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Max Woodward, Kennedy Center theater executive, dies at 76
He joined the performing arts center in 1971 as an usher and worked his way into theater programming
By Bart Barnes
Max Woodward in 2016 at the Kennedy Center. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
Max Woodward, who joined the Kennedy Center’s staff as an usher when the performing arts center opened in 1971 and retired in 2016 as vice president of theater programming, overseeing touring Broadway productions and original shows, died Oct. 14 at a care center in Washington. He was 76.
The cause was complications from Alzheimer’s disease, said a friend, Steven Suskind.
From usher, Mr. Woodward slowly advanced through the accounting department to managing the Eisenhower Theatre and eventually overseeing the Opera House, the Terrace Theatre and the Concert Hall.
In those cases, he said, his work entailed “starting a show from absolute scratch. You pick a project, you get the rights, hire designers, choreographers and all of that, and put it into rehearsal. The first day of rehearsal is the most wonderful day. That’s the part I will miss the most.”
Max Arthur Woodward was born in Masontown, Pa., south of Pittsburgh, on June 20, 1946. After graduating from high school in 1964, he worked as an FBI file clerk and served in the Army in Frankfurt, Germany, before settling in Washington in 1967 after his discharge.
Survivors included his partner of six years, Bill Wooby of Washington; and a brother. | 2022-10-14T15:48:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Max Woodward, Kennedy Center theater executive, dies at 76 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/14/max-woodward-dead-kennedy-center/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/14/max-woodward-dead-kennedy-center/ |
Plus, an ACC rivalry reset, five teams with the most at stake and Heisman Watch
Michigan will get its first true test of the season when Penn State visits Saturday. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Michigan is halfway through its 12-game regular season. Penn State has nearly reached its midpoint.
And yet it’s reasonable to wonder just how good either of these undefeated teams is — and whether their meeting Saturday at Michigan will resolve that uncertainty.
This isn’t to suggest either team is in poor shape. No. 5 Michigan (6-0, 3-0 Big Ten) and No. 10 Penn State (5-0, 2-0) have handled the tasks in front of them to this point. The Wolverines, by dint of their playoff appearance last season, have benefited from a perception bump from the start of the season. Penn State, by virtue of its undefeated record and being Penn State, has climbed into the top 10 nationally.
Michigan has trailed for a grand total of 12 minutes 53 seconds, all in the second quarter of a Sept. 24 defeat of Maryland. Since a seesaw opener at Purdue, the Nittany Lions played from behind for just 3 minutes 59 seconds (a 3-0 deficit at Auburn) over four games.
Michigan coach who collapsed on sideline ‘trending in a positive direction’
At the same time, Michigan’s six opponents to date are a combined 15-21 (and only 4-2 Maryland is above .500). Penn State’s five foes have mustered a 12-18 mark (with 4-2 Purdue the only one with a winning record).
There are a few things to infer about both. Michigan is probably going to hold up on the defensive end, and the Wolverines are likely to keep leaning on Blake Corum and the rushing game while putting sophomore quarterback J.J. McCarthy into position to make high-percentage throws.
The Nittany Lions are probably much-improved against the run like their numbers suggest, and their third-down efficiency against a suspect schedule (33.8 percent, which ranks 103rd nationally) will put an onus of making progress early in each series on offense.
Still, there’s a lot of unknowns, and the absence of high-end nonconference games doesn’t help matters. (Penn State warrants credit for going on the road to Auburn, which is in the middle of a mediocre season). And without many rigorous tests to this point, it raises questions about why Penn State committed five turnovers against Northwestern (the weather didn’t help in what turned into a 17-7 victory) and why Michigan didn’t create separation from Indiana last week until the fourth quarter.
This may turn out to be one of the games of the year. Or not. For a game with no shortage of hype in mid-October, there’s still a lot to learn about both the Wolverines and the Nittany Lions.
Rivalry reset
Almost two decades ago, the freshly expanded ACC was trying to reorient itself. A league long known as basketball first, basketball second and basketball third had started pillaging the Big East, and its upgraded 12-team configuration included four schools clearly known more for football than basketball.
On one side of the league, the ACC placed Bowden Bowl rivals Clemson and Florida State. On the other, Big East imports Miami and Virginia Tech. Those pairings figured to go a long way in deciding the league in the years to come.
(There is an argument for a couple other ACC schools of that time to be viewed as more football-leaning. Apologies to Boston College and, to a much lesser extent, Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets, after all, made Final Four trips in 1990 and 2004).
Clemson-Florida State certainly did; the two schools combined for every Atlantic Division title from 2009 and 2019 and combined for three national titles in that span. Virginia Tech did its part for a while, making five of the first seven ACC title games before fading over the last decade. The Hokies won four league titles (including 2004, when there wasn’t a league title game), which is four more than Miami has.
All of which brings things to this weekend’s schedule and the last time both series will be contested under the ACC’s divisional format. Appropriately, the significance of both rivalries appears headed in different directions.
No. 4 Clemson (6-0, 4-0 ACC) has won six consecutive meetings with Florida State (4-2, 2-2), though the Seminoles were more competitive last year (their 30-20 loss looks worse thanks to a Clemson fumble recovery for a touchdown on the game’s final play). That showing is a fine avatar for Florida State finally shaking off an extended slumber, and things appear to be progressing in Tallahassee.
While that prime-time encounter has some intrigue, Miami-Virginia Tech … does not. The Hurricanes (2-3, 0-1) have dropped three in a row. The Hokies (2-4, 1-2) have a matching three-game slide. Neither appears likely to contribute heavily to the final round of the high jinks of Coastal Chaos.
A postscript as the ACC moves into a single-division schedule model next season: Clemson-Florida State will remain an annual game. And Miami-Virginia Tech, a staple of the 1990s Big East and a rivalry that didn’t quite live up to expectations for the ACC, will end up being played twice every four years instead.
1. Penn State. The Nittany Lions have had real road tests (Purdue and Auburn) and the benefit of an open date before visiting the Big House to play Michigan. With home games against Minnesota and Ohio State looming to close out the month, there’s going to be plenty to learn about Penn State in the next few weeks.
2. Tennessee. It’s not an entirely “nothing-to-lose” scenario for the No. 6 Volunteers (5-0, 2-0 SEC), but there’s a lot more for them to gain with No. 3 Alabama coming to town on the third Saturday in October. It’s the first time they’ll meet as unbeatens since 1989.
3. Southern California. The No. 7 Trojans (6-0, 4-0 Pac-12) struggled to escape Oregon State with a victory three weeks ago in their last road trip. They’ll visit Utah (4-2, 2-1), which saw its slim playoff hopes fade away with a loss at UCLA last week. Still, the Utes have a chance to make life miserable in Salt Lake City for Southern Cal in what always lines up as one of the best games of the year in the Pac-12.
4. Michigan. As forgettable as the Wolverines’ schedule has been so far, it’s not as if things are daunting in the weeks immediately after Penn State’s visit to Ann Arbor. Next up for Michigan: Open date, Michigan State (2-4), at Rutgers (3-3) and at home against Nebraska (3-3). This is far and away the Wolverines’ sternest test until late November.
5a. Oklahoma State and 5b. TCU. A share of first place in the Big 12 is at stake as the only teams in the league with undefeated overall records meet in Fort Worth. Expect a little extra Heisman chatter for the winning quarterback — Oklahoma State’s Spencer Sanders or TCU’s Max Duggan.
1. QB C.J. Stroud, Ohio State (1,737 yards, 24 TDs, 3 INTs passing). Torched Michigan State for six touchdowns in a super-efficient outing and is now on pace for 48 scoring strikes in the regular season. Those numbers will play well with Heisman voters, especially if the Buckeyes remain undefeated. (Last week: 1)
2. QB Hendon Hooker, Tennessee (1,432 yards, 10 TDs, 0 INTs passing; 231 yards, 3 TDs rushing). It was another solid week for Hooker as the Volunteers trounced LSU. This week’s visit from Alabama might be a make-or-break moment for Hooker’s candidacy. (LW: 2)
3. QB Caleb Williams, Southern California (1,590 yards, 14 TDs, 1 INT passing; 178 yards, 3 TDs rushing). The sophomore has completed less than 52 percent of his passes in two of his last three outings. He’s good and a big part of the Trojans’ success, but not exactly the singular reason for it. (LW: 4)
4. QB Bryce Young, Alabama (1,202 yards, 14 TDs, 3 INTs passing; 154 yards, 3 TDs rushing). Young’s shoulder injury kept him sidelined against Texas A&M, meaning he’s missed the Crimson Tide’s last game and a half. If he’s out much longer, the chances of a back-to-back Heisman winner will fade considerably. (LW: 3)
5. QB Max Duggan, TCU (1,305 yards, 14 TDs, 1 INT passing; 204 yards, 3 TDs rushing). The veteran Horned Frogs quarterback has thrown for 300-plus yards and three touchdowns and tacked on at least one rushing touchdown in back-to-back weeks against Oklahoma and Kansas and ranks second nationally in passing efficiency behind Stroud. A matchup with Oklahoma State awaits. (LW: Not ranked)
6. RB Israel Abanikanda, Pittsburgh (830 yards, 12 TDs rushing; 4 catches, 59 yards, 1 TD receiving). Rush for 320 yards and six touchdowns (as Abanikanda did against Virginia Tech), jump into at least the periphery of the Heisman conversation. He’s third nationally in rushing yards behind Chase Brown (879 yards) of Illinois and bests Brown in yards per carry (6.4 to 5.8). (LW: NR) | 2022-10-14T15:49:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Time to find out about Michigan, Penn State (college football preview) - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/college-football-preview-heisman-watch/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/college-football-preview-heisman-watch/ |
What the Jan. 6 hearings accomplished — and what they didn’t
Former president Donald Trump is shown on a screen as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday in Washington. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Thursday afternoon brought a familiar feeling to much of the country: Okay, so now what?
The conclusion of what is expected to be the final hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol was a formal vote to subpoena former president Donald Trump for testimony. That culmination was unquestionably theatrical: Past subpoenas have not been so publicly presented, and the committee’s hearings have always included a deliberate element of showmanship. It was meant to serve as a deliberate coda to the public effort.
And now that’s done, as other investigations of Trump and Trump’s behavior have been done, without any noticeable effect on Trump himself. Leading to that familiar question: What was the result?
The answer, as is usually the case, is complicated. It is also necessarily impossible to offer in entirety, given that we are less than 24 hours removed from the hearing’s conclusion. But there are clear accomplishments that can be articulated and places where the hearings obviously didn’t accomplish the committee’s desired goal.
What the hearings accomplished
They made a convincing case for Trump’s culpability. This is probably the most important outcome of the hearings, and one that I detailed at length Thursday. While there was no serious question that Jan. 6 was a function of Trump’s rhetoric and exhortations, the committee’s work fleshed out the public’s understanding of how widespread and how cynical Trump’s behavior was.
They presented new, important information about the day of the riot and the weeks and months that led up to it. The committee hearings focused heavily on Trump, by design, but there was a great deal of investigation into the other circumstances surrounding the riot. During the hearings, we were presented with new details about what occurred at the Capitol that day and how law enforcement and elected leaders responded. We got a better sense for how people in Trump’s orbit worked to keep him in power.
But since the hearings were focused on Trump, it’s safe to assume that the expected report from the committee will include more details about those ancillary elements of the day’s violence. Even over the course of two hours, you can convey only so much information in a televised presentation. A written document offers far more space to detail what’s been learned, and it’s safe to assume that the committee’s report will be replete with such information.
The committee collected evidence that folded into the Justice Department’s probe. The committee still might make a criminal referral to the Justice Department centered on Trump’s actions related to Jan. 6. But it doesn’t necessarily need to; the department has been conducting an investigation into the riot for some time.
In fact, the department publicly requested that the committee provide it with transcripts from interviews with witnesses. Attorney General Merrick Garland stated more than once that he and his team were tracking the committee’s work. So even if there isn’t a formal referral, it’s clear that the hearings and the committee’s work were seen as useful to law enforcement.
The hearings exposed serious questions about other individuals and groups. In Thursday’s hearing, committee members repeatedly indicated that they felt testimony provided by people affiliated with the Secret Service was not credible, elevating new concerns about the reliability of the organization tasked with protecting senior government officials. The hearing also highlighted a number of Trump allies who refused to answer questions before the committee but have been happy to talk to conservative media.
And that was one hearing. We can expect that the final report will document other failures, including in the decision-making process that left the Capitol poorly defended in the face of the obvious, documented threats that law enforcement was tracking.
The hearings helped solidify a partisan response to the day’s events. It was inevitable that any public probe of Trump’s actions would lead to an entrenchment among Trump’s supporters. For all of the criticisms of the committee as being imbalanced against Trump, there is no structure that would have been treated as valid by Trump and his base. We’ve seen this so many times before: the Russia investigation, the Ukraine impeachment. Any questioning of Trump and his behavior is illegitimate, whatever form it takes.
But it’s still the case that the committee provided a foil for Trump, something he could point to as equivalent to the “Russia hoax” or “Impeachment Hoax #1” or whatever he calls it. Doing something to understand what led to the riot was important (as even people including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) once acknowledged), but as soon as there was an effort to do so, it was necessarily going to become a point of attack for Trump and his allies (including McCarthy).
What they didn’t accomplish
No smoking gun linking the White House to the violence emerged. This is understandably subjective; that Trump bears responsibility for the day’s violence is hard to argue. He stacked the gasoline-soaked logs, he passed out lighters, he suggested that a giant bonfire would be nice. But there’s no video or record of him telling someone to start a fire.
It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one. No evidence emerged that Trump or those close to him knew rioters would try to break into the Capitol. No evidence was presented that people close to Trump knew what extremist groups were plotting for the day, despite the available evidence of links between Trumpworld and those groups.
Again, the Capitol riot was only part of Trump’s multipronged effort to retain power, something the committee documented thoroughly. But despite speculation that he or his allies might have direct links to violent actors, none emerged. There’s no evidence that he did anything but contentedly stand by as violence occurred — inaction rather than action.
The hearings didn’t obviously change Americans’ views of Trump. Part of what the committee hoped to accomplish, Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has suggested, was to demonstrate to Americans that Trump should not again be given high public office.
If that was a goal, the committee hearings do not appear to have been successful. Polling from YouGov shows that favorability ratings of Trump have moved within a narrow range since the beginning of the year. Since the beginning of the year, Trump’s favorability overall has averaged 42 percent, exactly where it is now. Among Republicans, the average has been 82 percent; in YouGov’s most recent poll, he was at 80 percent. That’s not a significant difference.
This is only one measure of how people view Trump, certainly, and many people who would almost certainly not broadly be supported for president are nevertheless viewed favorably by the public. (Rob Gronkowski, for example.) But that brings us to the next consideration …
Did the committee hamper a Trump 2024 bid? Former House speaker Paul D. Ryan made headlines after the committee hearing by suggesting that Trump’s political future was bleak.
“I think Trump’s unelectability will be palpable” by 2024, he said. “We all know that he will lose. We all know that he is so much more likely to lose the White House than anybody else running for president on our side of the aisle, so why would we want to go with that?”
It’s not clear that this assessment depends significantly on the committee’s work. That Trump lost to Biden in 2020 is a good signal he might lose to him in 2024, as well. That Trump is vehemently disliked by so many Americans, in contrast to other potential Republican candidates, also may give Republican voters pause.
One theory holds that the accrued weight of questions about Trump and the scandals that have always lingered around him might disincline Republican primary voters. Perhaps. And perhaps the committee’s thorough documentation of Trump’s efforts might contribute to that — push Trump from his current position into Gronkowski terrain. We’ll have to see.
Will Trump be indicted? It’s very unlikely that Trump will accede to the subpoena that the committee authorized Thursday. He likes to make big showy statements about offering testimony, about how he has nothing to hide, and then he (wisely) scampers back behind his attorneys once the moment arrives.
But that’s irrelevant, really, to the core issue. The subpoena was the culmination of the televised hearings, but the process moves forward. It may well be the case that by this time next year, Trump is indicted on charges of having a role in cultivating the circumstances that led to the Capitol riot.
Which would probably trigger a familiar feeling: Okay. So now what? | 2022-10-14T16:31:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What the Jan. 6 hearings accomplished — and what they didn’t - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/trump-jan-6-riot-hearings/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/trump-jan-6-riot-hearings/ |
Tucker Carlson in a Fox News studio on March 2, 2017, in New York. (Richard Drew/AP)
If you’re a retirement planner, it’s best to keep those credit cards debt-free. If you’re a nutritionist, it’s best to minimize those pasta-and-bread extravaganzas. If you’re a firefighter, it’s best to replace those smoke-detector batteries every daylight saving time.
And if you’re Tucker Carlson, a star anchor at Fox News, it’s best to … train red light on your genitals.
Practice what you preach, that is. The 8 p.m. anchor at the No. 1 cable news network’s streaming service Fox Nation last week released “The End of Men” (subscription required), a work that obsesses over the alleged failure of modern America to produce virile bros. It’s a stream of footage showing the bulging deltoids of real men, as opposed to the lame-os who grow up on seed oils. Part of the formula for the modern he-man, the film suggests, is testicle-tanning. Dramatic visuals capture the glory of the enterprise:
But the central question is this: Does Carlson himself follow the regimen recommended in his own film?
The practice hit the mainstream last spring, when Fox Nation floated the trailer for “The End of Men,” complete with the red-light shot. Commentators teed off on the imagery, though we here at the Erik Wemple Blog decided to withhold judgment until the full episode hit the Internet.
What a disappointment. Over the course of a 34-minute film, the tanning discussion flashes by in less than 90 seconds. The narration comes from two anonymous men, one of them who’s called “Raw Egg Nationalist” and introduces the topic by saying, “There’s a kind of schism, actually, on right-wing Twitter about — you’re either sunning your balls or you’re freezing your balls.”
Anything wrong with room temperature?
A fellow who claims to go by the Twitter name “Benjamin Braddock” (the character played by Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 film “The Graduate”) then swoops in to address the particulars:
The bro science behind it is based on very real science that’s emerging — and that’s [that] the benefits of red-light therapy, our cells respond to certain wavelengths of light and red light — it penetrates much deeper into the body, and the effect of red light is to increase the cells’ energy. … So by increasing the cellular health of your testes, you’re increasing the function of what they do, and a big part of that is producing testosterone.
No, you’re not, according to Allan Pacey, a professor of andrology at the University of Sheffield Medical School. “I don’t know of any evidence that irradiating the testicles with red light … has any benefit.” In remarks to Insider, Rena Malik of the University of Maryland Medical Center said, “It’s not going to work. There’s no empirical evidence that it works and it doesn’t make sense that it would work.”
Perhaps to add epistemic underpinning to its argument, “The End of Men” displays text on the screen from a scholarly paper in the field of light therapy: “Influence of Ultraviolet Irradiation upon Excretion of Sex Hormones in the Male,” by Abraham Myerson and Rudolph Neustadt from Boston State Hospital. If that all sounds a bit out of date, it’s because the study was completed in 1939. Its conclusion, which is displayed in “The End of Men,” reads, in part, “Ultraviolet irradiation applied with a mercury quartz lamp increases the excretion of androsterone in urine.”
There’s a back story behind the Myerson-Neustadt study. A September 2021 journal article by Matthew McLaughlin, a University of Toronto PhD candidate and one of the few scholars focusing on Myerson, notes that the pair examined whether boosting the concentration of male sex hormone androgen might “cure” patients of homosexuality. Toward this end, they deployed both testosterone injections and the ultraviolet irradiation technique cited in “The End of Men.” “The four patients displayed a quantifiable change in the amount of androgens they excreted, but only one showed clinical improvement with respect to his homosexuality,” writes McLaughlin, who notes that Myerson was attempting to “help patients conform to social standards regarding normal sexual behaviors so they could fit in to society” — and that this approach, while harmful, wasn’t a “reflection of his personal convictions on homosexuality.”
As Myerson progressed in his work, says McLaughlin, he turned away from light therapy as a scientifically sound way of increasing male hormone levels.
Panic programming over the fate of men has been a specialty of Carlson’s for years. “Modern life is making people stressed and miserable,” riffed Carlson on an April 2019 show. “It’s also causing what appears to be biological collapse of the species — I’m not making this up. Male sperm counts have fallen by 50 percent in just 40 years. Huh? No one reports on that.” Apocalyptic messaging of this sort has stemmed from a 2017 analysis suggesting a “significant decline in male reproductive health, which has serious implications beyond fertility concerns.”
How does this topic fit in with Carlson’s own politics? Snugly: The Fox News man — virile, muscular, steeped in history — is under siege from the softness of a woke society, and the evidence shows up in the numbers, goes the argument, which cites declining sperm counts and the like.
And that brings us back to Carlson himself. Is he a red-light guy? “Unfortunately privacy concerns prevent me from discussing the specifics of ball tanning with anyone outside the ball-tanning community,” responded Carlson. “In order to answer your questions, I’d need verification that you yourself are a member of that community. Feel free to attach photo evidence to this secure email.”
It’s all fun and games, in other words. Contrast that ha-ha-ha posture with the serious appraisal that Carlson offered this April, when he was promoting the season’s documentaries. “I mean, don’t you think at this point, when so many of the therapies in the past they’ve told us to take have turned out to be dead ends and have really hurt people — why wouldn’t open-minded people seek new solutions?” he said. (He made a similar remark in this interview.)
One moment he’s joking, the next he’s serious: It’s typical Carlson, whose fans seem not to care about contradictions or hypocrisy. Even when their manhood is at stake. | 2022-10-14T17:15:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Tucker Carlson preaches ball-tanning. Is he practicing it? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/tucker-carlson-testicles-tanning/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/tucker-carlson-testicles-tanning/ |
Tropical Storm Karl approaches southern Mexico with heavy rains
Intense rainfall and flooding are expected where it comes ashore.
A satellite view of Tropical Storm Karl at midday Friday. (NOAA)
Tropical Storm Karl developed in the Bay of Campeche suddenly Tuesday. Now it’s closing in on southern Mexico, bringing the risk of gusty winds and heavy rainfall.
Tropical storm warnings are in effect from Coatzacoalcos to Sabancuy along the Bay of Campeche, where tropical storm conditions are probable in the next 24 to 36 hours. Karl’s slow speed thus far has made predicting its eventual track and impacts a bit of a challenge. While it has probably plateaued in intensity and won’t be a big wind-maker, heavy rain could cause flooding in the Mexican states of Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas and Oaxaca.
Karl is the 11th named storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season. Despite a busy month-long spate punctuated by multiple Category 4 storms, the season got a slow start. August passed without a single named storm, the first time since 1997 that’s happened.
Meteorologists refer to a value called ACE, or Accumulated Cyclone Energy, to gauge how active a season is. ACE is an integrated metric that takes into account storm intensity and duration.
A total of 83.7 ACE units have been churned through thus far, about 19.3 percent below average ― defying nearly unanimous predictions of an above-average season. Half of the ACE has stemmed from just two storms — Fiona, which blasted Puerto Rico before slamming the Canadian Maritimes, and Ian, which made landfall as a high-end Category 4 and killed more than 100 in southwest Florida.
As of 11 a.m. Eastern time, Karl was inching ever closer to the coastline. It’s nestled within the Bay of Campeche and is drifting southeast at 6 mph. Maximum sustained winds were estimated at 45 mph deep within Carl’s core.
The storm was about 80 miles northwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico. Its outer rainbands were beginning to drench western portions of the Yucatán Peninsula and the gulf coast of adjacent southern Mexico.
On infrared satellite, it’s apparent that Karl is essentially one large mass of thunderstorms. In the middle, a few specks of purple and black can be seen, indicating extremely cold clouds. That represents the tallest clouds and highest tops. Meteorologists refer to the bubblelike parent updraft as an “overshooting top,” since the thunderstorms’ updrafts are so strong that they poke into the lower stratosphere before subsiding. It’s a sign that air is moving quickly upward.
On the storm’s periphery, hairlike tendrils radiate out from the clumping of thunderstorms. That’s an indicator of healthy outflow, or exhaust air at high altitudes exiting the storm and facing away from it. The more air a storm evacuates from above, the more its air pressure can plummet and the more warm, humid air it can ingest from below to fuel itself.
The limiting factor with Karl isn’t that sea surface temperatures aren’t warm enough; in fact, the Bay of Campeche is replete with oceanic heat content to support intensifying storms. Instead, wind shear, or a disruptive change of wind speed and/or direction with height, is conspiring to knock the storm off-kilter.
As a result, Karl won’t be strengthening markedly. Dry air is also wrapping around Karl and working to limit its intensity. As such, it may gain a little more oomph but should come ashore as a relatively modest tropical storm. The National Hurricane Center is predicting landfall near or just east of Paraíso, a town of nearly 100,000 people, Friday night into early Saturday.
Winds along the immediate coastline near the center may gust over 45 mph, which will accompany a bit of coastal splash and rip currents. The bigger threat will be copious rainfall. Through Sunday morning, Karl is expected to drop a widespread 2 to 5 inches with localized 10 inch totals in Veracruz, Tabasco and northern Chiapas and Oaxaca.
“These rains could produce flash flooding, along with mudslides, in higher terrain,” the National Hurricane Center wrote.
Aside from Karl, the Hurricane Center is also carefully monitoring a weak disturbance south of the Cabo Verde Islands, but it’s unlikely to develop. | 2022-10-14T17:15:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tropical Storm Karl approaches southern Mexico with heavy rains - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/14/tropical-storm-karl-mexico-campeche/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/14/tropical-storm-karl-mexico-campeche/ |
Kwasi Kwarteng may have cut a large figure, but he proved to be the proverbial bull in a china shop as Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was repeatedly wrong, but never in doubt. His central conceit was that trust — whether from his party, the public or markets — could be assumed rather than earned. Sacking him may be Liz Truss’s first smart move as prime minister.
But although Kwarteng has now been replaced by Jeremy Hunt, Truss isn’t out of trouble herself. No prime minister and chancellor duo in recent memory was more aligned on policy and ideology — or perhaps closer personally. In losing Kwarteng, Truss has effectively had to abandon her whole governing project.
Not that the prime minister is admitting as much. Truss clearly comes from the “never apologize, never explain” school of leadership. But that works only if the mistakes are small and the power held is substantial, or if the leader is both liked and broadly trusted. Truss has lost the support of the vast majority of her parliamentary colleagues, has the lowest public approval ratings on record and has trashed her government’s credibility with the markets. Her only hope now is to show that she understands her errors and has plans to fix them.
Yet she hasn’t met that bar. On Friday, she seemed to blame the markets for her problems, saying that parts of her program “went further and faster than the markets were expecting.” She reinstated Rishi Sunak’s plan to increase corporate taxes to 25%, which her government had scrapped. But there was no indication in her statement or answers that she understood why the market reacted as it did, driving up mortgage rates and the costs of servicing government debt.
Trussonomics, as it came to be called, rested on the assumption that a policy of aggressive tax cuts funded by low-cost borrowing and combined with supply-side reforms would deliver a higher rate of economic growth. Had she taken a more gradual approach to rolling out measures and taken greater stock of moving market conditions, that policy agenda might still be alive. Instead, the Truss-Kwarteng duo hit at multiple targets at once, aiming sloppily. The result has been further damage to households (especially those with mortgages), to the government’s fiscal position and to Britain’s international reputation. No wonder she wouldn’t answer the question of why she should stay when he had to go.
What kind of chancellor will Jeremy Hunt make? In short, a powerful one in a terminally weak government. Prime ministers and chancellors are often competing power centers. But in this case, there’s no real competition. Truss cannot afford to lose another finance minister or fall any further in the polls. That makes Hunt the de facto head of government, whatever his title says. Whether Britain will get coherent leadership depends on whether Hunt, Truss and the broader cabinet can agree on a revised strategy. | 2022-10-14T17:19:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Liz Truss Is Still in Office, But No Longer in Power - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/liz-truss-is-still-in-office-but-no-longer-in-power/2022/10/14/dc73cfe6-4bdc-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/liz-truss-is-still-in-office-but-no-longer-in-power/2022/10/14/dc73cfe6-4bdc-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
More than 80 percent of the U.S. is facing troubling drought conditions
There has not been a more widespread drought in the U.S. since at least 2000.
Sprinklers irrigate a field in Holtville, Calif., Sept. 20. (Aude Guerrucci/Reuters)
Here is a look at drought conditions across the United States, from low-end droughts all the way to rare “exceptional” drought conditions.
The West — defined by the U.S. Drought Monitor as the states of Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and California — is again seeing widespread drought conditions, though there have been slight improvements since a year ago, when all but 2.57 percent of the region was under unusual dry conditions. Today, that figure sits at 5.23 percent.
These maps illustrate the seriousness of the western drought
California is ground zero of the drought in the West. The entire state is experiencing at least moderate drought conditions. Almost the entire state might be facing severe drought conditions if not for the much-needed rain brought to parts of far-Southern California by Hurricane Kay in the first half of September.
A little over 40 percent of the state is seeing extreme drought conditions — stretching from the Los Angeles area to the Central Valley all the way up into the Shasta Cascades and southern Oregon. The last three water years — which run from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 — have been the driest in California’s history.
Several other Western states — Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, and Utah — are entirely in drought. In Utah, more than 51 percent of the state is seeing extreme drought conditions, dropping water levels in the Great Salt Lake to record lows for the second year in a row, according to local reporting.
Drought relief in the West is not likely any time soon, though some rainfall is expected in parts of Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico over the weekend. In general, though, the U.S. Monthly Drought Outlook, released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, expects drought conditions to persist unabated.
Less than 10 percent of the High Plains — defined as Colorado, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas — is drought-free, with the worst of the drought impacting the latter two states.
In Nebraska, no part of the state is drought-free and over 98 percent of the state is seeing at least moderate drought conditions. Over the past three months, the percentage of the state under severe drought has nearly doubled, while areas of exceptional drought — the worst level on the drought monitor’s scale — have expanded to 11.49 percent.
Firefighters and farmers in Nebraska have been battling wildfires, including the Bovee Fire, which has burned more than 18,900 acres — torching a campground and killing at least one person, according to reporting from NPR.
In Kansas, 27 percent of the state is under exceptional drought, up from just 1 percent three months earlier. The worst of the drought is concentrated in the state’s south, including in Wichita. In the past 90 days, nearly all of Kansas has seen significantly below-normal rainfall.
Current forecasts suggest little-to-no rain (or snow) is expected in the High Plains over the next week or so.
The South — which the U.S. Drought Monitor defines as Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee — has seen drought conditions significantly worsen over the past year. One year ago, less than half of the region was under a drought. Now, just under 6 percent of the region is drought-free.
By far the worst of the drought is in Oklahoma, where nearly 100 percent of the state is under a severe drought. Just over 85 percent of the state is seeing severe drought, while nearly 30 percent is experiencing exceptional drought. On Tuesday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) issued an executive order intended to help farmers sustain their businesses.
“As our farmers and ranchers continue navigating unprecedented challenges brought on by this year’s extreme drought, it is our responsibility as leaders to offer assistance and support wherever we can,” Stitt said in a press release. “Today’s action builds on my administration’s drought relief efforts and will allow for more commercial hay loads to come into Oklahoma to meet the demand of Oklahoma producers.”
Most of Texas is still facing drought conditions, though they have eased in severity over the past three months, aided by flooding rainfall in August. Elsewhere in the South, all of Arkansas is seeing drought conditions, closing boat ramps at the Lee Creek Reservoir, which has dipped to 78 percent capacity, according to local reporting.
In Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, drought conditions are widespread but not severe.
Some rainfall is likely in Texas and parts of Oklahoma late Saturday into Sunday, with wet conditions pushing into Arkansas as well. While helpful, the rain is unlikely to end the drought.
While most people wouldn’t associate Hawaii with drought, nearly 90 percent of the state is abnormally dry, and the U.S. Monthly Drought Outlook expects drought conditions to persist and worsen this month. Such conditions are set to continue “across [the] Hawaii Islands given a strong dry signal driven by ongoing La Niña conditions,” according to the outlook.
Drought conditions have worsened since the start of the year, when just 17 percent of the state was seeing any sort of drought. Over the past three months alone, the percentage of the state seeing severe drought has climbed from 16 percent to 40 percent.
The summer drought’s hefty toll on American crops
In the rest of the United States, there are pockets of drought, but nothing as regionally widespread. In the Southeast, nearly all of Alabama, Georgia and parts of the Florida Panhandle are seeing abnormal dryness, with pockets of moderate to severe drought.
Drought conditions have expanded rather quickly in the region. The percentage of Georgia seeing abnormal dryness shot up from nearly 50 percent this week, with Alabama seeing a change from 64 percent to 98 percent in the same time frame. Little rainfall is expected in these areas over the next week, meaning drought conditions will likely worsen.
Another pocket of drought is in the Northeast, where extreme drought around Boston, an area that has been unusually dry for much of the summer. Still, the drought has significantly eased since August, when extreme drought overtook more than 24.5 percent of Massachusetts; that figure is down to just 3.5 percent.
In the Midwest, drought conditions are fairly widespread, though generally sub-severe. An exception is Missouri, where more than 37 percent of the state is seeing severe drought conditions, with pockets of extreme drought in the state’s southwest corner near Joplin. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources is encouraging the public to submit reports detailing drought conditions in their area.
Drought conditions have overtaken all of Iowa, as well as much of Minnesota. Both states have pockets of extreme and severe drought.
In these states, as well as in parts of the High Plains and South, worsening drought has lowered the flow of the Mississippi River to its lowest level in at least a decade, slowing barge traffic. Little drought relief is expected in the coming weeks anywhere in the Mississippi River basin. | 2022-10-14T17:19:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Most of the country is experiencing troubling drought conditions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/14/drought-conditions-record-westernus-climate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/14/drought-conditions-record-westernus-climate/ |
Throwing tomato soup on Van Gogh: Why climate protests are getting weirder
As the planet warms, activists are getting desperate --- and their tactics are getting strange
Just after 11 a.m. on Friday morning, two young climate protesters entered a room in the National Gallery in London containing one of Vincent van Gogh’s most famous paintings: “Sunflowers.” They opened two cans of Heinz tomato soup, flung them on the painting, then glued their hands to the wall.
“What is worth more, art or life?” one of the protesters shouted, her hand glued to the wall behind her. “… Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet?” The activist group Just Stop Oil, which aims to stop U.K. oil and gas projects, said the protesters were members.
It was a bizarre moment — but it was also only the latest in a series of climate protests that have targeted museums and art galleries around the world. In July, protesters glued themselves to John Constable’s “The Hay Wain,” also in London’s National Gallery, after pasting their own “apocalyptic” vision of the future over the painting’s surface. That same month, members of an Italian climate group known as Ultima Generazione glued themselves to a painting by Sandro Botticelli at the Uffizi museum in Florence. Similar actions have also taken place in Australia.
“Sunflowers,” like the other paintings targeted by activists so far, is fine. The shock of seeing tomato soup hit the painting — which probably helped propel the video of the protest to viral status — is tempered by the fact that, like most museum paintings, “Sunflowers” was protected by glass. “There is some minor damage to the frame, but the painting is unharmed,” the National Gallery said in a statement. As of late afternoon U.K. time on Friday, the painting had been put back on display.
But the climate art stunt was still a strange form of protest, one that seemed more likely to alienate people. Online, many people reacted in disgust and anger; some joked that the protesters were targeting “Sunflowers” merely because it was an “oil painting.”
But it aligns with a growing number of climate protests in recent years that have disrupted normal life in increasingly unexpected ways.
Several years ago, activists from the climate group Extinction Rebellion climbed on the roof of a commuter train in London, preventing people from getting to work and causing a scuffle between commuters and protesters. Last week, climate protesters blocked freeways in the D.C. area to push President Biden to declare a “climate emergency.” Another group, known as the Tyre Extinguishers, has been letting the air out of SUV tires across the United Kingdom and in New York, arguing that the vehicles use more gas and are harmful to pedestrians and cyclists.
Dana Fisher, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland who studies protest movements, says that such developments are a form of “tactical innovation,” in which protesters try new strategies to get increased media attention. The media gets accustomed to particular types of activism; a march or a sit-in that once commanded attention soon gets written off as old news. Climate protesters, Fisher explained, started by gluing themselves to artworks, which initially made a small news splash. Now that attention for that has cooled down, they have moved on to at least the appearance of defacing artworks, in an attempt to attract more eyes.
The action in the National Gallery did make prominent headlines across U.K. newspapers and around Europe; by late afternoon, one video of the incident on YouTube had been viewed 13.3 million times. At least to the activists involved, the fact that the protest had gone viral was probably viewed as a success. The climate issue — which at times is buried by geopolitical, economic and celebrity news — was back in headlines once again.
But as tactics escalate, protesters risk turning off people who may otherwise be sympathetic to their cause. “Research shows that this kind of tactic doesn’t work to change minds and hearts,” Fisher said. Someone prevented from commuting to work — or someone who believes that irreplaceable artworks are being harmed — might be turned off by the climate movement for some time, if not permanently.
“It’s working to get attention,” Fisher said. “But to what end?” | 2022-10-14T17:19:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Throwing tomato soup on Van Gogh: Why climate protests are getting weirder - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/14/tomato-soup-sunflowers-climate-protest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/14/tomato-soup-sunflowers-climate-protest/ |
Washington Capitals goaltender Charlie Lindgren was solid Thursday night in the team's 3-2 loss to Toronto. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)
One silver lining from the Washington Capitals’ winless start to the season has been the play of their new goaltending tandem. One night after Darcy Kuemper made 25 saves in a 5-2 opening night loss to Boston, backup Charlie Lindgren had an impressive performance — despite the result — in Washington’s 3-2 loss Thursday to Toronto. Lindgren turned away 36 of 39 shots.
“I thought our goalie gave us a chance to win,” Capitals Coach Peter Laviolette said after the game.
Lindgren, who signed a three-year, $3.3 million deal in the offseason, is the designated backup to Kuemper, the team’s major free agent acquisition. Lindgren didn’t draw national spotlight during the preseason, but Washington praised the 28-year-old’s training camp. Laviolette said earlier in the week that Lindgren had been “solid” and his reps at practice and in preseason games were an encouraging sign.
“I was really excited to put the jersey on and go out and play,” Lindgren said Thursday. “Obviously, it was a great environment; knew it was gonna be. Obviously disappointed to not come out with the ‘W,’ though.”
The Maple Leafs put pressure early on Lindgren, but the goalie stopped 21 of 22 shots in the first period alone. Lindgren said Toronto’s high-powered offense was throwing “everything but the kitchen sink” at him in the opening frame. However, Lindgren — who had just 29 games of NHL experience before Thursday, including five last year — handled the relentless attack well.
Before Toronto’s first goal of the night — a power play tap-in from John Tavares — Lindgren had a sequence of saves in front of the net. It looked like the Capitals’ penalty-killing unit would get away unscathed, but it couldn’t clear the puck and Lindgren couldn’t make another highlight-reel save on Tavares.
Laviolette said Washington simply “was doing enough not to win.”
Throughout the night, the Capitals’ defensive coverage ahead of Lindgren was lacking, with turnovers and holes in the defense leading to odd-man rushes and high-danger Toronto chances. The same recurring errors had appeared in Wednesday’s season-opening loss to the Bruins. Kuemper had to make a handful of breakaway saves in that game as the Capitals’ transition defense wasn’t up to par, and Washington’s offense couldn’t make up for its defensive mistakes.
“I felt pretty good about my game,” Kuemper said after his Wednesday night performance. “Obviously not happy with the result. Always sucks losing the first game of the year, especially the home opener. But yeah, there was a lot of good things from everyone out there. We just got to make sure we’re ready from the start.”
Thursday, as the Capitals saw Lindgren put on a show, they also got to witness the debut of Ilya Samsonov in Toronto. Samsonov, who signed a one-year, $1.8 million deal in the offseason after the Capitals decided not to extend him a qualifying offer, made 24 saves, stifling his former team.
The Russian looked calm in the crease, his only glaring hiccup being a soft goal from Nic Dowd in the first period that put the Capitals on the board. Samsonov, a former first-round pick, never lived up to Washington’s high expectations, but has a shot to be an important piece in Toronto’s championship hopes alongside starting goalie Matt Murray.
Samsonov said he was a little emotional in the first period against Washington, but he soon settled in. The Capitals finished 0 for 5 on the power play against the Leafs. After the game, Samsonov caught up with former teammates Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov in the bowels of Scotiabank Arena. Ovechkin had four shots on goal against Samsonov, but couldn’t put one past his fellow countryman. Ovechkin also had an early shot hit iron.
