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Warhol, Prince and a Supreme Court debate over ‘fair use’
The justices are evaluating whether Andy Warhol violated copyright law by basing his art on an image of Prince used without the photographer’s permission
A photo of Prince transformed by Andy Warhol is at the center of a Supreme Court case on copyright law. (AP)
It was unclear Wednesday where the Supreme Court might end up on the question of whether Andy Warhol ripped off famed photographer Lynn Goldsmith’s portrait of the late musician Prince, but it was an entertaining nearly two hours of discovery.
Justice Clarence Thomas disclosed that he was a Prince fan back in the ’80s, and after prompting from Justice Elena Kagan, occasionally now. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wondered what it might mean to see Mona Lisa in a dress of a different color. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. speculated that a Mondrian of a different hue would have a different effect.
Name-dropped along the way: Dolly Parton, Elizabeth Taylor, Roy Orbison, 2 Live Crew, “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons,” and Mork and Mindy. It was an engaging and at times lighthearted debate at a court where ideological tension is usually more apparent. Of course, there were also Campbell soup cans.
The justices were considering whether Warhol, who died in 1987, violated copyright law by basing his 16 silk-screen portraits of Prince on a photo of the musician by Goldsmith without her permission, credit or payment. A federal district judge in New York said Warhol’s work created something new, a transformation within the “fair use” exception to the law.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said Goldsmith could press her claim, and warned that judges should stay in their lanes.
“The district judge should not assume the role of art critic and seek to ascertain the intent behind or meaning of the works at issue,” the court said. “That is so both because judges are typically unsuited to make aesthetic judgments and because such perceptions are inherently subjective.”
Roman Martinez, a lawyer representing the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, said the transformative nature of Warhol’s work, taking commonplace products and familiar images and imbuing them with an artist’s commentary on society, cannot be ignored.
“Both courts below agreed, and Goldsmith doesn’t dispute, that Warhol’s Prince Series can reasonably be perceived to convey a fundamentally different meaning or message from Goldsmith’s photograph,” Martinez said. “The question in this case is whether that different meaning or message should play a role, any role, in the fair use analysis.”
From the archives: Warhol's fading fortunes
Lisa S. Blatt, representing Goldsmith, said that if the Warhol Foundation prevails, “copyrights will be at the mercy of copycats.”
The test the foundation urges the court to employ “would decimate the art of photography by destroying the incentive to create the art in the first place, and it’s obvious why the multibillion dollar industries of movies, music, and publishing are horrified,” she said. Moreover, the law gives “creators and not copiers” the right to make derivative works, she said.
The justices at times struggled with aligning their precedents — the court in 1994 approved of 2 Live Crew’s use of the Roy Orbison song “Oh, Pretty Woman” in a parody performance, for instance — with Warhol’s fame and the particulars of the case at hand.
Goldsmith took the portrait of Prince in the early 1980s. Vanity Fair commissioned Warhol to create an illustration for a 1984 article on Prince, and obtained a license from Goldsmith, paying her $400, to use the photo as an artistic reference for Warhol. He changed certain aspects of the photo and created for the magazine what is now called “Purple Fame.” He also created the 16 silk-screens.
When Prince died in 2016, Vanity Fair’s parent company Condé Nast paid more than $10,000 to the Warhol Foundation for another version, Orange Prince, to illustrate a commemorative magazine. Goldsmith, who was not paid, sued.
Prince, mysterious, inventive chameleon of music, dies at 57
Martinez said Warhol took a portrait of a vulnerable-looking Prince and turned it into a commentary on celebrity and fame. Justice Elena Kagan wondered, though, whether Warhol’s reputation might be influencing the amount of deference owed.
“Now we know who Andy Warhol was and what he was doing and what his works have been taken to mean,” Kagan said. “So it’s easy to say that there’s something importantly new in what he did with this image. But, if you imagine Andy Warhol as a struggling young artist, who we didn’t know anything about, and then you look at these two images, you might be tempted to say something like, ‘Well, I don’t get it. All he did was take somebody else’s photograph and put some color into it.’ ”
But when it was Blatt’s turn at the microphone, Kagan said it would be hard to argue Warhol’s work is not transformative.
“He took a bunch of photographs and he made them mean something completely different,” the justice said. “And people look at Elvis and people look at Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor and Prince, and they say this has an entirely different message from the thing that started it all off. And that’s why he’s hanging up on those museums.”
Roberts made a similar point. When one views Goldsmith’s photo and Warhol’s painting, “you don’t say, ‘Oh, here are two pictures of Prince.’ You say ‘That’s a picture of Prince, and this is a work of art sending a message about modern society.’ ”
Blatt replied that would make it too easy to alter any photograph and claim it is something new. “I guarantee the airbrushed pictures of me look better than the real pictures of me, and they have a very different meaning and message to me,” she said, to laughter.
The Justice Department supported Goldsmith. Lawyer Yaira Dubin said two factors weighed in her favor: that the foundation has never tried to show Goldsmith’s image — as opposed to other photos of the musician — was essential to Warhol’s distinct purpose, and where the work was displayed.
“The foundation commercially licensed Warhol’s Prince to serve the same purpose as the original, depicting Prince in an article about Prince,” Dubin said. “Using another artist’s work as a starting point to turn around and compete directly with their original has never been considered fair.”
Those arguments seemed to resonate with several justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
If the case seemed vexing, the justices seemed to enjoy the arguments.
At one point, Thomas started a question, “Let’s say that I’m both a Prince fan, which I was in the ’80s, and …” There was laughter in the courtroom before Kagan asked “No longer?” Amid more laughter, Thomas answered “So, only on Thursday night.”
His hypothetical was that he might also be a Syracuse University fan, and “I decide to make one of those big blowup posters of Orange Prince and change the colors a little bit around the edges and put ‘Go Orange’ underneath.”
“Would you sue me?” he asked Martinez.
Later, Sotomayor said, “I think my colleague, Justice Thomas, needs a lawyer. And I’m going to provide it.”
At another point, Blatt, a veteran Supreme Court advocate known for her colloquial style, disputed Martinez’s contention that the appeals court judges had not adequately evaluated whether Warhol’s work added new meaning to Goldsmith’s work.
“I mean, I can just keep reading you quotes, but you know how to read a decision as best as I do,” she said. “But, on the very same page they’re yakking about, it says it has to be reasonably perceived as having a distinctive artistic purpose, one that conveys a new meaning.”
Later, Alito, not known as the court’s most humorous member, adopted the lawyer’s terminology.
“Ms. Blatt, what do you think the Second Circuit meant when it yakked about … judges not being art critics?” he asked.
The case is Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith.
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9:47 PMThe latest: Trump worker told FBI about moving Mar-a-Lago boxes on ex-president’s orders | 2022-10-12T23:45:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Andy Warhol, Prince and a Supreme Court debate over ‘fair use’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/prince-andy-warhol-print-supreme-court/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/12/prince-andy-warhol-print-supreme-court/ |
Los Angeles City Council member resigns days after racist comments surface
Two other council members recorded in the same conversation continue to resist calls that they step down
Nury Martinez, seen speaking at the Women’s March Foundation’s National Day of Action in May, resigned her city council position Wednesday. (Sarah Morris/Getty Images)
The Los Angeles City Council member at the center of the scandal over a taped conversation in which she made racist comments about colleagues and constituents resigned Wednesday amid mounting calls for her to do so.
Nury Martinez, who served for nearly a decade on the council, said in a statement that she was stepping down “with a broken heart,” three days after the Los Angeles Times published a story detailing a secretly recorded conversation from last year. She earlier had given up her appointed position as council president and said she was taking a leave from her elective job.
On the tape, which involved two other council members and a powerful labor leader, Martinez called the young Black son of council member Mike Bonin “a little monkey” and said that he “needs a beatdown” for behavior she found disruptive on a parade float.
Martinez also disparaged Indigenous immigrants from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and called Bonin, who is gay, a “little b----.” Although council members Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo did not make similarly racist remarks on the tape, neither spoke out against them in the phone call.
Both, like Martinez, had faced demands that they resign from across the city and nation, including from President Biden on Tuesday through his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.
“The language that was used and tolerated during that conversation was unacceptable and it was appalling,” she said. Ron Herrera, the fourth participant in the call, resigned late Monday as head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, a Latino-dominated political force in the city.
In an extensive resignation statement, Martinez thanked her colleagues, staff, constituents and family for her time on the council, which began in 2013 following her tenure as a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education.
“While I take the time to look inwards and reflect,” she concluded, “I ask that you give me space and privacy.”
The recorded conversation involving some of the city’s most powerful Latino officials has shaken a Latino-Black political alliance built over decades as Los Angeles has grown more ethnically and racially diverse.
It has also underscored tensions that have arisen in recent years between Latinos, who account for nearly half the city’s population but fewer than a third of its seats on the 15-member council, and Black Americans, whose numbers and political clout have been on the decline.
The recorded conversation concerned the drawing of new council district lines, and efforts to boost the representation of Latinos, largely to the detriment of Black voters.
On Wednesday, California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta (D), said that, in light of the taped conversation’s contents, he will begin an investigation into the city’s redistricting process, which took place late last year.
De León, a former U.S. Senate candidate who ran for mayor unsuccessfully earlier this year, and Cedillo, a former labor leader and immigrant advocate, have apologized for their roles in the conversation.
But both continue to resist calls for their resignations, which have come from across the city and among the state’s political leadership in Sacramento.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) had not specifically called on the participants to resign, but in a statement issued after Martinez’s announced departure said that “this is the right move.” | 2022-10-12T23:45:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Los Angeles council member Nury Martinez resigns after racist tape surfaces. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/los-angeles-council-racist-tape/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/los-angeles-council-racist-tape/ |
The administration’s assessment of the threats posed by Beijing and Moscow are detailed in a new national security strategy document
Russian President Vladimir Putin with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a summit in Uzbekistan in September. (Sergei Bobylev/Pool/Sputnik/Kremlin/AP)
President Biden still views China as the most consequential geopolitical challenge to the United States despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and his threats to use nuclear weapons, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Wednesday.
Nonetheless, constraining a “profoundly dangerous Russia” remains a key goal of the United States, Sullivan said.
The twin threats of Russia and China are laid out in the Biden administration’s long-awaited national security strategy, a document required by Congress that was delayed until Wednesday after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
“The [People’s Republic of China] and Russia are increasingly aligned with each other but the challenges they pose are, in important ways, distinct,” the document says. “We will prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over the PRC while constraining a still profoundly dangerous Russia.”
Sullivan said the Ukraine war did not fundamentally change how Biden views the world, but the national security adviser underscored that the document’s release was delayed because officials believed it would be “imprudent” to publish it when it was “really unclear exactly what direction that war would take.”
Biden says Putin ‘totally miscalculated’ the invasion of Ukraine
The document makes clear that China is the only power with the capability to alter the world order and asserts that the Ukraine conflict “has profoundly diminished Russia’s status vis-a-vis China and other Asian powers such as India and Japan.”
“Moscow’s soft power and diplomatic influence have waned,” it says, “while its efforts to weaponize energy have backfired. The historic global response to Russia’s war against Ukraine sends a resounding message that countries cannot enjoy the benefits of global integration while trampling on the core tenets of the UN Charter.”
Biden says U.S. troops would defend Taiwan in event of attack by China
Biden’s strategy repeats much of the worldview he set out during his campaign and in an “Interim National Security Strategy Guidance” document early last year. Those efforts, and the new publication, posited that domestic and foreign policy are closely intertwined — that American strength at home is the source of its strength abroad.
In a speech on the new document Wednesday at Georgetown University, Sullivan said that “our world is at an inflection point, in the early years” of a “decisive decade.” The two main strategic challenges the United States faces, he said, were “geopolitical competition” with China in a post-Cold War world and “the sheer scale and speed of transnational challenges that do not respect borders or adhere to international rules,” including climate, food and energy insecurity, and disease, such as the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our strategy proceeds from the premise that the two strategic challenges are intertwined,” he said, adding that the United States “cannot compete if it sidelines issues that most directly affect the lives of people.”
The three main elements of the strategy, Sullivan said, are “targeted investments” in elements of national power such as technology and energy, modernizing the military, and diplomatic and other investments in cooperation and forming coalitions with countries that share a belief in the rule of international law.
The war in Ukraine, Sullivan said, “has loomed large in the formulation of this strategy. … But we do not believe it has blotted out the sun, because of all the other strategies that need to be included.” | 2022-10-13T00:32:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden views China as a bigger challenge than Russia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/12/biden-national-security-strategy-china-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/12/biden-national-security-strategy-china-russia/ |
Sasha Valuiskyi says goodbye Wednesday to his wife and son who are fleeing Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, while he must remain. (Wojciech Grzedzinski for The Washington Post)
The new measures demonstrate the Kremlin’s intent to absorb the four regions despite global censure, including demands by leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized powers that Russia “completely and unconditionally withdraw” its troops.
Ukrainian civilians who fled Russian-held territory in recent days said in interviews on Wednesday that they were required to provide extensive documentation to leave, including birth certificates, expected return dates, and even the serial numbers of their cellphones.
“The Russians are trying to install a permanent, official border crossing, and so these are the measures that they are trying to establish,” said Oleksii Savytskyi, a Ukrainian official who oversees the arrival of civilian convoys from Russian-held territory to the regional capital, also called Zaporizhzhia, which is still under Ukrainian control.
Russia’s effort to tighten control over occupied areas underscored the enormous stakes of a Ukrainian counteroffensive that moved swiftly in September and early October but has now slowed.
Before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Sept. 30 announcement that four Ukrainian provinces now belonged to him, arrivals in the city of Zaporizhzhia from occupied areas had averaged about 2,000 people a day, officials said.
But Putin’s annexation announcement was followed by waves of S-300 missiles each night. Parents hustled their children into basements. “I just knew we couldn’t stay anymore,” said Sasha Valuiskyi, 31, as his wife and two children boarded a bus.
Valuiskyi, however, was not going with them. Ukrainian authorities have barred men of fighting age from leaving the country during wartime. So instead he watched, in tears, as his sons, ages 11 and 3, boarded the bus with their mother while he stood on the street alone. “They need to go, it’s not safe here,” he said. “We agreed that this was the only option.”
Ukrainian cities scrambled to repair power plants and other infrastructure smashed by Russian bombs, and citizens grappled with sporadic power outages. Top U.S. and NATO officials said Wednesday that they were outraged by Russia’s “indiscriminate” attacks on civilians and that they were pushing to get Ukraine additional air defenses as quickly as possible
Denouncing the “malice and cruelty” of Russia’s recent escalation, Austin said there is strong will to get Ukrainian forces the weapons, ammunition and equipment on their wish list. “We’re going to do everything we can, as fast as we can, to help the Ukrainian forces get the capability they need to protect the Ukrainian people,” he said at a news conference at NATO headquarters.
Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said getting Ukraine missile defense systems will be “quite complicated from a technical standpoint” and will “take a bit of time.”
“Allies have provided air defense, but we need even more,” Stoltenberg said. “We need different types of air defense, short-range, long-range air defense systems to take out ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, different systems for different tasks.”
“Ukraine is a big country, many cities,” Stoltenberg continued. “So we need to scale up to be able to help Ukraine defend even more cities and more territory against horrific Russian attacks.”
“It made the journey feel more dangerous,” said Alexandra, 33, who arrived in Zaporizhzhia late Wednesday after two weeks on the road.
Alexandra spoke on the condition that her last name be withheld for fear that her family could face reprisals from Russian forces. “My mother kept calling me, and she was begging us not to risk it,” she recalled. But Alexandra feared the risks of staying even more.
In Kherson, rumors swirled that the city’s men might be forced to join the fight against their Ukrainian countrymen, and Alexandra’s husband, Vladimir, worried that would mean him. As the family waited at the Vasylivka checkpoint, the last in Russian-held territory, they saw a Ukrainian man from the eastern Luhansk region turned away by Russian soldiers.
“They told him to go back to Luhansk and join their army,” Alexandra said. “We couldn’t stay there on land that Russians stole. To us, it felt morally reprehensible.”
The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly adopted a U.S.-sponsored resolution condemning Russia’s illegal annexation of territory and calling on Moscow to “immediately and unconditionally” reverse its annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
The vote — 143-5, with 35 abstentions — was nearly identical to that on a resolution in March condemning the invasion of Ukraine. Four of the five countries opposed — Russia, North Korea, Belarus and Syria — were the same. Eritrea, which last time voted no, abstained this time, while Nicaragua did the opposite.
Speaking before the vote Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the resolution was “important not just to the future of Ukraine and the future of Europe, but to the very foundations of this institution,” which, she said, was built on the idea “that never again would one country be allowed to take another’s territory by force.”
Meanwhile, Moscow’s security services announced the arrests of eight people — including five Russian citizens — in connection with an explosion that damaged the Crimean Bridge early Saturday.
In a statement, Russia’s security service, the FSB, accused Ukraine’s military intelligence service of coordinating what it called a “terrorist act.” The Ukrainian government has not claimed responsibility, though the bridge explosion was celebrated in Kyiv, and the Ukrainian Interior Ministry on Wednesday dismissed the FSB allegations as “nonsense.”
As night fell, though, civilians across Zaporizhzhia went to bed fearing that more revenge attacks would follow. “What else would you expect?” asked Luda, a retired teacher who spoke on the condition that her last name be withheld for fear of Russian reprisals, as she shepherded her children home for the night. “They’ve awakened a dragon. How can anyone sleep now?”
Rauhala reported from Brussels and Dixon from Riga, Latvia. Serhii Korolchuk in Zaporizhzhia, Leo Sands in London and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report. | 2022-10-13T00:33:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Zaporizhzhia, Russia imposes border rules to solidify annexation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/ukraine-zaporizhzhia-kherson-russia-annexation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/12/ukraine-zaporizhzhia-kherson-russia-annexation/ |
The candidates for Md. governor sling attacks as Moore calls Cox an “extreme election denier” and Cox labels Moore a “racist” and a “phony”
Dan Cox, the Republican candidate for Maryland governor, left, speaks during a debate with Democratic candidate Wes Moore at a Maryland Public Television studio in Owings Mills, Md., on Wednesday. (Michael Ciesielski Photography/Courtesy of MPT)
Maryland gubernatorial hopefuls Wes Moore and Dan Cox put mutual contempt on display Wednesday in an hour-long debate that highlighted how the majority political parties developed radically different views of our country’s problems and where the nation should be headed.
They clashed over each other’s credibility, the definition of freedom, and their stances on abortion, crime, election integrity, LGBTQ rights and the existence of a racial wealth gap.
The sole scheduled confrontation in a lopsided campaign, the debate offered Cox a rare chance to pierce the air of inevitability around Moore. Moore, the Democratic nominee who is ahead in the polls by 32 percentage points, sought to motivate voters in the deeply blue state to show up and cast a ballot by painting Cox as extreme.
Cox, a far-right, conservative state delegate endorsed by former president Donald Trump, had the most at stake heading into the exchange. Moore, a best-selling author and former head of one of the country’s largest poverty-fighting organizations, holds a commanding fundraising lead with four weeks remaining until Election Day.
The debate, which began and ended with the two men shaking hands, was often contentious and at times aggressive.
In a series of sharp exchanges, Cox called Moore’s efforts to close the racial wealth gap a “racist” transfer of resources, and Moore labeled Cox “an extremist election-denier.”
Cox called Moore a “phony,” claiming that his book “The Other Wes Moore” was full of passages that were “completely false.” Moore has previously fended off claims he misconstrued whether he was born in Baltimore. He later said Cox, who has claimed the 2020 presidential election was “stolen,” was a candidate with “dangerous and divisive” policies.
Some of the sharpest divisions came as the men discussed abortion: Moore said Maryland should be a “safe haven” for health-care decisions made between a woman and her doctor, and Cox said he was “pro-life” and would “ensure that everyone is safe and that women and children and the unborn all have equal protection and they are supported by our laws.”
Both candidates tried to harness the popularity of Gov. Larry Hogan (R) by drawing favorable comparisons to the term-limited governor. Hogan has not given an endorsement in the race, but he has called Cox a “QAnon whack job” whom he doesn’t see fit to tour the governor’s office, let alone lead it.
Yet Cox tried to align himself with Hogan during the debate, saying he’s worked on the governor’s crime task force and stood with him against tax increases.
Asked by a moderator to give Hogan a letter grade, Cox awarded an “A,” with the exception of how the governor handled pandemic restrictions. Moore pointed out that Cox tried to impeach Hogan over those restrictions.
“He stood alone,” Moore said. “Even his Republican colleagues did not do that.”
Moore evaded the letter-grade question, offering Hogan an “incomplete” but praising him for “being so early and full-throated about the danger of this MAGA movement.”
Moore went on to say that the economy has not improved fast enough for enough people. He said that as governor, he would try to make sure people have the right skills to apply for open jobs, to focus on public education that values more than college acceptance, and to expand access to affordable child care so that women who want to rejoin the workforce have an easier route.
Cox shot back that Moore’s proposals are costly, predicting: “You are going to see tax increases like never before. The tolls are going to rise.”
As he did several times during the hour-long debate, Moore responded, “That is not true.”
Cox also accused Moore of supporting “transgender indoctrination in kindergarten,” which Moore said is not something he has ever said.
Most Md. voters say elementary school discussion of LGBTQ acceptance
Pressed by a moderator to explain what he thinks is happening in elementary schools, Cox said he believes kindergartners see a book called “Gender Queer” that depicts acts “so disgusting” he could not describe them on television. The book, which has become a target of the conservative-dominated parent’s rights movement across the country, is a memoir by Maia Kobabe about growing up asexual and nonbinary.
Moore, in turn, went on to say Cox’s proposals to reduce income taxes and business taxes would eliminate the state’s prime source of revenue and bankrupt the state. “That’s not an ideological position,” he said. “That’s math.”
Cox has not detailed the extent of his tax cuts, but he broadly proposed eliminating or reducing them.
The candidates disagreed over issues as fundamental as the legacy of racism and wealth in this country.
When a moderator asked the candidates about reparations and how to deal with the toll of inflation that, given the long-documented racial wealth gap, falls heavier on many Black families, Cox rejected the premise of the question and called his opponent “racist” for suggesting “reparative actions,” such as fixing the state’s procurement system and addressing discriminatory practices in home appraisals.
Cox said the only wealth gap that deserves reparations is one that was created by lockdowns during the pandemic. He accused Moore, who has made equity a pillar of his campaign pitch, of “transferring wealth away from people because of their skin color. That is racist; it’s wrong.”
Moore, who is Black and led a poverty-fighting nonprofit called the Robin Hood Foundation, shot back with a touch of exasperation.
“The impacts of racial disparities did not start two years ago, Delegate Cox,” he said. “We are watching something that has been a long-term challenge that our state has got to wrestle with and address. The fact that we have an 8 to 1 racial wealth gap in our state is real. It’s not pretend, and it’s not because one group is working eight times harder.”
Cox, who unsuccessfully challenged plans to count mail-in ballots early, again refused to say whether he planned to accept the results of the election in November, saying to do so would be akin to declaring a surgery a success before it has taken place. He noted that the state affords candidates the right to question an election and said he intended to uphold that process.
Cox has struggled to pivot from the far-right stances that consolidated GOP support in the primary. Cross-party appeal is critical for Republicans in Maryland, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1.
Meanwhile, Moore, who is making his first bid for public office, said after winning the primary that he wants general election voters not just to cast a ballot against Cox, but also to support Moore’s vision for the state.
As a political newcomer, Moore is still introducing himself to voters — particularly the disaffected Republicans and independents he is wooing. He had accumulated $1.3 million in his coffers as of late August, outraising Cox by a 10-1 margin.
Cox, who has criticized Moore for not agreeing to more debates, said after the debate that he hopes his opponent’s campaign will agree to more.
Asked if he wished to share the stage with Cox again, Moore smiled and said: “I think I’m good.” | 2022-10-13T01:07:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Md gov debate showcases sharp contrast between Cox and Moore - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/maryland-governor-debate-moore-cox/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/maryland-governor-debate-moore-cox/ |
The Braves saw enough of rookie right-hander Spencer Strider to sign him to a six-year, $75 million deal. (John Bazemore/AP)
A day before their title defense began in the National League Division Series this week, the Atlanta Braves tweeted out the kind of announcement that has become common for them in the past two years. The Braves announced they signed rookie fireballer Spencer Strider to a six-year, $75 million deal with an option worth $22 million for a seventh year, a feel-good signing to kick off October by ensuring one of the game’s strongest young arms sticks around.
A day after Atlanta General Manager Alex Anthopoulos traded for first baseman Matt Olson in March and virtually guaranteed the departure of franchise icon Freddie Freeman, Atlanta announced it had locked Olson up for eight years and $168 million. The day before the trade deadline in August, while baseball eyes were focused on Juan Soto and other potential blockbusters, the Braves announced a 10-year extension for third baseman Austin Riley. In mid-August, they locked up rookie of the year candidate Michael Harris II for eight years and $72 million.
Every time the Braves announce one of these moves, the rest of the baseball industry groans a little louder.
Thanks to pouncing early on what most executives consider low-market extensions for Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies years ago, in addition to all the aforementioned deals, the Braves have a core in place for at least four more seasons: Their starting catcher (William Contreras), first baseman (Olson), second baseman (Albies), third baseman (Riley), center fielder (Harris) and top young pitchers Strider and Kyle Wright are all under contract — deals not negotiated under the pressure of free agency or arbitration — through at least 2026.
“That’s sort of the motivation in trying to get something like this done. Just to be around the guys that [Anthopoulos] has put together and the commitment to winning not just right now but in the future with the guys that are in this clubhouse is very obvious,” Strider, who is on Atlanta’s NLDS roster but is returning from injury, said Monday. “And that means a lot to me. It’s very cool and humbling to have the opportunity to stay here.”
If Strider stays through the end of that deal, Atlanta will have committed as much to him in the option year of that contract as the Toronto Blue Jays are paying Kevin Gausman this year, as much as the San Francisco Giants paid free agent prize Carlos Ródon. Those players had far longer track records than Strider when their current teams signed them. Strider has thrown 134 innings in the majors — almost all of them impressive, enough to accumulate more than 200 strikeouts. But not all teams are willing to commit so much based on so little.
A few teams have shown willingness to do so in select cases. The Tampa Bay Rays gave then-20-year-old Wander Franco the largest extension ever for a player with less than a year of service time last winter when they committed as much as $223 million to him over the next 12 years. The San Diego Padres signed then-22-year-old Fernando Tatis Jr. to a 14-year deal worth $340 million, the biggest ever for a player who had yet to reach arbitration. The Seattle Mariners locked up Julio Rodríguez during his rookie season, crafting a creative deal that would allow his earning power to grow with performance but limit their baseline risk if he doesn’t.
Chat archives: Who should be the World Series favorite? Your questions, answered.
Franco hit .277 with a .746 on-base-plus-slugging percentage despite being limited to just 83 games because of injury this year — excellent numbers for someone who just turned 21 but nothing close to the superstardom Tampa Bay expects. Tatis, on the other hand, has already called the wisdom of his contract into question with off-field issues including injuries and a positive PED test that will keep him suspended until next May. Rodríguez is a front-runner to be American League rookie of the year.
But all three of those players were considered surefire superstars by the time they reached the big leagues.
Multiple executives from opposing teams suggested Anthopoulos’s willingness to put money down on players before they hit arbitration — a calculated risk, especially for teams with lower payrolls — is one of the key factors allowing Atlanta to lock in this core. Acuña was 21 when Atlanta signed him.
Albies, whose seven-year, $35 million dollar deal was widely panned as an egregious undervaluing of his talents, nevertheless signed when he was 22 — before hitting arbitration. Strider is 23 but is also a few years away from arbitration. The team hasn’t had to argue against his value yet. He hasn’t seen the system force Atlanta to give him a raise. Like Acuña, Albies and fellow rookie Harris, he is operating with a clean slate. Like the rest, Strider chose stability over uncertainty.
“I'm just excited that there's some security in knowing I'll be here with these guys in this clubhouse,” Strider said.
The other thing executives point to when discussing the Braves’ signing habits: For the past half decade or so, none of their young stars have been clients of agent Scott Boras.
Boras pushes his clients to reach free agency. His clients rarely sign extensions before then, regularly agreeing to large arbitration-year deals as their teams try to avoid contentious hearings with budding stars. Atlanta doesn’t tend to sign Boras clients, either, in part because Anthopoulos is generally averse to signing big free agent deals.
As willing as he has been to sign his own players to extensions — even short ones, such as the two-year deals he gave veterans Travis d’Arnaud and Charlie Morton — he has not bid big on the free agent market during his tenure, with the notable exception of the four-year deal worth $65 million that he gave Marcell Ozuna before Ozuna was arrested twice in two years.
And he hasn’t signed all his own players, either. When Freeman’s numbers didn’t match Atlanta’s, the team let him walk. Dansby Swanson will be a free agent after this season. But even if Swanson leaves, Anthopoulos will have to navigate turnover at maybe one or two positions in his starting lineup over the next half decade, barring injury or trade. That stability does not guarantee a run of titles. But it helps.
Winning a World Series, as the Braves did last year, is difficult. October is a painfully inexact science for an industry slowly whittling varied approaches into one data-driven consensus. Luck plays a far bigger role than anyone would like to admit. No one has won back-to-back World Series in more than 20 years. Perhaps that says it all.
What those past two decades seem to have taught those committed to winning titles, then, is that the best way to win in October is to be there — over and over, year after year, wearing bad luck out enough that it all goes right every now and then. Even that strategy is not exactly high-yield: The St. Louis Cardinals finished with a winning record every year since 2008 and won one World Series in that time.
The New York Yankees haven’t had a losing season this century but have just one World Series title since 2000. The impossibly automatic and dominant Los Angeles Dodgers have won more regular season games than any team in baseball since 2011 and 20 more games than the next closest team since 2017. They have one World Series title in that time, won in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
And even the Braves are seeing new holes emerge in their roster. The reliever who emerged as a folk hero during that run, Tyler Matzek, underwent Tommy John surgery Wednesday. Albies will miss the division series with a broken finger. Just because Atlanta’s core will be under contract does not mean it will be on the field. Injuries come for every roster. Change, on the other hand, will not be arriving in Atlanta anytime soon. | 2022-10-13T01:38:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How the Atlanta Braves core was built - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/atlanta-braves-core-alex-anthopoulos/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/atlanta-braves-core-alex-anthopoulos/ |
Myanmar’s Path From Junta Rule to Democracy and Back
Analysis by Bloomberg News | Bloomberg
Having reclaimed power in Myanmar after a brief period of limited democracy, the military continued to clamp down on the former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who at 77 years old is facing the prospect of spending the rest of her life in jail. She and other civilian leaders have been detained since February 2021 following her party’s emphatic victory in general elections that the military disputed, then annulled. The arrests set off street protests that were met with deadly force. In turn, some of the regime’s opponents have taken up arms. The turmoil has devastated the economy in a country that was already struggling with the Covid-19 pandemic.
1. What’s happened with Suu Kyi?
She and Win Myint, who served as president in the last civilian government, were found guilty soon after the coup of inciting dissent against the military and flouting Covid restrictions while campaigning for the November 2020 elections. Since then she’s been convicted in a series of trials on charges including violating the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, and sentenced to a total of 26 years in prison, with more verdicts pending. Her legal defense team has described all the allegations against her as groundless. Election workers appointed by the junta haven’t said clearly whether they will dissolve Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). She has vowed that it will continue its work “for the people.”
2. What came out of the election?
The NLD won 83% of the parliamentary seats at stake in the vote, an even better performance than its 2015 landslide. The election commission and international observers called the vote fair. But the military alleged that the NLD had interfered in the electoral process. At the time of the coup it said it was seizing power for at least one year. Six months later, it set a new deadline for elections -- August 2023 -- and said army chief Min Aung Hlaing would head a caretaker government in the meantime. In September 2021, the junta dropped the reference to a caretaker government and said it was now a “union government” tasked with carrying out state duties more effectively. A year later it extended the state of emergency until February 2023.
3. How did people react?
Violence flared after the coup as Suu Kyi’s supporters demanded her release and the restoration of the elected government. Soldiers have killed more than 2,300 people, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), a human rights group, which reports that more than 15,600 have been detained. According to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, ill-treatment and torture have resulted in deaths in detention. Some supporters of the previous government have constituted what they call the National Unity Government, forming armed units known as the People’s Defense Forces; they’ve allied with ethnic insurgent groups that have long battled the military. In 2021, the NUG declared a “people’s defensive war,” urging civilians to rise up against the junta. The tactics of the resistance forces include assassinations, clashes with army troops and attacks using improvised explosive devices. As of mid-2022, the NUG claimed resistance forces had killed more than 8,000 junta soldiers since the coup.
4. What’s the history?
After World War II, Burma, as it was then known, emerged from British colonial rule and plunged directly into civil conflict. Ethnic minorities make up a third of the population of 55 million and occupy half the land, including areas where valuable resources such as jade, gold and teak are found. A deal providing them with greater autonomy fell apart after Suu Kyi’s father, Aung San, who was slated to become the country’s first leader, was gunned down in 1947. A coup led by army chief Ne Win in 1962 started a half-century of military rule, during which the country descended into desperate poverty. Troops viciously suppressed pro-democracy protests in 1988. Two years later the army annulled an election that Suu Kyi’s party had won by a landslide. Under house arrest for much of the next 20 years, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
5. How did she get into government?
The junta began a transition to civilian rule with a new constitution in 2008 that reserved 25% of parliamentary seats for the military -- enough to block any amendments to it. Still, Suu Kyi’s party took part in by-elections in 2012 after the government agreed to the release of political prisoners, the freedom to assemble and an opening to foreign investors. Her party then swept to victory in the first full elections in 2015, defeating the ruling party by a margin of nearly 10-to-1. The constitution bars Suu Kyi from serving as president because her children are UK citizens. Thus, in 2016 she became state counselor, a newly created role akin to prime minister, as well as foreign minister.
6. How did the first term go?
Her administration liberalized banking, insurance and education and curbed inflation. But about a third of the population was living in poverty and businesses remained mired in red tape. The military continued to control the defense, home affairs and border affairs ministries. Its forces have been accused by United Nations investigators of practicing “ethnic cleansing” and “crimes against humanity” with “genocidal intent” in driving more than 700,000 Rohingya people over the border to Bangladesh since 2017. (Among Myanmar’s Buddhist majority, prejudice against the Rohingya -- Muslims castigated as illegal immigrants and stripped of citizenship -- remains fierce and widespread.) Amid the opprobrium, foreign direct investment fell to $2.3 billion in 2019 from $4.7 billion in 2017.
7. Why the coup?
The military operates almost as a state within a state, and its allies still control vast swaths of the economy. The scale of Suu Kyi’s victory may have prompted fears among the generals of new efforts to chip away at their privileges, after their exceptionally poor electoral performance. They turned on her even though she defended them in 2019 at the International Court of Justice against the genocide allegations -- increasing her popularity at home at the expense of her international reputation. In its statement on the day of the coup, the military said it was necessary to act in response to alleged voter fraud before the new parliament sessions began later that week.
8. What’s the fallout been?
Western countries responded with new economic sanctions, just five years after many had been lifted, although it’s unclear how much impact they will have. The US extended its sanctions in March 2022, saying the military had committed “atrocities against the people of Burma, including the violent repression of political dissent.” But China, Myanmar’s most important trading partner, has rejected calls at the UN for an arms embargo and has affirmed support for the regime. Japan and India worry that tough measures against the junta only risk increasing China’s influence there. In early 2022 Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen become the first foreign leader to visit the country since the coup. The junta has drawn closer to Russia despite the war in Ukraine -- Hlaing has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin “as a leader of the world.” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, Myanmar’s biggest foreign investor, has said sanctions would only hurt Myanmar’s people. They seem to be suffering anyway: The economy contracted 18% last year and the share of people living in poverty likely doubled over the period, according to the World Bank. It said the economy remained weak in 2022 due to high inflation and lingering domestic conflicts.
(Updates with new conviction in question 1. A previous version of this story was corrected to reflect that September 2021 was when the junta declared itself a union government.) | 2022-10-13T01:47:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Myanmar’s Path From Junta Rule to Democracy and Back - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/myanmars-path-from-junta-rule-to-democracy-and-back/2022/10/12/43f001ac-4a62-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/myanmars-path-from-junta-rule-to-democracy-and-back/2022/10/12/43f001ac-4a62-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Once ranked the 25th richest person in Asia, Mikitani no longer even features in the top 140, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. It’s not hard to see why: Rakuten shares are trading near levels last seen in 2010 as investors sour on attempts to grow itself into Japan’s fourth-biggest mobile carrier. That business lost 124 billion yen ($848 million) last quarter alone, an 18th consecutive period of red ink that has ballooned to a total of nearly 1 trillion yen as the firm builds out its mobile operations.
Investors’ patience with the plan has been waning for months. Earlier this year, Rakuten blinked first when it abandoned its “zero yen” data offering, which gave users effectively free bills and was its chief differentiator in a crowded market. Shares have fallen more than 20% since, leaving Mikitani’s $2.7 billion fortune at less than a quarter of its 2015 peak.
More concerningly, Rakuten is carving off parts of its best businesses to finance the cellular aspirations. Last week, the company agreed to sell 20% of its online brokerage, Rakuten Securities Inc., to Mizuho Financial Group Inc. for a little over $500 million. It plans to offload more of its securities unit in a forthcoming initial public offering, with its banking subsidiary also poised to go public.
Rakuten may be throwing good money after bad. The plan for mobile is another effort to get customers into its points “ecosystem,” in which users of one service (such as its mainstay online mall) are encouraged to use and earn points on another (such as insurance or credit cards). It’s hard to see how mobile will contribute significantly to this in the near term; Rakuten has just 5.5 million subscribers, compared to market leader Docomo’s 85 million. Rakuten says that losses have bottomed out and it’s targeting profitability in the year ending March 2024, while it plans to reach 10 million subscribers before the end of the decade.
The bet on phones wasn’t a bad one at the time; Japan’s three main carriers are among the country’s biggest money-spinners. The plan seems to have been to hive off some of the cash generated by Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp.’s Docomo, KDDI Corp.’s AU and SoftBank Group Corp.’s listed mobile unit SoftBank Corp.
That cash in turn could have been shifted into finding potential new sources of revenue growth. Like many Japanese tech firms, Rakuten’s overseas ambitions have largely gone nowhere, despite its controversial “Englishnization” decision to change its official company language to English to help it compete. Over a decade later, more than 80% of its revenue still comes from Japan, a share that’s little changed in the past five years.
But instead of boosting Rakuten’s other businesses, mobile has become a millstone around Mikitani’s neck. S&P Global Ratings, which cut the company’s credit to junk last year, has warned that delays in improving cash flow due to spending on mobile risk further reductions to its debt rating.
Can things be turned around? Rakuten Mobile’s chief executive officer, Tareq Amin, certainly has prior experience, having helped build out Reliance Jio. But unlike India, Japan’s mobile market is fully mature, with nearly twice the number of mobile subscriptions as there are people.
Any new entrant needs to be able to do the equivalent of what SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son did in the 2000s, when he bought and revamped Vodafone Group Plc’s struggling Japan operations. Son accomplished that by convincing Steve Jobs to give him exclusive Japanese rights to sell the iPhone — but in a world where smartphone tech has largely plateaued, there’s no obvious equivalent play for Mikitani to make.
To make matters worse, permitting Rakuten’s entry into the market was just one of the strategies the Japanese government has used to boost competition in the sector — a key concern of ruling party heavyweight and former prime minister Yoshihide Suga. The idea of a low-cost but robust network might have been novel when Rakuten first announced it would enter mobile in 2017, but government pressure has since forced existing networks to unveil cheaper competitors, leaving consumers spoiled for choice.
There’s also an opportunity cost. Rakuten’s e-commerce business in Japan faces increasing competition not just from Amazon.com Inc. but also from SoftBank, which has come to dominate the growing mobile payments sector, too. SoftBank’s PayPay controls 45% of the QR code payment market, versus Rakuten Pay’s 17% share.
The outspoken, Harvard-educated Mikitani has long been seen as a maverick of the Japanese corporate world, feuding with old-school business lobby Keidanren, assailing plans to hold the Tokyo Olympics during the Covid pandemic as a “suicide mission,” and seeking to beat a different path than the country’s staid executives. His online mall was a dot-com era success, one the firm sought to replicate overseas with a series of prominent acquisitions. But now, Rakuten is in danger of becoming like the older firms it had tried to disrupt: fighting with local competitors for a share of a shrinking domestic pie, rather than pursuing loftier challenges overseas, such as bets on streaming video in Europe and the US that have largely failed to meaningfully add to revenue. The firm ended up teaming with old-school money in a 2021 tie-up with Japan Post Holdings Co. Absent an iPhone-like game changer, Mikitani might need to take a different page from Son’s playbook and seek outside investors with deeper pockets who could finance the sort of long-term spending needed to make mobile a success. When Mikitani’s wealth peaked in 2015, the gap to the richest person in Asia (Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Jack Ma) was just $25 billion. These days, the region’s richest men — the Indian tycoons Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani — command far greater wealth. Both have displayed their interests in mobile. With the yen at the weakest since 1998, Japan represents terrific value for money. Perhaps time to phone a friend?
• SoftBank’s Shogun Has a Rare Moment of Contrition: Gearoid Reidy | 2022-10-13T01:47:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Struggling Rakuten Might Need to Phone a Friend - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/struggling-rakuten-might-need-to-phone-a-friend/2022/10/12/56a9242e-4a79-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/struggling-rakuten-might-need-to-phone-a-friend/2022/10/12/56a9242e-4a79-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Social Security benefits are expected to jump next year. Here’s why.
Social Security’s cost of living adjustment, or COLA, will probably be much larger than usual to keep up with record inflation
Blank U.S. Treasury checks are seen on a roll in 2008 at the Philadelphia Financial Center, which disburses payments on behalf of federal agencies. Millions of older Americans who rely on federal benefits will get a large increase in their monthly payments next year. (Matt Rourke/AP)
The benefits increase in 2023 will be the largest such raise in 40 years. Here’s everything you need to know about the Social Security COLA: | 2022-10-13T01:49:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Social Security COLA means a big increase in monthly benefits - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/10/12/social-security-cola-2023/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/10/12/social-security-cola-2023/ |
Erratic behavior by the musician formerly known as Kanye West has spurred widespread discussion on social media about the condition
Bipolar disorder can include periods of depression and periods of mania at irregular times in a person’s life. (Photo illustration by The Washington Post: Sphere by Jonathan Knowles/Getty Images; Explosion by Jose A. Bernat Bacete/Getty Images)
The rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has a history of commenting on mental illness through his art. On a 2018 album cover, West included a telling quote: “I hate being Bi-Polar it’s awesome.” In the song “Yikes,” he called bipolar disorder his “superpower.”
More recently, West has been in the news for erratic behavior including antisemitic posts on Instagram and Twitter. The comments, as well as other displays — including a rambling appearance with conservative talk-show host Tucker Carlson and sporting a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt during Paris Fashion Week — have spurred a number of social media discussions about whether the behavior could be explained by mental illness.
While there is no way to know whether West’s behavior or comments are related to his mental health, most experts agree that people with bipolar disorder can behave erratically and may at times lose their “filter” and say or do socially inappropriate things.
The Washington Post spoke to psychiatrists, therapists and people diagnosed with bipolar disorder and asked them what it feels like to live with the condition, how it is treated and how much it can affect a person’s behavior. Here’s what they said.
What’s the link between bipolar disorder and sleep? | 2022-10-13T01:49:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What does bipolar disorder feel like? Can it explain Kanye's behavior? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/11/bipolar-disorder-symptoms-treatment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/11/bipolar-disorder-symptoms-treatment/ |
A popular TikTok skin-care routine advocates giving your face a regular break from too many treatments
“Skin cycling” is a skincare routine that consists of exfoliating, applying retinol, cleansing and moisturizing. (Video: Cecelia Jinks, Paris Terrell, Tatyana Lafata / TikTok)
Is it time to give your face a break?
Proponents of a popular skin-care routine dubbed “skin cycling” think it is. Skin cycling has gained popularity on TikTok for its less-is-more approach to skin care.
At its most basic, skin cycling is a four-night skin-care routine that includes two nights of treatments followed by two nights of recovery. Here’s how it works.
Night #1: Cleanse, exfoliate, moisturize.
Night #2: Cleanse, apply a treatment called a retinoid, moisturize.
Night #3 and 4: Give your skin a break. These are recovery nights, so just cleanse and moisturize.
Now repeat.
The term “skin cycling” was first coined by Whitney Bowe, a New York-based dermatologist with more than 985,200 followers on TikTok. It’s been more than a year since Bowe first started posting videos of the routine on TikTok, which has since caught on in the United States and abroad. Videos with the hashtag #skincycling have been viewed a collective 110.6 million times on TikTok.
While there is no published research yet on whether skin cycling really works, dermatologists say the concept is based on a number of sound principles. The regimen encourages people to cleanse and moisturize their face every night and space out harsher treatments that can irritate the skin.
Cecelia Jinks, a 23-year-old music teacher who lives in Lancaster, Pa., said her skin was never bad enough to see a dermatologist, but she started skin cycling because she’s getting married in October and wants to have healthy skin for the ceremony.
She said she has tried other skin-care trends she saw on social media, including a peeling solution and a micro-needling roller that gave her a rash. And Jinks recently posted a six-week “before and after” video with the caption: “I’m so happy I found skin cycling.”
The skin-cycling craze comes at a time when high-end skin-care brands offer complicated nightly regimens. All nine products in Kim Kardashian’s SKKN line cost a total of $673. The cleanser, which is a little over four ounces, costs $43. While most skin-care routines haven’t been studied in controlled trials to determine their effectiveness, consumers have spent an estimated $6.8 billion in the past 12 months on a quest for clearer, more youthful skin, according to the market research company NPD Group.
Fans of skin cycling appreciate the simplicity.
“You just really need a cleanser, a moisturizer and sunscreen to use during the day,” said Paris Terrell, 27, an elementary school therapist who posts her own skin-care videos on TikTok. “If you’re looking to start your skin-care journey, I always say: Just start with the basics.”
Paris Terrell, Tatyana Lafata and Cecelia Jinks have used social media to document their skin cycling routines. (Video: The Washington Post)
Bowe said she is planning a study to test and measure the results of skin cycling. She said she started developing her skin-cycling routine a couple of years ago when she noticed people were taking a “kitchen-sink approach to their skin care.” Her patients were layering ingredients that weren’t “designed to work well together” or buying products with the highest percentage of certain ingredients, opting for a “more is better” approach.
“Unfortunately, it was ending up with a lot of irritation, rather than driving results,” Bowe said. “People were mixing, matching and layering all these skin-care products.”
While Bowe, like many dermatologists, sells her own skin-care products, including a $95 moisturizer, skin cycling doesn’t require a particular brand. Consumers can choose high-end skin-care brands or cheaper drugstore varieties. And skin cycling encourages people to use less of their products to see results.
“The concept of skin cycling pretty much goes against any marketer’s instinct,” Bowe said.
Tatyana Lafata, a 26-year-old skin-care influencer based in Boston who has been posting her own skin-cycling tutorials on TikTok, said many people have a variety of products but don’t know how to best use them together.
“People like structure,” Lafata said. “Especially if you’re new to skin care. It gives you a routine for you to get the results.”
Is exfoliation even necessary?
Bowe’s skin-cycling routine starts with chemical exfoliation, which is a chemical wash using hydroxy acids or fruit enzymes that dissolves a layer of dead skin cells from your face. Studies show glycolic acid, one chemical exfoliant, is effective at both treating acne and minimizing discoloration or scarring caused by acne. Bowe said exfoliants help your skin achieve that “beautiful, healthy glow” by removing the dead skin cells that absorb and scatter the light hitting your face, causing you to have a duller complexion.
Exfoliating isn’t necessary. But if you do it, follow the tips from these dermatologists.
But some dermatologists say exfoliation isn’t necessary because your skin already naturally sloughs off and exfoliates over time. Over-exfoliation can damage the skin, causing irritation, dryness and even more acne, she said.
Bowe said exfoliants are a “classic example” of a product people tend to overuse. The fine-print instructions on some skin-care products direct consumers to “use it twice a day or use it every single night,” but that often isn’t good for the skin, Bowe said. She recommends people use a chemical exfoliant rather than “a gritty scrub” or brush, which can be harsher on your skin.
What are retinoids?
Retinoids are compounds derived from vitamin A that stimulate the skin’s turnover and collagen production, said Hao Feng, a dermatologist and professor at the University of Connecticut. A prescription-strength version is used for treating severe skin conditions, such as psoriasis. Tretinoin is the generic name for Retin-A, a prescription drug commonly used to treat acne and scarring. Lower concentrations that are less irritating to skin can be found in over-the-counter skin-care products.
A prescription retinoid costs around $20 to $30 for a 20-gram tube, and Feng said it should last a good while if you are only using a pea-size amount for the entire face. Although insurance will cover most acne treatments, companies typically don’t cover topical retinoid use if it is “purely for cosmetic purposes,” Feng said.
Retinoids remain the gold standard for fighting acne and wrinkles. Here’s what you should know.
You should not use a retinoid-based product if you’re pregnant or planning to become pregnant. And retinoids, especially the stronger products that require a prescription, can cause your skin to dry out, peel and burn.
Some dermatologists recommend starting with a mild over-the-counter retinol and building from there.
“It may be less effective, but it’s usually better tolerated,” said Suchismita Paul, who is based in Santa Ana, Calif., and shares her skin-care advice on TikTok. “For most people, with sensitive skin or skin of color, I always recommend anything less than 0.3 percent and then slowly increase the strength.”
The key to any skin-care routine is consistency, dermatologists say. Whether your skin-care regime is on a four-, five- or seven-day cycle, dermatologists stress you want to form a habit of washing and moisturizing your face at the start and end of the day, and using a good sunscreen before you walk out the door in the morning.
“There are lots of different ways to skin cycle, and it’s not one method that’s the end-all-be-all,” said Jenny Liu, a dermatologist at the University of Minnesota. “It’s just finding one that works well for you.”
You won’t see immediate results. It’s going to take at least two months to see “the true benefits” from a retinoid, said Ivy Lee, a Los Angeles-based dermatologist.
“Any time you build a structure to promote habit formation, that’s fantastic,” Lee said. “You can always ramp up from there, depending on your skin needs.” | 2022-10-13T01:50:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What is skin cycling? Explaining the TikTok trend for daily skin care. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/12/skin-cycling-routine-care/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/12/skin-cycling-routine-care/ |
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, supervises tests of long-range cruise missiles at an undisclosed location in North Korea Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP) (Uncredited/KCNA via KNS)
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised tests of long-range cruise missiles, which he described as a successful demonstration of his military’s expanding nuclear strike capabilities and readiness for “actual war,” state media said Thursday. | 2022-10-13T01:50:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | North Korea says Kim supervised cruise missile tests - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/north-korea-says-kim-supervised-cruise-missile-tests/2022/10/12/443563dc-4a85-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/north-korea-says-kim-supervised-cruise-missile-tests/2022/10/12/443563dc-4a85-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Man charged with murder in Prince George’s
Police allege Robert Arthur Carter intentionally hit a man with his vehicle in a parking lot
A 60-year-old man has been charged with murder in a homicide Sunday night in the unincorporated section of Capitol Heights, Prince George’s County police said.
Robert Arthur Carter, of no fixed address, is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Ronan Breaux, 60, of District Heights, police said. He is being held without bond at the county jail.
Offices responded to a report of a pedestrian struck about 10:20 p.m. in the 5300 block of Sheriff Road, police said. When they arrived, officers found Breaux suffering from trauma in a gas station parking lot. He was taken to a hospital, where he died, police said.
