” said Maren Orchard, the society’s program manager. It’s important, she said, to highlight the neighbors.
“Also, downtown has gotten a little sleepy,” Hagood said. “Offices are not really back. We wanted to give people a reason to come downtown, rediscover this part of the city, inject some life into the community.”
We’ve all been a little sleepy the last couple of years, along with wheezy, sneezy, achy and anxious. Even if we haven’t tested positive for You Know What, we’ve been affected by it. And things haven’t been easy for the DC History Center, which had to shut down for a while pre-virus when mold was found in the building and then had to get used to sharing the renovated building with a high-profile tenant: Apple, which opened a store there in 2019.
And then, like so many places, it had to shut its doors for months when the pandemic was at its peak.
“I think people lost track of the Carnegie Library,” Hagood said. “Many have not come inside to look at the beautiful renovations.”
So, here’s your chance to see them, and to see a very cool exhibit called “The Big Picture,” which features massive enlargements of panoramic photos of places and people in Washington. You can browse the Kiplinger Research Library and learn about the society’s journal, “Washington History.” Walking tours will be led by Off the Mall Tours and the 1882 Foundation, an organization devoted to sharing the history of Chinese people in Washington.
Local authors will be on hand to discuss their books. They include photographer Chip Py (author of “DC Go-Go: Ten Years Backstage”), Alison M. Parker (“Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell”), Briana Thomas (“Black Broadway in Washington D.C.”) and Charlie Clark (“George Washington Parke Custis: A Rarefied Life in America’s First Family”).
There is storytelling for children and chalk art sponsored by the Touchstone Gallery.
The mammoth convention center dominates the neighborhood now. Before that, the Northern Liberty Market, later called the Center Market, stood a few blocks away.
“I think of Mount Vernon Square as a gathering place over hundreds of years,” Orchard said.
I confess I worried about how the pandemic would affect people’s appetites for history. It certainly affected access to research materials. So did the renovations at DC History and at the nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, home to what’s now called the People’s Archive.
“I would say we’ve seen a real deepening of interest,” Hagood said.
Part of that may stem from being force fed a whole lot of history over the last few years, in the form of covid, the Black Lives Matter protests, the Jan. 6 insurrection …
“The experience of living through historic times has clued us in to a desire to understand why we are where we are,” she said. “We've done a whole range of programming looking at the social challenges we’re dealing with today. This is a community that's deeply passionate about our history.”
And if you can get a free beer and buy-two-get-one-free taco, so much the better. | 2022-10-12T17:22:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DC History's open day will shine a spotlight on Mount Vernon Square - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/dc-history-open-day/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/dc-history-open-day/ |
Most Md. voters say elementary school discussion of LGBTQ acceptance ‘inappropriate’
Sarah Klutz holds a workshop during the annual Pride Town Hall at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Md., on May 21, 2022. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)
A majority of Maryland voters say it is appropriate for public school teachers to discuss acceptance of LGBTQ people with middle- and high-schoolers, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.
But most say younger students should not be engaged in such discussions.
By more than 2 to 1 (66 percent to 30 percent), more registered voters say it is inappropriate rather than appropriate for teachers to discuss acceptance of LGBTQ people with students in kindergarten through third grade. For students in grades 4 and 5, 40 percent of voters say the discussions are appropriate, and 56 percent say it is inappropriate.
Over half, 54 percent of voters, say such discussions are appropriate for middle school, and 69 percent say they are appropriate in high school. A separate nationwide poll by the University of Southern California found a similar pattern, with about 6 in 10 Americans saying high school students should learn about topics related to gender identity or sexual orientation, compared with fewer than 3 in 10 saying the same for elementary school students.
The survey of Maryland voters comes weeks before they cast ballots in local and statewide races with candidates who have made this issue a part of their campaigns, including the governor’s race.
Dustin Burrell, a 33-year-old in Rockville who works in an automotive service department, said such discussions were more appropriate beginning around middle school, since that’s around the time children start to go through puberty. He recalled that as the time in his life when he and his friends started to become more aware of sexuality. “I think that would be a more appropriate time, once you start feeling more of those feelings,” he said.
Crosstab results of findings
Issues of sexuality and gender identity are not his top focus as a voter because he’s not a member of the LGBTQ community and the policies do not affect him as much, Burrell said. But he said he doesn’t want policies that would “isolate other people and their freedoms to express who they want to be.”
How educators teach about gender identity and sexuality has become a major part of the education and political culture wars, with the introduction and passage of new Republican-written laws in some states limiting those discussions. Many of those opposed to the discussions argue that these subjects are best left to parents. The challenges, along with restrictions on teaching about issues including race and history, have led some teachers to leave the profession.
Despite the pushback in some areas, resources and lesson plans are becoming much more common for those who want to teach about gender identity. At least six states require that curriculums include LGBTQ topics, and the federal government recommends that schools include gender identity in their sex-education programs.
Nationally, Americans have become more accepting of gay and lesbian relationships over time. In a Gallup poll in May, 71 percent of Americans said gay or lesbian relations were “morally acceptable,” up from 40 percent who said the same in 2001.
In Maryland, a health framework was approved by the state board of education in 2019 that would introduce conversations about gender identity at an earlier age. Under the framework, prekindergarten students, for example, are taught to “recognize and respect that people express themselves in different ways.” It further advises school systems to teach kindergartners how to “recognize a range of ways people express their identity and gender.”
The framework, which the state’s school districts are required to implement, has been controversial among some parents, especially in Frederick County — where Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox lives. When the county’s school board adopted the framework, Cox accused the school board president online of “misleading children for potential chemical castration and sexualized grooming.”
Health-education researchers have said the framework is developmentally and age appropriate.
Some Md. parents argue a new health curriculum is unfit for young students
In the Post-UMD poll, 41 percent of Maryland voters say greater social acceptance of transgender people is “good for society,” while 17 percent say it is bad and 39 percent view it as neither good nor bad. A national Post-UMD poll in May found a similar 40 percent saying greater social acceptance of transgender people was good for society, 25 percent saying it was bad and 35 percent saying it was neither good nor bad.
More registered Democrats, younger voters, voters with college degrees and Marylanders from the D.C. suburbs say that greater social acceptance of transgender people is good for society than do other voters in the state.
Views on discussing LGBTQ acceptance in schools also vary sharply by political party, age and education level, with Democrats, younger adults and college graduates more likely to say discussing LGBTQ acceptance is appropriate. Still, fewer than half of voters in all of these groups say such discussions are appropriate in kindergarten through third grade, while about half of registered Democrats and voters under 40 say they are appropriate for grades 4-6.
Michael Lawson, 48, who lives in Eldersburg, said he thinks schools should teach students to respect others but are not the setting to teach about sexuality. Schools should focus on academic subjects and extracurriculars such as sports, he said.
He lauded action that the Carroll County school board took recently, which included implementing a “politically neutral policy” — requiring employees to “remain neutral on political issues, parties, and candidates during classroom instruction” and avoid discussing such issues unless they are aligned with curriculums — and prohibiting the display of most flags on school property in response to rainbow Pride flags some teachers displayed in their classrooms. Those actions were reassuring to him as a parent of a seventh-grader, he said.
“So many people have different sets of values, that to assign a particular set of values to people, I think it’s against what the schools should be focused on,” Lawson said.
Cox has made parental rights a defining issue during his time in the state legislature and has tried to make it center stage in the campaign. In a recent mailer to supporters, he falsely accuses Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wes Moore of pledging to “force transgender indoctrination of your children.”
Cox, a freshman delegate, has compared a bill on mental health access for 12-year-olds to the Nazis’ trampling of Jews’ rights during the Holocaust. He has sponsored a bill that would ban discussion of gender identity before the fourth grade and has unsuccessfully pushed for a bill to allow parents who disapprove of the curriculum being taught in history or sex-education classes to opt their children out of the instruction.
During a recent forum at Morgan State University, Cox offered his views on discussing gender identity in classrooms.
Some kindergartners to learn about gender identity amid push for new health education standards
“This is universally concerning, because we are smart enough to love one another, to help students that are struggling with gender identity crises without brainwashing or indoctrinating the entire student body and forcing girls to have to compete in college with persons born as males,” he said.
Moore, who includes LGBTQ rights on his agenda, promises on his campaign website to “support students who identify as LGBTQ+ by fully implementing the newly passed Inclusive Schools Act, ensuring Maryland schools adopt LGBTQ+ affirming policies, create partnerships with organizations working with LGBTQ+ youth to provide additional resources needed to support our students, and broaden access to trauma-informed mental health care in schools.”
Mikeria Slack, 24, who lives in Greenbelt, said that she thinks that children notice early on different family makeups and relationships, and that schools should teach “how it’s not so different.” Slack, who is a lesbian, said that she first started noticing herself developing a crush on other girls when she was in the first grade, “but I didn’t know if that was okay or appropriate.”
“I didn’t really say anything. I grew up thinking that I had to have relationships with a boy; I didn’t want to be judged for not having that,” Slack said. “It definitely would have been helpful to just hear about it or know about it.”
The Washington Post-University of Maryland poll was conducted over telephone Sept. 22-27, 2022, among a sample of 810 registered voters in Maryland and has an error margin of plus or minus four percentage points; 79 percent of interviews were conducted over cellphone.
Ovetta Wiggins and Scott Clement contributed to this report. | 2022-10-12T17:22:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Poll: LGBTQ acceptance discussions 'inappropriate' for young students, Maryland voters say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/lgbtq-acceptance-maryland-schools-post-umd-poll/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/lgbtq-acceptance-maryland-schools-post-umd-poll/ |
Breathtaking off-kilter photos that take you on a semi-fictional journey
From “Some Say Ice,” published by MACK Books, 2022. (Alessandra Sanguinetti)
Alessandra Sanguinetti’s latest book, “Some Say Ice” (MACK, 2022), is breathtaking. The black and white photos contained in the book are austere, cold and imbued with a hefty dose of imagination and magic.
The photos in “Some Say Ice” were made in the very same town, Black River Falls, that is the subject of Michael Lesy’s cult photo book, “Wisconsin Death Trip.” Lesy’s book, which was eventually made into a movie, dealt with the harsh, sometimes bizarre, conditions of life for the town’s citizens back in the 1800s. Sanguinetti came across Lesy’s book when she was very young, and it touched a lasting nerve.
Over a period of several years, Sanguinetti made multiple trips to Black River Falls to scratch the itch that her encounter with Lesy’s book left behind. It propelled her into thinking about the connection between life, death and photography.
There is precious little text in the book, so we are mostly left to create a story ourselves. And it does not take much nudging because Sanguinetti’s photos are rife with multiple layers of potential meaning. Overall, they present a cohesive, almost cinematic, mood which goes a long way into conjuring a tale, not unlike her previous work in her landmark book, “The Adventures of Guille and Belinda.”
But where that book was beguiling and enchanting with its romantically charged color images, this one is a little off kilter and unsettling.
When I page through “Some Say Ice,” I am enveloped in an atmosphere that feels mysterious and dark, not unlike watching some A24 stylized horror movie like “Hereditary” or “The Witch.” That is a very good thing. Sometimes mystery is able to build vibrant worlds that would be undercut by straightforward storytelling. Through mystery, we can marinate in the synapses of our own brains searching for connections.
In the absence of text, this description of the book on the publisher’s site helps set the stage for what you will experience while immersing yourself in the book:
“By bringing undercurrents of doubt and darkness to the surface of her images, Sanguinetti alludes to things absent or invisible, playing on atmospheres both real and imagined, as well as the ghostly possibility of undoing death through the act of photography. With its title inspired by Robert Frost’s famous poem equivocating on how best one’s inevitable death might be met, Some Say Ice is a humane look at the melancholic realities underpinning our lives, seen with glacial clarity by one of the world’s foremost photographers.”
“Some Say Ice” is a remarkable work by a photographer at the height of her game. To me, it has all the hallmarks of a classic in waiting. | 2022-10-12T17:24:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Phoos from Alessandra Sanguinetti's 'Some Say Ice' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/10/12/breathtaking-off-kilter-photos-that-take-you-semi-fictional-journey/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/10/12/breathtaking-off-kilter-photos-that-take-you-semi-fictional-journey/ |
Biden says he has confidence in his son Hunter in first comments on possible federal charges
President Biden holds his grandson Beau Biden alongside his son Hunter Biden during the Fourth of July celebration at the White House last summer. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
President Biden, in his first public comments about possible federal tax and gun charges against his son, said he had “great confidence” in Hunter Biden and he was “on a straight and narrow” after his struggles with substance abuse.
Biden made the comments during an interview on CNN that aired Tuesday night. He was reacting to reporting in The Washington Post this month that said federal agents believe they have sufficient evidence to charge the president’s son with tax crimes and making a false statement about substance abuse when he applied to purchase a gun.
On Oct. 6, federal agents investigating Hunter Biden said they had gathered sufficient evidence to charge him with crimes related to taxes and a gun purchase. (Video: Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
“I have great confidence in my son. I love him. He’s on a straight and narrow, and he has been for a couple years now,” Biden said in the interview with Jake Tapper.
Initially, the investigation centered on the younger Biden’s finances related to overseas business ties and consulting work. Over time the investigation grew and included looking at whether he reported all of his income, and whether he lied on a gun purchase paperwork in 2018 about substance use.
“I’m proud of my son,” the president. “He got hooked on, like many families have had happened, hooked on drugs. He’s overcome that.” The president said his son has put his troubles behind him.
“He’s established a new life,” the president said, before expressing confidence that Hunter Biden has been truthful and forthcoming about his behavior. “I’m confident that he is, what he says and does are consistent with what happens.”
On whether his son lied about using drugs when he applied to purchase a gun, the president said Hunter was unaware of any wrongdoing. “He came along and said, by the way this thing about a gun, I didn’t know anything about it,” the president said. He added: “You get asked the question are you on drugs or use drugs. He said no. And he wrote about saying no in his book,” referring to his son’s memoir, published last year.
The comments came shortly after the Daily Mail published what it says was a voice message the president sent his son in late 2018, expressing his love for him and saying, ‘You gotta get some help.’” The message was later aired on the Fox News show hosted by Sean Hannity, sparking a backlash.
In March, The Washington Post reported that two computer security experts had reviewed thousands of the emails purportedly from Hunter Biden’s computer and found they were authentic communications, based on cryptographic signatures from Google and other technology companies. It could not be determined whether the laptop and its contents were useful in the Justice Department investigation.
Questions about Hunter Biden’s business dealings have long dogged his father’s political life. Trump and his allies have focused on the younger Biden’s lucrative consulting work for a Ukrainian gas company while his father was vice president. In a July 2019 phone call, Trump urged Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens — part of a pressure campaign that led to the first of Trump’s two impeachments in Congress.
In December 2020 federal agents sought to interview the younger Biden, leading him to publicly acknowledge that he was under investigation. The younger Biden denied any wrongdoing, writing in a statement at the time: “I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisers.”
Asked about the case, Chris Clark, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, accused investigators of leaking information. “It is a federal felony for a federal agent to leak information about a Grand Jury investigation such as this one,” Clark said in a written statement To The Post earlier this month.
“Any agent you cite as a source in your article apparently has committed such a felony. We expect the Department of Justice will diligently investigate and prosecute such bad actors,” he said. “As is proper and legally required, we believe the prosecutors in this case are diligently and thoroughly weighing not just evidence provided by agents, but also all the other witnesses in this case, including witnesses for the defense. That is the job of the prosecutors. They should not be pressured, rushed, or criticized for doing their job.”
Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein contributed to this report. | 2022-10-12T17:24:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden says he has confidence in his son in first public comments on possible federal charges against Hunter Biden - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/biden-hunter-biden-drug-addiction-investigation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/biden-hunter-biden-drug-addiction-investigation/ |
FILE - Pakistan’s opposition leader Shahbaz Sharif speaks during a press conference after the Supreme Court decision, in Islamabad, Pakistan, April 7, 2022. A Pakistani court Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, acquitted Sharif and his son of corruption and money laundering charges filed in 2020, a defense lawyer said. Sharif and his son Hamza, the former chief minister of Punjab province, were charged during the administration of former prime minister Imran Khan. They were accused of laundering millions of dollars in rupees. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed, File) | 2022-10-12T17:25:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pakistani court acquits PM, son in money laundering case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pakistani-court-acquits-pm-son-in-money-laundering-case/2022/10/12/24354a76-4a43-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pakistani-court-acquits-pm-son-in-money-laundering-case/2022/10/12/24354a76-4a43-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
MEXICO CITY — Tropical Storm Karl is expected to make a southward turn off Mexico’s southern Gulf coast on Wednesday and approach land by the weekend without gaining hurricane strength.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Karl had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (70 kph) Wednesday. It was centered about 200 miles (320 kilometers) north-northeast of the port city of Veracruz and was still moving north at 3 mph (6 kph).
The center said that while Karl may move northward a while longer, atmospheric conditions are likely to reverse it back towards Mexico’s southern Gulf coast, where it could reach land by Friday. | 2022-10-12T17:25:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tropical Storm Karl strengthens in Gulf off Mexico's coast - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tropical-storm-karl-strengthens-in-gulf-off-mexicos-coast/2022/10/12/81855cf2-4a2f-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tropical-storm-karl-strengthens-in-gulf-off-mexicos-coast/2022/10/12/81855cf2-4a2f-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
E. Jean Carroll leaves New York federal court in February. (Larry Neumeister/AP)
NEW YORK — A federal judge has denied a request by former president Donald Trump to pause proceedings in a defamation case brought against him in 2019 by an author who said he raped her in a department store dressing room decades ago.
The decision clears the way for Trump, who denies the claim, to be deposed as scheduled next week.
In the lawsuit brought against Trump by former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, Trump recently won a temporary reprieve from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which sent the case to the appeals court in D.C. to resolve whether Trump was a federal employee as defined by the law when he publicly rebutted Carroll’s story.
On Trump’s behalf, the Justice Department previously tried to intervene in the case on the grounds that he was technically an employee of the U.S. government when he occupied the White House and had legal protections from civil litigation because he was acting under the scope of his employment when he denied Carroll’s account and made disparaging comments about her.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan had rejected the Justice Department’s intervention attempt, which would have had the effect of extinguishing the case because immunity from liability would probably have applied. Kaplan’s ruling was reversed last month by the 2nd Circuit, but the D.C. appeals court could ultimately hold up the original decision to exclude the Justice Department.
In Kaplan’s decision Wednesday, the judge said depositions of Trump and Carroll are essentially all that remains for the parties to complete the pretrial discovery process. Carroll is slated to give testimony Friday, while Trump is scheduled to do so Oct. 19.
Carroll publicly accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s, a claim the former president adamantly denies. She is expected to file additional claims alleging battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress under the state’s Adult Survivors Act, which is opening a window of time for sexual assault accusers to sue for alleged events that are past the statute of limitations.
“We are pleased that Judge Kaplan agreed with our position not to stay discovery in this case,” said Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge in the case. “We look forward to filing our case under the Adult Survivors Act and moving forward to trial with all dispatch.”
Trump could still appeal Wednesday’s decision before his deposition next week. It was not immediately clear whether his lawyer planned to do so.
“We look forward to establishing on the record that this case is, and always has been, entirely without merit,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said in a statement.
Noted: White House highlights coming increase in Social Security check amounts
5:36 PMNoted: Mexican president criticizes Texas Gov. Abbott’s handling of migrants
4:54 PMThe latest: Judge tosses DOJ bid to compel Steve Wynn to register as China agent | 2022-10-12T18:18:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judge clears way for Trump to be deposed in defamation case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/trump-defamation-lawsuit-rape-allegation-carroll/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/trump-defamation-lawsuit-rape-allegation-carroll/ |
Among other achievements, the actress, who died Tuesday at 96, inhabited some of most sensational roles in musical theater history — and did it unforgettably.
Perspective by Peter Marks
Angela Lansbury as the titular star of Broadway's 1966 “Mame.” (Mark Kauffman/Getty Images)
The queen has died, at 96. No, no, I mean our queen, the one who held dominion over theater hearts. Ageless Angela Lansbury may have been celebrated in television and movie culture as Jessica Fletcher and Mrs. Potts, but Broadway history claimed her far more centrally, as some of the most dazzlingly flamboyant characters in the musical-theater canon: Mame. Mama Rose. Mrs. Lovett.
I’m sure many British subjects felt the same about their queen, that the universe might intervene and just allow her to go on and on. That was my selfish wish for Lansbury. Not only had she been Angela Lansbury for so long, but she was also — always — the best Angela Lansbury any audience could hope for.
Whether a role called for grit or grace, pluck or poise, Lansbury could summon qualities that led a show past exceptional and all the way to unforgettable. For me, she is forever the pragmatically homicidal pastry chef of “Sweeney Todd,” madly baking into meat pies the tonsorial customers dispatched by Len Cariou’s wild-eyed Sweeney, in the original 1979 Broadway incarnation of the musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler.
It is, simply, one of my all-time favorite performances, an impeccable turn frozen in memory: monstrous and yet hilarious, flirtatious and still heartbreaking. She is rightly hailed for Mrs. Lovett’s priceless introductory song, “The Worst Pies in London”: “Is that just disgusting?/ You have to concede it/ It’s nothing but crusting/ Here, drink this, you’ll need it!”
But it is an image in the musical’s final minutes that has haunted me across the decades: A panicky Mrs. Lovett being waltzed maniacally by Sweeney into fiery oblivion, after he discovers that she has concealed his wife’s calamitous fate.
I left the theater that day — the Uris, then, renamed the Gershwin — in a daze.
Angela Lansbury, Broadway luminary, film actress and TV star, dies at 96
In 2010, Lansbury recounted for me the circumstances of her casting in “Sweeney”: a telegram to Ireland, where she maintained a home, from director Harold Prince: “ ‘Dear Angela, Steve Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler and I are preparing a production of ‘Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.’ We would be interested to know if you would be interested in reading for the role of Nellie Lovett.’ ”
Lansbury had to “read for the role”! She had already garnered three Tony Awards (out of an eventual five, plus a lifetime achievement award earlier this year), for the original “Mame” and “Dear World” and a beloved revival of “Gypsy.” Such were the rigors of booking a job in the good old days; it’s now rare for stars of her accomplishment to submit to auditions. Back in New York, Lansbury said, Sondheim sang “The Worst Pies” for her — a tricky song rhythmically, involving the syncopated exertions of kneading of the pie dough. Lansbury was delighted. “ ‘This is something I’d have a lot of fun doing,’ “ she remembered thinking.
Our interview occurred on the occasion of Lansbury receiving the Stephen Sondheim Award from Signature Theatre in Arlington, Va. — the first person to be so honored after Sondheim himself. (And to be followed by Bernadette Peters, Carol Burnett, Harold Prince and other key figures in the Sondheim orbit.) We sat in her midtown Manhattan apartment, a cozy and unpretentious pied-à-terre, with a commanding view of the brick wall next door. She was both grandmotherly and girlish at the tender age of 85 and yet to perform what would be her final Broadway role, in 2012’s “The Best Man,” by Gore Vidal. The prospect of work still lit her up, as could memories of indelible triumphs like “Sweeney.”
“When I hear the recording, I think, ‘How the hell did I do that?’ ” Lansbury observed that day, chuckling. Well, ambition, discipline and self-belief, for sure. You look over the sheer variety and volume of her résumé — movie roles stretching back to “Gaslight” and “National Velvet” during World War II, and 12 seasons as the star of CBS’s “Murder, She Wrote” in the 1980s and ’90s — and you can sense the voracious, Streep-size appetite for work.
Her collaboration with Sondheim, who died 11 months ago at 91, ranged over peerless hits — “Sweeney Todd” is being revived on Broadway this season, with Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford — and storied flops. “Anyone Can Whistle,” an absurdist satire featuring Lansbury as the corrupt mayor of a dying town, ran for just seven days at the Majestic Theatre in 1964. It’s a flawed book musical that no nimble-minded creative team has ever been able to fix.
But soon after playing Laurence Harvey’s diabolical mother in director John Frankenheimer’s 1962 “The Manchurian Candidate” — Lansbury was only three years older than Harvey — the musical birthed a new Broadway life for her (she’d only been in straight plays on Broadway before “Whistle”).
Possessed of what she described as “a natural singing voice,” Lansbury told me that performing in a full-blown musical was basically a matter of training “and figuring out how loud I had to be to be heard over the orchestra.”
In her possession, too, it seems, was a highly reliable fearlessness: She was born in 1925 into a well-to-do London family that left for the United States at the onset of the Blitz. A dash of natural British fortitude never wore off.
“What you have to accept with me is, I would do whatever interested me to attempt; it’s the feeling of, ‘I would love to pull that off,’ ” she recalled on that afternoon a dozen years ago. “I’m also tickled and I’m proud that somebody would think that I could do a certain thing, and then would give me a chance. That has happened over and over and over again. That has given me confidence — that they believed I’d give them something that they wanted.”
In Lanbury’s juiciest stage turns, that confidence was palpable. I only know her 1966 “Mame” from endless replays of her voice on the cast album, singing Jerry Herman’s buoyant tunes, and her 1974 ″Gypsy” from accounts by friends who saw it. But as late as 2009, when audiences got the opportunity to watch her as Madame Armfeldt in the Catherine Zeta-Jones-headlined revival of “A Little Night Music,” she was still giving all of us something that we wanted. Her inimitable, irresistible self. | 2022-10-12T18:57:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Angela Lansbury took on some of most sensational roles in musical theater - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/12/angela-lansbury-appreciation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/12/angela-lansbury-appreciation/ |
Chris Geldart, top D.C. public safety official, out after assault charge
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser announced Wednesday afternoon that she had accepted his resignation.
Christopher Geldart is no longer a deputy mayor in D.C. after he was accused of assaulting a trainer in the parking lot of an Arlington gym. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Chris Geldart is out as D.C.'s deputy mayor for public safety and justice after a personal trainer alleged the city official assaulted him, and questions emerged over whether he was violating the requirement that high-level officials reside within city limits.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser announced that she had accepted his resignation Wednesday afternoon.
“I’m saddened to say that I have accepted the resignation of Deputy Mayor Chris Geldart,” Bowser said. “But I’m proud of the work we’ve done together over the last years.”
Geldart’s departure was first reported by NBC4.
Geldart has been on leave since early last week, when police say the personal trainer swore out a criminal complaint alleging that Geldart had grabbed him by the neck in a parking lot of a Gold’s Gym in Arlington on Oct. 1.
Geldart, who did not respond to requests for comment, is scheduled to appear in court Oct. 17 for an arraignment hearing on the criminal charge. His attorney did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Bowser previously said City Administrator Kevin Donahue would oversee the city’s public safety agencies in the interim.
Bowser’s office initially downplayed the assault allegation, saying in a statement that “it sounds like something that happens to a lot of people.” The mayor later said she had “some concerns about that interaction,” and that Geldart’s residency was also under review.
Under District code, high-level appointees to the executive branch must be city residents during their time in office. An Arlington County police statement on the incident outside of Gold’s Gym said Geldart lived in Falls Church, Va., prompting concern among community leaders that the deputy mayor was violating D.C. law.
Bowser previously said that she was aware Geldart had a home in Virginia where his family lived and that “people can have second homes.” She stressed that “our expectations are that people will meet the requirements of the law for residency.” | 2022-10-12T20:33:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chris Geldart, top D.C. public safety official, out after assault charge - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/chris-geldart-resignation-bowser/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/chris-geldart-resignation-bowser/ |
Bijan Ghaisar, pictured in April 2015, was shot dead by two U.S. Park Police officers in November 2017. (Sima Marvastian)
The federal department that oversees the U.S. Park Police and several other law enforcement agencies issued comprehensive new rules last week for sworn officers, including ones regarding the use of lethal force. If those rules had been in force five years ago, would Bijan Ghaisar still be alive?
Ghaisar, an unarmed 25-year-old accountant, was shot to death by two Park Police officers near D.C. in 2017. It was an unwarranted killing — an incident that began with a fender bender in which Ghaisar’s car was rear-ended by an Uber along the George Washington Parkway in Northern Virginia, and was senselessly escalated by the officers.
Even before the Interior Department issued the new rules, the Park Police itself had updated its own policies governing vehicular pursuits, starting the year after Ghaisar was killed. They allow officers to chase only suspects involved in a violent felony such as murder or rape, or an armed suspect wanted for a felony. Ghaisar, who had no police record, was neither.
A separate question is whether the new rules go far enough to prevent a similar incident. In that respect, we are encouraged. They allow more than 3,000 federal officers from the agencies under the department’s aegis to open fire at a moving vehicle only if “no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist.” And the guidelines specify that those “objectively reasonable” options include “moving out of the path of the vehicle.”
That line could have been drafted with the Ghaisar case in mind. Because it is clear, from the video recorded by a police dashcam, that the Park Police officers who chased Ghaisar into a quiet suburban neighborhood could have stepped aside as his car inched forward, its wheels turning away from them as they approached him from the driver’s side. Instead, the officers — visibly furious that Ghaisar had twice before driven off after they attempted to pull him over — opened fire.
The new policies take other steps toward police accountability in the Interior Department, ones that might dissuade officers from unnecessary use of lethal force. They require that officers wear body cameras, ensure the release of footage in some critical incidents and restrict the use of no-knock warrants.
Law enforcement’s use of lethal force takes place in a staggering variety of contexts; it’s impossible to write rules governing them all. The overarching principle is that officers should open fire only in extreme circumstances, to protect their own lives or those of others from the clear risk of violence. The new guidelines sharpen that standard.
There are roughly 18,000 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the United States, and their policies — including on the use of force — are as varied as that number suggests. The Biden administration issued comprehensive guidance earlier this year to set a standard for the federal agencies under its purview. It doesn’t apply at the state or local level, including to big agencies like New York City’s police department, which employs more than 35,000 sworn officers.
Nonetheless, stringent rules like Interior’s should serve as a template for agencies nationwide. They have the potential to save lives.
The Editorial Board on Bijan Ghaisar
Opinion|Tougher rules for U.S. Park Police should serve as a template for others
Opinion|These questions still need to be answered about Bijan Ghaisar’s death
Opinion|Impunity for unwarranted police killings is still a default | 2022-10-12T20:51:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | New Interior Department law enforcement rules could save lives - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/police-accountability-bijan-ghaisar/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/police-accountability-bijan-ghaisar/ |
TOPSHOT - Reservists drafted during the partial mobilisation attend a departure ceremony in Sevastopol, Crimea, on September 27, 2022. - Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on September 21 a mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Russian men to bolster Moscow's army in Ukraine, sparking demonstrations and an exodus of men abroad. (STRINGER / AFP) (STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images)
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hail of missiles against civilian targets in Ukraine is both reprehensible and a desperate move in an unjust war he is losing. The question raised by imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a recent essay in our pages is worth trying to answer: What will come when it is over?