“Thank you, guys, thank you, defensemen, thank you, fans. I am so happy,” Samsonov told reporters after the game. | 2022-10-14T17:21:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Charlie Lindgren, Darcy Kuemper off to strong start for Washington Capitals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/charlie-lindgren-darcy-kuemper-washington-capitals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/charlie-lindgren-darcy-kuemper-washington-capitals/ |
FILE - St. Louis Cardinals ace reliever Bruce Sutter celebrates after the last out in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series at St. Louis, Oct. 20, 1982. Hall of Fame reliever and 1979 Cy Young winner Bruce Sutter has died. He was 69. Major League Baseball and the St. Louis Cardinals announced Sutter’s death on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. The Baseball Hall of Fame says Sutter died Thursday in Cartersville, Georgia. (AP Photo/File) (Uncredited/AP) | 2022-10-14T17:21:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bruce Sutter, Hall of Famer and Cy Young winner, dies at 69 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mlb/bruce-sutter-hall-of-famer-and-cy-young-winner-dies-at-69/2022/10/14/052136a2-4bda-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mlb/bruce-sutter-hall-of-famer-and-cy-young-winner-dies-at-69/2022/10/14/052136a2-4bda-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Diana Kipyokei won the 2021 Boston Marathon. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
The Athletics Integrity Unit of track and field’s governing body announced Friday that it has suspended 2021 Boston Marathon winner Diana Kipyokei after she tested positive for a prohibited substance following the race and then obstructed or attempted to delay the AIU’s investigation “through the provision of false information or documentation.”
The AIU did not reveal the specifics of Kipyokei’s obstruction but said Kipyokei’s postrace test revealed the presence of a metabolite of triamcinolone acetonide, a glucocorticoid that is banned for in-competition use when administered through prohibited routes. Athletes must receive a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for glucocorticoids — steroids that can enhance athletic performance when administered a certain way — during competition periods or prove that they were administered via an allowed route.
At the time of Kipyokei’s positive test, glucocorticoids could only be administered via injection, though that rule has since changed to also allow for administration via other means.
The AIU noted in Friday’s announcement that 10 Kenyan athletes tested positive for triamcinolone acetonide between 2021 and 2022 and that only two athletes from other countries tested positive for the substance over the same time period. On Thursday, the AIU announced it had banned Kenyan marathoner and endurance racer Mark Kangogo for three years over similar doping claims. It also announced Friday that Kenyan marathoner Betty Wilson Lempus had been suspended along with Kipyokei.
As of now, the 28-year-old Kipyokei is only provisionally suspended and still is considered the 2021 Boston Marathon winner, but if the AIU’s Disciplinary Tribunal finds that she committed the violations, she would be stripped of her title and face a suspension of four years.
The 2021 Boston Marathon was Kipyokei’s first major marathon and just her third overall, and she won the women’s event in 2 hours 24 minutes 45 seconds. | 2022-10-14T17:22:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Boston Marathon winner Diana Kipyokei suspended for doping - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/10/14/diana-kipyokei-suspended-doping/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/10/14/diana-kipyokei-suspended-doping/ |
National park officials expect it will still take years to fully recover from devastating summer flooding
Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Sholly shows National Park Service Director Chuck Sams damage to North Entrance Road. (Jacob W. Frank/NPS)
Yellowstone National Park will fully reopen Northeast Entrance Road to vehicle traffic Saturday, four months after devastating floods cut off one of the park’s main arteries and isolated the small towns that serve as gateways into a northern section full of wildlife.
The northeast gate near Cooke City and Silver Gate, Mont., will open to vehicle traffic at 8 a.m. Saturday for the first time since the massive flooding in June, the National Park Service said Thursday. Other than a small section near Trout Lake, all flood-damaged sections of the Northeast Entrance Road, which leads from the gate to Tower Junction, have been repaved and will operate without restrictions.
With the Northeast Entrance Road reopened, 99 percent of the park’s roads are now open, the agency said. However, the latest repairs are temporary measures ahead of long-term reconstruction.
In maps, photos and videos, see the full force of Yellowstone’s floods
The park’s north gate, near Mammoth Hot Springs, is expected to reopen to vehicles by Nov. 1, when the Park Service opens a newly paved Old Gardiner Road. With the former North Entrance Road completely swept away in places, the Park Service chose instead to pave and expand Old Gardiner Road as a temporary entrance to reconnect the park to Gardiner, Mont.
Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly on Thursday commended crews for restoring access from the northeast in just four months, calling it a “monumental task in such a short amount of time.”
Crews are working at “lightning speed” to complete the upgrades to Old Gardiner Road ahead of winter, Sholly said earlier in October, which include adding a second lane along its length and installing more than 5,000 feet of guardrail on what was originally a single-lane, dirt route.
The new approach road will be capable of handling the 2,000 to 3,000 vehicles per day that typically come through the North Entrance until the former road can be reconstructed, a process that is expected to take years.
With Yellowstone closed, gateway towns face a fight for survival
The 500-year flood event devastated parts of the park’s infrastructure just as its peak summer season was beginning in June. More than 10,000 visitors were evacuated and roads, bridges and homes were swept away by rivers swelling from snowmelt and heavy rainfall.
After briefly closing all five entrances, the park service quickly reopened southern access to the park, but the northern section took the brunt of the damage. The tourist towns of Gardiner, outside the north entrance, and Cooke City and Silver Gate, near the northeast entrance, became dead ends.
What's with all the bison attacks at Yellowstone?
Restoring the roads will be a years-long effort, especially in the inhospitable and environmentally sensitive conditions of Yellowstone. The Northeast Entrance Road was damaged in five sections between Slough Creek and Barronette Meadows, with a section near Soda Butte Picnic Area washed away.
The North Entrance Road, meanwhile, was washed away in multiple places and damaged by a major rockslide in Gardner Canyon.
(Video: NPS)
Park officials determined it would be impossible to repair before winter, so they chose to upgrade Old Gardiner Road, which was established in the 1880s as a stagecoach route. To make the road passable, crews had to pave the full four-mile length and build an entirely new ¼-mile section where it enters Mammoth Hot Springs because the previous road had a 12 to 15 percent grade. Those upgrades are expected to be complete by Nov. 1 at the latest.
Yellowstone is this town’s golden ticket. Climate change risks that.
In the meantime, limited access to hikers, bikes and commercial tours is available through the north gate. Park officials said in August that 94 percent of Yellowstone’s backcountry had been reopened.
Restoring vehicle access between the north and northeast entrances before winter was vital because the road linking them is the only one in the park that remains open year-round. As part of the park’s regular winter closures, all other roads close on Nov. 1 and will remain closed until April or May, except for a snowmobile and snowcoach season from December to March. | 2022-10-14T17:22:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Yellowstone National Park to reopen north section gates by November - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/10/14/yellowstone-entrance-northeast-road/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/10/14/yellowstone-entrance-northeast-road/ |
Summers blasts IMF, World Bank for inaction amid growing dangers
The former treasury secretary says policymakers are missing their moment as risks to global economy mount
Lawrence Summers, president emeritus and professor at Harvard University, speaks during the Institute of International Finance (IIF) annual membership meeting in Washington, D.C., on Friday. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg News)
Former treasury secretary Larry Summers warned that world leaders are failing to do enough to prevent a possible global crisis, as rising interest rates and fallout from the war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic rattle advanced and developing countries alike.
Speaking to a gathering of finance industry executives in Washington, D.C., Summers blasted the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for inaction.
“The fire department is still in the station. Somebody should be proposing something somewhere,” Summers said. “I’m very disappointed in the response.”
Just two years after the pandemic recession, the global economy confronts an evolving set of threats. Higher interest rates needed to battle decades-high inflation are causing investors to rethink their holdings, leading to volatile trading. War between Russia and Ukraine has sent prices soaring for grain and fuel. And relations between the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, seem to worsen each day.
“This is the most complex, disparate and cross cutting set of challenges that I can remember in the 40 years I’ve been paying attention to such things,” Summers said to the Institute of International Finance, an industry group.
Summers, who correctly warned early last year that inflation would become a persistent headache in the United States, said policymakers need to act on several fronts to address an “ominous” outlook: making sure financial markets operate smoothly; increasing lending and easing debt burdens for poor countries; and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Summers said the United States should provide an additional $5 billion in funding for the World Bank over six years, which ultimately could support up to $100 billion in new lending.
The prominent economist — who spent an hour recently conversing with President Biden in the Oval Office — is no ordinary critic. As a top Treasury Department official in the Clinton administration, he helped craft the U.S. response to financial crises in Mexico and Asia. During the latter episode, Time magazine memorably lionized him, his boss, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan as “The Committee to Save The World.”
Central bankers and finance ministers from around the world gathered in Washington this week for the annual IMF and World Bank meetings. Summers disparaged much of the resulting discussion as “vague, airy fairy stuff.”
“This meeting is not going to be remembered for anything except being a missed opportunity,” Summers said.
His remarks came as the international bodies issued a series of increasingly downbeat economic forecasts amid growing dangers of a global recession. The World Bank this week lowered its annual growth estimate for 2023 to 1.9 percent, down from a previous 3 percent forecast.
Summers contrasted the free-spending response to Ukraine’s defense needs with what he said was insufficient global action on the economic front.
“This is a moment that is extraordinary and urgent in the economic and financial sphere in the same way that it is in the security sphere,” Summers said.
As consumer price inflation topped 9 percent this year, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates faster than at any time since the early 1980s. That has pushed up the value of the U.S. dollar, which is causing significant problems for dozens of other countries.
Central banks in emerging market economies have had to raise interest rates to prevent their currencies from sinking against the dollar. Higher borrowing costs risk painful recessions. And many of those countries face higher bills to repay borrowed dollars or for global commodities like oil, which are priced in dollars.
“That’s got all kinds of collateral consequences for the rest of the world,” Summers said.
One example is the recent bond market turmoil in the United Kingdom following the British government’s proposal to borrow money to fund a tax cut for high-income individuals. As yields soared on U.K. government bonds, the Bank of England was forced to step in to avert a market collapse. On Friday, Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor of the exchequer, resigned amid the ongoing crisis.
The consequences could be even greater in the developing world. Prioritizing the fight against inflation in the United States and other advanced economies — even as poorer countries feel the pinch — risks a broader rupture, Summers said.
“The developing world is going to tune us out. Maybe they’ll tune China in, maybe they won’t,” he said. “But either way it’s hard to believe that we’re going to be creating the world we want to create.” | 2022-10-14T17:22:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Larry Summers blasts IMF, World Bank for inaction amid growing dangers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/10/14/larry-summers-imf-world-bank/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/10/14/larry-summers-imf-world-bank/ |
Hogan launches $10k incentive for qualifying workers on public projects
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) talks to reporters, April 4, 2022. (Brian Witte/AP)
Facing a shortage of workers to build all of Maryland’s infrastructure, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) announced a $15 million program to sweeten jobs on public projects.
The “Jobs that Build” grants will offer companies with state contracts $10,000 per worker to entice employees to stay on the job or start working on a state infrastructure project.
The money is intended to directly benefit the workers and can be used for retention or hiring bonuses as well as training for workers to take on more complex jobs or to pay for transportation, housing or child care so they can get to work.
Hogan called it a first-in-the-nation effort to deal with a crushing nationwide labor shortage that has the potential to delay or stymie infrastructure projects financed by billions in federal aid.
The term-limited governor leaves office in January, but said he “can’t imagine any circumstance” where his successor wouldn’t continue the program given the scope of potential delays on what he said was nearly every infrastructure project in the state.
Hogan likened this worker-focused initiative to another first-in-the-country he launched earlier this year to recruit people into the state government workforce. In March, Hogan dropped a college-degree requirement from thousands of state jobs, hoping to attract skilled workers to vacant posts the state struggled to fill. | 2022-10-14T17:24:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hogan program targets workers building public construction projects - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/hogan-construction-job-grant/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/hogan-construction-job-grant/ |
Robbie Coltrane attends the world Premiere of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" in London on July 7, 2011. (Ian Gavan/Getty Images)
After starting out in theater and comedy, Coltrane made the transition to television and film. He played Falstaff in 1989’s “Henry V,” and appeared in the James Bond films “GoldenEye” and “The World Is Not Enough,” released in 1995 and 1999, respectively. His role as a criminal psychologist in the British drama series “Cracker,” which aired for three seasons in the mid-1990s, won him three consecutive BAFTA awards. | 2022-10-14T17:58:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Harry Potter' actor Robbie Coltrane, who played Hagrid, dies at 72 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/14/robbie-coltrane-dead-hagrid-harry-potter/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/14/robbie-coltrane-dead-hagrid-harry-potter/ |
Conflating the Beltway snipers with international terrorism
Victoria Snider touches the name of her brother, James L. “Sonny” Buchanan, etched on the D.C. sniper victims memorial at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton on Sept. 3. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
David Von Drehle was brave to admit in his Oct. 9 op-ed, “How I remember the Beltway sniper killings,” that he was wrong in assuming that the snipers’ “spree of death” was the work of foreign terrorists. But he was wildly incorrect in his blanket statement that “everyone assumed it was al-Qaeda.” No one I know ever made that assumption.
It is disingenuous to assign such a mistake in judgment to “everyone” who lived here at the time — and an insult to the intelligence, skills and hard work of the thousands of investigators, analysts, operatives and military personnel who had spent the previous year tracking down the perpetrators of the well-planned, organized act of mass murder and suicide we call 9/11. It is hard to imagine how anyone seriously thinking that such a world-shaking, impossible-to-ignore, large-scale attack — designed to gain an edge in a distant, intra-faith sectarian conflict and recruit followers to their fundamentalist struggle against modernity — had anything in common with the possible motives or singular means of the snipers.
Mr. Von Drehle might have been using the vivid fear so many of us here felt at the time of the sniper attacks to somehow excuse the invasion of Iraq, but he again was making a false assumption to do so — and rewriting history to boot.
William Shuyler, Alexandria | 2022-10-14T18:16:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Conflating the Beltway snipers with international terrorism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/conflating-beltway-snipers-with-international-terrorism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/conflating-beltway-snipers-with-international-terrorism/ |
The FAA should get the lead out of aviation fuel now
People at Gravelly Point Park in Arlington on Sept. 29, 2020, as airplanes land at Reagan National Airport. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Regarding the Oct. 8 news article “EPA proposes declaring lead in aviation fuel a danger to public health”:
Though I am glad that the Environmental Protection Agency is acting on this issue, it is discouraging to see minimal change in the forecast use of leaded fuel. It pains me to see that this socio-environmental issue is not being treated as an urgent matter by the Federal Aviation Administration.
We cannot wait to grasp the impact of unsustainable actions until the damage becomes irreversible. In this case, this lead-based fuel is damaging to children’s health, yet the FAA still forecasts 179 million gallons will be consumed in 2041. It is imperative that the EPA, other government agencies and nongovernmental organizations ratchet up the pressure so that we don’t have to continue to see these consequences for public health and the environment.
Stephen Eisenson, Washington | 2022-10-14T18:16:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The FAA should get the lead out of aviation fuel now - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/faa-should-get-lead-out-aviation-fuel-now/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/faa-should-get-lead-out-aviation-fuel-now/ |
Listening to employees is good business practice, even at Starbucks
Starbucks employees put up suggestions of how to make things better at their shops at a “collaboration session” July 12 with Chief Executive Howard Schultz in San Antonio. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
The Oct. 9 front-page article “A CEO’s fight to stop the Starbucks uprising” reported that Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz sees himself as “the good guy of American capitalism.” He called Starbucks’ workers “partners” and said his love for the company includes his responsibility to these partners, which “is at the highest level possible.” When workers at some Starbucks stores began union organizing, he and his management team held more than 200 listening sessions with hourly workers across the country. Mr. Schultz found these face-to-face meetings to be “defining moments” when the company’s soul was rediscovered.
Listening to employee concerns and complaints is good business practice. But when workers find their collective voice, organize themselves into a union and seek to bargain collectively with their employer, they are participating in workplace democracy that is at “the highest level possible.” And they are safeguarded in this right by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which protects them in this activity without fear of retaliation.
Denying Starbucks workers the opportunity to improve their conditions of employment through union representation will not lead to improved job performance or effectiveness. And, at the end of the day, Mr. Schultz, we are judged by our deeds, not by fanciful words.
Saul Schniderman, Takoma Park
The writer is a former president of the Library of Congress Professional Guild. | 2022-10-14T18:16:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Listening to employees is good business practice, even at Starbucks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/listening-employees-is-good-business-practice-even-starbucks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/listening-employees-is-good-business-practice-even-starbucks/ |
Only one party is going to address climate change
An aerial view of a drought-stricken pasture in McCook, Neb., in September. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
The Oct. 10 news analysis “What happens if GOP takes House, Senate or both?” mentioned climate change in passing as a part of President Biden’s “agenda” that Republicans might block, but it should have stressed that Republicans, if they take even one house of Congress, will stop any new federal efforts to limit the root cause of climate change: reliance on fossil fuels.
Climate change is not coming; it is here. And it will get much worse if we deny or ignore it, the preferred Republican approach. Florida and the Southwest are being buffeted by record-setting storms and droughts, respectively. Unaddressed climate change will make Florida a smaller state geographically by the latter part of the century and will likely displace a significant number of Americans from the Southwest, among other effects. Other countries will experience even greater negative impacts, producing climate change migrants.
Republicans profess to be concerned about migration across our borders but refuse to address the cause of current and future migration: climate change impacts in Central America and South America that make it impossible for people to earn livings in their home countries.
People concerned about American prosperity, security, well-being and stability, and the future of their grandchildren, need to vote for candidates who will address climate change. Unfortunately, only one major American political party is committed to tackling climate change, and it is not the Republican Party.
Ken Brill, Bethesda | 2022-10-14T18:16:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Only one party is going to address climate change - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/only-one-party-is-going-address-climate-change/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/only-one-party-is-going-address-climate-change/ |
Strict scrutiny standards and the UNC case
Julia Clarke, president of the Black Student Movement at the University of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Sept. 30. (Cornell Watson for The Washington Post)
The Oct. 10 front-page article “At high court, UNC’s stand for affirmative action may be the last” explained that the Supreme Court will review the Harvard University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cases concerning the use of affirmative action in both universities. Based on past court cases, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs’s ruling on UNC’s admissions makes sense.
Past Supreme Court cases used strict scrutiny to make decisions on college admissions. Strict scrutiny standards say if a college uses race as one factor among many factors for the admissions process and isn’t a major factor, then it’s fine. For instance, in the case of Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003, the University of Michigan used a points system for admissions. Applicants from minority groups automatically received 20 points, and 100 points were needed for admittance, so the system didn’t meet strict scrutiny standards because of race’s major role in acceptance. However, in this case, the Harvard and UNC admissions processes don’t use race as a major factor.
I don’t understand the recent attacks on affirmative action. As the article mentioned, maybe we should worry more about legacy students because race doesn’t matter as much as most think it does in admissions. The issue feels exaggerated.
Oviya Jeyaprakash, Falls Church | 2022-10-14T18:16:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Strict scrutiny standards and the UNC case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/strict-scrutiny-standards-unc-case/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/strict-scrutiny-standards-unc-case/ |
In the latest such incident, young activists splashed tomato soup on a glass-covered painting by van Gogh at London’s National Gallery
When I see activists attack art, I feel the same revulsion most people do — and the sense of revulsion seems to be general and widespread. After two young supporters of the climate-change advocacy group Just Stop Oil threw cans of tomato soup Friday on a painting by Van Gogh in London’s National Gallery, social media accounts erupted in outrage. Much of this was from people who are no less committed to stopping global warming, including much of the art world, where the climate emergency is at the top of the agenda for many artists, curators and critics.
But while I can’t defend the acts of Just Stop Oil, I can defend the anger of its supporters, who will experience the effects of global collapse farther into the future than I will. They must grapple with existential decisions unprecedented even during some of the worst crises in human history, including whether to have children and continue the species, or to forgo offspring whose lives may be short and miserable.
Art attacks seem to be increasing. In July, the Italian group Ultimate Generazione (or Last Generation) directed its ire against Botticelli’s “Primavera” at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and in August activists from the same group glued their hands to the base of an ancient statue at the Vatican. All this is misdirected and counterproductive. It makes the urgency of the crisis seem ridiculous to people who are already disinclined to give credence to the science of global warming. And they create a false moral choice for those who love both art and the environment.
As 21-year-old Phoebe Plummer, one of the two activists in London, asked during Friday’s incident, “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people?” The premise of her question, and the people whom she was addressing, are both poorly chosen. Very likely, given the self-selecting audience that visits the National Gallery, most of the onlookers would say: “Both.” And it’s ridiculous to think that art is the villain when it comes to the climate crisis. Van Gogh is too far removed from the economic forces that perpetuate planetary self-destruction for his 1888 “Sunflowers” to be worthy of even symbolic attack.
The art world, of course, isn’t innocent. The wealth that fuels the art market is deeply implicated in the carbon economy, and the superstructure of art fairs, markets, biennales and blockbuster exhibitions is dependent on carbon-intensive travel and conspicuous consumption. Had Plummer taken her soup can to a high-end global art fair, she might have sparked a reasonable though painful conversation about the moral priorities of contemporary art patrons: Do you really need to travel to Venice every two years? Would your millions be better spent on mitigating the climate crisis or on a self-shredding painting by Banksy?
With the planet in peril, can museums afford to take money from the Koch brothers?
But the anger behind these attacks isn’t irrational, and it isn’t expressed blindly. The global climate situation is dire and getting worse. While it need not be the only priority of governments, it must be the foremost one. And if you look more closely at how these attacks are executed, it’s clear they express more a desperate love of art than mere rage or contempt for it.
So far, most of these incidents appear deliberately symbolic rather than direct acts of vandalism. In July, Just Stop Oil activists glued their hands to the frame of John Constable’s 1821 “The Hay Wain,” and both the van Gogh and Botticelli attacks were against paintings protected by glass. The works that have been targeted often represent ideals of natural beauty and regeneration, the very things imperiled by global warming. The goal seems not to destroy art but to issue a warning: This is what will be destroyed if we continue down the path of reckless carbon emissions.
The media attention prompted by these incidents, however, could inspire more, and more deliberately destructive ones, which is one reason they are so disturbing. And the agita they create causes division within the social groups most sympathetic to the cause.
In the world of architecture, the idea of embodied carbon refers to the whole carbon footprint of a building, from that expended on materials, transportation, construction and labor to the longer life cycle of energy needed to power the building. This allows us to compare the carbon impacts of new and existing structures and think more subtly about the costs and benefits of tearing down vs. building anew. It forces us to think about not just the carbon we are emitting now but also the carbon embodied in a house built 50 or 1,000 years ago.
We might productively think about art as a form of embodied culture — energies already released and captured in an object. If art is merely a symbol, or a commodity, or a luxury good, then it’s reasonable to ask whether we care more about art or the environment. But if art is embodied culture, we are compelled to consider its preservation and lasting value even during times of peril. The common wisdom behind both ideas, embodied carbon and embodied culture, is: Never be profligate. Never destroy that for which you have already paid a price, even a terrible one, which includes the damage to the environment from a brutalist landmark built a half-century ago and the admixture of the good and the ugly in art from an age with oppressive value systems.
I think this is why these attacks, misguided and potentially destructive, are happening in museums. It isn’t just about seeking attention and animating the hair-trigger social and information networks that connect people committed to art, the environment, social justice and other adjacent causes.
It is about focusing attention on the larger cost of everything, the whole of the world around us — history, culture and economies. Facing the annihilation of everything, the activists come to society’s last truly sacred space, where the “everything” of human existence seems to be present. Throwing tomato soup on a van Gogh won’t make me feel any more passionately about saving our planet, nor will it help me think more pragmatically about how to do that. But I understand why young people, facing their own destruction, would come to a place of connection to say: Stop throwing everything away. | 2022-10-14T18:42:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ was a target for climate activists - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/14/van-gogh-sunflowers-soup-climate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/14/van-gogh-sunflowers-soup-climate/ |
For Kroger, the idea is clearly to become more competitive against the likes of Walmart Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. The transaction broadens its footprint in US: Albertsons and Kroger have 5,000 stores between them.
But the acquisition is more expensive than it first appears. There’s a commitment to invest $1.3 billion in Albertsons stores. And, as ever, it’s unclear how many of the benefits will go to shareholders in the long term. Kroger is already allocating $500 million of the savings to funding price cuts (which admittedly may drive sales volumes higher). It’s also talking about investing in higher wages.
To get round this, the idea is to create a separate company spun off to Albertsons shareholders, housing the assets being jettisoned for regulatory approval. This is certainly creative. But the portfolio will need sufficient scale and quality to have a chance to be a desirable stock. The risk is that it’s perceived as a sub-scale collection of cast-offs.
• Whisper It, But Inflation Isn’t Killing Retail: Andrea Felsted
• Tesco Boss’s £3.2 Million Bonus Is a Terrible Look: Chris Hughes
• FedEx’s Pricing Power Isn’t Working and Won’t Last: Thomas Black | 2022-10-14T18:51:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A $25 Billion Grocery Deal Takes Fight to Walmart - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-25-billion-grocery-deal-takes-fight-to-walmart/2022/10/14/f3305e80-4be5-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-25-billion-grocery-deal-takes-fight-to-walmart/2022/10/14/f3305e80-4be5-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Nine years ago, I worked for a website called the Wire, having been recently rebranded from the Atlantic Wire. It served as a sort of breaking-news blog that sat alongside the Atlantic magazine, and when the Wire eventually folded, its archives were moved under the broader Atlantic branding.
This, I assume, is why one of my former colleagues at the Wire — having departed that institution themselves a bit under a decade ago — suddenly appeared as the author on a screenshot of a fake Atlantic article that made the rounds in the conservative social media universe this week.
A weird series of job changes and branding shuffles resulted in someone who was looking to cast the media as a bunch of woke liberal losers seizing upon that name and the Atlantic’s logo as the conduit for their misinformation. They likely didn’t care who the author actually was; they probably cared slightly more about using the Atlantic as their foil. All they really cared about was ginning up outrage at one of the right’s myriad enemies, the media, and if my colleague — my friend — took some heat, so be it.
After all, it worked. The screenshot got broad pickup — including by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). Despite being entirely and quickly provably fake.
I reached out to my friend after seeing Cruz tweet out the fake story — which he did with an ironic declaration that “The Left is beyond parody.” I’m not naming my friend here because, first, you can easily find the fake news article for yourself with a quick search and, second, because they’ve been the focus of enough negative attention in the past 30 hours or so.
“I woke up very early on Thursday and had more DMs than usual, including ones calling me a ‘groomer’ or other slurs,” they wrote in an email in response to my question about how they learned that they were the unwitting “author” of the fake story. “I was a bit confused, because the story I’d just published — a big feature for our magazine on whole body donation research and education — was not necessarily the sort of thing I expected to get these sorts of abusive messages for.” Note the qualifier there, one that’s probably familiar to anyone who writes about politics-adjacent subjects: You expect abuse, but within certain boundaries. An old hand at all of this, my friend poked around and figured out how they’d been selected for the dubious honor of being the Media Punching Bag of the Day.
“As the day went on and the image spread around, I started getting more explicitly antisemitic harassment and tweets,” they told me. “I was hoping it would die down this morning so I could lift the watch, and then Cruz tweeted out the screenshot.”
“Post-Cruz,” they added, “my mentions exploded.”
So let’s stop and consider this for a moment. The fake article — purportedly a cover story for the magazine, which was not generally the purview of Wire writers — was titled, “The Evolution of White Supremacy.” A subheadline explained the purported thesis: “In Dearborn Michigan, Muslim parents who oppose teaching pornography to children become the new face of the far right.” Setting aside questions of punctuation and framing, the concept makes little sense. Someone is “teaching pornography”? That’s an evolution from when I was in school, certainly.
But Cruz, who has a robust track record of sharing incorrect information online, couldn’t resist the implication. Here was another lefty media loser trying to conflate white supremacy and the far right! He was exactly the sort of person for whom the fake article was meant to serve as bait, and he bit.
That he thinks this is useful is a phenomenon on its own. A large segment of the political right in the United States sees memes and online chaff as part of the political debate. It’s a space in which cultural supremacy is still evolving — or, really, that’s big enough that one can perceive broad success even if you’re only carving out an objectively small portion of the conversation. The left can’t meme, the rallying cry goes, and the expectation is that the right can. That the most effective voices are the ones that can play in the social media space.
Cruz is always eager to prove his position to the right and so engages eagerly in the social media conversation. It doesn’t always work out — for him or, certainly, for those unwittingly involved in his effort to curry the GOP base’s favor.
When his mistake became obvious (after it was pointed out to him, it seems, not after he decided to actually see if the article was too good to be true), he deleted the tweet. And then he rationalized having shared it in the most cliched way possible.
“Didn’t know it was fake,” he wrote in a subsequent tweet, as though he should not be expected, as a United States senator, to verify information he shares with his 5 million Twitter followers before doing so. And then: “You guys are so insane, it could easily have been real.”
And there it is. The “it’s not my fault I believed it, given what I already believe about you” defense. A defense that is itself a subject of an famous-in-some-circles social media post. His office had no immediate comment Friday.
(after falling for a fake news story about how dry wall is becoming woke) but it could have been true and that’s what is becoming scary about today’s society
— transgender marx (@JUNlPER) April 26, 2022
In the abstract, this is embarrassing for Cruz, as it should be. He’ll recover. But he’s not the victim.
The victim in this case is my friend, who got sucked into this idiotic flurry of nonsense through a long-dormant connection to a former employer. It was them who became the face of the ludicrous, drywall-is-woke-now liberal media.
This is an underrecognized component of the rush to elevate the media for criticism. The right has long pushed back against perceived bias by trying to make it painful for reporters to cover the right critically. It’s a “working the referees” strategy. With the advent of sites like Twitchy, though, and then with social media, that has evolved. Now there’s a rush not only to embarrass reporters but to harass and abuse them. Some of this is public, its own competition for attention by issuing the most aggressive denunciation. Much of it — often the worst of it — is private. Reflecting the broader tonal shift in the public debate, this feedback is not just “your coverage is flawed” but “you are evil.”
All of this is more acute in part because the target this time is my friend. But their experience is informative. My friend has been attacked because people think my friend did something my friend didn’t do and because they, like Cruz, want to believe that someone like my friend would do something like that.
That’s our final lesson here. It seems to be the case that, in this particular moment, the purported actions don’t even need to have occurred to be hailed as emblematic. Residents of Martha’s Vineyard can respond with near-universal hospitality to the unexpected arrival of a planeload of immigrants but still be portrayed by Fox News as horrified and triggered liberals.
After all, the left is so crazy that could have happened, right? And that’s good enough.
The latest: Biden expresses sadness and frustration after another mass shooting | 2022-10-14T18:52:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What was the point of Ted Cruz tweeting that fake news story anyway? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/cruz-fake-news-article-social-media/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/cruz-fake-news-article-social-media/ |
TikTok stars, Hollywood A list celebrate Ralph Lauren’s first Calif. show
Hollywood and TikTok stars came out in droves to celebrate the designer’s Spring 2023 collection
Ralph Lauren waves to the audience at the close of the Ralph Lauren Spring 2023 Fashion Experience on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022, at the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
On Thursday night, 200 celebrities, social media stars, and fashion influencers gathered at The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif, to celebrate Ralph Lauren’s debut in Southern California. The event included a runway show and seated candlelit dinner where waiters served guests the brand’s signature Polo burger and other delicacies from the company’s restaurants.
Ralph Lauren has always represented a certain type of East Coast luxury. Many of the brand’s looks on display Thursday night would have been right at home at a Connecticut country club, but the event also signified a recognition of California’s ascendance in culture.
Los Angeles is where generations of people have gone to chase their dreams of Hollywood stardom. But now, it’s also where people go to make it big on the internet. Internet culture has subsumed mainstream culture, and guests at the event represented a mix of the old world and the new.
“We’re in such unprecedented times, not knowing where social media is going to take us and how it’s going to evolve,” said Amelie Zilber, a Gen Z actress, model, and social media star, “but Los Angeles is full of opportunity and I think that’s why everyone is looking at Los Angeles as the place to be.”
Celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, John Legend, Mindy Kaling and John Legend sat on plush benches while more than 100 models showcased pieces from the full World of Ralph Lauren Spring 2023 collection.
The fashion show itself had a distinctly California vibe. The artist Sia’s rendition of California Dreamin’ blared over the runway before fading to Neil Diamond’s famous bicoastal anthem “I Am … I Said,” with lyrics like: “I’m New York City born and raised, but nowadays I’m lost between two shores. L.A.'s fine, but it ain’t home New York’s home, but it ain’t mine no more.”
The clothes, from Ralph Lauren Collection, Purple Label, Double RL, Polo Ralph Lauren, and childrenswear painted a picture of an idealized California life where one might hop from surfing in Malibu, to brunch in Beverly Hills, to a movie premiere reception in West Hollywood. It was the first time Lauren had shown all lines together since his 50th anniversary show in Central Park in New York in 2018.
The brand has a long history of dressing Hollywood heavyweights, many of whom were there to support the designer. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck were there dressed in black. Diane Keaton was wearing her signature suit look with a black top hat. Jessica Chastain, Laura Dern, Lily Collins, and Chris Pine mingled with each other on the Huntington Library’s tiled patio.
“I have always been inspired by the natural beauty, the heritage, and glamour of the West Coast of America,” Ralph Lauren, chief creative officer of the Ralph Lauren corporation, said in a statement. “California has always been a land of dreams and contradictions — rugged coasts and red carpets … I have always believed in — a mix of grit and glamour, energy and inspiration.”
After the show, guests were escorted into a lush rose garden for a seated dinner. “It’s pretty surreal,” said Noah Beck, a 21-year-old actor and TikTok star. “If this show represents L.A. fashion then L.A. has a bright future. Having Ralph Lauren come for their first showing in California is amazing, and at this venue too.”
Emily Mariko, a TikTok star famous for her recipe videos, was dressed in a bright pink dress and seated near Blake Gray, a Gen Z model, actor, and social media star. The young celebrities were taken with the luxury of the experience, which several said felt like a departure from the usual L.A. party. It was clear Ralph Lauren had successfully hooked the next generation of stars on the clothes too.
“I’m a sucker for suits,” Gray said, “and Ralph makes the best suits hands down. I was a huge fan of the cowboy hats and the boots too, coming from Texas I’m definitely going to have to buy a few things.” | 2022-10-14T19:39:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ralph Lauren in LA unites TikTok stars and Hollywood A list - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/14/raplph-lauren-la-fashion-show/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/14/raplph-lauren-la-fashion-show/ |
Any law grounded in religious thinking is an infringement
Demonstrators walk past the Supreme Court on May 14 during a Bans Off My Body march in D.C. (Robb Hill for The Washington Post)
Recently, a group of Jewish women sued to overturn Kentucky’s abortion ban on religious-freedom grounds, citing long-standing Jewish law on the beginning of life. These women are absolutely correct to file their suit, but for too long, the media has accepted the Christian right’s framing of “religious freedom” as the de facto correct position. In addition to ignoring the diverse perspectives of other faiths, it also ignores the crucial fact that secular Americans have an equal claim to religious-freedom protections.
Freedom of religious expression inherently involves the freedom to not participate in a religion at all. For a rising number of religiously unaffiliated Americans, any law that grounds itself in religious thinking should be presumptively considered an infringement on their rights. Abortion bans are an excellent example of a plainly unconstitutional law that inhibits the religious freedom of both non-Christian faiths and secular individuals. Legalized abortion did not compel a single woman to have an abortion she didn’t want, so no religious freedoms were abridged.
Under the current post-Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization framework, many states are forcing women to live according to a Christian tenet they might not share. The same laws that protect individuals’ right to practice their diverse faiths must also be applied to people with no particular faith at all.
Adam Colborn, Arlington | 2022-10-14T19:52:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Any law grounded in religious thinking is an infringement - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/any-law-grounded-religious-thinking-is-an-infringement/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/any-law-grounded-religious-thinking-is-an-infringement/ |
Catholic hospitals provide medically indicated treatment
Medical workers wave in appreciation as fire, police and emergency workers honor them at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, N.H., on April 17, 2020. (Charles Krupa/Associated Press)
The Oct. 11 front-page article “Catholic hospitals’ reach limits reproductive care” omitted critical facts about how Catholic hospitals and providers care for women experiencing pregnancy complications.
In tragic situations when the mother suffers from an urgent, life-threatening condition during pregnancy, Catholic health clinicians provide medically indicated treatment, even if it poses a threat to the unborn child or might result in the unintended death of the child. For example, the treatment of an ectopic pregnancy or a uterine infection is both clinically and ethically required. For victims of sexual assault, clinicians at Catholic facilities follow medical protocols to ensure no pregnancy results. Though Catholic providers do not offer services for the direct or sole purpose of contraception, they can and do offer services such as IUDs and hormonal treatments to address underlying medical conditions.
I appreciate that the article acknowledged Catholic health care’s long-standing commitment to serving patients in underrepresented communities, such as rural America. Those who serve in Catholic health care firmly believe in our call to care for others. We also value the provider-patient relationship and informed consent. We respect patients’ preferences and beliefs and work with them to discuss their treatment options.
Mary Haddad, St. Louis
The writer, a sister of Mercy, is president and chief executive of the Catholic Health Association of the United States. | 2022-10-14T19:52:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Catholic hospitals provide medically indicated treatment - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/catholic-hospitals-provide-medically-indicated-treatment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/catholic-hospitals-provide-medically-indicated-treatment/ |
Mallory Stanislawczyk, who suffers from long covid, gives herself a saline infusion in her Walkersville, Md., home on May 27. (Matt Roth for The Washington Post)
Ask anyone who has experienced the lingering maladies of the pandemic, and they’ll tell you long covid is no figment of the imagination. Tiredness, breathlessness, body aches and “brain fog” hang around for millions of people. Some of these symptoms are also common without covid, and researchers are trying to pin down with precision the lasting damage this virus can do to the human body. They are far from a full understanding.
That’s why a new study in Scotland is important. It was aimed at discovering the frequency, nature, determinants and impact of long covid on a large scale, to improve on previous partial results in other investigations. The first findings in the Long-COVID in Scotland Study are based on medical records and the experiences of more than 33,000 patients who had laboratory-confirmed covid and 62,957 who had never been infected. The researchers, Jill P. Pell of the University of Glasgow and colleagues, found about 6 percent of those infected had “not recovered” and 42 percent “only partially.”
This reinforces earlier findings that a large segment of people who are infected continue to suffer from one or more symptoms long after the infection has passed. In a study published in August from the Netherlands, researchers found post-covid symptoms lingered in about 1 in 8 people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in a recent large study that 1 in 5 adults from 18 to 64 years old who had covid, and 1 in 4 ages 65 years and older, had at least one persisting health condition related to their covid infection. Yet another survey in April put the prevalence at 43 percent. A new study just published about long covid in Germany put prevalence at 28.5 percent.
Exactly what symptoms and troubles will persist is hard to know at this point, but common patterns are emerging. The Scottish study, published in Nature Communications, found that the risk of long covid was greater among those who had been hospitalized with covid, women, older people and those who are economically disadvantaged. The vaccinated showed reduced risk of seven long-covid symptoms. People who had symptomatic covid infections were “significantly more likely” than those who were never infected to suffer from 24 persistent symptoms out of 26 studied. These heightened risks included breathlessness, palpitations, chest pain and confusion. Overall, checking in with people who had covid after six, 12 and 18 months, the researchers found the most cited lingering symptoms were tiredness, headache, muscle aches and weakness, joint pain, breathless, anxiousness and depression, and confusion and difficulty concentrating, among others.
The implications of this are immense. If the prevalence of long covid turns out to be 1 in 5 people, that’s 124 million of the 623 million infected so far worldwide who will carry the scars of the pandemic into the future, creating potentially large burdens on health-care systems. There will be cascading effects in mental health and disability. The impacts will most certainly extend to jobs and education. When the pandemic is over, the world will be left with how to treat and remedy the troubles of the long-covid generation. | 2022-10-14T19:52:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | After the pandemic, heavy burdens for a covid generation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/long-covid-heavy-burden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/long-covid-heavy-burden/ |
The new Jan. 6 video, and the other baseless GOP claim about Pelosi
House Republicans said Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) delayed asking for National Guard aid on Jan. 6. New video shows they watched her ask for Guard help. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
Ever since the dust settled on the Capitol insurrection, Republicans have sought to avert the public’s gaze from Donald Trump. Their preferred target: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and her actions both before and on Jan. 6, 2021.
Their claims and suggestions about her actions that day have been debunked before. And on Thursday, the committee played new video that undercuts a related claim.