Police said Carter and Breaux had arrived together at the gas station, according to an initial investigation. During a dispute, Carter “intentionally struck” Breaux with his vehicle, police allege. He was taken into custody at the scene.
It was not immediately clear whether Carter has an attorney. | 2022-10-13T02:39:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Robert Arthur Carter charged with murder in Prince George's County - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/man-charged-murder-prince-georges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/12/man-charged-murder-prince-georges/ |
Leonard Kriegel, unsparing chronicler of polio, dies at 89
He lost the use of his legs at age 11 and became a powerful memoirist of disease and disability
Leonard Kriegel, right, with his father, contracted polio at camp during the summer of 1944. (Family photo)
Leonard Kriegel was 11 years old when he became a cripple. That was how he wished to be known — not as “handicapped,” nor “disabled,” nor “differently abled,” nor by any other euphemism that, in his view, might serve to obscure the reality of his wasted legs. He was a cripple, he declared, felled by the polio outbreak in the summer of 1944.
While neighborhood boys carried on with their stickball games in the streets of the Bronx, Mr. Kriegel embarked on a two-year stay at the New York State Reconstruction Home. He emerged from the rehabilitation center able to walk, but only with crutches and “twelve pounds of leather and steel strapped to lifeless legs,” he later wrote, and with the first dire inklings of the challenges his disease would present.
He soon came to understand — “slowly, painfully, but inexorably,” he wrote — “that disease is never ‘conquered’ or ‘overcome,’” two more terms he would have liked to banish from the lexicon. He became a professor and writer known for memoirs and essays marked by incandescent rage and searing insight about what it takes to “survive as a cripple in America.”
Mr. Kriegel, a longtime professor at the City College of New York, died Sept. 25 at a nursing home in Manhattan. He was 89 and had congestive heart failure, said his wife, Harriet Kriegel.
Mr. Kriegel chronicled his experience with polio and its enduring consequences in his life in books including “The Long Walk Home” (1964), “Falling Into Life” (1991) and “Flying Solo: Reimagining Manhood, Courage and Loss” (1998).
“As a writer,” he observed in the second volume, “I am a creation of disease. There was a life before polio. And there is no doubt that it was mine. But like the fading photograph of my grandfather,” he added, referring to one of his forebears from a shtetl in Poland, “its distance from me is its greatest significance.”
Leonard Kriegel was born in the Bronx on May 25, 1933. His father worked at the counter in a delicatessen, and his mother was a homemaker. Both were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.
Mr. Kriegel was away at summer camp when he became ill with polio, a virus that attacks the nervous system, especially in young children, and unleashed waves of terror before the advent of a vaccine in the 1950s. Polio causes minimal effects in some patients, paralysis in others and death in the most severe cases. A fellow camper of Mr. Kriegel’s died in the 1944 outbreak.
One of Mr. Kriegel’s most enduring recollections of the early days of his illness was the sensation of his father at his side.
“He sat alongside my bed,” Mr. Kriegel wrote in “Flying Solo,” “imploring me to live and feeding me vanilla ice cream. What remains as vivid in memory today as it was more than fifty years ago is the odor that clung to my father’s hand as he fed me that ice cream. I could smell the dry-sweat prospect of my death on that hand. Yet beyond that, overwhelming death, was the smell of pickle brine and smoked salmon and chopped herring that mixed with the rich creamy taste of the vanilla ice cream. For whatever incomprehensible reason, the mixing of smells was a father’s promise to a son that he would live.”
That promise was fulfilled, but not — and here was another euphemism Mr. Kriegel disdained — the promise of a “normal life.” The steaming baths that constituted a core element of treatment for polio patients at the time failed to restore use of his legs.
Mr. Kriegel returned home at 13 and received private tutoring for his secondary education. One day, while watching from a window as his brother played stickball, he experienced what he described as a flood of anger at his lot and that of anyone in a condition like his. His rage proved transformative and long-lasting, the fire that would power his decades of writing about disability.
Mr. Kriegel graduated from Hunter College in New York in 1955 and, after receiving a master’s degree from Columbia University, received a PhD in American civilization from New York University in 1960.
He taught for three decades at City College, where he was also director of the Center for Worker Education. His writings encompassed a 1971 monograph about the critic and essayist Edmund Wilson; “Working Through: A Teacher’s Journey in the Urban University” (1972), about academic life in the early years of his career; “Notes for the Two-Dollar Window” (1976), a memoir of his upbringing in the Bronx; “On Men and Manhood” (1979), a meditation on masculinity; and a novel, “Quitting Time” (1982), about trade unionism in New York.
Mr. Kriegel’s commentaries also appeared in publications including the New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, Partisan Review and the American Scholar.
In his writings about disability, Mr. Kriegel sought to overturn the image of the disabled person as Tiny Tim, the meek, dimensionless charity case who warms the frigid heart of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” The portrait that Mr. Kriegel offered of himself was rather one of strength, both physical and intellectual. For years, he aggressively lifted weights so that his arms would be as strong as his legs were weak. As an essayist, he forcefully spoke out about the invisibility that seemed to accompany the condition of being disabled.
A disabled person “does not even possess the sense of being actively hated or feared by society, for society is merely made somewhat uncomfortable by his presence,” Mr. Kriegel wrote in a 1969 essay. “It treats him as if he were an errant, rather ugly, little schoolboy.”
When Mr. Kriegel met his future wife, his son Mark recalled in a eulogy, her parents objected to their marriage on the grounds that he could not dance with her at their wedding.
“That’s not important,” Harriet Bernzweig told her mother. “I want someone to have breakfast with.” They eloped in 1957, without the blessing of her parents, and remained married until his death.
Survivors include his wife, of Manhattan; his son Mark, of Santa Monica, Calif.; another son, Bruce Kriegel of Manhattan; and two grandchildren.
Although Mr. Kriegel was unsparing in his depiction of life as a cripple, there was a certain optimism detectable beneath the surface of his rage.
“Anger purged me of the terror that I would acquiesce to the future the virus wanted to define for me,” he wrote. “Anger taught me that I could still make demands upon mind and body, that to be a cripple did not mean that one was relieved of the obligation to be a man.” | 2022-10-13T03:31:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Leonard Kriegel, chronicler of polio, dies at 89 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/12/leonard-kriegel-polio-disability-obituary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/12/leonard-kriegel-polio-disability-obituary/ |
Your thoughts and insights were helpful. I’m wondering how to handle the news of a divorce when it isn’t a mutual decision.
My son is struggling emotionally, because his wife has chosen to end the marriage. I have no details about her reasons and can’t possibly make a judgment as to how valid her reasons might be.
But how do I approach my daughter-in-law without sounding as if I’m questioning her decision or taking sides?
— Unsure in Upstate N.Y.
Unsure: Your daughter-in-law might not want to be in close touch right now. Try not to take this personally; if she has chosen to leave the marriage, her instinct could be to also distance herself from you and other family members.
You could call or write to say: “I’m so sorry to hear that you and Chas are parting. This is very sad news for us. I want you to know that I will always be grateful for your presence in our family; we had some very good times together, and I hope that we can stay in touch moving forward.” Leave the door open for contact and a cordial friendship — if all parties are willing and able.
Speaking honestly and from personal experience, this might be a time to take sides — not in an angry way, but in a way that conveys your support and loyalty toward your son. Her parents will probably do the same.
You need to draw in close with your son to make sure that he feels emotionally supported during what will be a very painful time in his life. Do not pry for details or criticize your daughter-in-law.
Do listen with compassion, and offer that special reassurance that parents can give: that time will help to heal his wounds, and that you will always be in his corner.
Dear Amy: Last week, I discovered that my boyfriend of more than two years cheated on me while on vacation. He kissed a woman at a bar, and they’d been texting back and forth afterward.
I’m in my late 20s, and he’s in his early 30s. We had been living together for eight months. This has left me reeling. I never used to snoop on his phone or act jealous, yet I was still cheated on! I left him and moved my things to my parents’ house.
In 2020, I broke up with him on two separate occasions — once because of a big lie he told, and once because I became aware that we had major differences.
Both times I took him back, and I thought things were mostly good, until now. I don’t think I’m going to take him back. I hear about infidelity all the time. I just don’t want something like this to ever happen to me.
Devastated: I can’t adjudicate whether your boyfriend’s behavior constitutes infidelity, but — regardless — you two do have an overall unstable dynamic. Three big breakups over a two-year time span is a lot. Jealousy and snooping are not healthy.
The way to move forward now is to put one foot in front of the other. Each step marks progress, and each step creates distance and perspective.
It’s a cliche (because it’s true!) but time is a great healer. Lean on your folks and friendships, pour your thoughts into a journal, and dive into your work and creative life.
Upset: “Done with Religion” had attended many religious ceremonies over the years and didn’t want to do so anymore. Declining to attend is not being intolerant; it is simply exercising an individual’s right to make choices. | 2022-10-13T04:28:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: My son’s getting divorced. Can I be there for him and his wife? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/13/ask-amy-son-marriage-divorce/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/13/ask-amy-son-marriage-divorce/ |
Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I are expecting our second child. When I delivered our son, before the pandemic, there were no restrictions on visitors at our hospital, and any required and routine vaccinations were not an issue, despite known political differences among our family members.
Now, things have changed. My husband’s father, sister and her entire family refuse to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, despite several cases in the family — including our son, who was too young to be vaccinated and ended up at the hospital via ambulance.
My husband and I are both very confrontation-averse, but we are not comfortable having anyone who is not fully vaccinated at the hospital. I thought to send a full-family message, so no one will be singled out, stating that we would be happy to see them in person if they have received their Tdap and coronavirus vaccines, in line with hospital regulations.
I want to pair the vaccines in the message, because I know they all have their Tdap shots up to date, and it might soften the politics associated with the newer vaccine. Is there a polite way to set these boundaries?
Companies promulgate policies because they know it is harder to argue with an intangible policy than with a living person. It is even harder to argue with a policy that is set by a large corporation you do not control. (In this case, the hospital.)
Facing forward.
Dear Miss Manners: I am a healthy, very thin woman and always have been. It is just the way I am. I would like to know what to say when someone makes a comment such as, “Wow, you are so skinny!” or, “You must never eat to be so thin.”
What can I say to these people, so they know this is not okay?
Your assumption that people are not called fat every day would be charmingly naive were it not so terribly wrong. Something hurtful can be said about anyone, and too often is — a fact that Miss Manners wishes everyone to remember before speaking.
On the receiving end, the proper response is a cold disdain that conveys offense taken without actually starting a fight. Or, if you have time to spare and a strong stomach, you could pretend not to understand, so they are forced to keep explaining themselves until they fall into the hole they have dug. | 2022-10-13T04:28:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: Unvaccinated in-laws can't visit our baby in the hospital - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/13/miss-manners-new-baby-vaccines/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/13/miss-manners-new-baby-vaccines/ |
A new outbreak of Ebola has sent shock waves through the global health community. Uganda announced Tuesday that 19 people had so far been confirmed to have died of the virus since September, with the latest case found in the capital of Kampala — a city of more than 1.5 million people. Though there is a vaccine for Ebola, it does not work on the strain spreading in Uganda.
Ebola is a fundamentally devastating virus. If a person gets infected, their immune system and blood vessels effectively melt down as the virus takes over and causes a viral hemorrhagic fever. Symptoms can include vomiting, diarrhea, and internal and external bleeding. Death is usually swift, brought on by multiple organ failure. Though the fatality rate can vary drastically depending on circumstances, the World Health Organization says roughly 1 in 2 people who are infected with the virus die.
Its visceral impact also sparks fear. Eight years ago, Ebola caused an international panic when it spread widely in West Africa. Donald Trump, then best known as a roguish businessman turned reality television star, tweeted that American aid workers who contracted the virus abroad should not be allowed home and instead be made to “suffer the consequences!”
The outbreak ultimately led to more than 11,000 deaths, almost all of them Africans. But the world has changed a lot since then.
Amid conspiracy and conflict, WHO’s Tedros plans for the next pandemic
Perhaps the most crucial change since the 2014 Ebola outbreak is obvious: The world suffered through a global pandemic with coronavirus.
On paper, Ebola may look like a far scarier prospect than the coronavirus that began spreading from Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Even during the first wave of the pandemic, its fatality rate peaked at less than 15 percent in the worst-hit countries and, it is now below 1 percent in much of the world.
But the coronavirus traveled far more easily than Ebola. It could spread through droplets in the air, whereas Ebola required spreads through physical contact with bodily fluids from someone who is sick or has died from the virus. People who have become recently infected with Ebola and who do not yet have symptoms cannot spread it; in 2014, many early cases of Ebola were spread through funeral traditions that involved washing the body.
The coronavirus spreads far quicker, which made it so much harder to handle. At least 6.5 million people have died from covid-19, though estimates of the real toll are far higher. Even the direst predictions for Ebola are not anywhere near that figure.
In theory, there should be positive lessons to learn from the coronavirus pandemic. For rich countries, this wasn’t just a distant outbreak in a faraway place, but the reality of global health on their doorsteps. Vaccines were developed at breakneck speed and sent all around the world, the key reason that coronavirus fatality rates are now so low. Health workers, the most at risk from both viruses, were praised as heroes.
But for a country like Uganda, the lessons learned from coronavirus look more like cautionary tales. Even amid the global threat of the coronavirus, major countries like the United States and China refused to cooperate. At the peak of the pandemic, South Africa was ostracized for its early reporting on a new variant.
Rich countries hoarded vaccine doses while poor nations went without — even now, less than a third of people in Africa are fully vaccinated against covid-19. Anti-vaccination sentiment spread worldwide, often spread by powerful voices in wealthy nations.
And now, as the interest in the pandemic declines in much of the wealthy world, interest in other global health problems is dwindling, too. Speaking this week in Kampala, Ahmed Ogwell, acting head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pointed to Africa’s recent experiences with monkeypox, another potentially deadly virus that has spread widely this year.
“Recently, during the pandemic, when we saw the number of monkeypox cases growing here in Africa, we issued a global alert but no help came to Africa,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “In fact, today, as we see the tail end of the pandemic, there’s still no help coming to Africa for monkeypox.”
“This means that we need to check the reality that is with us, and the reality for us is that when a public health crisis is big, like the pandemic, Africa is on its own,” Ogwell added.
Health workers in Uganda are hampered by a lack of tools. The symptoms of the Sudan strain of Ebola can be similar to malaria, even though the requirements for treatment and measures to prevent the spread are starkly different. There is only one government-run facility capable of identifying Ebola in the country — the number of suspected deaths in Uganda is double the 19 confirmed with laboratory tests.
And while there is a vaccine for Ebola, it was designed to work on the Zaire strain of the virus which caused so much devastation during the West Africa outbreak and later in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There is not yet a proven vaccine for the Sudan strain, though WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that a clinical trial would begin on one candidate within weeks.
Anyone holding their breath for an Operation Warp Speed-style rapid development and deployment of vaccines, as seen during covid-19, is likely to be disappointed. That $18 billion sprint for a vaccine — spearheaded by the same Donald Trump who once spread fear about aid workers with Ebola — only began in mid-May 2020, by which point almost 90,000 deaths had been recorded in the United States alone.
The Ebola outbreak in Uganda is unlikely to ever threaten the United States on the same scale, especially with authorities screening for it at airports. But as Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, wrote for the Guardian this week, survival bias from those who made it through covid is impacting the way we think about global health risks now in a post-vaccine era. | 2022-10-13T04:54:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fighting Ebola outbreak with lessons from the covid pandemic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/ebola-outbreak-uganda-covid-lessons/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/ebola-outbreak-uganda-covid-lessons/ |
New Capitals goalie Darcy Kuemper turns aside a shot from Boston's Jake DeBrusk during the first period of Wednesday night's season opener at Capital One Arena. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
The Washington Capitals rolled out a red carpet Wednesday night at Capital One Arena, opening a new season with a few new faces — and more than a few old problems.
The 5-2 loss to the Boston Bruins featured many of the traits that hurt the Capitals last season: early deficits, self-inflicted errors and a failure to capitalize on opportunities. The hosts maintained strong pressure on stout Bruins goalie Linus Ullmark with breakaways, power-play looks and solid offensive play through most of the third period. But Ullmark had the answers in a contest that was a one-goal game for most of the final 20 minutes.
“When you fall behind 3-0, you are going to have a hard time on a nightly basis winning hockey games,” Capitals Coach Peter Laviolette said. “There was a lot of things we could have done better. The first half of the game we were outdone five-on-five, we were outdone on special teams, and it ended up costing us.”
Svrluga: As D.C. teams tear down and start over, the Capitals just never go away
The coach added that his team was “disjointed and disconnected.”
Washington dug itself a hole early in the second period but clawed back to 3-2 by intermission. The Capitals dictated play in the third period, outshooting the visitors 13-7 and pushing for the equalizer. But a pair of penalties hurt their cause, and the Bruins’ David Krejci delivered a dagger with 3:43 left, trailing a breakaway from David Pastrnak to put an easy rebound past new goalie Darcy Kuemper. The goal made it 4-2, Kuemper exited soon thereafter, the Bruins added an empty-netter, and the Capitals were left hoping for their first points Thursday night in Toronto.
The Bruins grabbed hold of the game early. Goals from Patrice Bergeron, Pastrnak and Taylor Hall had the home crowd quiet six minutes into the second period. Washington’s defense was shaky, and Boston’s transition game was clearly a problem for the Capitals blue liners.
Anthony Mantha kick-started the Capitals’ comeback a little more than a minute after Hall’s goal, scoring off Dylan Strome’s pass/shot that deflected off a Bruins defenseman and right onto Mantha’s stick to cap an odd-man rush.
Conor Sheary cut the deficit to one goal less than five minutes later. Sheary, who scored 19 goals last season, took a feed from Nic Dowd on an odd-man rush and beat Ullmark.
The Capitals just couldn’t get anything else past the big Swedish netminder, who stands 6-foot-5, finished with 33 saves and stymied all four of the Capitals’ power plays.
“We have so many talented players on the power play that we need to get at least one goal,” Mantha said. “It’s still early. We’ll figure it out. I’m not worried.”
Defensively, there were lapses that exposed some early concerns. Kuemper, the free agent acquisition from Stanley Cup champion Colorado, was not faultless, making 25 saves on 29 shots. But it’s clear he will need more help from the group in front of him.
Injuries clear
Besides long-term injuries to Nicklas Backstrom (hip), Tom Wilson (knee) and Carl Hagelin (hip/eye), Washington opened its season fairly unscathed after its veteran core endured a three-week training camp.
T.J. Oshie and Dmitry Orlov, both injured last week during the preseason, played in the opener. Oshie, who played in just 44 games last season as he dealt with a variety of ailments, had been bothered with an upper-body injury from the preseason but took normal minutes during even-strength play and on the power play and finished 19:20 of ice time.
Protas’s shot
Aliaksei Protas earned a place in the opening night lineup after a strong preseason. Whether the 6-foot-6 Belarusian keeps that spot is yet to be determined.
Playing left wing on the second line Wednesday alongside Strome and Mantha, Protas had early chances but couldn’t get one to squeak past Ullmark. His most notable chance occurred early in the second period, when his shot rang off the crossbar. Protas, 21, still has a lot to learn playing in that left wing role, but his teammates are confident he can get up to speed.
“He’s mature enough to have that kind of role,” Alex Ovechkin said. “He worked hard all summer. Good for him. He’s getting a huge opportunity to be in the team, and that’s good.”
If Protas doesn’t live up to early expectations, Laviolette could turn to Connor McMichael or Joe Snively. McMichael, who played in 68 games for Washington last season, lost his spot in the lineup to Protas during training camp. Snively spent the majority of last season in the American Hockey League but scored seven points in 12 games in Washington. | 2022-10-13T05:03:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Capitals start new seaosn with old problems in loss to Bruins - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/capitals-bruins-opener-darcy-kuemper/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/12/capitals-bruins-opener-darcy-kuemper/ |
Europe’s Right-Wing Is Adopting the Left’s Look
Analysis by Ian Buruma | Bloomberg
BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 04: Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng during a visit to a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham, on day three of the Conservative Party annual conference at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham on October 04, 2022 in Birmingham, England. This year the Conservative Party Conference will be looking at “Getting Britain Moving” with more jobs and higher salaries. However, delegates are arriving at the conference as the party lags 33 points behind Labour in the opinion polls. (Photo by Stefan Rousseau - WPA Pool/Getty Images) (Photographer: WPA Pool/Getty Images Europe)
In the US, pundits are predicting that a wave of women voters outraged by the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion will help Democrats retain control of the Senate, and possibly even the House. They may be right. But a closer look at right-wing politics in Europe should give Democratic strategists pause.
Across Europe and the UK, women and minorities are increasingly populating the top ranks of hard- and far-right parties. Italy’s next prime minister will be Giorgia Meloni, leader of the populist Brotherhood of Italy, a party with fascist roots. British Prime Minister Liz Truss fancies herself an even tougher version of Margaret Thatcher, though so far with limited success. Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National is now the largest opposition group in France’s National Assembly.
Truss’s cabinet also contains a remarkable number of people with South Asian or African backgrounds, including Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng, whose parents came to Britain from Ghana. The Labour Party shadow cabinet, by contrast, includes only one person of color -- David Lammy, who oversees Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
As in the US, left-wing parties in Europe and the UK pride themselves on championing underrepresented groups. So why are so many notable politicians from those groups gravitating rightward?
In part, they appear to have been drawn by the right’s populist messaging. They believe that they stand for the common people and are hostile, in rhetoric at least, to urban, educated elites. Meloni grew up in a working-class area in Rome. Her father abandoned their family and was later sentenced to prison. Truss prides herself on her state school education, unlike many British Conservative politicians (but not Thatcher) who attended expensive private schools. While Le Pen comes from a well-off political family, she has spent much time in the bleak industrial north of France, where she claims to feel most at home.
Women and minorities who enter right-wing politics also tend to harp on the idea that they worked hard to overcome social hurdles and expect others to do the same. Such claims are sometimes a little less than honest. Truss is the daughter of a professor of mathematics. The only social hurdle Le Pen had to overcome was the stain of her father’s fascist tendencies. And Kwarteng was educated at Eton, Cambridge and Harvard. Still, this is not an unfamiliar standpoint. Often, immigrants and other minorities who are successful like to ascribe their rise to personal merit and hard work. They can have limited tolerance for people who have not done as well.
Older immigrants are not always kind to newcomers either. Once people move out of relative poverty in heavily immigrant areas to richer suburbs and their children join the upper-middle classes, their politics often shift rightward. It was not for nothing that many South Asians voted for Brexit, attracted by the Tories’ opposition to a more generous immigration policy.
The exceptions to this rule, in the US at least, have been Jewish Americans, who have mostly remained staunch Democrats. This is probably due to an instinctive distrust of any hint of nativism, a creed that, to put it mildly, has never been kind to Jews. But even Jews have been unsympathetic to newcomers in the past, notably to poorer, less well-educated Jews from eastern Europe, who they feared would make trouble for more established citizens.
All this poses a challenge for left-wing parties counting on the support of women and people of color. An important part of the problem is ideological. Progressives tend to treat minorities as social and economic victims who need to be helped by the state. The thought is that less privileged people need preferential treatment to succeed.
As progressive parties rely more and more on highly educated urban elites, and less on labor unions and industrial workers, this kind of thinking has become more prevalent. Union leaders fought for workers’ rights and better conditions. Left-wing ideology today is more concerned with combating prejudice against racial and sexual minorities.
Fighting prejudice is a good thing. And giving people who have been the victims of racism better opportunities in education and other areas of life is commendable. But there is a political risk that minorities will react badly to what is seen as condescension. People don’t necessarily like being treated as victims. Preferential treatment can be resented when it results from feelings of guilt among the most privileged.
This, as well as social conservatism about sexual and religious matters, is one reason why more and more Latinos and even Blacks in the US voted for Donald Trump, why the Tory cabinet is filled with women and people of color, and why women lead the far right in Italy and France. The left can no longer take the “rainbow coalition” of race and gender for granted. If they fail to learn this lesson, the far right is bound to get stronger, and then we will all be worse off.
• Behold the Hollowing Out of the Tory Party: Adrian Wooldridge
Ian Buruma is professor of human rights at Bard College. His latest book is “The Churchill Complex.” | 2022-10-13T05:12:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Europe’s Right-Wing Is Adopting the Left’s Look - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/europes-right-wing-is-adopting-the-lefts-look/2022/10/13/107777a4-4ab4-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/europes-right-wing-is-adopting-the-lefts-look/2022/10/13/107777a4-4ab4-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
The subvariants known as BQ.1.1, BQ.1, BQ.1.3, BA.2.3.20 and XBB are among the fastest-spreading of the main omicron lineages. Based on UK data, the BQ variants, as well as BA.2.75.2 and BF.7 are the most concerning due to their growth advantage and immune evasiveness, the country’s health security agency said on Oct. 7. BF.7 has also been gaining ground in the US, where it accounted for 4.6% of Covid cases in the week ending Oct. 8, from 3.3% the week before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Atlanta-based agency noted BA4.6 was the most prevalent after BA.5, accounting for 13.6% of cases in the first week of October, from 12.7% the week before. In Bangladesh and Singapore, the XBB strain has been linked to a small surge in cases.
Broadly, omicron variants reduce the effectiveness of immunity generated by a primary vaccination series. Booster doses, especially using a mRNA shot from Moderna Inc. or Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE substantially improve protection against symptomatic disease and infection, though the benefit diminishes over time. Studies have found effectiveness against severe illness after a primary immunization series is typically maintained over the following six months. More studies are needed to assess the duration of effectiveness of booster doses beyond six months, according to the World Health Organization. | 2022-10-13T05:12:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Faces New Threats From Fast-Mutating Omicron Variants - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/world-faces-new-threats-from-fast-mutating-omicron-variants/2022/10/12/7e88a462-4aa9-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/world-faces-new-threats-from-fast-mutating-omicron-variants/2022/10/12/7e88a462-4aa9-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Russia-Ukraine war live updates U.S. expects Kyiv to take more land over winter, urges more aid
Photos: Ukrainians flee Zaporizhzhia in days after strikes
Zelensky asks World Bank, IMF for billions in economic aid
Allies pledge new air defense systems, speed up delivery timelines for Ukraine
U.N. votes to condemn Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory
A man drives his motorcycle past a destroyed car in the village of Velyka Oleksandrivka, which has been retaken by Ukraine, in the Kherson region on Wednesday. (Leo Correa/AP)
Ukraine is expected to continue its effort to retake territory from Russia this winter, the U.S. secretary of defense said Wednesday, urging countries to provide what they can in lethal and nonlethal aid. “Ukraine will continue to do everything it can throughout the winter … And we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that they have what’s required to be effective,” Lloyd Austin said after a meeting in Belgium with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Wednesday. NATO defense ministers are continuing their meetings Thursday.
More strikes were launched on the Kyiv region Thursday morning, perhaps by kamikaze drones, according to the governor, Oleksiy Kuleba. Rescue operations are ongoing and residents were told to shelter. Ukraine’s Western allies this week also promised to deliver new air defense systems to the country and expedite the delivery of sophisticated NASAM air defense systems. The declarations, which came the same day as an emergency meeting of the Group of Seven, amount to what Ukraine’s defense minister has called “a new era of air defense.”
Russian leader Vladimir Putin is expected to meet Thursday with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Kazakhstan. A Kremlin spokesperson said the leaders are likely to discuss paths to peace in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
The United Nations General Assembly voted Wednesday to condemn Russia’s illegal seizure of Ukrainian territory, adopting a U.S.-sponsored resolution by a vote of 143-5, with 35 abstentions. The text, which is not legally binding, demands that Russia reverse its annexation of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine. U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement that the vote is “indisputable evidence” that “Putin stands alone on the international stage.”
Germany delivered the first of four newly developed IRIS-T air defense systems to Ukraine this week, in an attempt to help the country better defend itself from Russian strikes.
External power was restored Wednesday to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, which had been relying on generators after losing all external power for the second time in days, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The U.N. nuclear watchdog is trying to establish a security zone at the site, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which Russian forces control.
By Wojciech Grzedzinski and Louisa Loveluck
The new measures demonstrate the Kremlin’s intent to absorb the four regions despite widespread global censure, including demands by leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized powers that Russia “completely and unconditionally withdraw” its troops.
Zelensky on Wednesday urged a roundtable of international financial institutions to support Ukraine’s economy with billions in aid and other funding.
The Ukrainian leader said that Russia’s war has caused his country’s economy to decline by more than a third.
“The real income of our people decreased by a third. Thousands of enterprises and infrastructure facilities were destroyed. Millions of people became internally displaced,” he said in an address to a high-level forum during the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington.
Ukraine’s Western allies are promising new air defense systems — and accelerating the delivery of those that were previously pledged — as Russia steps up missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities this week.
The declarations come amid a flurry of diplomacy, including an emergency meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized nations on Tuesday and a gathering of NATO defense ministers in Brussels on Wednesday.
“A new era of air defence has begun," Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, referring to the new pledges. “There is a moral imperative to protect the sky over in order to save our people.”
The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday adopted a U.S.-sponsored resolution condemning Russia’s illegal annexation of territory in Ukraine by a vote of 143-5, with 35 abstentions.
The vote was numerically nearly identical to one adopted in March, just 10 days after Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, despite 7½ months of brutal war and appeals for support from both the United States and Russia.
While the resolution again won significantly more than the required two-thirds majority of the United Nations’ 193 members, it followed significant diplomatic efforts by both the United States and Russia to increase their margins. | 2022-10-13T06:39:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war live updates: West pledges air defense systems; NATO ministers meet - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/russia-ukraine-war-putin-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/russia-ukraine-war-putin-latest-updates/ |
Live updates:Russia-Ukraine war live updates: U.S. expects Kyiv to take more land over w...
People gather by a rocket crater in a park in central Kyiv on Oct. 12, two days after Ukraine's capital was hit by multiple Russian strikes. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images)
When Vladimir Putin launched missile strikes targeting Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure this week, the move seemed to earn the Russian president a reprieve from hard-liners who had been demanding more decisive action.
“Run, Zelensky, run,” cheered Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader who has sent militias into Ukraine to fight in the war, referring to the Ukrainian president. Kadyrov declared himself to be “100 percent happy” with the conduct of the war after weeks of lambasting Russia’s military leadership over recent disastrous retreats.
But some senior Russian officials and people within the business elite are drained and depressed — and the expectation is of a worsening political and economic climate. If Putin’s military escalation was partly aimed at putting the lid on turmoil bubbling up over the war’s mismanagement, then its impact may only be temporary, several officials and business executives said in interviews.
“On the battlefield there are other problems,” said an influential Moscow businessman who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of personal security fears. “I don’t think it will lift the pressure,” referring to the missile strikes.
In addition, the business executives and officials said, even if the strikes succeed in damaging more of Ukraine’s electricity and energy networks with the fighting dragging on into the freezing winter, there are questions over how many missiles Russia has left and how long it can sustain a bombing campaign. The missiles “are being produced. But in single units. And the old reserves are running out,” one state official said.
Ever since the Ukrainian army began recapturing swaths of territory in Ukraine’s south and east, Putin has been scrambling, forced to send hundreds of thousands of barely trained reservists to try to fortify Russia’s exhausted army — a move that sparked protests across Russia and sent at least 300,000 Russian men fleeing across the country’s borders to avoid the draft.
As signs of discord within Putin’s inner circle began to surface, Saturday’s humiliating attack on the Kremlin’s prized Kerch Bridge to Crimea seemed the final straw.
“No one is happy with the status quo,” the Russian state official said. “It is clear that a military or political victory will not be possible. But a loss is not possible either. This is turning into the situation in chess known as zugzwang, when each step is worse than the next and yet it is impossible not to move.”
The optimism of the summer when, according to a second state official, many in the country’s elite believed “we’ll turn everything around and find a way” has completely evaporated. “People see there is no future,” he said.
The forced mobilization has already dealt a blow to Putin’s popularity, one of the main bases for his legitimacy as president, and when the dead bodies of reservists begin to return from the front, the situation could worsen, the Moscow businessman said.
“In several months, there will be a very negative dynamic in Russia: a worsening of the mood in society,” he said. “Everything depends on the front.”
“Putin’s arsenal of possible action is very limited,” said Sergei Aleksashenko, a former deputy governor of the Russian Central Bank who is now living in exile in the United States. “Apart from striking civilian infrastructure, he only has the option of using a tactical nuclear weapon. If the Ukrainian counterattack continues, the question of what to do further remains in front of Putin.”
But few in Moscow say Putin will resort to deploying a tactical nuclear strike, despite the Kremlin’s statements, the Moscow businessman said, because “then he won’t have any cards left,” while China could block that kind of escalation. “This is a Pandora’s box [the Chinese] don’t want opened,” he said.
Saudi Arabia’s support for oil production cuts this winter seemed to have emboldened the Russian president, said the same Moscow executive, who maintains contacts with political officials. Even if energy prices remain at the same level, Putin “thinks Europe will be in crisis and will have no time for Ukraine.”
“This is still a war of attrition, until one side is not able to continue the war,” he said.
Gazprom’s chief executive, Alexei Miller, on Wednesday warned “entire cities” in Europe could freeze and said there were no guarantees Europe could survive the winter with the current levels of gas reserves.
Economists and business executives say sanctions are beginning to hit the Russian economy harder, with budget cuts already being imposed — while a proposed price cap to be levied by the Group of Seven nations on Russian oil sales from December would be a further blow. The Russian president “will run low on cash … He needs cash to pay Iran and North Korea for weapons. But we will see in December a completely new reality,” said Sergei Guriev, the provost at the Sciences Po university in Paris.
Amid expectations of more and tougher sanctions, every piece of bad news from the front line is a new blow for the Russian economy, a second member of the Moscow business elite said.
“All of business is suffering from what’s happening. Everyone has frozen their investment plans,” he said. The previous belief that Russia could redirect trade flows away from the West through China, Kazakhstan and India is fast melting away, two of the business executives said. Kazakhstan has begun to block cargoes carrying European goods into Russia, while the Chinese were beginning to stop certain supplies, too.
“Everyone is completely frustrated. The mood is very bad,” a third senior Russian businessman said.
Members of Moscow’s elite are beginning to speak about potential leadership change in a way they have never done before in more than 20 years of Putin’s rule — though no one can say how or when this might happen.
“We have begun entering a revolutionary situation,” the first state official said. “Everyone is waiting for something other than what is happening now: a different leadership, a different war. The hawks want tougher action. The doves want no war at all. The time for a change of the political system is ripening. But how it will happen, I don’t know.” | 2022-10-13T06:39:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inside Russia, elite counts destructive cost of war as Putin escalates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/russian-elite-mood-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/russian-elite-mood-war/ |
The K-pop band BTS visits Rockefeller Plaza in New York City during a 2020 appearance on the “Today” show. (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
The most coveted ticket in all of South Korea right now is the one that will get a fan of BTS into the K-pop band’s show Saturday in the southeastern port city of Busan, a happening likely to be the country’s biggest sensation of the year. But it’s what happens next that matters most.
The concert — before some 50,000 deliriously excited followers of the boy-supergroup — is no ordinary performance. It’s the heart of a $5 million marketing push in pursuit of a near-obsession for both Busan and the national government: hosting the World Expo in 2030.
South Korea is going all out. Busan, its second-largest city, has even asked the government to spare all seven BTS members from mandatory military service so they can be the face of the Expo bid. Huge business conglomerates are financing massive advertisement campaigns to promote it.
The nation’s leaders have pushed for years for South Korea to become the seventh country in the world to host all three global mega-events, which they believe is key to raising its global profile and building soft power. They snagged the soccer World Cup in 2002, and the Olympics in the summer of 1988 and the winter of 2018. The World Expo, held for six months every five years, would be the final prize.
So why does Busan want the expo so much?
The event began in 1851 as a celebration of cultures and innovations from around the world. For emerging societies, it symbolizes their arrival in the top rank of nations, said Nicholas J. Cull, a public diplomacy expert at the University of Southern California. For those with more established reputations, it can serve as a reminder of their stature.
South Korea is closer to that second category. It is the world’s 10th-largest economy, and Busan is a popular convention city and home to the Busan International Film Festival — a premier gathering in Asia.
In many ways, Cull said, the country is past the need to put itself on the map with the Busan World Expo. And image, he added, is not just about selling positive attributes but also about eliminating the negative elements that can undermine global standing. One of those is South Korea’s growing income inequality, which has inspired internationally recognized movies and TV shows such as “Parasite” and “Squid Game.”
“I think that South Korea is beyond the need for a coming-out party. The Seoul Olympics served that role. It is increasingly in the category of a country from whom great things are expected,” Cull said. “Many South Koreans are concerned about problems in the country and want to ease those negatives first, even if they are splendid themes for hit movies and TV series.”
Still, city and national leaders say the 2030 World Expo would be a financial and reputational boon. Its bid committee estimates total spending at $3.4 billion, while the economic benefit generated directly and indirectly by the event is projected at $42.7 billion, according to analysis by a government-affiliated think tank.
The tourism industry is critical to Busan, where service jobs account for about three-fourths of all industries, said Lee Sang-ho, professor of tourism policy and cultural tourism at the Pusan National University in the city.
“I am sure that the charm of Busan — and the value of its tourism resources — will gain much attention. Above all, I think it will be an opportunity for Busan citizens, who tend to be conservative, to interact with tourists from all over the world, which is difficult to quantify in economic value,” Lee said.
The city’s competitors for the host spot: Rome, Riyadh and the Ukrainian city of Odessa.
One undercurrent of concern stems from these expos’ mixed record. The 2020 event in Dubai led to about $38 billion in government-related debt, according to a forecast by London-based research firm Capital Economics. James Swanston, a Middle East and North Africa economist at the firm, noted many factors, including the Dubai government’s lofty targets for tourist arrivals and the number of expo visitors who would eventually become residents there.
And in Osaka, Japan, which will host in 2025, there are worries about skyrocketing construction costs sparked by global supply chain shortages, a weakened yen and inflation. Fewer countries plan to participate than initially anticipated. Businesses are questioning whether they will recoup their investments, according to Japanese news outlet Jiji Press.
In South Korea, the main controversy surrounding the Expo push is the Busan mayor’s proposal for the members of BTS to “serve the nation in their unique capacity” and waive their mandatory enlistment — a highly controversial privilege that until now was largely reserved for top athletes and classical artists who help “elevate national prestige.”
Under a conscription system established to counter threats from North Korea, the country requires all able-bodied men to serve at least 18 months in the armed forces by age 28, though the parliament revised a law in 2020 to let K-pop stars postpone their service until they are 30. (The two Koreas are technically still at war given the absence of a formal peace treaty following their 1950-1953 conflict.)
Culture Minister Park Bo-gyoon, whose predecessor had told reporters that it would be “a cultural loss for mankind” should BTS stop performing because of military conscription, said last week that the ministry will “confirm our stance as soon as possible.” Vocalist Kim Seok-jin, who goes by Jin, faces a December enlistment deadline. The 29-year-old is the band’s oldest member.
“Exemptions are exceptions, and exceptions should stay minimal,” said Shin Hee-Seok, a legal researcher at Yonsei University in Seoul. “Setting a precedent for BTS could open a floodgate of applications from the K-pop industry. I don’t think the government would want to handle that.”
The Grammy-nominated group, which has sold tens of millions of albums since its debut in 2013, went on hiatus in June as some members awaited enlistment and others pursued solo projects. Saturday’s concert will be their first performance since the break, and so it has drawn even more attention from the massive fan base known as the BTS Army.
Because Busan is not paying for the show, the band’s parent company and other South Korean businesses are financing it. Companies such as cellular service providers, the Korean conglomerate Lotte and others raffled off concert tickets for customers who bought their items — including cellphones, chewing gum, hamburgers and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. All tickets have been snatched up.
Lee reported from Tokyo, Kim and Li from Seoul. Julia Mio Inuma in Tokyo contributed reporting. | 2022-10-13T08:10:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | BTS to perform at Busan concert as S. Korea vies to host World Expo - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/bts-concert-busan-korea-world-expo/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/bts-concert-busan-korea-world-expo/ |
FILE - In this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran, protesters chant slogans during a protest over the death of a woman who was detained by the morality police, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sept. 21, 2022. (AP Photo, File) (Uncredited/AP) | 2022-10-13T08:15:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | EXPLAINER: Who is leading the crackdown on Iran's protests? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/explainer-who-is-leading-the-crackdown-on-irans-protests/2022/10/13/452a7b50-4abd-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/explainer-who-is-leading-the-crackdown-on-irans-protests/2022/10/13/452a7b50-4abd-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Saudi Arabia sharply rejects U.S. criticism of oil production cut
This combination of pictures created on Tuesday shows a photo provided by the official Saudi Press Agency of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attending a meeting in the capital Riyadh on December 30, 2021 and a photo of President Biden attending a meeting in Washington, DC, on October 4. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Saudi Arabia responded Thursday to a barrage of criticism from the United States over a decision by the Saudi-led oil producing cartel and its allies to cut production, saying the decision was based solely on “economic considerations" while denying it was “politically motivated” against the United States.
The unusually detailed and often caustic statement, attributed to a Saudi Foreign Ministry official, came after the White House and members of Congress condemned the kingdom for a decision by OPEC Plus last week to cut its oil output by 2 million barrels a day, a move that could boost oil prices in the United States and worldwide.
The cuts were widely seen as a political blow to President Biden ahead of a tough winter and a month before midterm elections.
In response to the cuts, Biden said he would be reviewing the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia and there would be “consequences” for the kingdom, one of 13 core members of the oil cartel, which is joined by several partners, including Russia. A White House spokesman said Biden was also open to proposals by a group of U.S. lawmakers that would penalize Saudi Arabia, including by limiting security cooperation and arms sales.
The White House has been pressing Saudi Arabia to produce more oil in order to compensate for the global shortage and price increase caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Biden visited Saudi Arabia in July and met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s day to day leader — brushing aside criticism from human rights activists who said such a meeting would reward the crown prince for his repressive tactics, including what U.S. intelligence said was his involvement in the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Biden aides asserted that the purpose of the trip was to improve the U.S.-Saudi relationship, rather than ensuring the kingdom keep producing oil at a certain level. Mohammed has denied he ordered Khashoggi’s killing.
The Saudi statement Thursday suggested that the Biden administration had asked the kingdom to postpone a decision to cut oil prices for a month, which would have delayed the fallout from the cuts until after the U.S. midterm elections. Such a delay, the statement said, “would have had negative economic consequences.”
The statement denied that Saudi Arabia was solely responsible for the decision to cut oil production, saying such measures were based on “consensus."
“These outcomes are based purely on economic considerations that take into account maintaining balance of supply and demand in the oil markets, as well as aim to limit volatility that does not serve the interests of consumers and producers,” it said.
The Saudis also pushed back at criticism the decision to cut oil production amounted to siding with Russia in the conflict in Ukraine.
“Any attempts to distort the facts about the Kingdom’s position regarding the crisis in Ukraine are unfortunate, and will not change the Kingdom’s principled position," the statement said.
Sarah Dadouch in Beirut contributed to reporting. | 2022-10-13T09:24:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Saudi Arabia defends OPEC oil cut decision after Biden criticism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/saudi-opec-oil-production-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/saudi-opec-oil-production-biden/ |
Review by Kathy Kiely
Margaret Sullivan worked as the media columnist for The Washington Post, and before that as the public editor for the New York Times. “Too many journalists — worried about their reputations for neutrality, under pressure from corporate bosses, and mired in their comfortable traditions — are still doing their jobs the same old way,” she writes. “It’s not good enough.” (Eric Hanson for The Washington Post)
This should have been Margaret Sullivan’s victory lap.
It’s hard to think of anyone who’s met and mastered more challenges with more aplomb and journalistic integrity than The Washington Post’s former media columnist: Starting as a summer intern at the tiny Niagara Gazette in the late 1970s (where she had a ringside seat to the environmental disaster at Love Canal), Sullivan rose methodically through the ranks to become the first female editor in chief of her hometown paper, the Buffalo News. She helped diversify the paper’s editorial staff, putting people of color in leadership roles and taking pains to mentor younger women.
Then she headed to the New York Times to assume the deliberately awkward (and since abolished) post of public editor, assigned to question, investigate and police the organization from inside its ranks. Coming from Buffalo, Sullivan didn’t exactly blend right into the Times’ rarefied culture. “Jill is an uptown girl. You’re not,” David Shribman, a journalist who worked at both the Buffalo paper and the Times, said of Jill Abramson, who was the top editor at the Times when Sullivan arrived there. “Over nearly four years in the job, I never had a completely comfortable day as public editor,” Sullivan writes.
Honorably, she departed when she felt the camaraderie of the newsroom threatening her critical perspective. “I was starting to lose the outsider’s mentality,” she says. At The Post, Sullivan was assigned to cover the media at large, but she didn’t hesitate to bite the hand that fed her. At one point, she even turned on one of her teen idols. Sullivan, who says Watergate inspired her to get into journalism, castigated Bob Woodward for waiting for the publication of a book to reveal important details on what President Donald Trump knew about the coronavirus pandemic and when he knew it.
It’s hard to argue with Sullivan’s news judgment: Last year, she publicly scolded leaders of the nation’s leading news organizations for failing to follow up on another scoop that Woodward scored with writing partner Robert Costa — the now-infamous memo by lawyer John Eastman outlining plans to get Trump a second term he did not win. Who’s sorry now? (Sullivan left The Post in August to take up a visiting professorship at Duke University.)
Given all this, you might expect Sullivan’s book, “Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) From an Ink-Stained Life,” to be a reminiscence of her professional triumphs and a reflection on their larger meaning for the industry. While she’s particularly accomplished in her field, Sullivan is not an isolated phenomenon. The news business of today is much more diverse and publicly self-critical than the old boy’s network she and I had to wheedle our way into back in the day.
So why, having empowered and platformed establishment-challenging change-makers like Sullivan, is the news business in such a state of disarray and disrespect? And how does it get its voice of authority back?
Those are the questions that haunt the pages of “Newsroom Confidential.” The title suggests a gossipy tell-all, and there’s a heaping dollop of that. (Memo to a certain New York Times sports editor: You might want to look for a bunker, and I don’t mean along a fairway.) But if Sullivan started out intending to write a memoir, she ended up with a manifesto. This is a book about the role of the press in a democracy that’s in grave jeopardy.
Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, The Post’s media columnist did something that might surprise those who dismiss journalists as out-of-touch elites. Turning down invitations to speak in a slew of European capitals about what Trump’s election meant, she instead took up a reader’s challenge to get out of “your liberal bubble.” Not that Sullivan really needed to: She grew up in Buffalo in the shadow of a hulking steel mill that, she writes, would turn skies “electric coral” when the slag was dumped at night. Though her dad was a lawyer, the town’s blue-collar ethos clearly shaped Sullivan’s sensibility. She spent her formative years in a newsroom where she had to tolerate nicknames like “Marge” and “Sully.” One of her early mentors, the managing editor of the Buffalo paper, would evaluate stories by asking, “What would Sweeney think?” Sweeney, Sullivan explains, was “an imaginary character … presumably a working-class guy sitting on his front porch in Irish Catholic South Buffalo, cracking open a Labatt Blue and picking up The Buffalo Evening News.”
Sullivan’s reporting tour of small towns in northwest Pennsylvania and western New York took her to places that should have felt familiar. She meandered into saloons packed with plenty of Sweeneys. Only now, they were telling her that the 9/11 attacks were arranged by the U.S. government, that the 2012 massacre of schoolchildren at Sandy Hook Elementary School never happened and that journalists who report otherwise “get paid to be wrong.”
Sullivan felt her world lurching off its axis.
A considerable part of “Newsroom Confidential” is about how, ever since Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, journalists have been struggling to adapt. In an era when a former president and his acolytes routinely traffic in Orwellian funhouse distortions of reality, journalism’s standard operating procedures — carefully finding stakeholders in a controversy and balancing the viewpoints of one against the other — clearly haven’t been cutting it. How are you supposed to “balance” sources when some are patently unreliable?
You shouldn’t, Sullivan has concluded.
“American journalists should be putting the country on high alert, with sirens blaring and red lights flashing. The legitimate press should be trying to figure out how best to rise to his historic challenge,” she writes. “But too many journalists — worried about their reputations for neutrality, under pressure from corporate bosses, and mired in their comfortable traditions — are still doing their jobs the same old way. It’s not good enough.”
Many journalists are coming around to the view that, in the current environment, the traditional way of doing things can be an outright obstacle to truth-telling. One of my favorite dissections of how this happens comes from the Guardian’s Australia editor, Lenore Taylor. After watching a 2019 Trump news conference live, she demonstrated how journalists’ “necessary” editing of the former president’s “skittering, half-finished sentences” made him sound more coherent than he actually is.
So, some journalists and news organizations are blowing up the usual playbook.
Sullivan cites a number of examples that she covered for The Post: the Philadelphia Inquirer deciding not to use the word “audit” to describe a Republican attempt to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential vote in Pennsylvania; a Harrisburg, Pa., radio station announcing that it would routinely remind its audience which state legislators joined an effort to reverse that election’s outcome; and, sadly, longtime Associated Press congressional reporter Andrew Taylor’s decision to walk away after watching the desecration of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The objective-journalism version of events can often obscure the reality of what’s really going on,” Taylor told Sullivan. “It sanitizes things.”
Trumpism isn’t the only challenge facing the news business. Sullivan’s career tracks a critical arc of journalism history.
When she became editor of the Buffalo News in 1999, newspapers were riding high. Ad revenue was five years away from its peak of nearly $50 billion. But the seeds of sweeping change were beginning to germinate. In August 1999, the Blogger publishing service launched, a key development in a software revolution that empowered a new class of citizen journalists. A few months later, the online service provider AOL shocked the world by buying blue-chip legacy media company Time Warner. Oh, and 1999 was also the year a New York tabloid personality named Donald Trump briefly made his first run for president — on the Reform Party ticket.
By the time Sullivan departed Buffalo, the media world had completely changed. By 2012, the year she became the public editor at the Times, Facebook had 1 billion users worldwide and was in the process of swallowing up the photo-sharing service Instagram. The following year, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would buy The Washington Post.
Less visible but perhaps equally important to the crisis of trust in journalism that confronted Sullivan on her post-inaugural reporting tour: As The Post’s Dan Balz wrote in an essay to mark the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, the pantheonization of investigative reporting created a kind of gotcha culture that bred mistrust in government and, ultimately, journalism.
“Everyone wanted to kind of have a pelt on the wall,” historian Rick Perlstein told Balz. “Every reporter wanted their own kind of scandal. And one of the consequences was a tendency to elevate peccadilloes to the status of scandals.”
It’s hard not to see the link to the coverage that prompted Sullivan’s sharpest criticism of the Times — the paper’s fixation-to-the-point-of-sabotage with Hillary Clinton. Sullivan is blunt: She doesn’t think the former secretary of state, who won the popular election in 2016 but lost the electoral college vote to Trump, got a fair shake. She believes the Times overhyped the controversy over Clinton’s emails while downplaying the possibility that foreign interests were trying to elect her opponent.
“The Times had certainly treated the FBI’s two investigations of the 2016 presidential candidates very differently,” Sullivan writes. “It shouted one from the rooftops and on Trump and Russia the paper used its quiet inside voice, playing right into the Republican candidate’s hands.” She describes the Times, along with a number of other leading news organizations, scrambling for rights to “exclusives” from a campaign-eve book purporting to unearth fresh scandals about Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton. The book’s author, Peter Schweizer, was a partisan with known ties to Republican strategists and funders. Sullivan attributes the Times’ fixation on scoring Clinton exposés to an error in news judgment: Assuming that Trump couldn’t win and Clinton would be the next president, the paper reserved its most gimlet-eyed scrutiny for her.