How Russia emerges from this disaster could shape the world for a long time. In addition to Russia’s own destiny, its course will affect Ukraine’s struggle to survive as a democracy, whether Belarus frees itself from a tyrant, whether China and Russia can sustain an alliance of despots, the fate of a global economy dependent on Russian energy exports, and much more. As Mr. Navalny put it, even if Ukraine is successful in repelling the Russian invaders, “where is the guarantee that the world will not find itself confronting an even more aggressive regime, tormented by resentment and imperial ideas that have little to do with reality?”
There is no guarantee — none. No one can be certain how the war ends or what the aftermath will look like. Just recall the surprising turn of events that brought Mr. Putin to power. He was the handpicked choice of an ailing President Boris Yeltsin and his entourage. When Yeltsin announced his resignation at the end of 1999, he entrusted all that he stood for to a little-known former KGB officer with no experience in, nor affinity for, the democratic striving of the previous decade and who eventually reversed it. Mr. Putin then constructed a very personalized kind of dictatorship around his own power and whim.
Looking ahead, Russia has few apparent guardrails.
One dark scenario is that Mr. Putin’s anti-Western, authoritarian kleptocracy, mixing crony capitalism and despotism, will endure with or without him. A significant part of Russia’s population remains enamored with him, angry and inchoate, making it a ready constituency for a demagogue. As analyst Nikolai Petrov noted before the invasion, Mr. Putin’s anti-Western rhetoric “has taken a firm hold in the hearts and minds of many Russian citizens,” who are in a “state of deep resentment towards the West” and believe that it has prevented Russia from regaining great-power status.
Also reinforcing continuity are the powerful security and military structures that Mr. Putin has exploited and expanded for more than two decades. But key questions, impossible to answer now, surround the fallout a defeat in Ukraine would have: Would the military, humiliated and resentful, turn against the Kremlin power structure? Would the population at large?
Another part of Russia’s population — clearly sizable, and perhaps overlapping with the first — has simply wanted to be left alone. These citizens tolerated Mr. Putin’s thieving elite and political repression in exchange for a certain amount of private space in their own lives, as well as some prosperity and freedom to travel abroad. They have finally been motivated to object after Mr. Putin’s recent mobilization order disrupted their tranquility, but their alienation from politics and their passivity remain.
A third cohort, much smaller, are the professionals and middle class, educated, experienced, well-traveled and democratic. Many in their 20s and 30s, they have left Russia in droves since the war began — but perhaps not forever. Those who are older witnessed Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika and saw the 1990s as a brief window of freedom in a long Russian history of autocracy. Thousands of this group are stuck in Russia’s prisons for protesting in support of Mr. Navalny or against the war and mobilization.
What Mr. Navalny described in his essay is no less than tearing down Mr. Putin’s fortress of avarice and making a second try at democracy. Mr. Navalny correctly notes that a super-presidential system was created for Yeltsin in Russia’s 1993 constitution. “Giving plenty of power to a good guy seemed logical at the time,” he wrote. Mr. Putin inherited Yeltsin’s powers but not his commitment to the constitutional guarantees of freedom.
Mr. Navalny advocates a parliamentary republic that would result in “a radical reduction of power in the hands of one person.” Such a change would require a new constitution, no small task, and much more. In a report last year for the Atlantic Council, Anders Aslund, an economist and specialist on Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe, and Leonid Gozman, a politician and commentator long active in Russia’s democratic movements, sketched out what might be needed to build a democracy in Russia. They advocate a parliamentary system and a new democratic constitution but add a long list of must-do tasks: restoring full freedoms of speech, assembly, belief and others; releasing political prisoners; cutting out the “cancer” of oligarchs who milked the state for their own enrichment; establishing genuine rule of law; dissolving the pernicious existing security services and starting over, which would be extremely difficult; rebuilding a functioning parliament; holding free elections and decentralizing power to the regions and cities, another thing that would be hard to accomplish.
After the Soviet collapse in 1991, genuine attempts were made to build a market democracy and emulate the West. As scholar Maria Lipman noted recently, “People in early post-Communist Russia yearned for their country to become ‘normal’, which implied ‘as in the West.’ The West was proclaimed a political role model. For the first time in its history, Russia was emulating not just Western culture or technology, but the Western political system. The framers of the post-communist Russian constitution drew inspiration from Western charters. No more shielding Russian citizens from the West: censorship was abolished, borders open, foreign travel unlimited and foreign trade no longer the exclusive domain of the state.”
Yeltsin created a warped oligarchic capitalism, a proto democracy, a nascent civil society, and he failed to instill rule of law. To many Russians, it was a disorienting time. Ms. Lipman wrote, “Not unexpectedly, the emulation of the West failed to deliver Western living standards. The first post-Soviet decade brought political turmoil, the collapse of the accustomed safety net, deep insecurity and profound disillusionment.”
Mr. Putin exploited that disenchantment — deriding all the 1990s as chaos — while riding a rising tide of prosperity, lifted by oil exports, in the years that followed. He sidelined the oligarchs of the Yeltsin years and subordinated them to his will, while enriching his own cronies. Gradually, he stamped out the tender shoots of democracy. They’re now completely gone. Mr. Petrov said last year the conditions needed to achieve democratic change “are not present in today’s Russia.”
The United States and Europe, major players in promoting democracy during the 1990s, must prepare for what comes next in Russia with clear eyes. There won’t be a stampede for Western values. The American tool kit of the post-Soviet period won’t necessarily be useful. It is necessary to start thinking now about how to reach a society that is chastened and hardened by the past two decades.
Keeping channels open to the Russian people will be vital no matter who comes to power. Ideally, after the war and after Mr. Putin, Mr. Navalny will be free of shackles and a leading voice in anchoring Russia in a democratic system. This outcome is worthy of our hope. But it would also be prudent to expect Russia to take other paths, perhaps steered by another singular strongman. The country may be humbled by defeat in war, but that will not necessarily make it exuberant about freedom. | 2022-10-12T20:51:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | What's Russia's future after Putin and the Ukraine war? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/russia-future-after-putin-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/russia-future-after-putin-ukraine/ |
Biden makes last promotions for White House communications team
President Biden finished a second-year makeover of his communications shop Wednesday with the promotion of several longtime aides to new responsibilities at the White House, according to a person briefed on the plans.
The personnel moves and title changes end a roughly six-month reshuffling set off by then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s announced departure, a typical transition after the president’s first year in office. Those shifts, which are being orchestrated by White House senior adviser Anita Dunn, included the appointment of Karine Jean-Pierre as Biden’s second press secretary.
Jennifer Molina, senior director of White House coalitions media since the start of Biden’s term, will become deputy communications director, serving under communications director Kate Bedingfield, who decided this summer to stay in the role after previously planning her departure.
Molina previously worked for Xavier Becerra when the current health and human services secretary was California attorney general and worked in Nevada for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. She will continue to work on coalitions outreach, among other responsibilities.
Andrew Bates, an original member of Biden’s 2020 campaign team who has been working as a deputy press secretary, will add the title of senior communications adviser for strategic response. Bates, a passionate behind-the-scenes defender of Biden, is expected to increase his focus on rapid response and pushing back on storylines that the White House views as false.
Emilie Simons, an assistant press secretary for the economic portfolio, will be promoted to deputy press secretary. A former adviser to Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), she also worked on the Biden presidential campaign.
The White House is also adding two new assistant press secretaries: Michael Kikukawa, a Treasury Department spokesman who previously worked as a press assistant at the White House, will return to the West Wing, where his responsibilities will include press briefing preparations. Robyn Patterson, a former spokeswoman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) who now works as Commerce Department press secretary, will be detailed to the White House for the new role.
The latest changes follow other personnel shifts at the end of the summer. Olivia Dalton, a former communications director for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, was appointed principal deputy press secretary in August. Herbie Ziskend, a former senior adviser for Vice President Harris, was also named as deputy communications director at the same time.
Chris Meagher, another former deputy White House press secretary, was appointed in September as a public affairs assistant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. | 2022-10-12T20:51:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden makes last promotions for White House communications team - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/biden-makes-last-promotions-white-house-communications-team/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/biden-makes-last-promotions-white-house-communications-team/ |
Scandal in L.A. and questions in Florida sit at the nexus of race and power
A protester holds a sign outside City Hall during a Los Angeles City Council meeting on Oct. 11. (Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP)
The scandal ripping through municipal politics in Los Angeles is significant enough that President Biden weighed in Tuesday. Through White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden made it clear that he believed three members of the city council who had been recorded having a conversation littered with racist commentary should resign. Three Democrats, mind you.
It would have been hard for him not to. The comments are often grotesque, extending to the Black child of one of the council members’ colleagues.
What’s worth highlighting, though, is the way in which race was almost necessarily at the center of the discussion that day. The council members were meeting with the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor to discuss revisions to the city’s council district boundaries. This redistricting, after the 2020 Census conducted by the Census Bureau, is meant to ensure that districts at the federal, state and local levels are evenly populated. But because those decisions often depend on population counts by race, and because race is often a proxy for political voting, redistricting fights are often struggles for power between racial groups.
Though only rarely, we might hope, do those discussions devolve into the sort of toxic racism that was recorded in Los Angeles.
At one point in the lengthy recording, the group discusses the extent to which district boundaries disadvantage Hispanics.
“There’s 57 out of 60 seats that African Americans are in, are Latino seats,” one says during the conversation. It’s not clear how those districts are identified; the city council has only 15 seats. But that some seats are “Latino seats” by virtue of population is a common assumption if not something commonly articulated.
Three districts are mentioned in that part of the conversation: the 8th, 10th and 15th council districts. According to the newly drawn boundaries, each of those districts does have a majority Hispanic population. If we assume, though, that voting happens entirely along racial lines — which is not the case — we can see why two of those districts might nonetheless vote for a Black council member.
Since the country’s Hispanic population tends to be younger than the population overall (the median age of California Hispanics is 29, compared with 36 overall) and because many of the region’s Hispanics are not U.S. citizens, the distribution of the population that can vote is generally quite different.
In every district, the density of Hispanics in the population overall is higher than the density in the voting-eligible population. Often, Whites benefit. Sometimes, as in the 8th and 10th districts, Blacks do.
California, and Los Angeles in particular, has experienced tensions between Black and Hispanic residents for decades. Those tensions ebb and flow; activists have been often been effective in building alliances that recognize shared points of interest. But the redistricting process, an unadorned jockeying for power, creates a moment when those interests are in direct conflict.
Most of the Black and Hispanic elected officials in Los Angeles are Democrats. In other places, the overlap of race and politics takes a more explicitly partisan form.
On Tuesday, ProPublica dug into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) proposed new congressional boundaries for that state following the 2020 census. It found that DeSantis and his team had employed partisan consultants to develop a map that was remarkably friendly to Republican interests, raising questions about the legitimacy of an effort that was supposed to be free of partisan influence.
One of the shifts noted in the article is how a heavily Black district in northern Florida was broken apart, distributing its Black population across multiple districts — and therefore reducing the concentrated power of Black voters. In northern Florida, the importance of that shift doesn’t depend on our assuming that Black people only vote for Black candidates. Black voters are much more heavily Democratic than White or Hispanic voters. So splitting up Black voting blocs serves to split up Democratic ones.
In the 2018 election, Florida had 18 districts that were at least 40 percent White and three that were at least 40 percent Black. In 2022, it will have 20 districts that are at least 40 percent White and only one that’s as densely Black.
This isn’t only happening in Florida. In Louisiana, for example, a similar effort yielded a map that packed a large chunk of the state’s Black population into one district. A federal judge ordered that the map be redrawn to increase the density of the Black population in at least one other proposed district. The Supreme Court then stepped in to intervene; the original map will stand for the midterms. Alabama’s similar fight was before the Supreme Court last week.
In June, I detailed the effects of the existing Louisiana map relative to voter registration.
Race as proxy for political power. Not a new development in the American South, certainly, but not one confined to that region.
In Los Angeles, the struggle for representation and control took a particularly ugly tone behind closed doors. It has already upended the existing balance of power on the council and threatens to continue to ripple outward for some time.
The stone that triggered that ripple, ironically, was the decadal effort to ensure fairness in representation. | 2022-10-12T20:51:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Scandal in LA and questions in Florida sit at the nexus of race and power - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/los-angeles-council-florida-race-redistricting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/los-angeles-council-florida-race-redistricting/ |
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’: A German’s grim view of World War I
Filmmaker Edward Berger’s adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s antiwar classic is the first German version of the 1929 bestseller
There are times in “All Quiet on the Western Front,” Germany’s official Oscar submission, that you might be reminded, more than a little, of “1917,” Sam Mendes’s Oscar-winning 2019 film, also loosely based on real events during World War I. The new movie — the first German-language adaptation of German veteran Erich Maria Remarque’s semi-autobiographical 1929 bestseller, later banned under Nazi rule for its antiwar sentiments — includes many echoes of Mendes’s film.
It opens in 1917, features a star (Felix Kammerer) who looks uncannily like “1917’s” George MacKay, and includes all the visual trappings of the earlier film: muddy trench warfare, misery, violence and frequent scenes of a raw recruit running across a corpse-strewn battlefield, filmed in a way that somehow aestheticizes the bleak, bloody horrors of battle. (Something to think about: Can there ever truly be a purely antiwar film, when so many movies on the theme are so terribly stunning to look at?)
There are also several differences between the two films. Mostly, “All Quiet” is not so breathtakingly, heart-stoppingly cinematic. Yes, it’s handsomely shot, but there are long sequences where little happens. True to life, perhaps, but slow.
“All Quiet,” of course, is told from the perspective of a German, not an Allied soldier: Kammerer’s 17-year-old Paul Bäumer, who lies about his age on his enlistment form and is quickly disabused of his notions about marching victorious into Paris without obstruction. As in the book, Paul and his school chums (Adrian Grünewald, Aaron Hilmer and Edin Hasanovic) scramble, back and forth, over a few hundred yards of France, mentored by an older soldier, Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch), nicknamed Kat.
The book tells their story, but German director Edward Berger, working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell (both from the British Isles, and the latter of whom is a veteran of this newspaper), opens that narrative up. What this means is that this version of Remarque’s battlefield story intercuts periodically between dismal scenes on the Western Front and more genteel conversations taking place around a very different form of conflict. That’s the debate between hawkish military officers, embodied by Devid Striesow, and more pragmatic politicians trying to negotiate an armistice, including the real-life character of Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl), here portrayed as a peacenik motivated by the death of his son.
The contrast is stark: Soldiers slurp filthy, coffee-colored water out of a bucket on the front line, while diplomats and generals sip espresso from demitasses back home. It does drive home a point, but I’m not sure it’s one that isn’t articulated better elsewhere. Much more powerful is the scene in which Paul encounters and kills a French soldier at the bottom of a bombed-out crater. That ghastly, drawn-out episode — faithful to the book, in an adaptation that takes many liberties with Remarque’s source material, including details concerning the fate of Kat — is all the reminder anyone needs that war is a nasty, brutish business where nobody, not even the victor, truly wins.
R. At area theaters; available Oct. 28 on Netflix. Contains strong bloody war violence, grisly images and brief crude language. In German and some French with subtitles. 148 minutes. | 2022-10-12T20:51:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’: A German’s grim view of World War I - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/12/all-quiet-on-the-western-front-movie-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/12/all-quiet-on-the-western-front-movie-review/ |
Julie Zauzmer Weil
The John Wilson building, home to the D.C. Council. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Candidates for the two at-large seats on the D.C. Council are raising and spending thousands of dollars as Election Day nears, while criticizing each other for how they’re amassing that cash in the increasingly heated race.