The main claim about Pelosi has been that she denied National Guard assistance before Jan. 6. Except there remains no evidence of that. As fact-checkers at The Washington Post and elsewhere have noted, Pelosi doesn’t control the National Guard. And the House sergeant-at-arms has testified that he made no such request to Pelosi ahead of Jan. 6.
“It was not until the 6th that I alerted leadership that we might be making a request,” then-Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving testified.
Some top Republicans have occasionally offered a different but related version of that main claim: that Pelosi might have delayed the National Guard even after the unrest began.
This claim is also baseless. And the Jan. 6 committee on Thursday played new video showing Pelosi and other leading Democrats were indeed quite keen on getting the National Guard in. In multiple scenes, they are shown pushing hard for a response as the Capitol is besieged.
At one point, Pelosi makes such a plea while House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) looks on. But back in June, Scalise encouraged Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), after Banks had suggested Pelosi might have delayed the Guard.
So how much does the new footage undercut the claim? And where does the claim even come from?
The first thing to note is that the claim has been amorphous. Republicans generally haven’t detailed precisely what they’re referring to. And it’s often been raised in the kind of just-asking-questions manner meant to plant seeds of doubt without any actual evidence.
On July 27, 2021, No. 3 House Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) offered perhaps the most direct claim: “We also know that on January 6th, Nancy Pelosi was passed a note by the sergeant-at-arms, her political appointee, asking for her permission to bring in the National Guard. She hesitated.”
The same day, Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-Tex.) said, “The House sergeant-at-arms answers to Nancy Pelosi, and it’s been suggested the day of January 6th, he was waiting for Speaker Pelosi’s approval before calling in the National Guard.”
That same day and week, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) referred several times to the idea that Pelosi might have “hesitated,” while qualifying that it was based upon “press reports.”
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) picked up the claim on both June 8 and 9 of this year, but merely raised it as a question. “Was Speaker Pelosi involved in the decision to delay the National Guard assistance on January 6th?” he asked suggestively.
Very shortly after Banks repeated the question at a June 9 news conference, Scalise said, “Jim Banks just raised some very serious questions that should be answered by the January 6th commission.”
In the video played by the Jan. 6 committee on Thursday, Scalise is seen looking on as Pelosi joins others in pushing for assistance. Pelosi asks that the situation be treated as though the Pentagon or the White House were under siege.
The call, according to the committee, took place at 3:46 p.m. And the video also includes earlier calls in which Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) ask for assistance, as early as 3 p.m.
On Friday, Banks indicated his party’s claims and questions actually pertained to an earlier period, between when the push for the National Guard began and when word of its final approval came — a period mostly taking place in the 1 o’clock hour (depending upon the account). That would track with Stefanik’s reference to Pelosi being handed a note, which took place at 1:43 p.m.
The timeline of the Guard requests is murky. Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman testified that former Capitol Police chief Steven Sund “first reached out for National Guard support to the House sergeant-at-arms” at 12:58 p.m., citing phone records. But Sund testified that his first request was at 1:09 p.m. And Irving, then the sergeant-at-arms, testified he didn’t receive such a request until after 2 p.m. — that earlier conversations didn’t include direct requests.
What we know is that Irving ultimately informed Sund that congressional leaders had approved the request at 2:10 p.m. And Banks says that gap raises questions.
For the purposes of the Republicans’ claims and suggestions, though, what matters is when Pelosi was consulted. And there is no real evidence that she was given a request and then hesitated.
During this time period, business was still being conducted, and Pelosi was in the House chamber. Video shows Pelosi’s chief of staff, Terri McCullough, approaching her at 1:43 p.m., and Pelosi’s office has said the speaker approved the request then. The New York Times reported she also asked whether Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) needed to be consulted; McCullough said she asked.
So depending on whether Pittman’s or Sund’s timeline is accurate, there were either 45 or 34 minutes between when Sund initially requested the Guard and when Pelosi was approached and, according to her office, approved it.
Banks tweeted his own timeline Friday, but it’s misleading. For one, he says Pelosi “finally” approved the request at 2:10 p.m., but that’s actually the point when Irving told Sund that request had been approved — not necessarily when Pelosi herself approved it. Banks’s tweet also refers to Irving as “Pelosi’s staff,” but it’s a position nominated by the speaker that serves the whole House (and which the whole House votes to approve).
On 1/4 Speaker Pelosi’s staff denies USCP’s request for National Guard backup due to “bad optics”
On 1/6 at 12:58PM USCP asks Pelosi’s staff for Nat Guard help
2:10PM Pelosi finally approves it
3:00PM Pelosi's daughter films her "asking for Nat Guard assistance"
Scam.
— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) October 14, 2022
And there remains no evidence that she dithered when Irving actually approached her; nor is there evidence she was approached earlier. As noted, she was on the House floor during this period. While footage doesn’t always show the dais, there is no evidence of her being approached about this before 1:43 p.m.
Indeed, the Times reported that “it appears that Mr. Irving, who had told Chief Sund days earlier that he did not want National Guard troops at the Capitol on Jan. 6 because of bad ‘optics,’ waited 30 minutes after hearing from the Capitol Police chief before approaching Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s staff.”
At this point, the rioters had yet to breach the Capitol itself (that happened around 2:15 p.m.), meaning there might have been somewhat less urgency in that moment.
What this ultimately boils down to is a bunch of guesswork and surmising — along with some attempts to train the focus elsewhere. But generally speaking, when you raise such questions, there should be some affirmative reason to suspect that what’s being suggested or alleged could be true.
Scalise’s office said Friday that the whip’s comments about Banks’s questions pertained to what happened before Jan. 6, rather than any supposed delay on Jan. 6 itself. (Banks had raised both issues in his comments just before Scalise spoke.) Scalise spokesman Lauren Fine said Scalise “was referring to what he’s asked all along, which is why wasn’t the National Guard called prior to the day of.”
But plenty of others have focused on the events of Jan. 6 itself. And Banks spokesman Buckley Carlson assured Friday that, when it comes to raising that question, Banks “definitely stands by it.”
JM Rieger contributed to this report. | 2022-10-14T20:13:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The new Jan. 6 video, and the other baseless GOP claim about Pelosi - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/republicans-pelosi-jordan-banks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/republicans-pelosi-jordan-banks/ |
Oleksandra Matviichuk, the head of Ukraine's Centre for Civil Liberties, which won the 2022 Nobel peace prize, outside her office in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post).
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine and its global supporters must radically rethink how to secure justice for thousands of victims of Russian war crimes, a co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize said, by expanding the International Criminal Court and overhauling the lumbering, cumbersome system that has often failed to bring accountability after conflicts in Yugoslavia, Africa and the Middle East.
The new Nobel laureate, Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Ukrainian human rights lawyer whose Center for Civil Liberties (CCL) was among a trio of rights defenders awarded the Peace Prize last week, said in an interview with The Washington Post that it is no longer acceptable that only a tiny share of wartime crimes are adjudicated while thousands, or even millions, go unaddressed by the global justice system.
“We have to change our vision,” Matviichuk said in the interview, her first since the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s announcement last week. She said that the world cannot wait until after Russia’s war to seize vast swaths of Ukrainian territory concludes to deliver restitution for victims, as occurred with the Nuremberg prosecutions of Nazi war criminals in Germany following World War II.
Cases at the ICC and stand-alone tribunals like the one set up after the Balkans war proceeded slowly. Some of those indicted or sought for prosecution have remained out of reach for years. In 2006, former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic died at a U.N. prison while undergoing a lengthy trial for genocide.
“We live in a new century and we must go further,” Matviichuk said, adding that Russia should not be allowed to delay investigations and judicial proceedings either by intimidation on the battlefield, or by wielding its veto in the United Nations Security Council. “Justice cannot be dependent on the magnitude of the Putin regime’s power.”
Matviichuk recommended expanding the capacity of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the “Joint Investigative Team” — a European Union-led mechanism by which multiple countries can team up for cross-border criminal investigations. She also called for the creation of a special international tribunal to help Ukrainian courts manage what is expected to be a massive caseload of alleged war crimes by Russia.
Those efforts, Matviichuk said, could serve as “a boost to the national system, like a vaccine.” Eventually, she said she hoped that Ukraine can establish something akin to the truth and reconciliation committees that countries such as South Africa and Peru created to work through their own dark histories.
Matviichuk said that such efforts would be crucial in helping Ukraine close what she called a dangerous “accountability gap.”
Speaking in CCL’s modest office in central Kyiv, Matviichuk described the group’s efforts to document human rights abuses beginning in 2013, when then President Viktor Yanukovych led a crackdown on pro-European demonstrators in Kyiv.
After Russia invaded and illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014 and began fomenting a pro-Russian separatist war in the eastern Donbas region, the group pivoted to chronicling kidnappings and abuses in those areas.
That effort accelerated dramatically after Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, subjecting cities like Mariupol to indiscriminate bombing, displacing millions, and seizing control of territories that Russia now claims to have annexed — in violation of international law.
Since then, CCL has recorded details of some 21,000 incidents of alleged war crimes or crimes against humanity, relying on a network of regional groups and volunteers who field reports from across Ukraine.
Matviichuk and her colleagues at CCL are well familiar with the difficulties of trying to achieve justice.
After years of referring alleged incidents of sexual assault, torture and forced disappearances to state authorities and outside organizations including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Matviichuk said she and her colleagues grew frustrated that such abuses continued to occur.
And in the interview she grew emotional recalling the trial of a 21-year-old Russian sergeant who was sentenced to life imprisonment in May for the killing of Oleksandr Shelipov, a Ukrainian man shot in February while pushing his bicycle, unarmed, near his home.
During the trial, Shelipov’s distraught widow confronted the soldier and demanded to know why he had come to Ukraine. “He was an ordinary farmer, but he was her whole universe,” Matviichuk said of Shelipov.
“At that moment I understood that we need to find a way to provide justice for each victim, regardless of who they are, regardless of the type of crime … regardless whether or not the media is interested in their cases,” she said.
While that case reflected Ukrainian government prosecutors’ desire to telegraph that Russian war crimes would be punished, experts agree it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for Ukrainian courts to address crimes on the scale of what has already occurred in nearly eight months of war.
CCL was honored with the peace prize alongside Russian human rights group Memorial, which was abolished last year, and imprisoned Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski. It marked the first time a Nobel has gone to a Ukrainian person or organization.
The awards represented a sharp rebuke to President Vladimir Putin one year after the committee awarded the Peace Prize to the editor of an independent Russian newspaper.
Just three days after the prize was awarded, Russia launched a barrage of missile strikes on central Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, killing some 20 people in an attack Putin said was retribution for an explosion on a strategic bridge. Those strikes hit civilian infrastructure targets, including power plants across the country, which is a potential war crime.
Stephen Rapp, who served as envoy for global criminal justice during the Obama administration, said that even a layered approach involving Ukrainian and international courts would likely fall far short in trying to adjudicate every abuse committed during Russia’s war.
One major challenge, he said, would be securing custody of alleged perpetrators or planners of war crimes who, with the exception of captured soldiers, would likely be in Russia — far beyond those courts’ reach.
“She’s right to demand it,” Rapp said of Matviichuk. “What the political people and the government people that have limited resources have to do is work out a strategy to get as close as possible to that as you can.”
Rebecca Hamilton, who served as a lawyer at the ICC and now teaches law at American University, said the odds of achieving broad accountability might be higher in Ukraine because of the intense global focus on the war, which she attributed in part to systemic racism, linked to the fact the war is unfolding in Europe rather than in the global south.
Ukraine may be the best case scenario for what international criminal accountability can offer,” Hamilton said. “And yet, for many survivors it may still not be good enough.”
Immediately after receiving the news from the Nobel Committee — which she got shortly before boarding a train to Kyiv from Warsaw following a working visit to New York — Matviichuk issued a public call for Russia to be expelled from the United Nations Security Council.
While more than 140 countries voted at the U.N. General Assembly this week in support of a resolution demanding that Moscow reverse its annexation of four more Ukrainian regions, Moscow has used its veto power at the Security Council to block any legally binding measures there.
Ukrainians have frequently called for Russia to be stripped of its seat, which they believe Moscow unjustly inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and because of its use of aggressive military force in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and elsewhere.
“This leads to a situation when Russians start to believe they can do whatever they wanted,” Matviichuk said. “We must break the circle impunity, not only for Ukraine, but for other countries.”
While some Ukrainians criticized the Nobel committee for jointly recognizing rights defenders in Belarus and Russia, Matviichuk described a common fight that human rights defenders were waging across the three countries. “This is about humans, not about countries,” she said.
Matviichuk, who described herself as an empathetic person, acknowledged that years of documenting the worst of humanity had taken its own emotional toll on her and her colleagues at CCL. “I believe in human dignity,” she said.
She recalled one attempt to toughen herself up, when in 2014 she jointly wrote a report about abductions and abuses in occupied areas of Ukraine. She volunteered to oversee the chapter on torture, immersing herself in reports of victims who were beaten and raped, their fingernails pulled out, and genitalia shocked with electricity.
“I understood that it’s a long marathon, and I needed to be prepared,” she said. But, she added: “Frankly speaking, you couldn’t be prepared for such kind of atrocities.” | 2022-10-14T20:18:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ukrainian Nobel laureate demands new approach for wartime justice - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/ukrainian-nobel-laureate-demands-new-approach-wartime-justice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/ukrainian-nobel-laureate-demands-new-approach-wartime-justice/ |
MLK Library is now home to a shattered-glass sculpture of VP Harris
A shattered-glass sculpture of Vice President Harris being installed on Wednesday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)
A six-foot, shattered-glass image depicting Vice President Harris arrived at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library this week, occupying a space that will ultimately host an exhibit tracing Black feminism in the District, from the turn of the 20th century, civil rights and Black power eras to today.
The sculpture, which Swiss artist Simon Berger hammered by hand, was driven from a storage facility in New York City on Wednesday morning. The installation crew wiped down the glass with blue cleaning solution, increasing its vibrancy and glimmer, and repainted parts that were scuffed in transport.
The installation, arranged by the National Women’s History Museum, marks a milestone for both organizations at a time when conservatives have increasingly sought control over the teaching of history, challenging book offerings and ensnaring public libraries in a national battle for memory and meaning. As divisions intensified, the museum — an online outlet founded in 1996 — embarking on partnerships with libraries and other cultural institutions across the country, sought to share facts about well-known and unknown women in history.
The goal is to root installations in local experiences with the help of librarians and historians in those communities, Susan Whiting, chair of the National Women’s History Museum Board, told The Washington Post in an interview.
The cracked-glass installation is a tribute to the courage and strength of Harris’s accomplishments and will be on display until spring 2023.
Her role as vice president has made her a first in many categories for the vice president’s office — she is the first woman to serve in the role, and is the first South Asian American and first Black American to hold the position.
When asked why the work was not created by a woman or a person from a minority background, Whiting noted that the museum became involved after it was already made.
Berger’s work was created under a New York-based creative agency. After which, the museum teamed up with Chief, a private network focused on connecting and supporting female leaders, to present the medium last year.
Harris’s image will be part of the museum’s aim to bring a full exhibit exploring Black feminism to the library in the spring.
Acclaimed historians Sherie M. Randolph and Kendra T. Field curated the spring exhibit, which will tell the stories of Black feminists leaders whose work impacted the District and the country.
The exhibit will occupy the same space as the glass artwork.
“That space, because it is accessible and welcoming, is so perfect for our exhibit about struggles for women’s rights and civil rights that many Black leaders have and still have,” Whiting said. “We’re very excited to be doing this at this time.”
Timing has been complicated for the library, which underwent over $200 million in renovations as leaders reimagined a home befitting a mission that extends far beyond making books and computers accessible: a community center that offers life skills, supports hobbies and honors those who’ve contributed to D.C. culture and life.
Area residents can sign up to learn how to use a sewing machine and then reserve time to use it at later dates. Library staff teach aspiring podcasters how to use equipment, giving them tools to record on their own when they reserve a room dedicated to recording. Photographers and graphic designers, or those who want to enter the fields but can’t afford the software, have free options.
The library reopened its doors in September 2020, but the public wasn’t able to walk around and fully appreciate its facelift envisioned by Dutch architects. Visitors began trickling back and enjoying the space, but with caution, around March 2021, said Richard Reyes-Gavilan, D.C. Public Library’s executive director.
When they did, they installed a dotted, glass image of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at Cardozo high school to the right at the main entrance and a permanent exhibition on the fourth floor showing King’s ties to local activism — a direct response to District residents polled as renovations were under consideration who said the library needed to do more to honor King and other important historical D.C. figures.
Library visits still haven’t reached pre-coronavirus levels, and the MLK Library isn’t immune to the readjustment to life in an active — but controlled — pandemic. The library saw more than 283,000 visits between January and September of this year.
Reyes-Gavilan said he hopes the library’s partnership with the Women’s History Museum becomes a model for other museum partnerships even if the content shown in D.C. might not be as easily displayed in other areas of the nation.
Libraries serve communities and are not inherently political institutions, he said.
“Anytime we get time to espouse D.C. values, we’re going to take advantage of it,” he said. “We’re proud to be putting people like Kamala D. Harris literally on a pedestal.” | 2022-10-14T20:22:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kamala Harris sculpture now at MLK Library - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/14/mlk-library-harris-womens-museum/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/14/mlk-library-harris-womens-museum/ |
Is the D.C. area haunted? These five ghost tours try to prove it.
Tour options are available for ghost hunters of any age and persuasion
The National Building Museum’s Great Hall at night is the setting for Spooky Tours, where stories of the old Pension Building’s scary history are told. (Sam Bowersox)
The start of October brings all things spooky to the forefront of pop culture, from scary movies to creepy decor. But in Washington, hundreds of years of political enterprise can also make for some chilling tales of murder, scandal and — yes — ghosts. These walking tours posit that apparitions and ghouls haunt the streets you walk to work, the bars you stop at for a drink or the monuments that represent this city on far too many T-shirts. And no, they’re not just for tourists. Even locals (and nonbelievers) are sure to get their fix of Halloween-themed, slightly morbid delight at these locations.
The alleged haunting of the National Building Museum should come as no surprise to those who have entered its grand marble hall — the interior looks so much like a scene from Hogwarts, it would be harder to believe that there aren’t ghosts zipping about undetected. This after-hours tour offered through October features tales collected over decades from spooked security guards and others who have frequented the building at night. Many have claimed to see the ghost of a “lady in white” or apparitions of Civil War soldiers, since the building was used to process pensions for veterans — or soldiers’ widows and orphans. Learn about the museum’s efforts to ward off unsightly spirits by burying shoes beneath floorboards as the tour twists through the moonlit corridors of the museum after hours; it is recommended for ages 13 and up. Tours available Oct. 11, 17, 25 and 29 at 8 p.m. $15 for members, $18 for students, $20 for adult nonmembers. go.nbm.org.
National Nightmares’ Hill of Haunts
The quippy attitude of National Nightmares’ most popular tour is captured in its motto: “When you die on the Hill, you stay on the Hill.” Led by performers in historical garb, it’s all gimmicks aside with this 90-minute walk by the exteriors of some of D.C.’s most visible landmarks, including the Capitol building and the Library of Congress. Learn about the difference between apparitions, ghosts and poltergeists from tour guides who have collected alleged ghost stories themselves; many of the tales come firsthand from employees of federal agencies tasked with watching the buildings at night. One janitorial crew employee at the Cannon House Office Building reported seeing closed doors open themselves and strange, childlike noises emanating from empty rooms. Other stories, like that of Winston Churchill seeing Abraham Lincoln’s ghost at the White House or John Quincy Adams suffering a stroke on the Senate floor during a speech, have historical origins. Guests are encouraged to dress in costume. While not quite family-friendly (there are mentions of violence against children), it’s one of the few locally owned ghost tours available that also gives back to its community: The company donates to Central Union Mission and hosts a free tour for the local branch of Best Buddies. Evenings Thursdays through Sundays. Suitable for ages 12 and up. $19. nationalnightmares.com.
To enjoy an alcohol-soaked adventure that takes guests to the paranormal hot spots of the nation’s capital as well as its nightlife, turn to Boos and Booze. This fantastical tour covers D.C.’s own cryptid demon cat and some more outlandish stories of downtown D.C.’s bars — the sites of backroom deals, famous frequenters and sinful stories. Armed with allegedly ghost-detecting EMF meters and — yes — ghost plushies available for purchase, tour guides walk patrons down the former sites of “Rum Row” and “Murder Bay,” located at current-day E Street NW between 13th and 14th streets. The pub crawl lasts about an hour and a half to two hours; it can be a more intimate event during the week, with around four to 10 guests, but includes upward of 30 on some Saturdays. On smaller tours, the guide can mold the evening to accommodate guests, whether that be extra stops and stories or additional time to enjoy a drink. Bars include the Old Ebbitt Grill, one of Washington’s oldest saloons, and the Willard hotel lobby, where 19th-century visitors would spot President Ulysses S. Grant smoking a cigar and nursing a whiskey. Historical accuracy may be missing from this tour, but the scares are not. Tours available daily, with some cancellations; check website for details. $35, with drinks sold separately. Guests must be 21 and up. usghostadventures.com.
Ghosts of Georgetown
Neither Halloween nor a workout in Georgetown is complete without a trip to the infamous “Exorcist” stairs. These steep steps were featured in the 1973 horror film and have become a hot spot for movie and ghoul lovers alike. While the steps may be the draw, the Ghosts of Georgetown walking tour has other sites to show during its approximately two-hour experience. Your journey begins at the Old Stone House, the oldest unchanged structure in D.C., where you will hear about the spirits that supposedly haunt this relic of the past. The unexplained phenomena range from an older woman in a rocking chair to young children playing. Wear sneakers, as this is a walking-heavy walking tour that tries to pack in history as well as steps. Daily tours at 8 p.m. $50. viator.com.
Alexandria Ghost and Graveyard Tour
Spanning one hour and six blocks, this packed tour guides you through the streets of Old Town Alexandria. Knowledgeable tour guides wielding lanterns tell ghostly tales and explain the morbid history of the area, such as the bride who was consumed by flames on her wedding day. This tour mixes in facts about the architecture and prominent local figures with fables of the supernatural. It won’t keep you up at night as much as it will have you sharing fun facts with your co-workers (did you know that President George Washington’s bloodletting doctor, James Craik, lived in Alexandria?). At the end of the hour, you will be deposited in a graveyard to hear your final story. The endpoint is a short walk from Dolci Gelati, where you can enjoy a delicious scoop of gelato, or you can continue your spooky adventure at Gadsby’s Tavern. This tour is deemed appropriate for ghost hunters 9 and up, though all ages are welcome with parental permission. Tour times vary, with daily tours until Halloween. Free for children 6 and under, $10 for kids 7-17, $15 for adults, $14 for seniors. alexcolonialtours.com. | 2022-10-14T20:23:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C.-area ghost tours that will scare locals and tourists alike - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/11/ghost-tours-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/11/ghost-tours-dc/ |
Judge dismisses one of five counts against Steele dossier source
Igor Danchenko outside federal court in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
A federal judge on Friday threw out one of the five charges against Igor Danchenko, a private researcher who was a primary source for a 2016 “dossier” of allegations about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia and who is on trial on charges of lying to the FBI about where he got his information.
The remaining charges will be submitted to the jury next week, U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga ruled Friday.
Special counsel John Durham rested his case against Danchenko on Friday afternoon after presenting testimony and evidence for four days to a federal jury in Alexandria, Va. He argued that Danchenko misled the FBI when he was interviewed in 2017 about the origins of the information he passed on to former British spy Christopher Steele.
Steele compiled Danchenko’s claims in a series of reports now known as the “Steele dossier” that the FBI used to justify secret surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser.
Defense attorneys, who said they do not intend to call witnesses, asked Trenga to dismiss all five counts in Danchenko’s indictment after Durham rested his case. The defense argued that Durham failed to show that Danchenko deceived the FBI and hampered its 2016 investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia.
The charge that was dismissed had to do with a longtime Washington public relations executive — and Democratic supporter — named Charles Dolan Jr. Durham alleged that Danchenko “concealed” Dolan as one of his sources.
Danchenko’s defense argued that the FBI agent who asked Danchenko about his contacts with Dolan had used the word “talked” in his question. Danchenko’s denial that he had talked with Dolan was “literally true,” because the word “talk” does not encompass email communications, Trenga ruled, citing the dictionary definition.
Trenga said that under Supreme Court precedent, “precise questioning is imperative to establish perjury,” and that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit as held that a false-statements conviction “cannot be based on a literally true statement, even if that statement is nonresponsive or misleading.”
The jury will decide whether Danchenko lied to the FBI about another source he claimed, Sergei Millian, the former president of the Russian American Chamber of Commerce.
Durham, who was asked by then-Attorney General William P. Barr in 2019 to dig into the origins of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation of possible coordination between Trump and Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign, has had some struggles in court. In May, a jury in D.C. federal court acquitted the only other defendant who went to trial as part of his investigation, cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann, who also was accused of lying to the FBI. | 2022-10-14T20:23:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judge dismisses one of five counts against Steele dossier source - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/14/danchenko-one-count-dimissed-durham/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/14/danchenko-one-count-dimissed-durham/ |
Judge blasts Bureau of Prisons’ treatment of dying prisoner
In response to scathing court opinion finding agency in contempt, Justice Dept. inspector general opens investigation
The Justice Department has launched an internal investigation of the Bureau of Prisons after a federal judge issued a blistering court order saying the agency “should be deeply ashamed” for what he called “its demonstrated contempt for the safety and dignity of the human lives in its care.”
A ruling last week by U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr. heaps scorn upon the agency’s handling of the case of Frederick Mervin Bardell, 54, who died last year of colon cancer. The judge said the Bureau of Prisons repeatedly fought Bardell’s efforts for compassionate release and specialized treatment and, in his final days, left him outside an airport, extremely weak and seriously ill and in need of assistance to get home to his family.
“The treatment Mr. Bardell received in the last days of his life is inconsistent with the moral values of a civilized society and unworthy of the Department of Justice of the United States of America,” the judge wrote, accusing the Bureau of Prisons of ignoring explicit court orders and asking the Justice Department to investigate.
On Friday, the Justice Department inspector general’s office announced it was opening an investigation of the case.
Bardell had served most of a 12-year sentence for distributing child pornography when, in late 2020, he asked for compassionate release from a prison in Seagoville, Tex., to receive specialized treatment for colon cancer. Justice Department lawyers argued against his release, saying he could receive adequate treatment in prison and suggesting he might not have cancer, according to court papers.
U.S. prison officials resist making inmates pay court-ordered victim fees
His parents paid for a plane ticket home, but Bardell, “who had a tumor protruding from his stomach and was visibly weak and bleeding, unsurprisingly soiled himself during this not so bon voyage,” the judge wrote.
During the trip, Bardell relied on a fellow passenger to help get him off the first leg of the journey, Dalton wrote. “Once Mr. Bardell’s parents were reunited with their son and attempted to get him in the car, his father had to take off his own shirt and put it on the seat of [his lawyer’s] car to absorb the blood and feces,” the judge noted.
Bardell’s parents drove him straight to a hospital, where the former prisoner died nine days later, according to the judge’s opinion. It noted that a doctor estimated that Bardell would have had a 71 percent chance of survival if he had received earlier diagnosis and treatment.
Bureau of Prisons released a disabled man with no sure way home. Then he went missing.
As part of his contempt ruling, Dalton ordered the Bureau of Prisons to reimburse Bardell’s parents for the cost of the flight and pay about $200,000 for the cost of a lawyer appointed to review Bardell’s treatment. “These consequences,” the judge wrote, “are, unfortunately, grossly inadequate to address the callous disregard for Mr. Bardell.” He ordered the agency to pay the family by Monday.
Dalton wrote that he hoped the case would “illuminate the BOP’s arrogant — and wholly mistaken — notion that it is beyond reproach and the reach of the Court. … This Court will do everything in its power to ensure that the BOP is held to account for its demonstrated contempt for the safety and dignity of the human lives in its care.”
Colette Peters, the director of the Bureau of Prisons, said in a statement that “my heart goes out to Mr. Bardell’s family, to whom I send my deepest condolences. Humane treatment of the men and women in Bureau of Prisons custody is a paramount priority. In instances where we have failed at upholding our mission, we are taking steps to find out what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent it from happening in the future.” | 2022-10-14T20:23:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Frederick Bardell wrongly denied cancer treatment by prison system, judge rules - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/14/prisons-contempt-dying-inmate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/14/prisons-contempt-dying-inmate/ |
FILE - This file photo provided by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department shows Larry Jo Taylor Jr. of Indianapolis. A judge declared a second mistrial Monday, June 6, 2022, for Taylor Jr., charged in the 2015 killing of a pastor’s wife after jurors learned details about the Indianapolis case’s long history in the court system. (Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department via AP, File) (Uncredited/Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department) | 2022-10-14T20:24:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man gets 86 years in prison for murder of pastor's wife - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/man-gets-86-years-in-prison-for-murder-of-pastors-wife/2022/10/14/1539b87a-4bfd-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/man-gets-86-years-in-prison-for-murder-of-pastors-wife/2022/10/14/1539b87a-4bfd-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
An aerial view of the Mar-a-Lago Club on Aug. 31. (Steve Helber/AP)
The Supreme Court has dismissed Donald Trump in a single sentence. With no note of dissent, the justices Thursday rejected the former president’s request to intervene in litigation over documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate this summer. This outcome only underscores the outrageous frivolity of the contentions his team has lodged in courts of law and public opinion.
The Supreme Court shouldn’t even have entertained the petition to reconsider part of an appeals court order allowing the Justice Department to continue to review classified documents as a special master looks over other materials for claims of attorney-client or executive privilege. Yet the outcome of Justice Clarence Thomas’s referring the case his colleagues’ way is just another reason to scoff at claims from Mr. Trump that the legal system is treating him unfairly. He has had the opportunity to use, and attempt to abuse, the courts all the way up to the highest in the land — three of whose justices he appointed. And nonetheless, they’ve rejected his arguments.
These rejections are the only possible answer to the numerous implausible claims made by Mr. Trump, including that while in office he could declassify documents “even by thinking about it.” The Mar-a-Lago case is now ensnared in multiple courts thanks to multiple filings from Mr. Trump. Nowhere has he succeeded in establishing any real injury caused to him by the FBI being allowed to proceed with its investigation into the trove of more than 11,000 documents, including 103 with classification markings, that he took with him from the Oval Office. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have ably described the injury that both an impeded investigation and the ability of an outside party to view highly sensitive materials would cause to the government. After all, these materials reportedly include information regarding nuclear capabilities of a foreign government and other secrets so closely held that the agents involved in the probe needed a special clearance to look at them.
This case, in short, is serious. An article from The Post only emphasizes this reality: A former White House valet told investigators that he moved boxes while the government was seeking the return of the classified materials, having previously denied doing anything of the sort. Security-camera footage corroborates the revised account. The new evidence adds substance to the suggestion of obstruction that the Justice Department also teased in its brief to the Supreme Court. Yet the former president’s spokesman Taylor Budowich persists in leveling increasingly absurd charges, claiming the administration has “fabricated a Document Hoax in a desperate attempt to retain political power.”
The idea that justice has somehow been perverted here is fiction. The significance of Mr. Trump’s conduct is as plain as the silliness of his complaints. The Supreme Court’s terse reply to his emergency application is only the latest confirmation. | 2022-10-14T20:24:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Supreme Court ruling on Mar-a-Lago underscores Trump's complaints - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/maralago-supreme-court-ruling-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/maralago-supreme-court-ruling-trump/ |
Land use is practically a religion in Montgomery County, and the five members of the county’s powerful planning board are the defenders of the faith. When a cascade of poor individual decisions by several board members ran headlong into simmering personality conflicts, the result was an institutional meltdown that shook Maryland’s most populous and economically vital locality.
That left the Montgomery County Council little choice but to clean house, which it did with dispatch. On Tuesday, following reports of escalating dysfunction, the council fired all five planning board members. The board’s chairman as well as the top professional staffer in the planning department, each highly regarded, were casualties in the crossfire.
What’s stunning in this episode is the disconnect between the high stakes and quotidian misconduct involved. It is difficult to overstate the role played by the planning board and the department it directs, with its $190 million annual budget. Together, they oversee more than 5,700 employees and 400 parks, along with the county Park Police, and, critically, hold sway over what gets built, where it goes, and how it looks across a jurisdiction of more than 1 million people.
A cursory glance at a land-use map illustrates the agency’s clout: Montgomery’s sprawling 93,000-acre Agricultural Reserve — a bucolic stretch of upcounty farms, fields and forests that keeps development at bay over nearly a third of the county — was the planning board’s brainchild more than 40 years ago.
That’s real power. Yet the people who were exercising it allowed petty quarrels and dumb behavior to spiral into a public-facing car wreck.
It started with an inspector general’s investigation into Board Chair Casey Anderson’s after-hours tipples from an office liquor cabinet. The council docked him a month’s pay, equal to about $18,000, and slapped two other board members on the wrist with one-day pay suspensions for having a drink in his office. That should have ended things; instead, it triggered an eruption of recriminations, leaks and inappropriate score-settling, directed mostly at Mr. Anderson and, by all appearances, mostly by Partap Verma, the board’s vice chair, who is said to have wanted the top job. Mr. Anderson was accused of using salty and misogynistic language, which he denies. When Gwen Wright, a nationally renowned planning department director, publicly came to his defense, the board fired her. That was unwarranted and foolish; she was months from retirement.
No ideological schism animated the toxicity. In fact, the planning board has unanimously backed a smart, sweeping blueprint for development over the next quarter-century that would encourage more relatively affordable housing and economic development, both badly needed. Montgomery’s potent NIMBY forces have sniped at the plan, known as Thrive Montgomery 2050. Yet after more than a year of debate, the County Council looks set to approve it by the end of the year, as it should.
Whatever his peccadilloes, Mr. Anderson was a planning visionary. His departure, along with that of the other board members, caps an inglorious chapter in local history; it should also impart some lessons. First, feuds in key government agencies cannot be allowed to fester; to the council’s credit, this one was ended quickly. Second, character and maturity count when it comes to appointments to key government positions. The council, set to appoint new board members later this month, should take heed. | 2022-10-14T20:24:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | A planning board meltdown in Montgomery County - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/planning-board-meltdown-montgomery-county/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/planning-board-meltdown-montgomery-county/ |
By Michael Balsamo and Jake Bleiberg | AP
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is putting forth seven new Justice Department and judicial nominations covering three U.S. attorney’s offices in Texas and other senior posts. One is a prosecutor who vowed to seek the death penalty for a man who killed nearly two dozen people in a racist attack at a Walmart. | 2022-10-14T20:24:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden nominates 7 for US attorney, judge and marshal slots - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-nominates-7-for-us-attorney-judge-and-marshal-slots/2022/10/14/9197667a-4bf2-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-nominates-7-for-us-attorney-judge-and-marshal-slots/2022/10/14/9197667a-4bf2-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Woman dies of cardiac arrest at Jaspers restaurant in Pr. George’s
The owner of a popular Largo restaurant that remained open while awaiting help from authorities after a female customer died of cardiac arrest said Friday he is not sure whether it was the right decision not to close.
“It’s just a tragic situation,” said Fred Rosenthal, 80, whose restaurant, Jaspers, swiftly became the target of online misinformation in recent days as social media scrutiny intensified.
Rosenthal said the restaurant’s manager did not want to spark a rumor mill or cause any panic in the restaurant, so the staff continued serving customers as a portion of the building was closed and the woman’s family engaged with emergency medical workers, police and a funeral home.
“We’ve never had anything like this happen before,” Rosenthal said. “Hindsight is 20/20.”
Medics were called to Jaspers just before 6 p.m. Wednesday after the woman, who authorities have not identified, was found unconscious in the restroom, officials said. Efforts to resuscitate the woman were not successful, and she was pronounced dead just before 6:40 p.m.
Minutes later, Prince George’s County police were called to the restaurant to conduct a death investigation, said department spokesperson Brian Fischer, but no foul play was suspected. Authorities on scene at Jaspers notified the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner at 7:12 p.m., Fischer said.
A spokesman for the medical examiner said state officials declined the case because it did not meet the office’s criteria, which does not include deaths by natural causes that raise no other suspicions. The woman’s body was released to her family, police said, and later removed by a private funeral home about two hours later.
Fischer said officers remained at the restaurant until the funeral home left.
Jaspers customers continued to filter in and out of the crowded restaurant until the establishment closed out dinner service for the evening.
Subsequent posts to social media whipped up controversy about whether the decades-old community mainstay, billed online as an upscale casual American eatery, should have closed as soon as the woman’s death was discovered.
The online dust-up prompted Rosenthal to apologize to any customers who felt the situation was mishandled. But Rosenthal also said the criticism felt hurtful to his staff and disrespectful to the family of the woman — all of whom, he said, were trying to navigate a difficult situation the best they could in the moment.
The restaurant was packed with patrons Wednesday night when someone reported there was a woman unconscious in the restroom, he said. Restaurant management called emergency services, who determined that she had died.
The women’s restroom was closed off to other customers, and those on scene directed all customers to the men’s restroom for about two hours, Rosenthal said.
The restaurant owner was not at Jaspers that night, he said, but at his Bethesda home after visiting his son near Baltimore. Rosenthal said he received a call about the woman’s death at around 11 p.m., nearly two hours after the woman’s body had been removed by the funeral home.
The area of the body was closed off with a drape, he said. The restaurant staff was instructed by police that it was not allowed to do anything more until the coroner arrived, according to Rosenthal. The staff was under the impression that the coroner would arrive swiftly, but that didn’t happen, he said, adding that the situation ended about 9 p.m.
Rosenthal said he had learned the family’s name from an incident report and was planning to call them to share his condolences. | 2022-10-14T21:23:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A woman died of cardiac arrest at a Largo restaurant on Wednesday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/jaspers-customer-died-largo/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/jaspers-customer-died-largo/ |
A prayer for the children gunned down in our streets
Our rector at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Foggy Bottom, the Rev. Wesley Williams, leads us weekly in a prayer specially composed for “a country that swells with an ocean of weapons.” Citing violence in our streets, he prays, “Strengthen the lungs of the living to cry out for change.” And: “May our own deep roar shake us from complacency, until we may see, and we may say: That no more, no more, no more shall perish.” We respond in unison, “Amen.”
Those weekly recitations might sound rote and mechanical to some ears. The prayers, however, aren’t just for show. They are heartfelt in the belief that God hears prayers.
It’s clear that, unfortunately, many others don’t.
That lesson was driven home in the hours and days after last Sunday’s morning service.
Sometime before 1 p.m. Sunday, a teenage boy was shot on Birney Place in Southeast D.C. and taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. An hour and a half later, another boy was found shot, but conscious and breathing, on Massachusetts Avenue SE. He, too, was taken to a hospital.
Shortly after 4 p.m., two teens were shot on Stanton Road SE. One was found conscious and breathing. The second made it to the hospital on his own.
Just after 11 a.m. Monday, two teens were shot on Warder Street NW. Twenty minutes later, a boy was shot in the leg and a man was shot in the stomach on Columbia Road NW.
On Thursday, 15-year-old Andre Robertson was sitting on his great-grandmother’s porch on 48th Place NE when a car pulled up around 3:30 p.m. Three people got out and opened fire, striking Robertson multiple times. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
This Sunday, and on all the Sundays, and in morning and evening prayer services in the days ahead, people in this city will be heard praying for an end to the shootings, bloodshed and heartbreaks caused by the violence choking the life out of this city.
Some of you might be sick of reading this kind of column. I, too, have despaired of going down this written road year after year, month after month, seemingly day after day. But we can’t pretend that oceans of weapons are not out there. And that there aren’t people in our city, at younger and younger ages, who are able and willing to fire bullets and plunge knives into the bodies of others.
There’s no escaping that grim, ghastly reality.
As with some of you, and my fellow congregants, my focus has not been limited to putting words on a page. Living here and seeing the residues of violence up close — yellow crime-scene tape, kids in handcuffs, mothers with haunted eyes, politicians and public servants searching for answers, for anything that will make the problems go away or at least to change the subject; my own setbacks (mentored kids kept alive, out of jail, but not on solid ground) — those things keep me at this.
As do the lingering thoughts of gunned-down children lying on the streets.
D.C. crime prevention and diversion programs — city-funded interventions to get at “root causes” — are not to be criticized or scoffed at. But they can only supplement, and in no way supplant, what is missing: the sustaining glue of close, enriching and supporting family that begins at birth and grows along with our children.
This isn’t finger-pointing or shaming or any of that other rot that inhibits self-examination. It’s about the shared commitment evoked at the beginning of this column: recognition that faith without good works is nothing; that we must be shaken from our complacency and cry out for change. A commitment that means stepping beyond prayer and stepping up to offer time and treasure, whether in personal aid, or charitable contributions or directing our taxes to support children trying to make their way.