For those outside the news business, post-mortems like this should be the most important revelation in “Newsroom Confidential.” It should reassure the public to know that people in newsrooms argue with one another and doubt themselves on a daily basis. This kind of loud, constant examination of consciences is a vital part of the effort to be fair and honest and genuinely reflective of the communities in which we live.
But these kinds of candid conversations become impossible when they turn into public purges. And that’s another one of journalism’s existential crises to which Sullivan’s book bears witness.
The evil genius of the poison that Trumpism has loosed into the American body politic is that it unleashes a desire to respond in kind: to fight hyperbole with hyperbole, reputational vandalism with reputational vandalism. While Sullivan describes herself as generally on “the side of what was disparagingly and falsely called the ‘woke mob’” in newsroom debates over standards, she’s uncomfortable with the righteous wrath that has driven a number of well-known journalists, such as James Bennet and Donald McNeil at the Times and Stan Wischnowki at the Philadelphia Inquirer, out of jobs for errors in judgment.
Dutiful Catholic girl that she was raised to be, Sullivan struggles to end her book on a note of gratitude and positivity. But her anecdote arguing for the redemptive power of feature writing rings more than a little hollow. A better summing up might be the quote from W.B. Yeats that Sullivan invokes after the reporting tour where so many people told her they no longer believed in fact-based, public-service journalism:
The verse is from “The Second Coming,” one of the Irish poet’s many commentaries on his own country’s cultural and class wars. It could stand as an epitaph for this discomfiting book — and the unfinished history of this discomfiting age.
Kathy Kiely is the Lee Hills chair in free-press studies at the Missouri School of Journalism.
St. Martin’s. 272 pp. $28.99 | 2022-10-13T09:37:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of “Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life” by Margaret Sullivan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/post-times-insider-shares-her-concerns-about-journalism-today/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/post-times-insider-shares-her-concerns-about-journalism-today/ |
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels. (Olivier Matthys/AP)
BRUSSELS — Outraged over Russia’s recent strikes on civilian infrastructure targets across Ukraine, NATO countries and other nations are vowing to boost support for Ukrainian forces, focusing in particular on the advanced air defense systems at the top of Kyiv’s wish list.
“We will stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Thursday as defense ministers convened for a second day of meetings at the alliance headquarters in Brussels. “In particular we will provide more air defense systems to Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg’s pledge echoed the resolve of U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and other officials who voiced dismay over the Russian airstrikes. The defense ministers on Thursday will discuss NATO’s response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, including military aid, the protection of critical infrastructure, and nuclear planning, among other issues.
Germany has begun sending four of its state-of-the-art IRIS-T air defense systems to Ukraine.
On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview that his country would deliver radar and air defense systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks. He did not say which systems. Early Thursday, Britain made its own announcement: it will send Ukraine AMRAAM antiaircraft missiles.
“Russia’s latest indiscriminate strikes on civilian areas in Ukraine warrant further support to those seeking to defend their nation,” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said in the statement.
The AMRAAM missiles, Wallace said, will be used alongside U.S. air defense systems known as NASAMS. U.S. officials said earlier this week that two NASAMS systems were weeks away from delivery to Ukraine and efforts are underway to get them there more quickly.
The new equipment comes as NATO countries and other nations backing Ukraine have grown increasingly alarmed and angry about Russia’s increasingly brutal tactics.
A string of battlefield setbacks have Russian forces on the back foot, NATO officials and diplomats say, but there is no sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to back down, and Russia has been taking steps to tighten its grip on occupied areas that claims to have annexed in violation of international law.
With its stocks of precision ammunition running low, the Russian side has stepped up attacks using longer range Soviet-era munitions, taking aim at Ukrainian infrastructure and civilian targets far from the front line, a senior NATO official said — a sign, some fear, of what’s to come.
On Wednesday, Austin convened the sixth meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a coalition of more than 50 countries that have pledged military support to Ukraine.
Austin decried the “malice and cruelty” of Russia’s recent escalation and promised ongoing support. “We’re going to do everything we can, as fast as we can, to help the Ukrainian forces get the capability they need to protect the Ukrainian people,” he said.
But getting Ukraine the systems they need — and making sure they are usable — is a complex task, U.S. and NATO officials said. Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said supplying air defenses will be “quite complicated from a technical standpoint” and will “take a bit of time.”
NATO’s 30 allies were joined in Brussels this week by Sweden and Finland, which have applied to join the alliance and for the first time are participating in a defense ministerial as “invitees,” giving them broader access to most NATO discussions. | 2022-10-13T09:42:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NATO countries race to strengthen Ukrainian air defenses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/nato-ukraine-air-defenses-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/nato-ukraine-air-defenses-russia/ |
‘This is just such a huge moment, not just for me and my family, but the entire visually impaired community,’ Kaiya Armstrong said
Kaiya Armstrong, right, hugs her mother, Kamla Armstrong, as her father, Mark, smiles. The Cessna she piloted across the country is behind them. (Clarence Williams/The Washington Post)
When the front propeller stopped spinning, the pilot, Kaiya Armstrong, emerged victorious from the two-seater cockpit and unfolded a long white and red cane — the same one that for years has helped her navigate the world with eyes that allow her to see only a few inches in front of her face.
“Woo! Good job, Kaiya!” screamed the dozen or so supporters, including students who carried signs that read “Go, Kaiya, Go” in English and Braille symbols.
She had a co-pilot on her voyage who communicated with her throughout the flights, giving her real-time vital information.
A stormy forecast brought her to the D.C. area one day ahead of schedule for a trip that commemorated World Sight Day, designed to be an “International Day of Awareness” promoted each October, according to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.
The trek was sponsored by the Foundation for Blind Children, a 70-year-old Arizona organization that teaches about 2,000 students of all ages how to navigate life without full sight, said CEO Marc Ashton. And in Armstrong’s case, they provided the opportunity to learn to fly without full sight.
The organization sponsors “Challenge Events” for students, including a hike up Mount Kilimanjaro, swims to Alcatraz Island and braving rapids on the Colorado River. The group nervously tracked Armstrong’s progress through a GPS app as she left Phoenix, was rerouted from Colorado to Las Vegas because of bad weather and continued landing and taking off eastward bound.
“It’s really to give our kids that moment of glory to have the rest of their lives to sow confidence,” Ashton said.
“This was just an amazing event that I never thought would be possible,” said Marilin Huinac, a 16-year-old student. “She’s doing this for us. We can do anything. Like she said, ‘There are no limits.’ ”
Armstrong’s sight began to falter as a 14-year-old when she left her Goodyear, Ariz., house for a miles-long bike ride. Within minutes, the world grew fuzzy, and she quickly returned home to tell her mother, Kamla Armstrong, who thought she simply had an allergic reaction to something.
“Her pupil had ballooned,” Kamla Armstrong said in an interview.
Over several years, Armstrong’s eyesight deteriorated, and she navigated her high school years without medical or academic support, falling off sidewalk curbs and bumping into things, her parents recalled. By senior year, the family purchased a guide cane and turned to YouTube videos to learn how to use it, her father, Mark Armstrong, said.
She grew closer to her family, especially her mother, who often served as a set of eyes for her but insisted her daughter join family outings to play putt-putt golf or go ice skating. Kamla Armstrong told her oldest child to “keep faith in the Lord,” she said.
“This is just such a huge moment, not just for me and my family, but the entire visually impaired community,” Armstrong said. “It’s something that I want everybody to remember.” | 2022-10-13T10:17:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Blind woman Kaiya Armstrong piloted an airplane across the country - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/13/kaiya-armstrong-blind-pilot-airplane/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/13/kaiya-armstrong-blind-pilot-airplane/ |
Her Disney Plus series, which ends its first season this week, found ways to combine comedy with superhero romance
Tatiana Maslany only had one concern when she began filming her role as the newest hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In its first season, which streams its ninth and last episode Thursday on Disney Plus, “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” has been Marvel Studios’ funniest franchise by a lot. That’s a lofty achievement when you consider humor fueled by the comedic chops of superhero heavyweights Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth has been a key ingredient in the MCU’s first decade of success. Maslany and head writer Jessica Gao have found ways to find that comedy while combining it with sexiness, delving into topics such as superhero dating and Captain America’s virginity.
“She-Hulk” also focuses on sex as a part of the story in a way that other corners of the MCU don’t, featuring dating apps and superhero hookups. In this season’s penultimate episode, Charlie Cox made his highly-anticipated Marvel Studios debut as Daredevil, resuming a role he originated on Netflix back when Marvel and the streamer still worked together pre-Disney Plus. Daredevil hooks up with She-Hulk after the two share a night of crime-fighting together, forcing him into a bootless superhero walk of shame the next morning. Maslany credits Gao with placing just as much emphasis on the personal side of being a superhero as potential threats to the universe.
Her co-star Ruffalo has the most cinematic Hulk/Bruce Banner appearances — ahead of Edward Norton and Eric Bana — but can appear as his version of the Hulk in the MCU only in guest appearances because of an ongoing deal with Universal. Ruffalo has said frequently he’ll probably never have his own Hulk movie, unlike many of his “Avengers” co-stars. Maslany’s She-Hulk has no such limitations.
“He was super jealous of it,” Maslany said with a laugh. “That’s what’s so great about the way we explore these two [hulks] so differently. His hulkness is a limit on him in one way, where mine is a different kind of limitation. Our consciousness is so different based on how we have been socialized to deal with our emotions. He needs to go off to an island that his billionaire friend has funded for him to figure out how to be less angry, and I’m sort of like, that’s what I do every day. There’s something really interesting in that commentary. But I want to see a Mark-led movie as Hulk. He’d be amazing. That’d be so fun.”
Is Captain America a virgin? ‘She-Hulk’ solves this Marvel mystery.
“She-Hulk” co-stars Josh Segarra and Renée Elise Goldsberry said one of the more frequent sources of laughs on set was when they would constantly be reminded to avoid eye contact with Maslany as She-Hulk, since she would later be digitally altered to be almost seven feet tall. They also kept asking Gao if their supporting characters, Augustus “Pug” Pugliese and Mallory Book, lawyers at She-Hulk’s firm, would get superpowers like Maslany. Segarra is no stranger to superhero television, having starred as a villain in the CW’s “Arrow,” and “Hamilton” star Goldsberry is a veteran of courtroom comedy and drama, having co-starred in “Ally McBeal” earlier in her career. So far the answer has been a definitive no.
“I mean I can’t imagine. That would be wild,” Maslany said. “We’ll see.” | 2022-10-13T10:17:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘She-Hulk’ finale: Tatiana Maslany on how the show went for big laughs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/comics/2022/10/13/she-hulk-finale-tatiana-maslany/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/comics/2022/10/13/she-hulk-finale-tatiana-maslany/ |
Independent Women’s Voice pitched donors on a project to blunt the impact of the Dobbs decision. Now it’s carrying out that project.
Abortion rights activists carry signs during the 2022 Women's March in Washington on Oct. 8. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Reuters)
In a Facebook ad targeting voters in four states that could decide control of Congress next month, a young woman announces to her grandmother that the Supreme Court’s decision eliminating constitutional protections for abortion is “such a big deal.”
A fundraising proposal and other internal memos prepared by Independent Women’s Voice were obtained by the watchdog group Documented and shared with The Washington Post. They illustrate the fear among conservatives that new restrictions on abortion could hurt the GOP’s chances of retaking control of Congress. They also reflect the quest among conservative groups to develop strategies to neutralize the issue for abortion rights supporters who otherwise lean Republican.
“As we predicted last May, the left has used the Dobbs decision to manufacture through misinformation a War on Women 2.0-playbook, updated from 2012, to drive women away from common-sense conservative positions and no one is effectively countering it,” argues the September proposal, titled “A WINNING STRATEGY.”
Independent Women’s Voice is led by Heather Higgins, an heiress to the Vicks VapoRub fortune, who once touted her group as a tool in the “Republican conservative arsenal” because: “Being branded as neutral but actually having the people who know, know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position.”
Higgins declined to be interviewed for this article but issued a written statement saying, in part, “Our starting premise is that intelligent public policy requires honest and accurate discussion about underlying facts.” She said her group has “no electioneering plans to advocate for or against any candidate.”
A separate fall proposal for donors promises the group will “execute targeted campaigns … to drive moderate or slightly left-leaning audiences toward conservative policies and ideas.” The aim, the proposal states, is to “WIN.”
A third document, called “campaign strategy,” says Independent Women’s Voice is “the only group on the right” that’s focused on “non-base demographics” and is “perfectly positioned in the upcoming midterm elections … to move these groups towards conservative policies, and as a corollary, conservative candidates.”
The group is registered as a 501(c)4 charitable organization, a designation that allows it to engage in political campaign activity so long as that activity isn’t its primary purpose. In exchange, it is exempt from disclosing its donors and paying federal income taxes.
Among the groups that have reported funding Independent Women’s Voice or its sister 501(c)3 organization, Independent Women’s Forum, are the Charles Koch Foundation; top conservative donor-advised funds, including DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund; and several groups, such as the Judicial Crisis Network, that are associated with Leonard Leo, the former longtime head of the Federalist Society who advised former president Donald Trump on judicial nominations and oversees a vast network of conservative advocacy organizations.
The “WINNING STRATEGY” memo states that Independent Women’s Voice is uniquely positioned to address Dobbs “precisely because we don’t take a position on abortion — we just simply point out the facts.”
According to the memo, the court’s decision “has little impact on changing the status quo.”
Higgins, in her statement, acknowledged, “Obviously, Dobbs changed abortion law, but not nearly as dramatically and drastically as some of the hype encourages women to believe.” She said her group’s aim was countering a “toxic deluge of misinformation.”
The latest action on abortion legislation across the states
At the center of the group’s work is the ad featuring the young woman and her grandmother, called “It’s Not 1973 Anymore,” a reference to the year the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade found a constitutional right to abortion.
The ad started running last week and, in two days, drew as many as 70,000 views by women in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, according to the Facebook ad archive, suggesting the project pitched to donors last month is in an early stage of execution. Higgins said Independent Women’s Voice would be delivering additional messaging via digital platforms as well as streaming TV services and text message.
The Facebook ad appears aimed at the “25 to 30 percent of Republican-leaning women who support exceptions, who maybe even support abortion rights in the first trimester, and who in any other year would vote Republican because of inflation, gas prices and crime,” said Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster at Bellwether Research and Consulting, which had no role in making the ad.
“The polling is showing that in some places, these women have reservations about voting for a Republican whose position is absolutely no exceptions for abortion,” Matthews said. “The ad is trying to give those women permission to vote based on other issues, to not prioritize the abortion issue.”
“In that sense, it’s probably a smart ad,” she said.
Independent Women’s Voice says it is especially focused on convincing two critical voting blocs — “Hispanics and independent women” — not to be persuaded by the abortion issue. It touts its ability, through “custom modeling,” to home in on a “new universe of civically engaged people who are weak conservative to weak liberal on the ideological spectrum” and serve these people messaging about transgender issues and “cancel culture” — issues that the group says push people toward a “conservative agenda.”
Higgins also chairs the group’s sister 501(c)3 nonprofit, the Independent Women’s Forum, which was founded by a conservative activist following the feminist outcry against the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas in 1992.
“We were concerned that those who would speak for American women were neither telling the truth about Clarence Thomas nor making sense with respect to issues of crucial importance to American women,” the activist, Rosalie Silberman, said in 1998.
That instinct — that messaging from left-leaning women’s groups may not resonate with many women — animates the nonprofit’s “WINNING STRATEGY” memo and the broader fall proposal for donors. “We will educate pro-women, independent constituents in seven to nine key states using issues that for these audiences are top tier but largely ignored by other issue organizations,” the proposal states.
A slide deck labeled a “Strategy Summary For Winning in 2022” identifies a handful of “Angel of Death Proposals” that the group claims harm women. These include paid leave and child care, benefits that enjoy broad public approval, according to surveys.
When it comes to the abortion issue, too, polling suggests that Independent Women’s Voice may face an uphill battle. A recent Post-ABC News poll found that 64 percent of voters disapproved of the Supreme Court’s move to strike down Roe v. Wade. The percentage of newly registered voters who were women climbed in several key states following the Dobbs decision, data show.
But some polling also shows the issue may be receding in the minds of voters, providing an opening for messaging about the salience of other topics. A Gallup poll in September found that 6 percent of Americans rated abortion or the judicial system as the most important problem in the country, down from 10 percent in August and 14 percent in July.
Caroline Kitchener contributed to this report. | 2022-10-13T10:21:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Documents reveal nonprofit’s plan to downplay abortion in the midterms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/abortion-midterms-independent-womens-voice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/abortion-midterms-independent-womens-voice/ |
Hideki is 42 and an IT recruiter. He is looking for someone “outgoing,” “open to learning new things” and “adventurous” who “likes to dance” and “enjoys food.” Annie is 39 and a physician. She is seeking someone “responsible, funny” and “affectionate” who is “passionate about making the world a better place.” (Daniele Seiss)
Hideki knows he’s the kind of person who always puts himself last. His daughter is “my number one priority,” he said. Hideki lost his own father in February to prostate cancer. While spending time with his support group of family, “one of my aunties said, ‘Hey, why don’t you get back out there? You’re young enough! You’ve got a good job, a good head on your shoulders. Why don’t you just go for it?’ ”
“It kind of hit me,” said the 42-year-old IT recruiter. “I haven’t been in a relationship for over seven years.” His father’s death instilled in him a desire to live his life as fully as possible. He started working out and eating more healthfully, and is hoping to find someone special. A friend of his spotted Date Lab online and sent it Hideki’s way. “I just couldn’t believe that I got picked.”
“Is it so hard to ask for somebody that you could talk to?” he said. “Somebody that you can be yourself and be vulnerable with at the same time, and no judgment? Somebody that you can grow with?” Hideki is divorced, and his teenage daughter is his only family in the United States. “Everyone else is mainly between Japan and the Philippines,” he said. “So it is lonely, and I’ve gone through a lot, [and I want] someone I can share my life with.”
Annie, 39, was reading her mom’s copy of The Washington Post when she came across the column. She’s a physician who was last in a serious relationship about three years ago. Recently, she’d taken a months-long break from online dating. “I was just doing a lot of scrolling and feeling a bit tired of the whole searching, searching, searching and not finding anyone,” she said. She also tried a matchmaking service “and that didn’t go very well.” So, she thought Date Lab was worth a shot.
She wants to find a “life partner.” Qualities she’s looking for: someone with a “dry, witty sense of humor” who is “very comfortable in his own skin.” But her criteria of finding someone who is “plant-based” has been a challenge. “I’m vegan, and it’s really hard to find men who are at least vegetarian.” Annie likes “some chivalry as well,” she said. “And definitely a head of hair.”
She was a “little skeptical” about the blind date but decided to keep an open mind. She wore “a fun navy blue sleeveless shortish dress with white polka dots,” along with “not too high of a heel” because she didn’t know her date’s height.
Worried that she’d be late (“because I always run late”), Annie biked to Fancy Radish on H Street NE and wound up being 10 minutes early. She was sitting at the bar when Hideki arrived right on time. Annie wasn’t immediately attracted to him but she found him to be “very ebullient and funny,” and figured they’d have a “charismatic conversation.”
Hideki got “in the zone” for the date by hitting the gym, polishing his shoes and shaving. He drove to the restaurant from his home in Fairfax. When he met Annie, she struck him as “very ladylike and very nice, very sweet. Soft-spoken.”
Over three hours, they discussed their relationship histories, dating philosophies and love languages, which Hideki is “a big believer” in. “I thought there were a lot of similarities in our outlook,” he said. But there were a few strands of conversation that didn’t quite land. “I talked a bit about religion,” he said. “We didn’t dig in, but I didn’t feel the vibe.”
According to Annie, “the conversation did flow.” She was especially intrigued to learn that he “has gotten the ball rolling for a book club with some of his friends reading a Brené Brown book.” She added, “I thought that was really great. He’s in touch with his entire self. And he alluded to that a few times throughout the dinner: He wasn’t afraid of being who he is.” But she “didn’t feel any sparks.” It didn’t help that, when she asked if he was plant-based, he said, “I eat everything.” Though, she admitted, “I’m kind of used to that now.”
At the end of the night, Hideki walked Annie to her bike and asked for her number, and she said she’d be fine with giving it to him “if he wanted to hang out as friends.” Hideki told me he asked for her number to be “polite,” though he’d be open to going out again. “She seems to be a really nice person,” he said.
“I have a really hard time saying, ‘No, I’m just not interested,’ ” Annie explained. “So my compromise lately is, if I give out my number I will qualify with [saying it is only to see each other as] friends. And I think he probably got it, because he hasn’t followed up.”
Hideki: 4 [out of 5].
Annie: 3.
No further contact.
Jessica M. Goldstein is a regular contributor to Post’s Style section. | 2022-10-13T10:21:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Date Lab: He wants someone to share his life with - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/10/13/date-lab-he-wants-someone-share-his-life-with/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/10/13/date-lab-he-wants-someone-share-his-life-with/ |
Adnan Syed is a free man, eyeing exoneration. Here’s what we know.
Prosecutors dropped the charges against Adnan Syed, the subject of the “Serial” podcast. We’re answering your questions about what may happen next.
Adnan Syed leaves the courthouse after a judge ordered his release in September. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/AP)
The ankle monitor came off on Tuesday, and after more than two decades in prison, Adnan Syed was free of the legal system, at least for now.
It was a long and complicated road to that point. Syed was convicted in 2000 of the murder of his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old Hae Min Lee, but he rose to fame in 2014, when his case was featured on the true-crime podcast “Serial.” He had long maintained his innocence, and in 2016, a judge ordered a new trial, only to have the state’s highest court reverse that decision.
The tide started to turn last month, and Syed walked out of a Baltimore courthouse Sept. 19 after a judge granted prosecutors’ request to vacate his conviction, agreeing that there were deficiencies in how evidence was turned over to defense attorneys. Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn gave prosecutors 30 days to decide whether to retry Syed.
Then, on Tuesday, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby dropped charges against Syed and declared that “the case is over” and that he had been “wrongly convicted.”
But is it over? And what of Lee’s family, who are now left with no one charged in their loved one’s murder? We’re answering some of your questions about the matter.
Is there any chance the conviction could be reinstated? Could he be retried?
If you ask Mosby, this is it for Syed. Experts also say it probably is. But Lee’s family has appealed the judge’s order vacating Syed’s conviction, and that technically remains a live case. Syed’s defense attorney cautioned that because the litigation is ongoing, Syed isn’t in the clear, but very close. The Maryland Court of Special Appeals on Wednesday gave Lee’s family 15 days to show why their appeal should not be dismissed as moot, in light of prosecutors’ decision to drop the charges against Syed.
Is Adnan Syed exonerated?
As it stands now, Syed is neither charged with nor convicted of a crime. But there is a separate process for the court to declare him innocent, and prosecutors and defense attorneys have said they will try to make that happen.
Erica Suter, Syed’s defense attorney, said Tuesday that she is working with the state’s attorney to begin the process of certifying Syed’s innocence.
According to Maryland code, a person charged with or convicted of a crime may file a petition for a writ of actual innocence. The petition must state the grounds on which it is based, describe newly discovered evidence, and distinguish the new evidence from claims made in prior petitions.
What’s this new DNA evidence?
Mosby previously said the future of Syed’s case would depend, in large part, on the results of new DNA testing. She said she would certify his innocence if the analysis came back inconclusive and would consider seeking a retrial if the tests pointed to Syed.
She ordered tests on Lee’s underwear, bra, shirt, pantyhose, jacket and shoes — all items that she said had never before been tested for DNA. These tests were made possible by a new type of technology that can detect DNA left behind when someone touches a surface.
Most items came back without usable samples, but on Friday, Mosby learned the results from DNA detected on Lee’s shoes. She said that DNA belonged to “multiple contributors” but, critically, not to Syed.
Could there be another trial?
It is possible there could be a new trial — but if there was, it would almost certainly be with new suspects, not Syed.
Mosby’s office uncovered evidence that showed prosecutors had known of two other potential suspects — including at least one who had a motive to kill Lee. Authorities have not released the names of the suspects and said they are still investigating the case. If Mosby did charge someone new in the case, she would have to contend with the investigation’s troubled history, along with the fact that witnesses’ memories have probably faded over the years.
Who are the other suspects?
Prosecutors have identified two suspects in the case but have been careful not to name them, or offer many details about the evidence against them, while police continue to investigate. In a previous court filing, prosecutors said the two “may be involved individually or may be involved together” and made references to them as “one of the suspects,” without clarifying which person they were referring to. Here is what we know:
Both suspects were known to investigators at the time of the original trial, according to Mosby. At least one of them had a motive to kill Lee, her office said, and had previously said “he would make [Lee] disappear. He would kill her.” One suspect had relatives who lived near the grassy lot where Lee’s car was found. One suspect, after the original trial, was convicted of attacking a different woman in her car. One was convicted of rape and sexual assault after the trial.
Did ‘Serial’ play a role in Syed’s release?
If you ask Syed’s former attorney, the answer is yes. When Justin Brown met his client more than a decade ago, no one knew the name Adnan Syed, Brown said. No one seemed to care, either, when Brown struggled to reach a woman, Asia McClain, who he believed was an alibi witness who could help free Syed.
By Brown’s account, that all changed in 2014, when investigative journalist Sarah Koenig took an interest in the story and transformed it into “Serial.” That podcast quickly became a global phenomenon — and so did Syed.
Brown said the podcast, which included interviews with McClain, helped him connect with her.
“I always get asked the question, ‘Did ‘Serial’ help the case?’ ” he said in a previous interview. “It absolutely did help. It brought us Asia McClain, which kept this thing alive.”
Others who have studied the case agree that the podcast played a role in Syed’s freedom.
“Were it not for the popularity of this podcast, it’s highly likely that he’d still be behind bars,” said Kent Bausman, a sociology professor at Maryville University in St. Louis.
But it is important to remember that Serial came out in 2014, and Syed did not walk free until eight years later. There were many failed attempts to vacate his conviction. Experts agree that it took a rare confluence of people and policy: savvy friends devoted to his cause, a prosecutor with a history doing defense work, a new law around juvenile sentences, and the millions of podcast listeners who called attention to inconsistencies in the trial that put Syed in prison. | 2022-10-13T10:51:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What's next in Adnan Syed's case? The latest on DNA, new suspects - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/adnan-syed-serial-q-and-a/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/adnan-syed-serial-q-and-a/ |
The U.S. government’s interest payments on its debt could near $580 billion this fiscal year, a 45% jump.
Perspective by Allan Sloan
U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell listens as U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen speaks. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
This period of economic expansion, enhanced by trillions of federal dollars spent to stave off a covid-caused economic crisis, has created millions of jobs. But it’s also led to tremendous inflation.
The bill is now coming due. The aftershocks of this moment will cost the government — which is to say, taxpayers — enormously in the form of higher interest payments. How much more? Total interest payments on the government’s debt could come in at nearly $580 billion this fiscal year, up from $399 billion in recently-completed fiscal 2022.
The increase is caused partly by the U.S. government’s rapidly increasing national debt, as well as by the Federal Reserve sharply increasing interest rates to hold down inflation. The government has more than $31 trillion in debt and ran a $1.4 trillion deficit in fiscal 2022 (a figure that represents the gap between spending and revenue).
These high interest costs in the current fiscal year are just the beginning. Those costs will continue growing rapidly, which will increase the burden for future generations.
The Congressional Budget Office’s interest-cost projections, issued in May, predicted a rise of $43 billion in interest costs for fiscal year 2023 compared with 2022. Fiscal year 2023 began on Oct. 1.
But after adjusting for the sharply higher interest rates that the Federal Reserve has imposed since May — and assuming that the Fed will keep its word and impose additional increases later this year — the interest-cost numbers are staggering.
With help from Marc Goldstein, the senior policy director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, I’ve used a workbook function on the CBO’s website to estimate the added cost of interest rates higher than the CBO projected in May.
The 30-day Treasury interest rate this week was more than 2.5 percent higher than on May 2, the one-year rate was more than 2 percent higher, and the 10-year rate was almost 1 percent higher. And the Fed says that higher rates are coming later this year.
Let’s assume the Treasury’s borrowing cost will be 1.5 percent above CBO’s predictions for this fiscal year as well as for the next nine years.
For the current year, projected higher interest costs could work out to about $137 billion.
The interest numbers keep growing and growing. For fiscal 2024, we’re looking at a $719 billion interest cost if you include my $194 billion estimate for higher rates.
The Fed, which admittedly got a late start battling inflation, is now doing its job as best it can and is trying to tamp down price increases with higher interest rates; the higher interest costs for the Treasury are collateral damage.
As for the CBO, it had no way of knowing in May that the Fed would raise interest rates so much so rapidly. Unlike a securities trader, the CBO isn’t in the business of modifying its math every time the financial markets have a hiccup, and hasn’t updated its May numbers. But when the next update comes, which typically happens in January, the interest numbers may well be high enough to knock your socks off. | 2022-10-13T11:00:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | With rising rates and rising debt, the taxpayer bill is finally coming due - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/13/debt-interest-rates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/13/debt-interest-rates/ |
Analysis by Antonio Guterres | Bloomberg
A wind turbine next to a solar farm along the Donzere-Mondragon canal, all operated by Compagnie Nationale du Rhone (CNR), in Bollene, France, on Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. France President Emmanuel Macron has been making the case for energy savings and more investment in clean power and new nuclear plants to curb fossil fuel use and fight climate change. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg) | 2022-10-13T11:01:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to Foot the Bill on Urgent Climate Action - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/how-to-foot-the-bill-on-urgent-climate-action/2022/10/13/cf99ecce-4ae2-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/how-to-foot-the-bill-on-urgent-climate-action/2022/10/13/cf99ecce-4ae2-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
The refreshed space includes interactive exhibits, new settings for iconic objects and an X-wing starfighter
The Kenneth C. Griffin Exploring the Planets Gallery is one of eight galleries available to visitors as the National Air and Space Museum reopens on the National Mall. (Photos by Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Back before the pandemic, the National Air and Space Museum was one of the most popular museums in the world. It drew 6.2 million visitors in 2018 — behind only the Metropolitan Museum of Art in North America — and remained the fifth most popular on the continent in 2019, despite closing some exhibits for the beginning of an extensive multiyear renovation and rehabilitation. “Millions of visitors can take a toll on a museum space,” says Jeremy Kinney, the museum’s associate director for research and curatorial affairs.
The exhibits center objects in new and different ways.
KidsPost: 5 things not to miss at reopened Air and Space Museum
Get ready to get interactive.
The museum is not just about air or space.
If we’re being honest, some of the galleries feel similar to the old displays. America By Air, for instance, tells the story of passenger air travel, with its display containing Emilio Pucci’s swinging ’60s stewardess fashions and a walk-through Douglas DC-7, which is absolutely dwarfed by the nose of a Boeing 747. But that’s not always the case.
Not all of the museum’s iconic artifacts are on display.
Getting in might be tougher than you think. | 2022-10-13T11:01:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum reopens: What you need to know - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/air-space-museum-reopen/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/air-space-museum-reopen/ |
Stanford apologizes for limiting admissions of Jewish students in 1950s
The Stanford University campus in 2019. (Ben Margot/AP)
Stanford University apologized on Wednesday after an internal task force confirmed the school had limited the admission of Jewish students during the 1950s and then “regularly misled” those who inquired about it afterward.
The university’s president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, called the restrictions “appalling anti-Semitic activity,” in a university-wide note, adding that “this ugly component of Stanford’s history, confirmed by this new report, is saddening and deeply troubling.”
The practices were first reported on a blog by historian Charles Petersen, who wrote last year in a post titled “How I Discovered Stanford’s Jewish Quota” that a memo in the school’s archives amounted to “a historical smoking gun.”
Petersen found a 1953 letter to J.E. Wallace Sterling, then the president of Stanford, from the assistant of the admissions director, Rixford Snyder, in which it was noted that the incoming freshman class would have a “high percentage of Jewish boys.” Snyder, the assistant wrote, “thought that you should know about this problem, since it has very touchy implications.”
The memo lamented that “the University of Virginia has become largely a Jewish institution, and that Cornell also has a very heavy Jewish enrollment.” It warned that if Stanford were to accept “a few” applicants from two heavily Jewish high schools in Los Angeles, “the following year we get a flood of Jewish applications.”
Such a dilemma, the memo said, forced them to “disregard our stated policy of paying no attention to the race or religion of applicants.”
The report by the task force — which was assembled nearly a year ago — found in its review of annual reports from the registrar’s office that from 1949 to 1952, Stanford enrolled 87 students from the two schools, Beverly Hills High School and Fairfax High School. From 1952 to 1955, however, only 14 students were enrolled from those schools. The report said that records “do not indicate any other public schools that experienced such a sharp drop in student enrollments over that same six-year period or any other six-year period during the 1950s and 1960s.”
Tessier-Lavigne, the current president, said the practices — as well as “the university’s denials of those actions in the period that followed” — were “wrong,” “damaging” and “unacknowledged for too long.”
Arguments in a case over modern-day quotas at an elite institution are set to be heard at the Supreme Court this month. A group of Asian Americans is suing Harvard — which also limited its admissions of Jewish students early in the 20th century — alleging that the university unfairly discriminated against them by capping admissions as a sort of “racial balancing” of its students. Harvard denies the allegations. The plaintiffs have cited Harvard’s past quotas on Jewish students as evidence in their case.
Before Asian Americans sued Harvard, the school once tried restricting the number of Jews
Petersen, the historian, had written that the only previous comment he could find from the admissions office on the topic was a statement in 1996 to the Stanford Daily, the school newspaper, in which an admissions official said such allegations were simply “rumors” and that “assertions of the existence of quotas are only based on the convictions of the few Jewish members of the Stanford community in the ’40s and ’50s.”
“Either the admissions office was lying,” Petersen wrote, “or else they didn’t look that hard.”
Rabbi Jessica Kirschner, executive director of Hillel at Stanford, said in an email that “for the people who knew there was something wrong despite official denials, hearing the symbolic head of the university speak the truth out loud and apologize is validating, and maybe even healing.”
She said the university’s response Wednesday was “an example of what productive institutional apologies look like,” noting how “a new generation of Stanford leadership took evidence seriously, commissioned a strong task force, and did not flinch when its findings did not reflect well on the institution.”
Sophia Danielpour and Ashlee Kupor, co-presidents of the Jewish Student Association at Stanford, said in an email that while they were “disappointed” about this aspect of the university’s history, they were “also appreciative that Stanford allowed a thorough discovery process and issued a real apology.”
They said they hope the findings spur “concrete changes,” including awareness of the Jewish high holidays in relation to the academic calendar and of a “blind spot” in the school’s diversity and inclusion efforts “that doesn’t always include religious minorities.”
In his note to the school, Tessier-Lavigne wrote that Stanford will implement a number of recommendations from the task force, including addressing the “deeply regrettable” scheduling of the start of Stanford’s fall quarter during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, which happened last month. Stanford will also create an ongoing Jewish advisory committee, he said.
Tessier-Lavigne added that “it would be natural to ask whether any of the historical anti-Jewish bias documented by the task force exists in our admissions process today. We are confident it does not.” | 2022-10-13T11:02:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stanford limited Jewish student admissions in 1950s, university admits - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/13/stanford-jewish-students-admissions-apology/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/13/stanford-jewish-students-admissions-apology/ |
Being honest about their histories can help universities regain trust
A new Stanford report shows how universities can right past wrongs.
Perspective by Ari Y. Kelman
Mitchell L. Stevens
People walk by Memorial Church on the Stanford University campus. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
On Wednesday, Stanford University released a report documenting the university’s antisemitic practices to limit the number of Jewish students admitted in the 1950s. Those exclusions were followed by decades of denials intended to mislead students, alumni and the public. Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne called the antisemitism, an “ugly component of Stanford’s history.” He observed that the university must “acknowledge” and “confront” this chapter and “seek to do better.”
As scholars on the Stanford faculty who helped research and write the report, we see our work as similar to recent reckonings at Georgetown, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Princeton universities and elsewhere. Yet these isolated institutional research projects are, at best, only the beginning of what might be an ongoing undertaking by universities to contend with their pasts. In doing so it may be possible for higher education to repair its eroding relationship with the American public.
Public trust in universities has fallen precipitously in recent years. Steadily rising fees, ballooning student debt, shady dealings in selective admissions and growing dissent from conservatives about the leftward slant of the professoriate all contribute to souring sentiment toward higher education. Though there has always been the perception of a division between the “ivory tower” and the “real world,” our increasingly polarized society has seen the intensification of attacks on faculty and students and a lack of confidence in higher education that is unprecedented in the post-World War II era.
In the wake of this tumult, colleges and universities have begun to tap historians and social scientists to investigate their own, often deeply problematic, pasts. This is new. Universities claim to be custodians of timeless truths, yet they have been less than rigorous when telling their own stories because their real histories conflict with the sunny images the schools want to project. Yet being open and honest about the past can restore trust that universities are institutions focused on rigorous study and discerning the truth — even when it might paint them in a bad light.
For much of the 20th century, elite northeastern universities excluded Jews. Between the two world wars, admissions officers at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and elsewhere went to great lengths to limit the number of Jewish students in entering classes. They required photographs, personal interviews and references of “character,” among other not-so-subtle ways to identify and screen out Jews, often dubbed “greasy grinds” or “Bronx Science Boys,” who were deemed not to fit prevailing WASP ideals of a masculine, athletic Christianity.
World War II did not so much eradicate antisemitism as alter its form. The plight of German and European-Jewish refugees strangely elicited disgust rather than empathy. By one account, antisemitism climbed in the 1940s and reached its historical peak in 1945.
But American universities also benefited from the prestige of scholarly refugees; by securing appointments in U.S. universities, these academic expatriates helped to solidify the preeminence of American higher education worldwide. Albert Einstein’s long and celebrated appointment at Princeton, and the storied expansion of the New School for Social Research as the “University in Exile,” are two prominent examples of the uneasy integration of Jews into American higher education.
Meanwhile, explicit discrimination in admissions morphed into a more genteel type of antisemitism: While schools became formally neutral about religion in admissions policy, officials continued to subtly but effectively shape the presence and religious practices of Jews on campus.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Stanford rose to international prominence on the strength of government grants and the opportunism of charismatic academic entrepreneurs. Increasing selectivity in undergraduate admissions also contributed to its rising status. Even with the relatively smaller population of Jews in California, our investigation found concern among the Stanford leadership about the rising number of Jews on campus and how it might impact the institution’s growing ambitions.
During the 1950s, these concerns led one of Stanford’s most celebrated admissions directors to suppress the number of students from a few public high schools based on their large proportions of Jewish students. He did so with the tacit support of the provost and other top members of the administration, who never intervened to stop him and, in later years, denied such actions had been taken.
The exclusion in admissions was abetted by an unwelcoming culture toward Jews on campus. Like many officially nonsectarian universities at the time, Stanford had a church at its center, and until 1966, school rules obliged non-Christian students to either worship in the chapel or leave campus to gather and pray.
Our work at Stanford is hardly the first effort to critically revise institutional histories. Beginning with a pioneering study commissioned by former Brown University president Ruth Simmons in 2001, researchers have toppled many myths about universities as “schools on a hill,” remote from American political life, and uncovered ties between them and the Atlantic slave trade, land expropriation, racist science and exclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender and religion.
To name but one example, the prizewinning “Land Grab” investigation documents the approximately 10.7 million acres taken from nearly 250 Native American tribes in the 19th century to establish the federal “land grant” program that provided crucial initial funding for scores of colleges and universities across the country.
Such efforts have paved the way for countless formal apologies by universities for injustices done under their auspices over time.
Even while the findings of these projects are unsavory, they tend to restore solidarity and goodwill, because omission from an institution’s history causes great pain for people who care about the school or whose ancestors it mistreated, adding the injury of invisibility to past wrongs.
Conscientious efforts to rewrite official stories hold the promise of repairing that injury. Including a plurality of stakeholders in rewriting the official story offers a sense of collective ownership of the past and present, warts and all, and replaces feelings of exclusion with renewed solidarity.
This tactic could be deployed to address other problems plaguing the public’s trust in higher education — many of which are historically rooted. Take, for instance, the use of race in college admissions. While the U.S. Supreme Court is debating the legality of such consideration this term, these questions are as old as higher education in America. The color of one’s skin has always been implicated in discussions of who is worthy of higher education.
An additional hard truth is that both public and private universities are substantially underwritten by direct government aid and tax subsidies, even while the benefits of the education they provide are only extended to a select few. These are apt topics for historical investigations that might help bring universities back in line with the values underlying their mission of research and teaching.
Such endeavors would not be all doom and gloom. Universities have been important civic actors, influencing the evolution of American society from its beginnings. Responsible historical reflection recognizes both the positive and negative sides of that influence.
This spring, two of us will be debuting a course titled “Stanford and Its Worlds,” which will cover the many contributions Stanford has made to society, including its service to the U.S. war effort in World War II and its special role in seeding the economic miracle now called Silicon Valley.
But the class will also cover the darker side of Stanford’s history, including the extent to which government research contracts favored a handful of elite and predominantly White universities, and the sobering degree to which government investments in 20th-century war-craft seeded today’s global tech sector. If we succeed, our account will be neither celebratory nor scolding. It will be history.
Jews have just celebrated Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when they engage in reflection and repentance for past wrongs in the name of fostering redemption. While each faith tradition is different, the notion that forgiveness, mercy, grace or atonement require explicit recognition of prior errors is ubiquitous among world religions. Universities have an opportunity to adopt a version of such customs. By revisiting their pasts in open, honest and balanced ways, they can create a brighter future — and perhaps engender renewed public trust. | 2022-10-13T11:02:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Being honest about their histories can help universities regain trust - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/12/stanford-anti-semitism-admissions-universities/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/12/stanford-anti-semitism-admissions-universities/ |
Perspective by Ansley L. Quiros
Ansley L. Quiros is an assistant professor of history at the University of North Alabama and the author of "God With Us: Lived Theology and the Freedom Struggle in Americus, Georgia, 1942-1976."
Charles M. Sherrod, center, takes part in a brief strategy meeting in a courtroom after the conviction of four out-of-town pickets in Rock Hill, S.C., in 1961. (Afro Newspaper/Gado/Getty Images) | 2022-10-13T11:02:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Charles Sherrod, an important civil rights activist, had died - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/13/charles-sherrod-civil-rights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/13/charles-sherrod-civil-rights/ |
Iranian students add to a long history of brave protests
Iranian student demonstrations were met with violence. It has happened before.
Perspective by Ida Yalzadeh
Ida Yalzadeh is a global American studies postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. She splits her time between Cambridge, Mass. and Oakland, Calif.
A picture obtained by Agence France-Presse on Oct. 8 shows a motorcycle on fire in the capital, Tehran. (AFP/Getty Images)
On Oct. 2, state security forces verbally and physically attacked a group of peacefully protesting students at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, even using rubber bullets. The students were joining national demonstrations for women’s and national rights in Iran that have been ongoing since the state killing of Mahsa (Zhina/Jina) Amini. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman was arrested by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s morality police for not properly wearing the hijab in September. The violent crackdown, which the students refer to as “Ruz-e Khunin” or “A Bloody Day,” is not an isolated incident of state violence against Iranian student protesters.
University student opposition in Iran is only one part of a larger movement of Iranians — labor unions, teachers, bus drivers and factory workers — who are collectively organizing and fighting for liberation against patriarchal rule and economic strife in their country. But Ruz-e Khunin is one case that links the current moment to a legacy of student protest, both within the country and abroad, against the repressive regimes of Iran during the 20th century. In fact, this fight for women’s rights is intimately tied to a longer history of Iranian struggle for the right of national self-determination.
Students have been an important part in the fight for Iran’s self-determination for decades, and they emerged globally as a strong organizing force after World War II. As the United States emerged as a dominant global power, it replaced the United Kingdom as the main foreign presence in Iran. The United States sought to maintain Iran as a dependent ally during the Cold War because of its oil-rich land, geographic proximity to the U.S.S.R. and its potential to expand U.S. consumer markets.
In 1951, Mohammad Mossadeq became Iran’s prime minister and began the project of nationalizing Iran’s oil in an effort to gain independence from Western powers. In 1953, the United States and the United Kingdom orchestrated a coup that ousted Mossadeq to maintain their imperial influence over the country. As the U.S.-backed Shah (King) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took the helm of the nation after Mossadeq’s toppling, U.S. imperial interests maintained the shah’s rule over the country as a dictator.
During the Cold War, U.S. policymakers argued that what became known as the shah’s “White Revolution” fostered economic advancement and cultural reform, although Iran was actually being run as a police state under the shah. SAVAK, the shah’s CIA-trained secret police, arrested and tortured political dissidents as the economic gap between rich and poor in Iran continued to widen.
By the end of the 1950s, student opposition groups against the shah became active in Iran, as well as among Iranians studying abroad in Europe and the United States. Students helped form three political organizations in 1960: the Confederation of Iranian Students (CIS) in Europe, the Iranian Students Association in the United States (ISAUS) and the Second National Front in Iran.
Connected by a well-organized network of publications and correspondence, these organizations worked together to educate the wider public outside Iran about the realities of state violence happening within its borders. They also worked to inform people that the shah was being maintained and supported by U.S. financial aid and arms sales. As was the case for many other liberation movements against Western imperial powers during the mid-20th century, Iranian students demonstrated for their right to national self-determination.
Iranian students, both within and outside Iran, were mostly from the upper- and middle-classes, as Iran had a 30 percent national literacy rate at the time. In fact, many families from which these students came benefited from the shah’s rule. However, these students were conscious of their fellow compatriots who were suffering under the shah’s rule, as well as the harm of U.S. interests to Iran’s future as an independent nation.
These student activists were met with state violence — both in Iran and abroad. An ISAUS pamphlet from 1973 documented the police shooting of 28 students protesting at the University of Tabriz demonstrating against Iran’s purchase of $2 billion in arms from the United States. This event led to nationwide protests across Iran’s universities. These too were met with violence and resulted in further injuries at the University of Isfahan, the School of Education in Tehran and the University of Ahvaz. One publication, “Iran’s Kent State and Baton Rouge” by the ISAUS, linked Iran’s state violence against students to major U.S. student protests in the civil rights and antiwar movement that also resulted in police brutality and arrests.
Iranian students were deeply aware of the links between their own struggle for national self-determination and other international struggles like the civil rights movement in the United States. They were part of a larger solidarity movement known to scholars today as Third World Internationalism. These students believed their struggle for national independence was intimately tied to other communities that were under the imperial rule of Western powers, such as the Vietnamese, Salvadorans and Black Americans. The ISAUS published newsletters and fliers supporting movements for national liberation across the Global South, as well as the Black Power movement in the United States.
For their work rallying against the shah’s regime and supporting other Third World movements, Iranian student protesters were also met with violence by SAVAK agents in Europe and the United States. In England and Germany, SAVAK agents threatened and beat Iranian students who had protested against the shah. In the United States, Iranian students voicing their desire for their nation’s autonomy from imperial forces and a dictatorial regime had to wear paper masks during demonstrations for fear that SAVAK agents or Iranian officials would be able to identify and arrest them when they returned to Iran.
Despite the great risk and dangers they faced, Iranian students continued to protest the shah’s regime. As scholars have noted, their organizing was consequential to the Iranian Revolution’s success in 1979 that deposed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. However, many Iranians realized in the ensuing years that the government established under the Islamic Republic of Iran also did not reflect the people’s interests.
As a result, the 1980s and 1990s also saw student organizing and protests against the repressive elements of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The “Cultural Revolution” of 1980 witnessed more state violence against students protesting the elimination of non-Islamic elements from universities. In July 1999, 400 plainclothes paramilitaries attacked students at a dorm in the University of Tehran after they had protested the closure of the reformist newspaper, Salam. Students and demonstrators across Iran protested this initial act of violence and were met with more state violence and arrests. These protests formed part of the foundation of the 2009 Green Movement, when demonstrations were held to protest the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president, and were again met with state violence and arrest.
The current protests in the name of Mahsa Amini have been organized under the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom.” These words signify not just the right of women to bodily autonomy and gender equality, but also the right to national self-determination. They are calling for an end to the patriarchal, authoritarian and ethnocentric rule in Iran. The students in this movement are part of a legacy of young people determined to end repression in their country, whether from foreign intervention or national political corruption.
While what is unfolding in Iran today is the work of organizers on the ground, it is critical to remember the history that created the conditions that people are now protesting. The United States played a central role in maintaining Iran’s police state under the shah’s rule for the sake of oil and market capitalism. Over decades, Iran’s brave students have worked to make this context clear — not just in the name of their own national independence, but also for the liberation of others across the globe. | 2022-10-13T11:02:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Iranian students add to a long history of brave protest - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/13/iranian-students-violent-repression/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/13/iranian-students-violent-repression/ |
The Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Butts County. (Google Maps)
In Buckhead, one of Atlanta’s wealthiest neighborhoods, Randall Mill Road is home to sprawling mansions set atop green hills. But one of them — a sleek, contemporary-style home once worth over $4 million — is at the center of what some have called one of the biggest fraud cases ever committed from behind bars.
Arthur Lee Cofield Jr., 31, is accused of impersonating billionaire Sidney Kimmel, swindling $11 million out of the Hollywood tycoon’s Charles Schwab bank account, and then using those funds to buy gold coins and the mansion in Buckhead — a plan he set into motion from his cell inside a maximum-security facility in Butts County, Ga., prosecutors allege.
While Cofield was charged in December 2020 with seven counts of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and money laundering, a slew of documents filed this year in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia shed greater light into the elaborate scheme he allegedly pulled off with the help of at least two other people and some well-hidden contraband cellphones. The new details — including the victim’s identity — were first reported in an investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Cofield’s attorneys, Drew Findling and Steve Sadow, declined to comment on the case when reached by The Washington Post. Cofield has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The court documents paint a picture of an alleged heist that could’ve come out of the “Ocean’s” movie franchise — minus George Clooney. Yet, apart from its cinematic quality, the scheme Cofield is accused of masterminding epitomizes the ripple effects of contraband in prisons across the country, said Paul M. Adee, a corrections expert at Robson Forensic and retired major with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Florida.
“Here’s the thing: Inmates don’t just walk outside. Someone brought that phone inside, and that’s something that can severely compromise the security of a facility,” Adee said of the allegations. “Sometimes it’s guards being bribed, visitors bringing stuff in or inmates hiding them by inserting them inside their bodies.”
Dealer sentenced for posing as NFL pro to get Tom Brady Super Bowl rings
At the time of the alleged scheme, Cofield was serving a 14-year prison sentence for armed robbery. He is accused of having a history of accessing contraband phones — and is facing charges for allegedly using one of them to order a shooting in Atlanta. He has pleaded not guilty. Prison officials say Cofield has been found with contraband at least 12 times, according to incident reports. In 2016, guards said he told them he didn’t care about the phone they had found on him since he “had hundreds of phones,” according to the incident report.
Four years later, prosecutors say Cofield once again used a contraband phone — this time pretending to be Kimmel, the now 94-year-old executive producer behind films such as “Crazy Rich Asians,” “The Kite Runner” and “Moneyball.” According to his indictment, Cofield first called Charles Schwab on June 5, 2020. He later managed to bypass the bank’s security measures by getting a picture of Kimmel’s driver’s license and a utility bill, prosecutors allege. He also allegedly used a TextNow account to make it seem as if he was calling from a Los Angeles number.
Still pretending to be Kimmel, he allegedly arranged to purchase 6,106 one-ounce gold coins for a little under $11 million from the Idaho-based Money Metals Exchange. The funds, prosecutors allege, came via a wire transfer from Kimmel’s Charles Schwab account. On June 16, prosecutors say a private security company hired by Cofield flew the gold from Boise to Atlanta, where they allegedly met with a man named Eldridge Bennett. Bennett and his daughter, Eliayah Bennett, have since been charged with aiding Cofield. Attorneys for the two didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Post. It’s unclear from court records how the father and daughter know Cofield.