Most candidates in the city chose to take public financing for their campaigns, thus capping their contributions. In the at-large race, Kenyan R. McDuffie stands alone in raking in large donations to fund his bid to remain on the council — a difference that competing Council member Elissa Silverman (I) has sought to make into a campaign issue.
McDuffie, who represents Ward 5 as a Democrat, mounted a bid for attorney general in the primary election in which he accepted public financing. When he was thrown off the primary ballot, he decided to run instead for an at-large council seat as an independent — and was barred from accepting public financing in a second electoral bid in the same year.
That has freed McDuffie — who is running for one of two at-large seats, against incumbent lawmakers Anita Bonds (D) and Silverman and several other challengers — to accept contributions of up to $1,000 from individuals and companies, while Bonds and Silverman, who are accepting public financing, can only raise funds from individuals in amounts no greater than $100.
McDuffie, Silverman tout competing endorsements in at-large race
Most of McDuffie’s fundraising has come from big spenders. Over the past two months, McDuffie reported raising $278,199 — of which $177,000 came from donors who chipped in the $1,000 maximum, and less than $5,000 came in amounts smaller than $100.
Even with the 5-to-1 match that Silverman and other candidates who accept public financing receive in city dollars, that puts McDuffie — who also raised nearly as much in the previous two months — ahead in fundraising among his opponents who have filed their latest campaign finance reports. The report was due Monday, but some candidates had not submitted as of Wednesday, including Bonds, who won the Democratic primary and is a favorite to retain her seat.
While the top two finishers out of the field of eight will secure seats on the council, Silverman said in an interview that she mostly views seven non-Democrats as competing for one seat, the one she currently holds, while Bonds is likely to hold onto the other seat. “I’m realistic in that every pick-two race since home rule, the Democrat has come in first. I assume that will happen in this race again — I am running for reelection in the non-Democratic seat, which is my seat,” she said.
Silverman took in more than $15,000 from donors during the most recent two-month period and more than $120,000 in public funds, putting her total fundraising for the campaign at more than $366,000. She ramped up her spending on advertising and other campaign expenses during the period but still has more than $100,000 to spend before Election Day.
Graham McLaughlin, an independent running a campaign focused on making D.C. law more friendly to business development and on his background supporting people leaving prison, has raised more than $220,000, including public financing, but took in just $5,737 in new contributions during the most recent reporting period, and has already spent essentially all of his campaign cash.
Republican Giusseppe Niosi is far behind, having raised less than $21,000 total. The other candidates — former council staffer Karim Marshall and Ward 8 activist Fred Hill, both independents, and D.C. Statehood Green party candidate David Schwartzman — had not filed their latest campaign reports as of Wednesday afternoon.
Campaign finance donations emerged as a talking point during an at-large candidate forum hosted Tuesday by the Ward 6 Democrats, attended by all candidates but Bonds.
In response to a question about affordable housing, Silverman reiterated a comment from Schwartzman that the seat of city government is “occupied territory for developers.”
“There are two candidates here who, if you look at their campaign finance filings, it’s developer after developer after developer,” said Silverman, appearing to refer to McDuffie and McLaughlin, who have both run on their friendliness to city businesses.
About McDuffie’s big-spending donors, she said: “He’s talked about how he’s a council member for the entire city, but the campaign finance records don’t indicate that.”
In response, McDuffie mentioned several bills he has written, including a 2013 measure that helped tighten the city’s campaign finance laws. “They want you to focus on campaign finance records. Here’s the reality: Focus on the record of delivering results,” McDuffie said. “When people start talking about who’s donating to whom … it’s because they usually don’t have a record of delivering results.”
McLaughlin, who identified himself as “one of the two getting called out,” responded to Silverman by naming formerly incarcerated people who have contributed to his campaign and drawing attention to his donors from Wards 7 and 8, which contain many of the city’s low-income neighborhoods.
He accused Silverman of being divisive rather than focusing on how to increase the District’s affordable housing stock.
“When you say I’m bought and paid for by developers, I do take issue with that,” he said. “We can’t just say: ‘Hey, developers, you can have whatever you want.’ But I also think we need to work with housing developers and builders. If we want production in this city, if we want more supply, we have to have somebody build it.”
Still, Silverman in a Wednesday tweet doubled down on the notion.
“Campaigns are about contrasts. The contrast is clear: There’s the candidate of LLCs & developers, smashing $500 and $1,000 buttons,” she tweeted. “Then here’s my campaign, relying on the support of working families w hundreds and hundreds of small donors.”
Less than an hour later, McDuffie tweeted a list of bills he has written during his decade as a council member: “There are reports, and then there are results,” he wrote.
In the mayoral election, incumbent Muriel E. Bowser has outpaced opponents in fundraising even with the restrictions of accepting public financing. Bowser, who won the Democratic primary and is widely expected to win a third term, has raised more than $650,000 in small-dollar local donations over the course of the primary and general election campaigns, and most recently raised more than $54,000, including public financing, over the past two months. Independent challenger Red Grant raised just over $15,000 in that same time and Republican Stacia Hall raised $3,800 (more than half of it a check from the Republican Party), both while electing not to take public financing. | 2022-10-12T21:25:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. at-large candidates raise funds as campaign heats up - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/dc-council-at-large-fundraising/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/dc-council-at-large-fundraising/ |
Infowars founder Alex Jones appears in court to testify during the Sandy Hook defamation damages trial at Connecticut Superior Court in Waterbury, Conn. (Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool)
The largest single award of $120 million went to Robbie Parker, whose six-year-old daughter Emilie was killed in the shooting. Jones spent years mocking Parker as an actor. The plaintiffs also included a FBI agent who responded to the shooting and was awarded $90 million in damages.
The size of the damages is a sign that jurors found a defendant’s conduct particularly reprehensible and harmful – and as a way of deterring future wrongdoing.
Parker’s daughter Emiliewas killed in the shooting. He was the first parent to speak publicly in the wake of the massacre. Just before Parker made an anguished statement to the media, he gave a brief nervous smile as he saw the assembled journalists. Jones seized on the moment as evidence of the purported hoax, playing the seconds-long clip again and again in the years after the shooting.
“Their children got slaughtered,” Aldenberg said, addressing the families. “I saw it myself, and now they have to sit here and listen to me say this." | 2022-10-12T21:42:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Alex Jones ordered to pay nearly $1 billion in damages to Sandy Hook families - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/alex-jones-sandy-hook-verdict/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/alex-jones-sandy-hook-verdict/ |
Key witness and security-camera footage offer evidence of Trump’s actions after government subpoena, people familiar say
Court filings by the Justice Department, including a photo that shows documents seized during the FBI search Aug. 8 of former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. (Justice Department/AP)
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich declined to answer detailed questions for this article. “The Biden administration has weaponized law enforcement and fabricated a Document Hoax in a desperate attempt to retain political power," Budowich said in a statement. “Every other President has been given time and deference regarding the administration of documents, as the President has the ultimate authority to categorize records, and what materials should be classified.”
Budowich accused the Justice Department of a “continued effort to leak misleading and false information to partisan allies in the Fake News,” and said that to do so "is nothing more than dangerous political interference and unequal justice. Simply put, it’s un-American.”
In the first interview, these people said, the witness denied handling sensitive documents or the boxes that might contain such documents. As they gathered evidence, agents decided to re-interview the witness, and the witness’s story changed dramatically, these people said. In the second interview, the witness described moving boxes at Trump’s request.
Among the chief proponents of the cooperation strategy was Alex Cannon, a Trump lawyer who repeatedly argued his client should hand the documents back, people familiar with the matter said. But entreaties from advisers and lawyers fell on deaf ears with Trump, who grew even angrier this spring after a House Oversight Committee investigation was launched, telling aides they’d “screwed up” the situation, according to people who heard his comments. “They’re my documents,” Trump said, according to an aide who spoke to him.
Together, those pieces of evidence helped convince the FBI and Justice Department to seek the court-authorized search of Trump’s residence, office and a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, which resulted in the seizure of 103 documents that were marked classified and had not been turned over to the government in response to the May subpoena. Some of the documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. The Aug. 8 search also yielded about 11,000 documents not marked classified.
The failure or possible refusal to return the classified documents in response to the subpoena is at the heart of the Justice Department’s Mar-a-Lago investigation, which is one of several high-profile, ongoing probes involving Trump. The former president remains the most influential figure in the Republican Party and talks openly about again running for the White House in 2024.
Within Trump’s orbit, there have been months of dueling accusations and theories about who may be cooperating with the federal government. Some of the former president’s closest aides have continued to work with Trump even as they have seen FBI agents show up at their houses to question them and serve subpoenas.
Within the Justice Department and FBI, the witness’s account has been a closely held secret as agents continue to gather evidence in the high-stakes investigation. In addition to wanting to keep the information they have gathered so far under wraps, people familiar with the situation said, authorities are also concerned that if or when the witness’s identity eventually becomes public, that person could face harassment or threats from Trump supporters.
Since the Aug. 8 search, Trump has offered a number of public defenses of why documents with classified markings remained at Mar-a-Lago — saying he declassified the secret documents, suggesting that the FBI planted evidence during the search, and suggesting that as a former president he may have had a right to keep classified documents. National security law experts have overwhelmingly dismissed such claims, saying they range from far-fetched to nonsensical.
Among items seized at Mar-a-Lago: Document about a foreign government's nuclear capabilities
Officials at the National Archives began seeking the return of documents last year, after they came to believe that some presidential records from the Trump administration – such as letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – were unaccounted for, and perhaps in Trump’s possession.
In response to that subpoena, Trump’s advisers met with government agents and prosecutors at Mar-a-Lago in early June, handing over a sealed envelope containing another 38 classified documents, including 17 marked top secret, according to court papers. According to government filings, Trump’s representatives claimed at the meeting that a diligent search had been conducted for all classified documents at the club.
Trump team initially said boxes at Mar-a-Lago were only news clippings
Five days later, senior Justice Department official Jay Bratt wrote to Trump’s lawyers to remind them that Mar-a-Lago “does not include a secure location authorized for the storage of classified information.” Bratt wrote that it appears classified documents “have not been handled in an appropriate manner or stored in an appropriate location."
Agents continued to gather evidence that Trump was apparently not complying with either government requests or subpoena demands. After significant deliberation, aware that it would be highly unusual for federal agents to search a former president’s home, they decided to seek a judge’s approval to do so. | 2022-10-12T21:43:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mar-a-Lago witness told FBI that boxes were moved at Trump's direction - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/12/maralago-witness-trump-boxes-moved/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/12/maralago-witness-trump-boxes-moved/ |
Virginia Tech head coach Mike Young doesn't want his team fixated on last season's ACC tournament run. (John Minchillo/AP)
CHARLOTTE — Seven months have passed since the Virginia Tech men’s basketball team reached unprecedented heights, and while winning the school’s first ACC tournament championship remains a defining achievement, the Hokies are vowing to do much more than simply relive past glories.
The message in part from Coach Mike Young entering this season has been to grow the profile of the program even more by making deep runs in the ACC tournament a habit after claiming supremacy in a conference traditionally ruled by blue bloods North Carolina and Duke.
Virginia Tech walloped both those schools in the final two rounds last spring at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, winning four games in as many nights to complete one of the more improbable runs in ACC tournament history.
“It comes up a lot, and I want it come up more,” Young said Wednesday morning during ACC media day. “But there comes a time when those wonderful experiences with a group of people that I admired so much, with some luck and good health, we’ll get back together 10 years from now, 20 years from now, and it’ll be a lot of fun. …
“But it’s time to move on. This team has a lot they want to accomplish.”
The most pressing concern for the immediate future has been establishing a regular rotation without two of the most impactful players since Young took over three seasons ago with aspirations of launching the Hokies into the sport’s national landscape.
Gone are Keve Aluma and Storm Murphy, both of whom had been with Young at his previous stop, Wofford, before arriving in Blacksburg, Va., where he ascended to what he has described as his dream job a short distance from his hometown of Radford.
Aluma, a 6-foot-9 forward, finished as Virginia Tech’s leading scorer for a second straight season, averaging 15.8 points and earning second-team all-ACC honors. He also was the defensive centerpiece, often bailing out teammates at the rim when assignments went awry.
Aluma’s shining moment came in the ACC tournament championship game against the top-seeded Blue Devils, when he had 19 points and 10 rebounds in a 82-67 triumph, producing his second double-double of the tournament.
“I don’t stay up at night fretting about it,” Young said of how the starting lineup will take shape without Aluma. “This team is different. The personality is different. Aluma was a really talented player, but there should be — you hope there are always other talented people coming through the ranks.”
Also gone is Murphy, who as the point guard provided not just skilled ballhandling but also served as an extension of Young on the court and as a steadying veteran presence in the locker room.
Murphy finished his career having played 162 games, the most of any player in last season’s NCAA tournament. He started all 36 games during his only season with the Hokies and was selected to the ACC all-tournament second team after 13 assists with just three turnovers in the final two games.
The Hokies did get a glimpse of their point guard of the future last season in Sean Pedulla. The sophomore played in every game, capped by a team-high 19 points during a loss to Texas, 81-73, in the NCAA tournament’s round of 64 in Milwaukee.
“We should have an exciting backcourt this year,” Hokies guard Hunter Cattoor said. “I’m excited for Sean and Darius [Maddox] to kind of take a bigger role this year than last year. They’ve got a lot to prove, and I’m excited for them. They’ve been doing good in workouts and practices, so it should be a fun year.”
Cattoor contributed significantly to Virginia Tech earning a spot in the NCAA tournament for a fifth consecutive time last season. The senior emphatically emerged from a shooting lull to score a career- and game-high 31 points on 11-of-16 shooting for the upstart No. 7 seed in the ACC tournament final. That included making 7 of 9 three-point attempts. Over the first three games of the ACC tournament Cattoor had scored a combined 18 points on 6-for-17 shooting.
The Hokies, according to NCAA tournament analysts, had been a long shot at best to be included in the field of 68 based on their body of work during the regular season.
“It is crazy,” Cattoor said. “But that’s just the beautiful thing about March, and especially the ACC tournament. You have so many good players, so many good teams there, and all you have to do is win the tournament, and you’re in the big dance. So I think for us to go do that and really lock in and accomplish that was a big feature for us.” | 2022-10-12T21:43:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Virginia Tech men won the ACC tournament. Now they want more. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/virginia-tech-men-basketball-preview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/virginia-tech-men-basketball-preview/ |
Elon Musk’s Twitter Deal Is Different Than Most LBOs, Here’s How
Analysis by Paula Seligson | Bloomberg
What’s the easiest way to buy something? With other people’s money. That’s the key to almost all of the leveraged buyouts (LBOs) that have dominated mergers and acquisitions for a generation. Elon Musk’s $44 billion planned takeover of Twitter has had many twists and turns, but after spending months trying to get out of the deal, the billionaire head of Tesla Inc. said he is once again moving forward with the acquisition, which could close as soon as late October. While his take-private of Twitter is an LBO, it differs from most in several important respects.