That one way — hard though it might be and with community roadblocks along the way — is to build families, rear children, reinforce values and protect them with loving arms. These are steps that might help get us to a place where, as a community, it may finally be said, “No more, no more, no more shall perish.” | 2022-10-14T21:55:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | A prayer for the children gunned down in D.C.'s streets - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/dc-youth-shooting-families/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/dc-youth-shooting-families/ |
Antonio Gibson didn't get his first carry until the third quarter Thursday night in Chicago. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
The Washington Commanders drafted Brian Robinson Jr. in the third round to add a new skill-set and another potential playmaker to their running backs room. Coach Ron Rivera, who often cites his days in Carolina, envisioned creating a rushing tandem similar to the ones he had with the Panthers. And Robinson, with his power and downhill-running style, was a nice counter to Antonio Gibson’s elusiveness and pass-catching, and J.D. McKissic’s versatility on third downs.
In Robinson, the Commanders soon realized they had another potential starter, a label that has become somewhat of a misnomer in today’s NFL, where third-stringers can “start” if the game-plan calls for a certain opening package. Since Robinson’s return from the non-football injury list, the team is beginning to learn how to maximize the value of their rushers.
In Thursday night’s win over the Chicago Bears, Robinson got his first NFL start and touchdown. But Gibson, a former college receiver who topped 1,000 rushing yards last season, didn’t get his first offensive snap until the second quarter and didn’t take a handoff until the third.
That was when the Commanders found a way to use both in a mutually beneficial way. The 13-play, 65-yard scoring drive was the Commanders’ longest of the game and their most balanced use of their rushers.
“We got a little bit away from Antonio, which again, that’s something that I’m going to put on us as coaches because I’ve talked with the offensive guys about this,” Rivera said. “But when we brought Antonio in the second series … we saw a change-of-pace guy come in and how that became a couple of explosives.”
In the first half, with Robinson carrying the load on the ground, Washington averaged just 4.4 yards per carry. But in that third-quarter series, Washington mixed in Gibson in both the run and pass games to stretch the field and open up new lanes. He and Robinson combined to average 7.4 yards on five carries in that series, and totaled four first downs.
It started with the second play of the drive: Gibson broke loose on a run off the left tackle, collecting 18 yards, thanks to a block from rookie tight end Cole Turner. Then Washington moved Gibson out in space for an eight-yard catch to the right, had him run off the right tackle for three yards, and then switched him back to the left side for a nine-yard run and five-yard catch on a screen.
Candace Buckner: Commanders can rebrand all they want. Dysfunction is their true identity.
Robinson followed with two short runs to the left to convert a first down and get Washington to the Bears’ 10-yard line.
Although Washington had to settle for a field goal by Joey Slye, it came away with a blueprint for the future.
“That’s where we got to get to, is now all of a sudden they go from getting this guy between the tackles, to now we’re getting this guy … around the end, we’re getting this guy out into the routes,” Rivera said. “Then you come back and you pound a little bit more and now all of a sudden it’s a little softer, and those two-, three-, four- or five-yard runs now become five-, six-, seven-, eight-yard runs. That’s what we’ve got to find.”
Carson Wentz entered Thursday’s game with a shoulder injury and left because of an additional hand injury.
“It’s a little sore, but I think I’ll be all right,” he said postgame. “I hit it on a helmet, I don’t know what it was, second quarter maybe. And the chilly conditions didn’t necessarily help the jammed fingers. But it was all right. I was doing all right.”
Wentz repeatedly tried to shake off the pain and ultimately played through any discomfort. Rivera said the quarterback was set to visit with the team physician Friday afternoon for clarity on his injuries.
Chase Young nearing return?
Chase Young could make his return to the field soon. Washington’s standout defensive end has been on the physically unable to perform list while recovering from the ACL injury he suffered last November.
The Commanders has fulfilled his requisite four weeks on the Physically Unable to Perform list. Once the team designates him to return to practice, it will have 21 days to activate him to the 53-man roster.
Rivera said all of that will be dependent on Young’s next appointment with Dr. James Andrews.
“I know he still has to see Dr. Andrews one more time, and once that happens, then we’ll know for sure when we can start his clock,” Rivera said. “I think it’s going to happen early, coming up, so I don’t know if this week is doable yet. But if it is doable, what we’ll do is we’ll start his clock and get him out on the field a lot like what we did with [Brian Robinson]. But I won’t know until that appointment.” | 2022-10-14T21:55:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders find some rushing success, don’t want to get carried away - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/commanders-find-some-rushing-success-dont-want-get-carried-away/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/commanders-find-some-rushing-success-dont-want-get-carried-away/ |
A video of President Donald Trump is played during a hearing by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 13. (Alex Wong/Reuters)
In one harrumph, Trump charged that no incumbent president since 1960 had failed to win the general election after winning Iowa, Florida and Ohio. The thing is, there was no incumbent presidential candidate in 1960. Dwight D. Eisenhower had been president for two terms leading up to 1960, but the battle for the White House was between Sen. John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
The narcissistic injury known as “Trump Lost” has kept the former reality show celebrity busy with conspiracies — of election fraud, QAnon absurdity and, recently, the court-authorized confiscation of classified documents from his Palm Beach home. Conspiracy, it would seem, is in Trump’s bones. Wherever unhappy truth raises its head, Trump is sure to see a conspiracy against him. Sometimes, to be fair, he might have a point. There was an awful lot of nonsense circulating for a while — from the debunked Russian dossier to allegations of him paying off a porn star in exchange for her silence about their affair.
Still, credit the committee with showing this: Through documents and testimony, it demonstrated that Trump knew he had lost the election even as he repeated the lie that he won and, on Jan. 6 agitated the protesters. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, was shown recounting how Trump told Meadows: “I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out.” Doesn’t that say it all? Even as he watched the melee unfold on TV, while congressional leaders scrambled for safety, Trump resisted pleas to tell the mob to stand down. The committee also found that Trump’s campaign team began planting seeds for claims of election fraud before the votes were even counted. Just in case.
But that dog don’t hunt, as his Southern fans would say, in a democratic republic with checks and balances and the rule of law. Trump was delusional to think otherwise. But he’s not stupid. Wily-but-weird might be the best we can ever do in defining Trump. Thanks to the committee, we know that Trump was behind everything that has transpired since the election, just don’t expect him to ever come clean. The thing is, you see, he’ll never give up; never concede. | 2022-10-14T22:24:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | What did Donald Trump know? The Jan. 6 committee has the answer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/donald-trump-knew-2020-election-defeat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/donald-trump-knew-2020-election-defeat/ |
Shawn Price, a member of the Proud Boys from New Jersey, far right in striped dark sweater and dark hat, joins other rioters clashing with police and security forces as people try to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
During the first presidential debate Sept. 29, President Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” Here’s why they are defined as a hate group. (Video: Allie Caren/The Washington Post)
“At some point while on the [Capitol’s] lower west terrace, Price put on a pair of goggles,” the statement says. About 1:45 p.m., he and other Proud Boys members “pushed with a group of individuals into a line of law enforcement officers that was attempting to restrain the crowd and to hold crowd-control barriers in place. The group that Price pushed with included individuals who grabbed and pushed into the crowd-control barriers.” | 2022-10-14T23:12:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Proud Boys leader from New Jersey pleads guilty in Capitol riot - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/proud-boy-guilty-price-capitol-riot/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/proud-boy-guilty-price-capitol-riot/ |
NEW YORK — Two of the nation’s largest grocers have agreed to merge in a deal that would help them better compete with Walmart, Amazon and other major companies that have stepped into the grocery business. Kroger on Friday bid $20 billion for Albertsons. Kroger will also assume $4.7 billion of Albertsons’ debt. Kroger operates 2,800 stores in 35 states, including brands like Ralphs, Smith’s and Harris Teeter. Alberstons operates 2,220 stores in 34 states, including brands like Safeway, Jewel Osco and Shaw’s. Together the companies employ 710,000 people. The deal will likely get heavy scrutiny from U.S. regulators, especially at a time of high food price inflation.
NEW YORK — Stocks ended broadly lower on Wall Street, leaving most major indexes in the red for the week, as more concerns emerged about inflation. Markets fell after a report showed U.S. consumers raising their expectations for inflation, yet another signal that the Federal Reserve will have to continue aggressively raising interest rates. The strategy raises the risk of a recession. The S&P 500 fell 2.4% Friday. The Dow fell 1.3% and the Nasdaq gave back 3.1%. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which influences mortgage rates, is near the highest it’s been since 2008.
LONDON — British Prime Minister Liz Truss has abandoned a planned cut to corporation tax, scrapping a key part of an economic plan that sparked weeks of market and political turmoil. Truss said at a hastily arranged news conference Friday that she was acting to “reassure the markets of our fiscal discipline.” Truss also fired Kwasi Kwarteng as Treasury chief on Friday, replacing him with former Cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt. Truss is trying to restore order after three weeks of turmoil sparked by the government’s tax-cutting “mini budget.” Truss vowed to press on with other aspects of her economic plan, saying “I want to deliver a low tax, high wage, high growth economy.”
DOVER, Del. — A court fight between the world’s richest man and an influential social platform could easily have become a circus, particularly given Elon Musk’s penchant for chaos. That hasn’t happened in the Musk-Twitter lawsuit, largely thanks to a Delaware judge who has never backed away from a challenge. The parties are fighting over Musk’s $44 billion deal to acquire the company, which he tried to abandon in July and which Twitter wants to force Musk to complete. Keeping the case on track is Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, who brings a no-nonsense approach as the first woman to lead Delaware’s 230-year-old Court of Chancery.
NEW YORK — The pace of sales at U.S. retailers was unchanged in September from August as rising prices for rent and food chipped away at money available for other things. Retail sales were flat last month, down from a revised. 0.4% growth in August. The Commerce Department reported Friday that retail sales fell 0.4% in July. Excluding vehicle sales and gas, retail sales rose 0.3%. Excluding gas sales, spending was up 0.1%. While the report showed shoppers’ resilience, the figures also are not adjusted for inflation unlike many other government reports. In fact, sales at grocery stores rose 0.4% , helped by rising prices in food.
WASHINGTON — What keeps driving inflation so high? The answer, it seems, is nearly everything. Supply chain snarls and parts shortages inflated the cost of factory goods when the economy rocketed out of the pandemic recession two years ago. Then it was a surge in consumer spending fueled by federal stimulus checks. Then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted gas and food supplies and sent those prices skyward. Since March, the Federal Reserve has been aggressively raising interest rates to try to cool the price spikes. So far, there’s little sign of progress. Thursday’s report on consumer prices in September came in hotter than expected.
WASHINGTON — Senior U.S. officials say the Defense Department has gotten a request from SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk to take over funding for his satellite network that has provided crucial battlefield communications for Ukrainian military forces during the war with Russia. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter not yet made public, said the issue has been discussed in meetings and senior leaders are weighing the matter. There have been no decisions. Musk’s Starlink system of more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites has provided broadband internet to more than 150,000 Ukrainian ground stations. Early Friday, Musk tweeted that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support Ukraine’s communications needs.
NEW YORK — The outlook of the U.S. economy from Wall Street’s biggest banks is getting gloomier and gloomier, after the industry spent the past year and a half trumpeting that the U.S. economy is strong and the U.S. consumer resilient. Half a dozen banks reported their quarterly results on Friday, ranging from behemoths JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup to super regional banks like U.S. Bank and PNC Financial. The banks all made comments that their macroeconomic forecasts of the U.S. economy have fallen — often citing inflation and the war in Ukraine — and they are increasing trying to prepare for a potential downturn or recession.
WASHINGTON — Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic has acknowledged that many of his financial trades and investments violated the central bank’s ethics rules. He says corrected all five years of his financial disclosures since becoming president in 2017. Bostic said the trades were made by several investment managers and he was unaware of the transactions. He says he has since changed his investment approach to remain within the rules. Bostic’s disclosure comes just a year after a trading controversy engulfed the Federal Reserve. Last fall, two bank presidents resigned after their trading attracted criticism from ethics watchdogs and some politicians. | 2022-10-14T23:25:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Grocery deal, retail sales - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-grocery-deal-retail-sales/2022/10/14/413dde62-4c0a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-grocery-deal-retail-sales/2022/10/14/413dde62-4c0a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Education Department to begin testing student debt relief application
The Education Department is preparing to release a beta version of the student debt relief application as soon as Friday evening, testing out the viability of the platform ahead of the full rollout, according to three federal officials with knowledge of the plan.
The link was not yet available on the department’s website.
The portal will be open for only a short window but will reopen again at a later date, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. The test will allow the agency to collect data on the functionality of the site, an official said.
Neither the White House nor the Education Department immediately responded to requests for comment.
The Biden administration had originally hoped to make the forgiveness application available in early October. But the release has been delayed as the forgiveness plan faces multiple legal challenges.
Earlier this week, the Biden administration gave an early look at the application form for the president’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal loan debt for eligible borrowers. It had previously said that the application would be short and that borrowers would not be required to provide documents or a federal student identification number. | 2022-10-14T23:25:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Beta test of student loan forgiveness application to be released - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/14/student-loan-forgiveness-application-beta/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/14/student-loan-forgiveness-application-beta/ |
Walker, Warnock set to debate in contentious Georgia Senate race
The debate comes after the mother of one of Herschel Walker’s children said the the former football star paid for a 2009 abortion that she said he wanted her to have. Walker has said the account is not true.
Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) in Washington, left, and Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker in Perry, Ga. (AP)
SAVANNAH, Ga. — National Republican leaders rallied to Herschel Walker’s side on Friday, as he and Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) prepared for their only scheduled debate in the one of the biggest battleground races of the year.
The debate comes after the mother of one of Herschel Walker’s children said the former football star paid for a 2009 abortion that she said he wanted her to have. The woman told The Washington Post that she had to repeatedly press Walker for funds for the procedure.
Walker, who is running on a strict antiabortion platform, opposing the procedure without exceptions for rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother, has said the account is not true. On Friday morning, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, echoed Walker’s message.
“Herschel Walker has denied those allegations,” Scott said at a pre-debate rally for Walker. “He’s had lots of struggles, like a lot of people do, like a lot of families do.”
Even before the woman’s story, which was first reported by the Daily Beast, strategists in both parties had circled the debate on their calendar, saying the outcome of Georgia’s contest may determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the Senate for the next two years.
“The path to the majority comes right here through Georgia,” Scott said at a rally in Savannah.
Last week, the Daily Beast published an account of the mother of one of Walker’s children saying he paid for her 2009 abortion after she became pregnant while they were in a relationship. The Post has reviewed a receipt for the procedure, an ATM deposit slip that includes an image of a $700 check written by Walker days after the procedure and a “get well” card that he sent with the check. The Post has spoken with a person the woman confided in at the time, who corroborated her account.
Though Democrats have said they think the revelations could upend what has been a tight race, some supporters said the senator shouldn’t bring it up onstage. “That speaks for itself. Walker is showing his true color,” Mattie England, a retired nurse, said at a rally for Warnock here in Savannah.
“Rev. Warnock, in terms of the things that he needs to bring up today, I don’t necessarily know that Mr. Walker’s honesty is one of them,” said Donna Sanders, a student and caregiver from Savannah. “I think most of us voters see clearly, regardless of what’s plastered all over political commercials.”
Scott, the NRSC chair, also tried to move on from the abortion story and instead focus on how much of the Republican agenda is at stake in the race. He said Walker will help lower taxes, secure the border and ensure parental involvement with schools. “If you name all these issues, Warnock is on the wrong side,” Scott said.
Walker’s ads have focused on the issues that he said he would support in the Senate, including working to secure borders, reduce crime and fight inflation.
Other GOP leaders have also tried to deflect from the stories about Walker’s personal life. “I’m more concerned about Raphael G. Warnock’s future than I am about Herschel Walker’s past, I’ll tell you that,” Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-Ga.) said.
Democrats and the Warnock campaign have aired ads criticizing Walker for presenting a false account of his education, not giving promised money to charities, violently threatening an ex-wife, overstating his work for veterans and inflating the size of his company.
Walker has acknowledged the onslaught of negative ads with a TV advertisement of his own. “I can take the hits,” Walker says in the spot as footage from a football game plays, “but it won’t change the facts.”
The debate was also expected to highlight some of the stylistic differences between the two candidates. Warnock, a senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, has been praised by supporters for his oratorical skills. Walker has commanded five-figure fees for paid speeches, but his rhetoric can be more difficult to follow.
Scott predicted that Walker would handle himself well onstage but would seek to draw a distinction between the two candidates. “He’s going to show the country the difference between somebody that has a silver tongue and somebody that cares from his heart about the direction of this country,” Scott said.
Recently at a campaign stop in Georgia, Walker offered a meandering anecdote about a bull in a pasture with six cows.
“And three of them were pregnant — so you know you’ve got something going on,” Walker explained. “But all he cares about is getting his nose against the fence, looking at three other cows.”
Walker went on to explain that the bull jumped over the fence only to learn that he was accidentally pursuing other bulls. “So what I’m telling you — don’t think something is better somewhere else,” Walker concluded.
On Sunday, the Atlanta Press Club is set to host another Senate debate. Warnock plans to attend, as does Chase Oliver, a Libertarian candidate in the race. Walker has not confirmed that he’ll be there, according to the press club’s website.
On Monday, Walker is set to participate in a televised town hall hosted by Fox News’s Sean Hannity in Acworth, Ga., north of Atlanta.
Linskey reported from Washington. | 2022-10-14T23:25:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Walker, Warnock set to debate in contentious Georgia Senate race - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/10/14/walker-warnock-debate-georgia-senate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/10/14/walker-warnock-debate-georgia-senate/ |
Equity report shows major gaps in Baltimore County student achievement
More than half the students in Baltimore County Public Schools, many of them socioeconomically disadvantaged, showed “notably lower” rates of achieving reading and math benchmarks than their peers in the district, and some student groups experienced disproportionate suspension rates, according to an equity report presented to the school board this week.
The 2021-22 Equity Metrics Report for Baltimore County schools found achievement gaps across elementary, middle and high schools for American Indian, Black/African American students, Hispanic/Latino students, students eligible for free and reduced-priced meal services, English-language learners and special education students.
American Indian, Black/African American students and Hispanic/Latino students accounted for 54.4 percent of the county’s students that school year, according to data from the Maryland State Department of Education. Meanwhile, more than 80 percent of teachers and 77 percent of principals in the county school system were White.
After the school system was cited in 2018 by the state education department for disproportionately disciplining special education students and Black students, the school board established an equity committee to examine such issues and related achievement gaps. The committee, however, did not hold its first meeting until June 2020.
The committee’s new report for 2021-22, presented Tuesday, found that such disparities continue for those student groups, as well as for students on free and reduced lunch.
Black elementary students had a suspension rate 1.9 percentage points higher than their peers. That gap increased to 10.8 and 6.9 percentage points in middle school and high school, respectively.
Mary McComas, the school system’s chief academic officer, said progress is being made across all levels but that “we fully recognize that our work is not yet finished.”
English learners had the highest gaps in achievement compared with other groups covered by the report. English learners’ rates of meeting baselines on standardized reading and math tests — the Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP tests — were 24 to 35.6 percentage points lower than their elementary and middle school peers. In high school, the gap expanded to 46.5 percentage points for the SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing exam.
Across racial or ethnic groups, Black students have the highest achievement gaps save for kindergarten readiness. For the elementary MAP Math, Black students’ rate is 21.5 percentage points lower than their peers; the middle school MAP Math gap was 20.3 percentage points.
Many of the gaps listed have narrowed somewhat since October 2020, but gaps mostly widened for Hispanic/Latino students. The gap for this ethnic group grew in the elementary MAP Math and Reading, middle school MAP Reading and the SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing exam.
The report also compared Baltimore County Schools’ data with that of Baltimore City and Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. The comparisons showed that Baltimore County had the second-highest four-year graduation rate for Black and Latino students, according to 2020-21 data.
Erin Hager, a Baltimore County school board member and vice chair of the equity committee, said at the meeting that she was grateful both to the school system and committee Chair Makeda Scott for making the metrics transparent, which will help guide decision-making. Fellow board member Moalie Jose declared that such data should be shared automatically each quarter.
Scott asked what the system is doing to address these inequities and increasing achievement gaps.
Superintendent Darryl L. Williams said every school has a student support team and that interventions can be applied on a continuum.
“In terms of system, these are high-level data points,” he said. “We look at every school for the types of support they may need. How do we customize that support? ... We’re looking at all 176 schools, then [prioritizing] what kind of supports may be needed.”
McComas, the chief academic officer, discussed various resources, including pupil personnel workers and school attendance teams. Doug Handy, who oversees the school system’s department of equity and cultural proficiency, said interventions such as professional development will help educators.
It’s helpful that the system now has timely data, Williams said. But Kevin Connelly, executive director for the school system’s department of research, accountability and assessment, said he has found similar data sets dating back to 2004. | 2022-10-14T23:25:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Equity report shows major gaps in Baltimore County student achievement - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/equity-report-shows-major-gaps-in-baltimore-county-student-achievement/2022/10/14/b45cd268-4b6a-11ed-ba51-a126ce0a9c69_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/equity-report-shows-major-gaps-in-baltimore-county-student-achievement/2022/10/14/b45cd268-4b6a-11ed-ba51-a126ce0a9c69_story.html |
As independent local papers collapse, a new industry is being fueled by ideological donors seeking to further political agendas.
The Pennsylvania Independent, The Michigan Independent and The Wisconsin Independent — a newspaper by the liberal-leaning American Independent Foundation and partner groups. (The American Independent)
Pennsylvania’s most widely-circulated newspaper showed up, without fanfare or explanation, in the mailboxes of about 1 in every 5 households in the state this April.
Only the articles offer a clue of the underlying intent: A piece in the October issue described the opposition to “any gun safety measures” by “New Jersey resident” Mehmet Oz, the Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania. Other stories detailed President Biden’s domestic manufacturing initiative, Republican denials of the 2020 election results and a proposal for a national abortion ban by Sen. Lindsay O. Graham (R-S.C.).
“All of the reporting that we put in the papers is fact-checked and verified,” said Jessica McCreight, a former Democratic consultant who serves as executive editor of the operation. “It just so happens that it is Republicans doing bad things and Democrats doing good things.”
The new journalism — and the PR firms behind it
“It is one thing if you have a political purpose and you are being upfront about that. It’s another if you are trying on the trappings of standards-based institutional local media that aspires to serve the public interest,” Adams said. “It is unethical. And it is clearly designed to co-opt the credibility of what we have always known as the press.”
One relatively fresh news operation, the Courier Newsroom, founded by Democratic operative Tara McGowan, has built online news websites in eight presidential swing states, with about 70 journalists who cover a broad range of subject matters, while disclosing major donors. Another set of online communities, PushBlack and Pulso, which have been supported by the nonprofit media lab Accelerate Change, seek to re-create the spirit of ethnic media outlets, with regular posts about cultural pride and concerns, mixed in civic-engagement efforts, including information on how to “confirm your voting status.”
“You end up funding things like The American Independent and Courier and PushBlack at the end of a long decision tree, where you are looking for ways to fight disinformation,” Mehlhorn said. “We believe at this point that you have to have your news be objective, and that is not consistent with pretending to be nonpartisan.”
On the right, a conservative network called Local Government Information Services funds a network of local online publications in Illinois, supported by 11 regional print editions mailed to homes. Others, like the liberal Local Report and hundreds of sites run by the conservative Metric Media, embrace hyperlocal website news branding, often with content that is little more than repurposed and unfiltered content, with bylines that read “Press release submission.”
Copies of one of Metric Media’s properties, The Grand Canyon Times, have arrived in mailboxes in Arizona, filled with positive stories about Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters and aggregated information about high school sports. Recipients have posted images on Twitter of a disclaimer on the paper that reads “Paid for by Saving America PAC,” a group supporting Masters’s election bid. Metric Media and Local Government Information Services did not respond to requests for comment.
Margaret Sullivan: Beware the partisan 'pink slime' sites that pose as local news
“Ron Johnson made millions from China Connection,” ran the cover headline of a recent Wisconsin edition, referring to the incumbent GOP senator’s investment in an Oshkosh-based plastics firm, where he previously worked and which has a parent company with business in China. “Billion-dollar electric vehicle production plant opening in Ohio thanks to Biden,” read another headline in that state. A Michigan edition led with good news about the Democratic governor: “WHITMER BRINGS TECH INVESTMENT HOME TO MICHIGAN.”
The operation, with 13 writers and six editors, is run in concert with American Bridge, the largest Democratic opposition research group. Oliver Willis, a former top writer for Media Matters for America, the liberal media watchdog, works as the publication’s senior writer. Matt Fuehrmeyer, a former director of research at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, serves as the group’s president.
“Independent women are not cable news junkies. They are on Facebook but they don’t trust it. The thing they trusted from the survey that we did was local print news,” he said. “This is in the tradition of advocacy journalism. It is coming from a center-left point of view. We are trying to shed light on actors who are standing in the way of progress.”
“It’s reminiscent of a bygone era,” she said. “We want to build on that trust to keep this going for a long time to come.”
The Independent’s political approach that has not been embraced by other progressive media upstarts. At the Courier, McGowen has gone to extensive lengths to try to earn journalistic credibility for her newsrooms, which publish on sites with names like UpNorthNews in Wisconsin and The Gander in Michigan.
But McGowen says her operation is not focused on electoral results. The operations mission statements sets a different goal: “to protect and strengthen our democracy through credible, fact-based journalism that seeks to create a more informed, engaged, and representative America.”
“Building long-term trust and engagement with our audience is our highest priority; it’s why we disclose our funding sources, why we hire reporters who live in the communities they serve, and it’s why we have built a growing community of nearly 1 million subscribers who engage with our newsrooms year-round,” McGowen said in a statement.
“In a time where trust in media and institutions are on a rapid decline, any media efforts that portray themselves to be something they are not in the interest of short-term political gain are doing more harm than good,” she added. | 2022-10-14T23:26:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Newspapers with a partisan aim filling the void of traditional media - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/newspapers-partisan-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/newspapers-partisan-midterms/ |
Del. Elizabeth R. Guzman (D-Prince William) says a news report that said she wanted parents to face criminal charges if “they do not affirm their child’s sexual orientation and gender identity” was not accurate. (Steve Helber/AP)
RICHMOND — A Northern Virginia legislator found herself at the center of the nation’s LGBTQ culture wars after saying she would reintroduce a bill that barely made a stir when she first submitted it two years ago.
Republicans in Virginia and across the country lambasted Guzman. Her fellow Democrats in the legislature and beyond made it known they were not on board. And the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia issued a statement against what it described as “the proposed gender affirming care bill.”
“Utterly horrifying,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) declared on Twitter. “These zealots think they are your children’s parents, and they’ll put you in jail if you disagree.”
Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), in a tight reelection campaign against Republican Yesli Vega in the state’s redrawn 7th District, said she opposed the bill.
“I don’t support this legislation, and it does not have a path forward in the General Assembly,” Spanberger said in a written statement. “It’s unclear how this proposed legislation intends to actually help transgender children and their families, which is what we should focus on.”
Guzman did not respond to an interview request but defended herself on Twitter Friday, saying reporter Nick Minock of WJLA-TV in Washington misrepresented the legislation in his news report.
“The 2020 bill was a child safety bill that would have simply protected children from ‘physical or mental injury on the basis of the child’s gender identity or sexual orientation,’ ” she tweeted. “The way the bill was presented in the article was patently wrong.”
Gov. Youngkin, who ran on culture wars, takes cautious approach to Pride
A WJLA representative returned a message seeking comment from Minock, declining to comment on behalf of the station. Minock did not immediately respond to a message sent through Twitter.
Minock used the word “affirm” several times when interviewing Guzman, according to a partial transcript posted on the station’s website, but she said nothing about seeking criminal charges for anything other than the physical or mental abuse described in her original bill.
Garren Shipley, spokesman for the House GOP leadership, disputed the idea that Guzman’s bill or words had been misrepresented.
“If that bill was misrepresented then she misrepresented it when she spoke to that reporter,” he said, noting that she did not correct Minock when he repeatedly used the word “affirm.”
House Minority Leader Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) said he had spoken with Guzman and she assured him she had no intention of introducing the bill.
“She said her comments were taken out of context and that she does not want to criminalize any parents,” Scott said. “She has assured me that that bill will not be introduced.”
If such a bill were introduced, he added, “it would be dead on arrival.”
State law already protects children against abuse, Scott said; there’s no need for further legislation.
Scott pointed out that the bill Guzman introduced in 2020 died in a House subcommittee at a time when Democrats controlled the House, Senate and Executive Mansion.
“I don’t remember it,” said Del. Mark D. Sickles (D-Fairfax), who was chairman of the Health Welfare and Institutions Committee in 2020 when the bill was introduced. “It never made it to the full committee so that’s not much of a splash.”
“Obviously this is a rich target for our Republican friends to exploit,” Sickles said of the bill.
Scott accused Republicans of twisting Guzman’s position and using the topic to try to sow division because “they have nothing else to talk about.”
“Anyone trying to use these kids as fodder in culture wars — it’s wrong, on either side,” Scott said. “It angers me that we’re putting the most vulnerable kids in the crosshairs for our culture wars. It’s shameful, it’s sad.”
Meagan Flynn contributed to this report. | 2022-10-15T00:26:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | LGBTQ bill on child abuse creates uproar in Virginia and beyond - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/lgbtq-bill-virginia-guzman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/lgbtq-bill-virginia-guzman/ |
A merger of News Corp and Fox Corp would put Fox News and Fox Sports back under the same corporate roof as publishing titles like the Wall Street Journal.
Rupert Murdoch, center, with his sons Lachlan, left, and James, right, in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 2013. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Rupert Murdoch finalized his divorce from his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, in August. But the two halves of his business empire are exploring a union.
News Corp., which owns publishing titles including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the London-based Sun tabloid, and Fox Corp., which encompasses Fox News and Fox Sports, said Friday evening they are exploring a potential merger at the behest of Murdoch and his family’s trust.
The two companies said they have each formed a special committee to review the proposal.
The Murdoch Family Trust owns about 40 percent of the voting stakes in both News Corp and Fox Corp — and any combination would amount to something of a corporate reunion.
The two entities shared a governing structure until a split engineered in 2013 in response to a major scandal that rocked some of Murdoch’s London papers. Revelations that their journalists been hacking into the voice mails of celebrities and other tabloid targets prompted overlapping criminal and civil investigations and government inquiries that found systemic corruption in the British tabloid industry — a potential threat to Murdoch’s empire.
At the time, Murdoch billed the split as a move that would “enable each company and its division to recognize their full potential — and unlock even greater long-term shareholder value.”
But it was accompanied by a measure of Murdoch family drama. Rupert Murdoch’s younger son, James, left his role as CEO of their European and Asian businesses — including the London tabloids. He eventually became CEO of the entertainment company 21st Century Fox. But he ended up clashing over business strategy with his older brother, Lachlan, who had been elevated to executive co-chairman of the company.
Eventually, their father decided to remove the company he had spent his life building from their mutual strife.
In 2019, the Murdochs closed a $71.3 billion sale of most of 21st Century Fox — which also included the FX cable network, Fox Searchlight label and National Geographic properties — to Disney.
While James Murdoch left his executive roles with the sale, Lachlan elected to stay and run the parts of the company that remained under Murdoch control, including Fox News, Fox TV stations, and Fox Sports. In the summer of 2020, James left the family business altogether, acknowledging “disagreements over certain editorial content published by the company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions” — a statement viewed as his commentary over Fox News’s increasingly conservative bent.
Lachlan Murdoch told Fox investors in 2019 that the family had no plans to combine the companies, but Rupert Murdoch raised the possibility of reuniting them in recent weeks, according to people who have spoken directly to him and who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The eldest Murdoch told these people he believes that a merger will give the combined companies a greater ability to negotiate and do business with behemoths such as Netflix, Amazon and Disney.
In its announcement, News Corp. said that the special committee “has not made any determination with respect to any such potential combination at this time, and there can be no certainty that the Company will engage in such a transaction.” Both companies said they didn’t plan to comment further. | 2022-10-15T00:35:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rupert Murdoch mulls new merger of Fox Corp, News Corp - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/10/14/murdoch-fox-news-merger/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/10/14/murdoch-fox-news-merger/ |
FILE - Mel Gibson arrives at the 89th Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon in Beverly Hills, Calif., Feb. 6, 2017. Gibson can testify at the rape and sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein about one of Weinstein’s accusers, whose story Gibson learned part of prior to 2015, a judge ruled Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-10-15T02:28:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mel Gibson can testify at Harvey Weinstein trial, judge says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/mel-gibson-can-testify-at-harvey-weinstein-trial-judge-says/2022/10/14/add22502-4c27-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/mel-gibson-can-testify-at-harvey-weinstein-trial-judge-says/2022/10/14/add22502-4c27-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Northern continues undefeated title defense with win over Huntingtown
The Northern Patriots moved to 7-0 with Friday's win. (Michael Errigo/The Washington Post)
For Northern football coach Rich Holzer, the reminders of just how sweet last season was are nearly constant.
“I’ve seen people walking around the local Walmart wearing state championship T-shirts,” Holzer said. “They tell me their son or daughter graduated from the school 10 years ago.”
But for Holzer’s players, last year’s Maryland 3A title — the first in program history — can loom as a mixed blessing. Very few teams in the area are backed by that level of excitement and support. But playing a full season under a shadow that large and bar that high can be daunting, especially when you have just two returning starters on each side of the ball.
And yet, the No. 11 Patriots keep finding a way to make it work. Northern looked every bit like a defending state champion Friday night, holding off Southern Maryland Athletic Conference rival Huntingtown, 13-6, in Owings to go to 7-0.
“It’s a completely different team. Last year we had a lot of kids who had played together since they were 7 years old,” Holzer said. “This year’s crew is made up of some transfers and some new kids and things like that. … It’s been really, really impressive the way they’ve gelled together and picked up where the previous crew left off.”
Senior quarterback Todd Lattimore Jr. might best exemplify his team’s ability to take up the torch. The 6-foot-2, 215-pound senior played defensive end last year in addition to his backup quarterback duties. This fall, handed the reigns of the run-and-shoot style offense that propelled the Patriots to a state title, Lattimore has maintained the team’s firepower by throwing for 15 touchdowns in six games.
“Things are clicking, everything’s working and now we’re 7-0,” Lattimore said. “We’re just having fun every week.”
Billions flow through youth sports. Some of it keeps disappearing.
Lattimore added another touchdown pass against the Hurricanes and his team’s defense mostly handled the rest.
The Patriots got off to a rocky start, as Lattimore threw two first-half interceptions. But momentum shifted just before half thanks to Northern defensive end Dylan Davis. With Huntingtown (3-4) just four yards from going up by two touchdowns, Davis nabbed an interception at the line of scrimmage and returned it 71 yards to set up a 25-yard touchdown pass from Lattimore to sophomore Miles Halbert.
“I saw the quarterback’s eyes the whole play,” Davis said. “I put my hands up and it was right in the bread basket.”
Northern extended its lead in the third quarter with interceptions on Huntingtown’s first two drives of the second half. Each interception led to a short field goal by junior Tyler Potts.
“The first goal of the year is beat [Huntingtown],” Davis said. “We grew up playing pee-wee on the same team as most of those kids so it has to be the biggest game of the year for us.” | 2022-10-15T02:28:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Northern continues undefeated title defense with win over Huntingtown - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/northern-huntingtown-smac-football/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/northern-huntingtown-smac-football/ |
Dear Amy: Every year, I spend time carefully curating a list of Christmas wishes for me, my husband and our children. I know what we like and need. In turn, his family gives me their list.
We open our gifts, and do not receive a single thing from our list. My children receive toys they don’t need and clothes I will not let them wear. Some things are regifted, while others just take up space in my house.
It actually hurts that after 12 years of being part of this family, they still don’t know me at all. We spend a generous amount of money on our family at Christmas, but I’m disappointed and frustrated by their lack of consideration.
Last year, I told my husband that I would only buy gifts for the children of the family going forward; I have not told the in-laws yet. The downside is that one of the siblings is childless, so they would receive nothing from us.
Disappointed: Abandon the list. It’s not working. It also subverts the idea of Christmas giving.
You might segue to a nonmaterial gift for adults, such as donating to a charity on their behalf or giving a subscription or membership to a local museum or cultural institution. If you don’t want to give any gifts to adults, in place of your list, you can state: “I’m trying to cut way back on the overabundance, so I’m going to only give gifts to the kids. Enjoying our time together is the only gift I want.”
Since retiring, I have been able to travel, do volunteer work and make a lot of my dreams come true.
I have taken a couple of trips, obtained a new kitten and celebrated some milestones.
Estranged: If you are estranged from your brother, then why do you send him this one thing each year? Do you want to try to create something of a dialogue with him?
And if you never hear from him, you may not know whether “not all of his dreams have come true.”
Dear Amy: “Bothered” lived next door to an unsafe day-care provider, whose children wandered into neighbors’ front yards and into the street.
Worried: “Bothered’s” dogs were more closely supervised than these children. | 2022-10-15T04:21:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: Even with my lists, my husband’s family can’t get gifts right - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/15/ask-amy-christmas-gifts-lists/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/15/ask-amy-christmas-gifts-lists/ |
I draw because I enjoy it, and I don’t take commissions (although I have in the past). I tried to assure my co-worker that the art she wanted was really not my specialty and that I didn’t think I would be able to complete her request, but she insisted that I “try my best.”
“The one for Madeline was just a spur-of-the-moment doodle. What you’re asking would take a lot more time, and I am afraid that I just don’t have that at the moment. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but if you are looking for more detailed work, I would be happy to refer you to another artist who takes custom requests.”
The hosts did not serve the appetizer, but I’m not complaining about that, because I know a host is not obliged to serve food brought by a guest. After dinner, they didn’t put out any dessert, although I heard each of them separately go into the kitchen and eat some of the cookies I brought, without offering me any! Finally, another dessert was brought out, along with some of the cookies.
In the morning, the hostess asked whether I’d like breakfast. I answered, “Sure,” after which she didn’t offer anything! I went home hungry, as had happened on previous occasions. Was any of their behavior rude?
Perhaps. But the biggest transgression — not feeding you breakfast — sounds merely forgetful, not necessarily rude.
Miss Manners’ advice in the future would be to come to your friends’ house well-fortified — with some breakfast bars packed in your overnight bag, just in case. | 2022-10-15T04:21:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: How do I tell a co-worker I won't make drawings for her? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/15/miss-manners-art-co-worker-hobby/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/15/miss-manners-art-co-worker-hobby/ |
Serhii Korolchuk
Retreating Russian troops destroyed the bridge in the city center of Kupiansk but left the pedestrian walkway intact, allowing Ukrainians to carry out an ambush. (Photos by Wojciech Grzedzinski for The Washington Post)
KUPIANSK, Ukraine — The Russians occupied this northeastern Ukrainian city split by the Oskil River without firing a shot, marching in on a bitterly cold February morning. In a live-streamed address, the mayor said that he had let them in without resistance.
Touring Kupiansk with Russian soldiers, the mayor, Gennady Matsegora, later told residents that he had surrendered to prevent the area being shelled, and the city swiftly became a seat of occupation rule.
As residents walked passed banners of red, white and blue, like Russia’s flag, many longed Ukraine to retake control. They could not know then that liberation would cost widespread destruction.
Since Ukrainian soldiers reentered the town on Sept. 9 as part of a counteroffensive that has recaptured large swaths of occupied territory, their arrival has been accompanied by nightly attacks from the retreating Russians.
A hospital was bombed and a home for the elderly and mentally unwell almost suffered the same fate, forcing the mostly frail and infirm to be evacuated.
When homes are destroyed, residents cannot even use cellphones to inform loved ones — there has been no power in the city for a month now.
Kupiansk was a strategic prize for each side, with a bridge across the Oskil River, and a railway depot which can be used for resupply. Russian President Vladimir Putin was preparing to declare this land Russia. When Ukrainian forces entered the town, civilians met them with tears of relief. The joy was short-lived.
“It only took three days for the Russians to start attacking the administration here,” said Andriy Kanashevich, head of Kupiansk’s new military administration, who arrived on Sept. 10 after a Russian-appointed mayor had fled.
“When they moved across the Oskil, they started firing.”
For those who remain, life after occupation now poses fundamental questions. Do they stay and trust that better days are coming? Can they even trust their neighbors anymore?