Once the coins arrived, prosecutors say Eliayah Bennett began house hunting in northern Atlanta before settling on the two-story, six-bedroom house in Buckhead. According to court documents, the home was acquired on Sept. 1, 2020, by Siriusly Sound House LLC, a company Cofield owned that was administratively dissolved just three days before the mansion’s final sale.
Court records show authorities were tipped off to the alleged scheme on June 10, 2020, when prison staff members seized two phones from Cofield’s cell: one on top of his desk and another underneath Cofield’s right armpit, according to an incident report. The prison’s forensic unit then began reviewing call logs and text messages — ultimately uncovering his plot, court documents allege.
Almost two years have gone by since Cofield was indicted. Yet a slew of questions remain unanswered. It’s still unclear why Kimmel’s account was allegedly targeted. It’s also not known how a prisoner managed to get the contraband phones prosecutors say Cofield had in his cell.
“This is a pretty widespread problem,” Adam Meyer, a specialist at Prisonology, an expert network firm of retired Bureau of Prisons professionals, told The Post, explaining that many inmates — or their associates — pay corrections officers to provide them with phones. “And it really comes down to guards not being paid enough, because it’s a big amount of money that’s hard to turn away from when they smuggle the phones in.”
The Georgia Department of Corrections didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment from The Post. However, a spokesperson for the agency told the Journal-Constitution that the prison system is fighting a “daily battle” against contraband cellphones, which are sometimes smuggled through drones.
As for Kimmel, his account was fully reimbursed by Charles Schwab, Mayura Hooper, a spokesperson for the bank, said in a statement. “As soon as Schwab was aware of suspected fraudulent activity, we launched an investigation, initiated measures to protect the client’s account, and notified the authorities. As you can appreciate, this is an ongoing investigation, and as such, we cannot comment further,” Hooper added.
In the aftermath of its $4.4 million purchase, the multimillion-dollar home in Buckhead was left vacant. Since then, it “has not been maintained and is rapidly deteriorating,” and several crimes have been reported on the property, according to a motion filed last week by prosecutors.
If the judge were to approve the motion, a real estate agent will be “authorized to market and sell” the house — which was valued last valued at $3.5 million in 2020. | 2022-10-13T11:02:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inmate in Ga. max security prison accused of stole $11 million by posing as Sidney Kimmel - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/georgia-inmate-stole-millions-sidney-kimmel-/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/georgia-inmate-stole-millions-sidney-kimmel-/ |
Navy SEAL candidates train at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, Calif. (Petty Officer 1st Class Anthony Walker/U.S. Navy/AP)
In February, 24-year-old Navy sailor Kyle Mullen abruptly died after completing the Navy SEAL selection process’s Hell Week — one of the U.S. military’s most grueling courses. On Wednesday, the Navy released details of an investigation into his death that found he was not to blame. The report also indicated that Mullen — who appeared to be seriously ill toward the end of the training process — did not receive critical medical care and that military leaders may have discouraged him from seeking it.
The Navy said Mullen died in the line of duty and “not due to his own misconduct” upon completing the six-day Hell Week. Investigators said he died of cardiac arrest, caused by pneumonia, with an enlarged heart being a contributing factor. They said there was no substantive link between his death and performance-enhancing drugs that were later found among his belongings.
At least two senior officers at the Naval Special Warfare Center — Capt. Bradley Geary and Capt. Brian Drechsler — and “senior medical staff under their command” are facing administrative actions for Mullen’s death, a Navy spokesman said. (Such actions may include an order to be counseled or separation from the military.) The Navy said it would implement a cardiac screening program, among other medical initiatives, to reduce the chances of a similar incident.
“Kyle’s death will not be in vain,” said Rear Adm. Keith Davids, the Naval Special Warfare Command chief. “We have a moral obligation to learn everything we can from Kyle’s tragic death so that we can ensure the safety of all future candidates.”
The lengthy report is being followed by a separate investigation into the SEAL selection process. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told a House Armed Services Committee hearing this year that he would “take appropriate actions” upon the completion of the probes.
Three deaths linked to recent Navy SEAL training classes
Hell Week, which takes place in the San Diego area, is a test of physical and psychological endurance that forces SEAL candidates to run, row and swim — among other demanding activities — in brutally cold conditions with under four hours of sleep throughout the entire period. Medical workers are on standby for emergencies. It is not uncommon for participants to suffer intense physical pain, vomit or be so fatigued that they fall asleep while eating, according to accounts by sailors who went through the process.
During Hell Week, Mullen displayed swelling, numbness, “tingling below the knee” and shortness of breath, witnesses told investigators. Fellow candidates reported that he spat out “weird fluids” at one point and that on at least one occasion, an unnamed instructor stopped Mullen from seeing the medical staff, a witness told investigators.
On the day Hell Week ended, medical staffers also observed abnormalities in his lungs that were indicative of potential pneumonia or heart problems, the investigation found. He was also supplied with oxygen twice on that day. There was so much swelling in his legs that by the time he completed the process around 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 4, he was taken to his barracks in a wheelchair, investigators said. One witness reported that Mullen appeared to be in good spirits as the event drew to a close, though he was also described as looking in the “worst condition of anyone in his class.”
Nonmedical personnel were assigned to monitor candidates in the hours after Hell Week. That afternoon, they advised Mullen to seek medical attention, investigators said. Mullen declined, saying he would wait for a routine medical check the next day, investigators said. After noticing that Mullen was coughing up fluids and unable to eat without vomiting, one of the monitors called a medical officer on duty. The medical staff told the watch stander to call 911 if Mullen “was in bad shape,” the report said.
It was not until 4:09 p.m. that the local fire department received an emergency call for Mullen, who by then was “gasping for air” and had bluish skin. About an hour later, he was pronounced dead. | 2022-10-13T11:02:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dead Navy SEAL trainee was not given critical care, report shows - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/13/navy-seal-death-kyle-mullen-hell-week/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/13/navy-seal-death-kyle-mullen-hell-week/ |
By Foster Klug | AP
FILE - This photo provided on Oct. 10, 2022, by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects a missile test at an undisclosed location in North Korea, as taken sometime between Sept. 25 and Oct. 9. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File) (Uncredited/KCNA via KNS) | 2022-10-13T11:04:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | North Korea takes inspiration from Putin's nuke threats - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/north-korea-takes-inspiration-from-putins-nuke-threats/2022/10/13/66d10d84-4acf-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/north-korea-takes-inspiration-from-putins-nuke-threats/2022/10/13/66d10d84-4acf-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Jon Scheyer, right, has taken the reins of Duke's storied basketball program after the retirement last season of legend Mike Krzyzewski. (David J. Phillip/AP)
CHARLOTTE — When Jon Scheyer arrives at work each day, the Duke men’s basketball coach can’t help but feel the aura of his predecessor. And it’s not only because Mike Krzyzewski amassed the most wins in college basketball history as the architect of the Blue Devils’ storied program.
Krzyzewski still has an office at Cameron Indoor Stadium, providing a gentle reminder of the 1,202 wins, five national championships, 13 Final Four appearances and 15 ACC tournament titles he collected before he retired after last season and left the program in the hands of his top assistant.
But Scheyer hasn’t seen his former coach much around the building lately, an indication Krzyzewski is inclined to provide the elbow room necessary for the first-year coach to forge his own identity while still dispensing sage advice when asked.
“Coach K and I, we’re as close as can be,” Scheyer, 35, said Wednesday during ACC media day. “Over half my life, he’s been my go-to guy. That’s not going to change. What has changed is he’s not coaching. Our relationship is as strong as ever. I go to him, talk about many things beyond basketball. . . .
“He’s entering a new phase of his life, and obviously I’m doing the same, but the relationship that we’ve built is not going to change, ever.”
Svrluga: Coach K's greatness was never his system. It was his willingness to evolve.
Scheyer first met Krzyzewski when he was 16 and a standout high school prospect at Glenbrook North in Northbrook, Ill. A connection with then-Duke assistant Chris Collins, also a graduate of Glenbrook North, lured Scheyer to Durham, N.C., even as he recalled disliking the Blue Devils initially because of their massive popularity.
Conversations with Collins and Krzyzewski convinced Scheyer his best crack at winning a national championship would be at Duke. So committed to that result was Scheyer that he moved to point guard during his freshman season because of a dearth of depth at the position.
By the time he was a senior, Scheyer drew copious praise from Krzyzewski for his command of the position, particularly when it came to decision-making in the most meaningful instances. The numbers don’t lie: In 2009, Scheyer became the first player in Duke history to record 1,400 points, 400 rebounds, 250 assists, 200 three-pointers and 150 steals in a career.
A two-time captain — including on the 2010 national championship team — Scheyer only added to his Duke bona fides once he joined Krzyzewski’s staff in 2013. He emerged as the most qualified candidate to replace Krzyzewski when the legend announced before the start of last season he would be stepping away.
Feinstein: A farewell to Mike Krzyzewski, a remarkable coach and a remarkable man
“It’s been a smooth transition,” said guard Jeremy Roach, one of the Blue Devils’ captains this season and a Leesburg native who played high school basketball at Paul VI. “Coach Scheyer is always going to give guys that confidence. That’s the biggest thing about Coach Scheyer. He’s going to make you feel comfortable.”
Thanks largely to Scheyer, another constant has remained in place despite Krzyzewski’s absence. The Blue Devils again have the highest-rated freshman class in the country, according to recruiting websites such as ESPN and 247Sports.
The trio of 7-foot-1 center Dereck Lively II, 6-6 wing Dariq Whitehead and Kyle Filipowski, a 6-11 forward-center — all five-star recruits — have Duke poised for perhaps another extended run in March after reaching the ACC tournament championship game and the Final Four last season.
“I’m excited that they believed in the vision that we had,” Scheyer said. “Of course what Duke basketball stands for and what Duke University is all about, but at the end of the day I couldn’t show who I am as a basketball coach, so a lot comes down to the relationships we’ve built and the trust that we’ve developed.”
Krzyzewski’s departure leaves the ACC without its highest-profile coach one season after another luminary, Roy Williams, unexpectedly retired from North Carolina. Williams won three national championships with the Tar Heels and 903 total games during his career.
The longest-tenured coach in the ACC is Jim Boeheim, who has been at Syracuse since 1976 and served as an assistant to Krzyzewski on multiple U.S. men’s national teams, including most recently with the squad that won the gold medal at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Krzyzewski’s imprint in the ACC remains at other member schools such as Pittsburgh, where Jeff Capel III, a former Duke player and assistant, has served as coach since 2018.
“We never really talked that much in the offseason except when we worked together,” Boeheim, 77, said of Krzyzewski. “He’s busy. He’s gardening and stuff with the grandchildren. I told him, I said, ‘When it snows, what are you going to do then?’ But he’ll be fine. I think he felt the time was right.
“He brought a lot to the college game, more than anyone probably, as did Roy and [former Villanova coach] Jay Wright. Those guys are hard to replace, but as we all know, there’s nobody that’s irreplaceable.” | 2022-10-13T11:04:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Duke’s Jon Scheyer squarely in spotlight as Mike Krzyzewski’s successor - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/duke-jon-scheyer-acc-basketball/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/duke-jon-scheyer-acc-basketball/ |
Brian Daboll has the New York Giants at 4-1 with a seemingly inexhaustible imagination and a ton of figurative duct tape. (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
As the sixth week of the NFL season arrives, the division turning heads isn’t, as was expected, the AFC West. It’s the NFC East, which has three of the six teams in the league with at least four wins.
The Philadelphia Eagles, with their 5-0 sprint to start the season, have been strong in every phase, and the Dallas Cowboys have managed to win four straight games with Cooper Rush at quarterback while Dak Prescott recovers from hand surgery. Now the Eagles and Cowboys meet with first place on the line Sunday night in Philadelphia.
The New York Giants have defied expectations with a coach who has drawn praise for essentially duct-taping together a four-win team with in-game adjustments. With quarterbacks Daniel Jones and Tyrod Taylor hurt, Brian Daboll turned to running back Saquon Barkley to run the Wildcat offense during a Week 4 win against Chicago. This past Sunday in London, Daboll got creative with role players and beat Green Bay. He’ll face another test this week when the Giants host the Baltimore Ravens.
So while the Week 6 slate features one of the most anticipated matchups of the season — a rematch of last season’s playoff epic between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs — the NFC East has earned its share of the spotlight.
All times Eastern. Byes: Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, Las Vegas Raiders, Tennessee Titans
Commanders (1-4) at Bears (2-3), 8:15 p.m., Amazon Prime: Welp, these prime-time games can’t all be destination viewing, despite last week’s “The Commanders! The Bears! A no-nonsense NFC battle!” promo hyping this one up. Washington has been known for slow starts and three-touchdown first-half deficits in the Ron Rivera era. Chicago offers at least the possibility of reversing that trend. Last week, Minnesota’s Kirk Cousins completed his first 17 passes, and the Vikings scored three first-half touchdowns against the Bears.
49ers (3-2) at Falcons (2-3), 1 p.m.: Maybe it doesn’t matter if Jimmy “Just Do No Harm” Garoppolo is at quarterback, given that San Francisco has allowed 19, seven, 11, nine and 15 points in its five games so far. And Coach Kyle Shanahan is 7-0 since 2019 when keeping the team out East for back-to-back road games on the other side of the country.
Patriots (2-3) at Browns (2-3), 1 p.m.: Maybe Bill Belichick is on to something with Bailey Zappe. His teams are now 5-0 with quarterbacks drafted outside the first round making their debut start, according to the NFL. The rest of the league is 30-80 since the 2000 season, Belichick’s first in New England. Regular starter Mac Jones is working his way back from an ankle injury and could return against Cleveland, but otherwise Zappe will get another chance to impress.
Jets (3-2) at Packers (3-2), 1 p.m.: Davante Adams’s game-breaking, jaw-dropping collaboration with Aaron Rodgers is no more, leaving a most un-Rodgers-like, single-gear offense for a Green Bay team that hasn’t scored more than 30 points in a game yet.
Packers offense vs. Giants
First Half: 20 points
Second Half: 0 points pic.twitter.com/Ad8gP4F1iW
Jaguars (2-3) at Colts (2-2-1), 1 p.m.: Jacksonville beat Indianapolis in last season’s finale, knocking the Colts out of the running for a wild-card berth with the Colts’ seventh consecutive road loss to the Jaguars. That streak reached eight when these teams met in Week 2 this season. Indianapolis has had more success on its home field against the Jaguars, winning the past four meetings at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Vikings (4-1) at Dolphins (3-2), 1 p.m.: It might be a good idea for Minnesota to emphasize the running game in Miami. The Jets, who had only one rushing touchdown before last week’s game, had five against the Dolphins, their most since 1993 and tied for the second most in franchise history. Miami might also have to focus on the run, with third-string rookie Skylar Thompson set to start at quarterback in place of the injured Tua Tagovailoa and Teddy Bridgewater.
Bengals (2-3) at Saints (2-3), 1 p.m.: Taysom Hill is in his sixth season, and opposing teams still have no real answer for the Saints’ Swiss army knife, who summed up his role by saying, “I just work here and do what they ask.” Last week, he became only the third player (along with San Diego’s LaDainian Tomlinson in 2005 and Miami’s Ronnie Brown in 2008) since 1970 to rush for 100 yards and three touchdowns while also passing for a TD, according to ESPN Stats and Information. He also became the first Saints player since Archie Manning in 1977 to rush for three touchdowns and pass for another in a game.
Ravens (3-2) at Giants (4-1), 1 p.m.: Just how good is Justin Tucker? In 11 seasons, the Baltimore kicker has missed 32 field goal attempts. Three-time all-pro Adam Vinatieri, by comparison, missed 116 in 24. Tucker is so good, in fact, that his winning kick against Cincinnati as time expired Sunday night would have perfectly split the uprights if they were 11 inches apart, according to Next Gen Stats. The kick was his 61st consecutive made field goal in the fourth quarter or overtime, an NFL record.
Buccaneers (3-2) at Steelers (1-4), 1 p.m.: It’s already been a long season for Pittsburgh, which had its worst loss in Coach Mike Tomlin’s 15-plus seasons tenure (by 35 points) last week against Buffalo — and the team’s worst since a 51-0 drubbing by the Browns in 1989. Presumably, Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady has recovered from that roughing-the-passer call last week against Atlanta that didn’t appear all that rough.
Panthers (1-4) at Rams (2-3), 4:05 p.m.: Los Angeles has three offensive linemen on injured reserve and receivers aren’t showing enough speed to get downfield for Matthew Stafford, who was sacked five times and pressured by Dallas on 20 of 47 dropbacks in the Rams’ 22-10 loss to the Cowboys. With one touchdown in its past nine-plus quarters, L.A.’s 80 points through five games are the fifth fewest by a reigning Super Bowl champion. The Rams have a chance to get straightened out against Carolina, which will play for the first time since firing coach Matt Rhule and elevating defensive coordinator Steve Wilks to the interim job.
Cardinals (2-3) at Seahawks (2-3), 4:05 p.m. (time subject to change to 5:30 p.m. if the Seattle Mariners are still playing in MLB playoffs): Geno Smith’s 75.2 percent completion percentage is leading all NFL passers, and maybe, at least for now, you have to hand it to Seattle Coach Pete Carroll.
Bills (4-1) at Chiefs (4-1), 4:25 p.m.: Alert Kansas City’s barbecue pitmasters — the Bills are back in town for the fourth time in 21 months. They’ve been to Missouri for divisional playoff games in January 2021 and 2022 and for a regular season game last October that provided their only recent victory at Arrowhead Stadium. A win here would give them an early advantage in the race to host another potential playoff meeting in January.
Cowboys (4-1) at Eagles (5-0), 8:20 p.m., NBC: The Cowboys have allowed 19 or fewer points in each of their first five games, something the team hasn’t done since 1973. Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts has had multiple rushing touchdowns in seven games over his 24 career starts. Only Cam Newton has more among quarterbacks through 24 starts, with 10.
Broncos (2-3) at Chargers (3-2), 8:15 p.m., ESPN, ESPN Deportes: In this Dysfunction Bowl, there’s plenty to grouse about for both teams, but only one spent hugely to import a quarterback. Denver’s Russell Wilson, who reportedly is nursing a shoulder injury, is on pace to pass for 14 touchdowns this season after averaging 29 over 10 seasons with Seattle. | 2022-10-13T11:04:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL Week 6 schedule, matchups and five-minute guide - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/nfl-week-6-schedule/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/nfl-week-6-schedule/ |
As infrastructure money flows, Buttigieg’s choices will shape U.S. for generations
Most transportation money is allocated to states, but the infrastructure law offers new discretion and billions of dollars to the U.S. DOT
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer during a September news conference in Detroit. Buttigieg announced that a plan to dismantle Interstate 375, which was built by demolishing Black neighborhoods 60 years ago, was a winner of federal money. (Erin Kirkland/Bloomberg News)
FERNLEY, Nev. — Roy Edgington Jr. was nervous to take a call from a member of the president’s Cabinet. But when the mayor of this western Nevada city learned the transportation secretary had been a mayor himself, he began to feel at ease: The only difference between two mayors, he reasoned, was the number of zeros they wrote on their checks.
And right now, Fernley was looking to Washington for a lot of zeros.
This desert city of 23,000 outside Reno wanted $25 million for a road and bridge — complete with bike lanes — over a rail line, which local leaders hoped would spur activity at a logistics hub and spare commuters from crippling traffic. Pete Buttigieg called to congratulate the city on winning the grant. A week later, he presented Edgington, whose mayoral post is nonpartisan, with an oversized check.
“To make the most of a logistics district, you need good transportation infrastructure, the right roads for trucks, the right connections for freight trains,” Buttigieg said. “And that’s why this project is so vital.”
It is at spots like this — where dignitaries gathered in the summer heat near a road that dead-ends into crash barriers — that the next phase of Buttigieg’s tenure as transportation secretary is advancing. Armed with $2 billion in grants and discretion in how to spend it, Buttigieg and his team spent months choosing the 166 communities splitting money in a program that doubled in size with the infrastructure law. The legislation, which passed with bipartisan support nearly a year ago to upgrade the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and other public works, handed the Transportation Department $120 billion in discretionary spending through new or expanding programs.
The $1 trillion law is at the core of the administration’s efforts to rebuild the country, giving huge sums to bridges and highways while setting the nation on a path to widespread electric car usage, better passenger rail service, more reliable buses and safer routes for walking and cycling. The Transportation Department also has prized programs that benefit social justice and climate goals, clashing with Republican lawmakers and state officials who say new federal goals are restricting their choices.
The vast majority of transportation money that originates in Washington is allocated to states, which have final say in how it is spent, but the infrastructure law offers new discretion and billions of dollars to an administration with its own set of priorities. Programs like the one funding the Fernley project let Buttigieg intervene directly in potentially thousands of communities, giving him immense power to alter the national landscape for generations.
Buttigieg, whose presidential campaign at age 37 elevated him to Democratic Party stardom, is also considered a contender in 2024 and beyond. His months-long infrastructure rollout grants a cross-country platform largely unmatched by possible future rivals.
Fernley was the third of six stops Buttigieg packed into a week as he doled out money.
“There’s never been such a dynamic and fertile time to work on this because of the resources we have with the president’s package,” he said in an interview while riding along Interstate 80 to the Reno airport, where a government jet was waiting to whisk him to the next stop.
Buttigieg had expected his time as secretary to be broken into two phases: The first would be getting the infrastructure law through Congress, the second would be putting its new resources to work. Instead, there was a lengthy middle phase of preparing to spend the money, the bureaucratic work of hiring new employees for a growing federal agency and sifting through thousands of applications for grants from communities like Fernley.
A year later, rollout felt nationwide
Since taking the helm of a 54,000-employee agency about half the size of his South Bend, Ind., hometown, Buttigieg has faced snarled supply chains, a narrowly averted strike by railroad unions and a wave of consumer dissatisfaction with the airline industry — all while becoming the father of twins.
“At the beginning, it’s like being shot out of a cannon: The enormity of your own agency, the sweep of your responsibilities,” Buttigieg said.
Ten projects show what’s at stake for the nation’s roads, bridges, ports and rails.
But it’s the infrastructure law that likely will define Buttigieg’s tenure. The Transportation Department has gone from an annual budget of less than $90 billion before the pandemic to $140 billion this year, growth that was driven mostly by the infrastructure law. Much of the new funding from the law flows through long-established programs that pass money to state transportation departments, but it also created dozens of new programs to pay for jobs both big — like repairing the nation’s 44,000 dilapidated bridges — and small, such as ensuring salmon can swim under Pacific Northwest roads.
The process of setting up those programs, then deciding how to spend the money, stalled a sense of progress on one of the administration’s biggest achievements. Now that projects are being selected, the rollout is being felt in communities far from Washington.
The Transportation Department’s expanded goals diverge from some predecessors, rankling Republicans. Whether through infrastructure funding or other methods, it wants to help reshape the nation’s transportation and transit networks, rethink what it means to have safe roads, reduce carbon emissions and invest equitably in communities that were overlooked or harmed by the building of highways in the 20th century.
Detroit wins grant to remove interstate that wrecked a Black community
Buttigieg has made 50 trips domestically since being confirmed as secretary in February 2021 while visiting 31 states, according to his office. President Barack Obama’s first transportation secretary Ray LaHood, who also traveled widely, said such visits offer a chance to meet local leaders and learn about their goals — information that can help to influence decisions made back in Washington.
“There’s nothing better than putting eyes on” a project in person, he said.
Buttigieg’s summer tour took him to Fontana, Calif., to announce a $15 million grant aimed at increasing safety for students who bike and walk to school. He visited ports in Los Angeles and Tampa, highlighting investments designed to create jobs and ease cargo shipping. He joined President Biden at the Detroit Auto Show while touting the administration’s work to promote electric cars.
The next day in Detroit, Buttigieg delivered a $105 million grant to help fill in a highway dug through a Black neighborhood. While in Tulsa to announce funding for a road project, he toured the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre, where White residents burned a Black neighborhood a century ago and killed hundreds of people.
“It’s just a chance, I guess, to engage with the stories of communities that I would never otherwise have had a chance to see or certainly to directly work with,” he said in an interview. “That’s a really powerful thing.”
Buttigieg has also encouraged states to use federal highway funding — typically spent on new or expanded roads — for projects like bus stops or other transit infrastructure.
Federal transportation officials face limits on their ability to influence which projects are funded and how they are built. The infrastructure law was the product of delicate negotiations between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, and while it includes new environmental programs, Democratic lawmakers jettisoned some of their carbon reduction priorities to lock in enough votes.
When Buttigieg’s department has tried to push its priorities in other ways — notably, encouraging states not to expand highways but to fix what they have first — he has faced criticism from state leaders and Republican lawmakers who argued that local flexibility leads to better spending decisions.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), one of the lead architects of a road funding bill that formed a cornerstone of the infrastructure package, said that kind of fix-it-first policy was specifically left out of the law, adding that it’s Buttigieg’s job to implement the legislation, not rewrite it.
“He and the administration and the Department of Transportation have been putting their own spin for how they think projects should go,” Capito said.
At a recent hearing of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, said Buttigieg had been a good ambassador for the transportation industry. But he also urged Buttigieg to ensure the states have the flexibility to design their own transportation systems.
“It’s really been the foundation on which the federal transportation programs have been built over the last 50, 60 years,” Tymon said.
Better funded than his predecessors
On paper, the priorities of the Transportation Department are nearly identical to those spelled out at the beginning of the Obama administration. Some grant programs that were boosted by the infrastructure law have their roots in initiatives from that era. The difference, LaHood said, is cash: “We had nowhere near the money they have,” he said.
Buttigieg’s deputy, Polly Trottenberg, who also served under Obama, said the department’s focus on job creation, the environment and equity is even sharper now — with a high-profile leader and the financial resources to match those ambitions.
Buttigieg’s early financial decisions show a contrast with those of his predecessors, who often prioritized the nation’s expanding road network.
Yonah Freemark, a transportation researcher at the Urban Institute, said there is a striking difference between the kinds of transportation projects the Biden administration has chosen to fund using money it directly controls compared with officials under President Donald Trump. In particular, he noted an emphasis on projects intended to help pedestrians and cyclists.
For the program being used in Fernley, known as RAISE, about 10 percent of the money will fund roadway expansions, according to an analysis by Freemark. That figure was more than 40 percent in the last year of the Trump administration. Almost 70 percent of the funding this year is going to projects that will benefit pedestrians, cyclists and transit.
Applicants for the grants have incorporated changes within projects to catch the administration’s eye and meet new criteria. Even the road in Fernley, designed with vehicles in mind, will have bike lanes.
Anthony Foxx, LaHood’s successor as transportation secretary, said instilling those criteria could bring long-term changes as future projects are developed with current goals in mind.
“You start to change the thinking of these state and local partners,” he said.
Nation’s neglected bus stops pose early test for infrastructure money
Tracking the impact of infrastructure money passed on to states is difficult — a challenge Buttigieg said his team is grappling with. The infrastructure law created new environmental programs and dedicated money to create a network of electric vehicle chargers, but much of the funding comes with few strings attached, leaving states free to spend it in the way they choose.
Liberal transportation advocates have largely supported how Buttigieg has used resources at his disposal. The Detroit project, for example, was not funded using a dedicated program for reconnecting communities but with a much larger program originally designed to ease the movement of freight.
Amid his travels, Buttigieg has also been a fixture on television, with 175 national broadcast appearances, about 350 local media appearances and another 200 with specialized publications since he became transportation secretary.
Fellow Democrats praise him for deftly handling appearances on Fox News. But Charlamagne tha God, a host of the nationally syndicated “The Breakfast Club” radio show, credited Buttigieg for also making time for his audience, which he described as heavily Black and Brown listeners.
“He does it when he doesn’t have to,” Charlamagne said.
Trottenberg, who formerly led the New York City Department of Transportation, said she has watched Buttigieg turn his wonky policy work into terms the public can relate to.
Keeping mum on the future
Buttigieg, who is mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2024, has said little about what might lie ahead in his own future. A New Hampshire poll showed Buttigieg was Democratic primary voters’ top choice for president. He has repeatedly said he is focused on serving Biden, and in an interview, sidestepped questions about any future ambitions.
Whether he runs again, Buttigieg is in demand as a leading figure in the party. He was the headline speaker at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s annual Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner. Ray Buckley, chairman of the state party, said members see him as the future of the party, even if that’s not in 2024.
Under federal rules, ‘significant progress’ on infrastructure can mean more road deaths and decrepit bridges
“With his age, it could be 20 years from now,” he said.
Buttigieg’s prominence also makes him a target for Republicans and conservative media figures. When he took parental leave after adopting twins last summer, he was criticized for being away from work — a reaction that he said caught him by surprise.
The twins were born premature and Buttigieg’s son had a health crisis in his early months. Buttigieg said even with the support he had, it took a year to balance fatherhood and his responsibilities at work.
“There were times when I had to step away from the bedside of my hospitalized two-month-old child on life support to go get on a Zoom to call a senator about supply chains,” he said.
While on tour to discuss the infrastructure law at the end of this summer, echoes of Buttigieg’s presidential campaign were evident. In Fernley, Greg Evangelatos, a planning consultant, wore a Buttigieg 2020 button on his lapel, saying “he’s the smartest guy we’ve got.”
Buttigieg, too, did not shy away from the campaign travel comparisons, telling the crowd: “I’m certainly having some flashbacks.”
The difference now, though, is he was not foraging for votes in this deep-red part of Nevada.
“Of the many people I had wonderful conversations with just now, I don’t know who’s a Democrat, who’s a Republican in that group,” he said. “I just know that people care about their community.” | 2022-10-13T11:05:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Buttigieg will shape U.S. for generations as infrastructure money flows - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/10/13/buttigieg-infrastrucure-law-money/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/10/13/buttigieg-infrastrucure-law-money/ |
Dane Partridge, 34, died in Ukraine on Tuesday. (Courtesy of Partridge Family)
There are no official public numbers of U.S. volunteer fighters in Ukraine, or of those who have died there, though an official at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington told The Post in March that about 4,000 had expressed interest in the newly formed International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine. Partridge’s death follows that of Luke Lucyszyn and Bryan Young in July, Stephen D. Zabielski in May and Willy Cancel in April.
“He felt strongly with almost every bone in his body that he needed to go and he needed to fight,” she said. “When he did leave, it was emotional for me, because I just knew in my heart it would be the last time I saw him.”
Born in Germany in 1988 to a Red Cross aid worker and a member of the U.S. Air Force, Partridge became captivated by the idea of serving in the military from a young age.
He grew up “in the dirt with his friends, playing Army guy” in Oklahoma, Corry said, but later moved to Rexburg, Idaho, where he decided to join the Army shortly after graduating high school. His family members remember him as the boy who tried to save stray dogs — even after he was bitten and needed a rabies shot — and as a man with a talent for fixing cars and electronics, as well as towing trucks.
After high school, Partridge served as a turret gunner and a driver of armored vehicles in Baghdad during the Iraq War, according to Matt Reeves, one of his sergeants. Reeves recalled him as a young man with a “bit of a temper” who quickly transformed into a “fine soldier” who would engage others in intellectual discussions about religion.
“I had never seen him happier than in Ukraine. He found his purpose not in the fighting so much as the saving,” his mother said, in between sobs.
Hepworth and Corry overcame their reservations and supported Partridge’s decision to volunteer, saying that as members of the Mormon Church they understood his spiritual calling.
He had decided to continue fighting even after he was wounded by shrapnel from a trip wire this summer, they both said. His wife and five children — who range from age 2 to 15 — were able to say goodbye via a video call while he was in a coma during his final week.
“He struggled in life, but once he got into the military, he found his element,” his mother said. “His call sign was ‘Bird’ — Dane Partridge, call sign ‘Bird.’ So when you see a bird, think of my son.” | 2022-10-13T11:06:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Idaho veteran Dane 'Bird' Partridge dies fighting in Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/dane-bird-patridge-ukraine-idaho-veteran/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/dane-bird-patridge-ukraine-idaho-veteran/ |
Children are getting smartphones younger than ever. Make sure you’re all prepared.
The biggest milestone for teenagers used to be getting their driver’s license, opening them up to a new world of freedom and danger. For many, it’s now getting their first smartphone.
Unlike with a car — which comes with driving lessons, a learner’s permit and a big test to ensure road readiness — many parents buy the phone first, then try to teach their kids how to use it. It’s a risky approach, experts say. As easy as it is to give your child more freedom, it can be a brutal battle to claw it back when they’re misusing it or showing signs of overuse.
The Help Desk has made this guide for parents or guardians who want to be ready for that big moment, not stumble into it. We will cover everything from the right age to buy a smartphone, to having difficult conversations about bullying, sexting and misinformation.
At the center of all our advice is the need to have open and continuing conversations with kids. Their needs, interests and issues will evolve as they age, and the adults in their life need to keep up. Be open to reassessing your rules and allowing more flexibility as they grow. Your goal shouldn’t be to monitor everything they search online and every private conversation they have with friends. You want to give your children the skills they need to handle problems on their own, and build enough trust so they’ll know they can come to you with anything bigger. | 2022-10-13T11:09:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A guide to giving a child their first phone - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/13/guide-child-phone/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/13/guide-child-phone/ |
Yasmin Green left Iran when she was a toddler. Now she runs a Google unit that is working to help dissidents there. (Rengim Mutevellioglu for The Washington Post)
Though Yasmin Green fled Iran with her parents at 3 years old, she has never been more involved in the struggles of its people.
Recently elevated to chief executive of an elite research team at Google, Green, now 40, has refocused that New York group, known as Jigsaw, on aiding oppressed populations as well as fending off attacks on more open societies.
Now one of the unit’s products, a free virtual private network (VPN) that lets users hide their internet tracks better than most paid versions, is surging in Iran, helping participants in the most widespread protests there in years evade a growing crackdown on communications. The protests have raged for weeks after the death in custody of a 22-year-old woman arrested by “morality police” for showing too much of her hair. Security forces have killed dozens, with far more critics detained and others afraid to communicate.
The VPN, called Outline, is available on its own as an app or web download and in versions distributed by third parties such as nthLink, a company that receives U.S. government funding. The firm says monthly users of Outline in Iran have soared tenfold in two months, to 2.4 million unique devices in September.
The government backing for nthLink comes as the Biden administration steps up its efforts to assist Iranians supportive of the protests. Top White House officials have said they are trying to heed the lessons of the 2009 Iran protests over disputed elections, when government forces brutally cracked down, but the Obama administration did not weigh in publicly for the first several days of the protests before eventually condemning the Iranian government.
This time around, the White House took a stronger stance from the beginning but is being careful not to take attention away from the Iranian protesters, a senior White House official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. U.S. officials feel they can be most helpful to protesters through their public messaging and by prodding tech companies to provide services — particularly personal communication tools, such as WhatsApp and Signal — as the Iranian government continues to crack down.
As part of that effort, the White House has relaxed sanctions and made it clear to other tech companies that they want them to serve those in Iran that are not connected to the government.
At the same time, nonprofit groups, including those behind encrypted messenger Signal and the alternative internet communications system Tor, are redoubling their work in a cat-and-mouse game with sophisticated Iranian surveillance forces. Signal has recruited volunteers to operate what are known as proxy servers that act as intermediaries to hide the use of Signal from Iranian telecommunications providers.
“We’re doing what’s in our power, and our commitment is to be ready and available when the issues outside of our control are resolved,” said Signal President Meredith Whittaker.
Green’s team is trying to keep Outline effective under Iranian officials’ noses.
Google founder Larry Page “used to say all Google products ought to be like a toothbrush, where everybody uses it at least twice a day,” Green said in her first extended interview since her July promotion. “We changed the metaphor to an air bag. People don’t need it often, but when they do, they absolutely need it to work.”
Green previously oversaw the development of other tools that became important in the Middle East and to its diaspora, including a technique called the redirect method, which targets people who are searching online for ways to join extremist groups with counterprogramming, such as testimonials from grieving relatives of dead suicide bombers. Jigsaw also makes Intra, an Android app for reaching blocked websites.
Not long after Russia invaded Ukraine, Jigsaw began efforts to “pre-bunk” anticipated false narratives about incoming Ukrainian refugees, a project Green said will expand to other areas in a bid to inoculate people against disinformation.
“In cybersecurity, mis- and disinformation, harassment, and extremism, we are confident we can continue to innovate there,” Green said.
Outline is based on previous open-source projects and makes its code public, reassuring those who worry about back doors.
Its rapid takeup in Iran has been especially gratifying to Green as a virtual return to a country she re-engaged with after the 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., she heard it described as part of an Axis of Evil. At the time living in England and thinking of herself as British, she began visiting relatives in Iran, learning how they saw the world and later thinking about how technology could aid them.
“There’s a fear and subjugation that is not familiar” to Westerners, she said.
Returning to work at Google, she found that knowledge helped stoke interest in figuring out ways to help break through government limits on communication. “Just my being in the room changed the nature of the discussion,” she said. “I was advocating for Iran.”
Married to a Jewish filmmaker, Green also sits on the board of the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit known for fighting antisemitism that also works to counter harassment and extremism.
After working in other roles at the company, in 2011 she joined Jigsaw’s earlier incarnation, Google Ideas, as the first employee under Jared Cohen, a former State Department tech evangelist close to then-CEO Eric Schmidt. She was attracted in part by the work Cohen had done in support of the 2009 Iran protests, recalled Jigsaw executive Scott Carpenter, and she helped scrounge up engineers from other parts of the company by claiming that Outline was farther along than it really was.
“Fake it ’til you make it,” Green explained. “Nothing brings endorsement like momentum.”
Green got the top job this year after Cohen left for an investment bank.
While Google has been increasing its investment in the group, that doesn’t mean all its experiments get adopted by Google proper, one of the most powerful companies on earth, or its sister companies within parent Alphabet. YouTube, for one, remains a constant source of radicalizing material. Green said some of Jigsaw’s work has influenced YouTube policies, but neither unit would give specifics.
Jigsaw’s mission in Iran is different from what it does in most countries because both the Iranian government and the population are technologically advanced. According to some reports, a majority of Iranians already use VPNs to conceal which sites they are visiting on the web.
But if too many people use the same server as a base for a VPN, the traffic to that server will stand out, and the government operators will block it, according to Gustaf Björksten, chief technologist at nonprofit Access Now. “VPNs that are large enough to be identified by the authorities as a target, but not large enough to have a significant and constantly changing pool of servers, are more likely to be effectively blocked,” Björksten said by email.
Outline is simple to install, and nthLink’s version adds more ease and flexibility. Either lets a person run a VPN from a server at home or one based at a cloud provider such as Digital Ocean, which is in Outline’s default configuration. Users can send keys for access to a handful of trusted friends, keeping overall usage below the radar.
But it’s not perfect. Outline is being detected in many cases, especially when Iranians use Digital Ocean, said Amir Rashidi, director of digital rights and security at Miaan Group, an Iran-focused nonprofit in Texas. “They are blocking every single channel of communications,” Rashidi said, including Meta’s WhatsApp and even some games whose messaging function dissidents were using to communicate. “We need developers to study how Iran is blocking their tools.”
Rashidi said further easing of U.S. sanctions could help: Cloud companies would then be more willing to accept payment from within Iran, helping dissident communications. The White House official said the U.S. has already provided exceptions for payments for personal communication tools, but acknowledged that some companies are being overly cautious in applying that.
Elon Musk recently tweeted that his Starlink service was functioning in Iran, but he has not said how many receivers are in the country. The White House said the figure is small.
As for the efforts to keep spreading Outline and beat the blockages, Jigsaw has been running a war room that convenes every day “to extend the cat and mouse,” Carpenter said. | 2022-10-13T11:09:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Google's Jigsaw, with U.S. government money, is bringing a VPN to Iran - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/13/iran-protests-google-jigsaw-vpn/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/13/iran-protests-google-jigsaw-vpn/ |
A Ukrainian soldier rests by a military vehicle in a liberated village in the Kherson region on Sunday. (Heidi Levine)
KHERSON REGION, Ukraine — A few months ago, as Ukraine’s military was still struggling to break through Russia’s defenses in the southern Kherson region, members of the 60th Infantry Brigade managed to snatch one of the Russians’ Motorola radios and listen in on their enemy’s conversations.
They chuckled at the call signs the Russians picked for themselves — one even went by “Maidan,” a reference to Kyiv’s central square, the Ukrainian troops said. But they also marveled at the constant griping they heard.
One time, a Russian soldier said he hadn’t been fed at all that day. On Aug. 24, exactly six months after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine, one Russian told another over the radio that it was the anniversary of when they “were all fooled,” the Ukrainians said.
“They’re demoralized,” said a 24-year-old Ukrainian soldier in the 60th Brigade who, like others in this story, asked to be identified by his call sign, Porokh. “You could hear it in the tone of their voice and what they were saying.”
But Ukrainian soldiers are also feeling fatigue — physically and mentally — even though they are more motivated because they are defending their homeland and trying to protect civilians dying daily in Russian attacks. Some units, like the 60th Brigade, have not had a break from battle action since the start of the war nearly eight months ago. The fight is unyielding, and commanders fear a drop in performance if less experienced forces rotate in.
In Moscow’s ranks, the casualty count is high and forces have been in a retreat for more than a month — first in the northeast Kharkiv region and now in Ukraine’s south. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent mobilization has forced men who might not believe in the war to fight in it.
On the Ukrainian side, the men from the 60th Brigade are not the only ones who haven’t gotten an extended break. The 93rd Mechanized Brigade went from helping expel the Russians from the northern Sumy region in the spring to holding the line near Izyum over the summer, and it is now under constant bombardment in the Donetsk region.
One soldier in the brigade said his battalion already has “many losses” and “not enough strength or resources,” which was why he said he was concerned about Russia sending 300,000 or more reinforcements to the front — even if they are unmotivated and poorly trained.
“People need some rest,” the soldier said, adding that the situation will worsen once the weather turns colder.
“If a person knows that he has to serve nine, 12 or 16 months, he can prepare himself physically and mentally,” said a 32-year-old lieutenant whose call sign is Historian. “Here, we don’t know when we will return home.”
“Some of the people we mobilized had never served at all,” Historian added. “They were not prepared for these kinds of battles.”
This war has no end in sight. And while more Ukrainians probably will be conscripted — since Russia’s invasion began, men under age 60 have been barred from leaving the country in case they are needed — the soldiers and volunteers already fighting worry about how ready the new draftees will be for combat.
As one soldier put it, “There is a war going on, and everyone who was ready to fight went right away.”
Porokh and Historian’s company was one that helped advance the southern front line dozens of miles along the western bank of the Dnieper River this month, pounding the Russians as they retreated.
But while the successful counteroffensive lifted spirits, the loss of comrades killed in the process left has taken a heavy emotional toll. Porokh’s platoon lost its commander during a battle this week, and he struggled to speak about the death. “We’re a family here,” he said.
The chief sergeant for the battalion, who goes by the call sign Alimych, listed three company commanders who were wounded during Ukraine’s advance. Russia’s losses were far greater, he said, and sergeants stepped up in the middle of battle when their senior officers went down.
Just two Ukrainian battalions — one from the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade and one from the 60th Brigade — led the offensive along the western back of the Dnieper River, pushing the Russians all the way back to the town of Dudchany. Those units remain in the region but have been ordered away from combat for a few days to recharge.
Alimych showed Washington Post reporters a video on his phone of a Russian prisoner who had surrendered two days earlier. He was part of Putin’s new mobilization and had showed Alimych a military identification that revealed he was conscripted just a week earlier.
“A person without experience who was working at a construction site and has no motivation to fight, I don’t know why they brought him here,” Alimych said. “He doesn’t know why he’s here.”
“This audacity shocked them, too,” Porokh said. “So they ran.”
To clear his head from battle, Porokh likes to drive an hour to the nearest city and be around some civilization, where not everyone is dressed in military uniform. What gives Zil some comfort is spending time with locals wherever his platoon happens to be based. In one village, he regularly fed one house’s abandoned pigs until the owners came back for them. Zil, who was a roofer before the war, helped another man fix his home that was damaged by shelling.
“This was people’s livelihood,” Zil said. “What did they do to deserve this?”
Zil said he felt sorry for the loss of life that was coming. Porokh said he didn’t, and he shrugged off men thrust into battle with no experience or motivation to fight as not much of a strategic headache. A third soldier in the platoon, with the call sign Zeus, warned not to underestimate the enemy.
“They could turn into elite fighters in a month after they get some experience,” Zeus said. “We don’t know. We didn’t all have experience when we started.”
Then the men went their separate ways — some to meet world champion boxer Oleksandr Usyk, who was visiting Ukrainian forces in the region that day as a morale boost.
As Historian, the group’s deputy company commander, walked to his car, Zeus stopped him and asked him to appeal to senior officers for the unit to get a well-deserved break.
“I’ll mention it again,” Historian told him. “I promise.” | 2022-10-13T11:13:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Exhausted Ukrainian soldiers report morale is flagging despite victories - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/ukraine-morale-war-soldiers-exhausted/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/ukraine-morale-war-soldiers-exhausted/ |
Dear voters: Pay attention to state politics (especially Virginia’s)
Review by Gregory S. Schneider
The Virginia Capitol in Richmond. In his book on state politics, former delegate David J. Toscano expounds on “the Virginia Way” — an ideal of civility in politics — and argues that it needs rejuvenation. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
After a quarter-century in public office, former Virginia lawmaker David J. Toscano has developed an insight that can be boiled down to two deceptively simple words:
States matter.
Yes, it sounds obvious. But look no further than the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade — delivering the issue of abortion into the hands of state legislatures — for a demonstration of the power of that idea.
Toscano, a former Charlottesville mayor who represented the city in the General Assembly from 2006 to 2020, has written a pair of books that make an emphatic case for caring about whom you send to uphold your interests in the state capitol.
“Fighting Political Gridlock: How States Shape Our Nation and Our Lives,” published last year, argues that states hold the best hope for healing our national political wounds, while “Bellwether: Virginia’s Political Transformation, 2006-2020” out this year, goes deeper on a corollary insight: Virginia matters, as a case study for everyone else.
Why Virginia?
It’s a big, wealthy, diverse state on the doorstep of the nation’s capital (a local might say Washington is on Virginia’s doorstep). Its history encompasses the origins of American democracy (from Jamestown to Jefferson) and the roots of slavery and the Civil War.
Okay, there are also less-grand reasons. Virginia holds elections every year, so it’s a constant political engine. It’s one of only two states that elects a governor the year after a presidential contest (along with New Jersey), making it a convenient referendum on each new White House administration.
And oh, by the way, that attention imbues every new Virginia governor with enough national glow to routinely inspire higher ambitions.
In an era of ugly political polarization, Toscano finds reason for both hope and concern at the state level. State legislatures, he points out, are where things happen while Congress is mired in dysfunction.
Across a spectrum of policy areas, states create “laboratories” for trying out different approaches to society’s problems. And if the feds, say, refuse to coordinate the national response to a dangerous pandemic, state leaders “attempt to fill the void,” he writes.
That can mean wildly different outcomes for people living in different parts of the country. Toscano sounds the alarm about the public’s tendency to sleep on state elections (reflected in anemic voter turnout) while fixating on the latest national political outrage whipped up by social media or cable TV.
Education policy, criminal justice, access to health care, even who gets to vote and where — presidential candidates might talk about all of those topics, Toscano points out, but state legislatures really call the shots.
“Nonetheless,” he writes, “there remains a massive disconnect between citizens’ perceptions of where the decisions that affect their lives are made and where those policies actually are enacted.”
He laments that the death of so many statehouse news bureaus makes it much harder for members of the public to stay in touch with what their lawmakers are up to.
And statehouses risk drifting toward the same kind of unproductive polarization that afflicts federal lawmakers. But Toscano, who generally avoids partisan prescriptions but can’t hide his Democratic faith in government, believes that states can light the way out of the mess we’re all in.
“One thing appears clear: some of the greatest opportunities we have for rejuvenation will involve governments closest to the people,” Toscano writes.
That doesn’t necessarily mean local government. In most places it’s state lawmakers who have control over the big fundamental issues, such as taxes and access to guns or abortions.
As Toscano points out, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t even talk about local government. Any power not granted to the federal government — or to the people — is reserved for the states. “If you ever wanted an argument to support the principle that states matter,” Toscano writes, “this is it.”
He concludes “Gridlock” with prescriptions for restoring “civic engagement,” aimed at encouraging citizens to see that they have a stake in the actions of their representatives. Toscano’s recommendations are defiantly idealistic, based on humility, the embrace of truth and “dynamic listening.”
In that sense, they form a bridge to his next work, “Bellwether,” which focuses on Toscano’s experiences in Virginia state government. His lens is something called “the Virginia Way,” a trope that state leaders have been touting for generations to signify Virginia exceptionalism.
Ideally, the notion conveys Virginia’s image of itself as a lofty paragon of civility in the public arena. But Toscano looks at how the Virginia Way has subtly changed over the years, and how its original incarnation was code for a White patriarchy of polite exclusion.
(I keep referring to “state” in the generic sense — but Virginia is a commonwealth, and Toscano calls it “the commonwealth” throughout.)
“Bellwether” charts the state’s recent evolution from reliably red to blue — or apparently blue. Unfortunately, the narrative stops just before Republican Glenn Youngkin won the 2021 election over Toscano’s old friend, former governor Terry McAuliffe (D).
Toscano has updated here and there, and he provides an epilogue (“The GOP Strikes Back”) that serves as a kind of flashing question mark about where things might be headed next. It would be fascinating to see Toscano parse the lessons of that last election, which are still unfolding.
Otherwise, “Bellwether” is an easy-to-read insider’s look at the past decade and a half of political change in Virginia. If anybody out there is a reporter getting ready to cover Richmond, the book would be a valuable primer on how we got where we are.
You’d like to see a little more dish — what did you really think of your colleagues, David?? — but Toscano is admirably nonpartisan, crediting Republicans and Democrats alike for various accomplishments.
And there are many uplifting examples of statesmanship, large and small. Such as in 2013, when then-House Speaker William J. Howell, a Republican, confronted a dilemma.
Republicans in the Senate had just taken a routine House bill relating to elections and doctored it up to redraw districts around the state, seeking GOP advantages for years to come. They did so in a tricky way: The Senate was evenly divided between Rs and Ds at the time, but a senior Democrat was out of town attending President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. Republicans had a one-time numerical advantage to force something through.
When the bill got back over to the House, Howell had to make a ruling on whether the changes were germane, or allowable. Under enormous pressure from his party to approve them, Howell ruled against them — and it almost cost him the speakership.
An action like Howell’s constitutes “a powerful statement of the importance of upholding the rules and traditions of democracy,” Toscano writes. In other words: the Virginia Way.
For the past three years — the time since Toscano decided not to run for reelection — Virginia has gone through a wild series of political plot twists. Democrats took control of the legislature in rebellion against President Donald Trump; the party’s executive branch leaders survived massive scandals to preside over historic policy changes in Richmond (ending the death penalty, legalizing marijuana); Confederate statues fell; and the pandemic altered everything.
The fact that a Republican governor emerged from that period has focused national attention, once again, on Virginia.
Will other states learn anything from the Virginia Way? Toscano concludes that the concept needs rejuvenating to stay relevant. The Virginia Way needs to signify inclusion, he says, not elitism. It must be “a vehicle for getting more citizens of different experiences and backgrounds ‘into the room’ where decisions are made.”
Which gets back to the original point. States matter. And voters need to pay attention to them.
Greg Schneider covers Virginia from The Washington Post’s Richmond bureau. He was The Post’s business editor for more than seven years, and before that served stints as deputy business editor, national security editor and technology editor.