1. What’s different about Musk’s approach?
Musk is playing the role of the private equity firm in this buyout. He’s on the hook to provide about $33.5 billion in equity, or about 72% of the total $46.5 billion in financing, with the remainder coming from a debt package provided by big Wall Street banks. Included in that equity contribution, Musk already owns more than 73 million shares, which are worth about $4 billion at the $54.20 purchase price. A group of 19 investors including billionaire Larry Ellison agreed to cover another $7.1 billion of Musk’s $33.5 billion share. If Musk’s current stake in Twitter is excluded, his proposed purchase would be the fourth-largest deal in which a public company was bought and taken private.
2. What’s a leveraged buyout?
LBOs are acquisitions where debt plays a crucial role. The basic idea is to buy a company through a combination of equity and new debt. But the key is that the acquirer, most commonly a private equity firm, doesn’t borrow the money -- the target company does. LBOs limit the downside for the buyer: If things go wrong, the company goes bankrupt, not the buyer. LBOs also increase the buyers’ upside because they can acquire bigger companies than they otherwise could afford.
3. How much leverage is there in most LBOs?
Private equity firms typically try to put in as little equity as possible, to increase their potential return. But the limiting factor is usually how much debt the target company can service without debt payments dragging it down. The ratio of equity is typically around 45% to 50% of the deal. The word “leveraged” refers to a special metric that compares the amount of debt to a company’s earnings, and that ratio is typically high in these transactions. The upper bound is roughly 6 times, but that can go higher depending on the deal.
4. Where are the equity commitments coming from?
Of the $7.1 billion being kicked in to help Musk, about $5.2 billion is from 18 equity partners who joined the deal; the other $1.9 billion will be generated by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud rolling over his current Twitter stake, according to a filing on May 5. An increase in the equity component helped replace initial plans to use $12.5 billion in loan commitments backed by Tesla stock pledged by Musk in what’s known as a margin loan. Musk is worth more than $200 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, but most of that is not liquid. To raise more cash to fund his equity commitment, he could sell assets, including more Tesla shares. He could find more equity partners. He also could sell preferred equity in Twitter. That’s a special type of stock that essentially gives the holders additional benefits, such as hefty annual dividends. Musk had held discussions to potentially raise more capital from investors such as Apollo Global Management Inc. and Sixth Street Partners earlier this year, but those firms abandoned the talks months ago, around the time Musk backtracked from the deal.
5. How much debt would be added to Twitter’s balance sheet?
About $13 billion, the amount banks have committed to lend Twitter to carry out its side of the deal. Twitter’s credit rating is already below investment grade, so this new debt would come in the form of junk bonds and leveraged loans. As is normal in LBOs, the intention was for the banks to then sell that risk in the form of longer-term debt to outside investors, but the banks are on the hook and would have to cough up the money if anything goes wrong. Based on the structure laid out in public filings, the commitments would likely be replaced by $6.5 billion of leveraged loans, $3 billion of secured junk bonds and $3 billion of unsecured junk bonds. The banks also provided $500 million of a special type of loan called a revolving credit facility that Twitter will be able to borrow from and pay back over the life of the loan.
6. Could the debt financing fall through?
Almost certainly not. The debt financing does present a headache -- but for the banks, not for Musk. Led by Morgan Stanley, seven banks underwrote the debt, meaning they are on the hook to provide the cash, period. If banks do fund the debt, they could potentially syndicate the bonds and loans to investors at a later date. But credit conditions have worsened since banks committed to the debt in April, meaning they are facing losses of more than $500 million on the debt.
7. What debt does Twitter have now?
Twitter has already tapped the junk bond market and has two outstanding bonds for about $1.7 billion total, plus some convertible notes. Twitter is likely to pay off existing debt as part of the transaction. If the LBO happens, Twitter will have billions of dollars more in debt on its balance sheet. CreditSights, a credit research firm, sees total leverage increasing to a ratio of 9 times a measure of earnings, up from 3.7 times previously, according to a report published on April 25.
8. What does this deal mean for Twitter’s finances?
The increased debt load means it will have little margin for error going forward. Private equity firms typically load up a company with debt, slash costs and try to boost revenues. Earnings have to grow rapidly so the company can afford its high interest payments and eventually pay back debt. Some analysts are projecting that the deal will leave Twitter highly indebted compared to its projected earnings, which could mean pain if the company can’t grow fast enough. Annual interest expense could approach $1.2 billion, compared to less than $100 million before Musk’s buyout. | 2022-10-12T21:52:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elon Musk’s Twitter Deal Is Different Than Most LBOs, Here’s How - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/elon-musks-twitter-deal-is-different-than-most-lbos-heres-how/2022/10/12/55310cbe-4a6b-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/elon-musks-twitter-deal-is-different-than-most-lbos-heres-how/2022/10/12/55310cbe-4a6b-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
A person typing at a backlit computer keyboard arranged in Danbury, U.K., on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020. In the spring, hackers managed to insert malicious code into a software product from an IT provider called SolarWinds Corp., whose client list includes 300,000 institutions. (Bloomberg)
By the time it all came to light, investors had lost billions of dollars and regulators had shed credibility. That’s when Congress stepped in, with Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael G. Oxley sponsoring the bill that would bear their names.
Sarbanes-Oxley, or SOX, is a long and extensive set of regulations covering areas including the independence of auditors, enhanced financial disclosures, and obstructing an investigation.
One of the most potent parts, Section 302, forces executives to personally attest to the accuracy of their financial disclosures on a quarterly basis. It does so by requiring that a company officer certify that they’ve actually reviewed the report, and that it doesn’t contain any falsehoods. In other words, it removes “plausible deniability” loopholes that could allow C-level executives to commit fraud, or reign over a company where such misdeeds are carried out, while subsequently claiming innocence.
Today, the need for such accountability extends to data. Lawmakers should enact regulation that holds executives personally responsible for information security at the companies they run.
Three recent cases highlight just how crucial that it is.
Last month, an Australian mobile network subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. called Optus was hacked and the records of almost 10 million people stolen. Among the data accessed were customer names, dates of birth, email addresses, passport and drivers license numbers. In Australia, that’s enough information to potentially conduct identify theft under a points system used in the country for identity verification.
Revelations from the breach unveil two particularly disturbing facts about how Optus manages data. First, much of the information appears to be stored as plain-text, meaning there’s no attempt to encrypt or hide it. If a hacker can access the database, then they can read all that information easily. At a minimum, data should be hashed. This is a process that converts information by using mathematical formulas that cannot be easily reversed. It’s useful because a computer system can check whether information provided by a user matches what’s stored while keeping that data hidden.
Even worse, the information was breached through an application programming interface (API) — a portal for sharing data with developers — with Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil saying that Optus had “effectively left the window open.” In summary, Optus stored the data poorly and failed to protect it adequately. The company said it will “vigorously defend” against a legal complaint that it failed to protect the personal information of customers.
Then there are revelations from Twitter Inc. whistleblower Peiter Zatko, commonly known as Mudge, who was hired as Security Lead in November 2020.
Among highlights from Mudge’s 84-page complaint is the allegation that many people within the company had too much power to read and change sensitive data. Its violation of the well-established principle of least privilege — limiting access to the minimum required for their job — was a major contributing factor in a July 2020 breach. In that hack, a 17-year-old and his friends managed to take control of accounts owned by Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
What’s particularly egregious in the Twitter case is that senior executives at the social media company were not only aware of its many security failings, but that Mudge himself was warned against reporting them to the board of the directors. The 51-year-old, who is among the world’s most-respected cybersecurity experts, was fired in January. Twitter Chief Executive Officer Parag Agarwal later described the claims “as riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and presented without important context.”
Finally, we have a guilty verdict handed down last week against Joe Sullivan, the former security chief at Uber Technologies Inc. A California court found that he obstructed a government investigation and concealed a 2016 hack that led to the theft of personal data of 50 million customers and 7 million drivers.
Many take the Uber case as an example of a chief information security officer (CISO) being thrown under the bus for a massive breach. But it wasn’t the hack, or even any poor information security practices, that got Sullivan in trouble. He worked “to hide the data breach from the Federal Trade Commission and took steps to prevent the hackers from being caught,” a US attorney said after the trial.
Hacks and breaches happen. They’re an unfortunate reality in modern society. Yet there are countless cases, including last year’s Colonial Pipeline hack, where best practices weren’t followed and executives weren’t held to account until after the damage had been done. Laws at both the state and federal level require companies to report hacks, but regulation is weak when it comes to ensuring such breaches don’t happen in the first place.
Time has come for preventative compliance to be prescribed and enforced.
Just as the US has Generally Accepted Accounting Principles — with SOX setting up the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to help with compliance — the government should coordinate security standards and hold executives accountable. And since many CISOs are not taken seriously, or even ignored, the principal officers required to sign off need to include not just the security chief but the CEO too. The threat of jail will be a strong incentive to pay attention to how customer data are handled.
Although academics and industry professionals debate the most secure and cost-effective ways to protect data, there are best practices that most can agree on. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, for example, lists methods of hashing and encrypting data that have been tested and verified. Frameworks also exist for how to determine and allocate information-access privileges, maintain software, keep and store network logs, and delete data.
Even with an abundance of accepted practices already established, executives are neither required nor incentivized to ensure they’re applied.
Perhaps the threat of criminal prosecution will finally get corporate leaders to take information security seriously.
• The Race Is On to Fight a Threat That Doesn’t Exist: Tim Culpan
• Insurers Must Brace for Catastrophic Cyber Risk: Olson & Culpan
• Regulators Can Look Into Social Media’s Black Box: Parmy Olson | 2022-10-12T21:52:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cybersecurity Needs Its Own Sarbanes-Oxley - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/cybersecurity-needs-its-own-sarbanes-oxley/2022/10/12/44f00456-4a69-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/cybersecurity-needs-its-own-sarbanes-oxley/2022/10/12/44f00456-4a69-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
How ‘Chip War’ Puts Nations In Technology Arms Race
Analysis by Ian King and Debby Wu | Bloomberg
The incredibly complex, high-stakes business of making semiconductors has always been a battle between global giants. Now it’s also a race among governments. These critical bits of technology -- also known as integrated circuits or, more commonly, just chips -- may be the tiniest yet most exacting products ever manufactured. And because they’re so difficult and costly to produce, there’s a worldwide reliance on just a handful of companies -- a dependence that was brought into stark relief by shortages during the pandemic. At the same time, the US has been ratcheting up curbs on chip companies’ exports to China to contain the rise of a geopolitical and economic rival. Tens of billions of dollars have been committed in a dash to expand production in the coming years -- just as a looming recession began to drastically curb global demand.
1. Why the war over chips?
Chipmaking has become an increasingly precarious business. New plants have a price tag of up to $20 billion, take years to build and need to be run flat-out for 24 hours a day to turn a profit. The scale required has reduced the number of companies with leading-edge technology to just three -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and Intel Corp. of the US. Chipmakers are under increasing scrutiny over what they sell to China, the largest market for chips. Shifts in the global supply chain and recent shortages has governments rushing to subsidize new factories and equipment, from the US and Europe to China and Japan.
2. Why are chips so critical?
They’re the thing that makes electronic items smart. Made from materials deposited on disks of silicon, chips can perform a variety of functions. Memory chips, which store data, are relatively simple and are traded like commodities. Logic chips, which run programs and act as the brains of a device, are more complex and expensive. And as the technology running devices -- from space hardware to refrigerators -- is getting smarter and more connected, semiconductors are more pervasive in the modern world. That explosion has some analysts forecasting that the industry will double in value to become a trillion-dollar market this decade.
3. Is the world short of computer chips?
Pandemic lockdowns and supply-chain shortages made many types of chips scarce for a period of about two years. That event helped usher in this new era, with an increasing realization of their strategic importance. Now that PC and phone demand is cooling off post-pandemic -- and much of the world is falling into a recession -- the cycle has turned. Chipmakers are warning of a glut in certain areas, though some customers including carmakers are still struggling to get enough. Yet for political reasons chipmakers were still poised to add capacity at a time of shaky demand – which could further upend the industry.
4. How’s the competition going?
• In October, the US imposed tighter controls on exports of some chips and chipmaking equipment to China to stop it from developing capabilities that could become a military threat, such as supercomputers and artificial intelligence.
• China is pushing hard to catch up but is facing more US moves to restrict access. Notably, China’s Huawei Technologies Co., which once led the market for mobile phone infrastructure and rivaled Samsung as one of the biggest smartphone makers, was cut off from its primary suppliers. In any case, China has a long way to go and its task is getting harder.
• TSMC had been unveiling bigger budgets, while Samsung was introducing cutting-edge technology ahead of its rivals. TSMC’s revenue is expected to surge 40% this year. In 2021, Samsung overtook Intel to become the world’s largest chipmaker; this year, TSMC is on course to overtake Intel.
• US politicians have decided that they need to do more than just hold back China. The Chips and Science Act, signed into law Aug. 9, will provide $50 billion of federal money to support US production of semiconductors and foster a skilled workforce needed by the industry.
• European Union officials are exploring ways to build an advanced semiconductor factory in Europe, with assistance from Intel and possibly TSMC, as part of its goal to double chip production to 20% of the global market by 2030.
5. How does Taiwan fit into all this?
The island democracy emerged as the dominant player in outsourced chipmaking partly because of a government decision in the 1970s to promote the electronics industry. TSMC almost single-handedly created the business of building chips for others, one that was embraced as the cost of building plants skyrocketed. Large-scale customers like Apple Inc. gave it the massive volume to build industry-leading expertise and now the world now relies on it. Matching its scale and skills would take years and cost a fortune. Politics have made the race about more than money, though, with the US signaling that it will continue efforts to restrict China’s access to American technology used in Taiwan’s foundries. China has long claimed the island, just 100 miles off its coast, as a renegade province and threatened to invade to prevent its independence. Recent military exercises by China have reignited concerns about the world’s dependence on Taiwan for chips. | 2022-10-12T21:52:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How ‘Chip War’ Puts Nations In Technology Arms Race - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-chip-war-puts-nations-in-technology-arms-race/2022/10/12/a6b00df2-4a6a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-chip-war-puts-nations-in-technology-arms-race/2022/10/12/a6b00df2-4a6a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Is a Fetus a Person? The Next Big Abortion Fight Centers on Fetal Rights
Analysis by Kelsey Butler and Patricia Hurtado | Bloomberg
Personhood -- the concept of granting legal rights to the unborn at conception or a couple of months after -- is shaping into the next battleground in the fight over abortion rights in the US. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s June decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, old state rules recognizing fetuses as people have new potency, and conservative state legislatures are pushing for powerful new statutes. Critics of these so-called personhood laws worry they will be used not only to criminalize abortion but also miscarriages, the termination of pregnancies that threaten the mother’s life, and some types of contraception.
1. How do personhood laws differ from abortion bans?
Abortion bans clamp down on the practice, while personhood laws regulate pregnancy much more broadly. The latter grant a fetus, the developmental stage that begins eight weeks after conception, or a zygote or embryo, the two earlier stages, the same legal rights as a person, including the right to life.
2. Are these laws something new?
Not entirely. Even before the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, at least 11 states already had broad personhood language in their constitutions, laws or policies that could be read to affect all state civil and criminal laws, according to the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, a non-profit organization that backs abortion rights. For instance, Alabama adopted a constitutional amendment in 2018 ensuring “the protection of the rights of the unborn,” while Missouri since 1986 has had a law that defines life as beginning at conception. An additional five states -- Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, South Dakota and Texas -- had defined “person” as including a fetus throughout the state criminal code, according to the group.