Thousands of residents have left Kupiansk since the attacks began, according to local officials. On Monday, a middle-aged man picked his way across the pedestrian part of the bridge as fast as he could, stopping only to glance behind him when shelling echoed out. “You want to know why I’m leaving,” he shouted at the few passersby. “There’s your answer.”
Kupiansk’s electricity grid is down as a frigid winter looms. The hospital, police station and other administration buildings have been damaged. In recent days, the intensity of Russian strikes has increased again, at times seemingly targeting military positions, but hitting civilian properties too.
In the pouring rain this week, firemen were fighting the latest blaze in a family home.
The eleven year old boy who lived there, Andriy, was watching them closely, and wondering how he would tell his mother that their house was gone. His family’s cellphones weren’t charged, and with a front line eight miles away, the telecommunications network was patchy anyway.
When the Russians occupied Kupiansk, Andriy, whose surname is being withheld to protect him and his family, stayed behind to look after his 73-year-old grandmother, Valentina. Now their birth certificates had been burned with their house. Andriy surveyed the ruins without a word. His thin jogging pants were soaked.
On the verge of tears, their neighbor, Olena, reminded Andriy and his grandmother of a pacifist song that laments pointless death in war called “Do the Russians Want a War.” “Of course they want it,” Olena shouted. “Look at this place.”
The battle to retake Kupiansk smashed much of its town center.
Surveying the panorama of burned buildings before him, a 34-year-old commander with Ukraine’s Honor Battalion, Denis, said that the two sides had used “everything” on each other. “There was tank fire, artillery, small arms,” he said. At times, the sides engaged in close combat — just 30 meters apart.
A cluster of houses several miles south was shelled so intensely that it is barely rubble now. White walls became stumps. Pine trees are snapped like charred matchsticks. Russian and Ukrainian forces traded control of the area four times before the Ukrainians prevailed, the commander said.
The Russians made mistakes in retreat. Instead of fully destroying the town’s bridge over the Oskil, they left a thin walkway still standing. Ukrainian units crossed on foot and attacked Russian lines from behind.
Unclaimed bodies from the resulting ambushes litter the ground where they did so, exposed to the rains or churned deep in the mud. At least two men were killed beneath the wheels of their own tank. Other bodies are hidden by the forest.
As residents jostled for aid from a humanitarian aid truck outside Kupiansk this week, a man approached the crowd to ask for help. “They took most of the bodies from outside my house, but there’s still one there,” he said. “What am I meant to do?”
Kupiansk’s new authorities must now reestablish basic services, but the challenges are steep. Electricity is a priority; winter proofing houses is another. At this stage, however, they can do little more than cover broken windows with plywood.
Russian forces arrested the mayor, Matsegora, in July, according to Ukrainian officials. His successor, Maxim Gubin, named head of the Russian military administration, fled as Ukrainian forces advanced.
In many cases, anxious residents are now confused over who to turn to for basic requests. “Of course they’re stressed, they don’t have a central organization that they can trust because there isn’t a full-time administration in the city yet,” said Vadim Krokhmal, a member of the returning city council.
On his Facebook page, Krokhmal has shared a list in Russian of residents who allegedly got salaries from the invading Russians. The new city chief, Gubin, received 280,000 rubles, roughly $4,500 for 21 days work. A departmental head got $720. Secretaries and accountants, $400. The Washington Post was not able to independently verify the list, which Krokhmal said was left behind in a government building.
“A lot of people here didn’t know how many residents were receiving money from the Russians,” he said. “What this list clearly shows is that some people just needed a place to work and feed their families, and some were working directly for the Russian government.”
In dozens of interviews with residents across Kupiansk and its surrounding villages, many said they believed the Russians would return.
Sitting at her desk in the city’s only residential facility that cares for the elderly and mentally unwell, Olga Gunia was exhausted. For 23 years, she had poured everything she had into the place, and she said that her patients had taught her more about love and patience than she had ever imagined possible.
The Russians’ occupation felt like a waking nightmare, she said. Patients were evacuated to the home from nearby Izym. “We work hard to keep our patients calm, but when these other people came in, they were not well,” she recalled. “It felt like a scene from a horror film.” Over time, she said she sank into a depression, but did her best to hide it.
But one day in mid-September, Gunia saw troops in the street. They were carrying Ukrainian flags. Relief overwhelmed her, but within days there was discomfort rising too. Rockets started landing around the care home.
One hit an empty bedroom, causing damage. She saw fear in the eyes of patients she had spent months trying to soothe. In liberation, her team felt more powerless than ever. Without electricity or running water they couldn’t wash the old people properly. A stench remains despite efforts to clean.
Gunia agreed last week that the most infirm should be evacuated. And on the train out with them, she realized that her time in Kupiansk was over too. She left Friday with the last evacuees.
Just a few miles away near the village of Kurylivka, a convoy of civilian vehicles was fired upon and 25 people were killed as they tried to escape the fighting on Sept. 25, toward the Russian-controlled city of Svatove, in the Luhansk region.
On Oct. 1, their bodies were discovered next to abandoned fields where the sunflowers died too. The passengers’ bags of walnuts and cassette tapes are still there. Cars were splayed at strange angles and the smell of decaying flesh clings to the long grass.
Denis, the commander, was shocked when his unit found them. After eight years in the army, he was used to seeing death, but with the bodies of young children there, this felt different. They likely did not know that the Ukrainians were coming, he said. | 2022-10-15T05:17:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kupiansk, in northeast Ukraine, avoided destruction until it was liberated - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/kupiansk-liberation-ukraine-war-offensive/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/kupiansk-liberation-ukraine-war-offensive/ |
A view of the entrance of the mine in Amasra, in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin, Turkey, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. An official says an explosion inside a coal mine in northern Turkey has trapped dozens of miners. At least 14 have come out alive. The cause of Friday’s blast in the town of Amasra in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin was not immediately known. (IHA via AP) (Uncredited/IHA) | 2022-10-15T05:31:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Death toll rises to 28 in Turkey coal mine explosion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/death-toll-rises-to-28-in-turkey-coal-mine-explosion/2022/10/15/d409328e-4c44-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/death-toll-rises-to-28-in-turkey-coal-mine-explosion/2022/10/15/d409328e-4c44-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
This satellite image taken at 2:16pm ET and provided by NOAA shows Tropical Storm Karl over the Yucatan Peninsula and Chiapas, Mexico, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. (NOAA via AP) (Uncredited/NOAA)
MEXICO CITY — Tropical Storm Karl weakened into a tropical depression while nearing Mexico’s southern Gulf shore, though forecasters said its heavy rain could still cause problems on the easily flooded stretch of coast. | 2022-10-15T05:31:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tropical Storm Karl weakens into depression off south Mexico - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tropical-storm-karl-weakens-into-depression-off-south-mexico/2022/10/15/78290274-4c3e-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tropical-storm-karl-weakens-into-depression-off-south-mexico/2022/10/15/78290274-4c3e-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Ukraine live briefing: Putin claims ‘no need’ for more massive strikes; new...
People chat near a fire as employees gather Wednesday in front of the ExxonMobil site near Le Havre, France, to demand better wages. (Lou Benoist/AFP/Getty Images)
NEUILLY-SUR-MARNE, France — Few countries have taken bolder steps than France to shield their citizens from the impact of Europe’s energy crisis. But as Helene Bakker walked along an endless line of honking cars waiting for fuel at an overwhelmed gas station this week, she couldn’t help but wonder: Is it going to be enough?
Drivers were shouting at each other as they inched toward a handwritten sign warning that there was “no more gasoline” at the station. Police officers carrying rifles struggled to calm tensions in the Neuilly-sur-Marne suburb just a 20-minute train ride from central Paris. Tires screeched as officers chased drivers who tried to cut in line.
OPEC Plus cut in oil production fuels fears of recession in Europe
“This isn’t a rich neighborhood,” said Bakker, 59. “The context is quite explosive. It could well lead to something bigger.”
The fuel shortages in France this week were prompted by striking refinery workers demanding higher salaries, partly because oil and gas companies are making major profits from Europe’s surging energy prices. But the fuel shortages have become a powerful catalyst for a much broader sentiment: This is going to be a tough winter — but only for those who can’t afford it.
“Rich people will always be able to get by,” said a retiree in her late 60s who spoke on the condition that she be identified only as Madame Chauvette. “But it hits the middle and the working class.”
She had hoped to get some gasoline for her daughter’s car and carry it back in a small gas can but left the station empty-handed, passing an electronic price sign that had gone dark. French TV reported that 28 percent of all gas stations have run out of some grade of gasoline or diesel.
Standing nearby was an Uber Eats driver who had last been able to refuel his car four days ago. He hasn’t been able to accept any deliveries since the weekend, he said.
Some have started drawing comparisons between the discontent now and the yellow vest movement in 2018, which began over proposed increases in fuel taxes but soon widened to broader concerns over social inequality. The violent turn of those protests in 2019 stymied President Emmanuel Macron’s agenda at the time.
France — a country where social discontent is often expressed early and loudly — is particularly sensitive to any cost-of-living increases in the wake of Macron’s far-ranging efforts to liberalize the economy over the past five years, steamrolling critics who raised concerns over the social impact.
The French caps apply to all households in largely the same way. But “you need to have a limit on that, so that households who use a lot of energy don’t benefit to the same extent” unless they have a good reason for their overconsumption, said Ray Galvin, an environmental scientist.
Even though residents of poorer districts cut back on energy consumption to save costs long before this crisis, inflation and rising gas prices will continue to hit those areas the hardest. In contrast, the crisis may only marginally touch the wealthier parts of the French capital region, on the boulevards near the Eiffel Tower or the Champs-Élysées, even though residents there tend to consume over five times more heating, electricity and gas per capita than residents of poorer neighborhoods.
Outside France, some countries or cities are trying to tackle this imbalance by implementing measures targeting the wealthy. Spain is introducing a temporary solidarity wealth tax for rich people. In Austria, the mayor of the exclusive Kitzbühel ski resort has wanted to go even further, proposing to cut rich homeowners’ energy supply if they do not listen to warnings and keep heating their Ferrari garages or illuminating the facades of their villas. Germany is expected to only cap natural gas prices up to a certain consumption threshold this winter, which would provide incentives for wealthier people to conserve, too.
But for many, the main takeaway of her “energy sobriety” plan were the photos that accompanied the campaign: Borne donning a zipped-up down jacket as she sat in the sumptuous rooms of her residence and Macron in a turtleneck sweater at the Élysée Palace.
As the Parisian elite celebrated a flash Fashion Week this month, French mayors turned down temperatures in schools, closed swimming pools and reduced museum operating hours.
To avoid blackouts, France’s public broadcaster has begun airing weather report-style bulletins on the nation’s current energy consumption. In rural areas, where the sentiment of government neglect has been particularly pronounced, medical associations are warning that ambulance drivers, nurses and doctors are running out of fuel.
In Neuilly-sur-Marne, residents and officials worry that Macron’s business-friendly government is failing to understand the extent of the social problem that lies ahead.
The town’s war memorial is framed by French flags and the national motto “liberty, equality, fraternity.” But with a poverty rate of about 20 percent, many of its 36,000 residents live a world away from its namesake on the other side of Paris, Neuilly-sur-Seine, where sprawling mansions line the boulevards.
Neuilly-sur-Marne’s mayor, Zartoshte Bakhtiari, has already lowered the temperatures in classrooms — even though he acknowledges that it will make learning more difficult — and has slashed plans for the decorative Christmas lights some residents looked forward to for months.
“Even if we switched off all the lights,” he said, it would make up for only about one-tenth of the rise in spending.
Bakhtiari has launched a petition, urging the government to help. “Towns that have fewer resources — or that have residents who rely more on public services — they’ll be hit hard,” he told The Post.
Local residents like Bakker similarly worried about inequalities. The combined effect of inflation and the poor insulation of many houses here will turn flats into “thermal sieves,” she said.
“We’re dealing with an unprecedented energy crisis, one that we haven’t seen in France since the oil shock of 1973,” said Sébastien Jumel, a far-left member of the French parliament. “And while, in a way, war measures would be needed, we’re offered a teaspoon.”
The issue is likely to dominate a major left-wing rally that’s scheduled to take place in Paris on Sunday.
Some 58 percent of French people say that they are “dissatisfied” with the state of their country, and a third are “very angry,” according to a recent survey. Purchasing power was cited three times more as the main concern of the French than immigration and delinquency.
This weekend’s rally may also be an attempt to prevent those sentiments from boiling over into a more violent and less structured movement, like the yellow vests. If people’s anger “is expressed in a disorganized manner and not backed by demands and solutions, it can be destabilizing for the entire Republic,” Jumel said. | 2022-10-15T07:24:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Energy shortages in France have people on edge as winter approaches - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/france-energy-shortages-unrest-wealthy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/france-energy-shortages-unrest-wealthy/ |
Snow crabs are sorted and tagged at the Mikuni Fishing Port in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, on Nov. 17, 2021. (Buddhika Weerasinghe/Bloomberg)
This week’s announcements by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game deal a severe blow to fishers that make a living off the crabs. They also bring back to the forefront questions about the role of climate change in the rapid decline of the snow crab population: the number of juvenile snow crabs was at record highs just a few years ago, before some 90 percent of snow crabs mysteriously disappeared ahead of last season.
Alaskan officials said they had consulted carefully with stakeholders before canceling the season. They said they were aware of the impact of the closures on “harvesters, industry, and communities” but that they had to balance economic needs with conservation.
Salmon travel deep into the Pacific. As it warms, many ‘don’t come back.’
“These are truly unprecedented and troubling times for Alaska’s iconic crab fisheries,” said Jamie Goen, executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, a trade association that says it represents some 70 percent of local crab harvesters, in a statement. “Second and third generation crab-fishing families will go out of business due to the lack of meaningful protections by decision-makers to help crab stocks recover.”
Alaska’s crab fishing industry is worth more than $200 million, according to a report by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which promotes seafood. The state supplies 6 percent of the world’s king, snow, tanner and Dungeness crabs, per the institute.
The industry is also a crucial source of income for many of the 65 communities that make up the Western Alaska Community Development Quota Program, which reserves parts of each year’s harvest for remote villages that have limited economic opportunities, The Washington Post previously reported.
For about a decade, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has documented a continued decline in the estimated population of mature male snow crabs — the only kinds allowed to be harvested — in the Bering Sea. But hopes were raised after a record number of juvenile crabs were spotted on the ocean bottom in 2018 and 2019, suggesting a possible boom for future crab seasons.
But for reasons that are still not entirely clear, the population appears to have crashed. The federal government now designates snow crabs as overfished. The stock of some red king crabs, the largest of the commercially harvested crabs in size, is considered “below the target level” by the NOAA. Last year, Alaska closed king crab season for the first time since the 1990s.
Scientists have expressed suspicion that warmer temperatures in recent years have been responsible. Alaska’s summers and oceans have become warmer, scientists say, resulting in a significantly higher seasonal loss of sea ice. The Environment Protection Agency said in a recent report that rising temperatures may have forced species such as snow crabs further north or into deeper seas.
“In the Bering Sea, Alaska pollock, snow crab, and Pacific halibut have generally shifted away from the coast since the early 1980s,” the EPA wrote. “They have also moved northward by an average of 19 miles.”
Laura Reiley contributed to this report. | 2022-10-15T07:37:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Alaska cancels snow crab season for first time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/15/alaska-snow-crab-season-climate-change/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/15/alaska-snow-crab-season-climate-change/ |
People holding placards that read “mafia government” with photos of slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia at a protest on Nov. 29, 2019. (Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)
Two men were sentenced to 40 years in prison each on Friday for the 2017 car-bomb murder of Maltese anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, a brutal killing that rattled Europe and drew international attention to the tiny Mediterranean country’s criminal underworld.
Brothers George Degiorgio, 59, and Alfred Degiorgio, 57, who previously claimed innocence, pleaded guilty to the assassination of Caruana Galizia, a muckraker who had investigated drugs, arms traffickers, politicians and judges in a country largely known as a picturesque tourist destination. They had faced life imprisonment.
Prosecutors alleged that the brothers had been hired to kill Caruana Galizia by one of Malta’s wealthiest people, Yorgen Fenech, according to the Associated Press. Fenech is awaiting trial. There were also questions as to what role, if any, politicians played in her death. Caruana Galizia had linked associates of then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat with suspicious financial transactions described in the Panama Papers, which detailed the hidden infrastructure of offshore tax havens. (A probe later cleared Muscat and his associates of wrongdoing related to that scandal.)
In a blog post published on the day of her murder, Caruana Galizia accused a top Muscat aide of corruption. The aide — who was subsequently sanctioned by the United States — denies wrongdoing. The premier was pushed out of office in 2020 by protesters who were furious at how the investigation of her murder was handled; an independent probe concluded last year that the Maltese state bears responsibility for her death due to its “culture of impunity” and failure to recognize the risk to her life.
“It’s been half-a-decade of agony for Daphne’s family and for the country,” wrote European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who is Maltese, in a Facebook post. “Daphne still cannot write her blog, enjoy her children and grandchildren, potter in her garden or be with her loved ones. Today is not justice, it is a small step.”
“Daphne’s killers should never have been allowed to do what they did in the first place and the systemic failures that enabled her assassination need to be effectively addressed,” said Corinne Vella, a sister of Caruana Galizia, in a Saturday email to The Washington Post.
Caruana Galizia worked as a journalist in Malta for more than 30 years, according to a foundation established in her memory. She ran a lifestyle magazine and a corruption-focused blog titled “Running Commentary.” Her aggressive reporting on both government and opposition figures led to some 43 libel suits at the time of her death — many of which her family is still fighting.
Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries dies after being shot in the head
Caruana Galizia also received numerous threats of violence before her assassination. In 1995, her front door was doused in fuel and set on fire, and her dog — one of three that were killed during her lifetime — was left in front of her home with a slit throat. In 2006, she published an article on neo-Nazi groups in Malta, leading someone to arrange a stack of tires behind her home and set them ablaze.
“She was insulted and pressured on a daily basis. She was hated,” said Pauline Adès-Mével, a spokesperson for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), who testified at the inquiry into Caruana Galizia’s murder and who had sought to support the reporter. “Unfortunately, she was already targeted, and we didn’t have time to set up any protection or legal framework for her."
Caruana Galizia was 53 when she was killed near her home in a remote town in northern Malta where she lived with her family for safety purposes. The brutal nature of her murder shocked the European Union, where hits on journalists are rare. It also spurred calls for reform in Malta, where reporters must deal with an increasingly hostile climate.
Malta ranks 78th out of 180 countries on RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index, 31 places lower than at the time of Caruana Galizia’s death.
In September, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights wrote a letter to Malta’s prime minister, Robert Abela, outlining her concerns about press freedom.
“Freedom of expression, including media freedom and the safety of journalists, is a prerequisite of any democratic society,” the commissioner wrote, adding that it is “necessary to comply with international standards.”
“We attach the utmost importance to holding the persons who commissioned and murdered Ms. Caruana Galizia accountable, and to counting our work to ensure that the environment journalists operate within is free," Abela replied. | 2022-10-15T08:51:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Two of Daphne Caruana Galizia's killers imprisoned for 40 years - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/malta-daphne-caruana-galizia-murder/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/malta-daphne-caruana-galizia-murder/ |
Guardians outfielder Oscar Gonzalez is enjoying his first season in the big leagues. (Jason Miller/Getty Images)
“I thought it was terrible. I’m not going to lie. I think everyone has voiced this concern,” pitcher Triston McKenzie said with a smile. “But it worked for him. He came up and hit .300 the first two weeks and everyone was like, well, if it works for him …” | 2022-10-15T09:13:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Guardians' Oscar Gonzalez has 'SpongeBob SquarePants' walk-up music - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/oscar-gonzalez-spongebob/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/oscar-gonzalez-spongebob/ |
Looking to Buy a House? It’s Not the Worst Time
Things could be worse. (Photographer: Bloomberg)
As the housing market heated up during the pandemic, many would-be homeowners found themselves unable to buy despite making multiple offers or waiving inspections. Now, rising mortgage rates and low inventory may have them feeling quite depressed. In May, consumer sentiment about home-buying reached an all-time low. And yet if you can afford it, this actually might be a good time to consider buying a house.
That might seem surprising. Home prices have soared since 2020 and mortgage rates have been rising steadily in 2022 — the average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was about 3% in January 2022, but today is about 7.08%. With inflation eating into earning power, real household incomes have been stagnant since 2019. The newest numbers from the National Association of Realtors for housing affordability, roughly measured as the ratio of an average mortgage payment to average incomes, won’t be out until Nov. 10, 2022. But the August report was grim, and I doubt the November affordability numbers will be any better.
Here’s the good news. Prices are starting to edge down in 98 out of 148 major regional housing markets. Buying an asset when the price is falling is generally a good thing. Buying a home now when mortgage rates are high and housing prices are falling means as mortgage rates stabilize or even drop, your house value will more likely inflate than if prices were rapidly increasing and mortgage rates were increasing.
Rising mortgage interest rates and a potential recession may seem like bad news, but these trends could benefit would-be home buyers by cooling demand and dropping prices further, especially if the buyers are confident they won’t lose their jobs and income.
Of course, a would-be home buyer must consider other important criteria besides housing prices before buying a house. Other important decision factors include having at least 20% for a down payment; whether you will live in the property for more than five years; and whether your monthly payment will be lower than 30% of your gross income.
Another important factor is whether you’ll be able to pay off the property in 15–20 years. I advise a 15-to-20-year mortgage, rather than a 30-year mortgage, especially when rates are high. A shorter mortgage helps curb the expense of the house over time. On a $500,000 loan, a 30-year mortgage at 7.08% would cost you over $707,000 in interest. The same amount borrowed on a 15-year, 6.28% loan would cost you only about $273,000 — about $434,000 less. Put that in your retirement fund instead!
Of course, there are situations where you might be better off renting. One of the best ways to get a feel for whether you want to buy or rent is to compare the cost of a home in your area to what it would cost to rent a similar property. The rule of thumb says if the ratio of homeownership costs to annual rental expenditure is under 16, definitely buy. If the ratio is over 20, then the house is probably overpriced and renting is the better option. Online calculators can help you figure out the house price-to-rent ratio; one of my favorite calculators is from Dinkytown.net.
You also need to predict how much you could earn if, instead of buying a house, you chose to invest the money used for your down payment. I recommend starting with an assumption that money would earn 4%–5% over the life of the mortgage. By comparison, I’d recommend that you assume the value of the home will not appreciate more than 1% over inflation. That may sound conservative, but I bought in August 2007 in New York City, and the appreciation averaged 0 for the next 8 years.
Be clear-eyed about how much property maintenance you will have to pay — many first-time home buyers forget about that. Perhaps assume 1% of the purchase price every year. A $1 million house could require $10,000 in yearly maintenance.
So, should you buy a home now? If you can meet the criteria above, I suggest going forward despite the high interest rates. After all, if rates drop you can always refinance. | 2022-10-15T14:39:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Looking to Buy a House? It’s Not the Worst Time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/looking-to-buy-a-house-its-not-the-worst-time/2022/10/15/1e7dac1a-4c8a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/looking-to-buy-a-house-its-not-the-worst-time/2022/10/15/1e7dac1a-4c8a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Do people really move because they think their state income taxes are too high? It’s been a longstanding debate. Finally, a recent report from the Tax Foundation provides some compelling evidence that yes, they do.
The right-leaning group analyzed data from the Internal Revenue Service that compares the addresses for tax returns filed for tax years 2018 and 2019. These are returns that were sent to the IRS starting in 2019 up until July 15, 2020 (because taxpayers were granted a three-month extension during the pandemic for their 2019 returns).
It’s among the most comprehensive data I’ve seen covering relatively recent moves — encompassing some 150 million taxpayers who filed a return, along with their adjusted gross incomes.
The Tax Foundation focused on three categories: Top marginal individual income tax rates, tax code structure, and state and local tax collections per capita — in other words, a state’s total tax coffer (income tax plus other taxes like property tax and sales tax collected) divided by population.
By all three measures, the states experiencing the largest net inflows of taxpayers were lower-tax states. They had among the lowest top marginal rates, below-average state and local tax collections, and what the foundation deems “well-structured” tax codes. While many factors can spur a person to move, taxes seem to be part of the decision for many, with no- or low-tax states consistently the biggest winners.
Notably, seven of the 10 states that experienced the largest gains in taxpayers either had zero income tax or top rates below the national median during the time period. Now, nine of those states either have no income tax, a flat income tax, or plan to move to one. Likewise, the states that saw the biggest net losses of taxpayers were all states with relatively high tax burdens: New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey. I wouldn’t do this myself, but hey, I live in one of those high-tax states.
Zeroing in on higher-earning taxpayers, or those with taxable incomes of at least $200,000, shows that the top three favored spots to move to were Florida, Texas and Arizona. Florida and Texas don’t have state income taxes, and Arizona plans to move to a flat-rate individual income tax next year.
Are these moves short-sighted? After all, when other taxes are taken into account, such as property, sales and excise taxes, Texas and Arizona are more middle-of-the-pack. And salaries in New York, California, Massachusetts and New Jersey tend to be higher than incomes in the lower-tax states.
Katherine Loughead, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation who wrote the report, agrees that the state income tax seems to be driving the decision for movers more than any other tax. Even if taxpayers grumble about property taxes, they’re more likely to feel the benefit directly of paying higher property taxes, say for good public schools, than they are with high income tax rates.Still, there are outliers. South Carolina was No. 5 for attracting wealthy taxpayers, yet it still imposes a graduated individual income tax rate topping out at 7%. Virginia lost high earners despite having a relatively run-of-the-mill top marginal rate of 5.75%.
No one likes to feel like they’re getting a raw deal, especially when it comes to the taxman, but focusing too narrowly on avoiding income taxes can backfire. Just ask New York transplants in Florida dealing with the costly Hurricane Ian aftermath. | 2022-10-15T14:39:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Moving to a Low-Tax State Can Be an Expensive Way to Save Money - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/moving-to-a-low-tax-state-can-be-an-expensive-way-to-save-money/2022/10/15/1edbd038-4c8a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/moving-to-a-low-tax-state-can-be-an-expensive-way-to-save-money/2022/10/15/1edbd038-4c8a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
By Matt Mcdonald, Delaware State News | AP
MILFORD, Del. — At Red Bandana, the sprawling collection of comic books, figurines, video games, Pokemon cards and more nearly touches the ceiling in places.
That’s how the Milford shop’s co-owners Katie and Brandon Coenan know it’s time once again to expand.
“We always know it’s time for an expansion when we start to go vertical,” Ms. Coenan said. “Everything starts climbing.”
Red Bandana will be staying where it is on North Walnut Street but will taking over the space of Good News Natural Foods next door, about doubling the space of the hotspot for area collectors. It will be Coenans’ third expansion since they opened the store five years ago — success Ms. Coenan attributes to the relationships she and her husband have forged in the community.
The Coenans, both avid collectors, eventually both quit their stable jobs with benefits to start the business. Red Bandana’s first space was on the second floor of the city’s Freemason lodge. It was 250 square feet and had a single window. Ms. Coenan quit hers first to get the store started. She had to figure out how to attract people to the store.
“I knew when I opened, I’m like, Okay, people are going to walk in and they’re going to see this itty-bitty shoe closet filled with random stuff. Very niche, especially for downtown Milford. Like, how do I get them to come back?” she said in a recent interview in the corner of the store.
What ended up working, she continued was how she and her husband, who quit his job a year later, interacted with the people who walked in.
“Just appreciating them honestly, like talking to everyone — that kind of became what our thing was. More so than even the stuff that we had in the shop.”
Off to the side, Jake Myers, a longtime customer, nodded in agreement. “Oh yeah,” he said.
Mr. Coenan said the expansion will hopefully let Red Bandana have space to run tournaments, which they used to do before the pandemic. That space has since been taken up by the store’s wares.
“The biggest thing that I really enjoy (are) the people that I see over and over and over again, you know, kind of becoming more personable with them. Because, to me, it’s always made a difference,” he said. | 2022-10-15T14:40:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Delaware collectibles store to expand again - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/delaware-collectibles-store-to-expand-again/2022/10/15/88d0d0e8-4c89-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/delaware-collectibles-store-to-expand-again/2022/10/15/88d0d0e8-4c89-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Audio from a call between President Donald Trump and Brad Raffensperger is played as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing on Thursday in Washington, D.C. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Inflation, abortion and crime are dominant issues in the midterm election, but last week’s public hearing by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was a valuable reminder of what else is at stake in November.
The connection between the attack and the midterm election couldn’t be clearer. The committee’s hearings have established that former president Donald Trump was prepared before the 2020 election to call foul if he lost -- that he willfully ignored aides who told him after the voting that he had lost, then brazenly brushed aside those who told him his conspiracies about widespread fraud were unfounded and sometimes ludicrous. Trump continues to traffic in these same false claims today.
The panel’s last public hearing before the election produced no dramatic new revelations. It was more a summation of the case against Trump. But it did include one provocative act: a unanimous vote to issue a subpoena to Trump to testify before a final report is issued, a stick in the eye of the person the committee has made the focus of its work. The chances of Trump testifying are almost nonexistent, which leaves dangling the question of how and when Trump will be held to answer for what happened.
Analysis: 5 takeaways from the latest Jan. 6 hearing
A criminal referral to the Justice Department is certainly possible. Months ago, in a filing in federal district court, the committee asserted that it believed there was enough evidence to charge the former president. That would leave the issue where it has been for some time, in the hands of Attorney General Merrick Garland. But like the subpoena, it will be mostly symbolic.
The House committee hearings, as thorough and compelling as they were, were not a court of law. There was no cross examination of witnesses, no presentation by the defense, no jurors other than the court of public opinion, which has been sharply divided from the beginning and did not seem to change over the course of the summer and fall. Justice Department lawyers don’t need a criminal referral from the committee; their investigation has been moving forward on a parallel track.
The committee can state its conclusions more or less definitely. Garland and the DOJ lawyers must measure their decisions against a different set of standards than those by which the House committee’s conclusions can be stated. For example, is the evidence against Trump compelling enough to persuade Garland that there is a high chance a jury would convict the former president based on what they have found?
Even if that standard were met, another question would have to be considered, as Jack Goldsmith of the Harvard Law School wrote some months ago in the New York Times: Would bringing the case against the former president have such consequences on a divided and inflamed country that the cost of going ahead is greater than the cost of not doing so?Whatever the final decision by the Justice Department turns out to be, it will draw a cascade of criticism.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who sacrificed her House seat to pursue the Jan. 6 investigation, has said repeatedly she does not believe Trump should ever be allowed to get near the office of the presidency again. Disqualifying him from that possibility has been her work ever since the Capitol came under attack, and likely will be even when she is no longer an elected official in the party that has turned itself over to Trump.
Absent a charge and conviction, the ultimate question of his fate and future would be left to the voters, that is if he decides to run in 2024. Some non-Trump Republicans, however, see Trump as wounded and unelectable by 2024. Former House speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.) is among them, as he signaled recently.
But every poll today — and take them for what they are, more than two years before the next presidential election—shows that he could be reelected in a rematch with President Biden. At that point, a second-term Trump, untethered and likely vengeful, could try to do many of the things he was not able to do before --and as was noted Thursday, probably without enough people around him who would try to dissuade hm.
That brings the story back to November and a midterm election that could well change the balance of power in Washington and affect politics and governance in the states. Republicans need just five seats to take over control of the House and it is hard to find a prognosticator who is currently suggesting that the GOP will get fewer than that number. How many more than that is a matter of debate, but there are more than enough Democratic-held seats in play, and the normal cycles of midterm elections are at work, to give Republicans a clear advantage.
Nate Silver’s modeling at FiveThirtyEight currently gives Republicans about a 7 in 10 chance of taking control of the House. That leaves the Democrats with slender odds of holding their majority, though as 2016 taught everyone, sometimes slender odds turn out to be winning odds. Otherwise, Trump would never have been in the White House.
A Republican House and the possibility of a Republican Senate, albeit one with the narrowest of majorities, foreshadows a period of legislative gridlock in Washington, but a climate that could spawn House investigations going after Biden, his policies, his son Hunter and others in the administration. Already there is loose talk about impeachments.
After the election, much of the country’s political focus will shift to the next presidential campaign. November’s results will offer clues about how much chaos could lie ahead, depending on how many election deniers win and whether they begin to act on what they’ve said. One clue could be how smoothly the counting and verification of these elections goes.
Beyond that, the potential for disruption in 2024 will exist if enough Trump acolytes are duly elected in the states or Congress. Trump’s position seems clear: If he is the GOP nominee, he will contest any election he loses. Now he could have sympathetic elected officials working to challenge the normal process of declaring a winner and a base of supporters prepared not to accept legitimate results.
Trump loyalists regarded the committee’s work as purely partisan. Other voters were indifferent to the hearings, preferring to move on from the past. But the committee’s findings and the ongoing work by the Justice Department keep Trump in the forefront of the choices that many voters will be making. The committee has made its case. It will be left to others, government officials and citizens alike, to decide whether to act on it, in November and beyond. | 2022-10-15T14:40:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Jan. 6 committee has made its case. Will anyone act on it, and when? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/15/jan6-committee-trump-what-next/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/15/jan6-committee-trump-what-next/ |
Catholic priest Flaviano “Flavie” Villanueva comforts relatives as they receive the urn containing the remains of victims of alleged extrajudicial killings at a church in Quezon city, Philippines, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022. A program was created to assist in getting a final resting place for exhumed remains of alleged victims of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs.” (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) | 2022-10-15T14:40:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rights group: 59 lawyers slain in 6 years in Philippines - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rights-group-59-lawyers-slain-in-6-years-in-philippines/2022/10/15/beb2b03c-4c8e-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rights-group-59-lawyers-slain-in-6-years-in-philippines/2022/10/15/beb2b03c-4c8e-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Months after the moon landing, an immigrant family showed up uninvited at the astronaut’s childhood home. They never forgot how they were treated.
Neil Armstrong's parents pose with the Abraham family in front of the astronaut's childhood home. (Courtesy of One Small Visit Film Ltd)
The extraordinary story spilled out in the most ordinary of ways: at a dinner party.
Jo Chim and Anisha Abraham were both living in Hong Kong at the time, and during a get together one night, Chim listened as Abraham talked about the day her family met Neil Armstrong’s family.
She listened as Abraham described how the encounter occurred months after the astronaut walked on the moon, an event that brought people together, even as other issues pulled them apart. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated only a year earlier.
She listened as Abraham described how she was a baby when her parents and grandmother, who had migrated from India to the United States, went on a road trip and found themselves passing a sign that announced the small town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, as the home of Neil Armstrong.
She listened as Abraham described the stares and whispers her mother, Nirmala Abraham, and grandmother, Elizabeth George, drew as they walked through the town in their flowing saris and how her father grew nervous when her grandmother suggested they knock on the door of Armstrong’s childhood home to pay their respect.
The family didn’t know if anyone would be home, and if they were, how they might react to immigrants standing on their doorstep. Elsewhere in the country, White people had set dogs on Black and Brown people who showed up uninvited on their property.
Abraham’s grandmother decided to knock anyway.
What happened next is the subject of a short film Chim wrote and directed called “One Small Visit.” The actress hadn’t written a screenplay before hearing that story, but it stayed with her, and in 2020, she started working on a draft.
“This story was just too wonderful to keep within one family,” Chim told me on a recent morning. “I thought we should share it.”
The film recently won Best Foreign Picture at the LA Shorts Film Festival and has been viewed at screenings across the world, including at NASA’s D.C. headquarters. It will also be shown at the Kennedy Center to high school students, at the DC South Asian Film Festival and at the newly reopened National Air and Space Museum.
I have watched it, but I am not a movie critic, and this is not a review. I don’t trust my film scrutinizing skills enough to offer you that. But I can tell you how a small family story grew into a big screen production, and why 53 years after that nervous knock came another one. This time on a D.C. door.
It’s not incidental that a story about a South Asian family’s experience comes at a time of increased anti-Asian hate crimes. As a Chinese Canadian woman who has lived in multiple countries, Chim found herself troubled by the global divides she was seeing during the pandemic. With the film, she saw an opportunity to address issues of race, identity and belonging. The screenings, she said, have taken on the feel of symposiums, with audience members sharing their own experiences.
Chim has described the film in this way: “Ultimately, it’s a story between two very different families finding connection and a shared humanity; a testament to taking leaps of faith and small acts of openness and kindness that make a difference.”
Chim said she also sees it as a story about strong women. Abraham’s grandmother, Elizabeth George, didn’t let the perceptions of others limit her experiences. In the film, when people stare at her, she waves unbothered in a queenlike manner at them. She also teaches her granddaughter, Anisha, to do the same.
While making the film, Chim said, “There were so many times I was nervous and anxious and I literally sat back and said, ‘What would Elizabeth George do?’ ”
“I do come from a family of go-getter women who don’t take no for an answer,” said Anisha Abraham. “We had women who really didn’t perceive barriers.”
Abraham lives in D.C. and works as a pediatrician who specializes in adolescent medicine. She is also the author of the book “Raising Global Teens.” But in the film, she is depicted as an infant.
She was only months old when her family took that trip, making her too young to remember it. But she grew up hearing about it and seeing a reminder of it in her family’s photo album. In the photo, her parents and grandmother stand in front of Neil Armstrong’s childhood home, alongside his parents, Viola and Stephen Armstrong. In her arms, Viola holds Anisha.
The photo was taken after the Armstrong family invited the Abraham family inside and they spent time talking and connecting. But one of the most interesting details about that photo occurred out of the frame. The person who took it was Neil Armstrong, who had recently returned from a world tour that included India and happened to be at his parents’ house when the Abrahams showed up.
In the film, Neil Armstrong talks about how looking at earth from space made him feel small and the planet look fragile. He describes the view as allowing a person to see that borders between countries don’t exist. The phrase “the overview effect” does not appear in the film but it has been used to explain the shift in perspective that can occur when people travel to space and return feeling more connected to the planet and the humans on it.
She hopes to change what people think an astronaut looks like
“We’ve now done screenings in several places and it’s always interesting to see what people come in with and what they take away,” Anisha Abraham said. I asked what she hopes they take away, and she said: “The importance of compassion and tolerance and openness in a time when we’ve seen people more polarized than ever.”
Her father, who is called O.C. in the film, traveled to the United States on a Spanish cargo ship, she said. When her parents made that road trip in 1969, they were graduate students who didn’t have much. Chim interviewed Abraham’s parents for the film and Abraham said she learned things about them she hadn’t known. One of those things: Her dad had once been invited by a rotary club to give a speech at a restaurant, and when he went back to the same place the next day, without the rotary club members, he was told he couldn’t come through the front door.
“My dad is in his late 80s and my mom is about to turn 80,” Abraham said, “and it’s been such an empowering thing for them to be able to share their story.”
Several weeks ago, Abraham’s parents were at her home in Chevy Chase, along with the cast and crew of the film. Abraham was hosting them for breakfast before the screening at NASA. But she also had another reason for bringing everyone together.
Neil Armstrong’s son, Mark, had seen the film, and he and his wife, Wendy, wanted to surprise her parents.
That morning, the Armstrongs knocked on the door and the Abrahams opened it. | 2022-10-15T15:40:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How a knock on Neil Armstrong’s door in 1969 is still reverberating - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/15/neil-armstrong-film-family/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/15/neil-armstrong-film-family/ |
Flooding in Nigeria claims 500 lives, displaces 1.4 million people
Houses are seen submerged in floodwaters in Lokoja, Nigeria on Oct. 13. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)
The floods also injured 1,546 people, completely destroyed 70,566 hectares of farmland and “totally damaged” 45,249 homes, said Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, Nigeria’s permanent secretary of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
Floodwaters affected 27 of Nigeria’s 36 states, officials said.
Satellite imagery from Landsat 9 showed major swelling of the Niger and Benue rivers in southern Nigeria, where NASA wrote floodwaters “inundated numerous communities.” Where the rivers converged, the imagery revealed floodwaters overwhelming Lokoja, the capital of the state of Kogi.
“Flooding continued to the south, including a noticeably widespread area spanning southern Kogi and the northern part of Anambra state,” NASA reported.
Last week, 76 people drowned in Anambra when their boat capsized as they tried to escape high floodwaters, according to multiple news organizations. Floodwater had risen as high as rooftops in Kogi and Anambra, CNN reported. Over 600,000 people have been displaced in Anambra due to floodwater.
“It’s saddening. All of a sudden, people are left with no homes and turned to beggars in weeks. No matter how rich they were, the displacement has reduced them so much,” Chiamaka Ibeanu, a registered nurse who lives in Onitsha in the state of Anambra, told The Washington Post.
Ibeanu’s immediate family lives in Ossomari and Atani, nearby areas of Anambra close to the Niger River. She received word that her aunt and uncle had been displaced after their home was completely covered by water.