Fighting Political Gridlock
How States Shape Our Nation and Our Lives
By David J. Toscano
University of Virginia. 282 pp. $29.95
Virginia’s Political Transformation, 2006-2020
Hamilton Books. 340 pp. $24.99 | 2022-10-13T11:39:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of "Fighting Political Gridlock" and "Bellwether" by David Toscano - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/dear-voters-pay-attention-state-politics-especially-virginias/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/dear-voters-pay-attention-state-politics-especially-virginias/ |
Navajo woman walks from Ariz. to D.C. to spotlight her missing aunt, other victims
By Diana Reese
Seraphine Warren in Washington on Wednesday after walking nearly 2,400 miles from Sweetwater, Ariz., to call attention to the alarming numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous people, especially women, including her aunt. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
Seraphine Warren stepped foot in Washington on Sunday evening, with the eagle feathers on her prayer staff waving in the breeze, as she completed her nearly 2,400-mile prayer walk from Sweetwater, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation. She undertook the journey in honor of her aunt Ella Mae Begay, a Dineh (Navajo) elder who disappeared 16 months ago, and to raise awareness of the alarming numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous people, especially women.
The missing and murdered Indigenous women movement (#MMIW) has gained traction in recent years as Native American activists have criticized tribal and federal law enforcement officials for failing to aggressively investigate cases and the courts for failing to prosecute. Conflicts over jurisdiction, lack of data and systemic racism have been cited for creating what some have called an invisible epidemic. Various reports have shown that Indigenous women face a higher risk of violence in their lifetimes, from sexual assault to murder.
“It feels like us, as Natives, we’re not important,” Warren said in an interview last week, citing both the lack of support from law enforcement and of media attention when Indigenous people, who include Native Americans and Alaska Natives, go missing.
Warren, 41, live-streamed her arrival in the nation’s capital to some 21,000 followers on her Facebook page Trailing Ellamae. On Tuesday, she met with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native woman to hold that position. “She generally listened,” Warren said, describing the session with Haaland. She’s hoping to meet with other officials over the next few days.
Warren embarked on her prayer walk at 2:30 a.m. on June 15, 2022 — a year to the date and time her aunt went missing. Her mother, fearful of the danger, begged her not to go.
Begay, who Warren calls “auntie,” has not been seen since she drove away in her truck from her home on the Navajo Nation. Her truck has not been found, and her cellphone now goes straight to voice mail.
Warren says Begay, who was 62 at the time she went missing, is “a very talented” master rug weaver. “She’s sweet, soft-spoken and reserved,” Warren says, and wouldn’t have let anyone into her house, especially at night. She kept a piece of plywood to barricade the door.
Life wasn’t easy for Begay on the 27,000-square-mile Dineh (Navajo) Nation. Her husband was murdered 21 years ago. She’d just gotten electricity a few months before she disappeared, after buying a solar panel with money raised by selling her rugs.
Haaland has said working on the issue of missing and murdered women would be one of her highest priorities as interior secretary. She’s formed a Missing & Murdered Unit in the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide additional resources and coordinate efforts among agencies. After the blizzard of publicity last year over the case of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old White woman whose body was found in Wyoming less than three weeks after she went missing, Haaland reminded the media and the public that hundreds of Native girls and women are also missing or murdered.
In a written statement she gave to Haaland, Warren calls this epidemic of violence faced by Indigenous people “hidden terrorism.”
Warren wants the secretary to investigate how the cases of missing and murdered persons are handled by tribal police, with attention paid to improving investigative methods, developing better communication with families and providing support, such as grief counseling and mental health help, to family members.
“We need search and rescue teams,” she says. “We need equipment like ATVs, drones, helicopters, sonar for water. We have families on foot searching. We need cadaver dogs. We need funding for billboards and rewards. We need our own medical examiners. Our tradition calls for burying our loved ones within four days and we can’t.”
More than 84 percent of Indigenous women will experience violence in their lifetimes, according to a report from the National Institute of Justice, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says murder is the third leading cause of death for girls and young women. The Bureau of Indian Affairs reports that for women living on reservations the murder rate is 10 times higher than the national average.
That startling statistic was highlighted at the end of the premiere episode of “Alaska Daily,” a new ABC show featuring Hilary Swank as a New York reporter who moves to Anchorage where she investigates the murders of Indigenous women. Although it’s fictional, the show is inspired by the reporting done on sexual violence cases against Indigenous women by the Anchorage Daily News with ProPublica, which won a Pulitzer Prize.
Warren grew up on the Navajo Nation and now lives in Salt Lake City, where she was an ironworker for eight years and is the mother of five and grandmother of one. She quit her job to spend time helping search for her aunt.
Warren has seen firsthand the effect violence has had on her family. “When we were searching for my aunt in the 108-degree heat, I could see the tiredness in their eyes,” she said.
“I felt like I was walking in circles for a whole month,” Warren said, describing her state of mind after her aunt disappeared. She became troubled by what she calls “weak efforts” by the Navajo police and later the FBI to locate her aunt, and the “frustrating” lack of communication with the family. The FBI got involved after labeling the case a homicide.
Former Navajo Nation police chief Phillip Francisco defended the actions of his department in an article published last year by the Navajo Times.
Warren met three times with Jonathan Nez, president of the Navajo Nation, but was dissatisfied with the results. An elderly lady told her she would not be respected because she wore jeans — and gave her the first of three ribbon dresses, which Warren wore on her journey.
The ribbon dresses are have become a unifying symbol for Indigenous women, representing strength, pride in their heritage and support for social issues, such as the MMIW movement. Secretary Haaland wore one at her swearing-in ceremony.
Warren also wears an arrowhead that she likens to a shield for its protective qualities, along with turquoise jewelry. The eagle feathers on her prayer staff are believed to keep her from harm. Large sunglasses shield her eyes from the sun. A bandanna keeps her hair back.
She brought corn pollen, which is sacred to the Navajo, and sprinkled it at the beginning and end of each day when she prayed, and at rivers when she asked permission from the water gods to cross safely.
The logistics of her cross-country trip boggle the mind, but Warren kept it simple. She’s raising money through social media and a gofundme for her expenses. A rented van, that also doubled as a place to sleep, was driven by family members and friends who volunteered to follow her across Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and, finally, to Washington.
Because of the summer heat in the Southwest, she started walking at 4 in the morning. She could make 20 miles in ten hours, but the first few days she walked until 7 in the evening, even running at times, to cover 40 miles.
In Oklahoma, members of the Cherokee Nation provided more help than she’d received at home, she says, offering hotel stays and buying her shoes.
She persevered through rain and then colder weather, as seasons changed from summer to fall. She rolled her ankle at one point and was advised to stay off it. She didn’t. In Kentucky she had to go to the hospital for a dog bite. Her brother, a runner, “took care of my feet” until he had to return home. She went through 15 pairs of running shoes.
Along the way, people told her stories of their missing and murdered family members. One family has waited 35 years for answers. Not all were Indigenous; some were Hispanic, Black and even White.
Warren added their names and their families’ messages on ribbons to her prayer staff. As she walked, she prayed for them, along with her aunt.
The missing and murdered “don’t have a voice,” she says. “They give me the strength to keep going. They motivated me,” she says through tears. “Every day they motivated me.”
She posted information about them on social media, along with photos and videos of her journey. On the day she entered Washington, she carried a sign with a photo of Aaron J. Tsosie, who was murdered on April 26, 2017, provided by his mother.
She shared humorous moments as well. “If Tom Hanks had his volleyball ‘Wilson’ to keep him sane, I have my Prayer Staff to keep me sane,” Warren wrote on Facebook in early October. Many days she did a live feed to let people know about her progress.
Warren still hopes to find her aunt — alive. “I don’t want to find her remains,” she says. “I don’t want to find her in that way.
“I need my aunt back,” she says. “I want healing.” | 2022-10-13T12:06:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Navajo woman Seraphine Warren walks from Ariz. to D.C. to highlight missing aunt - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/seraphine-missing-murdered-indigenous-women/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/seraphine-missing-murdered-indigenous-women/ |
By Brenda Donald
Construction crews work before a Sept. 26 groundbreaking ceremony for the Asberry, the first on-site building to be constructed under the New Communities Initiative at Barry Farm on D.C. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Brenda Donald is executive director of the D.C. Housing Authority.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s assessment report of the D.C. Housing Authority was not pretty, nor were the findings unexpected. The report came after an on-site review of the DCHA this year.
The report details the cumulative effect of problems from years of management neglect across many departments within the agency. This agency’s numerous problems didn’t materialize overnight. Now that I am here and inherited the responsibility, my team and I are laying the foundation and we are going to fix them.
But they can’t be fixed overnight.
When I took charge of this agency a little more than a year ago, my initial marching orders were to assess the overall organization and staff and to develop a plan to stabilize operations. We immediately stabilized the operating budget by eliminating the historical deficit. In my first three months, we also created the capacity to manage our capital budget and obligated over 95 percent of much-needed and appreciated capital funds from D.C. that were in jeopardy because they were not spent in the previous nine months.
Within six months, I built a new leadership team with the muscle to manage. We negotiated outdated labor contracts. We developed a technology plan to provide accurate data and management information, and now we are moving forward with the implementation.
The agency’s main operations include property management, the Housing Choice Voucher Program and capital investments. This summer in property management, we cleared more than 10,000 outstanding work orders, many of which accumulated over several years, and we are developing a preventive maintenance program. We developed a strategic occupancy plan that is starting to show results as we have more than doubled unit offers for the months from July to September than in the first six months of this calendar year. We also reactivated our apprentice training program for public housing residents who will be eligible for permanent jobs.
Under our Housing Choice Voucher Program, we updated and scrubbed the waitlist and engaged stakeholders across D.C. as we reviewed recommendations for an updated rent payment standard.
For our capital investments, we are especially proud of our ability to deliver on projects that were stuck for many years. In the past 12 months, we broke ground at Kenilworth Courts to build 166 units of housing, closed on the long-delayed Greenleaf Gardens revitalization in Southwest, acquired the newly renovated Arthur Capper building for seniors, saved Parkway Overlook from default and broke ground on the Asberry, the long-awaited Barry Farm building for seniors where residents will finally be able to return to their community.
We also closed on our former headquarters at 1133 N. Capitol St. NE while acquiring new office space for our employees. The old headquarters site will become home to new housing and retail, including 200 affordable housing units.
DCHA is undergoing an entire transformation — of people, properties and internal programs. Transformation is hard, and we are moving in the right direction because we already implemented corrective actions for some of the findings in HUD’s report.
Our priority and primary responsibility remain with the thousands of public housing residents and voucher holders we serve. Regular meetings with resident leaders and ongoing property tours help to keep the spotlight on long-delayed repairs and current living conditions. Although we have plans for massive redevelopment across our portfolio, redevelopment can take many years and our residents live there now and should expect safe, affordable and decent housing.
Despite the headlines, the HUD report was not a wake-up call, for anyone. We all knew the agency needed an urgent transformation and a leader to take on the challenge. Now, we are here and have 60 days to respond with a corrective action plan and six months to fully implement it.
We are confident that we will transform. We will demonstrate our ability to rebuild this agency and fulfill our commitment to the people we serve. | 2022-10-13T12:45:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | D.C. Housing Authority is already making changes for the better - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/dc-housing-authority-hud-report-making-improvements/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/dc-housing-authority-hud-report-making-improvements/ |
I’m the father of a trans boy in Florida. ‘Don’t say gay’ is working.
By Alberto Cairo
Left: Demonstrators gather in front of the Florida State Capitol in March. (Wilfredo Lee/AP) Right: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Alberto Cairo, a data journalist and visualization designer, is the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami’s School of Communication.
“Groomer!”
Last month, a bearded man yelled this slur outside the Miami-Dade School Board building, which I’d just left after speaking at a meeting. The board had been considering a proposal to recognize October as LGBTQ History Month.
The slur was not directed at me, but I cringed anyway. “Groomer” has found its way into our discourse ever since Christina Pushaw, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s former press secretary, helped popularize the term as a synonym for “pedophile,” and some on the American right began directing it at families like mine.
I walked on. A group knelt on the sidewalk to pray. The man who led it asked God to “save America from homosexuality.”
This man was part of a well-coordinated assortment of extremist and Christian fundamentalist organizations — among them Moms for Liberty, the Proud Boys and the Christian Family Coalition — that had gathered to pressure the board to reject the proposal.
In 2021, the board voted 7-1 in favor of the same measure. This year, at this meeting, they voted 8-1 against it.
Behind the reversal was Florida’s Parental Rights in Education act — better known by the name its critics have given it, the “don’t say gay” law — which DeSantis signed on March 28. It is one of many proposed or passed by conservative politicians across the country seeking to codify discrimination against LGBTQ people.
The Post's View: Florida’s harmful ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill is just one example of a dark national trend
In deliberately vague language, the law prohibits “instruction” on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade and, beyond them, “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” The key to its power is that the “standards” are ill-defined — moving educators to proceed with extreme caution, to avoid legal entanglements.
Indeed, several speakers at the meeting issued veiled threats to use DeSantis’s law. And school officials were wary. Steve Gallon III, the board’s vice chair, said, “My obligation as an elected school board member is one that has to comply with the law that has now changed.”
Never mind that the only instruction mentioned in the LGBTQ History Month proposal would have happened in 12th grade and was limited to discussion of Supreme Court decisions such as Obergefell v. Hodges. (In what world is it not age-appropriate to teach teenagers that gay people didn’t have the right to marry until 2015?)
I spoke at the meeting because I’m the father of a transgender boy. I wanted to remind the board of a tragic constant in human history that I saw at play again that day — the dynamic by which empathy, tolerance and love become weaker political motivations than disgust, fear and hatred.
I explained how the current moral panic about LGBTQ people is rooted in misguided convictions and unfounded concerns.
The convictions are that there’s something “abnormal” or “degenerate” about LGBTQ people, and that celebrating the diverse ways of being human — to compensate for centuries of silencing and discrimination — is unnecessary or even sinful. Some speakers at the meeting said LGBTQ History Month was an offense to their religious beliefs. One man mentioned “Satanism.”
Kate Cohen: ‘Don’t say gay’ says ‘don’t say straight,’ too. Let’s exploit it.
The concerns are that being gay or transgender is contagious (it isn’t), and that giving LGBTQ issues visibility is part of a “conspiracy” to undermine “traditional” values. One woman asserted that LGBTQ History Month was part of a “left-wing social experiment.”
All that is nonsense. There is nothing unnatural or immoral about my son. He has always been who he is: a normal, loving, beautiful child of nature’s god. He and other students deserve to learn at school that others like him struggled — and continue to struggle — to see their existence and dignity recognized.
Before public discussion began, Marta Perez — who after 24 years on the board recently lost her seat to a right-wing candidate supported by DeSantis — said she had received a deluge of messages from members of the Christian Family Coalition. “I wish all the people that have written us would be as interested in our proficiency scores, our reading, our writing, our academics,” Perez said. Instead, “terrible scare-mongering has happened.”
The lack of civil discourse was astonishing. People who probably pride themselves on being observant Christians cheered for their allies — this is prohibited — and heckled those they perceived as foes, such as the board’s student adviser, 17-year-old Andrea Pita Mendez.
Despite the rude interruptions, Pita Mendez was able to share: “Our students want this to pass.” Demonstrating more wisdom, grace and courage than many in the room, she said, “I heard many of you speak of the fact that in your generations this wasn’t seen, this wasn’t heard — you grew up in a very different time.”
Her words, sadly, didn’t make a difference. Gallon and other board members, who in the past supported LGBTQ students, surrendered preemptively, capitulating to an increasingly authoritarian governor who is transforming Florida into a laboratory for a national strategy. Instead of fighting back, they chose acquiescence.
Which only proves: “Don’t say gay” is working as intended.
Opinions on gender and identity
Opinion|I’m the father of a trans boy in Florida. ‘Don’t say gay’ is working.
Opinion|Why a Black lesbian married couple with kids left Texas
Opinion|Is being transgender a medical condition? | 2022-10-13T12:45:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Florida’s ‘don’t say gay’ law is working - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/dont-say-gay-florida-desantis-lgbtq-discrimination/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/dont-say-gay-florida-desantis-lgbtq-discrimination/ |
Exploring the architecture of Washington, beyond the National Mall
Review by Philip Kennicott
The Washington Monument is reflected in a window at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, one of the additions to the updated D.C. guide from the American Institute of Architects. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
Throughout most of the world, including the United States, Washington, D.C., is merely a symbol. It is the capital and home of the Capitol, and a symbol of democracy. It appears fixed in static form, represented by a handful of buildings, including the White House, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Rarely does Washington manifest as an actual city, home to more than 700,000 people, except in reports (usually exaggerated) about its urban dysfunction, which only serve to reinforce it as a symbol of poor governance.
But it is a city, and a vibrant one, and increasingly it is a city of significant architectural interest. The just-published sixth edition of the American Institute of Architects’ “Guide to the Architecture of Washington, DC” documents its urban and architectural vitality, especially when read side by side with earlier editions.
Since 2006, when the AIA published the fourth edition, the book’s author has been G. Martin Moeller Jr., a genial and knowledgeable guide. In his introduction, Moeller notes that the new edition, the first update since 2012, includes 80 new entries, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (the team of Freelon Adjaye Bond) and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial (by Frank Gehry), both of which have had a major impact on the city’s symbolic core.
It also includes chapter listings that would have raised eyebrows in 2006. Gentrification and rapid development have created a fresh cartological shorthand for the city, defining new neighborhoods such as Near Southwest, Capitol Riverfront and NoMa/Union Market. These places existed, of course, but they weren’t seen as hubs of nightlife, and they didn’t bristle with cookie-cutter modernist condo buildings. Now, the guide includes them in its walking tours, which include not just recently built structures but the chance to rediscover forgotten or neglected sites such as the 1907 D.C. Water Main Pumping Station along the Capitol Riverfront and the 1923 refrigerated warehouse building now transformed into the Museum of the Bible in Near Southwest.
Moeller’s entries stray well beyond design, engineering and materials. He is interested in the larger story of Washington — its social, symbolic and political history. He is opinionated, though his opinions are eminently reasonable and often entertaining. The historic 1897 home of the Library of Congress, known as the Thomas Jefferson Building, went through a long gestation after its authorization by Congress in 1873, during which “the architects continued to tinker with the design like teenagers trying on different outfits before a date.” I was glad to find that a favorite detail from the 2006 edition has been retained in the current one: In the old Franklin Square neighborhood, now home to The Washington Post, one of the many long-shuttered and now-forgotten porn shops used to have a sign that read “Purveyors of Fine Smut.”
Moeller’s 20-page introduction to the city’s development and architecture is as deft a summary sketch as one can find. All the central tensions are here, between an ambitious, foundational city plan and the exigencies of organic development, between governmental grandeur and the city’s commercial and residential domesticity, and between the several architectural styles that have been deemed appropriate to the dignity of the capital (classical or Northern European, marble or brick, traditional or modern). He concludes his essay with a riposte to Charles Dickens’s famous indictment of Washington as a “city of magnificent intentions.” Perhaps it was, but as Moeller writes, “What the city may lack in sheer quantity of truly avant-garde works of architecture, it makes up in thriving neighborhoods, cohesive streetscapes, and surpassing civic order.”
Visitors to Washington may discover some of this, especially if they learn how to take the Metro (stand to the right, please). But there is something about the symbol of Washington that makes it difficult for people to acknowledge the reality of its urban life, even if they experience it, enjoy it and Instagram it to all their friends back home.
Like other cities around the country that have participated in the great urban regeneration of the 21st century, Washington exemplifies American ideals of living and prospering together better than much of what is commonly known as the Heartland. It has invested in its public realm, in libraries and parks; its transit infrastructure may need improvement, especially since the pandemic, but it is far superior to what is available in most smaller cities, towns and suburbs; and it has controlled and moderated rapid development to ensure livability and emphasize beauty (again, imperfectly, but still well enough to be exemplary for much of this country). It is also diverse and, for the most part, happily and vibrantly so.
None of that can be easily squared with the common symbolic sense of Washington, especially if that symbolism is rooted in idolatry for a mythic Washington of the 19th and early 20th centuries, a timeless theme park of the Founding Fathers, marble columns and all the usual epiphenomena of patriotism. The real city, as Moeller’s guide makes clear again and again, is in a constant state of evolution, tension, conflict, and sometimes (thankfully) resolution and compromise.
The old Carrère and Hastings-designed P Street NW home of the Carnegie Institution for Science has been sold off to Qatar to become an embassy, which is deeply unfortunate given Qatar’s human rights record. Then again, one of the most stylish recent buildings on North Capitol Street, a 2016 mixed-income residential building that appears as a set of off-kilter boxes (designed by Sorg Architects), is targeted at lower-income veterans subject to housing insecurity. Some of the city’s most intriguing avant-garde structures — two libraries designed by star architect David Adjaye — are located so far from the tourist core of Washington that sightseers rarely visit, which makes them all the more the possession of those who need them most.
The symbolic truth of a city like Washington is far richer and more complex than the latticework of avenues, squares and streets designed by Pierre L’Enfant and monumentalized in the early decades of the last century. The early city was built with slave labor, and in 1863, when Thomas Crawford’s 19-foot statue “Freedom” was lifted to the top of the Capitol dome, the nation’s preeminent symbol of democracy was crowned with art manufactured by enslaved people (“incredibly enough,” notes Moeller).
It remains a city of deep inequities and entrenched neighborhoods of poverty, remote from both symbolic Washington and the Washington of wealth and privilege. Yet when snow shuts down the city, or people pour into its parks for impromptu fireworks on the Fourth of July, or the setting sun catches the top of the Jefferson Memorial just as you cross over the Potomac River — it exemplifies both the City Beautiful (the movement that influenced so much of its design) and the city beautiful (that inchoate quality that makes you happy you don’t live somewhere else).
Moeller is alert to all of these maddening complexities. Visitors (and residents) who want to discover a history far richer than the usual pieties of the double-decker tour bus will profit from time with this guide. Put it in your bag, take the Metro to a stop from which you have never alighted, and start walking. The lessons learned will be far richer than a stroll on the Mall or down Pennsylvania Avenue.
AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, DC
By G. Martin Moeller Jr., Johns Hopkins. 383 pp. $59.95 | 2022-10-13T12:45:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, DC by G. Martin Moeller Jr. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/exploring-architecture-washington-beyond-national-mall/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/exploring-architecture-washington-beyond-national-mall/ |
The Spurs, 'StarCraft' and their link to the 1999 NBA title
From left to right, Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Malik Rose and Sean Elliott play "StarCraft" while the Larry O'Brien championship trophy sits in the aisle.
NBA Hall of Famer David Robinson was one of the greatest centers to ever play the game, as recognized by the NBA’s 50th and 75th Anniversary teams. That did not stop his teammates from making fun of his video game habit.
Malik Rose, Robinson’s teammate and fellow gamer on the NBA Championship-winning 1999 San Antonio Spurs, remembered getting ribbed for firing up their laptops so often after games or practices. “Dave got it too!” Rose said “But secretly, everyone else wanted to get into it.”
Rose said he played video games prior to joining the team in 1997, mentioning series like Madden, Zelda and Diablo. But he said that it was Sean Elliott, whom he referred to as the “Yoda” of the group, who turned him and Tim Duncan — then both in their first years — onto “StarCraft” specifically.
“StarCraft” is a science fiction, real-time strategy game made by Blizzard Entertainment. The game, originally released in 1998, has since spawned a popular sequel and several expansion packs and add-ons. Its competitive esports scene is highlighted by The International, a global championship that routinely features a prize pool in the tens of millions.
The highly rated title, which centers on three distinct races battling in a distant galaxy, features a story campaign as well as several multiplayer modes, such as capture the flag, deathmatch and melee, where players attempt to destroy each other’s bases.
“[Robinson] was into his computers,” Gaze recalled. “I didn’t understand it. That wasn’t my go. … But I was sort of envious,” he said.
“I just remember those guys playing on every road game,” Elie said. “Them four guys played all the time … it was to release some tension. It was very competitive.”
“He said that if he did get the bonus, he would buy us Rolexes. And he did, the very next week,” Rose said.
Though Robinson and Duncan led the Spurs on the court and ended their careers as two of the best big men in the game, when it came to “StarCraft,” they were not even team MVPs. | 2022-10-13T12:49:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The story behind the 1999 Spurs championship StarCraft photo - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/10/13/nba-spurs-starcraft-lan-photo/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/10/13/nba-spurs-starcraft-lan-photo/ |
Will Camilla wear the diamond that India — and others — want back?
The Kohinoor, or “mountain of light,” diamond, set in the Maltese Cross at the front of the crown made for Britain's late queen mother Elizabeth, is seen on her coffin, April 5, 2002. (Alastair Grant/AP)
LONDON — The jewel in the British crown — literally — is coming under new scrutiny with the upcoming coronation of King Charles III and growing questions over what Camilla, Queen Consort, will wear on her head.
The most famous jewel worn by British royalty on stately occasions, the spectacular 105-carat Kohinoor diamond, is one that several countries, including India, say they would like back.
The British government on Thursday, responding to front pages stories claiming that Camilla may not wear the crown so as not to upset India, said that it was up to the palace to decide how the queen’s crown should be decorated. Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
The diamond, which is the size of a small egg, rests in the front cross on a crown that is normally on display at the Tower of London. It was last brought out in public for the 2002 funeral of the queen mother, the last person to wear it, and it rested on a purple velvet pillow atop her coffin.
Many thought that Queen Camilla would, like previous consorts, wear the crown during the coronation next May when the new king and queen will be anointed with holy oil and presented with a crown.
The diamond, however, is intimately tied up with Britain’s history and one of many contested treasures it acquired as ruler of a vast worldwide empire — a legacy that came under new scrutiny with the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
India — which Britain would very much like to conclude a trade agreement with — has repeatedly demanded the return of the diamond, especially following Elizabeth’s funeral.
Rakesh Sinha, a lawmaker from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party told The Washington Post that the Kohinoor symbolized the monarchy’s “unapologetic” link to the past that was “barbaric and exploitative,” adding that the jewel must be returned to India as a way of making up for the past.
If Camilla wears the Kohinoor in her crown, it “shows the British people and government are carrying the legacy of their colonialism. It exhibits the loot plunder and exploitation of India by them. The most regretful is they are not ready to correct their past and showing off the stolen jewel as the part of their sovereign seat.”
In India, the queen’s funeral evokes some sadness — and much apathy
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan have also laid claim to gem as well, which was the possession of many rulers, including India’s Mughal emperors, before coming into the hands of the British monarchy.
“Every person in India has heard of this stone and wants it back. Clearly this is massive importance to India, but also Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Afghanistan,” said William Dalrymple, co-author of “Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond.”
Most British people, however, are barely aware of it, in part because teaching of the British Empire doesn’t feature prominently in school curriculum, said the author, who splits his time between the U.K. and India.
“They learn about the Roman empire, all sorts of empires, but not the British Empire. For them, the Kohinoor is usually a local Indian restaurant or a brand of pencils or occasionally a trip to the Tower of London.”
The gem was believed to have been mined somewhere in India and ended up in the possession of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, a Sikh ruler of Punjab, whose heir “gave” it to Queen Victoria in 1850 after the Sikh empire was defeated by the British.
The diamond was eventually placed in the crowns worn by the wives of Britain’s kings, including Queen Alexandra, the wife of Edward VII, and Queen Mary, the wife of George V, and finally Queen Elizabeth II’s mother during the coronation of her husband, King George VI.
During a 2010 visit to India, the former prime minister David Cameron was asked about returning the stone. “If you say “yes” to one request, you suddenly find the British Museum would be empty,” he said.
India to Britain: sorry, but we actually DO want our diamond back
Reassessments of colonialism, however, have inspired the return of human remains and artifacts from museums across Europe and North America to their countries of origin. Britain has been lagging behind in that reckoning.
Arguably, one of history’s most famous cultural controversies is that of the Elgin marbles, also called Parthenon marbles, a collection of 5th century B.C. marbles that have been on display in the British Museum since 1817, despite ongoing calls from Greece for their return.
On Thursday, the House of Lords is debating legislation that prevents some nationally funded museums, like the British Museum that houses the Elgin marbles, from returning objects to their countries of origin.
A solution for the Elgin marbles: Robot-carved replicas?
Liz Truss, the prime minister, has made it clear that this isn’t in the cards. Asked earlier this month about whether there was a “deal to be done” on returning the marbles to Greece, Truss said, “I don’t support that.”
As for the diamond, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told Sky News on Thursday that it is up to Buckingham Palace to decide whether it is used in the coronation. “The palace is really very good at assessing the public, and indeed the international, mood,” he added.
The crown controversy comes at a time when the U.K. and India are engaged in trade talks, which are of great interest to post-Brexit Britain. Both sides in April that they wanted to conclude talks by the Indian holiday of Diwali on Oct. 24. But there have been reports that the talks have run into problems after British Home Secretary Suella Braverman — herself a child of immigrants — expressed concerns what the deal would mean for migration, as “the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants.”
Dalrymple, the author, said that “the British, post Brexit, are keen to make friends with India, at the same time India is getting more and more hyper sensitive about its colonial past.”
He said it would be a “very well received gesture not to wear” the diamond at the coronation and “and even better received gesture to give it back.”
But given the number of countries laying claim to it, there is another problem: “But who do you give it back to?”
Masih reported from New Delhi. | 2022-10-13T13:28:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Kohinoor diamond in Camilla's crown could spoil relations between Britain and India - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/queen-camilla-kohinoor-diamond-crown-india/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/queen-camilla-kohinoor-diamond-crown-india/ |
Ask Sahaj: My parents are ‘obsessing’ over who I marry
Dear Sahaj: I’m a 25-year-old second generation Indian American. My dad is a doctor, and my sister is a gynecologist, who married a pediatrician at age 30. My mom wanted me to go into medicine as well, but I rebelled and now work as a computer engineer with great work-life balance in another state. My mother rejected my wants and needs initially, but eventually came to terms with it.
Now my parents are obsessing over me finding a partner to settle down with, specifically someone who works in medicine, is Indian, and is of a certain faith. While I've been putting myself out there, the city I live in does not have a large South Asian population. My parents have hinted that when I turn 27, they will look into getting a marriage broker from India to set something up.
I love my current job and the work I do. I bought a house here with the intention of planting roots, and could see myself spending the rest of my life here. However, with the stress of trying to find someone to date for marriage, I’m considering moving somewhere with a larger South Asian population just to give myself a shot before I’m forced into an arranged marriage. With the specific demands my mother has, I don’t have a ton of hope of being able to find a partner in my current city. What do I do?
— Struggling
Struggling: One of the biggest questions I have after reading your question is: Do you want to find a serious relationship or get married? You discuss this issue solely from the pressure you are absorbing from your parents.
It’s clear how eagerly you want to make your parents happy, but you are navigating a conflict of values — loyalty to your parents and happiness in your current life. I can sense how much tension this has created for you.
It’s hard to be the “first” to do things in your family, and you are pushing the envelope by teaching your parents that there is a different way to live. It seems like they came around to respect your career, so there’s evidence that they can be swayed and do, in fact, want you to be happy.
If you are struggling to meet people (and want to), you can ask friends to set you up. You can also consider certain dating apps that are specifically for South Asians and Indians. You could widen your settings to include other locations before deciding to move. This may help you explore what the prospects are like in other cities without making an impulsive decision that may not lead to your ideal outcome.
I encourage you to differentiate what you want from what your parents want. Hypothetically, if your parents weren’t pressuring you, what would be your ideal goals, values, and relationship needs? This may feel uncomfortable to explore, but it separates what is expected of you from what you actually want. Once you do that, you may feel better-equipped to start identifying your non-negotiables from what you’re willing to accept and do.
Regardless, it might be worth having a more vulnerable conversation with your parents about their expectations and about how they’re impacting you. Often, parents do want the best for their kid, but from what I’ve observed in my work, immigrant parents may have to be convinced that we can make these choices for ourselves.
Your parents sound like they are coming from a frame of reference that is limited to what they have known in their own lives and circles. So, to them, being a doctor or being married to a doctor may be the only way to be financially secure. Or, being married by 30 is the only way to guarantee finding an acceptable partner. Or, marrying within your race, culture, and faith is the only way to maintain connections to your cultural roots. It’s important for you to confront these fears to move the conversation in a different direction.
There’s no easy answer here, but you wrote in because you are stuck, and the only way to get unstuck is to excavate a bit deeper to what you really want, what you’re scared will happen if you speak up for it, and what this might mean for your relationship with your parents. | 2022-10-13T13:29:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Sahaj: My parents are 'obsessing' over who I marry - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/13/ask-sahaj-parents-obsessing-marriage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/13/ask-sahaj-parents-obsessing-marriage/ |
Dani Shapiro’s new novel explores a subject she knows well: Family secrets
‘Signal Fires’ is a powerful work that delves into the consequences of a long-hidden lie
Review by Marion Winik
Readers who know the author’s oeuvre will recognize its focus on family secrets, a subject Shapiro explored in a very personal way in her best-selling 2019 memoir “Inheritance.” (The book inspired Shapiro’s podcast, “Family Secrets,” which examines parallel stories in the lives of guests and listeners.) Also vintage Shapiro are the novel’s metaphysical themes: the intersections of time and memory, the reality of the human soul and the unexpected bonds between strangers.
In “Signal Fires,” the secret that has so profoundly defined the Wilf family is “the deepest kind of family secret, one so dangerous that it will never be spoken.” The first section of the book, dated Aug. 27, 1985, reveals the truth as it unfolded at the time: Fifteen-year-old Theo Wilf is driving his mother’s Buick; his older sister Sarah, who has a license but who has been drinking, is in the back seat; her friend Misty Zimmerman is riding shotgun. Theo crashes the car into the huge oak tree in the Wilf’s front yard and after their father, Dr. Benjamin Wilf, rushes out to attend to Misty, unconscious and bleeding, Sarah claims to have been the one driving.
Book review: 'Inheritance,' by Dani Shapiro
This app, Waldo explains, comforts him when he thinks bad thoughts, putting his troubles in perspective. Surprising himself, technophobic Ben experiences the wonder of the app, too. “From this distance, it seems possible that it’s all happening at once: this life, that life — an immeasurable number of lives all playing themselves out in parallel motion,” he thinks. “He is at once a newborn at the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital, a kid playing stickball on Classon Avenue, a bar mitzvah boy all squirmy in his new suit, stumbling through the words of his Torah portion. He is a college student, a sleepless medical intern, a young husband. He is watching his daughter’s birth. He is moving with his young family to Division Street. He is hearing his son’s first lusty wail.”
These ideas, that everything is connected and that all versions of a person over time coexist at every moment, are the heart of “Signal Fires.” In the subsequent sections of the book, Shapiro skips back-and-forth through the years, stopping at 1970, 1999, 2014, 2020 (but not in that order), also returning to 1985, having her omniscient narrator peek through the perspectives of Theo, Sarah, Ben and his wife, Mimi, Waldo and Waldo’s father.
Given how the book toys with the idea of time, it is fitting that it ends not with how everything turned out but with how everything started — back in 1970, at a moment of near-perfect wholeness for the Wilf family, before life has its way with them. “Signal Fires” doesn’t shy away from loss but seeks to balance grief with grace. Like Waldo’s app, Shapiro’s novel offers the comfort of a view from the stars.
Marion Winik, a professor at the University of Baltimore, is the author of numerous books, including “First Comes Love” “The Big Book of the Dead” and, most recently, “Above Us Only Sky.” | 2022-10-13T13:29:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro book review - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/dani-shapiro-novel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/dani-shapiro-novel/ |
WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 12: U.S. President Joe Biden departs on the South Lawn of the White House on October 12, 2022 in Washington, DC. Biden is leaving for a multi-day trip to Colorado, California and Oregon. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) (Photographer: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images North America)
With less than a month until Election Day, and more than one million voters having already cast their ballots, it’s a good time to check in on President Joe Biden’s popularity. The good news for Biden is that he is up about 5 percentage points from his July low point. The bad news for him — and for Democrats in general — is that he has plateaued at a still-low approval level of around 42.5% since the end of August.
That’s the third-worst approval level among polling-era presidents at this point in their term. He’s ahead of Harry Truman, doing a bit better than Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan, a bit behind Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and further behind where Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford were at this stage. All the other presidents had a 50% or better rating at this stage.
Biden’s still-mediocre numbers probably mean the pandemic and inflation — especially gasoline prices — are weighing him down, and that whenever those stresses ease, his standing improves. Gasoline prices peaked a few weeks before Biden hit bottom, dropped sharply while he was improving and started inching up just as his numbers started flattening; the latest wave of the coronavirus peaked in mid-July and case and hospitalization numbers have been gradually dropping since then. (1)
Truman, Trump, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Carter and Ford all had terrible midterms.(2)Even if Biden’s ratings improve a little in the next few weeks, it’s too late to change the reality that he will be a drag on Democrats. Whether that’s the decisive factor in this unusual election cycle is harder to predict, but it’s pretty clear that Democrats would be in better shape with a more popular president.
Still, moving from around 37.5% to his current level is a significant change. I’m not quite willing to declare it an iron law of politics, but a 40% approval level is a key marker, with presidents below that level vulnerable to both nomination challenges and third-party candidacies. Below 40%, party actors tend to believe that the president is in big trouble for re-election and that they should consider a different candidate.
Why 40%? First of all, there are real costs to attempting to dislodge an incumbent president. Also, political participants tend to be optimists about their own party’s situation. A president at 40% approval is going to have some recent polls out there that are a bit higher, and it’s easy for optimists to cherry-pick those and make excuses for the lower ones. That means they will tend to think the president is “really” 3-5 percentage points better than honest polling averages suggest. And then from the low-to-mid 40s, the president is only a 5-point surge — like the one that Biden just had, and that each president has had at least once during their time in office — away from being competitive in the general election.
That’s how party actors think. And we’ve seen the results — there were calls in the spring and early summer for Biden to drop out of the 2024 race, but far fewer such comments in the last couple of months.
What they fail to remember is that approval ratings at the midterm have absolutely no predictive power about re-election. While Ford, Carter and Trump were unpopular at their midterms, George H.W. Bush was quite well-liked. Meanwhile, Truman had a lower approval rating at this point than any other president but won re-election fairly comfortably, as did Obama and Clinton, while Reagan won a 49-state landslide.
What will affect Biden’s re-election prospects, or those of another Democrat if he doesn’t seek a second term, is the ability of the Federal Reserve to tamp down inflation without pushing the economy into a recession. That, along with other major events, could completely change things — in either direction. But the first step will be capturing the nomination, and that will be a lot easier if he avoids slipping back below 40%.
The One Thing That Can Save Herschel Walker: Joshua Green
How the War in Ukraine Changed American Attitudes: Tobin Harshaw
Voters Aren’t Worried About Covid. Politicians Should Be: Jonathan Bernstein
(1) It’s true that voters no longer tell pollsters that the pandemic is a top concern. Nevertheless, I’m convinced that it’s a major and dramatically underrated factor in the mood of most of the nation, and so far at least Biden’s approval numbers are consistent with that theory.
(2) Our data on Truman is sketchy; frequent, multiple public polls didn’t really kick in until much later. But he appears to have been broadly unpopular for the 1946 midterms, which were a bit earlier into his presidency than for the others. The 1974 midterms were very early in Ford’s abbreviated presidency, and the results probably had little to do with him, but for what it’s worth he was unpopular at that point after he pardoned Richard Nixon. | 2022-10-13T13:29:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden’s Still Unpopular But Out of the Danger Zone - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/bidens-still-unpopular-but-out-of-the-danger-zone/2022/10/13/f2369e48-4af2-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/bidens-still-unpopular-but-out-of-the-danger-zone/2022/10/13/f2369e48-4af2-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
5 competitive programs have fired their coaches this season. The universities may have to pay those coaches even after they’re gone.
Head coach Paul Chryst of the Wisconsin Badgers is one of five Football Bowl Subdivision coaches to be fired during the first five weeks of this season. Colleges have to pay coaches after they have been fired if that was part of the coach's contract. (John Fisher/Getty Images)
No, I think college football is wacky for another reason. During the first five weeks of this season, five FBS schools — Arizona State, Colorado, Georgia Tech, Nebraska and Wisconsin — fired their head coaches. That means the schools will be paying these former coaches to not coach their teams!
Don’t feel bad for Chryst. College football coaches make a lot of money. In fact, many college football coaches make as much or more money than head coaches in the National Football League (NFL). A dozen college coaches make more than $7 million a year. That’s what Ron Rivera makes to coach the Washington Commanders.
That’s pretty wacky. | 2022-10-13T13:30:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Big money in college football pays for coaching and not coaching - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/10/13/colleges-pay-coaches-after-firing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/10/13/colleges-pay-coaches-after-firing/ |
Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza sits on a bench inside the defendant's cage during a hearing in a Moscow courtroom on Monday. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images)
“It takes incredible courage in today’s Russia to stand against the power in place,” Tiny Kox, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said this week in awarding Washington Post contributing columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza the Václav Havel Prize for his defense of human rights in his home country of Russia.
Kara-Murza is currently in a Russian prison awaiting trial on trumped-up charges of distributing “fake news” about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His wife, Evgenia, accepted the prestigious award on his behalf in Strasbourg, France, on Oct. 10. The prize is named for the former president of Czechoslovakia, who — before he rose to that position after the 1989 revolution that overthrew the communist regime — himself spent many years in prison for his dissident activities. The Post is publishing Vladimir Kara-Murza’s acceptance speech below.
In his remarks, Kara-Murza draws an apt parallel between Russia’s current aggression toward Ukraine and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Russian soldiers invading Ukraine display World War II battle flags on their vehicles and use slogans praising Stalin along with Vladimir Putin. In 1968, Czechs launched a reform campaign — known as the “Prague Spring” — that aimed to create a more liberal society by limiting the powers of the Communist state. Soviet leaders felt threatened by the prospect of a liberal democracy blossoming within the Warsaw Pact, so they sent in tanks, crushing a movement whose members included Havel and many other dissidents.
Kara-Murza, like Havel, has spent his life defending the truth from the assault of dictators. The award of this prize affirms that triumphant continuity.
– Christian Caryl, op-ed editor/international
It appears to have become a tradition of this award that most of its recipients have missed the ceremony because they have been under arrest. But then again, Václav Havel was a political prisoner himself — for the last time just months before he would become president of Czechoslovakia.
Havel once said that “if the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then … the fundamental threat to it is living the truth — this is why it must be suppressed more severely than anything else.” The reality of Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia bears out these words to the full. With the start of this brutal invasion of Ukraine, Putin also launched another war — a war on truth in our own country. Since February, Russia’s remaining independent media outlets have been silenced; the authorities have imposed near-total censorship of the internet and social media; while new, hastily passed laws have criminalized public opposition to the war with up to 15 years of imprisonment. Just as in communist Czechoslovakia that imprisoned Havel; just as in the Soviet Union that, even in its most “liberal” periods, imprisoned thousands of dissidents; in today’s Russia of Vladimir Putin, speaking the truth is considered a crime against the state.
Yet despite the arrests and the threats and the tidal wave of repression, thousands of Russians have voiced their opposition to the war on Ukraine. According to human rights groups, some 19,000 people were detained by police at antiwar protests since February. Nearly 4,000 have faced administrative charges for speaking out against the war. Dozens, including me, are now imprisoned for it. Journalists, lawyers, teachers, priests, artists, politicians, military officers — people of different backgrounds and different vocations — who could not stay silent in the face of this atrocity, even at the cost of personal freedom.
I want to dedicate this prize to all of them. And the monetary part of the prize will go toward creating a special fund to support the families of Russian political prisoners. Families that now have to live without their spouses, their parents, or their children because their loved ones have refused to be complicit in the evil perpetrated by their government.
In August 1968, as Soviet tanks invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring, seven people came out on Red Square in Moscow in a silent demonstration of protest. They weren’t there even five minutes; they were beaten, arrested, and herded away almost immediately. But after what they did, no one could say that there was nationwide approval in the Soviet Union for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. As a Prague newspaper wrote, “there are now at least seven reasons for which we will never be able to hate the Russian people.” Today, Ukraine and the free world have thousands of reasons.
I am sorry that I am not able to join you in person today — but I look forward to being back here in Strasbourg when a peaceful, democratic and Putin-free Russia returns to this Assembly and to this Council; and when we can finally start building that whole, free and peaceful Europe we all want to see. Even today, in the darkest of hours, I firmly believe that time will come.
Opinion|Dark days again in Russia. For prisoners, an endless carousel of absurdity. | 2022-10-13T13:30:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Vladimir Kara-Murza: Putin’s war on Ukraine is also a war on truth - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/vladimir-karamurza-vaclav-havel-prize/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/vladimir-karamurza-vaclav-havel-prize/ |
Here’s how Medicare will impact Social Security benefits
Happy Thursday, y’all. It’s almost the weekend, and that means it’s almost time for the Air and Space Museum to reopen. (TIL it was the fifth most popular museum on the continent in 2019.) Send us all your fun facts: rachel.roubein@washpost.com.
Today’s edition: Federal regulators signed off on updated booster shots for children as young as 5. Most abortions will likely remain legal in Indiana until the state Supreme Court hears a case early next year. But first …
Lower Medicare premiums mean even more Social Security benefits for seniors
Social Security is expected to announce today the biggest hike in benefits in roughly four decades, a direct reaction to the nation’s rising costs of food, housing and other goods.
And seniors will be able to pocket more of that increase than usual due to a reduction in their Medicare premiums.
That’s unusual. Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment is usually in part gobbled up by a rise in monthly Medicare payments, since premiums are typically deducted from older adults’ Social Security checks.
But starting next year, Medicare Part B premiums — which cover doctor visits, preventive care and outpatient services — will decrease to course correct for raising prices too high in 2022 amid uncertainty over a controversial new Alzheimer’s treatment.
The Biden administration is already touting the dynamic as giving seniors “a chance to get ahead of inflation,” even though the increase in Social Security checks isn’t expected to be announced until today and the reduction in Medicare costs isn’t the result of Democratic policies. Meanwhile, the federal government’s monthly report on inflation is also set to come out this morning, the last one before the midterm elections. Democrats are on the defense, as Republicans hammer them over rising consumer prices.
This year, an average of 66 million Americans per month will have received a Social Security check. The program is a major source of income for the elderly, but monthly payments also flow to people with disabilities, as well as the relatives of workers who have died.
Experts widely predict this year’s cost-of-living adjustment, known as COLA, will be the largest in roughly four decades, our colleague Jeff Stein reports this morning. Some expect it’ll be around 8.7 percent, give or take, Nancy Altman, the co-director of left-leaning advocacy group Social Security Works, told The Health 202.
The projected increase for 2023 follows a 5.9 percent rise in benefit checks this year — which was also the largest boost to benefits in nearly four decades.
Here’s the key difference: Medicare Part B premiums rose 14.5 percent this year, in large part because Medicare was factoring in uncertainty over whether — and how widely — the program would cover a pricey new Alzheimer’s drug. That meant a big chunk of seniors’ COLA increases went to pay for their Medicare premiums instead.
But that won’t be the case for next year. Federal health officials wound up deciding to cover the Alzheimer’s treatment only in limited circumstances. So now they’re implementing a correction, of sorts, for raising premiums so high in 2022, and will reduce the monthly payments by 3 percent next year.
“The increase in the COLA, coupled with lower Medicare premiums, will boost Social Security payments in 2023, and that should help retirees who are struggling to keep up with rising prices,” Tricia Neuman, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation and a Biden nominee for the Medicare Board of Trustees, wrote in an email. She added that reductions in Medicare “are not unprecedented,” but are a “rare occurrence.”
The increase could help seniors financially, but it also may put additional fiscal pressure on the program. The Social Security Trust Fund will be able to pay full benefits until 2035, according to an annual government report released in June, but trustees of the program are warning about the future of the huge entitlement.
Meanwhile … there's a debate around whether the right metric is being used to calculate the adjustments for inflation. Social Security benefits are adjusted off the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers. Some have argued instead it should be based on the consumer price index for the elderly to better account for seniors’ spending patterns.
But conservatives have criticized the expected higher payments, arguing that Social Security ran a large deficit last year and could exhaust its funds in a little over a decade. Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, told Jeff that the way of calculating benefits should be changed because it’s too generous.
Federal regulators sign off on updated boosters for children as young as 5
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that children as young as 5 receive updated coronavirus booster shots, hours after the Food and Drug Administration expanded eligibility to the age group, our colleague Laurie McGinley reports.
The green light from federal regulators comes as the Biden administration scrambles to get more Americans boosted with a possible fall surge and the holiday season looming, following dismal uptake of the shots for older age groups.
The revised shot developed by Pfizer-BioNTech had previously been cleared for those 12 and older, while Moderna’s booster was authorized only for those 18 and over. The FDA’s emergency use authorizations will expand access to Pfizer’s shot for children 5 to 11, and Moderna’s booster to those 6 and older.
The details: Children who have received their initial two-dose series of any coronavirus vaccine are eligible to get the updated boosters as long as two months have passed since their last dose. The new Moderna doses are expected to be made available in pharmacies and doctor's offices immediately, while the Pfizer-BioNTech shots are expected to be available next week. The old monovalent booster shots are no longer authorized for these age groups, the FDA said in a statement.
Looking ahead: FDA officials have said that authorization of a bivalent booster for children younger than 5 is still several months away.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky:
I just recommended expanding updated #COVID19 vaccines to children 5-11 years. This is a critical step in our fight against COVID-19. An updated vaccine can help bolster protection for our children this winter. Talk to your child’s healthcare provider for more information.
Most abortions remain legal in Indiana, likely until next year
The Indiana Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will hear a case challenging the state’s near total abortion ban, and issued an order blocking prosecutors from enforcing the law while it considers whether it violates the state constitution.
The court set a start date for oral arguments in the case for Jan. 12, meaning abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy will likely remain legal in the state through the end of the year.
The details: The state Supreme Court took over the case after a county judge temporarily blocked the ban in September, prompting the state’s Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita to appeal the decision. Rokita petitioned the high court to take over jurisdiction of the case, bypassing the state appeals court. While the five Republican-appointed justices agreed to consider the lawsuit, they declined a request by Rokita to set aside an appellate court’s preliminary injunction on the law.
Key context: Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon wrote in the court’s opinion last month that the plaintiffs in the case had demonstrated a “reasonable likelihood” that the ban imposes a “significant restriction of personal autonomy” that violates the Indiana Constitution’s right to privacy and equal protections.
Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health:
— Amy Hagstrom Miller (@AmyHM) October 12, 2022
Meanwhile, in North Dakota …
The North Dakota Supreme Court ordered a lower court judge to reconsider his decision to block prosecutors from enforcing the state’s abortion ban pending the outcome of a clinic’s legal challenge against the law, the Associated Press reports.
The high court instructed Judge Bruce Romanick to weigh the clinic’s chance of winning the case in reconsidering whether this decision to block the ban was correct. Red River Women’s Clinic, North Dakota’s only abortion provider, argues in its lawsuit that the state constitution grants abortion rights.
U.S. reaches agreement with victims of doctor who abused Native American boys
The federal government reached a tentative deal with eight victims of pediatrician Stanley Patrick Weber, who was convicted of sexually abusing Native American boys under his care at federal hospitals in Montana and South Dakota, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Under the terms of the deal, the government would pay between $1.5 and $2 million to each of the victims to settle claims that federal officials allegedly ignored warnings of his abuse. In total, the deal would amount to a roughly $14.5 million payout, people familiar with the matter told WSJ’s Christopher Weaver and Dan Frosch.
However, the agreement isn’t finalized. Because of the amount of money involved, the deal must be approved by a senior Justice Department official.