Until the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this kind of language was largely symbolic because Roe v. Wade had guaranteed a right to abortion throughout the country. Now that states have the latitude to make their own rules on abortion, personhood laws and policies have the potential to carry real weight. Georgia is a case in point. Its 2019 personhood law had been blocked by a court as unconstitutional, but after the Dobbs hearing, an appeals court cleared it to take effect in July. The statute, the most expansive of its type in the country, prohibits abortion after six weeks, explicitly recognizes the fetus at that point as a person, and could provide a blueprint for other conservative states as it essentially extends criminal and civil law to cover fetuses. The law provides expectant mothers a $3,000 tax credit per fetus and allows them to file for child support during pregnancy; it also instructs state officials to include fetuses in population counts.
4. Where’s the legislative push?
Ohio lawmakers proposed a law in July that would ban abortions at conception instead of at the six-week mark as the current law provides. In Oklahoma, where a total abortion ban has been in place since May, a bill “equating rights of unborn persons to rights of born persons” has passed one chamber of the legislature. An Arizona law grants personhood to fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses, but in July a court blocked it from being used to criminalize providers of abortion, which is prohibited in the state after 15 weeks. Other personhood statutes have been introduced in statehouses in Iowa, Vermont, South Carolina and West Virginia, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an advocacy organization that supports abortion rights. A federal personhood law was introduced last year in both houses of Congress and attracted 166 cosponsors in the House of Representatives, out of 435 total members. It specified that the right to life “is vested in each human being at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization.”
5. What are possible implications of personhood laws?
• Because personhood laws grant a zygote, embryo or fetus rights equal to those of the pregnant woman, the latter may be held criminally liable for harm that comes to the former. Those who obtain an abortion could be charged with murder. The laws could make it more likely that those who miscarry are investigated for negligently or intentionally ending their pregnancies, with some of them prosecuted. Even without these laws, some women’s rights advocates say that feticide and child endangerment laws -- originally passed to protect pregnant women as well as the unborn -- are increasingly being used to prosecute women for crimes such as assault or murder after miscarriages and stillbirths. About 1,300 women were arrested or charged in the US from 2006 to 2020 for their actions during pregnancy, three times the number for the 33 years prior, according to the National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
• Depending on their wording, personhood laws could make it illegal for a doctor to terminate a pregnancy even when there is a life-threatening complication, such as when a fertilized egg implants ectopically, that is, outside the uterus where it can’t survive. Georgia’s law explicitly excludes terminating ectopic pregnancies, whereas the Arizona law was unacceptably vague on this point, according to the judge who blocked it.
• Critics worry that personhood laws could take away the rights of patients to decide what to do with embryos created through in vitro fertilization, although some of the proposed statutes make exceptions for this case. Georgia’s law applies only to an “unborn child” who is “carried in the womb.”
• There are also concerns the laws could criminalize the use of two birth control methods, the morning-after pill and the intrauterine device (IUD). Both work by preventing fertilization, but some anti-abortion activists incorrectly argue that they can stop implantation of a fertilized egg.
6. What has the Supreme Court said about personhood?
When the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade in 1973, it rejected the argument that a fetus was a person with all the protections, including the right to life, of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees all citizens “equal protection of the laws.” Justice Harry Blackmun, in the majority opinion, concluded that in the context of the Fourteenth Amendment, a “person” did “not include the unborn.” A fetus, he said, is not a person but “potential life.” Writing for the majority in the Dobbs decision, Justice Samuel Alito concluded that Roe was “egregiously wrong” in supporting a constitutional right to abortion, but his ruling explicitly dodged the question of “when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth.” In October, the high court declined to take up an appeal by a Catholic group and two women of a lower court’s ruling on a personhood case. In that ruling, a Rhode Island said that fetuses lacked the proper legal standing to challenge a 2019 state law codifying the right to abortion. | 2022-10-12T21:52:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Is a Fetus a Person? The Next Big Abortion Fight Centers on Fetal Rights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-a-fetus-a-person-the-next-big-abortion-fight-centers-on-fetal-rights/2022/10/12/ad47ef44-4a5c-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-a-fetus-a-person-the-next-big-abortion-fight-centers-on-fetal-rights/2022/10/12/ad47ef44-4a5c-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Kindergarten teacher Lindsey Lienau does a headcount of her students at Lyles-Crouch Traditional Academy in Alexandria, VA on August 19, 2022. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Updated coronavirus booster shots are now available for children as young as 5, following an emergency authorization Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration.
A few hours after the FDA action, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommended the shots — the final step before the vaccines can be administered.
The reformulated boosters are bivalent — they include components of the original strain of the virus and of omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, which make up about 80 percent of the virus circulating in the United States, according to the CDC.
Health officials said the re-engineered boosters are needed to bolster protection that has waned since previous vaccinations and to counter new variants that are more transmissible and capable of evading immune defenses.
The FDA gave emergency use authorization to the Pfizer-BioNTech updated booster shot for children 5 to 11. That shot was already cleared for individuals 12 and older. The agency also authorized the updated Moderna booster for children 6 to 17. Previously, it had been authorized for those 18 and older.
“Since children have gone back to school in person and people are resuming pre-pandemic behaviors and activities, there is the potential for increased risk of exposure to the virus that causes covid-19,” Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine official, said in a statement. “Vaccination remains the most effective measure to prevent the severe consequences of covid-19, including hospitalization and death.”
The new Moderna boosters are available immediately in pharmacies and doctors’ offices, federal officials said. The Pfizer-BioNTech boosters are expected to be available next week. The old monovalent booster shots are no longer authorized for these age groups, the FDA said.
The new boosters are “very good news for children and their families,” said James Campbell, professor of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He said some adults inaccurately minimize the risk that covid poses to children.
“It is a mistake to believe that children do not get sick, or severely sick, from covid,” Campbell said. “And it is a mistake to persistently compare the severity of covid in children to covid in adults.”
Instead, he said, covid should be compared to other pediatric illnesses, adding that covid is near the top of causes of death among children.
But whether parents will get their children the retooled boosters is far from clear. Since the FDA rushed out the bivalent boosters for older age groups in late August, the uptake has been disappointingly slow. Only about 11.5 million Americans have received the updated shots, according to CDC data through Oct. 6.
On Tuesday, Ashish Jha, the White House covid-19 coordinator, called on Americans to get the redesigned boosters by Halloween so that the protection kicks in by Thanksgiving.
“If you are up to date with your vaccines and if you get treated, if you have a breakthrough infection, your risk of dying from covid is now close to zero,” Jha said in a briefing Tuesday.
He and other Biden administration officials have expressed concern that cooler weather will bring a surge of covid cases as people move indoors and respiratory infections spread.
Vaccinations of children and adolescents with the primary two-shot series also have lagged. Only 31 percent of children 5 to 11 years old have gotten the two shots, and 58 percent of 12-to-17-year-olds have completed the series, according to an American Academy of Pediatrics analysis of CDC data.
The updated boosters can be administered at least two months after the initial, two-shot series of the vaccine or after a previous booster.
In authorizing the new boosters for younger people, the FDA said it relied on data on safety and immune responses it had previously evaluated in a clinical study involving adults who got a booster with components from the original strain and omicron BA.1.
The FDA “considers such data as relevant and supportive of vaccines containing a component of the omicron variant BA.4 and BA.5 lineages,” the agency said. The FDA also scrutinized other data, including how the vaccine performs in the real world.
FDA officials have said that authorization of a bivalent booster for children younger than 5 is several months away.
The federal government bought more than 170 million doses of bivalent coronavirus vaccine boosters for distribution as part of a planned campaign for fall and early winter to increase protection against circulating strains of the virus. | 2022-10-12T21:52:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Updated coronavirus boosters now available for children as young as 5 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/12/coronavirus-booster-young-kids/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/12/coronavirus-booster-young-kids/ |
Angela Lansbury displays her 1990 Golden Globe Award for "Murder, She Wrote." (Douglas C. Pizac/AP)
How I will miss Angela Lansbury. Almost 97 years old at her death Tuesday, and the source of so many indelible performances — a body of work that could see you from the cradle (“Beauty and the Beast”) to the end of life (“A Little Night Music”) and even beyond (“Blithe Spirit,” in which she won a Tony for playing an eccentric medium). She left a memorable character at every stage of life, sometimes, indeed, skipping a step forward, as when she played the mother of a man just three years her junior in “The Manchurian Candidate.”
Obituary: Angela Lansbury, Broadway luminary and ‘Murder, She Wrote’ star, dies at 96
Opinion|Angela Lansbury could make even murder feel cozy | 2022-10-12T21:53:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Angela Lansbury made even 'Murder, She Wrote' feel cozy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/angela-lansbury-obituary-murder-she-wrote/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/12/angela-lansbury-obituary-murder-she-wrote/ |
Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters, left, and former vice president Mike Pence listen to a question during a news conference Tuesday in Phoenix. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
Blake Masters, a Republican Senate nominee in Arizona, appeared on Fox News on Wednesday afternoon, where host Harris Faulkner pressed him on his views about the 2020 election. Not that Masters has repeatedly stated that Donald Trump should still be in the White House, mind you — a claim that demands explication — but that Masters had seemingly backed off the position, removing a statement to that effect from his campaign website.
“Sixty percent of the country will see somebody on a ballot somewhere who believes that the 2020 election was not fair and that Joe Biden actually — this is according to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies — and that Joe Biden is not the legitimate winner of the 2020 election,” Faulkner said. “Seventy percent of people polled are saying that.” So why had Masters removed his statement that, with “a free and fair election,” Trump would still be president?
We’ll come back to the framing by Faulkner there in a second. Let’s first consider Masters’s response.
“I think if everyone followed the law, President Trump would be in the Oval Office,” he said. “Look at how the FBI pressured Facebook and other big tech companies to censor true information about Hunter Biden’s very serious crimes in the weeks before the election. … I think that one act of corporate censorship, of big tech censorship? That sent Biden into the White House.”
Four things about this.
First, this is not a new angle for Masters to take. As he told Faulkner, he said the same thing during the debate in which he participated last week.
Second, it’s nonsense, top to bottom. The FBI didn’t “pressure” Facebook to “censor information”; it warned that Russia might try to influence the 2020 election the way it had the 2016 election. Facebook limited the reach of a New York Post story about electronic material belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter out of concern that it may have been part of a Russian ploy. Whether the material detailed “very serious crimes” is a point of debate within the Justice Department, it seems, but there’s no real reason to think that there’s a significant pool of voters who 1) didn’t hear about the material and 2) would have changed their votes as a function of it.
Third, Masters’s effort to constrain his analysis of what happened in 2020 to Nefarious Big Tech was soon abandoned. He also pointed out to Faulkner that “states changed the rules to flood the zone with mail-in ballots,” which he described as “messed up.” This has been a recurring theme within his party as well, and it’s a pretty revealing one. After all, consider what he’s saying: States made it easier to vote (because of the pandemic), and more people voted. During the debate he rejected the idea that rampant fraud had occurred. So he’s not saying more mail ballots let fraud happen; he’s simply taking issue with more people voting — with bolstering democracy itself.
And then there’s the fourth point: Far from charting a novel path through the underbrush of post-election nonsense, Masters is following a course that’s by now well-worn. He’s embracing a cop-out approach that pivots from the rampant belief that the election was stolen to one intentionally crafted to be harder to prove false. He is not being clever here; he’s being timid: wanting to appeal to Republicans who insist that something sketchy happened but without being willing to join them in their actual beliefs.
The Republican base does, in fact, believe that the election was stolen due to rampant voter fraud — or so they tell pollsters. In December, The Washington Post and its partners at the University of Maryland asked if there was solid evidence of widespread fraud; well over half of Republicans said there was, though there wasn’t then and isn’t now. Monmouth University’s been asking people if President Biden won because of fraud consistently since the election happened. On average, almost two-thirds of Republicans have said that he did.
When Masters offered up his Facebook-did-it theory, Faulkner marveled at the idea.
“That’s interesting because that has nothing to do with the election process,” she said, wondering if polls even asked about that theory. Well, no, because there’s no need to. That 70 percent of people who say Biden wasn’t the legitimate winner she cited is almost entirely Republicans, of course, and they’re perfectly content thinking that there’s real evidence that fraud was committed across multiple states to the tune of tens of thousands of votes and that every single person involved has kept mum and no evidence of this happening has emerged. Either it’s the perfect crime or — and bear with me here — it’s no crime at all.
But Masters doesn’t want to say that. He wants to have his base and sidestep it, too. He’s just the latest in a long line of Republicans trying to present as tough-guy opponents of a historic wrong who also want to not be pinned down as full of nonsense.
It began in December 2020. The first member of the Senate to announce that he would protest electoral votes submitted on Biden’s behalf was Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). In a statement released on Dec. 30, 2020, Hawley announced that he would oppose the results from Pennsylvania, ensuring a flurry of headlines from pro-Trump media and praise from Trump himself. (Both of which he got.) Like Masters, though, he didn’t claim fraud, just that, you know, the rules were changed and shouldn’t have been. That the specific rule he mentioned had already been evaluated by Pennsylvania courts and allowed to stand was neither here nor there. The cop-out “the election was rigged!!!” narrative was born.
Oh, Hawley also noted the “unprecedented effort of mega corporations” Facebook and Twitter.
A writer for the right-wing Federalist blog quickly rushed out a book titled “Rigged,” hoping to tap into a market for rationalization that’s still overflowing with capitalist opportunity. She went on Tucker Carlson’s show to promote it, and he did the thing you’re not supposed to do: He asked her if she thought fraud had actually occurred.
Tucker! Not helpful, man! We’re trying to preserve the idea that maybe there was some fraud so that the base thinks we’re on their side while also keep the wackadoodle claims at a distance so that we can still be considered serious! You’re collapsing a very important wall!
After fumbling a bit, she stated that “it’s important to think about what happened in general.” Whew. Wall rebuilt. Or, really, it’s a motte-and-bailey defense. Claim the election was stolen and that Trump should be president and then, when pressed, retreat to the “well, look what Big Tech did!!” position.
You can say that you think Facebook shouldn’t have limited sharing of the Hunter Biden story. You can say that you think the laptop raises important questions and deserved more of a hearing than it got. Fine. Fair enough. But you can’t say that the FBI “pressured” Facebook and that this “sent Biden into the White House” because that didn’t happen and there’s no reason to think that the Facebook decision is why Biden won. Biden’s odds of winning were never less than about twice Trump’s, according to polling averages; the idea that this story about his son would have closed that gap entirely — a story, mind you, that did prompt a lot of discussion — is simply ridiculous.
But what’s Masters going to say? That there was no fraud and Trump lost because he was wildly unpopular for promoting the same policies that Masters himself supports? Why say that, why say he’s been dishonest for months, when people like Hawley and that Federalist person already found the clearest path through the thicket?
Why be brave when being timid is so much easier? | 2022-10-12T21:53:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Big tech did it’ is the coward’s version of ‘the election was stolen’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/masters-arizona-trump-false-claims-election/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/masters-arizona-trump-false-claims-election/ |
Brugge’s goalkeeper Simon Mignolet celebrates with Brugge’s Andreas Skov Olsen after the group B Champions League soccer match between Atletico Madrid and Club Brugge at the Wanda Metropolitano stadium in Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
MADRID — No matter how, goalkeeper Simon Mignolet was going to make sure Club Brugge got the point it needed to advance to the last 16 of the Champions League for the first time in three decades.