“The items she [her aunt] couldn’t pack are in water … and she doesn’t have any other home,” Ibeanu said. “If not for the accommodation at the Primary Healthcare Centre, she would have been stranded.”
Since the beginning of Nigeria’s rainy season, which lasts from April to October, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) and the Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA), predicted flooding was imminent and that some parts of the country would witness increased rainfall paired with water from Lagdo Dam in Cameroon. They foresaw that the volume of water across Nigeria would increase.
“[C]ommunities must recognize that all disasters are local and they must take climate predictions and flood outlook warnings seriously,” said Alhaji Ali Grema, Nigeria’s director of humanitarian affairs.
Sani-Gwarzo said the scale of this year’s flooding is similar to the last major flooding Nigeria experienced in 2012, which displaced 1.3 million people and claimed the lives of 431. In 2012, 30 of Nigeria’s 36 states were affected.
“The scale of devastation can only be compared to the 2012 floods,” said Sadiya Umar, the minister of humanitarian affairs, in a statement.
“Their farmlands are covered in the flood. This means that what was planted is swept away and there might be food scarcity next year,” Ibeanu said.
“We are taking all the necessary actions to bring relief to the people affected by the flood. All relevant agencies have renewed their commitment to strengthen their efforts in reaching out to the victims and bringing relief to them,” Sani-Gwarzo said.
Nigeria’s national policy document on climate change, published in 2020, states floods have increased in recent years and that climate change is expected “to increase the frequency and intensity of severe weather events.”
“Unfortunately, many States in Nigeria largely lack the infrastructure necessary to respond adequately to such events,” the report states. | 2022-10-15T15:57:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Flooding in Nigeria claims 500 lives, displaces 1.4 million people - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/15/nigeria-flooding-displacement-deaths/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/15/nigeria-flooding-displacement-deaths/ |
British Prime Minister Liz Truss and a head of iceberg lettuce. (Daniel Leal-WPA Pool/Getty Images; iStock/Getty Images)
She has also become the butt of quintessentially British jokes — most notably by being compared to a head of lettuce by both The Economist newspaper (considered one of the world’s preeminent news journals) and The Daily Star, an entertainment-focused tabloid that brands itself the “home of fun stuff” and regularly features photos of scantily-clad celebrities.
The gag began in an article by The Economist which earlier this week dubbed Truss “The Iceberg Lady,” bluntly predicting her career has “the shelf-life of a lettuce.”
By Friday, the Daily Star was offering its readers a live-stream camera feed of a store-bought lettuce (worth 60 pence — just under a dollar — and with a shelf-life of around 10 days), positioned next to a framed photograph of Truss, accompanied by the question: “Day one: Which wet lettuce will last longer?”
The live-stream decay has since attracted more than 350,000 viewers, as people tune in to see whether Truss’s political career or the salad staple (which briefly donned a wig and googly eyes) will expire faster.
The Daily Star accused Truss of being a “lame duck PM” following a “shambolic day,” on Friday as she fired her finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, after just 38 days in office and u-turned on tax policies, in a bid to steady the wobbling economy.
Kwarteng, who will go down in history books as Britain’s second shortest-serving chancellor of the exchequer, was also subject to jokes from the British press — who pointed out that the shortest-serving chancellor had died (Iain Macleod in 1970 after 30 days in the job) rather than being ousted.
(the first one died) https://t.co/kV8fTYRgGB
— Emily 🗣️ Tamkin (@emilyctamkin) October 14, 2022
On social media Saturday the hashtag “#lettuceliz” was gaining steam, with users unsure whether to laugh or cry at the state of national affairs.
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” wrote one person on Twitter. “Brilliant,” wrote another.
Some online complained they had cheese in the fridge that had lasted longer than Kwarteng’s spell in office, while one trans-Atlantic observer quipped: “In the US we measure such things in Scaramuccis,” referring to Anthony Scaramucci — the short-serving White House communications director, who lasted less than a week in the Trump administration.
The British prime minister also faced criticism for holding an abnormally brief news conference after announcing Kwarteng’s departure on Friday, lasting just eight minutes and 21 seconds.
The Daily Mail newspaper called the news conference a “car crash,” the Guardian front page decried “A day of chaos,” while the Mirror tabloid simply said “Time’s up.”
Summing up the press conference.. pic.twitter.com/B7avAKfzGw
— frokenconfused (@frokenconfused) October 14, 2022
Britain’s opposition political parties, meanwhile, are calling for a general election.
“Changing the Chancellor doesn’t undo the damage made in Downing Street. Liz Truss’ reckless approach has crashed the economy, causing mortgages to skyrocket, and has undermined Britain’s standing on the world stage,” said Labour leader, Keir Starmer, whose party is enjoying a boost in opinion polls. “We need a change in government.”
The smaller Liberal Democrat Party echoed a similar sentiment: “Enough is enough. It started with Boris Johnson failing our country, and now Liz Truss has broken our economy. It is time for the people to have their say.”
Truss’s promise to simultaneously slash taxes and maintain social programs without deep borrowing has left the market and her party members reeling over the last few weeks, plunging the pound and forcing the Bank of England to take unprecedented interventions to quell the financial revolt.
She swiftly replaced Kwarteng (who had been attending a meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington D.C. before frantically flying back to the U.K.), with a former foreign minister Jeremy Hunt, who pledged Saturday to restore economic credibility. Hunt lost the Conservative Party leadership race to Johnson in 2019.
Truss also walked back one of her top campaign pledges — and will now allow corporate taxes to rise from 19 percent to 25 percent in April 2023, she said.
Like other nations in Europe, Britain is grappling with rising inflation, a cost of living crisis and multiple worker strikes from transport to health and postal sectors, with some predicting a possible winter of discontent on the horizon.
The average price of lettuce, at least, hasn’t gone up too badly.
Karla Adam and William Booth contributed to this report. | 2022-10-15T15:57:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.K. PM Liz Truss compared to a lettuce, amid jokes and economic chaos - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/liz-truss-lettuce-daily-star-economy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/liz-truss-lettuce-daily-star-economy/ |
In 1922, a D.C. ballpark was home to a bizarre World Series facsimile
Griffith Stadium, a.k.a., American League Park, in Washington, shown here during an actual game, was the setting for the World Series reenactment, or the Pantomime World Series, as the Washington Times called it. (Library of Congress)
Have you ever heard of the 1922 Pantomime World Series in Washington?
— Betsy McDaniel, Washington
No, Answer Man had not. That term — Pantomime World Series — put in his mind a distressing image: a silent stadium full of mimes, each trapped inside an invisible box or leaning into a stiff wind, wordlessly attempting to impress the judges with his or her miming skills.
And yet somehow, the real event was no less bizarre. In fact, this year marks the centennial of what one newspaper called “the greatest sports novelty” the world had ever seen.
Of course, the newspaper that called it that was the newspaper that created it: the Washington Times. (Founded in 1894 and shuttered in 1939, this Washington Times had no connection to the paper of the same name today.)
Imagine the time before television, the time before radio. If you were a fan eager to experience a sporting event, you had to be there. You could read about it in the next day’s paper, but to feel what the crowd felt — to hang on every pitch, fret over every foul ball, rejoice at every home run — you had to be present. And just as seeing a movie in a packed theater can be superior to seeing one alone at home, so nothing could compare to the communal experience.
Inventors had tried different ways to re-create baseball games at a distance. In the early 20th century, Washington’s Henry Rodier built a contraption called the Rodier Electric Baseball Game Reproducer. This was a billboard-size panel adorned with an illustration of a baseball field. The board was studded with lights that could be illuminated to show the path of a ball or a runner.
The board’s operator received a telegraph feed from the live game and switched on the appropriate lights. In 1909, Rodier rented a building in D.C. and installed his board, charging people a quarter to “see” a game between Washington and St. Louis.
The Washington Post was among newspapers that hung what were generically called Play-o-Graph machines outside their buildings, drawing crowds.
Before he unveiled his electric ballfield, Rodier had been a typesetter at the Washington Evening Star. Perhaps his standing in the District’s newspaper community inspired mime-ball inventor Harry Coleman, who headed the photo and engraving department at the Washington Times. Coleman’s innovation was to replace the lightbulbs with actual humans and to replace the rented auditorium with an actual ballpark.
On Sunday, Oct. 1, 1922, the Washington Times ran a full-page ad inviting readers to watch the first game of the World Series that Wednesday at American League Park, the ballpark near Howard University. “Something Novel!” the ad promised.
Indeed. The newspaper had hired two teams of Marines — one from the Navy Yard, the other from the Marine Corps Barracks — to ape the action at the Polo Grounds in New York, where the New York Giants would be facing the New York Yankees.
The action would be transmitted south via four telegraph lines installed especially for the event. Then, four stenographers transcribed the plays, which were distributed to the waiting Marines who would dash onto the field and reenact them.
“Thus, sitting comfortably in the grandstand, Washington fans may watch a practical duplication of the world series games just as they are being played in New York,” promised the Times.
It was called pantomime because no balls were used. Rather, the Marines mimed the plays, literally going through the motions. Between innings, the 60-piece Navy Band entertained the crowd.
Admission was free. The Times claimed 8,000 people attended that first game, which the Giants won, 3-2.
Crowds grew over the course of the series. When Yankees pitcher Bullet Joe Bush loaded the bases in Game Five, a pantomime reliever warmed up on the sidelines and fans shouted for Bush to be pulled. More than 20,000 fans attended that final game and watched the “Giants” defeat the “Yankees” and claim the crown.
Wrote the Washington Times: “It sounds a trifle tame, but the thousands who saw it worked got a powerful kick out of it.”
In 1923, the same two New York teams met again in the World Series and the Times again sponsored a simulated game at Clark Griffith’s stadium.
“Pantomime baseball has ceased to be an experiment,” the paper wrote. “It is the most effective method of reproducing ballgames. Authorities declare the pantomime is the next thing to the game, with none of the thrills lacking.”
But radio was on the rise. The 1922 series was the first to be broadcast, and that medium would only grow in popularity.
There was no pantomime baseball in D.C. in 1924. Griffith’s ballpark was needed for something else: the actual World Series, which the Washington Senators won in seven games. | 2022-10-15T16:10:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 1922 Pantomime World Series excited baseball fans before radio - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/15/pantomime-world-series/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/15/pantomime-world-series/ |
Racist appeals heat up in final weeks before midterms
The toxic remarks appear to be receiving less pushback from Republicans than in past years
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) addresses a campaign rally at Minden-Tahoe Airport on Oct. 8 in Minden, Nevada. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) suggested at a rally in Nevada this month that Black people are criminals.
A day later in Arizona, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) appeared to refer to a conspiracy about immigrants that has been associated with white nationalists — a conspiracy that at least two GOP candidates for the U.S. Senate have echoed.
And in Wisconsin and North Carolina, Democratic candidates for the Senate have faced a barrage of ads on crime that feature mug shots of Black defendants.
“Anybody who’s got a title in the party could say something — senator, governor, anybody,” said Michael Steele, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, who noted a deafening silence in the party after Tuberville’s comment. “Anyone could stand up and say, ‘Can we stop this please?’ But they won’t.”
At the Nevada rally that was staged by Trump in the town of Minden last Saturday for the state’s top Republican candidates, Tuberville called Democrats “pro crime.”
“They want crime,” he continued. “They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.”
A debate over whether to provide reparations, or compensation, to the descendants of people enslaved in the United States has existed in the country for decades. By invoking it, Tuberville appeared to link Black people to crime in a battleground state where Republicans are fighting to gain one Senate seat — and with it potentially the majority in the chamber.
“I’m not going to say he’s being racist,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked about the comment. “But I wouldn’t use that language, be more polite.”
The racial invective has come at a time when Democrats are dealing with their own scandal in Los Angeles, where Democratic city council members and a labor leader were recorded making racist statements. Two of them resigned this week, after Democrats including President Biden called on them to do so.
“Here’s the difference between Democrats and MAGA Republicans. When a Democrat says something racist or antisemitic, we hold Democrats accountable,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “When a MAGA Republican says something racist or antisemitic, they are embraced by cheering crowds.”
A day after Tuberville’s comment, Greene appeared to invoke a version of the “replacement” conspiracy theory at a Trump rally in Arizona for GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters and other Republicans.
“Joe Biden’s five million illegal aliens are on the verge of replacing you, replacing your jobs and replacing your kids in school and, coming from all over the world, they’re also replacing your culture,” she said, in what seemed to echo a white nationalist conspiracy theory that claims elites, and sometimes more specifically Jewish people, are importing immigrants to “replace” White people. “And that’s not great for America.”
Republican Senate candidates, including J.D. Vance in Ohio and Blake Masters in Arizona, have used language that is similar to Greene’s.
Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, which works to counter antisemitism, said it has been “stunning” to see a concept akin to the one shouted by white supremacists in Charlottesville in 2017 — “Jews will not replace us!” — make its way to the political mainstream in this election cycle.
“It is not new to see antisemitism or overt racism in politics,” Greenblatt said. “What is new is after years … in which it was clear that to be credible in public life politicians had to reject prejudice, it’s now been normalized in ways that are really quite breathtaking.”
A spokesman for Greene disputed the validity of the ADL’s criticism, saying the organization does not know anything about illegal immigration.
Greenblatt also has criticized GOP Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who has attacked his Jewish opponent for sending his children to an “elite” Jewish day school and has advertised on the far-right social media site Gab, where the man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 posted an antisemitic rant.
Early this month, Trump used racist language in referring Elaine Chao, the Taiwanese-born former secretary of transportation in his administration and the wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), calling her “Coco Chow” in an angry statement targeting McConnell. The slur was met with relative silence by Republicans eager to avoid a fight with the former president ahead of the midterm elections.
“The president likes to give people nicknames,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said on CNN when asked to respond to the attack. After he was pressed, he said that it is never acceptable to be racist and that he hoped no one would be. McConnell also declined to respond in a CNN interview this week.
Trump’s use of racist language as a candidate sometimes prompted pushback from other Republicans, as when former House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) called Trump’s attacks on a judge because of his Mexican heritage “textbook” racism. But the former president’s example has inspired other candidates and pushed the boundaries of what is considered acceptable political discourse, observers say.
“Trump mobilized a constituency that is partly susceptible to being riled up by racialized appeals, and politicians see that, especially on the right,” said Richard Fording, a political science professor at the University of Alabama. “And just like any other sort of competitive environment, you see what works and you copy it.”
Robert C. Smith, a political scientist who has studied race and politics, said that after the civil rights movement in the United States, racist remarks tended to be met with condemnation from both parties. “Now that appears to be slipping away, and the only thing that’s of significance that’s changed since then is the emergence of Trumpism,” Smith said.
For some, Tuberville’s remark linking Black people to crime felt like confirmation of what they see as the more subtle racial undertones in the crime-focused ads that Republican candidates and groups have been running to attack Democrats as soft on crime. Democrats are vulnerable on the issue, given a rise in homicides in many large, Democratic-led cities, and Republicans say they are simply highlighting a problem that affects all Americans, regardless of race.
But some of the ads have drawn criticism for playing on racial fears. Cheri Beasley, a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice running for the U.S. Senate, has faced at least $2 million in attack ads calling her soft on crime, according to an AdImpact analysis. One such ad, paid for by the conservative Club for Growth PAC, features the mug shot of a Black sex offender and blames Beasley for his being unmonitored. (In 2019, Beasley joined a majority of the court in ruling that offenders cannot be subjected to GPS monitoring for life solely because they have committed multiple crimes.)
Steele called the Beasley spot “dressed-up Willie Horton,” referring to an run ad in support of Republican George H.W. Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign against Democrat Michael Dukakis. That ad’s use of a Black offender’s mug shot became a classic example of “dog whistle” racism in politics. Similar ads featuring mug shots of Black defendants have targeted Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin, as well. (Beasley and Barnes are Black.)
“There’s a lot of political science research that suggests that those appeals will work,” he said.
The president of the Club for Growth PAC, David McIntosh, defended the ad in a statement. “At every level of politics, liberal Democrats in North Carolina are getting called out for being soft on pedophiles,” he said. “If they want to pretend race has anything to do with letting police track child sex predators, they’re going to be in for quite a surprise on election night.”
“I don’t know if it’ll be very easy to put the genie back in the bottle,” Greenblatt said. | 2022-10-15T16:11:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Racist appeals heat up in final weeks before midterms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/15/racist-appeals-heat-up-final-weeks-before-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/15/racist-appeals-heat-up-final-weeks-before-midterms/ |
Commanders quarterback Carson Wentz injured his right hand during the team's win over the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field on Thursday night. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Commanders quarterback Carson Wentz fractured a finger on his throwing hand in Thursday’s 12-7 win over the Chicago Bears and is expected to see a specialist in Los Angeles on Monday to determine the next steps, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation.
Wentz suffered the injury late in the second quarter, just before the two-minute warning. On second and five, he targeted receiver Cam Sims in the flat but as he released the ball, Wentz’s fingers were bent backward by defensive tackle Justin Jones, who grazed the quarterback’s hand while attempting to bat the pass.
After the contact, Wentz bent over and shook his hand furiously, clearly in discomfort. He did so repeatedly throughout the remainder of the game, but played its entirety without tape or a splint around his fingers. Wentz finished 12 of 22 for 99 yards, no touchdowns or interceptions and a 66.3 passer rating. He also took three sacks to reclaim the league lead with 23 on this season.
“It’s a little sore. But I think I’ll be all right,” Wentz said afterward. “ … The chilly conditions didn’t necessarily help the jammed fingers. But it was all right. I was doing all right.”
Wentz had landed on the injury report the week prior because of a right shoulder injury that was later reported to be a strained biceps tendon. He insinuated at the time that the shoulder injury was minor, and he continued to practice ahead of Thursday’s game.
His Monday appointment will determine the severity and necessary recovery for Wentz. Should he have to miss time, Taylor Heinicke will take over at quarterback, a scenario all too familiar to Washington.
Heinicke took over for Alex Smith in Washington’s wild-card playoff loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in January 2021, then became the fill-in starter when Ryan Fitzpatrick went down with a season-ending hip injury in last year’s opener.
Heinicke arrived in Washington less than two years ago to be the team’s emergency quarterback during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, essentially serving as an insurance policy in case of an outbreak. An undrafted quarterback out of Old Dominion, Heinicke played for offensive coordinator Scott Turner in Minnesota, when Turner was the Vikings’ quarterbacks coach, and again in Carolina with the Panthers. Though he lacked starting experience, he was familiar with Washington’s system and much of its coaching staff.
In 2021, in taking over for Fitzpatrick, Heinicke led the Commanders to a 7-8 record as a starter and became a fan favorite for his gritty play and, especially, his pylon-dive touchdowns. | 2022-10-15T16:12:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders QB Carson Wentz has fractured finger on throwing hand - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/carson-wentz-fractured-finger/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/carson-wentz-fractured-finger/ |
FILE - NASCAR Cup Series driver Kurt Busch tips his cap prior to the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Sunday, July 17, 2022, in Loudon, N.H. Busch announced Saturday, Oct. 15 he will miss the rest of this season with a concussion and will not compete full-time in 2023. The 44-year-old made his announcement at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, his home track and where he launched his career on the bullring as a child. He choked up when he said doctors told him “it is best for me to ‘shut it down.’” (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File) | 2022-10-15T16:12:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Concussed NASCAR champion Kurt Busch to step away from sport - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/auto-racing/concussed-nascar-champion-kurt-busch-to-step-away-from-sport/2022/10/15/0f78bacc-4c9c-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/auto-racing/concussed-nascar-champion-kurt-busch-to-step-away-from-sport/2022/10/15/0f78bacc-4c9c-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Chris Geldart resigned as a top D.C. official over an assault allegation and questions about where he lives
Christopher Geldart, who resigned this week as D.C. deputy mayor public safety and justice. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
A D.C. deputy mayor — who resigned this week after a personal trainer accused him of assault and a resulting police statement triggered questions about whether he was living in D.C. — defended his living arrangement, saying in an interview that he was staying part-time with a friend to meet the requirement that high-level officials live within city limits.
Chris Geldart, who stepped down Wednesday as D.C. deputy mayor for public safety and justice, said he was “geo bacheloring” — a term used in military circles to describe an arrangement where service members live apart from their families, often with other military personnel. Geldart, a former Marine, said he stayed part-time with his family in Falls Church, Va., and part-time with a friend and former colleague in Washington.
“I spent nights in the city when I needed to, and I spent nights at home,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post. “That is what I did. I geo bachelored.”
Geldart went on leave earlier this month after a personal trainer publicly accused the then-deputy mayor of grabbing him by the neck in a parking lot of a Gold’s Gym in Arlington, Va. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) initially downplayed the incident — saying in a statement that “it sounds like something that happens to a lot of people.” But her tone shifted days later as reporters raised questions about a police statement that listed Geldart’s residency as being in Virginia.
In the interview with The Post, Geldart said that he was “embarrassed” about his behavior outside of the Gold’s Gym but declined to discuss the matter because of the pending criminal charge. An arraignment hearing is scheduled for Monday in the case. Geldart also declined to discuss conversations he had with city officials leading up to his resignation.
Under D.C. code, high-level appointees to the executive branch must be city residents within 180 days of appointment and remain so during their time in office. The police statement on the assault allegation said Geldart lived in Falls Church.
Chris Geldart, top D.C. public safety official, out of job after assault claim
The chorus of reporters asking about Geldart’s residency in the District grew louder with each day that followed the assault accusation, and by Oct. 6, D.C. Council member Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) was among those with questions.
That afternoon, she sent a request for information on the matter to E. Lindsey Maxwell II, the interim director at the city’s Department of Human Resources, asking questions including how officials determine an employee’s “true place of residence,” if a worker has homes inside and outside the District. Silverman’s office said it had not received a reply to the questions by Friday evening.
As chair of the council’s labor committee, Silverman said she has pushed in recent years to boost the number of those on the city’s workforce who are D.C. residents — especially D.C. police employees and fire and EMS workers — because living in the city helps to integrate city employees with the communities they serve.
“Geldart was overseeing public safety agencies., like D.C. police, fire and EMS. We want those responders to live in the city, and we’ve struggled with that,” Silverman said. “If we have the deputy mayor in Falls Church, it sends a message that residency isn’t important. And I don’t think that’s the message we want to send.”
Bowser announced at a news conference that she had accepted Geldart’s resignation Wednesday, saying “all of the questions being raised are distracting from his job and my job.” She said at the news conference that she was aware that Geldart had a home in Virginia, where his family lived, but expected her cabinet members to be “bona fide” residents of the city.
Asked Friday evening if Geldart had disclosed the geo bachelor arrangement — and whether it meets the spirit of the residency requirement — Bowser’s office said it had no further comment.
Geldart said his family first rented a home in Falls Church in 2017 after he resigned from his position at the helm of D.C.’s homeland security agency amid an inspector general’s allegations, including that he used the office to benefit a “close personal acquaintance.” The city’s ethics board ultimately found insufficient evidence to establish that a violation had occurred.
When he returned to city leadership two years later — first as director of the Department of Public Works before being hired as deputy mayor — Geldart said he was about halfway through a lease in Virginia. He said he and his wife decided to keep the house to avoid breaking the lease. Geldart said he opted to rent an apartment along the Capitol Riverfront with his friend, a former staffer who traveled to the West Coast frequently for work and had a spare bedroom.
Geldart said he paid part of the rent — although declined to say how much — and utilities for the apartment, as well as city taxes. He also said he submitted all the required documentation for residency and — on several occasions — told colleagues that he had to pick up his children and take them to Falls Church.
“I will say there are times when I spend a heck of a lot more time in the apartment than other times,” the former deputy mayor said. “But I did have the apartment. I did pay the taxes. I did the utilities. I did pay my rent. I did everything I was supposed to do.”
Geldart said his wife re-signed the lease in mid-2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. At the time, he said, his wife was living with his children on the West Coast because of her work requirements and to be close to relatives. Geldart said he was in D.C. that year — spending most nights at the city apartment — to work long days to help lead the city’s response to the pandemic.
His family’s latest lease in Fall’s Church was up in April. He said they had been renting the home month-to-month since then, looking to move to a permanent home in the District.
Some city council members said they were sympathetic to his family obligations. But they were not swayed by his claim of a geo bachelor arrangement.
“From a residency perspective, whether it’s this government official or any, the expectation is that you reside in the District of Columbia,” said D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety. “The spirit and intent of the law and requirement is that it is your primary residence. It’s where you live.”
“It’s 20 minutes away,” Silverman said of Falls Church. “It’s hard to believe you’re not just going to hop on Route 66 and go home every night. This is not a second home in Rehoboth Beach you spend some summer weekends at.”
Now that Geldart is out of his job, it is unclear whether he will make a permanent move to the nation’s capital.
“We are evaluating now what the next steps are for our family,” he said in a statement. | 2022-10-15T17:11:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Former D.C. deputy mayor defends having Va. home: ‘I geo bachelored’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/15/deputy-dc-mayor-geo-bachelored/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/15/deputy-dc-mayor-geo-bachelored/ |
Bruce Sutter, ace relief pitcher who pioneered role of closer, dies at 69
St. Louis Cardinals reliever Bruce Sutter celebrates after the last out in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series at St. Louis on Oct. 20, 1982. (AP)
Bruce Sutter, a Hall of Fame reliever whose late-inning dominance carried the St. Louis Cardinals to a Game 7 win in the 1982 World Series and helped change baseball as teams embraced the role of hard-throwing closers, died Oct. 13 at a hospice in Cartersville, Ga. He was 69.
Mr. Sutter, who played his last Major League game in 1988 after 12 seasons with the Chicago Cubs, Cardinals and Atlanta Braves, had been diagnosed with cancer, his family said.
Mr. Sutter, with his signature split-finger fastball and bushy beard, rose to become one the game’s most effective relievers in the late 1970s and was the first pitcher enshrined in Cooperstown without starting a game.
He also was part of a shift in baseball with his aggressive, strikeout-heavy style and, for a time, a nearly unhittable splitter. Mr. Sutter was often called to pitch two or more innings in contrast to today’s mostly one-inning closers. But he and others, such as the Rollie Fingers and Sparky Lyle, heralded the rise of specialist relievers to punch out the last outs.
With the Atlanta Braves, Mr. Sutter got his 300th save in 1988, striking out future Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar in the 11th inning in a 5-4 win over the Padres in San Diego.
Opinion: Baseball looks strange, but the weird thing is how easily it happened
“Bruce was the first pitcher to reach the Hall of Fame without starting a game, and he was one of the key figures who foreshadowed how the use of relievers would evolve,” Major League Baseball’s commissioner, Robert Manfred, said in a statement.
Hitters knew Mr. Sutter would come at them with his splitter — which, at its best, looks like a fastball then drops off sharply at the plate — but still were often fooled and could do little more than flail at balls in the dirt. In 1979 with the Chicago Cubs, there was no question Mr. Sutter would be the National League’s Cy Young winner, finishing with 37 saves, an ERA of 2.22 in 62 appearances with 110 strikeouts.
That year included a game that has a special place in baseball’s statistic-laden lore.
On May 17, 1979, at Wrigley Field, the visiting Philadelphia Phillies went up 21-9. The Cubs clawed back to knot it 22-22. Mr. Sutter became the sixth Chicago pitcher at the top of the ninth, retiring the side after giving up a walk. He was back in the 10th, facing third-baseman Mike Schmidt. The count went full. Mr. Sutter went to a split finger. Schmidt belted it into the bleachers, putting the Phillies on top for good, 23-22.
“I didn’t even turn around to look at it,” Mr. Sutter told reporters later. “I knew exactly where it was going.”
Mr. Sutter’s right arm and shoulder took a beating, leading to surgeries and stretches on the disabled list. But it also gave him his signature pitch. He said he learned the split-finger technique from a minor league Cubs pitching coach while recovering from elbow surgery at age 20, years before his Major League debut in 1976.
“Without that pitch,” he said in 1981. “I’d be out of baseball.”
Gary Matthews, a National League journeyman player who often faced Mr. Sutter, described Mr. Sutter’s splitter as “devastating.”
“If you stayed off of it, he'd get a called strike. If you swung, you would miss,” Matthews told ESPN. “He perfected something; something new on the scene.”
When the Cardinals acquired Mr. Sutter in 1980, the expectations — and pressure — could not have been higher. A UPI sportswriter described Mr. Sutter’s right arm now joining the Gateway Arch and Municipal Opera as St. Louis’s “most valuable assets.”
In 1982, the Cardinals took the National League East pennant by 3 games and Mr. Sutter lead the league with 36 saves. The Cards swept the Braves to face the Milwaukee Brewers in the World Series.
In Game 7, Mr. Sutter was called in at the top of the eighth with the Cardinals up 4-3. He shut down the side and St. Louis added two runs in the bottom of the inning. It was 6-3 with Mr. Sutter trying to nail down the team’s first Series win since 1967.
He snagged a bouncer by Milwaukee’s catcher, Ted Simmons, and tossed to first.
“One gone,” said the Cardinal’s radio broadcaster Jack Buck. “Two outs away. Sutter has retired four in a row.”
Left fielder Ben Oglivie was up next, who ground to second baseman Tom Herr. “Nice grab, Tommy,” said Buck.
Mr. Sutter next threw a splitter to center fielder Gorman Thomas, who swung and missed. The crowd started to chant “Sou, Sou,” for Mr. Sutter. Then a foul, strike, balls, more fouls. The count was 3-2 after nine pitches.
“Who’s in the bullpen? Nooobody,” said Buck. “Who’s in their seats? Nooobody.”
Mr. Sutter wound up for another pitch, his left glove angled back like a wing. It wasn’t a splitter this time.
“Sutter from the belt, to the plate,” said Buck as Mr. Sutter went with a high fastball. “A swing and a miss! And that’s a winner!”
Mr. Sutter jogged from the mound with his right hand thrust high. The team mobbed him. Fans stormed onto the field.
“It’s not good or bad, but closers have changed things,” Mr. Sutter told USA Today in 2005, looking back on his career and changes in baseball. “I don’t think you are going to win a World Series without one.”
From the World Series, tales of heroes and heartbreak
'A true pioneer’
Howard Bruce Sutter was born Jan. 8, 1953, in Lancaster, Pa., and was a standout high school athlete. He briefly attended Old Dominion University before signing with the Chicago Cubs as an undrafted free agent in 1971.
Mr. Sutter debuted with the Cubs in May 1976 and made the National League’s All-Star team in each of the next five seasons. He played for the Cardinals from 1981 to 1984, making his sixth All-Star appearance in his final year with the team.
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After Mr. Sutter was traded to Atlanta, he struggled with a rising ERA and nagging nerve trouble with his right shoulder. He had surgery at the end of the 1985 season, beginning a cycle of operations and slow recoveries. He missed the entire 1987 season and returned to make 38 appearances in 1988. He formally retired in 1989 after knee surgery.
“He was a true pioneer in the game,” Cardinals owner and chief executive Bill DeWitt Jr. said in a statement, “changing the role of the late-inning reliever.”
Mr. Sutter is survived by his wife of five decades Jayme Leigh; sons Josh, Chad and Ben; and six grandchildren.
During his career, Mr. Sutter wore No. 42, the same as the first Black Major Leaguer, Jackie Robinson, and a number retired from all of baseball in 1997. During Mr. Sutter’s induction to the Hall of Fame in 2006, he was joined by 17 former Negro League players and others from the race-barrier era also being enshrined.
Baseball greats Johnny Bench and Ozzie Smith wore costume beards, long and gray, in Mr. Sutter’s honor. | 2022-10-15T17:42:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bruce Sutter, reliever who pioneered split-finger fastball, dies at 69 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/15/bruce-sutter-reliever-cardinals-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/15/bruce-sutter-reliever-cardinals-dies/ |
Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa leaving the field during a game against the Buffalo Bills on Sept. 25 (Wilfredo Lee/AP)
Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was cleared Saturday under the NFL’s concussion protocols and could return to the team’s lineup next weekend.
The Dolphins already have ruled out Tagovailoa from participating in Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings in Miami Gardens, Fla. He is eligible to play Oct. 23 at home against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Tagovailoa has been treated and evaluated under the protocols since suffering a concussion, according to the Dolphins, in a Sept. 29 game in Cincinnati, four days after returning to a home game against the Buffalo Bills during which he was evaluated for a possible head injury.
His clearance Saturday morning was confirmed by two people familiar with the situation. According to one, Tagovailoa traveled to be examined and cleared by specialists in Pittsburgh and Detroit, going beyond the requirements of the league’s protocols. Those require him to be cleared by the team physician and an independent neurological consultant approved by both the NFL and the NFL Players Association after progressing through a five-step evaluation process.
Brewer: NFL protocols couldn’t protect Tua Tagovailoa from careless humans
Dolphins Coach Mike McDaniel said earlier in the week that Tagovailoa was being reevaluated every 12 to 24 hours.
Tagovailoa returned to the practice field this week. The Dolphins listed him as a full participant in Friday’s practice after he participated in Wednesday’s and Thursday’s practices on a limited basis. He also was listed as having an ankle injury.
The league and the NFLPA conducted a joint review, initiated by the union, of the level of compliance with the concussion protocols in Tagovailoa’s case. They announced last Saturday that the protocols were followed “as written” but acknowledged that the outcome was “not what was intended.” They modified the protocols to eliminate the exception that allowed Tagovailoa to be cleared to return to the Bills game.
Under the revised protocols, doctors no longer have the leeway to clear a player to reenter a game if he demonstrates abnormal balance, stability or motor coordination. Tagovailoa demonstrated such instability but had reported a back injury to the Dolphins’ medical staff earlier in the game against the Bills, according to the review by the league and union, and doctors allowed him to return to the game in the second half.
He was taken from the field on a stretcher after hitting his head on the turf on a first-half sack during the Sept. 29 game against the Bengals and taken by ambulance to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. He was released from the hospital that night and returned to Miami with the Dolphins on the team’s plane after the game.
NFL officials defended the protocols and the league’s approach to player safety amid widespread criticism about the handling of the case. The NFLPA exercised its right to dismiss the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant who participated in the decision to clear Tagovailoa during the Sept. 25 game. The NFL said it disagreed with the firing of the independent doctor, given the finding that the protocols were followed.
The NFLPA said during the case that it was focused on the medical judgments that were made, rather than whether the protocols technically were followed. Even after last Saturday’s joint statement that the protocols were followed in the case, the NFLPA’s president, former Cleveland Browns center JC Tretter, wrote on Twitter: “We do not believe this was a meaningful application of the protocols.”
Rookie quarterback Skylar Thompson is scheduled to make his first NFL start Sunday against the Vikings. The seventh-round draft choice from Kansas State finished last Sunday’s loss to the New York Jets in East Rutherford, N.J., after veteran backup Teddy Bridgewater was removed from the game and placed in the concussion protocols under the newly enacted provision. A spotter determined that Bridgewater stumbled after a hit.
Bridgewater reportedly also was cleared Saturday and is expected to back up Thompson in Sunday’s game against the Vikings. | 2022-10-15T17:42:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa cleared under NFL’s concussion protocols - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/tua-tagovailoa-cleared-concussion-protocols/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/tua-tagovailoa-cleared-concussion-protocols/ |
NASCAR’s Kurt Busch steps away from racing because of July concussion
Kurt Busch choked up during a Saturday announcement that he will miss the rest of this season with a concussion and will not compete full-time in 2023. (Darron Cummings/AP)
NASCAR Cup Series driver Kurt Busch announced Saturday that he will miss the remainder of this season because of a concussion he suffered in July. The injury will also preclude Busch from competing full-time next year.
The 2004 NASCAR Cup Series champion, Busch was injured during qualifying at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Penn. when his car drifted up the track and slammed into a wall. The crash forced the 44-year-old veteran to miss the next 13 consecutive races and invited a wave of criticism from drivers concerned about the safety of their new Next Gen cars.
Those concerns reemerged last month when driver Alex Bowman was concussed after his car hit the wall during a race in Texas in a similar fashion to Busch’s vehicle. Drivers have complained about experiencing harder impacts in the newer cars and Bowman after his collision said it was the “hardest I’ve crashed anything in my entire life.”
“I don’t think they understand the extent of it and actually the extent of how bad it is when you hit stuff,” driver Kevin Harvick told NBC Sports in reference to NASCAR. “I don’t think anybody really understands, except for the drivers that have crashed into something, the violence that comes in the car. It doesn’t seem to be a high enough priority to me.”
Bowman, who has missed two straight races, recently said he will miss at least three more.
Busch, who made his announcement at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, said doctors told him “it is best for me to ‘shut it down.’” He will be replaced for the 2023 season by Tyler Reddick in the No. 45 Toyota at 23XI Racing.
“If I’m cleared,” he added, “maybe you’ll see me at a few select races” next season. | 2022-10-15T18:34:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NASCAR’s Kurt Busch steps away from racing because of July concussion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/nascar-kurt-busch-concussion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/nascar-kurt-busch-concussion/ |
Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is escorted out after an investiture ceremony by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. at the Supreme Court on Sept. 30 in Washington. (Elizabeth Frantz for The Washington Post)
Still, few were prepared for Jackson’s venturesome debut in the court’s first sitting. Over eight oral arguments, she dominated the questioning and commentary, speaking twice as much as her next most loquacious colleague. It is likely a record for a new justice, according to Adam Feldman, who tracks such things for his Empirical SCOTUS blog.
How Ketanji Brown Jackson will recast the nation's highest court
The most memorable moment of Jackson’s first two weeks came in an extended monologue with Alabama Solicitor General Edmund LaCour Jr. The case was about whether the Voting Rights Act requires the creation of a second congressional district, out of seven in the state, where the state’s significant African American population would have a chance to elect a candidate of its choice.
FAQ: What are the key cases before the Supreme Court this term?
“I understood you to be saying that you are being asked, all states are being asked, to navigate the rock and the hard place” because “if you were forced to adopt a map proposed by the plaintiffs that was racially gerrymandered because race was predominant in its drawing … you would be violating the Fourteenth Amendment.”
“I don’t think we can assume that just because race is taken into account that that necessarily creates an equal protection problem,” Jackson said. “I understood that we looked at the history and traditions of the Constitution at what the framers and the founders thought about. And when I drilled down to that level of analysis, it became clear to me that the framers themselves adopted the equal protection clause, the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth Amendment, in a race conscious way.”
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By the end of the eight arguments, Jackson had spoken more than 11,000 words, according to Feldman’s statistics. That’s about double the nearly 5,500 words spoken by runner-up Justice Sonia Sotomayor. (Justice Elena Kagan was in third place, indicating that while the court’s three liberals may be out-voted in many cases this term, they are not going to be outargued.)
For Black women, Jackson's nomination is 'magic on such a profound level.'
Jackson replaced Justice Stephen G. Breyer, for whom she once clerked. Breyer was long-winded, and his remarks from the bench were filled with hypotheticals about how the impact of the case at hand on the law.
It seems clear that Jackson talks more extensively and asks more questions than the court’s other recent additions — Gorsuch, Barrett and Brett M. Kavanaugh. But direct comparisons are difficult, because the court has changed its procedure for conducting oral arguments since those justices joined.
These days, Thomas — the court’s most senior member — gets the first opportunity to ask questions, followed by a session in which other justices may jump in with their interrogations. At a certain point, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asks each justice in turn whether he or she has additional questions. Arguments that once ended promptly after an hour now routinely go much longer, sometimes more than twice that.
Ketanji Brown Jackson had to keep her cool. These Black women could relate.
It is been common procedure at the court in recent years that, after both sides have presented their cases, the challengers gets the chance for a few minutes of uninterrupted rebuttal. But when lawyer Damien M. Schiff returned to the microphone, Jackson pounced with a series of inquiries.
The latest: Ketanji Brown Jackson will be sworn in as the Supreme Court’s first Black female justice at noon Eastern time on June 30, just minutes after her mentor Justice Stephen G. Breyer makes his retirement official. It is the first time the Supreme Court will have four female justices among its nine members.
The votes: The Senate voted 53-to-47 to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, with three Republican senators joining every Democratic and independent senator. Here’s how each senator voted on Jackson’s nomination.
The nominee: The president named Ketanji Brown Jackson, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, as his first Supreme Court nominee. She is set be the first Black woman justice in the court’s history.
What it means: The Democrats will succeed in their efforts to replace the oldest of three liberal justices on and further diversify the Supreme Court ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. | 2022-10-15T19:13:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | So far, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson more talkative than her colleagues - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/15/kentaji-brown-jackson-talkative/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/15/kentaji-brown-jackson-talkative/ |
By Miguel A. Santana
Protesters hold signs and shout slogans before the cancellation of the Los Angeles City Council meeting on Wednesday. (Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP)
Miguel A. Santana is president and chief executive of the Weingart Foundation.