Families USA, a left-leaning consumer health lobby, launched a new Center for Affordable Whole Person Care charged with drafting policies and calling for more transparency around the cost of care.
A clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of an antiviral drug known as TPOXX in treating adults and children with monkeypox has begun in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the National Institutes of Health announced yesterday.
A federal judge upheld Florida’s rule preventing Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming care for patients of all ages, denying a request for a preliminary injunction sought by transgender people in the state, the 19th reports.
More than a third of U.S. counties have no hospitals, birthing centers or providers offering obstetrics care, according to a new report from the nonprofit organization March of Dimes.
Federal watchdog probes whether covid aid enabled Florida’s migrant flight (By Tony Romm | The Washington Post)
How Democratic men are centering abortion access on the campaign trail (By Shefali Luthra | The 19th)
‘Separate and Unequal’: Critics Say Newsom’s Pricey Medicaid Reforms Leave Most Patients Behind (By Angela Hart | Kaiser Health News)
State delays Western Maryland Hospital Center privatization vote (By Jenna Portnoy l The Washington Post) | 2022-10-13T13:30:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Here’s how Medicare will impact Social Security benefits - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/heres-how-medicare-will-impact-social-security-benefits/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/heres-how-medicare-will-impact-social-security-benefits/ |
Fetterman’s use of captions is common in stroke recovery, neurologists say
Closed captions are often used by people with auditory processing or hearing issues, they say
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks during a campaign event in York, Pa., on Oct. 8. (Matt Rourke/AP)
Fetterman’s health has become a major issue in the close race in Pennsylvania against GOP candidate Mehmet Oz. Republicans have tried to use the interview to discredit Fetterman’s cognitive abilities.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee tweeted that Fetterman is not being “transparent” about his health. The Senate Republicans’ account tweeted that NBC reported that speaking with Fetterman without closed captioning was difficult.
Jenna Beacom, 51, a deaf media critic living in Columbus, Ohio, said she was surprised at how well Fetterman was able to follow the interview even though he seemed to be relying on auto-captioning, or real-time captioning. She sometimes uses this type of captioning but said it is often riddled with mistakes or has significant lags.
“The purely mechanical issue of lagging captions was played in a way that made it seem like Fetterman was slow on the uptake, in a way that is unfair and inaccurate,” she said.
Beacom said she faces similar criticism when she is slow to respond to someone when they are speaking. “I have all kinds of mechanisms intended to calm down hearing people because I’m aware of this,” she said.
Fetterman suffered a stroke in May, and neuro-audiology experts said they believe he was showing signs of a specific type of acquired communication disorder called aphasia, which is caused by damage to regions of the brain responsible for language. Aphasia impacts about 2 million Americans, according to the National Aphasia Association and is common after a stroke, but can also be the result of head trauma, a brain tumor, or infections that damage the brain.
Importantly, aphasia does not affect intelligence, decision-making, planning or other cognitive functions in the brain, experts said. And it can be treated and improved over time through therapy.
Darlene Williamson, president of the National Aphasia Association, believes Fetterman displayed behaviors consistent with aphasia based on his interview with NBC News. She applauded his use of closed captioning and said his use of strategies to help with communication “demonstrates his capacity.”
“If you say to someone with significant aphasia, ‘Can you give me the pencil?' They go, “pencil … pencil … I should know what that is,’” she said. “They heard it, and put it together but they don’t connect the meaning. That’s a severe impairment. He didn’t have that level of impairment.”
Beeson said that Fetterman may have mild cases of both kinds of aphasia, but did not see any behavior that would lead her to believe Fetterman is struggling with the meaning of words, since he was able to respond to questions during the interview in an appropriate manner.
Someone with a mild auditory processing issue would typically need more time to process sounds, and may struggle to keep up with a long sentences, fast speakers, or lectures, said Sarah Lantz, a speech language pathologist at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, part of Jefferson Health in Philadelphia. A person with more severe auditory processing issues may struggle to understand a single word at a time, she said.
There are exercises people can do with speech therapists and rehabilitation specialists to help overcome issues with auditory processing, Hatfield said.
When someone has auditory processing issues from a stroke, the usual pathways that language information takes have been interrupted, and the signals may need to take a detour. But luckily, there is a lot of redundancy in the brain, meaning healthy parts of the brain can support an injured part of the brain while it heals, she said.
“You still get where you’re going, but it might take you longer to get there,” Hatfield said. “The problem with speech is that people can talk really fast so the brain has to process a lot of things at once.”
As people reinforce new connections and pathways in their brains through speech therapy and rehabilitation, they can start connecting sound to meaning faster and understanding people better, she said.
Others speaking to a person with the auditory processing issues can help boost understanding by adding additional context when they repeat themselves, slowing down when they speak, eliminating background noise, or giving the person visual context clues such as captions.
In stroke recovery, people can expect to see the most improvement with symptoms like auditory processing within the first year after the stroke, said Swathi Kiran, founding director of the Center for Brain Recovery at Boston University. After that, people can continue to improve, but the rate of recovery may slow down. In Fetterman’s case, it has only been about five months since his stroke, so it is likely he will continue to get better with understanding speech, she said. | 2022-10-13T13:32:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fetterman’s use of captions is common in stroke recovery, neurologists say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/13/fetterman-closed-captioning-stroke-aphasia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/13/fetterman-closed-captioning-stroke-aphasia/ |
The lawns, wooded trails and landscaped gardens of the Tregaron Conservancy play host to free outdoor music, yoga and family activities on Saturday afternoon. (Fritz Hahn/The Washington Post)
National Gallery Nights: Trick or Treat at the National Gallery of Art: All the free tickets for the National Gallery’s second after-hours event of the season disappeared quickly on Oct. 6, but there are still two ways to get into the arty party, which includes “spooky” gallery talks, a screening of “Gremlins” scored by Shaolin Jazz, pop-up performances and DJ RBI. The first is to be online before 10 a.m. Thursday — start clicking refresh at, say, 9:58 — to try to claim a “limited number of passes” when they become available. Or you can take your chances and show up at the East Building and try to grab first-come, first-served passes at the door, beginning at 5:30 p.m. Either way, good luck. 6 to 9 p.m. Free.
Feature: Museum after-hours events draw crowds with music, drinks and, yes, art
Middleburg Film Festival: The Middleburg Film Festival, says Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday, “is one of the few regional film festivals that seems to have punched above its weight from the very beginning.” Over the last decade, it’s built a strong reputation through a mix of buzz and intimacy, with early screenings of Oscar winners, such as “Spotlight,” “Moonlight” and “Green Book,” and appearances by Kenneth Branagh, Emma Stone and Dakota Johnson. This year’s festival is the largest ever, and while many of the events with filmmaker Q&As are sold out, there are chances to see such selections as the #MeToo film “She Said” and Florian Zeller’s “The Son” before everyone else is talking about them. Through Sunday. Film times vary; most screenings $18.
Pumpkin Painting Party at Slash Run: The first of three Halloween craft events at Petworth’s Slash Run has an early, kid-friendly start time, though it’s open to all ages and runs well after the little ones should be in bed. Tickets include pumpkins and paint, and spooky movies are on the projection screen all night. (Get there before 7 p.m. for half-price drafts.) 6:30 to 11:30 p.m. $15.
Spellling at Songbyrd: Spellling — real name: Chrystia “Tia” Cabral — knows how to sing in delicate whispers, but her elocution can contradict that daintiness. She likes to lean into the drama of her songs, elongating words by overemphasizing certain syllables — a playful antithesis to the articulation-isn’t-important attitude that prevails across so much of today’s pop music. Spellling’s third and latest album, “The Turning Wheel,” saw the singer step into a lusher production style, featuring orchestra arrangements, grandiose piano playing — the works. Her previous projects, however, including her 2017 debut, “Pantheon of Me,” relied more on the singular charm of her voice to build the vividly mystical world her songs inhabit. But that doesn’t mean Spellling’s voice takes a back seat whenever the production becomes fuller. Over the serene strings of “The Future,” she bemoans a love that can’t work because of two people in two different places, singing with signature sweetness about how “I live in the future, future / Too many years apart.” The effect is dizzying, as if she’s truly singing across time. 7 p.m. $16-$18.
‘Last Call: Beer Histories, Now’ at the National Museum of American History: For the first time since 2019, the Smithsonian Food History Weekend includes an in-person, after-hours program dedicated to beer history. This year’s theme, ¡Salud! to American Latinos in Beer, marks the opening of the Molina Family Latino Gallery at the National Museum of American History. Four Latino-owned breweries, including Chicago’s Casa Humilde Cerveceria and San Diego’s Mujeres Brew House, will be “talking about how they’re brewing, and how the ingredients they pick are inspired by their Latin roots, dishes or flavors, or experiences” that they grew up with, says Theresa McCulla, the curator of the museum’s American Brewing History Initiative. Liz Garibay of the Chicago Brewseum moderates the discussion. Beyond samples of eight beers and small bites, the evening includes access to museum exhibits and a chance to see beer history artifacts that aren’t usually on public display. 7 to 9 p.m. $40.
‘A Speakeasy Evening: Welcome Home!’ at the National Museum of African American History and Culture: “Inspired by the Speakeasy clubs of the Harlem Renaissance,” this evening for the LGBTQ community includes music, comedy, games, art and a discussion about “Ballroom and Beyond,” as well as food and drinks. A special discussion for people ages 13 to 24 precedes the main program. 7:30 p.m. Free; registration required.
Air Boss West Coast IPA tapping at Valor Brewpub: Jeff Hancock, the co-founder and brewmaster of DC Brau, announced in July that he was moving on from the company. He’s now taken over as brewmaster at Valor Brewpub on Barracks Row and is set to unveil his first beer: Air Boss West Coast IPA, named after the officer responsible for aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier. Hancock describes it as a light-bodied IPA with moderate bitterness and “bold hop aromas,” brewed with classic Cascade, Centennial, Amarillo and Warrior hops. Look for a robust porter rolling out on Oct. 21 or soon after, as Hancock continues to get the brewpub shipshape. 5 p.m. Free.
Sudan Archives at the Black Cat: 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 where 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.” 8 p.m. $20.
Louie Vega at Flash: Louie Vega is one of the most important DJs in house music, from his time at the Sound Bar and Palladium in New York in the 1980s, through his remixing in Masters at Work, to more recent appearances at Cielo. Deftly combining salsa, Afrobeats and hip-hop into his relentless sets, Vega is, simply, DJ royalty. He’s headlining a set at Florida Avenue’s intimate Flash, alongside D.C.’s Keenan Orr, while Jaden Thompson, a resident at London’s Fabric, takes over the club’s Green Room. 10 p.m. $30.
14th annual American Indian Festival at Patuxent River Park: Archaeologists excavating Native American sites near Jug Bay have found evidence of habitation dating back more than 12,000 years. Patuxent River Park is the perfect place to explore millennia of local culture, with traditional and contemporary dance, song and storytelling from representatives of different tribes during the Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission’s annual festival. Meet birds of prey, try archery, go on a pony ride, or learn about Native American technology and how archaeologists are uncovering the history of those who lived on this land long before Europeans arrived. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. Some activities, such as pony rides, have a nominal charge.
DC History Center Open Day: For a brief period in the early 2000s, the Carnegie Library in Mount Vernon Square — the historic Beaux-Arts building that now houses D.C.’s most beautiful Apple store — was home to the City Museum of Washington. It was designed to be a showcase of D.C. history, and while it never attracted enough paying customers, the building still contains the DC History Center, which includes collections of archival documents, books, photographs, maps and genealogical resources, as well as exhibit spaces. Get to know the center during its Open Day, which includes meet-and-greets with local authors, talks about using the Kiplinger Research Library’s collections, tours of the building and surrounding neighborhoods, discussions of LGTBQ and Latinx history, live music, and family story time. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free.
Distillery Lane Ciderworks Fall Harvest Weekend: The orchards at Distillery Lane Ciderworks teem with more than 45 varieties of unusual apples, such as the Newtown Pippin, the Roxbury Russet and the Kingston Black. This fall, the Frederick County farm is going to be open for only two weekends, and for fans of tart, crisp ciders — with or without alcohol — it’s worth the drive. October’s event features eight ciders to sample, either in flights or by the glass, as well as 18 or 19 varieties of apples to taste and purchase, says owner Rob Miller, who will be leading tours of the orchard throughout the weekend. (Look for apple cider doughnuts made with juice from Distillery Lane’s fruit.) Other attractions include beekeeping demonstrations and honey tastings and the debut of two low-alcohol vinegar drinks, made by blending cider-based vinegar, honey and aronia berries. Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free.
Washington Performing Arts’ Tregaron Unplugged: The Tregaron Conservancy is one of D.C.’s great outdoor neighborhood spaces, with rolling grassy lawns, benches surrounding a burbling pond and trails leading off into the woods. And this weekend, the 13-acre park becomes an outdoor concert venue, thanks to Washington Performing Arts. Bring a picnic and blanket to enjoy jazz, chamber music, roots and other styles in a stunning setting. Beyond performances, there are musical activities for families and a pair of outdoor yoga sessions. 3 to 5:30 p.m. Free.
Arlington Hard Cider and Doughnut Festival: With so many drink-focused fall festivals this month, it can be a challenge to differentiate them, much less to pick one (or a few) to spend a precious weekend afternoon exploring. This one is a little different from the bunch: It’s part bar crawl, part doughnut festival. Four Arlington locations (within walking distance of one another) host guests for drink specials, offering over 1,000 free doughnuts between four bars, with seasonal flavors like maple bacon, caramel apple bar and orange cinnamon roll. Start at Arlington Rooftop Bar and Grill and hit Mexicali Blues, Rhodeside and Ragtime for specials on hard cider and seltzers. 2 to 8 p.m. $24.99-$26.99.
Rock the Core Cider and Beer Festival: Looking for a cider festival with a bit more variation? This Hook Hall event features unlimited tastings of more than 30 ciders and craft beers from cideries and breweries around the country. The day is divided into two sessions (afternoon and evening), but both feature live music and local eats. Full pours of Bold Rock Cider and Hook Hall Lager are included in the ticket price. VIP tickets will let you take home a 12-pack curated assortment of fall ciders. 2 to 4:30 p.m.; 6 to 8:30 p.m. $24.99 to $50.99.
Dia de los Muertos Food and Film in the Park: The Mexican Cultural Institute is among the sponsors of this family-friendly seasonal celebration in Franklin Square. Bring the kids for a screening of “Coco,” and stick around for live music and performances and vendors selling pan de muerto, Mexican hot chocolate and other treats. Note that registering for the film doesn’t guarantee a seat, but those with reservations “will be prioritized in the preferred seating area.” Noon to 9 p.m. Free.
Georgetown Harvest Market: Fans of Georgetown’s springtime French Market will find this Book Hill event similar, if with a bit more fall flair. Expect sidewalk shopping, outdoor dining, live music, and family-friendly events like pumpkin and face painting along Wisconsin Avenue between O Street and Reservoir Road both days. Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free.
Adams Morgan Porchfest: The biggest Porchfest yet had planned to bring more than 70 local bands to Adams Morgan’s streets on Oct. 1, before the weather pushed the party back two weeks. This weekend, you can finally catch nonstop performances on 17 porches, patios and stoops. Pick up maps and free wristbands at the corner of Columbia and Adams Mill roads for discounts at businesses like Roofers Union ($5 select IPAs) and the Diner (all-day happy hour and discounted lavender lemonade). Expect a range of genres from bluegrass and classic rock to rap and reggae. 2 to 6 p.m. Free.
Peach Pit Anniversary at DC9: The city’s top monthly ’90s dance party marks 13 years with what’s sure to be a packed dance floor at DC9. DJ-about-town Matt Bailer pulls from a wide variety of hits during his sets, but expect at least one tribute to Coolio. Worth noting: Unlike at most Peach Pit events, tickets will only be sold at the door, so get there early. 10:30 p.m. $10 before midnight, $15 after.
Red Derby Anniversary: The Red Derby has come a long way from its days as a pop-up bar above a nondescript restaurant in Adams Morgan. Now a landmark on upper 14th Street, the comfortable neighborhood hangout has earned a loyal following with a friendly staff, a chilled-out rooftop, and reasonably priced drinks and bar food. The Derby celebrates its 15th anniversary with specials including $3.50 whiskey shots and $5 sparkling wine, while artist Beth Hansen of the Arcade — a longtime Derby bartender — hosts a screen printing party with Derby-themed T-shirts and tote bag designs on the front patio. 5 p.m.; screen printing 6 to 10 p.m. Prices vary.
Jacqueline and Jason’s Block Party at the Kennedy Center: Author Jacqueline Woodson’s recent picture book “The World Belonged to Us” is a paean to the glorious, joyful, carefree days of childhood: jumping rope, building forts, running around with friends. The Kennedy Center jump-starts its Performances for Young Audiences season with a family day inspired by Woodson’s book. Okay, maybe no one will be playing in open fire hydrants on the Reach Plaza — it is mid-October — but there will be plenty of playtime, from hopscotch and sidewalk chalk and roller skating demos to DJs, the Dupont Brass band, and a performance by Jason Moran and the Bandwagon with Woodson as a special guest. Reservations are not required, but free preregistration includes an $11 parking voucher. 1 to 6 p.m. Free.
Wiener 500 Dachshund Dash at the Wharf: Hurricane Ian washed out many events over the first weekend of October, but it couldn’t stop one of the top Oktoberfest events of the season. The 10th annual Wiener 500 Dachshund Dash finds multiple heats of dachshunds racing down a 70-foot track while humans cheer, laugh and watch on a giant video screen. (The hilarity has a point: Proceeds from entry fees benefit Rural Dog Rescue.) Racing begins at 2 p.m.; the beer garden is packed before and after the competition. 2 to 5 p.m. Free.
DC Record Fair at the Eaton: The soundtrack is bound to be on point at DC Record Fair, a market for vinyl aficionados that happens twice a year in the District. For this fall’s edition, head downtown to the Eaton DC to dig through boxes of records from more than 35 vendors from across the East Coast. DJs will spin vinyl to get you excited about adding to your collection, and don’t miss a preview of the high-end audio equipment you’ll find at Capital Audio Fest, happening in Rockville in November. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free.
Turkish Festival: This festival on Pennsylvania Avenue NW returns for its 20th anniversary with Turkish foods, a bazaar, musical performances, art, dance and other cultural activities. Don’t miss a cup of Turkish coffee, which comes with the bonus of a fortune reading from the leftover grounds, or a cone of sticky, sweet and stretchy Maras ice cream, which is served with some tricks. The festival stretches between Third and Seventh streets NW. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Free.
Cash Langdon at Quarry House Tavern: 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. 8:30 p.m. $13.
Emily Oster at East City Books: In “The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years,” Brown University economist Emily Oster’s pitch is that parenting is a job, specifically CEO of the “family firm.” Good bosses can’t operate on whims and the latest playground chatter. Although there are some upfront time costs to this strategy, Oster promises it leads to a better overall business model. Her book offers a targeted mini-MBA program designed to help moms and dads establish best practices for day-to-day operations and glean lessons from “case studies” that present potential scenarios, like how to respond to a kid who’s begging to go to sleep-away camp. Because this is an Oster book, there’s data scattered everywhere — on the development of reading skills by age, on the concussion risks of playing soccer, on the benefits of dipping Brussels sprouts in sweetened cream cheese, all presented in a breezy, skeptical style. This event, moderated by East City Books’ Keiana Mayfield, is offered in person or virtually and includes an audience Q&A. 7:30 p.m. Free.
Review: Emily Oster says you should run your family like a business. Does that work in 2021 — or ever?
The Smashing Pumpkins at Capital One Arena: 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. 6:30 p.m. $49-$150. | 2022-10-13T13:37:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Festivals, concerts and things to do in the Washington, D.C., area - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/best-things-do-dc-area-week-oct-13-19/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/best-things-do-dc-area-week-oct-13-19/ |
From the World Series, tales of heroes, luck and heartbreak
Review by Steven V. Roberts
Washington Nationals fans celebrate at the watch party for Game 7 of the World Series against the Houston Astros at Nationals Park on Oct. 30, 2019. The Nats beat the Astros 6 to 2 to win the World Series. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
My father used to call the World Series the World Serious. A joke of course, but he was being, well, serious too. Since the first playoff between the Boston Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1903, the Fall Classic has played a central role in our national life and culture. “To be an American,” writes Tyler Kepner, who covers baseball for the New York Times, “was to have at least a passing familiarity with the World Series.” Kepner cites a 1961 episode of a popular TV series, “The Twilight Zone.” A state trooper, trying to discern which patron of a diner is actually a Martian, asks one suspect: Who won the last World Series? The assumption was that any real human “could easily answer” correctly. (It was the Pirates, by the way.)
In his book “The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series,” Kepner concedes that today, the Super Bowl has eclipsed the Series as “our sporting fixation” and that “football wins every poll when fans are asked to name their favorite sport.” But baseball, he argues, “is a fundamentally different product” than football, “an everyday companion for seven months, not a once-a-week spectacle for five.” The Super Bowl is a single game lasting perhaps four hours. A fling, a one-night stand, with rappers bellowing under strobe lights for 20 minutes at halftime. The series can go seven games consuming about 25 hours. It’s more like a romance, requiring a commitment. With no strobe lights. As my dad said, it’s serious, and old-fashioned in the best possible way.
I have one beef with Kepner. He focuses almost entirely on the games and the players, and not enough on the fans and their communities. Baseball is not just about who played on the field but who watched from the stands. Not just about homers but hometowns, about cheers and loyalties as well as champs and losses. What was it like, for instance, to grow up in Chicago, rooting for a Cubs team that had not captured a title since 1908? And how did it feel when they finally won in 2016, and fans visited the graves of their ancestors who had never lived to see that blessed day, bearing tokens and amulets of victory?
Still, this book is full of lively incidents and insights, and one question it tries to answer is: Why do certain stars shine brightest on the grandest stage? Like football’s Tom Brady (seven Super Bowl victories) and basketball’s Steph Curry (four NBA titles), baseball has players like Reggie Jackson, nicknamed “Mr. October,” who played in five World Series for the Oakland A’s and the New York Yankees, hitting .357 with 10 homers and 24 runs batted in. Three of those dingers came on successive pitches on Oct. 18, 1977, the greatest offensive performance in 117 years (two series have been missed since 1903). “I started believing in the headlines,” Jackson told Kepner, “I started believing what was written and almost relied on it.” David Ortiz, the fabled “Big Papi,” who hit .455 while leading the Red Sox to three titles, has a pithier explanation for success: “Some people got it, some people don’t.”
The best teams usually win a 162-game regular season, but in a short playoff, Lady Luck gets a turn at bat. In Game 7 of the 2019 Series, the Washington Nationals were trailing the Houston Astros 2 to 1 in the seventh inning. Astros pitcher Zack Greinke was sailing along when manager A.J. Hinch decided to replace him with reliever Will Harris. The Nationals’ Howie Kendrick flicked Harris’s second pitch down the right field line, barely clearing the wall and clanking off the foul pole, fair by inches, one of the shortest home runs in series history, but it put the Nationals ahead for good. As Anthony Rizzo, the Cubs first baseman in 2016, put it, “It not only takes a great team to win a championship, it takes a little good fortune.”
For every hero like Kendrick there is a goat like Harris (and his manager Hinch). The intensity of the series amplifies both roles, creating narratives that can transcend sports and enter the larger culture. In Game 3 of the 1932 series at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, the Yankees’ Babe Ruth gestured with an upraised finger toward the Cubs pitcher, Charlie Root, and walloped his next pitch for a home run. Legend has it that Ruth “called” his home run, one of the most memorable moments in baseball history. Except Root insists Ruth was saying that while he had two strikes against him, “he still had one coming.” On his death bed Root told his daughter, “I gave my life to baseball, and I’ll be remembered for something that never happened.”
Bill Buckner is remembered for something that definitely did happen. In the sixth game of the 1986 series, with the Red Sox on the brink of winning their first title since 1918, Mookie Wilson of the Mets hit a little dribbler down the first base line. It went through Buckner’s legs, the Mets survived, and then they won the seventh game. “That little ground ball never stopped rolling, following Buckner to the great beyond,” writes Kepner.
But there is a footnote. Over the years, his misplay gave Buckner “a measure of celebrity beyond baseball, a kind of cultural resonance few athletes ever achieve,” observes Kepner. The writer Larry David devised an episode of his HBO show, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” in which Buckner is walking through Manhattan and sees a woman clutching a baby in the fifth-floor window of a burning building. When she drops the child, Buckner dives to “snatch the baby in midair.” David, an avid Yankees fan, tears up recalling that episode: “I did want to redeem him.”
Baseball is a game of legend and loss, myth and memory, all magnified by the World Serious. Buckner flubbed the ball but caught the baby. And the crowd cheered.
Steven V. Roberts teaches journalism and politics at George Washington University. His latest book is “Cokie: A Life Well-Lived.”
A History of the World Series | 2022-10-13T14:25:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series by Tyler Kepner - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/world-series-tales-heroes-luck-heartbreak/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/world-series-tales-heroes-luck-heartbreak/ |
New movies to stream from home this week: ‘Stars at Noon’ and more
Joe Alwyn, left, and Margaret Qualley in “Stars at Noon.” (A24)
Set during the Nicaraguan revolution that brought Daniel Ortega to power, Denis Johnson’s 1986 novel “The Stars at Noon” spun what the New York Times called a “bleak” and “desperate” tale of two expatriate lovers. As Caryn James wrote, “What better setting for such pessimism than the political and moral morass of 1980’s Nicaragua?” Transplanted from 1984 to the present day — with Ortega still in place, along with covid restrictions and masks and corruption — A24’s noirish but not especially stylish film adaptation “Stars at Noon” centers on the relationship between American journalist Trish Johnson (Margaret Qualley) and shadowy English businessman Daniel DeHaven (Joe Alwyn). After writing an article about kidnappings and hangings that displeased the government, Trish has had her passport confiscated. It’s the only evidence that she is, in fact, a reporter, as she spends the rest of the film earning money from sex, mostly with the married Daniel, who, like his paramour, may or may not be what he says he is. He’s on the lam from a Costa Rican cop (Danny Ramirez), for unclear reasons. The story is more squalid than romantic, and Qualley’s performance is annoying. She barely even opens a laptop. When she tries to get an assignment from an American editor back home (John C. Reilly, in the world’s shortest cameo), he quickly shuts her down, in one of the film’s most satisfying scenes. The other satisfying cameo is by Benny Safdie as a strangely goofball CIA officer who’s trying to use Trish to get to Daniel. But why? The two lovebirds just want to get out of the country, but it’s hard without a passport or money and with the law on your tail. It’s also hard to make a love story about two people nobody seems to like. Unrated. Available on demand; also opening at area theaters. Available Oct. 28 on Hulu. Contains sexuality, nudity, coarse language, some violence and smoking. 135 minutes.
In the horror film “The Accursed,” a woman (Sarah Grey) agrees to look after an elderly invalid (Meg Foster) at the request of the old woman’s estate manager (Mena Suvari), who purports to be a family friend. Once the good Samaritan arrives at her new patient’s home — a remote cabin in the creepy woods — she finds that things are not as they seem. Unrated. Available on demand. 96 minutes.
“Dark Glasses” is a new Italian thriller from writer-director Dario Argento, known for such 1970s horror classics as “Suspiria.” The film, about a blind woman (Ilenia Pastorelli) who is being pursued by a serial killer, also stars the filmmaker’s daughter Asia Argento (“XXX”). Unrated. Available on Shudder. In Italian with subtitles. 86 minutes.
“Quintessentially British” takes a documentary look at what it means to be British, featuring interviews with Judi Dench and Ian McKellen, as well as various politicians, aristocrats and artisans. Unrated. Available on demand. 97 minutes.
Freddie Thorp stars in “Summit Fever” as a mountaineering novice who pushes himself to his limits. The Guardian calls the film’s climbing sequences “super-authentic” and “genuinely exhilarating,” while cautioning: “just don’t look down at the plot.” Also starring Ryan Phillippe. R. Available on demand. Contains coarse language throughout. 115 minutes. | 2022-10-13T14:25:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New movies to stream from home this week - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/13/october-14-new-streaming-movie-roundup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/13/october-14-new-streaming-movie-roundup/ |
Ai-Da, the world's first ultrarealistic humanoid robot artist, appears in the House of Lords on Oct. 11, 2022 in London. (Rob Pinney/Getty Images)
LONDON — A robot sporting dungarees and a sharp black bob took questions in Britain’s House of Lords for the first time in history this week — before appearing to fall asleep and requiring a reset.
Before her public breakdown, the female-featured android — named Ai-Da — spoke to Britain’s Communications and Digital Committee as part of an inquiry into the future of the creative industries, joining a debate on how technology is shaping — and perhaps hindering — the art sector.
It was the first time in the nation’s history that a robot testified in the upper chamber of Britain’s Parliament, where unelected baronesses and lords typically gather to analyze government policies.
“The fact that Ai-Da is giving evidence at one of these sessions is pretty mind-blowing,” Aidan Meller, the robot’s inventor and a specialist in modern and contemporary art, told Sky News ahead of the session.
Branded “the world’s first ultrarealistic humanoid robot artist,” Ai-Da is widely known for creating portraits and poems, using a robotic arm, cameras in her eyes and AI algorithms. She told the house — undoubtedly to her creator’s pride — that the unique features allow her to create “visually appealing images.”
“I am, and depend on, computer programs and algorithms,” Ai-Da told the committee in London on Tuesday, moving her head slowly from side to side and occasionally blinking. “Although not alive, I can still create art.”
Ai-Da admitted she has no idea where the world is headed but told committee members that technology poses both “a threat and an opportunity” for creativity.
“The role of technology in creating art will continue to grow,” she predicted.
Those in attendance appeared intrigued but also joked that they were scared — especially when, following a question from Baroness Lynne Featherstone, a peer from the Liberal Democrats party, the robot fell silent and stared blankly at the floor.
“I’ve sent her to sleep!” Featherstone joked, as Meller, who was on hand close by, hurried across the room to grab a pair of sunglasses to place over Ai Da’s eyes.
Robot artist Ai-Da answered questions from British lawmakers during a session hosted by the House of Lords Communication and Digital Committee on Oct. 11. (Video: Reuters)
“Excuse me,” he told the room. “Can I reset her? Is that okay?”
It was not immediately clear what caused the robot’s technical failure, and neither Meller or Ai-Da responded to a request for comment from The Washington Post on Thursday.
“When we reset her, she sometimes can pull quite interesting faces,” Meller explained to those in attendance, who chuckled and waited patiently for the android to wake up.
“I can’t really gouge her eyes out,” he told the Guardian at the time. “Let’s be really clear about this. She is not a spy.”
She was released in time to take part in an exhibition at Egypt’s pyramids.
A robot is displaying art at the pyramids. Egypt detained it over spying fears, its maker says.
To mark the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II earlier this year, Ai-Da produced a portrait of the late monarch entitled “Algorithm Queen.” Her owner hailed the creation as the first painting of the queen by a robot, while critics said the piece lacked emotion.
Jonathan Jones, the Guardian’s art critic, slammed Ai-D’s portrait as “yet another example of the cynical, transparent con that is AI art.” | 2022-10-13T15:04:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ai-Da robot speaks at House of Lords with creator Aidan Meller - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/ai-da-robot-house-lords-meller/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/ai-da-robot-house-lords-meller/ |
Trump’s indictment seems more likely than ever
An inventory list of documents and other items seized from former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in August. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)
When prosecuting cases involving mishandling sensitive information, the Justice Department will look for aggravating factors: Did the defendant sell the documents? Did he intend to use them for some other purpose (e.g., blackmail)?
Obstructing an investigation into snatching top-secret material is certainly the sort of aggravating factor that would draw the department’s attention. And former president Donald Trump, according to the latest news reports, seems to have done just that.
The Post reports: “A Trump employee has told federal agents about moving boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago at the specific direction of the former president, according to people familiar with the investigation, who say the witness account — combined with security-camera footage — offers key evidence of Donald Trump’s behavior as investigators sought the return of classified material.” Such skullduggery would explain, in part, the need for a search warrant.
Directing employees to move documents sought by a subpoena is the sort of damning evidence one rarely sees in federal prosecution. “The employee is unlikely to be charged if he continues to cooperate,” former prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweets. “But his testimony suggests that Trump tried to keep documents from the DOJ, which had already served a grand jury subpoena for the documents *before* the employee was ordered to move them.”
Mariotti continues: “This testimony, combined with other facts (such as the false certification to the DOJ) suggests an effort to hide the documents from the federal government. This evidence is an aggravating factor that could weigh in favor of charging Trump.”
Such conduct would not only fit the definition of an “aggravating factor” for an Espionage Act indictment but, if true, likely constitute a separate crime of obstruction. (This would explain the reference to the section of the U.S. Code relevant to obstruction in the application for an affidavit.)
Simply put, “the evidence of both the document crimes and obstruction keeps getting worse for Trump,” Norm Eisen, a former co-counsel for the House impeachment managers, tells me. This takes the facts out of the realm of “I didn’t know what was in the boxes” or “It was a mistake” and further into the realm of criminal intent, Eisen explains. Active concealment, which is what the news reports indicate happened, is classic evidence of “consciousness of guilt.” (It also further debunks the notion that Trump magically declassified the documents at some point.)
Whether for the public at large or a potential jury, the Justice Department is going to seek to make sure there is no hint of political payback in prosecuting a former president. It’s this sort of egregious evidence of intentional wrongdoing that would distinguish Trump’s situation from a “document storage dispute,” as some Republicans have tried to categorize the Mar-a-Lago case.
Eisen asks rhetorically: “If the attorney general will countenance this … will we even have a rule of law left?” For someone who so obviously believes in the rule of law, Attorney General Merrick Garland seems like the last person to look the other way.
And with one (or more) of Trump’s lawyers already providing evidence to the Justice Department, it’s looking unlikely to impossible that Trump will be able to come up with a viable defense. The question increasingly is not whether the former president will be prosecuted, but where and when. | 2022-10-13T15:13:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Evidence of concealing documents makes Trump's indictment more likely - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/trump-document-concealment-indictment-likely/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/trump-document-concealment-indictment-likely/ |
Classical company of war exiles will dance new ‘Giselle’ by famed choreographer Alexei Ratmansky; guest stars include top ballerina Christine Shevchenko
United Ukrainian Ballet dancers Liza Gogidze and Oleksii Kniazlov in Alexei Ratmansky's “Giselle.” The company of exiled dancers will make its U.S. debut in February at the Kennedy Center. (Altin Kaftira)
A group of Ukrainian ballet dancers who fled the war in their homeland and brought their talents together under the name United Ukrainian Ballet, based in The Hague, will perform at the Kennedy Center Feb. 1-5, the center announced Thursday. The group’s five-day run will mark its debut in the United States and its only U.S. appearances.
The company of more than 60 dancers, professionals from the national theaters of Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkiv and elsewhere in Ukraine, will perform the U.S. premiere of a new version of the beloved romantic ballet “Giselle.” World-renowned choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, a native of Ukraine and an ardent supporter of its artists, recently created the full-length production especially for this group. The Kennedy Center’s Opera House Orchestra will accompany the ballet, led by Ukrainian conductor Victor Oliynik.
Principal casting will include guest artist Christine Shevchenko, a Ukrainian-born principal ballerina with American Ballet Theatre, and other guests will be announced later, said Jane Raleigh, the Kennedy Center’s director of dance programming.
“Dancing, performing and representing Ukraine feels important to do — that’s how we say we are strong, we’re alive and we’re continuing our fight, and that victory will be ours,” Ratmansky said in a recent interview. “That’s what the dancers feel and think when they dance.”
When war hit Ukraine, dancers mobilized like never before
Yet forming a touring organization so quickly, with dancers of different technical levels who hadn’t worked together, has been “logistically a huge undertaking,” the choreographer said from his home in New York City. (In addition to creating works for companies around the world, Ratmansky is artist-in-residence at American Ballet Theatre.)
“Some of these dancers hadn’t taken [ballet] class for months or a year or more,” he said. “It’s been very challenging for all of us, but also inspiring.”
What it’s like to be a Russian artist now: A dancer, director and conductor reflect on what Putin’s funding, and his war, mean for the arts in Russia
The exiled dancers have been working together for only about six months. In March, Dutch ballerina Igone de Jongh began organizing them, and she serves as artistic director. At first, the group numbered just a few female dancers, children in tow. Gradually, Ratmansky said, men were able to join them, after receiving permission from Ukraine’s ministry of culture.
The dancers have been living, training and rehearsing at the former Royal Conservatoire building in The Hague, which has been converted into a center for Ukrainian refugees. They performed the new “Giselle” in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities in August, and at the London Coliseum Theatre last month.
For Ratmansky, working with this group goes far beyond an artistic opportunity. Throughout his career, he has been widely identified as a Russian choreographer — but the war has complicated that, he said. He was born in Soviet Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), trained at the school of the Bolshoi Ballet and, later, became director of that famed Moscow company. But his father is from Kyiv, and Ratmansky grew up there and danced with the Ukrainian National Ballet early in his career. His family, and his wife’s family, still live in Kyiv.
“Since the war started,” Ratmansky said, “I am absolutely Ukrainian with all my soul, because that is where my heart is.”
Daily phone calls home have been “very scary and very dramatic,” he said.
“You don’t know what to expect, especially with the recent escalation. It’s constant shelling. It’s hard to explain the feelings when you call and hear air sirens. It’s surreal. It’s not supposed to happen.”
The dancers are experiencing the same anxiety. Which is what made retooling “Giselle” for them a good choice, Ratmansky said: The original ballet was French — not Russian.
“We can’t blame Russian ballets for what is going on now,” he said, “but there is a sensitivity there that’s hard to put into words.”
The ballet’s themes of love, guilt and forgiveness are especially meaningful for these self-exiled dancers, living far from home and loved ones, Ratmansky said. The ballet’s title character is a peasant girl in love with a prince in disguise; when his identity is revealed, and his betrothal to another royal discovered, Giselle dies of a broken heart. Ratmansky’s version “ends as the original ballet intended,” he said, “with Giselle forgiving the prince and telling him to go back to his fiancee and live his life.”
“You can’t see this ending anywhere in the world anymore. I guess the male stars all want to be alone and suffering at the end,” he added with a laugh, “and covered in flowers.”
The United Ukrainian Ballet’s February engagement at the Kennedy Center replaces the National Ballet of China, which pulled out of those dates after encountering touring problems.
“It was a miracle that the dates lined up,” said Raleigh, the dance programming director. “And the opportunity to bring them to the United States and to Washington was too good to pass up.”
Tickets to the United Ukrainian Ballet performances go on sale Nov. 1 for Kennedy Center members and Nov. 9 widely. | 2022-10-13T15:31:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | United Ukrainian Ballet to make U.S. debut at Kennedy Center in February - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/13/ukraine-ballet-dancers-kennedy-center/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/13/ukraine-ballet-dancers-kennedy-center/ |
Adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, have a bad reputation with homebuyers who have long viewed them as a dangerous financial trap. But with rates on fixed-rate mortgages more than doubling in the past year, some borrowers are taking a second look. The idea of paying less now in exchange for the risk of paying more later seems reasonable if you believe rates are nearing their peak.
But don’t bet on many homeowners taking that risk. In the US, ARMs have taken a backseat to the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage for many decades. And if you look at Americans’ experience with long-term financing, you see why that’s unlikely to change now.
These forays inspired policymakers at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to conclude that variable mortgage rates were the wave of the future. They asked Congress to sanction the idea, but they were swiftly rejected, even after the board offered to limit rate increases to 2.5%, regardless of inflation.
Nonetheless, ARMs constituted 68% of new mortgages in 1984, suggesting they were here to stay. Instead, their popularity proved fleeting as events turned back in favor of the fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage.
Adjustable Mortgage Rush Isn’t the Same as 2008: Alexis Leondis
What If the Rental Market Is the First to Break?: Conor Sen | 2022-10-13T15:49:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Variable Mortgages May Never Make a Comeback - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/variable-mortgages-may-never-make-a-comeback/2022/10/13/25ab97a8-4b00-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/variable-mortgages-may-never-make-a-comeback/2022/10/13/25ab97a8-4b00-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
‘The loss of even a single whale threatens the survival of the species,’ a group of more than 100 marine scientists wrote Thursday to the Biden administration, pleading for greater protection of the species
Dino Grandoni
Rice’s Whale (NOAA Fisheries)
Known as Rice’s whale or the Gulf of Mexico whale, the animal can grow to 42 feet long and up to 60,000 pounds — about the weight of a firetruck. Scientists long thought these were Bryde’s whales, which are found in oceans around the world. But only in recent years did they confirm that the Gulf of Mexico whales are structurally and genetically distinct.
On Thursday, more than 100 marine scientists signed a lengthy open letter to the Biden administration, pleading for a range of additional protections for what they called “one of the most endangered marine mammal species” on the planet.
“Some of us have been trying to raise the profile of this whale for many years now,” said Peter Corkeron, a senior scientist and whale researcher at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.
And yet, he said, too many people remain unaware of the peril it faces and the protections it desperately needs. “It is really just the forgotten whale at the moment.”
Specifically, the group wrote Thursday that as the Biden administration considers additional offshore oil and gas drilling in federal waters over the next five years, it should weigh such projects against the potential hazards they pose to Rice’s whales.
Biden opens door to more offshore drilling, despite earlier climate vow
“Continued oil and gas development in the Gulf represents a clear, existential threat to the whale’s survival and recovery,” the group wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Deborah Haaland and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
The species, which largely can be found in the DeSoto Canyon region of the gulf, is vulnerable to chronic exposure to seismic air gun blasts that accompany oil and gas exploration and can disrupt “activities vital to feeding and reproduction over large ocean areas,” the group wrote.
Exposure to oil spills, including events such as the massive Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, also threaten severe illness or death of marine mammals. The oil from such a spill can lead to lung or respiratory problems and coat the baleen that Rice’s whales use to feed.
“Oil and gas development has really created something of a house of horrors for the species,” said Michael Jasny, the director of marine mammal protection at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“A number of shipping routes traverse the whale’s habitat along the northern Gulf, and the collision risk is likely to increase with new offshore oil and gas development,” the scientists wrote Thursday. “With abundance so low, the loss of even a single whale threatens the survival of the species.”
The Gulf of Mexico whale is part of a group of species called the “Bryde’s whale complex” that are difficult to distinguish from one another by sight. The biologist Dale W. Rice first detected the population in the 1960s after examining one stranded alive off the Florida Panhandle before it was towed to sea.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill reignited scientific interest in the gulf’s marine mammals and other wildlife. Genetic samples from whales in the region suggested that an evolutionarily distinct lineage existed in the waters.
A break came in 2019 when a male washed ashore and died in the Everglades. A few months later, a team from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History exhumed the remains.
“This is the only great whale that belongs wholly, as it were, to the United States,” Jasny said. “And that gives us, I think, a particular responsibility for its protection.”
Thursday’s letter is not the first attempt to secure more forceful protections for the Gulf of Mexico whale. Even before researchers officially declared the whale a distinct species, some scientists and environmental advocates were concerned about its prospects for survival.
In 2019, NOAA Fisheries finalized a rule listing the Gulf of Mexico whale as an endangered subspecies under the Endangered Species Act, meaning the government is obligated to monitor its status, designate “critical habitat” that it depends upon for survival and develop a recovery plan. Two years later, the agency reclassified the whale as its own species.
“They are facing an onslaught of threats,” she said, adding that she hopes Thursday’s letter spurs new urgency over the issue.
In May 2021, her group and other environmental organizations, including Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, filed a petition with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service to establish a year-round, 10-knot speed limit in an area covering about 11,500 square miles off Florida and Alabama where the whales typically hover near the surface.
NOAA has not acted on the petition. But the New England Aquarium’s Corkeron said that he hopes more protections come soon and that government leaders will see preserving such a unique species as a priority.
“Do we want the oceans to be places where whales can live and thrive, or not?” he said. “If we don’t care enough to save them, that speaks volumes about who we all are.” | 2022-10-13T15:49:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Scientists just found a new whale. Now they fear it may go extinct. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/13/gulf-of-mexico-whale-rices/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/13/gulf-of-mexico-whale-rices/ |
A look at forecasts from NOAA, AccuWeather, Weather.com and others
Mary Molitor passes Lincoln Park in D.C. on March 12, 2022. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post)
While it is still several weeks until the official start of winter on Dec. 21, several organizations are already unveiling their nationwide Winter 2022-2023 forecasts.
Note that even the most scientifically advanced seasonal outlooks cannot pinpoint what the weather will be in a particular place at a particular time this far in advance. But, with varying levels of success, they can paint a broad picture of how hot or cold or wet or dry different parts of the country may be compared to average.
Among the winter outlooks issued by meteorologists so far, most agree that the southern United States will be drier and warmer than normal, with the best chance of colder and stormier-than-normal conditions in the northern tier, Midwest and Ohio Valley. Such projections reflect typical conditions that develop during La Niña events, which are associated with an episodic cooling of ocean waters in the tropical Pacific. This year, La Niña is forecast to prevail for a third straight winter.
Whether you are a fan of snow, here is the latest roundup of what meteorologists are saying about the weather in the coming months. For entertainment purposes, we also summarize the outlooks from the Farmers’ Almanac and its rival, the Old Farmer’s almanac — but meteorologists put little stock in those predictions.
NOAA’s latest forecast
Although the official winter forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will not come out for another few weeks, the agency’s Climate Prediction Center does put out official outlooks for temperature and precipitation up to 13 months in advance.
For the first three months when winterlike conditions begin in earnest — November, December and January — it is not expected to be abnormally cold anywhere in the country. A large swath of the country, from the East Coast down into the Sun Belt and into the Mountain West, is projected to see above-normal temperatures, with the highest probability of abnormal warmth in Arizona and New Mexico.
From February to April, above-normal temperatures are projected to continue up and down the East Coast, in the Southeast and into the Southwest, with the greatest chance at warmer weather along the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast coastlines as well as parts of the Southwest. Below-average temperatures are forecast in the northern contiguous United States, stretching from northern Michigan to northern Washington state.
Precipitation-wise, the period from November to January is expected to bring below-average precipitation — and thus diminished early-season snow and rain chances — in much of the southern half of the U.S., with the greatest chances of below-normal precipitation forecast from coastal South Carolina and Florida all the way to the shores of far Southern California. Above-normal precipitation is possible in northwestern Montana, northern Idaho and northeastern Washington state.
From February to April, below-normal precipitation is forecast in the Southwest and coastal portions of the Southeast, but areas like Texas may see a respite from less-than-normal snowfall and rainfall. A wide swath of above-normal precipitation is forecast in the Ohio Valley, an area that could pick up above-normal snowfall if temperatures remain cold enough.
AccuWeather’s winter forecast
AccuWeather’s official 2022-2023 U.S. winter forecast is rather bleak for snow lovers. AccuWeather senior meteorologist Paul Pastelok and his team say that this winter’s setup is complicated by several other factors — including the Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption in the early days of 2022.
La Niña could enter rare third straight year. Here’s what that means.
AccuWeather forecasters are predicting a more active severe thunderstorm season in the Southeast states during the winter months — fueled by warmer than normal ocean temperatures.
Pastelok told AccuWeather that these warmer ocean temperatures could help fuel a “potentially big system” that could affect the East Coast in the later half of winter. But in general, AccuWeather is predicting a down year for snowfall along the eastern seaboard.
While AccuWeather forecasts that snowfall will be suppressed, the company does not necessarily expect precipitation to be below-normal as well, with milder temperatures leading to several all-rain events this winter. Those rainstorms may cause flooding in the Ohio Valley and along the Mississippi River, it predicts.
During the back half of the winter, AccuWeather expects that colder conditions will finally enter the country and drop cold air into the central United States, bringing heavy snow to parts of the central Plains and the Rocky Mountains. In the West, generally dry conditions will do little to ease the region’s persistent drought.
How will the Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption play into the forecast? AccuWeather says that the lingering water vapor in the atmosphere from the eruption could cause a warmer winter than normal, but that it is unknown how significant the effect might be.
Weather.com’s winter outlook
Weather.com’s official winter outlook — like NOAA’s and AccuWeather’s — calls for above-normal temperatures in the south while far-northern parts of the continental U.S. manage to stay below average, conditions driven by this year’s La Niña.
December is favored to be the chilliest month along the Eastern Seaboard, with colder-than-normal temperatures expected from the Great Lakes down into parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. On the other side of the country, temperatures in the Southwest and the Rockies are expected to be well above average.
By January, most of the country is mild with cooler temperatures further north and a serious chill entering the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region by February, while the Southeast — especially down toward Florida, warms up.
WeatherBell’s winter forecast
The winter outlook from WeatherBell Analytics, a weather consulting firm, should put more pep in the step of snow lovers. The firm is predicting temperatures that are normal to slightly below normal for nearly all of the country from November 2022 to March 2023.
The coldest temperatures are expected in the Ohio Valley into the Upper Midwest, where temperatures are forecast to end up 1 to 3 degrees below normal.
Warmer temperatures are forecast for the West; WeatherBell projects temperatures 1 to 3 degrees above normal in the Southwest. That part of the country is also expected to see less snow than normal — an area that includes some popular California ski resorts.
WeatherBell is forecasting slightly above-normal snowfall, 125 percent of the seasonal average, in the Midwest, through the Ohio Valley and into the interior Northeast. It calls for snowfall to be above normal toward the East Coast as well.
Farmers’ Almanac forecast
The Farmers’ Almanac winter snow forecast is predicting an early start to winter, with a cold and stormy December. That storminess is not expected to slow in the eastern half of the country, with the Almanac suggesting snowy conditions into the Northeast. Along the Interstate 95 corridor, which often is the rain-snow line for major storms, the Farmers’ Almanac suggests more snow than rain.
In the Southeast, the Farmers’ Almanac says its forecast parade of East Coast storms are more likely to bring rain, though chilly conditions that enter the region in January could cause wintry precipitation to fall there, as well. The Farmers’ Almanac says temperatures in the Southeast and Northeast should become milder in February, though.
Conditions are forecast to be “glacial” in the Upper Midwest, with the Farmer’s Almanac suggesting that there will be plenty of snow and chilly conditions for winter lovers to enjoy — including the potential for a White Christmas. In mid-January, the Farmers’ Almanac is predicting that temperatures could drop up to 40 degrees below zero in parts of the region.
The Farmers’ Almanac predicts that March will go out like a lion, with a variety of conditions — from heavy snowfalls to downpours to gusty thunderstorms — expected across the nation.
Old Farmer’s Almanac forecast
The Old Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a divided nation — with harsh winter conditions in the eastern U.S. and mild weather in the West. Out west, even if temperatures are mild, the above-average precipitation could help to ease the region’s ongoing drought.
Let’s turn the Farmer’s Almanac into something real — and useful
In the east, the almanac is predicting above-average snowfall for a vast area, from North Carolina to central New England to the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, as well as the Great Plains.
The almanac forecasts cold and wet conditions down even into Florida, with the worst of the cold forecast for January, it says that temperatures there could drop 4 degrees below normal for the month — something that could result in a damaged citrus crop and frozen iguanas. | 2022-10-13T15:49:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How harsh will winter be? Six organizations issue forecasts. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/13/winter-outlooks-united-states-snow/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/13/winter-outlooks-united-states-snow/ |
Jan. 6 hearing live updates Trump’s pressure to overturn election to be focus
How to watch the hearing — and what to watch for
Analysis: The biggest moments in the Jan. 6 hearings so far
A refresher course on who said what during the earlier hearings
Key video clips to watch ahead of Thursday’s hearing
Footage of President Donald Trump, as he taped his address asking Jan. 6 rioters to go home, is shown as the House select committee holds a prime-time hearing on Capitol Hill on July 21. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is scheduled to convene at 1 p.m. on Thursday for what could be its final public hearing. The panel is expected to highlight newly obtained Secret Service records showing how President Donald Trump was repeatedly alerted to brewing violence that day — and still sought to stoke the conflict — as it seeks to tie together its case for Trump’s culpability for the dark day in U.S. history. No live witnesses are expected to testify Thursday.