Mignolet made save after save, including one with his face in the final minutes at the Metropolitano Stadium, as Club Brugge held Atlético Madrid to a 0-0 draw Wednesday to become only the second Belgian club to reach the round of 16 in the European competition. | 2022-10-12T21:55:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brugge draws with Atlético, advances in Champions League - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/brugge-draws-with-atletico-advances-in-champions-league/2022/10/12/038d95ae-4a60-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/brugge-draws-with-atletico-advances-in-champions-league/2022/10/12/038d95ae-4a60-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Audit detailing city’s record offers guide for what other communities should be demanding to know about their police departments
Five years ago, I found myself waiting for a comment from a police officer who had shot three people in just over three years, including an unarmed man he chased down an alley and fatally injured. The officer had been fired, and then in a pattern that has become all too common across the country, got his job back.
I had contacted him to let him know we planned to run a story about his history on the force and offer him the chance to share his perspective.
His response came in a text.
“No comment,” he wrote, followed by an obscenity.
Philadelphia had to rehire an officer who shot three people in three years
Before working on that story, which ran in 2017 as part of a Washington Post investigative project that detailed how fired law enforcement officers are routinely rehired, I was naive. I had covered the criminal justice system long enough to know it often took community outrage and decisions by the top brass for officers to lose their jobs. But, like many people, I also believed that when officers committed crimes and other acts egregious enough to get them fired, they stayed off the force.
Except they don’t. Many get their jobs back and, at a high cost to taxpayers, often receive back pay for the years it takes to make that happen.
They have returned after being convicted of sexual assaults.
They have returned after being charged with child abuse.
They have returned after their bosses have evaluated their behavior and decided the public is less safe with them carrying a gun.
About a week ago, the Office of the D.C. Auditor released a report that detailed the Metropolitan Police Department’s record when it comes to terminating officers. The findings show that 37 fired D.C. officers got their jobs back between 2015 and 2021, and they collectively received more than $14 million in back pay.
“On average, it took approximately eight years to terminate and reinstate an MPD officer,” the report reads. “The average amount of backpay the District was required to pay the officer was $374,000. The labor from several D.C. government agencies to support the arbitration and appeals function cost an estimated $895,000 annually.”
The report is important because it highlights the difficulty the police department has faced in getting rid of officers deemed unfit for the job, and what that means for public safety. “It is the mission of the MPD to safeguard the District of Columbia and protect its residents and visitors,” the report says. “The reinstatement of officers terminated for misconduct increases the risk that MPD will not fully achieve its mission.”
But as I read through the report, it occurred to me that it could also serve as a guide for what other communities across the country should be demanding to know about their police departments. The nation’s capital is unique in many ways, but its struggle with firing unwanted officers is not.
“ODCA’s analyses of District of Columbia police terminations and reinstatements were consistent with national trends,” reads a line in the report.
For too long the processes that lead to fired officers being rehired have occurred out of the public eye. Getting detailed information about those cases has required filing public records requests, digging through court documents and building sources from within police departments. But it shouldn’t be that hard.
Every community deserves to know how many officers on its streets have been fired and rehired, how they got their jobs back and how much that process has cost taxpayers.
Revealing that information is not anti-police. It is pro-police in that if done consistently and transparently, it stands to build trust between communities and the many officers who perform in ways every day that honor their badges.
In earlier columns, I have told you about some of the positive actions taken by D.C. officers. I have also told you about community complaints filed against D.C. officers that have eroded the public’s trust.
I have done that in hopes of pushing us away from the easy narratives of the police vs. the public, and toward more complex conversations that will hopefully produce solutions that improve public safety.
A D.C. police officer explains why he took a knee before protesters. His reason matters.
Having cops with troublesome pasts and concerning temperament on police forces does not benefit the public, other officers or the men and women who have to supervise them.
The recent D.C. report offers details about individual cases. It describes an officer as being found guilty in a criminal court after he was charged with exposing his genitals to women in a parking lot. Another officer, according to the report, got into a confrontation with a grocery store cashier and later, when talking about the incident, said, “Illegal immigrants need to go back to where they came from.” She also used a slur for gay people after another confrontation, the report says.
In other cases, officers were charged with behavior that included soliciting an undercover officer posing as a prostitute, striking a handcuffed individual in the head several times with an elbow, and sexual abuse. The report describes one officer as pleading guilty to driving while intoxicated after his vehicle crossed the center line on a road and hit another vehicle. After the crash, according to the report, a female passenger was found unconscious and partially nude on the floor of his passenger seat, along with his loaded and unholstered firearm.
All of those officers got their jobs back and received back pay.
The report found that some of the 37 officers were reinstated because the police department failed “to meet deadlines, follow procedures, and provide adequate evidence.” But the most common reason the firings were overturned, it found, was because an arbitrator, or third-party reviewer, determined that the punishment was excessive for the officer’s misconduct. The city, according to my colleague’s reporting, has not used arbitration since the city passed emergency legislation in 2020 that made it easier for the police chief to fire officers.
The report offers recommendations for city officials who are addressing the patterns it found, and it is in the interest of D.C. residents to watch what officials do with those.
It is also in the interest of people who live outside the city, since the issues highlighted in the report exist in communities across the country, many that don’t have governments that are looking as closely at their police departments.
That case I wrote about for The Post’s investigative project did not take place in the District, but it had a common link. The Philadelphia police commissioner who tried to fire that officer was Charles H. Ramsey, who served as D.C. police chief.
More than that colorful “no comment” I received at the time, what Ramsey had to say about being forced to reinstate fired officers stayed with me.
“It’s demoralizing, but not just to the chief,” he said. “It’s demoralizing to the rank and file who really don’t want to have those kinds of people in their ranks. It causes a tremendous amount of anxiety in the public. Our credibility is shot whenever these things happen.” | 2022-10-12T22:04:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. has a problem with firing bad cops. So do many places. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/police-fire-rehire-audit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/police-fire-rehire-audit/ |
The California DJ was a radio mainstay for 79 years, known for helping to pioneer the “oldies” format and for hosting a popular requests-and-dedication show
Radio DJ Art Laboe and rock musician Chuck Berry circa 1975. Laboe, who popularized the “oldies” format, died at 97. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
With his cheery baritone and enthusiasm for old rock, R&B, doo-wop and soul, Art Laboe was a fixture of West Coast radio for 79 years. The gregarious Los Angeles disc jockey was considered as much a voice of the city as Dodgers announcer Vin Scully or Lakers sportscaster Chick Hearn.
Mr. Laboe, who died Oct. 7 at 97, broadcast from radio stations across California and the Southwest, where his call-in show served as a community bulletin board and gathering space, a platform for children to dedicate songs to their parents or for friends to send out messages of love or support. His audience included generations of Mexican Americans, who forged close bonds with the Armenian American DJ while calling in to request songs from artists like Sister Sledge, Freddy Fender and Big Joe Turner.
“His show was the first place a young Chicano kid had to air his feelings, the first place you could say something and be heard,” Ruben Molina, the author of books on Chicano music and culture, said in a 2009 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “It was like an intercom where you could tell the world — our world — ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I love so-and-so,’ and everyone knew the next day.”
Mr. Laboe was still working until his death, albeit at a more leisurely pace than when he rose to prominence in the mid-1950s, hosting an all-night record show where he interviewed teenagers and other night owls until 4 a.m. He was one of the first DJs to play rock music on the West Coast, one of the first to play White and Black artists on the same program, and one of the first to pioneer the “oldies” radio format, playing 1950s and ’60s artists long after they disappeared from the pop charts.
“If you have to define an oldie, I’d say we look for songs that fit a particular time and place, penetrated people’s lives and caused the listener to think of where he was and what he or she was doing when first hearing the song,” he told Billboard magazine in 1974. “You may not remember the group’s name, but you remember the song.”
For many listeners, he was best known for his dedication-and-request show, “The Art Laboe Connection,” which was broadcast in recent years on 93.5 KDAY in Los Angeles. By the 1990s, the show had emerged as a way for family members to reach loved ones in prison, and often featured song dedications for incarcerated people in California, Arizona and Nevada.
More often, his conversations with listeners were upbeat, dwelling on love and relationships. “Art,” said one caller in 2009, “I want you to tell my husband, Juanito, ‘You’re my Chicano king. I’m your bootylicious. I can’t live without you. I’ll never let you go.’ And I want you to blow him a big kiss for me and play ‘You’re My Shining Star.’ ”
“OK, Juanita,” Mr. Laboe replied. “Here goes that kiss. … Muaah!”
Arthur Egnoian was born in Salt Lake City on Aug. 7, 1925. His mother was a homemaker, and his father worked at a smelting plant and died when Mr. Laboe was a boy, according to his executive assistant and show producer, Joanna Morones.
Mr. Laboe grew up in Los Angeles, where he was raised in part by two older sisters and fell in love with radio. The medium “opened up new doors for a guy who wasn’t a big, good-looking hunk,” said Mr. Laboe, who stood just over 5 feet tall.
“I used to sit with my hands on my chin looking into the grill cloth,” he told NPR, “imagining somebody at the other end.”
Mr. Laboe studied at Stanford University and served in the Navy, training in the Signal Corps — an experience that helped him land his first radio job, at the San Francisco station KSAN, which hired him when he was 17. After a station manager suggested he adopt a more conventionally American-sounding name, he became Art Laboe, taking the last name of a secretary.
By the mid-1950s he was hosting a radio show in Los Angeles, where he played early rock hits while other DJs stuck with tunes by Dean Martin or Doris Day. “It was like a tidal wave, and kids went nuts for it,” he told L.A. Weekly in 2005.
“Everyone was playing Sinatra’s ‘My Way,’ and all of a sudden I come and say, ‘Hey, mothers, gather up your daughters, here comes Art Laboe and his devil music!’ ”
Taking the microphone out of the studio, he would broadcast live from Scrivner’s Drive-In restaurant in Hollywood, where he was sometimes joined by pop musicians such as Ricky Nelson. Mr. Laboe would take requests for songs, allowing teenagers to select from a list of tracks that he would then play on-air. “You pick ’em, you dedicate ’em and you get ’em,’ ” he would say.
At the bottom of the request sheet were songs he called “oldies but goodies,” tracks like the Penguins’ “Earth Angel” or Johnny Ace’s “Pledging My Love,” which were a few years old but consistently got picked by listeners.
The show drew Mexican American teenagers from L.A.’s Eastside, helping Mr. Laboe forge a connection with the city’s Chicano population. He went on to organize a host of oldies shows in addition to promoting concerts featuring popular musicians such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers and Ray Charles.
Mr. Laboe also got into the compilation-album business. As he told it, he was on a date, listening to 45-rpm singles and fooling around on the couch, when he kept getting interrupted by problems with the record player. “Every time things got interesting, the spindle would stick or something else would go wrong and I had to get up and fix it,” he recalled. “Finally, this girl said, ‘Why doesn’t someone put those things into an album?’ ”
By 1959, he had released “Oldies But Goodies Vol. 1,” which featured songs by groups including the Five Satins and the Teen Queens and inspired more than a dozen sequels. He increasingly focused on his record business in the 1960s, and by the early ’70s was working at the Los Angeles station KRTH, which helped establish the oldies radio format. He also ran an oldies dance club on the Sunset Strip, at what is now the Comedy Store; bought radio stations in Tucson and Fresno, Calif.; and worked on music licensing for movies including “American Graffiti,” “Dirty Dancing” and “Lethal Weapon.”
Mr. Laboe was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2012. He died at his home in Palm Springs, Calif., after being diagnosed with pneumonia, said Morones, his assistant. He was twice married and divorced, predeceased by two sons, and leaves no immediate survivors, aside from his dedicated audience. “My listeners,” he once told the Los Angeles Times, “they are like a family.” | 2022-10-12T22:04:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Art Laboe dies at 97; DJ played (and popularized) ‘oldies but goodies’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/12/oldies-dj-art-laboe-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/12/oldies-dj-art-laboe-dead/ |
Stephanie Dabney, acclaimed ballerina who inspired Black dancers, dies at 64
She gained international renown for her role in the Dance Theater of Harlem’s modern take of ‘The Firebird’ by Igor Stravinsky
Dance Theatre of Harlem dancers Ronald Perry, left, and Stephanie Dabney perform “Rondo Capriccioso” in March 1989. (Jack Mitchell/Getty Images)
Stephanie Dabney, a former Dance Theater of Harlem prima ballerina who inspired a generation of Black dancers with her signature role as the red-plumed heroine in a modern reimagining of “The Firebird” and other performances that helped reshape classical ballet, died Sept. 28 at a health-care facility in Manhattan. She was 64.
Her death was announced by the Dance Theater of Harlem, where she performed until her retirement in 1996. Ms. Dabney, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1990, had numerous health crises over the years.
Ms. Dabney’s style on stage — crisp and minimalist with jolts of athletic power and soaring leaps — became a standard-setter for the Dance Theater of Harlem for nearly 20 years as the company explored new expressions of classical ballet.
A breakthrough moment for Ms. Dabney came on Jan. 12, 1982, when the Dance Theatre debuted its reinterpretation of Igor Stravinsky’s 1910 “The Firebird,” restaged in a tropical setting with Ms. Dabney in the title role with choreography by John Taras. Ms. Dabney’s performance, wearing a feathered crown and short tutu with flowing crimson tulle, received strong reviews and came to define the contemporary version of the role, in which the Firebird helps a man end the immortality of the “prince of evil.”
“The feeling of the ballet is very tropical, very erotic and very jungle,” Ms. Dabney told the Los Angeles Times.
In 1982, “The Firebird” was showcased in a Peabody Award-winning episode of the PBS series “Kennedy Center Tonight” that chronicled rehearsals and Ms. Dabney’s preparations.
She went on to bring her Firebird interpretations to audiences around the world, including the Olympic Arts Festival before the 1984 Los Angeles Games and in May 1988 in Moscow as part of cultural exchanges with the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. “The woman who danced your Firebird, she was wonderful, as if created for this role,” said Gorbachev’s wife, Raisa, as she spoke backstage to Arthur Mitchell, the co-founder and director of the Dance Theater of Harlem, the New York Times reported.
The role trailblazed by Ms. Dabney became a career highlight for other Black ballerinas including Misty Copeland, Lauren Anderson and Charmaine Hunter, who said her “body never hurt so badly” from the demands of the choreography.
“[Ms. Dabney] really transformed into a bird,” Diarra Cummings, a former ballerina with the Dance Theater of Harlem, told TheBody, a website on issues related to HIV/AIDS. “She wasn’t just a ballerina. She didn’t look human on stage. She became the part.”
Ms. Dabney was hailed for other ballet roles. A New York Times review called her “unforgettably poetic” as the lead of Frederic Franklin’s version of “Giselle” in 1989 set in Creole Louisiana. In 1990, Washington Post dance critic Alan M. Kriegsman wrote that Ms. Dabney “used her incisive technique and erotic voltage to perfect advantage” in George Balanchine’s “Four Temperaments.”
Yet it was “Firebird” that seemed most to touch Ms. Dabney’s artistic soul after joining the Harlem company at 16.
“I feel like a bird,” she told the Buffalo News in 1982. “I feel free when I’m dancing.”
Faced racism
Stephanie Renee Dabney was born in Philadelphia on July 11, 1958, and raised in Youngstown, Ohio, where her father had a medical practice as an osteopath and her mother cared for the family at home.
Ms. Dabney began dance lessons at 4 at Ballet Western Reserve in Youngstown. It was a haven, she recalled. The family had moved into a mostly White area, where it was vividly clear they weren’t welcome.
“The whole neighborhood put up petitions to keep us out,” she told the Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1985. “There were bomb threats. I remember riding my bike and falling off and a little [White] girl across the street started applauding.”