It is particularly painful that Latino leaders are at the center of an ugly scandal about racial representation in Los Angeles, given the hard-fought battle that Latinos waged over decades to gain fair representation in the city’s government in the first place.
Now, as the city attempts to heal, the question is: Will the new Latino-led governing majority follow the same zero-sum political framework that for so long benefited Whites. Or will they pursue a new, multicultural, coalition-based governance?
The racial power-brokering apparent in a taped conversation among three powerful Latino members of the Los Angeles City Council, recorded in October 2021 but only made public this month, is nothing new, nor is it unique to Los Angeles. Rather, it is part of the long American tradition of those in power working to stay in power, often by marginalizing others.
But the particularities of Los Angeles history are important: The modern-day city was built on the premise that by keeping power in the hands of the majority population, the iconic California Dream could be realized for some, while others, primarily people of color, were kept in roles in service to the dream.
That dream is centered on homeownership. And until the 1940s, it was legal in Los Angeles to deny homeownership to Black, Latino and other people of color, to keep them from buying homes in largely middle- to upper-class neighborhoods. This redlining also allowed the White-majority council to draw district lines limiting the political representation of non-Whites, along with their access to quality education and good-paying jobs. These racist practices cemented the segregated Los Angeles that exists today. Racial disparities persist, and generations of disinvestment in some of the same communities remains evident.
Decades of organizing, power building, coalition work and civil rights litigation have chipped away at this history. Seats for Latino representation on the council and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors — among the most powerful local governments in the nation — came as a direct result of litigation where evidence from backroom conversations revealed intentional discrimination based on race. Power wasn’t relinquished easily. The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
Latinos today represent half the population of Los Angeles and have power at every level of state, county and city government. Many leaders have brought important gains for the Latino community and beyond, including the council members recorded in the leaked audio. Gil Cedillo fought for driver’s licenses for undocumented Californians. Nury Martinez, the first Latina to serve as council president, fought for investments to support poor families. Kevin de León championed environmental and climate justice.
In a way, the conversation between the three Latino councilmembers exposed that even those who are champions for racial and social justice can be seduced by power and succumb to the zero-sum framework.
In this difficult moment, I joined Latino civic leaders this week calling for the resignations of the three councilmembers and demanding that we separate ourselves from Los Angeles’s legacy of racist policies. (Martinez has since resigned.) As a community, we must demonstrate that we can govern in a different way — one that is inclusive and based on shared values.
This is the path to justice and fairness, but it is also right as a matter of practical politics. Latinos cannot advance the issues most important to us by ourselves. Police accountability, equitable access to services, good jobs, quality education, access to health care — in all these areas we require multiracial coalitions to make real and lasting progress.
As a Latino community leader, I’ve seen evidence of Angelenos forging cross-sectoral and multiracial coalitions to bring resources that benefit all. Since the pandemic, nonprofits led by Black, Latino, Indigenous, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities have come together and successfully fought to ensure that federal relief money is directed toward those most in need.
We can only make progress on issues that matter to the Latino community when we ensure that everyone in Los Angeles has a voice and is represented fairly. Doing so means holding our Latino leaders accountable.
One immediate way to ensure this is to take the ability to draw district lines out of the hands of those already in power. We should create a truly independent redistricting body whose role is to consider all factors — representation of all communities being one — and set district lines accordingly. And we need to require that those in power accept the district lines without insisting on substantive changes to benefit themselves.
Just as important, we need vibrant civic leadership that is multicultural, grounded in community and willing to raise tough questions when it matters most.
What gives me hope is that much of that leadership has been present since the recording became public. Voices from Latino, Black, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+ and other marginalized communities have joined in a powerful show of solidarity to express their feelings of anger, hurt and betrayal.
The message is loud and clear: Angelenos demand accountability and systemic change. No more backroom deal-making. As Latino leaders, it is our duty to ensure that we break free from hurtful, archaic zero-sum politics. | 2022-10-15T20:36:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Los Angeles Latinos can break from the zero-sum politics of the past - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/15/los-angeles-council-recording-scandal-latinos-politics/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/15/los-angeles-council-recording-scandal-latinos-politics/ |
Teen suspect in Raleigh mass shooting could face adult charges
A woman lays flowers while another lights candles at the entrance of the Hedingham neighborhood in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, Oct. 14. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
Prosecutors in Raleigh signaled that adult charges are expected against the 15-year-old boy suspected in Thursday’s shooting that killed five people and injured two others.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman on Friday stated her office’s intent to move the case from district court, which covers juvenile matters, to superior court.
“In this situation, there’s no question [because of] the mass loss of life, in my opinion, this case be transferred and tried in superior court,” Freeman told the Raleigh News and Observer. Freeman’s office did not respond to a request for further details.
In North Carolina, cases involving juveniles originate in district court, though prosecutors can seek their transfer to an adult court. If a judge determines probable cause for first-degree murder, the case will automatically move to superior court.
Teenager in custody, 911 calls released after five killed in Raleigh shooting
Officials have not publicly identified the suspect. The Washington Post is not naming him because he is a juvenile and has not formally been charged as an adult.
The 15-year-old, who was taken into police custody after a four-hour search Thursday, remained hospitalized in critical condition Friday, according to police. Police have not said how he received his injuries.
The Raleigh Police Department did not immediately respond Saturday to questions about the status of the investigation, including whether police have determined a motive, or how the firearm was obtained.
A 15-year-old accused of killing five people and injuring two others is in custody after a shooting in eastern Raleigh, N.C. on Oct. 13. (Video: The Washington Post)
For Raleigh residents, the painful shock of being the latest American city to experience a mass shooting was still rippling through the community Saturday.
“You always think you will know what to say or do when something like this happens in another community and then it rocks yours,” said Patteson Dixon, a 30-year-old North Raleigh resident who works as a banker downtown. “You’re left reeling, wondering what to say that will make you and your neighbors feel safe again. You hope to know what the course of action is in that moment, and you never do.”
The staggering scope of U.S. gun deaths goes far beyond mass shootings
Knightdale High School, where the youngest shooting victim was a junior, postponed its homecoming weekend to join the community in mourning. A vigil is planned for Saturday afternoon to remember those who were killed: Nicole Conners, 52; Susan Karnatz, 49; Mary Marshall, 35; James Roger Thompson, 16; and Gabriel Torres, 29.
“I know Raleigh will endure,” Dixon said. “I can just feel it, but those who were impacted are right to demand some sort of action so this won’t happen again.”
To some in the community, the obvious action is gun control. Becky Ceartas, executive director of the Raleigh-based North Carolinians Against Gun Violence Action Fund, called for legislation that reduces gun violence from the national level on down.
“Since the shooter was a minor, there’s a question of where he got the weapons from,” Ceartas said. “Minors usually obtain these weapons from their own homes or those of relatives, and one of the easiest steps we could take is to create a statewide program that educates gun owners on the need to secure their firearms. North Carolina still does not have such a program.”
Other measures could include laws that allow firearms to be removed from a person’s home if an “extreme risk” of hurting themselves or others can be established.
“We’ve been working on this issue in the state for years, and the legislature can do better,” Ceartas said.
In a 911 recording The Post obtained from the day of the shooting, a caller is heard describing the shooter as wearing “camo” and “looks like he’s like 15.” The unnamed person, who called from Osprey Cove Drive near the Neuse River Greenway, said the shooter had a “shotgun” and “killed my buddy,” who he said was an officer. The officer was later identified as Torres, who was off duty and heading to work.
Amid the Highland Park carnage, seven dead and a toddler left alone
Highland Park suspect charged with murder as community mourns
Threats from Highland Park suspect drew police attention in 2019 | 2022-10-15T20:45:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Raleigh shooting: Adult charges expected for 15-year-old suspect - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/15/raleigh-shooting-suspect-victims/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/15/raleigh-shooting-suspect-victims/ |
Philadelphia Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto (10) slides into home safely for an inside-the-park home run during the third inning in Game 4 of baseball’s National League Division Series against the Atlanta Braves, Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum) (Matt Rourke/AP)
PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia’s J.T. Realmuto became the first catcher to hit an inside-the-park home run in postseason history, circling the bases Saturday when his drive in Game 4 of the NL Division Series bounced off the angled wall and Atlanta right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. failed to back up the play. | 2022-10-15T20:47:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Phils' Realmuto 1st postseason inside-the-park HR by catcher - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mlb/phils-realmuto-1st-postseason-inside-the-park-hr-by-catcher/2022/10/15/0f053bdc-4cc5-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mlb/phils-realmuto-1st-postseason-inside-the-park-hr-by-catcher/2022/10/15/0f053bdc-4cc5-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
A draft U.N. resolution, citing instability and violence in Haiti, suggests the Biden administration may be willing to participate in a multinational mission that has a military component
Police fire tear gas at protesters demanding the resignation of Haiti's prime minister, Ariel Henry, in Port-au-Prince on Monday. (Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters)
In Haiti, a man named Barbecue test the rule of law
Mérancourt reported from Port-au-Prince. | 2022-10-15T21:28:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Haiti crisis merits intervention, draft U.S. proposal for U.N. says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/15/haiti-biden-un-security-resolution/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/15/haiti-biden-un-security-resolution/ |
Michigan running back Blake Corum had 166 yards rushing in a win over Penn State. (Paul Sancya/AP)
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — They streamed into Michigan Stadium sporting so many yellow jerseys and hoodies that the seating bowl looked like a field of sunflowers in full bloom.
Still, amid the feel-good vibe of 110,812 fans who had come to celebrate the Wolverines’ “Maize Out” on the occasion of No. 5 Michigan’s meeting with fellow unbeaten Big Ten foe Penn State, there were questions about Coach Jim Harbaugh’s bunch despite their 6-0 record.
Were they the beneficiaries of a less than rigorous early season schedule? Or did they have the mettle, when opponents got tougher, to take on No. 2 Ohio State, defend their Big Ten championship, and challenge for a playoff spot again?
Saturday’s test came in form of 10th-ranked Penn State, the Wolverines’ first ranked opponent of the season. And Michigan answered in resounding fashion, with a 41-17 victory that lifted its record to 7-0 (4-0, Big Ten).
It was “a statement game,” Harbaugh conceded afterward, and not simply because of the margin of victory.
Oklahoma looks more like Oklahoma (college football winners and losers)
What distinguished Michigan on this day was its resolve and resourcefulness, with each facet of the team — offense, defense and special teams — combining to blow open a game in which it trailed in the second half for the first time this season.
In just his sixth start, quarterback J.J. McCarthy acquitted himself well against Penn State’s imposing defense. He was intercepted once, yet salvaged one drive with a magician-like completion when all appeared lost, and made some nice plays with his legs.
Kicker Jake Moody didn’t miss from 29, 24, 23 and 37 yards, not only salvaging three drives that sputtered in the red zone but also making a key tackle on a kickoff return.
But Saturday’s chief takeaway was this: When next in a tough patch, Michigan need only put the ball in the hands of running backs Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards, who romped behind the Wolverines’ stout offensive line.
Michigan rushed for 418 yards on the day, with Edwards (173 yards on 16 carries) and Corum (166 yards on 28 carries) combining for 339 yards and two touchdowns each.
With Michigan trailing early in the third quarter, they took turns streaking for touchdowns of 67 yard and 61 yards on successive drives. Penn State never scored again.
“I can’t remember back-to-back touchdown runs like that,” Harbaugh said. “… The offensive line knows that if they get Blake space and Donovan space — any kind of crack — they’re going to make the most of it. You can’t have two guys that are happier about the way the offensive line comes off the ball than Donovan Edwards and Blake Corum. It’s the ultimate team sport.”
It was fitting that the performances marked the return of running game coordinator and running backs coach Mike Hart to the Michigan sideline after he collapsed during last weekend’s game at Indiana.
“I already gave him a game ball; probably going to give him another one,” Harbaugh said. “[418] yards rushing: That’s quite a statement. Mike loves the team; the team loves Mike.”
The victory dropped Penn State to 5-1 (2-1 Big Ten), and left Coach James Franklin still seeking a first career victory on the road against a top-five opponent.
The Nittany Lions’ offense struggled mightily in the early going, with Michigan forcing three-and-outs on their first two possessions.
Penn State was in danger of closing the half without a first down when quarterback Sean Clifford, who hadn’t found much success with his arm, exploded for a 62-yard run on a third and one that set up Kaytron Allen for the one-yard stroll into the end zone that averted what had the makings of a shutout.
It was a strange first half in which statistics told one story; reality told another.
Michigan raced up and down the field with relative ease, rolling up 274 yards of offense to Penn State’s 83.
Moreover, Penn State managed just one first down to Michigan’s 18.
But two plays cost the Wolverines dearly: the defensive gaffe that enabled Clifford (who completed just two throws in the first half) to set up Allen’s touchdown.
Less than two minutes later, Penn State tipped a pass by McCarthy, and linebacker Curtis Jacobs grabbed it and ran it back 47 yards for another touchdown that gave the Lions their first lead, 14-13.
A subsequent drive by Michigan stalled in the red zone, and Moody was summoned for a third field goal. With it, Michigan took a 16-14 lead into the break.
It was a two-point lead that could and should have been more.
But Harbaugh’s halftime talk included no recriminations.
“It was two big plays,” Harbaugh said, referencing Penn State’s quick 14 points as the half wound down. “Everybody knew what the deal was: A mistake we made on defense, and they got a big play on their quarterback read.”
His directive: “We’ve got 30 more minutes of football left. Let’s keep doing what we’re doing.”
Penn State wasn’t easily subdued.
Clifford connected with Harrison Wallace III on a 48-yard completion, and Penn State retook the lead, 17-16, on a 27-yard field goal.
It marked the first time all season that Michigan trailed in the second half.
The deficit didn’t last long.
Within minutes, Edwards cut to his right, beat one Penn State defender, and once in the clear wasn’t threatened on his 67-yard scoring run.
“I just had to sit back and wait my turn and show the world what I’m capable of being able to do,” Edwards said.
A two-point attempt succeeded, with Ronnie Bell walking into the end zone for a 24-17 lead.
Corum’s 61-yard score followed.
And few were happier than McCarthy, who completed 17 of 24 throws for 145 yards.
“With any successful offense, you have to have a dominant run game,” McCarthy said. “It’s where it’s done — down in the trenches. That’s where the battle is won. … I’m all for it if it wins ballgames.”
Franklin stuck with Clifford, his veteran quarterback (7 of 19 for 120 yards) through three quarters. But after a hard hit, turned Penn State’s offense over to five-star true freshman Drew Allar (5 of 10, 37 yards). | 2022-10-15T23:34:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Michigan aces its first true test by crushing Penn State - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/michigan-beats-penn-state/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/michigan-beats-penn-state/ |
Maryland man identified in shooting with Arlington Police
Police on Saturday identified an armed man who was shot by an officer Friday evening. Arlington County Police said El-Amin Mutee, 44, of Waldorf, Md., has been charged with brandishing and possession of a firearm with additional charges pending.
Police said the officers responded to reports of shots fired at the 2100 block of Shirlington Road, found the armed suspect on the road and told him to drop his weapon. The man instead raised the gun in his hands, and the officers fired at him, police said. The man was taken to the hospital and remained in stable condition. No officers were wounded in the exchange of gunfire, and the man’s gun was recovered at the scene, police said.
Arlington County Police Chief Andy Penn has requested the regional Critical Incident Response Team investigate the incident, authorities said. And following department policy, the two officers have been placed on routine administrative leave. | 2022-10-16T00:05:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland man identified in shooting with Arlington Police - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/15/shirlington-road-shooting-arlington/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/15/shirlington-road-shooting-arlington/ |
Police make arrest in string of suspected serial killings in Stockton, Calif.
Authorities say that they had captured a suspect in what was probably a “hunt” for the next victim.
Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden, center, flanked by Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln, left, and City Manager Harry Black, at a news conference on Oct. 4. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP)
Police officials in California announced Saturday that they had arrested a suspect in a string of killings of mostly Hispanic men — capturing him in what they say was the “hunt” for another victim.
Wesley Brownlee, 43, was taken into custody in connection with a six-month killing rampage and was expected to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon.
It was not immediately clear whether Brownlee was going to be charged with all five slayings committed this year and two attacks in 2021 that police say were connected.
The fatal shooting of a man in Oakland in April 2021 was linked by investigators to a string of homicides that took place between July 8 and Sept. 27 in and around Stockton, Calif. Police say the seven shootings were linked by ballistics and video evidence, prompting a search for a prolific suspect.
Brownlee was being followed by police while driving, and investigators noticed behavior that led them to believe that the suspect was searching for another target, according to Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden.
“We watched his patterns and determined early this morning he was on a mission to kill,” McFadden said during a news conference. “He was out hunting.”
McFadden said his investigators are confident they prevented another death. He said they do not have a motive.
Officials said Saturday that they were looking for a suspect who liked to cruise and lurk around parks in the dark — approaching victims on foot once he homed in on a target.
The victims were not robbed, and officials said they do not think the killings were connected to drugs or gang activity. | 2022-10-16T00:13:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Arrest made in string of serial killings in California - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/15/stockton-serial-killer-arrest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/15/stockton-serial-killer-arrest/ |
Bryce Harper and the Phillies have unlimited October possibilities
Bryce Harper's Phillies are off to the NLCS. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA — Bryce Harper had done nothing Saturday afternoon by the time he walked to the plate in the sixth inning. Not at the plate, where he had struck out twice and popped to center in three at-bats. Not in the field, where he no longer appears because he is the Philadelphia Phillies’ designated hitter.
The chants came anyway.
“MVP! MVP! MVP!”
That is Harper’s status in this ravenous sports town — the most valuable player and most prominent character on a Phillies team that, in the span of a little more than a week, has morphed into a postseason problem for anyone it comes up against. That’s partly because of Harper’s talent, which remains enormous and will now be on display deeper than it ever has been in October — in the National League Championship Series.
The Phillies, who pounded the defending World Series champion Atlanta Braves out of the postseason with an 8-3 victory in Game 4 of this division series Saturday, haven’t been this far since 2010. Harper hasn’t been here — ever. That forges a connection between those who are trying to reach new territory and those who are pushing behind them.
“Being able to come into a town that I feel like I’m with them, I feel like they’re with us each day,” Harper said. “I feel like I’m hand-in-hand with them and vice versa. When you want to play hard, when you want to be in a city, when you want to be a factor in a city, that’s all they want to see. They just want you to play hard. That’s it. They want you to go out there and bust your ass each day. No excuses, good or bad. They don’t care. They just want you to keep doing it.”
If he keeps doing what he’s doing, there are no limits on the Phillies’ October possibilities. Harper’s contributions in the clincher were a run-scoring single in that sixth-inning at-bat, then an opposite-field, solo homer in the eighth that finished the scoring — plays that were overshadowed by Brandon Marsh’s three-run bomb in the second and an unlikely inside-the-park homer by catcher J.T. Realmuto in the third.
But Harper’s contributions thus far in the postseason — a two-game, first-round sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals and the four games of this division series — are unmatched: a .435 batting average, a .480 on-base percentage and a .957 slugging percentage (good for an insane 1.437 on-base-plus-slugging percentage) with three doubles, three homers and six RBI.
All of this came after he was limited to 99 games in the regular season because of a broken thumb. In 35 games after he returned from a two-month absence, he hit .227 with a .676 OPS and just three homers. He wasn’t who he normally is. He is now.
“Honestly, coming back from the broken thumb took him some time,” said Kevin Long, Harper’s hitting coach for his final season in Washington who’s in his first year with the Phillies now. “He’s right back to where he was.”
Where he was: the reigning NL MVP. Where can he go this October? Wherever he wants.
“He can take over series,” Long said. “We saw that. Right in the middle of our lineup, guys on base, not on base — it didn’t matter. It was just squaring up ball after ball after ball. There’s a reason why he’s been the MVP — twice. And we saw it on display in full force in this series.”
Now we’ll see it in uncharted territory. The stands at Citizens Bank Park are still dotted with the jerseys of yesteryear — Schmidt and Carlton, Utley and Halladay. That’s what happens when five straight postseason appearances feel as though they came a decade ago because … well, because they came a decade ago. The accomplishments of those old heroes seem even richer, more meaningful, because they’re at least relatively distant. An entire town remembers how hard it is to get to this point — and then win once here.
That was Harper’s world. He doesn’t need reminding because it’s no longer pertinent, but his Octobers past were either haunted or vacant. Four times as a Washington National, his team won the NL East. Four times, it lost in the division series — each in its own implausible, painful-to-relive-it way.
Harper had his moments in those games — a homer in Game 5 in 2012 off Adam Wainwright that helped build a 6-0 lead over St. Louis; a blast off Hunter Strickland in Game 4 in 2014 that pulled the Nats back even with San Francisco in a must-win game; a shot off Carl Edwards Jr. that sparked a five-run eighth inning in Game 2 in 2017 that pulled the Nats even in the series with the Chicago Cubs.
But in those four series, Harper not only never took over — he didn’t present a reasonable version of himself. In seven seasons with Washington, he hit .279 with a .388 on-base percentage and a .512 slugging percentage, good for a .900 OPS. (The average OPS during those years ranged from .700 to .750.) In those 19 postseason games, Harper was reduced to a slash line of .211/.315/.487 — an .801 OPS.
So he needed this scene Saturday — the electricity in the stands and his responsibility for creating it being something of a chicken-and-the-egg question.
“He’s a better hitter now,” Long said. “When I had him in Washington, he was too up and down. And now he’s way more consistent.”
He was the rookie of the year as a 19-year-old, when he was a catalyst for the Nats’ first division champion squad. He won his first MVP award three seasons later, a campaign that still represents his high-water marks in runs, homers, average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS.
Better? His 30th birthday is Sunday. The days when he anonymously jumped into softball games on the National Mall seem more distant with every at-bat, every Philly chant of “MVP!”
“I just think I’m older, right?” Harper said in a quiet hallway deep beneath the stands. “Just more developed. I think it’s a mind-set, a mentality, a maturity. It’s all of it. Just understanding who I am better and what I need to do.”
What he needed to do Saturday was celebrate a moment he had never experienced, which he did by bouncing on the edge of the group hug at the mound with his teammates, then returning to the field afterward to join his wife, his 3-year-old son and his daughter, nearly 2.
A 13-year, $330 million contract ties him to this city for the rest of his career. That’s fine, even great. But it would mean more if that tie involved more of the kind of wins he experienced Saturday.
“When I think back in 2015, ’16, ’17, ’18 all the way through, Jayson Werth said, ‘There’s nothing like Philly when it’s winning,’ ” Harper said, citing his old mentor with the Nats who won a title with the Phillies.
Philly is winning now. Bryce Harper is a big reason for that.
“We’re saying right now, ‘There’s eight more,’ ” Harper said. “That’s our big thing right now.”
Eight more wins, and his tie to this town would be forever unbreakable. | 2022-10-16T00:31:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bryce Harper powers Phillies into NLCS - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/bryce-harper-phillies-nlcs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/bryce-harper-phillies-nlcs/ |
Terrapins 38, Hoosiers 33
Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa was carted off the field during a game against Indiana. (Darron Cummings/AP)
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — For the past three seasons, Taulia Tagovailoa has given the Maryland football program something new at quarterback. He has flashed his ability, broken program records and provided long-awaited stability at the position. But the image of him lying on the turf in pain, holding his leg and leaving on a cart during the Terrapins’ game against Indiana came as a familiar sight for a fan base scarred by an abundance of quarterback injuries.
The injury will loom over the weekend, but backup Billy Edwards Jr. stepped in after Tagovailoa left early in the fourth quarter and lifted Maryland out of a deficit to a 38-33 win against the Hoosiers. Edwards, a transfer from Wake Forest, led the Terps on back-to-back touchdown drives, despite not completing a pass, and he scored a rushing touchdown with 2:11 remaining.
The Hoosiers then scored with under a minute to go, but their two-point attempt failed, keeping Maryland’s lead at five points. Jacob Copeland recovered Indiana’s onside kick to seal the win that will have a muted celebration until the severity of Tagovailoa’s injury becomes clear.
Before Tagovailoa left the game, the Terps (5-2, 2-2 Big Ten) suffered a barrage of setbacks in Bloomington, some unavoidable (injuries that kept key players out) and others self-inflicted (too many penalties, an undesirable habit of this team). But the Terps managed to hold off the struggling Hoosiers (3-4, 1-3), who have lost four straight.
When Edwards entered the game, the Terps faced a 27-24 deficit. He led Maryland on a touchdown drive, capped by Roman Hemby’s six-yard rush for the go-ahead score with 5:35 to go. The defense, plagued by lapses and penalties throughout the game, stepped up by recovering a fumble on Indiana’s next possession, opening the door for the second touchdown drive. Hemby’s 46-yard run pushed Maryland into striking position, and Edwards looked sharp as he provided the heroics.
Maryland played without a trio of key veterans who normally start: linebacker Ruben Hyppolite II (ankle), who had missed two games but had returned to play last week; cornerback Jakorian Bennett (unspecified injury); and left tackle Jaelyn Duncan, who missed the game for personal reasons. The Terps’ depth has been further depleted by injuries to defensive backs Gavin Gibson and Glendon Miller.
However, Tarheeb Still, with an interception on the first play of the game, and Deonte Banks, with a pick on Indiana’s first offensive play of the second half, provided moments of optimism for the secondary.
The Terps fell into a hole after unraveling in the second quarter, with penalties hampering the team’s defensive effort, Tagovailoa struggling against Indiana’s pressure and the offense stalling. Maryland’s redshirt junior quarterback completed 10 of 14 passes in the opening quarter and then just 6 of 13 in the second. The Hoosiers scored 14 straight points to take a 17-14 lead into halftime. Tagovailoa opened the second half by leading Maryland on a touchdown drive that ended with Dontay Demus Jr.’s first score since returning from a torn ACL last season.
Edwards’s solid performance with the game on the line provided some optimism if he needs to hold on to the role in the weeks to come. But the Terps, naturally, would prefer to get their starter back to keep this promising season on track. For now, they’ll have to wait to hear that update while hoping Tagovailoa doesn’t join his predecessors at this position who have had unfortunate injuries.
Through the past decade, Maryland fans have stomached the news of one torn ACL after another. They have seen a linebacker have to step in at quarterback. They have seen seasons upended by these injuries, and so they flinch anytime Tagovailoa stays on the ground for a bit too long after he is hit on a play. He had a scare earlier this year, when he slipped because of a cramp after scoring a rushing touchdown against Charlotte. Tagovailoa sat out during the final drive in the loss at Michigan as he dealt with minor rib and knee injuries. Each week, he returned for the following game, seemingly back to full health.
This time, Tagovailoa had to leave on a cart. Edwards performed admirably and ensured the Terps didn’t collapse in the final moments. But the image of Tagovailoa in pain will linger, and the ramifications could change the course of Maryland’s season. | 2022-10-16T00:31:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taulia Tagovailoa injured during Maryland's win at Indiana - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/taulia-tagovailoa-injury-maryland-indiana/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/taulia-tagovailoa-injury-maryland-indiana/ |
Anthony Mantha had the Capitals' go-ahead goal Saturday night. (Jess Rapfogel/AP)
Amid their lackluster start, the Washington Capitals are trying to build a sustainable foundation. Saturday night, everything began to click.
The Capitals, who lost their first two games vs. Boston and at Toronto, shuffled their lines, cranked up the intensity and came away with a 3-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens at Capital One Arena to close a challenging first week of the season.
Washington (1-2-0) fell behind in the second period but shook off its slow start this time and led by two by the time the period ended. The Canadiens (1-2-0) had no answer in the third; Washington prevailed behind a 21-save night from Darcy Kuemper, who notched his first win in a Capitals sweater.
“We’re not here to play the game; we’re here to win the game,” Coach Peter Laviolette said Saturday morning. “So when the first two games don’t go the way you want, yeah, the urgency cranks up.”
Montreal was coming off a 3-0 loss at Detroit on Friday night. The youthful Canadiens’ speed was evident throughout, but Washington managed to avoid its first 0-3-0 start since the 2012-13 season. It will try to keep its momentum going Monday night against visiting Vancouver.
Washington’s comeback started with Conor Sheary, who notched his second goal of the season to tie the score at 1 with 10:58 left in the second. Sheary went to the top of the crease and redirected a pass from defenseman Nick Jensen past Montreal goaltender Sam Montembeault (26 saves).
Anthony Mantha scored with a wrister from the right faceoff circle less than three minutes later to put the Capitals ahead. It was his second goal as well.
T.J. Oshie capped the three-goal middle frame with a power-play goal in front at 15:20, Washington’s first with the man advantage this season and Oshie’s first on the campaign.
Washington generated plenty of high-danger opportunities in the first period, but the teams went into the first intermission in a scoreless tie. Alex Ovechkin nearly scored goal No. 781 with six minutes left in the first, but Montreal successfully challenged that the play was offside. Aliaksei Protas entered the zone early.
Nick Suzuki gave Montreal a 1-0 lead at 2:01 of the second period, his wraparound goal going through the legs of Kuemper. The veteran goalie would not be beaten again.
Laviolette shook up his line combinations, elevating Dylan Strome to the top group with Ovechkin and Connor Brown. Evgeny Kuznetsov slid to the second line with Mantha and Oshie.
Laviolette said he was looking to generate more offense after 5-2 and 3-2 losses to open the season. Strome had good chemistry with Brown in the preseason, and Laviolette hoped to replicate that against the Canadiens. They nearly connected on an odd-man rush early, but Strome couldn’t get to Brown’s nifty pass in time.
“In certain areas, we’re doing enough to shoot ourselves in the foot, and sometimes you cover that by scoring more goals than the opposition — and we haven’t been able to do that,” Laviolette said. “So we’re trying to fix the things that have been hurting us a little bit and see if we can’t take down the goals against a little bit, but we need to create more as well.”
Laviolette also noted that while he did not change the defense pairings, the “defensemen can play better, so they don’t get a pass, either.”
Power-play changes
For similar reasons, the Capitals decided to change their power-play personnel after a disastrous 0-for-9 start. Kuznetsov was demoted to the second unit; Marcus Johansson was elevated to the first.
Washington went 1 for 2 against Montreal and now is 1 for 11 on the season.
The Capitals’ fourth line — Sheary, Nic Dowd and Garnet Hathaway — has three of Washington’s first seven goals. The line is usually known for its defensive prowess, but its offensive abilities have been in the spotlight lately.
“They do an excellent job of moving the puck,” Laviolette said. “They get it out of our end, they get it through the neutral zone, and they get it into the offensive zone. And through their work ethic and through an identity that they create out on the ice, they’re able to create offense and create opportunity — and with that they were able to capitalize on it.” | 2022-10-16T02:24:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Capitals beat Canadiens for first victory - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/capitals-canadiens-line-changes-first-win/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/capitals-canadiens-line-changes-first-win/ |
Crimson 41, Bison 25
Harvard recovers a fumble by Howard during a game at Audi Field. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
When the call went up — “H-U!” with that last syllable dragging for emphasis — there was no confusion in the stands. Howard University may have been facing Harvard University on the field, but it was the Bison sitting in Audi Field who immediately responded, “You know!” — again, holding on to that final syllable.
That was just one of the nuances Howard was able to share at the Truth and Service Classic against Harvard on Saturday afternoon. The meeting was just the fifth time an HBCU has played an Ivy League team in football, according to the Ivy League.
Howard has been part of three of those games, all occurring in the past four years. Harvard hosted in 2019, and the Bison traveled to face Yale last week. The recent push to get Ivy teams on the schedule has not been random.
The Crimson cruised in the second half to a 41-25 victory.
“It is a conscious decision that we’ve made in all of our sports, not just football, to play games against members of the Ivy League,” Howard Athletic Director Kery Davis said Friday. “Ivy League schools are traditionally really strong academically, and Howard’s a very strong academic school, and we wanted people to make that association and understand the importance of athletics as part of the overall institutional curriculum.
“This is a strategy that we developed in concert with our president. It was a very conscious, strategic decision to play games against Ivy League schools.”
There’s an old saying that the athletic department is the front porch of a university — often the first thing the general public sees and knows about the school. Howard sees these Ivy games as a chance to get itself in front of eyeballs that may not typically land on games featuring historically Black colleges and universities.
That may be the initial goal, but the benefits go well beyond another marketing opportunity. These are experiences that players, coaches, staff and fans on both sides may not have otherwise.
“I think that many of the Harvard alumni who are going to come to the game, this might be their first time … playing versus an HBCU or being on an HBCU campus,” Davis said. “Certainly to have an opportunity to share our culture. They’ll experience the culture of an HBCU football game.
“Having those kinds of shared experiences leads to other areas of understanding. Cultural understanding, to me, is important. So I think that having those shared experiences is important on both sides.”
From the “H-U!” cheer to the Bisonettes dance team striding into the halftime show to cheerleaders and others on the sideline breaking out into a line dance when Frankie Beverly and Maze’s “Before I Let Go” played, HBCU games have a different environment.
Harvard Athletic Director Erin McDermott was just as cognizant of the uniqueness of these games, and she also embraces those opportunities. This series was scheduled before her hiring, but McDermott said she wants to schedule opponents from “like-minded” institutions when it comes to academic emphasis. Howard provides that — and the chance to bring people together in ways that go beyond sports.
“That’s what we’re all about, teaching life lessons and not just becoming better athletes,” McDermott said this week. “This is a Truth and Service game, too. That kind of connects with us as well since with Harvard’s Veritas, we’re in search of truth, as part of the whole motto and belief system here. We also have that in common, which is kind of fun.
“Especially in the time that we’re in, I think the more we can show these examples of unity and how competition can bring people together, but no matter what the outcome is, we can all stand in similar principles and support each other — I think that is really impactful and powerful.”
Harvard Coach Tim Murphy pointed out that nearly every African American player on his roster has some connection to HBCUs. There were plenty of aunts, uncles, cousins and close friends who had attended an HBCU, and Murphy called the pair of schools a “natural fit.” Lillian Lincoln Lambert was honored on the field as a 1962 graduate of Howard and Harvard in 1969. A trip to D.C. also doesn’t hurt when it comes to recruiting.
Harvard rolled to a 62-17 victory in that 2019 game, and the Bison lost, 34-26, at Yale on Oct. 1. That leaves the Bison 0-3 against the Ivy League.
“HBCUs have had an extremely proud and important history and tradition in American higher education,” Murphy said before the game. “And their contribution and their connection to college and pro football is massive and indisputable. So, for us, it’s a real honor to play Howard, especially in Washington, D.C.”
The final was lopsided again. Harvard scored 24 straight points in the second half after the teams went into halftime tied at 17. But as a nonconference game between teams much more focused on league play, the afternoon had as much to do with the experience away from the field as on it. Some Howard students were hosted by Harvard for classes, parties and tailgating for the game in 2019, and the favor was returned this week.
Howard Coach Larry Scott said he made sure to take time to talk to his players about the significance of the game.
“Even guys that are part of the SEC, ACC, Power Fives and all those things, they don’t get these opportunities,” Scott said this week. “So to pause sometimes and take a moment to understand what’s really happening and see the bigger picture is a very, very critical piece. An important piece as we build men and as we build programs, and being able to seize and understand the opportunities and the moments that they’re granted and have the opportunity to do [so] is a critical part to it as well.
“So absolutely, you take the time to pause and do that and help them understand right where they are. Life’s built up of moments, and don’t miss this moment and don’t miss this opportunity to understand what you’re actually doing. It’s kind of trailblazing, and it’s groundbreaking, and have fun with it, compete within it and realize that there’s a little bit of history being made as you go through it, too.” | 2022-10-16T02:24:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Howard and Harvard meeting in football is no accident - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/harvard-howard-football/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/harvard-howard-football/ |
“In a lot of areas we were better tonight,” Montgomery said. “We played a team that was hungry. Things didn’t go really well in their first game. Human nature is they’re going to come back and they did. ... I just like the way we responded.”
“It’s nice to get off to a good start, obviously, for our group — two wins,” Foligno said. “Nice to contribute. I’m feeling good, feel healthy. I’m excited. I like what our lines are all doing. That’s been the most fun. ... That’s exactly what we preached in training camp. It’s exciting to be a part of.” | 2022-10-16T02:51:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bruins beat Coyotes 6-3 for 19th straight win in series - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/bruins-beat-coyotes-6-3-for-19th-straight-win-in-series/2022/10/15/77673a72-4cf7-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/bruins-beat-coyotes-6-3-for-19th-straight-win-in-series/2022/10/15/77673a72-4cf7-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
The K-pop supergroup BTS performs in Busan, South Korea, to support the city's bid for World Expo 2030. (Big Hit Music)
BUSAN, South Korea — “BTS is back together on the stage! What else could I wish for?” said Kim Ji-yeon, 23, who came to see the K-pop supergroup’s concert in her city, Busan. For the past year, the college senior has been studying day and night for the civil service exam, even on weekends. “I had to skip my studies,” she said, “because tonight might be the last opportunity for me to see BTS perform live.”
While some residents worried the songs and cheers from the open-air stadium would be too loud, lines of fans camping at the venue entrance hoped for exactly that, to listen to the concert from outside. “Even just hearing their voice from afar means a lot for me,” said Janie Aquino, one of the desperate fans who lost the “click-war” for tickets but still traveled to the venue — from the Philippines in her case. | 2022-10-16T03:46:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | BTS Yet to Come draws thousands to Busan for reunion concert - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/bts-concert-busan-south-korea/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/bts-concert-busan-south-korea/ |
The scoreless tie lasted into the 18th inning, and then Mariners fans had nothing to celebrate after their 21-year wait.
SEATTLE — The zeros on the T-Mobile Park scoreboard, which lasted until the 18th inning Saturday, did not reflect boredom and inaction. Those were little circles of stress, containing 6 hours 22 minutes of playoff baseball tension, the weight of an elimination game that stretched the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners on an abnormally smoky October afternoon in the Pacific Northwest.
For the first time in 21 years, the Mariners hosted a postseason game, and it seemed like 21 more years would pass before it concluded. Then, at 7:12 p.m. Pacific time, more than six hours after the first pitch, Houston shortstop Jeremy Peña hit a four-seam fastball from Seattle reliever Penn Murfee over the fence in left-center. A run, finally. For the Mariners, it would signal the conclusion of a resurgent season that they fought for as long as possible not to see end. And for the Astros, playoff regulars who keep prospering, that persistence was about to be rewarded with a sixth straight appearance in the American League Championship Series.
With its 1-0 victory, Houston completed a three-game division series sweep by the thinnest of margins. Over the past decade, the Astros have won bigger games on bigger stages. They have endured plenty, including their own shame. But for a championship-caliber team that just won’t go away, this triumph symbolized an undervalued part of why they endure as a contender.
In only the fourth 18-inning playoff game in Major League Baseball history, they advanced. After Julio Rodríguez flied out to center field to end the game, they huddled near the pitcher’s mound and shared hugs. Some of them probably needed the embraces to stay upright. It was that kind of game. And for all that Houston has won over the years, winning this way still felt like a big deal.
Entering Saturday, it did not have the feel of a series that Houston led 2-0. The Astros had delivered heartache to the Mariners in those two games, trying to break them by rallying from a four-run deficit in the final two innings of an 8-7 victory in Game 1 on Tuesday and then outlasting Seattle during a 4-2 triumph Thursday. In both games, Yordan Alvarez hit a game-winning home run, the first a devastating three-run walk-off shot against Robbie Ray, the 2021 Cy Young Award winner who had made a surprise appearance out of the bullpen to try to close the game.
Alvarez’s heroics put Scott Servais, managing in the postseason for the first time with Seattle, under fire for the decision to trust Ray in an unfamiliar spot. But for as crushing as the defeat should have been, the Mariners played Game 2 with their usual confidence and style, and behind starter Luis Castillo, they took a 2-1 lead into the sixth inning before Alvarez changed everything again with a two-run blast.
Two pitches — and two prodigious swings by Alvarez — kept Houston from being another favorite to find trouble early in a postseason that has been harsh for the best regular season teams. But the Astros knew better than to feel comfortable. If it was that hard to hold serve at home, it would be an even greater challenge to close out a team playing its first playoff home game in more than two decades.
Before a crowd of 47,690 in Seattle, the Astros wouldn’t just face a hungry, raucous audience. They would be on trial for their old cheating sins again.
“This team is probably as prepared as any,” Manager Dusty Baker said before the game. “All of the boos and scorns we’ve had the last three years.”