The hearing comes at a pivotal juncture, 26 days before the midterm elections and with control of Congress at stake. If Republicans take control of the House next year, they are all but certain to shutter the Jan. 6 panel established under Democratic leadership, ending a lengthy investigation that has included interviews with hundreds of witnesses.
How to watch the committee hearing and what to look for.
A guide to the biggest moments in the Jan. 6 hearings so far.
What we know — and don’t know — about what Trump did on Jan. 6.
The Post, starting at 12:30 p.m., will provide live coverage anchored by Libby Casey, with reporting and analysis from Rhonda Colvin, Rosalind Helderman and James Hohmann.
Thursday’s hearing is expected to be 2½ hours long and will not feature any live witnesses — a break with previous hearings — according to an aide to the Jan. 6 committee.
The panel will in effect present its closing argument in what’s likely to be its final hearing about past and ongoing threats to democracy as voters prepare to cast ballots in next month’s midterm elections.
During a background briefing with reporters, committee aides teased new video footage from when the violence was unfolding, along with evidence that will illuminate President Donald Trump’s state of mind before, during and after the attack.
Thursday’s hearing comes at a pivotal juncture, with 26 days remaining before the midterm elections and control of Congress at stake. If Republicans take control of the House next year, they are all but certain to shutter the Jan. 6 panel established under Democratic leadership, ending a lengthy investigation that has included interviews with hundreds of witnesses.
House Republican leaders have sought to cast aspersions on the committee’s work from the outset. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) pulled out all of the panel’s GOP members after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) objected to two lawmakers he had recommended because of their past statements about the 2020 presidential election.
By Carol D. Leonnig and Jacqueline Alemany
What is likely to be the final public hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to highlight newly obtained Secret Service records showing how President Donald Trump was repeatedly alerted to brewing violence that day but still sought to stoke the conflict, according to three people briefed on the records.
During Thursday’s hearing, the committee plans to share new video footage and internal Secret Service emails that appear to corroborate parts of the most startling inside accounts of that day, said the people briefed, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive records and conversations. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in June that Trump was briefed on Jan. 6 that some of his supporters were armed for battle, that he demanded they be allowed into his rally and insisted he wanted to lead them on their march to the Capitol.
By Amber Phillips
The hearing begins at 1 p.m. Eastern, and, while you’ll be able to stream it live on this page when it starts, you can also watch a live stream from the committee. Most major TV news stations have been airing all of the hearings in full, except for Fox News. C-SPAN will air the hearing in full.
Here’s what to keep an eye on:
Will the committee conclude that Trump committed a crime by intentionally trying to stop Congress’s confirmation of Joe Biden’s win on Jan. 6, 2021? Congress’s power is limited here: Ultimately, the Justice Department would have to decide whether to prosecute. But Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said he thinks the committee should formally accuse Trump of crimes in the attack, noting that a federal judge said it’s likely that the former president broke several laws as he tried to overturn his election loss. Schiff also told CNN on Sunday that the committee should come to such a decision unanimously, and it’s not clear there’s consensus on this.
Will the committee talk to former vice president Mike Pence or Trump? Pence’s top aide has testified, as have many of Trump’s White House aides. Pence also recently said he would be open to talking to the committee. But as time goes on, that seems less and less likely.
What happens next? This is probably going to be the committee’s final televised hearing — unless the committee uncovers something else it wants to quickly bring to the public’s attention. The committee is also working on a report about what happened on Jan. 6 and how to prevent it from happening again. It could also release thousands of pages of transcripts of its interviews, which would let the public sort through its findings.
Ahead of what is likely the final Jan. 6 committee hearing, Amber Phillips rounds up some of the panel’s most noteworthy moments and revelations.
These include the moment when former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that President Donald Trump knew protesters came to his “Stop the Steal” rally armed and urged them to go to the Capitol anyway. She also testified that Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) described conversations with Trump and Rudy Giuliani in which they asked him to convene the state legislature and somehow determine that Trump won Arizona.
“cassidy hutchison must get the death penalty that is all,” said another person on the pro-Trump forum Patriots.win.
We don’t blame you if you can’t remember who said what of significance in the earlier hearings, which aired back in June and July. The committee presented an array of live witnesses and filmed depositions to share its findings with the public. And those were just a slice of the more than 1,000 interviews the panel conducted to find out how Donald Trump and his allies pushed to overturn the 2020 election results, and how their false claims animated a violent mob.
If you want to test your memory of some of the most revealing quotes before Thursday’s hearing, take our quiz here.
By Rachel Weiner and Carol D. Leonnig
The founder of the Oath Keepers and other leaders of the self-styled militia organization 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 Rhodes, the group’s founder, 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.
Video played by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, revealed rioters threatened to hang Vice President Mike Pence. (Video: The Washington Post)
The Jan. 6 hearings have combined appearances from live witnesses with video montages of the attack and snippets of taped testimony from some of the more than 1,000 people they’ve interviewed so far.
Among them was footage of rioters in the Capitol yelling, “Hang Mike Pence! Here are more key compelling visual moments from the hearings. | 2022-10-13T15:49:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jan. 6 hearing live updates: Panel to show new evidence, how to watch - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/13/jan-6-committee-hearings-live-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/13/jan-6-committee-hearings-live-updates/ |
Supporters of former president Donald Trump at a rally in Minden, Nev., on Oct. 8. (José Luis Villegas/AP)
A clear majority of White Americans keeps backing the Republican Party over the Democratic Party, even though the Republican Party is embracing terrible and at times anti-democratic policies and rhetoric. The alliance between Republicans and White Americans is by far the most important and problematic dynamic in American politics today.
Non-Hispanic White Americans were about 85 percent of those who voted for Donald Trump in 2020, much larger than the 59 percent of the U.S. population overall in that demographic. That was similar to 2016, when White voters were about 88 percent of Trump backers. It is very likely that White Americans will be more than 80 percent of those who back Republican candidates in this fall’s elections.
In contrast, the people of color in those demographic groups (for instance, Asian Americans without four-year degrees, Black Protestants, Latino women) mostly favor Democrats.
While the majority of White people with four-year degrees backed Democrats in 2020, about 42 percent of them supported Trump. He also won more than 40 percent of White voters in the Northeast and in the West. The main bloc of White voters that overwhelmingly opposes Republicans is White people who aren’t Christians. (Biden won this group by about 30 points in 2020.)
After Trump did better in 2020 with Latino voters (gaining 10 percentage points over 2016) and Black voters (up 2 points in that period), there has again been an effort by some in the media and even some Democrats to play down race and suggest the Trump base is really one of Americans without college degrees or those annoyed by progressive views on gender and race. But the actual percentage of Republican voters who are Black (2 percent in 2020) or Latino (8 percent) is tiny.
Overall, Republicans win the majority of White voters (55-43 nationally in 2020) in most elections.
Being the party of White Americans has given and will continue to give the Republicans two huge advantages. First, White Americans are about 72 percent of the U.S. electorate, about 13 percentage points more than their share in the overall population. White adults are more likely than Asian and Hispanic adults to be citizens (not recent immigrants) and therefore are eligible to vote. The median age for a White American is higher than that for Asian, Black or Latino Americans, and older Americans tend to vote at higher rates. If the electorate mirrored the country’s actual demographics and those groups voted as they did in 2020, Trump would have won only about 44 percent of the national vote, three points less than his 47 percent two years ago.
Second, the electoral college and the Senate give outsize power to less populated states — which in America today tend to be disproportionately White.
The alliance between White Americans and the Republican Party has existed for decades. The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the majority of White voters was in 1964, a year before Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act. The Republican Party spent much of the next three decades courting White Americans, in part, by casting Democrats as too tied to the causes of minorities, particularly Black people and Latino immigrants.
Through the presidency of George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s first term, however, Republican leaders generally distanced themselves from this style of politics — feeling that the old tactics were not only morally wrong but would doom the GOP in a country with a growing non-White population. But Trump and his allies have brought anti-Black and anti-immigrant sentiments and a focus on White identity back to the center of the Republican Party’s electoral strategy.
Even when Republican politicians are not campaigning directly on racial issues, the party is organized around defending the status quo in America, which is weighted toward White Americans. Policies such as raising taxes on upper-income people and making college free would reduce gaps in income and opportunity between White Americans and people of color. By opposing them, Republicans in effect protect White advantages.
So it’s no accident that Republicans are winning the majority of White voters. It is in many ways the result of a successful strategy. It’s not that Trumpism brought White voters as a bloc to the Republican Party (they were already voting Republican) — but rather it hasn’t scared many of them off.
Perhaps the best way to understand American politics is an overwhelmingly White coalition facing one that is majority White but includes a lot of people of color.
Democrats are doing a lot of White appeasement to address this Republican tilt: nominating White candidates in key races; moving right/White on racialized issues such as policing and immigration; trying to boost the economy particularly in heavily White areas where the party has declined electorally.
Some of that has worked; Democrats did somewhat better among White voters in 2018 and 2020 compared to 2016. But it is very likely that the majority of White voters will again vote Republican in 2022 and 2024.
And because White people are likely to be the majority of voters for at least two more decades, America is in trouble. Across the country, GOP officials are banning books from public libraries, making it harder for non-Republicans to vote, stripping away Black political power, aggressively gerrymandering, censoring teachers and professors and, most important, denying the results of legitimate elections. The majority of America’s White voters are enabling and encouraging the GOP’s radical, anti-democratic turn by continuing to back the party in elections.
It’s not, as much of our political discourse implies, that the Democrats have a working class or Middle America or non-college-voter problem. The more important story is that America has a White voter problem. And there is no sign it’s going away anytime soon. | 2022-10-13T15:49:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | America has a White voter problem - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/america-has-white-voter-problem/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/america-has-white-voter-problem/ |
Trump’s fast-growing obstruction of justice problem
Former president Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines last weekend. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
No matter how Donald Trump spun it — and continues to spin it — the fact is that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia report didn’t exonerate him. In fact, Mueller made it quite clear that he had found extensive evidence of potential obstruction of justice. He compared the evidence to the legal standards for that crime and suggested that those standards might well have been satisfied in at least five instances. He simply decided he couldn’t personally accuse a sitting president of crimes.
Trump apparently didn’t learn from that. Because evidence of possible obstruction in the Mar-a-Lago documents case continues to build — and quickly.
And this time Trump, as a former president, is no longer protected from prosecution.
The latest comes via a scoop from The Washington Post’s Devlin Barrett and Josh Dawsey. They reported late Wednesday that one of Trump’s employees told investigators that Trump personally instructed them to move boxes of documents to his residence at Mar-a-Lago — even after the Justice Department had subpoenaed the classified documents Trump took from the White House. And the moving of the boxes was captured on security cameras.
The revelation would appear to shed light on how the government was able to obtain a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago in August. The government had told the judge who approved the warrant that it had “probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found.”
And it provides some of the most significant evidence to date of that potential obstruction.
We’ve known that the government at least suspected that the documents were moved. It alluded in an August court filing to Trump’s response to the subpoena being “incomplete.” And it said that “government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”
After the two sides met in early June, a top Justice Department official sent a letter instructing the Trump team to protect the documents. Jay Bratt requested that the “room at Mar-a-Lago where the documents had been stored be secured” — with the key words perhaps being “had been” — “and that all of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago (along with any other items in that room) be preserved in that room in their current condition until further notice.”
This new evidence, crucially, points to the boxes having been moved at Trump’s direction.
But it’s hardly the only evidence of possible obstruction to emerge recently from the Mar-a-Lago documents case.
In addition to Trump failing to return all the documents when they were subpoenaed, his team has repeatedly claimed — as it turned out, falsely — that the requested documents had been returned.
In June, Trump lawyer Christina Bobb signed a sworn statement to the Justice Department saying that a “diligent search was conducted” and that “any and all responsive documents accompany this certification.” Bobb’s statement included a caveat that this was “true and correct to the best of my knowledge” — a phrasing that she reportedly insisted upon because she was uncertain and that could insulate her legally. But the Justice Department is surely interested in how Bobb arrived at this conclusion. (Bobb interviewed with the FBI this week.)
And that wasn’t the only example of such false assurances. The evidence suggests Trump and his team repeatedly sought to offer a version of this assurance — sometimes to law enforcement and at other times to other parties.
In September 2021, former deputy Trump White House counsel Pat Philbin said that former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows had told him that none of the material Trump took was sensitive or classified and that Trump had only 12 boxes of news clippings, The Post reported last month. That turned out not to be true. But the claim was made to the National Archives rather than law enforcement. (Obstruction generally requires that the act have a “nexus” to an official legal proceeding.)
And last week, The Post reported that in February, Trump personally asked former Trump Organization lawyer Alex Cannon to say that all materials sought by the National Archives had been returned. Cannon refused because he, like Bobb, wasn’t sure the statement was true.
This representation, like Philbin’s, was intended for the National Archives, rather than law enforcement. But all of these — when combined with the aides’ reluctance to flatly vouch for Trump — could be used as evidence that Trump and his team were intentionally withholding such documents. Trump also reportedly packed the boxes that were returned to the National Archives in January, suggesting he might well have been familiar with the contents of what he still had when he reportedly asked Cannon to offer the assurance.
And if Trump kept pushing for these kinds of statements after learning that the Justice Department was investigating — such as when Bobb offered her statement — that would probably be even more compelling evidence. (The National Archives referred the case to the Justice Department on Feb. 9, but it’s not clear when Trump would have been aware DOJ was investigating.)
As Quinta Jurecic writes, the situation mirrors the Russia probe. According to the Mueller report, Trump pushed then-White House counsel Donald McGahn to falsely deny that Trump had pushed for Mueller’s firing. Mueller entertained the idea that this might not have been obstruction because the statement would have been intended for public consumption — rather than aimed at the investigation itself. But Mueller added that the evidence indicated Trump was “not focused solely on a press strategy, but instead likely contemplated the ongoing investigation and any proceedings arising from it.”
Another recent development that could ultimately be part of an obstruction case arrived last week. The New York Times reported that Bratt in recent weeks has told Trump’s lawyers that the Justice Department believes Trump still hasn’t turned over all the documents. The Justice Department has hinted at this possibility in court filings, but the call suggests it has substantial evidence that it is indeed the case. (I wrote at the time about how plausible that was, if past was precedent.)
What’s more, Trump reportedly resisted advice from one of his lawyers to allow for a forensic search for additional documents. It’s not clear which of Trump’s properties the proposed search was for.
And finally, there is Trump’s repeated insistence that the documents are his and he should be able to keep them. That could be understood as political bluster, but there’s evidence that he has also said so privately. (The Times reported this weekend that Trump even floated the idea of trading the documents he had for documents on the Russia investigation.)
To the extent that he believes this and acted on that belief — even as such records are unambiguously not his — it seems plausible that would suggest he would take significant actions to withhold them, even when legally required to turn them over.
It’s no secret that Trump, at the very least, walks a tightrope when it comes to potential obstruction of justice. It’s happened over and over again.
But these kinds of revelations should certainly give some pause to the many Republicans who reflexively vouched for Trump immediately after the Mar-a-Lago search. They did so knowing next to nothing about what Trump actually did. And now the government’s argument that Trump might have obstructed justice is coming into focus.
2:21 PMA refresher course on who said what during the earlier hearings | 2022-10-13T15:50:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump’s fast-growing obstruction of justice problem in the classified documents probe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/trump-maralago-obstruction-justice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/trump-maralago-obstruction-justice/ |
Supporters of Republican Herschel Walker pray this week at a campaign event in Carrollton, Ga., for the Senate candidate. (Jessica Mcgowan/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
When the Daily Beast first reported that Georgia U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker had paid a girlfriend for an abortion in 2009 — a claim Walker has both denied and denied remembering — it seemed like the sort of revelation that might upend the close race. After all, here was a story centered on one of the most polarizing issues of the 2022 midterms, abortion, with a fervently Republican antiabortion candidate apparently exposed as hypocritical.
Walker’s son Christian quickly and loudly turned on his father. Other Republicans seemed worried, with some expressing concern that they were stuck with Walker as their party’s nominee.
Polling has come trickling in since the Oct. 4 report. But, so far, those concerns appear to have been unnecessary. Views of Walker are just about the same as they were before the news broke, as is the state of the race.
Consider polling conducted by Quinnipiac University that measured support for Walker and his opponent, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D), in mid-September and early October. Last month, Warnock was up by six points. This month, he was up by seven — a change without any statistical significance.
If we break out the vote by party, you can see how subtle the shifts were. A slight widening of the margin for Democrats and a slight narrowing for Republicans but, again, not ones that reflect any obviously significant shift. (The periods during which the polls were in the field — that is, respondents were being called — is indicated with a solid line. The dotted line is the period between polls.)
On Tuesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution released new polling conducted by the University of Georgia. It showed what seemed to be a flip in the state of the race since polling in September: Then, Walker was up by two points. Now, Warnock is up by three. Was this a sign that the abortion report had an effect?
Those, however, are not meaningful changes. Margins of error in polling mean that both polls showed something similar: a dead heat. More importantly for our purposes, the last day during which the new poll was being conducted was the day on which the Daily Beast report came out. In other words, that news isn’t reflected in these numbers.
There are a lot of caveats that should be applied here. One is that most voters probably wouldn’t have heard of the new story immediately — if they know about it at all. Another is that measured support in polling is only one point of consideration. There’s also enthusiasm among voters, which can determine whether people vote at all.
To that point, we can look at national polling from YouGov, conducted for the Economist. The pollsters were talking to voters both immediately before the Daily Beast report and a few days after, giving us a good sense of how views might have changed. They asked whether respondents viewed Walker and Warnock favorably, determining that more people said they viewed Walker that way.
But more people had heard of Walker than Warnock. If we look solely at the percentage of people who have opinions of either candidate, Walker’s favorability took a hit.
But, again, that’s national polling and not a measure of support in the Senate race. This mostly (if not entirely) reflects Republicans outside of Georgia looking at Walker more skeptically than they had, a shift that wouldn’t necessarily manifest in the election itself.
The reports focus on a woman who said Walker paid for her to have an abortion in 2009 and that he ended a relationship with her in 2011 after she refused to have the procedure again. The woman, who is the mother of one of Walker’s children, has told The Washington Post those reports in the Daily Beast and the New York Times accurately described her experiences. She spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her privacy and that of her child.
Even before the Daily Beast report, Walker was suffering from relatively low Republican enthusiasm for his candidacy. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had suggested months ago that he was concerned whether his party had fielded candidates good enough to beat the Democrats — comments interpreted as referring to Walker and others. In other words, some skepticism of Walker was already baked in; the new report might simply have been thrown onto the pile.
The best thing Walker has had going for him from the outset is the R that will appear next to his name on the ballot. That alone means that a large part of the electorate will support him and a large part will support his opponent. So far, it doesn’t seem as though the rest of the electorate has found much inspiration to vote for or against him from the new allegation about his past. | 2022-10-13T15:50:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Herschel Walker abortion report doesn’t seem to have changed much - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/walker-georgia-abortion-senate-race/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/walker-georgia-abortion-senate-race/ |
Virginia men's basketball coach Tony Bennett has back every starter from last season, including Jayden Gardner. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
CHARLOTTE — Following a season in which the Virginia men’s basketball team fell well short of the standard Coach Tony Bennett established since taking over 14 years ago, the Cavaliers sought to regroup over the summer during a one-week trip to Italy that included four exhibition games.
They came back to Charlottesville not only with a 3-1 record but also even more inspired to reclaim their standing as one of the preeminent programs in the country after settling for an appearance in the NIT attributable in part to a roster that lacked experience and quality depth.
This season’s group, on the other hand, comprises five starters back in addition to an infusion of reinforcements featuring transfer Ben Vander Plas and a freshman class Bennett indicated has developed exponentially thanks to spending extended time together internationally.
“It was a great experience,” Virginia guard Kihei Clark said Wednesday during ACC media day. “I think as a team, just to be able to have those 10 days before the trip, official practice, get to go two hours full board is really important, just to be ahead of the of a lot of teams who don’t get to practice like that.”
Schools are permitted to travel abroad for exhibition games every four years, although the coronavirus pandemic interfered with that schedule.
Before this past summer, the Cavaliers’ last overseas trip was to Spain in 2016, providing an invaluable bonding opportunity for members of the team that went on to win the school’s first and only national championship in 2019.
Clark was a freshman that season and recalled how close players such as Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome and De’Andre Hunter, the nucleus that spurred the Cavaliers to the national title, grew on the heels of coming back from Spain, where Bennett was able to provide additional instruction regarding the pack-line defense.
Connectivity throughout the regular rotation also yielded one of the most memorable sequences in program history during the NCAA tournament’s regional final when Clark chased down a loose ball and passed to Mamadi Diakite, whose jumper at the buzzer forced overtime against Purdue.
Virginia then secured an 80-75 victory to advance to the Final Four in Minneapolis.
“Kihei and I have been together forever, right, which is a good thing, a great thing,” Bennett said. “Last year our depth wasn’t great, and we probably didn’t shoot the ball at the level we needed to, so we tried to improve in those areas, but experience is golden, I think, in college basketball, and we have that.”
A chance to pursue another national championship contributed to Clark’s decision to come back for a fifth year. So too did lengthy conversations with Bennett and teammates, including Jayden Gardner, the Cavaliers’ leading scorer last season.
Gardner transferred to Virginia from East Carolina before the start of 2021-22, and while his midrange jumper, soft touch around the rim and rebounding at both ends benefited the Cavaliers immediately, his comfort level with the pack line took significantly longer to flourish.
Gardner’s command of Bennett’s signature defensive alignment since has reached a level of expertise to where new teammates, particularly those in the frontcourt, have been seeking Gardner’s insights into guarding one-on-one, rotating to the help side and positioning in the painted area.
“I think this year, just the defense slowing down for me and getting accustomed to it and knowing where to be and also encouraging the young guys as they go through their first year because I went through it,” Gardner said. “I think that’s been a big step for my development on the defensive end, being ahead of the game, ahead of the curve, so I’m excited for this team.”
Virginia’s other starters in addition to Gardner and Clark are upperclassmen as well. Guard Armaan Franklin, a transfer last year from Indiana, is a senior, forward-center Kadin Shedrick is a redshirt junior, and point guard Reece Beekman is a junior.
Vander Plas, a projected top reserve in the frontcourt, arrives from Ohio University as a graduate student, and Argentine center Francisco Caffaro, a redshirt senior, started at times last season.
The only freshman expected to receive significant playing time is Isaac McKneely, a 6-foot-4 guard twice named West Virginia’s Gatorade Player of the Year. McKneely also is familiar with the pack line, having played a defense with similar principles in high school.
“Me personally, this probably is the oldest team maybe that I’ve had,” Bennett said. “I think why Virginia and even where I was before either as an assistant or head coach, Washington State and other stops, we’ve had mature teams, teams that have had guys in their upperclassmen years that have grown through the experience of playing. Again, that’s always been the formula.” | 2022-10-13T15:50:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Virginia will have something rare in college basketball — experience - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/virginia-basketball-experience/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/virginia-basketball-experience/ |
Review by Michael S. Roth
Marble statues of the Greek philosophers Socrates, right, and Plato sit in front of the Athens Academy. Socrates tried and failed to teach Alcibiades, a controversial political and military leader in ancient Greece, to become a better statesman. (Petros Giannakouris/AP)
Hadot’s view of philosophy as a way of life was unusual, but his erudition concerning the ancient Greek schools was undeniable. In France, Michel Foucault was very taken with the idea of spiritual exercises, which he integrated into his own writings as technologies of the self. How have we come to be the kinds of individuals we are? How do formal and informal practices — from schools to prisons to therapies and medication — create and limit our options? For Foucault, the essential question was “Can we live otherwise?” Can we find ways of being that are different from the ones that contemporary regimes of selfhood have defined for us as natural, healthy and acceptable?
Hadot’s and Foucault’s questions were radical when they first posed them, but by now they have been integrated into the American version of personal improvement. Self-help and its newer, narcissistic variant, self-care, are not what the French thinkers were aiming for, but now college philosophy departments will tell you how to live a good life, and psychology departments will explain how to be happy. These classes boost enrollments among undergraduates eager for more results and less anxiety from their education.
In “The Quest for Character: What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us About Our Search for Good Leaders,” Massimo Pigliucci embraces this self-help version of philosophy, mining the history of the field for precious advice to help us build better characters. The author comes to this subject from evolutionary biology, where he is an expert in phenotypic plasticity, the ability of an organism to adapt to better fit into its environment. It’s not too much of a stretch to see his work on character through this evolutionary lens. We can develop selves to better fit into the societies to which we belong, and perhaps make those societies more hospitable for survival in the process.
But unlike his work in biology, Pigliucci’s work in philosophy concerns ethics and politics — not just how we can survive but how we can live well together. That “well” should be a point of debate and critical examination. And so it was with Socrates, the hero of this book, who was told by the Oracle that he was the wisest among the Athenians. He came to realize that this was because he knew that he didn’t know that much. Other Athenians were confident in their answers to important questions, but when pressed by Socrates they often left their conversations quite puzzled.
Pigliucci’s Socrates is a gentle teacher who guides students away from fallacies and toward more dependable opinions. Like a sculptor chipping away at a marble slab, he carves away untruths to reveal something worth beholding. Given Socrates’ talents as an interlocutor, Pigliucci asks why he failed to educate the handsome, rich and powerful Alcibiades to become a better statesman. Alcibiades, a controversial political and military leader, had all the advantages, and Socrates was his friend and mentor (and perhaps lover). But the young man continued to display greed at every turn, was treacherous in his dealings with friends and was basically a poster child for bad behavior. The failure to educate Alcibiades leads Pigliucci to a series of sketches about how challenging and important it is to try to improve the character of political leaders. He considers Plato’s efforts with the tyrants of Syracuse, Aristotle’s influence on Alexander the Great and Seneca’s failures with the perverse Nero before going on to more general reflections on character and power.
There are no great surprises here — just a reminder that character matters in political leaders. Given the state of the country right now, I wonder whether we need such a reminder.
The enduring task of the philosopher has been to create opportunities to recognize what really matters — to teach oneself and others to redirect one’s attention from what should carry little weight and to devote oneself (perhaps through spiritual exercises) to the most important things or questions. Alcibiades liked wealth and power, which Pigliucci, following Socrates, doesn’t believe are the most important things. So, why did Socrates remain so attached to Alcibiades? Socrates is quoted as saying that the Athenian celebrity was “wedded to stupidity,” but he couldn’t take his eyes off the gorgeous, rich and powerful young man. Perhaps the effort to develop good character isn’t always in sync with one’s desires? If that’s the case, are the spiritual exercises supposed to change one’s affections? Who decides what are appropriate things to desire? What happens when one’s desires are in conflict with one another, or with the interests of those who hold authority? There are no simple ways to address these questions, and so they are not taken up in “The Quest for Character.”
Pigliucci doesn’t want his readers to be puzzled. He wants us to realize that becoming conscious of our own faults and practicing to reduce them will make us “better human beings.” By “better” he simply means more attentive to others, more kind, more generous and less prone to do the wrong thing because of bad people around us. The Stoic advice: Accept the things we must, improve what we can.
Lucky us. We don’t have to worry anymore about charismatic leaders like Alcibiades (or Nero!), nor about the systems that give rise to them. If you believe that, this is the book for you.
Michael S. Roth is the president of Wesleyan University. His latest book is “Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses.”
The Quest for Character
What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us About Our Search for Good Leaders
By Massimo Pigliucci
Basic. 262 pp. $28 | 2022-10-13T16:27:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of "The Quest for Character: What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us about Our Search for Good Leaders” by Massimo Pigliucci - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/self-help-philosophy-inspired-by-socrates-that-avoids-hard-questions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/self-help-philosophy-inspired-by-socrates-that-avoids-hard-questions/ |
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz stands with Assistant Public Defender Nawal Bashimam, left, and sentence mitigation specialist Kate O'Shea as jurors leave the courtroom to begin deliberations in the penalty phase of Cruz's trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. (Amy Beth Bennett/AP)
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A jury Thursday recommended Nikolas Cruz get life in prison for killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, sparing Cruz from a death sentence after his lawyers argued he had a troubled upbringing including allegations his biological mother abused drugs and alcohol while pregnant.
The sentence caps an emotional three-month trial in which victim relatives and survivors recounted the Valentine’s Day massacre in painful detail. The 12-member jury deliberated for seven hours before reaching their decision in the deadliest U.S. mass shooting case to go to trial.
In each of the counts, jurors found that prosecutors had established aggravating factors including that the murders were especially cruel and heinous but that there were mitigating circumstances that ultimately outweighed those conditions.
As the verdicts were being read, many parents of the victims gently shook their heads. One juror clutched a tissue, wiping tears from her eyes. Cruz mostly stared down at a desk. Later, as victim family members left the courtroom, some relatives sobbed and collapsed into each others’ arms. One said to another, “He’s going to pay sooner or later.”
The jury reached its verdict just 15 minutes after it began its second day of deliberations. On Wednesday evening, about seven hours into deliberations, the jury sent a message to Judge Elizabeth A. Scherer stating, “We would like to see the AR-15.”
The message prompted confusion over whether a weapon could be sent into the jury room. As court officials worked to clarify the matter, the judge dismissed the jury for day. On Thursday morning, the judge and the sheriff’s department agreed to send the weapon into the jury room. Within minutes, the jury announced it had reached a verdict.
His sister died in the Parkland massacre. He wants the gunman to live.
“The testimony revealed the unspeakable, horrific brutality and the relentless cruelty that the defendant performed," Katz told the jurors. “This plan was goal directed. It was calculated. It was purposeful, and it was a systematic massacre.”
But Cruz’s defense attorneys urged jurors to spare his life, describing him as a “brain damaged, broken mentally ill person through no fault of his own.”
To avoid the death penalty, the jury had to reach a unanimous decision. Speaking directly to jurors during her closing argument, McNeill told them they were making a “moral decision" that would require them to use their “heart." She pleaded with the jurors to take time in reaching their decision, saying they would have to live with the outcome for the rest of the lives.
Under Florida law for a capital crime, prosecutors had to prove that “aggravating factors” contributed to Cruz’s crimes.
The seven potential aggravating factors included whether the defendant had previously been convicted of a violent felony; that the defendant knowingly created great risk to a large number of people; and/or that a murder was especially “heinous, atrocious or cruel.”
Although Cruz did not previously have a violent criminal record, Satz said the murder or attempted murder of any of the 34 victims qualifies. Prosecutors also argued that Cruz committed his crime during a burglary because he was a former student who was not authorized to be on school grounds.
In all, Cruz fired 139 rounds during his 6-minute and 22-second rampage. The medical examiner testified some victims had defensive wounds, indicating they were shot at point blank range as they pleaded for their lives.
The jury was directed to consider 41 “mitigating circumstances” that should spare him from the death sentence even if they found there were aggravating factors at play. Broward County Circuit Judge Scherer said those included whether Cruz received proper mental health care while growing up, whether he suffered from attention deficit disorder and if he had been traumatized by witnessing the death of his adoptive parents.
The judge also asked jurors to consider whether Cruz “continues to try to educate himself despite incarceration” or that he remains “loved by people.”
During testimony, Cruz often sat with his head slumped down over his desk with his hands on his forehead. During the most graphic moments of the testimony, parents of the victims at times rushed out of the courtroom in tears. At one point in the trial, one of Cruz’s defense attorneys also cried in the courtroom as Fred Guttenberg described his final words to his 14-year-old daughter, Jamie, before she was killed in the shooting.
But not all relatives of the victims advocated that Cruz be given a death sentence, with even some members of the same family split over the question of whether he should die or spend the rest of his life in prison.
“I have been dreading this phase of the trial for the last four and a half years,” Robert Schentrupr, whose sister, Carmen, was killed in the massacre, wrote on Twitter as the trial got underway in July. “Because this is the part where people will tell me that retribution will bring ‘justice’ and ‘healing’ to me and my family. This is the part where pundits on TV will invoke the name of my sister to support the murder of another human being.”
“You cannot say that murder is heinous or unforgivable,” Robert added, “while advocating for the murder of someone else.”
“I love but disagree with my son,” replied his mother, April, quoting his tweet. “If police did their job that day, the shooter would’ve been killed. … Since they didn’t do what was needed then, let the court get it right this time.”
Florida’s first known state execution occurred in 1827 when a man was hanged for murder, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. But in 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was “cruel and unusual,” effectively imposing a nationwide moratorium.
The court reinstated the practice in 1976. Three years later, Florida became the first state to carry out an involuntarily execution. In the decades that followed, Florida has carried out a total of 99 executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
In Florida, all death penalty sentences are automatically eligible for an appeal.
During the trial, prosecutors asked jurors to show Cruz no sympathy for his actions, saying they were premeditated. Instead of suffering from mental illness, Satz argued Cruz’s actions fit into a broader pattern of “anti social behavior” and the prosecutor accused him of having a “manipulative personality.”
Satz said Cruz had an affinity for Nazi swastikas, including drawing them on both sides of the magazine of his firearm and on the boots he wore on the day of the shooting. Cruz also had expressed “hatred toward women” and had a history of making “hateful, racial comments,” Satz said.
“If you have F [racial slur] and swastika on your backpack, and you are walking around high school, who is the bully?” Satz asked.
But McNeill, Cruz’s attorney, said his story was far more complicated than that of a hateful teen bent on violence.
Besides alcohol and cocaine, McNeill said Cruz’s biological mother smoked cigarettes and worked as a prostitute during her pregnancy, damaging his brain. She then put Cruz up for adoption, and by age 3, a child psychiatrist told Cruz’s new family that he had severe issues.
His adoptive father died before Cruz reached kindergarten. His adoptive mother called authorities to their home more than 50 times. She never opted to have Cruz committed, his lawyers told jurors, because she would have lost his Social Security check.
Although Cruz’s adoptive family lived in spacious house in an upscale Fort Lauderdale suburb, McNeill told jurors that the size of his house should not mask the trauma he endured during his upbringing. Cruz often became so angry that he punched holes in the walls and killed animals, McNeill said.
“Living in a 4,500 square foot house in Parkland, it doesn’t mean you have a good life,” McNeill said. “And it doesn’t mean everything is okay and we know that because we have all of the records.”
But prosecutors countered that Cruz’s upbringing was not as chaotic as his defense attorneys alleged. One prosecution witnesses described his adoptive mother, who died in 2017, was a “caring mother who tried her best” to raise him, Satz said.
Prosecutors also pushed back against defense attorney’s assertions that his biological mother’s alleged alcohol and drug use during her pregnancy is to blame for his actions.
“Whether or not his mother smoked during pregnancy did not turn Nikolas Cruz into a mass murder,” Satz said during his closing argument. “The defendant had a plan, he discussed it, and he carried it out.”
Danielle Paquette contributed to this report. | 2022-10-13T16:58:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nikolas Cruz spared death penalty for Parkland shooting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/nikolas-cruz-spared-death-penalty-parkland-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/nikolas-cruz-spared-death-penalty-parkland-shooting/ |
Anita Kerr, ‘Little Miss Nobody’ behind Nashville Sound, dies at 94
She replaced fiddles and steel guitars with more pop-like arrangements, transforming country music
Anita Kerr in 1973. (Michael Putland/Getty Images)
Anita Kerr, whose gentle voice and ear-catching background arrangements transformed the sound of country music, replacing fiddles and steel guitars with string ensembles and lush choruses, died Oct. 10 at a nursing home in Geneva. She was 94.
Her daughter Kelley Kerr confirmed the death but did not provide a specific cause.
Ms. Kerr and her vocal ensemble, the Anita Kerr Singers, sang in the background for countless country music performers in the 1950s and ’60s, creating the Nashville Sound that sent Jim Reeves, Eddy Arnold, Skeeter Davis and Hank Snow, among many others, to the top of Billboard charts.
Because she and her quartet typically went uncredited on scores of albums — often “ooh”-ing and “aah”-ing behind the marquee performer — Ms. Kerr was often called “Little Miss Nobody,” a nickname she said she did not mind. Yet her sound and choruses are indelible. Anyone who hums the “dum-dum-dum, dooby-doo-wah” on Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” is performing alongside the Kerr Singers.
The Anita Kerr Singers arrived on the Nashville scene at a pivotal time.
“Country just became more and more pop,” Ms. Kerr said in an interview for “Voices of the Country,” a collection of interviews with country music legends published in 2004. “If you got into the pop charts, you would sell much more than just being in the country charts.”
Kyle Young, chief executive of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, said Ms. Kerr “helped Nashville achieve world-class stature as a music center through her roles as a gifted arranger, producer and leader of the lush vocal quartet the Anita Kerr Singers,” adding that “her voice and her creativity expanded the artistic and commercial possibilities for country music.”
Anita Jean Grilli was born in Memphis on Oct. 13, 1927. Her father owned a grocery store, and her mother had a radio show. She began taking classical piano lessons at 4, first from a woman who lived up a hill in her neighborhood and then at her Catholic school. In fourth grade, she took up the pipe organ, playing at church and later at roller-skating rinks. After school, she arranged music for a singing group she formed with 14 female classmates. She also sang on the radio with her mother.
In 1947, she married Al Kerr, a radio announcer with whom she had two daughters, and a year later moved they moved to Nashville. Ms. Kerr, a petite, striking brunette, almost immediately made an impression in the male-dominated world of country music. She had a résumé of musical expertise — in classical, orchestra, harmonizing and arranging— that producers coveted.
Ms. Kerr, a soprano, formed a vocal group just “for the fun of singing and hearing my arrangements performed,” she later wrote. They scored a radio gig and got hired to sing backup for Red Foley. It was a totally new sound for Nashville. The quartet of Ms. Kerr, Gil Wright, Dottie Dillard and Louis Nunley linked up with producers such as Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley, both of whom had a vision for country music that didn’t include fiddles.
The Kerr Singers were in such demand that they regularly worked 18-hour days, bouncing from studio to studio with barely enough time to eat.
“We worked with the same musicians all the time,” Ms. Kerr said in the interview for “Voices of the Country.” “In fact, we knew them better probably than we knew our own families, because we were in the studio with them all the time.”
Producers often deferred to her. Atkins, she added in the book interview, “never changed notes on any of my arrangements. He never changed anything, even the little fills that the band was playing, where I really didn’t write out the notes, just the chords.”
The Anita Kerr Singers appeared regularly on the CBS show “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” and released several albums under their own name. In a decision later seen as a testament to the conservative tastes of Grammy Award voters, the Nashville group’s skillful but straightforward tribute to composer Henry Mancini — “We Dig Mancini!” — bested the Beatles’ “Help!,” among other rock and pop albums, to win the Grammy for best performance by a vocal group in 1966.
A year earlier, after her first marriage ended in divorce, Ms. Kerr married Alex Grob, a Swiss businessman she had met on a tour of Europe, and they moved to Los Angeles. With her husband doubling as her manager, Ms. Kerr formed a new group of singers and worked in pop and jazz and on scores for orchestras and movies.
Ms. Kerr was also choral director on the “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” TV show before moving to Switzerland in 1970 to form and record with a third iteration of the Anita Kerr Singers.
In addition to her husband and daughter, survivors include another daughter, Suzanne Kerr Trebert; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Early in her career, Ms. Kerr told the Tennessean newspaper that until she was 14, the only music she really knew was classical piano. After moving to Nashville, “I learned that there is something good in all music,” she said. “Good music is the music people enjoy. The more people who enjoy a song, the better it is. The best song ever written is no good if no one enjoys it.” | 2022-10-13T17:20:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anita Kerr, ‘Little Miss Nobody’ behind Nashville Sound, dies at 94 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/13/anita-kerr-country-singer-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/13/anita-kerr-country-singer-dead/ |
Iraq’s parliament elects a president as rockets fall on Baghdad
By Mustafa Salim
Abdul Latif Rashid, center right, the newly elected Iraqi president, speaks with Kurdish politician Bafel Talabani at the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad on Thursday. (Ahmed Saad/Reuters)
A new Iraqi president was elected Thursday by the country’s parliament, a full year after early parliamentary elections that have failed to put an end to persistent political gridlock and dysfunction.
Abdul Latif Rasheed, a veteran Kurdish politician and former water minister, prevailed in the second round of voting over current president Barham Salih. He quickly appointed Muhammed al-Sudani as prime minister, giving him 30 days to form a new government. Sudani is part of the largest Shiite bloc in parliament and is a close ally of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Iraq has been gripped by political crisis since last year amid a feud between the Sadrist movement, led by prominent cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and the “Coordination Framework, ” a coalition that includes Maliki’s party and other Shiite factions more closely aligned with Iran.
The dispute, which had prevented the election of a president or the formation of a government, escalated in July, as supporters from both sides took to the streets and launched competing sit-ins in the center of Baghdad. Sadr then called for the dissolution of parliament and the holding of new legislative elections; when his demands were rebuffed, violence broke out in the capital and several other cities.
But few others in the capital were paying attention to the developments in parliament. Only 40 percent of Iraqis turned out to vote in the parliamentary elections last year, and many have given up on the political process.
“It’s just the same system with different faces since 2003,” said Jawad Ali, a 43-year-old taxi driver. “Usually a person should be optimistic when there is a formation of new government, but for us nothing will change. Let’s just hope they won’t cut off the roads anymore.” | 2022-10-13T17:20:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Iraq’s parliament elects a president as rockets fall on Baghdad - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/iraq-president-elections-parliament/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/iraq-president-elections-parliament/ |
Highlights of a trip to the Big Apple, where I found many a literary treasure, deep in bookstore stacks and in the company of well-read colleagues
“I lingered in the basement of the The Strand, methodically going through its shelves of literary biography, essays and criticism. Am I alone in finding such browsing restful and restorative?” (Chelsea Charles for The Washington Post)
Suddenly, there seemed every reason to visit New York.
Not only were invitations to appealing events popping up in my email, but my interest in the book I was to be writing about for this column, Alec Nevala-Lee’s carefully researched biography, “Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller,” had begun to flag. After having been a lazy student at Harvard (which family connections got him into despite his mediocre prep-school grades), a lifelong skirt chaser and a glory hog who took all the credit for what were often group enterprises, Fuller — a.k.a. “Bucky” — was just about to launch the geodesic dome when I stopped reading. I no longer cared what this unlikable futurist would accomplish in the second half of his life.
Instead, I remembered that an old D.C. friend now lived in Queens and actually had a guest bedroom.
I generally take the bus to New York but this time managed to find a reasonably priced ticket on Amtrak. As usual, I waffled for an hour over what to read en route, finally settling on Lawrence Block’s just-published “The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown,” an unexpected but welcome late outing for Bernie Rhodenbarr, antiquarian bookseller, genial first-person narrator and professional thief.
I was only halfway through Block’s novel — at 84, this beguiling storyteller has lost none of his flair — when my train rolled into Penn Station. Consequently, I had to break off just after Bernie and his lesbian friend Carolyn had stolen the Kloppmann Diamond from the Trump Tower-like penthouse of a sleazy billionaire. What about all the high-tech surveillance cameras, you ask? Block solves this problem with a bold science-fictional twist you should discover for yourself.
Lawrence Block and P.G. Wodehouse: How two prolific writers found their voices
Kew Gardens, new home to my friend Eric, turned out to be the Queens neighborhood where comedian Rodney “I get no respect” Dangerfield grew up, as well as the site of the shocking 1964 rape and murder of Kitty Genovese (which inspired Harlan Ellison’s Edgar Award-winning story, “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs”). That 38 bystanders did nothing to prevent or even report this horrific crime is now known to be largely untrue.
After dropping my roller bag at Eric’s apartment, I rode the Long Island Rail Road back to “the city” for a small cocktail party celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Folio Society. Over the years, I’ve written a half-dozen introductions to various Folio editions; hence the invitation. While downing bite-size crab cakes, I chatted with, among others, NPR’s Scott Simon, then admired the most recent Folio titles, particularly the 75th-anniversary edition of Michael Ende’s “The Neverending Story,” beautifully illustrated by Marie-Alice Harel.
I also learned that Folio, having done well with deluxe facsimiles of classic Marvel Comics, would soon bring out substantial albums devoted to the DC Comics universe. What’s more, one of its editors would be on a panel at New York Comic Con later that very week. Was I going? No, not this year — a decision I regretted when I glimpsed a sexy Batgirl and a muscular Conanesque warrior threading their way through a subway crowd.
Inexplicably, most of Wednesday afternoon seems to have slipped by as I lingered in the basement of the Strand, methodically going through its shelves of literary biography, essays and criticism. Am I alone in finding such browsing restful and restorative? In any event, my taste for cultural byways led me to ship home, to name only four titles, “The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan,” by Ian Bradley; “In the Wake of Diaghilev,” the second half of dance critic Richard Buckle’s autobiography; “The Rare Book Game,” a collection of essays by George Sims; and “Evelyn Waugh: Personal Writings 1903-1921,” a volume in the scholarly Cambridge edition of the novelist’s complete works.
When Thursday dawned, I toddled off to the New York Public Library for a gathering of the advisory board of Lapham’s Quarterly. While this journal — each issue of which explores a specific theme or idea in depth — is named for founder Lewis Lapham, that eminent journalist opened this first post-pandemic, in-person meeting by welcoming its new editor, the best-selling historian Simon Winchester. Then, for two hours LQ’s young staffers along with a dozen writers and scholars — among them Ian Buruma and Francine Prose at the library, and David Cannadine and Linda Colley electronically from Princeton — suggested ideas and texts relating to “Islands,” both actual and metaphorical. Afterward, curator Carolyn Vega displayed island-related treasures from the NYPL’s Berg Collection, such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s copy of “Gulliver’s Travels” and a proof page of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” with its author’s marginal corrections.
That afternoon the weather turned sunny and glorious, so naturally I sauntered over to another basement, this time to examine Argosy Book Store’s shelves of fiction and literary nonfiction. I picked out a half-dozen books, starting with a handsome first American edition in dust jacket of Nancy Mitford’s comic novel, “Love in a Cold Climate.” I already owned Max Beerbohm’s “Seven Men,” which contains the entrancing “Enoch Soames,” “A.V. Laider” and other imaginary portraits, but couldn’t pass up a copy bearing the bookplate of the noted Beerbohm authority N. John Hall.
On Friday, I enjoyed a nearly three-hour lunch with children’s literature scholar Michael Patrick Hearn, who a few days earlier had hosted a lively panel called “Oz From Page to Stage to Screen” at the Grolier Club. (I watched it online.) Michael and I reminisced about the polymath Martin Gardner and favorite children’s writers and illustrators such as James Marshall, Natalie Babbitt, and Leo and Diane Dillon.
In fact, we stopped talking only when it was time for me to head for the Grolier Club to catch its two current exhibitions: “Aubrey Beardsley: 150 Years Young” (ending Nov. 12) and “Building the Book From the Ancient World to the Present Day,” subtitled “Five Decades of Rare Book School & the Book Arts Press” (ending Dec. 23). Curated by Barbara Heritage and Ruth-Ellen St. Onge, the RBS show displays items used in the school’s courses, including a page from the Mainz Psalter, all sorts of bookbinding tools, a two-sheet mold from the Wookey Hole paper mill, the lithographic stone that printed the cover image of the dime novel “Davy Crockett’s Boy Hunter” and even an old Rocket eBook.
The Beardsley exhibit, rich in original drawings, rare posters, holograph letters and much else, draws from the nonpareil collections of Mark Samuels Lasner. In talks that evening Lasner related a few of his adventures as a collector, while his co-curator, Margaret D. Stetz, somewhat impishly discussed Beardsley’s life in its relationship to beds. The artist — who died at age 25 from tuberculosis — knew beds mainly as places of illness and rest, but they carry multiple meanings, as well as an erotic charge, in his provocative illustrations.
When I finally got back to D.C. on Saturday afternoon, my wife pointed out that she had rented a power rake from Home Depot and that, if I knew what was good for me, I’d better be spending Sunday dethatching dead grass and weeds from the lawn. Which is just what I did. Occasional gallivanting around New York may be all very well, but yardwork is forever. | 2022-10-13T17:55:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A literary travelogue to New York, by Michael Dirda - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/literary-newyork-dirda/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/13/literary-newyork-dirda/ |
Temperatures could fall some 20 degrees below average
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center's outlook for next week. (Pivotal Weather)
A blast of frigid air is set to descend on the eastern United States next week, in some places offering an early taste of winter, with snow even possible for some. Freezing lows and killer frosts could extend all the way south to near Atlanta and Birmingham, Ala., with temperatures in the upper 30s reaching the Gulf of Mexico.
The cold blast looks to set in beginning Monday and could last about a week before relenting. Even thereafter, there are signs that chilly weather could stick around for the remainder of the month.
There’s also a chance that snowflakes may fly in parts of the Great Lakes, Midwest or New England. Accumulations, if they occur, won’t be much, but it’s a harbinger of the coming winter season.
Across the West, meanwhile, the seesaw weather pattern, bottomed out in the East, will feature a northward bulge in the jet stream that will allow anomalous heat to swell. Hot, dry weather is expected in the Pacific Northwest, with highs 20 degrees above seasonal norms.
Sharp cold front to surge southeast
A cold front was pushing across the Ohio Valley on Thursday morning, set to swing through the East Coast during the evening and overnight. It was bringing a slug of showers and a few thunderstorms, a day after having produced at least a half-dozen quick-hitting tornadoes in southeast Wisconsin.
That cold front is paving the way for a more potent blast of cold air to follow on its heels early next week. This second, more robust front will take shape in south central Canada near the international border late Sunday or early Monday. By Monday night, temperatures will be 15 degrees below average in Chicago and across the majority of the Midwest and Great Lakes. The chill will surge south and east, reaching the Gulf and Atlantic coastlines by later Tuesday.
The air that will be heading southward has origins as far north as Siberia. NOAA’s Hysplit model, which attempts to simulate the trajectories of air parcels, suggests that next week’s air mass is working over the Yukon in Canada after having traveled over Alaska and the Bering Strait on its way east out of extreme northern Russia and the Arctic.
Temperatures to plummet
On Sunday, the first hints of impending frosty weather will lap at northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, where temperatures will peak in the 40s. Most of the Dakotas and western Minnesota will then plummet into the 20s overnight as the frigid air mass expands south and east into Monday morning.
By the start of the workweek, Minneapolis will be teetering around 40 degrees — compared with an average high around 57 degrees — and Chicago will struggle to reach 47. By then, the cold front’s leading edge will just be beginning to shove across the Appalachians.
There is a chance that, on the leading edge of the cold air, a few lake-effect snow showers could form thanks to the comparatively mild waters of the Great Lakes. That could paint a localized dusting to an inch or more on the eastern shores of lakes Michigan and Erie. There’s a low-end chance that a few additional snow showers make it to Ohio or western Pennsylvania by Tuesday morning, with “upslope” snows also possible on the western side of the Alleghenies in West Virginia.
Some models indicate that additional lake-effect snows are possible later in the week, but confidence is very low.
The entire Upper Midwest will dip into the 20s on Monday night, and the remainder of the Midwest and Great Lakes will fall through the 30s. Kansas City will even dip below freezing, and both Indianapolis and Columbus should hover around that 32-degree mark.
On Tuesday, Nashville, D.C., Raleigh and Philadelphia will be on the fringe of the more significant cold air mass, with highs in the mid- to upper 50s projected. Deeper within the core of the cold, another day in the 40s is anticipated.
By Wednesday, low temperatures will plunge into the 20s and 30s from the Midwest to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, where frosts and freezes will end the growing season in many locations.
Some models are highlighting the potential for the upper 30s to around 40 to even make it into the Florida Panhandle and along the Interstate 10 stretch during this time frame.