As a teenager, Ms. Dabney saw the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Youngstown — giving her a first look at professional Black dancers. She received a scholarship to study modern dance at the Ailey School in New York. Before she went, she took a ballet class with Dance Theater founding director Mitchell during a visit to Youngstown by the company. She was entranced by the classical precision and tradition.
Shortly after starting at Ailey, she left for the Dance Theater of Harlem school. Mitchell brought her on as an apprentice dancer in 1975 when she was 16. She soon became a full member of the troupe — often drawing good-natured ribbing from other dancers for her love of all things pink in her dressing area.
After testing positive for HIV, Ms. Dabney was gripped by fear at a time when treatment options were limited and the dance world was mourning towering figures who died of AIDS-related illnesses such as Alvin Ailey and later Rudolf Nureyev and Ulysses Dove.
“There goes my career,” Ms. Dabney recalled as her initial thoughts to Dance Magazine in 2000. “If I get too sick to dance, what am I going to do? How am I going to tell my brother and sister?” (Her two siblings are her only immediate survivors.)
She took time off from the Dance Theater to become resident artist at the Atlanta Ballet, then returned to New York to perform until 1994. She remained in a guest artist role until retiring in 1996. The same year, she suffered from four bouts of severe pneumonia.
“My lung collapsed,” she said in the Dance Magazine interview. “I had a chest-tube pump in me for eight weeks. I remember the doctor coming into my room, surprised, saying ‘Hi, I didn’t think you would be here.’ He thought I wasn’t going to make it through the night. That freaked me out.”
Ms. Dabney taught ballet at Spelman College in Atlanta in the late 1990s then returned to Manhattan, first using a cane and later a wheelchair.
Regardless of her own health, she often put aside time to talk with young dancers, repeating a lifelong message about the transformative power of art and devotion to a craft.
“What we’re showing is if you are disciplined and do good, clean, honest hard work,” she said. “that gives you a positive option to the ills of society.” | 2022-10-12T22:04:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stephanie Dabney, ballerina who defined 'Firebird' role, dies at 64 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/12/stephanie-dabney-ballerina-black-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/12/stephanie-dabney-ballerina-black-dies/ |
US and Mexico reach agreement on plans for Venezuelan migrants
Kevin Sieff
A Venezuelan migrant couple seeking asylum kiss after crossing the Rio Bravo river to turn themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents to request asylum in El Paso, Texas, U.S., as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico October 6, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez (Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)
The United States and Mexico reached an agreement that will allow U.S. authorities to send some Venezuelan migrants back across the border while expanding opportunities for others to apply for legal entry through U.S. consulates abroad, officials said Wednesday.
The arrangement is modeled after Biden administration program that has allowed nearly 70,000 Ukrainians to enter the United States over the past year with a legal status known as humanitarian parole. Applicants must have a person or organization willing to sponsor them financially, and present themselves at U.S. consulates abroad, not at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Venezuelans approved for the program will be allowed to fly to the United States and seek faster approval for work authorization, instead of attempting a dangerous overland journey.
“The actions the United States and Mexico are announcing today are intended to address the most acute irregular migration and help ease pressure on the cities and states receiving these individuals,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
“Effective immediately, Venezuelans who enter the United States between ports of entry, without authorization, will be returned to Mexico,” the statement said. “At the same time, the United States and Mexico are reinforcing their coordinated enforcement operations to target human smuggling organizations and bring them to justice.”
The Mexican government said the U.S. has agreed to allow 24,000 Venezuelans to reach the United States by air under the terms of the accord. Mexico, in an effort to discourage Venezuelans from heading directly to the border, will agree to accept Venezuelan migrants under Title 42, a pandemic measure ostensibly designed to protect public health.
Mexico will allow Venezuelans who are currently in Mexico to apply for entry into the United States under the new humanitarian program. But Venezuelans who are new arrivals in Mexico will be detained by the country’s immigration authority and possibly deported, officials said.
Deporting Venezuelans from the United States or Mexico has been difficult because the Venezuelan government has frequently refused to allow deportation flights into the country. Mexico has reluctantly accepted U.S. demands on Title 42 since the policy was implemented in 2020. But it would not previously accept Venezuelans largely because of the deportation challenges.
Mexican officials say the program will work only if the U.S. agrees to accept a significant number of Venezuelans under the new visa program, so that migrants believe they have a viable alternative to transiting through Central America.
“We will be watching the program to make sure the numbers are sufficient,” said a Mexican official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the agreement.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday an increase the allotment of work visas, adding 65,000 H2-B visas for temporary non-agricultural workers. Of those, 20,000 visas will be reserved for people from Central America and Haiti, according to the department.
With a record number of Venezuelan migrants entering the United States across the southern border in recent months, Biden officials have been scrambling to head off a humanitarian and logistical emergency created by the influx.
Most of the migrants sent on buses by the Republican governors of Arizona and Texas to northern U.S. cities are Venezuelans. New York City mayor Eric Adams said his city’s shelter system has been overwhelmed by their numbers, declaring a crisis.
Administration officials familiar with the plan said the agreement has been contingent on getting Mexico to agree to take back more migrants expelled by U.S. authorities using Title 42.
Mexico has limited the number of migrants it receives, citing its shelter capacity limits, and has allowed the U.S. to return relatively few Venezuelans.
Roughly 1,000 Venezuelans have been crossing the U.S. southern border per day in recent weeks, according to the latest available data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
One official familiar with the program expressed skepticism that the U.S. program would be successful if Mexico only agrees to the return of a few hundred migrants per day at the border.
U.S. authorities have virtually no ability to send Venezuelans back to their home country on deportation flights, because the U.S. does not recognize Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro as the country’s legitimate president.
Venezuelans who aren’t “expelled” to Mexico under Title 42 would continue to be allowed to enter the United States, and if the new program generates backlogs and long queues at U.S. consulates abroad, some of those applicants may not be willing to wait.
Nearly 7 million Venezuelans have left their homeland since 2013, according to the latest United Nations estimates. Many settled in Colombia, Peru and other South American nations, but have opted to make the journey north to the United States in search of better security and economic opportunity.
Venezuelan Migrants Are New Border Challenge for Biden
The Biden administration attempted to end the Title 42 public health policy but was blocked in federal court in May.
Critics said the agreement with Mexico appeared to be another indication of the administration’s dependency on Title 42.
“The contours of the Humanitarian Parole Program for Venezuelans have not been presented to us, but we are extremely disturbed by the apparent acceptance, codification, and expansion of the use of Title 42, an irrelevant health order, as a cornerstone of border policy. One that expunges the legal right to asylum,” said Thomas Cartwright, an immigrant advocate with the group Witness at the Border.
Miroff reported from Washington, D.C., and Sieff from Mexico City. | 2022-10-12T22:52:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | US and Mexico reach agreement on plans for Venezuelan migrants - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/12/united-states-mexico-venezuelans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/12/united-states-mexico-venezuelans/ |
At trial, witnesses testify that the Oath Keepers repeatedly discussed a violent takeover of the U.S. government
Carol D. Leonnig
A demonstrator wears an Oath Keepers badge on a protective vest during a protest in D.C. on Jan. 5, 2021. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg News)
The founder of the Oath Keepers and other leaders of the self-styled militia movement were in contact with Secret Service officials multiple times in late 2020 and leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to an agency official and court testimony in Stewart Rhodes’s ongoing seditious conspiracy trial.
A former member of the Oath Keepers testified last week that the group’s founder Stewart Rhodes claimed to be in touch with someone in the Secret Service in the months before the riot. A Secret Service official confirmed that members of the agency’s protective intelligence division reached out to the Oath Keepers in advance of protests in D.C. in November and December as well as the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally.
Agents regularly engage in such advance contact with protest groups expected to attend public presidential events, the official said. The goal is to explain what items are prohibited and learn more about the protesters’ numbers and plans to assess the risk to protected officials.
Rhodes and four associates are now in the midst of a trial expected to last at least a month, in which they face the most serious charges of the criminal investigation into the Capitol riot. Jurors have heard evidence that prosecutors say shows the Oath Keepers wanted to keep Donald Trump in power by force, trial testimony that comes just as the House committee investigating Jan. 6 prepared for what is expected to be its final public hearing Thursday.
The House committee is expected to highlight Secret Service records indicating Trump received multiple warnings on Jan. 6 about rising danger at the Capitol yet continued to insist on traveling there himself, according to people briefed on the records, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal records.
The full extent of what intelligence the Secret Service received from the Oath Keepers is unclear.
John Zimmerman, a former Oath Keeper from North Carolina, testified that he believed Rhodes talked to a Secret Service agent in September 2020 about what weapons they could be carrying while “working” a Trump rally in Fayetteville, N.C. In response to that testimony, a Secret Service spokesman said that “it is not uncommon for various organizations to contact the agency concerning security restrictions and activities that are permissible in proximity to our protected sites.”
Veteran D.C. protesters say they rarely deal with the Secret Service compared with other agencies.
“Out of all of the demonstrations I ever planned in D.C. over the past 15 years, the one agency I’ve had the least amount of interaction with is the Secret Service,” said Robby Diesu, who has organized protests for various progressive causes.
But most D.C. protests don’t involve organized armed groups known for advocating violent resistance to government authority.
A D.C. police lieutenant was put on leave for his contacts with longtime Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, who is set to go on trial in December on charges similar to those faced by the Oath Keepers. The same lieutenant also reached out to a man he believed led a white-supremacist group. Experts said it makes sense for law enforcement personnel to seek information from extremist groups but that interactions must be handled with care to avoid misinterpretation.
Rhodes and other Oath Keepers have argued that they were regularly in touch with law enforcement and left their firearms outside D.C. because they had no intention of breaking the law on Jan. 6. In multiple encrypted chat conversations before the riot, Rhodes expresses hope that Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act, which he argued would “nullify” D.C. gun laws and all other restrictions on violent behavior.
“I have to try to get Trump the message on the necessity of him waging war on the enemy NOW while still President and Commander in Chief,” he wrote to one group of Oath Keepers on Dec. 14, 2020. He said he had stayed in D.C. to press the president, had “passed that message on through one contact” was “working on others.”
Rhodes was in contact with Roger Stone, a close confidant of the former president who was guarded by Oath Keepers on the morning of Jan. 6. Stone denies any involvement in the riot; he is also expected to be a focus of Thursday’s House committee hearing.
Trump never called on private militias to act as his defense force, and prosecutors argue that the law would not have allowed it. They note that Rhodes repeatedly said that the group would fight Joe Biden with or without Trump’s approval.
“He needs to know that if he doesn’t do it, we will,” Rhodes said of Trump in a Dec. 29, 2020, message read in court. “And if we have to do it ourselves, without him as Commander in Chief, it will be exponentially harder, and many more of us will die.”
When members of the Oath Keepers went into a VIP section at Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, the Secret Service required them to go leave tactical gear outside and go through metal detectors, another former member of the group testified Wednesday.
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the House committee earlier this year that Trump wanted the metal detectors removed despite being told members of the crowd were armed.
“They’re not here to hurt me,” Hutchinson recalled him saying.
Spencer S. Hsu, Tom Jackman and Ellie Silverman contributed to this report. | 2022-10-12T22:52:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oath Keepers on trial were in touch with Secret Service before Jan. 6 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/oath-keepers-secret-service-trial/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/oath-keepers-secret-service-trial/ |
State delays Western Maryland Hospital Center privatization vote
Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford at a committee meeting with the Board of Public Works in 2015. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
State officials on Wednesday delayed voting on multimillion dollar contracts to privatize care at Western Maryland Hospital Center, a chronic-care facility in Hagerstown, citing the need for more information amid mounting opposition from unions and lawmakers.
At issue for the powerful three-member Board of Public works was whether to approve outsourcing up to $128 million in skilled nursing, long-term acute care and brain injury services before a vendor was selected, an accelerated timeline that critics of the contracts say term-limited Gov. Larry Hogan wants locked in before he leaves office.
Union officials and legislators this week said outsourcing care would jeopardize the 43 patients currently admitted and about 200 staff, and hasten the closure of the hospital, while acknowledging that the facility is old and costly to maintain. A spokesman for Hogan (R) has said outsourcing care to community providers is part of the administration’s master plan. State officials revived discussions about Western’s future, shelved in 2016, amid staffing shortages fueled by the pandemic.
Comptroller Peter Franchot (D) said he objected to executing contracts that do not identify a vendor, especially given the public outcry.
“There’s a lot of interest in this issue, and people want to make sure we’re doing the absolute best we can for the heavily affected patients, albeit a somewhat small number,” he said during the meeting.
Secretary of Health Dennis R. Schrader detailed the hospital’s heating and cooling deficiencies, including a World War II-era boiler that requires an operating engineer and custom parts. He added that 38 of 43 patients are nursing home patients, and said it would take six to eight years to demolish Western Maryland Hospital Center and build a nursing home, as some have suggested.
“We’re worried about the patients there now who are fragile,” he said.
Of the 11 state hospitals, the two chronic-care facilities, Western Maryland Hospital Center and Deer’s Head Hospital Center in Salisbury, ranked poor overall on infrastructure in the facilities report cited by the administration.
State officials plan to accept proposals until Oct. 21, recommend a vendor and return to the Board of Public Works — which is composed of the governor, comptroller and treasurer — in late November or early December, Schrader said.
By then, voters will have elected a governor to replace Hogan, who is exploring a run for president in 2024. Two of three Democrats who would make up the majority of the board if elected — gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore and comptroller candidate Del. Brooke E. Lierman — have said they oppose privatizing services and, if elected, would attempt to reverse any contracts approved under the Hogan administration.
Patrick Moran — president of AFSCME Council 3, which represents licensed practical nurses, direct-care aides, dietary staff, and maintenance and clerical staff — praised the decision to postpone the contracts.
“Instead of providing WMHC with the funds and resources it deserves, Gov. Hogan’s administration has repeatedly used preposterous arguments and scare tactics as excuses to close the hospital even though other oversight bodies see no reason to pull the hospital’s accreditation,” he said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. David Trone (D-Md.), whose district includes Hagerstown, in March wrote a letter to state legislators opposing the closure of the hospital. He said the number of people over 65 in Western Maryland is projected to grow 46 percent by 2045, increasing the need for specialized care.
Del. Kirill Reznik, (D-Montgomery County) questioned why Hogan would push the contracts in the final months of his administration.
“It is unnecessary, frankly. I think it hurts the patients who are being seen at those facilities,” he said in an interview Wednesday, calling the contracts Hogan’s effort “to get the last bit of privatization in before he goes off into the sunset and spends more time in Ohio and New Hampshire.”
Del. Mike McKay, (R-Allegheny County), whose district includes the hospital, said he is open to a private company providing services but called for more transparency and community involvement before those plans move forward.
McKay said the hospital provides specialized care that means western Maryland residents don’t have to travel to Salisbury, Baltimore or D.C. He said he also worried about employees who have not been given the chance to ask about their job security and retirement and health care benefits.
“There’s no doubt about it, the building has aged, but I’m concerned about the 100-plus jobs that are recession-proof jobs,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “We need to pump the breaks. We have a new administration coming in … Another set of eyes on this particular closure may be best.”
Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford attended the meeting Wednesday for Hogan, who was marking the opening of a bridge in Southern Maryland.
Ovetta Wiggins contributed to this report. | 2022-10-12T23:36:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Western Maryland Hospital Center vote delayed - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/western-maryland-hospital-private-contracts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/western-maryland-hospital-private-contracts/ |
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