It’s quite the task, going pitch for pitch and situation for situation with the Astros. They have seen it all by now. They have been it all, too: champions, cheaters, resilient winners, oh-so-close also-rans. They have forced you to hate them, tempted you to admire them and made you fear them. This is their sixth straight playoff appearance and seventh in the past eight seasons. They have won a World Series and finished runner-up two other times. They entered these playoffs having advanced at least as far as the ALCS every year since 2017.
The sign-stealing scandal tarnished their success, but their run has lasted so long — and they have continued winning at the same level since being exposed — that it isn’t fair to ignore all they have accomplished as fraudulent. There is no dismissing them. There is no rattling them. You have to beat them, and sometimes that means outlasting every bit of them.
Mariners starter George Kirby and Houston’s Lance McCullers Jr. set the tone. Kirby, a rookie making his first postseason start, threw seven innings and allowed six hits. He was able to stay composed during fidgety situations, and he stranded seven Astros. McCullers allowed just two hits and two walks over six innings.
Pitching and defense couldn’t make up for what Game 3 lacked in offense. As the scoreless anxiety ventured into extra innings, the experience went from riveting to exhausting. Hitters stopped grinding through at-bats and tried to end it with one swing. The game’s first three hours included enough high-pressure moments for edge-of-seat fascination, but even as both teams went deep into their bullpens, the threat of offense diminished.
Then Peña came to the plate. The rookie is new to the Astros, but by the end of this night, it seemed he had been there the whole time. | 2022-10-16T04:08:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Astros hand Mariners heartbreaking loss in 18 innings - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/astros-mariners-18-innings-jeremy-pena/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/astros-mariners-18-innings-jeremy-pena/ |
Oscar Gonzalez makes more October magic as Guardians walk off Yankees
ALDS Game 3: Guardians 6, Yankees 5
Oscar Gonzalez lifted the Guardians to another dramatic victory Saturday night in Cleveland. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND — If they can avoid it, Major League Baseball teams hoping to win the World Series should not begin October with any glaring weaknesses. A few hitters can be cold. No problem — they heat up. A starter or two might not be totally in sync. That’s potentially survivable. But for an entire crucial unit to find itself in shambles when the playoffs begin is a debilitating reality.
The New York Yankees are even more painfully aware of that fact now after watching the remnants of a once-promising bullpen let a late lead slip away in a 6-5 loss to the Cleveland Guardians in Game 3 of the American League Division Series on Saturday night. When the Guardians started charging back in the bottom of the ninth while two runs down, the Yankees didn’t have any proven late-inning relievers to save them.
They didn’t have anyone they could trust to quiet the Guardians’ pesky bats, which found their way to four straight singles to move the tying run to third base and the go-ahead run to second. And rookie right-hander Clarke Schmidt, in his first postseason, could not find a way around emerging playoff star Oscar Gonzalez, whose bases-loaded, two-run single sent Progressive Field into the kind of frenzy only a stunning comeback from an underdog can spur.
“I think that comes from belief in your teammates,” outfielder Steven Kwan said. “I think if we play selfish baseball, someone has to feel like they have to win the game by themselves, hit that three-run homer to win the game. I think just because we love each other and we care for each other, we know as long as we get the next guy up someone is going to get the job done.”
Gonzalez’s single, the Guardians’ 15th hit in a classic showing of Cleveland’s contact-heavy style, provided a joy the Yankees will never experience — the pure, unabashed revelry of a city watching a young team full of promise grow into something more. The Guardians came here expecting nothing but a chance. Now they are a win away from the American League Championship Series.
“He’s like right-handed Big Papi right now,” catcher Austin Hedges said of Gonzalez.
The home crowd roared when Josh Naylor hit a low line drive just under the glove of Isiah Kiner-Falefa to put the Guardians ahead four batters into the game. He stood on first base with his fist in the air as an entire stadium did the same.
The exuberance was the same an inning later when Gabriel Arias doubled, Hedges blooped a single, and Kwan hit another to bring home a run — and suddenly the youthful Guardians were all over the Yankees. They pushed Yankees starter Luis Severino — who hadn’t pitched since Oct. 3 but threw seven no-hit innings that day — to the brink.
They watched Triston McKenzie — their lanky, 25-year-old ace-in-the-making — power once through the Yankees’ lineup with relative ease, reaching high above his head to send 92-mph fastballs toward the strike zone from such an angle that they seemed to travel a little faster. He eventually surrendered four runs on two homers and left after five innings. But the deficit did not endure.
The Yankees do not live in a world where they can exceed expectations like that. Winning does not surprise anyone in the Bronx, and it never has. When the Yankees win, they spawn relief. When they do not, they search for answers.
For example, a few days after Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run to set the American League regular season record, he found himself hitless in the first two games of the division series with seven strikeouts — and hearing boos at Yankee Stadium.
His manager, Aaron Boone, said he woke up Saturday morning with a plan to fix the problem — though he, like anyone in a major league clubhouse, scoffs at the idea of two bad days as a problem after the ups and downs of 162. He moved Judge down from the leadoff spot, where he spent most of the final weeks of the season, into the second spot, where he hit more often this season. Boone said the move was less about Judge struggling for a two-game span than it was the fact that some of the once-injured hitters around him, such as Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton, are starting to look more like they do at their best.
But whatever Boone says publicly, the reality is that the Yankees are learning what the Los Angeles Dodgers’ historic offense has learned against the San Diego Padres this week, what the defending World Series champion Atlanta Braves learned as their season ended in the hands of the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday: Two games is a small sample size in the regular season, the kind of thing that great teams and players can toss aside, not the kind of thing that defines the greats. In October, two games are the only sample. Boone had to try something.
Whether Judge’s new position in the batting order had anything to do with what happened next is unclear, but in his second at-bat of the evening, the 2022 home run king returned with a regal, two-run shot to dead center — 449 feet, none of them in doubt. The score was tied at 2. The joy was quieted. The Yankees were doing what they were supposed to do.
Oswaldo Cabrera probably had the closest thing to an expectations-free experience with the Yankees when they called him up this summer. He wasn’t the top prospect in the system, so no one expected him to be the savior for a team besotted with injuries. He was an infielder, so when he played strong defense in the outfield, he endeared himself to those who had wondered how he could help at all. By October, he was a starter. But the 23-year-old went hitless in the first two games of the series. Had the time come for Boone to replace him?
Boone laughed at the idea before the game. And in the fifth, Cabrera provided his first postseason hit in the form of a no-doubt, two-run homer to right field. He held on to his bat as he watched it. Then he dropped it aside as if he had been here, in this exact place, too many times to spike it or fire it away. The Yankees had the lead.
But leads do not feel particularly safe for these Yankees, who have four healthy relievers they trust and used them all Friday — meaning none of them were fresh Saturday. Lou Trivino relieved Severino and surrendered an RBI single to pinch hitter Will Brennan. Not long after a Harrison Bader solo homer in the seventh returned the lead to two runs, Wandy Peralta couldn’t finish the ninth. And Schmidt had no answers for a Cleveland lineup that has relied on this kind of rally all season.
If a closer had been healthy or rested, perhaps the Yankees could have staved it off. But they are just trying to survive their bullpen now. They may not be able to do so. | 2022-10-16T04:08:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Guardians rally past Yankees on another Oscar Gonzalez walk-off hit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/guardians-oscar-gonzalez-yankees-bullpen/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/guardians-oscar-gonzalez-yankees-bullpen/ |
Dear Carolyn: My husband and I are about to spend a week with our daughter and her boyfriend. They’ve lived together for about three years. The boyfriend had a bad year: He had a good but demanding job, then was apparently diagnosed with anxiety. He quit the job and the anxiety morphed into alcoholism. He is recently out of detox and rehab, but he’s not working and is now looking to start over in a new city.
We like him. And we support him in his struggle. But there is no marriage, no kids, no house, and we are old enough to know and worry about the course recovery takes. Namely, two or three relapses before it sticks and lots of human wreckage. I don’t want my kid to be part of the wreckage. As far as I can tell, everyone — his family, his friends, his co-workers, us — has been understanding.
I do not want to blow this, and from everything I’ve read, my only option is sympathy and support. Ugh. I resent the burden this has placed on my daughter.
And, yes, plenty of people have gotten clean and stayed clean. But is the partner always looking over his or her shoulder?
So how do I address this? I am not condemning him, but I do not want to let him off the hook.
Anonymous: Yeah, ugh to sympathy and support!!! Where’s a good shaming when you need one.
Alcoholism and anxiety are significant, complex problems that require ongoing care, yes. No argument there. Recovery typically involves some relapse, yes. And your daughter would have fewer obstacles to leaving if she ended the relationship now, most likely.
But do not conflate your valid concerns about the potential for his alcoholism to affect your daughter negatively with any license or duty to punish him for it. You are not the law here — you are not the putter-on to or letter-off from hooks.
Your role is to trust your daughter to run her own life to her own satisfaction.
Because it’s a life we’re talking about here, the way she manages it will involve error. Some of it massive, maybe with at least a temporary cost to her (and even your) quality of life.
That’s why adult members of reasonably functional families also tend to share the role of one another’s backups and safety nets — when needed or asked. The help doesn’t flow just from parent to kid, either, but among all competent adults, because life can come at any of you with problems you didn’t expect.
So it’s important to separate wanting the best for your child and wanting the best for your child literally. If this is a decent man who treats her well and has the strength to face his own [stuff], then theirs can be a full and wonderful life.
Because, again, all lives involve hardship.
Such as: Watching your child struggle, or having to contain your worries about her so you don’t exert undue and unhelpful influence on her as she navigates one of the toughest challenges she’ll ever face.
Presumably you expect to manage this without your parents stepping in.
You may not want your daughter to stay in this relationship — again, valid. But she’s going to make that decision without you, and if she chooses to stay, then pursing your lips or putting him on hooks would amount to placing obstacles in his path. Needlessly. I can’t see how that helps your kid.
If your agitation is just a thwarted impulse to do something here — it’s hard to let go of, this parenting thing — then try Al-Anon. Learn how not to be an obstacle to someone’s recovery, or to a grown child’s agency, or to your own emotional independence.
Or, in the one-day-at-a-time spirit: Learn how to be the warmest, least invasive houseguest you can be. If they go on to marry, then I think it’s safe to say your kindness and support during your visit won’t have been why.
Dear Carolyn: I’m tired of young couples who use retired mothers to serve as unpaid child care so that they can live well while complaining about them. These women have already provided at least 18 years of child care to one member of these couples, so I assume any interpersonal issues are long-standing and were ignored initially in favor of free child care.
When the issues become a nuisance, I say time to be grown-ups and sacrifice to pay for day care for your own children, rather than treating your mothers as paid help who need attitude adjustments.
— Tired
Tired: I’m tired of people blaming others for their own inability to say no.
Yeah. That’s all I’ve got. | 2022-10-16T04:21:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Parents see alcoholic boyfriend as 'burden' for daughter - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/16/carolyn-hax-daughter-alcoholic-boyfriend/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/16/carolyn-hax-daughter-alcoholic-boyfriend/ |
All eyes on Xi as the Chinese Communist Party’s congress begins
Lily Kuo
China's President Xi Jinping speaks during the opening session of the 20th Chinese Communist Party's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday. (Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images)
Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged Sunday to turn China into a “great modern socialist country” as he opened a meeting of the Communist Party where he is expected to secure a third term, upsetting the convention of top leaders stepping aside after a decade in power.
“From now, the core mission of the Chinese Communist Party is to unite and lead all peoples in the nation to build a great modern socialist nation,” Xi told the 2,340 senior party members assembled in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing for a twice-per-decade conclave.
Xi’s speech, which sets the national agenda for at least the next five years, emphasized the need of the party to “struggle” to make China great again. Already, China had created a “new choice” for the humanity by creating a unique form of government, Xi said.
As the most powerful Chinese leader in decades, Xi has promoted his nationalist vision of a “Chinese dream” to reclaim the nation’s place at the center of global affairs. For China to become a military, economic and cultural power, Xi said, the party will need to navigate “changes unseen in a century” — implying that a steady hand at the top is critical for success.
When Xi took office in 2012, the smooth transfer of power indicated to some observers that China’s political system had evolved away from personal rule toward a system of regularized leadership transitions. But Xi defied expectations.
With unending anti-corruption campaigns and an emphasis on discipline, he took charge of the party. The rest of Chinese society was brought in line with security clampdowns that pushed human rights activists underground and crushed resistance in Hong Kong and the far western province of Xinjiang. Under his rule, international criticism of China has been met with fierce pushback from “wolf warrior” diplomats.
The six-day gathering will conclude when delegates formally approve Xi’s report (with possible minor alterations), pass changes to the party constitution, and choose a new Central Committee, a 370-odd member decision-making body. The new committee then meets and appoints a new 25-member Politburo and the seven member Standing Committee, which is the real apex of power.
Xi is almost certain to be reinstated as general secretary and head of the party’s Central Military Commission, his two most important positions. (His expected continuation as China’s president — officially “state chairman” — will be confirmed next year by the legislature.)
Observers are watching who will be promoted to join him on the Politburo for any signs of challenges to Xi’s rule or an anointed successor. But after a decade of Xi concentrating power in his own hands, few consider either outcome probable. Term limits for the presidency were scrapped in 2018, clearing the way for Xi to rule for life if he so chooses.
“Xi Jinping is aiming not just for a third term but for a fourth term as well,” said Willy Wo-Lap Lam, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation. “He has 10 more years to choose his successor.”
Ahead of the opening day of the congress, China Central Television, the state broadcaster, released a series about Xi’s leadership with the title “navigator” — a phrase with echoes of the Mao Zedong’s “helmsman” appellation. One possible outcome of the meeting could be the restoration of the “central committee chairman” system used by Mao, or for Xi to take on an unofficial appellation such as “people’s leader” to indicate his unchallenged status.
Xi’s leadership style, characterized by a preference for splitting people into enemies and friends, means he is not someone who is willing to compromise, said Chien-Wen Kou, a political scientist at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Textual analysis of Xi’s words over the years shows that he praises “struggle” and sees it as something to be valued. “This tells us how he thinks about dealing with enemies,” Kou said. “He essentially will not make a concession on his basic principles, whether for China-U.S. ties, relations with Taiwan or his approach to corrupt officials.”
Even if there is resistance to Xi’s agenda, it is unlikely to appear during the carefully scripted congress. After months of closed-door negotiations between Xi and other top-ranking officials, the work report broadcasts policy prescriptions to the party’s rank-and-file. For the party, the choreographed process, culminating in a vote by show of hands to rubber-stamp the new agenda, is a way to bolster legitimacy in line with claims that China, too, is democratic.
Many of Xi’s most significant updates to China’s policy outlook took place at the last party congress in 2017, when he announced a “new era” and redefined the “principal contradiction” facing society from trying to produce more to ensuring that people had a better quality of life — a seismic shift in the party’s Marxist framework with wide-reaching ramifications for national priorities. In a meeting of the Politburo in August, top leaders said there will be continuity in promoting a program of “common prosperity,” strengthening the party at home and building a “shared future for humankind” abroad — all key Xi slogans.
But the congress adds urgency to Xi’s ambition at a time when China’s economy is slowing and Beijing faces renewed criticism from Western nations over aggression toward Taiwan and its close partnership with Russia. “Xi has tried to revive some Maoist policies for the economy,” such as focusing on state-owned enterprises, focusing on tackling inequality and creating a system of “internal circulation” as a way to prepare for decoupling from the United States and the West, said Lam.
Under his predecessor, the party experimented with small reforms toward what it calls “intraparty democracy” by allowing a straw-poll by senior officials as a way of gauging support for various leaders to reach the Politburo and its Standing Committee.
Xi scrapped those reforms in 2017. Instead, he met with party elders one by one to gather recommendations, helping him prevent cliques forming that could challenge his power. “It’s another example of Xi Jinping’s paranoia,” said Susan Shirk, a scholar of Chinese politics at the University of California, San Diego.
Tighter control doesn’t necessarily mean Xi will get the outcomes he wants. In a recently published book, Shirk argues that Xi’s centralized power and top-down pressure on officials pushes cadres toward overenthusiastic praise and over-compliance on Xi’s objectives, which can lead to policy mistakes. “The bandwagoning of subordinates to prove loyalty and protect their own careers leads to overreach,” she said.
Shirk thinks Xi is unlikely to use his third term to change course. “He’s really boxed himself in to a tough next five years,” she said. “After the congress, subordinates will be all the more intimidated and fearful unless Xi diffuses his personal authority to share it with other senior leaders.”
Lyric Li in Seoul and Vic Chiang and Pei-Lin Wu in Taipei contributed to this report. | 2022-10-16T04:39:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Xi positioned for historic third term as Chinese party congress begins - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/16/xi-china-communist-party-congress/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/16/xi-china-communist-party-congress/ |
Russian men, conscripted to fight in Ukraine, say goodbye to family members Oct. 7 at a recruiting office in Moscow. (Maxim Shipenkov/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Officials raided the MIPSTROY1 construction company dormitories Oct. 13, taking more than 200 men. (Video: @mozhemobyasnit |Telegram)
More than 300,000 Russian men and their families have fled Russia since mobilization, reports from neighboring countries indicate. Authorities have set up mobilization points at border crossings to prevent departures. Many others want to leave after seeing the aggressive police raids and the first reports of the newly conscripted men dying in the war.
Activist Grigory Sverdlin, who left Russia and is based in Georgia, this month launched an organization, Go By The Forest, to advise men in Russia on avoiding the draft. He said group has consulted with 2,700 men in 11 days and told 60 drafted men how to surrender in Ukraine. At least eight have succeeded, he said.
At a restaurant in Moscow, police present conscription orders to a diner who says he’s celebrating his daughter’s birthday. (Video: The Washington Post)
“I don’t want to kill people, and I don’t want to be killed, so I really have to lie low now,” he said. “But even here, I don’t feel safe. We live at a time when your neighbors could report on you. They might call police and say that there is a young guy staying in this house when he should be fighting fascists in Ukraine.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that 222,000 of the 300,000 target had been conscripted and that the process would be completed within two weeks. Pro-war hard-liners insist a second round will be needed.
The raids in Moscow and St. Petersburg have been deeply controversial, in part because the cities have suffered comparatively few casualties in Ukraine. The burden of fighting has largely been borne by small ethnic groups and poorly educated men from impoverished rural regions.
In a sign that the government fears a growing urban backlash over the raids, Andrei Klishas, a senior member of Putin’s United Russia party, said Friday that the conscription drives were illegal.
Antiwar sentiment could harden as the bodies of soldiers who were deployed just weeks earlier begin returning home for burial. Alexei Martynov, the 29-year-old head of a Moscow government department, was mobilized Sept. 23 and was killed Oct. 10. He was buried last week. Five soldiers from the Southern Urals region, mobilized on Sept. 26 and Sept. 29, were killed in Ukraine in early October, authorities in Chelyabinsk reported.
A woman angrily berated a team delivering military summons in the lobby of her St. Petersburg apartment building. (Video: SOTA)
Almost daily, videos surface on Russian social media of conscripted soldiers, angry because they have not been given decent uniforms, weapons, training or quarters. Testimonies about men who should be exempt being sent to fight are common. Aleksei Sachkov, a 45-year-old Moscow doctor, signed a contract to treat wounded soldiers in Voronezh, Russia, near the border with Ukraine. He stopped calling his wife, Natalia, on Sept. 24. She learned from Russia’s military hotline a week later that he was fighting in Ukraine as part of a tank unit, she said in a video posted online.
As unease grows, men of military age are being turned back at borders as they try to leave the country. In March, weeks after Putin launched the invasion, he promised there would be no mobilization. But last month, he dashed the tacit assurance that the conflict would be fought only by professional soldiers in return for the Russian public’s passive acceptance of the war. The widespread anger over Putin’s Sept. 21 announcement suggests that public support for the war is lower than the Kremlin claims.
“I don’t give a s--- about your mobilization. You’re the one who is eligible, not me. You’ve got a gun after all, not me. Why don’t you go mobilize yourself?”
A Russian truck driver posted video of himself confronting a police officer and a military enlistment official who tried to take him to the enlistment office. (Video: Svoboda Slova) | 2022-10-16T05:18:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia is grabbing men off the street to fight in Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/16/russia-mobilization-men/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/16/russia-mobilization-men/ |
Expect the oil market to get a lot more volatile in the coming weeks.
From Dec. 5, it will be illegal to import Russian crude by sea into the European Union (with minor exceptions) and for EU companies to provide services such as insurance and financing for ships carrying the oil anywhere in the world. If the latest round of sanctions is ratified, it will also be illegal for European ships to be employed in that trade.
The disruption could be huge. Moscow already has lost a large chunk of its European market, with buyers shunning its wares even before the ban comes into effect. But the country is still shipping about 630,000 barrels a day to EU countries. The volume hauled globally on vessels owned by European companies is significantly bigger.
Russia doesn’t have many obvious options for redirecting that capacity and almost none that are nearby. Sales to India, and to a lesser extent to China and Turkey, surged in the weeks after President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine. But that flow peaked in June and has eased slightly in recent months.
New Delhi, Beijing and Ankara may be unwilling to boost volumes without steeper price discounts. They will certainly see the prospect of Russian crude stranded by European sanctions as an opportunity for tough negotiations on what they’re willing to pay.
Beyond those three countries, Russia hasn’t had huge success in finding other customers. It continues to send occasional cargoes across the Atlantic to its friends in Cuba. One or two have ended up in Egypt or at Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.
About 3 million barrels have been sent to Sri Lanka, but the tankers plying that route have been forced to anchor off the port of Colombo for weeks until the government can find the money to pay.
If the size of the fleet available to move Russian oil shrinks with the loss of European vessels, long periods of idleness for the remaining vessels will cause Moscow more headaches.
Shipping crude from the Baltic to India ties up vessels for at least four times as long as delivering cargoes to Rotterdam, so moving the same volume will require four times as many ships. Lengthy delays will raise that requirement even further.
The US Treasury has sought to overcome this problem with its proposed price cap on Russian crude — an idea that’s gained traction with politicians in allied countries, even as it has been dismissed elsewhere.
The concept is simple: If a buyer pays less than a yet-to-be agreed price, they can use European ships and secure financing and insurance. The aim is to keep Russia’s crude flowing while crimping the Kremlin’s revenue.
The view in Washington appears to be that if the capped price is set above the cost of production, Russia will have an incentive to keep exporting. What they don’t seem to grasp is that the decision for Russia is a political one, not a commercial one.
Putin has said more than once that his country won’t sell crude to buyers who seek to impose a cap, while Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said after the recent OPEC+ meeting in Vienna that the “mechanism is unacceptable.” Novak also warned that it could force Russia to temporarily halt some production.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is wrong when she says “this cap will help us keep global energy markets well-supplied.” It won’t. I don’t believe a single barrel of Russian crude will be sold at a capped price.
But that’s Putin’s choice. The alternative to the price cap isn’t the free flow of his oil; it’s the full force of the EU sanctions. The US proposal is intended to provide a way of avoiding those sanctions, even if the Russian leader refuses to make use of it. The Kremlin will gamble that stopping Siberian oil pumps will hurt buyers more than Russia, a calculation it has already made for natural gas.
Can oil markets weather this loss on top of a 2 million barrel-a-day cut in OPEC+ targets that’s due to come into effect in November?
The first thing to bear in mind is that the OPEC+ action is mostly illusion. The actual cut in output from September production levels could be as little as one-tenth of the headline figure — hardly enough to break a sweat over. At the same time, demand forecasts are being slashed — the result of high prices and impending recession. Those two factors may mean that the world needs less Russian crude in the coming months.
But with so many moving parts and Russia doing all it can to keep markets on edge as the sanctions deadline looms, just don’t expect markets to slide quietly into winter. | 2022-10-16T07:24:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russian Oil Price Cap May Not Be the Hoped-for Fail-Safe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/russian-oil-price-cap-may-not-be-the-hoped-for-fail-safe/2022/10/16/e4989e40-4d17-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/russian-oil-price-cap-may-not-be-the-hoped-for-fail-safe/2022/10/16/e4989e40-4d17-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Iran planning to send missiles, drones to Russia for Ukraine war, officials...
The arrest comes amid heightened security in Norway, after drones were spotted near the Kårstø gas plant, near the city of Stavanger in southwestern Norway, and a bomb threat was called in against a gas processing plant in Aukra, shown. (Gunn Aarones/AFP/Getty Images)
The 51-year-old man was arrested Friday morning after he was found to have flown a drone at the Tromsø airport, in northern Norway, police said. Police seized a “large” amount of photography equipment, including the drone and multiple memory cards.
In their review of the seized equipment, police found photos of the airport in Kirkenes, a Norwegian town near the Russian border, and of a Norwegian military helicopter.
The man, who was not identified, faces charges of flying a drone in Norway, the police said. In February, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Norway’s Civil Aviation Authority banned Russians from flying or operating aircraft — including drones — in Norway. The law prohibits Russian-registered and Russian-operated aircraft from landing in, taking off from or flying over Norway.
The man does not live in Norway, police said, and entered the country Thursday through Storskog, a city on Norway’s northern coast, near Russia. Police said he was heading to Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic that is part of Norway, though Russia has some rights to the natural resources in the area, and there are Russian settlements on Svalbard.
The arrest comes amid heightened security concerns in Norway over the past week: Another Russian man was arrested last week after customs officers found two drones in his luggage at the border crossing in Storskog, the Associated Press reported. He said in court that had been in the country since August and had flown drones throughout the country.
There were numerous drone sightings last week at sensitive locations including the Kårstø gas plant, near the city of Stavanger in southwestern Norway. A bomb threat, which was later found to not be credible, at a gas plant last week forced evacuations and briefly stopped operations.
Last month, the country’s oil safety regulator urged oil companies to be more vigilant over drones near offshore oil and gas platforms, saying they pose a risk of accidents or “deliberate attacks,” after the majority state-owned oil and gas firm Equinor said it had notified authorities of sightings of drones near some of its platforms.
European officials have alleged that breaches of three underwater natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea were sabotage. The incidents raised concern over the security of the energy infrastructure in the region, and many were quick to point fingers at Russia.
Norway is increasingly central to Europe’s energy security amid the war in Ukraine; it has taken Russia’s place as the European Union’s leading natural gas supplier.
Along its northernmost reaches, NATO-member Norway shares a 120-mile border with Russia. The war prompted Norway’s Scandinavian neighbors Finland and Sweden to seek accession to the treaty. | 2022-10-16T07:25:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Norway arrests Russian man for flying drone over airport - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/16/norway-russia-drone-airport-arrest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/16/norway-russia-drone-airport-arrest/ |
Massive fire breaks out in Iran’s notorious Evin prison
Babak Denghanpisheh
A view of smoke rising from Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran, October 15, 2022 in this still image take from a video obtained by Reuters. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. (Social Media/via REUTERS)
BEIRUT — A massive fire broke out Saturday night in Iran’s notorious Evin prison, which hosts hundreds of dissidents as well as hundreds more of those recently detained in the last month of street protests.
Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported that the eight people were injured in the fire and the blaze was under control by Sunday morning, while citing officials insisting that there was no link between the blaze and the recent demonstrations.
Videos shared on social media showed large plumes of smoke rising from the facility that sits on the foot of Alborz mountain in capital Tehran. The sound of automatic gunfire could be heard in some of the videos, while others showed a nearby highway filled with cars unleashing an unrelenting thrum of horns, seemingly in protest.
Iran’s semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies reported that the unrest began when prisoners convicted of financial crimes in two wards, numbers six and seven, got into an altercation, leading other prisoners to take advantage of the disarray and set fire to a workshop and a warehouse full of clothes.
Fars reported that a number of prisoners had prepared weapons to take on the guards, indicating that the fire was planned and not an accident. The agency said in the midst of the chaos, some prisoners attempted to escape, entering a minefield north of the prison which led to explosions.
Tasnim aired footage of one of its reporters touring the prison, purportedly after the fire had broken out, to prove that order had been restored. He pauses in front of a clock and points at the time, 2:06, presumably in the morning, as apparent proof that the flames were contained not long after they broke out.
Evin has been the site of some of the worst abuses of the Islamic Republic with many prisoners detailing extensive psychological and physical torture inside. At least one wing of the prison is controlled by the intelligence branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and another wing is run by the Ministry of Intelligence.
Families of prisoners outside the prison were teargassed earlier in the day and roads heading to the prison were blocked by nightfall, according to the Center For Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based advocacy group. An ambulance and bus were sent to Evin to transfer wounded prisoners to a nearby hospital, the group reported.
Among the prisoners at Evin is Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American businessmen who was arrested in 2015, alongside journalists and political prisoners.
“We are following reports from Evin Prison with urgency,” State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted on Saturday. “We are in contact with the Swiss as our protecting power. Iran is fully responsible for the safety of our wrongfully detained citizens, who should be released immediately.”
Videos posted online showed people in neighborhoods around Evin chanting “Death to the dictator,” while others showed riot police on motorcycles heading up to the prison.
The prison fire comes amid an intensifying government crackdown against protestors since demonstrations swept the country nearly a month ago. Internet in the region has been severely disrupted in the last two weeks, along with the cellular network, leaving many in the dark and people abroad scrambling to piece together how violence is unfolding.
The protests were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in the custody of the “morality police” on Sept. 16. The Iranian government’s response was quick and deadly: an order issued by the country’s highest military body on Sept. 21 gave directions to “severely confront troublemakers and anti-revolutionaries,” according to a leaked document obtained by Amnesty and reviewed by the Post.
Denghanpisheh reported from Phoenix. | 2022-10-16T08:21:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Iran's Evin prison scene of massive fire amid protests - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/16/iran-fire-evin-prison-protests/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/16/iran-fire-evin-prison-protests/ |
Next season will be Dave Martinez's sixth as the Nationals' manager. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Go back three years, bypass a few last-place finishes and the whole global pandemic, and there is Dave Martinez in the best month of his managerial career. He is calling in Stephen Strasburg from the bullpen, then Max Scherzer from the bullpen, then signaling for Daniel Hudson to intentionally walk Max Muncy, putting the tying run on base in a pivotal spot, before Hudson walks the next batter on four pitches and recovers for a game-ending strikeout.
Soon Martinez is lifting trophies, talking about bumpy roads, telling everyone to go 1-0 that day. During a championship parade down Constitution Avenue, he is falling into fans’ arms as if he is landing on a cloud. He is, in those moments, on top of the baseball world. You may have been, too.
You may also feel like that was an eternity ago.
This month, the Nationals finished with a 55-107 record, the team’s worst since it moved to Washington. Since the Nationals took the World Series, they have a winning percentage of .380 (146-238), a historically sharp drop-off. But after Washington exercised his club option in July, Martinez will return for 2023, giving him at least one more year with a rebuilding team that could be sold this offseason. The natural question, then, is why?
“I think he’s doing a good job,” General Manager Mike Rizzo said in the last week of the regular season. “I think I’ve seen what they’ve done with some of the younger players. I think that I see progress in some of our young guys, like [Luis] García and [CJ] Abrams and Keibert [Ruiz] before he was hurt. I think they’ve seen a lot of progress in some of our pitchers, especially our bullpen has done a remarkable job, taking some unproven guys, some guys that were cast aside by other organizations, and really made them into big league talent that we can depend on.
“I think you see a team out there that plays hard, 27 outs. Sometimes it’s not pretty, but the effort is there, and I think that’s all [on account] of the coaching staff and Davey.”
Beyond Rizzo’s public assessment, the answers are layered, according to multiple people familiar with the reasons for keeping Martinez and his whole staff in place. A major factor is that, when it comes to high-ranking positions, the organization is in a holding pattern while the Lerner family continues to explore a sale. When the Lerners picked up options for Martinez and Rizzo over the summer, no suitors were far along enough in the process to have a say in those decisions or push for their own leaders. The Lerners also believed it was important to project stability to potential buyers, according to two people with knowledge of their thinking.
Another factor, of course, is money. Martinez said the coaches all have another year left on their contracts — and the Lerners, had they chosen to let Martinez go after the season, would have had to pay two managers in 2023 or saddle new owners with that commitment, whether that would have included the manager’s full salary or a buyout. And while Martinez has overseen poor on-field results, his leash was extended when the front office first stripped the roster in July 2021, leading to an understanding that Martinez wouldn’t be solely judged on wins and losses at the beginning of a complete reset.
Has the rebuild changed how Rizzo assesses Martinez, hired before the 2018 season, and his coaches?
“To me, you evaluate the manager on how he handles the team and the organization,” Rizzo said. “I think he’s been the same guy from when we won a world championship to this year when we’re going to lose 100-plus games.”
In the past month, three managers — Tony La Russa (Chicago White Sox), Don Mattingly (Miami Marlins) and Mike Matheny (Kansas City Royals) — have been fired or have stepped down. During the season, Joe Girardi (Philadelphia Phillies), Joe Maddon (Los Angeles Angels), Charlie Montoyo (Toronto Blue Jays) and Chris Woodward (Texas Rangers) were let go. After Girardi and Montoyo were canned, the Phillies and Blue Jays both reached the playoffs, showing they had contending rosters that maybe needed a new voice in charge. Mattingly, Matheny and Woodward, by contrast, departed amid stalled rebuilds. Maddon, Martinez’s mentor, was fired in June and has since spoken out about how overbearing the Angels’ front office was.
For that reason, the role of the modern manager is regularly parsed. Hours after the Marlins announced that Mattingly wouldn’t return for 2023, Kim Ng, Miami’s general manager, explained how she deciphers what influence managers have on results.
“I do think that there is an effect,” Ng said in late September. “I know that there’s a lot of debate within the industry on how much effect a manager has. But, look, he is the one that is leading the team. And for that reason alone, it’s something you have to think has some strong correlation.”
As Rizzo alluded to, development is more important than the standings at the moment. That was true this past season and will be again come spring. And while the general manager pointed to García, Abrams and Ruiz as examples of solid work by Martinez’s staff, a more telling measure will be how they fare alongside Josiah Gray, Cade Cavalli, Victor Robles, Carter Kieboom and Lane Thomas, among others, next year.
A surprisingly solid year from the bullpen was a mark in favor of Martinez, pitching coach Jim Hickey and bullpen coach Ricky Bones. Robles, Patrick Corbin and Erick Fedde, however, continue to sputter, raising questions about whether the current staff is equipped to fix struggling players or maximize the output from marginal contributors.
In all likelihood, the roster will look similar to how it did after Juan Soto and Josh Bell were traded to the San Diego Padres, filled with inexperienced players and retread veterans. But the grace periods from a title or a rebuild can’t last forever. Eventually, the results will help gauge what Martinez’s future holds.
“It bothers me that we lost 100 games, for sure,” Martinez said Oct. 4 when asked whether he worried about the losses reflecting poorly upon him. “But I also know that, hey, look, I’ve been here. I’ve been through the grind with these guys day in and day out. I stay positive with these guys; I understand the process when it comes to trying to get younger players and develop them up here. … I showed up every day and did everything I can to get these guys better.” | 2022-10-16T09:56:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dave Martinez hangs on as Nationals' rebuild continues - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/dave-martinez-nationals-manager-future/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/15/dave-martinez-nationals-manager-future/ |
The NCAA men's basketball tournament last grew from 65 to 68 teams in 2011. Further expansion could be on the horizon. (David J. Phillip/AP)
The NCAA, in its never-ending quest to add billions of dollars to its billions of dollars, is getting ready to expand its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. The only questions are exactly when the announcement will be made and when the expanded format will kick in.
The guess here is that the tournaments will expand from the current 68 teams to 96. This will add 28 more games to the menu for the television networks. It will be applauded in all corners of the coaching world, and I’m guessing most fans will like the idea because it will increase their team’s chances of making the field. The bubble will be so big that it might not fit onto the bracketologists’ ever-changing radar screens. (It will still fit.)
The latest not-so-subtle hint that expansion is coming to a TV set near you came last week at ACC basketball media day when Commissioner Jim Phillips dropped it into his “All is well with the ACC” introductory remarks.
“The time is now,” said Phillips, who is part of something called the NCAA “transformation committee.” In English, that means he’s one of the guys charged with finding new ways to make more money.
“The time is now as we’re looking at the overall structure of the NCAA, and one of their responsibilities has been championships,” Phillips said. “So I’m in favor of looking at it and I really would like us to expand.”
At least Phillips was upfront about what he wants — as opposed to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, who recently said the tournament needs “a fresh look.”
Exactly what does that mean, Commissioner? Oh, wait; we know what it means.
Phillips droned on about the importance of protecting “the AQs”— automatic qualifiers — but made it clear that his plan is about more at-large teams making the field. As in, more teams from the power conferences. Anyone who thinks expansion is going to mean more “opportunities” — another Phillips word — for teams from the traditional one-bid conferences should look to invest in the imminent return of New Coke.
John Feinstein: College Football Playoff expansion is both good and all about the money
(One side note: If the NCAA is going to insist on expansion, it should make the National Invitation Tournament strictly for non-major conferences. Invite schools that think playing in the NIT is cool, not the 13th-place team from the ACC, Big Ten or SEC. The NIT already got kicked out of New York. Maybe this could save it.)
A little bit of history is important here. The last time the NCAA looked seriously at expansion was in 2010, when its megabucks contract with CBS was up for renegotiation. Commissioners and athletic directors began floating the idea of expanding to 96 teams or perhaps 128. More teams, more TV revenue.
I had an argument about the subject one night with Gary Williams, whose Maryland team had missed the tournament three times after an 11-year run during which it qualified every season and won a national title along the way. Like most coaches, Williams very much favored expansion.
“What you anti-expansionists don’t understand,” he said, pointing a finger at me, “is that playing in the tournament is something the players will remember the rest of their lives. It’s a memory they carry with them forever.”
“You’re right,” I said. “That’s because it’s hard to get into the tournament. Even for a program as good as yours, you know you have to work hard every year to be sure you’re going to get in. You expand, it becomes almost automatic, and making it is no longer a big deal. Now, it’s a big deal.”
It’s still a big deal, but it will lose a lot of its magic if half the “Power Six” schools, including those from the Big East, play in the tournament.
The response to the trial balloons floated by the NCAA, including during longtime president Mark Emmert’s Final Four news conference, was negative enough that the tournament only expanded from 65 teams to 68 — aided greatly by convincing TBS to join CBS in ponying up for a multibillion-dollar contract that CBS could not, or would not, pay for on its own.
The benefit of adding three teams was that the dreaded “play-in” game — created in 2001 to keep from losing an at-large bid when the Mountain West came on as an automatic qualifier — was replaced by the “First Four,” which sent eight teams to Dayton, Ohio, rather than two. More importantly, the NCAA got the big-bucks new TV deal it craved.
It signed a 14-year contract with CBS and TBS that spring worth $10.8 billion. Six years later, the contract was extended through 2032 at a value of $8.8 billion for the added eight years. Talk about a golden goose. The tournament will expand well before 2032, and new Monopoly numbers will be written into a new TV deal.
For the record, I am not an “anti-expansionist” across the board — just in basketball. I believe the expansion from four teams to 12 for the College Football Playoff is a good thing, if only because it guarantees the non-power-conference schools will get at least one slot every year. In the first eight years of the four-team playoff, the non-power schools got one invite.
Beyond that are simple numbers. There are 131 Football Bowl Subdivision schools. Four spots in the championship tournament mean that 1/33rd of eligible schools get to play. Even going to 12 teams means that less than 10 percent of FBS schools will qualify.
In basketball, there are 358 men’s Division I teams and 356 women’s teams. That means 19 percent of teams qualify for the tournament, more than double the percentage in football even after the playoff expansion.
The men’s tournament expanded from 25 teams in 1974 to 64 in 1985. That proved to be the magic number: no byes, two days of first-round upsets that captivated the country, real Cinderellas getting their moment — or in Butler’s case, moments — in the spotlight.
That number was locked in until the silly “play-in” game money grab in 2001. The creation of the First Four in 2011 was an improvement and kept the idea of Cinderellas alive — although the notion of UCLA playing the role of Cinderella in 2021 by advancing from the First Four to the Final Four was a bit far-fetched.
The larger point is this: In an era when expansion has become a euphemism for “show me the money” in all sports, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament has added four teams in 38 years and has only continued to grow and grow in popularity.
I’ve often said the NCAA tournament is so good that even the NCAA and its TV “partners” can’t ruin it. Games now routinely take close to 2½ hours; there are 10 three-minute TV timeouts per game; there are 20-minute halftimes and middle-of-the-night tipoffs. And yet, we remain riveted.
Expansion won’t kill the NCAA tournament, but it will make it a lot less fun. The shark hasn’t been jumped yet, but it is looming in the distance. | 2022-10-16T09:56:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Expansion would make the NCAA tournament less exciting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/16/ncaa-tournament-march-madness-expansion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/16/ncaa-tournament-march-madness-expansion/ |
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