It appears as though the cold episode should persist until the end of the workweek, potentially easing some before a reinforcing batch of cold air wafts southeast.
Toasty weather in the West
Isaac Newton’s third law states, “for every action, there’s an opposite and equal reaction.” In a sense, that will be the case in the atmosphere next week. The cooldown in the East is matched by a late-season heat dome in the West.
Though the jet stream is dipping south in the eastern United States, it’s riding up and over high pressure banked in the western half of the Lower 48. That will afford highs 10 to 20 degrees above average through at least the middle of next week, most prominently in the interior Pacific Northwest.
Seattle is already getting a head start on the anomalous mildness, with projected highs around 77 degrees for Thursday. An average high this time of year is 62 degrees. It could flirt with 80 degrees Sunday, which would be the latest it’s been that warm on record.
Portland has already set an October record for most 80-degree days and is predicted to add more with the coming warmth. | 2022-10-13T17:55:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Unusually cold weather to blast Eastern U.S. next week - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/13/cold-snap-eastern-us-autumn/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/13/cold-snap-eastern-us-autumn/ |
ACT and SAT testing rises modestly but trails pre-pandemic peaks
Scores dropped for the high school class of 2022. Changes in test-taking patterns make comparisons difficult.
The number of high school students taking college admission tests has rebounded modestly since the massive disruptions early in the coronavirus pandemic, according to new ACT and SAT data for the class of 2022.
But participation in both major standardized tests is down significantly from peak levels reached a few years ago. Admissions testing requirements have been suspended or eliminated recently at many colleges. Test scores are down, but changes in test-taking patterns make comparisons difficult.
The ACT reported this week that more than 1.3 million students from this year’s class took the test, up 4 percent from the previous class. But the total tested was 35 percent lower than the nearly 2.1 million who took the ACT in the class of 2016.
On Sept. 28, the College Board reported that more than 1.7 million students in the class of 2022 took the SAT. That was up 15 percent compared with the previous class but still down 21 percent compared with the record 2.2 million who took it in the class of 2019.
There is also major flux in the way students are taking the tests. A greater share these days participate for free — at state or district expense — during a school day instead of paying to take one of the tests on a Saturday. Typically school day testing reaches a broader range of students, including more from lower-income families.
In addition, a growing number of selective colleges and universities have dropped admissions test requirements, and some, such as the University of California, now omit consideration of tests entirely from admissions. UC’s test-blind policy plays a major role in the most populous state.
Harvard suspends testing requirements through 2026
All of these variables have scrambled the test-taking pool substantially — which in turn affects average scores.
The ACT reported that the average national score for the class of 2022 was 19.8, down from 20.3 the year before and the lowest mark in more than 30 years. The multiple-choice exam covers English, math, reading and science and takes nearly three hours. The maximum score is 36.
“This is the fifth consecutive year of declines in average scores, a worrisome trend that began long before the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has persisted,” Janet Godwin, chief executive of ACT, said in a statement.
But in a footnote to its charts, ACT acknowledged complications in interpreting the data: “In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, ACT cautions users from making comparisons about this graduating class to previous cohorts or inferring the magnitude of the impact of COVID-related school disruptions on student learning from these data.”
The average SAT score also declined for this year’s class, to 1050, out of a maximum 1600. The average for the previous class was 1060. The SAT takes three hours and covers two sections, math and evidence-based reading and writing. Most questions are in a multiple-choice format.
Major changes are coming to the SAT as it is scheduled to move to a shorter, digital format, ditching the paper-and-pencil version at U.S. sites by spring 2024.
The SAT is going digital and getting much shorter. Say goodbye to No. 2 pencils on testing day. | 2022-10-13T17:55:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ACT and SAT testing rises modestly; ACT scores fall to lowest mark in decades - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/13/act-sat-testing-scores-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/13/act-sat-testing-scores-2022/ |
Montgomery County should be transparent about planning department problems
By Miranda S. Spivack
Opponents of the proposed Thrive Montgomery 2050 plan protest Nov. 4 outside the Montgomery planning board's offices in Wheaton. (Katherine Shaver/The Washington Post)
Miranda S. Spivack covered planning and development in Maryland for The Post for nearly two decades. She writes extensively about issues affecting government transparency.
The system in Montgomery County for overseeing land use and growth has long been fraught. Think back to Clarksburg in the early 2000s, where it took herculean efforts by local residents to unearth problems with the construction of what was then a new town perched near the northern tip of Montgomery County. Derick Berlage, the then-chairman of the Planning Board (now working for planning in Prince George’s County), abruptly retired. A staff member resigned for apparently allowing changes in official plans that had been urged on her by a development lawyer — a practice that is routine but often unseen. Then there was the auditor who questioned agency spending and was demoted in 2012.
A former planning director resisted efforts to investigate his expense account and other spending and made deals that allowed tree-cutting at a private school in exchange for scholarships but failed to include an enforcement mechanism.
That’s really just a short list of issues that have plagued the agency that has extensive influence over the present and the future in Montgomery County.
Despite occasional bright spots, for at least the past two decades, it has often not been a very pretty picture. Meanwhile, Montgomery County has seen a building spree of energy-inefficient mega mansions and given limited attention to affordable housing or public transit. Efforts to enhance public transit, a key goal of County Executive Marc Elrich (D), have been stymied, and developers, routinely the largest donors to county campaign coffers, did everything they could to defeat him in his second contest against David Blair, a former Republican with no experience in elected office and a murky business record that has been little scrutinized.
Maybe it’s time for the system to change.
Montgomery’s five-member Planning Board is filled with political appointees, many of whom over the years have had little to no experience in planning and are picked by the elected County Council, whose members also frequently lack planning expertise. The result is that the planning department has been allowed to operate with little expert oversight. That is not to say that many of the career employees there don’t know what they are doing; they can be an impressive group. But when problems arise, their overseers often seem to flail around and appear out of their depth.
The Montgomery County Council this past week apparently decided it had had enough. There had been a series of controversies affecting Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson, a lawyer who often seemed to thumb his nose at Maryland’s open-meetings law and was reprimanded for having alcohol in the office. His vice chair apparently was gunning for the top job and complained of a toxic workplace that he laid at Anderson’s feet. After Gwen Wright, the highly regarded planning director, spoke up in the media for Anderson, the Planning Board, sans Anderson, met in closed session and fired her, three months before she had planned to retire. That eventually led to the County Council taking action.
As reported Wednesday, all of the board members were forced by the council to resign or face a public airing of the council’s grievances against them.
But why hide the problems and not air the grievances? Did the council agree to a nondisparagement clause that would prohibit an open airing of problems at the Planning Board and within the planning department? All those involved — the council, the now-deposed Planning Board — are public servants, after all, paid with public funds. (Anderson’s salary is more than $200,000, according to published reports). A public airing would help the public understand what went wrong and would provide an opportunity for elected officials to gather ideas about how it could be fixed.
With so much at stake — the council is poised to vote on Thrive Montgomery 2050, a mega plan crafted by the Planning Board and staff that could design the Montgomery County of the future — airing out the dirty linen that might have influenced the design of that proposal would, at the very least, be a start at restoring some credibility to the county’s planning process. | 2022-10-13T17:56:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Montgomery County Planning Department problems require transparency - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/montgomery-county-planning-problems-require-transparency/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/montgomery-county-planning-problems-require-transparency/ |
The NSS is designed to convey the president’s vision — and the country’s ‘grand strategy’
Analysis by Stacie Goddard
President Biden speaks at the Volvo Group Powertrain Operations in Hagerstown, Md., Oct. 7, 2022. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
The Biden administration on Wednesday released its much-anticipated National Security Strategy (NSS). The document was supposed to appear late last year, but the U.S. government held back in the face of Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Policymakers and scholars alike see the NSS as the key to communicating the U.S. “grand strategy.” Administrations produce plenty of material outlining their military, economic and diplomatic priorities. But it is the NSS that provides the overarching language that brings these strands into a coherent whole and justifies the nation’s foreign policy to audiences at home and abroad.
Why does the U.S. have a National Security Strategy?
In 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act, which mandated that the president deliver a comprehensive annual “national security strategy report.” Congress hoped the reports would push the president to communicate U.S. strategic interests to the American people.
It took the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 for presidents to produce reports with any regularity. The first official NSS came during the Reagan administration. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton were the only presidents to come close to meeting the annual mandate. The Trump administration released a single NSS, in December 2017.
Who writes the NSS?
The NSS is supposed to represent the president’s vision. It is typically written by the National Security Council. Early drafts are likely to be the work of a small team. In some cases, the document becomes associated with a few key individuals.
For example, Paul Wolfowitz, George W. Bush’s deputy secretary of defense, is closely associated with the Bush administration’s 2002 NSS. Likewise, news reports claim it was Nadia Schadlow, the senior director for strategy on the Trump White House National Security Council, who was largely responsible for the last NSS, in 2017, which may explain why that document’s language seemed inconsistent with Trump’s own public proclamations. Although it is written by a small group, the NSS gets plenty of input from other departments before its release.
Who is the audience for the NSS?
Despite Congress’s intention that the NSS speak to the American people, there is little evidence that the document attracts much public attention. But the NSS does speak to three key audiences.
First, there is Congress. The strategy provides guidance to lawmakers, who are tasked with translating the president’s national security priorities into the budgeting process. For that reason, even senators in Biden’s own party expressed frustration with the delayed NSS. As the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee explained, the NSS is needed to “give us insight into how much to fund and where to fund.”
Biden’s emphasis on economic investment as an instrument of great-power competition is reflected in Congress’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill. It is also a key driver of the Chips and Science Act, which authorized $280 billion for the development of the semiconductor industry.
Second, the document provides guidance to other bureaucracies within the executive branch. The Department of Defense, for example, uses the NSS as the foundation for its main strategic report, the National Defense Strategy. The NSS outlines broad strategic objectives, and the National Defense Strategy translates these into the military planning required for force structures, force modernization, and required human and material resources.
Likewise, one of the goals outlined in this year’s NSS is to increase “connective tissue — on technology, trade and security — between our democratic allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific and Europe.” This goal will guide the Department of Commerce in thinking of ways to use the Chips Act to ensure U.S. leadership in technology. And this goal buoys efforts by the State Department to form private-public partnerships with Silicon Valley.
Xi and Putin have declared a united front against the United States
Third, the NSS communicates U.S. commitments to international audiences. Biden’s NSS proclaims that “a competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next.” It names China as a major strategic competitor and says the United States will continue to contain Russia. It simultaneously promises to pursue competition in an order that is “inclusive” and not divided between autocracies and democracies — a signal that the Biden administration will seek partners across ideological divides.
Does the NSS matter?
Effective grand strategies, the research suggests, should clearly define a nation’s interests and identify threats to those interests — along with how the administration intends to mobilize to address those threats. The NSS is rarely if ever that specific. Indeed, one critic dismissed the NSS as a “rhetorical exercise, characterized by grandiose ambitions and laundry lists of priorities,” rather than an actual exercise in grand strategy.
But the NSS can still reveal some important facts about a president’s grand strategy. And, not surprising, the document shows important shifts between administrations. This isn’t shocking when the presidency changes parties, when we expect to see a change in national security priorities.
What is more interesting is how the NSS reveals shifts within a single party. The 2022 NSS proclamation that the “Post-Cold War era is definitively over” signals a clear move away from the globalization and engagement strategies of the Clinton administration. There is little mention of Afghanistan. The NSS also suggests that the Biden administration is willing to step back from free trade if it hinders the United States’ ability to compete with China.
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The NSS can also point out where there might be arguments about grand strategy within an administration. For example, there is considerable tension within Biden’s NSS over whether U.S. grand strategy will prioritize competition between autocratic and democratic nations, or whether the Biden administration will seek broad cooperation on global challenges — climate change and pandemics, for example.
Finally, while skeptics are correct about the NSS being light on details, it does provide the mobilizing language that makes grand strategy possible. To implement a grand strategy successfully means explaining why a country’s interests and instruments are legitimate. If a president fails to do so, the administration will have difficulty persuading audiences at home and abroad to support U.S. foreign policy. The NSS may be a rhetorical exercise, but it is a necessary one. It is a way for presidents to tell a cohesive story about how the country will secure its ambitions.
Stacie Goddard (@segoddard) is Betty Freyhof Johnson ’44 Professor of Political Science and Paula Phillips Bernstein ’58 Faculty Director of the Madeleine K. Albright Institute for Global Affairs at Wellesley College. She is the author of “When Right Makes Might: Rising Powers and World Order” (Cornell University Press, 2018). | 2022-10-13T17:56:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden's National Security Strategy speaks to 3 key audiences. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/nss-biden-national-security-strategy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/nss-biden-national-security-strategy/ |
This image released by CBS shows senior contributor Ted Koppel, who will host an episode of “CBS Sunday Morning,” discussing the things that divide Americans. The special edition will air on Sunday, Oct. 16. (CBS Sunday Morning via AP) (Uncredited/CBS Sunday Morning)
The “CBS Sunday Morning” special edition was initially planned for more than a month ago, but was put off following Queen Elizabeth II's death. Koppel, who hosted ABC’s “Nightline” from 1980 to 2005, has contributed to the CBS show for about five years. His enthusiasm about the topic led Rand Morrison, “CBS Sunday Morning” executive producer, to suggest that he host it. | 2022-10-13T17:56:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | An anchor again: Ted Koppel hosts show on US divisions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/an-anchor-again-ted-koppel-hosts-show-on-us-divisions/2022/10/13/8ebddbaa-4b11-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/an-anchor-again-ted-koppel-hosts-show-on-us-divisions/2022/10/13/8ebddbaa-4b11-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Juan Soto joined the Padres after the Nationals traded him at the Aug. 2 trade deadline. (Ashley Landis/AP)
This past summer, on one of Juan Soto’s last nights with the Washington Nationals, the loud music between innings kept him from relaying a message to someone in the crowd. So before the top of the second, Soto scribbled a note on a baseball and tossed it to Brian Campbell, who sat in the first row behind Soto in right field.
The creative exchange had nothing to do with the looming trade deadline. Soto lived with Campbell and his family during a three-week stretch with the low Class A Hagerstown Suns in 2018, when Soto was blazing a fast track to the majors. He wanted Campbell to know Telmito Agustin, a former Nationals minor leaguer, was watching the game from behind home plate. And that was it.
Campbell laughed while telling the story, noting how when Soto’s future hung in the balance in late July — when his name trended around even the lightest rumor — the 23-year-old was focused on connecting Campbell and Agustin at Nationals Park. Santo Domingo is home for Soto, who spends every winter in the Dominican Republic, conditioning his legs by running wind sprints on the beach. But Washington was and always will be his first baseball home, something that’s hard to duplicate elsewhere.
Winning more playoff games with the Padres could help. After beating the Dodgers on Wednesday, Soto and the Padres return to Petco Park tied 1-1 in the best-of-five National League Division Series, with Games 3 and 4 scheduled for Friday and Saturday. Back in early September, when Soto was stuck in a slump, Padres fans booed after his final two at-bats of an 0-for-4 day. To his point of the postseason, Soto is 5 for 20 with two walks and no extra-base hits.
“Before he left, I told him: ‘This is going to be weird. The Nationals are all you’ve ever known, so you’re going to have to adjust and get comfortable with a lot of new people,’ ” Nationals Manager Dave Martinez said in August. “But at the same time, my message was that everyone will love you and adapt to you if you perform. That’s what it comes down to. He is an excellent baseball player and has a chance to leave his mark there.”
Three Octobers ago, Soto did that with one massive hit after another. He sealed a wild-card victory over the Milwaukee Brewers with the single that skipped past Trent Grisham and brought in three runs. He teamed with Anthony Rendon to crush back-to-back homers off Clayton Kershaw in Game 5 of the NLDS. Then he smacked three home runs in the World Series, taking Gerrit Cole to the train tracks at Minute Maid Park and Justin Verlander to the upper deck in right.
If the postseason appealed to him then, it still does now.
“This is the big stage,” Soto told the San Diego Union-Tribune before the playoffs. “Everybody wants the big stage. I’m a guy that I want to be there. I want to have the bat in the moment. So even if I fail, or not, I want to be there. I want to be the guy up there.”
Each of those past moments further bonded Soto to the Nationals organization. Title runs tend to do that. So when he was traded on Aug. 2, he wasn’t just leaving Martinez, his coaches and teammates behind. There were also clubhouse attendants, the medical staff, security guards and so on. There was familiarity built over years and years.
“I like to be where I know everyone,” Soto said in a quiet moment by his locker in late June, just before he turned down a 15-year, $440 million offer that could have kept him in D.C. for the rest of his career. “I feel like the Nationals are my family now.”
In the lead-up to the deadline, two front office members said Soto often asked about the Nationals’ progress in the minor leagues. On one hand, that illustrated Soto’s interest in Washington’s prospects and long-term plan. But on the other, it was a reminder that many of Soto’s friends and peers are still hacking it below the majors.
Soto signed with the club as an international free agent in 2015. Elvis Alvarado, another player in that class — and another outfielder from the Dominican — was traded by Washington to the Seattle Mariners before the World Series win and topped out at Class AA in 2022. On multiple occasions since Soto debuted, Campbell drove to Nationals Park and filled his car with gear from Soto, who would stuff backpacks full of batting gloves and shirts.
Soto wanted to make sure his guys had what they needed in Harrisburg and Fredericksburg. They were the guys he grew up with at the Nationals’ academy in the Dominican Republic. They were the guys he drove to and from games in a big van in Hagerstown. They were his roots, and he never forgot it.
This weekend offers a chance to grow some out West.
“Knowing Juan, he will build these relationships again in San Diego,” Campbell said after the trade. “But it takes time.” | 2022-10-13T17:57:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Juan Soto has a chance to plant roots with the Padres this October - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/juan-soto-padres-playoffs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/juan-soto-padres-playoffs/ |
Maryland tackle Spencer Anderson has played chess since he was 8 years old. (Taylor McLaughlin/Maryland Athletics) (Photo by Taylor McLaughlin/Maryland Athletics)
Since his first game as a kid at summer camp, Spencer Anderson has been infatuated with chess. He gravitated to the strategy and anticipation. Now, as a senior tackle at Maryland, Anderson applies his skills on the chessboard to the football field, where he anchors the right side of the Terrapins’ offensive line. Heading into another Big Ten matchup on the road Saturday against Indiana, winning in the trenches will be key as the Terps try to put the Hoosiers in checkmate.
“The way I see it, the O-line is like the pawns, the guys that get everything going. We’re out there in the front,” Anderson said. “I look at it as an offensive side, it’s like, you have 11 players against 11 other players, and you never know what the next person is going to do. It’s all just calculated moves everywhere on the field.”
Chess came with a steep learning curve for Anderson, which could be expected for an 8-year-old. He recalls constantly losing matches against older campers during the first week he played, trying to gain an understanding of the pieces and their movement on the board. But after taking lessons from his losses and watching others play, he quickly improved. A month later, Anderson participated in a camp chess tournament, competing against campers as old as 14.
“I placed third, which I wasn’t too happy with,” Anderson said. “But I was kind of shocked at the same time, like, I was able to do that.”
The experience sparked Anderson’s passion, but his chess career got put on hold when he struggled to find people to play against — until he joined the chess club in high school at Bishop McNamara in Forestville. Rumor has it, he never lost a match.
“I heard there was a group that played chess, and I was like, ‘I want to be a part of this,’” Anderson said. “I was just sitting there and they were shocked because they didn’t know how I was winning or what I was doing. Three-move mates and all different kinds of stuff.”
Anderson said he still utilizes a chess-like mind-set on the football field. He specifically cited the importance of anticipation, understanding what your opponent is trying to accomplish and knowing how they will respond to your actions.
“[If] you see the safety walk down or the corners are off a little differently than they usually are, you know some kinds of blitz is coming,” Anderson said. “You’re just anticipating the next thing because you always want to have the upper hand on your opponent in chess. I feel like it’s the equivalent on the football field because if you know, like, a blitz is coming, you can react faster instead of being behind the block or being delayed.”
While the Terps’ offensive line has put together solid stretches of play this season, there is still room for improvement. Entering Saturday, Maryland is tied for seventh in the 14-team Big Ten in sacks allowed, averaging 1.8 per game.
In this past Saturday’s loss to Purdue, the Terps (4-2, 1-2 Big Ten) allowed three sacks, and junior quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa was often under duress. The task gets no easier against Indiana (3-3, 1-2), which is tied for fourth in the Big Ten in sacks, averaging 2.3 per game.
“They try to play fast on defense,” Maryland Coach Michael Locksley said of the Hoosiers. “They’re a heavy blitz team. They’re a team that’s going to attack our quarterback. About 60 percent of snaps, on all down and distance, are pressure. That’s six-, seven-, eight-man pressures, which we’ve got to be able to handle with poise and confidence.”
To decrypt Indiana’s exotic looks, which are unlike any the Terps have faced this season, communication will be vital. The responsibility falls on the entire offensive line.
“There’s times where the center can only see so much because he already has his hand on the ball. He’s already down, so there’s already stuff that he can’t see,” Anderson said. “We can look at the rotation of the safeties or linebackers. You can kind of see the linebackers changing something or the weight in somebody’s hand and stance, just trying to anticipate the next move and anticipate what you’re going to do.”
While Maryland prepares for the challenge of Indiana’s pass rush, Anderson continues to work on his anticipation on and off the field. Though he does not get to play chess as often as he’d like, Anderson finds time to sharpen his skills against computer opponents. Moving forward, he said he will continue to pursue his hobby, hopefully finding more human opponents to play against.
“I want to play more,” Anderson said. “I feel like I’m going to be that old guy in the park with my clock and my chessboard.” | 2022-10-13T17:57:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland tackle Spencer Anderson is a chess whiz off the field - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/spencer-anderson-maryland-chess/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/spencer-anderson-maryland-chess/ |
FILE - Argentina’s Diego Maradona, left, beats England goalkeeper Peter Shilton to a high ball and scores his first of two goals in a World Cup quarterfinal soccer match, in Mexico City, on June 22, 1986. The ball used when Maradona scored his “Hand of God” goal against England at the 1986 World Cup has been put up for auction by the Tunisian referee who was in charge of the game. Graham Budd Auctions said Thursday Oct. 13, 2022 that they expect the 36-year-old Adidas ball, which referee Ali Bin Nasser owns, to fetch between $2.7 million and $3.3 million when it goes up for sale in Britain on Nov. 16, four days before the World Cup in Qatar kicks off. (AP Photo/El Grafico, File) (Uncredited/WCSCC EL GRAFICO) | 2022-10-13T17:59:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maradona 'Hand of God' World Cup ball to be auctioned - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/maradona-hand-of-god-world-cup-ball-to-be-auctioned/2022/10/13/4935766a-4b1b-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/maradona-hand-of-god-world-cup-ball-to-be-auctioned/2022/10/13/4935766a-4b1b-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Wes Moore launches ad highlighting his military service
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore talks to reporters after a debate with his Republican Dan Cox on Oct. 12 in Owings Mills, Md. (Brian Witte/AP)
Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Wes Moore is taking his pitch to Fox News with a new 30-second ad that will air in the Baltimore and Salisbury markets over the next several weeks.
The ad is Moore’s first since facing his Republican opponent, Dan Cox, in the election’s only debate on Wednesday, which laid bare sharp contrasts between the two on abortion, crime and election integrity, among other things.
The 30-second spot, which comes less than four weeks until Election Day, highlights Moore’s military service and his overall campaign strategy, which includes wooing Republican and independent voters.
“When we say we want to talk to all voters across the state, we mean all of them,” Carter Elliott IV, a campaign spokesman, said of targeting Fox News. In addition to Fox, the ad will air on other local broadcast stations.
Maryland voters, tell us what you want to hear from candidates for governor.
Moore, a best-selling author, veteran and former head of a nonprofit, holds a commanding lead in the race against Cox, a conservative state delegate from Frederick County. A recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that the Democratic nominee is ahead by 32 percentage points.
The ad features retired Army Capt. Devin Flavin, who served with Moore in Afghanistan, and attests to his leadership abilities. He said Moore is a Rhodes Scholar “who could have been doing anything, but he volunteered to put his life on the line for our country. To me, that says all you need to know.”
The ad, which the campaign says will cost six figures, offers no mention of Moore’s platform. It is the second ad the campaign has bought since Moore clinched the Democratic nomination in July. In the last 30 days, Moore has spent $138,000 on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm.
Elliott said the new ad is the start of “an aggressive media strategy to connect with voters all across Maryland.”
Early voting in Maryland begins on Oct. 27 and Election Day is Nov. 8. | 2022-10-13T18:12:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wes Moore launches new ad in Maryland governor's race - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/wes-moore-governor-ad/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/wes-moore-governor-ad/ |
Cuba Gooding Jr. gets no prison time in forcible touching case
Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. on Thursday in a Manhattan courtroom. (Mike Segar/Reuters)
Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. will not receive any prison time after following the terms of a plea agreement worked out in April, when he pleaded guilty to forcibly touching a woman at the Lavo New York nightclub in 2018.
The case was resolved Thursday in Manhattan Criminal Court, where it was established that Gooding, 54, complied with the requirements that he have no new arrests and attend six more months of the alcohol and behavior modification counseling he began in 2019. A spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office confirmed on Thursday that Gooding withdrew his previous misdemeanor plea and instead pleaded guilty to a lesser harassment violation.
As a result, Gooding, who could have received up to a year in prison had he not complied with the terms, will not have a criminal record. He still faces two pending civil lawsuits, also accusing him of sexual misconduct.
Attorney Frank Rothman, who represented Gooding in the criminal case, said that everything went for his client as planned and that prison time was “never on the table.”
“At the end of the day, after the DA’s office examined the pros and cons of going forward with, I’ll say, questionable evidence … they finally struck a compromise with us that satisfied both the prosecution and the defense,” Rothman said. “Though clearly, some of the complainants were not satisfied. Time to move on.”
The Oscar-winning actor was arrested in June 2019 on suspicion of forcible touching after a woman told police he touched her without her consent at the Magic Hour Rooftop Bar and Lounge. Gooding pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge. A few months later, two more women accused Gooding of forcibly touching them, one of them citing an incident at Tao Downtown in 2018 and the other at the Lavo nightclub that same year.
Dozens of women have come forward with allegations against Gooding. In April, he pleaded guilty to forcibly kissing the Lavo nightclub waitress. According to the Associated Press, she said in a victim impact statement read into the record during court proceedings that Gooding had seen “minimal repercussions” for his actions. | 2022-10-13T19:05:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cuba Gooding Jr. gets no prison time in forcible touching case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/13/cuba-gooding-jr-no-prison/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/13/cuba-gooding-jr-no-prison/ |
D.C. bar that flouted vaccine rules sues city health department
The Big Board had its liquor license suspended in February. It reopened in March. (Justin Wm. Moyer/The Washington Post)
A D.C. bar that was championed by conservatives earlier this year after it lost its liquor license for violating vaccine rules sued the city’s health department Thursday, alleging the District had no authority to close it.
The Big Board, in Northeast Washington’s H Street corridor, had its liquor license suspended in February after receiving two $1,000 citations and multiple verbal warnings about allowing employees to go unmasked and not checking customers’ vaccine status.
“Until the Mayor change[s] her mind on the orders, I am not going to change mine,” Eric Flannery, the Big Board’s manager, said during one inspection, according to the bar’s suspension notice. The bar reopened in March after raising tens of thousands of dollars from a crowdfunding campaign and paying $4,000 in fines without admitting wrongdoing.
D.C. bar that broke vaccine rules closed for health violations
On Thursday, the Big Board filed a lawsuit against the District claiming that Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and the D.C. Council had no right to create mask and vaccine requirements without congressional approval.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said that Congress has a 30-day review period to invalidate legislation — or 90 days in the case of emergency legislation. Amid the pandemic, policymakers ignored this standard, according to the suit.
“The Mayor’s rolling ‘emergency’ orders authorized by the D.C. Council’s successive emergency amendments make a mockery of this constitutional requirement,” the suit said. “The repeated extension of emergency orders for months on end, authorized by the D.C. Council’s emergency legislation — which was not approved by Congress — have thwarted Congress’s reserved constitutional power.”
The suit sought a declaration that the District’s actions were unlawful and unspecified compensatory damages.
“This case is not just about The Big Board,” Robert Alt, president and chief executive of the conservative Buckeye Institute and one of Flannery’s attorneys, said in a statement. “It is about ensuring that government abides by the U.S. Constitution even during emergencies including global pandemics — perhaps especially then.”
The D.C. attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As conservatives pushed back against vaccine rules across the country last winter, the Big Board became a mascot for their movement. Lawmakers including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) stopped by to voice their support.
“It’s a big decision — civil resistance, civil disobedience — when you lose your livelihood,” Paul said at the restaurant in January.
In a February interview, Flannery said taking a stand against vaccine rules was “the right thing to do” because “bars and restaurants should be places where everybody’s welcome.” | 2022-10-13T19:22:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. bar that flouted vaccine rules sues city health department - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/big-board-covid-mandate-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/big-board-covid-mandate-lawsuit/ |
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) in December on Capitol Hill. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine announced a lawsuit against a chemical manufacturer on Thursday, alleging that its pesticide contaminated the Potomac and the Anacostia rivers for decades with chemicals it knew were linked to cancer.
Flanked by environmentalists and representatives of the local NAACP, Racine (D) said at a news conference that the effects of Velsicol Chemical’s alleged contamination particularly hit “low-income Black and Brown” residents, in a case that bridges environmental and racial justice.
“The history of our country is such that whenever there is trash that needs to be disposed of or there are things that could hurt people, it always went to where people had less power,” Racine said. “And, yes, that means Black and Brown communities.”
Beginning in 1945, Illinois-based Velsicol was the sole maker of chlordane as a pesticide for killing insects, Racine said. But while the company was aware the product could cause cancer by 1959, he alleged, Velsicol opted for a campaign of “misinformation and deception” and continued to sell the product until 1988.
The lawsuit says studies have linked long-term exposure to chlordane to live cancer, as well as miscarriages, depression and bone-marrow diseases. “Even short exposure to chlordane has been linked to central nervous system symptoms, such as headaches, blurred vision, dizziness, slight involuntary muscular movements, tremor, sweating, insomnia, nausea, and general malaise,” it says.
According to the complaint, chlordane “builds up over time in fish, birds, and mammals, and is found in food, air, water, soil and sediment.” D.C. residents, it says, “then are exposed to chlordane from eating contaminated food such as marine life, breathing contaminated air, or drinking contaminated water.”
Racine alleged that the health effects of the chemical in the area continue.
“That’s the way dangerous chemicals work: They don’t just go away if you put water on them,” he said Thursday. “They continue to work on people and continue to make them sick.”
A 2016 analysis of the District’s 38 miles of rivers and streams found that 20 miles were “not in compliance with the water quality standards for chlordane.” The lawsuit highlighted Poplar Point on the Anacostia as a particular hot zone of contamination.
According to the lawsuit, by the time chlordane was banned by the federal government in 1988, “approximately 30 million homes and structures in the United States” had been treated with it. | 2022-10-13T19:22:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cancer-causing pesticide polluted local rivers for decades, D.C. alleges - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/dc-anacostia-potomac-river-pollution-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/dc-anacostia-potomac-river-pollution-lawsuit/ |
Two people arrested, charged in D.C. puppy thefts
Officials said two puppies are still missing, and a reward of up to $7,500 is being offered
Godiva, the mother dog, watches as some of her pups play. She and her seven pups went missing in D.C. Two of the pups still haven’t been found. (Humane Rescue Alliance)
Two people have been arrested in connection with a mother dog and her seven pups that went missing in the District.
Officials with the Humane Rescue Alliance and D.C. police said late Thursday that they had arrested and charged Zenobia Fisher and Alphonso Allen. Both are from Northeast Washington, and officials said the pair sold at least four of the seven puppies. They have both been charged with second-degree theft and animal cruelty.
Over the past month, rescuers found the mother dog, named Godiva, and five of her seven pups. But two are still missing, and officials said they have no leads. A reward of up to $7,500 has been offered to those who have returned the pups or have information in the case.
The dogs’ saga started this summer. Godiva was picked up by the animal rescue group. She was pregnant and malnourished. But after care, she successfully gave birth to a litter of pups in early August.
The fifth of seven stolen puppies is returned in D.C.
In mid-August, officials said Fisher gave rescue officials a fake name and address and began fostering Godiva, a 1-year-old who is believed to be a Labrador mix, and her seven two-week old puppies.
But humane rescue officials said they were not able to reach Fisher after she took the dogs. They then figured out her real identity and realized she and Allen had sold at least four of the puppies to different people.
Animal rescue officials eventually found Godiva and five of her pups, as some people who bought them from the pair returned them to authorities. The five pups that have been found have been reunited with their mother.
Rescue officials said they are going to start the adoption process this week for those dogs. Some of them will go to people who had unsuspectingly bought them and then returned them to humane rescue officials.
Since being back with her pups, Godiva has been “an incredible mom,” rescuers said, as she’s taught her puppies how to care for themselves and how to socialize. Rescuers said in a statement that “her maternal guidance has been a crucial part of their puppyhood.”
The pups — named Link, Apollo, Oli, Glitter and Aries — love to wrestle and play with each other, and they take turns dragging their favorite large rope toy around a yard. They often cuddle together for nap times.
Humane rescue officials said they have run their foster-care program for animals for 15 years and never had a case like this one. They said it had devastated their staff when the dogs were stolen, and each time one had been found there was a sense of relief.
Anyone with information in the case or details of where the remaining two pups are is asked to call officials at 202-723-5730. | 2022-10-13T19:22:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Arrests made in dog theft case in D.C. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/dog-theft-arrests-made-in-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/dog-theft-arrests-made-in-dc/ |
D.C. Council could delay coronavirus vaccine mandate for kids
Councilmembers will vote on emergency and temporary legislation Nov. 1
D.C. At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson will propose the D.C. Council delay enactment of a youth covid-19 vaccination mandate until the 2023-2024 school year. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
A year after introducing a law that requires D.C. students over 12 to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, Councilmember Christina Henderson will put forward emergency and temporary legislation to delay the plan by another school year.
The delayed deadline will go up for a vote Nov. 1, Henderson (I-At Large) told The Washington Post.
The earlier law was introduced in October 2021 and passed two months later. It was set to be enforced at the beginning of this school year, but to give more time for schools to prepare and students to get vaccinated, city officials extended the deadline until Jan. 3.
In the year since that law was introduced, much has changed about the way public health officials understand the coronavirus, Henderson said. Experts and schools have relaxed guidance around masking and social distancing. Universities and school districts have abandoned consideration of vaccine mandates. Nationwide, covid-related deaths have fallen considerably.
Henderson said she wants to delay the city’s coronavirus vaccine mandate so that it takes effect during the 2023-2024 school year and, in the meantime, revisit the measure — which could include conversations over whether it should exist at all.
“I have no ego about this and saying that revisiting is worth it,” Henderson said in an interview. “For me, it’s about the science evolving.”
Enforcement of D.C.’s routine vaccination has a complicated rollout
Thomas Farley, senior deputy director for D.C. Health’s community health administration, said the coronavirus could be heading toward the direction of being treated like the flu, where people get shots annually as the virus changes.
“We know that the covid virus continues to evolve, and I’m sure will continue to evolve in the future, so we will probably need to have boosters that get updated to match the variants of the virus that change,” Farley said Tuesday during a D.C. Council hearing about the city’s youth vaccine policy. “Right now there is a new booster that is matching the strains that are out here today. I’m guessing about a year from now, we’ll have another one.”
Henderson said that testimony, as well as updates from other health officials, have raised questions about whether policies surrounding the coronavirus should mirror guidance around the flu — meaning schools should strongly encourage, not require, students get shots.
“But we need more time and understanding,” Henderson said. “So that is why, when [D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson] and I discussed it, that is why we thought first doing a delay until school year 23-24 was appropriate, and then for us in the new council period to have a fuller conversation around what happens next.”
Meanwhile, vaccine hesitancy remains a challenge in the District. The city has hosted pop-up clinics and other events designed to make access to the shot easy. Still, more than 45 percent of children over the age of 12 — who must comply with the mandate — had not yet been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus as of Sept. 27.
Ward 8 has the largest share of noncompliant students, with roughly 62 percent of children not fully vaccinated. The majority of residents living there are Black, and could be disproportionately affected if the city enforces the mandate and bars noncompliant students from school.
Citywide, 58 percent of Black 12-15-year-olds and 63 percent of Black 16- and 17-year-olds are vaccinated, compared to 93 percent of White students in both age groups, according to D.C. Health. Enforcing the mandate, education advocates have warned, will keep the children who fell furthest behind academically during the pandemic out of school.
Henderson said the desire to revisit the legislation she introduced has been under consideration for some time. It was not influenced, she said, by the city’s recent struggle to enforce its mandate for routine vaccinations.
This week marked the first deadline in a staggered approach that aims to have every student — in public, private, charter and parochial schools — vaccinated against illness including polio and measles. Many children fell behind while they were away from their doctors during the pandemic.
All prekindergarten through fifth-grade students were supposed to be fully vaccinated by Tuesday. Middle and high school students must comply by Nov. 4.
But enforcement was complicated by data-reporting issues and communications lapses. School officials said they received late or incomplete vaccination data that did not match the reality of their schools, which stoked fears of inadvertently excluding compliant children. Some charter schools had problems notifying the families of noncompliant children by a citywide Sept. 7 deadline, and will not enforce the mandate until next week.
Given those difficulties, some council and school leaders on Tuesday expressed concern about how the coronavirus vaccine mandate will be enforced in January.
More than 1,100 students in D.C.’s traditional public schools remained out of compliance for routine vaccinations Tuesday morning — 510 families said they have pending documentation that proves their children are vaccinated, 575 families agreed to make appointments and 24 families refused to comply and are being excluded from school, district officials said. Another 300 children were absent.
Citywide, fewer than 50 children were excluded from school Tuesday, according to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.
Routine vaccine requirements are enforced throughout the country. Officials in the District have historically ignored its long-held rule, but with the recent resurgence of polio, measles and meningitis, enforcement this year became crucial.
“We don’t need that to happen here in D.C.,” Henderson said. “So, yes, we are going to continue to press on the routine immunization front.” | 2022-10-13T19:23:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. council to consider delaying covid vaccine mandate for students - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/13/dc-schools-covid-vaccine-mandate-delay/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/13/dc-schools-covid-vaccine-mandate-delay/ |
Thomas Lynch, president and director of the center, rebranded this month as Fred Hutch, but widely known as The Hutch, said he worked with Mike and Jackie Bezos, who made the gift, to understand what motivated their giving. Jackie Bezos is the mother of Amazon found Jeff Bezos, while her husband, Mike, is Jeff Bezos’ stepfather. Jeff Bezos, the world's second wealthiest person, stepped down from his role as CEO of Amazon in July 2021. | 2022-10-13T19:57:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bezos family donates $710M to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/bezos-family-donates-710m-to-fred-hutchinson-cancer-center/2022/10/12/5dcb31d8-4a43-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/bezos-family-donates-710m-to-fred-hutchinson-cancer-center/2022/10/12/5dcb31d8-4a43-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Studies add to the literature showing how people act out aggressively when it’s hot.
As temperatures around the world increase, scientists have documented large-scale environmental effects — rising sea-levels, drought and famine, intense flooding and the disappearance of species.
But increasingly, some researchers worry that higher temperatures might also contribute to people behaving badly.
One study found hate speech on social media escalated with high temperatures. Another reported an increase in workplace harassment and discrimination at the U.S. Postal Service when the temperature eclipsed 90 degrees.
Together, the studies add to a growing literature which connects heat to aggressive behavior.
Online hate speech heats up at high temperatures
It’s well-known that social media brings out bad behavior. Heat further fans the flames.
Researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research found an increase in hate speech of up to 22 percent on Twitter when temperatures are above 107 degrees. They also found extreme cold boosts offensive tweets, with a 12.5 percent increase when it was below 27 degrees.
To determine the relationship between hate speech and temperature, researchers used a machine-learning algorithm to analyze 75 million hate tweets from a database containing over 4 billion tweets posted by people across the United States between 2014 and 2020. The tweets spanned 773 cities across the country.
Researchers relied on the U.N. Strategy and Plan of Action definition of hate speech: any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender or other identity factor.
Aggressive behavior was the tamest between 54 to 70 degrees, according to the peer reviewed study, published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health. While researchers found that the “feel-good window” varies based on climate zones, temperatures above 81 degrees were consistently linked to significant increases in online hate across all climate zones.
“This points … to limits in our capability to adapt to extreme temperatures,” said Leonie Wenz, study co-author and researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
As summers get warmer and the number of heat waves increases, researchers fear that there will be an increase in online hate. Summer 2022 ranked among the hottest summers worldwide on record, according to NASA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
“I do think that as living in a climate impacted world increases our stress and precarity, we will see increases in aggression online as well,” said Libby Hemphill, an associate professor from the University of Michigan who studies hate speech and social media, who was not involved in the study.
There is an uptick hate speech and other forms of aggression anytime people feel “threatened,” according to Hemphill, which can lead people to make “bad decisions.”
“It makes sense to me that climate threat would have the same impact or a similar impact to all these other types of threats that stress people out and make them lash out,” she said.
Heat boosts harassment, discrimination cases at the U.S. Postal Service
From the blistering temperatures in the Southwest to the suffocating humidity in the Southeast, postal workers must carry out their jobs in challenging conditions, which are only getting worse as heat waves become more prolonged, frequent and intense.
In recent years, postal workers have walked off the job because of sweltering temperatures in facilities without air conditioning and complained about unbearable working conditions.
A 2019 report from the Center for Public Integrity said Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited USPS for “exposing about 900 employees across the country to the risks of heat-related illness and death” dating back to 2012.
Lawmakers have held hearings on the matter and put forward legislation to confront the problems.
Working under such sweltering, dangerous conditions has subjected some postal workers to a hostile working environment. The peer reviewed study published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found that on days above 90 degrees, workers faced heightened workplace harassment and discrimination from managers and supervisors.
The study, by PhD candidate Ayushi Narayan at Harvard University, examined over 800,000 Equal Employment Opportunity charges filed by USPS employees between 2004 and 2019. The report found that EEO incidents increased by roughly 5 percent on days over 90 degrees compared to days when temperatures were between 60 and 70 degrees.
Complaints spanned from more than 12,000 USPS offices across the country.
“I find that incidents rise when the temperatures are high,” Narayan said. “Reducing the environmental exposure to extreme heat, either via climate policies or various adaptations could lower the amount of discrimination experienced by workers.”
The USPS did not immediately reply to questions about the study and the American Postal Workers Union declined to comment.
Lowering temperatures and tempers
Heat as an aggravator isn’t a new concept. For years psychologists and social scientists have documented the relationship between high temperatures, aggressive motivation and behavior, and crime.
Some researchers point to the fact that the human body generates adrenaline in response to excessive heat, which can lead to aggression as a side effect. Some point to warm temperatures increasing heart rate, testosterone and other metabolic reactions which trigger “fight or flight” reactions.
Craig Anderson, a psychology professor at the University of Iowa who has studied the relationship between violence and heat since 1979, has written that climate change will directly increase human aggression and violence through what he calls the “heat effect.” The effect suggests that as people become uncomfortably hot, they become more irritable, think more aggressively, perceive other actions with hostility and behave more violently.
“As global warming increases, there will be, in fact already is, an increase in the frequency with which people are uncomfortably warm or uncomfortably hot,” Anderson said in an interview. “That in itself can lead to decision-making and behaviors that are more aggressive and under some circumstances can lead to increases in violent behavior.”
Other field studies Anderson has reviewed found that homicides, major assaults, police calls, domestic violence and other violent behavior all increase when temperatures are warmer.
Experts agree slowing climate change can keep heat-inflamed behavior in check. | 2022-10-13T19:57:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hotter days bring out hotter tempers, research finds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/13/heat-hate-speech-aggression-climate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/13/heat-hate-speech-aggression-climate/ |
Mallory Stanislawczyk, a disabled former nurse practitioner who suffers from a post-covid condition, gives herself a saline infusion in her Walkersville, Md., home in May 2022. She is one of an estimated 7 million to 23 million Americans who experience long covid. (Matt Roth for The Washington Post)
Nearly three years into the coronavirus pandemic, the long-lasting consequences of covid-19 are becoming more evident. What we don’t know: the exact causes of long covid. What we don’t have: a test to diagnose the condition.
Most people who develop covid recover quickly, but a subset suffer new or ongoing health problems that are first identified at least four weeks after infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers — including from the National Institutes of Health, which was awarded more than $1 billion over four years to support research, and groups of patient-researchers — are working to develop a better understanding of the prolonged health consequences of infection with the virus.
“So many of the questions don’t yet have good answers,” said Harlan Krumholz, a professor of medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine, who has been studying long covid.
How big a problem is long covid?
What are the big unanswered questions about long covid?
Are there promising treatments? | 2022-10-13T19:58:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What you need to know about the latest on long covid - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/13/long-covid-whats-new/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/13/long-covid-whats-new/ |
Young Iranian Americans are organizing in wake of Iran protests
Demonstrators hold the Iranian flag during a protest in Los Angeles on Oct. 1, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in custody of Iran's morality police. (Apu Gomes/AFP/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES — Mana Shooshtari remembers the moment she heard about Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who died in the custody of Iran’s notorious “morality police.”
Shooshtari, 22, was scrolling through Instagram when she saw a post from her best friend about Amini, who was detained for allegedly violating Iran’s conservative dress code. “My stomach instantly dropped,” Shooshtari said recently at an Iranian American civic leadership conference at the University of California at Los Angeles, organized by the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans.
Since then, Shooshtari has taken to Twitter and Instagram to highlight Iran’s ongoing protests, which were sparked by Amini’s death. Dozens of people — including several teenagers — have been killed by the country’s security forces while protesting the systemic oppression of women in the country.
She has been using social media to “amplify videos and photos that are coming out of Iran that showcase the sheer brutality of the regime and just how courageous the protesters are being,” she said.
Across the United States, many young Iranian Americans are doing the same. Some have taken to social media to support the Iranian activists; others are joining and organizing demonstrations calling for change. They are fueled, they say, by a sense of justice and a desire to be part of what feels like a potentially pivotal moment in Iran’s history.
“I never thought in my lifetime that I could see another revolution,” said 27-year-old Los Angeles native Roxanna Ameri, who was drinking tea at the Persian Gulf Bakery, Cafe and Wine bar one recent evening.
Ameri grew up in “Tehrangeles,” a community of Iranian immigrants in L.A. The Persian community in Southern California — with enclaves in Westwood and Orange County — is the largest outside of Iran.
Signs of solidarity with Iranian protesters pepper the neighborhood. Some local businesses have been flying the large, tricolor Iranian flag from before the country’s 1979 revolution, emblazoned with a yellow lion, a symbol that has come to signify opposition to Iran’s theocratic regime, instead of a red takbir, a symbol on the flag of the country’s current Islamic republic.
At Persian Gulf, Iran’s pre-Islamic Revolution flag is draped over a leather sofa and table carefully arranged with roses and candles. The memorial was assembled by Persian Gulf’s owner and longtime Iranian pro-democracy activist, Roozbeh Farahanipour. Photos of the six young women who were killed during the uprising adorn the table.
Ameri said she is not simply moved to act because she is Iranian. “While I certainly have a personal connection and interest in the culture that raised me,” she said, “my real conviction stems from how inspired I’ve been by the sheer fearlessness of these young girls who are quite literally risking their lives every day fighting for their basic freedoms.”
Anger against Iran’s ‘morality police’ erupts after death of Mahsa Amini
For some young Iranians in America, particularly those with close ties to the country, the protests have also created a sense of fear.
Delbar Hamzehpour, 23, an Iranian student in Los Angeles and an employee at Persian Gulf, struggled to use the internet while visiting Iran this fall. “I couldn’t open my WhatsApp,” she said. She participated in some of the recent protests, which she called “horrifying.”
But she was also inspired by what she was seeing. “It seems like there’s a new revolution.”
Arman Karshenas, 24, a University of California at Berkeley student from Tehran, said he has been worried about his friends in the country. “I sent one of my best friends back in Iran a message six days ago and I got a reply yesterday,” he said. “You have no idea, with another day, if something has happened.”
Others have focused on activism.
Students across the country have been mobilizing around the cause, including at universities in South Carolina, Maryland, Ohio and Michigan. Samin Aayanifard, 28, a Michigan State University student who is president of its Iranian Student Association, said the group has posted extensively on social media and organized multiple demonstrations in support of human rights in Iran the past few weeks.
These young Iranians say the activism is important because it raises awareness, especially among people who aren’t familiar with the crackdown.
“I was just shocked by how silent, in general, my non-Iranian friends were on social media about this subject,” Ameri said. “I would have expected them to be a little bit more vocal about such a massive women’s rights movement. However, it’s pretty hard to be vocal about something that you’re not educated on.”
That’s why Ameri, in addition to attending protests and organizing events in L.A., has taken to Instagram to engage her friends in supporting the cause.
“I think if you’re someone who is afraid that if you just post about it, but don’t do anything, you’re almost doing nothing. That’s not true,” she said. “Even if you post one thing about this, even if you just inform yourself a little bit, it makes an impact.”
Elham Yaghoubian, a veteran Iranian American author and activist based in L.A., helped organize the 1999 pro-democracy student demonstrations in Iran with Persian Gulf owner Farahanipour. Yaghoubian said she is disappointed that U.S. elected officials have done little to support Iranians protesting the regime.
“Officials calling themselves women rights’ activists … are pretending they’re fighting for women’s rights, but none of them open their mouths or show their support,” she said.
Several U.S. officials, including President Biden, have expressed their support of the protests.
Bijan Khalili, a longtime Iranian American activist who was imprisoned following the 1979 revolution, said he is impressed by the way the ongoing protests have transcended divisions within the Iranian community and its diaspora. “This uprising is secular, it’s not directed by any religion or by any ideology,” he said.
But some Kurdish American youth say they feel left out of the discourse surrounding Amini’s death.
Amini was Kurdish and lived in Kurdistan province in northwestern Iran, where its long-marginalized Kurdish communities are centered. Kurds have communities in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. They face discrimination across the region.
Iranian Kurds have long sought an autonomous region of their own within Iran, who frequently uses force to suppress Kurdish nationalism and protests. During this autumn’s ongoing uprising, Iran twice struck bases of Kurdish parties in exile across the border in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region. Iraqi Kurdistan was a key ally in the U.S. fight against the Islamic State, although the U.S. government has not officially supported the formation of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan.
Mazi Mustafa, 17, a Kurdish American who lives in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., said she feels Kurdish identity has been “over-washed” by the focus on Iranian identity at large by the media and activists alike.
“What we face is different from just ‘Iranian,’ the term,” Mustafa said. “So I think as youth, we should just make sure we’re educating people on who we are and what we’re fighting for and our history.”
Mustafa flew Kurdistan’s flag at the downtown Los Angeles protest on Oct. 1 that drew thousands of people, she said, adding that there was a mix of Iranian and Kurdish flags at the event.
Ameri also attended that protest, in addition to organizing a Tuesday event at the all-girls’ Marlborough School in central L.A. on behalf of the Iranian American Women Foundation, a national women’s empowerment group founded in Orange County.
“These [Iranian women] are the most fearless, brave women I’ve ever seen,” she said. “And for us to act cowardly in response and not speak out … is just something that doesn’t sit well with me.”
Miriam Berger contributed to this report. | 2022-10-13T19:58:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Young Iranian Americans are organizing in wake of Iran protests - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/young-iranian-americans-are-organizing-wake-iran-protests/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/young-iranian-americans-are-organizing-wake-iran-protests/ |
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